The Jerry McAuley Mission in Water Street, New York

The superintendent of this mission has appealed to us concerning our notice of it in the September number of our magazine. He claims that the report of the newspaper which had been sent us was a garbled report, quite unlike what had really taken place, and he assures us that the teaching at the mission remains orthodox.

We are unfeignedly thankful for this. It is always a pain to see the once strongholds of Christianity falling over to the enemy; for what is New Theology, or Modern Thought, or the "Bible Students' Convention" mentioned in same number of help and food, but covered apostasy ? What is the denial of everlasting punishment but saying that Christ died to no purpose, that our sins were not laid on Him, and that God trifles with sin if He receives men apart from the atoning sacrifice of His blessed Son ?

We rejoice, therefore, that the Jerry McAuley Mission has not fallen into these pitfalls, as the newspaper report in question claimed. A prompt, vigorous and public protest against the newspaper report was due, however, by the Mission, first, to our Saviour Himself, and also to all His friends who are friends of the Mission.

Special Attention.

We would call the special attention of our readers to the article in our present issue entitled, " Unity of Action in Christian Discipline." Those who of late years have mourned over the devastations of a proud and pretentious ecclesiasticism will realize the importance of the principle expressed in this article.

There is, indeed, nothing more adverse to the uniting bond of the truth of the One Body, nothing more essentially independent in principle and unholy in character, than a local assembly's act, the righteousness of which is seriously questioned, being nevertheless held as binding upon all others and without appeal. Every assembly of Christians gathered on the principle of the One Body of Christ is in duty bound by its relation to others to allow the fullest investigation of any of its acts by sister assemblies if that act is at all questioned and offensive to consciences. To disallow such an act without due and careful inquiry is lawlessness and confusion. To maintain it under cover of unimpeachableness of the local assembly is to make God the author of a system which binds Him to uphold sin. Who that has the knowledge of God will not abhor such a system ? Who that has upheld it in any measure will not repent of it, and seek afresh the path of holiness, of love and of righteous Christian unity, which follows the heeding of the admonition, "Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility" (i Peter 5:5).

A Contrast.

When the prophet Nathan came to David and set his sin before him, David frankly confessed, "I have sinned against the Lord " (2 Sam. 12:13). He made no excuses ; he sought no roundabout way to let himself down easily ; so he heard the forgiving grace of God which always follows an honest confession, and then humbly bowed to the solemn government of God which always follows our sins.

How differently Jacob acts as seen in Gen. 32. Instead of frankly owning to his brother Esau that
he has sinned against him, he sends present upon present to conciliate him. Even after the severe rebuke he has just received at the hand of God, and the grace shown him by his brother Esau, he still deceives him. "I come unto my lord unto Seir," he says; whilst, as soon as Esau has turned his back to go to Seir, Jacob is on his way to Succoth.

One shrinks more from David's errors than from Jacob's, but how much more refreshing are David's open confessions than Jacob's unexpressed and covered retreats!

The closing year.

The year is closing in dark clouds for this world. At the hour of our writing, the anything but peaceful " Peace Conference" has been followed, as usual, by a bloody war in the very heart of the prophetic earth. It foretells the nearing downfall of the Turkish empire – a necessity for the political conditions which are to prevail at the appearing of our Lord from heaven. It foretells too the great European struggle which is to revive the Roman empire with ten distinct kingdoms under one powerful head. All this tells of sorrows of no ordinary kind – sorrows which, because of the present affiliation of nations, cannot but affect every part of the earth.

How great the mercy of God to have promised to His Church (Rev. 3:10) to keep her out of that dreadful hour by her being "caught up" to heaven before it comes! (i Thess. 4:15-17.) May we value such grace, and prove it by our ways.