TRUTH THOUGH PRECIOUS AND FROM HEAVEN, THE OCCASION OF DISCORD AND BITTERNESS ON EARTH, AND WHY?
Truth must be precious, for it came from God. I The inspired Word says:"The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The Lord said to Pilate:"For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice." He could say, "I am the Truth." He was the full expression of it. He is designated, "The faithful and true Witness." And the truth that came by Him, and shown forth in Him, was divinely intended for the blessing of poor fallen man. We are assured that God "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." We are saved by coming to the knowledge of the truth. The Lord said:"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." In praying to the Father for His own, He said:"Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth." The apostle tells us that "the truth is in Jesus." Surely then as truth came from God, and by the Lord Jesus, it must be a most precious boon; and being intended for the blessing of man,-man deceived by Satan, who "abode not in the truth,"-it should be gladly received by all, and at any cost. No wonder, therefore, it should be said in Scripture, "Buy the truth, and sell it not,"-that is buy it at any cost, at any sacrifice, and at no price sell it; sacrifice anything sooner than sacrifice the truth. Millions of worlds, if offered, should be no inducement to reject or give up the truth, and indeed would be none to those who truly know it; and yet they are most glad to make it known, that others may enjoy what they enjoy.

And is it so that a thing so precious, and intended to bless, and so needful as truth in a scene where all is false, should be the occasion of trouble and bitterness? Alas! it is really so. It has been thus from the days of Cain and Abel down to the present. Hence we are not to expect any thing else. Yes, the truth, as it is in Jesus, may bring a storm on those who receive it; but never mind, my dear brother or sister, it is better to be saved in a storm than to be lost in a calm. And yet it is not always that simply receiving the truth brings the storm, but taking the path which the truth points out. In these days almost any truth may be made popular as long as you will go on with the great current of profession. You may hold the doctrines of grace, full atonement through the cross, salvation simply through Christ and on the principle of faith, also the heavenly calling, and the Lord's return, and the storm may not come; but take path of truth, the path suited to these doctrines of Christ, having your back turned on that from which you are delivered through the Cross, and your face firmly set toward that into which you are brought in Christ, and you will find that you cannot make the path popular; rather you will find the winds contrary, yea these contrary winds may amount to a hurricane, carrying all before it, all of earth you have held dear. Yet, surely it is better that it should be so, than that you should purchase a calm at the expense of truth, and by dishonoring Him who bore an infinitely greater storm for us on Calvary.

But the question comes up, Why is it that this precious gift of God is thus made the occasion of trouble and bitterness? Surely the fault cannot be with the truth itself, nor with the One from whom it came, and by whom it came. The truth brings no discord in heaven where all is pure and good. Why then is the effect so otherwise on earth? Certainly it must be something very unlike heaven, and contrary to God, which it has to meet, and which is the opposite of itself. It is very clear that the coming of Him by whom truth came, was divinely meant for blessing to all. When Jesus was born, the angel of the Lord said to the shepherds:"Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people," and the multitude of the heavenly host was with the angel, praising God, saying:" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." This was what was in God's heart. His grace was toward all, and for the blessing of all. But though this was true, yet, alas, in view of the fact that, while some would bow to the truth and be saved, many would reject it, and be bitterly against those who received it,-the Lord had to present His coming, looking at the result, under a very different aspect. He said:"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." And who is to blame for this unhappy result? Certainly not those who receive the truth in the love of it, and act accordingly. They do not turn bitter against the others, but pray for them, and long for their real good. The blame is clearly with those who reject the truth, and are bitter toward those who receive it, thus taking sides with him "who abode not in the truth." He is urging them on, and will, in due time, meet his doom; but those who put themselves in his power, cannot clear themselves by casting the blame on him. We are individually responsible to receive the truth, and thus be on God's side.

Of course, there are those who are slow in understanding anything, and therefore slow in seeing and receiving truth, and yet long to know the truth. It may require patience in dealing with such; but seeing they are honest and sincere, it is pleasant work to be helpful to them; and, as the result, they see and rejoice. But with others, when the truth is presented, opposition is their first thought. The will of the flesh is up at once, and thus the great enemy can use them to his advantage, and their own injury; and, under his influence, they become awfully bitter, and their spirit and words, alas! become almost, if not really, satanic. The enemy is acting through them. You may be telling out the most important truths, plainly taught in the word of God, even the way that a poor lost sinner is saved, that is through the Cross, clung to by faith, without the deeds of the law, and which an inspired apostle designates "righteousness without works;"-or you may speak of the standing of believers, as "complete in Christ" by being seen of God, as "dead with Christ" and "risen with Him," and seated "in heavenly places in Him," and of the behavior suited to such an exalted calling,-truths which Satan must especially hate, as they magnify the riches of God's grace, and consequently those who have put themselves in his power, find it hard to invent language sufficiently hateful to express their intense bitterness against such thoughts. Should a child of God thus yield to the flesh, and so take sides with "that wicked one," the loss thereby sustained will be shown up at the judgment-seat of Christ.

Beloved, if you are called to suffer for receiving the truth and acting on it, happy are ye. God knows all about it. Besides, your treatment gives you a good opportunity of showing another thing which came by Jesus Christ, namely, "grace." It is for you to show grace, though none may be shown to you. While we are to "walk in truth," we are to "walk in love." The Lord help us to cling to the truth, and to walk in the power of the love which brought the truth; and may those who have manifested such sorrowful hatred to the truth, give evident of repentance before their little day is over, and rest simply on the grace of God, and the merits of the Lord Jesus, and so pass to that scene of blessedness where all ascribe their salvation to God and the Lamb. Yes, happy if they can say, even at the last, from a full heart.

" Vile and full of sin, I am,-
Thou art full of truth and grace."
and
" In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling."
Then in Thy blest abode, from all this weakness free,
I, through the grace of God, shall ever with Thee be.

R. H.

Notes of an Address by C. C. at Lachute, 28th March, 1897.

(John 21:15-23.)

I believe that perhaps every where at the present time, there is a great deal of despondency and discouragement-a feeling that it is almost useless to seek to go on in the path of faith, with the things which God has intrusted to us. We can understand how this feeling has settled down so widely, so generally. There have been so many things following after one another, indicating such wide-spread failure, not looking at the whole people of God only, but at ourselves, and ourselves individually also, the Lord's dear people have been staggered. How much there has been to dishearten us !

We every where need a lifting up with respect to this. It is quite easy for us to think:"Well, we have made such sad work of it, we have disappointed the Lord so sadly, we cannot expect Him to trust us; we cannot expect Him to put confidence in us." And so we easily settle down with the feeling that it is useless to take up the things of the path of faith and care for them, and undertake to go on.

In the portion read we find what will raise us out of this despondency.

First. Let us look at this disciple of the Lord- something of his history, his failure. Let us see how the Lord feels for him and deals with him and, through him, with ourselves. We do not need to dwell on the failure and sin of Peter. We all know how through self-confidence he failed sadly. He was foremost in protestations of love and fealty to the Lord Jesus. Though all the others should fail the Lord, he was ready to go through fire and sword for His sake; but when the test came he denied the Lord with cursing. Failure had an effect on the state of Peter's soul, and so it has with us. The Lord looked on him at the moment of his very worst. It was a look that went right through Peter's heart, and he went out and wept bitterly. Restoration, however, beloved brethren, was another thing. Rest and composure in the presence of Christ is another thing. The work was begun, but not ended when the Lord looked upon him. Much had yet to be done before all was right in his soul. I want to press a point:we are too easily satisfied with repentance. We ought not, of course, to think lightly of it; we should seek it earnestly,-seek for genuine repentance in the soul; but I think we often stop short in dealing with one another, and thus souls are hindered.

Just look at Peter:we all agree the work of repentance was begun from the very moment of his going out and weeping bitterly. Look at him going to the tomb; look at him after personal contact with the Lord; what do we find ? We do not find him exactly following the Lord. In the beginning of this chapter it is he who proposes to the other disciples to go fishing; and it is because he is not yet fully restored, that he is ready to return to his fishing. There has been partial recovery, but not complete, and I believe we do feel the lesson is:Peter is not entirely at ease in the company of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the result of the fishing is, he toils all night, laboring hard and exhausting his strength, and in the morning, as he looks over the effort of the night, it has all come to nothing.

Beloved brethren, how like ourselves often ! How often we, finding uneasiness of soul, turn and spend our energies for naught, and in the end only find out all our energies are fruitless !
Peter is not at rest, and it is just here the Lord presents Himself to His disciples, and particularly to Peter, giving him a lesson he needed, and that every one of us needs also. What is it ? He is taught that the One he had sinned against in the saddest way, trusts him, puts confidence in him notwithstanding the grievousness of his sin. The Lord has such unbounded confidence in him He can put into his hand the most important interests of His heart. Think of the grace of the Lord intrusting into his hands His lambs and sheep ! How frequently we feel :"Well, we have forfeited the Lord's confidence; " and as our failures become known to others, we think the old times-the good old times of confidence in one another- are gone. We think our brethren will be thinking constantly of these things, and that they will be a barrier against their confidence, against their trusting us. As long as we fear our brethren cannot trust us, there cannot be perfect restoration. Beloved, how often we have found it so; we have said, " Our brethren do not trust us, and we do not expect it." But I believe the Lord wants us to have our failures and sins so absolutely gone, and forgiveness enjoyed in such a way, that we may have the assurance we can trust one another. It is this lack of confidence which produces these continual difficulties that have so spread among the Lord's people, and given us so much sorrow. I believe the Lord would not have it so. He wants us to learn that He trusts us, and then that we can trust one another.

Now look. The Lord speaks three times to Peter:

First:"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest them Me more than these ? " as if reminding him of his past protestation of affection and faithfulness.

"He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee."

We cannot question the reality of his love when he speaks thus, yet he had not got to the bottom of the matter. Yet in the face of this the Lord says," Feed My lambs." This is as much as to say, " Even if you have sinned worse than all, yet I'll trust you."

Still the Lord is not going to leave it there. He is going to reach the bottom, and so He says the-

Second time, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?" No comparison now. He is probing more deeply by a question far more searching than the first, one that relates entirely to the Lord; his thoughts taken away entirely from others, and fixed upon Himself.

Peter answers as before:"Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee."

Well, says the Lord, I have sheep that I love, and put a high estimate upon, that are the objects of My tenderest solicitude and care; I trust you with them; "shepherd My sheep."

The effect the Lord would thus produce in Peter's soul is very precious to contemplate; but his manner of reply, "Yea, Lord," would seem to indicate yet some self-confidence, and so the-

Third time the Lord asks the question. This time He changes it somewhat. In His first two inquiries He uses a different word for "love" to that used by Peter; but now in the third He changes, and takes up the same word for "love "as Peter had used in the reply to the first two questions, and says,-
"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me ? "

I believe the word Peter uses is one meaning strong, personal, human attachment. He was indeed specially attached to the Lord, and now it is as if the Lord were saying to him, " I am not now going to ask you if you love Me; but are you specially attached to Me.

Notice Peter now:he is grieved. At length he realizes the defect in himself. He is grieved that for the third time the Lord has pressed him. Now he does not say, " Yea, Lord,"but simply, "Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee,-Thy sharp penetrating eye can look down deep beneath all the sin that every one can see, and Thou knowest that I do love Thee. The disciples may not believe it, but Thou knowest it."

Beloved, do not we feel like that often ? We feel as if our brethren could not trust us, and yet we can appeal to the Lord and say, "Thou knowest that beneath all the failure, there is attachment to Thee."

Ah, now Peter has got back to the Lord. He is fully restored now. The Lord knows there is genuine affection to Himself. There is now too the apprehension of this in his soul. If the Lord knows it, that is a blessed thing-let people-let my brethren throw my failure in my face ; let them talk of my lack of devotion and spirituality-one thing I know, I have from the lips of my Lord that He knows the reality of the love in my heart to Him.

What is the result ? We find Peter following the Lord, and in the early chapters of the Acts, you will find him standing up boldly, and charging that great company of the Jews with denying the Holy One and the Just. He is perfectly recovered to the Lord, and to the sense of the Lord's knowledge of the real love to Him that was in his heart, or he would not have been so bold.

Well, beloved, if we have failed individually or collectively, we need deeply grounded in our hearts that, notwithstanding our sins and failures, there is reality of love there for Christ-that He knows it; and this will give us confidence to go on boldly with the testimony of the Lord.

If the Lord puts all this on record here, it is that it may be ministered to us. How blessed to think that notwithstanding all the crookedness of our ways we may realize the Lord can put unreserved confidence in us. He can say to even such as we, Peter-like as we all are, " I am not going to let you off-I am not going to let you settle down into despair and despondency, I trust you, I have confidence in you. I know there is love in those hearts of yours, and I can safely entrust, to your care the dearest interests of My heart-My lambs and sheep-shepherd them, care for them. Notwithstanding all He knows of me He can trust me ! Then I can take it as a trust from His hand, and I'll seek to serve them and care for them. I'll seek to answer all His desires, and take up boldly and firmly all He entrusts to me.

May God grant we may learn this lesson-learn how He trusts us, and serve His lambs and sheep for His sake !

Ques. 11.-Is the worship expressed in a hymn we may be singing in the assembly acceptable to the Father, if the heart and mind are not going on with the voice ? For example, if during the singing of a hymn, my soul and spirit went out in adoration as my voice went on with verses one and two, but during the singing of the third verse, my mind has been turned to something else, and my voice goes on with the singing, does Ex. 28:36-38, teach that Christ would present to the Father the worship expressed in the third verse ? Does the infinite value of the sin-offering not only atone for sin, but make all our worship acceptable, though part of it is not the soul and spirit going out to God, on account of the mind being occupied with something else than the voice may be expressing.

Ans.-We most unhesitatingly say that no worship save that in spirit and in truth can possibly be acceptable to God. Otherwise unconverted people could offer acceptable praise. True our Great High Priest offers our feeblest praises to God in all the value of His precious person, and on the ground of His atoning work, bears the iniquity of our holy things. If the mind has wandered, as, alas! it is prone to do, He, in grace, offers that portion which has been more than mere lip service. But to call that worship which is but the vacant voice would indeed be taking carnal ground.

While upon this subject we may be permitted to call attention to the singing of hymns. If real, no exercise is more, delightful and elevating; but it is easily subject to abuse. Without much exertion one may give out a hymn which is perhaps beyond the state of those who are to sing it. Nothing can be more deadening to the conscience than giving utterance to sentiments which do not express the true condition of the soul-to declare the deepest love for Christ, the intensest longing for His coming; to state experiences which are not true-these, in plain language, are uttering falsehoods to God. Far be it from us to check the feeblest whisper of praise, but we ask, Is there not a danger of singing hymns as a matter of course? We would affectionately suggest a deeper exercise of conscience and more waiting upon God in these matters. There would probably be less singing, and more praise.

Ques. 12.-Did the publican say,'' God meet me at the mercy-seat ! " or, " God be merciful to me the sinner! "

Ans.-The literal rendering would be " God be propitiated unto me," but not the "mercy-seat." " The sinner" is correct, and suggestive, as though there were but one sinner, so far as he was concerned.

Ques. 13.-"What version is it' that says, " Show forth the Lord's "death"?

Ans.-"We know of no version which inserts 'forth" which is probably an unconscious adaptation from the Psalms:"Show forth His salvation." The literal rendering is. "Ye announce the Lord's death, till He come."

"Thy testimonies are very sure:holiness becometh Thy house, O Lord, forever." (Ps. 93:5.)

In the former papers on this subject, we have been looking toward individual and personal communion and fellowship with God in His thoughts about His blessed Son, as the only true attitude of spirit for worship ; and this also, as the divinely appointed preparation for acceptable worship and service ; just here, it is important to notice that worship is not service, as service is not worship ; since worship is God-ward, while service is manward. We find this clearly illustrated in the account of Mary and her sister Martha, (See Luke 10:38-42). Martha was the woman of the house :she was on the ground of service, and illustrates the legal dispensation. She was occupied with what she was for Him. She had received Him into her house, and now she was responsible to do the very best thing that could be done for the Lord. And in her zeal for Him, to serve Him, she was completely oblivious as to what He was, and could be, for her ! Mary, on the other hand, was occupied with Himself, and what He was for her. And this illustrates the dispensation of grace. Her cup was full, her heart was satisfied and at rest. She had not one word to say. It was enough for her to sit at His feet, and hear His words. Oh blessed attitude !

How few, how very few know what it is ! Ah, beloved reader, please stop right here for a few moments and think. Take this question home to your own heart. Do you know what this is ? have you ever realized the true blessedness of what grace is ? When you could sit at His feet, "as under the shadow of a great rock in a weary land ?"

When you could think this in your heart-for you did not want to hear your own voice, neither the voice of any other, but Himself-but saying in your heart, This is good ! Oh, it is good to be here.

This is what the proper sense of grace always gives, and this is the result of finding all our delights in Him. This is what the apostle prays for the Ephesians, and beloved for you and me also, (Eph. 3:14). " For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God."

O beloved ! to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, is to be "filled with all the fullness of God." And this is grace.

" Oh to grace !How great a debtor,
Daily I'm constrained to be."

And this is not service, but it is worship, the divine essential for true and acceptable service. We see this is abundantly emphasized, in the Lord's own words of commendation of Mary, and gracious rebuke of Martha.

And now we have need to notice another point in this connection :that happiness is not necessarily
worship. There may be abundant joy and happiness in service, as there will be, if our hearts are right with Him ; if we are consciously in His presence. But I have already said, service is man ward, worship is God ward. Service is from God, down to men. Worship is from saved sinners, up to God. One might be very happy in preaching to a large, attentive and interested audience, while a Christian mother might be detained at home in the necessary care of children or the sick, and yet the preacher know nothing of the joy of true worship, while she might be happily engaged, at the Lord's feet, in the true exercise of praise. It is not that the preaching is wrong ; surely not ; but that God craves the outpourings of the heart in joyful thankfulness for the grace which He has made known to us in Christ.

Is it not often true that a large company of Christians might come together to listen to a sermon and beautiful music without their hearts being stirred at all in true worship ? And yet how often is this called public worship. Let the simple, it may be ignorant Christian, but one enlightened as to worship, come into such a company, and he will feel strangely out of place. His full heart longs to pour itself out in unrestrained praise, to share his joys with his fellows, but alas, they know not the meaning of that word "whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me."

Now let the preacher take up this subject of worship, and he too will soon find a desire which not even the most eloquent sermon, or the most true, can fill.-It is to be at the feet of Jesus, engaged with Himself, offering up praise to Him. And this will fit, as nothing else can, for true service.

