One or two illustrations to enforce my point and I must close.

Some years ago a family left the old State of North Carolina for the West. While there the husband died; the widow and the children returned to the old home. On their return trip they lost a trunk, which was not found for several weeks.

A friend of mine was at the widow's home the day the lost trunk was brought from the depot. As soon as the trunk was opened the weeping widow picked up a Masonic apron and pressed it to her bosom, saying as she did so, "I am going to frame this and keep it as long as I live."

The last day her husband was able to be up he had worn that apron to a Masonic funeral. It was just a cheap piece of white cloth, not much more than half a yard, worth perhaps ten cents.

What made that plain piece of cloth so precious to that poor widow? It was its association in her mind with the one who had been the loyal defender, provider and lover of her home. Precious because of what it represented.

God's jewels are precious to him because of their association in his mind with his only begotten Son, who laid down his life to purchase them.

While waiting for my train some years ago a number of old Confederate soldiers were gathering to board the same train for a reunion. One of them was carrying an old flag. He spoke to me as he unfolded it, and said, "I want to show the flag that was carried through the war by our color-bearer." He unfolded it and said, "See," as he pointed out thirteen bullet holes. And then holding it gently together, he

looked into my face, his lips began to quiver, the tears were falling from his eyes while he spoke, "You know what a poor man I am, but, sir, there isn't enough money in the state of Tennessee to buy my interest in that old flag.”

Why not? It was a worthless piece of faded red cloth about a yard square; you would not have picked it up if you had seen it lying in the road.

What made that worthless piece of faded cloth so precious to that old soldier? I will tell you what. It was its association in his mind with those dark and bloody days during which he offered his life in defense of his country. It was associated in his mind with all of the untold horrors of the four years of the Civil War.

So, beloved, we are precious in the sight of our Heavenly Father not so much because of our intrinsic worth, but because of the association we sustain in his mind to Jesus Christ, his dear Son.

He never looks upon his redeemed ones except by the way of the cross. He never hears their prayers except as the echo of the prayer of him who taught us to pray, "Our Father which art in heaven." He never hears the feeblest cry of the humblest of his saints but what he associates it with the bitter crying and agony of soul in dark Gethsemane. He never beholds one of his children suffering the pains of death as he looks upon them by the way of the cross and through him who there tasteth death for every

man.

Precious in life, precious in death are all those who believe on him through Jesus Christ, his Son. If every victory was not assured to the believer, in

life, in death, how meaningless would be the words of the Psalmist:

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Ps. 116:15.

"And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels."

THE BELIEVER'S TESTIMONY
CONCERNING CHRIST

REV. W. F. TILLETT, D.D., NASHVILLE, TENN.

"But whom say ye that I am?" (Matt. xvi. 15.) Not least noticeable among the many strong striking characteristics that marked our Saviour's intercourse with his beloved disciples were the thoughtful, earnest, penetrating questions that he occasionally addressed to them. And he did not thus question them when he was surrounded by the great multitudes that crowded about him to witness his miracles and to listen to his wondrous words; but rather when he was alone with them, apart on the mountain side or

away in the desert. These simple heart-searching

questions, moreover, were addressed not so much to their minds as to their hearts, not so much to stimulate their intellects to activity, as to quicken their moral sensibilities to keener perceptions of the truth. He questioned them not to increase his own knowledge, but rather to increase theirs; not to find out how much they knew, but rather to show them how little they knew; nor yet to draw out from them an expression of their opinion, but rather to evoke from them a declaration of their faith.

The question of our text, the reader will remember, was preceded by a similar one in which our Saviour asked his disciples as to what the world thought of him: "Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" And then, "Whom do ye say that I am?"

Peter, in behalf of the disciples, replied, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And our Saviour said in answer to Peter that "upon this rock he would build his church and the gates of hell should not prevail against it." The great truth, then, to which I invite your attention, and to which, in the light of the context, I deduce from the words of my text, is this: The vital relation of the believer's testimony concerning Christ to the life of the church.

The most prominent characteristic of the apostolic preaching was its witness-bearing—its testimony character. Christ never designed that those who had arrived at a saving knowledge of the truth should keep this knowledge to themselves. But while the great commission was, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel," this commission was not given until Christ had first instructed his disciples as to what their preaching should consist in. "Ye are to be my witnesses," was his constant declaration unto them. They were to go forth testifying as to what they had seen and heard; and all their testimony culminated in this grand truth, that "Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God." It is a curious fact, worthy of our observation in passing, that the Greek word for witness was martus, a martyr, conveying the idea that a witness to the great facts of Christianity in those heroic days when the foundations of the church were being laid was one who gave in his testimony at the risk of his life. And how forcibly was this meaning of the word exemplified in the experience of the holy apostles, every one of whom sealed the testimony that he bore to the truth with his own life blood with possibly one exception. Surely our Saviour seems