I. WHAT SCRIPTURE IS, AND WHAT EDUCATION IS.

There is hardly need to insist today on the value of education. It is rather apt to be overestimated than underestimated. When a well-known man, who must be credited with the desire to speak soberly, or not too extravagantly, can tell us that it is a mistake to say that the millennium is at hand merely, but that it is come,-as proved by the money which the men of wealth are pouring into the cause of education, into colleges and schools and libraries,-the words and the deeds both show us how much its importance is insisted on.

On the other hand, a certain value will perhaps be nowhere denied to Scripture also as an educator. Those who insist, as commonly now is done, on the value of the knowledge of all religions, of the Veda and the Zenda-vesta, will hardly deny what is allowed in the case of Hindu and Persian scriptures, to the Christian Bible. It is quite true that no Christian will be or ought to be satisfied with this, which reduces to mere literature that which has quite another claim.

We are not going to dwell upon this now,- nor has it interest enough to dwell upon it; but much more what is urged, that we must at any rate be satisfied with according to the Bible its religious value. It may be allowed even to be authoritative in its own sphere, but that does not at all embrace the whole compass of knowledge, as education does. There are large fields beyond, in which it has no authority. And of course we allow it will not teach you how to till the ground or do the meanest sum in arithmetic:there is no desire to make any pretension of the kind on its behalf. But it is urged again that as it appeals to reason, so it must submit to reason everywhere ; we may, therefore, listen to its persuasion while we must entirely refuse its dictatorship.

But to appeal to reason arid to submit to reason in a limited and fallen creature, are quite different things. Scripture does appeal not merely to reason, but to the heart and conscience also-to the whole of man. But, nevertheless, it affirms-and there is plenty of ground outside of it to believe its affirmation-that man is as corrupt throughout, as he is plainly diseased in body and under a law of death which, however natural he may call it, he shrinks from in his innermost soul. But this is penalty, and supposes sin; and thus, whatever the way out, reason in man must be allowed to be continually perverted by what is in his heart; and He who stoops to reason with man as to the evil, in earnest desire to deliver him from it, is not thereby appearing at man's judgment-seat, but summoning him to His.

If we believe in God at all, we must surely believe that He is capable of speaking to His creatures; and that He can speak in such a manner as to make all that is in man bear witness to the Speaker. It is plain, however, that at the present day those who can in no wise agree with each other, believe themselves, nevertheless, quite competent to disagree with Him, and to justify the disagreement, each one after his own peculiar fashion. Thus come in the questions as to inspiration, where there is evidently a very great departure from what was, but recently even, a common teaching.

To leave this for the present,-What is the sphere of education ? for what is it competent ? and what is necessary to it ? The body is, as we know, being more and more claimed, not merely as itself needing it, but as needed by the mind also. The effect of disease or lack of vigor in the body will have its corresponding effect upon the products of the mind. The body, therefore, must not be left out of account when we speak of education. Moreover, as the head, so to speak, is behind the hand, so the heart is behind the head, and as just now said, the perversion of the heart may make the mind to err to mere insanity. The whole man, therefore, needs the disciplinary training which is implied in education.

But there are other considerations which we must take into account if we would realize just what is before us when we speak of what it -may be trusted to accomplish. Plainly, the present generation has not begun the world:some would say that began hundreds of thousands of years ago. And then they are equally sure that heredity counts for something. It is plain indeed that we do inherit a good deal, and not merely in ourselves, but in our surroundings also. We cannot start afresh as if nothing began before we did; and if we would fain do this, our own nature would witness against it. For it is plain we came into the world not full grown, not with all these much-prized wits about us, but in a condition in which we were destined to a long process of discipline (in our circumstances, at least,) before we could attain the competence which we may suppose perhaps that we have now attained. Nature gave us into our mother's hands naked in body, bringing nothing with us, feeble and dependent. We must submit, therefore, in the first place, absolutely to what is taught us. Reason itself will not start until we have got something to start it with , and in the meanwhile how much must we take on trust !

Here, too, is that which most manifestly speaks for the value, nay, for the necessity of education if we are to be anything at all in this life. We are too poor in our own resources to be able to start without something, and how much are we encompassed with, which we must, to begin with, accept, whatever question may be raised afterwards ! We cannot even go back to simple barbarism, to that out of which we are told the race was so long emerging. Our lives are not long enough to make the thought of such an evolution comfortable, by any means.

But are we not handicapped at the best in this matter of education ? Can we, if we would,, eradicate the ideas instilled into us from our birth, and start afresh for ourselves ? Even here, trust brains and senses it is plain we must. History, too, is furnished to us. Science is furnished to us; nay, it is in all this that we are to be educated. Can we, with all our will to do it, correct even our text books ? Can we all verify the experiments, of which so many have been made, and which make the science of the day to have its justification, as a well-known scientist has told us, by verification ? Can we set ourselves above all the wisdom of the past, .affirm our own competence to review at least the main elements of knowledge ? Nay, plainly that is impossible. We must accept at least what is ordinarily accepted, and trust, whatever errors there may, nay, must be in this, that they will not lead us very far astray from truth. Our whole civilization plainly depends upon this.

And now, in connection with all this, what about religion ? We receive our religion, to begin with, as we receive other things. Are we handicapped, then, here as elsewhere ? or can we receive from it such help as it is plain we need ? In the very nature of it we must assign it, if we allow the mere possibility of God and eternity, the very highest place. What is its relation to all the other fields which education has to do with ? If there is even a question as to whether we have a God who made us, there must follow the question, Has He not a will concerning us ? Is He not competent to make that will known? But if we are_ left simply to traditional knowledge, and if we are to look around at the different religions of the world, what elements of doubt will naturally be bred in us ! How are we to ascertain the truth here ? If He has made us, we ourselves and the whole frame of nature around us, spite of a certain plain disorder which is in it, declare His interest in those that He has made. Has He spoken then ? Has He spoken so that He can be heard without any question at all ? Can we allow doubt here such as we may and must in other things ?

Now here we must notice a great difference which at once impresses us. These other things have their verification in things that are seen. They have to do with what is visible and what is tangible-with what we can see and touch. There are certainly things unseen. What about them ? What have we here if' there be not, after all, some authority higher than our own reason to which we can submit ? This does not, of necessity, make such submission credulity at all. It is true that we are so constituted that we cannot intelligently submit ourselves to that which does not give its proofs to our intelligence, and these proofs also must be in that which is seen. Notice, then, how all important the question is whether Scripture can be proved false or not as to that which is seen, for here is what must show it to be absolutely trustworthy. If it be not that in things in which I can test it, how can it be possibly worthy of credit where no test can be applied ?

But thus it may be easily proved that Scripture knowledge, if it be what it claims, must really be the foundation of all other knowledge that is worth calling that. The earth, it is allowed, is but a mere speck, as it were, in the universe, and governed absolutely by the things that are around it. It is true that our knowledge of these things may have nothing to do with the good government of the earth itself. That goes on apart from us altogether. We have no hand in it; but at least here is a witness of how immense is the sphere of the unseen. If it is to be, in that which is most important, unknown because unseen, then how shall we decide as to all that is thus unknown ? Who can tell how largely it will affect all our conclusions as to the known ? Who can reason about that which is unknown ? How dependent we are upon some knowledge which must be communicated to us here !

Now here it is that the claim of that which professes to reveal all that is of the highest interest to me in the unknown must first be settled. Yet its credentials are to be certified in the sphere of the known. What then about the constant affirmation now, that Scripture is not designed to teach us science, and that it may be as false as you please about sensible things, and yet as true as we desire it about things out of reach ? It is plain that Scripture some way does pronounce, or how does it manage to come into conflict so often with what we are told is science itself ? Something it does say, and more important evert than what it does say as to such things is the fundamental matter of its authority to say this. Who, if his heart were right at all, would not cry out here for a lesson-book absolutely reliable ?

And now if we turn to Scripture and look at it in this respect, in what a perfect way does it answer to the requirement ! It is plain that if it be a lesson-book, it contemplates and provides for the education of the masses at least as what is in God's mind for us, whether man's mind be to refuse or bow to it. It is the first qualification of a lesson-book,-a primary one as this is, whatever else,-that it should speak in the simplest manner and at the same time with the most perfect decision. The text-book at least ought to know no doubt; it ought to deal with what is sure, for unless we have certainty as to the foundations, how are we to build upon them ? This is indeed what men find fault with so much in Scripture. It is so exceedingly positive; it will not allow in itself a possibility of error. It is, as we have said, very much what people find fault with; but the heart must be leading wrong the head, if reason here is so unreasonable. How can it gain our confidence if it is not confident itself ? All the more can it appeal to man to verify it as much as he will. The Lord Himself so appeals, and acknowledges man to be so constituted that, spite of all that may be amiss with him, he is, nevertheless, fully and rightly responsible to receive the truth just as truth. " If I say the truth," He asks, "why do ye not believe Me ?" Here there is no wavering as to its being truth He teaches. Here He ventures to appeal to the very nature of man itself as being witness for Him. Scripture then cannot use the language of doubt, because it is not teaching doubt, but giving assurance. Shall we be glad or sorry for that ?

But its language, people say, is not scientifically true. It may be perfectly true without clothing itself at all in the technical language of science, as indeed it must not, if it is to be every one's textbook. Where is the last edition of all the books that clothe themselves with this proud name ? How many variant editions have preceded them ? If Scripture had been written, let us say, in the scientific language of a hundred years ago, would it be right for the present time ? And, if it were written in the language of to-day, would it be as true and scientific language a century hence ? How it appeals to us as the very voice of God Himself, that it comes right home in this respect to the comprehension of the poorest, with a sweet interest in him which is not the least of all the witness that it has of being God's voice to his soul ! Where shall I find another book or another set of books like it ? There are Hindu scriptures and what not ; but who will compare them ? The authority and the simplicity are both perfectly suited to Him whose word it is.

And then as to verification, how plain that it is not in the least priestly, in the evil sense that we have had, alas, to attach to this ! It does not put me into the hand of an interpreter; it does not speak to me second-hand at all. It speaks to me as having to decide for myself, in the full sense of my responsibility, in the full sense of all that there is around me that is doubtful, calculated to beget doubt, and it bids me verify for myself that which it says. . In it all, characterizing it all, too, there is for me to-day the sweet sense of a human voice which speaks in this divine voice, the voice of One who spake as never man spake (let man bear witness if it is not true), but who above all was Himself, according to the picture that we have of Him, a Man such as never before man was, never since.

It is the voice of such an One I am called to accredit,-the voice of One who died, who has entered into all the shadow that is over man himself, but who abides, nevertheless, as the living One,-speaks to me and invites me to Himself. Here I may find, if I will, and surely know that I have found it, what He declares He will give me if I come to Him. No man and no multitude of men can touch this link between Himself and myself. If He is not worthy to be trusted, who else is? And still He says, "Which of you accuseth Me of sin ? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" This is the Teacher from whose hand we are to receive our lesson-book; and here we may find not a justification by verification instead of faith, but a justification of our faith by verification; and with this, spite of the shadow that is over man at large, we pass out of the shadow; yea, spite of the contradiction of multitudinous voices, into the joy and blessedness of truth, and only truth.

Here is our first lesson out of our primary book; but let us go on and prove for ourselves, as prove we may if we will, how immensely beyond all other books is the range of its teaching. F. W. G.

( To be continued, if the Lord will.)

Plenteous pastures, fresh and green,
Spread before me.
Watchers from the world unseen
Hov'ring o'er me.
God the Spirit for my Guest,
Sheltered in my Saviour's breast,
Saved by what He wrought for me,
On the Cross at Calvary.
Soon His blessed face to see,
And like Him forever be.

Mine the Father's endless love:
Naught can sever.
Mine the glorious home above,
Mine forever.
Mine the secrets of His heart-
He and I no more to part,
Evermore at Jesus' feet,
There, my heart, His heart to meet,
In communion full and sweet,
Then our joy will be complete.

Mine the strength that weakness needs;
Mighty power !
Mine the help dependence pleads,
Hour by hour.
Mine the everlasting arm,
E'er to shield me from all harm.
Mine the fields of wisdom wide;
Mine forever to abide
Close to His once pierced side,
There may I in safety hide.

He the Saviour, I the lost,
Hopelessly.
I the debtor, His the cost,
Paid for me.
His the sorrow and the shame,
Mine the joy through Jesus' Name.
He the stricken, I the blest;
I the franchised, He th'oppressed,
His the labor, mine the rest,
Mine the refuge on His breast.
His the burden of my sin,
Mine no more;
Mine the peace He died to win.
Rich the store
He hath treasured up for me,
We shall share eternally;
While the mem'ry of His grace
Every sorrow shall efface.
Oh, what joy 'twill be to trace
Jesus' love in Jesus' face !

Mine the blessed Saviour-God,
Night and day.
Mine the Shepherd's staff and rod
On the way.
Mine to follow, His to lead,
His to furnish all my need.
Mine to hearken, His to chide,
His my wayward feet to guide
By the quiet water's side,
There to rest me satisfied.

Mine to wait a little while
Till He come.
Then the brightness of His smile,
Welcome home.
Then the music of His voice
All my being shall rejoice,
There with loved ones to retrace
All the story of His grace;
There to tell His wondrous ways
Out of hearts o'erfilled with praise.

H. McD.

(2 Sam. 3:39.)

Joab always had a strange influence over, or rather independence of king David. The expression we have quoted occurs in connection with David's lament over the murder of Abner by Joab. David had lately been anointed king at Hebron over Judah, and there were most hopeful signs of a complete reconciliation of the ten tribes with the two, and the turning over of the entire kingdom to David by Abner. Everything looked well for this, and after a most encouraging interview with David, Abner had departed to carry his promises into effect. Joab returning and finding what had been done, jealous no doubt, of the prestige which Abner would gain in this way, hating the man also for the death of his brother Asahel in battle, most treacherously killed him.

Joab was a man full of fleshly energy, with all the passions of a rough, unscrupulous soldier. He was apparently loyal to his master, and yet his heart was not right, as we see once and again through his history, and particularly in his failure to follow the mind of God in connection with Solomon as the successor of David. A study of his life will furnish many profitable lessons, but we wish to look a little at this confessed weakness on the part of David :"I am this day weak, though anointed king, and these sons of Zeruiah be too hard for me."

This is a most humiliating confession on the part of one of God's heroes, a man who had met and defeated Goliath; who had victoriously led the armies of Israel in their conflicts with the Philistines; who, with his little band of loyal followers, had held his own against all the malice and power of King Saul. Surely it was not faith in David to say this, and one strong, firm act then, at the beginning of his reign, would have freed him from many an after sorrow through this same man Joab.

It will be remembered that Joab was the tool who carried out the king's awful purpose in the death of Uriah the Hittite, and that later it was through him Absalom was restored to his opportunity for rebellion. There is a very striking connection between king David's relations to Joab and his glaring failures. Joab was a relative according to the flesh, and it would seem to remind us that fleshly ties have to be watched most carefully or they will prove not a help but a hindrance.

But leaving the historical connection, we may gather some profitable lessons in meditating upon these humbling words:"Too hard for me." Let us put alongside of them at the very beginning," Is any thing too hard for the Lord ? " and ask ourselves which is the language of faith.

The young believer starts out on his course, full of joy and liberty. The freshness of his first love is in his heart; he has had a glimpse into the land of promise. The shackles of Egypt have so lately dropped off that he has not forgotten that galling bondage; the groans of servitude and the terrors of judgment are too vivid to prevent a most lively sense of gratitude, while his rest in the finished work of Christ and his joy in the Lord are like an up-springing well. He indeed feels girded as a strong man, and in his prosperity he says:" I shall never be moved."

Nor can we say one word against this. Would to God it were an abiding experience of His people!
He surely intends that it should be. Let us remember that whatever our experiences of discouragement may be, they were never intended by God. He permits them and makes use of them to teach us humbling lessons as to ourselves, and to deepen in our souls great truths which we thought we had learned. If we will learn them by faith, He will never have us pass through painful experiences to learn them.

But to go on. The remembrance of past mercies grows fainter. The first strength has spent itself. A slight reaction sets in. The regular routine of life, with much of monotony, with many discouragements and difficulties, begins to loom up, and in many cases to overshadow the brightness of that joy that marked the morning of our Christian life. Let us look at this a little in detail.

Perhaps the first thing that proves " too hard " for the young believer is to find that mockery or neglect -in fact, persecution in a small way, hurts and disheartens him. There is a quiet scorn in the treatment of old friends. Those at home who do not know Christ, test the reality of his new found joy, and before he is aware of it, in answer to some bitter jest, hot words of resentment have been given. How humbling it is to him !And how he feels that he has lost what he cannot regain, a prestige in his home ! These relations of the flesh have proved "too hard " for him. He has not been able to go on quietly and simply and humbly with God; he has got down to their level, and of course has been overcome.

This leads, of course, to a searching of heart, being cast upon God, and to renewed effort to fresh faithfulness with, no doubt, fresh lessons of humbling failure. The sons of Zeruiah are still strong and hard. Then various trials come in. The reading of the Scriptures becomes a task. Some old temptation is yielded to; some carnal amusement is taken up, or an old association, broken off for Christ's sake, is renewed, and the once happy and bright Christian becomes utterly discouraged, thinks of giving up the idea of special devotedness, wants to drop down into the ordinary life of the average professor, and when reasoned with about it all, lays the blame upon whatever has come in-friends, or circumstances, or whatever it may be.

Do not some of our readers know the meaning of all this ? As their eyes follow these lines may it not be true of them ? They have lost the brightness; the flesh has proved too strong for them, the world too attractive, and as a matter of fact, instead of leading a victorious life " more than conquerors through Him that loved us," they are making the humiliating confession of King David:"These sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me."

Emphasize that last word, dear reader, and you will have it correct; they are too hard for you, and that has been your mistake all along. Did you think that you could confess Christ in your own strength, in the home, in business, or among old associates ? That you would be able to throw off good-naturedly the little jests and unkind words that might be said about you ? That you could stand the scorn and go sturdily forward in your own strength ? Ah, you had forgotten those words of our Lord Jesus, "Without Me ye can do nothing." Remember Peter's experience. Contrast his stout words:" I am ready to go with Thee both to prison and to death," his vainglorious brandishing of the sword, effecting nothing for his Lord, and finally the question of a servant girl overthrowing all his courage and leading him to absolute denial of his Lord and Master.

