QUES. 14.-Is it possible to commit the "unpardonable sin" now in our time, as mentioned in Mark 3:28-30?

ANS.-We scarcely like to have such a subject put in such a radical way. We have along our course repeatedly had to show to self-occupied persons who thought they had committed that sin because they could not get peace with God, that they were in error, for they had neither seen the Lord's miraculous works of power, nor maliciously ascribed to Satan the power of the Holy Spirit required for such acts. Thus far we could go freely, but we would fear to speak in the sweeping way your question suggests.

It is for a different reason, we own, yet with the same end, that the warnings in Heb. 6:4-6 and Heb. 10:26-30 are given. We must not nullify the solemnity of these warnings. It is a fearful thing to sin against light.

QUES. 15.-When, in John 13, the Lord washed His disciples' feet did He also wash Judas' feet, and did Judas participate in the Lord's supper ?

ANS.-This is not a matter of interpretation, but purely of Scripture statement, and if Scripture has made no clear statement as to it, it is because God, no doubt, thought it best not to tell us. As to what doctrine there may be back of it, we see no more difficulty in Judas partaking of these favors than in his not partaking. This is not the day of judgment, but of grace, when God deals with men in grace. When the time of judgment comes, then He will separate the true from the false, and the judgment on the false will be the more severe for the benefits they enjoyed but did not profit by. The Lord knew Judas as well at the beginning as at the end, but He made him known to others only at the end, when his state had ripened into full fruition. Meanwhile He bore with him in grace and gave him the freedom of all His favors.

QUES. 16.-Why do we not now fast, as for instance in the early days of the church ; also in 1 Cor. 7:5?

ANS.-Because we have decreased in piety. But perhaps, in a quiet unnoticed way, more continue the practice than appears to men, and thereby win victories in their Christian life which are recorded on high. "We are creatures of extremes:many, in ignorance of God's way of salvation, have fasted and starved themselves to obtain it-all in vain, of course, for it is "not of works, lest any man should boast." But when they have discovered this they are liable to despise those ways of piety which they used in a wrong way. God did not despise Cornelius' pious ways, as we see in the account of Acts 10. There was no virtue in them to procure salvation, but they expressed a mind in dead earnest, and God loves such a mind, not only when salvation is the matter of interest, but anything which is for the glory of God and the good of His people. A man, or a company of people, having some divine object in view, and so earnest about it that they fast and pray over it, are not likely to be disappointed. Refusing food, in a hearty way, proves we have an object of more value to us than our comfort, and by it we are enabled to humble ourselves more deeply before God.

Self-righteousness may plume itself with it as having done something very meritorious, and which puts God in our debt, but shall we deprive ourselves of its benefits because it has been wrongly used?

The mind of the day is against it. To be happy, to sing, to throw off all sorrow, to make life a joyful ride through a lovely scene, seems the prevailing mind of the times. But this was not our Saviour's course, and "If we say we abide in Him, we also ought to walk even as He walked." We need scarcely say that we have little else than disgust to express concerning the pretended fasting of the "Lenten season"-a fasting which longs for the end of it that sinful pleasure may be indulged in again.

Real fasting-such as God takes notice of-is from a heart anxious over some important matter, and desirous to give itself to prayer and supplication about it. It helps us, if done in sincerity, to present ourselves before God in brokenness of spirit, an attitude ever becoming to us in the presence of God.

Some answers remain for next No. of Help and Food