Some Sayings of Athanasius

1. Miserable are those who measure the authority of a doctrine by the numbers receiving it. Truth always overcomes, though for a time it is found among the few. He who, for proof, betakes himself to numbers, confesses himself conquered. Let

me see the beauty of truth, and immediately I am persuaded. A multitude may overawe, but cannot persuade. How many myriads could persuade me to believe that day is night, that poison is food? In determining earthly things we do not regard numbers, shall we do so in heavenly things? I reverence numbers; but only when they produce proof, not when they shun inquiry. Can you confirm a lie by numbers?

1. He strips us of the raiment of skin which we put on in Adam, that, in its place, we might be clothed with Christ. He allows His garments to be divided, that we may have the undivided Word of the Father.

2. The Saviour is delivered up, and being so, He shrinks not from death, but hastens to meet it, pursuing the flying serpent.

3. It matters little to the faithful what their sorrows may have been in this vain world, since no trace of them will remain when they enter on that ineffable peace which is in store for them in the life to come.

4. I can do nothing without the help of God, and that from moment to moment; for when, so long as we are on the earth, is there a single instant in which we can say that we are safe from temptation or secure from sin?

5. We need grace alike to keep us from breaking the weightiest commandment of the law, and from falling into the most trifling vanity of the age.

6. The truly humble Christian does not inquire into his neighbour’s faults; he takes no pleasure in judging them; he is occupied wholly with his own.

7. True religion abhors all violence; she owns no arguments but those of persuasion.

8. The will of Jesus Christ is, that those who belong to Him should walk exactly in His footsteps; that they should be, as He was, full of mercy and love; that they should render to no one evil for evil, but endure, for His sake, injuries, calumnies, and every outrage. To them all anger and resentment should be unknown.

9. I would not have you ignorant that there is a second epiphany, illustrious and divine, not in lowliness, but in His own glory; not in poverty, but in His own majesty; not to suffer, but to bestow the fruits of His cross, that is, resurrection and immortality; not to be judged, but to judge according to the things done in the body; to give the kingdom of the heavens to the righteous, but the everlasting fire and the outer darkness to the evil-doers.

The late Mrs. Robertson, Edinburgh.

IT is reported that the late Dr. Kennedy said in a sermon preached at Fearn in 1881 that a judgment was falling on the Church in Scotland which would manifest itself in five ways. The first of these was that “the Lord would remove most of His living witnesses and great blanks would be left unfilled in the Church.” This is taking place.

When the “trees of righteousness” are few the removal even of one will cause a great blank, and such a blank has been made in the Edinburgh congregation by the death of Mrs. Robertson, Captains’ Road. Mrs. Robertson was a daughter of the late John Macdonald, Gairloch, who was so well known throughout the Church, north and south. He was one of the noble band of elders who met at Achnasheen in 1893 when the Free Church Assembly was sitting in Edinburgh. At that meeting these men, who trembled for the Ark of God, firmly resolved that unless the Assembly would rescind the Declaratory Act which was passed the previous year into a binding law and constitution of the Church, they would separate themselves from that Church and hold private meetings of their own. We can well understand the relief it must have been to them to see a Church set up and firmly established on the original constitution of the Free Church, free from all the trammels brought into it by the Rainy party. John Macdonald cast in his lot with the Free Presbyterian Church and firmly adhered to it until he was removed to the Church above. His daughter, Mrs.

Robertson, faithfully followed in her father’s footsteps, for whom she had the greatest admiration. We may rest assured that with such a godly father she saw the example of real piety in her young days and was taught in the doctrines of God’s Word. She told herself that the example she saw and the admonitions she then received from her parents made a deep impression on her young mind and believed she would be accountable to God for them. She related to a friend that on one occasion she was presented with a ticket to go to a picture house and though she was not in the habit of frequenting these synagogues of Satan yet, not to offend her friend, she went. When the first picture appeared on the screen she saw clearly written over the whole picture “man’s chief end is to glorify God.” She hurried, at once, out of the building and never entered such a place again.

After her marriage with Mr. Robertson they resided in Edinburgh. Whether before or after her marriage the saving change took place we are not able to say, but that such a change took place was evident to all who knew her. She confided to the friend already referred to, that the passage of Scripture by which she got deliverance was: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah, xliii. 25). She was received as a member in full communion fifteen years ago, and her walk and conversation ever since proved that she was one “who delighted in the law of God after the inward man.” What encouraged her to come forward to make a public profession was hearing the late Captain MacLeod speaking from the words: “Though my house be not so with God, yet He hath made with an everlasting covenant, &c.”

It is not too much for us to say that Mrs. Robertson had as bitter a cup to drink as anyone we ever knew, yet no one ever heard a murmur or complaint from her against the Lord’s dealings with her. To the friend already mentioned she said that the words: “I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against Him” shut her mouth. When weak in

body and distressed in mind on account of much trouble in the family (son and daughter) the Word of God was her strength and comfort, especially the words: “Those that are broken in their hearts and grieved in their minds, He healeth and their painful wounds He tenderly upbinds” (Ps. exlvii. 3). She was no stranger to the fiery temptations of Satan and he evidently made a fierce assault after the first time she sat at the Lord’s Table but she got the victory through these words: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (I. Cor. x. 13). She spoke of the last communion she attended as a time of much refreshing to her soul and was enabled to rise above all her earthly troubles.

The end came suddenly. The immediate cause of death was heart trouble from which she suffered much for years. She attended the service in the Church on Friday, New Year’s day and on Saturday after breakfast as she was sitting on the couch conversing with her husband she swooned away and in a few minutes, entered we believe, the joy of her Lord when her sorrows and sighings were ended and “where the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick.”

May the Lord in His infinite mercy and power raise up sons and daughters in place of those who are removed to repair the breaches on the walls of Zion. To her bereaved husband, who is left lonely, and to her son and daughter we tender our sincerest sympathies in their great and sore loss and may the “Brother born for adversity be their Friend and Comforter.
—N. M.

What a mercy to have a religion of the right kind! What a very great mercy to have a religion of the right kind! What an extraordinary great mercy to have a religion of the right kind!—William Tiptaft.