The lesson is obvious. It was "too hard" for Peter, because he was trusting in himself. He had to learn that there was nothing good in himself, and that even the will to be loyal to Christ could not be carried into effect without a power not his own. So let us look calmly at all our enemies and at our duties too, and as we take each one up in detail, let us acknowledge in all sincerity:This is "too hard for me." I must go to the Lord for help. Do you think you will fail if you do that ? Impossible. The moment we are convinced that we have no strength of our own and are cast upon the Lord, His strength comes in.

Apply this truth to all the varied details of our daily life. Enlarge upon it; meditate upon it. Let us get something practical out of it as a result. We too are kings, "kings and priests unto God." Let us not have to make the continued and humiliating confession of King David:"These sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me," and yet allow them to go on in their self-will. Let us have done with them. Let us turn from them in all the consciousness of our weakness unto Him who has said:"Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace."

Let us take courage, then, not in ourselves, but for the very opposite reason. We have reached the end of our resources. We are perfectly conscious of our own weakness; we will not seek to do any duty or overcome any evil in our own strength. It is "too hard " for us. We will turn to One who has asked the question which has never yet been answered save in one way:"Is anything too hard for the Lord? " and we can with each detail say:" Lord, this is not too hard for Thee."

THE MAN AFTER THE FLESH. Chapter 3:

GOD'S CARE FOR HIS OWN HONOR. (1 Sam. 5:, 6:) (Continued from page 10.)

And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months"-a complete cycle of time, witnessing perfectly to God's abhorrence of His people's course on the one hand; and, on the other, to the utter helplessness of idolatry to resist Him, or of the unsanctified to endure His presence.

Seven is too familiar a number to need much explanation. Its recurrence, however, in connection with the periods of God's separation from His people and of the infliction of judgments is significant and needs but to be mentioned. A glance at the pages of Daniel and the book of Revelation will make this plain. Is it not significant, too, that the day of atonement came in the seventh month, the time of national humiliation and turning to God marking the beginning of blessing,-a date, in fact, taken as the beginning of the year rather than redemption in the passover of the first month. Redemption is to be entered into, and the humbling truths of sin and helplessness and departure from God on the part of His own to be learned, before there can be the true beginning of that great year which we call the millennium.

Determined now, if possible, to get rid of their plagues and of Him who had inflicted them at the same time, the Philistines cast about for the best way to return the ark to its place without further offending such a God as this. It is significantly characteristic of their utterly unrepentant condition, that they turned not to Him who had afflicted them for instruction, but to their own priests, those who ministered before Dagon, and to the diviners, corresponding to the magicians of Egypt, who bewitched them and led them astray. How true it is that the natural man never, under any circumstances, will of his own accord turn to the only source of light there is. It is only the child of God, the one divinely and savingly wrought upon by the Spirit of God, who can enter into the word, " Hear ye the rod and Him who hath appointed it." It is to His own people that God says:"If thou wilt return, return unto Me." What can priests or diviners know of the true way in which to deal with God, or to return to Him that which had been taken from Him, His own glory and His throne? Still the divine purpose has been effected and the time for the return of the ark has come. Therefore no fresh judgment marks this further insult, and they are allowed to take the way suggested by the priest, out of which indeed god gets fresh glory to Himself and gives an additional testimony to the fact that He is indeed the only true God.

There is some feeble groping toward divine truth suggested in the advice of the priests and diviners:

"If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not away empty, but anywise return Him a trespass-offering. Then shall ye be healed, and it shall be known to you why His hand is not removed from you" (chap. 6:3).In the darkest mind of the heathen there is a vague, indefinite sense of sin against God. It is, we may well believe, that witness which God leaves in the heart of every man, the most benighted, as well as the most highly cultured, that he has trespassed against his Creator and his Ruler. It. is too universal to be ignored. The sense of sin is as wide as the human race, and the sense, too, of the need in some form or other, of a propitiatory offering to God. It takes various forms, the most uncouth and repulsive of the savage, and, no less insulting to God, the self-satisfied presentation of gifts of good works or reformation on the part of the Christless professor.

This trespass-offering, then, which is to be returned with the ark must be at once a memorial of the judgment, and of a value which suggests the reverence due for the One against whom they had trespassed. We notice, however, that the offerings go no further than the memorial of their affliction. Images are made of the emerods and of the mice, but what about that sin which brought this judgment upon them ? Is there any confession of that, is there any memorial of that ? Ah, no. The natural man sees the affliction and so magnifies that as to forget or ignore the cause for which the affliction came. How different this from the true trespass-offering which alone can avail before a holy God ! that which is not so much a memorial of the affliction or judgment deserved as an acknowledgment of the sin which made it necessary; and above all, a confession that the only propitiatory which can be acceptable to God is that unblemished sacrifice of a guiltless substitute, a constantly recurring witness throughout Israel's history and ritual, of Christ, who alone is the trespass-offering, the One who "bare our sins in His own body on the tree."

He has not merely satisfied every demand of God's justice, but in the beautiful teaching of the type, has restored to Him more than was taken away; for the fifth part had to be added to whatever had been stolen. What a joy it is to contemplate this trespass-offering and to know that our acceptance before God is measured not, as we might say, by mere even- handed justice, though divine, but that we are far more the objects of His delight and complacency than we could possibly have been had we never sinned. We are "accepted in the Beloved," thank God. No image, even though it were golden, of our plagues and the sins which made them necessary, but the Image of God Himself, the One in whom shines "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and we "complete in Him." How worthless, and in one sense insulting to divine honor, seems this presentation of the golden mice !It was all that poor heathenism could give, all that it could rise to in its conception of what God demanded; nor can this be in the least an excuse for their ignorance, as it was a witness of most absolute and hopeless estrangement from Himself.

And yet we need not travel very far in Christendom to find very much the same spirit at least, amongst those about whose feet shines the light of gospel truth. In the churches of Rome can be seen hundreds of little votive offerings hung upon the walls; crutches, and other evidences of affliction which have been offered to God by those in distress. Nor is it confined to such tawdry trifles as these. In the spiritual realm how much is brought to God of this character !It comes far short, indeed, of His thought, because it comes so far short of Christ Himself.

The priests also appeal to the Philistines to take warning from the similar judgments which had been inflicted upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians. In his blind hatred, Pharaoh knew not what his servants recognized, that the land of Egypt was destroyed, his heart being hardened to his own destruction. The Philistines are warned lest they harden their hearts in the same way. So it is, nature can take warnings and guard its course so as to escape the extreme of judgment, without in the least being softened into true penitence. It is but another form of selfishness that will save itself and take sufficient interest in God's past ways to learn how it can with least danger to itself go on still ignoring and despising Him. An Ahab might walk softly for many years and put off the evil day of reckoning about his murder of Naboth. But Ahab with all his soft walking was Ahab still, unrepentant and hardened, the very goodness of God in sparing him not melting him to repentance, but encouraging him to go on in his course of apostasy. All this is the opposite of that godly sorrow which worketh repentance that needeth not to be repented of.

The lords of the Philistines are willing enough to listen to all this advice, and further, in obedience to their instructions, they prepare the trespass-offering, putting it in a coffer alongside the ark and laying both upon a new cart. Fitting indeed that it should be new, one that had never been used in Philistine service. Instinct often guides those who are most ignorant.

( To be continued.)

'Those who have received the little "Almanac and Counselor " for the present year will have noticed the " portion for the month " at the head of each monthly calendar. It is our earnest desire and hope that very many of the Lord's people will unite with us in the daily reading of the books indicated, which will include something over half of the entire Scriptures to be read during the year; no great task surely, since it means the reading of but one chapter morning and evening. It is our purpose to devote a few pages monthly to a brief outline of the books to be read, in the hope that many will be stimulated to greater diligence and zest in the reading and study of God's precious Word, and get correspondingly more food for their souls.

The portion for January is Exodus in the Old, and the epistle to the Romans in the New Testament. Exodus, we may say, gives the account of the beginning of Israel as a nation. Genesis having been devoted to the unfolding of the lives of the individual patriarchs, it is striking and suggestive that when He would call His people together to form them into a compact whole, and deal with them, not merely as individuals, but as a corporate mass, God must have a solid basis upon which to rest; so Exodus is pre-eminently the book of redemption. This is the controlling thought all through. There is, of course, the account of the bondage, the plagues and the misery of Egypt, and, in the latter part, the tabernacle with all its rich and wondrous unfoldings as the abiding place of God amongst His people; but the great fact upon which all hinges – the being brought out of bondage and brought into relationship with God-is the passover, the blood of the lamb shed.

There are two main divisions to the book:

I. Chaps. i-18:give us God's power as seen in the judgments inflicted, and the deliverance wrought for His people.

II. (Chaps. 19:-40:) Relationship with God on the basis of covenant, with full types of salvation in the tabernacle. The prominent features in the first division are:

1. (Chaps, 1:-4:17) The need for and call of the deliverer-Moses.

2. (Chaps. 4:18-11:) Judgment upon Egypt, from which Israel is spared.

3. (Chaps. 12:-15:21) The great truths of redemption by blood and deliverance by power.

4. (Chaps. 15:22-18:) Divine provision for the way in this wilderness world.

In the second division the prominent features are:

1. (Chaps. 19:-31:) The giving of the law and the provision for the tabernacle. It is well to mark that the tabernacle could not be erected in connection with the giving of the law as such. The people made the golden calf, and the first tables of stone were broken. Man always fails when tested.

2. (Chaps. 32:-34:) The apostasy of the people and the second giving of the law.
3. (Chaps. 35:-40:) The building of the tabernacle. These are but the main divisions of a book which is intensely interesting and deeply profitable from end to end. The New Testament book is the epistle to the Romans, which has been chosen as a companion to Exodus, as throwing the light of New Testament fulfilment upon Old Testament type. Here we have the great truths of justification and acceptance before God developed, brought out in a divinely perfect way.

The four divisions of the epistle are so well known as scarcely to need more than a word.

1:(Chaps, 1:-5:ii) God's righteousness proving man's I unrighteousness and yet justifying the ungodly who believes in Jesus. Each chapter develops some feature of this general theme, until we reach the climax in the closing word, "We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation."

2. (Chaps. 5:12-8:) Deliverance from the bondage and power of sin. This is truly a miniature book of Exodus, and can be studied with great profit in connection with the account of Israel's deliverance out of Egypt from the bondage of Pharaoh, as the passover shelter is explained in the deliverance from the guilt of sin in the first division.

3. (Chaps. 9:-11:) God's sovereign purpose and holiness vindicated in the account of His past, present and future dealings with Israel. As to the past, they are the chosen of God; as to the present, they are rejected because of their unbelief; as to the future, they will be restored as from the dead (chap. 11:), a wonderful and instructive portion, giving the key to all prophetic teaching.

4. (Chaps. 12:-16:) The last division is the practical portion of the book, giving guidance, encouragement and warning as to our path through this world, based upon the great facts of known redemption and enjoyed deliverance, unfolded in the first eight chapters.

What a feast is before us, dear reader, for this month! If heretofore you have been reading your Bible as a mere task, getting but little from it, turning too easily to this world's literature, let all that cease now. Let us seek God's grace that these two books may be read carefully, prayerfully, and intelligently, and how much we will have to bless God for as the result!

It is well to have a note-book in which to jot down thoughts gleaned from our daily reading, and this may be made as full or meager as the time we can spare will allow. It is not expected, of course, that the average reader can devote sufficient time to the exhaustive study of two full chapters of Scripture
each day, but surely every one of us can gather something from our morning and evening reading.
The little note-book will serve as a record of our progress, and a pleasant reminder of help gained.

They that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and
a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and thought upon His
name."

We know that God sees everything, and that for every idle word men must give account, but there is one kind of conversation in which we may be sure that He is an interested listener. It is the conversation of those who fear and love Him, about the things of God. Very often a foolish timidity will keep Christians from speaking of those things which are nearest their hearts, and too often, it is to be feared, the things of God are not sufficiently near their hearts to fill them. How refreshing and helpful is godly conversation ! Notice here that this is not an occasional thing, but they often spoke one to another. How is it when we come together ? Is it worldliness, or worse yet, gossip, or even dwelling in a helpless way upon the faults of others, or is the mind so filled with God's word, and the heart so occupied with Christ's things, that they form the staple and natural topics of conversation ? If we were walking down the street and overheard some one mention the name of a dear friend of ours, we would involuntarily pause, and so with our blessed God, when He hears two of His children mentioning the name of His beloved Son, He listens to hear what they have to say of Him, and He remembers it too. Let us then not be afraid to speak to one another freely. There need be no formalism about this. If the heart is happy in Christ, it is natural and right that we should speak of Him.

Notes of an Address by A. E. B. (Gen. 30:13; Deut. 33:24, were read.)

When Asher was born Leah said, "Everyone will call me blessed"-or 'happy."

In the New Testament we learn of the gospel of "the blessed (or happy) God" (i Tim. 1:ii), expressive, this, of His great joy in the salvation of sinners. We see this in Luke 15::the shepherd rejoices over the lost sheep which he found; the woman rejoices over the recovered piece of silver; and the father rejoices over the lost son now returned.

And who are the Asherites today ? All those who can say with the psalmist, " Blessed [happy] is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." "Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." As we go through this world we ought to be Asherites, rejoicing in God's salvation, and in God our Saviour.

Asher represents for us a happy man, and of him it is first said, "Let him be blest with children." I desire to put this into New Testament language, and gather the spiritual lesson. Are we the earnest, whole-hearted, evangelistic people we ought to be ? Wherever we find this spirit pervading the people of God, combined with prayerfulness we believe souls will be born again-sinners will be converted to God; we will see fruit in the gospel, and, as Asher, shall be "blest with children." O beloved, may we never lose the evangelistic spirit; never cease, while there is yet grace, to yearn after the salvation of lost sinners !

When the early Christians were scattered abroad, they went everywhere preaching the word of God (Acts 8:4; 11:19); and this word "preaching" should rather be "speaking the word;"-the Greek word laleo, used in the last quotation, meaning, to talk, to speak in a familiar way. One may have no particular gift, and never be able to preach upon the public platform, but each one of us can set before the lost God's great love for sinners, and the danger of trifling with, or neglecting, these things. Wherever this course is faithfully pursued we are persuaded there will be fruit, and sinners will be saved.

Next, it is also said of Asher, " Let him be acceptable to his brethren ; " this was the Spirit's desire, through the lawgiver, that Asher should be "acceptable to his brethren." This is a sweet and precious thing in its place, if rightly understood, which will help us to preserve the even balance of truth.

We have observed how we ought to be an evangelistic people, who love to tell out God's good news, and to further every gospel work. But this does not embrace the whole testimony committed to us. God links His people together now in a wonderful way (see i Cor. 12). We are fellow-members of one body, and have our responsibilities in this place-responsibilities to the Head first, and then to one another. None, therefore, can say to the other, "I have no need of thee." In many things we are dependent one upon another, and there is a ministry we can furnish each other, as also a submission we ought to render each to another (see Eph. 5:21; i Pet. 5:5).

Now, when this relationship is understood, and our responsibilities realized, we have the other side of truth :we are to be kept from the independency and self-will so rampant everywhere to-day, even in pursuing the Lord's things. How unseemly to profess to be earnest in the gospel and not desire to fulfil these last-named responsibilities! but how precious to see the holy combination of both-earnest in gospel work and, as those indwelt by the Holy Spirit and joined one to another, each seeking "to be acceptable to his brethren "! Of course, to pursue this, we are never expected to sacrifice the truth, nor a good conscience. Neither do the words imply this; yet it does say, "Let him be acceptable to his brethren."

See the example of the apostle-he who wrote i Cor. 12:, and whom the Spirit used to unfold for us the truth of the one body. In writing to the saints at Rome (Rom. 15:), he requested their prayers that the service he was carrying to Jerusalem, entrusted to him by the assemblies of Macedonia and Achaia, "might be acceptable to the saints;"-he had the true Asherite spirit. Where this true love and godly subjection to one another in His fear is found, we can then sing the 133rd psalm, "How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." The Church has drifted far, we know; but, beloved, the truth as here given abides. May it search us in all our gatherings, and produce in us these godly characteristics, that there may yet be in our assemblies a testimony, for Him in these things.

Further, of Asher it is said, " Let him dip his foot in oil." Here we have a truth that touches our walk. " If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" says the Word (Gal. 5:25), or according to the Spirit; that is, a life or walk here on earth regulated and governed by the Spirit. David prayed,
"Order my steps according to Thy word" (Ps. 119:133); for when the Spirit guides, it is always according to the Word. Then, again, we are exhorted to "follow His steps" (i Pet. 2:21). Christ's perfect example is what both the Spirit and the Word present; and this, for the believer going through this life, will be a " foot dipped in oil." It will also give power and strength to endure through the varied difficulties of the way :" His shoes will be iron and brass"-in the power and strength which these metals express.

The next thing promised to Asher is, "As thy days, so shall thy rest be" (J. N. D."s translation); this is what the Lord gives him-"rest"-as in Matt. 11:, where the Lord Jesus assures those who bear His yoke that they will "find rest." There is no rest for the Christian here apart from this. "There is no rest to the wicked," we are persuaded; and when we Christians have sought to rove, and have wandered from God, there was no rest till we returned in godly subjection to Him; then what sweet rest followed!

But let us turn back a little before we close, and see what Jacob says further about Asher (Gen. 49:20). Let us sit down awhile in Asher's company, and hear what he has to say to us.

In his company there is no gossip; we hear no slander, no evil speaking. Asher has got away beyond this. Would that we were, one and all, steadfast partakers in what Asher now presents to us:"his bread is fat, and he yields royal dainties" (or dainties for the king). What blessed company for sinners saved by grace, to be privileged to sit with such! His foot "dipped in oil," now "his bread is
fat"-surely this is a feast where the King Himself will be present and enjoy it. Asher will entertain you with the precious things of Christ,-his bread is fat, his table yields the dainties of heaven; there the word of God and the unsearchable riches of God's grace are the themes that occupy the guests. And is not this what we need to-day ? Is not this the kind of ministry we need to render to one another ? We are persuaded more and more this is what we need as Christians to cultivate, and so "edify one another." May the Lord give us the joy of seeing a reviving in this respect, and we might find showers of blessing.

In closing let us notice a true daughter of Asher (Luke 2:36-38). Her name was Anna; she sprang from this very tribe, and truly she bore out these characteristic marks of Asher. She was a happy one; her foot was "dipped in oil"-she departed not from the temple day and night. Her shoes were "iron and brass"-she "served God," and in her great age had strength to go to all them that looked for redemption in Israel; and was not "rest" her portion? was not her "bread " "fat" too, and did she not "yield royal dainties"? "She spake of Him to all that looked for redemption in Israel." This was her constant theme-"Jesus"; and of Him she spake. She had longed to see His face, and God fulfilled her desires. He came, and she saw Him face to face! May His second coming (which we believe is very nigh) find us, one and all, as this daughter of Asher, "departing not" from His Presence, but full of these things, and fresh in soul, ministering them to others day by day for His name's sake.
A. E. B.

