Night around us, strife within- O forbid that it should be;
Oh the pain, the sting of sin! Draw our foolish hearts to Thee;
Have we in our rife discord Teach us what becometh us,
Ceased to look for Thee, O Lord? In the presence of Thy cross.

Fellow pilgrim mid earth's tumult,
What have we to fear?
Hastening through as those who're traveling
To a brighter sphere;
What to us is earth's reward,
If we're looking for the Lord?

Oh, to look with earnest longing
Toward that glorious goal;
All our ways, our heart, our service,
Under Christ's control-
Harkening for the quickening word,
While we're looking for the Lord.

Keeping all our robes unspotted,
From earth's dust, and soil ;
Ever, like the blessed Master,
From its ways recoil;
Guided by His faithful word,
While we're waiting for the Lord.

Choosing not our heart companions
From its faithless show;
Walking so,-the world beholding
Without doubt might know
And confess, with one accord,
That we're looking for the Lord. ,

And our place beside His table-
E'er a blest retreat,
Where the heart delights recalling
Memories sad and sweet-
Worship to His Name accord,
While we're waiting for the Lord.

Time is passing, and His promise
He must soon fulfil
By His presence; may He find us
Subject to His will.
This will peace and joy afford,
While we're waiting for the Lord.

Would Thy Church might thus be waiting,
-But, alas, she's not;
For the "wolf," the world, and Satan,
Ruin sad have wrought.
Sweet His smile,-her blest reward,
Were she looking for the Lord.

Yet, within her pale how many
'Neath this sorrow cry !
Owning all the shame, yet seeking
Not to justify;
Bowing 'neath Thy righteous word,
Longing for Thy coming, Lord.

Sing, my soul! the night now deepening
Tells of coming day !
When the sorrow and the waiting
Shall have passed away;
And with thee, in perfect grace,
All the journey He'll retrace.

Sing the song of thy releasing ;
Let thy heart not fail
Just before the day is dawning !
It will naught avail
Losing courage; wield the sword,
Whilst thou art waiting for the Lord.

H. McD.

" This Book, this holy Book, on every line Marked with the seal of high Divinity, On every leaf bedewed with drops of love; This Lamp, from off the everlasting throne, Mercy took down, and in the night of Time Stood, casting in the dark her gracious bow:And evermore beseeching men, with tears And earnest sighs to read, believe, and live."

It is sincere pleasure to write a few lines to fellow-students upon such a fruitful theme as "Bible study," for I am convinced that nothing in the world is so important and nothing is so much needed. I find as I journey on in life that Christians may be divided pretty generally into two classes, one of which does not study the Bible, and in consequence makes no definite progress in the spiritual life from year to year, while the other class feeds daily upon the Word and grows in stature in the knowledge and wisdom of God.

I do not wish to assert that many of the members of the first class do not "read the Bible" every day,
but that there is no seeking, heart-searching, appropriating study, and hence no assimilation, no growth, and no power for the Master's service. These Christians are often sweet and amiable and lovable in character, it is true. But they really know little or nothing of the wonders of the realms of grace. They cannot speak with certainty, from a definite personal experience of the work of the Holy Ghost, and as for a daily walk in the Spirit, they have not so much as heard of it. They often spend much time in philanthropy and in "trying to do good to others," yet when questioned by an unbeliever they are scarcely able to give substantial reasons for the hope that is in them.

I cannot do more in this brief letter to college men than state my personal and earnest convictions as to the necessity of Bible study without argument. I therefore declare again with absolute assurance that without a real, devout, persistent Bible study there can be no real growth in the Christian life. I make this assertion after a wearisome, fruitless experience in my own life without it, as well as after hearing the experiences of many fellow-Christians and listening to many sermons.

The second categorical statement to which I beg the attention of the students whom I am addressing, is that there is nothing in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, which needs any apology of any sort from any man. Since I have found out this vital fact, and have gone to my Bible day by day with prayer for guidance and simple faith in studying it, whole books which used to appear obscure have become luminously clear, and I am now able to take my portion day by day, led by Him whom Christ has sent to be His viceregent on earth until His own personal return.

If the Bible is in very truth the word of God and His appointed means for advance in the Christian life, the next important question is, what is the best way to study it ? I would! study my Bible prayerfully, looking to God alone to open up its meaning by His Holy Spirit, fully persuaded that these things cannot be understood by the natural man. He cannot receive them, for they are foolishness to him, for they are spiritually discerned; the gift of the Spirit is the supreme gift to His people in this age from God through Christ.

I would search the Scriptures regularly, taking my spiritual food with the same precision I apply to supplying the needs of the body. I find as the practical outcome of this honoring of the Spirit that I actually develop a positive spiritual appetite and even long for the time to come when I can be alone with my Bible and receive from my Father the heavenly food He sees good to give me for my day's needs. I find, too, that regular feeding develops a spiritual strength unknown before, and with it a fitness for His service not possessed by the fasting man.

I would study my Bible intently, eagerly, seeking under the guidance of the Spirit to realize fully the precious import of every word. If man's words are held to mean what they say in contracts and legal documents, how infinitely more valuable are the words of God in this inspired and blessed writing.

I would study the Bible with faith, and so happily wander through its great treasure stores made mine by the grace of God, gathering here and there the precious gems of truth richly strewn through its pages. I have yet to find that I can make a too minute analysis of the Bible. It is like some marvelous divine instrument which combines ten thousand beautiful instruments in one. You strike one note in one part and it awakens harmonies and sweet reverberations which run down through the ages; again close by you strike another note, and lo a different set of tones resounds, and so it keeps on day by day yielding its sweet, ever fresh, soul-satisfying melodies to those who care to stir them. It is like a cloth of gold with thousands of cords mutually independent yet all interwoven in one glorious whole; if you pull a cord in Genesis you can trace it consistently on to Revelation. A man's book is wonderful if the author carries out in it a few lines of thought consistently; in this Book there is one theme, Redemption through Christ, displayed with a variety which is infinite, as is the Author Himself.

We live in a day of multitudes of helps in Bible study, and it is often a great temptation to try to take the digested food of a help, and so more quickly to appropriate its truths; but I would here assert I with earnest conviction that the great expositor of the Bible is the Bible itself, and the one great commentator who enables us to understand the Bible is the Holy Spirit. This is His peculiar work; the Book is His, and the application of the word to the individual life is His, and no human agent, formula, or catechism dare supplant the divine Guide under penalty of utter failure of being able to exercise quickening faith and of understanding the message aright. It seems to me that the class of simply devotional books are even worse than useless, as they never turn out anything better than weak, lackadaisical Christians. The best books are those which continually send the student right back to the Bible to test the truth of their statements.

In conclusion, if I have gained the attention of any young Christians, let me again beg them to be Bible-loving, Bible-reading Christians. If they are weak, the Bible will make them strong; if they are ignorant, the Bible will build them up in the truth ; if they are assailed by doubts and criticisms, the Bible will dispel them as the mists of the morning melt away before the sun in his splendor. Do they desire to know more about Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? the Bible is the one place to seek for such wisdom. Are they among those who know not if there be any Holy Spirit ? they will never say so if they read their Bibles. Are the lusts of the flesh strong within them? here they learn how the flesh has been buried and they find their Christian privileges in a resurrection life. Is our earthly pilgrimage one of sore trials? here we find that we are seated in Christ in the heavenlies, and heaven has begun on earth for all who love the will of God above all else.

"O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord." "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."H. A. K.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A light surprised the persecutor as he journeyed to Damascus. It was above the brightness of the sun at noon-day. And well it might have been, for it was a beam from the glory and bore the Lord of the glory upon it. (Isa. 24:23). But it did not come to gladden Saul all at once or merely to display itself. It had, I may say, weightier business on hand. It came to make this ruthless persecutor a citizen of its own native land. It begins, therefore, by laying him in ruins before it. It is the light of Gideon's pitcher confounding the host of Midian or the army of the uncircumcised. Saul falls to the earth. He takes the sentence of death into him. He learns that he had been madly kicking against the pricks, destroying himself by his enmity to Jesus, for that Jesus was the Lord of glory. But He that wounds can heal, He that heals can make alive. "Rise and stand upon thy feet," says the Lord of glory to him, and he is quickly made His companion, servant, and fellow-heir. It is sweetly characteristic of the present age that the hand of a fellow-disciple is used to strengthen Saul to bear the glory, or to accomplish his conversion. The seraphim alone do that for Isaiah (chap. 6:), the Spirit does it for Ezekiel (chap. 2:), the hand of the Son of man does it for Daniel (chap. 10:); but a fellow-disciple is made to do it for Saul.

What a transaction was this! what a moment! Never, perhaps, had such points in the furthest distance met before. The persecutor of the flock and the Saviour of the flock, the Lord of the glory and the sinner whom the glory is consuming, are beside each other! The glory came, not to gladden, as it had the congregation of old, but to convict, and through conviction and revelation of itself and Jesus to turn a sinner from darkness to light, making him a meet partaker of the inheritance of its native land. Can we trust all this and rejoice in it ? Is it pleasant to us to know that the glory is thus near us? Stephen found it so when the Lord of it pleased to raise the curtain (Acts 7:). And when the voice of the archangel summons it, and the trump of God heralds it, it will be here again as in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to bear us up to its own country (i Cor. 15:; i Thess. 4:).

Thus may we cherish the thought that the glory is near us. Our translation to its native land asks but for a moment, for the twinkling of an eye. The title is simple, the path is short, and the journey rapidly accomplished. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified."

When all things seem against us,
And days are dark and drear,
And every outlook gloomy,
And naught hath power to cheer,-
O, give us grace to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

When we-alas, how often !-
Must bear the penalty
Of our un-Christlike actions,
O, grant humility
And brokenness to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

But, ah ! when we are wounded,
How quick to take our part,
And smite when we are smitten-
Alas ! the pride of heart !-
That makes it hard to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

Could we-ourselves forgetting-
To Him leave all the rest,
E'en though we must be humbled,
It must be to be blest If only we can pray,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

How many a needless sorrow,
How many a broken heart
Were spared, and many brethren
Had never need to part !
Had we been quick to say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

Thy way is never sweet, Lord,
When 'tis against our will.
O, mold our wills to Thine,
Lord, And bid our thoughts be still.
Thus only can we say,
Lord Jesus, have Thy way.

How little, Lord, Thy meekness
And lowliness we show !
How little may the worlding
By us our Master know !
How often we display
Our own, and not Thy way.

Like Israel of old, Lord,
In spite of all Thy grace,
We sin against Thy goodness;
Forgetting Thy past ways,
Thy way thus thrust aside
Gives place to human pride.

When wilt thou come and free us,
From all our foolishness ?
O, when shall we be like Thee,
Where Thou canst only bless,
And all our being say,
We glory in Thy way ?

H. McD.

Micah 51:7-' Oh, thou that art named The house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened ? Are these His doings ? Do not My words do good to him that walketh uprightly ? "

The necessity of constant revival is a lesson that is forced upon us by the history of the Church from the beginning. As we know, in the apostle's days came the first sad declension, from which at large it has never recovered. God has come in, in His grace, and again and again raised up a testimony for Himself, and gathered a remnant as witnesses to it; but the Church as a whole has never been restored, and never will be until the Lord takes it to Himself forever. This is only the echo of all human history. We might have thought indeed that the Church would be an exception to the rest, but it has still been left to prove how "as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man."

The need of revival is just the lesson of man's faithlessness in every trust committed to him, and the greater the trust the more, alas! is the failure evident and the more terrible it is. Babylon the Great is a mystery at which the apostle wonders with great wonder. It is now so familiar to us that we are hardly capable of realizing, perhaps, the solemnity of it; but we are not to speak of that just now. We want to look practically at things for ourselves and to inquire where we are, any of us, at the present moment. What our need of revival may be, every one, of course, has the responsibility of knowing for himself, but the need at large cannot be questioned, and the need of considering it can never fail. The Lord's words by the prophet here, although to His people Israel, and taking shape from this, yet have a voice to us, which is only more earnest and closer in application by the difference between Israel and ourselves now. The Lord appeals to them as the house of Jacob,-his house who in his name speaks of what man is in nature, of the characteristics that belongs to him, but whose relationship to God speaks of the grace which God is ever showing. The God of Jacob is just the God of grace, and it is in this character that now we know Him, as that old house of Jacob did not. He addresses them in the midst of terrible failure and He appeals to them with a question,-a question, alas, that the heart of His own is so capable of raising,-nay, in fact so often raises:"Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened ? "

It might seem so, if we look at things around,- there are so many things, in fact, to grieve and hinder the blessed Spirit of God, but that is not all in the question. There is, alas! a terrible tendency with us when we look at the failure, to impute it in some sense even to the God of ?.ll grace Himself, and to murmur as if we were delivered up to failure, as if He had appointed our portion in it, and therefore there was no hope of escape; but in this sense the Spirit of the Lord is never straitened.

Notice the expression, which is "the Spirit of Jehovah," the covenant God, the One who under that name of Jehovah took up Israel in Egypt to make the glory of that Name known, and who entered into covenant with them by that Name, which speaks of His abiding constancy and power to fulfil what He had undertaken. They could not indeed be straitened in Him. They must be straitened, as the apostle says, if such were the fact, in their own bowels. The Lord's people never fail from inefficiency on His part for them, but always by their own voluntary giving themselves up to failure, and this may be the result, even, of that unbelieving discouragement which is implied in the question here. As Joshua, when Israel had fled at Ai, fell on his face before God to say, "What wilt Thou do for Thy great Name ? " so with us, alas! we are apt to think that we are more jealous for the glory of God's Name than He is Himself; but the Lord replies to him:"Up, why liest thou on thy face ? Israel has sinned." That was the whole matter. It is still the whole matter, and it is never, even thus, a reason for discouragement. God will take care of the glory of His Name, and on the other hand He will never be lacking to the soul, which, in the fullest confession of failure, turns to Him.

Amid whatever circumstances of discouragement in the Church at large, we can always encourage ourselves, as David did, in the Lord our God, and the faith that trusts in Him shall not be ashamed in this respect any more than any other. How good it is to know that He will necessarily be more than sufficient for all we count upon Him for ! Do we believe this ? or are we putting the question still as to whether the Spirit of the Lord is straitened ?

Look at the Lord's own picture. The Spirit of God is in us now, a thing that no Israelite could speak of in his day, and the Lord's word as to it in that familiar speech of His to the woman of Samaria describes it as "living water," as "a spring of living water," not a well, as our translation puts it, but "a spring of water leaping up into everlasting life." Certainly we are intended there to realize the energy that there is in a spring like this. There are conditions, no doubt, as to our realization of it, but the ' failure to do so can only be with ourselves, and with ourselves as individuals, and never with the spring. The Spirit of God is in us now. Alas, how much do we realize of this marvelous truth ? God is in us. Our very bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, which we have of God. Can we be wrong in predicating the very largest results from such grace and power as are implied in this? How can the conduct of others affect this as regards ourselves? The unfaithfulness of the whole Church can never deprive the individual soul that turns to God of the display of power which God has for him, which may not indeed manifest itself outwardly in mighty works, but inwardly, assuredly, in the revelation of blessing and of power from One who is faithful to His gifts and never repents.

The Lord's words here reveal the secret of any failure. "Do not My words," He asks "do good to him that walketh uprightly?" That is the whole matter. Does God's word cease to be to us what it once was? Have we lost the blessed savor of it in any wise? Does it fail to yield to us for all our need, for more than all that faith can seek from it? Then there is but one reason for this failure. It is that we walk not uprightly.

And that is a terrible thing to say of any child of God, for it does not mean simply what we call failure. It is failure, but failure of that purpose of heart which God claims and looks for as the very condition of His manifesting Himself with us. The unleavened bread with which we are to keep the
feast is the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We can keep God's feast in no other fashion. Everything else is leaven; that is, it is not mere lapse from weakness or incapacity, but it is ferment, it is the spirit of rebellion, in fact, against God Himself. Let us remember that uprightness has to be measured according to the place that God has given us, according to the power of the revelation He has made to us.

What is the place that He has given us? A place in Christ, as Christ. We have Him before God, who has gone up to God charged with all our interests, to maintain us according to the value of His blessed work for us; so that now it is only unbelief if we ever think we have to serve ourselves, to look after our own concerns, as it were, as if He were in some way at least insufficient for us.
We have things, surely, to do down here. We have a life to live, we have duties to perform; but that is a very different thing from that seeking of our own which is never a duty, but a departure from Him. We are here in the world for Him. If He is before God for us, on the one hand, we are as truly for Him upon the other. If we are in Him, He, as the result, is in us, and thus is all fruit found. If now, as the seal upon it all, the Spirit of God has come to take possession of us, this is the plain mark, as the apostle says, that we are not our own, we are bought with a price. He is with us, in us, to secure Christ's interests, to work for His glory.

All that implies, most surely, our highest interests also. We cannot lose our lives for Him without gaining them over and over again, as we may say. We cannot live to Him without finding the wondrous power of such a life, the blessing and enjoyment of it. We cannot seek His things without finding that, in the truest sense, and as far as lies in us, we have secured our own, but the seeking His things must be what is in our hearts. Let the care of all else be upon Him. He is competent for it, and our first duty is to trust Him unfeignedly with it all. Thus we may go unburdened. Thus alone are we witnesses for Him and not witnesses against Him. It is when men can see in us that Christ has possession of us and that our lives are, in the purpose of our hearts, devoted to Him,-it is thus He is commended. The doctrine of Christ makes way for itself in the power of a living witness.

This, then, is what is uprightness. We are to answer to the place that God has put us in. As we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, we are to walk in Him; if we are risen with Christ, we are to have our mind upon things above, where Christ sitteth, at the right hand of God. All that is short of this is not mere failure in reaching what we aim at, it is failure in the aim itself; and there can be nothing but straitness for us if that be our condition. It is vain to think of anything like revival until we are ourselves revived out of a fallen condition.

