(Continued from page 290.)

Chapter 1 :1-4.

In the various ways in which I have thus far spoken of God (as coming out of the light in which He dwells to display before men some distinct and special characteristic of Himself), He remained still the invisible God. In none of them had He yet placed Himself in conditions in which He could be seen; but in the incarnation He has done so. There we see "God manifest in flesh."

The incarnation is a profound mystery. The mind of man cannot explain it or understand how it was effected, but the fact is plainly evident. The power of the Holy Spirit in and through the virgin produced a Man who is both a divine and a human Person. Thus supernaturally come into the world, He unites Deity and humanity in Himself-in one Person. He is thus truly God and truly Man:with human spirit, soul and body-God is seen in flesh.

The incarnation of the Son of God then was a stooping from "the form of God" (Phil. 2 :6), the condition of essential Deity to the condition of humanity-a coming down into the condition of human and creature-dependence. In this human condition He is not only " the Firstborn of all creation " (the One who has the first and highest rank in it), but also the image, the representation of God (Col. i; 15). Come thus from the unapproachable light, from the bosom of the Father, to be the image of God among men, He has declared the God whom no man has seen nor can see (Jno. i :18). So far as knowledge of God is communicable He has fully communicated it. He has fully expressed and exhibited it.

Here I may mention the competency of the Son of God become Man to witness to God and declare what He is-to reveal Him to man. Being Himself a divine person, one of the dwellers in the unapproachable light, He knows God in a divine way, with absolute knowledge in the essence of His being; He knows what His moral nature and character are; He could, and did say, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen " (Jno. 3:11). "What He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth," was said of Him by the Spirit through John the Baptist (ver. 32); and Himself said, that He did the works and spoke the words He knew in the Godhead intimacies (Jno. 8 :26, 38; 12 :49)

Existing eternally as one of the Godhead, when He came down into our dependent creature-place He brought with Him the eternal intimacies in which He was with the Father and the Spirit, and possessed them and lived in them here. As living in them from everlasting, He was fully competent to declare and reveal them here.

While tabernacling among men, He was the Light of the world (Jno. 8:12; 9:5). He was not, as some others, a light merely; He was the Light. Every prophet was a light, some brighter than others. John the Baptist "was a burning and a shining light" (Jno. 5:35). But all these were mere lights-were fallible men, though under the power of the Holy Spirit for the light they gave (2 Pet. i :21); but Christ was in His own person the Light-God in humanity manifesting Himself.

What light in which to see God ! God Himself come out of the unapproachable light, in the person of His own Son, to be seen, heard, studied, and even handled by men! What light in which to see the invisible God, had men eyes to see! Alas, they had not. They were in the darkness, and blinded by it, they could only think of Him as a blasphemer-He the incarnate Son of God! (Jno. 10:33).

But what wondrous revelations of God were to be seen in Him ! What illumination of those partial revelations in the Old Testament ! The promised woman's Seed, the Man from the Lord had come- Abraham's Seed and heir-David's Son and Lord- the foreordained Lamb of God, to whom the oft-repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament ages all pointed-the One of whom the prophets all had spoken, and the psalmists in Israel had sung and prophesied. But how could I enumerate, much less unfold, all the revealed glories of the incarnate Son, as the light of men (Jno. 1:4)? There are some, however, which need special mention as having to do with what is before us in our studies of this epistle.

First is the revelation of the Godhead relationships of Father and Son. I have already mentioned the fact that God who dwells in the unapproachable light is made known to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit-three Persons in the one Godhead-a Trinity in unity, a community of essence in life, nature and character. In the Old Testament, Elohim (the Hebrew word for God) is a plural form, implying at least three, and is constantly used as the subject of singular verbs, suggesting plurality in unity. It may be of interest to some to mention that in Isaiah 48:16 we have the three persons of the Godhead spoken of:"The Lord God and His Spirit hath sent Me." This trinity in unity is thus clearly indicated in the Old Testament, though not in the terms of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But He is thus made known to us in the New Testament, by one of the persons of the Godhead coming forth from that unapproachable light, stooping down from the form of God to the form of a servant, tabernacling among men, a veritable Man and Son of God, uniting deity and humanity in one Person.

