A lady once saw a large number of lighted lamps all set close to one another in rows on the platform of a railway station. She wondered at the waste of light through so many lamps being all together. But as she looked, a porter came up and began putting the lamps into a dark train that stood near. One lamp was put into each compartment until the whole train was lighted.

The Christian readers of these pages are like the lighted lamps. Once they were darkness, but now they are light in the Lord, and are set here in the world to shine as lights, "holding forth the word of life."

But is there not a danger of too many lights being together sometimes ? I am speaking of service, not of fellowship. Do you preach the gospel, dear brother ? Well, if you were not preaching somebody else would. The place would not go unsupplied with a preacher if you were unable to be there. But how many dark places in the earth there are where if you do not go and preach the gospel nobody else will ! There are cities and towns near-by where glad tidings are rarely or never proclaimed.

I do not remember an instance in Scripture of the gospel being preached in the room where the Lord's people gathered for their own meetings, for the breaking of bread, prayer, etc. I am not saying that it is wrong to use the meeting-rooms of Christians for the purpose; I merely say that as far as I remember Scripture would not lead us to suppose that it was the practice of the early brethren, in apostolic days, to do so.

I was greatly impressed when on a visit with a friend to Majorca, one of the fairest and least known of the Mediterranean islands. We found our way early on the morning of the Lord's Day into the clean, whitewashed upper room where a few disciples had come together to break bread. At the close of the simple meeting we were asked if we would preach the Word for the edification of the believers in the evening.

We said:"Yes; but can't we have a gospel meeting ?"

"Oh," replied the good brother who was speaking with us, " the gospel is for the world; we go out with that, God willing, this afternoon, and return here for our own edification later."

The "going out" meant, we found, a journey of nearly all the brethren and sisters to the cemetery, where for two hours the glad tidings were sounded out in the hearing of crowds of people. Some asked questions, answers were given which led on to a fresh unfolding of the grace of God. Hundreds of benighted Catholics listened to the joyful news.

My friend whispered to me at the close, "That was apostolic! " and so indeed I had felt it to be.

I am not speaking of methods now, however, but the need to spread abroad with the gospel. The Lord had bidden the apostles bear witness to Him not only in Judea but in Samaria and "unto the uttermost parts of the earth." They, however, and the hundreds of disciples in Jerusalem seem to have been loth to go beyond the bounds of their city home. And God saw that there were too many lights together. He allowed a terrible persecution to scatter them, and the happy result was that "they that were scattered abroad, went everywhere preaching the Word." Philip went down to Samaria, whither Peter and John followed," preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans." Others, exiled from their homes in Jerusalem, traveled as far as Phenice, Cyprus, and Antioch, "preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them; and a great number believed, and turned to the Lord."

Thus it always is when there is a healthy God-given vigor and warmth in the Church. You cannot accumulate water in a heap except by freezing it. Nor can you keep a lot of saints all together- if they do not reach out in Christ-like love to the "regions beyond"-without freezing them ! And it is to be feared that there are many frozen companies of Christians to-day!

May God stir us up that we may each do our share, as called and enabled by Him, both by prayer and in any other way that He may lead, to spread the light in the lands of darkness, or it may be that in these days that afford us our last opportunities, God will permit some persecution to scatter us, as in the days of long ago. H. P. Barker -From "Handfuls of Purpose."