Ministry is always service, it is to others, and we can minister to the Lord only as we serve others. The life and labor of the blessed Lord Jesus while down here among men was all ministry to, and service for others. "He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many," and He said, "I am among you as one that serveth." "Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of these my brethren." But, I have said, ministry is perfectly right in its place, and if it is the ministry of Christ, it may contribute to produce worship-and if it is in the Spirit, 1:e. by the leading or guiding of the Spirit, it will be the ministry of Christ, since the Spirit could not lead nor guide in anything which was not for the exaltation, the honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. See John. 16:13-15 ; compare also i Cor. 12:, Rom. 12:with Eph. 3:11-13. We see by these scriptures that ministry in the Spirit is not always preaching and exhorting, but is also seen in giving and doing. (See Rom. 12:8-13.) And this leads me to notice that ministry and priesthood are often confounded in the minds of Christian people ; and I apprehend the confounding has come in through the Judaizing of Christianity.

In Judaism the priest was the link between God and the people, and as such was a type of Christ, who is our High priest, "who ever liveth to make intercession for us," and by whom we have access to God, and " boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Not by a new, or fresh application of the blood ; as is sometimes said, which would be to reduce the blood of Jesus to the value of the blood of bulls and goats. No beloved, it is not what we think of the blood ; it is not our estimate of the blood which gives it its value ; but what God thinks of it. The blood on the lintel and door post of the Hebrew dwelling in Egypt was not for the Israelite to look at, but for God to look at, for God had said, " When I see the blood, I will pass over you."

One more thought, and this paper must close. We are looking into the subject of Spiritual Guidance. Not so much to explain what it is, and how it is, as to show by the truth, what it is not; since the Spirit's guidance is " into all truth." And this is not saying into all things true; for many things are true, and there is truth in many things ; mathematics, philosophy, art, science, and in every department of nature around us ; but the Holy Ghost is not here to lead and guide into that kind of truths at all, but "the things concerning Himself" – the blessed Lord Jesus Himself. He could say, " I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me." (Jno. 14:16.) So that our knowledge of God, and the God-ordained way into His presence, yea into the final blessedness and glory yet to be revealed, yea, more also, the path of faith through this world, for us, all are linked up with Him as God,-our God and Father. And there can be no true knowledge of God apart from Him, the man Christ Jesus,-the dead and risen man, the ascended and glorified Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Yes, beloved reader, this is " the truth " which the Holy Spirit is down here to teach and to guide you into; and you may be sure of this, that He, the Spirit, is not teaching, leading, nor guiding into anything apart from Christ. His honor, His glory, His Lordship, His Divinity, His first coming, His life of lowly service, His death, resurrection and ascension, and His coming again in glory to judge the world, and to fill out all unfulfilled prophecies of the Bible. These truths, with all "things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27), these make up the truth. C. E. H.

The God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus ; wondrous love! but an integral part of Christ's own glory, for what is a Redeemer without His redeemed ? And once I believe that the blessed Son of God has died for me as man on the cross, nothing that a creature whose life He has become, can have, is too great as the effect of it. J.N.D.

The seven churches in proconsular Asia mentioned in Rev. 1:were to learn, through the letter sent to each (2:, 3:), and to be listened to by all who had the hearing ear, that the Lord Jesus Christ was possessed of intimate knowledge concerning each and all of them. Their state, their circumstances, their future, and the special ministry suited to each, are treated of in these different epistles.

False apostles had appeared at Ephesus. The assembly had tried them, and had found them liars (Rev. 2:2). Tribulation and poverty characterized the assembly at Smyrna, and further trial of persecution was in store for them (9, 10). In Pergamos, where an assembly existed, Satan's throne was found. So idolatry, with all its concomitant vices, was rampant in that city, and was working its way among the Christian community, though its adherents were still in the minority (13, 14). In Sardis, spiritual deadness prevailed (3:i). In Philadelphia, though their strength was small, yet faithfulness to Christ distinguished them (3:8). In Laodicea, the whole company, it would seem, was contented to go on without the presence and countenance of Christ. He was outside of them, who were glorying in their assumed wealth ; rich in their own estimation, increased with goods, and having need of nothing, yet really the wretched and the miserable one, and poor, and blind, and naked (3:17).

In Thyatira, to which we would especially turn, idolatry was working with dire effect. In Pergamos, a few had been ensnared. In Thyatira, the bulk of the assembly had given in to it. So that which in the Old Testament is termed an abomination to Jehovah was openly taught in Thyatira, and un-blushingly practiced by professing Christians therein (2:20). Moreover, contrary to nature and to Christian teaching (i Tim. 2:12), a woman was suffered to lead them into all that evil. Jezebel, as she is called -an ominous name-was allowed by the angel to teach and to seduce the Lord's servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. A few things the Lord had against the angel in Pergamos (2:14). Not a few* had He against the angel in Thyatira ; yet, ere notifying what they were, He acknowledges all the good that He can:" I know thy works, and charity, and faith, and service, and thy patience, and the last works (so we should read) to be more than the first" (2:19).! *In verse 20, " a few things " should be struck out.* How gracious was this What a Master He is ! If reproof must be administered, and that a sharp one, He would show that He has not forgotten, and will not forget anything of which He can speak with approval. The crying evils allowed did not obliterate the remembrance of their charity, faith, service, and patience, and this last is spoken of as being more than the first.

Nevertheless, how had the enemy triumphed in Thyatira ! If Philadelphia was to be wholly for Christ, Thyatira Satan would try to gain over for himself; and where seduction failed, false accusations should be raised, if possible, to harass and to silence the faithful. Thus the conflict between Satan on the one hand, and the Lord on the other, was still going on. Centuries ago that began; and for centuries, we must still write, has it continued.

The enemy would, if possible, wipe out all remembrance of God, and put an end to all true service for Him by saints on earth. Time after time, it has seemed as if he would effect this. Yet he has not succeeded. What a matter of interest is this for all true Christians. For whatever may be the strength of the current against the truth of God, if many should be carried away by it-and, if for a time, it might appear as if no one could withstand it-God has preserved, and will always preserve, a testimony on the earth which the power of evil shall not overcome. Before the flood this was seen; since the flood it has been the same.

In antediluvian days, iniquity abounded. Corruption was widespread and deep. Restraint seems to have been unknown, for the sword of government was an institution, we believe, of post-diluvian times (Gen. 9:6). Yet, in the midst of general corruption and unrestrained wickedness, Enoch walked with God (Gen. 5:24). A family man, and, it may be, alone in his family, he nevertheless walked with God. Family ties, domestic relations, were not suffered to divert him from the path of faithfulness. And twice over in his history, which is all comprised in a few verses (5:19-24), it is stated that he walked with God. For three hundred years that characterized him.

Years after his translation, when iniquity abounded, and, probably, was on the increase, another man appeared on the scene-his great-grandson, named by Lamech his father, Noah. He, too, walked with God (6:9), but in what circumstances was he here ? The word of revelation instructs us:" The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt:for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (Gen. 6:11, 12). Success seemed almost within the devil's grasp. God must act in judgment against the evil doers, and man be swept off the earth. Such, doubtless, was his expectation. A whole creation would thus be destroyed, and that by the fiat of the Creator, who had been well pleased with it as it came forth from His hands.

But Noah, just one man in all the earth, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord " (6:8). Violence and corruption rampant on every side; nevertheless, Noah, in the midst of it, was kept faithful to God. "Thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation" was the divine attestation of that man's uprightness of walk. To be popular in that day, men had need to go with the stream. To stem the tide, of course, exposed the individual to sneers and reproaches from acquaintances and contemporaries. A solitary testimony in the midst of such corruption was that which none could maintain apart from divine grace. Enoch, in his day, kept his place and maintained his faithful walk; Noah, in his day, did the same. Had the enemy really triumphed? No; and he could not as long as Noah remained alive on the earth. Walk, not doctrine, was, of course, the distinguishing feature of that day; and these two men exhibited it as they walked with God.

Obedient to God, Noah built the ark, and, entering into it with his family, he and they were saved from destruction. Thus the race was preserved from extinction, whilst those who dared not to be singular, and, probably desired to be popular, were drowned in the waters of the flood, and swept out of the scene altogether. God had a way of acting of which the enemy had no inkling. Wickedness, unrestrained wickedness, must be dealt with, and so it was; for He is righteous and holy. But the human race was preserved from extermination, and Noah and his sons came forth from the ark to people afresh the earth. God, righteous in punishing the ungodly, was righteous also in saving Noah.

Passing over centuries, we reach the days of Elijah, God's faithful and special witness in the time of Ahab and Jezebel. Alone by Carmel had he stood for God on that memorable day when he confronted the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and four hundred prophets of Asherah, the female divinity patronized by Jezebel. Eight hundred and fifty to one! Was the enemy to triumph? Had Jezebel succeeded in drawing all Israel into apostasy? Let Elijah be killed, and her purpose must be effected.

Deep indeed had the evil penetrated among the people ! One man for God in all that company by Carmel, with a multitude looking on, and not a solitary voice heard encouraging the prophet of God. Idolatry was rampant, certainly. The worship of God seemed almost stamped out of Israel. The conflict, too, seemed to the harassed prophet overwhelming, as He stood afterwards at Horeb, and told God that he alone had escaped the vengeance of the enraged queen. Had the enemy now triumphed ? "I have left Me," God told His servant, "seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him " (i Kings 19:18).

The way at that time to gain temporal advancement, and to be in favor at court, was to profess to worship Baal. Yet seven thousand there were in Israel who would not purchase advancement at such a price, and who preferred the approval of God, with the risk of losing life and substance, to the smile of Jezebel. Seven thousand had been kept withstanding her allurements to idolatry. And soon would it be demonstrated how fatal had been the choice of that queen's dupes ; for within fifteen years of Ahab's death, and very shortly after her own, the worship of Baal was destroyed out of Israel by Jehu when king (2 Kings 10:27). A great sacrifice to Baal was appointed; all his adherents attended, and all of them were slain.

From that date we read of no king in Israel who favored that worship and sought its re-establishment. It ceased in Israel,* though the calves were still worshiped at Dan and at Bethel.* Out of Israel, we have said, for it was not destroyed out of Judah*. Jezebel's efforts to obliterate the recognition of the true God utterly failed, and the worship that she had fostered and forwarded was destroyed out of Israel. The hope of temporal advancement-a snare which, doubtless, had drawn many aside-what was it worth, when Jehu destroyed at one blow the adherents and priests of Baal? Who thinks now of Jezebel's prophets who ate at her table? Who holds any in honor who, when in life, had desired and enjoyed her favor? But who does not admire Elijah's boldness at Carmel, as well as Micaiah's faithfulness before Ahab? (i Kings 22:). Who does not hold in respect that company of seven thousand, kept by divine grace throughout that dark and perilous time of unabashed apostasy?

Dark and perilous times those were for the faithful in the land; yet a remnant was preserved. Darker and more difficult times are yet to come, when the beast of Rev. 13:, upheld by Satanic power, and seconded by the false prophet of that same chapter, will exercise in the western part of the Roman empire unchecked sway for 1,260 days, or forty and two months. Dark indeed will be that time, for the enemy will make his grand effort to efface from all under the sway of the beast any recognition of the true God, substituting the worship of the beast under the lead of the false prophet for the worship of God.

Will he succeed? Reading Rev. xiii , it would appear as if success must at last crown his efforts; for the very necessaries of life, and the permission to trade, will be denied, as far as the influence of the false prophet may extend, to all and any who refuse to worship the image of the beast-a time of trial and of Satanic power that will be, such as has never been experienced since man has been on the earth. Satan's masterpiece will have appeared, and his last card, to use a common expression, will have been played, the prelude to the deadly struggle to keep the Lord Jesus out of this part of His inheritance purchased by His blood.
Will the devil gain his object? If, reaching the close of the chapter above-mentioned, the reader should think so, the opening of the next chapter proclaims the discomfiture of the enemy. For, at the end of that awful time, there will be found on earth a company of 144,000 who, kept faithful throughout it, are to be with the Lamb on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1-5). God will keep alive a testimony on earth in that day against the abounding apostasy. How encouraging is this reflection for saints at all times, and not the least so for those in our day, when theories are rife, and so readily taken up, subversive of real belief in the inspiration of the written Word.

Now, to come back to Rev. 2:, we learn what could and did take place in Christian times, and even in the apostolic age. A Jezebel at Thyatira was carrying things with a high hand. The bulk of the Christian professors in that assembly had succumbed to, or, at all events, had allowed free scope for her teaching. She seemed about to triumph, and would have triumphed, had not a company, called "the rest in Thyatira," persistently refused her corruptions. A company, probably not a large one, withstood all blandishments and all efforts to seduce them. Again, then, the enemy was checked; he could not carry all before him.

Now, what makes this portion so interesting is the ministry of Christ to those faithful ones, whilst Jezebel was teaching and seducing the Lord's servants. We have learnt of two men in the antediluvian world who were faithful, and walked with God in the midst of wickedness rampant on all sides. We have reminded the reader of those in Ahab's day who had not bowed the knee to Baal. But here we get not only a notice of the existence of faithful ones in Thyatira, but also the ministry of the Lord to encourage and to sustain them in their faithfulness. By the light of Christian revelation they walked, and that was enough for guidance (Rev. 2:25). But He would show His interest in them, and manifest that He was not unmindful of the conflict in which they were engaged.

So, first, He addresses them personally:"Unto you I say, the rest in Thyatira." He took special notice of those whom Jezebel failed to seduce; and, sending in this letter to the angel a message, the message is addressed directly to them. How cheering must this have been. Vilified indeed they were. As tools of the enemy were they held up before the world. The Lord knew all that, and here speaks of it, but to repel that wicked accusation. The depths of Satan they were said to know. A terrible accusation was this for true saints to lie under. How often since that day has the enemy sought thus to misrepresent those whom he could not corrupt. A devilish device, indeed! For a time these had endured it. Now it came out that the Lord on high was not ignorant of it. Jezebel might assert it; her followers might endorse it; the angel might suffer it; but the Lord distinctly refused it. He undertook their cause. He cleared them of the charge:" Who have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak " (ver. 24). His word must settle that controversy. None can speak after Him. He speaks; the cause is ended.

Next. He is coming:"Till I come" (24). What words for the faithful to hear! His promise of return holds good, He will fulfil it. But what words for Jezebel to be informed of. Her reign must end. Her Judge will appear. What words, too, for the angel to hear, who had suffered Jezebel's ways and had not refused to allow her teaching.

Further. Of the future of the faithful the Lord speaks. It may be that some had sought to shake their constancy by the foolish thought of the loss of influence with their fellows in thus making themselves singular. What a snare has this been, and may still be! But influence! What can equal that here promised the overcomer? Power over the nations, and to rule them with a rod of iron. Who can now exercise such influence? The faithful will exercise this in the future, for they will reign with Christ; and no blessing in store for Christians, will they lack, for the Lord will give them the morning star, that is, to share in the blessing of His return for His people when He comes into the air.

In this way Christ ministered to the faithful in Thyatira in John's day. He had observed them, and He let them know it. He vindicated them, and Jezebel should hear of it. He told them of their future, and all should learn about it. He was coming, too, for His faithful ones, to take them out of this scene to be on high with Himself. Such a ministry as this must have been to them like cold water to a thirsty soul-a cordial indeed, bringing no evil in its train ; a comfort, too, and a spring of joy of which the world could not deprive them. Was such ministry only for that day? It will hold good for any in the present time who find themselves in circumstances similar to "the rest in Thyatira."
C. E. S. (Words in Season.)

"Ye have well done." (Phil. 4:14.)

This was a precious commendation of the Philippian Assembly. Paul had told them he was not anxious about daily needs, and that he was gladly a learner in God's school, by the trials of the way. But they had " well done " in "taking part in his affliction." A testimony of impatience with the assemblies, and of distrust toward God was far from him.

The assembly of Philippi had sent once and again to his necessity (4:16). Paul rejoiced because he sought fruit that would abound to their account.

There is something instructive in the reference to no other church having helped him at a certain time. The New Testament contains no letter of admonition to any such assembly by him or by any other apostle; only this brief general mention of the neglect. Are we not to gather instruction from this ? Are we not taught delicacy in dealing with this subject, while at the same time graciously and gently warned as to neglect ?

Under law the order was, "Bring ye all the tithes into the store house, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me … if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing." (Mal. 3:10.) That is, obey and be blest, is the order; while under grace it is, You have been blest, therefore let the heart overflow. "Freely ye have received, freely give." "As the elect of God, holy and beloved," we are to have "bowels of mercies, kindness." (Col. 3:12.) Love flows forth from hearts happy in the knowledge of God's rich goodness and grace.

Moreover, the tithes of the fruit of the land of Canaan were tithes of what is a type of heavenly blessings we have and realize in Christ. Thus again we see how acceptable " giving' is from a heart filled with the grace of Christ, with the joy of the Lord. These considerations prepare us for the different tone of the New Testament exhortations as to giving from those of the Old Testament, and guard us from legality of thought and exhortation.

Nevertheless, in the liberty of grace, exhortation has its place on this subject, and Paul very freely, as graciously also, exhorts and encourages and incites the assembly at Corinth not to fall short of liberality. Chapters 8:and 9:of 2 Corinthians truly warn and cheer the heart, and in how much they rebuke us let us judge. And in what we may call his farewell words to the church, Paul closes with the words, " I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, ' It is more blessed to give than to receive;' and when He had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them all " (Acts 20:35).

This exhortation is written specially to encourage more giving by assemblies. Such giving calls for love and unity in the assembly, and fellowship in the gospel, and self-denial. And the example of the Philippians serves to encourage us to have in mind from time to time some one laboring in the gospel; and to be exercised about one and another so laboring, and to communicate with them. This has the example of Scripture and draws out the heart more than to simply pay into a fund, in the hands of some one of the assembly, who in counsel with one or two others distributes the amount collected.
The scriptural example of Philippi is not given to be slighted; but in giving in this way the assembly acts in faith and in loving exercise towards the laborer, and he in turn has his heart drawn out to them. And hearts are cheered by a heartfelt report from the field of work to those whose fellowship in the gospel draws it out. Note the tone of the epistle to the Philippians in this respect.

May our hearts be stirred to this great and holy service.

It is good to send abroad to laborers and not to give only when they come to us, nor does the coming of a laborer to an assembly call necessarily for help from that assembly. Such a thought is bondage. Help might have come from another quarter, leaving the brother the more free, (especially in a low state in an assembly) to minister in full liberty before the Lord-however blessed a privilege it would also be for an assembly to minister to one laboring in their midst. Still to confine our giving to those laboring in our midst, would surely not be right. It would tend to hinder going to "regions beyond," and lay a snare for the feet of the laborer.

