ade in the past!
what efforts are they making today! They might torment themselves to
death; they might institute and celebrate every possible service--they
would accomplish nothing. Is it not better to cling to the Word and
maintain this treasure whereby you attain salvation and divine sonship
than to permit the world to wrest you from it through persecution,
passion or moral filth the source of its own ruin and perdition?

_Fifth Sunday After Easter_

Text: First Corinthians 15, 51-58.

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall
all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But
when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that
is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is thy
victory? O death, where is thy sting? 56 The sting of death is sin;
and the power of sin is the law: 57 but thanks be to God, who giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Wherefore, my beloved
brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not vain in the
Lord.

You will find this lesson explained in the special sermons on the same
chapter.

_Ascension Day_

Text: Acts 1, 1-11.

1 The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus
began both to do and to teach, 2 until the day in which he was
received up, after that he had given commandment through the Holy
Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen: 3 to whom he also showed
himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing unto them by
the space of forty days, and speaking the things concerning the
kingdom of God: 4 and being assembled together with them, he charged
them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the
Father, which, said he, ye heard from me: 5 for John indeed baptized
with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days
hence.

6 They therefore, when they were come together, asked him, saying,
Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? 7 And he
said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the
Father hath set withi