When nature is left free to work, it will ever go as far away from God as it can. This is true since the day when man said, "I heard Thy voice, and I was afraid and I hid myself" (Gen. 3:10). But when grace is left free and sovereign to work, it will ever bring the soul "nigh." Thus it was with Levi. He was by nature "black as the tents of Kedar ;" by grace, "comely as the curtains of Solomon :" by nature he was "joined" in a covenant of murder ; by grace " joined " in a covenant of "life and peace." The former, because he was "fierce and cruel ; " the latter, because he feared and was afraid of the Lord's name. (Comp. Gen. 49:6, 7 ; Mal. 2:5). Furthermore, Levi was by nature conversant with the "instruments of cruelty;" by grace, with "the instruments of God's tabernacle:" by nature God could not come into Levi's assembly; by grace, Levi is brought into God's assembly:by nature, "his feet were swift to shed blood; " by grace, swift to follow the movements of the cloud through the desert, in real, patient service to God. In a word, Levi had become a " new creature" and "old things had passed away," and therefore he was no longer to "live unto himself," but unto Him who had done such marvelous things for him in grace. C. H. M.

THE ESTABLISHING OF, AND BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD. (See 2 Cor. 1:21, 22.)

The Epistles to the Corinthians are largely devoted to the instruction of the saints as to God's order for the Church. They had been but recently turned from heathenism to God, and though assembled, or gathered, for the worship of God and remembering the Lord Jesus Christ in His death, they were but imperfectly taught in the things of God; were apparently ignorant of God's order for His Church, and but imperfectly apprehended what amazing blessings He had provided for them "in Christ." Under such an environment, Paul's first work for them and "for all who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place both theirs and ours," was to instruct them, and us, in the things of God. This gives us the key to both epistles.

In the preceding context to the passage we are examining, Paul has just been asserting the absoluteness of the promises of God. They are not yea and nay, but in Him is yea " absolutely yea, and no nay or question at all of any kind about them. "Wherefore also through Him is the amen unto the glory of God through us." This is the immediate context.

Now "the earnest of the Spirit" is the first-fruits of faith in Christ. "In whom believing, or having believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest (first-fruits) of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1:13, 14). Believing then, or having believed, on realization of what we are promised in Christ, absolutely assured of

When the will of God is not manifested, our wisdom often consists in waiting until it should be. It is the will of God that, zealous of good works, we should do good always ; but we cannot go before the time; and the work of God is done perfectly when it is He who does it.-J.N.D.

(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 world has but little use for a man who says this. The spirit of the world is the opposite of that of a little child. The truly childlike spirit which Christ commends and with which God is pleased is conscious of its own weakness, and has confidence in the strength of others-in the mother's love and care. Conscious weakness and confidence in God are two precious possessions which are linked up with the character of the little child. The great need of the child of God is summed up in these two expressions. To be conscious of our own weakness does away with a host of evils which assail the believer. When are we really strong ? Paul will tell you:"When I am weak, then am I strong."

This, then, is the true secret of strength. It is to be in our own eyes what we are in God's eyes, to see ourselves, in some measure, as He sees us; taking the creature place,-the place of a sinful creature saved by grace. Sin has taken man out of his true place, has made him independent of God, has deceived him into imagining he is strong. This we see on every hand; men are fast getting ready to measure their strength against that of Christ.

Coupled with pride is distrust of God. Men do not really believe that God is good. They trust in themselves, and distrust Him. They justify themselves, and condemn Him. In the light of God's holiness and man's sinfulness how awful this appears -a sinful creature judging and condemning a holy God ! A rebellious creature pitting its strength against the Creator! These two sins, pride and unbelief, specially characterize fallen man.

When we are brought to God, when He saves us from our sins, we are to be just the opposite of this. Conscious weakness-humility-confidence in God-faith-these characterize the believer in Christ. But the flesh is still there, pride and unbelief are not destroyed, and every child of God has to grow and increase in these two especially, thus becoming more and more like the little child.

As our lives pass here, we should be losing confidence in ourselves and gaining confidence in God. We can never get to the end of this. We learn more of ourselves, more of God. To know ourselves is to distrust ourselves. To know God is to trust Him. When we see one with great confidence in himself, we may be sure he does not .know himself. When one has great confidence in God, it is proof that he knows God.

These two things, then, should be before the Christian-to learn his own weakness, and to learn to know God. We can desire and pray for nothing better. It is so good to be able to say in our hearts before God, " I am but a little child." We are back in our true place when we can say this. It is the place of rest. The wicked have no rest, because they have no confidence in God, they have not submitted to Him, they are His enemies. What an immense difference between regarding God as an enemy and regarding Him as a little child does its mother. The enmity gone; love takes its place. The doubt and distrust displaced by confidence and faith.

With the consciousness of weakness and the confidence in God comes submission to Him. We cannot yield to Him as we should until we have come to know that our way is seldom or never the best way, and that His way for us is certain to be the best. And this is another thing to pray for:"Lord, have Thy way with me." Then we come to desire that He should have His way with us in all things. Then we are obedient children, and God can use us. He can bless us according to His own purposes of love. How good it is to learn to say, "I am but a little child "! J. W. N.

We have now come, in our Old Testament readings, to the highest point of Israel's greatness as a nation (i Kings), and to that display of kingly power and glory which-outwardly at least-are a fitting type of the kingdom and glory of our Lord's millennial reign. We say outwardly, for a glance beneath the surface will disclose to us a moral state the exact opposite of that which will obtain during the reign of the " Prince of Peace."

The first book of Kings may be roughly divided into two parts. (i) The kingdom in its solidarity under Solomon, chapters 1:-11:(2) The division and separation of the ten tribes from the two, chapters 12:-22:

We see at the beginning David in the feebleness of old age, as the last act of kingly authority placing Solomon on the throne, chap. 1:

In chap. 2:we have divine judgment inflicted upon those who had long deserved it.

Chap. 3:shows us the granting of Solomon's prayer for wisdom; and

Chap. 4:the greatness and extent of his kingdom.

Chaps. 5:-8:give the account of the building and dedication of the temple-in all which Solomon is a type of Christ in the glory of that time when the house of the Lord shall be inhabited by divine glory.

Chaps. 9:and 10:give the sequel to the former narrative, God's promises and warnings, and the visit of " the Queen of the South." May we ever remember the "greater than Solomon" to whom we have come. In sad and solemn contrast with all this splendor we have in the eleventh chapter the record of the shameful apostasy of this wise man, and the premonition of the result in the rent kingdom.

The second part of the book narrates the account of the division, Jeroboam taking ten tribes and leaving to David's house but the two – Benjamin and Judah. It is especially during this period that prophetic ministry comes prominently into view, and chiefly in the independent kingdom of Israel. God's mercy lingered over that nation, and to it He devoted special attention through His " servants the prophets." But begun in self-will and apostasy, it never as a kingdom returned to God. There might be individually 7,000 who had not "bowed the knee to Baal," but corporately kings and people were increasingly alienated from the God of Israel. It is striking that not one of the kings of Israel was a godly man, while a number of the kings of Judah truly feared the Lord.

In Chaps. 17:-22:we have as the prominent character that remarkable man, Elijah, who bore such fearless f testimony in Israel. The narrative of his life never loses its charm, and yields fresh lessons to the careful reader.

Passing to the New Testament, we have that most delightful and interesting of histories, the book of Acts. We might say that the general theme of the book is the transition of God's testimony from Judaism to Christianity. The first part of the book is entirely Jewish, while the close leaves us ready for the epistles of Paul. Fittingly in the record of progress and emancipation the scene changes from Jerusalem to Samaria, thence to Gentile Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth and finally to Rome, entirely away from the influence of Judaism.

Chaps. i-7:give us the Jerusalem history, we might say, of the Church.

Chaps. viii-12:extend wider, taking in that wondrous epoch, the conversion of Paul.

From Chaps. xiii-19:we have the period of great apostolic activity among the Gentiles, and

Chaps. xx-28:gives the outward bondage but true widening of the truth even to Rome.

The Epistles to the Thessalonians are the first (probably) written by the apostle. They breathe a fresh and beautiful spirit, in which everything is controlled by the hope of the Lord's coming. Their relationship to the Father is also prominent. In the first Epistle we have the Lord's corning as the hope of the Church; in the second His appearing in judgment, and warnings.

THE MAN AFTER THE FLESH. PART II. THE KING OF MAN'S CHOICE.

Chapter 6:THE CALL OF THE KING. (1 Sam. 9:,-10:16.)

(Continued from page 158.)

The people having definitely decided to have a king, in face of all the warnings given by the prophet, nothing remains but to give them their desire according the fullest thought of it. Had the choice of the ruler been left to a few, he would not have been really the expression of the people's wish. This difficulty is constantly encountered in the effort to secure a ruler who shall represent the desires of the people. The nearest that can be done is to let the majority decide. This at best but gives the preference of that majority, in which the rest of the nation has to acquiesce, and so man can never get the ideal ruler of his choice.

For Israel, God mercifully intervenes and, as we might say, puts at the disposal of the people His omniscience in selecting the ruler, not after His heart, but who He knows will meet their desires. This is an interesting and important point, one too that has a New Testament illustration, which, if understood, will throw light upon that which has been a difficulty for many.

The people had already turned against God and rejected Him from being their Ruler. Most certainly, then, their mind was .not in accord with His. The king of their ideal would be a far different man from any whom God would Himself select. They had in their minds a ruler like those of the nations, whose first thought was the welfare of the people and the overthrow of their enemies. God's thought would be a man who first of all sought His glory, and was in subjection to Himself. We must remember that He is not choosing a king for Himself, but for the people. He does for them that which it would have been impossible for them to do for themselves, so that the result is exactly what they would have done had they been able.

The New Testament illustration of this is the selection of Judas Iscariot as an apostle. It has been said, did not the Lord know at the beginning that Judas was a traitor? We are distinctly told so in the sixth chapter of John, and may be certain that our blessed Lord was neither deceived nor disappointed -save in divine and holy sorrow over a lost soul- in the result. But this does not mean that our Lord put Judas in a position against his will or for which he was not in the judgment of men specially fitted. Judas himself had taken the place of a disciple. It was, therefore, simply selecting one who had already taken this place, and not imposing upon him a profession which he had not assumed for himself. Nay, more, the position of apostle was calculated to foster, if it existed at all, the faith of the disciple. The twelve were in the place of special privilege and nearness to the Lord, constantly under His influence, with His example before them; as we know with much individual instruction according to the need of each. Who could associate with such a Master and witness His deeds of love, the flashing out of His holy soul, His tender heart of compassion, His sympathy, and not be made a better man if there were anything of grace in his soul at all? If Judas apostatized and the wickedness of his heart came out in face of all this, we may be sure it is only a special proof of the hopeless corruption of a heart that has not been visited by God's grace. At the same time our Lord would not be violating in the least the free 'agency of the man or compelling him into anything counter to his nature.

Returning now to the king of Israel's choice, we will see in what is before us how divine care and foresight gave the fullest expression to the desire of the people, so that the result was one upon whom all the desire of the nation was fixed. But while man's self-will was thus at work and his rejection of God's mild and loving authority showed the determined alienation of his heart from Him, on the other hand, God was working out His own counsels, and His purposes were being unfolded too. The thought of a king was in His heart as well as that of the people, but how different a king! Hannah had given expression to this divine desire for a Ruler for His people at the close of her song,' which is fittingly so like that of Mary, the mother of .the true King.

