g the golden words before her clouding eyes. Again she
greeted them with rapture, and, with unwavering confidence, pointed her
children to their deathless message.

II

In his _Grace Abounding_, John Bunyan tells us that there was a period
in his spiritual history when his soul was like a pair of scales. It
partook of three phases. At one time the right-hand balance was down and
the left-hand empty and high; then for awhile they were exactly and
evenly poised; and, at the last, the left-hand balance dropped and that
on the right-hand was swinging in the air.

At the _first_ of these stages he was being tormented about the
unpardonable sin. He reminded himself that, for Esau, there was no place
for repentance; and he felt that there was none for him. The scale in
which he laid his despair was heavily weighted; the scale in which he
placed his hope was empty!

And the _second_ stage--the stage that leveled the balances? 'One
morning,' he says, 'as I was at prayer, and trembling with fear, lest
there should be no word of God to help me, that piece of a sentence
darted in upon me: _My grace is sufficient!_ At this I felt some stay as
if there might yet be hope. About a fortnight before, I had been looking
at this very scripture, but I then thought that it could bring me no
comfort, and I threw down the book in a pet. I thought that the grace
was not large enough for me! no, not large enough! But now it was as if
the arms of grace were so wide that they could enclose not only me but
many more besides. And so _this_ about the sufficiency of grace and
_that_ about Esau finding no place for repentance would be like a pair
of scales within my mind. Sometimes one end would be uppermost and
sometimes again the other; according to which would be my peace or
trouble.'

And the _third_ stage--the triumphant stage? Bunyan felt that the scales
were merely level because, in the balance that contained the hope, he
had thrown only four of the six words that make up the text. '_My grace
is sufficient_'; he had no doubt about that, and it gave him
encouragement. But '_for thee_'; he felt that, if only he could add
those words to the others, it would turn the scales completely. 'I had
hope,' he says, 'yet because the "_for thee_" was left out, I was not
contented, but prayed to God for _that_ also. Wherefore, one day, when I
was in a meeting of God's people, full of sadness and terror, these
words did with great power suddenly break