(Read 2 Timothy 4 :1-13.)

The circumstances in which the apostle Paul was found as the prisoner of the Lord, when penning his second letter to Timothy, largely answer to the place in which faithfulness to the truth is likely to put one in these closing days of the dispensation. Whether believers may be called on to endure actual persecution, even to deprivation of liberty, as Satan's plans are developed, may be an open question; but it is very evident that the gospel of the grace of God, and the great truths connected with the mystery of Christ and the Church, were never in greater disfavor among so-called leaders in Protestantism than at the present time. Rome's attitude toward the gospel has always been distinctly antagonistic, and persecution would be as severe today, did she have unrestrained power, as in the bloody centuries just before and after the Reformation. But it is a new thing to find men of prominence in Protestant churches, and great semi-religious organizations lined up under the Protestant banner, boldly denouncing the gospel and holding up to ridicule those who preach it. More than that, so much as in them lies, they have not refrained from using the most unprincipled means whereby to hinder the usefulness of men who proclaim salvation through the atoning blood of Christ, and especially those who thus set forth the glorious truth of the Lord's near return.

The falsehoods which have been circulated by certain men in connection with the Chicago University are well known. They have deliberately endeavored to make people believe that the very dissemination of literature and the public teaching on the Lord's coming, was pro-German propaganda, financed by German agents! And this, in spite of the fact that they well know that the awful flood of higher criticism and rationalism, which has in certain quarters been carrying all before it for the past fifty years, is distinctly the product of godless German universities. Men of unflinching integrity and loyalty to the word of God have been branded as secret political agents, and their books, so far as possible, proscribed by these audacious and unprincipled leaders in the apostasy.

In addition to this, however, we have the shocking spectacle of Y. M. C. A. leaders deliberately attempting to throttle gospel preaching and the circulation of pure gospel literature among the soldiers in Army Camps, but giving free rein to those teaching the abominable and Christ-dishonoring tenets of the New Theology-new only in name, actually as old as the devil's lie in the Garden of Eden, " Ye shall be as gods."

The writer has had personal testimony from many men who went into Y. M. C. A. work, hoping thereby to have opportunity to preach Christ to those who so sorely needed the gospel message, only to find their efforts thwarted in a very considerable degree by those in authority ; and, in many instances, the ban was put on the circulation of sound gospel tracts; permission was refused to distribute these messages of God's grace, while tons of vicious and soul-destroying booklets of such apostates as Dr. Bosworth and others, were spread broadcast through this very agency-bearing the
red triangle on the covers. It would be hard to find a more heretical publication than Bosworth's booklet, "About Jesus," in which there is not the slightest hint of His deity, or divinity, or the atoning value of His death. But He is set forth as a mere man, whose temptation in the wilderness was the awful struggle between His better self and His animal propensities-a struggle in which He never fully overcame until in the final conflict in the garden ! (We ask pardon even for quoting this false teacher's blasphemous words.)

And what godly Christian has not been inexpressibly shocked by Harry Emerson Fosdick's vulgar, ignorant, and vitriolic attack on every fundamental of the Christian faith, in a recent issue of " The Atlantic Monthly," and quoted largely in " The Literary Digest." This is the man whose " Meaning of Prayer," "Manhood of the Master," and "Meaning of Faith," have been circulated by hundreds of thousands among all classes of Christians, and every one of them fundamentally unsound. "The Manhood of the Master" is but a counterpart of Bosworth's booklet, or perhaps we should say is its prototype. In "The Meaning of Prayer" the Holy Ghost is never mentioned by this versatile author in one solitary instance, unless we except one or two quotations from orthodox writers, in which the "Divine Spirit" is referred to. In "The Meaning of Faith," the blood of Christ, His substitutionary atonement, His cross of shame, are never alluded to. Think of prayer without the Holy Spirit, and faith that ignores the blood of Christ's cross ! Yet this writer exerts to-day a tremendous influence over tens of thousands of professed Christian men and women, particularly of the younger generation.

How solemnly may one apply Jeremiah's words in view of such conditions, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end thereof ?"

It is a solemn fact that the word of God predicts just such an apostate condition as the last state of the professing Church on earth; and it behooves all lovers of Christ and His truth to bestir themselves to increased faithfulness and devotion in days such as these. Never was there a time when it was so necessary to "Preach the word; be instant in season and out of season:reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." Faithful preaching and faithful living must go hand in hand. The time has already come when men, generally, will not endure sound doctrine. In accordance with their own carnal desires they are heaping to themselves teachers, whose sentimental platitudes, well-rounded unscriptural periods, tickle their itching ears. Having turned away from the truth, they turn eagerly to all kinds of fables, and are ready to believe anything or everything that hides man's true condition, and obscures the Cross, with the eternal issues that hang upon the acceptance or rejection of the gospel message.

Everyone who desires the Lord's approval, at His soon-coming judgment-seat, may well take to heart the solemn admonition:"Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." One does not need to be what is commonly called " an evangelist " to do the work of one. Every believer who circulates gospel tracts; everyone who uses his pen to write to his unsaved friends, seeking to impress upon them their need and God's remedy; every personal worker, as well as those who take the public platform, telling out the "old, old story," is doing the work of an evangelist. Gospel days are nearing their close. The dispensation is fast coming to an awful end for those who are in rebellion against God and His truth. The Lord's return is drawing near. Let us spend and be spent for Him in our brief season for faithful testimony.

" Only a little while to spread the truth abroad;
Only a little while to testify for God.
Only a little while to tell the joyful story
Of Him who made our guilt and curse His own.
Only a little while till we behold the glory,
And sit with Him upon His throne."

The love of many waxes cold. Imitators of De-mas, who loved the present world and left Paul, abound. The times demand men like faithful Luke and "profitable " Mark, who value what is of God, and will stand unflinchingly for His truth whatever the cost.

I would press upon every Christian reader of these lines the importance of turning absolutely away from all fellowship with those who are leading on the apostasy. The call of the Lord is distinct:"From such turn away." "Come out from among them and be ye separate . . . touch not the unclean thing." "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." "We would have healed Babylon, and she is not healed; forsake her." "Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."

Christians will be held responsible for every penny they contribute to organizations that are apostate in character, and for every act of fellowship that helps to make it easier for Satan's emissaries to pursue their nefarious work. Faithfulness to Christ demands separation from that which so gravely dishonors His name. H. A. Ironside.