The main theme of that song (chap. 2:i-x) is that God raises up the poor and the lowly, and overcomes all pride. Thus His enemies and those of His believing people are overthrown, and the needy and the afflicted are raised up. " He raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dung-hill, to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory." Our blessed Lord laid aside all heaven's glory, and, so far as earthly greatness was concerned, associated Himself with the poor rather than those who occupied the throne. The throne, so far as it could any longer be called that, was occupied by a Herod, while back of him was the power of imperial Rome, the sceptre having passed over to the Gentiles. The One '' born King of the Jews" was to be found in a. stable, and faith alone could recognize Him as the Man of God's choice. But faith does recognize Him, and Hannah looks forward not merely to him who was to be the type of Christ, but to the Lord's Anointed Himself. She closes her song with the triumphant strain:" He shall give strength unto His King, and exalt the horn of His Anointed."

Well did God know that there must be a ruler for His people. Everything had been temporary, even the giving of the law itself at Sinai. There could be no permanent relationship between a nation and God, save through a Mediator. The only ruler could be, not some human deliverer, type of Him to come, but One who truly delivered them from bondage worse than that of Pharaoh and from a captivity greater than any inflicted by the Canaanites. Thus Joshua, and Moses himself, were but types of Christ. The deliverer, too, must be priest as well as ruler, and from Aaron on, the high priests and their sacrifices were but shadows of that perfect Priest who offered up Himself to God. The King was to be also a Priest, and in one blessed Person was to embody all that the righteousness and glory of God, on the one hand, and the need of sinful man, on the other, required.

" All things that God or man could wish
In Thee most richly meet."

So the very unbelief of the people, expressing a desire for a ruler, was but the occasion for God to approach one step nearer the accomplishment of His own purposes; but He was not to be hurried into taking more than one step at a time. He does not,- reverently we would say, He cannot give His own King yet. He must let them work out and manifest all the results of their own desires, and so far from impelling them into that which would show the worst side of self-will, He guards them in every way from this. Thus He uses divine wisdom to select the best man according to their judgment, offering every facility, the machinery of divine Providence, we might say, to secure such a man, and when he is chosen, not withholding all aid, encouragement and warning. If the king of their choice does not succeed, the blame can never be laid upon God. This will be fully manifest. And may we not say the same as to the natural man in every way? If he manifests his corruption, his enmity of God, his hopeless alienation from Him, it is not because of the circumstances in which he is placed, but in spite of them. The very world which has been given over to Satan is still full of witness of God's power, wisdom and goodness. Everyman's life, with its history of mercies and of trials, is a witness that One is seeking to hide pride from him and to deliver him from his worst enemy,-himself. The whole providential government of the world and its long continuance in its present state is a witness of the same. God gives man a free hand to work out all that is in his own heart, while at the same time surrounding him with every inducement to turn to Himself.

This is particularly true of the last phase of His patience and longsuffering,-the present dispensation, where, in Christendom at least, the full blaze of revelation would guide and attract man into paths of pleasantness and peace. When all is over (and it seems now to be nearly the end) it will be seen that if there were anything good in man there had been just the atmosphere in which it would properly develop, and! so far from God being an indifferent spectator, or a hostile one to human progress and development, it will be clear that He has done all that He could to make the trial a successful one on man's part. It will be true of Israel as a nation, and her kings and the world at large as well, that but one answer could be given the question:"What could I have done more unto My vineyard that I have not done? " All has been done.

Our chapter opens with the genealogy of king Saul. It is traced back through five ancestors, whose names are given, and the significance of which ca/not fail to be suggestive. We must bear in mind that it is a genealogy of the flesh, as we may say, where that which is emphasized will be nature rather than grace. Saul himself means "asked" or "demanded." He represents the people's demand for a king, and in that way, nature's ideal. His father was Kish, which means "ensnaring," very suggestive of all that is of nature, which in its most attractive form cannot be trusted.

The next in line was Abiel,'' father of might," which seems to emphasize the thought of strength in which man does indeed glory, but which too often proves to be utter weakness. Zeror, the next, "compressed" or "contracted," suggests the reverse; we can readily understand how one, himself hedged in and oppressed, would seek a reaction and give expression to his desire in his son. Bechorath, his father, "primogeniture," is that which nature makes much of and which Scripture has frequently set aside. Nature says the elder shall rule. How often has Scripture declared that the elder shall serve the younger! Aphiah, " I will utter," would suggest that pride of heart which tells out its imagined greatness. The last person in the list is not named, but described as a Benjamite, a member of that tribe whose history had been one of such glorying self-will and rebellion.

Thus the genealogy of the man of the people's desire would suggest the pride, the self-will, the excellence of nature, together with its feebleness, too, and its deceit. These things are not looked upon as man would regard them, where many of the traits are considered valuable and important, but they are looked upon from God's point of view, and all that is great and excellent in nature is seen to be stained with decay. Thus Saul is described as "a choice young man and a goodly, and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he. From his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people," surely a beau ideal of a king, in man's eyes; alas too soon to show the vanity of man's nature !

The man of the people's desire being now marked out, we are next shown the steps which lead up to his being presented. What trivial events apparently decide our whole after-course of life! It was comparatively an unimportant matter that the asses of Kish should have strayed away and Saul with a servant be sent in search of them, and yet God used this to bring to pass all that was hinging upon it. No doubt everything here has its lessons for us if we are able to read them aright. We are told that man is like a wild ass's colt, naturally unrestrained and self-willed. These asses would then naturally suggest that nature of man which has gone astray from God, and in its wildness and absence of restraint needs ever the strong hand to hold it down. Israel, too, had many a time shown its waywardness in like manner, and one who goes in search of that rebellious nation must indeed have help from God to lay hold of it.

As a matter of fact, Saul did not find the asses; they were restored to his father by divine Providence; and no mere man has ever brought back the wayward wanderer to God. If brought back at all, it is through a divine work. When the time comes for the true King to enter His city, He rides upon an ass's colt upon which man had never sat, controlling all things. Saul searched diligently enough in various places for these lost asses, but fails to find them. First he goes through Mount Ephraim, "fruitful-ness," and the land of Shalisha, "the third part," which may have stood for a very large territory; but neither in the place of fruitfulness nor in any wide extent of region has a wanderer ever been found. Man surely has not been fruitful for God. He next seeks through the land of Shaalim, "the place of hollows or valleys" and the land of Jemini, "my right hand," which would suggest exaltation. But neither in humiliation nor exaltation is the natural man found. The poor and degraded are as far from God as those who are exalted. Lastly he comes to Zuph, "a honey-comb," and there he gives up the search. It would seem to stand for the sweetness
and attractiveness of nature, but perhaps more hopeless than any is this. One may be naturally attractive without one thought of God, and if the belt have no heart for Him, the search must be abandoned. It would need a Seeker after another kind to find the wanderers, and He found them in a different place from those in which Saul ever sought. Going down in death and taking his place under judgment, there He found the wanderer.

(To be continued.)

II. THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE SCHOOL OF GOD.

(Continued from page 69.)

Here, then, is our provision. If we turn once more to consider our lesson-book, we find in it the perfect guidance on the part of God in men led of the Spirit, as the apostle says, to "speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth " (i Cor. 2:13); and thus the prophets of old, as again we are taught (i Pet. 1:10, n), had to "inquire and search diligently" as to what was in their own prophecies, the Spirit of God leading them to express what was entirely beyond even their own understanding of it. This is the pattern of the Book which is in our hands now, the Book of books, as we may surely say, the Word of God, as in this sense we rightly call it, not because it is not instrumentally the word of man also, not because there is not tn it a very clear and decided human element, but because God has, nevertheless, been over all and in it all to guide in such a way as He alone can guide, so that we might have perfectly what He means to convey,-that this might not be taken from us by any defect in the way of communication.

And so competent is this Word, that in those days to which we look back, when men spoke consciously by the Spirit in a way that has now passed from us, yet everything was to be judged by those around according to that Word which was in all their hands. As to this, the principle was always maintained that nothing was to be added to it, as nothing was to be taken from it. Let us notice, therefore, that the indwelling of the Spirit in us is in no wise to set aside the word of God as that by which alone all truth is communicated to us. As the Spirit gave the Word, so it is by the Spirit that the Word is effectually given to our souls also, truly certified and made good there. Here then is our provision; here is how we are equipped for the school of God; and all this is simply and absolutely for all that will seek it from God, for all that will seek it in God's only way, which is through Christ Himself. Of the whole Book, Christ is the centre; and more, if it be more, of all creation Christ is the centre too. "All things were created," says the apostle, "by Him and for Him " (Col. 1:16). Thus it is plain that creation itself (the natural sciences, therefore,) cannot really be understood apart from Him who is the living Centre of the whole. The mind that is in all is the mind of Christ, and creation -without Christ is thus mindless, powerless to be realized by the mind of man. Take what is thought to be the great perplexity in it, what people call now, the "struggle for life," and the preying of one thing upon another. It is this very thing which makes the book of creation so suited for us to-day. That which we find in our own souls and in the world of men around us, is thus found everywhere throughout nature, and only if read in this way does it become everywhere for us the object-lesson which it ought to be. Scripture must interpret this also for us, for no picture interprets itself, and thus how necessary that the Spirit of God should be in us, in order that we should understand aright what creation teaches! Here is necessarily, therefore, the foundation of all science so far as science has to include the reason of things and not the mere method. Science is seeking to content itself simply with the method, and for many, the reason is to be ruled out. But thus science itself can yield nothing but despair to him who cannot find the satisfaction of his soul in a godless and therefore mindless nature. Science has here no longer any reason for its own existence, and the lesson most surely learned by its best student must be a lesson of despair.

F. W. G.
(To be Continued.)

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.)

Our attention has been called to a sentence quoted from our beloved F. W. G. in an article in this magazine entitled"Covet earnestly the best Gifts" (November, 1901, page 298)-"The eternal life that is in us seems to be susceptible of weakness and decay like any other life." Some have seemed to think that our brother was not clear as to the nature of eternal life, and others have sought to make capital out of this by printing the sentence as a proof that he taught that the believer could lose his eternal life. It is hardly necessary to remind saints that no one taught more constantly and consistently the exact opposite of this. Whatever the sentence may mean, it does not mean, and was not intended to mean, that the life of the believer was not eternally secure.

But what did he mean ? A glance at the connection will show. He is quoting the thoughts of a discouraged one. "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 ? " Does any one believe that our brother was teaching that the body of Christ had ceased to exist because of the ruin of the professing Church ? This is the connection in which the sentence occurs quoted above. In immediate connection with it he says, " 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." That which is seen is an apparently dismembered body of Christ, apparently enfeebled and decaying eternal life. He says, "seems" But, thank God, the reality abides, and the way our brother puts it ought to emphasize this.

We trust that this will be sufficient for those in any way troubled by a misapprehension of our brother's teaching, and "cut off occasion from them who desire occasion " to suggest that he had given up one |of the most important truths of the word of God.

AS ILLUSTRATED AT THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION.
II.

In 1715, a little before his death, Louis XIV published an edict in which he declared that the Protestant religion had disappeared from the soil of France. His efforts and dark deeds for forty years to blot the reformation out of his kingdom seemed crowned with success. The churches were demolished, the preachers executed or banished, and the congregations scattered.

But the proud assumption of that proud king was but a vain illusion if not an immense lie. God had reserved not only His "seven thousand" but over seventy thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, and who had survived the persecutions.