Matt. 8:18-27.

The gospel narratives appeal very strongly to the heart and affections, telling us, as they do in such a simple way, of the life of Him whose love has won our poor love for Himself. His meekness, gentleness, love and grace all unite with His every act in a harmony of moral glories. Jonathan of old, his soul knit to the soul of David, and his love manifesting itself in the stripping off of his robe, even to his sword and bow and girdle, speaks in a typical way of how our own hearts have been won to the true David, and how, correspondingly, there should follow the complete stripping of ourselves of all for His sake,-the abasement of self that He may be exalted. It is this blessed lesson that is pressed upon us in the passage we are considering.

Three incidents are brought to our notice. First of all, we find a scribe declaring his purpose to follow Jesus wherever He may go. The Lord's answer to him is that "foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." The thought the Lord seeks to press is that if he follow Him he must be prepared to accept the same place of rejection as the Master occupied. It is consistency with relationship that is insisted upon. And when we consider how glorious a relationship we have been brought into, consistency with it is the highest standard for our walk. "Walk worthy "says the apostle, "of the vocation wherewith ye are called." How much this means for us, when we think of the position in which we stand as being linked with Christ! We are made the righteousness of God in Him; the judgment and the death penalty we deserved having been borne by Christ as our Substitute, so that now we stand in righteousness before God. We are quickened together with Him into newness of life. And not that merely:we are raised up with Him; we are introduced into the sphere to which this new life attaches, new creation, in which old things have passed away and all things become new. We are seated together in Christ in heavenly places.

How all this separates us from what we were formerly linked with, so that now we have no other link! And what other would we have, but that which is ours in new creation with the risen and glorified Lord of His people? As it has been beautifully expressed:"If the cross has been realized in its effect as to sin, the flesh, the world, what else is there to know but Christ? what other knowledge can we call knowledge? You, yourself, the great hindrance after all,-is gone. Only Christ remains."

This is the blessed summit of Christian position; and now as those who have been raised up to this glory, we are sent back into the world as representatives of the Lord in whom we have been exalted, to bring back with us the atmosphere of heaven itself. We come back to a world which still rejects this glorious One, and in which it is still true, at least in principle, that the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.

Consistency with this relationship, and constancy to Him with whom we have been called into fellowship, require us to occupy a position of rejection with Him in the scene of His rejection. Surely this means much for us in one way; but what of it all in view of the blessed One with whom we are linked, and the glory of our calling in Him? "Yea doubtless, and I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."

And this brings in, of necessity, the thought of obedience to Him as the Master we are following. It is the very essence of consistency with our relationship to Him as the Head of new creation,-in very deed the Lord of His people. May God in His mercy minister the needed grace to enable us to stand in the separated place, to take the rejection the world will give us if we are faithful to Him. Shall the visions of earth draw our hearts away, or the desire for ease or rest in this scene lure us from the loyalty we owe to our Lord?

Gaze into yon opened heavens, and see the glorious face of the Man Christ Jesus. Think how that face was once marred more than any man's, as it depicted the awful depth of sorrow that filled His heart, infinitely tender in its compassion for man, and feeling beyond all expression the sadness of the place He was in ! Yet, that blessed face struck with the hand of man's hatred, only brought out the manifestation of divine love in His heart for them; He was spat upon, and His brow pierced with thorns by those His heart yearned after-though mocking and vilifying Him ! The hatred of hearts, steeled with the bitter enmity of the carnal mind was poured out against Him. Divine love and infinite power manifested in a wealth of moral glory and beauty in the Man Christ Jesus-rejected! Can we compromise with a world that has acted thus ? Paul saw Him, and his heart was captivated; Christ in the glory becoming his object henceforth, so that as to this scene he could say, " God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me and I to the world." May it be in very deed so with us, although it means the stripping off of all that men count dear, the losing of this life only to gain in fulness the life to come.

But devotedness to Him, with whom we are thus associated, is needful, and so it is this that the Lord now presses in the case of the disciple who would go and bury his father. His answer is, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead." The character of devotedness must supplement the one which we have been looking at. It alone gives real worth to it in His sight. The disciple is seeking to manifest a devotedness for earthly things which would give the Lord second place, and the Lord calls upon him to render devotedness to Him in leaving all behind, and following in His path. Surely no other character but this should be ours when we realize what is implied in our relationship with Christ. It is that "following after," forgetting the things which are behind and pressing forward toward the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus.

That is the true spirit of devotedness; and with it animating us, we will manifest devotion to Christ in leaving all, out of which we have been taken by the existing relationship. Surely we must mourn our lack in this. We may understand the consistency that becomes the relationship in which we are, but shall we not say that we come short in that devoted-ness that should characterize our association with Him as rejected of men ? If we were for Him what we should be, would we not be more like He was when on earth? "To me to live is Christ." No keynote for the life like that ! Christ, nothing but Christ ! Glorious Object – the goal which drew the apostle ever forward with increasing desire for the end to be reached in its unsullied glory and cloudless joy ! What joy like that of seeing Him! How the heart will break forth in its eternal song of praise to Him. That face once so marked with the lines of pain and grief ! For us, in the devotedness of His love, did He bear such suffering and death. Is it much for Him to seek devotedness in us in the midst of a scene which cast Him out ? Surely, no other character than this should be ours.

Finally, we have the disciples in the tempest, and the power of the Lord manifest in being able to perfectly keep His own. Sweet assurance to receive from Him whom we are to follow in a path of rejection with its trial and tribulation ! But if walking consistently, and with devotedness to the Lord, we will take it from His hand who loves us, as the means of refining by which our faith shall be found unto His praise and honor and glory. There will be the quiet resignation of a subject spirit, from which will flow praise to His name, instead of the unbelieving prayer of a wavering faith. Lack of that spirit which receives all as from His hand arises from the absence of those two characters we have been considering. Is it not indeed "little faith " that is the root of failure in this direction ? But what matchless grace shines out over all! He arises, ever ready to answer the need of His people:and how blessedly, when He comes in, do the winds and the sea abate ! There follows that "great calm,"-the peace of Christ ministered to us, as He draws us into the secret of His own presence, where we learn how sweet the rest is that He gives ! Surely it is as abiding in His presence that we find the true incentive for a walk worthy of our high calling. May God in His mercy in these closing days,-the perilous times,-grant that we may walk in accord with His will, to the glory of the name of Christ our Lord. J. B. Jr.

"I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto Me" (John 12:22).

These words of our Lord were uttered after His last journey to Jerusalem, and at the close of His triumphant entry into that city which was so soon to echo with the cries of, "Away with Him; away with Him; crucify Him!"There is a great stir amongst the people. His own disciples, their fears for the time removed, boldly avowed their allegiance, and vied with one another in paying special honors to Him who made His meek yet triumphant entry into the city according to the prophet.

The Gentiles, too, seemed to respond. There were certain Greeks at the feast who approached the disciples with a view to being introduced into the presence of Him who apparently was so soon to take His great power and reign, to be recognized as Son of David and King of Israel. "Sir, we would see Jesus," they say, and the disciples, short-sighted as usual, were, no doubt, delighted at the thought of this special and marked honor to be paid to their blessed Master. But how different were our Lord's thoughts from even those of devotion to Himself! Well did He know that neither Jew nor Greek could be truly drawn to Him by any manifestation of external power. It was not enough to have the acclaim of the populace. There must be a deeper work if there would be true fruit for God, and so He gives His answer, unsatisfactory indeed to nature, and enigmatic even to faith, save where intelligent:"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." There was only one way in which He could truly have fruit for His Father's and His own joy. He, the true Corn of wheat, must enter into death, and in resurrection alone could He have that clustering about Him of a company of redeemed people whose life was derived from Himself, who would be the fruitage of that sowing.

And so he goes on without hesitation to speak of the path of suffering and anguish which was before Him. His soul was troubled, the hour had come which had cast its dark shadow upon His whole previous life; and yet as He says, it was the hour for which He had come into the world. Should He ask now to be spared from it, that the cup might be removed? Nay, rather, He will ask, as He had ever said, that the Father's glory alone be maintained. God responds from heaven:" I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."

But how incapable of understanding is the heart of the natural man! Some thought that this voice from heaven was nothing more than thunder, and others that perhaps an angel had spoken to the Lord. None realized that this was a divine witness for their sakes, that they might be induced to give up their indifference to Christ and bow the heart to Him.

But all this indifference and failure to understand but emphasizes the absolute necessity of that cross to which He was so patiently going. It was there alone that the prince of the world could be judged and cast out; and if, on the one hand, the world would there receive its judgment, on the other, too, there would be an attraction furnished which would draw weary and heavy laden souls from wherever they might be. " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." Blessed Jesus, how true it is that not even that glory, not even visible or audible manifestations of the presence and approval of God could effectually draw sinners to Thee! Thou must be lifted up, rejected by the earth, refused, as it were, by heaven, lifted up between earth and heaven, and there in the anguish of Thine atoning death, Thou didst furnish the point of attraction where the heart of God meets the guiltiest sinner and gives peace and blessing forevermore.

How we, dear fellow believer, have been drawn to our Lord by this wondrous Cross! We were not driven. No law could drive; no mere fear could impel truly and intelligently to rest upon Christ; but there, when we saw that love in all its immeasurable fulness, when we saw the provision made by a righteous God for the guiltiest and most defiled soul, we were drawn to the arms of One to whom we should give rest and delight, as He gave us rest and peace.

" I will draw all men unto Me! " What a company have been drawn of all classes, from the highest and most self-righteous of men, who could say that as touching the law they were blameless, to the most degraded and sinful! Here, Paul finds his place along side of her of Sychar, and the royal David, and Peter with his denial, and the woman who was a sinner-all find one powerful and effectual attraction] to the same blessed bosom of love.

Nor has the Cross lost its power, nor can it ever lose it. In this day of man's complacency it still remains the same. It is that which we are to confess, concerning which we are to bear witness. In all our private testimony, in all our public preaching, it is to be the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That will draw;-it will draw men from their counting-houses and sinners from their sins. It is the only thing that will draw. And how blessed it is to think that it is because of that Cross, our Lord Jesus-as He comes from glory to take His redeemed home to Himself-will attract them from earth! Could anything hold us here when we hear that glad shout from the sky? Are we not, indeed, as we think of it, in haste to be gone to Him whose heart longs to have us there? How true it is that He draws unto Himself!

Would that we might say a word to touch the heart of the young Christian entering upon the life down here, and, forgetting that there is nothing in earth that can truly satisfy is often sorely tempted to turn aside into devious ways. Oh, let Christ so attract the soul by His cross, that that which is the badge of His rejection be the badge of our rejection. Let it be more than that. Let it be the attraction which allures us out of the world, away from its thoughts, its purposes, its desires-away from any unhallowed association which would stain our white garments. Let the cross of our Lord Jesus do its holy work, and we will indeed be a people for Himself.

"O, draw me, Saviour, after Thee,
That I may run and never tire."

THE MAN AFTER THE FLESH.

Chapter 3:GOD'S CARE FOR HIS OWN HONOR. (1 Sam. 5:, 6:) (Continued from February, 1901.)

God’s judgment is not confined to the overthrow of Dagon; He will touch not merely the idolatry of the people, but their prosperity and lives as well. As He had previously in Egypt not only poured out His plagues upon the people, but upon their sources of livelihood, so He does here. His hand was laid heavily upon them and He smote them with emerods, a plague similar, probably, to the boils of Egypt and to what is now known as the Bubonic plague, repulsive and deadly in its effects. He had said:"Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment" (Ex. 12:12), making the infliction so sweeping that neither people nor gods could ever again be pointed to as having been immune. So He would do in the land of the Philistines, no less effectually, if on a smaller scale, stopping every possible opportunity for unbelief to lift its head again.

And do we not see mercy in all this? Had Dagon merely been overthrown, the unbelief of the people and their half pity for their god would have found some ready excuse which would have enabled them to patch up their pride and their wounded god at the same time and go on with the old idolatry; but if the judgment affects their property as well, and if the little mice, so contemptibly insignificant, can yet ravage their fields so as to rob them of the staff of life, they are forced to acknowledge here a hand whose weight they begin to feel and from under whose chastening they cannot escape. And when the blow comes still nearer and the stroke of God is felt upon their own bodies, with the dead all about them, surely they must be compelled to bow and own the rod.

So God's judgments are designed,-if there be the least vestige of submission to Him, the least desire to turn from wickedness to Himself,-to break down the pride and unbelief of the heart. This is the effect of all chastening upon those who are properly exercised thereby:'' What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" God's people from the beginning have been acquainted with the rod, and how many have had occasion to bless God infinitely for the overthrow of idols which they had set up, the loss of property, of health, yea even of this life itself! May we not all say:"I know, Lord, that in faithfulness Thou hast afflicted," and add:"It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word "?

So God was not merely vindicating His own honor, but had they only known it, was speaking in no uncertain way, in mercy, to the godless nation among whom He had permitted His glory to be brought. What an opportunity indeed for repentance ; we might almost say what a necessity for it. And yet, alas, it was unavailed of; showing how hopelessly and permanently alienated from any desire toward Himself were the Philistines, who, like the other nations cast out by Joshua, had filled up the measure of that iniquity which, in the days of Abraham, God in His patience had declared not yet full, and whom indeed it would be a mercy to sweep from the land.

And as we look at the world about us, under both the goodness and the severity of God, receiving His blessings, and experiencing the weight of His hand in providential dealings, do we not see how all this is calculated both to lead man to think of God and to repentance? Will it not be a weighty item in that awful account which the world must one day face? Particularly is this true in Christendom, where the light of revelation and the gospel of God's grace alike serve to illumine all that is darkest in His providence. Men will be without excuse. The very plea that they sometimes make, that for one who has had so much suffering in this life there must surely be a relief in the life to come, will but give added solemnity to the awful doom. If they had suffering in this life-trial, privation, bereavement, sickness, what effect did it have upon them? Did it bring them to see the vanity of earthly things, the uncertainty of life, the power of God, and above all their own sin before Him? Did it drive them to Christ, if they would not be wooed and drawn by the love of God? Oh, what an awful reckoning for the world! Woe to those indeed upon whom neither the love and mercy of God, nor the smiting of His hand have any effect!

At least, however, His own honor and His own goodness are vindicated. Men will not be able to say that God did not make His presence manifested. They Will not be able to say that the sun of prosperity shone so uninterruptedly that they were never forced to think of eternal things. God's cup indeed is "full of mixture," and the mercy and the judgment alike vindicate His ways and show that deep desire of His heart, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Such lessons, surely, we are warranted in gathering from this judgment upon the Philistines, though undoubtedly the main lesson was for His redeemed people. To bring upon them a deeper sense of their own unfaithfulness, and to show the power and holiness of God unchanged, were the primary objects.

What Israelite, as he looked back at the defeat at Ebenezer (chap. 4:i), with the ark carried off in triumph by the Philistines, and then at prostrate Dagon and the plagues upon the Philistines, could fail to learn the lesson so plainly taught? Must he not say, " 'Our God is holy'-He will not leave His honor to the unclean hands of wicked priests or an ungodly nation. But that which we could not care for, He still maintains"?

But how touching it is to think of the desires of our blessed God as manifested in all this judgment on the Philistines! He dwells amid the praises of His people. He cannot dwell in a strange land. His heart is toward them, though in faithfulness He may have had to turn from them; and all that went on in Philistia but showed that divine restlessness of love which could not be at peace until it reposed again in the bosom of His redeemed ones. What love we see here! Veiled it may be, but surely not to faith. He will go back to the land from whence He has been driven by the faithlessness of His people, and not by the power of their enemies. He will bestir Himself to return to them if indeed there is a heart to receive Him, but in that divine equipoise of all His attributes His love must not outrun His . holiness. Hence the object lesson before the eyes of all.

The nature of these plagues, no doubt, is typical here, as in the similar circumstances in Egypt. The emerods or tumors suggest the outward manifestation of a corruption which had long existed within, and which needed but the opportunity to display itself in all its hideous vileness. How solemnly true it is that to "receive the things done in the body" will be in a very real sense the essence of retribution! " Let him alone" is the most awful sentence that can be pronounced against any, and to allow the hell that is shut up in the heart of every unsaved man to express itself is an awful foretaste of that eternal, doom where the knowledge of one's self means the; knowledge of sin. True indeed it is that there will, be the infliction of wrath also, but will not this be felt in the reaping of what has been sown? "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still." Permanence of character-solemn and awful thought for those who are away from God! The world little realizes, or makes itself easily forget, that beneath the fair exterior of a life no worse than that of most, there is hidden the possibility for every form of sin. It is out of the heart that "proceed evil thoughts, murders, blasphemies," and all the rest. So God was merely letting the wickedness of the wicked be manifest.

So, too, with the mice, as we said, small and contemptible in themselves; who would have thought that those fields of golden grain, with their abundant store, could be devoured by these trifles? So, to-day, in the world, men despise the trifles as they call them, which one day will eat out all the gladness and peace of life. Socialism, anarchy, various forms of infidelity, disobedience to parents, restiveness under restraint, pride, self-sufficiency – these things are either looked at with toleration, or, if characterized aright, as being so exceptional that there is no danger from them. And yet the book of Revelation traces all these things to the heading up of iniquity. The lawless one is but the embodiment of that lawlessness which even now is working in the children of unbelief. The fearful plagues recorded in that last book of prophecy are but the full development of the little mice, as we might call them, which are even now gnawing out the vitals of society and present order. Once let the powers of evil be turned loose, let the restraining hand of Him who "letteth " be lifted, and He (the Spirit in the Church) be taken away – as will soon come to pass at the coming of the Lord – and the ravages of evil fittingly described as famine and pestilence will show what the world may expect when left to itself. Would to God it had a voice for it now in this the day of His patience!

These inflictions appall the men of Ashdod where the ark had first been brought, and like men in similar case, they try to get rid of the cause, not by repentance, but by putting, as it were, God far off from them. If the load grows too heavy for one shoulder, it will be transferred to the other and then to the arms. It does not become so intolerable that they are prostrated before the God of Israel as yet ; still less does it have the effect of bringing them to a sense of their true condition. They will get rid of the trouble by getting rid of the ark, and so it is sent on to Gath and from Gath to Ekron, and thus through all the cities of the Philistines.