When this Visitor from heaven was baptized by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descended and abode upon Him (Jno. i :32), and a voice from heaven said, "This is My beloved Son" (Matt. 3:17). Thus God is revealed to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit-relationships which were not revealed and therefore not understood before. Our Lord, however, constantly speaks of "the Father" and addressed Him as " My Father." He speaks of Him as One who has already been declared as the Father (Matt, ii:25, 26; Mk. 13:32; Lk. 9:26; Jno. 4:23; 5:20, and many other places).

In His life upon earth the Son of God was for men a revelation of the life and character of God. In Him was life (Jno. i:4). As the Father has life in Himself-a life uncreated and eternal-thus also has the Son life in Himself (Jno. 5:26).

He was therefore personally the Life eternal that was with the Father (ver. 2). Had it not been in Him as in the Father, it would not have been said "'with the Father." It was a community of life therefore in the persons of the Godhead.

So also as regards the activities of the life. It surely is impossible for us to measure the infinite fulness of the joys that filled the divine Persons' bosom as they mutually and reciprocally participated in constant fellowship of eternal activities. There are many scriptures implying this, but none perhaps that helps us more to appreciate this fact than Proverbs 8 :30, 31:"Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men." If we apply this (as undoubtedly we may) to the Second Person of the Godhead, as being the personification of the wisdom of God, then we have expressed here the eternal happiness of God in the activities of divine life. What mutual intimacies ! How deep the outflow of love responding to love! What a community of enjoyment; what fellowship of the Father and the Son in these eternal, divine activities!

And when the Son of God became Man, He did not cease to have life in Himself. The same underived, eternal and divine life that was in Him as dwelling eternally with the Father was in Him in humanity. He was the only Man to whom it was given to have life in Himself. In the first man, Adam, God breathed the breath of life, and he became a living soul. This was a creature-life-not the divine, eternal life. But the human life assumed by the Second Man was produced by the power of the Spirit in the virgin. Thus in Him were the divine and human life united in one Person, a unique Person, a unique Man:"The Word was made flesh." Life was essentially in Him upon earth as in the Father (John 5:26).

(To be continued.)

SIMPLE PAPERS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS BY H.A. IRONSIDE

REGENERATION

God not only clears the believer from every charge, forgiving his sins and justifying him from all things, but He makes him a new creature, giving him a new nature and introducing him into a new creation of which the risen Christ is Head. All this and more is involved in the truth of regeneration, a truth of great practical importance, though the word itself occurs but once in Paul's epistles, and only twice in all the Bible.

The two passages are Matt. 19:28 and Titus 3:5. It is with the latter that we are now especially concerned, as being part of " Paul's doctrine," which we are seeking to apprehend. But a glance at the former verse will aid us greatly in understanding the other. The Greek word translated regeneration does not exactly mean to be generated anew, or re-born, as we might suppose; so it is not really synonymous with new birth. It rather means the bringing in of a new order. In Matthew the Lord uses it as referring to "the world to come," 1:e., the millennium. Those who had followed Him in His humiliation would share His glory in the coming kingdom-the regeneration, or bringing in of the new order long predicted by the prophets, and for which Israel are still waiting and sighing.

But already a new order has been established, which we generally call Christianity. To share in this we need the washing of the Word, the bath of regeneration. In other words, when a man believes the gospel and thus receives God's present testimony into his soul it washes and cleanses him; he is born anew and thus made morally fit for the new order into which he is brought by the matchless grace of God.

Paul never speaks of being born again, though he uses other terms that mean practically the same thing. He looks at man as dead and needing life, so he says to believers," When we were dead in sins we were quickened together with Christ" (Eph. 2:5). We have become sharers of Christ's life; hence we are born from above. And now we belong to the new creation of which Christ is the Head.