At this their darkest hour, God raised up among them an instrument fitted to serve them in their trying circumstances-Antoine Court by name. His parents were simple peasants, but faithful readers of the Bible. By the premature death of the father, the mother was left a widow with three children, and poor; but that pious woman so taught her children that they grew up to love the word of God, while they abhorred the superstitions of the Church of Rome. Often was Antoine's youthful soul set on fire as he heard his mother's friends, when secretly assembled together, relate the sufferings of the martyrs, and the courage of the Camisards.

One night, while lying awake he heard his mother preparing to go out. He begged to go with her.
She finally consented and silently they walked on and on, till, far in a desert place, they found others who, like themselves, had come from all directions to hear the word of God preached. From that time he began to follow, in their long and perilous journeys, one or the other of the few remaining servants of the Lord who took their lives into their hands to minister to their brethren. Then, alone, yet but a youth, across the forests, over the mountains, down the plains he traveled, comforting a lone believer here, addressing a few in the thick of the woods there, everywhere preaching and teaching what he knew of the Lord Jesus.

To his mother it was as Abraham when he offered up Isaac, and he himself knew his life was in incessant peril. Once he reached Marseille, went on board a galley, where 150 of his brethren were suffering for their faith, and with a strange audacity held a meeting with them in a retired part of the vessel. Everywhere his living faith and happy confidence in God encouraged and revived his brethren. Through his ministry they realized God had not forgotten them, and that He was able, spite of all opposition, to maintain the preaching of His word. They grew bold again, and while bolting their doors, they reopened their Bibles for family worship and for mutual edification.

The police soon noticed this revival, and a rich reward was offered for the arrest of young Court. Many a narrow escape did he have. Once, in the house where he was, he heard the click of arms, revealing the approach of soldiers. He had but time to slip away, and climb into the top of a tree, dense with foliage. From there he saw the soldiers breaking up the house with axes that they might discover his hiding-place.

He deprecated the taking up of arms as the Camisards had done, and he also rebuked the lukewarm-ness of many who, for fear of suffering, were hiding their faith and acting as hypocrites. He saw the necessity of order and discipline for the welfare of God's people, and the holiness of His house. This especially pressed upon him during a serious illness he passed through consequent upon his hardships and fatigues. Barely recovered, therefore, he opened his heart to a few devoted men, and on the 21st of August, 1715, a few days after the death of Louis XIV, their cruel persecutor, nine of them met together in an abandoned quarry in the neighborhood of Nimes, to confer for the welfare of their scattered and persecuted brethren. From that time onward the Huguenots began afresh to form congregations wherever a few could come together, and they grew rapidly. The older and most experienced among them watched over their brethren, looked after the sick, the poor, and those who fell by the way; they looked after meeting- places in the desert parts around them, then informed their brethren; they also informed the preachers, looked after their lodging-place, and sought to protect them from the incessant pursuit of their enemies. They also constantly exposed their lives in all this service. If discovered in it they were condemned to the galleys or to death.

There was also great danger from within in the exercise of discipline, for any one desiring to avenge himself had fearful power in his hands :he had but to denounce those who came together in their desert assemblies.

The dungeons of the land were filling fast with gentle and patient women; the galleys of Marseille, Dunkerke, and other seaports were spattered with the blood which the cruel lash drew from men whose only crime was to love and obey the word of God. Spite of all, the work grew. In 1729 there were in the south of France no assemblies of Huguenots, and these were constantly appealed to from other parts of the country for some of them to come and teach them the Scriptures, until an awakening was manifest to the extremities of the kingdom.

Many a devoted servant did the Lord, the Head and Lover of His Church, raise up at that time for His suffering but faithful people in that persecuting land. Prominent among them was Paul Rabaut. Eminently gifted, devoted and courageous, he labored for over fifty years with incessant zeal, amid manifold dangers from which nothing short of the almighty hand of God could have given him escape.

But many fell. Jacques Roger, seventy years of age, was finally arrested after a laborious ministry of forty years' duration. When asked by his judge who he was, he replied:" I am the one you have been pursuing these thirty-nine years. It is time you caught me." He was condemned to death. Calmly he heard his sentence and said God had shown him great grace in raising him up lately from a sick-bed to make him thus a witness to the faith of Christ. As the executioner drew nigh he exclaimed.:" Here comes the happy day so often desired. Let us rejoice, my soul, since the blessed hour has come to enter into the joy of the Lord." They left his body twenty-four hours hanging on the gallows, then threw it into the river.

Matthieu Mezal was an ardent preacher of the gospel. His preaching so captivated the hearts of his hearers that he was intensely loved by them all. When his arrest took place it was even difficult to prevent the Huguenots of those parts from rescuing him by force. From his prison in Vernoux he begged his friends not to take such a matter in their hands. Vengeance belonged to God alone in the concerns of His people. He was taken to Montpellier for trial, and when, after examination, the judges realized not only the innocence, but the excellence of the man and his associates, the chief wept as he said to him, '' Sir, it is with sorrow that I am compelled to condemn you, but it is the king's order." With his upper garments removed; his head and feet bare, he was taken to the public place where his funeral pile had been built. A vast multitude had assembled, and even his enemies were moved at the sight of that noble man, so calm, so serene on his way to death, yet so firm in resisting the importunities of the Jesuits to the very foot of the pile. Ascended to the top he desired to speak to the people, but the beating of fourteen drums drowned his voice. His peaceful, happy countenance to the end, however, preached more than words could have done to the multitude of lookers-on. His friends thanked God for adding such another witness to His truth from their ranks. It was great honor put upon them.

But violence increased. Neither sex nor age were regarded, and it became difficult to prevent the opposition of violence to such violence. It is here Rabaut became so prominently the servant of the
Lord Jesus to his brethren. Indefatigable, he went from place to place, comforting, reproving, praying, teaching. He exhorted to obedience to the authorities, even if unjust; to patience and firmness; opposed violence being done to the priests, even the most cruel. To Antoine Court, his bosom friend, he wrote, " Spies are incessantly on my tracks. They are disguised soldiers armed with pistols and ropes. I have also much increased in value, for the price of my head has risen from six to twenty thousand francs, and instead of the gallows, I am threatened with the wheel." The extraordinary escapes he experienced strengthened his faith, but never made him reckless. Repeatedly he sent petitions to the authorities and members of the royal family, stating well-proved facts concerning the faithful allegiance to the king of all the reformed; and the false accusation, malice and inhumanity of their accusers. Gradually the government withdrew its help from the priests, and their chief strength became the influence they could exercise on their people against the "heretics." In this way cruel excesses could still be and were perpetuated in different localities, and many suffered yet in patience.

The last was Jean Galas, a highly respected merchant of Toulouse, sixty years of age. His second son, through disappointment, became sullen and committed suicide by hanging himself. All their neighbors and friends deeply sympathized with the grief-stricken parents; when suddenly a rumor went round that Calas had assassinated his son because he refused to allow him to become a Catholic.

Calas was at once arrested, and the body of his son taken in great pomp to the Cathedral. Priests,
monks, and brotherhoods of the different orders vied with each other to celebrate the virtues of this pretended martyr to the Catholic faith. The chapel was hung in white, and at the head of the body lying there in state was a skeleton, with a palm in one hand, and in the other, an inscription with these words:"Abjuration from heresy." The people became delirious with rage against Calas, and there was no torture too cruel to inflict upon him. As nothing could be proved against him, all was done to make him confess his crime, while he, through all, affirmed his innocence. After all was tried in vain, he was condemned to the wheel; every bone of his body was broken, and for two hours he lay there in suffering, praying incessantly to the end.

Voltaire, confounding Romanism with Christianity, was then beginning to make himself heard against religion. He abhorred the hypocrisy of the ecclesiastics, and the case of Calas incensed him. He took up his defense, exposed with burning words the infamy and cruelty of a legislation which permitted such things. In result the good name of the family and their confiscated property were restored to them by a judgment of the court; the persecutions ceased for very shame, but the awful blot of it all was fastened upon Christianity itself, instead of upon the caricature of it which Romanism presents, and the mass of the French people became infidel. The cause of Christ-man's eternal blessing – suffered more by it than by all the persecutions.

I must live upon God! Yes, that you must if you would be either holy, happy, or fruitful:and yet it is the very last thing that we are willing to do; for we want to live on friends-comforts-prospects-any thing rather than God.

He that receives most from Christ, will be most like Christ, and will do most for Christ; we can only serve the Lord acceptably, or effectually, as we serve Him with His own.

(2 Chron, 26:15.)

King Uzziah lived in times of the declension of the kings of Judah, but was himself, at the beginning of his reign, a faithful and diligent king."As long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper," and' so in every direction he was successful against the enemies of the nation, and "he strengthened himself exceedingly."Not only was he successful with outward foes, but in building up the material interests and defenses of the kingdom. Jerusalem and other cities were fortified; a large army was gathered, and, what was better far than all this, the resources of the kingdom were developed. Wells were digged, and much attention was given to increasing the resources of the nation. He was a lover of husbandry-a good thing to remember often by those who may be called upon to engage much in spiritual warfare. We must seek to cultivate those fields which God's grace has given to us, and to gather in the rich fruits for our sustenance, if we are really to make successful warfare against
our enemies.

"He was marvelously helped until he was strong." The growth and establishment of the kingdom in a day of such weakness was nothing short of marvelous. It is painful to have to see how all this ended by puffing up the king and leading him to that presumptuous blasphemy which brought down the stroke of God upon him. He would intrude himself into the priest's office and offer incense, a function reserved for the sons of Aaron alone. It was in a figure, we may say, that practical denial of the need of the priest,-of the need of Christ as our Priest before God.

But leaving Uzziah and his history, we have in these words a needful and suggestive lesson for ourselves. Of how many of us can it be said that we have been marvelously helped, and may there not be need to remember that if strength has been given us we need to be doubly on our guard lest we, too, presume to pass beyond that which God has placed us in.

Salvation is in one sense the breaking down of all creature strength in order that the sinner may realize his utter helplessness. The natural man is strong; strong, if not in the sense of his own goodness-a thing too common to most-yet in the sense of his ability to do that which is right. One of the most humbling truths to learn is that it was "when we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly." Weakness is a crime in the eyes of the natural man, and many who might be willing to admit that they were ungodly would be humiliated at the thought of confessing that they had no strength, no power to be anything else but ungodly; and yet that is just where man must be brought before he will accept Christ as his only Saviour. Thus his strength is taken from him, and he begins his Christian course on the distinct understanding that in him is no strength at all. We do not speak of the rest and the joy and the peace which come from recognizing this – how all struggling ceases, and the poor, puny efforts, which had only added to our distress, give place to that profound rest in the finished work of Christ and in His perfect love.

Now so long as the saint continues in the recognition of his absolute weakness, his Christian life is one happy song; he knows too well his own feebleness to attempt anything in his own strength. The memory of the bondage in Egypt from which he has but lately come prevents his reliance upon an arm of flesh. He is weak and he knows it, and rejoices in the fact; for, does it not shut him up to a divine power which is all-sufficient and his delight ?And yet in the wisdom of God he has got to learn afresh that it is true of him as a saint, in a way perhaps of which he has little dreamed, that there is no strength in him. This accounts for the whole experience that is recorded in the seventh chapter of Romans. It is the saint there, the child of God, not the sinner seeking peace. He desires holiness and to do the will of God, but he turns to the law, and in his own strength is seeking for something good in himself. We do not repeat the humbling story. How many of us can remember how we beat our wings against our cage until, falling down wounded and breathless, we could only cry:"Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me ? "Here is perfect weakness; and what marvelous help came in the moment we realized afresh that weakness! Christ was found to be sufficient as our Deliverer, as He was as our Saviour.

