Calendar:May 16th to June 15th

DAILY BIBLE READING:…….. May 16th, Jer. 29; May 31st, Jer. 44; June 15th, Ezek. 2.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING:…. May 16th, Rev. 17; May 31st, Matt. 10; June 15th, Matt. 25.

Completing the prophecy of Jeremiah, and its companion supplement, the Lamentations, we enter upon the great prophet Ezekiel. We have already spoken of some of the characteristics of Jeremiah. It is well in these readings either to have a note book or to mark carefully in your Bibles the striking passages as we go on. Both methods could be followed. As to marking, do not attempt too much, and do neatly whatever is done. Passages which bring out the nature of sin, which show the character of God as abhorring evil, and those which point to His mercy for the penitent, could be marked, and specially those which point forward to the coming day of God's merciful restoration of the people to their land. Jeremiah is somewhat more engaged with the details of the people's sins and their judgment than Isaiah, while the latter abounds more fully in direct predictions as to the coming of Messiah. Can you find in Jeremiah any specific predictions as to our Lord Jesus?

The Lamentations are solemnly beautiful in their sorrows, with gleams of hope scattered here and there; for God's precious word is not a message of despair.

It may not be known by all that Lamentations is written, each chapter except the last, as an alphabetic acrostic. Each verse in the first four chapters begins with the appropriate letter of the Hebrew alphabet, after the manner of Ps. 119, and other acrostic psalms. The third chapter, which has three times as many verses as the others, devotes three verses to each letter. Do not these indicate that God would use all kinds of means to deepen interest and to fix in the memory His holy Word?

Coming to our supplementary reading, we have only a few more chapters to reach the close of Revelation. May the wonder of the whole Book grow on us as we read and study its divinely perfect pages.

Resuming Matthew, how would it do to read this time in Mr. Darby's Revised N. T.? While our Authorized Version must always be the ordinary and tegular book of our reading, it is well to become familiar with this excellent Revision. There are shades of meaning and more accurate renderings brought out than in our regular version; and yet we cannot but be impressed with the fidelity of translation and the beauty of the language of the older version. Perhaps you might have time to read both versions together, a few verses at a time. A few minutes' careful reading would complete the chapter for the day.

Greek Testament Lessons

LESSON 67. Page 66, Vocabulary, write out entire list of words, accenting and giving meanings from memory. Give the "principal parts" of each verb-present, future, aorist and perfect, in the active voice, and perfect and first aorist in the passive; but not the synopsis entire.

LESSON 68. John 1:23-25. Parse each word as in previous lessons.

For those who are well up with our lessons, I would now suggest in addition to the regular work, to begin, as a reading lesson, the epistle to the Galatians. I think your present knowledge of the verb and other verbal forms will enable you to read without much difficulty. At the close of each of your regular lessons you might add a literal translation of, say four, verses in consecutive order, of this epistle. -S. RIDOUT.

"The Kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened"-Matt. 13:33.

In Rom. 11 we see how God puts what He has formed at present on the earth to bear His name, in the position of a public visible system on the earth, as He did Israel. "Behold the goodness and severity of God ; on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou shalt be cut off." God can cast off the professing church in perfect consistency with what He has revealed Himself to be, because it is not a question of His grace and goodness, or of individual salvation; but simply and only of responsibility. And this it is which makes His dealings with these churches a deep and positive warning to us, as the very same principle applies to Gentile as to Jewish testimony. God will accomplish, to the very word, every promise He has made to Israel. Yet we all know as a plain fact, that God has cast off Israel as visible witnesses to bear His name to the world. And He will, in the same way, cast off the Church, if it fails in its responsibility on the earth. Thus we see how God maintains His government in respect to the testimony which His people ought to bear under every dispensation, and that while individual salvation is forever secured to individuals in Israel and the Church, both will be set aside as to their public, visible testimony. Thus we get not only responsibility, but the results of failure.-J. N. D. * *"Lectures on the Addresses to the Seven Churches." -p. 37.* Selected by J. E. H.