The same story is repeated everywhere. Men cannot so easily get rid of their chastening, and to shift the burden of an uneasy conscience will not remove the certainty of judgment. This passage of the ark from one city to the other of the Philistines is again a witness of the mercy and of the holiness of God. He will, as it were, knock at the door of each place, even as He did in Sodom, ere judgment fell finally, to see if there would be any that feared Him. And as He passes from one place to the other, we may well believe that there was no response save that of terror, no turning to Himself.

But what a triumphant procession for this ark it was! Even as when Paul passed from one heathen city to another, where Jewish hatred and Gentile scorn vied with each other in heaping reproaches
upon him, he could say:"Thanks be to God who always leadeth us in triumph " (as the original has it) "in Christ." Whether it were the stones at Lystra, or the prison at Philippi, or the mockery at Corinth and Athens, faith could see the triumphant witness of the glory of God brought face to face with those people. Even as our Lord, when He sent His disciples through the various cities of Israel, foreseeing their rejection in many places and telling them that they were to shake off the very dust of their feet from those cities where they were not received, added:"Notwithstanding, be ye sure of this, that the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." So here, the ark of God makes its majestic progress from city to city, and prostrate forms of men, and devastated garners bear witness to its progress. " The Lord is known by the judgment which He executeth."
At last, desperation drives the lords of the Philistines to a conference in which they decide that what they thought was a victory over Jehovah was but a defeat for themselves; a victory too dearly bought to be longer endured, and they take the world's way (alas, the only way the world will take) of finding relief. They will get rid of God, even as the men of Decapolis besought our Lord to depart out of their coasts, though before their very eyes was the witness of His love and power in setting free the poor demoniac. Yes, the world will try to get rid of God. It may apparently succeed for a season, until the final day.

They decide to return the ark to the land of Israel:"Send away the ark of the God of Israel and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not and our people; for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there."

(To be continued, if the Lord will.")

Deep, deep as the streams that flowed
O'er the bended head of the Son of God;
As the fathomless deep into which broke down
The long descent, where at last alone-
Alone in His love with our need, must be
The goal of His agony.

Soul, hast thou heard in thine own distress
The surge of that midnight sea?
When first to the straining ear came back
The voice of One who was there for thee ?
And thou heardest nought but the strife of the sea ;-
Nought but the strife of the swollen sea,
And the Son of God in His agony!

The brooding Spirit is over the flood;
In human weakness power of God:
Laid, the eternal new foundation
Of final, fore-ordained creation,
Where the abundant streams arise
That water God's own Paradise.

Deep in the heart of God the spring
(Drink, O beloved, abundantly!)
Whence, all the fulness ministering,
Its glad evangel greeteth thee:
Light out of darkness, ever to be!
Deep to deep calleth, " No more sea! "

Drink, O beloved, abundantly!
'Tis the voice of a deep that calleth thee!
Bright with the brightness of His face,
Thy Christ the glory of His grace,
Filled with His fulness, thus to be
Witness to Him eternally-
This is the portion of the blest,
Where the eyes of the Lord forever rest,
In realms no mortal foot hath trod,
Yet the Spirit searcheth the deeps of God

Scant not the grace that calleth thee!
Nor limit the Hand that enricheth thee!
Nor turn from the blessed Voice that still

Calls from the Glory as from the Sea,
"Come unto Me," and ever, "to Me!"-
The soul that is yet unfilled to fill
With the perennial joy that He
Giveth, and only He.

O heart that the heart of God hath formed!
Whose measure but He can fill,
Deep unto deep is calling now;
Know thou His voice and will.
He for His love hath fashioned thee!
Rise up, then, to thy destiny!
No princely beggar at this world's gate
For the dole of its penury,
Throw aside the shame of thy low estate!
"Arise; for He calleth thee!"

F. W. G.

A Christian, who has heaven before him, and a Saviour in glory, as the object of his affection, will walk well upon earth; he who has only the earthly path for his rule, will fail in the intelligence and motives needed to walk in it; he will become a prey to worldliness, and his Christian walk in the world will be more or less on a level with the world in which he walks.

The journey through the world is to the child of God as a boat on a strong current:It cannot stand still; if it is not aggressive it loses ground.

Let the soul of the saint cease to be in exercise with God toward the flesh, the world, and the devil, and he will soon experience the sad results of their aggressiveness toward him.

It is easier to imbibe false notions than the truth, for the simple reason that truth always displaces or condemns something in us, whilst error on the contrary flatters some part of our evil nature." A man who in his heart imbibes error, is a man in whom some sinful disposition remains unjudged.

No chance has wrought this ill to me;
'Tis God's sweet will, so let it be;
He seeth what I cannot see.

There is a need be for each pain,
And He will make it one day plain,
That earthly loss is heavenly gain.

Like as a piece of tapestry,
Viewed from the back, appears to be
Nought but threads tangled hopelessly:

But in the front a picture fair
Rewards the worker for his care,
Proving his skill and patience rare.

Thou art the Workman, I the frame.
Lord, for the glory of Thy name,
Perfect Thine image on the same!

M. F.

" Behold a man running alone. … If he be alone, there is tidings in his mouth" (2 Sam. 18:24, 25).

David's throne seemed tottering to its fall. His own son, Absalom, whom he had treated with such clemency but a short time before, doing as unrepentant men will ever do when a time comes, had become his benefactor's worst enemy, and now had plotted and seemed on the eve of successfully carrying out a rebellion which would result in the overthrow of his father and placing himself upon the throne. David had fled from the city and had it not been for the mercy of God in turning the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness, would soon have been cut off. But, through God's goodness, a little time was allowed to intervene which gave him the opportunity of collecting his force of faithful followers to meet Absalom's army. David is not allowed to engage in the actual combat, and anxiously waits in the city for news of the battle. At last a runner is descried. "Behold a man running alone," and at once the king replies:"If he be alone, there is tidings in his mouth." The fact of a man running alone made clear to the king that he must also be a messenger, and so it proved, with his message of victory for the king, and yet of sorrow to the father's heart.

But leaving the historical connection, may we not gather here a few thoughts as to message bearers in general and as to ourselves as messengers with tidings weightier far than Ahimaaz and Cushi brought to David? Two thoughts are suggested here,- "running" and "alone." The first gives Us the thought of an object of an object of sufficient importance to lead one to press on, and the second suggests that it is responsibility which, in a certain sense, can be shared by no others.

In a certain sense the whole Christian life is a race, as the apostle puts it in Phil. 3:" This one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forth unto those which are before, I press toward the mark." Paul not only gives this as the normal attitude of a Christian, but as his own. He himself was the racer, "This one thing I do;" and while it includes, as we said, the whole Christian life, the whole course of which he could say later, "I have finished my course," yet in a very distinct sense it describes his course as a messenger, nor is the reason far to seek. In a very true sense our Christian message and our Christian course are identical. We are messengers because we are Christians, not in that sense in addition to it. The very fact of being Christians constitutes us messengers, and for that reason that which describes our Christian course would also describe our course as messengers. The passage in Philippians gave Paul's own experience, but surely each of us in our measure must correspond with him who is in a very marked way the sample sinner and the sample saved man, and the sample servant. Hear him as he speaks to the elders of the Ephesian assembly, nearing now the close of that which had been a large chapter in his service:"Now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall there befall me, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." Here his course, which will end only with his life, is identified with that ministry which is described in one word, "to testify the gospel of the grace of God." So Paul was a messenger, and, as such, a racer with a course prescribed, as well as with a definite message, and we in our measure are to follow him.

Then, too, the messenger runs alone. Messengers do not run in companies. The message is entrusted to each individual and with him is the responsibility for its swift and sure deliverance. To run in companies would be to distract, to cause one to lag and to lose that very intentness which makes the messenger. Here again Paul is our example. In Galatians, where he is recounting what the grace of God has done for him, we find him very remarkably identified with his message. Paul the saved man is Paul the apostle too, and what he emphasizes there is that he must be alone as to the message which he has received. "When it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus." It was not that he despised those who were apostles before him, nor that he did not feel the need of fellowship with them, but so far as his message was concerned, he had received it directly from God. It was by the revelation of God's Son in him. Christ who appeared to him on the way to Damascus in the excellent glory, also shone into his dark heart and there gave him not merely the peace -and the joy of his own salvation, but that which must be ever after a message that he should preach to perishing men. And so he could not confer with flesh and blood. He could not ask human permission or authorization for delivering a message like that. He must go alone, as it were, and run with swift and beautiful feet to bring good tidings of peace to many a weary heart.

Let us look back a moment now. What have we said that the messenger is? One who runs and one who runs alone. Are we not in danger of distorting God's truth, of giving a wrong idea? Is not man naturally a social being? Does he not crave inter- . course with his fellows? And above all, are not Christian men social? Are we not, by virtue of the Spirit's baptism, united not only to Christ in glory, but to one another, to receive all the aid which comes from the mutual ministry of the members to one another? Undoubtedly this is so, and its importance cannot be overestimated. See a Christian who despises fellowship with his brethren and you will see one who will soon pine and wither. See one who is indifferent to the responsibilities which he owes to his brethren and you will see one who becomes selfish and hardened until fruit is a thing of the past.

We are made for one another, made to have sweetest intercourse together, and yet that does not affect what we have been saying, as to messengers for God in the world, those who must run and run alone. Before we can have to do with one another we must "always have to do with God. This, of course, applies first of all to our salvation. We cannot be saved in companies. The children cannot be saved merely because the parents are. Each must be saved individually, and so all through our Christian course, there is ever that hidden life which has to do with God alone and into which the nearest and dearest of the Lord's people cannot intrude. Nor will this be found at all to interfere with the social side of Christian life. It will fit us for ministering one to another that which we have received. As the apostle puts it in the second chapter of Colossians, it is by holding the Head that all the body has nourishment ministered to it by the joints and bands and is knit together with the increase of God. There must be thus Christ pre-eminent, Christ alone enthroned in the heart, the Object of faith. There must be secret prayer, secret meditation, secret communion with God and pondering over His word as though there were not another of our kind in all the world, before we can be truly fitted to enjoy fellowship or to minister help to our brethren.

Let us then, bearing in mind that these two characteristics are to mark us as messengers, look very simply at our message and the manner of our bringing it to others. That, of course, reminds us that if we are message bearers there must be a message. Ahimaaz was hindered because, as Joab said, he had no tidings ready. Surely if we had no tidings ready, it would be vain for us to run or to run alone. But have we not a message? As we said before, the very fact of our knowledge of the grace of God, as the apostle says, having Christ revealed in us, surely is the message. Might we not sum it all up in one word, that Christ Himself is the message? -the gospel of salvation, precious emancipating truths connected with Christ's death, His resurrection, His place in glory for us and His intercession there – who can limit all the fulness of divine truth that has its center and its meaning in Him? Yes, Christ is our message, and as He was sent by the Father into the world, and His message, we might say, was the Father, so He tells us He has sent us into the world, and our message is Christ. How blessed it is to look at it in this way ! Our message is not different from our Saviour, from Him who is our life, in whose communion and in the sunshine of whose presence we are to pass our time. And how blessed it is to know that which will make us messengers is simply the enjoyment of the fullest fellowship with Him who is our message!

Need we wonder, need we go" further to ask why it is that we are such feeble messengers, why it is that our course is so flagging and so uneven, and why we sometimes seek a companionship which is the reverse of that running alone which is the mark of the true messenger? If Christ be not enjoyed, if His love is not fresh in our own souls, it is utterly impossible for us to carry to others what we are not enjoying ourselves. That is the secret of being a messenger. Be filled with Christ. Let Him, as the apostle puts it, dwell in our hearts by faith; not merely be the Object of faith but the One who abides, who has His home in hearts filled and satisfied with Himself, and there will be small difficulty about either running or walking alone. We will not miss the company which now we crave. We will be intent upon our message and yet scarce conscious of being messengers, but rather conscious only of the Lord's presence and of His sufficiency for our souls.'' That sums it all up. If we grasp that truth that Christ is our message, we have said all, and yet it may be well just in a very simple way to divide our message, to look at it in various ways.

There is, first of all the message of testimony. This closely connects with what we have been saying. Testimony is declaring the truth, bearing witness, and every believer is a witness bearer, – not an evangelist, or teacher with a special and marked gift ; in fact, these may be comparatively few, but every one of us has a distinct message of testimony, and that testimony is the life, the fruit of the grace of God received in the heart and showing itself in the life. How beautiful it is when the world sees a man running alone! It can say, "There are tidings in his mouth. Such a man preaches as he walks, in his daily business, in his home, with his acquaintances. 'They are" conscious there is a purpose of heart in him suggested by the running, as there is a separation in him suggested by his being alone. He is not a recluse. He is not indifferent to the beauty that is about him in this world. He is not careless or thoughtless as to the claims of friendship or neighbors, and yet there is a spiritual isolation of soul which makes itself felt, and the tidings that it brings are unequivocal. People know a heavenly man without his telling them that he is heavenly. They know a man who has something to tell, without his lips moving. They know it in his life, and surely we may pray one for another and crave one for another that we may be message bearers in our daily life in such a way that there shall be no uncertainty in our testimony. We need only let conscience do its work to remind us how far short and in how many ways we have failed in our testimony, some of us in one way and some of us in many ways. We have all need to be patient with one another and to pray for and help one another, but we must not be indifferent to one another as if it were a matter of no importance. Are we witness bearers? Is Christ so real in our souls, is the word of God that upon which we live, that the world knows that we are different from itself? Solemn and searching question for many of us! Let it search our hearts indeed, and if we have lagged and if our isolation has been lost, let us go to Him who is just as ready to-day as He was when first He entrusted us with a message, to restore its brightness and its weight and to send us speeding on our way, witnesses for Christ.

And then we are ready for the gospel testimony in a more specific way. How is the world ever to hear the gospel? one sometimes wonders, as we look about us, the teeming millions ever increasing. The mass of humanity! How are they ever to hear the gospel? The pulpits can only at best reach a few. The press, alas, has other gospels then that of the grace of God. How is the world to hear the gospel? – not necessarily the heathen world, but the world about us, in our places of abode. Surely we all are to be messengers with the gospel, and here again these same two truths of "running" and "alone" are to be our guide. If we are to be messengers with the gospel, there must be that earnestness of purpose that love of souls suggested in the running, and that separation from the world in heart suggested in the word "alone." What is needed today is not more gospel preachers in the ordinary sense of the word, first of all. There would be abundance of these, were all. else right. But what is needed to-day is the gospel spirit in every man and woman who has been saved, every one realizing that he has a message to people, he knows not how often and how soon. It may be to deliver to the man he meets on the street and who asks his way, or in the store or wherever business may call. Great crowds are not necessarily the sign of a wonderful gospel work. A true revival of the gospel amongst the people of God would be shown by carrying the gospel wherever they went, and how soon the world would hear of it! Men running! Oh, as we think of the value of souls do we not need to run? As we think of the shortness of time, of the nearness of eternity, of the speedy close of the day of grace, do we not need to run? Do we not need to press after men with this message of life and peace ? They are running. Ah, in quite an opposite direction,-running after position, wealth, power, honor, pleasure; running they know not whither nor how soon their feet may lead them over the precipice into gloom and darkness forever. If they run, shall not we? And shall we not be so absorbed, shall we not put such a value upon our message that we shall be alone with God about it, alone in our own souls, seeking not to see how faithfully our brother delivers his message, nor to imitate him in his manner or method of service, but each of us for ourselves and for God, bearing witness?

And then again we are messengers to the people of God. How varied is that message! "A word spoken in due season, how good is it;" and how many seasonable words need to be spoken! Hearts hungry for that which the word of God alone can give! Poor, dear wanderers away from the Lord to whom we might be sent with a message of recovery! Saints tempted to go astray to whom we might give a word of warning! How varied is the message to our brethren with which we are entrusted! What mutual help, what mutual edification there would be if we realized our privilege and our responsibility more in this regard! How many closed lips there are amongst the saints of God! We speak not of the meetings of saints, but how many closed lips as we meet together; free enough it may be, to speak of the things of this world or of matters of temporal interest, but how slow to speak of that which should be indeed a message in our heart, God's word of comfort, of help, of cheer, or warning if need be, to His own dear children. There is much to overcome, natural diffidence on both sides, the fear of man, the fear of being thought obtrusive, and surely we need discretion in all this; but that brings us back again to the fact that we must be runners if we are to have a message for our brethren, and that we must be running alone with God if we are to have that independence of soul which will enable us to speak to a brother, irrespective of how he may receive it. All this is so simple that we need only to mention it to suggest that which it is hoped will be a fruitful and profitable line of thought with many of us.

We have already answered our next question,- who are the messengers whom God would send? And yet it may be well here again just to classify, in a simple way and see how wide-reaching God's thought as to it is. First of all, there is the individual saint. As we have been saying, no man was ever saved without being entrusted with the message that saved him; and so every individual, no matter how feeble,-and the feebler the better if it but casts him upon Christ,-is a messenger for the Lord. We must be careful to carry our message in the way He would have us. We must not run along another's course. We must not be imitators, and hence the importance of running alone, we are messengers individually, each of us.

Then again, and in apparent contradiction to what we have been saying, the assembly of the people of God as a whole is a messenger for Him. Corporate unity here individualizes all. We are one in a certain sense, one soul, one mind, one heart. As the apostle says, we are to mind the same things and to speak the same things, so that which marks the individual is also to mark the fellowship of individuals. The Spirit of God produces one testimony, and the people of God as united together form a unit, and as such, a messenger, we might say, with a distinct, specific message. Of course, that message includes in a certain sense all that of which we have been speaking, but which must necessarily refer more particularly to that which is distinctive and characteristic of a company of the people of God. To what then should a company of the people of God bear witness? If they are divinely gathered, according to His word, and in the energy of the Spirit of God, their witness must surely be a witness to the gathering power of the Spirit of God according to His word. It will include then all that we understand by corporate testimony. It will be an exhibition, feeble indeed, and with many a blemish, but still an exhibition of what is God's mind for His people as united together. There will be that which is distinctive in its message; the truth of the Church of God, to the blessed fact of the indwelling of the Spirit amongst the people of God, to the responsibility of every Christian to maintain a testimony with his brethren to these truths.