We need, therefore, to begin with ourselves individually. We are not to end there. If once our hearts are really in the power of that which God has -made our own, the state of His people will press itself upon us in exact proportion, but we shall find that now the Lord can use us in ministry to those He loves, and from whom His love never departs, however much they may have departed from Him. It is indeed a terrible thing for those who are truly His to be encompassed with a multitude of those who if they are indeed believers, "are not, for all that in the energy of faith, in the power of the truth which they acknowledge as such. One can understand that in such a condition one might feel that he could go more easily alone than with those who are out of sympathy with, and irresponsive to, the claims of Christ upon them, but here also we might find that it was our own that we were seeking in another way. God never leaves His people, and we are to be the witnesses of that love of His which never leaves them.

We are to refuse indeed all that would make us responsible in any wise for the evil of others, all that would be complicity on our part, conformity to that which springs out of an unjudged condition; but apart from this, it is ours to be with the people of God, seeking their blessing, as our own blessing, which it truly is. The body of Christ needs all its members. " If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it," and, alas, how crippled is the Church to-day by the mixture of clean and unclean which everywhere prevails. There must be in all that involves one's duty to Him, no compromise; but there must be, on the other hand, the love which has its central characteristic in not seeking its own, therefore in true and unselfish ministry to all the need there is around.
Discouragement is here apt to be our sorest hindrance. Whatever love might desire, if once we get the thought that it is impossible to realize it, all efforts are chilled, all work for that which is hopeless drops of necessity. We still have need to urge upon ourselves the question:"Is the Spirit of the Lord
straitened?"If we plead it with Him in faith, we shall surely find what is His answer to it. The consequences of our own past failure may in measure follow us, and the general condition of things we can never hope to alter; but those who are with God will still find that His word appeals to the hearts of His own, and that there is a power for revival out of whatever ruin may have been wrought. There still remain for us Christ and the Spirit and the precious word of God ready to reveal more and more of that which is in it for the enrichment of us all, the riches which Christ's poverty has secured for us and which still appeal to the hearts of His people. How blessed to know that in every one of these there still abides that Spirit who is the seal in us of the perfection of Christ, and who never, therefore, can give up His care of those who thus stand identified with that perfection! Of revival, every one of us will still find his constant need, and the path itself which God puts before us is never spoken of as an easy one. If we think of it we can never say that we have strength sufficient for it. It is out of weakness still, and ever, that strength is found, and grace alone is all our sufficiency. The more deeply for ourselves we realize this, the more we shall count upon that grace for others and expect to see the fruit of the Spirit in those in whom the Spirit still abides, and who will never give them up. F. W. G.

"Now when these things were done the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, . . . have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, . . . for they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons . . . and when I heard this thing, I rent my garment, . . . Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of God of Israel and I sat down astonied until the evening sacrifice.

"And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness, and having rent my garment and my mantle I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God, and said, O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to Thee, . . . Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass . . . and now for a little space grace hath been showed from the Lord our God. . . . And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken the commandments, which Thou hast commanded, saying . . . give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons. … O Lord God of Israel . . . behold, we are before Thee in our trespasses. Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children:for the people wept very sore" (Ezra. 9:1-10:1).

Nothing is more plain in Scripture than that God forbids His people to form any alliance with the world. Israel was a type of us, as we know-and we have besides the teaching and the commandments of the New Testament; the unequal yoke forbidden of old, is forbidden, of course, to the Church-and if Israel's responsibility was great, how much greater is ours. If Ezra and those with him wept, and chastened their souls-what becomes us when souls turn aside to the world and despise the commandments of God?-now, with so much greater light.

We need to be aroused to the encroachment of the world. We must be awakened from self-indulgence to allow exercise to be produced that will lead to confession and crying to God. We must deplore any lack of united exercise; we should indeed pray for it, that deliverance and blessing may not be hindered; for it is never God's will that we should be delivered to do the will of the flesh, but that we should glorify Him; and therefore, that we should be delivered from every snare of Satan that would dishonor Him, and hinder the blessing of His people. We can count upon His help, but we are to diligently seek it, confessing our real condition. Note the deliverances to His people of old when they felt their condition, and cried to Him with sincere hearts and broken spirits. We have a notable case before us in Ezra; and there are many as we know, and very touching they are, as in the book of Judges, and in the books of Kings and the Chronicles.

Never did the Lord turn away from His people when they cried to Him. In Gideon's time (Judges 6:), "Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites," (the encroachments of the world) "and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, and it came to pass that when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel." The prophet rebuked them. God would not answer Saul at all even by ?. prophet, but He answered Israel's cry; better to be rebuked than to be left to ourselves. And then, after the rebuke, the Lord raised up Gideon, the "cutter down," as a deliverer; self-judgment was produced; idols were overthrown and the enemy was overcome.
Admonitions must be given, of course, and at times a rebuke; and parents are to govern their children; and when the assembly is, in the main, walking with God this will be done with effect and with blessing from God; but when the assembly has become enfeebled and the enemy has gained a foothold, confession and prayer is called for, unitedly, that deliverance may be wrought. We are all interested in one another, and in every family connected with the assembly, that all may be able to "keep rank."

When alliances with the world occur among us in marriage, in business, in joining benefit societies; when souls are turned by Satan in any way, Ezra's example tells us how we should be exercised that the Lord may deliver us from our peril and our shame.

But what can keep us from turning back to the world but having our hearts satisfied with Christ, finding joy in Him, as at first? "Seek those things which are above " and "mortify our members which are upon the earth."

This is our Gilgal to which we need ever to return. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." The cross closed our life in the flesh; and we are risen with Christ, and are soon to appear with Him in glory. How deep and high and precious is the ground of this exhortation. In the power and blessing of this word, we can deny the lusts of the flesh. Can we think of Christ as our life and of our being dead with Him, and risen with Him and about to appear with Him in glory, and then indulge the lusts of the flesh, and turn aside to the world? The joy of this precious truth in the soul is victory over all temptations, as Israel went forth from Gilgal, where they were circumcised, to victory after they had crossed the Jordan.

May we turn again to the Lord with true hearts and present our bodies a living sacrifice to Him and be not conformed to the world. The world can only delude. God will fill the soul with joy and make Christ to be so precious to us that the heart will be preserved by its secret joy from all unrest, and from every snare of Satan.

Are we finding joy in the Lord ? If we are, we can contribute a portion towards the worship and happy service of the assembly. . If not, we are like a city with walls broken down and open to the enemy on every side. If not devoted Christians, we wrong one another, we hang like a dead weight on those who are faithful, and the marks of decay are seen in many ways. Ministry that is faithful, and with the comfort of the Spirit is lacking; gifts are not developed, meetings forsaken, and children seek satisfaction elsewhere, when they might have been led on in the way of deepening peace and joy by the knowledge of Christ.

May the Lord confirm what is true and faithful in the lives of any among us, and as to what we lack, may His grace work in us suitable exercises. If we do not judge ourselves, we must be judged. May restoring grace work blessing far and wide. The Lord make us so happy in the expectation of glory with Christ that we shall pass on undefiled by the world.

Are we willing to be exercised in soul before God as to our condition and the condition of the assembly? We are not called to self-indulgence, but to deny ourselves and to take up our cross and to follow Christ. We are soldiers of Christ, called to conflict, and His discipline and rebuke and chastening is to purify and lead to great blessing and usefulness. If we know the afflictions of Christ, we will know the consolations of Christ. May we love the Lord, and His people, and count upon His delight to bless them. E. S. L.

THE MAN AFTER THE FLESH.

Chapter I. THE STATE OF THE PEOPLE. Continued from page 324.

"Returning for a little, we must look at the state of the people as exemplified in that of the priests, for as the Scripture shows, the one corresponds to the other. "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so " (Jer. 5:31). Here we see the false prophets, claiming to reveal God's mind, and the priests bearing rule by this. But such a state would be impossible were the people not willing. The people, if only outwardly connected with God, are glad to have a carnal priesthood. So in the history of the professing church, with the awful iniquity of the priests, we must remember that it was but the reflection of the state of a carnal people; in name only the people of God. No doubt a godly priest would do much to check the abounding evil of the people, and a godless one would accelerate their decline. Hence, the solemn responsibility of those in such a place. But the point of importance to remember is that a people away from God make possible a wicked priesthood, as the latter intensifies the alienation of the people.

But what a picture of reckless blasphemy and grossest wickedness have we in these priests. One bears the honored name of a faithful predecessor and relative – Phinehas, "the mouth of brass." The name is suggestive of what he was, an unyielding witness for God in a day of apostasy and corruption, who by his faithfulness wrought righteousness, stayed the plague and obtained '' an everlasting priesthood," as type of the Priest who one day will put down all evil and maintain abiding relationship between God and His people (Num. 25:7-13). With this one, however, nothing remains but the name. Is it not suggestive also that Eli was not a descendent of Phinehas, but of Ithamar, the other son of Aaron? So that at this time, for some reason, the proper line of descent had not been observed, which in itself may indicate the disordered condition of everything. For Phinehas had been promised an abiding priesthood. "A mouth of brass" indeed had this younger Phinehas, but not on God's behalf, as a faithful witness for Him, Rather, he hardened himself against God, and would be one of those who would say, " Our lips are our own; who is lord over us? "

Hophni, too, while there is no historical connection with his name, seems to answer to it only in an evil way. " My hands," seems to be the meaning, which some have thought to suggest " fighter." But the root with which it is connected is used for de-scribing the hands as capable of holding, rather than of striking. Very noticeably it is applied to the priest entering the holiest on the day of atonement, "with his hands full of sweet incense" (Lev 16:12). It would thus be a good priestly name, and fitting companion for Phinehas. "Hands full" of incense and an unyielding testimony. Alas, the hands of Hophni were full, but not of the materials of praise. They were filled with ill-gotten gain and the fat of the Lord's offerings appropriated to his own use. The sin of these men was twofold, the one resulting from the other. In the judgment of the world they would not have seemed equally heinous. They were guilty of sacrilege and of gross immorality, the latter a fitting consequence of the former.

And is not this always the case? Where God is displaced, His service despised, is not the relation between man and man also corrupted ? The unspeakable corruption described in the early part of Romans is the direct result of man's turning from God. So here. The priests will have their own part out of the sacrifice-not that in mercy provided for them in the law of God, but of the best, and of that which belonged to Him alone. When the worshipers, with some remains of a tender conscience, would plead that God have His part first, the rough answer and threatened violence was all the satisfaction they could get. Thus the Lord's offering was despised, and the sin of the priests was "very great before the Lord."

If there is one form of sin more abhorrent than another, and which will bring more fearful punishment, it is that which disports itself in the presence of holy things. This is why religious corruption is the worst. The conscience is seared, and God's holy name is dragged into the most unholy associations. Will He allow it? Ah, He will no more allow it in a formal, Christless church than He would in a formal Israel. Men despised holy things, because of their abuse by the priests. And is it not true, not only in Rome past and present, but in the professing church to-day, that the world despises divine things because those who should be "holy priests," do not give God the chief place in their professed service of Him? When people cease to fear before God, when they see in His ministers mere selfish disregard of God's will, we have apostasy. It is not extravagant to say that such is largely the condition in Christendom to-day. The Lord's offering is despised.

Eli hears of all his sons' wickedness and calls them to account. His words are strong and good. But of what avail are good and strong words when the strong arm of judgment should fall? The law provided the penalty for such sacrilege as this, in death. Why did not Eli show himself to be truly zealous for the Lord's honor ? Ah, words, mere words no matter how strong are worse than guilty complicity. Worse, for the man who utters them knows the evil and goes on with it.

There is solemn instruction in this. It is not enough to see the wrong of a thing, or even to bear witness against it. Action is necessary. This is why so many-Lot like-fret and talk against evil and find no relief or help. Action must be taken, either by inflicting true discipline upon the evil-doer, or, if this be impossible, by separation from a state of things which makes it impossible. Otherwise men will be engulfed in the judgment of the very thing against which they so loudly declaim.

This may seem harsh, but it is in accord with the witness of the man of God who is sent to Eli. He associates Eli with his sons:" wherefore kick ye at My sacrifice and at My offering …. and honorest thy sons above Me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel My people!" Not one word of commendation for his own faithfulness, or personal piety. "Them that honor Me, I will honor." And so Eli and his house go down in a common dishonor, branded with the common shame of having despised the Lord. Would that the lesson of this could be fully learned. " Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."

It is refreshing and yet most sad to think of the child Samuel growing up in an atmosphere like this. Refreshing, for the Lord kept him inviolate amidst "the obscene tumult which raged all around;" but sad that one so tender should not only witness, but be obliged to witness against this awful state of things. "But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod." "And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favor both with the Lord, and also with men." "And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli"(i Sam. 2:18, 26; 3:i). The mention of the ephod, the priestly garment, would suggest that on a little child had fallen the only spotless robe in the priesthood. He represents, as we might say, for the time being, the house of Aaron, fallen into ruins in the hands of Eli and his sons. The child grew on and ministered to the Lord before Eli.

Be he but a child, no one who is truly before God will be long without a message from God. So Samuel gets his first revelation from the One till then but dimly known by him. Poor Eli! eyesight has well nigh gone, as well as faithfulness, and lying down to slumber he fittingly suggests the spiritual state he was in. How hopeless, to human appearances, was the state. How unlikely that God would intervene. And yet it is just then that He does speak, and to a little child. Thrice He must call before it dawns upon Eli that the Lord is speaking to the child. He had told him to "go and lie down again, "even as many careless ones would seek to quiet those to whom God is speaking. But at last it dawns upon the old man that it is God who is there, and he dare not-weak as he may be with his sons-he would not silence that Voice, slow as he had been to obey it.

How touching and interesting is the scene which follows, familiar to every Christian child. What a moment in this child's life-God, the living God, deigns to call and to speak with him. What an honor; how lovely and yet how solemn. Well may the child say "Speak Lord for Thy servant heareth."

But what a message for a child's ears. Why should this awful story of sin and its judgment be the first words which the Lord should speak to the little one ? Does it not emphasize for us the fact that the judgment of sin is as necessary for the young as the old? and that God's messenger in a world like this must hear all His word ? How many plead that they are not suited for such testimony. They love to hear the sweet and precious things of the gospel, but when it comes to the solemn declarations as to the state of the Church and the path for faith, how many plead that they are not ready for such things. A child can hear and declare the message of God.

We can think of that little lad, lying open eyed till the morning, with the great awe of God's nearness upon him; and naturally shrinking from the responsibility of declaring this message to Eli. He quietly opens the doors of the Lord's house-significant act-fearing to speak of what he had heard. But Eli calls him, and, faithful to himself, if not to his sons, hears and bows to the awful sentence of God pronounced by the lips of a child.

(To be continued.)

QUES. 14.-Please explain the meaning of the Rider on the white horse, Rev. 6:2. Does he go forth as an antichrist or as a warrior? Is he a real man or only a symbol?

ANS.-He goes forth "conquering and to conquer," so evidently he is not an antichrist, but a warrior. The bow also would speak of this. He thus stands for the victorious spread of power in the latter days. The horse is symbolic of power and rule, but the rider is something more than a symbol. Being the first to come forth, he seems to be the ruler of the revived Roman Empire. Later on we see this ruler as "the beast"(ch. 13:1), revived in satanic power after he had received the deadly wound.

It is of solemn interest to note that this Rider comes forth at the call of the first living creature-the Lion. Christ as King is represented as the lion, and if He is rejected by man, there is nothing left but this warrior ruler. The Jews declared " we have no king but Caesar," and in this last of the Caesars we see the heading up of that apostasy of the world from its rightful Ruler.

QUES. 15.-Please explain the expression " sons of God," Gen. 6:2. To my mind it seems undoubtedly to point to the children of Seth. Yet I believe some hold and speak of the words in Jude 6, 7, as pointing to another view.

ANS.-We have no doubt the first is the correct view. "Sons of God," it is true, is used of angels (Job 1:6; 38:7). But as in all Scripture, the connection must be examined. In Genesis there is no mention of angelic beings in connection with these times, on the other hand there is a distinction between the descendants of Seth and those of Cain. Let this be seen, and all is clear, while the other thought is not only incongruous, but contrary to the entire teaching of the word of God. The passage in Jude gives no support to the view mentioned. It treats of an entirely different subject-the fall of the angels, which occurred doubtless before the creation of man. There is no connection between vers. 6, 7 which is sought to be given.

QUES. 16.-Is there a difference in character between the judgment-seat of Christ and the great white Throne?

ANS.-Of course it is understood that there is the widest difference between these two judgments as to time and persons involved, as well as what comes into judgment. The judgment-seat of Christ takes place at the beginning, we might say, of the millennium, and that of the great white Throne at its close. Only the saved are at the former, and only the lost at the latter; while works are reviewed at the former and persons judged at the latter.

But as to the character of the judgment, of the holiness which is its basis, there is no difference. The light in which the saints' works will be manifested is just as intense as that which will search out "the hidden things of darkness "in the unsaved. Does not this explain the apostle's expression, "knowing therefore the terror of the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:11)? He would entreat sinners, in view of that judgment before them, to be reconciled to God, for he knew the solemn reality of that judgment which would search out all the life of the saints.

V. THE TWO NATURES.

Often it happens that the young believer becomes distressed in spirit as he realizes the continued existence of sin in him, which at times will assert itself by thought, word and action, much to his sorrow. Such an one does not see fully that while he is "born again," and has thus received a new nature, yet the old nature is not remedied, removed, or eradicated, but two distinct natures exist in him as opposite as day and night, good and evil, in their desires and operations, and can be no more assimilated than oil and water.

A lack of apprehension of all this may, and often does, lead into what is called a " backslidden " state, causing distress of soul, sorrow to God's people, and dishonor to Him.

I. The natural man, 1:e., a person in his unconverted state, having only one nature, and that received from Adam by natural, fleshly descent.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:for they are foolishness unto him:neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (i Cor. 2:14).

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God:for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

"So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God " (Rom. 8:7, 8).

This God states to be the condition of every person naturally, no matter how cultured, refined, talented, amiable, or liberal, they"cannot please God."

See also Psa. 51:5; Mark 7:21-23; Eph. 4:22; John 6:63; i Cor. 1:18; Heb. 11:6; John. 3:6.

