"O mama, you forget Jesus!"

While in Charleston, S. C., for the word of God, a sweet incident was related to us by those who heard it from the lips of an eye-witness. This eye-witness was a Prussian surgeon, a Jew. While serving in his profession in the Prussian army during the Franco-Prussian war, a wounded French officer was brought to his hospital. He was grievously wounded; moreover he had been overlooked, and had lain a long time without help, in a hidden corner of the battlefield. He was told that the shattered limb must be amputated at once, but that his weakened condition made it very doubtful if he could survive the operation. He bid the surgeons proceed, but, should he die, to inform his wife, whose address he gave (which was near by), and to deliver his body to her. This the surgeons promised, and got to their work. He died during the operation; and a few moments later, while the surgeons were still about the body, the wife, led by a messenger, arrived with a little daughter.

As she realized that her husband was no more, she broke out in a paroxysm of grief, which moved the surgeons to tears. Then turning to her young daughter, she exclaimed, "O my child, our best friend, our protector and beloved is gone, and you and I are left all alone in this world of sorrows!"

Then the gentle child, wrapping her arms tenderly around her mother's neck, said, "O mama, you forget Jesus!" At these words the mother immediately calmed, and said, "Yes, darling, in my grief I had forgotten Jesus."

The power of that Name over the grief-stricken mother was an arrow of conviction which pierced the soul of the Jewish surgeon; nor could it be removed until, falling at the feet of Jesus, he confessed Him, "My Lord and my God." He knew that no mere man or theory could thus assuage such grief, or speak peace in the midst of such a storm.

The Outlook.

A Few weeks ago a request came to us from Pittsburgh to criticize an article in The Outlook. We did so, and sent it to that magazine as the proper place for it to appear. The editors have not seen fit to insert it. We therefore publish it here. Our purpose in so doing is that those who value their own souls may judge for themselves whether they are safe under the religious instruction of. The Outlook.

To the Editors of The Outlook :

Dear Sirs,-In your number of 6th March, page 539, in the article, "Salvation and Character," it is assumed by your correspondent that because Christ offered salvation to men before the Cross, and He was, of course, honest in so doing, therefore salvation must have been intended apart from the Cross. Then follows the teaching by yourselves that it is indeed so; that the Cross is simply martyrdom at the hand of man; that there is in it no judgment of God against sin; that "it was made necessary by the sin of man, not by the love of God."

What means then such a passage as i John 4 :10, " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins " ?

What means Isa. 53:5, written long before the Cross, "But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed " ?

What of the still more ancient writing of Job 33, "He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, . . . then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down into the pit:I have found a ransom " ?

Furthermore, what of our Lord's words in John 12:24, uttered before the Cross, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone:but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit " ?

Sirs, if salvation could have been without the cross, what then is the meaning of Christ submissively going there when twelve legions of angels were at His disposal to prevent it ? Why "must" He be lifted up ? Why that vast system of incessant blood shedding, called Judaism, ordained of God to foreshadow the salvation which is for us by the once-shed blood of Jesus ? (Heb. 9 and 10.)

To your irreverent correspondent let me say, No, Christ was not acting out "a part in a prearranged play," but at infinite pain and sorrow was fulfilling "the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" in laying down His life for fallen and guilty men, to clear their way into the presence of God. Nor does this diminish in the least the guilt of man in the part he took in that greatest of all his crimes.

It is easy enough to assume that "salvation is character," but who among us has the " character" required to give him title to stand before a holy God? It matters little what " conventional theology" may teach, but if God has revealed to men in His word that Christ "by His own blood . . . has obtained eternal redemption for us" (Heb. 9 :12), is it not a most serious thing, dear sirs, to contradict Him in supplanting the fathomless sufferings of His Son on the cross by the faulty character of man ? An error in politics is serious enough if it plunge a whole nation in distress for many years; but what of an error in the tremendous and eternal issues which encircle the Cross of Christ!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Frances Bevan.

Many of our readers will be interested to learn that the Lord has recently taken to Himself Mrs. Frances Bevan. She died at Cannes, in the south of France, at the advanced age of 82 years. Her books, "Three friends of God," "William Farel," "The Quiet in the Land," &100:, &100:, and her delightful translations of hymns are precious legacies to God's people.