When we consider the dangers we are exposed to, we should walk in fear and trembling.

We are unfit for God's service, except we take unto us His whole armor. We cannot give or receive for His glory, but by His grace and by His Spirit.

May we love His name, and love those who serve Him. And may we have such trust in the living God that we shall be ready and glad to give-ready to share the burden of the conflict. E. S. L.

Ques. 15.-"There are some Christians whose experience seems to contradict the word of God in such a passage, for instance, as, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:14). They fall, are restored to fellowship, afterwards fall again, are restored again; and go up and down thus. What is likely to be the cause of such a lack of stability? and may there a contributory cause in the assembly, either in its state, or in its dealing with such an one ? "

Ans.-In such cases as are referred to, it is evident the truth as to deliverance from the power of sin is not known, in power, whatever the theoretical knowledge may be. The great secret of deliverance is, first of all, to judge sin in its roofs, to judge self. Sad and shameful fruits may grow from a secret pride which prevents one from abhorring himself. Pride of intellect, of knowledge, of sufficiency in one's self,-these may seem quite harmless, and are, alas ! too common. And yet from these so-called manly virtues may grow that which is even in the world's eye disgraceful.

The true secret of self-judgment is to realize what the holy presence of God is. So long as one is not there, he cannot truly measure sin. How comforting it is to know that, in that holy presence which discloses what sin is, we find also the perfect grace which has put it away.

No doubt, too, a general state of the assembly may contribute to individual weakness. "Ye have not mourned," says the apostle. A spirit of true contrition among all the people of God is the surest way to secure individual faithfulness. The assembly in the full exercise of its functions will care for, warn, watch, and build up those who are in special need.

Then also when the proper activities are all in exercise there is less temptation to yield to what is not of God. May God revive His beloved people, making Himself and divine things such realities, that even the feeblest, kept in His presence, built up by His word, and engaged in the loving service of His house, may be delivered from every snare.

Ques. 16.-" Scripture speaks about every uncovered vessel in the tent, where a death has occurred, being defiled. What about the covered vessel ? are they unclean too ? "

Ans.-The same scripture (Numb. 19:) distinctly declares that the covered vessel is clean. When the spiritual meaning is seen, this becomes manifest. The world is a chamber of death. If we are uncovered, in a careless state, we are defiled by being in it. If, on the other hand, we are on our guard, covered by a sense of the Lord's presence, we walk through all undefiled, and our Lord's prayer is answered, "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil."

But deliberate, conscious contact with evil, or refusal to separate from it when pointed out, or indifference to the question of association with it, would show an uncovered vessel.

In like manner, failure on the part of one defiled by necessary contact with a dead body, to purify himself, would render him culpably defiled, and without doubt he was to be treated as such.
Ques. 17.-Please explain 1 Cor. 14:30:" If anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace."

Ans.-The whole chapter is devoted to the meetings of the Lord's people, and the exercise of their gifts under necessary and divine restrictions. There was to be liberty to the Spirit, but none to the flesh. Such exhibitions as speaking with tongues were to be rigidly controlled, and in the exercise of prophecy or worship-all was to be done unto edifying. The prophets were to speak one by one, not two or three together, no matter what the apparent urgency might be. This will explain the verse. If one were speaking, he was to keep silence to permit another to say what had been laid upon him. Ordinarily, of course, the second speaker would wait until the first had finished, and, at any rate, would not begin until he had taken his seat. Possibly under remarkable circumstances he might intimate that he had a message to deliver. But at present we can scarcely imagine such a thing taking place, unless, indeed, to silence an unprofitable or disorderly speaker.

Each of the four gospels has its own purpose. Though concurring with others in general testimony the spirit of revelation has a special design by each. And all this different service of the same spirit by the different evangelists, is not incongruity, but fulness of variety. The oil with which Aaron was anointed, and which was, mystically, the fulness and virtue that rests on our adorable Lord, was made up of different odors-myrrh, calamus, cassia and cinnamon. We may say it is the office of one evangelist after another to produce different parts in this rare and sweet compound of the sanctuary, to tell out different excellencies and perfection in Jesus the Christ of God.

For who could tell out all It was sufficient joy and honor for one servant, however favored with such near revelations, to trace even one of them. The saint has the sweet profit of all together, and in language prepared for him, can turn to the Beloved and say, '' Because of the savor of Thy good ointments, Thy name is as ointment poured forth."

FRAGMENT But there is in Him all through His last journey the expression of a greatness of soul that is perfectly blessed and wonderful. He has Jerusalem, and His cup of sorrow there, full before Him; He finds no sympathy from those who were His own; He gathers no admiration from the crowd; it is the cross, and the shame of it too, that He is called to sustain; all human countenance and support being denied Him; and yet He goes on without the least abatement of His energy in thoughts and services for others. We deem ourselves entitled to think of ourselves when trouble comes upon us, and to expect that others will think of us also. But this perfect Sufferer was thoughtful of others, as He was going onward, though every step of His way only conducted Him to still greater sorrows; and He had reason to judge that not one step of it all would in return be cheered by man. His own little band understood not the sorrows about which He was speaking to them. J.G.B.

[While not wishing to express dissent from what is brought before us in the above article, we would
also suggest that the full value of the numerical order can best be seen, in a continuous portion of Scripture, where the various parts blend harmoniously together, while preserving the individual characteristic indicated by its number and place in the whole. This gives us a conception of the beauty of that Word whose every jot and tittle speaks of a perfection worthy of its divine Author.

"And He arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea,
Peace, be still, and the wind ceased, and there was
a great calm." (Mark 4:36-41.)

"Fierce was the wild billow; dark was the night;
Oars labored heavily; foam glimmered white;
Mariners trembled; peril was nigh; .
Then said the God of might, "Peace, it is I ! "

Ridge of the mountain wave, lower thy crest !
Wail of Euroclydon, be them at rest!
Peril can none be, sorrow must fly,
Where saith the Light of light," Peace, it is I ! "

Jesus, Deliverer ! come Thou to me !
Soothe Thou my voyaging over life's sea ;
Bid me be quiet as the storm sweeps by,
Whisper, .O Truth of truth," Peace, it is I ! "

"In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withereth " (Ps. 90:6).

Our life, brief and uncertain as it is, seems to be long as we look upon it as a whole. A year seems a long time, and ere we are aware, it has slipped through our fingers; and so with the entire life. The scripture we have quoted gives the day, the briefest natural division of time, as the figure of that life. How quickly does morning pass to noon, and noon darken to evening. How brief is life. "We spend our years as a tale that is told."

And yet procrastination would rob us of its brief hours with the thought that "to-morrow shall be as
to-day and much more abundant." It is this that encourages the sinner to despise the offers of grace and to be heedless of the warning, " to-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts;" nor are saints less exempt from the snare. True, through grace, they have been saved, their future in heaven is assured. But this only exposes them to the snare of the enemy, who would prevent in every way their usefulness in this world.

How solemn is the thought that "we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ." With what unavailing sorrow will the Lord's redeemed ones look back upon a misspent life.

But may there not be help in the thought suggested by our subject? Our life is but a day; and each day is a sample of our whole life. Do we wish to know how we are spending our life? let us examine the history of a single day. It will be found to give a miniature of the life. Are the loins girded, are opportunities seized, are temptations resisted? What place has Christ in our hearts this day ? what place has the word of God in our thoughts? It will be found that the history of a day will give the history of the life.

Take the current of a river at any point-the direction in which it is flowing-and you will have the general course of the river. Is there not mercy in this? Does not God thus give us an opportunity of, as it were, testing our lives daily-not surely for self-complacency-but to know how our life is passing.

Dear reader, this day's record of your life tells its whole story. Is it what it should be? Do you expect at some time to make a change? Ah! to-day, not even to-morrow, is the time to let our life be what it should be. How many lives are being practically wasted by the aimless drifting that is so common.

"And upon His head were many crowns." (Rev. 19:12.)

(Continued from page 146.)

CHAPTER VII. The Last Adam.

It is the first epistle to the Corinthians alone, and in the same passage, which gives us the two important terms, so closely related as they are to one another, of "Second Man" and "Last Adam" (15:45, 47). The one looks backward; the other forward. The "Second Man" implies that before Him we have only the first man, repeated and multiplied, in his descendants; now a new type has appeared; and that this, which is the full and final thought of man, may become the true heir of the inheritance, the "Second Man " is the " Last Adam." He is the "last " not " second," because plainly there is no other to succeed Him. " The Last Adam " (in opposition to "the first man Adam," (who "became a living soul") becomes "a Spirit giving life."

The apostle does not say that the Second Man became a Spirit giving life, for an obvious reason. The Second Man, as such, brings before us the new humanity, in the likeness of which every one of the new race will be ultimately found; but the Last Adam is the Head of the new race, and to be a " Spirit giving life " is peculiar to Himself. Man as man, and not merely the first man, has the mysterious power imparted to him of propagating his kind; but the new humanity is of too high a nature to permit this to the men of it. Only the Last Adam can communicate the new "life" which is its characteristic; and He, inasmuch as He is, what they are not, above man altogether. We cannot think of the Last Adam aright without explicitly taking into account His Deity,-that He is the " Word made flesh."

Noticeable it is in this way that we who are Christ's, and to whom Christ is life, are yet never spoken of as the children of Christ. Of the first Adam we are naturally children; of the last Adam, and as implied by that very relationship, we should be children also, in a higher and so a fuller way:yet we are never taught to call Christ "Father." For this there must be reason, and therefore that in it as to which we may rightly and reverently inquire why it is.

In the Old Testament, and not the New, we come nearest to the thought of children of Christ. In the fifty-third of Isaiah, the abundant seed-field of New Testament truth, we find first of all Messiah come and cut off, without posterity. "Who shall declare His generation?" asks the prophet:"for He was cut off out of the land of the living:for the transgression of my people was He stricken " (ver. 8). Thus there seems utter failure of blessing:cut off Himself, He has none who spring from Him,-who perpetuate His name and character.

So it naturally would appear; but the question has other answer before the prophecy ends; and in that very death in which for the sins of others He has been cut off, there is at last found the secret of a blessing such as seemed to be gone without remedy:" When Thou shalt make His soul a sacrifice for sin, He shall see a seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand'' (ver. 10). This "seed" and prolonging of His days are the double answer to the question which His death had raised.
Christ really then has a seed; the Last Adam as a quickening Spirit points to nothing else:but this only makes it more certain that there is a reason for the avoidance of such expressions as we naturally look for. We are taught by Christ Himself to speak of His Father as our Father (John 20:17), though this, of course, is not inconsistent with His relation to us as Last Adam. Of the first Adam it could be said also, as has been before remarked, that he was a " first-born among many brethren," without prejudice to his relationship to these as father.

In the Gospel of John it is that the Lord is seen as the Eternal Life, the Son, to whom " the Father hath given to have life in Himself," just as the Father hath life in Himself (ch. 5:26). The words show that it is as Man He is speaking, and that thus in manhood He becomes a Source of life:"as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will" (ver. 21). Thus it is in John's Gospel also that we find Him, after His resurrection, in character as Last Adam, (so much the more as in contrast with the first,) "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (20:22). John's is the Gospel of His Deity, and yet this remarkable characteristic action is reserved for it.

So, too, in his epistle John links them :"This is the true God send, eternal life " (i John 5:20).

"As the Father . . . quickeneth, so the Son quickeneth." "The Spirit" also "is life" (Rom. 8:10). It is a divine inspiration, of which the breathing into the first Adam (Gen. 2:7) was but a significant type. Even by that, man became the "offspring of God" (Acts 17:28), and thus by creation (not position] in His " image " (Gen. 1:27), as the son is in the father's image (Gen. 5:3). Man received thus (what the beast has not) a spirit; and God is the "Father of spirits" (Heb. 12:9). But this is only what is natural, and what has been debased by the fall; we need, therefore, a new begetting of God, a new communication of life :"that which is born of the flesh is flesh "-not merely human nature, but human nature degraded, as it were, to its lowest point, "flesh":as if the spirit had left it, " dead" therefore, while living.

So, with a sad harmony, Scripture everywhere asserts:man must be born again.

The breath of a new life enters into him, and he lives. This is no mere moral renewal. If "that which is born of the flesh is flesh,"-flesh has produced flesh ; there has been a real communication of nature, as shown in the being brought forth. So also " that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," partakes of the nature of that from which it is derived. Divine parentage is shown in participation in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), and we are become true children of God, with His likeness. " Passed from death unto life" (John 5:24), the life we have received is eternal life :which means, not that it will always last, for so will the wicked always live-if you call it "life"-but that it has always been also, not in us, but in God. This is the life that deserves to be called eternal; and this is the life in which we have begun to live. In us it has its beginning, its growth, its practical expression :this imperfect at the best, and varying from that in the infant to the young man and the father, it is nevertheless eternal life all through, whether it be as yet indiscernible by man or making a possessor of it a shining light amid the darkness of the world.

Much of what I am here saying is in contention by many; and there are perhaps few things of equal importance that are held more variously than what new birth is, and its connection with or disconnection from eternal life. It would carry us too far to discuss these variations :it is enough, perhaps, to say that, on the one hand, the signs of it given in John's first epistle show plainly that righteousness, love to God and to the brethren, and faith in Christ, characterize all who are born (or begotten) of God ; and on the other, that he writes to all that " believe on the name of the Son of God " that they may know that they have eternal life. I may be told indeed by some that these things are quite different; that faith in the Son is more and later than faith in Christ; but the gospel of John assures us that he that believeth not on the Son is one still under condemnation and the wrath of God. It is not the saint but the sinner who passes from death unto life; and that change, momentous as it is, cannot be a long process.

Thus, then, the "quickening Spirit" acts in every one born of God. As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, just so the Son quickens; and none the less it is of the Spirit we are born again. It is a divine work, and Father, Son and Spirit all partake in it. Thus it is manifest that we are by this birth children of God; and while the Son as Mediator is He in whom life is for us, and the Spirit is the positive Agent in communicating it, the Father it is whose blessed will the Son and Spirit alike work, and "of whom every family in heaven and earth is named " (Eph. 3:15, Gk.). "To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him " (i Cor. 8:6).

Thus, although we have been very recently told that there is no new communication of a new nature in new birth, yet the Lord Himself has taught us, on the contrary, that "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,"-that it partakes of the nature of Him who has brought it forth. And He says, "that which is born," (not "he who is born,") because the new life communicated does not as yet (as we have already seen) pervade the whole man. The body is still, in this respect, "dead, because of sin" (Rom. 8:10), even " if Christ be in you ; " and the " flesh " also thus (it must still be asserted) "because of sin," remains, even in the man delivered from its dominion, a cause for constant watchfulness and self-judgment.* *As the "thorn in the flesh," needed by a man who had been in the third heaven, and needed on that very account, will surely prove for any who have an ear to hear.* But the youngest babe born of God has nevertheless the nature of its Parent :even though here there be as much difference between the new-born babe and the man, as there is in the physical prototype. Abundant room for development must be admitted, while the development itself proves but the essential sameness of the nature in these wide extremes

The Second Man, then, is also the Last Adam ; but in the latter term much more is implied than in the former, and that the result of that union of the divine and human which faith can joyfully accept while it acknowledges the inscrutability of it. " No one knoweth the Son, but the Father." No human mind can think out the divine-human Person who is here before us; but to seek to have the value of scripture statements is another matter, and is the part of faith. It would be wronging the love which has enriched us with them, not to seek to appropriate our riches.

The connection of truth in this chapter in Corinthians which furnishes us with our present text is noteworthy. The apostle is writing to us of the resurrection, and has been contrasting the natural body as sown in the grave with the body of the saint in resurrection. "It is sown a natural body," he says; "it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, the first man, Adam, was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening" Spirit."

The connection here is very much obscured by the translation:what connection could one suppose between "a living soul " and "a natural body"? None at least that one could argue, from the language used; and in fact, as elsewhere said, we have in English no clear way of making apparent the connection. If we were at liberty to use the word "soulual," (which is not in the dictionary,) we should be able to do this:we should then read, "There is a soulual body," . . . "the first man Adam was made a living soul; " as, on the other hand, "There is a spiritual body," and "the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit."

The first Adam had a soulual body, a body characterized by the soul its tenant:for he was himself a living soul. It is remarkable, while quite intelligible, that, though a man's spirit is his highest part, and it is by this he "knows the things of man" (i Cor. 2:u), and is in relation to God, yet while here in the body he is never called a "spirit," but only what the beast is, a "soul." On the other hand, as soon as he has left the body, he rises to the measure of his distinctly human part, and is now a "spirit." Common usage recognizes the same difference. In some sense the connection of soul and body is a shrouding of his higher nature. The same word psychical or soulual, is translated in our common version "sensual " (Jas. 3:15; Jude 19), though this, of course, is a use of it which is not due to man's condition as created but to the sin which has entered in. It is similar to the use of "flesh" for a condition in which fallen man, as if the spirit had departed from him, is characterized as "dead." Yet the psychical or "soulual "body, as in contrast with a "spiritual" one, is easily understood as that which hems in and disguises necessarily man's spiritual nature. In the babe this is sunk entirely at first in its fleshly wrappings. By degrees it emerges, with slow and painful labor freeing itself from the bonds of the material, the humbling discipline which God has ordained for it, but still "seeing as through a glass, in a riddle" (i Cor. 13:12). In the future only is to be its "face to face" knowledge.

This is what it means, as I take it,-or at least it is part of what it means,-for man to be a "living soul." It implies a life of sense, which may be yet, and should be, even on that account, a life of faith; of struggle which may be defeat or victory. Out of which we do not pass until the body is left behind, or fashioned by the last Adam into a "spiritual body," fit instrument for and no clog upon the enfranchised spirit. Only with this redemption of the body will the "sons of God" be fully manifested (Rom. 8:19, 23). F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

A few examples of the use of the number seven in the Bible, and its division into three and four, and into four and three-and sometimes an eight added-brought together, will present to the sober mind, a bright evidence of God's voice in His word, plain enough to confound the infidel.

1. After God has covenanted three times with Abram – Abram silent – the divine sovereignty of grace – (Gen. 12:i; 12:7; and 13:14) a group of four more covenants, begins with "after these things" (Gen. xv, xvii, xviii and 21:12), in which man responds in faith or in doubt each time-the whole seven suggesting "by grace (3) through faith (4). Then after the seventh we have again the- "after these things" (22:i) and then follows the eighth and final covenant when Isaac is received in a figure from the dead;-who could have arranged this but God ?