2. The spiritual man, 1:e., a person such as above, but who has been born again; thus receiving a new nature from God in addition to the old Adamic nature, in all its unchangeableness ; just as bad in the believer as in the unbeliever.

"As many as received Him, to them gave He power (right or privilege) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12, 13).

"Whereby are given unto us, exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 2:4).

" Which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness " (Eph. 4:24).

See also John 3:3; Gal. 3:26; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3, 4; i John 3:9).

Thus these two extremes of nature, Adamic and of God, existing in the same person-a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ-there must be, and is constant conflict, as each asserts itself.

3. The fruits of each nature, and the conflict. '' For the flesh (Adamic nature) lusteth against the spirit (the divine nature), and the spirit against the flesh:and these are contrary the one to the other:so that ye cannot (or may not) do the things that ye would " (Gal. 5:17).

" Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like" (Gal. 5:19-21).

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5:22, 23).

"But as then he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so is it now" (Gal. 4:29). See also Rom. 7:14-24.

It is very profitable and helpful to study carefully the conflict between the two in this last chapter.

4. Victory. With these two conflicting powers, one displeasing and the other pleasing to God, it is evident that as either one has control or sway, the life of the believer must be in approval or disapproval to God; so the apostle writes in 2 Cor. 5:9, that he endeavored to be "acceptable to Him," not accepted of Him in the sense of salvation which was "in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6), and is therefore unvarying, but as to his life and service.

With the new birth God gives a mighty " Helper " in the Holy Ghost, who dwells in the believer imparting energy and overcoming power, so that the secret of victory is to "walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh " (Gal 5:16).

It is to see the place and manner in which God has dealt with the "old man" and then to reckon or count ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

" Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, for ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. . . . Mortify (put practically to death) therefore your members," etc. (Col. 3:2, 3, 5.)

How God deals with the old man ?

"Knowing this that our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."

" Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" (Rom. 6:6, 9, 11, 12).

"I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20).

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh . . . but if we through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body we shall live" (Rom. 8:12, 13).

So it is to realize our identification, in God's sight, with Christ,-that we have died, been buried, risen, seated in the heavenlies in Him, and that such is the end of the "old man" before Him, judged at the cross ; and thus walking, or living in the Spirit, is making practical here in our lives this exalted position in the energy of the Holy Spirit who bears witness through the word of God to these facts:-

"Ye are dead …ye then be risen with Christ " (Col. 3:3, i).

"Hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 2:6).

But while truly believing all this, the believer at times may yield to the flesh, and, alas, sin is the result. What then is to be done ?

God is His wonderful salvation has made provision for this.

" My little children these things write I unto you that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (i John 2:i).

Our blessed Lord did not exhaust His interest in His believing people on the cross, but His advocacy
now avails for those of them who may be overcome by sin. But does not the believer have something to do ? Ah, yes, the saint who has thus fallen into sin, by which his communion is interrupted, must be led to "see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God" (Jer. 2:19), and that it is no light matter to yield to that which his Father hates and which brings not only trouble to himself, but dishonor to our Lord, and will be led by the Holy Spirit in deep humiliation of soul to true self-judgment (i Cor. 11:31, 32), and to make confession of his sin.

But let it be clearly understood that this is not to be done in a mere formal manner;. it must be real heart work of sorrow, for sin is as hateful to our God in His children, as it is in the unbeliever, and surely it is not the normal condition of children of God to practice or allow sin any rule in their lives, but on the contrary it should be an exception.

The apostle Paul writes, "sin shall not have dominion over you" (Rom. 6:14).

Peter "went out and wept bitterly" (Matt. 26:75), and

John calls attention to the Advocacy of Christ. (i John 2:i).

David says, '' Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee" (Psa. 119:n).

This latter, then, is the great preventive, as in the power of the Holy Ghost it takes practical effect in our lives, and as the word points to our Lord, the sure remedy is to be continually occupied with our Lord Jesus Christ. B. W. J.

QUES. 1.-Please explain 1 Tim. 5:6. Is the widow here spoken of a Christian? It seems as if the "true widow" is described in the fifth verse, and in the sixth only a professor is spoken of. Is this correct?

ANS.-The contrast is clear, and the broad distinction is as noted by our correspondent. The sixth verse would describe one who still found her portion and pleasure in the world. Thus while alive in the world, she has no spiritual life. In striking contrast with this is the one who is desolate, but has all her faith and expectation centered in God. She is the true widow, whose consolation is not in the pleasures of this world, but in Christ alone. In this connection the apostle instructs Timothy not to recognize as belonging to the class of widows any under sixty years of age. This seems to indicate that some spiritual importance was attached to this class, and doubtless the "mothers in Israel" were thus recognized. The younger widows were able to provide, to some extent for themselves, or at any rate they were not to be definitely recognized as the older. It is not to be thought that the apostle was forbidding either the care for or remarriage of the younger widows, but was warning against what might easily become an abuse.

QUES. 2.-Why was there no provision made in the Levitical law for sacrifices for presumptuous sins ?

ANS.-Doubtless to emphasize the weakness and unprofitableness of the law. The very sins that would weigh most heavily on the conscience, and enhanced the guilt of man, were the very ones for which no provision was made. Thus David, who could not plead ignorance, realized that no sacrifice of the law would avail for his sin. In his broken-hearted acknowledgment, in the fifty-first psalm, he does not even offer a legal sacrifice. " Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it." But in what blessed contrast with this is the sacrifice of Christ our Lord, whose blood cleanseth from all sin.

QUES. 3.-What is the meaning of the expression, 'baptized for the dead," in 1 Cor. 15:29 ?

ANS.-"Baptized in place of the dead," that is new converts taking the place of those Christians who had died. It is as though the apostle said, " Why should new converts be made to take the place of the fallen Christians, persecuted, suffering. dying-why perpetuate this suffering, if there is no resurrection?" But resurrection answers the question. Christians are living for the future, and those who take the place of the dead will one day share in the glorious resurrection.

QUES. 4.-How wide is the application of such scriptures as Matt. 10:19, 20; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:11, 12; 21:14, 15. Do they refer simply to those who are brought before kings, rulers and magistrates, or to any child of God who is questioned regarding his belief. And need he fear that the answer will not be given him because he forgets at the moment to ask for it. if the whole attitude of his mind and heart is that of dependence upon God? Is there anything inconsistent in these passages with 1 Pet. 3:15; "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you?"

ANS.-While the passages"refer primarily to the circumstances of the disciples during and immediately after our Lord's life- abundant illustrations of which will be found in the book of Acts-there is not the slightest reason why faith should not make the fullest use of the promise in every case of need. And how often has God honored the faith based upon these very scriptures. With regard to prayer, there will, of course, be the need for it, but our gracious God knows the constant attitude of the heart. However, as the soul goes on to know Him, distraction becomes less and less possible.

6.THE KINSMAN-REDEEMER. (Chaps. 2:18-3:)

In what has just preceded, we have been regarding Ruth as a type of the seeker in general, apart from the dispensational application. But we must not forget that the connection with the history of God's earthly people in the latter days is clear and continued. While every seeker is depicted in the patient gleaning and beating out, no doubt the faith on the part of the remnant is particularly suggested. There are touching and pathetic intimations throughout the first two books of the Psalms of this reaching out of a faith after a blessing which it but feebly apprehends, and with an evident ignorance of Him who is to be the kinsman-redeemer. There is integrity of heart, a separation from the mass of the ungodly nation, and yet an evident veil upon the eyes. In the sixth psalm, for instance, there is the deepest pressure upon the soul, not only from the persecutions without, but from the sense of wrath from God Himself. It is with apparent difficulty that a little comfort is gleaned at the close. Again, in the thirteenth, under the persecutions of the "man of sin," the soul makes its complaint to a God but dimly apprehended, although real faith is in exercise, and at the close the testimony is that the Lord has "dealt bountifully" with the needy one. Even after the wondrous unfolding of the work of Christ, and His person in the series of Psalms from the sixteenth to the twenty-fourth, we find in the twenty-fifth but a gleaner, gathering comfort and pleading for pardon in view of the remembrance of the sins that will rise up. These will suggest what would be an interesting and profitable line of study, the rise and development of faith in the remnant, as seen in the Psalms. We see, too, brighter days, and hear the "voice of the Bridegroom," if not of the bride, in such lovely psalms as the forty-fifth. But the time of that psalm has not yet been reached in Ruth, and we must follow her through some deep experiences before she reaches it.

After she had beaten out the barley-a grain itself suggestive of poverty and feebleness (Judg. vii, 13) she returns to her mother-in-law and shows her little store, sharing it with her. It will be noticed that she first satisfies her own hunger before giving to Naomi, and in this there seems to be suggested the thought that faith must receive before it can give. The nation of the Jews, typified by Naomi, can receive comfort and encouragement only at the hands of the believing remnant, which itself must feed on the store it has gleaned before it can impart it to others. The "Maskilim," the instructors who are to "turn many to righteousness" (Dan. 12:3), must themselves learn the lessons they are to teach. The very first of these lessons is found in the first of the "Maskil" Psalms, the thirty-second, on the blessedness of forgiveness. And so must it be with all other lessons; Ruth must first be sufficed before she Can give to Naomi.

Passing to a more general application, the lesson is as self-evident. Faith must feed on its gathered store before it can impart to others. In John's gospel we see this strikingly illustrated in the "Come and see " of those who had themselves already come and seen the Christ. It is the poor Samaritan, who in her position resembles Ruth, who can take the message to the people of the town.

We are living in days not only of great activity, but when the doctrine of activity is put in the place of feeding upon the truth of God. We are told that the way to grow is to work; but how can we work without strength and guidance and all else suggested in that word, "communion "? We can only give the overflow to others, in any true sense, and that, as its name suggests, is spontaneous.
But how simple this makes all service. We eat and are sufficed, and out of a full heart we minister to the needs of others. Let the evangelist remember this. Does the deep full joy in a personal salvation fail, and does it seem in any way irksome for him to tell out the same old story? Let him turn in deep penitence to his Lord and Saviour, confessing his emptiness and find again that "grace is the sweetest sound." The same applies to the teacher both in public and private, the pastor, and to all who would be witnesses for our Lord. Thus what might seem like ungraciousness on the part of Ruth conveys a lesson of deep importance to us all.

Naomi, with busy memory going back over familiar scenes long past, asks where her daughter-in-law had gleaned such abundance as it doubtless seemed to her widowed eyes, long familiar with poverty. Her heart already warms to one, whoever he might be, that would permit the lonely stranger to gather in his fields:" Blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee." It is interesting to gather from the blended picture of these two women the faith and exercises of the latter day. Ruth has the faith, we might say, and Naomi has the knowledge. So it is the elder of the women who now is prominent, and who imparts to the younger the wondrous news that her benefactor is a kinsman. The knowledge that the Jews will have of the promises of God in regard to restoration and the blessings of the coming Kingdom through the Messiah, will no doubt serve to awaken and quicken the zeal of their newly born faith. Naomi recognizes in Boaz a kinsman, and sees in Ruth's experience the hand of God, " who has not left off His kindness to the living and the dead." The breach between the happy past and the present is spanned by the love and care of One who, whether with the a glimpse of that love. faithful God will yet make good every one of the faithful ,

"He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep hi" as a shepherd doth his flock" (Jer. 31:10). Those who fail to see this fact lose one of the most important illustrations of the faithfulness of God. If an the promises to Israel which fill the pages of the Prophets and the Psalms are to be spiritualized into blessings for the Church, what becomes of the gifts and calling of God for His earthly people? Well might we, without the hope of an answer ask, with the psalmist of old, "Lord, where are Thy former loving, kindnesses, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth? "In the face of such a promise as the following, how could we think that God had forgotten the nation of Israel?"Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night . . ., if those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation from before Me forever " (Jer. 31:35, 36).

It is this that is suggested by Naomi in linking together God's past kindness to Elimelech and His present care for her, the poor widow. How good it is to remember that His love will yet find its rest in this now despised people. How it thrills the heart to dwell upon it. Little wonder that Paul breaks out in worship as he contemplates it:"O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! "

With this unchanging purpose of God in our mind, we can understand how the Church is left out of view in all passages that concern Israel, both in the Old and New Testaments. We understand how our Lord, in sending out the twelve to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," leaves out of view entirely the present interval of the nation's rejection, and says, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come " (Matt. 10:23).

So the glimmers of faith in the end will connect the little bits of blessing gleaned with the past mercies promised to the Nation. But like Naomi, the people will be slow to apprehend the wondrous meaning of this. She says to Ruth, "The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen." It will be noticed that for her Boaz is not yet the unique and only kinsman but simply one of whom there are others. So when our Lord asked His disciples, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man, am?" the answer was, "Some say that Thou art John the Baptist:some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one
of the prophets." They discerned that He was not an ordinary person, that He was a messenger from God, but how feebly did they see the reality, or rather how entirely they failed to apprehend it. For if Christ is but one of the prophets, He is not our redeemer. Thus Naomi is yet far from the truth.

But faith is on the right track, and in her words to Ruth we have an echo of what Boaz had already said, "It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they meet thee not in any other field." In fact it was Ruth, "the Moabitess," as we are touchingly reminded, who repeats the words of Boaz to her mother-in-law. Thus there is a glimmer of encouragement, and happy Ruth goes all through the barley harvest and the wheat harvest, not in the widow's sackcloth like the mourning Rizpah (2 Sam. 21:10), but with the light of a great hope growing more and more definite in her soul. Such doubtless will be the attitude of the remnant, during that time of exercise in which God's purposes will be learned. Not all at once will they know the blessing that is theirs, but faith grows with exercise, and will soon take no refusal.

So too, in the history of the individual soul, faith grows, and the more it gleans the more does it want. That which satisfied it yesterday will not suffice today. The One who supplies the handfuls is Himself behind it all, and gives a craving which none but Himself can satisfy.

(To be continued.)

THE MAN AFTER THE FLESH. THE STATE OF THE PEOPLE.

Chapter I.

In contrast with the book of Judges, and its supplement Ruth, the books of the Kings deal largely with the national center and the nation as connected with that, and a responsible head. The previous books had given the history of individuals and of separate portions of the nation. While the victories of the judges benefitted the people at large, there does not seem to be that cohesion, or that recognition of a divine center, so clearly provided for in the book of Deuteronomy. It is significant that the first allusion to Shiloh, in the book of Judges, is the mention of an idolatrous rival in the tribe of Dan (chap. 18:31).

The book of Samuel begins with Shiloh, and shows us the state of things there, as Judges had shown the general condition of the people. We have in the earlier chapters the state of the priesthood, in Eli and his sons. We might have hoped that, spite of national unfaithfulness, the priests, whose nearness to God was their special privilege, would remain faithful to Him. Alas for man! Be he never so near outwardly, and intrusted with the most priceless privileges, there is nothing in him to bind his heart to God. All must come from God alone; His grace must keep us, or we will not be kept.

There is no such thing as succession in grace. The son of the most faithful father needs to be born again as well as the most degraded of mankind. This is written clearly on many a page of the word of God. "Ye must be born again."

Eli, the high-priest, was personally righteous and loyal in heart to God, but he was weak. This is bad enough in any position, but when one is intrusted with the priesthood of a nation, responsible to maintain them in relationship with God, it is a crime. Eli's sons were godless men without conscience, and yet in the priests' place, and one of them successor to the high-priesthood.

The carelessness of Eli is so dreadful that nothing but the tragic circumstances of his and his sons' death, can fittingly express God's judgment. We will look at that later. We turn now to something brighter.

God has always had a remnant among His people, even in darkest days, and it is most refreshing to see in Hannah a faith and a desire in lovely contrast with Eli's feebleness, and his sons' wickedness. She lays hold of God, and spite of nature's impotence, and the discouragement of a reproof from Eli, she holds fast. What a reproach to Eli ! He has no energy to control his wicked house, and therefore has no discernment in administering reproof outside.

Faith may wait and weep, but it has its joys later on, and in Hannah's song of praise we get fresh encouragement to pray and wait. "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." This remains ever true, for the individual saint and for the Lord's people at any time, and more particularly is it applicable to the remnant in the latter days who will in affliction stay themselves upon the Lord.

This narrative of Hannah gives us a glimpse of what may not have been entirely uncommon among the people, while the mass was in a state of declension. There were always, even in the darkest days, the Lord's "hidden ones," the salt of the earth who preserved the mass from utter corruption for a time at least. It is a comfort to think of this, and to remember that there is at the present time also, a remnant whose heart is turned to the Lord.

But this remnant was not among the official class. The leaders were either too weak or corrupt to help the people. There could be no relief through the ordinary channels, and God must therefore come in by a new way. Samuel, the child of this faith of the remnant, is the first of the prophets.

The prophet was God's special means of communication with the people when the ordinary means had failed. This explains why the message was largely one of sadness. God will intervene; He loves His people too much not to deal with them, but that dealing must be according to His nature and their condition. The presence therefore of the prophet tells the true condition of the people.

Hannah herself is practically a prophetess-all subsequent prophecy is foreshadowed in her song. She exults in the Lord over the conquest of her enemies; she celebrates the holiness of God and His stable purposes of mercy for His people. She rebukes the pride and arrogance of the scoffer, and rejoices in the overthrow of the mighty. The rich have been brought low and the needy lifted up. The barren has become the joyful mother of children. The Lord humbles and exalts-He is sovereign. His adversaries will be overthrown, and His King and His Christ shall be exalted.

Faith looks on ever to the end. If for a time there seem to be partial recovery, still faith does not rest until God can rest. Thus the prophets in a certain sense were not reformers. They accepted and rejoiced in a true turning to God, but they were not deceived by appearances. All reform was but partial and temporary, to be succeeded by still greater darkness. All things wait the coming of the King. He is the desire of all nations, and all who are awakened to see the true condition of the world and of the professed people of God, know there is no hope but in the coming of the Lord.

So too in the history of the individual, whether for salvation or deliverance, there is no expectation from the natural man. The eye of faith is turned from all human excellence to the Christ of God, What peace of soul, what Hannah-like exultation of spirit there is, when He is the object ! Christ alone the Saviour; Christ alone the One in whom is deliverance from the power of sin.

