This Way to the Pit

Way of the. A young man entering a theatre heard an usher call out, “This way to the pit.” The thought was at once forced upon him, “This place leads to the bottomless pit.”” He found pleasure in the theatre no longer, and afterwards became both a Christian and a minister.

To-pay. “It is not after the storm has arisen, or the telegraph has reported that his ship has struck, that the merchant runs to insure his goods.

He effects the insurance while the sun is shining and the air calm; he effects the insurance before the ship has cleared from the dock, or at all events before the ship has left the river. Go and do likewise, living, but dying men!

Now is the accepted time; today, according to the true testimony of his adversaries, ‘This man receiveth sinners.’ God with us is waiting; still his terms are, ‘Whosoever will.’ To-day you may enter into life; to-morrow the door may be shut.” ToncuE, Good or Evil.

Than a good tongue, there is nothing better; than an evil, nothing worse. It hath no mean; it is either exceedingly good or excessively evil. It knows nothing but extremes; and is if good, best of all; if bad, worst of all.

If it be good, it is a walking garden that scatters in every place a sweet flower, an herb of grace to the hearers. If it be evil, it is a wild bedlam full of goading and maddening mischiefs. So the tongue is every man’s best or worst movable. —Adams. Trinity, Incomprehensibility of the.

An infidel was scoffing at the doctrine of the Trinity. He turned to a gentleman, and said, “Do you believe such nonsense?” “Tell me how that candle burns,” said the other. “Why, the tallow, the cotton, and the atmospheric air produces light,” said the infidel.

“Then they make one light, do they not?” “Yes.” “Will you tell me how they are three, and yet but one light?”

“No, I cannot.” “But you believe it?”

The scoffer was put to shame. Trinity, Unity of the. A converted Indian gave the following reason for his belief in the Trinity: We go down to the river in winter, and we see it covered with snow; we dig through the snow, and we come to the ice; we chop through the ice and we come to the water; snow is water, ice is water, water is water; therefore the three are one.”

Trust not in Man. The bankrupt who asks a bankrupt to set him up in business again is only losing time. The pauper who travels off to a neighbor pauper, and begs him to help him out of his difficulties, is only troubling himself in vain. The prisoner does not beg his fellow prisoner to set him free.

The shipwrecked sailor does not call on his shipwrecked comrade to place him safe ashore. Help in all these cases must be sought from some other hand. Reader, it is just the same in the matter of cleansing away your sins. So long as you seek it from man, whether man ordained or man not ordained, you seek it where it cannot be found. —Ryle.

Trust, Misplaced. It is like a spider’s web, Job. 8:14. A broken tooth and foot out of joint, Prov.

25:19. Parched heath in the desert, Jer. 17:5, 6. A lie.

Jer. 28:15; 29:31. Hosea 10:13. Leaning upon the Lord, when living in sin, Micah 3:11; Isa; 48:2; Jer.

7:4. Trusting in Egypt. Always the great snare of Israel from the first, though they were specially warned against it, Deut. 17:16.

It is compared to trusting in a shadow, Isa. 30:2, 3; to leaning upon the staff of a bruised reed, Isa. 36:6; Ezek. 29:6, 7; see Isa.

50:1-7; 31:1.