And here again the two characteristics of the messenger will mark the assembly as they do the individual. There will be that which answers to the running, an intense earnestness, a divine purpose of heart, not a foolish zeal, but on the other hand, not a careless indifference to the responsibility of all God's people to hearken to this message. If its importance fills our own hearts, above all, if we see it linked as it should be, with Christ Himself, so that Christ Himself becomes our message corporately, as He should be our message individually, shall we not run? Shall we not as a company of the people of God press forward and not swerve from side to side, nor drift carelessly and aimlessly until the world sweeps us away from true scriptural moorings? How important all this is! Then, too, need we more then mention that this running must be alone? Whatever constitutes our message isolates us from those to whom the message is brought who have not yet received it. If we have a message to other Christians, for instance, which they have not yet heard, can they hear it, can they understand it, except as there is, not that Pharisaic "stand by thyself, I am holier than thou," but that true Nazarite separation unto Christ that bears its witness and cannot fail to be understood?

Passing back again to that which is more individual, and yet which is intensely important, there is the family message bearing. "He setteth the solitary in families," and in the government of God, He has never removed from the family a responsibility to bear a distinct witness for Himself. A Christian home! who can overestimate its influence? Who can overestimate the power of a family testimony to the truth of God? Here all, undoubtedly, are witness bearers if each is in his proper place,-the parents as head, bringing up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, keeping them separate from an ungodly and pleasure seeking world, seeking to show that there is enough in Christ and in the things of God to give pleasure as well as salvation. What a testimony all this is in the world! And if there is to be this testimony, must we not have the earnest running and the measure of lonely separation from what is not according to this? Must there not be deep exercise, a strong, kind hand on the one side, and distinct refusal on the other to be mingled with that which is, alas, only too common among the professed people of God, until the line of separation between the Christian and the world is well nigh obliterated? Let us, then, be witness bearers, messengers as families of Christians, and in this threefold way, as individuals, as members of the assembly of God and as Christian households, let us both run and be separate from all that would hinder our bearing a clear and unequivocal message to the world that perishes without it.

We spoke at the beginning of Paul as a racer. Let us return to that thought, not now in connection with the witness bearing, which surely he ever faithfully did, but with the bright and happy goal in view. Is Christ before the heart, is Christ before the eye of faith as " the prize of the calling on high"? Are we looking for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven? Ah, that makes racers and that makes witness bearers, and how good it is to think that our earthly course here of witness bearing will end in the bright and happy meeting with Him who has sent us on our errand and who waits now to receive us to Himself, and says to encourage us, if our steps should falter, "Surely, I come quickly."

"As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him:for he refresheth the soul of his masters."S. R.

"The soul is the dwelling place of the truth of God. The ear and the mind are but the gate and avenue; the soul is its home or dwelling place."

"The beauty and the joy of the truth may have unduly occupied the outposts, filled the avenues and crowded the gates-but it is only in the soul that its reality can be known. And it is by meditation that the truth takes its journey along the avenue to its proper dwelling place." Andrew Miller.

Take heed what ye hear.-Mark 4:24. Take heed how, ye hear.-Luke 8:18.

I.

Sing, sing, happy heirs called on high to inherit
Sweet heavenly hopes in yon heavenly home!
Sing, sing of the Christ, of His cross, of His merit,
His love, His near coming-sing, sing till He come!

Baptized in one body, one band in one Spirit,
The bride of Christ's bosom and bone of His bone,
Ye happy, ye honored ones, hearken and hear it-
His blessings, His bliss, and His glory, your own!

On high, in your Head, ye are seated and hidden-
Your secret pavilion His bosom above ;
To enter the holy of holies are bidden
In freedom and favor by Fatherly love!

And here, in the day of His humiliation,
God's Spirit-since Pentecost present on earth-
Resides in His people, in participation
Now suffering scorn with the sons of new-birth!

A seal on each saint, each indwelling, enduing,
The Spirit of promise and peace doth abide,
A Pilgrim in pilgrims, in patience pursuing
The passenger's path as the Power and the Guide!

II.

O Father, what fulness of favor hath found us,
Begot us again who were guilty, undone,
One body, in bonds of one Spirit, hath bound us-
Begotten, then gathered together in one!

In grace hast Thou quickened and gathered and given
Th' assembly of Spirit-joined saints to Thy Son-
His spouse, His beloved, whose bosom was riven
That glory to God through His grief might be won!

Thy love in our hearts, by Thy Spirit Eternal,
Thou sheddest abroad that for Christ they may burn,
And ravish His heart with a rapture supernal-
The fruit of His travail for which He doth yearn!
O Father, Thou givest Thy grace without measure-
Thy life and Thy nature and Spirit have we;
And willing and doing in us Thy good pleasure,
Thy children Thou formest in likeness to Thee!

Thine image and features Thy favor dost fashion
And frame in us, forming our fitness to show
Affection for Jesus, reflecting Thy passion
Of love in its perfect, its permanent flow!

Thou weavest Thy warp with the woof of our weakness:
Soon (Wisdom's skilled workmanship wondrously
wrought
To morally mirror Thine image in meekness)
A radiant bride to Thy Son shall be brought!

Then stir us, our God, with Thy love's tender story!
O Father, transform us with heavenly grace!
Yea, hallow our hearts in the hope of Christ's glory,
And thrill us with longing to gaze on His face!

III.

O Jesus, Great Shepherd, as sheep Thou hast sought
us,
And found us, and loved us, and bought us with
blood-
Through billows of wrath in Thy bosom safe brought us
From death unto life, and from Satan to God!

As Head and High-Priest Thou in heaven upholdest
Thy people-God's presence their portion, their
place;

While, reaching down arms of Thy love here, Thou
foldest
Thy flock to Thy breast in Thy Spirit's embrace!

With hearts beating Godward with filial emotion,
Blest Saviour, Thy saints Thou dost sweetly inspire
To follow Thy footsteps in filial devotion,
The glory of God as the goal of desire!

Here, robed in degree with Thy graces and beauty,
As worshiping pilgrims we walk in Thy ways
With gladness of love, taught to glorify duty,
Our soul-depths outpouring the perfume of praise!

O Image of Majesty mirrored in meekness,
To mirror Thy Manhood Thou makest us meet,
Transforming, transfiguring frailty and weakness
That in us Thy features Thy Father may greet!

Thou livest within us-O grace without measure!
O glory divine in these vessels of earth!
Lord, bruise Thou the vase till its radiant Treasure
Outshines in a blaze of Thy beauty and worth!

Yea, dwell in each heart, Lord, Thy love, in its
sweetness,
Revealing Thy life in these caskets of clod,
Till all the Church-bosom, indwelt in completeness,
Is fragrantly filled with the Fulness of God! F. A.

QUES. 4.-"For the elects' sake, the days are shortened" (Matt. 24:22); is it the number of days that are shortened? Will the same 1260 days be carried out after Antichrist breaks his covenant with the Jews?

ANS.-The number of days remains the same, 1260; otherwise the prophecy would not be fulfilled. But God prevents things running on as it would seem they must do. He interposes. Christ comes and delivers when Israel is in the midst of the trouble, and it is stopped with a strong hand. It is after all only for a short time,-" made short" by divine love and pity. F. W. G.
"COVET EARNESTLY THE BEST GIFTS."

UNDER WORLD – GOVERNMENTS.*

*Extract from Notes on Daniel, by W. K. – the Treasury of Truth, No. 24.*

Indeed Nebuchadnezzar was a man as wise I according to the flesh as he was wilful. He stood in a place that no man had occupied before; not only the sovereign of a vast kingdom, but the absolute master of many kingdoms, speaking different tongues, and having all sorts of contrary habits and policies. What then was to be done with them ? How were all these various nations to be kept and governed under a single head ? There is an influence that is mightier than any other thing, which, if common, binds men closely together; but which on the contrary, if jarring, more than anything else arrays people against people, house against house, children against parents, and parents against children, nay, husbands and wives against each other. There is no social dislocation to be compared with that which is produced by a difference of religion. Consequently, to avert so great a peril, union in religion was the measure that the devil insinuated into the mind of the politic Chaldean as the surest bond of his empire. He must have one common religious influence in order to weld together the hearts of his subjects. In all probability, to his mind it was a political necessity. Unite them in worship, unite all hearts in bowing down before one and the same object, and there would be something to furnish the hope and opportunity of consolidating all these scattered fragments into a whole. Accordingly, the king projects the idea of the gorgeous image of gold for the plain of Dura, near the capital of the empire:and there it is that he summons all the leading men, the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, all in power and authority, to come together to the dedication. The authority, therefore, of the empire was put forth, and all were commanded to worship the golden image on pain of death. "Whoso falleth not down and worshipeth, shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace."

"Therefore, at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up" (ver. 7).

But there were some apart from that idolatrous throng; very few alas ! though, no doubt, there were others hidden. We may be bold enough to say there was one not mentioned here-Daniel himself. However this be, his three companions were not there; and this made them obnoxious to others; especially as their position, exalted as it was in the province of Babylon, exposed them to more public notice. Of course they were singled out for the king's displeasure. "Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews." Then they remind the king of the decree that he had made, and add, "There are certain Jews, whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee; they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar, in his rage and fury, commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego," etc.

But the evil of man and the craft of Satan only serve to bring the faithful into view. The king commands them to be cast into the burning fiery furnace. No doubt, he first remonstrates, and gives them the opportunity of yielding. "Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up ? Now, if ye be ready, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, etc., … ye fall down and worship the image that I have made, well:but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands ?" It is solemn to see how evanescent was the impression made upon the king's mind. The last act recorded before this image was set up was his falling down on his face before Daniel, paying him all but divine honors. He had even said, "Of a truth it is that your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldst reveal this secret." But it was another thing, when he finds out his power disputed, and his image despised, spite of the burning fiery furnace.

It was all very well to acknowledge God for a moment when He was revealing a secret to him. That was plainly decided in chap. 2:And Daniel there represents those who have the mind of God and who are found in the place of fearing God. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him."

But God had delegated power to the head of the Gentiles, Nebuchadnezzar. And now that these men had dared to brave the consequences rather than worship the image, he is filled with fury, which vents itself in scorn of God Himself. "Who is that God," he says, " that shall deliver you out of my hands ?" The consequence was that it became now a question between him whom God had set up and God Himself.

But a most beautiful and blessed feature comes out here. It is not God's way, at the present, to meet power by power. It is not His way to deal with the Gentiles in destruction, even where they may be abusing power against the God who has set them in authority; and I call your attention to this, believing it to be an important thing practically. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do not in any way take the ground of resisting Nebuchadnezzar in his wickedness. We know afterwards that his conduct was so evil that God stripped him of all glory, and even of intelligence as a man, for a long time. But still these godly men do not pretend that he is a false king because he sets up and enforces idolatry. For the Christian, the question is not about the king, but how he ought to behave himself. It is not his business to meddle with others. He is called to walk, relying on God, in obedience and patience. As to the great mass of every day obligations we can obey God in obeying the laws of the land in which we live. This might be the case in any country. If one were even in a popish kingdom, I believe that, in the main, one might obey God without transgressing the laws of the land. It might be necessary, sometimes, to hide oneself. If they were coming, for instance, with their processions, and required a mark of respect to the host, one ought to avoid the appearance of insulting their feelings, while, on the other hand, one could not acquiesce in their false worship.

But it is extremely important to remember that government is set up and acknowledged of God; and it has, therefore, claims upon the obedience of the Christian man wherever he may be. One of the New Testament epistles takes up this question, the very one which, more than any other, brings out the foundations, characteristics, and effects of Christianity, as far as regards the individual. I allude to the epistle to the Romans, the most comprehensive of all the Pauline epistles. There we have, first of all, man's condition fully developed; then the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The first three chapters are devoted to the subject of man's ruin; the next five, to the redemption that God has wrought as the answer to the ruin of man. Then, in the three chapters which follow, you have the course of the dispensations of God-that is, His dealings, on a large scale, with Israel and the Gentiles. After that we have the practical, or, at least, the perceptive part of the epistle :first, in chap. 12:, the relations of Christians to one another, and then, after a gradual transition, to enemies at the close; and next, their relation to the powers that be (chap. 13:). The very expression-"the powers that be"-seems intended to embrace every form of government under which Christians might be placed. They were to be subject, not merely under a king, but where there was another character of sovereign; not only where the government was ancient, but let it be ever so newly established. The business of the Christian is to show respect to all who are in authority, to pay honor to whom honor is due, owing no man anything save love. What makes this so particularly strong, is, that the emperor then reigning was one of the worst and most cruel men that ever filled the throne of the Caesars. And yet there is no reserve or qualification, nay the very reverse of an insinuation that, if the emperor ordered what was good, the Christians were to obey, but, that if not, they were free from their allegiance. The Christian is called to obey-not always Nero or Nebuchadnezzar, but God evermore. The consequence is, that this at once delivers from the very smallest real ground for charging a godly person with being a rebel. I am aware that nothing will of necessity bar a Christian from an evil reputation. It is natural for the world to speak ill of one that belongs to Christ-to Him whom they crucified. But from all real ground for such an accusation this principle delivers the soul. Obedience to God remains untouched; but I am to obey "the powers that be" in whatever is consistent with obeying God, no matter how trying.

The light of these faithful Jews was far short of what the Christian ought to have now:they had only that revelation of God which was the portion of Israel. But faith always understands God:whether there is little light or much, it seeks and finds the guidance of God. And these men were in the exercise of a very simple faith. The emperor had put forth a decree that was inconsistent with the foundation of all truth -the one true God. Israel was called expressly to maintain that Jehovah was such, and not idols. Here was a king who had commanded them to fall down and worship an image. They dare not sin; they must obey God rather than man. It is nowhere said that we must ever disobey man. God must be obeyed-whatever the channel, God always. If I do a thing, ever so right in itself, on the mere ground that I have a right to disobey man under certain circumstances, I am doing the lesser of two evils. The principle for a Christian man is never to do evil at all. He may fail, as I do not deny; but I do not understand a man quietly settling down that he must accept any evil whatever. It is a heathenish idea. An idolater that had not the revealed light of God could know no better. Yet you will find Christian persons using the present confession of the condition of the Church as an excuse tor persevering in known evil, and saying, Of two evils we must choose the lesser! But I maintain that, whatever the difficulty may be, there is always the path of God for the godly to walk in. Why then do I find practical difficulty? Because I wish to spare myself. If I compound for even a little evil, the broad way of ease and honor lies open, but I sacrifice God and come under the power of Satan. It was just the advice that Peter gave our Lord when He spoke of being put to death. " Far be it from thee-pity thyself-Lord."

So with the Christian. By doing a little evil, by compromising the conscience, by avoiding the trial that obeying God always entails, no doubt a person may thus often avoid a good deal of the world's enmity, and gain its praise, because he does well to himself. But if the eye is single in this, God always must have His rights, always be owned in the soul as having the first place. If God is compromised by anything required of me, then I must obey God rather than man. Where this is held fast, the path is perfectly plain. There may be danger, possibly even death staring us in the face, as it was on this occasion. The king was incensed that these men should dare to say, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter." Not careful to answer him! And what were they careful for? It was a question that concerned God. Their care was to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." They were in the very spirit of that word of Christ before it was given. They had walked dutifully in the place the king had assigned them:there was no charge against them. But now there arose a question that deeply affected their faith, and they felt it. It was God's glory that had been interfered with, and they trusted in Him.

Accordingly they say, " If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace." How beautiful this is ! In the presence of the king, who never thought of serving any but himself, and who saw none but himself to serve, they say, "Our God, whom we serve." They had served the king faithfully before, because they had ever served God:and they must serve God still, even if it had the appearance of not serving the king. But they have confidence in God. " He will deliver us out of thy hand, O king." This was not mere truth in the abstract; it was faith. "He will deliver us." But mark something better still. "But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." Even if God will not put forth His power to deliver us, we serve Himself:we will not serve the gods of this world. Oh, beloved reader, in what a place of dignity faith in the living God puts the man who walks in it. These men were at that moment the object of all the attention of the Babylonish empire. What was the image then ? It was forgotten. Nebuchadnezzar himself was powerless in presence of his captives of Israel.

1 Cor. 12:31.

That we are in the difficult times of the last days ' I needs, for one that is before God, no demonstration. The difficulties increase continually, and the peculiar characters of evil foretold as to be found in the last days are more and more becoming apparent. Because iniquity abounds, the love of many has waxed cold. Because of the prevalence of error, truth itself is undervalued and discredited. Dogmatic teaching is more and more set aside, for that which is distinctively thought of as "practical," in opposition to it. That which is the first character; of the Word of inspiration, that it is "profitable for doctrine " (and what is first in Scripture really comes first), if its value be discredited, discredits necessarily all that is connected with it. Confucianism and Christianity are then found nearly upon the same level. Confucius has excellent moral precepts, and practically no God. This is what more and more we are coming to, or at least we need to know but little about Him. Morality and altruism, these are enough for us. Look at the jangle of creeds and sects. What have they bred for us but that kind of disregard for one another which is the source of so many evils? Theological hatred is the worst kind of hatred. Religious persecution is the most intense and evil of its kind; and at any rate, it is so hard to discover what the truth is. Bring in from various quarters a dozen professing Christians, and try to harmonize their different statements. Yet good men are good men all the world over, and it is even proverbial that the heart may be better than the creed. Why trouble, then, so much about the creed? Why take so much pains to build up systems which begin to disintegrate as soon as they are built up ? "In doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity," comes to have large application with the growing doubt about so many things.

But what are we to do, then, with Scripture; which certainly is, as to its character, essentially dogmatic ? Well, the human element is perhaps the thing most apparent, and if Scripture is even thus in agreement with itself, a great many people have not found it out. It is even claimed to be the work of the Spirit now to disengage the kernel from the husk and to produce for us a new Bible relieved of things which have long been an incubus upon it. The more the "higher critic" pares down Scripture, the more his love increases for the Scripture so pared down, and he finds wonderful power now in that which, if it be less obviously divine, yet appeals to him the more for its kinship with the human.

Difficulties! why, how many are the difficulties here ? difficulties which who shall settle for us ? For, alas, our faith in human wisdom itself must necessarily be shaken by them all, and one verse of Scripture remains for us, perhaps, as the most significant of its many verses, that, " If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know."

