QUES. 5. – Several of our children have confessed faith in Christ as their Saviour, but as yet have not received water baptism. They desire to be with us at the Lord's table. Does Scripture forbid their being received before being baptized ?

ANS. – We do not find in Scripture such a thing as admitting at the Lord's table first, and baptizing afterward. Baptism, being the initiation ordinance into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, is always the first thing. Mark, we say the kingdom, not the assembly. The two things, though related, are quite distinct from each other. The Lord's table is for those who, within that kingdom, show a living faith in Christ. If you have not baptized your children in infancy, you should baptize them upon their confession of Christ as their own Saviour; then present them to the assembly for reception at the Lord's table.

The assembly does not receive them because they have been baptized, but because they discover in them such work of the Holy Spirit as shows them to be truly members of Christ. They should insist, however, that persons being received among them be baptized persons.

We thank God with yon for His grace in your children. What are they given us for, but to train them for Him who died for them and has made us such precious promises concerning them ?

QUES. 6.-Does the believer have a purged conscience without first having a knowledge of Christ's work ? Could we say he has "no more conscience of sins" until he has appropriated that work?

ANS.-Surely not. Until he has appropriated the work of the Cross, the question of his sins is not to him a settled question. How then could his conscience be free ? And after he has appropriated it, and his conscience is free as to his sins, he is still likely to be in bondage as to himself until he has learned that he himself, a hopelessly sinful being, has been by the hand of God put to death in the death of Christ, and raised out of death in the resurrection of Christ, to know himself now as of a new creation-a man in Christ and Christ in him, perfectly fitted for the presence of God.

Alas, how few among God's people so learn their fallen state as to realize the absolute need of this wonderful provision of God's grace revealed in the death and resurrection of our Lord, and appropriate it!

QUES. 7.-In a late number of Help and Food you had an article on the Lord's table, which was a help to me. I have since seen different things written, however, making it incumbent on the children of God to discern whether this or that company of Christians have or have not the Lord's table, and making it their ground of having or not having fellowship with such companies. If this be true, it makes one fear lest he be not at the Lord's table here or there.

ANS.-The article you mention was written to deliver such of the people of God as are entangled in this morass. The questioning as to this or that table being the Lord's may have been well intended in its beginnings, to show the inconsistency of evil with the holiness of the Lord's table. But the principle is not of God, and it leads astray therefore. It becomes an evil power to frighten the weak into unholy paths. We press afresh what we pressed in the article in question, namely, that the word of God never bases Christian fellowship on finding out where the Lord's table is, but on finding out where truth and righteousness are- where the word of God is free from cover to cover, and bowed to.

Basing fellowship on the first ends in fanaticism and Romanism -a source of abundant human degradation; the other, in spiritual intelligence and holiness-that which gives divine freedom to the soul and makes us fruitful.

QUES. 8.-In December number, in answering a correspondent, you say that the only way to enter the kingdom, whether on its earthly or its heavenly side, is by being born of God. If this be true, how shall we understand Matt. 8 :12, where the children of the kingdom are cast out into the outer darkness ?

ANS.-The Scripture always allows that what is not real may enter in with the real. During the day of grace, in which we are now, this condition of things goes on, and will go on to the end, when the Judge Himself shall separate them.

QUES. 9.-Your Question and Answer department has been a great help to some of us; for the needs of God's people are, I judge, pretty much the same everywhere, at some time or other.

May I ask a question in my turn ? The answer may be useful to others as well.

Is it proper for almost the youngest brother in an assembly to give letters of commendation when there are brethren of ripe years both willing and able to do it?

ANS.-The word of God is very explicit on this matter. It does not allow the elder brethren to silence or treat as underlings the younger ones. It says to the elder as well as to the younger, "Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility:for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble" (1 Pet. 5:5).

The verse begins, however, with the words, "Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder." Even a prominent servant of Christ, as Timothy was, is exhorted, "Rebuke not an elder sharply, but exhort him as a father " (1 Tim. 5:1). " Honor thy father and thy mother" is one of the ten commandments of the law; and so important is it, that it is referred to in Eph. 6 :2 as '' the first commandment with promise.'' Lev. 19:32 says, " Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man," then immediately adds, "and fear thy God."

But we will not multiply quotations, though we realize the existing defect in this matter. An irreverent, forward youth, who fears not to take things into his own hands which belong to his elder brethren, is a painful sight. It betrays an unbroken will, and a lack of piety. We trust our Sunday-schools everywhere, while giving prominence to the great truths of Christianity, will not forget the practical exhortations which abound in Scripture. The home, of course, is the great school for practical life; but, alas, the obedience of children, so delightful to God, is not much enforced any more, and the results of this go into the assembly of God's people, more or less. Let obedience be required from 'earliest childhood, and respect to parents and older people, and we shall suffer little from the subject of your inquiry.
QUES. 10.-Would you answer the two following questions ?

1.Do we serve the Lord, or does the Lord serve us ?

2.Is hell-fire literal fire, or is it used as a figure?

ANS.-If you will attentively read 2 Kings 4, you will find a lovely answer to your first. The prophet, type of the Lord, serves the poor, needy woman. Then the other woman-the rich one- serves the prophet, though later on the prophet serves her too.

So the blessed Lord serves us in all our need-when we were yet sinners, and since we have become saints. Then, from grateful, worshipful hearts, we spend our life in serving Him.

As to your second, we suppose the fire is used figuratively, even as the worm that dieth not. They are figures, no doubt; but of what? Could the reality be less than the figure? Oh that men would lay it to heart, and heed God's solemn warning rather than the lie of Satan now heard everywhere ! What a gulf is yawning before the host of antichrists who deny the everlasting punishment of the wicked! for they thereby make ,the way of^escape which God has provided null and void.