(The reader should always turn to the Bible and read the passages referred to.)

QUES. 10.-We would like to have your thoughts on Matt. 5:42, "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." Please answer in Help and Food as others are interested.

ANS.-In Matt., chaps. 5-7 our Lord gives the principles which are to guide His obedient people. They are principles of love toward our fellow-men, to be wisely acted upon-not blindly on the letter. Our heavenly Father does not give indiscriminately what anyone may ask, but according to His good and wise government. See 1 John 5:14; James 4:3, etc.; and we are to be imitators, or "followers of God, as his dear children" (Eph. 5:1). While we are exhorted to express to Him our needs or desires freely, He gives or withholds according to His wisdom.

There is no lack of selfish, greedy, persons, ready to ask for, and take or "borrow" what they have no tangible prospect of returning. So that it is better to count what is "borrowed" as a gift rather, because if not returned and restitution is required, the courts would have to be resorted to-the very opposite of what Matt. 5:40-42 inculcates.

Let the heart be right with God and toward our fellow-men; then seek His wisdom how to act in such matters.

QUES. 11.-Please explain in Help and Food why Jesus said to Mary, "Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father," while He said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side" (John 20:17, 27).

ANS.-Mary Magdalene, out of whom the Lord cast seven demons, seems to have been attached to the Lord perhaps beyond any other-she followed the Lord, ministered to Him, beheld Him on the cross, followed His body to see where they laid it, prepared spices to embalm His body, came first to the tomb while it was yet dark-all this while ignorant, or not having taken in, that He must rise from the dead. Even after the angel had said to the women, "He is not here, but is risen," she stays at the grave when the others had gone.

Then her heart suddenly leaps at the Lord's voice calling her by name! She seems to have thought she had recovered Him who was the Sun of her life, as she answers, "Rabboni-my Master." Mary knew not that she could not have her Lord here on earth visibly and physically as before, but that He was to ascend back to heaven, to the Father where He now is. Jesus therefore corrects her misapprehension by saying, "Lay not hold on Me" (as the Num. Bible correctly puts it). It was not a mere touching Him that the Lord meant, as Matt. 28:9 proves, when the returning women worshipfully "hold Him by the feet." He is now gone back to the Father, and is to return visibly and physically, to establish His kingdom, when His worshipers can "lay hold" of Him again.