What are we to do, then? Well, if Scripture has lost its power, there is indeed nothing to be done. They are but few probably, after all, who will give up Christianity for Buddhism or its kindred Theosophy. We shall not in the mass leave Moses for Mohammed; and if heaven's beauteous vision has at last failed us, it has at least so made apparent the dismal failure of all else that one can positively hope for no substitute for it. What man or what commit-tee of the wisest men will give us really another Bible? They are better at destruction then at reconstruction ; better in mutilating that which for them has become a spiritless corpse than in breathing the breath of life into any new form.
Well, let us despair of ourselves; that is all right. Alas, it is the world's wisdom that has mocked and cheated us. With the despair of our own, there may be at least a cry to the unknown God, which shall bring unlooked for answer. At least one of the most widely discredited doctrines at once begins to dawn upon us as possibly true, that if any man would be wise, he must become a fool that he may be wise. And after all, sin is in the world surely. It is not a mere name and nothing else. There is such a thing as sin and a great deal of it. Has it not, perchance, clouded the mind so as to produce this darkness which we are burdened with, and in which all philosophies, all fruits of the human intellect, are withering, and are bound to wither? Thank God for the Voice that breaks out even through the darkness with its sweet, comforting, powerful assurance, so strange in its mingling of the human and divine together:"Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Have you rest, dear reader? Has this wonderful word been fulfilled to you ? And have you learned to say, Whatever else may deceive, this has not deceived ; here is a Voice which has proved its truth in my inmost soul? Here is the solid footing upon which alone we can stand, with the earth and all that is in it shaking around us. Here is the Voice which can alone settle all difficulties for us, a Voice like which there is no other. How blessed to recognize in Him whose voice it is, the true "human element" which men think they prize so highly, which appeals, even as the science of the day does, to "justification by verification," and bids you verify for yourself- each for himself-its utterances. Once upon the rock here, how the fog clears! how the cold mists roll off the face of nature everywhere! and whatever may be the shapes of evil that we see, yet at least there is no more indistinctness, no uncertainty; and not the evil rules, but the good; not man but God. How wonderful a book then is Scripture! Is there another like it? Shall I permit any, with the highest claim from men's schools or colleges, to tell me what of it I am to believe, or what I may disbelieve? Upon Scripture, from first to last, from Genesis to Revelation, the living truth has put its seal; and what a field of knowledge now opens to me, while the fresh life stirs within my soul to make it all-as far as the finite may apprehend the Infinite-to make it all my own! Christian reader, is this what Scripture is for you? a Voice everywhere alike in its certainty as in its sublimity, a Voice that has power not over the mind alone, but over the conscience and over the heart? Is it something with which you make no conditions, but which claims your obedience, and which you obey ? In every part is it that? in every sphere that is accessible to man? in every department of nature? If all that can be called-is worthy to be called,-science? Then, if this be so, you have found what will be the solution of all the difficulties even of the last days; and amid all these you will stand master of yourself, because in the freedom given by another Master; one who has not received-thank God-"the spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7).

These words are from one of those epistles which, with the fore-thought of the love that breathes everywhere through Scripture, have been provided for us, just for these last days in which we are; and they reveal the spirit of a man who was in his last days upon earth, and with shadow everywhere around him as to his circumstances. Not only was it upon the world, but the Church itself was passing into the shadow. Souls over whom he had rejoiced were departing from him. He was in prison, in the grip of imperial Rome, in the hands of the pagan persecutor, but with a soul as clear, as bright, as glad as ever it had been since the light of the opened heavens had revealed One in whose face was the glory of God, a glory which ever went with him and ceased not. How good to be where he was! His own heart could find no better wish for all around him than that they might be almost and altogether such as he was, except those bonds!
But he draws every believing soul into the same covert of that glory in which he stood himself. God has not given us "a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." We are not Pauls, true; but the sources of blessing which were his are ours, and the ability to draw from them, if only our hearts are true to the truth as his was, no atom of divergence allowed from the path on which his compass guided, doing one thing," forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, pressing towards the mark for the prize of the high calling (or the calling on high) of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13, 14). If this be our mind what can arrest an energy which the Spirit gives? If this be not our mind, how can we think even of facing the difficulties which are on every side? There will be nothing for us but the gloom of despair, or the worse alternative of a heart steeling itself to indifference, yielding to the evil for which it has no remedy, the very abounding of iniquity causing, alas, the loyalty of its love to falter and relax. How necessary for our whole course as Christians that the full assurance of hope should animate us at all times! Conflict there will be. We shall not be able to escape from meeting the tide which is against us. The enjoyed presence of God will not withdraw us from this, but enable us for it, and how necessary for us then to realize what it is to be "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might"! to realize the triumph which Christ Himself has accomplished, not for Himself alone, but for us also whom He bids follow Him through a world in which we shall have tribulation, but which He has overcome ! How necessary for us to be in the spirit of those ringing appeals "to him that overcometh," when the history depicted in the Lord's words to the churches is being enacted before our eyes! Assuredly we have a sphere of our own into which the conflict around us cannot enter, and our happiness lies just in being able fully to enjoy this, to make our own the things that are our own, and to live in the life which is really life. And it is just here too that we learn most surely what the world is, in a way not given by the must intimate acquaintance with the world.

But what is the bearing of all this upon the subject before us, in which we are exhorted to "covet earnestly the best gifts "? There are some things, therefore, which it is right to covet, and here, strangely enough, where it is not only permitted but enjoined, people are the slowest to do this. If God is giving, it should be a matter of course that one would seek the very best of the gifts He has to give. But is it so? Alas, gifts as they are, they seem to many, nevertheless, burdened with conditions which almost destroy their reality as such. To seek the best gifts of God, supposes, in fact, a heart not in the world, but with Himself outside it, while He has interests in the world indeed with which they have largely to do. Now here it is that the tangle of things, and the difficulties arising from the apparent hopelessness of the condition, of necessity deadens the desire for that which, after all, seems so ineffective to better the conditions and thus in itself so doubtful as good. The Church is in the world, that Church which Christ loves and has given Himself for it, that greatest of gifts from which all other gifts proceed. Nevertheless, what has been the history of the Church? and what a spectacle does it present to-day? How little is it conquering the adverse element? How much, rather, does the world seem to be conquering it, so that everywhere it must make concessions to it! The Church is in the world indeed, but alas, much more than this, the world is in the Church; and these are mingled together in a way which seems quite impossible to be remedied, the world which should have been conquered being manifestly rather the conqueror, and Christianity being molded in its hands into forms which more and more degrade it to the level of one of the world-religions, if even it be the best. What, then, has come of the gifts with which Christ has endowed His Church? Things widen in influence just as they are lower in character until, in "the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," the positiveness of Christianity disappears, its angles are smoothed off, and he whom the inscribing angel cannot write among "the names of those who love the Lord" may yet, as "one who loves his fellow-men," find his where the vision of the poet saw it, when

''Lo! Ben-ahem's name led all the rest! "

Such difficulties are, of course, difficulties only for the Christian. For the man of the world himself,
the darkness is light just as the light is darkness. For the Christian, they are largely doing just what is most thoroughly Satan's work for him, producing discouragement and perplexity with that dulling of spiritual energy which is the necessary consequence. The gifts which Christ has given are for the Church's equipment; but how differently does that sound when we go back to the time when it began, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners," from now when, battered in the conflict, its ranks divided and opposing one another, it scarcely knows itself! It is just when we realize most what according to God's thoughts it should have been, that we are prone most to the worst discouragement. "The body of Christ! "-but what is a body of which the members are scattered here and there, and hardly anything of the form remains as Scripture shows it? Here indeed it requires the power of the Spirit of God to lift one up to face that which is seen with the brighter reality of that which is unseen. This is what is so sorely needed to-day. We have grown old in the wilderness. The eternal life that is in us seems to be susceptible of weakness and decay like any other life. Revivals there have been, many, but how surely followed, and how soon, by a corresponding depression and degeneration! But one more wave seems wanting, now with the end so near, to lift us right up into a scene where failure any more will be impossible. Shall there be that or shall the Church's latter end be but in terrible contrast to its beginning? The answer must be in the heart of the individual and it must be given to God, not man. That the Spirit abides, we know. That He abides to glorify Christ in His people we must not question. Grieved, insulted, quenched as He has been, is there not yet power with Him, power that He can manifest to accomplish that which to man is indeed impossible?

But let us look more closely at what the gifts that we are exhorted to covet, mean. Gifts are, in the Church, that which fits the body together as such. They are the functions of the members which make them, therefore, practically members. It is impossible, therefore, to be a member of the body without the gift that it implies. It is this that the apostle dwells upon in the epistle to the Corinthians which speaks of the body as it exists on earth. The gifts, therefore, differ from one another, not by reason of defect in the organization, but rather of the completeness of the whole according to God. There is everywhere defect in the members, if you forget that they are but members. If they are independent individualities, then they are most unfitted to stand alone. They are made for each other and for the whole. Do we realize it, dear fellow-Christians? Do we feel in ourselves our dependence upon all others, as their dependence, too, upon ourselves? We must not shrink back in false humility from that last thought. The apostle will expressly tell us that "much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary." We cannot, therefore, put away this from us by any thought of our feebleness. Nay, even the feebleness itself is, as it is put, in some sense that which makes us necessary to one another. Eve was necessary to Adam by the very feebleness which should draw out for her his strength; and Adam too had his side of feebleness which made it not good that the man should dwell alone. Thus we are needed for each other's development; and the ministry of each to each, in order that the whole may fill its place. Alas it is this shrinking from the thought of universal ministry which has, first of all, split up the Church itself into two divisions, the ministers and those ministered to:false in the whole thought of it; and not the less because of the truth contained, which is just what gives the falsehood its fatal facility of acceptance. To speak of what is the most plausible and the most fatal, all have not the gift of teaching,-true; but of this is bred a class of teachers who know not the first principle of their calling, which is to educate others into independence of themselves; and a much larger class of half-educated scholars, to whom the time when they ought to be teachers, of which the apostle speaks (Heb. 5:12), never comes,-never is expected to come. They have resigned their title as possessors of that Spirit who searches the deep things of God into the hands of those more competent in intellect, more taught in the schools of men, devoted to spiritual studies as those in secular occupations cannot be. Thus clergy and laity came about by a natural application of the principle of a division of labor, by which one class could at more ease pursue the world, while the other enjoyed privileges and acquired a power such as ever the heart of man has craved and rejoiced in. But the sense of immediate dependence upon God and confidence in Him became proportionately weakened; the Bible which the true teacher would have opened and made familiar became gradually darker and less accessible, or lighted with weird and distracting corpse-lights of the imagination, which no hand could reach to test them by the touch of truth. F. W. G.

( To be continued, if the Lord will.)

All Thy people back, O Lord,
As in the early days,
When love was warm and fresh and bright,
When first we knew Thy grace,
When first Thy light broke through our night
And set our hearts ablaze.
Lord, call us back.

Call Thy people back, O Lord,
To that simplicity
Which marked Thy servants long ago;
Our yearning hearts would be
Full satisfied with Thee, although
The world against us be.
Lord, call us back.

From the many paths unmeet
Our wayward feet have trod,
From foolish words, and wilful ways,
Yea, turn us back, O God,
Afresh to taste Thy love and grace,
Else Thou must use Thy rod.
Lord, turn us back.

Call Thy loved ones back, O Lord,
From toilsome paths and steep;
From bearing burdens all Thine own,
Which only make us weep,
The while we moan, and toil alone,
And only sorrow reap.
Lord, call us back.

Call us back from hearts cast down,
And oh, afresh inspire
Our souls to seek Thee more and more;
To burn with deep desire,
Till hearts overflow, and faces glow
With holy, ardent fire.
Lord, call us back.

Call us back to those sweet days,
When hearts were knit as one,
When prayer was as the breath of life;
Ere we were so undone,
Ere souls were rife with endless strife;
For Jesus' sake, Thy Son, Lord, call us back.

Broken is the remnant, Lord,
And difficult the day;
What shame and sorrow cover us,
Our tears oft dim the way;
The tide runs high, Thy coming's nigh,
Our hearts are loath to stay.
Lord, take us home.

H. McD.

(1 Chron. 25:1.)

What a wonderful contrast there is between the David of first Kings and of Chronicles,-a thing which has often been noticed as a difficulty by the devout and with but ill concealed triumph by the unbeliever, who delights to find contradictions where faith always finds perfection.

If we remember that the subjects are different, the difficulty vanishes. We see David according to nature in Kings; in Chronicles, according to grace. Indeed, the decrepit old man flashes forth in all the vigor and energy of faith even in Kings when that faith is called into exercise. The one to whom Abishag ministered, seeking almost in vain to keep the spark of life from going out utterly, blazes forth as much the king and man of might as ever when Solomon's title to the throne is disputed by Adonijah, and then and there secures for him the throne and the succession, as well as provides for judgment upon covert enemies who had long escaped punishment. We might say this gives a glimpse of the David whom we see at full length in Chronicles. Here, nature is left out of sight, and the man of faith, the man after God's own heart, realizing as his end draws near, the glory that awaited his successor, makes full and ample provision not merely for Solomon's own throne, but above all, for the glory and the worship and service of the house of God,-that which was dearest to his heart.

Leave the future out of view, and there is something intensely pathetic in seeing this old man,- who, with all his failings, had lived for God in the main,-gathering gold and treasure in rich abundance for his son to rear the house of God, which he was distinctly forbidden to do himself. There is not a murmur, not a question of divine wisdom. He had been a man of blood, not only in the many wars, but no doubt in his inmost heart remembering the blood of Uriah upon his hands, he realized the wisdom of God in reserving for the peaceable and glorious reign of Solomon the erection of that house which was to be the glory of the nation and the wonder of the world.

David not only provides for the building of the house, as we said, but for the worship of the Levites, the courses of the priests, the porters at the gates and all the details. We can imagine with what keen delight this old man would arrange all; and faith could see, not the bare threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite, but the stately temple filled with worshiping priests and singing Levites, and over all, the overshadowing glory. And faith could rejoice, though for sight there was nothing. And so it should ever be for us. Sight has nothing to show, but how lively the view which faith opens up!

It is in connection with the ordering of the Levite service of worship that we have an expression which should arrest the attention:'' Moreover, David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph and of Heman and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps."We would naturally think of harps being used to play upon to aid in the melody of the worship, but there seems to be distinct meaning, as we know there is in every word of Scripture,-in this word "prophesy."They were to prophesy with harps; that is, they were to speak for God, which is really the thought of prophesying. And does it not seem a strange combination, the harp suggesting praise, worship, and joy offered to God; the prophesying suggesting, as it were, God's voice for His people to hear, too? Without doubt, the thought that underlies it, first of all, is that their playing with harps was not a natural exercise, but under divine guidance. As the incense was made according to the formula given to Moses, and nothing could be added or taken from it, so the melody which was to accompany the sweet psalms of praise was also ordered of God. This, of course, does not set aside the thought of their being men of gift and of training, but it reminds us of the fact that everything connected with God must be under His control.

. We have another suggestive mention of an instrument of music in connection with the exercise of prophecy in the life of Elisha – when the kings of Judah and Israel and Edom were stranded in the wilderness without water, and the enemy threatening them – in their helplessness they turned to the prophet of the Lord, who, for the sake of Jehoshaphat came to their relief. "Bring me a minstrel," he said, " and it came to pass when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him." It was in connection with what we might call praise, that God gave His word of deliverance for these kings.

This opens up a very suggestive thought for us and one which we forget all too easily. Nothing is more needed amongst the people of God than prophecy. What would we be without God's word for us? Of course, we have the written Word, that which embodies all the truth of God revealed to us, and which it is at once our privilege and responsibility to feed upon and to be filled with. But the word in season, the word from the Lord out of His written Word, that which appeals to conscience and to heart, as the apostle says, which ministers edification, exhortation or comfort,-how important, how necessary to receive this!

If we turn to the Old Testament prophets, we see that their message consisted largely of warning, of denunciation of evil, of lamentation over the declension of a people privileged as nation never was. The pages of the prophets are stained with their tears, and yet who that has read, " Isaiah's wild measure " but has heard the sound of the harp mingling its melody even when the theme was most sad, and sending a glimmer of hope over the darkest pages, while predominating, rising above, reaching beyond all the gloom, is that clear, triumphant note of victory which looks on to the end, assured that at the last the harps will have not a message of sorrow, but one of unmingled joy and delight.

Putting it very simply, the thought suggested by the harps is the spirit of praise, of worship. Even our sins ought to be sung out to God, as it were. The book of Psalms as a whole gives us this thought. No matter how humbling the sin, how deep the humiliation, how sore the oppression of the enemy, the harp is never laid aside. It all goes up, as it were, to God, in worship. And is there not deep instruction in this? None are more easily discouraged than the people of God, particularly when their failures are brought to remembrance. They are overwhelmed. Mere calling sin to mind will never give deliverance from it; but here comes in the harp of praise too; for in spite of all weakness and manifold shortcomings, how much we have to praise for!

There is lacking amongst us, no doubt, much of that faithfulness which marked the prophets of old. "He that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully " is too easily forgotten, and while we do not prophesy "smooth things of deceit," there may be the passing over, the forgetting those painful "wounds of a friend" which heal while they smite. This is included in the exhortation that the apostle speaks of in the fourteenth chapter of first Corinthians. We must deal faithfully with one another, and we may all prophesy. But let us always take our harp when we prophesy. Let us always remember that we can praise God and that the accompaniment to the saddest message which we may have to bring to our brethren is the sweet song of redemption. Oh, how this illumines whatever may have to be said! How it changes denunciation into entreaty! How anger is melted to tears, and even over those who have gone farthest astray, how the yearning pity mingles with the faith to count upon their recovery as we deliver, it may be, a message of sorrow!

In quite another connection we have a similar thought. " Be careful for nothing," says the apostle, "but in everything by prayer and supplication"- here is the sense of need, the supplication suggesting strong entreaty of hearts that must have an answer from God, and yet coupled with it is that "thanksgiving" which lightens the burden and, in anticipation, praises God for the answer. Do we always remember to mingle thanks with our prayers, as we wait long for the answer, as it is deferred until the heart well nigh grows sick? Let us remember the thanksgiving, for our God does hear and will in His own way and time give an answer of peace. Meanwhile, too, the peace of God which passeth. "all understanding, keeps the heart through Christ Jesus. We have been speaking of admonition. In our usual version, this is connected, in Colossians, with psalms and hymns:"Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Be the punctuation altered as it may, the close connection between the admonition and the psalms and hymns is, to say the least, suggestive, and reminds us of the prophesying with the harp. Nay, in our own experience, have we not oftentimes received the tenderest and most effectual admonitions in the melody of praise ?

"Yet, gracious Lord, when we reflect
How apt to turn the eye from Thee,
Forget Thee, too, with sad neglect
And listen to the enemy,
And yet to find Thee still the same,
'Tis this that humbles us with shame."