2. Joseph communicates with his brethren three times in the land-(twice about his dreams and a third time when put in the pit,) and four times they come to him long afterwards in Egypt, and the eighth and last time when Jacob has passed away (Gen. 1. 15)-new creation blessing for Israel, through a rejected Saviour when natural hope through descent has perished.

3. In Lev. 23:, seven "set times" are proclaimed. The Sabbath,-the Passover, etc., First-fruits, and Pentecost. Then a long interval until the seventh month, when there are three more mentioned- trumpets, day of atonement, and tabernacles; the latter three the recall, the repentance and establishment of Israel. If we apply this latter "three" individually, it tells of the work in us, whereas the first four speak rather of the work for its. We might have thought the " three " and the "four" would have been reversed, but there are depths to be sounded in Scripture.

As to the first four we have:

1st. The Sabbath-God's rest that remains to be reached in eternity.

2nd. The Passover and feast of unleavened bread as the way to reach this rest, that is redemption and a holy walk.

3rd. First-fruits, Christ risen, and-

4th. Pentecost, the offering of the Church; these two joined to one another, as the former two by the dividing words "and Jehovah spake unto Moses." Then, as above, the latter three referring to Israel in the future.

4. In Sam. xvi, seven sons of Jesse pass before Samuel, before David appears-the eighth, type of the risen Christ,-as Israel's and the world's hope. The first three sons are named, the latter four are not.

5. Passing over the occasion when the devil takes the Lord up into a mountain;-the Lord in His path of service is seven times in the mount before the cross in Matthew's Gospel, and an eighth time when risen from the dead. The latter three times before the cross He is on the Mount of Olives.
6. In Matt. xiii, we know how the first four parables show the world-wide aspect of the Kingdom of heaven (of Christendom), and then how after they go into the house the Lord unfolds to them the latter three-God's estimate of what is good in the Kingdom.

7. In the 3d chapter of Acts, Peter presents the Lord to us in seven characters; as the Servant (J. N. D.'s translation) ver. 13, as in Mark; the Holy and Just one, ver. 14, as in Luke and Matthew; the Prince or Author of Life, ver. 15, as in John.

This one so manifested in the world, in this fourfold way, they had "denied " and "killed." But the decree of God had declared that He would suffer; the prophets spoke of Him, Peter tells us, as the Christ, ver. 18, as a Prophet ver. 22, and as Abraham's "Seed" ver. 25-thus in three characters, as announced in Divine purpose of old, and in four as manifested among men.

8. In i Cor. 3:22, we have as a brother has noticed a remarkable seven, and an eight. " For all things are yours, whether (1st) Paul who plants; or (2nd) Apollos who seconds (waters); or (3rd) Peter, a stone, (the temple suggested) a beautiful suggestion under the Divine number, like Leviticus. So far we have persons. Now follows a group of four things, or (4th,) the world; or (5) life (plainly responsibility and God with us); or (6) death-the well-known number of evil and its terrible work-but victory through grace; or (7) "things present," and a good seven, completeness-and now we have an eight, "or (8) things to come."

How in a single verse we have thus the wondrous exact numerical structure that pervades the Bible, and stamps it as the handiwork of none but God, a "three" and "four" added, and at "eight" each word or phrase having its meaning according to the number of its place with unerring exactness, and filling our hearts with Divine blessing, – "open thy mouth and I will fill it," How the humble can repose in God while the men of this world are groping in thick darkness. Note "the world" under its number four!

9. In 2 Pet. 1:5. the seven things to be added to faith, or to be had in our faith, are plainly four and three. Virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, four things in us. Then we have added three things as to our attitude, towards God and towards men- godliness, brotherly love, and love, clearly a four plus three again.

10. In Hebrews the blood of Christ is spoken of just seven times, 1st. (Chap. 9:12.) "By His own blood has entered in once for all into the (holy of) holies, having found an eternal redemption."

2nd. Ver. 14, " how much rather shall the blood of Christ-who by the eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God-purify your conscience from dead works to worship the living God," like Israel in Egypt, in Exodus – set free from fruitless toil of bondage to the world-the conscience purified "from dead works to worship the living God." This is redemption enjoyed.

3rd. In 10:19, we have "boldness by the blood of Jesus to enter into the holiest," truly, a thirds as Leviticus-the divine number-access to God.

4th. Ver. 29. "Of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing." Man tested and found wanting, the world's estimate of the Son of God, and the world's judgment.

5th. Chap. 12:24, "We are come . . . to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." Here we have plainly the meaning of five-God with us, and we having to answer to Him.

6th. Chap. 13:12. " Wherefore Jesus also that He might sanctify the people with His own blood- suffered without the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, hearing his reproach." Truly, we have here victory-over awful manifestation of evil.

The world is ever the same. Let us not be deceived. May we expect and rejoice in the reproach of Christ, and dread the world's favor.

7th. Chap. 13:20. "Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus-that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen."

"The blood of the eternal covenant" and God making His people "perfect in every good work" -God who wrought this perfect work, working in us what is well pleasing in His sight, making us perfect to do His will through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen!-this is perfection. May it be our joy to yield ourselves to Him, who works in us so mightily, with fear and trembling.

May these few examples of God's handiwork in His word, lead out our hearts in joyful worship, and may we search the Word and explore our possessions Gen. 13:14-18, Prov. 2:45. E. S. L.

"And upon His head were many crowns." (Rev. 19:12.)

(Continued from page 12.)

CHAPTER IV. His Human Spirit and Soul.

We come now to consider the deeper question of spirit and soul in Christ."Docetism," which denied the reality of His flesh, needs now no argument to be spent upon it, for it has no adherents at the present time; but that to which we are now come involves, to begin with, the question of what spirit and soul are in many and many are not yet clear as to this. We can hardly therefore understand what true humanity involves in the Lord, except we first understand what it is in men at large.

If, for instance, we take up such a book as "Hodge's Outlines of Theology," (a book which has been praised by a justly celebrated man, lately deceased, as a "Goliath's sword – none like it "for the Christian armory,) we shall find the writer saying:-

"Pythagoras, and after him Plato, and subsequently the mass of Greek and Roman philosophers, maintained that man consists of three constituent elements:the rational spirit, (nous, pneuma, mens;) the animal soul, (psuche, anitna;) the body, (soma, corpus.) Hence this usage of the word became stamped upon the Greek popular speech. And consequently the apostle uses all three when intending to express exhaustively in popular language the totality of man and his belongings:'I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless' (i Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12; i Cor. 15:45). Hence some theologians conclude that it is a doctrine given by divine inspiration that human nature is constituted of three distinct elements."

To which view he objects:-

"That the pneuma and psuche are distinct entities cannot be the doctrine of the New Testament, because they are habitually used interchangeably and often indifferently. Thus psuche as well as pneuma is used to designate the soul as the seat of the higher intellectual faculties – (Matt. 16:26; i Pet. 1:22; Matt. 10:28). Thus also pneuma as well as psuche is used to designate the soul as the animating principle of the body-(James 2:26). Deceased persons are indifferently called psuchai, (Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 6:9; 20:4); and pneumata, (Luke 24:37, 39; Heb. 12:23)."

These are all his objections, and at the first glance they are very unsatisfactory. How much of the precision and trustworthiness of Scripture must disappear if we are at liberty to credit apparent distinctions of this sort to popular phraseology! On the contrary, the Old Testament is as clear as to these distinctions as the New, long before philosophy had molded the speech of Greece, and outside altogether the Greek that it had molded.

All through Scripture, from the first chapter of Genesis on, the beast is credited with a "soul." " Everything wherein there was a living soul" is the designation (in Gen. 1:30, Heb.) of the mere animal as distinct from man. True, man also is made a living soul; but that is not his highest-his special character. God is the "Father of spirits" (Heb. 12:9), not of souls; and as the son is in the image of his father, man is thus by a special work created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Thus also it is the "spirit of man that is in him" that "knoweth the things of a man" (i Cor. 2:ii); and this spirit is therefore never ascribed to the beast. The writer of Ecclesiastes in his early "thoughts " raises a question about it, but which he answers at the close (3:21; 12:7), and it is merely the doubt of a man in a fog, not divine truth, as is evident, nor given as that.

The spirit and soul are always viewed in Scripture with perfect consistency in this manner. Scripture is always self-consistent, and never loose in what it says. The faculties proper to man, the mental and moral judgment are ascribed to the spirit; the sensitive, instinctive, emotional nature is ascribed to the soul. Yet there is a knowledge that can be ascribed to the soul, as there is a joy of the spirit; and if "heart" be substituted for "soul," and "mind" for '' spirit," we can understand this without realizing any confusion or inconsistency in the matter.

As to the death-state, if spirit or soul be absent the body will be dead, and either may be mentioned in this way; yet here, too, Scripture will be found perfectly at one in all its statements. In the body, (and through its connection with it, doubtless, in the natural "or " psychic " condition already spoken of,) man-though he has a spirit-is a "soul;" so that "soul" becomes, as in our common language also, the equivalent of self; while out of the body, though he has a soul, he is a "spirit."

This will explain all passages, except perhaps those in Revelation, where also that in chapter 20:4 is only a somewhat emphatic use of soul for self or person; while the "souls under the altar," as applied to martyrs, are but figured as persons whose lives had been offered up in sacrifice. The usage is not really different.

"Spirit and soul and body," then, make up the man; and here the spirit it is that is the distinctive peculiarity of man, as is evident. To be true Man the Lord would surely possess both these; and both are accordingly ascribed to Him in Scripture. He can speak of His soul being troubled and sorrowful (Matt. 26:38; Mark 14:34; John 12:27); and it can be said of Him, that "His soul was not left in hell" (or hades), (Acts 2:31). On the other hand, in His youth He waxes strong in spirit (Luke 2:40); He perceives in His spirit (Mark 2:8); He rejoices and is troubled in spirit (Luke 10:21; John 13:21); He commends and gives up His spirit to His Father (Luke 23:46; John 19:30).

Thus the proof of His true humanity is complete. Here too He is in all things made like unto His brethren ; and how much, in fact, depends upon this! That, we must seek to get before us later on; but first, we must turn to certain denials or explanations otherwise of what these texts seem to teach; old speculations having been revived of late, and calling for fresh examination. It will be of use to trace it first in its older form and then in its modern phases. The older form is known (in Church history only) as Apollinarianism; the later is all around us to-day in what is known as Kenoticism.

Apollinaris was a man in high esteem among the orthodox, and in opposition to Arianism a zealous Trinitarian. It was, in fact, in opposition to Arianism that his views seem to have been developed. "The Arian doctrine of the person of Christ," says Dr. Bruce,* "was, that in the historical person called Christ appeared in human flesh the very exalted-in a sense,-divine-creature named in Scripture the Logos [or Word],-the Logos taking the place of a human soul, and being liable to human infirmity, and even to sin, inasmuch as, however exalted, he was still a creature, therefore finite, therefore fallible, capable of turning, in the abuse of freedom, from good to evil. *'The Humiliation of Christ," pp. 42, 43.* Apollinaris accepted the Arian method of constructing [conceiving?] the person, by the exclusion of a rational human soul, and used it as a means of obviating the Arian conclusion."

He did not deny a human soul in Christ in the scriptural sense of soul, but a rational human soul, which was the philosophic term for which Scripture uses the term "spirit." The spirit of Christ he maintained to be His Deity; and in this way he thought not merely to escape the Arian doctrine of moral frailty in the Lord, but to obtain other results of the greatest importance.

Of these the first was the avoidance of all possibility of supposing a dual personality in Christ, such as in fact some of his opponents fell into. Quoting Dr. Bruce again:In his view "Christ was true God, for He was the eternal Logos manifested in the flesh. He was also true man, for human nature consists of three component elements, body, animal soul, and spirit;" and all these Christ had. "True, it might be objected that the third element in the person of Christ, the nous [mind] was not human but divine. But Apollinaris was ready with his reply. ' The mind in Christ,' he said in effect, 'is at once divine and human; the Logos is at once the express image of God and the prototype of humanity.' This appears to be what he meant when he asserted that the humanity of Christ was eternal,-a part of his system which was much misunderstood by his opponents, who supposed it to have reference to the body of Christ. There is no reason to believe that Apollinaris meant to teach that our Lord's flesh was eternal, and that He brought it with Him from heaven, and therefore was not really born of the Virgin Mary; though some of his adherents may have held such opinions. His idea was that Christ was the celestial man; celestial, because divine; man, not merely as God incarnate, but because the divine spirit is at the same time essentially human."

"This," Bruce remarks, "was the speculative element in the Apollinarian theory misapprehended by contemporaries, better understood, and in some quarters more sympathized with, now."

And here is our interest in all this matter, that in the ferment of men's minds at the present time so much of the dead and buried past is being revived; oftentimes in fragments which it is useful to put in their place therefore again, that we may see their natural connection, and realize their significance.

But Apollinaris would have urged, no doubt, that this last part of his view was not simply speculation. He might have appealed to John 3:13, "the Son of man which is in heaven," or better still to i Cor. 15:47, "the second Man is (ex ouranou) out of heaven.*" *So the editors read it now.*

Nevertheless, "made in all things like unto His brethren " could not be said, as is manifest, of Christ as he has pictured Him, except we admit a self-emptying so great as that this divine humanity shall be able to take the true human limitation, be tempted as we are, increase in wisdom as in stature, be the new Adam, Head of a new race of men:without this it is plain we have not the Christ of the Scriptures. He is so unlike us that we would not have courage to claim Him for ourselves. Nor can we think of Him as in the agony of the garden, or in the darkness of the forsaken sorrow upon the Cross. The whole mental and moral nature of man, Apollinaris rightly conceived to be in that spirit of man, which he denied the Lord to possess. Spirit, He had brought (according to this theory) from heaven with Him ; or rather this was the very One who came. Thus it became now indeed "the spirit of a Man"; but a human spirit it could not be called, except by an argument which leaps over an infinite difference as if it scarcely were one, while in the interests of the theory, (that is to provide against the mutability of the creature,) it is appraised at its full worth.

But there was a third advantage that Apollinaris conceived to arise from this divine humanity of Christ, that it made God Himself to stoop to suffering and death, as no other view did, and this he believed to be essentially necessary to give power to His redemptive work. But the view he took of this is in contention.

On the whole, there can be no right question that Apollinarianism, though it had long disappeared, and only for a short time indeed maintained itself, was none the less a step towards Kenoticism, which has of late been spreading in many quarters, and which was needed to round out the elder doctrine to any consistency. An American writer of this school even "founds his theory on the basis of the essential unity of the human and divine"; "the incarnation, according to him, being the human element (the Logos) eternally in God, becoming man by taking flesh, and occupying the place of a soul." (Bruce.)

Of Kenoticism, in connection with our present theme, a very slight notice will suffice. Its main position is that the Son of God, in becoming man, contracted Himself really within human limitations, so as either actually to become the human spirit of Christ, or else to take place along side of this in one human consciousness. Always the aim is, as with Apollinarianism, to escape the attribution to the Lord of dual personality, to make the Christ of the Gospels more simply intelligible, while conserving His actual Deity. Deity can, they say, without real self-impairment, lay aside what belongs to it except essential attributes; and omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence are not these, but only expressions of free relation to the world which He has made. " Incarnation is for the Son of God, necessarily self-limitation, self-emptying, not indeed of that which is essential in order to be God, but of the divine manner of existence and of the divine glory which He had from the beginning with the Father, and which He manifested or exercised in governing the world. Such is the view," says Thomasius as quoted by Bruce, "given by the apostle in the epistle to the Philippians, such the view demanded by the evangelic history; for on no other view is it possible to conceive how, for example, Christ could sleep in the storm on the sea of Galilee. What real sleep could there be for Him, who, as God, not only was awake, but, on the anti-Kenotic hypothesis, as Ruler of the world, brought on, as well as, stilled the storm ? "

The writer quoted here does not go the extreme length of Gess and others, who reproduce the Apollinarian view of the Lord's humanity; but we need not cite more to show from what questionings Kenoticism has arisen, or the answer which essentially all forms of it supply. Who does not know these questions? and does not know also how we are baffled by them? Is this difficulty after all capable of satisfactory solution? or does it show us that we are face to face with the inscrutable, only affirming to us the Lord's own declaration that "no man knoweth the Son, but the Father"?

It must give us pause, at least, to realize how truly hypothetical all the answers are,-how little Scripture can be even pleaded in their behalf:and here surely is the very subject upon which we should fear to hazard a word without the safe-guard of Scripture. We may, however, look at what is advanced, if only with the conviction that the feebleness of all our thoughts is what will be demonstrated by it. Even this may have its good also in keeping us within the limits of trustworthy knowledge, that with the psalmist we may not exercise ourselves on things too high for us, and incur the sure penalty that follows presumption.

Kenosis is indeed a word taken from Scripture:it is the "self-emptying" of the second chapter of
Philippians, the real force of the word which in our common version is poorly rendered, " He made Himself of no reputation " (heauton ekenosen). It thus professes to be based upon Scripture-indeed to be the only adequate interpretation, as we have seen, of the passage referred to:a wonderful passage indeed, with which we cannot do better than refresh our memories and our hearts. Wonderful it is that it is an exhortation for us to the imitation of Christ in it:-

'' Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, did not esteem it a thing to be grasped at, the being equal to God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men; and, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

The alteration from "thought it not robbery" to "esteemed it not a thing to be grasped at" is in accordance with the alternative in the margin of the Revised Version and with what is preferred by many at the present day. The point evidently that the apostle insists on is, not that Christ could claim to be equal with God, but that He did not hold fast that claim:He emptied Himself-gave up the form of God for a servant's form. The point that the Kenotic theory invites us to consider is what is involved in this self-emptying.

The fact itself is manifest:He was here a Man, in a servant's form. He did not come in the form which was proper to Him as God, though He was God. That is surely plain. It does not seem necessary to go back of the simple truth with which every Christian is acquainted, to understand this emptying. There is no fresh revelation apparent in it:rather, it is to this general Christian knowledge that the apostle appeals.

We are entitled to seek the full worth of these expressions:that is surely true. He emptied Himself of the form of God to take a servant's form:there is the antithesis; but it only implies the actuality of His manhood. When in manhood He Himself speaks of "the Son of man who is in heaven" (John 3:13). Was He in heaven, then, in the servant's form? Nay, one could not say so. But then the servant's form which He had assumed did not limit Him to that; the kenosis was not absolute and universal, but relative to His appearance upon earth; it was only what was necessarily implied in His coming into the world as Man, and not to be carried back of this. It agrees perfectly with the passage in Philippians as an appeal founded upon the facts of Christian knowledge, and not a new revelation for the first time communicated.

