[Illustration:  LIFE.]

You once were lost, but the Son of man came to save you.  Now you are saved; you have entered his fold; you have become one of his “little ones.”  Once lost, but now saved.  Jesus says to this cruel, mocking world, “Take heed that ye cause not one of these little ones to stumble; for their angels do always behold the face of their Father which is in heaven.”  As you journey along the way of life, Christian reader, there is an angel of mercy guarding you by day and night.  Naught in all the world can harm you.  ’Their angels do always behold the face of God.’  By this we understand that your guardian angel has constant access into the presence of God to bear him an intelligence concerning his little one under his charge.  Glory be to God!

If you will but live holy and confide in God, he will guide you safely and triumphantly through this world and bring you in a ripe old age to an eternity of rest.  Trust not in the world, trust not in man, trust not in yourself; but give up all; give up your life to God and trust in him.  You are safe in his care; nothing can harm you.  You need not have a fear.  What a blessed life to live! how peaceful! how secure! how full of rest!  And when the last hour has come those guardian angels will be gathered round waiting for your spirit to come forth from the tomb of clay, and they will waft it in rapture to the God who gave it.

FLEDGING THE WINGS.

The inspired Word of God abounds in evidences of the twofold nature of man’s being.  Man, entire, consists of an outer physical being and an inner spiritual being.  The one is for time, the other for eternity.  The physical being is the transient home of the spiritual being, and is, therefore, called an earthly house.  “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 2 Cor. 5:1.  When the earthly house in which the soul is tabernacled comes to dissolution, we (the spiritual beings) pass to our eternal home, a building not made with hands, but builded by the Lord of heaven.

The passport from the earthly house to the home in the heavens is spoken of by the Psalmist as a “flying away.”  “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”  Psa. 90:10.  The physical being is cut down, or comes to dissolution, and we (the souls) fly away, when redeemed by the blood, to our eternal home of rest.