Christ is the arbiter of all events; in everything His sway is supreme; and He exercises His power for the good of His Church. He spins the thread of events, and acts from the distaff of destiny, and does not suffer those threads to be woven otherwise than according to the pattern of His loving wisdom. He will not allow the mysterious wheel to revolve in any way which shall not bring good unto His chosen. He makes their worst things blessings to them, and their best things he sanctifies. In times of plenty, He blesses their increase; in times of famine, He supplies all their needs. As all things are working for His glory, so all things are working for their good. _The Triumph of Grace._ It is one of the greatest of wonders that all men do not love Christ. Nothing manifests more clearly the utter corruption of our race than the fact that "He was despised and rejected of men." Those, however, who have seen the fountains of the great deep of human depravity broken up, are not at a loss to account for the treatment of the Messiah. It was not possible that darkness should have fellowship with light, or Christ with Belial. Fallen man could not walk with Jesus, for the two were not agreed. It was but the necessary result of the contact of two such opposites that the guilty creature should hate the Perfect One. "Crucify Him, crucify Him," is the natural cry of fallen man. Our first wonder is displaced, and another wonder fills the sphere of thought. Did we marvel that all men do not love?--it is a greater marvel still that any man does love Jesus. In the first case we saw the terrible blindness which failed to discover the brightness of the sun--with a shudder we saw it, and were greatly amazed; but in this second instance we behold Jesus of Nazareth opening the fast-closed eye, and scattering the Egyptian darkness with the Divine radiance of His marvellous light. Is this less a wonder? If it was a strange thing to witness the fearful ravings of the demoniac among the tombs, it is surely far more a prodigy to see that same man sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind. It is indeed a triumph of grace when man's heart is brought to give its affection to Jesus, for it proves that the work of Satan is all undone, and that man is restored from his fallen state. _Religion a Personal Matter._