Again when the apostle assures us in Colossians (1:19,) that "it pleased all the fullness (of the Godhead-the whole Godhead) to dwell in Him," this is impossible to make consistent with the Kenotic view of self-contraction within the limits of mere manhood. We may be indeed very feeble in understanding what is meant by this, but it is not contraction at all but expansion of our conception of Christ as Man. It is not Kenoticism, nor consistent with it.

But, apart from Kenoticism, the Apollinarian conception of the Lord's humanity does not present a basis for a human life capable of faith, of temptation, of sympathy with ordinary human experience, of growth in wisdom such as is explicitly attributed to Him. The singleness of personality which is indeed very manifest in it-and which is its attraction to the perplexed intellect-is gained at too great a cost. We must assert against the Apollinarian His true Manhood, and against the Kenoticist His complete Godhead; even while we own that the connection between these is inscrutable, and must remain so:comforting ourselves with the assurance that is after all what our Lord Himself has declared. We know not the Son in the mystery of His nature; but we do know Him in His union of Godhead and manhood the living Link between God and His creatures, which can never be undone, and will never give way whatever be the strain upon it. In Him before God, accepted in the Beloved, we are "bound in the bundle of life with the Lord our God" in a way no human thought could have dreamed in its highest imagining. But it is no imagination, but the assurance that He Himself has given us:"Because I live ye shall live also" (John 14:19.) F. W. G.

(To be Continued.")

A Lecture by S. R. in New York, Aug. 13th, 1897.

The subject of the whole epistle is Christian ministry, its sources and its character:and the first subject in Christian ministry, as to its nature, is its stability; there is nothing uncertain about the ministry of Christ as there is nothing uncertain about the person of Christ. The apostle puts it in a most forcible way:he says, Christ was not yea and nay, and therefore neither was the gospel which I preached to you yea and nay, it was the everlasting yea, the eternal certainty connected with the person of the blessed Christ of God Himself.

But if the gospel is stable and certain, so also is the truth for the people of God equally unwavering and sure. There is no yea and nay in the ministry of the word of God for the edification of the saints. There is no such thing as divers weights and divers measures,-there must be one standard-the absolute inflexible holiness of God, whether it be in the salvation of sinners, or in the building up and the guidance of the saints.

Then most beautifully we see how in spite of this absolutely inflexible character of the truth of God, when it comes to be ministered to the saints, if there were one who had dishonored Christ, but had been through grace led to see this, the grace of God could go out in all its fullness to him. He was to be restored, and the saints who in the first epistle had been told in the most forcible way to put away the wicked person from among themselves, are exhorted with equal force now to confirm their love to him and to welcome him back.

What a perfect blending there is in that way of the grace and holiness of God. His light flashes into our hearts, reveals our condition, brings us on our knees, brings us into the dust in shame and confusion of face. We say there is no more hope that the Lord will ever use us, we dare not think that we can ever be associated with His people again, when lo! the very word which smites, comforts, heals and witnesses to us of God's willingness to forgive and to restore His beloved, wandering, but penitent child.

This brings us to that wonderful third chapter, where we have the contrast between the ministry of the law and the ministry of Christ. The law could only bring condemnation and death, because it made its demands upon man-demands which he could never fulfil.

The law always put him at a distance with a veil between him and God; and this is most forcibly illustrated in the fact that Moses himself, with the glory shining upon him, had to put a veil over his face, for the children of Israel could not look upon it. They dared not look upon the glory of God, even a partial revelation of that glory. For the glory which shone in Moses' face was only a partial revelation of God, because the full glory could not be manifested in that which made a demand upon man.

Now see the lovely contrast. We look upon what? not the glory of God manifested in the law, not the glory of God in any partial way. Nay, dear brethren, we gaze into the full cloudless brightness of divine glory as it is shining out in the face of Jesus Christ, and instead of there being a veil upon that face-hiding its glory, it shines in all its wondrous effulgence, right down into our hearts, and transforms us into the likeness of Christ. Oh, what a wondrous display, and what a glorious ministry. Therefore the apostle can say "we use great plainness of speech ";-the veil is taken away, and we behold unhindered now the brightness of divine glory.

Now that brings us to our subject, the fourth and fifth chapters, which contain the kernel of this entire epistle. Here we have the great truths which are enlarged upon later on.

Let us notice at the very beginning, that you have in the opening verses of this fourth chapter, and in the closing verses of the fifth chapter, a solemn word to the unsaved. First of all the apostle says, "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost;" it is hid-not because there is any veil upon the face of Christ, not because there is any partial revelation of the glory of God in the gospel, not because there is any hindrance on His side; no, if our gospel be hid, it is because "the god of this world "-the god of this age-"hath blindeth the minds of those that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God, should shine unto them." That is the only reason why there is any hiding of the glory of God.

This world ought to shine with the glory of God; it ought to be fairly resplendent; men's very faces, their lives ought all to catch the light of that glory and to reflect it abroad. Why is it not so? why are there so many dark hearts with absolutely no light in them? why are there so many lives, that instead of reflecting the glory of God below, gather the darkness out of care and sorrow in a world like this? why is it that we hear groans instead of songs of praise, cursing instead of blessing? Ask the god of this world. Ah, brethren, the veil is upon man's unbelieving heart, the veil is there, not on Christ.

But look at the close of the fifth chapter. He says there that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. These very people who are lost, upon whose hearts the god of this world has put a veil, who are blinded by Satan,-to these very people he speaks as an ambassador for Christ, '' as though God did beseech you," he prays them in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God. How beautiful is this ! Satan puts a veil over man's heart, and blinds him to the beauties of Christ ; the faithful minister of Christ takes the veil away if they will only let him, and entreats them to be reconciled to God. The first word of the ministry of the gospel declares man's lost condition, and the last word is one of entreaty. "Be ye reconciled to God, for he hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." That is the gospel. We speak of the glories of God, but before we go into that, let us have a word for the poor sinner. Is the veil upon his heart ? let him listen to the word of divine entreaty:Christ was made sin, Christ came for the lost, Christ came to do away with that darkness of your heart ; He says if you will but hear the word of reconciliation and accept it you will know something of that glory of God which shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Is not that blessed, beloved ; is it not a precious thought ? And what a divine motive power behind the man who has all the glory of God to present to sinners with the solemn earnest entreaty for them to be reconciled to Him. Oh for hearts to hear the gospel!

Now let us take up just a few of the things in this portion for us as believers, and see how beautifully the apostle unfolds to us not only the glory of the treasure, but the earthen vessel in which the treasure is contained. He begins here, as you notice, with a contrast. He had been speaking of the darkness of those who are lost, and he passes into happiest contrast, and you will notice it here in the sixth verse " For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Do you think of the darkness of the sinner's heart ? The first word is that which God uttered on the morning of creation, when darkness covered the face of the deep ; "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." So in our poor hearts there was that awful darkness of sin ; into that darkness the voice of the living God pierced. Ah, the commanding power of that divine word in the soul, how it woke us out of our indifference, and made us feel first of all the desolation which sin had wrought! But it was the beginning of that new creation of which the apostle speaks in the next chapter, "if any man be in Christ there is a new creation." The darkness fled, the light shone. Where did it shine from? It was the glory of God, but it shone from the face of that blessed Lord who had gone into the darkness of the cross of Calvary,-a darkness just as great, just as awful as that in man's ruined heart. Into that darkness-from which God, who is light, had withdrawn-the Lord went. He bore the full penalty of sin ; and now risen and glorified at God's right hand, that Light of the glory of God shines down into our hearts, and illumines them forever with the brightness of His perfect love.

Oh what a light is that, dear brethren ! We talk about heaven being a place of light, and we say well; we talk about there being no need of the sun, nor of the moon there, and we say well, for the Lamb is the light thereof. Do you see Jesus, beloved ? then you see God's likeness. Do you see Him ? then you know what the happy secret is, of which the apostle speaks here,-the light of the glory of God, which shines in His blessed face. The Lord give us to realize that more fully, and to walk in the joy of it here, and we will be indeed lights in the world.

But I want you to notice another thing. You have here the reason why this light has shone in our hearts. It is not merely in order that our hearts may be illuminated by it. It is supposed we are illumined ; but the reason why the light is shining is " to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." And that word "to give the light" means that we are to give out the light which has shone into us.

The glory of God has come down here into my poor breast. Is it to be imprisoned there as a captive? No, beloved, you can no more imprison that light, than you can shut up a sunbeam in a closet. If it has shone in, it must shine out. That is just God's order for the carrying of the precious news of the gospel to this world. The light comes to my heart, it illumines my life, it scatters the darkness there and then shines out in my life that others may see the image of Christ and be led to Him. Oh that we may realize this, our responsibility that there should be nothing to hinder the out-shining of the light any more than there is to hinder its in-shining. And it is the same thing; you get your eye off Christ and the light does not shine in clearly, you get your eye off Christ and the light will not shine out clearly.

You are busy perhaps with your tract distribution, your visitation, your gospel work, and you say what a weariness it is, what a routine it is. So few come to hear the gospel, so few will listen to what I have to say to them, my tracts do not seem to bear any fruit. Is it the glory outshining in your life, or is it the mere effort of nature ? Is it your own puny strength ? Are you going through the forms of happy service, rather than the living reality of that constraining love of Christ ? As he tells us here, "The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that He died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him who died for them and rose again." Show me a man who realizes what the love of Christ is, show me one who knows what it is for Christ to have taken his heart captive, and I will show you one who like Paul can say "I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you the less I be loved."

The love of Christ took possession of his soul, and if saints were indifferent, nay, if they despised him, if they turned from his message, it did not change the constraining power of the love of Christ, and he would go on loving and loving ; and if he could not love in any other way, he would die for them, as he says to the Philippians " yea, and if I be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all." But what was the secret of this ? Oh, the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ had shone in his heart and had shone out again, for he could not keep it in. He lived as it were only for the One who loved him, in service for His saints.

You and I can be the same in our measure, dear brethren. We are not different from Paul, for he goes on just here to tell us what kind of a vessel the treasure was hidden in. When we read in the epistles, of his saying for instance, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me,"or, I will glory in the cross, I will glory in that which has crucified me to the world, we say, oh, but that is Paul ! Beloved, that ought to be us too. If it were Paul, he tells us here that the treasure was of God, and that the vessel was an earthen vessel.

Let me give you a little illustration, which struck me most forcibly the other day. I was driving with a brother along the foot of a mountain, near sunset ; and as we looked up on the crest of the mountain, the sun had gone down below it, and was out of sight. But there were floating, just over the top of the mountain, clouds, the mists of earth, floating there in the bright pure air. Do you say, they spoiled the lovely view, they simply reminded us of the exhalations of the earth ? On the contrary those clouds looked like liquid gold, they shone with all the brightness of an absent sun. They shone because they were in the light, and there was no hindrance between them and the sun; its brightness illumined them and they illumined the valley below. We could not see the sun, we could see the clouds. Analyze those clouds. Do you say what wonderful clouds they were? They were nothing but the mists, nothing but the exhalations perhaps of some marsh in the neighborhood, or from the salt ocean, which speaks of death and desolation. What made those clouds reflect ? nothing in the nature of the clouds, but in the glory of that sunshine, in which they were bathed.

So with the Christian. He is common clay. If you think you are some precious alabaster box of ointment, you are very much mistaken; we are nothing but common clay. God formed man out of the dust of the earth ; that is unfallen man, and in addition to being formed out of the dust of the earth, we are fallen creatures as well. Is there anything to boast in ? is there anything to glory in ourselves ? Made of clay and fallen at that! But what is it that makes us different from all others ? It is the treasure, the glory of God Himself in the face of Jesus Christ. And the fact that we are poor earthen vessels only emphasizes the wonder of the glory that could display itself in us. Just as those clouds shone with the sun's brightness and beauty, so with the Christian. He is the poor vessel of earth, but if Christ's light shines into his heart, he exhibits the perfection, he exhibits the character of his Lord- he resembles Him. What a treasure ! Can he not rejoice in the fact that he is an earthen vessel ? Let us go a step further; I say it reverently. God's glory could not have been otherwise so manifested, as it is manifested in these vessels of earth.
Let us suppose an illustration, which I have heard given. Let us suppose that a person had discovered some wonderful elixir, we will say, which if one took it, would give him the power of a giant; he could overturn houses, could pluck up trees by the roots. He is going to prove the power of the elixir. What kind of a person would he select? Oh, you say, he will go to some place of athletic training, and ask for the strongest man they have there, one who can do the greatest feats of strength ; he will give him his elixir and with his natural, and imparted strength, he will be a wonderful giant. Is that what he does ? Nay, he will go to yonder hospital, and pick out the weakest, the most helpless person there; he says now, If my elixir is of any value, it will take this perfectly helpless person, and make him the giant. I will not ask him for any strength of his own, but all strength will come from what I will give him. He gives him the elixir, the man takes it, and lo! he is quickened with mighty strength, and does all that the other claimed for him. What will the people say? Will they say, what a wonderful man in yonder hospital? No, they will say what a wonderful man to have discovered that mighty power, which can use such human weakness and make it strong.

So, dear brethren, are you moaning because you are weak? are you thinking you are so helpless that you cannot do a single thing for the Lord ? I believe you are the very person He wants. I believe, that your very weakness and helplessness will give Him all the glory ; therefore you are the very one that ought to lay claim to the secret of power, which Christ will give you, for the excellency of it is of God and not of us. None can boast.

Look at Paul. Did he boast, could he boast in anything that was his own? Nay, he could not, and if you will turn to the third chapter of Philippians, you will find him there breaking the earthen vessel.

There he speaks of what he was by nature, " circumcised the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, of the stock of Israel, 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." What a beautiful vase! What is he going to do with it? Set it on his mantle and admire it?

What a genealogy I have! What rectitude of life mine has been! Is that what he does with it? He sets that vase out before us and then with one blow he shivers it to pieces. "What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ, yea doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things." That is having the treasure in an earthen vessel, and as you notice, it is a broken one at that. Break that beautiful vessel? It has perhaps upon it the delicate tracery of the potter, that looks so attractive. Break that vessel ? Smash it to pieces? Do we hesitate ?

Gaze up there at that blessed Man in the glory of God; look at all the brightness of God's eternal glory shining in his face and you will rejoice to see the vessel broken, smashed to pieces, that people may see, not you, not your love, not your diligence, not your faithfulness, but see the epistle of Christ, and His love appealing in its constraining power, drawing and winning men to Himself. That is the secret of Christian ministry, and that, dear brethren, is what it is to have the treasure in an earthen vessel and the vessel broken too.

You remember Gideon's men and the light which they had. That light was to be a testimony for God; they were to hold their lamps in their hands and to cry out "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." It was not their sword that was to gain the victory, but the Lord's sword. How was the light to shine? It could not shine in the pitcher, the pitcher had to be broken, that the light might shine out. Oh, to learn that lesson, to learn that it is not I that serve but Christ that lives and serves in me.

And so if we trace on through these chapters, you will find that the precious truth is unfolded in all its beauty for us. Paul goes on to say that we, who live are always delivered-unto what? " always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." Think of it, dear brethren, here is a man, who is engaged in Christ's service, he is going here and there, everywhere, preaching the gospel. People say, Paul, take good care of yourself, be careful that you do not injure that vessel, which holds the treasure. He says, do you know how it is with me ? I am delivered to death for Jesus' sake; I am bearing about the dying, the putting to death, of the Lord Jesus. It is the life of Jesus then, not my life, not my power; it is the life of Jesus manifested in my mortal flesh ; and so far from thinking that the excellency of the power is in me, it is all of Christ, and I am to reckon myself dead, and to bear about that putting to death of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be displayed.

Now, that is beautifully illustrated in the twelfth chapter of this very epistle. The apostle, you remember, had been previously speaking of the glorying of others. He was surrounded by many
who were professing to be wonderful apostles and wonderful teachers, particularly those who were bringing the saints back into Judaism. He had been saying he could compare himself with the best of them. This is in the tent hand eleventh chapters. He is glad to get through with this, so he says, It is not expedient for me to glory; Ido not want to be comparing myself with these men of earth. I have something better than that, I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. He casts his eye upward and says, Fourteen years ago I had a sight of what I am in Christ. I was caught up to the glory, where I will soon be forever with the Lord, and there I saw manifestations of power and blessing that I cannot tell you of, for you would not understand it. I saw that, and it was simply a man in Christ that I saw; but if you come to what I am on earth, I cannot glory in myself; I will not compare myself with the men of this world. If you want to know what I am on earth, it is these infirmities that you see besetting me day by day. He then shows the link between these conditions. He had seen himself in Christ. It was a wondrous sight; and lest he should be exalted above measure, there was given him-what? A beautiful vessel, in which to display this wondrous man in Christ ?Is it an attendant host of angels to guard his steps ?Is it people who are saying, There is the wonderful man in Christ? No beloved; when Paul gets to earth, what he hears of is the messenger of Satan, sent to buffet him, and special infirmities, which make him realize the sentence of death upon himself. What is he to do? He says, Lord, Lord, takeaway this thing from me. Am I going to be hampered in my usefulness? Am I going to be hampered in my ministry by this messenger of Satan buffeting me? Lord remove it.

Three times he says this. But oh, the wisdom of that blessed Lord, who loved his servant too well to take from him that which was the proper vessel in which the treasure was to be manifested. It was the proper vessel to manifest His glory ; it was a vessel of earth, beset by afflictions and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. And Paul says, Is that it ? Is it my weakness that is going to let the power of Christ be manifested? Is it my nothingness that is going to let Christ be all in all ? Welcome affliction ! welcome Satan's messenger ! welcome all the buffeting of. this world ! If the power of Christ is manifested, I can rejoice in it all. Dear brethren, think of it ; our afflictions, our persecutions, the things that we groan under, these things are but the occasions for manifesting the excellency of the power of the Lord in the poor vessel of earth ! Oh, for more ministry like that, which distinctly sets Christ before us.

But I must say a word or two as to another side of this ministry ; it is an intensely practical thing. People have a way of thinking that heavenly truth is a very mysterious thing; that you live up, as it were in a cloud-land ; that you float in a sort of balmy ether without one thing to trouble you. This is quite the reverse of the truth; what does Paul speak of in connection with this?

