QUES. 11. In what way did manna humble the people of Israel, as mentioned in Deut, viii, 16? and, applied to us, in what way does it humble us?

ANS. According to verse 3 of the same chapter God allowed Israel to hunger for want of anything to eat. This in detail is given in Ex. 16:when, in their extremity, God gives them manna-bread from heaven. Nothing humbles man like being dependent for food, and nothing makes him cling more to the one upon whom he is dependent for it. Thus God wrought with His earthly people, that He might make them cling to Him, and thus educate them for the position He had given them that He might pour upon them all that was in His heart for them.

It is the same principle with us. The first sign of the work of the Spirit of God in a man is that he hunger. Pleasure, wealth, honor, or all the world together, are no longer able to satisfy him. "All is vanity" he cries, in his hunger for something which can satisfy.

The manna, the bread of heaven, is Jesus. That is the food God offers to the man who is humbled by such hunger. And from beginning to end He has no other food to offer. Is it a question of the burden of the guilt of sin? "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin." Of power for a holy and fruitful life? "I am crucified with Christ:nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

Is it a question of lost communion? "We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Of ending all the groanings of our present imperfect condition and circumstances of sorrow? "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God:and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Thus, and in a multitude more of the needs of God's people on their way home, the one remedy God has for them is Jesus. He lets them try this and that till they hunger-till they are humbled -then He teaches them that in every instance they are shut up to the provision He has made for them in Christ Jesus. And the full blessing of this we shall know only at our "latter end." It seems now an endless discipline, but its issue will be eternal rest -the Sabbath of God for His toiling people.

QUES. 12. Did the blood, carried into the holiest on the day of atonement, atone in type for the sins of the people for the year that had passed only, or was it an annual remembrance before God of all their sins? Is there a sense in which it would speak for the year then future? The question has come up in our Bible class and we cannot find anything in written ministry that exactly touches the point.

ANS.-The redemption from transgressions in Israel under the law was not once for all -eternal, but once for a year. Hence they came into remembrance every year. A temporary removal of sins is good only for the time for which they are removed. When that passed, the question of their removal came up again. Thus the yearly recurrence of the question showed that their sacrifices did not put away sins actually. Only the sacrifice of Christ does that, It was not simply that Israel needed the removal of the sins of the year in which an atonement was made :they needed the removal of their sins-all their sins, but they never got anything but a temporary removal. Thus they were taught to expect the sacrifice of which theirs was a type-the sacrifice that procures eternal redemption.

QUES.13. Is instrumental music out of place in the Christian home? I do not believe it should have any place in the Christian assembly, inasmuch as the Church is a heavenly body and its worship "in spirit and in truth,"as the Lord indicated in John iv, 23. But is there not a difference between the Christian family circle and the Christian assembly ?

ANS.-Most assuredly. The difference is very clear. The family circle is by creation ; the Church is by redemption. What is of creation therefore suits the family circle. All that God has made can be used there, and will not be harmful, but good, If used in the leaf of God. The Christian must need remember, however, that sin is everywhere; that Satan makes large use of the very best things of creation ; that music, one of the sweetest things God has created, is largely in his hands for evil. This being remembered and avoided, instrumental music in the household may help much in the proper social enjoyment of the family, and in furnishing the minds with tunes which will serve well in the Christian assembly.

Then, after all, there is nothing like the human voice, nothing like a happy heart which breaks out in praise to God through the lips. May there be more of this everywhere among God's people.