as mentioned in
Revelation, and has calculated that there will be in heaven one
hundred rooms sixteen feet square for each ascending soul, though this
world should lose a hundred millions yearly. But all the rooms of
heaven will be ours, for they are family rooms; and as no room in your
house is too good for your children, so all the rooms of all the
palaces of the heavenly Jerusalem will be free to God's children and
even the throne-room will not be denied, and you may run up the steps
of the throne, and put your hand on the side of the throne, and sit
down beside the king according to the promise: "To him that overcometh
will I grant to sit with me in my throne."

But you can not go in except as conquerors. Many years ago the Turks
and Christians were in battle, and the Christians were defeated, and
with their commander Stephen fled toward a fortress where the mother
of this commander was staying. When she saw her son and his army in
disgraceful retreat, she had the gates of the fortress rolled shut,
and then from the top of the battlement cried out to her son, "You can
not enter here except as conqueror!" Then Stephen rallied his forces
and resumed the battle and gained the day, twenty thousand driving
back two hundred thousand. For those who are defeated in the battle
with sin and death and hell nothing but shame and contempt; but for
those who gain the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ the gates of
the New Jerusalem will hoist, and there shall be an abundant entrance
into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord, toward which you do well to
keep your windows open.

STORMED AND TAKEN.

"And Abimelech gat him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the
people that were with him, and Abimelech took an ax in his
hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it, and
laid it on his shoulder.... And all the people likewise cut
down every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them
to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all
the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand
men and women."--JUDGES ix: 48, 49.

Abimelech is a name malodorous in Bible history, and yet full of
profitable suggestion. Buoys are black and uncomely, but they tell
where the rocks are. The snake's rattle is hideous, but it gives
timely warning. From the piazza of my summer home, night by night I
saw a lighthouse fifteen miles away, not placed there for adornment,
but to t