But this complete setting aside of the flesh in all its forms by Hannah, shows at once her own deliverance and the bondage of the mass of the nation by whom she was surrounded. The people's condition was the very opposite of hers, and their confidence and expectation was in man. In this negative way, then, we may learn the true state of the people,-a state of ease and self-sufficiency on the part of many, of more or less open enmity to God, and a weak, helpless sense of need on the part of those partially aroused to the true condition of things.

The state was similar, under altered circumstances, in the days just preceding our Lord's advent. Then too there was a feeble remnant which stayed itself upon God, and a self-satisfied, hypocritical clan of rulers, who led the people as they wished. Then, too, faith waited for divine consolation, and was rewarded with a sight of the wondrous Babe of whose coming Hannah's song spoke. She could well have mingled her praises with those of Mary. But how few felt the need which had been satisfied in those few who had turned entirely from themselves to God and His remedy.

(To be continued.)

And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren :and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow." "And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that Thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand might be with me, and that Thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested" (i Chron. 4:9, 10).

The fact that honorable mention is made of this man, and that God granted his request, should be sufficient to attract our attention and lead us to a closer inquiry, if we would seek His approval and
blessing. What is said in a general way of this man is, that "he was more honorable than his brethren."

This in itself surely is enough to stir our hearts to diligence to know what it is that God so honors, and makes honorable mention of. We shall find too, that such lessons will not be mere statements of doctrine or fact; but living lessons that appeal to our inmost being, and that will lead us to Christ.

As to the details recorded:"His mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow." Here at the beginning we may find connection with another "son of sorrow" called by his mother Benoni-that is, "Son of my sorrow"- called by his father, Benjamin, – "son of my right hand " (Gen. 35:18), pointing on as by the prophet's finger to the Christ, that should first suffer, and enter into His glory. And here may we not see, in a spiritual way, this man, put in company with his Master while waiting for the inheritance, cast upon God in true dependence?

Now, we behold him praying; simple, earnest, believing prayer, to "the God of Israel." He does not forget His connection with His beloved people chosen in grace, and destined for glory, while he turns to seek for himself faith's present portion.

"Oh that Thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand might be with me, and that Thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! "

Four things are requested, and how suited! How short, how simple the earnest prayer! How full its blessed answer! "God granted him that which he requested."

"Oh that Thou wouldst bless me indeed."This is the simple language of trust, and although a "son of sorrow" he knows, that, "the blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it."

"The God of Israel is his God" and if sorrowful he may yet be "always rejoicing."

"Enlarge my coast." He asks no mean possessions of Him whose delight it is to give; but more land to till, more fruit to enjoy, more to "earnestly contend for" in the country surrounded with enemies. God had said, " I have given you the land," and faith takes Him at his word; and God honors the man that so honors Him.

He asks according to His word-His word was abiding in him-and he gets the sure answer.
Here, may we not say, he is in company with the wholehearted Caleb ? God is with him, and he has no cause to fear. Covetousness of such sort is not that "which is idolatry" (Eph. 1:15-23; 3:1-21; Col. 3:).

"And that Thine hand might be with me." Not "the wisdom of man" does his faith stand in; "but the power of God." "The mighty hand of God;" opened to satisfy "the need of every living thing," he would humble himself under. The guiding hand of Him who "knows the way He taketh" is the hand he desires should undertake for him; and lead him into his inheritance. And last, as one having "no confidence in the flesh;" and who would "with fear and trembling, work out his own salvation" prays; "That Thou wouldst keep me from evil."

Here we read the sweet testimony of what "the grace of God " does; grace that has brought salvation, and fixes the eyes on the glory of God, and assures the believing soul it is its own. Grace that teaches, not, "Let us do evil, that good may come," but, to abhor evil, and cleave to that which is good; "that having denied ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."

The man born in sorrow, brought to know "the God of the living" as his God, received His promises in faith, learned to trust Him for every blessing, now prays in a day of failure, while waiting for the full possession and enjoyment of the promised inheritance, to be "kept from the evil;" adding, "that it may not grieve me." He thus witnesses to his soul's condition, and that which would grieve the Lord, into whose companionship he had been brought, would be a grief to him.

How quickly the eye is now turned from the man "more honorable than his brethren," to his yet more honorable Master, and to hear Him pray, as He considers His own yet in the world:

"Holy Father . . . keep them from the evil." He who was the true "Son of sorrow," born in the very midst of it, and in His life a '' man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," "who bare our griefs and carried our sorrows" in loving sympathy:and still more "who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree."

Then, if we have known sorrow, and sin which brought all the sorrow; if we have known that blessed Man that " was made sin for us " to save us from the sorrows of eternal judgment; if we have heard Him say, as He dies under the load that He took for us, when the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, "it is finished; " giving peace to our souls, shall we not uncover our heads, and bow our hearts, as we listen to Him pray:-

"Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are.

" While I was with them in the world I kept them in Thy name:those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.

"I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

'' I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world; but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil," and add our earnest Amen! The same God that honored Jabez, and granted his request, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," shall grant us His blessing, and keep us from falling.

May the Lord lead us for His own name's sake.

'' The Lord is faithful who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil" (2 Thess. 3:3). W. M. H.

It is now twenty-seven years since I began my college life, a life which stretched out through eight years of good, hard work, four at the classics and four at medicine. During the college period and after it, and again, especially in these latter years as a teacher, I have always been most profoundly interested as a student of human nature and of medicine, in trying to find out what ailed the world about me. Why is it, as I have grown older, that I have come to find out that there is so much misery and unhappiness in the world? Why is it that each successive generation of young men begin to run the life race that is set before them, full of vigor, of fine enthusiasm, and with a determination to accomplish great things, and then one by one, drop back into the same indifference, and the same routine as was done by those who preceded them, the fire and all the enthusiasm gone, content in the end to make a good living and to take good care of themselves.

I well recall my own class, as fine a lot of fellows as you could wish to see, shouting "'77 forever" daily in the assembly room until we were hoarse, and each one certain beyond a peradventure that with our advent into the affairs of the world, the golden era was about to dawn. We each knew individually that we ourselves were destined to do some great deed, and we each looked, too, with secret admiration upon his fellows, picturing in our minds the great future which lay before each one.

A quarter of a century has elapsed and what is the outcome? Untimely death has claimed not a few of the dear boys (boys ever in spite of the added years), and those of us who survive have entered upon life's duties, just as our fathers did before us; good, faithful work has been done, but we have failed to bring about those startling changes which we had fondly hoped would make "77 "renowned forever, and a sad little stone in the old college wall, commemorative of ivy day, and a blighted ivy plant below it seem emblematic of our shattered hopes. What is the reason of the failure? Or was it a failure, after all? Was it then impossible to realize those great aspirations which thrilled us as we entered life's arena? These are the questions to which I will briefly address myself in this short letter to the college men of a younger generation; and in my reply I shall have to adopt the personal individual standpoint.

I would say of my own life that I have both lost something and I have found something. I have lost that which I at first esteemed great, for I discovered as I went on that it was, after all, but a bubble, a glittering semblance of a jewel, evanescent and temporal. But wondrous to relate, I have found in its place something infinitely more precious, eternal, a possession which increases in value day by day, lending a reality and a value to life in all its relations far beyond all possible anticipation of my early years.

Let me look at my life a little more closely; what have I actually lost? I think the loss can be pretty well covered by one word which used to figure largely in our college debates and chapel speeches, a word which covered the one great qualification in a man, which marked him out for success, and that word is "ambition." I remember well setting success in life before me as the one great desideratum, and anxiously analyzing its essential elements, which seemed to resolve themselves into ability, ambition, opportunity, health, and adding various adjuvant qualities, such as judgment, memory, tact, etc. I found, by God's grace, as I went on, that this, after all, was but a selfish scheme of living which, even if I might attain my end, was possible only for a fortunate few; I saw, too, some who were just about to take their fill of the cup of ambition suddenly snatched away by an untimely death, while others with all the other qualifications, were restrained from grasping the prize by the hand of disease; others, again (worst mockery of all), who gained all the world could offer in the way of fame or of wealth, remained, after all, most miserable and dissatisfied with life.

My first aim was, therefore, manifestly a false one. What was I then to do? Conclude that life was naught but a mockery? I thank God that when I found the emptiness of the aims of the world, I also found that He was not so sparing of His best gifts as I had begun to imagine. When I discovered that life and self were failures, I then found in Him more than heart could desire. Having no longer any good thing of my own, and now content to be as one of the servants in His house, I found instead that He had a glorious robe of righteousness of His own providing, and He was willing to set the very beggars who trusted Him among the princes at the gate. The glorious grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which God in His great mercy has offered, not to a forward intellectual few, but to all men everywhere, came as a blessed solace to one who found on all sides the vanity of setting the affections on the things of this world.

I would like to dwell on this noble theme, for I would that young men everywhere could only see that there is just one thing in the world that is worth making the object of our ambition, and that is to know, to love, and to serve God, and to know Him in the only way we can know anything about Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ's service is not a theory of life or a philosophy, but a life, a new principle, a new birth, a new creation. Behold, old things are passed away, and all things are made new. And this knowledge, which brings the peace the world knows nothing of, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who calls out and leads God's people in their earthly pilgrimage.

The great effective instrument of the Holy Spirit by which these truths are authoritatively taught, is the inspired word of God, the old Bible, Satan is gaining great victories in these days by holding men back from a loving, searching study of the Bible. Without this study, Christians remain weak and spiritually in a condition analogous to the bodily condition of a man fed on insufficient food at long intervals; they are often found languishing in Doubting Castle, or like the poor Galatians, confessing a faith in Christ but struggling to eke out an existence by the works of the law. If a man desires above all things, to feed his spiritual man, he will not neglect to eat the daily bread of the Word any more than he neglects his ordinary meals. Who ever hears a man say he is too busy to eat at all? and yet many are too busy to read the Bible.

My own daily life, (if I may be excused for continuing the personal part of the narrative), is as full as that of any man I know, but I found long since that as I allowed the pressure of professional and worldly engagements to fill in every moment between rising and going to bed, the spirit would surely starve, so I made a rule which I have since stuck to in spite of many temptations, not to read or study anything but my Bible after the evening meal, and never to read any other book but the Bible on Sunday. I do not exclude real Bible helps, which always drive one back to the Bible, but I never spend time on simply devotional books. Since making this resolution, God, in His mercy, has shown me that this Word is an inexhaustible storehouse from which He dispenses rich stores of precious truths to His servants as He pleases, and as they are ready to receive them. I have found that faith in Jesus Christ is a wonderful foundation rock upon which stands a marvelous superstructure. I have found that the Holy Ghost is not an influence, but a real, living, active Person, whom Christians must know personally if they will grow in grace and knowledge.
I see wonderful truths relating to Christ in types and prophecies which I never dreamed of before, and "the blessed hope" has a new meaning. The messages of the epistles I once thought full of hyperbole, now glow with meaning. And so I might go on, and so doubtless God, in His great grace and goodness, will lead us all on through the ages of eternity, beholding new glories and new graces in His Son.

What more can I say to arrest the attention of young men ?

Once my interest was in things which will pass away, now I am an actual partaker of the divine nature of Him who made all these things. What are they compared to Him ? He is truth.

"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands:they shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail." H. A. K.

These chapters show us in what different channels the Lord's thoughts flowed from those of the heart of man. His ideas, so to speak, of misery and of happiness, were so different from what man's naturally are.

The eleventh chapter opens with a scene of human misery. The dear family at Bethany are visited with sickness, and the voice of health and thanksgiving in their dwelling has to yield to mourning, lamentation, and woe. But He, who of all had the largest and tenderest sympathies, is the calmest among them ; for He carried with Him that foresight of resurrection, which made Him overlook the chamber of sickness, and the grave of death.

When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, He abode two days longer in the place where He was. But when that sickness ends in death, He begins His journey in the full and bright prospect of resurrection. And this makes His journey steady and undisturbed. And, as He approaches the scene of sorrow, His action is still the same. He replies again and again to the passion of Martha's soul, from that place where the knowledge of a power that was beyond that of death had, in all serenity, seated Him. And though He have to move still onward, there is no haste. For on Mary's arrival, He is still in the same place where Martha had met Him. And the issue, as I need not say, comes in due season to vindicate this stillness of His heart, and this apparent tardiness of His journey.

Thus was it with Jesus here. The path of Jesus was His own. When man was bowed down in sorrow at the thought of death, He was lifted up in the sunshine of resurrection.

But the sense of resurrection, though it gave this peculiar current to the thoughts of Jesus, left His heart still alive to the sorrows of others. For His was not indifference, but elevation. And such is the way of faith always. Jesus weeps with the weeping of Mary and her company. His whole soul was in the sunshine of those deathless regions which lay far away from the tomb of Bethany; but it could visit the valley of tears, and weep there with those that wept.

But again.-When man was lifted up in the expectation of something good and brilliant in the earth, His soul was full of the holy certainty that death awaits all here, however promising or pleasurable; and that honor and prosperity must be hoped for only in other and higher regions. The twelfth chapter shows us this.

When they heard of the raising of Lazarus, much people flocked together from Bethany to Jerusalem, and at once hailed Him as the King of Israel. They would fain go up with Him to the Feast of Tabernacles, and antedate the age of glory, seating Him in the honors and joys of the kingdom. The Greeks also take their place with Israel in such an hour. Through Philip, as taking hold of the skirt of a Jew (Zech. 8:), they would see Jesus and worship. But in the midst of all this Jesus Himself sits solitary. He knows that earth is not the place for all this festivation and keeping of holy day. His spirit muses on death, while their thoughts were full of a kingdom with its attendant honors and pleasures. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone."

Such was the peculiar path of the spirit of Jesus. Resurrection was everything to Him. It was His relief amid the sorrows of life, and His object amid the promises and prospects of the world. It gave His soul a calm sunshine, when dark and heavy clouds had gathered over Bethany; it moderated and separated His affections, when the brilliant glare of a festive day was lighting up the way from thence to Jerusalem. The thought of it sanctified His mind equally amid grief and enjoyments around. Resurrection was everything to Him. It made Him a perfect pattern of that fine principle of the Spirit of God:"Let him that weepeth be as if he wept not, and he that rejoiceth as though he rejoiced not."

Oh for a little more of the same mind in us, beloved! -a little more of this elevation above the passing conditions and circumstances of life!

May the faith and hope of the Gospel, through the working of the indwelling Spirit, form the happiness and prospects of our hearts! J. G. B.

With a desire to help the "babes in Christ" the following is sent forth, looking to our Lord for blessing.

I. SIN.

A clear knowledge of the Scriptural teaching as to sin is necessary for a correct apprehension of the need and efficacy of the atonement made by our Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. The following verses will show, in some measure at least, these facts.

What is sin, and who are sinners ? Without entering into any analytical definition of the sense of the word or words, as given in the original texts, we will confine ourselves to the meanings as given in our excellent English versions.

I. "Sin is the transgression of the law," or more correctly as given in the Revised Version, "sin is lawlessness" (i Jno. 3:4). "Lawlessness" is in-subjection; disregard to authority; a lack of sense of responsibility; self-will, as seen in "the way of Cain," as recorded in Gen. 4:1-5. He had no respect for God's claims and requirements for sin, and God "had not respect" to his offering. Read the entire chapter and carefully note the result of all this :

ver. 5. anger in the heart, shown by the very expression of his face;

ver.8. murder;

ver.9. falsehood and speaking against God;

ver. 13.reproaching God, etc. ;

while the remaining verses show man without subjection to God, trying to make the best of the world. City building, land cultivation, cattle raising, pleasure seeking, scientific experiment and research, yet "lawlessness" marks the period. Pharaoh is another illustration (Ex. 5:i). The history of the book of Judges is also a sad picture, the key to which is in the fact, " every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). See Proverbs 14:12. Ecclesiastes 8:11-13. Romans 1:21-25. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10.

2. "All unrighteousness is sin" (i Jno. 5:17). Unrighteousness is the sense here, and the standard is God's estimate of what is right or wrong, not man's; therefore every thing which is not fully up to God's standard of right is sin. Who can measure up to the standard? Romans 3:23 says, "All …. have come short;" and " Tekel; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting" (Daniel 5:27), can be as truthfully written about reader and writer, as of king Belshazzar (Ps. 14:1-2; 53:1-3; Rom. 3:10; James 2:10).

Notwithstanding all this, how truly it is written in Prov. 21:2 :" Every way of a man is right in his own eyes:but the Lord pondereth the hearts." How foolish then in poor man to boast, or bolster up his hopes of favor with God upon natural merit (Rom. 10:3; 2 Pet. 2:10-15; Isa. 64:6; 6:5; Luke 18:10-14).

3. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Many who are approached concerning their state of soul, say, " Yes, I know what is right, but I don't do it;" to such the above warning might well apply, although in its more special manner it refers to believers. But why cite more passages which tell of the awful inherency of sin, and its display in our actions? Many can be found in the word of God (Prov. 10:16; 21:4; 24:9; John 16:9, etc.) The earliest recorded sin, is given in 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6, "the angels which kept not their first estate"; and Satan, whom John 8:44 and Ezek. 28:13-19 refer to, was the introducer of sin into the garden, (Gen. 3:1-7) and so Rom. 5:12 was the result, making it true of every child of Adam, as Rom. 3:10-19, 23 show. "But the Scripture hath, concluded (shut up R. V.) all under sin" (Gal. 3:22. See also Jer. 17:9; Mark 7:21-23; Eph. 4:18; Rom. 8:7. 8; Rom. 3:9; 2:ii; 3:22, etc.),

4.What is the result of sin, and of being a sinner?