Now, in brief, the whole Christian life is but the elaboration of this simple truth, as Paul puts it in the third of Philippians, we "rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh." One who has confidence in the flesh, so far is occupied with himself. He is so far strong, and therefore in imminent danger of falling:but if he has learnt the lesson as to himself, he is now at liberty to enjoy the fulness of Christ without any distraction. And yet there is for the delivered saint the danger of forgetting that his bonds have been broken, of thinking that again there is something in himself of strength. Paul had to learn this lesson, which we find in the twelfth chapter of 2 Corinthians. A man who had visited heaven and beheld the unspeakable things there, so far as his walk upon earth is concerned, is in danger of self-exaltation. So the messenger of Satan to buffet him, which was such a sore trial to this beloved servant of Christ, was God's mercy to teach him that he must keep in the place of weakness-there was no strength in him. Learning this, the apostle gladly can say:"When I am weak, then am I strong."

Contrast .all this with Simon Peter, whose boast as to his faithfulness to the Lord Jesus, whether it be to prison or to death, was but the prelude to his shameful denial with blasphemy that he knew the Lord. Peter fully meant all that he said when he protested, and he dearly loved the Lord. Let us not doubt it for a moment. But Peter was strong, and his own strength was but weakness. He had to learn this before he could go on as a servant of Christ. King David, King Hezekiah, and many others, emphasize the same lesson for us. Past successes, past service, the memory of strength given for times of trial-all these things need to be carefully guarded or they will lead to present forgetful-ness that we are just as weak as ever and need the strength of Another.

We can all say that we have been marvelously helped in many ways. How wonderfully the Lord has helped us, borne with us. cared for us; through what trials He has brought us, what temptations He has enabled us to resist, what service, it may be, He has permitted us to perform ! We thankfully acknowledge it all, but oh, let us not get strong in the wrong sense. Let us not presume upon all this, and lose our reverence and our sense of dependence upon Him who alone is our sufficiency. Humility, to be truly that, is an abiding thing. The moment we forget that we are nothing, we may well fear some leprous sign to remind us that we have left our true position. May the Lord keep us truly humble and we will ever be marvelously helped, for that is His delight; but He cannot use those who are strong in their own strength.

'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.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ"-the last message communicated to " His servants" (Chap. 1:i)-after the usual salutation, begins with the announcement, "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so; Amen." We should expect, then, that this last message of the Lord Jesus Christ would have to do with the great fact of His coming, and the events closely preceding His advent as Judge. Ephesus, Pergamos and Sardis are warned of it (chap. 2:5, 16; 3:3); a remnant in Thyatira comforted (chap. 2:25); Philadelphia both warned and comforted (chap. 3:ii); while Laodicea will be spued out of His mouth at His coming-publicly disowned and rejected! (vers. 15, 16).

To Philadelphia He says, "Behold, I come quickly."

Then, in the last part of the book, He again exclaims, with a blessing, "Behold, I come quickly:blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book" (chap. 22:7); and again, with a warning, "And, behold, I come quickly" (ver. 12).

Finally,-and the very last words of the Lord Jesus from heaven, which closes the sum of all His communications to men by revelation and prophecy, -canonically completing the Holy Scriptures,-He says:"Surely I come quickly." To which the apostle John adds, "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus " (chap. 22:20).

Did it ever strike you, reader, that this event must therefore be that which the Church is to look and pray for? What were His last words ? "Surely, I come quickly." Would you not think that "His servants" would treasure the memory of His last utterance ? Would you not think that as He closes the last book, reminding His people of His coming, that is the thing, and the principal thing, He would have them thinking and talking about ?-this, of course, as concerning themselves and His desire for them. Would you not think that this would be constantly borne witness to ?

He says:" I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches " (chap. 22:16). How would the Holy Spirit teach the Bride to pray ?-what would He teach her to say ? (the Bride is the Church, of course)-" The Spirit and the Bride say, Come" (ver. 17). To whom is this prayer voiced? To "the bright and Morning Star" (ver. 16), the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Himself.

Do you hear Christians pray that way ? Do you pray so ? You will, if taught of the Holy Spirit. .

"And let him that heareth say, Come." This is the personal desire of the Bride when her affections are stirred. But will she become selfish, and think only of her own rapture ? Will she not turn about, in the warmth of her firs

Lord Thou dost bid us
Lean upon Thy strength;
For in our own we're weak,
We dare not trust it Lord.
Strength for the desert path we daily need,

To bear the heat of burning sands;
To stand against the "accuser,"
Lord, Thou know'st, for Thou didst tread the way,
So we may lean on Thine almighty strength,
For thus we're strong.

I wonder oft if other hearts Are weary as my own,
I wonder if they long to flee
Away and be alone
With Thee my God, my Saviour?
I wonder too if there are times
When all seems waste and drear,
And heart and soul dissatisfied
With every thing that's here-
Save Thee, my God, my Saviour?

H. McD.

We have now reached a most important transition period in the history of Israel. Judges has given us the failure, we may say, of the nation as a whole, and their deliverance only by special judges called up for special emergencies. At the death of the judge all quickly lapsed back again to its former state of apostasy and bondage. In i Samuel, which is our historical portion, we have the account of the failure of the priesthood as well as of the nation. Shiloh, instead of being the centre of light and strength for the nation, became the greatest stumbling-block because of the unchecked sin of Eli's sons. All culminates in the captivity of the ark, as though God's holy presence could no longer tolerate the sin of profession, and allowed His glory to be delivered into the hands of the enemy. It is at this juncture that God raises up the prophetic gift, and from now on to the end there was rarely a time when the voice of divine love could not be heard warning, admonishing, encouraging, and directing, as need might be. Samuel also gives us the account of the establishment of the kingdom; first, the king after the flesh, man's natural desire as expressed in King Saul, and then David, the man after God's own heart, type of Christ the King for whom yet Israel unconsciously waits.

There are six divisions in the two books of Samuel, which go together:

1. (Chaps. 1:-8:) The call of the prophet, God's representative in the midst of an apostate people.

2. (Chaps. 9:-15:) King Saul, the people's choice -all that is excellent in the natural man.

3. (Chaps. 16:-2 Samuel 9:) David, God's choice, type of Christ in His rejection and exaltation.

4. (Chaps. 10:-12:) The testing and failure of King David.

5. (Chaps. 13:-21:14.) God's ways of judgment in dealing with the failed king and his recovery.

6. (Chaps. 21:15-24:)The triumph at the end.

Along with i Samuel, we also read the first book of the Psalms, or psalms 1:-41:, as giving to a good degree the experiences of David during the time of his rejection.

The Psalms are most rich, not only in individual soul history, but in a typical foreshadowing of the experiences of Israel, or, rather, of the believing remnant in Israel in anticipation of the coining of Christ in the latter days. Everything looks forward to that.

Another most attractive feature of this first book of Psalms is the frequent reference to Christ Himself, entire psalms being devoted to this. Thus, we have Him as Son of God and King in Zion (Psa. 2:); as Son of man, Head over all things in exaltation in Psa. 8:We see Him in His perfect humanity as the Man of faith in Psa. 16:; while in Psa. 22:we hear His cry of anguish as the Sin-bearer upon the cross. Psa. 24:shows Him again coming in glory; and whether it be the earthly city or the heavenly, its gates are flung wide for the King of glory to come in. Psa. xl, the last but one in our series, presents Him as the burnt-offering who fully accomplished God's will by the sacrifice of Himself.
We cannot too earnestly press upon our readers the importance of the attentive study of this section of inspired lyrics.

Our New Testament portion must be unusually brief. It embodies only the epistle to the Philippians, whose four chapters mark its four divisions in an unmistakable way. Here we see, not a failing type of Christ, as_ David was, but Christ Himself to be enjoyed by faith, and a knowledge of whom goes to make up a genuine Christian experience.

1. In the first chapter we see Him as supreme, the Source of life and the theme of the gospel.

2. Chap. 2:presents Him in His humiliation unto death as the Pattern for His beloved people, while the latter part of the chapter gives certain human illustrations of that humiliation in a practical way.

3. Chap. 3:is most vivid and full of motion. Here Christ is seen on high in glory, the Object for. whose sake all human righteousness and Judaism are left behind, willingly thrown aside as the eager soul presses on to reach Christ in resurrection glory. He is the Prize of our calling on high; and as we run, we look for Him who at His coming will transform even our bodies and fashion them like His own.

4. The last chapter comes down to the practical, daily life where, whatever the need, Christ is found all-sufficient. Thus we have Him as the basis of Christian stability, the Source of Christian strength, the relief for Christian anxiety, the supply of Christian need. Truly Christ is all. May it be ours to translate into our daily experience the wonderful unfoldings of this precious little epistle !

Scripture presents perhaps no more attractive characters than are seen in Daniel and his three companions. Israel as a nation is cast off; they are all broken up and carried away into captivity. There would seem now but little object to live for-but little incentive to be faithful in the service of God. The natural result would be to sink down into sullenness and live for self, as doubtless large numbers of these captives did in the land of Babylon; or else fall into line with the Babylonians themselves and enjoy life with them.

It was not so with these four children. They did neither the one nor the other, and the painful circumstances they were in became the means of their glorifying God as they could not have done in their own land in brighter days. They have faith in God:they know that if He has cast off their beloved nation, and driven them away from their beloved Jerusalem, it is because they richly deserve it. This makes them humble, but trustful too. A God who is so busy with them must love them, and love can be trusted. They set themselves therefore first of all to pleasing God. They are away from home, and they must needs take an active part in the scene where they are, but God must and will have the first place at whatever cost to themselves.

They refuse defiling food. They think not, like alas! many a child of God now going through this scene, that they can eat without danger the food of this world – that they can take in the mind, and spirit and ways of the world around without being unfitted for communion with God and for being His instruments of service. They deny self, and they prosper. They become the very men who can be best trusted with the highest responsibilities.

Thus they become so acquainted with God that Daniel can tell His whole mind to the king when no one else could, and by this many are saved from death. His three friends also, when all bowed the knee to the great image of gold, refused to bow theirs. They would not thus displease God, and so God made them victorious over all the mighty ones of earth, and honored them with the company of His beloved Son in the fiery furnace.

My young friends, the company and smile of Jesus in whatever we may pass through for His name's sake, will, in the day that is drawing near, be seen to be greater honor and glory than are at present all the companionships, and smiles, and favors of all the great ones of earth. He who seeks the Lord's approval will surely have his name enrolled with that of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
P. J. L.

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.

The psalmist says, "What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death ? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave ? " (Ps. 89:48). That every man must die was the common belief in that day as in this. That such is not the case is, however, an absolute certainty on the authority of the word of God. There had been no revelation to the contrary in the psalmist's day; therefore we can easily understand his queries as quoted above. There has now been a revelation on the subject vouchsafed to us in the written Word, so that what was a mystery has been explained and made clear to us; yet, alas, most Christians are in utter ignorance of it still, though possessors of Bibles which make it known. Let us see if we can gather up a few thoughts as to this most important subject.

The apostle says:" Behold, I show you a mystery:We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump," etc. (i Cor. 15:51-58). We shall note seven things connected with this explained mystery. May they carry blessing to both writer and reader of these lines.

