QUES. 11.-There is some difficulty among some of us here in reference to the passage in Rom. 8 :13:"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." Does this mean eternally lost?

ANS.-Yes. To "live after the flesh " is the course of the unconverted, whatever their profession may be; just as "If ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body " describes the course of the children of God. The 14th verse shows that it is a question of being, or not being, "the sons of God."

QUES. 12.-Please explain the parable of the unjust steward- Luke 16.I do not understand the 8th and 9th verses.

ANS.-When God had made all things (Gen. 1 and 2), He placed man as His steward over them. Man fell, and thus became an "unjust" steward. As God had warned him, he would now die, and thus be brought to an end of his stewardship. In view of this end, if he is wise, he makes use of the time yet left him to make himself friends for the time afterward ; that is, we, the Lord's disciples, use the earthly things in our hands in this life to make ourselves friends with them in the life to come. Everything of earthly value which we may bestow on what belongs to the other world will surely meet and welcome us up there. The end of the 8th verse shows we are too slow in this-slower in seeing our real interests than the men of this world are in seeing theirs. How quick they are in catching at a good opening for investment! They are of the earth, and love the earth. We who are of heaven, and love heaven, how easily, alas, we miss opportunities to invest for heaven! May our hearts be more keenly set on the things which give needed intelligence for this !

How marked is the order of these chapters :salvation provided in the 14th, embraced by the prodigal in the 15th, then stewardship in the 16th.

QUES. 13.-Please explain 1 Tim. 4 :10-"Who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.'' Are all men to be saved ?

ANS.-"Saviour" here is not as that of our souls, but as our daily Preserver-the One who does not overlook even a sparrow, but cares for all His creatures; for all men therefore, and especially for those who are believers.

QUES. 14.-Please explain 1 Cor. 7 :14-"Else were your children unclean ; but now are they holy." In what sense are the children holy, when some of them are profligates, scorners, and blasphemers ?

ANS.-The apostle has just been discoursing on marriage, and its relations. He has now come to a new feature in it-a believer and an unbeliever finding themselves, by the conversion of one of the two, bound together. This condition had, thus far, been left unprovided for by Scripture, as the expression, "To the rest speak I, not the Lord," shows. The apostle provides for it now. The marriage tie remains inviolate. The believer sanctifies the unbeliever, and their children are holy. Not holy, of course, in the practical sense, but in the positional sense. The household is, before God, linked with the believing one. He is free therefore to identify them with himself in all household worship-prayer, praise; to disciple them; that is, "teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded yon."

It is henceforth a Christian household, under Christian training and government. Nor has God left this without promise, as verse 16 plainly shows. Law would cast out the unclean one and the children (Ezra 10); grace-the precious grace of God-identifies them with the holy, and declares them holy.

If you are not clear in the difference between being positionally and practically holy, see Heb. 10:10 for the first, and 1 Thess. 4:3 for the second. The ungodly course you speak of could not exist in a Christian household, under Christian government, whatever cue might become after he has left it.

QUES. 15.-Please let us know through "Help and Food" to what the words of Col. 2:21, 22 apply:"Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using."

ANS.-In reading the previous verses carefully you will see that it is a question of observing Jewish, religious ordinances which consisted in "meat, drink, holy days, new moons, sabbaths," all of which were but " a shadow of things to come "-the things which we now have in Christ.

When Christ came and died, all those ordinances which pointed to Him and His cross ceased. We, Christians, start from that cross. Our past ends there. Christ rises, and the faith which links us with Him gives us the same place :we are risen too. Our all is now therefore in the eternal realities which are in Him :He, Himself, is our meat, our drink, our perpetual holy day, our new beginning without an ending, our eternal sabbath of rest.

Very well, then, says in substance the apostle, if that is so, why then are you yet subject to such ordinances as touch not; taste not; handle not ; things which concern the stomach and not the soul? Why do you allow yourselves to be brought thus under the commandments and doctrines of men? It may look very plausible and very pious, but it is only will worship.

Alas for God's dear 'people who are under such things. They cannot "grow in grace," nor increase in the knowledge of God." They remain spiritual dwarfs.

Dear Mr. Editor,

I have been asked to answer the following questions in" Help and Food," and accordingly send them on to you. C. Grain.
QUES. 16.-Does Scripture teach that a soul starting out in divine faith in Christ and His work has eternal life, and can never perish ?

ANS.-It does, most abundantly-John 10:27-29 very clearly so. But I would call special attention to 1 Peter 1:23. We are born again of the incorruptible, imperishable seed of the word of God. If a person once born again could ever cease to have eternal life, the seed of the word of God implanted in his soul by the Spirit of God would perish in him. This is impossible.

QUES. 17.-Does the epistle oi Jude teach that a man may have divine faith, and afterwards lose it?

ANS.-No ; but it teaches that men-unbelieving men-may creep into Christianity, professing the grace of God of which it is the revelation, and abuse it. They are "ungodly men," and "walk after their own ungodly lusts," and not in the "truth which is after godliness."

QUES. 18.-In the Lord's words to Martha (John 11:20-27) is there anything more than the resurrection of the body ? We know Christ is the resurrection aud the life for the soul primarily, and then for the body, but can the second clause of verse 25, and verse 26, be- applicable to anything but what takes place at the Lord's return ? that is, the resurrection of the body alone.

ANS.-John 11:25, 26 might be expressed thus :"I am the annulment of death and corruption. He who believes on Me, even if he has died, shall have incorruptibility. And he who lives and believes on Me has the annulment of death and corruption." Our Lord is speaking here only a few weeks before the cross, aud as in its shadow-as anticipating it. He was personally the annuller of death and corruption, aud would therefore not only bring back from death and corruption the believer who has seen them, 1:e., has died, but would also abolish them for him who lives believing on Him. It is now true that He has "abolished death and brought incorruption to light." See 2 Tim. 1:10. Faith, under the light of the gospel, lives in the realities beyond death and corruption-in what, therefore, death aud corruption cannot touch. To such, death and corruption are behind them. In this sense they will never die. To them death is a nullity. Properly speaking, death is penalty, but it is not so now to the believer.