It seems as though the very joy of God's grace," instead of making us forget our own wrong, but emphasizes it, leaving us, however, not hopeless and discouraged, but

" Astonished at Thy feet we fall.
Thy love exceeds our highest thought.
Henceforth be Thou our all in all,
Thou who our souls with blood hast bought.
May we henceforth more faithful prove
And ne'er forget Thy ceaseless love."

This is but one illustration of what, without doubt, has been frequently the experience of God's beloved people. Have we not often expected a blow, felt that we deserved it, that nothing short of some correction from the rod of God could move us, and been surprised and melted into deepest contrition by the sweet voice of the harp bringing that message of love, that love which never changes, which is as fresh in our dullness as in our brightest, happiest moments, which cannot be measured by our apprehension of it, but is its own measure?

Then, too, the one that brings the message, as we were saying, a most needed one of admonition, is also prone to discouragement sometimes, forgetting his own weaknesses as he thinks of those of his brethren. He goes in gloom, with but little hope of seeing results, to do that which is a most unpleasant duty, and he does it faithfully, but in a hard way. He goes away unsuccessful and doubly depressed. How different it might have been had he taken his harp with him and remembered that it is grace alone which restores, as it is grace which saves.

But we must not think that all prophecy is admonition or that every message from God is a word of warning. How far this is from the truth! Has a father nothing but correction for his children? It is the exception, rather than the rule. What happy family is there where admonition is the prevailing atmosphere? It comes with all the greater force because of its comparative rarity. But prophecy goes on always. The Father is always speaking to His children and would use us as His mouth-pieces for His message. Exhortation and comfort as well as edification, are included in it, and how everything is lightened and rendered effective by the spirit of praise! We come with happy hearts and speak to one another for edification, and how different it is when, in a mere perfunctory way we go over truths clear to the mind, but lacking in just that one thing which makes them effective and which the spirit of praise furnishes! Is there not, too often, an atmosphere of depression amongst the people of God? They are looking at one another, and like Joseph's brethren, starving as they look into one another's faces, and yet their Bibles are in their hands, full of most priceless truth. Constraint, the fear of man, occupation with one's brethren,-these things have hindered the free outflow of that which should come in all its simplicity and with all its power. What is the remedy? Take the harp. Strike a few notes. Think of the love of God, of His grace and goodness; think of what redemption is, and how all constraint vanishes! The Spirit of the Lord is free because we are occupied, not with one another, but with Christ, and thus there is the liberty which comes from the Spirit's freedom.

Take again the meeting for prayer. How many heavy hearts come, to the prayer-meeting. Do they go away heavy or light ? It is a libel upon the grace and love of God to carry a heavy heart away from where we have met with Him. He will surely give a word of help and blessing if the eye has been turned to Him; if, in other words, the harp of praise has become the vehicle for the message of prophecy.

But it is needless to enlarge. We have simply -dwelt upon one idea, looking at a few of its many sides. The spirit of praise is absolutely essential. God dwells amid the praises of His people. There can be no sense of His presence without worship, and there can be no true liberty without praise accompanying it. Let us then take a lesson from David's provision. Let us learn more than ever to prophesy with the harp, and to do every thing with thanks giving. How light it would make our lives, and what a foretaste it would give us of that time near at hand, -we know not how near,-when the melody of the harp will sound out in all its entrancing sweetness as we sing:"Unto Him that loveth us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood." S. R.

My loved Brother:

I think I have had my mind more occupied of late than ever with the subject which your letter suggests-the being with the Lord. I am sure it is deeper, happier, fuller acquaintance with Himself that our hearts need; and then we should long and desire after Him in such ways as nothing but His presence could satisfy. It is not knowledge that gives this, but personal acquaintance with the blessed Saviour, through the Holy Ghost.

I alighted, as by chance, the other day on some fervent thoughts of an old writer, in connection with this dear and precious subject. In substance they were as follows, and almost so in terms, only I have somewhat condensed them.

" It is strange that we, who have such continual use of God, and His bounties and mercies, and are so perpetually in obligation to Him, should after all be so little acquainted with Him. And from hence it comes that we are so loath to think of our dissolution, and of our going to God. For, naturally, where we are not acquainted, we like not to hazard our welcome. We would rather spend our money at an inn, then turn in for a free lodging to an unknown host; whereas, to an entire friend, whom we elsewhere have familiarly conversed with, we go boldly and willingly as to our home, knowing that no hour can be unseasonable to such an one. I will not live upon God and His daily bounties, without His acquaintance. By His grace I will not let one day pass without renewing my acquaintance with Him, giving Him some testimony of my love to Him, and getting from Him some sweet pledge of His constant favor towards me."

Beautiful utterance this is. It expresses a character of mind which, in this day of busy inquiry after knowledge, we all need-personal longings after Christ. May the blessed Spirit in us give that direction to our hearts! It is a hard lesson for some of us to learn, to reach enjoyments which lie beyond and above the provisions of nature. We are still prone to know Christ Himself "after the flesh," and to desire to find Him in the midst of the relations and circumstances of human life and there only.

But this is not our calling-this is not the heavenly life. It is hard to get beyond this, I know, but our calling calls us beyond it. We like the home, and the respect, and the security, and all the delights of our human relationships and circumstances, and would have Christ in the midst of them ; but to know Him, and to have Him in such a way as tells us that He is a stranger on earth, and that we are to be strangers with Him, this is a hard saying to our poor fond hearts.

In John's Gospel, I may say, among other things, the Lord sits Himself to teach us this lesson.

The disciples were sorry at the thought of losing Him in the flesh, losing Him in their daily walk and intercourse with Him. But he lets them know that it was expedient for them that they should lose Him in that character, in order that they might know Him through the Holy Ghost, and ere long be with Him in heavenly places (chap. 16:).

And this is again perceived in chap. 20:Mary Magdalene would have known the Lord again, as she had already known Him, but this must not be-this must be denied her. This was painful, but it was expedient, good for her then (just as it had been already good for the disciples in chap. 16:) to know that she was to lose Christ in the flesh. For Mary is now taught that she was to have fellowship with Him in the more blessed place of His ascension.

So also the company at Jerusalem in the same chapter. "They were glad, when they saw the Lord." But this gladness was human. It was the joy of having recovered, as they judged, the One whom they had lost-Christ in the flesh. But their Lord at once calls them away from that communion and knowledge of Him, to the peace which His death had now made for them, and the life which His resurrection had now gained for them.

All this it is healthful for our souls to ponder, for we are prone to be satisfied with another order of things. The sorrow that filled the hearts of the disciples at the thought of their Lord going away-the "Rabboni " of Mary Magdalene-the disciples being "glad when they saw the Lord," show the disposedness of the heart to remain with Christ in the midst of human relationships and circumstances, and not to go with a risen Christ to heavenly places.

But all this I say to you as one that suggests a thought -would that it were the experience of the soul. But I desire to have it so.

Why should the prominent church meeting of the New Testament, (aside from the Lord's supper) have so little place among us? We may call it by way of designation the "Open Meeting," as it has often been called, open for what we may be led to-prayer, praise, ministry, and worship. Ministry being prominent as in i Cor. 14:where one had "a psalm," another "a doctrine," another "an interpretation," and "two or three were to speak and the others to judge;" and all things were to be done "decently and in order." But does not the necessity of giving a name of this kind to this meeting arise from a lack of simplicity and obedience to Scripture? With simplicity and habitual yielding of ourselves to the Spirit's guidance would it not be a common meeting, and need no special designation. What has been allowed to take the place of the proper church-meetings and ministry of Scripture in the Church at large we well know-human devices of many kinds; and prominently "one man ministry." But if these have been rightly refused and escaped from, our tendency is still to return to them. And so it is that the assembly-meeting in which gifts would specially be used and developed, and the body be edified,-this assembly meeting hardly exists among us, unless on special occasion. Ministry we have at the breaking of bread, and in the prayer-meeting and in the reading-meeting, and in the preaching, by which we are blest; but we come short of the meeting in question.

In our low and feeble condition there may seem to be little hope that such a meeting can be sustained, but let us consider briefly the familiar scriptures that refer to it, and then also very briefly the condition we must be in to meet our responsibility. The first scripture we refer to is the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters of first Corinthians ; and the other is Rom. 12:In the chapters in Corinthians we find, first, the many members in the one body spoken of, and their varied offices and activities; and in chap. 13:the "love" (charity) which must be the actuating motive in service; then in the fourteenth chapter an example of an assembly-meeting where members are exercising their gifts. The space devoted to the subject shows its great importance.

" How is it then brethren:when ye come together every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation? Let all things be done unto edifying." It is true that they are being rebuked for too much activity, but still it was a meeting of the assembly open for any one to minister whom the Lord might lead to do so. Not too many were to speak, only two or three; for love would seek to edify, not to selfishly press oneself upon the meeting.

How gracious of the Lord to commit to us such a sacred responsibility, and what an excellent school of discipline and development for the members of the body; and what a loss not to diligently make use of what God has so provided!

In the twelfth chapter of Romans, the doctrine of our redemption being complete, devotedness is enjoined-the presenting our bodies a living sacrifice to God; and then at once we are exhorted as to our membership and place of service in the body. This puts in a strong light again the importance of what is before us. All the beautiful fruits and excellencies of Christian character that follow in the after part of the chapter, are a development of that devotedness, which begins with a sober estimate of one's gift as a member of the one body.

"Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation." Then follow those excellent things we are familiar with, that shine like jewels:"Let love be without dissimulation; abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another . . . fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope . . . instant in prayer"-and many more. But what precedes it all, as we have seen, is our membership in the one body, and the gifts committed to us in that relationship. "So we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another,-having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us."

Finally, as to the condition of soul needed that we may fulfil this responsibility, it has, in general, already been necessarily referred to-devotedness to God; and we can well conclude that where this is lacking, this open meeting will be the first to languish and die out, or rather it would be the meeting that would never be attempted. Worldliness, anxious care, covetousness, the wandering heart, formality, the lack of earnest prayer and joyful communion with the Lord, unfit us for the Master's use. But let us seek grace that it may not be so with us; and our consideration of. this subject, and confession of our real condition as so revealed by our incapacity, may lead to exercises far and wide, that will work deliverance. Is it not our shame that we should continue babes, and unable to use our gifts and our privileges? And this leads to many considerations as to our dependence on one another, and the great need there is that we should care for one another, and pray much for one another, as also for ourselves. What an interest we have in one another, that every one in the assembly and every family connected with us should have the blessing of God, and that hindrances should be removed. All this calls for diligence, vigilance, fasting, and prayer-a vigorous and healthful condition, instead of a slothful one, which would go with joy in the Lord, and increasing knowledge of God, while with it would be the Merari bitterness that belongs to those who care for the assembly, the house of God. For if our afflictions abound, the consolations of Christ abound also. There would then be more of the "sorrowing yet always rejoicing." But we are far from these things; yet, it we care about it and confess our need with prayer, we know well that the Lord will not fail to hear, and restore and bless through whatever rebukes and chastenings.

What habitual waiting upon God must be wrought in us, if we are to be found ready for special occasions; and if habitually thus, how easy, how simple a thing it is to receive from the Lord the word for the present need. So that all would know and rejoice that the present need was met by the Word in divine wisdom and grace.

How good then is our God, that if He calls upon us to fulfil our responsibilities and to use our gifts, it demands of us exercises that are pure blessing for us, and for His glory; for what is for His glory is for our blessing, which shows the glory and excellence of His character.

We should not be discouraged as to a meeting because we may at times weary one another. If there is habitual failure, there should be grace to admonish, and the Lord will give power to the admonition if from a patient and loving heart that has sought Him in prayer and faith.

May the Lord give us help, in His mercy, and lead us to count upon grace to enable us to do His will. May we bow down before the Lord about this in all the assemblies, and may we be ready to judge and let go everything that would unfit us to fill our place in the assembly; for we must either help or hinder; and how serious a consideration is this for all who love the Lord.
Shall we be dismayed by the smallness of our meetings? No doubt many can bear witness that at very small meetings, (when but two or three or a few more were present, or perhaps a rainy night, or wearied in body, or perhaps saddened by the absence of some) how the word by some brother was used for blessing, and they were made to feel how tenderly the Lord cared for them in their need, because they trusted Him.

May our hearts be alive to our need, and count upon the Lord to bless us. "He bringeth low and lifteth up." E. S. L.

*From Numerical Bible, on 2 Cor. 8:and 9:*

We have now come to a form of ministry winch it is evident the apostle makes ranch of, and which, perhaps, is in little danger of being thought little of at any time. As we see in the body of Christ itself, the fitting together of the whole by that which every part supplieth,-the need of one being met by the ability that is in another,-so in the world itself, not in its evil shape, but as God has ordained things amongst men, we see the same fitting together, the dependence of one upon another, the need intended, as is evident, to draw out the heart in men towards one another, and to make conscious the weakness which is after all a weakness manifest in all in different ways and measures. Here is, I suppose, what makes the suitability also of this subject forming a fifth division of the epistle, the number 5 speaking, as has often been said, of the weak with the strong, primarily of the creature with God, but which may thus have, and surely has, its application in a lower sphere. The ministry of power of whatever kind to weakness, is essentially that all through here; and, as we have seen already in the sermon on the mount, the Lord makes even almsgiving an example of what is simply righteousness on the part of those who realize their own need of the ministry which thus goes out to others.

All this is a matter in which, alas, the heart is so often separated from the band, and the easy liberality of the rich may so assume an appearance of goodness beyond that which can really be sustained before God, that we have need of care in handling it. The Lord has shown us how the largeness of the gift is in no wise the test of what is good in God's sight, and how the two mites of a poor widow, making one farthing, can be more to Him than all the treasures piled up by the wealthy. In fact, those of whom the apostle speaks here were manifesting in their deep poverty the
riches of their free-hearted liberality. This is what makes liberality noteworthy. It is not so much what is given as what remains to the giver. What the apostle valued, as there is no possibility of questioning, was not the largeness of the gift, but the heart displayed in it. The collection of which he is speaking here was for the poor Jews at Jerusalem, a witness of the appreciation on the part of the Gentiles of the blessing which God had ministered to them through the Jews. It was righteousness on their part to own this ; and the spiritual blessing which they had received was far beyond any tiling that could be compensated pecuniarily, however much it might he acknowledged. It was the manner of the giving here which rejoiced the heart of the apostle. The saints did not give to release themselves, as it were, from a certain obligation to the Lord, but they had given themselves first to Him, and this made it a simple matter to give all the rest. Thus the material ministry became spiritual; and this is why the apostle rejoiced in it. It was an evidence of love and devotedness, and thus he could exhort the Corinthians to follow the example which the assemblies of Macedonia had set them; aud, as they were abounding now in all Christian grace, they would surely abound in this grace too among the rest.

He sets before them the transcendent example of One who was rich, and yet for our sakes became poor to enrich us through His poverty. "What an example to keep all other giving in its place, to make it seem as little as it really is, aud yet at the same time to make it more acceptable to God by the consciousness of its littleness! The Corinthians had, in fact, manifested their readiness for that of which he was speaking a year before. He had only to urge them, therefore, to carry out what had been in their thoughts so long already, remembering that, as to individual giving, God did not expect from a man what he had not, aud He did not mean to ease some by putting burdens upon others. The beautiful example of the manna is that which he sets before them here, where-in a ministry which was from heaven itself and in which men had only to gather that which God had bestowed,- yet "he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack." That was God's thought and desire for them all, but using human instrumentality to accomplish it, and thus binding the hearts of His people to each other, and drawing forth the love, of which the gift, if it were anything, was but the manifestation.

The apostle goes on to speak of his care that in the ministration of the "carnal things," as he calls them (which prove themselves so much a temptation to the flesh, and as to which the jealous eyes of enemies would so surely be upon him) there should not be the slightest opportunity given for even a question as to his conduct. It was not enough for him here that God would know all, so that he might leave it to Him to justify him in His own time and way. Where there were means that could be taken to prevent even suspicion he would take them, which even his not taking might be in itself a cause of suspicion. It is a principle of importance that we are called to recognize in a man whose faith in God was so preeminent, that he would not act simply upon this, in a matter of this kind. He would not say here, as in another relation he does say, that with him it was a very small matter to be judged of any. He does not build upon his apostleship, or the undoubted blessing that God had given to his labor, in such a way as to think himself beyond the need of justifying himself by the use of such precautions as would be thought needful in the case of another man. It would rather seem as if the sense of the place he filled in this way only made more imperative the necessity to "provide for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men." He did not, as many lesser men might do, and have done, stand upon the dignity of his office and disdain the thought of any account to be rendered to those before whom his life had so evidently spoken, tested as he had been by innumerable trials. No, he "magnified his office" in a wholly different way. Thus for this cause also he could be glad of the zeal of others which could lead them to accept readily association with him in this matter of ministry of even "carnal things." And he thinks it right that not only should these be men of the highest character, but also the choice of the assemblies themselves. Of these he can speak in terms of fullest assurance. "They are the messengers of the assemblies," he says, "and the glory of Christ." He would not allow it to be thought that he had covered any defects in the administration either with the cloak of his apostleship, or of his personal faith.

Deut. 1:2.

It is truly blessed to find that we can never overreach the limits of the divine Word by attributing the fullest meaning to its every statement. We find this especially evident when we turn to the Old Testament, and find how everything has been so written that we may learn more deeply the plain truths of the New. We can say with assurance that all recorded therein is for our learning, on whom the ends of the ages have come. Let us look then at the verse before us and see what the lesson is that may be in it for us. "There are eleven days journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea." A very simple and apparently insignificant statement.

It is noticeable, at the outset, that the whole of Israel's wilderness journey is comprised of their wanderings from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea. They visited the latter place within the first year of their journeying, returning to it again in the thirty-eighth year. Thus Horeb is the commencement of the journey, and Kadesh-barnea the end. Now this is full of meaning when we consider that the wilderness-way of Israel is a picture of our own pathway through this world.

First, Horeb, the starting point, means "waste," approaching the thought of barrenness. Kadesh-barnea is the "sanctuary of the wanderer." And by way of Mount Seir which means "rugged." We will look at the length of time as we go on. If, as we have said, the journey is a type of our own, how significant that the start is made at Horeb. Was it not with the deep realization of our own absolute barrenness toward God that we first came to Him, acknowledging the "waste" condition that we were in, and bowing to the word of God in its condemning sentence that "there is none righteous, no, not one . . . none that doeth good, no, not one "-all a barren waste to Him who was our God and Judge? Surely this was the starting point of every one of us. But how blessedly full the provision He made for us in this very need. Not the law, with its claims founded on the immutable righteousness of God, which we could never meet. We could only fall under its condemnation, thus shutting us up to what God had in His mind, even "the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ," which simply means that now our faith is counted for righteousness, and we know the blessedness of the truth of being justified, and having peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus not merely are we seen as one with Christ in His death, our judgment borne, and we free from wrath, but we are seen as in Him also in His resurrection. We are out of the old life and its barrenness, and are introduced into the life of new creation, where, as being linked with Him who was raised from the dead, we should bring forth fruit unto God (Rom. 7:4). We are already, as being implanted in this new creation, a kind of first-fruits unto God; but the point is that being this as to our standing, there should be the fruits of this produced in our lives. And this is what we are to go on to.