(1) We have the certainty of it set forth in the words "shall" and "must." We shall all be changed. The trumpet shall sound. The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. This corruptible must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. How very wonderful! "We shall not all sleep." Sleep here is used for death. The Lord said to His disciples, " Lazarus sleepeth;" and they thought He meant taking of rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead" (John 11:14). Now, Scripture says "we shall not all sleep," or die ; so that the common thought is an erroneous one. Current teaching says "we must all die;" Scripture says No; "we shall not all die." There was one man in the past who did not die-Enoch. And it is very remarkable that he lived before the flood, and walked with God in the midst of that state of things which called for the flood, yet God took him away without seeing death, before the flood came.

Well, then, if one man could go to heaven without dying, other men can do the same; and that is exactly what Scripture says will be the case. Instead of dying, those who are Christ's will be changed at His coming, and, with the dead in Christ who are raised at the same time, they will all be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so be ever with the Lord.(See i Thess. 4:16, 18).It is an absolute certainty; the Lord has said it. He told it to Paul in order that he should tell it to us. The mystery has been explained and communicated, and that settles it. Men may cavil, or sneer, or refuse to accept it; but it matters not if the thing is a certainty, and any moment the Lord's people may be '' caught up."Well may the apostle, in writing to Titus, call it "that blessed hope" (Titus 2:13).

(2) The extent of it. Whom does it embrace ? It embraces those that are Christ's-all of them-the living and the dead-all the saints from Abel, down the stream of time, till the event takes place-all of them; not one left; not one missing; not one refused. "They that are Christ's, at His coming" (ver. 23). The first fruits-Christ-has been gathered; afterward the whole crop in the field, and not a grain left or lost, "at His coming."

Beware of the unscriptural idea that only those who are looking for Him will be taken, and the rest left to go through the tribulation-a most Christ-dishonoring doctrine! The dead in Christ are to rise first. Now multitudes of them never knew anything about the Lord's coming; yet they had Bibles and privileges as we have. Are they, then, to be left in their graves till after the tribulation ? Or, by what process of reasoning is a difference to be made between them and saints living now, yet in the same condition as they before they died ? Are all the dead in Christ to rise first ? Most assuredly. Then all the living must just as assuredly be changed when the Lord comes for His own. As I have noted, the first fruits have been gathered. Then the whole crop in the field is gathered at His coming, and not a grain left or lost.

(3) The suddenness of it. " In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." How marvelous! The world will be going on; not jogging on, but rushing on at lightning speed, faster than ever, with less time than ever to devote to their souls' interests, business and pleasure demanding every moment, when they will be startled for the moment, in their insensate rush to eternity, by the announcement in large capitals in the newspapers :'' Remarkable Disappearance of a number of religious people!" or some such heading, and the 'admission that it has not yet been accounted for. There will be, alas, many homes where there will not be found one saint to be reckoned as missing, and so the newspapers will be the medium to give them the information.

On the other hand, there will be many homes where one or more will be taken and others left. Awful word-left! No hope for them afterward, the door of salvation closed forever for them, and only a question of time when their Christless indifference will give place to awful and hopeless remorse.

" In a moment." No warning note sounded; no bugle-call to prepare-"in a moment." The saints are already prepared. They are washed in the blood of Christ. They are meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. They are all ready, and waiting for the shout. Then, suddenly, what they have waited for so long will take place-the last trump will sound, and " in the twinkling of an eye " they will be gone.

(4) The time of it. At the last trump. This is not to be understood as the last trump that will ever sound, or at the last day, as it is termed. It is supposed to be a Roman figure. Paul often uses them in his writings. Saints in those days were familiar with them. It is said there were three trumpet-calls in the Roman army. First, was to strike tents; and the men took down their tents. Second, was to fall in; and they fell into their ranks, ready to march. The third was called "the last trump," and was- March!

It is really a very beautiful figure. The Lord's people are supposed to be all ready, and just waiting for the last trump; and the moment it sounds, they march. March, did I say ? Ah no! No marching -no flying, even – but "caught up!" The same mighty power that saved and kept us will "change these bodies of humiliation, and fashion them like unto His body of glory" (Phil. 3:21), and catch us up and away from this scene to be forever with the Lord.

(5) The result of it. Death is swallowed up in victory. What a result! Death has claimed its millions since sin began its reign, and only two that we know of ever escaped it-Enoch and Elijah. But, blessed be God, the Son of His love came into the scene, and robbed death of its sting. He lay in the arms of death, but He is risen. His victory is so complete that when the time comes He will swallow up mortality in life. Death will be robbed of its prey and swallowed up in victory. Millions will be changed and not die. Blessed be God for such a victory, and certain to be accomplished.
(6) The triumph because of it. Well may the saints sing, " O death, where is thy sting ?O grave, where is thy victory ? "It is the shout of triumph. Listen, and let death and the grave make answer. Death says, I have no sting; I buried it in the heart of the Son of God when He died upon the cross. The grave says, I have no victory. I thought I had, but the Son of God broke my fetters and snapped all my bonds, and rose again from among the dead and robbed me of my victory. "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is law," which forbids it, but only aggravates it b)' acting on a corrupt nature which is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be (Rom. 8:7); but the question both of sin and law has been forever settled at the cross of Christ, and the believer forever freed from their dominion.

(7) The present and final victory on account of it. "Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ"-a present victory over sin and law through association with Christ in His death and resurrection and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost; and by and by the final victory over death itself at the coming of the Lord, when death is swallowed up in victory. What a blessed hope! What wonderful blessings! What grace to make them all known to us! "Hallelujah, what a Saviour!" May He Himself so command the affections of our hearts that we shall be ever on the alert, and breathing out continually,

"Come, Lord, come. We wait for Thee.
We listen still for Thy returning.
Thy loveliness we long to see;
For Thee the lamp of hope is burning.
Come, Lord, come."

W. E.

New Zealand

No two lives perhaps stand in greater contrast to each other than those of Solomon and of Paul. In Solomon a life of magnificence. Wisdom which penetrated man and overawed the evil while delighting the good. Wealth unbounded which enabled him to gratify every desire, every capacity for enjoyment. Talents of every sort:as a writer on many subjects, as an engineer, as an architect, as an organizer, as a ruler of men, until his capital became a palatial beauty, and the service about him beautiful to behold. All this made him a central figure among the greatest of the earth, and they showered praises and presents upon him-all of it enough to excite the envy of such as might pretend to be rivals, whether of his time or of any time.

In Paul's, a path of lowly service, in poverty, and reproach and much hardship. He had discovered who Jesus was and why He had left His glory in heaven to become a despised, reproached, suffering man on earth. It had enrapt his soul and, at whatever cost, through whatever labor and self-denial, he would only live now to make Him known to men, and to be a faithful witness of His before all, whether men or angels.

If Christ and His doctrine were foolishness to men, he would then be a fool in their eyes, for he had determined to know nothing but that among the earthly-wise.

Where Christ was loved he would be loved, and where Christ was hated he would be hated, for henceforth his life was bound up with Christ for time and for eternity.

But now the end has come. Both have had a good, long, fair trial, with little or no change in their respective circumstances. They are both looking back and telling their experience:"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity " moans Solomon; and he goes on in that strain throughout Ecclesiastes. Meanwhile Paul shouts:"I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing;" and quietly and peacefully he goes and puts his head on Caesar's block.

Reader with which man is your heart? with which one do you keep company? Were each of these two men in your city, and each at the same time inviting you to his presence-one to his magnificent feast, the other to his unknown corner to speak of his loved Saviour and Lord, which would get you? Think soberly, think before God; and if your heart is divided, if you dare not honestly say what you know well every child of God ought to be able to say without hesitation, then remember there is something wrong. Go into the sanctuary of God's presence, unbosom yourself, and He will do the rest. P. J. L.

AS ILLUSTRATED AT THE , TIME OF THE REFORMATION. (Translated from the French.)

It was at Geneva that the Bible and other books which brought the light into the southern half of France were printed. There, too, it was that persecuted Christians found a sure refuge, and that many zealous preachers. were more perfectly instructed in the word of God by Calvin, and then filled France from the Jura to the Pyrenees with their earnest testimony.

The seed abundantly scattered fell upon well prepared ground. Already before this, the Waldenses and the Albigenses, who occupied a part of the south of France, had, by the light of Scripture, made energetic protests against the errors of the Church of Rome. They had been crushed by the bloody crusades made against them by the pope's legates; but their descendants had kept in their hearts a deep love for the gospel, and an invincible disgust for Romish traditions and superstitions. When, therefore, the light penetrated from Germany into the north of France, and as far as Paris, it met with a most cordial reception, especially among the upper classes. The first to receive it were from the higher ranks and the cultivated people.

In 1512, five years before Luther posted his theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, Lefevre d'Etaples, professor at the Sorbonne, had, in his commentary on the epistle to the Romans, voiced the doctrines taught later on by the German reformer. Some pious bishops, men of state in the highest posts, and powerful noble families, had declared themselves friends of the word of God. It had penetrated even into the court of Francis I. His own sister, the remarkable Marguerite de Valois, had received it in her heart. Noted for her beauty, and surrounded by luxury and the temptations of a corrupt society, she found the way to keep herself pure, "esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." She adopted the sunflower as her emblem, because it ever turns to the sun, and had linked with it the words, I seek not the things here. The following lines from her have been preserved:

Is there of woe an abyss so deep,
That, for the tenth of my sins, could be found
Enough to punish ?
Then, my Father–O what a Father!-God
Invisible, immutable, eternal,
In grace forgiving all transgression,
At Thy feet I fall as does a criminal.
O lovely Saviour, Immanuel,
The Lord, the Word, the King, through death
Of death the conqueror,
In Thy mercy I trust.
Made by faith children of God,
By faith righteous, fruitful, holy,
By faith brought nigh who once were far,
O Christ, in Thee all is mine and I abound;
I once so poor, so blind and helpless,
In Thee now so rich and great and wise.

Quite different were the sentiments of her brother, Francis I., toward the "new doctrine." Full of ambitious plans, he allowed his despicable mother, Louise of Savoy, to prejudice him against it, and so in him began a long series of kings of France who sought to drown in blood the flock of Christ and the Word of Truth, and by it brought upon themselves the judgments of God as well as ruin upon their country.

The first martyr of those dark days was a simple workman, a wool carder of the town of Meaux, called Jean Leclerc. Urged by the Spirit of God, he went from house to house preaching the gospel to the people, and testifying with energy against the misleadings of popery. For three days he was taken through the city and so beaten on his bare back that the blood flowed down from his torn flesh, and then he was branded on the forehead with a hot iron as one of the worst malefactors. At the sight of all this his mother was overcome with sorrow; but soon realizing the prospects of faith, she was lifted above all, and shouted, " Vive Jesus-Christ et ses enseignes!" (Long live Jesus-Christ and His teachings.*) *It is difficult to render this expression in English. It is like the poor, ignorant man whose heart was full of Christ, but who could not express it in words; so he shouted, " Three cheers for Jesus Christ!"* Spite of this mark of infamy, the martyr continued to bear testimony. He was seized again at Metz, and condemned to be burned alive. To satisfy the furious crowds, he was first torn with red-hot nippers, but in the midst of his sufferings he repeated aloud the words of the 112th psalm.

A few years later the Protestant community of Meaux had so grown that sixty-two of its members, men and women, were arrested at one time. At their trial fourteen of them were condemned to the gallows. They began by applying the question to them; and while the executioners were wearying themselves in dismembering the bodies of their uncomplaining victims, one of these, full of holy joy, cried out, "Courage, friends; let us not pity this poor body, in which we have so often resisted the Spirit, and sinned against God! " Then the sacrifice began, and ended while the priests chanted with all their might, " O salutary victim; I salute thee, O queen!"

