The Editor's Annual Address

TO HIS YOUNG READERS.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,

Another year has now nearly run its course, as thousands of years have, and it may be, thousands of years will. But all these will be but as one drop in the wide deep ocean of ETERNITY.

Within one thousand of these years how many human beings are born, and how many die! One life, out of all these, is but as one blade of grass in a large field that could not be missed.

Even in one year who can count how many of all ages-young and old-close their eyes and die, and are buried, and seen no more! So it has been on earth ever since sin and death came into the world, and so it will be until the Great Angel shall come from GOD, "and place one foot upon the sea, and the other upon the earth, and lift up his hand to heaven, and swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things that are therein, that there shall be time no longer."

Then will Time die-and its moments and minutes, its days and months, its years and centuries, be known no more. They will all vanish as a mist before the morning sun, and endless Eternity will take their place.

We, my beloved young reader, were all created to live in Time, may be for a longer or shorter period as pleases GOD, and we were created to live in Eternity too.

Every moment we are passing rapidly down the stream of Time, and every moment we are drawing nearer to the boundless, depthless, ocean of Eternity. Death will launch us into it.

These things are all true. But I do not tell you them to make you sad. I know you like to read something amusing, and I tell you about amusing things sometimes. But we cannot always be amused. We must think about what we are, and where we are going. And if thinking about such serious things should make us feel a little sad, we had better feel so than never think at all about them.

But there is no need for any of us to be sad. We might be if we had no hope of going to a better world than this, where we may be quite happy for ever.

And here I must again tell you what I have often told you before, that Jesus Christ, the blessed Son of God, came down from heaven to shew us the way to that glorious place. And not only so, but by dying for us on the cross, he paid the price of our redemption with his own blood. And now the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin; so that if we trust in him and love him, we shall be saved, and made meet to go and dwell with him in his Father's house in heaven.

This, then, my dear young readers, is the chief thing you should think about while you live in the world. Many other things you will have to think about, but this one thing you must think about -that by Jesus Christ you may have Eternal Life.

Never forget, long as you live, these three things—

1. Jesus Christ came to bring Eternal Life to us. am come that ye might have life; and that ye might abundantly."

2. Jesus Christ died to secure Eternal Life for us. am the good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep."

He said "I have it more

He said "I life for the

He said "I

3. Jesus Christ lives to bestow Eternal Life on us. give unto my sheep Eternal Life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand."

Indeed, my beloved young readers, this is the sum and substance of the whole Bible-" that God hath given us Eternal Life, and this life is in his Son." For "the gift of God is Eternal Life in Jesus Christ our Lord."

See, then, what a glorious life is set before every one of you at the end of Time, when death removes you into Eternity. Do I not do right in telling you of this? Should I not do very wrong if I said nothing about it, or so little as not to excite you to seek it as the crowning blessing of your existence.

Why, if I could place you in a palace, and put a crown on your head, and give you the treasures of the world-all these would be mere trifles, only like a baby's playthings, compared with a life of joy that will last for ever!

I do not know how old you are; whether you are ten, or twelve, or in your teens, but I expect you are old enough to understand what I have written. And if you are, I hope you will, for your own sake, begin at once to seek for Eternal Life.

Do not reckon on living to be twenty or thirty. You may not. Many die long before then. You may remember some who died as young as you last year. They were as likely to live when the year began as you, and they as little thought they should die as you do But they are gone!

now.