*The above article, as well as the following:"I Acknowledged, Thou Forgavest," In Secret, The Gum Trees and the Storm, The Briar and the Rose Garden and God Giveth Us the Victory, which have appeared or will appear in this magazine, are to be had separately in booklet fo^rm, with attractive covers, at 5 cent each.*

I was sitting in a room where played a baby boy. He had just begun to walk and talk and was putting his newly-discovered powers to the test. As he tremblingly ran across the hearth-rug from one chair to another, I heard him say to himself, "Mind the fender, Ch – ." I took the little fellow into my arms and kissed him, and said to him, "Sonny, you have taught me a lesson this morning." He had shown me the meaning of those words which are a puzzle to many, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." A careful mother had warned him of the danger that lurked just there, and he by repeating her warning to himself in her own words was working out his own salvation from that danger.

Yes, plainly enough, that was the lesson that I had to learn. God has warned us in His Word of every danger that can beset us. It is His great love and care for us that has made Him do it. I felt as the lesson sank into my soul how necessary it is that we should read His Word and treasure it in our hearts and minds, and often repeat it to ourselves and take heed to it, and give the things it warns us against a wide berth, as my small teacher did the fender, for only by this can we work out our own salvation. "Concerning the works of men, by the words of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer" (Ps. 17:4). "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee." . . . "Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Thy Word" (Ps. 119:9, 11).

But not only are we preserved from falling into the snares of the devil and the world by the wholesome fear of them that the Word of God gives us, but God offers to us what is more attractive than the snares. Our preservation from evil has both a negative and a positive side, and neither can be dispensed with. The second is as necessary as the first if we, are to enjoy the fulness of the Christian life. In Greek mythology we read of the Sirens, beautiful in voice, but malignant in soul. They lived by the sea, and sang their sweetest songs as the ships sailed by in order to lure the mariners to destruction on their treacherous shore. When the Argonauts set sail for Pontus in search of the Golden Fleece, they knew that they must pass this point of danger, and that they might not be drawn from their purpose by the .seductive songs of the Sirens, they induced Orpheus, the greatest poet and singer of those times, to accompany them.

Every day of the voyage Orpheus poured forth his most enchanting strains in the ears of those sailors, so that when they came to the point of danger the Sirens sang in vain; the Argonauts passed them with contempt, for the inferior music had no charm for them because of the sweeter strains that filled their ears.

This is the way that God works with us. He opens our eyes to see and our hearts to appreciate His beloved Son, who loved us and gave Himself for us, and when His love and His beauty fill our souls we are proof against the seductions of the world that only attract to destroy. The same holy Word of God that warns us of the dangers around unveils for us the excellencies of Christ. Consider Him as He is shown to us in Philippians 2, in which chapter we are exhorted to work out our own salvation. The world has nothing to tell us like the wonderful story of Him who,

"Came from Godhead's fullest glory,
Down to Calvary's depth of woe,"

to save us. And we are not surprised that Paul, who knew the Lord so well, wrote, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."

It is supposed by some that the exhortation to work out our own salvation means work to secure it, but it cannot mean that, for, "By grace are ye saved…not of works, lest any man should boast." Our salvation rests upon the supreme excellence of the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of our God. So we learn from the Scriptures, and there is nothing contradictory in them.

The exhortation is for those who are already saved, who have within them the new life, nature and power- by the exercise of which they are preserved in the path of God's pleasure. Who could obey the Word of God but those only who are His children by grace? Is it not written, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God?"

When on a visit to Johannesburg I was taken down into one of the gold mines there, and was shown how the quartz was worked out of the bowels of the earth, and how the gold was extracted from the quartz, and finally I saw the bars of the much coveted metal ready for shipment to the Bank of England. The gold was there in the mine first of all, but it had to be worked out to be of use in the world and of profit to the owners. So it is with us who believe-there must be exercise, and diligence, and work, so that which God has placed within us may be worked out for His praise and glory and the blessing of men. But only a gold mine can produce gold; you would work in vain for it in any other mine. And so only truly saved persons can work out salvation.

There is a point of great importance in this exhortation which must not be overlooked:"It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Herein lies the great secret, and because this is not understood, multitudes of Christians lead lives of disappointment and defeat when they might be satisfied and triumphant. Our own strength and wisdom are useless here; even our own vigilance would be unavailing apart from this. It is God who works in us both the willing and the energy. As some mighty electric dynamo supplies the factory with the force needed for the production of that for which it was erected, so God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, works in us His will and way, so that we may follow the Lord wholly, and give pleasure to Him who has bought us with His own blood. Our place is to yield ourselves to Him alone, having no confidence in the flesh; then shall we be sons of God, without rebuke, blameless and harmless, and only by our obedience to Him can we prove ourselves to be such. There is a great call that we should be such, for the world is crooked and perverse; darkness and death hold men in their terrible thrall, and they need the light that can only come from God-they need the Word of life.

Good it would be for us if we could see things as Paul saw them when he wrote these words. He saw the stream of death and darkness carrying men further and further from God into a lost eternity, and he also saw the sons of God, rescued from that dread river, and being delivered from it and standing clear of it, casting their light across its dark waters and stretching out to the poor victims in it the Word of life, their only hope. Ah, we need to work out our own salvation, not only that we may be witnesses for God, but a blessing to men, giving them no cause to blame us, but every reason to bless us. J. T. Mawson