Persecutions went on:a poor crippled shoemaker, called Milan, who taught the word of God to such as visited him, was dragged out of his bed of suffering, thrown into a dungeon, then taken to the scaffold. Five young students who had been at Lausanne to prepare for the ministry were returning to France to give themselves to this holy, but dangerous work. Taken by deception, they were imprisoned at Lyons, and burned alive on the place des Terreaux. Not allowed to live to serve God, they served Him in their death, and praised Him to the end by the singing of psalms.

A simple peasant called Etienne answered the judge who had condemned him, " No, you have no power to send me into death; it is rather to life you are sending me." Many priests and monks received the love of the truth, and turned away from the superstitions of Rome. This brought upon them treatment only so much the more cruel.

Admirable was the unflinching firmness of these victims when subjected to those frightful tortures. They bore them without complaint, and without ever betraying their brethren in the faith. Many had their tongues cut off before being burned alive or beheaded. It was thus made impossible for them to be witnesses of their faith from the top of the pile or of the scaffold. This was done to two workmen, exclaims, "It was a marvelous triumph, for God has shown in a visible manner how able He is to uphold youth, to strengthen old age, and to give to a feeble and delicate woman the needed courage for faithful testimony, when it pleases Him to put His elect to such a test."

THE MAN AFTER THE FLESH. Chapter 3:

GOD'S CARE FOR HIS OWN HONOR. (1 Sam. 5:, 6:) (Continued from page 61.)

And so at last the lesson of divine holiness is in some measure learned. The people are forced, by the smiting of God, even though but just returned amongst them, to acknowledge that He must be approached with reverence and godly fear. " Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God ? " Here unbelief struggles with reverence, and for the time triumphs; and instead of turning in simplicity to the One who had smitten them, to learn why, and how they could approach Him and enjoy His favor without danger, they are more concerned, as the Philistines had been, that the ark should go up from them, not of course to be taken out of their land, but still to be removed from their immediate presence-so that they could have the benefit of God's favor without the dread sense of His too near presence, a thing, alas, too common amongst God's professed people. And may we not detect in our own hearts a kindred feeling which would shrink from the constant sense of the presence of God in every thought and word and act of our lives, and would rather have Him, as it were, at a little distance, where we can resort in time of need or as desire may move us, but where we are not always under His eye ? Thank God, it is vain to wish this, it cannot be; and yet as to our experience, how often are we losers in our souls because the desire of the psalmist is not more completely our own:"One thing have I desired of the Lord,- that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, and inquire in His temple."

And so the ark cannot yet find a resting-place in the midst of the nation, but is sent off to Kirjath-Jearim, "the city of the woods," strange contradiction, and suggestive of the place of practical banishment into which God was being put, a city in name and yet a forest. Here David finds it (Ps 132:6). "We found it in the fields of the wood;" noplace, surely, for the throne of God; yet here it abides for twenty years (chap. 7:2) until the needed work of repentance is fulfilled. We can well believe them to have been years of faithful ministry on the part of Samuel, and of gradual, perhaps unwilling submission and longing, on the part of the people. We are told all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Meanwhile, the ark rests in the house of Abinadab in the hill, and his son Eleazar, with the priestly name, "my God is help," remains in charge. The ark never again returns to Shiloh:"He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men, and delivered His strength into captivity and His glory into the enemy's hand (Ps. 78:60, 61). "He refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the tribe of Ephraim (Ps. 78:67). "Go ye now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name in the first and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel" (Jer. 7:12).

There was fitness in this in two ways. God never restores in exactly the same way a failed testimony. Shiloh had, as it were, become defiled and its name connected with the apostasy of the people under Eli. It had the dishonor of having allowed the throne of God to be removed into the enemy's hands. It had, so to speak, as the representative of the nation, proven its incompetency to guard God's honor, and it could not again be entrusted with it.

Then, too, it was in the tribe of Ephraim-that tribe which spoke of the fruits of the life in contrast to Judah, from which tribe our Lord came, and whose name, "praise," suggests that in which alone God can dwell:"Thou inhabitest the praises of Israel." Praise for Christ is the only atmosphere in which God can abide. How everything emphasizes the refusal of the flesh! Even as Joseph himself displaced Reuben the first-born, and as Ephraim, the younger brother, was chosen before Manasseh, so now again the tribe which had the headship and out of which the nation's great leader, Joshua, had come, must be set aside. "The Lion of the tribe of Judah " is the only One who can prevail, and all these changes emphasize this fact which God has written all over His word-there is no strength in man, no reliance in nature, the flesh is unprofitable, Christ is all.

CHAPTER IV. GOD'S MERCY TO HIS HUMBLED PEOPLE. (1 Sam. 7:)

At last the faithful ministry of Samuel was about to produce manifest fruit. The twenty years of humbling had gradually, no doubt, led the people to an increasing sense of their own helplessness, of their absolute dependence upon God and a glimmer, at least, of that holiness without which He could never manifest Himself on their behalf. So Samuel now can say to them:"If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord and serve Him only and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines,"This searching of heart had prepared them to receive this word now. Their return to the Lord, gradual though it may have been, was now sincere and had that measure of whole-heartedness .which His grace is ever ready to recognize. He cannot endure a feigned obedience, and yet with the best of our repenting there is ever mingled something of the flesh. How good it is to remember that if there be a real turning, He recognizes that, and not the imperfection that accompanies it!

But a true turning to Him is of an intensely practical character and is shown in the life. If He has His place in the heart or in the land, all strange gods must be put away. All the loathsome idolatry, copied from their neighbors, must be judged, and God alone have His place. He cannot endure a heart divided between Himself and a false god. While all this is perfectly simple, yet there must be preparation and purpose of heart if it is to be carried out effectually and permanently. To serve Him alone means how much for ourselves; how much more indeed than for Israel, whose service was to a great. ' extent of an outward character, at least so far as the nation was concerned! If they are ready for this, then there is the distinct promise:" He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines." He Himself had removed His ark from the Philistines' land, and yet until the people were in a true state before God, He could not in His holiness rescue them from the power of the same enemy.

Through God's mercy, Israel acts and the land is cleansed under the power of the ministry of Samuel whose life we have traced from its beginning. No longer now a child, in the full maturity of his powers he is in a position to be used, not now in a limited circle, but for all Israel. As his word had brought them to repentance, he now turns in intercession to God:"Gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray for you unto the Lord." The man who speaks for God to the people is the one who is able to speak to God for the people. The man in whom the word of God abides and who is faithful in using it will know much, too, of the priestly privilege of intercession, while those who may have as clear a view of the evil, but dwell upon that merely without divine' power, are never brought into God's presence about it, and so are themselves overwhelmed by it rather, and rendered helpless instead of being prevailing intercessors.

We may well remark, in passing, upon the importance of being occupied with evil only to deal with it according to the word of God, and thus to be able to work a deliverance through His word, and intercession with Him. There is always hope even in a day of decline and ruin when there are intercessors amongst the people of God; those who, if they know nothing else to do, at least know where to turn for help. Private intercession often opens the way to more public ministry, and this in turn to fresh prayer for God's recovering grace.

And so the people are gathered together to Mizpah. Common needs, common danger, and above
all, a common turning to God will bring His people together. All other gatherings are worthless and worse. Here they pour out water before the Lord and fast and acknowledge their sin afresh. The pouring out of water and fasting seem to be but two sides of the same act, expressed probably in the words which follow:"We have sinned against the Lord."The pouring out of water seems to be an acknowledgment of their utter helplessness and worthlessness."We are as water spilled upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again."They had spent their strength for naught and were indeed as weak as water. This weakness had come from their sinning against God. So it is proper that fasting should accompany this solemn act,-no mere religious form or unwilling abstinence from food, as though there were some merit in that, but that intense earnestness of spirit which is so absorbed in its purpose that necessary food is for the time forgotten, or refused as an intrusion upon the more important business before the soul. Fasting, as a means to produce certain desired effects, savors too much of ritualism and fosters self-righteousness in its devotees; but as a result,-as an indication of the state of soul-it is always the mark of a truly earnest seeker after God.

A people thus self-judged, and in humiliation before Him, are now in position to receive with profit the ministry of God's truth; so Samuel can now judge them, take up in detail their walk, ways and association and deepen that work which God had already begun in their souls. It is not enough to say in a general way:"We have sinned against the Lord." This, if real, includes all else, but for that
very reason, details can then be gone into. A mere general judgment of self is too often but vague, and beneath its broad generalities may be hidden many a specific evil which has not been dragged out into the light, and judged according to God's holy word. Yet the two must come in this way:-there must first be the judgment of ourselves, that state of true humility which is ready to bow before God, before there can be a helpful taking up of specific acts and testing them by the Word.

It is to be feared that we often fail in this individually, and in our efforts to help the saints of God. Unless one is truly humbled before God, truly broken, it is vain to reach a real judgment of specific wrong. Thus a trespass committed against a brother will be condoned, or that brother's own share in wrong doing will be brought up-an effectual check in true judgment of the act in question. What is needed is to get before God, to pour out before Him the water of a true and real judgment of ourselves according to His word-owning that we are capable of anything, yea, of everything, unless hindered by His grace, owning too our sin. This will enable us to judge calmly and dispassionately as to the details of the actual trespass. Would to God that this were realized more amongst us! There would be more true recovery of those who have gone wrong, and a consequent greater victory over our spiritual foes.

Then, too, the judging of the people suggests not merely looking at their past conduct, but ordering their present walk. Any associations, practices, worship, that were not according to His mind and which had up to this time been ignored by the people, or which they were in no true state to form a proper judgment upon, all these things would now come into review. Practices and principles will be tested by god’s truth, and so the walk be ordered aright. To be low in His presence, as we said before, is the only place where we can be truly judged. It is a place of humbling, but after all, how blessed to be there! It is the place of power as well, for God is there. Israel at Bochim may not have been an inspiriting sight to nature. The flesh always despises that which humbles it, but Bochim is where the messenger of god can meet His repentant people and hold out to them hopes of deliverance. Israel, we may say, at Mizpah were again at Bochim.

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.

RITUALISM

In whatever form it may exist, is a distinct denial of the finished work of Christ, the priesthood of all believers, and the presence of the Holy Ghost dwelling in the Church. Whoever substitutes a carnal ritual for a living faith in the Son of God, has left the foundation of the Church. It is pleasing to the -natural man to be religious if it does not cost him too much ; and ritualism, with all its show, its appeal to man's self-righteousness, has allured, it is to be feared, many souls into perdition. Let our readers beware of any thing which would turn them from the simplicity of Christ.

We continue during the present month our reading of the prophet Jeremiah-the last half of the book, from Chap. 32:to the end. Here we have the promise of future recovery, spoken of in the thirtieth chapter, reiterated. Under the striking figure of buying a field, the right to redeem which belonged to him, the prophet foretells how all the land would one day be restored to God's people. Chap. 33:renews these promises of recovery, and introduces (which is not very prominent in Jeremiah) the rule of the house of David, and blessedness through the Messiah. In Chap. 23:6 we find the title " The Lord our Righteousness" given to Christ; here the same title is given to the people of God.

A striking feature of this part of the book is the mingling of the prophet's experience with his predictions. It is the last days of the nation's existence before the captivity. In fact, the prophet is one of those in the city when it is taken. There is an utter heartlessness in rulers and people up to the last, any outward signs of yielding on the part of the king being quickly checked by the princes. The prophet's position was entirely a painful and distressing one, and tested him greatly. There is no gleam of hope in people or king, but faith in the midst of absolute ruin can stay itself upon the sure word of God.

