THE SAVIOUR'S INVITATION.



THERE is usually something pleasing in "an invitation," in being invited guests to participate in the hospitalities of friends, and to join them in seasons of healthful recreation. Pleasures of this nature form no small portion of the sum of human happiness. On the contrary, a large per cent of human unhappiness results from slights and neglect on the part of those who, instead of following the scriptural injunction to share their blessings with those less fortunate than themselves, suffer pride and selfishness to influence them in their choice of guests.

But it is the Saviour's invitation to which we wish to call your attention. He invites us to become heirs with him in glory. What is the value of his invitation? Heirs with Jesus Christ in the glory he has with the Father. No partiality is shown by him, but he invites the whole world, without money and without price, to accept the hospitalities of his heavenly inheritance.

Dear readers, what an invitation is this! And how it is slighted by the great majority of mankind! We wish you to acquaint yourselves with its inestimable worth, that you may know how highly to prize it, and make haste to accept it. Study the word of God diligently, for it reveals the glory and the happiness in store for those who accept.

But keep ever in mind that although all are his invited guests, all are not accepted ones. The wedding garment, the spotless robe of righteousness, is the passport for admittance through the pearly gates.

This bountiful Benefactor not only invites, but he provides a fountain in which to whiten our robes and make them acceptable in his presence. To us the fountain is open today; how will it be tomorrow? 

Will you "plunge beneath that flood, and lose your guilty stains"? Or will you refuse the gracious invitation, and be driven with the multitude to take up the sad lamentation, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved"?




"Delay not, delay not; O sinner, draw near;

The waters of life are now flowing for thee; 

No price is demanded, the Saviour is here, 

Redemption is purchased, salvation is free.

"Delay not, delay not; the Spirit of grace,

Long grieved and resisted, may take its sad flight, 

And leave thee in darkness to finish thy race, 

To sink in the gloom of eternity's night."




M. J. C.