to God and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.”  Review your position, and remember you are placed where you cannot recede.  Duties press upon you which you cannot disregard; vows are upon you which you cannot break with safety or with honor.  It is not enough that you lead a moral life, or that you continue in your present position.  You are required to advance.  You have been pledged to God; and to fulfill this pledge you must be His in heart.  You must choose His service.  You must take Christ’s yoke upon you and dedicate yourselves to Him.  Nothing short of this will fulfill your covenant vows or insure your enjoyment of its blessings.  As to receding, that is utterly inadmissible.  You have been put in this relation by those who loved you and had the right, nay, were commanded of God, to dispose of you in this manner.  You cannot then evade it.  You may say you never gave it your consent, and that it is hard to be thus bound to act contrary to your natural inclinations; but it is right, and you cannot help it.  You are in this position, and you cannot break away but at the peril of your salvation; nay, without the certainty of perdition.  But it is not hard, or cruel, to require you to love and obey God.  You were created for this, and your nature will never attain to its perfection until you fulfill this its noblest destiny.  A hard thing to do right!  A grievous thing to be saved from the pollution of sin and the very gulf of perdition!  A hard thing to be taken under divine protection; to be enriched with God’s blessing; to be numbered among his people on earth and ultimately admitted to his kingdom in heaven!  Impossible!  You did not think it; you did not mean to urge this as an objection to your most obvious duty.  You would not object to your parents’ securing for you a costly estate while in your minority, and why then discard the heavenly inheritance they would provide for you?  Fulfill your vows.  Choose His service, and be blessed now and forever.

* * * * *

Original.

THE PROMISE FULFILLED.

     “Leave thy fatherless children with me, and I will preserve
     them alive.”

     (Concluded from page 119.)

The elder brother, DE WITT, from childhood, was of a thoughtful cast of mind, regular in his habits, careful in forming his associations, kind and dutiful as a son and brother.  He ever proved a help and solace to his mother in the family circle, where he was the oldest child.  In pursuing his course of studies he evinced industry of application, and sustained an excellent standing in his classes.  His regular and interested attendance on the exercises of the Sabbath-school, as well as the services of the sanctuary; his conduct in the family circle, and the developments of the closing scenes of his life, all tend to form the conviction that divine truth had obtained a lodgment in his mind by the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit.  At the interesting