I will mention only two things that you have in this epistle. In the sixth and seventh chapters, he speaks of the absolute necessity of separation from the world. He goes on to tell them that his heart is enlarged toward them, and that he longs to see them enlarged, and he adds, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Now, if you and I had wanted to enlarge the saints, we would not have said anything about that; we would have said, Let us feed them, let us nourish them up with the heavenly side of things. Very well, Paul says, that is just what I have been doing. I have been giving them a glimpse of the face of Jesus in the glory, but the practical effect of enlarged hearts is a" narrow path; the practical effect of a heart set at liberty in the things of Christ is to have the feet withdrawn from every way which dishonors our blessed Lord. And if you want to see saints enlarged, do not expect to find them shouting. Do not expect that people will say about them, They live in a kind of a dream land. You will find them very practical. Every one that nameth the name of the Lord, let him depart from iniquity ; or, as the apostle says, as I have partly quoted, " Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols, what concord hath Christ with Belial, or what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever." That is enlargement; and I think it is as practical a word as you could get. But where does the power for it come from ? How do we get power for practical separation ? Always by the glory of God.

You remember when Abraham dwelt in far Mesopotamia, in that land of Shinar, noted for its idolatry, surrounded by idolaters, perhaps an idolater himself-there a light shone into his heart, there the glory of the Lord appeared unto him; and what is the effect of it? "Get thee out, get thee out;" that is the practical effect of it, separation from evil by the power of the glory of God:and with that glory shining in his heart, Abraham can leave kindred and home and country, and be separate. Let me ask ; had not the God of glory appeared unto him, could he have left country and all that was dear to nature and have gone unto a land he knew nothing of ? No, beloved, it was the glory that told him to separate, that beckoned him on to the place where it could shine unhindered upon him. These two things go together, the light of the glory of God and the separate path upon earth. That is practical, is it not ?

Now let us note another practical thing in the eighth and ninth chapters of this same epistle. The apostle had been talking about the shining in of the glory, he had been lifting them up into heaven, what does he say next? "Take up a collection." Just about as practical and earthly a thing ; just about as commonplace as you could imagine. People would say, What a descent! In one chapter you were talking about the glory and the treasure, and then you turn round and talk about filthy lucre, and ministering to the necessities of the saints. Is that not a descent from heavenly truth ? Beloved, it only shows us that the character of a heavenly ministry is to take note of everything, to take note of our possessions, to take note of our associations, of everything, for it reaches to every part of our life. In the light of that glory of God, could there be any darkness, could there be any selfishness, any indifference ? Nay, once let that light shine and everything that is inconsistent with it must be done away. So you find throughout two entire chapters of this epistle, the most practical exhortations as to taking up a collection for the need of the saints,-yes and stimulating them too, by making them understand that others are far ahead in this matter.

So much for the practical side of a heavenly ministry. How full it is, how varied ; how it meets the need, and satisfies the craving of the heart. It lifts me up with joy, it lets me pass along in the midst of afflictions with the heart free and glad, but it keeps my feet in the narrow way, and the affections in full activity.

We have only to look at the last side of this ministry, here in the latter part of the fourth chapter, which I read. This journeying through a vale of affliction, this having the earthen vessel broken here, is it to go on through the whole life? Can we hope at last to gain some point where the vessel will not be broken ? Does Paul look forward to the time when with calmly folded hands, he can say, It is all over, and now I can glory in myself ? He does, but where ? Up there where Christ is ; he looks forward to a rest up there that he cannot look forward to here. Take the very body I live in, it is only an earthen vessel-"the earthly house of this tabernacle"; that has got to break after a while. But he does say, beloved friends, "we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." So he looks forward to the treasure being in its proper sphere, and in its proper vessel, only when we are clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. How lovely that is. I begin my Christian course by the breaking of the earthen vessel; I carry it on all my journey, through the agency of a broken vessel. I look forward through the vista of life and I see a broken vessel all through. I look to the end of this life and I see that it will end with the shattering of this frail body of clay in which I dwell, or should the Lord come, entirely changed. I look forward a little further, and what do I see then ? God's house, the building of God, a house not made with hands, a body like Christ's glorious body, who went into death for us. I see at last the place where the vessel no longer needs to be broken, but where with Christ Himself we are gathered, and show out in all its effulgence the wonder of that grace which took us poor lost sinners and set us up there in God's own light.

Oh the ministry of the gospel of the glory of God ! What a theme! Does it not indeed set the heart free ? And if we think of affliction by the way, of our circumstances, are we going to be cast down by them ? are we going to be overwhelmed by them ? In the sixth chapter Paul puts them side by side; he says "as sorrowful but always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich ; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." Does he think of his afflictions ? he says they are light afflictions. They would seem to crush him down ; he says in one place, I despaired even of life ; but with his eye on Christ, he says, "our light afflictions." Was it through a long weary course ? he says, they are only for a moment. Forty years-it is only a moment, and they work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. That thing which you would wish out of your life, that trial that you would give your right hand to get rid of, that trouble, those circumstances, they are the things which, if you are exercised about them, will yield an eternal weight of joy and glory when you are risen, and at Christ's right hand. Do not then, think of your afflictions, of your nothingness, that which hampers and holds you down ; but if the heart be free, if the heart be open for Christ, dear brethren, you may have your feet in the stocks, but I defy all the powers of earth to keep you from singing the praises of God.

This joy is for us all ; not, as I was saying before, for the favored few. God has no classes of His people-no favored classes. It is for all ; and you and I, as well as Paul in his day, can even now shine with the brightness of Christ's glory.

Do yon not covet to do that ? do you not covet to exhibit His perfectness ? May our hearts indeed long for it, for so we will find that indeed it is ours, and the hindrances be removed by the grace which never disappoints.

May the Lord give us to enter into these things, and to glory in our infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon us.

The more we go on, the more we shall find that most Christians will not follow. They do not give up Christ, but have not faith to go on in the path He would. The Christian world looks for great results. It is not the time. In the midst of the evil surrounding, the first point is to have what is true and solid, especially to begin thus. In a closing dispensation this is specially the case. This was the Saviour's work. J. N. D.

O Lord around me oft I find
So much to draw my heart from Thee;
The impulse of the fleshly mind
Is earthward, and will ever be.

I may not love the gaudy show,
Nor walk in paths of grosser sin,
But to a thousand things below
I give a lodging place within.

But thou didst know me long before
The year my infant life began;
Thou knewest all I know and more
Of that poor heart Thy love has won.

And realizing this I praise
Thy grace 'mid failure so complete,
The mercy that attends my days,
The love that keeps my wandering feet.

When Thou dost bid me hence to rise,
If shame could then possess my heart,
'T would be when first my wondering eyes,
O Lord, behold Thee as Thou art.

And as the blissful ages roll
Within that light which ne'er grows dim,
He'll fill the vision of a soul
Forever satisfied with Him.

"We have long been familiar, to a greater or less extent, with the typical or symbolical teaching of the historical and ceremonial parts of the word of God. Scripture has not left us in doubt as to many of these, giving us, in the plain language of New-Testament truth, the inspired interpretation of many Old-Testament narratives. The spiritual meaning of Noah and the ark; the Passover; the conflicts in Canaan ;-to say nothing of the sacrificial ordinances of Leviticus, explained in the epistle to the Hebrews,- have been unfolded by the divine teacher, and no one hesitates to use them freely. We have almost forgotten that they are types, so familiar have they become.

Similarly, a number of passages which we would never have suspected of being typical are distinctly declared to be such. Hagar and Sarah (Gal. 4:21-31), Abraham's interview with Melchizedek (Heb. 7:), are striking examples of this.

But a reverent mind will be encouraged to expect that these are not all the typical passages of Scripture, and with the method, if we may use the word, used in the application of the passages we have alluded to, will take up other portions to find the spiritual meaning concealed within them. Nor will he be disappointed.

Who, that is in the least acquainted with Scripture truth, will fail, for instance, to see the beautiful gospel picture presented in the history of Naaman the leper in the chapter just preceding ? Not merely do its general outlines present the gospel truth, but details are equally accurate, so that we are constrained to see the design in it.

On the other hand, those who have drawn most freely from this fruitful source of instruction will be most careful to guard against extravagances of interpretation, which are not merely unedifying, but raise questions as to all figurative interpretations. Bearing this in mind, let us endeavor in a sober spirit to gather some of the lessons from the portion before us.

It comes in fittingly after the gospel theme of the fifth chapter. That gives us the cleansing of the sinner (also, alas! the binding of sin upon the man who valued grace only as ministering to his covetousness); this portion shows the expansive power of the grace of God. " The place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us" (ver. i). When we receive the gospel we receive a living germ which cannot be confined within narrow limits. The new wine will burst nature's bottles. Nor will this be confined to personal growth in grace. In fact, usually the first activity is reaching out to others. Thus Paul immediately after his conversion preached Jesus in the synagogues at Damascus,"that He is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). Beautifully do we see this expansive spirit exemplified in the first chapter of John, where as soon as one knows Christ he hastens to bring a brother or a friend to the same Savior. The reader will easily add other instances from Scripture, while every genuine work of grace is always marked by the same. Truly the gospel is a pomegranate, not only a delicious fruit, but filled with seed for its propagation.

Notice, their ardor does not hinder them from applying for guidance to the one who has the word of God, Elisha the prophet. Surely it is easy to discern who the Guide is to whom we should apply for the mind of God, Him of whom Elisha was but a type- our blessed Lord and Master. Good indeed would it be if all zeal could apply first to Him. There would be less zeal without knowledge, less show of work, but more actually accomplished in the extension of God's house.

Faith ever grows when in exercise. No sooner do they get the prophet's permission and approval than they desire his presence. " Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants." It is not enough to have the Lord's mind-His approval of this or that act of service-the spirit should yearn for His companionship. And as the prophet graciously answered,'' I will go," we may rest assured our gracious Lord never refuses His holy presence where it is desired. Ah! do we always desire that presence ? for it may check much in us of mere nature, much that would be used in His service which He could not approve nor accept. But who or what can take His place ?-can numbers, popularity, excitement, wealth, homage of men ? One "well clone " from Him will outweigh it all with the heart that truly loves Him. May we ever say, " Go with us ; " "if thou go not up with us carry us not up hence."

But we might notice in passing another thought suggested by the desire of these men. They wished to erect a dwelling, a habitation; and when there has been blessing in the gospel, the natural desire is for fellowship. How completely God has in mercy provided for this is not within the scope of this paper, but we believe next to the salvation of the soul and a godly walk, nothing more important can claim the attention of God's people.

But whence come the materials that are to form this habitation ? Who are the "living stones," or, as in the scripture, the " beams " which are to form this dwelling ? They grow hard by Jordan, the river of death and judgment. All are "dead in trespasses and sins," but where that fact is recognized, confessed, and Christ accepted, the tree is cut down, by the ax of divine truth, and by that same instrument prepared for its place in the building.

Blessed work, to see the proud tree, flourishing by the river of death, bow beneath the strokes of the keen ax, and fall prostrate at last. Humbling work it is indeed, but how blessed, when the proud, haughty, self-righteous soul is laid low under the truth, ready to receive the pure and perfect grace of God.

But while the work is going on happily and prosperously, the ax of one slips off its handle and falls into the stream. All usefulness is at an end, the work, so far as that individual is concerned, must cease:for hands are not axes, and mere strength cannot fell a tree. What adds to his sorrow is that the ax was not his own, it was borrowed.

We all work with borrowed tools. The truth of God is His, not ours; we are simply "stewards of the manifold grace of God." We have been entrusted with the gospel; a dispensation has been given us:with Paul we may say "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel." Some may think that the thought here is the folly of dealing with truth not made our own, of trafficking in that which was unfelt, or unrealized. We believe it is rather as we have suggested. Nothing in the way of gift or endowment or truth is our own-all has been loaned to us. The parable of the talents illustrates this.

But how serious this makes the loss of the ax. It was borrowed. To lose our time, opportunities, is bad enough, but to lose what has been entrusted to us, and for use in His, not our, service-is not this double grief ?
Well now is it that the prophet has been invited to accompany them. Had this not been the case the ax could never have been recovered, the work would have been hindered, the workman laid aside. But grace, blessed be God, recovers.

Let us ere proceeding ask ourselves a few questions. Have we ever been entrusted with an ax ? As we look at the open page of God's precious Word, gleaming with precious truth, we dare not deny it. Have we used our instrument in God's service? Alas, for some of us, how little. A further question:do we know what it is to lose the ax, to see it slip away and be buried, as it were, in the very river of death ? How sad, how unutterably sad it is to see the Lord's servants deprived of their only instrument of usefulness. Here is one who once was busy in winning souls, ever ready with a loving word to help saints or point sinners to Christ. Many a time in private or public has the voice been uplifted in the cause of the Master. But that voice is silent, or lacks the power that once accompanied it-the power of divine truth. Here is a sister, once busy in ministering, in her own happy sphere to needs, both temporal and spiritual; but she no longer engages in that blessed service.

But it is needless to multiply instances. The ax has been lost. Usefulness is gone. Oh if there were but humility to own it-to go to the Lord with the words " alas, Master! for it was borrowed." For the most serious part is that our usefulness is not ours but a sacred trust from the Lord.

Let us now briefly note the recovery of the lost usefulness. First, then, is the frank confession to the Lord. Nothing can take the place of that. No matter what the failure has been, how deep, how complete, -One ear must hear the sad story of what we have done with His. The ax may have been allowed to lie out in the sun, the handle thus losing its moisture; it may have been carelessly handled. Be that as it may, we know there is always some reason for loss of spiritual power. The sun of this world too easily dries out the spiritual freshness in our hearts and makes us hold loosely our precious trust.

But how graciously does the prophet meet the trouble. Notice his question "Where fell it?" Ah that must be known. Our blessed Lord, in restoring lost power wishes us to point to the occasion when we lost it. That worldliness, that unguarded moment-When was it that the power was lost, where did it fall into the river ? Mere generalities do not suffice; the finger of shame must point to the time and place where declension began. Need we enlarge ? Let conscience rather speak to us all.

But not to shame us does our Lord thus probe. When the full truth is out, then He comes in to recover, to put back in our hand that which we had lost. The stick thrown into the river here, is doubtless the same, in type, as the tree cast into the waters of Marah, both speaking of that wondrous cross, which saves the soul, makes bitter sweet, makes iron float. For oh, who that has lost spiritual power could ever believe that nature could restore it ? But here is grace"; and when the Lord acts He doeth wondrously. Instances might be gathered from Scripture; Peter, David, and the like. Let it be ours, beloved brethren, if the need be for us, to make for ourselves fresh instances of this recovering grace.

(Mal. 3:16,17; Jude 20-25.)

In a day of closing darkness,
When the outlook is so black,
When the hearts of men are failing
And the feet of saints turn back,
When corruption spreads her mantle
O'er the minds and ways of all,
When the violent doth prosper
And men's passions rise and fall.

Then, amid the gloom and darkness,
Shines one feeble ray of light,
Some, who feel and own the ruin
Seek by faith to walk aright.
Some, who fear the Lord of glory
And who think upon His name:
Some, who often speak together
Of His glory and His shame.

Some, who often round Him gather
To exhort and sing and pray,
Some, who prove amid the darkness,
They are children of the day:
Some, who wait a coming Savior,
And who long His face to see;
Some, who wait their hopes fruition
Till conformed to Him they be.

God, who dwells in heavenly glory,
He beholds this feeble few,
He records in His remembrance
All the sorrows they pass through:
He discerns each true affection
And declares "they shall be mine;
When I gather up My Jewels,"
These shall in my presence shine.

There is no solid peace when experience is fed on; there is no crop by ploughing, but no good crop without it. J. N. D.

"And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over-lived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that He had done for Israel." (Joshua 24:31.)

So long as the people had a leader whom God had raised up, who passed through the trials and experienced the joys of a journey from Egypt to Canaan in dependence upon the living God, so long did they abide faithful, outwardly at least, to the Lord. When, however, the old generation had passed away, and when those were placed in responsibility to whom all the past had been simply a history and not an experience, they showed how much they were influenced by man, and how little by divine power.

In our day, too, there is the same danger. Truths for which the men of God went to the stake in years gone by, are now taken upon the lips with little thought as to their preciousness or their gravity. Truths which were learned through prayers and tears, earnest crying to God through sleepless nights and anxious days, can now be mastered by a little attentive reading of the proper books. Need we be surprised, then, if these truths which took those who had found them, out of the world, made them in reality pilgrims, should now be pronounced "trippingly on the tongue" by those who have known but little of the exercise in acquiring and correspondingly little of the transforming power of the truths ?

God forbid that we should say there are none now who know the power of divine truth; we speak of tendencies just as dangerous to-day as in the days of Israel. Is it not the Laodicean state, complacent possession of that which begets pride, rather than obedient cleaving to Christ.

Even where there is real love to Christ, is there not the danger of not realizing the priceless value of truths and testimony gained in the past ? The conflicts are over, and we have been enjoying the benefits of the victory; now comes the danger of despising that conflict and its results. Let us remember that the faith which was once delivered to the saints has to be always earnestly contended for; that in things spiritual as in temporal "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

It may be said, Is this the necessary and inevitable tendency of the second generation, and is there no remedy ? We believe the tendency is real, and, thank God, the remedy is real. It is when traditionalism comes in, and the past seems but a story, when the heart has not passed through deep exercise, that the danger is great. O brethren, if the truths for which our elders suffered, wept, and prayed to gain, are as real to us, we too will be ready to suffer, weep, and pray to keep them, and we will keep them. Let us remember that we are living in restless times, when almost everything seems to be going to pieces. Let us therefore not be drawn aside, but hold all the more closely what is against the democracy of the day-the truth of God. Largeness of heart ever flows from communion with God, but we will not be unmindful of his works in the past, nor will we be ashamed to own the grace of God in those who stood for Him when it cost to be faithful.

(Continued from page 40.)

10. THE ASSEMBLY, IN ITS PRACTICAL WORKING.

We come now to consider the assembly itself in its living operation,-as filling (in the power of the Spirit, as alone it can) the place for which God designed it. This place it must, of course, fill, in order to satisfy and to be practically owned of Him ; and the ruin of the Church, which all that have the mind of God must acknowledge, has not lowered His standard for it, nor set aside one word that has gone out of His lips. Gracious too, He is, and will be, or who could stand before Him ? but this does not imply the toleration of even the least departure from His word, which would mean the giving up of His holiness and truth, and of His love itself.

That the Church has failed, miserably failed, is a solemn truth indeed ; and this failure has altered largely the circumstances in which we are placed to-day, and encompassed our path with difficulties, while it has deprived us largely of the help that we should have gained from one another. But it compels no one of us to disobedience to the least word that God has spoken, nor deprives us of either the wisdom or power necessary to "stand perfect and complete in all the will of God." Difficulties are only means for us of realizing the more what He is for us :as the spies said of the gigantic enemies that Israel would be called to encounter in taking possession of the land that had been promised them, "they shall be bread to us":for faith is strengthened by those demands upon it which only expose the weakness and bankruptcy of unbelief.