"The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23), 1:e. separation from God. When God placed Adam in the garden, the warning was, "in the day that them eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17), and expulsion followed as a result of disobedience, as seen in Gen. 3:Of course, there is more than physical death in Rom. 6:23. By a careful comparison of John 8:24 with 21, the truth may be seen as to banishment from God's presence forever; for He is "of purer eyes than to behold evil" (Hab. 1:13). And when it is seen that "every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Rom. 14:12), what can be done, or excuse made? Notice it is an "account of himself," not of others. We could give a record readily of the good actions, or evil deeds of others, but what of our own?-"every one" "account of himself." "Unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile" (Rom, ii, 8, 9; Rev. 20:11-15; 21:8; James 1:15; i Cor. 6:9, 10; Mark 8:43-48; Matt. 25:45, 46).

Such is the awful result of sin, and inevitable consequence to a sinner who passes out of this world unrepentant. How sweet then sounds the gospel of God's grace; "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country " (Prov. 25:25). And such the gospel is, " The angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy " (Luke 2:10, 11). And the apostle Paul catches the heavenly strain, as in i Cor. 15:1-4 he writes, "I declare unto you, the gospel . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," and he assures them that if they "received" it, ver. 1, they were "saved."

" For God so loved the world (of sinners), that He gave His only begotten Son, (to die for sin, and for sinners) that whosoever (of sinners) believeth on Him, should not perish, (which they must otherwise do) but have (now, a present possession) everlasting life" (John 3:16). B. W. J.

O Soul Inspiring story
Of holy love and grace, In lustrous lines of glory
Engraved on Jesus' face!
Transfixed in contemplation
Of Thy transfiguring rays,
In fervent adoration
We hymn Immanuel's praise!

Blest Face, in what completeness
There Godhead-fulness dwells-
Outshines unearthly sweetness
That love in us compels!
The Father, oh, how sweetly
Unvailed to human scan-
Yea, God's own face completely
Revealed in that of Man!

Yet once, meek Face, afflicted,
Wan, haggard, vigil-worn-
In tender signs depicted,
Our griefs and sickness borne!
Thy sympathies how freighted!
Thy heart how burdened then!
Thy gentle frame how weighted
To bear the ills of men!

Ah, once depressed, dejected,
Thy lot the outcast's shame,
Thy love rebuffed, rejected-
Reviled and mocked Thy name:
Thy deep love's every token
Was pierced by hatred's dart,
Until reproach had broken
Thy lacerated heart!

And once marred, scarred, disfigured,
Dishonored, spit upon-
In mockery transfigured
With robe and thorny crown-
Scourged, crucified, torn, bleeding
In pain upon the tree-
Reviled, yet interceding
For those reviling Thee!
Then, love-bound Lamb, there taken
When ire 'gainst us awoke,
Thy bosom bared-forsaken-
To quench for us wrath's stroke!
Unfathomable anguish
In that appalling hour
Love bore for us to vanquish
In weakness Satan's power!

Amazing blaze of glory
Deep-carved in Jesus's face,
May Thy transcendent story
These hearts transform in grace;
Till soon, conformed completely,
With love-lit eyes we'll scan
God's features beaming sweetly
From Thine, Thou Son of Man!

F. A.

Daniel 7:, having an important bearing on the beast of Revelation, I will first refer to that chapter. The fourth beast, or Roman empire, is here seen in vision by Daniel from its beginning in ver. 7, to its close in ver. 26. We find in the last clause of ver. 7, that "it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns;" while ver. 8 further states:"I considered the ten horns, and behold there came up among them another little horn before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots; and behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." It is these ten horns, and the little horn, with which we shall mainly have to do when we turn to Revelation, but principally the latter.

Now Daniel, we are told in ver. 19, would know the truth of the fourth beast; and this is given in vers. 23-25,-" The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth etc., and the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." It will be seen that the ten horns and the little horn, will be in existence at the same time, and it is of some importance to be clear as to this, as the kingdom in its revived form, will comprise the ten horns and the little horn, and will commence some time before, and run on to the close of Daniel's seventieth week.

Turning now to Rev. 13:, we get John's description of the beast. "And I stood upon the sand of the sea; and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads, as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed; and all the world wondered after the beast" (vers. 1-3). Also the last clause of ver. 5,-"And power (or authority) was given unto him to continue forty and two months."

As in Dan. 7:, so here, the beast is seen to rise out of the sea, which is generally interpreted to mean, the multitudes in an unsettled state. And it may be well to note in passing, his close similarity to the dragon from whom he derives his power etc., which chap. 12:3, supplies,-"And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns." The resemblance is striking and significant. It will also be seen that he combines in himself the leading distinctive features of the first three beasts of Dan. 7:,-viz. the leopard, the bear, and the lion; the order in which they are given in Daniel, being here reversed.

Before turning to other scriptures, it may perhaps be well to gather from those already before us, what they would seem to unfold concerning the beast. First then, Daniel's vision of the fourth beast, or Roman empire, clearly points, through the typical meaning of the ten horns, to another phase of this great empire, when it will be revived in a ten kingdom form; this we gather from chap. 7:24,-"And the ten horns out of this kingdom are" ten kings that shall arise; " from which it is evident that it looks forward to a future time. We are also told in the same verse that "another shall rise after them," foreshadowed by the little horn of ver. 8. Now it is this king, or little horn, which Rev. 13:speaks of as the beast.
In proof of this I would point to the striking similarity between the little horn of Daniel, and the beast of Revelation. Dan. 7:21 says, "The same horn made war with the saints and prevailed against them." Rev. 13:7, "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them." Dan. 7:25, " And he shall speak great words against the Most High." Rev. 13:6, "And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God etc."-Dan. 7:25, "And they shall be given into his hand, until a time and times and the dividing of time." (The same period spoken of in Dan. 12:7, as "time, times, and an half;" or an exact period of 3 ½ years; a Jewish year consists of 360 days.) Turning to Rev. 13:5, we get the same period of time allotted to the beast. '' And power (or authority,) was given unto him to continue forty and two months," which is equivalent to 3 ½ years (1:e., Jewish months, which consist of 30 days each.) Thus the identity of the little horn of Dan. 7:, with the beast of Rev. 13:, is complete.

There are also other features connected with the beast of Revelation which demand some consideration. In chap. 13:i, he is seen to have "seven heads," which chap. 17:9, informs us are "seven mountains." I do not interpret this, as some have done, to mean "the seven hilled city of Rome," which I consider would destroy its significant meaning; but rather as seven states, or kingdoms. Now we are told in Dan. 7:24, that "the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings." As before stated, the Roman empire will be revived in a ten kingdom form, and the time of such revival will be soon after the rapture of the saints; then another king, or "the little horn," which we before saw to be identical with the beast of Rev. 13:, will arise and subdue three kings out of the ten, thus leaving seven; and I strongly incline to the belief, that these seven kings, or kingdoms, are symbolized by the "seven heads" of Rev. 13:i, and 17:9, and so identified are they with the beast, who now becomes their imperial head, that the woman, or harlot, of chap. 17:3, is seen sitting on the beast, having the seven heads and ten horns; while in ver. 9, the seven heads are viewed as seven mountains (or kingdoms) on which the woman sitteth.

It yet remains to account for the ten crowned horns of chap. 13:i, the angel's interpretation of which will be found in chap. 17:12, which reads:"And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." That these ten kings are quite distinct from "the ten kings, or horns," of Dan. 7:, is clearly evidenced by the fact that three of their number are not subdued by the beast, but rather, under the hand of God, the whole ten "agree to give their kingdom unto the beast," ver. 17, for the destruction of the harlot (papal Rome) as ver. 16, shows-"And the ten horns which thou sawest, and (not ' upon') the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire."

Moreover we find these ten kings allied with the beast right up to the close of his career; this will be seen from ver. 14, where we are told-"these shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them etc.," thus running on to the same time when the beast himself shall be overcome and cast alive into the lake of fire (chap. 19:20). Viewed in another way, three of the first ten kings (1:e. of Dan. 7:) are subdued by the beast, and he becomes the imperial head of the remaining seven; whereas the last ten kings, as we have seen, are the beast's allies, " giving their power and strength to him," ver. 13, and thus under this second aspect, the two are manifestly distinct the one from the other.
Reverting again to chap. 13:ver. 3 gives us another event connected with the beast. "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed:and all the world wondered after the beast." I would gather from this scripture that the beast, or imperial head, will be subjected to some very severe reverse in battle, which the words "wounded to death," would imply; and the latter clause of ver. 14, would support this view, "that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." This would seem to clearly point to a reverse in battle by the sword. But that this wound will only be partial may be gathered from the fact that, only one of his heads is seen as wounded to death, which would seem to me to imply, that his reverse will only be temporary, and his recovery so rapid, that all the world will wonder after him.

Turning to chap. 17:8, we get something further

-"The beast that thou sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition; and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, . . . when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is," or "shall be present." This, taken in conjunction with ver. ii, "The beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition." Also chap. 13:3, "And I saw one of his heads, as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed; and all the world wondered after the beast," forms an important factor in determining the identity of the beasts of the two chapters.

Reverting again to ver. ii, a difficulty presents itself as to how he (the beast) is the eighth, and yet of the seven. I think this may be explained as follows:

-The Roman empire, as we have before seen, will be revived in a ten kingdom form (the seventh phase of this great empire) three of these kingdoms being subdued by the beast, or little horn, who himself becomes the imperial head; and so it can be said of him, he is the eighth, and is of the seven. Chap. 17:10, also speaks of this seventh kingdom in the following words:"The other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a short space." Why a short space ? Because the empire, 1:e., in its ten kingdom form, after a brief period of its restored existence, passes into the hands of the beast, who as its imperial head will form an eighth, which will further tend to explain the difficulty why he is the eighth, and yet of the seven.

I would here add another thought, that I believe the rider of the white horse of Rev. 6:2, is identical with the beast seen rising out of the sea in chap. 13:1; the latter showing his origin, while the former would point to the beginning of his victorious career. And if this be so, it adds force to my contention, as to "the other yet to come" of 17:10, and who continues for a short space; which I interpreted as the Roman empire in its revived, or seventh form of government. That it will only continue for "a short space" is evident as it will have ceased to exist in its ten kingdom form previous to the opening of the seals, when the rider of the white horse will have become its new imperial head. And I am more than ever convinced that it is in this last phase it is seen in chaps. 13:and 17:, and in no sense retrospective, as some have viewed it.

I might just add, for the sake of clearness, that where I have used the words, "the beast," throughout my remarks in connection with chaps, 13:and 17:, I have done so to preserve the scripture appellation, but in almost every instance it must be interpreted to mean the imperial head of the revived Roman empire. The empire may, in one or two instances, be associated with the head symbolically.

To these remarks I add a brief history of the beast:

I. The little horn of Dan. 7:8, 24. 2. The one who shall confirm a covenant with the mass of the Jewish people, and cause their sacrifice and oblation to cease in the midst of the week (Dan. 9:27).
3. The rider of the white horse commencing his career of conquest (Rev. 6:2). 4. First seen to arise out of the sea, (1:e., the multitudes in an unsettled state) and characterized by seven heads and ten horns (Rev. 13:i). The seven heads symbolizing seven mountains (chap. 17:9), 1:e., states or kingdoms, of which he becomes the imperial head. The ten horns symbolizing the ten kings of chap. 17:12, but wholly distinct, as I have shown, from the ten kings of Dan. 7:24. And here I would add an additional reason in support of this. The ten kings of Rev. 17:12, it will be seen, had "received no kingdom as yet," (ver. 12), whereas the ten kings of Dan. 7:24, were already reigning previous to the beast coming into power, for it is three of their number whom he subdues before he becomes the imperial head; whereas these latter ten kings, none of whom are subdued, "give their power and strength to the beast," (ver. 13), and are allied with him to the close of his eventful career. 5. Identified with the dragon (Satan), by the seven heads and ten horns, compare chap. 12:3. 6. Possesses the leading distinctive features of the first three beasts of Dan. 7:, and derives his power from Satan (chap. 13:3). 7. Receives a severe shock in his military career, described in chap. 13:3, as "one of his heads as it were wounded to death," see also last clause of ver. 14. I believe we get the symbol of this in the eighth chapter under the fourth trumpet, compare also chap. 17:8, 2:8. Becomes an object of Worship, (chap. 13:4, 8). 9. Becomes a blasphemer of God, and his name and temple and them that dwell in heaven, (chap. 13:6; compare Dan 7:25). 10. Makes war with the saints (chap. 13:7; compare Dan. 7:21). II. Upon the sounding of the sixth trumpet his time of power will be limited to forty-two months, or 3 ½ years, (chap. 13:5), being the same period as the two witnesses of chap. 11:3, whom he will overcome and kill (ver. 7). 12. Will favor the Antichrist, who will cause an image of the beast to be set up and worshiped (chap. 13:14, 15). 13. Will ultimately be associated with the harlot of chap. 17:, see vers. 2, 7, 9, and subsequently under the hand of God, aided by the ten kings of chap. 17:12, will destroy the harlot (1:e., papal Rome) see vers. 16, 17. 14. Finally assisted by the ten kings and others, will make war with the Lamb (chap. 16:13, 14; 17:12-14; 19:19). 15. His doom will be cast alive into the lake of fire (chap. 19:20).
H. M.

7. NEARER THAN THE NEAREST. Chapter 4:Continued from page 136.

With the promptness and energy of a heart fully engaged, Boaz goes up to "the gate." This was the place of rule, where all matters were settled, all transfers made. It would correspond to the courts of to-day, where all legal transactions are consummated. In the matter upon which he was engaged, nothing was to be done "in a corner," but all was to have the full concurrence of those concerned, and be witnessed in the light of open day, by those judicially authorized to give their sanction.

The first person who appears is this "nearest kinsman, "whose claim must first be met, or whose right of redemption must first be set aside, before Boaz, no matter how willing he might be, could interpose as redeemer. It is significant that this person is not named. The nearest kinsman of Elimelech, and the natural redeemer of his inheritance, we have no clue to his name; and this of itself has significance when we look at the spiritual meaning.

Who then is this nameless person who has the first claim upon Israel, and the right to redeem the inheritance? Who or what is "nearest of kin" to Israel according to the flesh? We have under the simile of the marriage relationship, but the reverse of what is before us here, a scriptural hint that is suggestive. The two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, were children respectively of Hagar, the bondmaid, and Sarah. We are told that these things are an allegory:"for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children " (Gal. 4:24, 25). It would seem clear from-this that, with slightly altered conditions, the nearest of kin would be this same "legal covenant." Just as Hagar first brought forth a child before Sarah,-"that is first which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual" -so the law was the first basis upon which Israel sought to bring forth fruit to God.

This is clearly seen from the history of the nation. They never nationally and consciously entered into God's thoughts of sovereign grace. They did not realize that He had taken them up to fulfil the promise made to Abraham-the promise made in purest grace. Some feeble glimpse they may have had of it, but when they had passed through the Red Sea, and had experienced nothing but grace and mercy at the hands of God, they were ready at Sinai to enter upon a legal covenant, without a thought of how it set aside the mercy and grace of God.

To be sure, they never tasted the bitterness of a purely legal covenant, for Moses broke the first tables of stone before he came into the camp, after the giving of the law and the idolatry of the golden calf. It was indeed mercy that he did so, for what would have been the judgment upon that guilty people, had God dealt with them upon the basis of pure law? Surely, as Jehovah said to Moses, "Let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them." But as a matter of fact He spared them for the time being-a thing utterly impossible under pure law-and went on with them on a basis of mingled law and mercy. The second tables of stone were prepared and given to the people in connection with the revelation made to Moses of, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty" (Ex. 34:6, 7). Here is a mingling of mercy, with a final intimation of judgment on the guilty, which formed the basis of all further dealing with the nation.

They went through the wilderness on this covenant, entered the land and settled there on the basis of obedience to the Lord. Provision was made, for failure, by sacrifice; and yet all provisions failed just where most needed. There was no sacrifice for presumptuous sins, only for those of ignorance. There could therefore be no peace for the most guilty, and king David in his broken-hearted prayer (Ps. 51:), must turn from the sacrificial provision of the law to a mercy to which he held fast in spite of the law.

It was under this covenant that the nation divided, became mingled with the heathen, and were finally carried captive. This is dwelt upon to a great extent in the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, where the Lord enlarges upon Israel's disregard of His covenant, their failure to hallow His Sabbaths which were the sign of the covenant, or to walk in His statutes. When Daniel made his confession of sin, for himself and the nation (Dan. 9:) it was in the light of that first covenant. So was it with Nehemiah after the return from captivity (Neh. 9:29). In the last chapter of the Old Testament (Mal. 4:4) the people were exhorted to "remember the law of Moses My servant which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments."

Thus throughout their entire history there was a distinct covenant relationship recognized by God and the people. There was a provision made for forgiveness and recovery, oftentimes made in the most touching way. "Come now and let its reason together, saith the Lord:though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword "(Is. 1:18, 19). "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts:and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon" (Is. 55:7). "If the wicked will turn from all his sins which he hath committed … he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him:in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live" (Ezek. 18:21, 22).

These and many other scriptures show the close relation between Israel and the legal covenant. They have never had any other relation to God- save the secret one, on His part, of electing grace and promise. So when the remnant turns in repentance to Him in the latter days, this legal covenant will have, so to speak, the first right to put in its claim of kinship.

Returning now to our narrative, we find Boaz, figure of the risen Lord, calling in and offering to this kinsman the right of redemption. We have already noticed the provision of the law for raising up a deceased relative's family (Deut. 25:). We have now an allusion to another law of similar character, the redemption of a forfeited inheritance. The law will be found at length in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus. In brief, it declared the divine right of "eminent domain." The land was God's, and could never be finally alienated from those to whom His grace had given it. All was to go free in the year of jubilee, or could be bought in by a near kinsman. The land of Israel is literally the Lord's, for His ancient people. In spite of all their sin and folly, it abides – strange fact in these days of universal ownership on man's part, of the earth – practically a land without a people, as though it were waiting for its rightful owners ; and such is without doubt the case. The land itself will yet be redeemed for Israel, and they will yet be put in full possession of that which they have forfeited by their sin and disobedience. But who will redeem it, and for whom will it be redeemed? These are the questions to be settled "in the gate."

