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

But what did he mean ? A glance at the connection will show. He is quoting the thoughts of a discouraged one. "The body of Christ!-but what is a body of which the members are scattered here and there, and hardly anything of the form remains as Scripture shows it ? " Does any one believe that our brother was teaching that the body of Christ had ceased to exist because of the ruin of the professing Church ? This is the connection in which the sentence occurs quoted above. In immediate connection with it he says, " It requires the power of the Spirit of God to lift one up to face that which is seen with the brighter reality of that which is unseen." That which is seen is an apparently dismembered body of Christ, apparently enfeebled and decaying eternal life. He says, "seems" But, thank God, the reality abides, and the way our brother puts it ought to emphasize this.

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