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for I have friends who have been in the town where it occurred and have met the descendants of the old sea captain, is that story of the captain who took his boy and others to fish and in the midst of the hurricane the boy was washed over board. Broken hearted he returned to the shore and the fisher wife as was her custom came down to meet them only to sob her way back to her home because her boy was gone. They spent the night in the kirk in prayer, when the minister said, "Why not ask God to restore his body," and they did. They put out to sea and journeyed sixty miles until he told them to stop and when they let over the grappling hooks they knew by the very tug of the rope that they had his body and they bore it back again to the broken-hearted captain and his wife who had all the time been waiting in the kirk in prayer. May God teach us how to pray.

A brighter day is dawning and while it may be that some of us cannot see it, while there may be sceptics who say it is

not exactly true, yet I know from what I have seen myself that the darkness is passing away.

In June 1897 the steamer Catalonia, at ten o'clock at night was found to be on fire and one of my friends told me that he paced the deck and considered himself lost because the flames were burning fiercely. Finally they were under control and the people sang, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Telling me of the lessons that he learned on this awful journey he said, "That night at twelve o'clock, when the pumps were being forced, and the clouds of smoke were taking on new dimensions, and we were wondering what the morning would bring us, the man on the bridge shouted, as he had at each midnight of the trip, "Eight bells, all's well!" Had the man, down in a state-room watching by the side of his sick wife heard the words, he might have said, "It's a falsehood," but that man's vision was restricted by the narrow walls of his state-room. Had the

mother and daughter, sitting in the cabin, with their arms about each other, wondering why they had been allowed to sail on the Catalonia and leave their loved ones behind, heard it, they might have said, "The man is beside himself," but they could not see beyond the cabin. Had the lonely traveler who stood near the hatchway given it a thought he might have said, "It's a lie," but he could not see through the clouds of smoke at which he stared silently. But the vision of the watch swept the horizon, and there was no obstruction in the ship's path. He knew that each revolution of the Catalonia's machinery pushed the ship on her way to Queenstown. He had a right to say it.

I somehow seem to hear the sound of the goings in the tops of the trees and have evidence that God is coming to his church with blessing. It is true there is in some quarters indifference, in many places worldliness, but I can see no insurmountable barrier in the way of the progress of the Kingdom of God.

AN OBSCURED VISION

(Preached at the opening of the Winona Lake Bible 4 Conference.)

TEXT: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."-Proverbs 29: 18.

It is not altogether an easy matter to secure a text for such an occasion as this; not because the texts are so few in number but rather because they are so many, for one has only to turn over the pages of the Bible in the most casual way to find them facing him at every reading.

Feeling the need of advice for such a time as this I asked a number of my friends who knew me intimately and knew the occasion which was before me, to suggest what in their minds would be an appropriate Scripture, and in their suggestions I have had the most singular indication of the leading of Providence. One said, "Use Hosea 5: 4, where God

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