( To be continued.) 222

The following paper is intended to treat of our Lord's manner and ways in teaching and preaching, and it is hoped that not only the heart may be refreshed by coming in contact with Him, but that also we may learn practical and valuable lessons. Nicodemus styles Him the " Teacher come from God," and His adversaries bore witness that never a man spake like this man. While, of course, we know this as to the substance of our Lord's teaching, yet, His method, because it clothes like a well-fitting garment, attracting little attention to itself and enhancing the beauty of that which it covers, is, perhaps, very often lost sight of. Do we know to what extent He used metaphor and simile ? Have we a clear conception of the way in which He met the objector ? What external means did He employ upon occasion to emphasize the lesson ? Wherefore did He use so much parable, and how were these parables adapted to the circumstances amid which they were spoken ? Such are some of the questions which force themselves upon us.

But they also serve to bring us closer to Himself, and this is the purpose of every study of Scripture. His words are a mirror in which we behold Him, and far more than we might expect does the method of them bring us into contact with Him. Our manner is often assumed to meet the occasion, and is the product of surrounding elements, but with Him it was never so; it came fresh from His heart. Every attitude, every gesture was full of Him and the mission which had become part of Him. You remember how in the tenth chapter of John, the Lord seems to take delight in the knowledge that His sheep know His voice, and that they are so occupied with it, that they know not the voice of strangers ? And as His voice would correspond to the character of His words, our study should be one that is pleasing to Him. Oh that we indeed so knew His voice that the voice of the stranger repelled with that fear of the unknown that seems innate in the animate creation. Then would we indeed walk aright with His word a lamp for our path and a light for our feet.

The first topic that naturally presents itself in this subject, is what we may call the external character
of His speech, such as clearness, energy, bodily position, etc. Of these indeed there is very little given us, and yet there are some things that surely must prove of profit to him that considers them. While there may be no scripture which directly asserts it, we may be sure our Lord ever spoke distinctly and clearly.

Now, perhaps, it may seem to be a small thing to say that the Lord spoke clearly, so that all could understand Him, yet we will the better attach a value to it if we consider how indignant we should become were one to assert that He did not thus speak. We should regard it as nothing short of blasphemy, and very rightly. He was the Word who created the worlds, the universe, that wonderfully adjusted mechanism in which part is fitted to part with divine precision, and from which arises a harmonious melody to God. How then should this Master Harmonizer fail to utter His truths in a voice attuned to their importance ? It would be absolutely impossible. When we consider too how mind and matter are related, and how the Creator has framed us so that one should play upon and answer to the other in this dwelling-place of our spirits, who can doubt but that the voice was ordained of Himself to awaken music in the soul ? No slurred over words ever troubled those who listened to Him, and are not His ways Divine ?

Now this clear voice was sometimes raised so that it became loud and powerful. Thus we read in John that on the last day of the feast "Jesus stood and cried," and in another place it speaks of "His great Voice" as it rose over the weeping and wailing at the grave of Lazarus. And so when the storm
that gathered over Calvary was hushed to its close, "Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the Ghost." Now apart from the physical necessity there was of prevailing over the sounds that existed, on at least two of these occasions, there was in all of them an especial need that spoke to the Lord's heart, and to which we do well to give heed. There is a peculiar danger that on our feast days the things around us may lead us to forget the Giver and our need of Him. The feast of which we have been speaking is said to be the feast of Tabernacles, a time in which Israel was to remember her wandering in tents through the wilderness, and which very probably became a means of celebrating the fact that they no longer thus wandered. Now although not the object of the feast, spiritually this may be all right, but there is then danger of forgetting" that wherever we are we need Him as much as ever to watch over us; and such moments are full of peril.

At other times there are feasts of Satan's spreading, and the one who sits down thereto will be in dire need of hearing that urgent cry from the risen Jesus. "If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink."

But to refer to the suitability of that raised voice in the other instances, there are moments when some burden is laid upon us such as that which lay on the grief stricken crowd lamenting at the grave of Lazarus. How wonderfully thrilling that "Great Voice" must have sounded, and with what eager expectation and joy must they have looked for the response. When the cares of the world, its sorrows and griefs, flood in upon our lives, how refreshing will it be to hear it rise above our storms
and quell our fears. Then shall we burst into singing:

" How sweet the voice of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear. It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, and drives away his fear."

The last instance which we have mentioned answers to the time in which " he that hath the power of death " sows such fears as he is able, when we are called to leave it. Will it not be good too to recall that He over whom death's billows deeply went, cried out with a loud voice as they closed upon Him, proclaiming His power and triumph over them, and then yielded up the Ghost ? "No man taketh it from" Me, I lay it down . . . and I take it again." How eloquently do these words and that voice proclaim " The Prince of Life."

The expression of our Lord's face is, as I remember, given but once, and yet that same instance, in its impressiveness, is referred to in two of the Gospels. It is on the occasion of the healing of the withered hand, when, because of its being the Sabbath, they seek to bar the path of His mercy. He then looks round about upon them all with anger. But how wonderfully touching is the moment. They seek to hinder good reaching another, and His ' shepherd's heart is aroused and His anger blazes out. " Is it not lawful to do good on the Sabbath day?" He cries, and in answer heals the hand. They might seek to kill Him ; they were going to nail Him to the cross on Calvary, and He would cry in wonderful compassion, " Father forgive them, for they know not what they do," but let them try to injure another and indignation shines in His Face. When we consider how that by and by, before it, heavens and earth will flee away, we no longer marvel at the impression it made, and we wonder at the beauty of the thought, that on such occasion alone have we mention of it.

When our Lord teaches He is generally seated. The attitude is one of repose and authority. His words are so certain, and carry so much authority with them, that any other position would seem less suited. He was seated all through the Sermon on the Mount. Such words as " Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy," appear to stand on such pillared foundations as rather to lose than anything else by seeking to enhance their value. So also was He seated in a boat, when giving forth the parables of the Kingdom, in the thirteenth of Matthew. In contrast with this position, however, He rises to announce the fulfilment of, and read His Father's words; while when in the Temple He momentarily relaxes His stooping posture when confronting the Pharisees with that majestic charge, " Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her." How well adapted are these attitudes to the sentiments which they accompany, and how they should prevent us from getting careless with what we may call minor matters.

There is one other beautiful position which our Lord assumes, and coming as it does at the end of His earthly sojourn, seems to sum up the whole of His ministry on earth. "Having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end," and as He is about to leave them He leads them out to Bethany, and body and spirit uniting together in one long, lingering attitude of protection, those blessed hands but so recently stretched out in such a different way, now spread themselves broodingly over them, while from His lips the words of blessing fall, and a cloud receives Him out of their sight. ''Out of their sight?" Yes, and yet that sight, which no earthly cloud should be able to obscure, shall be their last recollection of Jesus, and all through their lives hover in Divine benison over them.

Although not directly connected with our subject, the words following in Luke, have such a beautiful touch to them, that one would fain linger for a moment to meditate. " And as He blessed them He was parted from them and carried up into heaven." In the opening of His ministry we see Him going to John and saying, upon the latter's protest against baptizing Him, " Suffer it now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Baptism is a burial of self. John says he has need to be baptized of Jesus. The Lord in effect replies, "That is true, but consider not what I am as to right, for I am come to lay all that personal right of Mine aside, yea to lay self aside, to work for the people among whom I have come." Having then taken such a position, as He comes up from Jordan, as if they no longer could contain themselves, the heavens are rent asunder, and the voice of God breaks out, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." So now may we not think of that same delight as expressed in the words, "carried up " ?

One of the most marked features of our Lord's teaching is its parabolic form, and this so marked that it could scarcely escape even the cursory reader. We know that among the nations of the East the parable is a very much used method of communication, and yet, however true that may be, it would scarcely suffice as a reason for our Lord's using it, unless, indeed, there be something in the parable itself that meets a special need in all climes and countries. We all know how fond children are of it as a means of instruction, and learned men assert that in what they call the childhood of the race, the early days, it was constantly employed in ordinary conversation. But are we not all children in heavenly things ? And what after all in the words of Jesus makes things so plain as the parable ? How the gates of heaven seem thrown open to us as the father's arms are clasped around the prodigal, or the shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulder. They speak with a plainness that reaches even the lowest depths.

But we must notice that although this be true as to a great many of them, yet our Lord says that some others were given with a. distinctly opposite purpose. "For unto you it is given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them it is not given." The parable then is often used to hide truth, and we are led to ask the further question:If to hide, why then speak them before all those from whom He would wish to conceal the truth of which they speak ?

Our answer may, perhaps, be twofold. Of course it is very plain that for the Pharisees, who entered not into the Kingdom, the mysteries would scarcely be a subject to explain to them. Such would be a veritable casting of pearls before swine. And yet, on the other hand, it must be that after all He is seeking the Pharisee, otherwise our question would remain unanswered. We who know the Lord, know also that He loved even the Pharisee, and to them a mystery was a great incentive to study. Here, however, were mysteries that no human mind could very well fathom without the key, and a search for the key might indeed bring the poor Pharisee into His presence. I cannot but believe that this was the Lord's object, and any other thought than this would militate against plain scriptural teaching. If He ate with publicans and sinners He also sat down in the house of the Pharisee, and both Pharisee and Publican were welcome at the feast of the great King.

Taking this then as a correct interpretation of His words, we may remember that to speak plainly is not always the part of a good teacher. Often and often is the scholar to be aroused by that which he does not understand. Thus we may learn a lesson of the " Teacher come from God," and remember that if we attend the lecture of another, and do not understand a great deal that is said, even so, we would not have understood the One like whom man never spake. He knew that the disciples would not understand Him, and yet was in no wise deterred from speaking in the form in which He did. "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search it out." Oh, brethren, are we among those kingly ones whose glory it is to search out the things hidden by our great Teacher ? Be assured that he who does will find much pleasure. It is true in heavenly, as well as in earthly things, that we must labor for those things which are of most value, excepting necessaries, which God asks us not to labor for, such as water and light and salvation. F. C. G.

(To be continued.)

" Behold, I come quickly; hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev. 3:ii).

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe."

"The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own conceit " (Prov. 18:10, 11).

Here we have two contrasted shelters-the name of the Lord and the rich man's wealth. The righteous runneth into his shelter-the name of the Lord -and is safe; the rich man surrounds himself, in his own conceit, with the wall of his wealth, and imagines he is safe. Which is our shelter?

" It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Is thy cruse of comfort wasting?
Rise and share it with another,
And, through all the years of famine,
It shall serve thee and thy brother.
Love divine will fill thy storehouse,
Or thy handful still renew;
Scanty fare for one will often
Make a royal feast for two.

For the heart grows rich in giving;
All its wealth is living grain;
Seeds which mildew in the garner,
Scattered, fill with gold the plain.
Is thy burden hard and Heavy ?
Do thy steps drag wearily ?
Help to bear thy brother's burden:
God will bear both it and thee.

Numb and weary on the mountains,
Wouldst thou sleep amidst the snow ?
Chafe that frozen form beside thee,
And together both shall glow.
Art thou stricken in life's battle ?
Many round thee moan;
Lavish on their wounds thy balsams,
And that balm shall heal thine own.

Is the heart a well left empty ?
None but God its void can fill:
Nothing but a ceaseless fountain,
Can its ceaseless longing still.
Is the heart a living power ?
Self-entwined its strength sinks low;
It can only live in loving,
And by serving love will grow.

QUES. 5.-Please explain Acts 22:16, " Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins." Can anything but the blood of Jesus Christ wash away our sins?

ANS.-Nothing can really wash away sins-for eternity and before God-but the precious blood of Christ. But baptism is a figure of salvation through the death of Christ, and therefore the language of the verse can be used. Where there was real faith there was real forgiveness, otherwise there was the mere outward discipleship of which baptism was the badge. The fol-lowing correspondence on the subject of baptism is added as famishing further remarks upon this subject.

Your question as to " baptism " takes us into a large field, although if all were ready to accept the plain inferences of Scripture the task of explaining it would be an easy one. There are five aspects of baptism in a general sense, in their order-viz:Repentance (Matt. 3:) performed by John the Baptist; the Holy Ghost (Matt. 3:11; Acts 2:) ; Water (Mark 16:; Acts 2:; Rom. 6:; Eph. 4:etc); the cloud, and the sea (1 Cor. 10:), and that which related especially to the Lord (Luke 12:50). But as water-baptism is mainly before us, we will keep to that one point. Christian baptism was not instituted until after Christ had risen from the dead, when it became the official mode of entrance into the Kingdom. (See Acts 2:41.) Peter was the first one to use it together with the key of knowledge to the Jews, and in Acts 10:he uses it to the Gentiles. Now one reason why we find in the Acts of the apostles that every believer was called upon to be baptized was, because no one had hitherto been baptized in (or to) the Name of the Trinity or in (or to) the Name of Jesus; those who had been baptized prior to that had simply been baptized unto John's baptism of repentance, but in Ephesus they had not heard whether the Holy Ghost that had been promised, (see Matt, 3:) "had yet come," (Acts 19:2, Rev. Ver.).

What does baptism of the believer typify? Let the Word tell us:in Rom. 6:3, we learn that Christians are baptized unto Christ Jesus (J. N. D.) consequently unto His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto His death, just as in the same figure we say that we died on the Cross, we rose again; or to simplify it, our going under the water refers to His death and burial and our identification with Him in it, just as the grave shut Him out from the world, for the last the world saw of Him, was when He was on the cross-so, as Christians when we became that, we were practically severed from the world-our old man, what we were in Adam was, in God's mind, also buried out of sight, so that what linked us to the world and the first Adam has been annulled. Baptism has absolutely nothing to do with the work of salvation, but is the confession of Christ's death as our own, just as His resurrection is the ground of our justification. (Rom. 4:25.) The bread and the wine surely did not save us but speak to us of a Saviour that did. If baptism were a saving ordinance, then men could save themselves just whenever they chose, surely a false impression. No! His work and His alone did that. (1 Pet. 2:24.) Baptism then is my confession to all, of my faith in Christ who died for my sins, and typifies my identification with Him in that death-just as I eat the bread and drink the wine to show His death. It is but a figure-Noah was saved by or through the water, 1:e. the water that was judgment to the world was what bore him away in safety in the Ark, so we-for the water of baptism typifies death, or rather is to me the grave of Christ. Christ passed through death and is risen. We pass through death in baptism, in figure, but it was the Ark that rode the waters of judgement and bare Noah in it. So now Christ having passed through death has atoned for our sins, and we also passing through it in spirit (surely not literally) leave all our sins there (in death) just as Christ really did for us-as another has said, "We pass through death in spirit, and in figure by baptism."Trusting that this may make the subject a little clearer to you,

Your affect, bro., F. J. E.

QUES. 6.-What has been the employment of our Lord since "He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God" (Mk. xvi, 19). Is He still seated there?

ANS.-"Whom the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things " (Acts 3:21). " Sit on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" (Heb. 1:13). "He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Heb. 7. 25). These and similar scriptures show that our Lord will remain upon the throne till His enemies are put under Him, till He sets up His Kingdom. During this time He is engaged in the blessed and needful work of intercession for His people, and fulfilling His work as Head of His Church.

The moral activities that are abroad are surely immense, and the pressure upon the social system of influences full of deceivableness, I suppose, is beyond all precedent. It is desirable to keep the soul increasingly alive to the fact that the path of the Church is a narrow and peculiar one. Even her virtues must have a peculiar material in them. Her common honesty, her good deeds, too, her secular labors, her fruitfulness, purity, and the like, are to be peculiar in their functions and their springs. Her discipline does not act after the pattern of the mere moral sense of man. Society, as another has observed, would disclaim the offence contemplated in i Cor. 5:; but society would never deal with it as the Church is there called to deal with it. Society, for instance, would never put covetous-ness or extortion in company with it, but the saint is instructed to do so. The moral sense of man would there make distinctions, when the pure element of the house of God resents all alike as unworthy of it. This is "fine gold" dear brother-gold refined again and again. Even the morals of the Church are to be of another quality from those of men. What sanctions are brought in i Cor. 5:6:as to the common matters of life. If the saint be to abstain from fornication, it is because his body is a temple:if he be to refuse the judgment of others in the affairs of this life, in their most ordinary ways of right and wrong, of debit and credit, it is because he himself is destined to be a judge in the seat of the world to come, even from a throne of glory. Is not this "fine gold ?" Does not such sanction make
morals divine ? What, in the world's morality, is like this ? And I ask further, is not the need of this divine or peculiar agency to the effecting any moral results intimated in Luke 11:21-27? If it be not the stronger man possessing himself of the house, is anything done for God ? If it be merely the unclean spirit going out, the end of the history of the house is, that it becomes more fitted for deeper evil. The emptied state, even accompanied by sweeping and ornamenting, is only a preparation for a worse condition, and nothing is done for God but when the stronger enters the house. No instrument of garnishing according to God, but Christ. And in the remembrance of these verses, dear brother, ask yourself what is doing in and for the house of Christendom at this moment. Is not many a broom, many a brush sweeping it and painting it ? Is this making it God's house, or getting it ready to be the house of the full energy-the sevenfold energy-of the enemy ?

Many shrink from public prayer. They say they have no ability for it, and that it would not be for edification for them to make the attempt. And yet is this of God? and if not are we to attempt to excuse ourselves for what is inexcusable? There must be some simple remedy for so glaring a failure-a remedy which the love of God would apply at once if we let Him. Perhaps the cause of this silence in public will suggest the remedy. Let us enquire the cause.

Here is a godly Christian, so far as outward walk, and faithfulness at meetings go. Further, he enjoys fellowship in the things of God, and will readily converse with those like-minded with himself. It cannot be supposed that he neglects secret prayer, though doubtless, like all saints, he needs to be more engaged in it. We are not speaking of those who are in a cold state, but of such as realize the grace of God, and the love of Christ.

Do they pray in the family ? There is small wonder that a brother who does not let his voice be heard at the family altar should be silent at the meeting. The sound of his voice frightens him, he forgets to whom he is speaking, forgets what he wished to pray for, and covered with confusion, resolves never to make another exhibition of himself. Ah, brethren, how much wounded pride is expressed in that resolution. But why was he so embarrassed? Was he not sincere, did he not wish to ask for the desires of his heart? He did, but his voice is not heard in prayer at home, and therefore he is unaccustomed to its sound.

