QUES. 12.-I cannot see in the Scriptures that the heathen who die now will be saved. But will they be punished as the Christ-rejecters?

ANS.-No one will be punished as a Christ-rejecter who has not rejected Christ. Heathen will not even be punished as having had the light of Scripture, which they who live in Christendom have. God is a just God, and punishes no man beyond his responsibility.

Rom. 2:14-16 shows that heathen will be judged according to what their consciences accused them of in their violations of what the law of God prescribes. They know not that law, but the conscience of man, without it, has knowledge of wrong in violating it.

As to their being heathen, Rom. 1:20 declares them to be " without excuse," on account of the light of creation. No man, in the face of the wonderful creation around, beneath, and above him has a shadow of excuse in worshiping any but the Creator Himself.

QUES. 13.-The question to which the following is the answer is a letter which we cannot print here. The answer sufficiently shows what the burden of the question is.

ANS.-Concerning the things of which you write, there are, as a rule, more or less of them among the people of God, which always exercise those who watch for the souls of their brethren- things which call for prayer especially, for patience, sometimes for private, and now and then for public, rebuke.

All the Epistles show this, and we are not a whit above those of the people of God who were directly addressed in them. Perhaps the one of them all in which the sweetest Christian fellowship is expressed is that to the Philippians. Their walk seemed the best of all, calling for least admonition; yet even there two sisters are admonished to be of one mind.

So, beloved brother, be not discouraged by seeing causes for prayer, for humiliation, and for exhortation. It is matter for thankfulness that there are such in the assemblies of God's people who feel what there may be contrary to the mind of Christ. It is the shepherd heart. Only if, as yon say, you are conscious of legal tendencies, beware of it. Legality can smite, and smite hard too, but it never heals. The shepherd may have to smite, but his purpose is to heal, and he usually heals. He goes to God first and all along the way. So when he speaks to his brethren he speaks from and for God-their Father as well as his. The legalist is hurt by what offends him. The shepherd is hurt by what offends God. He feels with God without ceasing to love, as he speaks for God and waits upon God to give it effect.

What you mention is, alas, a growing evil among God's people-the unequal yoke. In some quarters a high-handed Pharisaism has almost cast ridicule on the thought of an unequal yoke, and Satan is using it to remove the solemn importance of it, whether it be ecclesiastical, matrimonial, commercial, social, or otherwise. The love of money grows apace, and, to satisfy it, the dangers of an unequal yoke are overlooked; the will of man also suffers less and less to be opposed, and so the limitations which the word of God puts upon us in our pathway are increasingly resented.
These are not easy days for the "man of God." They never were, but we are warned of the special difficulties of " the last days," for they are to be "perilous times." To be faithful through such times; patient, loving still the people of God, ministering untiringly to them, enduring, praying much for them, will find a bright ending at the coming of our Lord.

QUES. 14.-What is the force of 2 Sam. 24:24,-this part of the verse, "Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing " ?

ANS.-The hypocrite, who desires to be praised by men, and who to that end makes offerings for religious purposes, does it in such a way that others have to pay for it after all. The true worshiper, whose heart delights in God, makes his offerings in such a way that the cost of them will be upon himself. There is not a true worshiper but is anxious that all the cost of his worship be his own and not another's. If the very chair he sits on in the worship of God necessitate cost, he will not allow another to bear it for him. Service to God at the expense of others is salt without savor.

QUES. 15.-Is the judgment of Matt. 25 the judgment of nations only, and not that of individuals?

ANS.-It is both:Of individuals and of each nation, one by one. The issue shows this plainly. The individuals of each nation who are found to be "sheep" form the new millennial nations and inherit the kingdom. The others, the "goats," are told, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

Even with Israel this will be the case, as the sealing of the 12,000 from each tribe in Rev. 7 shows. So it is evident that the millennial reign of our Lord will begin with the various nations of the earth purged from the unbelievers. Jeremiah 31:34 affirms this of Israel:"They shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." What we have seen of the judgment of Matt. 25 implies the same in the Gentile nations.

QUES. 16.-Please explain why the "Apocrypha" is left out of our Bibles now ? What right have they to leave it out?

ANS.-For good and substantial reasons as follows:

1. They never were in the Hebrew Scriptures-the Old Testament. They were written in Greek, mostly in Alexandria, long after the O. T. was completed, and none of them pretend to have God's authority, and never say, " Thus saith Jehovah."

2. The writers themselves admit possible error, or not having done well, as 2 Mace. 15:38, 39, " Here will I make an end. And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired:but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto;" and others make statements to the same effect. Some of them have value as history, the same as Josephus, but nothing more.

3. Part of the "Apocrypha" were first put in with the Scriptures by order of the pope, when Jerome translated the Scriptures into Latin, called " the Vulgate." Jerome protested against it, but the pope prevailed, and some of the Apocrypha in consequence were put at the end, and separate from the Bible books. They were afterwards incorporated in the Roman Catholic Bibles by the Council of Trent in 1563.

4. The English Church, under Henry viii, having rejected the authority of the pope and made the king head of the church, the Apocrypha, introduced by the Romish church was retained in the Protestant translations until 1826, when, after much controversy, they were left out from English Protestant Bibles.

QUES. 17.-In 1 Thess. 4:14 what is implied in the expression, "Even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him?"

ANS.-Their resurrection from among the dead, even as Jesus was brought up from among the dead.

QUES. 18.-In the 5th parable of Matt. 13 it is said that the Lord bought the field. From whom did He buy it?

ANS.-A parable cannot be used in that way. It has instruction to give on a certain matter to which we must limit ourselves. This one is given to convey to our minds that which our Lord was willing to pass through to redeem a lost people. To this end He made propitiation on the cross not only for that people, but also for the whole world. He has title to all therefore.

QUES. 19.-Would you kindly give us a word on Rom. 10:6, 7, "Who shall ascend into heaven? Who shall descend into the deep? " We are going through Romans in our readings and some of us would welcome a little help on that passage.

ANS.-It is a quotation from Deut. 30:11-14. In reading the previous verses of that chapter you will easily see that it is a prophecy concerning Israel, when "the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee . . . and the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed," etc.

This return will not be through their law-keeping, but through God's grace-the grace by which we too are saved now, and which time by Jesus Christ. Moses leaves this still a secret, in Deuteronomy, but Paul reveals the secret in Romans. It is through grace, by Jesus Christ, who went down into the deep and has ascended up into heaven. But grace is not something for which we have to go far off and reach after. Christ went down into the depths and has gone into the heights whence grace conies, so that to us," The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart:that is the word of faith which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."