Boots 1. John 1.93 "Herein was the love of God manifested in us (Margin vin our vase?), that God hath sent his only-begotten Son tonto the world, that we might lite through him."
John was an old man when he wrote this letter and in many ways. there is weight to be attached to the well-considered ut-terences of old men. I say this in spite of the fact that at the present diy old people and their opinions are somewhat at a discount. 'This is said to be the "day of young people." Older people are' not exactly buried alive, as was the drastic method of the South Sea islanders in their pagan days and is still the cheerful hibit in parts of Africa. and among the Australian blacks. They buried them alive as useless and unproductive consumers. We do not do that, but we shelve them. T have heard it said that churches at Home on the look out for a minister refuse one fitly years of age.: They seem to forget, that in the early years of the church the leading officials were called ''elders," or presbyters, whence Presbyterian. The war has probably had something to do with this lowering of the value of old people for war is a monster that has no appetite for the old. It eats up the young. But, after all," old people have something to say for themselves. Their minds are made up which is something, and their beliefs, their principles and -doctrines thave been put to the "test of the battle of life. They have had experience. which young people cannot possibly have had. That is a great thing in their favour. And they have also got a greater sense of responsibility than young people. That is another thing in their favour. They have found that many a theory that promises well does not work in the rough and tumble of life; and so their experience makes them chary of abandoning anything that they have held to truth. They have found that as a fact it works and has help-od them over many a stony road. and through many a slough of difficulty, so they hold on to it.
Now, here is John. He is an old man. Ale is not the rather delicate and feminine looking man, that he is represented to be the pictures of him "leaning on the Saviour's breast''—thode of the the Last Supper. He was a strong man. He beat Peter in their race to the sepulehra when news went round that Jesus had risen. He had done time in the marble quarries of Patmos in the persecution and had come out alive. That was a fig achievement. THe Romans had no merey on or pity for prisoners in the mines or quarries—no eight-hours day, no ladies giving the prisoners concerts. No! Romans worked prisoners savagely. If they died under it there were plenty more. John had come through all that, as few of us would have done. John was too tough to kill. Even then, from that point of view. some attention should be given to his opinions for a man whose faith had survived that experience must have had a great deal to say for itself. You sce, he had not Jost his faith in Christ as the Saviour of the world even though it brought him hard labour. A good many people would have given it up. They have an idea that God ought to carry on the world like a well-managed Sunday School treat where tie kettle never boils over and there is a present on_ the Christmas tree for every child. John had found that the world is not like that. There are things hard to explain in it—his time in the quarry in the broiling sun on a diet of a little barley bread washed down with water; yet he had lung on to his faith in God's love m Jesus Christ. He bad not budged an inch from it as the troubles of life make some budge from it. And ho was a man who knew life. In busy Galilee, in Jerusalem, in queenly Ephesus a man got know human life, its needs and its problems just as well as we do in our own cities. A common idea is that the apostles were too good to know life. That is an entirely wrong idea. In the best sense of the word, John was a man of the world, not. in fact, taken in so easily by the devil as many who boast that they are "men Of the world."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.