God forbid that we should suggest the thought of using the home as a place of practice for the meeting. Our hearts are too sore to trifle with such a solemn subject, or to suggest a superficial remedy. Why is the voice not heard at the family altar? Does not that tell of failure to be head of the house, or of neglect of responsibility to bring up our children for God? Without doubt Satan has a thousand reasons why we should not have family prayer and reading of the Word. We have no time for it, we leave home too early, and return too late; we have too many interruptions, company coming in, children going to school. Oh, dear brethren, how mean and trivial are all such excuses. We are ashamed of them as we speak of them. Let us throw them to the winds, confess our neglect, and this very day go to God as a family.

Is the reader without fellowship at home? Is it a Christian wife whose husband is in the world? Let her gather her little ones about her and count upon the God of all grace to hear her prayers for her home. Is it the reverse? Let the husband in the fear of God declare that he must recognize Him in the home. Few are the wives who would object, and fewer still who would leave the room. But if she did, let him gather the children about him, and pray. How many questions does such an act raise, and how many does it settle. Has the man's walk been inconsistent? he is reminded of it, and of how many other weaknesses and failures. He may have been selfish and have stumbled his wife, or his sharp temper may have been a reproach, before the children. Let him confess all before God, and his family, and let God be implored that all such dishonor to Him may cease. If there is reality, there will soon be help. Often between those nearest and dearest according to nature there grows up a barrier as to the holiest and sweetest part of the life-the things of God. They shrink from speaking to one another, and so are no longer helpful to one another. Let all such things be owned. Let there be a break, and in family prayer and reading of the Word there will be a sweet recovery.
We are living in busy times, and early and late the mill must be kept grinding. But if there is purpose of heart, God will open the way. There is some time during the day, preferably in the morning, when the family can be brought together. They take their meals together, or they can do so. Let them at the same time devote a few minutes to reading God's word and prayer. A brief quarter of an hour, if no more time can be given, will be better than none, and better perhaps than more, if engagements are pressing. Let the most suitable time be chosen, and dedicated to God. Let nothing usurp its place. We can go without our food better than we can deprive ourselves of this holy privilege.

Dear brethren, this would remedy our silent prayer-meetings, for it is lack at the home that makes the lack in public. It would be no fearsome task to lead in prayer and praise, but the sweetest constraint of love and faith. May our blessed Lord speak to us all.

AN ADDRESS BY S. R.

(Phil. 2:1-14; 3:1-14; Eph. 1:15-23.)

It is very striking, as you have often noticed, to find how the most precious portions of the word "of God spring out of apparently trivial and ordinary exhortations-exhortations which are well nigh commonplace in themselves, and which are so self-evident that one would scarcely say they required more than mere mention and a word of exhortation as to seeking to make them good.

But you find it is just in these places throughout the New Testament that God oftentimes brings in the most priceless illustrations of His truth, giving us that which is absolutely necessary to our knowledge of the truth, or illustrating it in a most striking and wonderful way. You all will think of passages which illustrate this point – how God brings the strongest motives to bear on the least duties. It reminds one of the border of blue on the fringe of the garment that trailed, as you might say, closest to earth, the color of heaven being that which was closest to earth.

It is heavenly truth we need for the daily path:we need the light and joy of heaven to carry out our daily responsibilities, and if we are realizing that this earth is indeed a wilderness, that it is a barren and empty waste, and if the routine of our daily life here is indeed dulness itself, all the more we need within the greatest motives, the strongest inducements and the mightiest power to enable us to go through it well. It is the place where God has left us; it is earth, nothing but earth, but we need heaven's light to go through the earth aright.

It is to those who are servants, to those who are in the place of lowliness and subjection that God
opens heaven, as it were. It is lowliness which gives the power for faithful service, because you will find that God never gives us truth merely to amuse us:

He never gives us truth merely for the sake of giving it:He gives us truth to give us power for the place He puts us in. " Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth."

In this second chapter of Philippians the apostle is exhorting the saints to let their conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, and to walk in all lowliness."If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;" and then he adds, "Let nothing be done through strife," on the one hand, "or vainglory " on the other; contention with one another, or else vainglory, seeking to be elevated the one above the other. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves."

You might say, How are we going to do it ? The apostle says, " I will give you an example of lowliness of mind," and in giving the example, he gives the power for us to be lowly. But whom does he give as an example ? Select some faithful servant ? Unfold some precious truth of God as to our responsibility for walk ? If he is going to give us an example of lowliness, he selects the perfect lowly Man, he selects Christ Himself, and gives us His history. He traces Christ from His position on high. There He was with God and in the form of God, partaking of all the glory of God. He traces Him from that point down to the lowest point on earth here, and he says, "There you have an example of lowliness. There is One who had everything, and who had it by divine right, but who gave up everything willingly and gladly, and went down to death."

You cannot reach higher than the throne of God, and you cannot reach lower than the cross of Christ; these are the two limits, of glory and humiliation- from the glory down to the cross.

Does that take you in ? It takes in every one. It takes in all creation. So you have the example. One says there is a limit to all self-emptying, to humility. Yes, there is; the cross is the limit. One says, What must I give up? How far am I to go? How far did Christ go ? and in the light of that great humiliation we can only hide our faces and confess with shame how little we know of humility and of emptying of self. You have the example, you have more than the example, you have that which humbles you and breaks you down. It is that gives you power. Christ's humiliation gives us power to imitate Him in our feeble measure; and I ask if that precious wondrous humiliation of the Lord were present in our souls, in the Lord's people as they are gathered, in our intercourse with one another, do you think it would be hard to humble ourselves ?

We hear Him as His disciples were gathered to Him there, as He was going into the depths, and He had them around for that last supper, which meant so much for Him, and which means so much for us. We have Him there, and His poor disciples do not want to do a kindly act to one another; they are not willing to serve one another; they each of them wonder whether his dignity would not be offended if he were to undertake the office of servant; and what does the Lord do? He knew that He came forth from God, He knew His dignity, He knew He was going back to God, but in the full consciousness of all that He girds Himself, girds Himself with the linen girdle and takes His place at the feet of His disciples. I am sure as we see Him there and realize His glory, realize the place that He relinquished, we see what humility is. I look at my brother and I am tempted to say,'' I am as good as my brother, I have the same rights as my brother, and I am not going to relinquish my rights." I look at Christ, and I have no rights to relinquish. I look at Him, and I say:"Do not talk to me of my position and my rights and my dignity. Let me be but a faithful representation of Himself, the One who stooped from the glory that He might reach our feet. Let me be a faithful imitation of Him."

That is what gives power. The one thing that will give power-Christ Himself:He will give you power to imitate Himself, if you are occupied with Him.

The apostle sets Christ before you, and he says in a very strong and simple way, "Let that mind be in you." You cannot take your position as He took His, but you can get His mind,-the desire that your own dignity and your own position may be sacrificed in order that you may please God and serve God's people.

But I wanted to speak a little more particularly about our blessed Lord alone. We have Him in this passage traced from heaven's throne back to heaven's throne-alone as you might say. You do not find redemption in these verses. The cross of Christ is spoken of, and it is after all the cross which brings peace to the sinner. It is not considering the cross as where He was made sin for us. Here He is the burnt-offering. He goes down into death for God Himself, and He is brought up out of death for God Himself, and He takes His place on high for God Himself. God puts Him there. If there were not a sinner saved in all the universe of God, the emptying of Christ, and His death upon the cross would fill heaven with everlasting fragrance.

We sometimes say, and say rightly, that the Lord sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied when poor sinners are saved. Blessed fact, it is true, and God's love comes out to the guilty lost ones, reaches out to them, but back of it all God has a delight in Christ, unaffected by the question of whether men are saved or whether they are lost. God has had Christ before Him, has Him before Him now, and in this wonderful description of our Lord's progress from the glory to the cross, there is no eye which watches Him as the eye of God, and apart from its effects for us, apart from our salvation we see God's delight in Christ. "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him " not a name, as it reads, but "the name which is above every name." There is only one such name, and that name, beloved, is connected with His emptying and obedience unto death, apart from our salvation at all.

And so it will do us good to stand afar off and see the burnt-offering ascend to God. Surely we can say our redemption is in it, our salvation is in it, but we want to see that God has His share, has His delight in Christ, and it is important that we should get God's point of view rather than our own.

How do you gauge spiritual things ? Which part of your Bible is most marked ? Which part of your Bible are you most familiar with ? I venture to say, that you are most familiar with the part that concerns you. We are all alike in that particular, the part of the Bible we are most familiar with is what concerns us. Our spiritual interests are selfish; we speak of our benefits through Christ and through His death, and we are losers oftentimes because we are not familiar with God's part, that which gives God's delight in Christ.

So you and I are left out of this part we have been reading-we are not there. God's eye is only for Christ in that passage. He is watching Him. He sees Him lay aside His glory, leave that place which He had with the Father before the world was, leave, all the glory by which He was surrounded, the place of dignity and the place of honor in heaven, being in the very form of God, the very dignity, honor, glory, which belonged to Him by right because He was God; He lays all that glory, all that dignity, all that honor aside. He counted it not a thing to be snatched at, not something to be grasped and held fast and clutched-we clutch our dignity, we hold fast to our reputation; the Lord did not esteem it a matter to be clutched and held fast that He should be equal with God. He humbled Himself, emptied Himself, made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and became in the likeness of men.

God watched Him, God saw all He was doing, and I repeat it, it was God and Christ and none other. He saw Him humble Himself, He saw that wondrous, that amazing self-emptying:that relinquishment of His rights. It furnishes the object lesson for all eternity.

And so God's eye is upon Him. He goes down. He is found in fashion as a man. The manger is not the lowest point reached; His whole life is a downward path. At His birth the angels worshiped, and a few whose hearts were open to recognize. But He goes on down and down until He goes to Gethsemane, He goes to death, even the death of the cross. God heard the lonely Weeper in the garden of Gethsemane; God heard Him pouring out His soul with strong crying and tears. God heard Him who said, " O, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

What is God's answer to all that 1 Christ takes His place down in death. What is God's answer ? "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him." It was the Lord's will to humiliate Himself:it was God's to highly exalt Him, and give Him the Name which is above every name; and so we bow at that Name.

And so you have the whole course traced from the beginning until He is back there. We are to be occupied with that priceless, wondrous exhibition of obedience and lowliness. God is first to have leisure to see it, and then we are brought in as happy worshipers to bow at the name of Jesus.

Do you get the thought which I would seek to set before us. It is true that He came to seek and to save that which was lost; that He died the Just for the unjust. But leave your side a little, and take God's side; get God's thought and you will bow in the place that God would have you, bow at the name of Jesus, ever at the name of Jesus:

" The mention of Thy Name shall bow our hearts to worship Thee."

I rejoice and I am sure you rejoice that while He has saved us, delivered us from wrath and judgment, and given us a place in heaven, yet we can say somewhat as the poor Hindoo woman did that she was satisfied if she saw Jesus glorified, no matter what became of her.

You remember what Mephibosheth said. He is brought in from the distance, eats at the king's table. He says, " I am a dead dog." He is brought into that place by grace; the kindness of God is shown to him. David flees from the face of Absalom his son; he has been rejected. Mephibosheth has been misrepresented by Ziba as being desirous of claiming the throne again, and all that, and when he comes back David treats him severely, till Mephibosheth makes plain that David is under a mistake, and that Ziba has lied to him. David says, "Well, thou and Ziba divide the land." Oh, Mephibosheth says,"The land, I am not thinking about the land; let him take all; the king has come into his own again." And as we realize Christ glorified up there, we join in the acclaim which says He is worthy to be there, worthy to be in that place, for He humbled Himself down to death. Oh, that is the sweetest song in heaven, and that is the sweetest note we can strike upon earth; the unselfish devotion of hearts that have seen Christ glorified for what He did for the Father, apart entirely from what He did for us.

I would lay it on all our hearts:let us seek, let us crave, let us not rest until we enter into the thought that gives the Lord His place apart from ourselves, apart from blessing, that gives Him the place He has because God has put Him there. Oh, the joy, the rest, the exaltation of spirit that comes from seeing Christ in His highest glory, and seeing Him there for God, and we delighting in Him. We see what Christ is to God, we see Him as the burnt-offering which has gone up to God as a sweet savor, and the only response that God could give to it, the only response was to place Him on the throne.

In the third chapter the apostle Paul speaks of the Lord in glory in another way.

You know how the apostle shows that all fleshly excellence is nothing; that our own standing, our own righteousness, everything of that kind is fleshly. He says, " If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more;" and then he goes on through his whole little stock of righteousness, fleshly glory and honor-small enough it is when measured by Christ's glory. '' Circumcised the eighth day ; of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless." He has not much to say of his zeal, except that he was persecuting. He had been exceedingly diligent, exceedingly zealous. He says, "I will show you where my zeal was." "Concerning zeal persecuting the Church." He speaks of his righteousness, and then he says, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ."

Of what effect was the eighth day circumcision ? being an Israelite, a Benjamite ? what did the zeal amount to ? Go with him on his trip from Jerusalem to Damascus. He falls down before that light from heaven, and there his righteousness disappears. Damascus was called the pearl of the East. It is said of Mohammed that as he journeyed to Damascus, and reached the hills that overlooked it, and saw its lovely gardens and its white houses gleaming through the green, he said:"There is only one paradise we can enter and I want to enter heaven," so he would not go to Damascus. It was a lovely city, a beautiful place, everything was there to attract the eye. Here is one whose genealogy was above reproach, whose life was blameless, whose zeal was all that could be desired; here in mid-day glory, the fairest city of the East before him, into which he was about to enter and do what he thought a good work, and in a moment it has all crumbled into dust and blackness before him.

What makes the change ? It was God's Son whom he hated up to that time, whom he now saw in the glory of God. A voice comes to him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me." "Who art Thou Lord." He knew it was the Lord. He knew it was the Lord Jehovah. The Lord is Jehovah. Jehovah is Jesus whom he is persecuting! What was the result of his being in that place ? Like Job, he has heard of Him by the hearing of the ear, but now his eye sees Him. The light that is above the brightness of the sun is but the reflection of His glory; he sees Him, and all his mantle of self-righteousness, all he glories in drops off:"What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ."

He had seen Christ, he was convicted of his sin, and he lost his self-righteousness. There was an end of his self-righteousness; and if he had lost self-righteousness, what had he gained ? Christ was his righteousness.

"When it pleased God," he says, "who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace to" what? "to reveal His Son in me." That was it, Christ revealed in him; Christ now for him, his righteousness, his standing before God. Everything now is loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord. He has seen Christ, that is it; Christ in glory revealed in him, and the result is that all he had boasted in is disgusting and loathsome to him. Christ has been substituted, Christ in glory his righteousness; and he says:"For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." Not only that he may be my righteousness before God, but that it may be Christ who takes possession of my life, who fills my soul, who is also the measure of my standing before God. Christ eclipsed everything else, took possession of his soul; and Christ in glory marked the career of Paul from that day until he went home to be with the Lord.

Christ at God's right hand is now the measure of our standing, our acceptance, our righteousness. Talk about dignity, talk about righteousness, talk about law ? Where is that boasted circumcision, that self-righteousness ? Christ has eclipsed everything else.

And so the apostle says:"I count all things but loss"-not only these things I have mentioned, but "all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." There He is on high, my righteousness, but more than that-my Lord and my God.

Christ on high. What a. perfect righteousness. How well delighted God is with it; how satisfied God is. Your righteousness incomplete? then Christ will be incomplete. Is there anything lacking about Him? He has fully glorified God, He has fully magnified His will, and God has put the mark of His approval upon Him by placing Him there at His own right hand, and He is there as our righteousness, and if you want to get rid of self-righteousness completely, the only way is to behold Christ in glory, and as you behold Him in glory you will be delivered from the last shred of self-righteousness that you have here. That is Christ in glory for our righteousness, and as I say I want to keep that constantly before us-a glorified Christ as the measure of our standing before God. We want to keep fast hold of that. I believe Satan seeks to rob us of it. I believe he seeks to draw our minds away from the understanding of what our perfect standing before God is. Let us remember that we have the gospel of the glory of the blessed God as a testimony in this world. It is the gospel of the glory-Christ in the glory of God, the measure of the believer's standing before God. How many truths are connected with it, cluster about it.

Here is a poor soul groaning as if he might be lost. He may say, "Lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." What is the remedy? To see our standing before God as connected with a glorified Christ. We stand accepted in Him; He Himself beyond death, beyond judgment, beyond the question of sin. How could we be lost ? Could Christ descend from heaven? He is our righteousness up there.

That settles many a question. As I say, our security, our responsibility, and all that, is connected with Christ in glory.

Take another thing. You believe in the Lord Jesus, but you do not know whether you are saved. Satan perplexes you with doubts. He tells you it is right not to be too sure. But if Christ in glory is my righteousness, I cannot be lost. My assurance is Christ on high, and we will refer every doubt and every question to Christ on high, not to our feelings here.

Now in the latter part of the chapter, we have that he had not already apprehended. He has Christ for his righteousness, but he says, "I have not yet attained." What does he want? It is a wonderful thing. He wants more of Christ. Well, you say, have you not Christ perfectly for your righteousness. Oh yes, I have, but I want to be with Christ. I am in Christ, but I want to be with Christ.

People say to us:"Do you not get tired of preaching and speaking of only one Person all the time?" I do not, brethren; do you?

" Jesus, of Thee we ne'er would tire;
The new and living food
Can satisfy our heart's desire,
And life is in Thy blood."

"In their hearts they turned back to Egypt," but the more we know of Christ, the more we want of Him. We can say with the poet:

"To Jesus, the crown of my hope,
My soul is in haste to be gone."