We are to look at the assembly, then, according to the character which the word of God has given it, quite unhindered by any reasonings derived from changed conditions of the time in which we live. And the assembly of which we are now to speak is not the Church of God at large, but the local assembly:which in God's thought, however, is that which represents it in the locality, being those who alone can actually assemble, the practical gathering together of the members of Christ as such.

These members, were they gathered all together, would show us the whole assembly as the body of Christ, and thus each assembly is the body of Christ in the place in which it is:a divinely-constructed organization, that is:-the only organization God ever owns as of Him, and all-sufficient to give us as Christians all that can be rightly expected or desired in organization.

Of this, more presently:the first thing we have to notice now is the individual members, who are spoken of individually in such terms as the whole body is. That is to say, as the whole body is joined together and united to the Head by the one Spirit which pervades it all, and brings every member into living and practical relation with every other and with Christ,- so each individual also is in his own person a picture of the whole. Indwelt of the Holy Ghost, "he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit," with this effect, that "your bodies are the members of Christ" (i Cor. 6:15, 17):each and the whole of every individual belongs to Christ, and there is no one, and no part of any one, permitted to be secular or self-controlled. Thus not only is the white garment of practical righteousness to cover us completely, but the "ribband of blue," the heavenly color, is to be seen upon the borders of it, just where it comes in contact with the earth (Num. 15:38).

If we are not thus, in the sincere intent and purpose of our hearts, recognizing our whole lives as to be lived for Him,-our every faculty of mind and body to be His,-ourselves taken out of the world by sanctification to Himself, to be sent into it again as His representatives (John 17:16-18), – then the moral basis of all right fellowship is lacking with us, -of fellowship with Himself, and necessarily with one another. In this case we do not and cannot fill our places in the assembly, however much we take part with the rest in the meetings of His people :for the place is essentially a spiritual one, and can only be spiritually filled.

Let us remind ourselves that there is nothing that is merely negative in our lives and ways, but that our Lord's words are true in particular as in general, that "he that is not with Me is against Me." If in any one habit or practice of our lives we are not with Him, we are in that respect against Him. We are in the miserable condition thus of being divided against ourselves, and as a consequence shall find a loss of vigor and competency, a lack of ability to make progress in the things of God, and even to stand in the presence of the enemy. It is as to things that (abstractly considered) were lawful enough, that the apostle marks off things that were "not expedient"; and immediately he adds, as applying to these :"all things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any" (i Cor, 6:12), Lawful things might thus develop a power to which even such an one as he might have cause to fear becoming captive.

Now here begins the question of fellowship with one another. Are we in true and whole-hearted fellowship with Christ ourselves ? Have we no fence fencing Him off from certain portions of our lives ? Has obedience with us no secret limitations ? Have we no division between mine and Thine with Him, but do we know the blessedness of realizing that to have all ours His, is the only way ourselves to enjoy it and find satisfying sweetness in it ?

Thus indeed will our bodies be the members of Christ. Our hands will be for His work, our feet for His errands, our lips for His communications and His praise. Our entire lives will be the expression of communion.

Now, whatever shortcoming we may have to confess in actual attainment, this, and nothing less than this, must be our honest desire and aim, or how can there be a walk with God ? for how can He consent to other terms than these ? would it be for His glory or our good, that He should do so ?

Think, then, of what is implied in the "body of Christ," where the Spirit of Christ links all together in harmonious subjection to the will of the Head, and so in a living unity of the members with one another. And this is plainly the practical "unity of the Spirit" which the apostle bids us to "endeavor to keep." It is certainly not the unity of the body simply that he means ; but it is assuredly the unity of that which makes it in any proper sense the body -the body fitted to Christ the Head. And this is what is to be seen in the assembly of God, if this is to fulfill its proper character,-a living, speaking, working unity of obedience, inspired by devoted love. What a testimony to Him of "two or three" gathered together in this spirit ! and it was thus at the beginning, when it could be said that "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things that he possessed was his own"-:the true spirit at all times, whatever may be the difference as to the manner of its expression.

Where something like this is not, already men have "their own things" to seek, and "not the things of Jesus Christ"; the various interests lead in various ways, the wisdom of the world comes in to secure them, and the door is opened for every kind of departure. It is only the sense of what is ours in Christ, where all have all in common, and the joy is but increased by sharing it with others,-ours, where all abides and no room is left for the cares which make man a weary worker for himself, the hardest of masters :it is only here that the heart is fenced from the close-surrounding evil, and fenced in for flower and fruit for Him who looks to find in us "the travail of His soul." Thus we may again see why Philadelphians are emphasized as those that keep Christ's word. Communion can only exist where the heart is held by the revelations of God's grace; and the soul that is kept in communion is that which is sustained by the fresh manna, gathered every day.

The reading-meetings are thus a great test of the state of an assembly; for it is there, if things be right, that the knowledge gathered in whatever way is tested and made sure by that personal conference and comparison which help so largely in making it the realized possession of the soul. Here we may learn, too, if there be the freedom and candor of brotherly love, the needs to which the truth ministers, and the ability to use it for real edification. It is of immense value to test in this way how far we have got the truth, while by this means what has been learned by each is thrown into the common fund, to enrich the whole. Those who know least would be surprised to realize how much the questions suggested by their own need may help in various ways the very people who answer them. And this is only one of the many modes in which the waterer is watered-the minister is ministered to.

The reading meeting is never, therefore, made needless or of little value by whatever multiplicity there may be of more detailed and connected teaching. Nay, all this creates a special need for the reading-meeting, in order that the food laid before the whole may be individually digested and assimilated. Here, however, any lack of nearness to and confidence in one another will be surely felt as a hindrance, and need of another sort manifested to those who have eyes to see.

"The children of this world are" indeed "wiser in their generation than the children of light." Persons brought into the inheritance together of large worldly possessions would soon realize the necessity of becoming acquainted with what they had so much personal interest in. How few are there who, in the case of spiritual wealth which God has made their own, have boldness and earnestness to lay hold of what is theirs by any means available to them ! When, over sixty years ago, the Spirit of God began to move freshly in the hearts of His people to recover them to one another and revive the almost lost idea of the assembly of God, the reading-meetings were a marked and prominent sign of the awakened interest in His word, and that the people of God as such were awaking to claim for themselves their portion in it. No class of men could be allowed, however gifted, however educated and sanctioned by the mass, to stand between their souls and the possession of what was needed alike by all and designed of God for all. Now, alas, the decay of the reading-meeting means nothing else but the subsiding of that eager enthusiasm for the truth that then was, the lessened consciousness of the Spirit of God, in each and all His own, to give each for himself the power to acquire possession. The flood-tide is gone, and the diminished stream begins to confine itself to the old channels.

We need to proclaim again that God never designed "theology" to be for a class of theologians, but all the treasures of His word to be for all His people,- not a thing in it to be hidden, save from the eyes of the careless and indifferent, those who are willing to exchange their heavenly birthright for a mess of the world's pottage. We need once more to assert that teachers are only a pledge, on God's part, of His eagerness to have all to know,-not that He has restricted to these the possession of any kind of spiritual knowledge. Teachers are only to show that there, in the living fount from which they drew, is the living water for all, as free for others as for themselves. They are only the truth of God's word made to stand out in blazon before the eyes of those who have not yet found it there where He has put it for them, and with this for a motto of encouragement to those who have faith in a God that cannot lie :- "Every one that seeketh, findeth."

The success of teachers is shown by their ability to make others independent of them; when men say to them as the Samaritans to the woman of Sychar, "Now we believe, not because of thy saying"; and in proportion as the Church of God by their means is made to realize its ability for self-edification. As the apostle says that Christ has given gifts unto men,-"some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministry, unto the edification of the body of Christ, until we all come into the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-13). That is, the "work of ministry"-and this is left open to the largest construction-is what the saints as a whole are to be perfected unto. Every saint is free to "covet earnestly the best gifts" (i Cor. 12:31), and responsible to use all the ability that he has, of whatever kind, to enrich others with it. "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal" (verse 7); and if there are special evangelists, all are free and called upon, each in his measure, to evangelize; if there are special teachers, all are free and responsible to communicate to others what God has given them of His truth. Love to each other, love to souls, is to have liberty and be encouraged everywhere.

How blessed would be an assembly of saints in this condition ! every one realizing that the fullness of all spiritual knowledge was open to him to enjoy, -the best gifts were his to covet,-that he was, by the simple wondrous fact of his endowment with the Spirit, the ordained minister of Christ to the world, the ordained servant and helper of his brethren ! How intolerable is the thought of class restrictions to limit and hinder the grace of God in His people ! yet, alas, into which, sensibly or insensibly, they so readily sink down ! The development of all gift is necessarily hindered by it; and this is largely the reason why so few among us are going forth to labor in the ample fields on every side, and why the gatherings develop so little strength and stability. We need not talk about a "laity," to have one. Let God's people sink down into indolent acquiescence in their inability for their spiritual privileges, and little gift of any kind is likely to develop among them. Those that can be fed only with the spoon are infants or invalids.

On the other hand, where spiritual life is strongest we shall be most fully conscious of our need of one another. For spiritual feebleness means always a strong world-element, and occupations, aims, pleasures, in which as children of God, we can have no fellowship-can be no help to one another. Our spiritual links become proportionately theoretical, formal, sentimental. But where life is practical and earnest, its needs will be felt and the grace realized which has united us together. Life is, wherever we find it in nature, in conflict with death ; and organization, which is its constant accompaniment, is the embattlement of its forces against this. Nor is organization a sacrifice of individuality:every part of the body is distinct from the rest, has its own work and responsibility ; and only by maintaining this individuality can the welfare of the whole be maintained. Every one
has a place to fill that no other can fill:every one is necessary. Good it is to remember this, as to ourselves and as to every other. If we forget it, we cannot by this escape from the consequences.
F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

"We should like to go always with a full, favorable wind, but this does not make a good sailor."

The most casual reader of the prophets will not I have failed to noticed their minatory character. We can scarcely turn a page of the prophetic scriptures, either in Old or New Testament, without finding some solemn reminder of the righteous indignation of a holy God against sin, and threats of judgment therefor. These denunciations are directed not merely nor chiefly against the enemies of the people of God, but rather does the sword begin at His house (Ezek. 9:6). Usually it is the present condition of Israel to which attention is called-the moral state, and the corresponding results in their outward condition, under the chastening hand of God. But these-both sins and judgments-are but anticipative of what, if they continue unrepentant will be final. At the same time the mercy of God takes occasion to. offer blessing and recovery when His people truly turn to Him in the mourning that flows from godly sorrow. No matter how deep and long continued had been the revolt, when the people turned, not feignedly, to God, they found Him the same, unchanging in His love and in His thoughts. He could ever say, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil" (Jer. 29:ii).

How lovely are these glimpses into the heart of God-alas that the unbelief of His people and their waywardness, should make them but glimpses, when His desire is that we should ever bask in the full sunlight of His smile. And yet would we, if we could, have it otherwise ? Grace ever reigns through righteousness, and is always perfectly consistent with God's government. His attributes never conflict. Forgetfulness of this often works sad havoc in the life of God's people. The careful study of the prophets would be a wholesome corrective of much carelessness of mind and walk.

It need hardly be remarked that in no way does this touch the question of the perfection of the believer's standing in Christ, on the ground of His accomplished redemption. This ever remains perfect, and is, of course, brought to light in the gospel. Nothing can touch that standing, linked as it is eternally with Him who is risen from the dead. But we are living in times when the fear of God, alas, is well-nigh forgotten ; and this incapacitates for the proper appreciation of His matchless grace. The prayerful study of the prophets would correct such tendencies.

The prophet Joel furnishes a very interesting illustration of what we have been saying. In its brief compass it puts before us the sin of the people and their condition because of it, under the mighty hand of God; the further judgments that will follow if they are still impenitent, and the deliverance and blessing of the people if they even yet turn in true brokenness to Him; the full blessing in the last days when the Spirit would be poured out from on high; and the judgment upon the Gentiles who had afflicted them.

In the midst of the call to repentance we have the promise of blessing, not merely new blessing in the future but the recovery of that which had been lost. Israel's land had been devastated by the locust and the cankerworm under the judgment of God ;-now if they turned to Him, the land would not only yield her increase in the future, but the gracious goodness of God would restore that which had been consumed. "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten " (Joel 2:25).

How often do God's people, in this day, feel His chastening hand:it may not be in temporal things, but in that to which the locusts would correspond in spiritual things. For even our own follies, the fruits of our own departure from God, He uses to chasten us with. "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee:know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God" (Jer. 2:19). The locusts then may fittingly represent those fruits of our own doings which rob us of all joy and communion. What devastation can be more complete than that inflicted by the locusts, save indeed the spiritual dearth of which that was a figure ? " The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness."

How beautiful are the fruits of a soul in communion, with God:"love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith." Christ has His true place and is a welcome guest. "Let my beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits" (Song 4:16). "Their soul shall be as a watered garden." Alas how quickly and completely do these fruits disappear before the devastating sons of Amalek, the lusts of the flesh, which as a swarm of locusts never end their work of destruction so long as anything green is left. The ruin is all the more manifest in contrast with the previous beauty.

We can bless God for His restoring grace, and the prophet does not leave us uncertain as to the steps in that recovery. "Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments" (chap. 2:12, 13). All are called to a solemn assembly for this humiliation-elders and children, the bridegroom and the bride. Even the priests were called to "weep between the porch and the altar"-the place and the true use of the laver, for practical cleansing. When there is this true-hearted and entire turning to the Lord, then He will answer them. So will it be in the day of Israel's repentance, and so is it now with every individual into whose life the locusts have come and brought desolation. Contrition, beloved brethren, real and deep, is the pledge, yea the first sprinkling, of the showers of the "latter rain." "A broken and contrite heart Thou wilt not despise." Again the barren fields put on their green, and joy and prosperity take the place of dearth and gloom.

But our blessed God does not rest with seeing mere recovery. His heart of pity goes out with desire to undo the past, so far indeed as grace can. For in a most real sense the scars of the past will ever remain, memorials at once of our folly and a grace that has risen above it. But is there not sweet, blessed comfort in the thought that the barren past can in some sense be covered over by the fruitfulness of the present ? "I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten."

"The years that the locusts have eaten." Are there such in our lives ? Let this promise cheer our hearts. If in some sense it is true individually, it is none the less so of God's people collectively. Let us look back over past years:-have not worldliness, strife, selfishness too often devoured our increase ? Whence comes the lack of growth amongst God's people, the sluggishness in gospel work and the meager results? Is this to go on? Is our brief time here to be frittered away in what profits not? Beloved, let us awake to our real condition and if there is dearth let us honestly own it and find the tender mercy of our God.

Oh for a genuine revival among the saints! Christ loved in each heart-all linked together with a common object and in a common obedience; the word of God studied as never before; the gospel preached with power, unction and large results:new fields of labor opened and laborers to enter into them. Would that we could have a reversal of the king's dream and see the fat kine eat up the lean ones. Are such things impossible? Looking at this promise, can we, dare we, limit God?

" A few thoughts on the nature and method of Gospel work.

Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice ? She standeth in the top of the high places, by the way in the places of the path; she crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors." (Prov. 8:1-3.) Such a scripture as this shows that the truth of God has nothing to conceal. God is light, and He sends out His light and truth,-not to the few merely, but "to every creature under heaven;" "Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world." (Rom. 10:18.) In beautiful consistency with this world-wide proclamation of the gospel is the scene at Pentecost, where there were representatives of "every nation under heaven," who could hear in their various languages the wonderful works of God. Peter stands forth boldly before the assembled multitudes and proclaims both the sin of man and the mercy of God. Again and again, through the book of Acts, do we hear the message of God's grace sounded out to the crowds,-at Jerusalem, Antioch, the cities of Asia Minor, and Greece; in the temple area, in synagogues, in the market-places, or on Areopagus, at Athens. Wherever there was an opening for the gospel, there the Lord's servants went, proclaiming to Jew and Gentile alike, "repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." They went everywhere preaching the word, and illustrating the apostle's statement, " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." (Rom. 1:16.)

When we remember what that gospel is:how it has saved us; well may we long to cry it out from the very housetops, and seek in the most public way to proclaim it to a ruined world. Is it not the revelation of the very heart of God, telling out His love to lost sinners ? Does it not display His matchless wisdom, in providing a salvation consistent both with His love and His righteousness ? reaching down to the lowest depths of the sinner's need on the one hand, and on the other, rising to the very throne of God-in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ? Oh! what a gospel we have to proclaim,-its simplicity,- its suitability,-its freeness, and, above all, its divine truth ! Well may we

" sound it out so loud
That earth and heaven may hear."

It is, therefore, natural and right that the gospel should be proclaimed in the most public way; and this has usually marked any special awakening. Whitfield and Wesley preached in streets and public squares; on the hillsides in the country places; to the laborers as they went to and from their work. Form and formalism were set aside in the energy of the Spirit of God; these and hundreds of other faithful servants of Christ proclaimed Him to the crowds. What a glorious sight!-thousands drinking in the words of peace and life, and blessing God, as they will to all eternity, for such a proclamation of His grace.

Let us, then, go forth, and pray the Lord of the harvest, to send forth more laborers into this white field. Let the message be sounded forth to all:let us go into the streets with it, wherever we can find the concourse of the people, and the Lord opens the way, and tell out to thousands or to hundreds the precious words of life. May the Lord awaken His beloved people everywhere to this.
The time is short. Soon all the redeemed will be gathered home to enjoy the praise of Him who hath loved us, forever. Then there will be no further opportunity to preach the gospel, and the world will be left helpless, waiting for judgment, The coming of the Lord draweth nigh. As our hearts yearn for that, let them yearn for the salvation of souls. These two thoughts are beautifully blended in Scripture :"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will let him take the water of life freely." (Rev. 22:17.) Here we have the cry of the Spirit in the Church, the longing cry, "Come, Lord Jesus." Whoever hears the message of love in his soul joins in that cry. But while waiting and longing for the coming of the Lord, we turn to the unsaved and say also, Come-come to Christ, ere He come to take His people away. Thus both "comes "blend together; and in proportion as we are truly waiting for the coming of the Lord will we be calling in the sinner too.

This much as to the publicity of Gospel work. Whoever will and can-as led of the Lord-may preach to as large crowds as he can get to listen to him. There need be no form-in public streets or squares of the city; in tents and school-houses in the country; let the blessed work go on.