We are permitted to follow the fortunes of a little handful left in the land, and with, we might say, still an opportunity to cleave to God and own Him. Alas, these are scattered, and we find a handful-apostate and defiant in Egypt, against the direct command of God. There is much searching truth here for a remnant in any time of ruin, like the present, in these chapters.

Prediction of judgment upon the nations is also given.

The prophet Daniel comes next in order, both morally and in point of time. The scene is changed to the Gentiles here, Israel being in captivity. But God meets faith wherever He finds it, and in Daniel and his friends we find that individual faithfulness which should have been present in the nation as a whole.

Significantly, in this book of Gentile glory, we have again and again, both in vision and direct prediction, the downfall of the proud Gentile power, represented by Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, and the setting up of God's kingdom with His earthly people on a basis of permanent peace and blessing, through Christ.

This book gives more definite and complete outlines of prophetic truth. It supplies the framework into which all other prophecy finds its place.

Continuing in what we may call historical order, we have the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These recount the return of a remnant to Jerusalem at the end of the seventy years of captivity predicted by Jeremiah (see, also, Daniel 9:). Under Ezra the temple is rebuilt and divine worship resumed. But things were in a very disordered state until Nehemiah comes, and through his agency the wall is rebuilt around the city and separation and government maintained.

But we must remember, even this partial and feeble recovery was by sufferance of their Gentile masters. The Jews never regained their status as a nation. That and all other blessing for them waits until He comes whose right it is to rule.

As in Daniel, these two books have much that is most helpful and suggestive to any company of people living in remnant days.

Dear Brother :You write me about the "unequal yoke" of 2 Cor. 6:14-18, and how to treat those who may be entangled in the same.

The passage itself '' Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers " no doubt covers the whole ground of a believer's life and association. God's standard for His people is always His own, not ours. The unequal yoke has different phases, but wherever you get the yoke itself, that is always wrong. It embraces the marriage yoke, the commercial yoke, the social or benevolent yoke, and the religious yoke:this covers a good deal of ground.

First. It is wrong for a believer to contract marriage with an unbeliever (See i Cor 7:39.), and if they know the truth, and seek to be governed by its teaching, there will be a jealous guard put on every tendency that would lead to such a yoke.

Second. It is also wrong for believers to enter partnership in business with unbelievers. This is the commercial yoke, and is as unscriptural as the other. Deut. 22:10 illustrates this for us:"Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass 'together." The two are different in every way. The ox, the clean animal according to the law; arid the ass unclean. The temperaments of each also differ, making it such an unhappy yoke, that. God intervenes and forbids it. A man of the world will seek to be governed in business by the principles of this age. The man of God will seek to carry divine principles into his business, and hence the two will clash. Either the man of the world is made to feel the burden; or if the believer gives way to the world he is made unhappy, and the Lord dishonored; hence the yoke is wrong.

Third. It is also wrong for believers to join organizations, such as we have to-day, for social or benevolent purposes, or to band themselves together to resist the great monopolies. This is also an unequal yoke, and betrays lack of faith in God; is a lowering of the Christian's elevated life to the level of the world, and the believer thus entangled becomes a loser now, and that means loss, in a sense, forever.

Fourth. We will go a step further, and state that the religious yoke also is wrong, and is comprehended in the instruction of 2 Cor. 6:It is clearly wrong to join any denomination, any religious organization, when we know and believe unconverted people are received and partake of the Lord's supper; and this, because of the profession connected with it, is the most serious yoke of all.

We believe 2 Cor. 6:is a serious word for every child of God in these lax days, as we draw near the end of the age. I trust this will make plain to you this first point as to the yoke itself.

But as to the next point, how such cases are to be treated, we will need to look further. Some may not be far enough on in their Christian life to have grasped all we have just said as to this yoke, and others who may have the light as to it may yet not have faith to walk accordingly. Now where such is the case we need great care, and we believe instead of forcing souls to walk according to our attainment and our faith, we should rather '' lead on softly according … as the children are able to endure" (Gen. 33:14).
First. As to marriage:suppose a believer has gone so far as to enter into the marriage relation with an unconverted person, whether with or without light on 2 Cor. 6:, they are morally and legally bound to fulfil their responsibilities, yet they are entangled in an unequal yoke. Supposing otherwise the life is orderly and faithful, how is the assembly to treat such a case ? We are all agreed the yoke itself is wrong. Phil. 1:10 (margin) and 3:15, 16, comes in here, we are to "try things that differ" and "whereto we have already attained let us walk by the same rule." But have we Scripture to "put them away" as i Cor. 5:? or to "withdraw" from them as 2 Thess. 3:6 ? These questions are raised and we need to look them fairly in the face and ventilate the subject. Phil. 1:and 3:are worthy of our serious consideration, and are as divinely inspired as 2 Cor. 6:The passage in 2 Cor. 6:shows clearly the yoke is wrong, and the others in Phil. 1:and 3:show discrimination and consideration is to be made for those who do not walk according to the rule of God's full truth.

All God's people have not reached the same attainment, and there is great need of grace and forbearance. In the case of marriage this has been the spirit which as a rule we have all followed. We might give counsel and even warn; yet if that failed we leave the person before the Lord to reap here as they sow. Further we have not gone. A few places we have heard of setting aside persons for marrying the unconverted, but such was because they were not rightly taught, or were extreme in their judgment, but in either case the action always met with the disapproval of brethren taught aright in the Word.

Second. As to a man in business. We have known of several who have yoked themselves with the unconverted to their own sorrow. But we have not sought to put such away, nor withdraw from them as 2 Thess. 3:; nor yet silence them as to any ministry they might be pleased to render in the assembly. These things give a margin for God and the individual soul, where we even as an assembly must not intrude, and usurp a place that belongs only to the Lord. See how careful the apostle was in this (2 Cor. 1:24). It is all taken for granted that the life and teaching is otherwise right and faithful. Of course there should be private counsel and warnings; and individual faithfulness may withdraw its intimacy for the time, and so seek to press upon the conscience.

Third. We will now touch the subject of organizations and Unions. Most of those Unions are from a spiritual standpoint a great evil, and we would not pass that fact lightly by. Yet through force of circumstances and pressure, some of our brethren may have yielded and had their names associated with such Unions, but only through the pressure brought to bear upon them. Their heart is not in the evil. They detest the evil itself, and do not attend their meetings, and take no part. If all had faith in God, they would not give way to such pressure, and we could try and strengthen their faith, and to give godly counsel, when there is weakness and lack of faith in such a case.

Now what are we to do, if we have more light etc. ? Shall we resort to i Cor. 5:? or 2 Thess. 3:and count such as unruly? surely, surely not; rather we should leave them before the Lord, and earnestly
pray for them. Prayer becomes those more spiritual, and we are persuaded where this spirit is pursued more blessed and happy results follow, i Cor. 5:, 2 Thess. 3:are not the passages to be thought of in such cases, but rather Phil, 1:, 3:Many times such a brother or sister entangled with those three yokes, marriage, business and Unions, needs not the hard severe voice that reproves or warns as i Thess. 5:14, but rather the word "support the weak." "Warn the unruly, support the weak, and be patient toward all." Grace and forbearance is what in many of these things we greatly need to cultivate. Yet we should even seek to deliver those held in bondage by the fear of man, and not act with indifference as to their weak state. These few lines will. give what light I have as to the principle we, as gathered to His name, have always acted on. I may later on give you a line as to the religious yoke also, which space here forbids.

Yours truly in Him,

A. E. B.

THE MAN AFTER THE FLESH. PART II. THE KING OF MAN'S CHOICE.

Chapter 5:the people's desire for a king. (1 Sam. 8:)

(Continued from page 120.)

In a world where death reigns, all things, even the good, must come to an end. Samuel grows old. His well-spent life is reaching its close. It is then that he makes the first mistake which is recorded of him; a natural mistake indeed, and yet evidently he had not the mind of God in what he did. He makes his sons judges at Beersheba. Here we have in essence the whole principle of natural succession recognized. Because the father was a judge, the sons must be judges. It reminds us of that plea of Abimelech, the son of Gideon:"My father [was] king," which suggests the succession from father to son, of office. The name Abimelech was a Philistine one given to their kings, as the title Pharaoh to those of Egypt, and it is really nature's substitute for dependence upon God. It is sad and strange to think of the victor over the Philistines falling into one of the snares peculiar to that people. A carnal and formal religion is based upon the principle of succession. " No bishop, no church " conveys a certain truth if it is man's church that is in question. It is through the bishops that succession comes,- remove that, and the whole fabric of Rome and sacerdotalism generally would fall to the ground.

Gideon had refused absolutely this principle, even for himself or his descendants. He had left the power with Him who had given it, God Himself:" I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you " (Judges 8:23). So, too, Moses, when told that he could not lead Israel any further than the border of the land, and that he must lay down his leadership, did not presume to name his successor, much less to think of his own son as taking up that which he -had laid down. How beautiful it is to see this meekness in the great leader, who, we may well suppose, as he felt so keenly the deprivation, would have loved to temper it by the privilege of naming his successor. But self is obliterated, and nowhere does his character show more beautifully than:"Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation who may go out before them, and who may go in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit . . . And Moses did as the Lord commanded him " (Num. 27:16-22).

In this way Joshua is as directly called of Jehovah as Moses himself had been. Unquestionably he was fitted by his own association with Israel's leader to carry on the work which he laid down, and it is equally probable that Moses himself might have chosen Joshua as his successor, but the point is that he did not do so; he left it entirely to God, realizing that wisdom and power for such responsibility could not be conferred by the hands of man, but must come from Him alone in whom all power is.

Without unduly criticizing the honored and faithful prophet of whom we are speaking, Samuel seems to have failed to see the immense importance of this. There is no mention of any turning to God and asking that He would select a successor. He seemed to forget the history of the judges, when, for each emergency, God Himself had raised up the judge of His own choice to deliver His people. He would do it himself. His decision is accepted by the people. No question is raised, no opposition apparently is made, but God was not in it, and so the sons show what they are. They take bribes and pervert judgment, and, instead of perpetuating the honor of God as their father had done, they indirectly bring reproach upon him, subjecting him to the humiliation of a public rebuke by the people, and weaken in their minds that faith in God's sufficiency which it had been Samuel's great effort to establish.

Nor is it necessary to suppose that these sons of Samuel were specially evil men. While reminded of them, we cannot class them with the apostates, Hophni and Phinehas, whose wickedness was of such a gross and glaring character as to bring down the immediate judgment of God. It is to be noted that they failed as judges, their wrong-doing confined to the exercise of that office into which they had been intruded. They took bribes and perverted judgment. Lord Bacon, whose wisdom and greatness, and, we would fain hope, his Christianity, are beyond dispute, failed in the same way. He was officially disgraced, and yet even in his own time his personal character and abilities were recognized to a certain extent. It was felt that the man was better than the officer, and that his position was responsible for bringing out that inherent weakness of moral character which might have remained in abeyance had he not been unduly tempted. At any rate, we may well conceive that Samuel's sons in other respects were fairly blameless men, and had they been allowed to continue in private life or in the path to which God Himself would have called them, might never have fallen into the sin which is the only record that we have of their lives.