Why are we longing for the coming of the Lord ? Is it to get out of our troubles? People in the world would like to get out of their troubles. What makes us heavenly minded? It is the view of a glorified Christ. That is what makes us pilgrims here. That is what takes our feet out of the mire. That is what makes us racers. The prophet girded himself and ran before the chariot of Ahab. Our hearts have been taken captive by Christ on high. The apostle would not rest until he was with Christ in glory. He was pressing forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

That is what makes heaven for us. Christ up there; that is what makes us pilgrims. We know Him. The Lord of glory appeared unto Stephen. That is it. Stephen had the glory in his heart; then they saw it in his face. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, and took him from home and kindred, and everything else. It was a glory that made him a pilgrim to wait until he could enter into the glory. The glory will make you a pilgrim to the glory; it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. We are pilgrims here. We have no continuing city. It is not that we want to be pilgrims; we are pilgrims.

Suffer a word for our consciences just here. How is it with us? I have been speaking of Abraham, it was the glory that made him a pilgrim. Look at the other side-there is Lot. What was the matter with Lot? What was wrong with him? The poor man's life was the very opposite of the path of the just. It closes in that lonely mountain cave, and we draw the curtain on the scenes enacted there.

Lot went down. What made him go down? He was attracted by the plains of Sodom. It was not the wickedness of Sodom that attracted Lot. It was not the corruption of that city that drew him. What drew him? Self-interest. In this same chapter the apostle speaks of those who mind earthly things, whose god is their belly; it is characteristic of mere profession. Is there not a danger of our taking the place of Lot instead of the place of Abraham? Is there not a danger of our settling down? People say they do not want much here; still you want it here. That is the point. You want it here. But we are pilgrims; and we ought to want it there. In the sermon on the mount the Lord said, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."

How can you lay up treasures in heaven? If Christ is our treasure it is very simple, for He is there. Our treasure is laid up in heaven where Christ is, and our hearts are there because He is there.

I need not want to know what you are engaged with, if your heart is in heaven. If your heart is there, you will be satisfied only when you see Him, and your only desire will be to please Him. To know Christ where He is will make us pilgrims down here. To know Christ there makes us pilgrims here. What a blessed portion. What is wealth, position, dignity, reputation, compared with that? Who would exchange them for Christ in glory. Brethren, where is our treasure? Is it Christ on high? Then I am indeed a pilgrim here.
" 'Tis the treasure we have found in His love,
That has made us pilgrims below."

Let us look now at the passage in Ephesians. Ephesians gives us in an especial way the Church. You can say that the characteristic word of Ephesians is "in Christ." You have in a wondrous way His people associated with Him risen and glorified. In the second chapter the believer's position is seen as in Christ. We were dead in sins, but we are quickened together with Christ, and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. That word "together" tells us something. "When we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." It is not only that we are quickened, but quickened "together" with Christ. We, both Jews and Gentiles, are associated with Him. We are co-quickened, as you may say, with Christ. After the Lord rose, He said to Mary, "Tell my brethren." He did not call them His brethren until after His resurrection. There He associates them with Himself, "Go, tell my brethren," He says, "I ascend unto My Father and your Father; and to My God and your God." Thus He associates His people with Himself in glory, and sets aside all distinctions which would separate them from one another.

In the epistle to the Ephesians we have Christ in glory as the Head of His Church upon earth. You have Christ in glory as marking our corporate position. We have seen Christ in glory for God alone. We have seen Him as the measure of our standing, our righteousness. We have Christ in glory as the One toward whom we are to press on; but here you have a view of a glorified Christ as the center of gathering. The corporate view of our Lord in glory is one which we must not lose sight of.

Just let us look at it for a few moments. It is precious to those who understand it. If it is dull, it is dull only to those who do not understand it; but it is precious to those who do, and who are familiar with it; and this precious truth of the body of Christ, which is the precious truth of what the Church of God is, is doubly precious to those who are alive to the value of it, who dwell upon it and praise God for it.

He speaks of three things. In the eighteenth verse he says, "That ye may know what is the hope of His calling." He has called us for heaven. We are from heaven and heavenly men by birth. Exodus xii:"This month shall be unto you the beginning of months." That is our birth time; and the eighty-seventh psalm, "This man was born there." That is our birthplace.

The birthday. What is your birthday ? When you found the Lord Jesus Christ? You were born again. The day of your birth was the day on which you came under the precious blood of Christ. What is our birthplace? Where were we born? I was born again, one says, in this or that place. Do you know where you were born? You were born from heaven; that was your birthplace. The Lord said to Nicodemus that he must be born again. We must have a nature to fit us for heaven. It is not like one who has been away from the old country, the old homestead, and who says, "I would like to go back to the old place where I was born and see it again;" and he crosses the ocean, he sees the old house, but everything is changed; and he says, "After all, my birthplace is marked by the dear ones; it is not the house or the material, but it is marked by those who live there."

You do not have to go back to your spiritual birthplace. You have been born from above; we are born there and there we are. That is our birthplace. That is what the apostle is saying to these saints. He says, "I want you to know what the hope of your calling is."
Second, "The riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints." He wants them to know that. It is a wonderful expression, "God's inheritance in the saints." I suppose many think of it as God's inheritance in us. Israel went into Canaan; but it was God who went into Canaan in Israel. Israel took possession of the land, but it was God's land- His inheritance in Israel.

We are going to have an inheritance there, but after all what a joy it is to think that it is God's inheritance and not ours-His inheritance in us. It is like a father buys a farm, he stocks it, puts everything on it, and gives it to his son. He says, " My boy you live there and enjoy it, it is my place:I got it for you."

And so the inheritance is God's inheritance, but He inherits it in the saints, and our portion there is ours, because it is God's, and ours will be God's. You have known some fathers who have had sons to whom they could not give their property. They would have mortgaged it, or sold it, or done something unwise with it. The fathers have kept it.

God holds our inheritance. I have the blessedness of it, but God has the title. It is His inheritance, and it is in the saints. They enjoy, and He keeps it.

Third:"What is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come."

The power. How much power have you, how much have I? Do you say, very little-very little power to live and act for God. We see the saints have very little power. How much have we? What kind of power? How am I to know? It is feeble enough. But how am I to measure the power? Look at Christ; Christ raised from the dead; Christ lifted from earth to heaven; Christ exalted above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. God says He is the power. It is right in us-the resurrection power of Christ Himself.

You have got power, you have all the power of heaven. All the power of heaven has been shown in raising Christ on high, you have that power for present use.

The trouble is, beloved, that we have separated between the power and ourselves. We have not allowed the power to work. It is like some mighty engine:there is an immense amount of steam upon the boiler, but the engine is almost motionless, why? Because the throttle valve is closed. If you open the throttle the steam passes in, and you find that the engine is powerful. It had the power, but it was not in use. There was a hindrance. How often there is a hindrance to the working of God's mighty power, that resurrection power. There is a hindrance because of the throttle. Communication with God is closed, and there is no practical power in the life. The apostle speaks of this power, in the third chap-ter, as the power of the believer's life. "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." The very power that worketh in us is the power by which we are to be filled unto all the fulness of God. There is no limit-the only limit is God's fulness, and our capacity.
If we know the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and if we know the wondrous power that is in us,-what next? It is that Christ is Head of His Church; Lord and Head of His people, and when we see that truth we see what the Church is.

Christ in glory. Christ at God's right hand as Head of His Church, and if you realize that you are a member of a glorified Christ, a member of His body, I believe things will drop off; self-righteousness will drop off-all low thoughts of His Church- all thoughts of the Church as being divided by parties and that kind of thing, will drop off if you see Christ glorified as the Head of His Church.

If I see the Lord as Head of His Church, I will see that church-truth is not a theory. God has linked church-truth with Christ on high. If you say there is no church-truth, you may as well say, Christ is not glorified, that He had better get off the throne of God.

But He is Head of His Church. He is sovereign, His people are gathered to a glorified Christ. It is
the truth of a glorified Christ that will gather His people here. Some talk about our being all one. If there is anything further away than another from the truth of God as to the Church of Christ, it is that believers are all one, in themselves. "Let us merge our differences:let us all recognize one another as dear brethren; let us be one." If I could bring together every child of God on this globe by turning over a page of this book, I would not do it; it would be a failure, it would be the worst kind of pride.

Leave out Christ glorified, and put man in His place! Think of it. Put in the place of a glorified Christ your dear brethren, and what have you got? You have made an idol of man, and God is going to break your idol to pieces.

You have put something in the place of Christ. The only kind of unity that God recognizes, the only kind of unity that faith recognizes is the unity which puts Christ in His place, which gives Him His place as Head of His Church. There can be no unity that leaves out the person of Christ, and the authority of Christ, and the sovereign rule and direction of Christ Himself, who is the Governor of that Church which is linked to Himself as His body. Just as He said to Saul of Tarsus, "Why persecutest them Me." In persecuting the weakest and humblest of His people, he was persecuting Christ, so dear brethren, every believer is a member of the Church of Christ and therefore a member of Christ.

Do you see the point of view? Do you see that Christ in glory is Head of His Church, the body of Christ here? The Church is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all

When the doctrine of this one body, of which we are members, is seen as linked with Christ in glory, you have that which will deliver from many things. Only those who are occupied with a heavenly Christ, and whose souls are in obedience to a heavenly Christ, will form an expression here of the oneness of the body of Christ which His heart yearns to see.

The Lord's people are divided. You can bring them together only in one way, and that is in subjection to a glorified Christ, and you will have practical unity. Leave that out, and instead of doing away with divisions, you make trouble and strife.

No, we keep our eyes simply on Christ, and we have Christ's will and Christ's authority, and Christ's headship, and the truth of the body of Christ here on earth.

Let us fix our hearts upon Him alone. First; What He is to God alone. Second; We see Him in glory as our righteousness:we discard all forms of self-righteousness. We see Him there as the One on high who is beckoning us, who has taken our hearts.

And then we see Him as Head of His Church.

The apostle said, "To me to live is Christ." Beloved, may it be so for us all.

7. NEARER THAN THE NEAREST.

Chapter 4:Continued from page 161.

The nearest kinsman promptly consents to redeem the inheritance for Naomi. The law, as we have seen, had this merciful provision, and whenever one or the people turned truly to God and kept His law, He would be "merciful unto His land and to His people." So long as it was of Naomi's hand that the purchase was to be made, and for her, the kinsman consents at once, for she was the widow of "our brother Elimelech." So long as it is Israel according to the flesh, and merely disobedient, the law, with the merciful provision to which we have referred, could interpose and bring back the forfeited inheritance.

We have more or less complete illustrations of this in the history of the people. Again and again, during the period of the Judges, they sinned against the Lord, and were delivered over to the hands of their enemies to be oppressed. But when they turned in penitence to Him, He raised up a deliverer who restored them to their heritage. But the nation went on in the downward path of declension, until the ten tribes were carried off into hopeless captivity and merged into the Gentile nations by whom they were taken captive, beyond all human recognition. The two tribes also were carried off to Babylon and the throne of God, the ark of the covenant, permanently left Jerusalem. Truly a brighter Light shone in the temple at a later time, but not to be accepted by the people. Of this we will speak in a moment.

Even after the captivity at Babylon there was a partial recovery (though the throne had passed from the house of David to the Gentiles). It was as though the law, the nearest kinsman, was going as far as possible in seeking to buy up the inheritance.

But at last after the restoration from Babylon, God sends His Son, the rightful heir of the inheritance. "This is the heir, come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours "-how fully this shows a mind absolutely alienated from God and His thoughts. God's Son, the true redeemer, the only deliverer, is slain. The blinded leaders cry "we have no king but Caesar," and thus they deliberately and permanently forfeit all right to be considered the people of God. They have identified themselves absolutely with the Gentiles and are now on the same ground as the despised Moabites or Ammonites. They are " lo-ammi, not my people," and are as fully Gentiles as though they were not of the seed of Abraham.

The law, even with the most merciful construction, could no longer interpose. "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord forever" (Deut. 23:3). The apostate people had deliberately given up all claim, and so far as the law was concerned, were cut off.

This explains why the kinsman, no matter how willing he might be to restore the heritage to Naomi, could not take it to raise up by Ruth the name of the deceased kinsman. His own inheritance would be marred. How truly that law, "holy, just and good" would be marred if the smallest jot or tittle of its righteous demands were abated. It abides in all its majesty and perfection. It is not made void, as it would be were a single item of its requirements ignored. So for the guilty people who rest in the law and vainly boast in their privileges as a nation there is nothing but condemnation. They are in the place of the Moabite.

But if the law does not and cannot do aught in such a case, it does and can relinquish all right to the inheritance, and transfers those claims to Another. The kinsman draws off his shoe, the usual mode of procedure when property changed hands. The shoe was that which trod upon the land, and to draw it off and pass it to another would seem to indicate that all claims upon the property had passed from the one to the other. How good it is to know that "the law was our schoolmaster till Christ." That it transfers all its own claims to Him.

But let us notice also that this is done before a jury of ten men, witnesses of the law and facts. These ten may well remind us of those "ten words" or commandments which bear full testimony to the claims of God, the ruin of man, and their own powerlessness to redeem. All is done legally. '' I through the law, died to the law," says the apostle. The law itself witnesses to its own powerlessness to redeem. "That I might live unto God," he adds-the law transfers its claims to Another. All is settled righteously and "witnessed by the law and the prophets." Thus "we establish the law."

Boaz is now left free for his heart to act upon its own gracious impulses, and in presence of the same ten who had witnessed the refusal of the first kinsman to purchase the inheritance he buys all-the inheritance and Ruth too, the Moabitess, as she is called to remind us of the grace of the transaction. It is now his, and she is his, truly owned as his bride, and yet linked with poor Naomi the barren, widow of the dead Elimelech.

How beautifully does all this speak of the grace of Christ shown to a poor and unworthy people! Christ risen, beyond death, beyond all claims of the law, betroths to Himself forever in righteousness; the poor stranger and the wanderer finds rest at last.

Such, in some feeble measure, is the teaching of this lovely portion, and we will presently look at the further teaching of the prophets upon this subject. But it is important to dispose of that which too often disturbs the beloved people of God, through ignorance or misapplication of the word of God.

This nearest kinsman, the law, was, as we have just seen, absolutely debarred from taking a gentile into association with himself. And yet, in face of this plain fact, Christians will persist in looking upon all men as under law, and then upon the saints now being still under it as a rule of life.

As to the first, the apostle in the early chapters of the epistle to the Romans, shows the difference between those "without law "-the Gentiles, and those "under law"-the Jews. The law was given only to Israel. God was trying man under the most favorable opportunities. A nation was rescued from servitude, brought into an inheritance and fenced off from the surrounding nations. They were the recipients of God's bounty, the object of His constant care. What more could He do for a people? He challenges the disobedient nation, and waits in vain for a reply. Thus the law was tried under the most favorable circumstances and proved helpless.

But this practically settled the question of justification by law for all mankind; so it is written, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Thus "every mouth is stopped, and all the world becomes guilty before God." In the trial of Israel, God has tried the world, and settled forever the question of justification by the law. That trial need never be repeated, it is final and conclusive.

But should one say that he desired to be put under the law, he is not as a fact under it, though as a matter of fact it always works in the same way, and he will find-if he truly and honestly makes the effort-that he is condemned before God. He will learn that God's trial of Israel was perfect and complete, and he has but confirmed the results of that divine probation.

A great deal has been made, however, of the distinction between the law for justification, and as a rule of life. It is impossible to separate these two- in fact Scripture does not separate them. Under law, in any way at all, is to be under the curse. The law can only pronounce a curse upon disobedience. Thus if a saint were under the law as a rule of life he is, "debtor to do the whole law," and if he sins in one point is guilty of all, and condemned. Sinai has but one voice. What folly to think of a rule of life from a place which but thunders out death and judgment for the least disobedience. " If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" (Gal. 3:21). As a matter of fact the law is "the strength of sin,' and the apostle, in that wondrous seventh chapter of Romans, shows that it is as powerless to produce righteousness in a saint as in a sinner. Would to God that His people realized this. How much abortive effort, and despairing longing would they be spared!

No, beloved brethren, we are in no sense under the law; as a matter of fact we never were. Let us then not mar that perfect witness which perfectly declares God's mind for man, but as perfectly declares he failed to answer to God's mind. We leave it with its testimony, and bow our heads to that testimony, humbly acknowledging that were life or liberty to be gained in that way our case was as hopeless as the widowed Naomi, or the Moabitess Ruth.

But, blessed be God, this leaves our risen Lord free to pour out His heart's love to us in fullest measure. We are dead to the law by the body of Christ that now we might bring forth fruit unto God, being joined in links of everlasting union to Another, even to Him who is raised from the dead. So our Lord has His way, and the very law but witnesses to it, and to its own relinquishment of every claim upon the poor helpless "sons of strangers," who find their home close the heart of the Mighty One.

( To be continued.)

This needs to be put before the people of God, I and their attention called to it. It is strange, but we are always looking for a sort of perfection in our fellow believers. The word of God while providing for a life of faithfulness shows us the failures of the most illustrious saints, and reminds us that "in many things we all offend ;" and yet we are so surprised and disappointed when failure comes. It would save us all a great deal of disappointment if we would not expect so much from our brethren, if we were prepared for things to turn out very differently from what we expected and from what we think is the right way. We need to remember that our way may not be God's way, that whatever the failure on man's part or on His people's part, He cannot fail.

Too often we are so much taken up with the failures of others that we forget the faithfulness of our
God. We think so much of what is being done down here, that our hearts and eyes get off from what He is up there. Our God never fails, never changes. His word and truth are always the same. We can turn away from all here below and should do so often, and fix our eyes on the things up there where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. The Man in the glory should so fill our eyes and fix our hearts that the things of earth, failure and sin, would not move us as they often do. We would then have the priestly power of intercession, and perhaps be used in restoring one who had been " overtaken in a fault."

It makes a great difference whether we are in communion with the Lord about the failures of fellow Christians. To dwell on them apart from communion with Him is great loss to the soul. Many are thereby ensnared and their peace destroyed, their usefulness hindered or ruined entirely. Satan likes nothing better than to get saints to thinking of the failures of others, occupied with them so as to forget the power, grace, and love of God. From this comes much of that backbiting, gossip and whispering which so often grieve the Holy Spirit of God. J. W. N.