But no mere casual reader of Scripture even can have failed to notice that much of our Lord's work,
and that of the apostles too, was with individuals. He sifted the multitudes that followed Him:" If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26.) "Ye seek Me not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled." (John 6:26.) There is danger in a crowd:mere excitement may prevail, and many be induced to take a step which finds no response in their souls. Many stony-ground hearers are gathered in at these times, to fall away when persecution or trial comes. The public preacher must be faithful in his warnings, and not seek numbers, but reality.

But in the gospel of John particularly, we notice how our Lord deals with individuals. The call of disciples in the first chapter is largely that-one calling another. To Nicodemus, who comes to Him by night, the Lord unfolds both man's need and how it can be met. The need of new birth, the cross, the love of God, and faith,-what wondrous themes to be poured into the ear of one man ! The same is seen with the woman of Samaria (John iv). How tenderly and patiently does our Lord deal with that one soul. And it is in connection with His labor with that one individual that our Lord speaks of white fields and labor in them (vers. 35-38). Did each of our public meetings result in the conversion of one soul, well might we rejoice. May not our desire for meetings sometimes interfere with our desire for souls ? Two other instances in the gospel of John might be dwelt upon with profit; we merely mention them for the meditation of the reader:the woman in the eighth chapter, and the blind man in the ninth, both illustrate the blessedness of this individual work.

Passing to Acts, we have two most interesting cases in one chapter (Acts 16:). The apostle, guided by the Spirit, leaves Asia Minor, where much blessing had attended the preaching of the gospel, and goes to Europe, where he knew no one. A very striking case, similar to this is that of Philip (Acts 8:). He leaves a work of great magnitude at Samaria, where there had been much blessing, to go to a desert part, where, as far as he knew, no one was to be found. How richly was his obedience rewarded in the conversion of the Eunuch. So in Paul's case:he leaves the work in Asia, and enters upon an untrodden field. Reaching Philippi, they go out to the riverside, and talk with the women who resorted there for prayer. Doubtless they were few in number; but one of them has her heart opened to hear what the apostle tells and is brought to the knowledge of Christ. In the same chapter they are put into prison-apparently a further check upon the gospel-only to find an open door and an opened heart in the jailer himself. Well might the Philippians understand the apostle when in writing to them afterwards from Rome, in chains, "But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel."(Phil. 12.)

Let us not, then, despise work with individuals, or that which seems small in men's eyes. We would especially commend these thoughts to the assemblies of the Lord's people, where there are no special "gifts." If none feel equal to taking a public meeting, and holding the attention of a crowd, all should be able to take their Bibles and tracts and go from house to house, distributing the precious word of salvation. In this day of agents and solicitors of all kinds, can there not be solicitors for precious souls ? How often have open doors thus been found, and hearts prepared by the Spirit of God for the reception of the good seed. Many who would shrink from addressing the public meeting, find a most useful and congenial sphere of service in the modest "cottage meetings," where in close and familiar intercourse the needs of souls are met, and many an one set free.

How these cottage meetings would multiply were there prayer and simple faith to expect open doors. The Christian could invite a few neighbors into his house for a little meeting ; or his fellow workman could be induced to open his doors to such a meeting. The tract visitor at the home could find many such open doors, where two or three Christians could go and find precious souls. These are but suggestions, familiar doubtless to many readers of these lines. Many more ways of spreading the gospel might be easily thought of.

As we said, there is danger in the thought that gospel work necessarily means public meetings of large crowds. Comparatively few are gifted in addressing such; and the novice may easily be puffed up in such work. Meetings are but means to an end, not the end themselves. Oh, for more of that love and zeal which, without excitement, but in dependence upon God, take every opportunity to spread the precious gospel !

This subject is by no means one of theoretical interest merely; nor does it concern us simply as showing the general tendency of the world about us. It is a matter in which every child of God has a direct interest, while it presses particularly upon those Christian households where there are young to be educated. Too long have Christians held their peace, and allowed their children to be taught whatever seemed proper to those in authority, with the inevitable results. Just as in Pharaoh's day, Satan would keep our children back in the world and worldly systems. Let us awake to the dangers of this.

Of the immense importance of education we need hardly speak. It is provided for in the Word of God. Children were to be taught the works and the ways of God. The Word of God itself is a summary of knowledge of various kinds-history, the works of nature, law, ethnology,-but all linked with that which makes true knowledge, with God Himself. This is the proper effect of all true knowledge, to put us into communion with Himself. Thus are the faculties brightened, the mind elevated, and the man occupied with that which lifts him above the level of the brute. Scripture encourages the pursuit of knowledge, particularly that of nature. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."

The Christian Church has been the conservator of education even during the darkest periods of its history. For centuries all of learning was confined to monasteries, where the Word of God was carefully copied and at least partially studied. Outside all was gross darkness and dense ignorance. The great universities of continental Europe and England owe their origin to the Christian Church-even if degraded by superstition and ignorance.

Nor is this merely true of mediaeval times and Roman Catholic countries. Most of the great literary institutions of this country were at the beginning formed by godly men, that their sons might be taught of God and His works. Many were established that young men might get that education which would the better qualify them as preachers of the gospel; and however unduly the thought of human fitness may have predominated, we must thankfully confess that these institutions were founded by men of prayer and faith, and for the glory of God and the blessing of His people.

Very simple were those early institutions. Money was not then so plentiful and there was no show. A simple "Log College" might be the only shelter for a few godly young men with one or two devoted teachers. The whole atmosphere was one of sobriety and much prayer marked the work.

How often have these simple schools and colleges been the scene of wondrous awakenings, where scores of young men were brought to Christ and devoted themselves to His service. How were these institutions centers from which light radiated far into the surrounding darkness.

Let us look at it now. Knowledge surely has increased wondrously. Institutions of elementary and higher education have multiplied until the land is filled with them. Discoveries in the realm of nature
have opened up almost a new world. Appliances of the most ingenious kind have made investigation amazingly accurate and profound. Where tens enjoyed the advantages of a so-called liberal education in the last century, thousands now are obtaining what is tenfold wider and more profound. All this is, at the first glance, very encouraging. But let us look a little deeper. Money is plentiful, and is poured out by millions where it used to be given by hundreds. Are those millions the result of heart dedication to Christ ? Are prayers as constant and as earnest ? Are colleges training schools for piety and scenes of wondrous revivals ?

Look too at the teachers. Formerly they were, as a rule, devoted servants of Christ; now, would not many of the professors claim for themselves the privilege of being "advanced," "liberals," "agnostics"? Is it unkind to say, judging by the character of the teaching, that the mass of college professors are unconverted men ? God forbid that we should judge harshly, and He alone knows the hearts of men, but while morality, uprightness, and professional zeal characterize this class, God seems to be unknown and unloved.

And this is, in a word, the character of modern teaching :God is put far off-out of His world. Development has taken His place. Instead of the providence of God we have the philosophy of history -the development of nations:creation has been displaced by the theory of evolution of man from the lower creatures. The same atheistic theory has been applied to well nigh every branch of science, until it has laid its unholy hands upon the Word of God, and under the plea of "Higher Criticism," has rent it apart into unrecognizable fragments, and left us, if we are to believe these teachers (which, thank God, we are not) a mass of inaccuracy, fraud and superstition, without a divine mind, a living Spirit. These teachers of evolution would thus have us believe that the precious Word of God, instead of having been given by inspiration of God, has developed in connection with the national development of the Israelitish nation. They would leave us nothing supernatural. As we said, God is left out.

Reason is exalted, deified. The mind of man is the final court before which every thing must be
summoned and be examined. God Himself and His Word are thus judged. It is the old lie of Satan, "Ye shall be as gods," as attractive now as ever to the natural mind.

It need hardly be said that this system has no place for such unwelcome truths as the lost and guilty condition of all men, the eternal doom awaiting the impenitent, the person and work of our blessed Lord. All these are but phases in the gradual development and progress of the human race, to be left behind as the emancipated soul builds for itself "more stately mansions." How different it was in the development of the Apostle ? He too left what was behind, for it was linked with self, but what did he have before him as the goal, the end of all ? Christ only.

There is scarcely a branch of human knowledge into which this atheistic spirit has not penetrated. Particularly is this the case in the physical sciences, and the criticism of Scripture. Colleges become thus veritable hot-beds of infidelity, fountains from whence issue streams which poison the masses. Alas, that we should have to say it ! many of the theological schools, where the ministers of the gospel are educated, are thus defiled. What can we expect when the teachers of Christianity are really infidel at heart ?

A sad feature is that colleges for the education of women are not exempt. An infidel man is sad enough; but we have become painfully accustomed to that. Are we now to have infidel women ? Is their higher education, which should be a blessing, to be turned into a curse ? Think of the mothers of the future, instead of teaching the little ones of the blessed Lord Jesus, being themselves really unbelievers; a cold intellectual atheism taking the place of the precious atmosphere of the grace of the fear of God. For the mother makes the home, and where she is ignorant of Christ and God, what will be the character of that home ?

We must expect, alas ! that those who are going on in the course of this world will be such. But these institutions of learning are the places where the sons and daughters of Christian parents receive their training. Some of these institutions are directly under the supervision of the leading evangelical denominations and are responsible to them. Why are not the teachers called to account ? Has the spirit of loyalty to Christ departed ? Oh, for the spirit of Phinehas, of unsparing faithfulness to God.

Many Christian parents send their sons and daughters to these places under the impression that all is well. Does not the Church endorse the college? Is not its president a clergyman ? Imagine the feelings of parents who by self-denial have sent their son to college, to see him return an unbeliever-despising the precious Word of God, and an enemy to the gospel. Would it not be better to see him a drunkard ? for that sin is in the body, but infidelity fastens its fangs upon the heart and feeds upon the vitals of the man's soul.

Does all this sound extreme ? We are persuaded that it is not. Who of us has not heard of these saddest cases ? And who can tell of the innumerable number whose shipwreck of faith will not be known until "the day shall declare it"? So long as the Lord's people are indifferent to the reality of the. danger, so long are they exposed to it. An infatuation seems to have taken possession of the professing Church, and they are ready to barter the Word of God, the truths of the incarnation, atonement, the person of Christ, the presence of the Holy Ghost,- everything that makes up our Christian heritage- for a mess of German pottage. For Germany seems to be one of the most fruitful sources of all this infidelity. The natural industry of that people, coupled with their speculative tendencies, and divorced from the fear of God and subjection to His Word, has produced an immense mass of theories, philosophic and scientific, alike perhaps in nothing save their unlike-ness to God's truth, and their fascination for minds not subject to that truth.

There seems to have been in these theories a revival of the old deism of the eighteenth century, which did not trouble itself so much to deny the existence of God, as to put Him out of His own creation. The educated world is fast becoming agnostic. And this is the tendency in institutions of teaching to-day.

The question then will be asked, Does the enjoyment of a liberal education necessarily mean the destruction of faith ? Most unhesitatingly we answer, No, All true knowledge but enlarges the field
of human intelligence, and strengthens the faculties of man. It puts us nearer to Him who knoweth all things. But all true knowledge must recognize Him as He has revealed Himself in Christ our Lord. We need fear no knowledge of nature or of man. We will find God in all His works. We will find Him even above the chaos of humanity, in the history of the world. All speaks of Him, and when the ear has been once opened to hear the voice of the Son of God, we can see and hear God every where. We can say with the poet,-

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell."

Ah ! that is it. All true knowledge humbles man and exalts God. We cannot have too much of that. Satan, on the contrary, would give knowledge apart from God, and this we repeat is the growing tendency in the vast majority of the educational institutions of to-day.

But we are asked, What is the remedy ? In one sense there is no remedy. We cannot improve the world, and these things are mainly in and of the world. True, if Christians were awake to their responsibilities they might check the growth of infidelity in those schools over which they have control ; or failing in this, they might establish others on Christian principles. In the main, however, we are confronted with the sad fact that education is in the hands of the world.

Shall we then let our children grow up in ignorance ? Better that than have them infidels. But neither is necessary. Our children are in the world, they must overcome it as their parents, it is to be hoped, do. It is well however for the parents to realize that it is the world into which their children go when they begin school. A sense of the danger will put them on their guard.

A happy, holy Christian home is the great safeguard against all kinds of worldliness, whether intellectual or moral. Let there be prayer and faith from the earliest childhood; godly example, tenderness, and withal a firm hand of parental love. In other words, let the children be surrounded at home by an atmosphere of Christianity, let them be taught of Christ and early brought to the gracious Savior. In all probability their conversion will take place early in life.

Nor let the parental care cease with the conversion of the child-it should have then a second beginning. Let the children be sympathized with ; their interests, and their lessons talked over, so that they feel happy in the joy and fellowship of home. The multiplication of schools has made it unnecessary, save in rare instances, for the child to leave home until the time comes for college, and even then it is by no means always necessary.

This is the golden time for seed-sowing and faithful care. By the time he is ready for college, the youth's character should be established and be so confirmed in the faith and knowledge of the Word of God, that the most brilliant theories would seem to him as old wives' fables compared with the precious verities upon which he has grown strong; every suggestion of doubt would be an insult to the blessed Lord, whom he has long known and loved. If the young man is weak and unstable and unsaved, it may be gravely questioned whether he should be sent into the perils of a college life, In fact, unless one show a real aptitude for learning and some soberness of mind, it might be far better to have him enter upon some other walk of life. We only suggest this for prayerful consideration.

Another most important matter and one which should arouse Christian parents to a sense of responsibility is this, should not Christians take a deeper interest in the works of God and in all true knowledge ? If themselves more familiar with the facts of science, could they not more easily check the crudities gathered in the mind of youth ? We do not mean that parents should become students again, but that by reading they should be more or less familiar with the great truths of the world. There are works which can supply most delightful and valuable instruction in these lines.

Above all, let there be a fresh turning to the Word of God. As in Israel's day, whenever they ceased from the occupation of their heritage, the enemy came in and dispossessed them, so it is now. If we were ever gaining in heart knowledge of the perfections of the Word of God, higher criticism would have no dangers for us, nor for the young, growing up to understand the depths of beauty and wisdom in the Scriptures.

Is it not too often the case that Christian parents cease to grow in the knowledge of God's word ? But little that unfolds its wondrous depths is read; in fact, is not their reading confined largely to simple gospel tales or the merest elements of divine truth ? Let there be an acknowledgment of failure, a hearty turning to God with an awakened interest in divine things, and we are persuaded that not all the power of Satan intrenched in all the universities of the world will be able to dislodge one of the least of these little ones from the impregnable position- founded upon the Rock.

At Washington a happy and profitable all-day meeting was held on New Year's; many from Baltimore and Virginia joined in prayer and praise to Him who loves to have His own in happy fellowship with Himself and one another. The afternoon was devoted to meditation on Exodus 12:-the beginning of months-the believer's happy New Year-the redemption through the blood of the Lamb being the beginning of a new creation for him:then the Lamb fed upon, appropriated by the heart as fully and blessedly satisfying it; then the manner of eating-the loins girt-the feet shod-the staff in the hand-the haste,-all indicating the hurried departure from a scene where death reigns. This was followed by reference to Ex. 16:-Christ (as typified in the manna) the sustenance for the wilderness journey; and Joshua 5:- Christ (as seen in the old corn of the land) the delight of the heart, feasting upon Him in the spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Prayer and thanksgiving followed; thus He Himself was before the meeting and hearts were much refreshed.

In the evening the 21st chap, of John was dwelt upon, several taking part, bringing out the Lord's restoring grace as seen in His ways with Peter-the nearness of His return in the "morning" come, and Jesus on the shore, and the feast prepared by Himself in "Come, and dine;" then prayer, praise, a few refreshing words of gospel, and a happy affectionate parting, to await His sure return.

The blessing and refreshment thus enjoyed suggests how much profit might result if brethren could frequently meet in this way for mutual edification and waiting upon God.

A similar meeting was held on the same day at Reading, Pa., at which brethren attending from neighboring towns,-Pottstown, Boyertown, Harrisburg, Allentown, etc., formed a numerous gathering. The morning was occupied with addresses bearing largely on the actual presence of the Holy Ghost on earth since the day of Pentecost; on the peculiarity of the dispensation we are in as resulting from that presence-a divine Person on earth come to declare the glory of the Son of Man in Heaven, and the efficacy of the work He had wrought on earth; to unite to Him livingly, as members are to the head, all that believe on Him; to unite them by that means to one another in One Body; to be in them the power for testimony both in word and practical separation to Christ in this the scene of His suffering and rejection; and to produce in them the " blessed hope " of the Lord's return; for the Holy Ghost Himself must abide here on earth, a stranger, unknown to the world, till Christ comes, and bids Him return home to heaven with the Church. The responsibilities flowing out of such a relationship were afterward followed up, and Bible studies, lasting through the next day, enlarged much on the line of truth introduced. Prayer and praise mingling, manifested both the gladdening and sanctifying effect of the truth of God. May the measure of it ministered at such a time abide in the hearts of God's people. The tendency of the age is frivolity-a " love of pleasure," and there is need at such gatherings to guard against that tendency. The very love of brethren, which is so sweet and blessed, can and does, easily degenerate into what is " natural" if the presence of God be not constantly kept before the soul, and our purpose be holy in coming together. But if holy, if Christ be our object, what blessing indeed we reap in thus using every opportunity to edify and encourage one another.

The Lord has markedly wrought and blessed His word of late in those parts of Pennsylvania. May it please Him now to develop pastoral gifts among them,-sober, godly, fatherly men, whose self-denying care for the sheep and lambs of Christ may work love, unity and peace among them as they journey on.

At Schenectady, N. Y., they invited brethren from Albany, Amsterdam, etc., to spend the New Year's Day with them, and, without particular details, several have expressed themselves as having had a most profitable and refreshing day together in the Lord.

Minneapolis, Minn., Jan. 18th, 1896. …. I am on my way home after a time of happy fellowship in the gospel with brother Brant. Found open hearts for the Word in a few places around Barnum. The few gathered at Barnum are in a happy state.-J. W. Alien.

Anderson, Idaho, Jan. 13, 1896.-Some indications of blessing here. The people seem to hear gladly. Remember me in prayer.-W. J. Hume.

The Church has neither times, seasons, days, months, or years (Gal. 4:10), which belong to the Jew.

Neither has it any carnal ordinances, which are for those living in the world (Col. 2:20); we are dead, and should not be subject to ordinances which all are to perish with the using, but we shall never perish. The assembly (Church) was "chosen in Christ before the world began, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved," and as a heavenly people we need not the things which belong to the world and time, but we are for heaven and eternity. Our ministry is of the Spirit, our unity one body, our hope the Lord's coming. W. M. McK.