THE WAY TO BE SAVED.

AN ADDRESS.
BY THE REV. THOMAS ALEXANDER, M.A., CHELSEA.

IN the last verse of the thirty-seventh Psalm you will find these words: 'He shall save them, because they trust in Him.' If anybody, therefore, wants to know how to be saved, the way is here in brief. Will my little readers consider it with me?

And first of all let me remark, that often you get much information out of the Bible by taking good heed to what it does not say. And, look, it does not say here that God shall save them because they are good, nor because they are holy, nor because they deserve it, nor because they are better than their neighbours, nor because they wept much, or prayed much, or gave much. It is for none of these reasons that God saves anybody; though some, or even all of these things, and a great many more good things, might accompany salvation.

Notice, therefore, that there is only one reason given here why God saves anybody. It is simply because they trust in Him for salvation. That is all. They trust in God that He will save them, and God does it. They do not save themselves, they leave it all to God to do. They trust Him, and it is done; and it is done because He does it; and He does it to all those that put their trust in Him.

Do you know the meaning of this word trust? Do you know what it is to trust in anybody, to trust to anything? I shall try to make it plain to you.

When you sit on a chair, you trust to it. Sometimes a chair breaks down, and the person who trusts to it falls with force to the ground. If you go to sea in a boat, you trust in it. If you go to Australia in a large ship, you trust to the strength of the ship, and the skill of the captain and crew. Often people who have done so have been deceived, and drowned; as were the hundreds that went down in the 'London.' If that ship could not have sunk, then their trust in it would have carried them safe to Australia. But God cannot fail. The ark in which God saves us cannot sink.

I once was walking in the Highlands of Scotland, and wanted to cross a deep rapid river. I saw no way of crossing but by a tree laid across. It looked very shaky and rotten. On the other side was a great stout country-looking man cutting grass in a meadow. I shouted to him, and asked if the tree would bear me. He replied that it would; that I might trust to it, for he had just come across it himself. As he looked heavier than I by a good deal, I felt I might try; and so I trusted to the rough bridge, and passed over in safety. The man might have deceived me; but he did not.

God cannot deceive. He cannot lie. He tells us that all who trust in Him are safe; and His words are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Greater sinners than you or I have gone over in safety, and we have only to do as they did--to trust and be safe.

God loves to be trusted. So do we. You love a little bird who flies for safety from a hawk and nestles in your bosom. You would not let the hawk kill that bird if you could prevent it. You would repay the little bird's trust by loving and saving it. Jesus says to all little children, Come unto me; come and I will give you rest. The destroyer shall not touch you so long as you hide your head in the bosom of the Friend of sinners. 'He shall save them, because they trust in Him.'