All this emphasizes the importance of what we have been dwelling upon. God will never delegate to the hands of man responsibility for transmitting that which comes alone from Himself. The failure to see this has been one of the fruitful causes of all the apostasy of the professing Church from the earliest times. Man desires to have things in his own hands, and, having them there, only proves how utterly incompetent he is to administer these great and solemn responsibilities. So the ordination of men to office but fixes the man in a position which may not be of God at all. If a man has been divinely called, he needs no human authorization; and, if not called, all such authorization is but confirming a human mistake, and paving the way for such failure as we see in Samuel's sons. This touches upon a most profound and far-reaching subject. The leaven of Samuel's mistake has permeated all Christendom until it seems heresy to dispute the principle of succession, and yet is it not a distinct denial of the presence and sufficiency of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the Church to guide, control and actuate all ministry ?

Returning to "Samuel's mistake in thus making his sons his successors, we are led to ask how far it showed his failure to bring up his children aright. Had he unconsciously imitated the weakness of Eli, with whom he was associated in early life, and whose family failure was of such a glaring character as to be the cause of God's sorest judgments ? It would hardly seem likely, for he had warning before his eyes and from the lips of God Himself. He himself in his childhood had been the messenger to unfaithful Eli as to this very matter, and he witnessed the captivity of the ark, the death of Eli's sons, and of the high priest himself, all because of this indifference. His own personal faithfulness with the people at large, his prayerfulness, forbid the thought that he was careless or indifferent as to his responsibility in his own home. On the other hand, are we not reminded in Abraham, that he would " command his household after him," and in Joshua's strong words, "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord," that they link the family together with the father ? Are we not told in the New Testament that one indispensable requisite for a leader of the people of God is that he should "rule well his own house"? Carelessness in the home would mean carelessness everywhere else, or a foolish and undue severity in just the place where it was not called for, as Eli could rebuke poor Hannah at her prayer, while his sons reveled in godlessness unrestrained.

May the truth not lie between these two extremes ? That Samuel was not entirely without blame we have already seen. He failed to grasp the mind of God. We may well believe that his frequent absences from home, the absorbing interest in a nation at large, unconsciously to himself closed his eyes to responsibilities at home which no weight of public care could relieve him of. "My own vineyard have I not kept" has only too often had to be the sorrowful confession of those who have labored in others' vineyards. It is not a thing to excuse nor explain away, but solemnly to face and to remember the danger for us all, if such a man as Samuel, with such an example as that of Eli before him, could in any measure commit a similar wrong. May God's mercy be upon the heads of families, giving grace and dependence and prayerfulness that the households may be an example of submission to His order!

These sons were, after all, but a reflection of the state of the entire people, and even of the flesh in Samuel himself, and so in man generally. Wherever mere nature acts, we may be sure it does not act for God. Hence even natural affection, the strong ties that bind the household together, if not controlled by the word of God and the Holy Spirit, may do the very opposite of His will. How different from Levi, "Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children:for they have observed Thy word, and kept Thy covenant" (Deut. 33:9). Therefore they would be qualified for wider service:"They shall teach Jacob Thy judgments and Israel Thy law" (ver. 10). How perfect in this, as in all else, was our blessed Lord Jesus, who rendered all due obedience in its place, and whose words from the cross itself bespoke a tender love and care for His mother; and yet, whenever nature intruded between Himself and His Father's will, how He could rebuke her, or show that obedience to God was to Him a clearer proof of relationship than any mere natural tie! "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother."

Was it not, also, a certain measure of unbelief in Samuel in the sufficiency of God and care for His own beloved people that led him to appoint successors ? We cannot therefore be surprised when the contagion of this unbelief spreads to the people at large; and so they come to Samuel as seeing the very thing which he himself had seen, and desiring to provide against it in much the same way in which he had attempted to do:"Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk riot in thy ways; now make us a king to judge us, like all the nations." Was it not, after all, simply seeking to remedy a manifest evil, which was all too plain, by recourse to a human expedient rather than to God Himself?

In passing, we may notice the humiliation to which Samuel was subjected in thus having to hear from the lips of those whom he himself had judged, sad words in relation to the failure in his own family:"Thy sons walk not in thy ways." Alas, too true, and we can well conceive the shame that would mount to the aged prophet's cheeks as there, before the people, the sad state of his own house was declared to him! There is no mention of any resentment, and, from all we know of this dear and honored servant's faithfulness to God, we may well believe that he bowed under what would seem most clearly to have been a chastening from God's hand. We never gain by refusing such chastenings, painful and humbling though they may be. Let us be more concerned to avoid the cause of them, the need for them, than the shame of being subjected to them. May God write this lesson deeply in our hearts!

"Like all the nations." How human this is! It is as though they were like all the nations. It is putting themselves on the same plane with those very Philistines whom but lately they had overthrown in the power of God alone. Alas, so easily do we forget and so quickly turn away from our blessed God, who would have us different from all the nations! Had He not singled them out as a peculiar people in His electing choice, by the wondrous signs in the land of Egypt, by the sheltering blood, and bringing them forth with a high hand and an outstretched arm ? Had He not guarded them as the apple of His eye all through '' that great and terrible wilderness " ? Had He not cast out the nations from the land of Canaan and given them an inheritance-houses which they had not builded and vineyards which they had not planted ? What nation had ever been so treated ? This wretched word
"like all the nations " is a denial in one breath of their whole history. If they were to be like all the nations, they would be still among the flesh-pots of Egypt, groaning in bitter and hopeless bondage.

And for ourselves, does not the desire for human remedies for recognized evils, for some resemblance to the ways of men about us, deny all that divine grace has done for us in making us a peculiar people for God Himself ? Has not our salvation marked us out as distinct from the world in which we live ? Has not the blood of the everlasting covenant forever separated between us and the judgment-doomed multitude who go on in their own way ? Does not the presence of the Holy Spirit as a seal upon each of us mark us in God's eye, as it also should in the eye of the world, as "not of the world" even as Christ is not of the world ? Do we desire to be "like all the nations " ? No; in the name of all the grace and love of our God, of the all-sufficiency of His blessed Son, let us repudiate the faintest whisper of such a thought, and go on with acknowledged weakness, so feeble though it be as to be a subject of mockery to the world; let us as Jacob halt upon our thigh that the power of Christ may rest upon us, rather than seek for any human expedient like the world around us.

It is beautiful to see how Samuel turns in all this to God. His heart is grieved at what the people have asked, nor is there the slightest suggestion of the repetition of his previous failure, which stands out alone, and that by implication only, as we have seen, in a character otherwise unmarred by any manifest blemish. Samuel prayed unto the Lord. Well would it be for us, when we hear of weakness in others, to bring it before God and pour it out there, rather than seek weakly to reprove or correct it by our own efforts. He gets, in a certain sense, comfort from God and yet no relief in the ordinary sense of the word. He must hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say, and then the sad fact comes out that this had been the treatment to which the blessed God Himself had been subjected by this same nation from the beginning:"They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day, so do they also unto thee." Samuel must expect the same treatment from the nation as God Himself had received. The one who stands with God must feel what the psalmist felt:"The reproaches of those that reproached Thee are fallen upon me." Man's hatred of God was never more fully manifested than in the cross of our blessed Lord Jesus, and all that He was subjected to at the hands of man but manifested the treatment that they had in heart accorded God. Sad and sorrowfully true it is; and yet what an honor in any measure to be permitted to stand for God, even to suffer the reproaches, to meet with the treatment, which our blessed Lord met with:"If they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you also."
But the people are not allowed to have their own way without having a divine and perfectly clear warning as to where that way will lead, and so Samuel is instructed to tell them what it means to have a king, like the nations. In brief, they will be slaves to their king:"He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots." They will no longer be servants of God in that sense, and no longer free to labor for their own profit. They will be liable at any time to be called upon by their king to engage in war, needless or otherwise, as his fancy may dictate, to be menials about his house, to be servants of his servants.

Then, too, their property will not be safe from his aggression. Their lands can be taken away. The tenth part of their increase, the very same that Jehovah claimed as His own, must be given to their king. In other words, they would bitterly rue their choice, and find that from the perfect freedom of service to God they had passed into the bondage of human tyranny. How fully this was verified in after years, a glance at their history will show. Even David, in his awful sin, exemplified the arbitrary character of kingly power-a royal murderer, against whom no hand could be lifted in vengeance! Solomon's oppression; that of Asa; the glaring robbery and murder of Ahab; are but illustrations of what was, doubtless, but too common amongst the kings of Israel, who in turn were, no doubt, held in from going to the extremes of other nations by the restraining witness of the prophets constantly sent from God. From that time onward, royalty, if that in reality, has been but another name for self-will, oppression and tyranny, save where, in the mercy of God, His grace overruled. It is not that a king necessarily must be a tyrant, but human nature being what it is, it is what is to be expected. God's thought, after all, is for a king, but it must be the true King, who shall reign in righteousness, of whom there is but One in all the universe of God. When He comes whose right it is to rule, and the government is upon His shoulders, oppression will cease, the meek shall be judged, and the oppressed shall be rescued, as is beautifully set before us in the seventy-second psalm.

Nor let it be thought for a moment that there is no necessity for human government at the present time. Kings and all that are in authority are, after all, but "the powers that be;" and the fault is not in the power, but in the men who misuse that power. But for a people who had God as their Ruler, for whom He had interposed in an especial way, it was nothing short of apostasy to desire a king like the nations. However, after the solemn witness is borne and the people repeat their desire, they are left- solemn thought-left to their choice. They shall have their request, even though it bring leanness to their own souls. Our blessed God often permits us to have our own way, that He may show us the folly of it. Alas, would that we might learn His way in His own presence, and be spared the sorrow for ourselves and the dishonor to His name which come from the bitter experience of a path of disobedience.

Again Samuel rehearses all the words of the people to the Lord, and again he is told to hearken to the voice of the people, who are for the time dismissed with the tacit promise that, as they have desired, so it shall be. Sad journey homeward, as every man goes to his own city after having deliberately refused longer to be under the mild and loving sway of the only One who could be truly their !

(To be continued.)
'THEY THAT FEARED THE LORD."

All things
Life brings ?
O Lord, Thou surely canst not mean
That I should bear
The taunts that tear
And cut me to the heart!
Wilt Thou not take my part
Against my foes, and stand between ?

Not now, my child,
The tempest wild,
The cruel taunts of men I bore for thee,
Now thou must bear for Me.

Oh, why Must I
Be tossed and driven to and fro,
And ill at ease
O'er things that tease,
And fret, my heart and mind,
With sometimes thoughts unkind ?
Lord, speak the word, and bid them go.

Hast thou forgot ''
Love envieth not,
Endureth all, and seeketh not her own " ?
No wonder thou dost groan !

How long?
This strong
And adverse wind is wearying me.
My heart is sore.
How can I more
Endure, from those who care
Not what I have to bear ?
Why cannot I, as they, be free ?

Not yet:'tis thine
Not to repine;
But, for My sake, to be both kind and strong
Of heart, to suffer long.

O Lord,
Some word
Of comfort I but crave from Thee.
Why should I have
Such care and love
For those who love me not,
And have no evil thought
Of those who wrong both Thee and me?

Wouldst follow Me ?
Then thou must be
All patiently, with sweet obedience yoked,
Nor easily provoked.

It is
For this
I've left thee here, midst storm and tide.
My child, I mean
Thy heart to wean
From earthly things to Me;
For I would have thee be
As gold, by furnace purified.

A beacon light, Mid earth's dark night
Of sorrow, My loved witness, to proclaim
Salvation, through My name.

I bore
Far more
Than I could ask of thee. Ah, no,
Thou couldst not go
To depths of woe,
Nor in that anguish share
It was My lot to bear.
I only ask thee in thy life below,
My path to choose,
Nor e'er refuse
To follow where I lead. The reason why
I'll tell thee by and by.

H. McD.

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.