Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1877 — The Two Keys. [ARTICLE]

The Two Keys.

I have a safe in my office. It is not very large, and never contains any great amount of money. I* have a key with which I can open the safe whenever I choose, and take out whatever is in it. This, however, does not enrich me. I can get out only what I put in, and that is very little. There is another safe down town. It is in a bank on California street. That safe is large, it contains millions of dollars. To it there is a costly combination lock, and also, for the inner cash chamber, an immense brass key. I do not eontrol the key. I could not unless I should become the cashier of that bank. But I went there the other day with a little slip of paper, signed by a well-known depositor. I presented that slip of paper to the cashier. He took the big key, unlocked the large box in the safe, and gave me a handful of gold that was tied up there. If the paper had called for thou, sands instead of tens of* dollars I would have obtained them; for the name on that paper was good there for almost any amount. As I wont away with my money I thought how wonderful thatbitof paper. What an ** open sesame” it was to one of the largest safes in the city. How much better it was than my little key; for it secured to me the use of the large key in

my behalf. But why waa that slip of paper so potent? Because there was a good name on it. And is not every promise of Christ just such a slip of paper. He writes by his Inspired apostle, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name that will I do," and immediately repeats it, “If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it." (John xiv. 18, 14.) Again, in the next chapter, He says: “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto yon." And yet again, in the sixteenth chapter: “ Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be nill."— Dr. Babb, in Herald and Presbyter.