Horeb, then, thank God, is our starting place, where we have found nothing in ourselves and found our everything in Him.

As we have said, fruitfulness in our lives is what we are to go on to. God has a path for us to tread, in which it is His object to deal with us in such a way as to produce this desired fruit. That path is the way He would lead us through this world, and as surely as Horeb is the starting point, so is Kadesh-barnea the end-"the sanctuary of the wanderer,"- the place of rest and worship for the one who once was nothing more than a wanderer and an outcast from the presence of God. It is the blessed result to be enjoyed now by every one who in heart and soul unreservedly submits himself to the gracious work of the Spirit.

Kadesh-barnea,-do we occasionally visit it, or is it our continual abode? How much it speaks of; it reminds one of the psalmist in the seventy-third psalm. He had been in slippery paths, surveying the prosperity of the wicked. He speaks of how they prosper and are compassed about with pride, speaking loftily, while he is plagued all the day long and chastened every morning. He confesses having been envious of the foolish, when he saw the prosperity of the wicked "until," he says, "I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end." Ah, that is the place for such wanderers as we have been and sometimes still are-the presence of God Himself. And the desire of His heart is that it should be our continual abiding place. Indeed, the whole of His work with us is just to accomplish this very desire of His, a desire which controls every act of His toward us. He gave His only begotten Son to do that great work on the ground of which He can thus act toward us.

I have said that fruit-bearing is what we are to go on to after the start from Horeb, but Kadesh-barnea is the place where we only really begin to be fruitful; the journey that lies between speaks of the disciplinary work which is so absolutely necessary before there is fruitfulness. I do not say, that discipline ends with fruitfulness. We all know how much pruning is required to make a vine bear fruit, but the pruning continues that it may bear more fruit. So with the child of God; how tenderly he is cared for after his first implanting in the True Vine. He is nourished and trained till he bear fruit, and then he is purged that he may bring forth more fruit. It is this first tender nourishment and discipline that it would seem takes place in the journey we have been looking at. And now let us notice the way it is traversed.

It is by way of Mount Seir. Seir means "rugged." Shall we not say we have found it a "rugged " path from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea? "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous:nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised there-by " (Heb. 12:ii). Have we reached this "after-ward," at Kadesh-barnea, beloved? How His grace has come in all along the way in our many falls and stumbles, our wounds bound up, and the peace of Christ ministered afresh to our need. This gives us the character of the way, but let us take note that it is an eleven days journey. This will give us what characterizes the way. Eleven would seem to be six plus five, speaking plainly of discipline, while five speaks of exercise under responsibility which would give to eleven the meaning of God in discipline and man in exercise and responsibility under it. Truly this is what characterizes the Christian's path if he in heart desires to walk with his God.

Have we then properly occupied Kadesh-barnea? Has the path by way of Mount Seir, in the fulness of its eleven days journey, been compassed by us so that we are truly fruitful and in the position to press forward to take possession of our spiritual Canaan? God grant, indeed, that We may learn this lesson in its full worth, and allow the Lord to have His blessed way with us, so that we may be brought to the "sanctuary," the place whence true fruit-bearing flows. J. B. Jr.

"I exhort, therefore, that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority (or in eminent places) , that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty" (1 Tim. 2:1). murder of the president speaks to all a solemn reminder from God of our dependence upon His mercy for stable government, instead of the horror and confusion of anarchy. It is a call to prayer, according to the well-known exhortation at the head of this article – a reminder perhaps to most of us of our easy forgetfulness to pray, that is, to consider how we are in need of His mercy every hour, and in all relationships.

Great honor, too, is put upon us in giving us the place of intercessors for all men, and for rulers, and persons in high station. We are thus as God's priests around His tabernacle, with the nations afar off, but cared for of God, who has not forsaken them ; – as Israel in the millennium will be, a nation of priests, when all nations will be blest, and recognize Jerusalem as a center.

Now that evil has reached such a pitch of subtilty and danger to national peace and government as to puzzle the wisdom of legislators, God is giving to His own a special opportunity to approach Him with exercised hearts, and with a spirit of prayer and fasting.

As the priests were to bear on their hearts before God the iniquity of the people, Christians are to act in like manner toward the world,-to consider the world's condition, and cry to God for mercy, knowing His long-suffering and goodness.

As in the seventh chapter of Daniel empires rise out of the sea-Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome -so the revived empire of Rome in Rev. 13:rises out of the sea-out of a condition of national confusion. As we see the time approaching (while we know the Church will be kept from " that hour " Rev. 3:10), let us not forget our obligation to the world.

Prayer "for all men," too, will beget a spirit of gentleness, and love, and meekness, in place of coldness and harshness which has so evil an effect if it colors our intercourse with the world, which also would affect the way we present the gospel itself.

"Freely ye have received, freely give."

The world has its lesson to heed in the recent distressing event-the fruit that sin bears, and the vanity of wisdom that ignores God. But it is to the Church God speaks first, that we may realize what a groaning creation we are in, and that we may pray without ceasing, while in everything giving thanks; for our God who is for us is above all, as He was at the cross, and will be in glory forever.

Let us use the occasion to draw near to God, and cry to Him for mercy in a time of great need; especially that all may be overruled for blessing in the gospel, and to arouse the Church. But still let us pray for peace, for good government, and for all men, and for rulers, and all those in places of special influence and authority.

How great is the goodness of God. How sanctifying the view of faith. Instead of taking a human standpoint for or against a certain party, (often with scorn or evil speaking) faith views all from God's presence. The rulers are "God's ministers" to do His will, for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well (Rom. 13:).

As violence increases in the world-the offspring of corruption, now as before the flood, may it be ours to cultivate a spirit of meekness and lowliness, and subjection to God and to governments, and to one another in the fear of God. E. S. L.

3. THE HEART OF GOD AND THE HEART OF MAN. (Chap. 3:3-iv).

God summons His messenger once more to the work; and this time he is obedient. "Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord." His message is a short, decisive announcement of impending judgment:"Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." But God threatens that He may not have to strike; and the proclamation of judgment is itself grace. The voice of one who has come, by divine power, as it were, out of death itself, to utter it, startles the great city, and there is immediate humbling before God. They proclaim a fast and put on sackcloth, covering the very beasts themselves with it, and cry mightily to God, turning at the same time every one from his evil way and the violence of his hands.

We are not to suppose that it was true conversion to God that followed, although we need not question that on the part of some, at least, there was true conversion But God was pleased to respect the humbling even of an Ahab, though only the fear of judgment produced it. But His grace encourages the feeblest manifestation of obedience to Him. So far as it went, the change was real. God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and the consequence followed which He declares by His prophet would follow in such a case (Jer. 18:7, 8). "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." So here, therefore, God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them and He did it not. This was no exception, therefore, to His common dealing with men. Nor is such repentance any argument of instability as to His purposes. On the contrary, His heart is told out by it. It is what He has been seeking that He has obtained, and the prophet who has been commissioned to deliver the message knew beforehand what the effect would be if Nineveh repented.

Nevertheless, "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry"! How solemn it is, remembering this Jonah was a prophet of the Lord, one in a place of special nearness to Him, stamped with that wonderful significant name which accredits him as the instrument of the gracious Spirit of God! "For I knew," he says, "that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger aud of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil." Yet as he puts it, the knowledge of this grace is what only had incited him to refuse the commission, and he puts it to God Himself as what, in measure at least, justified his flight to Tarshish. When the soul, even of a believer, is plowed up, what depths of evil can come out of it? Job learnt to know himself in his murmuring under the chastening hand of God, but Jonah has to gain a deeper knowledge, and to learn himself in his murmuring at God's grace.

No doubt he would urge that he was put by it into the place, apparently, of a false prophet; but could he rightly urge even this? For it was not to a nation disregarding his voice that this grace was shown, but on the contrary, to those who recognized God's voice in him, and honored it. Yet Jonah would rather, as it were, go back to the depths out of which he had been delivered than see such mercy to others. Think of the awful and pitiful wail:"Therefore, now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live!" What is man, surely, at the best? But how beautiful the grace that will not deal with him yet according to his petulant haste,-the gentle question which one would say could not fail to be answered in his soul at once, "Doest thou well to be angry?" But his anger is not quenched, and we see the strange infatuation that it produces in him. He turns from the city, as hateful to him, just for the goodness of God towards it and makes him a booth and sits down under it to see if, after all, God means to carry out this mercy to the full. What a mirror for Israel to look into and! see their own spirit with regard to the Gentile world about them! But it is all in vain for us to expect to bend God to our thoughts when we will not bend to His. Jonah may nurse his anger and his pride, but he only lapses, by this, into the very condition of heathenism itself, which always takes its god's to be such as it can control for its own interests, according to what it deems such. Idolatry means everywhere, man the maker of God, instead of God the Maker of man; and Jonah would gladly be that now. Is it so strange a thing as at first sight it may seem here, and do we not act oftentimes more or less after his pattern? Which of us would not some time make his own will supreme, though it be to dethrone God to do so?

But Jonah cannot provoke God even to deal with himself as his anger would have it. On the contrary, grace must only manifest itself more to him, and as he waits under the burning sun of the East, in the discomfort to which he has destined himself, the Lord God prepares a gourd and makes it to come up over Jonah, that it may be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. What labor God will take to get at the heart of His poor creatures! And how often it seems as if there was not even a heart to get at! Yet Jonah is exceeding glad of the gourd. But that is only the first step towards that recovery of him which God is seeking. The next seems a step in reversal. The mercy is taken away. "God prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next day; and it smote the gourd that it withered." Changeable these ways seem, as how often God's providences do seem changeable! But this, even, is not enough. "It came to pass when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live."He has gone back to his old position, and nothing seems to be wrought yet. Nevertheless, he has felt as a creature, in a way very keenly affecting himself, that he is in strong hands that cannot be resisted. Do we not remember how in Job's case also, though so different from the present one, it is the revelation of His might by which God awes an angry heart to stillness? But again there comes the question:" Doest thou well to be angry for the guard?"Was it indeed for the blighted gourd that he was feeling? God so represents it, as it were, Hot touching the sore spot exactly itself, and yet only to make him the more conscious of it. But he answers more passionately than ever:"I do well to be angry even unto death."Was it for the gourd indeed that he was angry, or was it for his personal loss in it? Did he care so much for the thing as to which he had not labored nor made it grow, the offspring of a night and which perished in a night? God would so represent it, as it were, as if he would not impute more to him. He has had pity on the gourd ; he has not had pity upon Nineveh, that great city of more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left; and their cattle too,-none of them forgotten by Him who made them. Pity for a gourd, and not pity for great Nineveh! A plentiful waste of a niggard heart ! Something there must be that has produced in him such complete incapacity to balance things aright; something there must be which seen will make consistent this gross inconsistency. Certainly; and which of us does not know what it is? There is but one thing capable of distorting things after this fashion. Here is the man who has been himself in the depths to learn to cry out there, " Salvation is of the Lord," yet now angered even unto death against the God of salvation! He who lives by grace alone, can plead only for judgment, and against grace to others!
Israel is, without doubt, in their inmost heart told out in this picture before us. Under law indeed, yet the lesson of the law, if learnt, would have preached the need of a grace which God had been ever showing. For the law is not against grace, but its handmaid ; and to every honest soul, most crushingly against legality. Israel, as the apostle reminds them, were all, by their idolatry in the worship of the golden calf, under the condemnation of the outraged law, and God's announced principle, upon which alone He could take them up, was, "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion" (Rom. 9:15). To sovereign goodness they owed it that He could go on with them at all; and their whole history illustrated the same thing. Jonah's "Salvation is of the Lord " was their only hope all through, who (as the apostle again says') were found at last, "forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they should be saved, to fill up their sins always" (i Thess. 2:16). Yet even so they will be taken up as objects of mercy at the last, upon this same blessed only-sufficing principle (Rom. 11:31). " How good is the God we adore! "

But the moral of this history for ourselves, how important it is! We are in a place of special witness for God, far beyond that of Israel. Under the law with its closed sanctuary, there could as yet be no world-wide evangelism such as Christianity proclaims. We have a distinct message for "every creature." We are not merely the recipients of grace, as even Israel really was:we have learned it from the lips and in the gift for us of the Son of God Himself; the shadow of law is removed, and the sanctuary is open. The brooding "dove," of which Jonah's name speaks, is known in its blessed significance by those in whom there dwells the Spirit of Christ, the power of all ministry and divine testimony among men, and of whom the Lord speaks when He declares that if any one comes unto Him and drinks, "out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:37, 38).

Thus we should naturally think that now there can be no Jonahs who do not answer to their name, and that as an admonition to us the story of the Jewish prophet would be all unneeded. But alas, man's fallen nature violates the most necessary conclusions, and makes its way through every indefectible argument. God asks as to the human heart, "Who can know it? "And we who are, as none ever were beside, the witnesses of divine grace, can we be trusted to maintain consistent testimony to that to which we owe our all? Do our words, our ways, our thoughts of others, our prayers for others, speak for us as those who have learned amid the depths of ruin into which sin has plunged us, to realize that break with all self-satisfaction, all self-sufficiency, all self-assertion, which is involved in fact in that cry of helplessness in which all help is found, "Salvation is of the Lord?"

All truth, all holiness, all liberty of soul, all power for devotedness, fruitfulness of whatever kind, comes to us out of that knowledge, when it is perfected in us; for out of that wreck, well understood, no other self arises than that which one who perhaps of all men knew it best could express only in the paradox, I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, no longer I, but Christ liveth in me."
F. W. G.

(1 Kings 8:15.)

Israel's golden age was during Solomon's reign. Brief indeed, and soon darkening into apostasy, it was the type of that glorious reign of the Son of David, whom no prosperity can affect, as no depth of sorrow could swerve from His allegiance to His God and Father. With Solomon, alas, it was the opposite; and his exaltation and fall but emphasizes the solemn fact that "no good in creatures can be found." It seems as though the care of our God, jealous for the honor of His Son, must show the imperfection of the type in contrast with the unsullied beauty of His Son. Even Moses and Elias in glory must stand aside for Him. Well do we know how gladly they would stand aside.

But type it was-this reign of Solomon-of the happy time coming for this earth. And no part of it was more clearly typical than the building and dedication of the temple-God dwelling among His people-happy in their rest from conflict, and satisfied with the abundant goodness of His house.

It was, then fitting that Solomon should use such words at the dedication of the temple:" Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which spake with His mouth unto David my father, and hath with His hand fulfilled it." Such words, as we have said, could apply only in a partial way to Solomon's reign, or that of any of the kings of Israel. A glance forward or backward from that time will show this most clearly. Even our Lord's first advent was marked by national humiliation rather than glory. All was veiled; even in Himself, faith alone could say, "We beheld His glory." His triumphal ride into Jerusalem, amid the people's acclaim, was in some sense the antithesis of the Millennium, and the Roman dominated all.

But this language will yet be used, and a repentant, redeemed, restored nation will look abroad upon their land, again flowing with milk and honey, and upon the glories of "this latter house," covered with the Shekinah cloud, and say He "spake with His mouth and hath with His hand fulfilled it." Let us remember this, spite of the apostasy of Israel after the flesh, and the desolation of their land. One day -not far distant, we may surely believe – and the brief, sharp judgment-storm will break and sweep away the fetid clouds of man's small day and usher in "the day of the Lord." As regards the earth, faith can look forward to such a consummation, and even now in anticipation translate the glowing pages of prophecy into history, and triumph in the reign of the Prince of peace. What a privilege, as we look upon a groaning creation, with its ills that cannot be remedied, its wrongs that cannot be righted, and think of that time when "the wilderness and the solitary place shall rejoice."

So too we can apply these words to the heavenly hopes of the Church of Christ. Not yet do we see all that has been secured for us. In a certain sense, we see nothing. Even for faith, so far as the visible glory is concerned, all is future. And what a future, beloved brethren! Delivered forever from the presence of sin, even as already from its guilt; our poor, weak "bodies of humiliation" changed for "bodies of glory," like His who will come for us; the things which we now "see through a glass darkly," then " face to face;" above all, our blessed Lord, who loved us and gave Himself for us, who is on high for us now-to see Him, to be like Him and with Him forever-how blessedly will we know that God's hand will do all that His mouth has spoken. All that is revealed in His precious word will then be for sight even as it is now for faith.
And how this emphasizes for us the value of being familiar with the contents of God's word. Faith can find food there alone, and hope must stay itself upon that sure Word. If that be neglected, faith and hope will falter, and even love will grow cold. But where the Word is fed upon, there is the "continual feast" of a "merry heart"-made glad by the truth of God, and anticipating what will soon be.

And oh how soon will all be done! How near is the coming of the Lord. Then will we see how God's hand will do all that His mouth has spoken. May an ungrieved Spirit even now give in greater fulness the earnest of that blessed time.

But is there not a sense in which, as we look back over our own history, we can see this connection between God's hand and His mouth? Take the emancipating truths which once we looked upon as dimly in the future; has not the Spirit made them a present reality? Pardon, access to God, priesthood, worship-yes, these have been spoken of and made good too for the weakest babe who bows to God's word.

Turning to our more individual history, how many good things has the hand of our God given in fulfilment of the promise of His mouth. What child of God is there who cannot recount mercies thus given? And what an encouragement is this to prayer and patient waiting. All things are not held back till heaven. He is the God of the wilderness as well as of the land. Some can remember when circumstances of distress pressed upon them, poverty, debt, sickness. Earnest resort was had to God!

His promises were recalled, and now the fulfilment of His word is celebrated. True, he does not always answer as we expected. He loves us too well to do that which is not good for us. But if we would but see it, how the needed grace to sustain and bring us through the trial has manifested His hand.

And so if we are oppressed at present by anything, let us not forget the promises of God's mouth. He will not forsake His feeble people. Oh how He loves us! One day, soon, we shall see His hand, and prove in our own life the truth of that upon which we have been dwelling.

"With wonder filled, we soon shall see
How wise, how strong His hand."

S. R.