Our link with the old creation is severed through Christ's death; for He died as representing us, and faith links us up with Him as risen. We belong to the regeneration, the new race, and no longer are part of the old generation of which fallen Adam is head.

It is a great step forward in the experience of one's own soul when this stupendous truth is apprehended "for the obedience of faith."

Henceforth .the Christian will test everything by its relation to Christ and the new position which all who are in Him now occupy. The practical effect of this will be very far-reaching. The old legal ground of "Is there any harm in this or that ? " and "Is it my duty to do thus and so?" will be left behind. In its stead, the believer will be able to view everything from the standpoint of privilege and loyalty to the Head. In place of speaking of "any harm," or "no harm," the question will be, " Is this
consistent with new creation ?" Tests will come daily, and can all be met on this ground:"Is it of Adam or of Christ ? Will this enable me better to reflect Christ ? Will that be suited to the new order to which I have come?" In other words, "Is it of the old generation, or of the re-generation ?"

Sometimes there may be perplexity still, but if no doubtful step is taken and God's mind is sought through His word, the Holy Spirit, who is the power of the new order, can be counted on to make all clear. What is needed is a single eye; for, '' If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

The washing, or bath, of regeneration is that one bathing referred to by our Lord when He said, " He that is bathed [not washed, as in the A.V.] needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit" (John 13:10). This bath is the application of the word of God (see John 15:3; i Peter i:23) to heart and conscience when one is born anew. A double cleansing is thus effected. The Word tells of the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which cleanseth from all, or every, sin. This is judicial. It purges my conscience, and renders me forever clean before God. But the same Word judges all my old ways, and judges me personally as morally unfit for God. When I bow to this testimony in repentance, I am morally washed all over. And thus I am, by this double cleansing, introduced into the new order. Hence it is called "the washing of regeneration." It needs never to be repeated. Once in the new creation, I am in Christ, and can never again be separated from Him.

But now I need the daily application of the Word to keep me clean, to keep my ways in accord with the order to which I belong. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his ways ? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word" (Ps. 119:9). This is that daily washing of the feet which the Lord illustrates so beautifully in the chapter above referred to. And this blessed service He is continually carrying on, that we may enjoy, have part with Him in the things so dear to His heart.

See to it, young Christian, that you do not hinder this loving service by neglect of your Bible, by a prayerless spirit, and by unjudged evil in your life. You belong to the regeneration. Make it ever your object to act accordingly, cleaving to the Lord with purpose of heart.

(To be continued.)

(Continued from page 75.)

Chapter 4:1-20.

We have seen that believers under the law were children of God, but were not granted the right to take practically the place or position of sons. Their position was that of servants. They were children of God by faith, but kept in the place of servants. In contrast with this as we have seen, we Christians are sons as well as children. We have the right, because it has been given to us, to take practically the position of sons. This position of sons we are born into, for verse 26 of chapter 3 tells us, "Ye are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

But if we believers are now by faith in the position of sons, what is our condition ? Is it the same as that in which the children were before Christianity came in ? The apostle fully and clearly answers this question in chapter 4 to which I now turn. Here, we are told, that to be in the position of servants is to be in the condition of bondage. Old Testament believers were heirs to faith's portion. The children of God under the law were all heirs, but their condition differed "nothing from servants" (verse i). The word for child in this verse is one used to express minority. The heirs then were in their minority. The heirs now, that is in Christianity, are in their majority. Minority and majority express the characteristic difference between the Mosaic dispensation and the Christian.

Under the order of the things set up by Moses the heirs, although children of God, as to their condition differed nothing from servants. God's time for His children to be in the practical enjoyment of the liberty that characterizes the position of sons had not then come. It has now. Then they were in their minority, under "tutors and governors," in a condition of bondage to worldly or human principles (verses 2 and 3). The principles of the law are human principles. God took them up to show how they work out; and while He was doing that His children, though in reality His heirs, were involved in the necessity of complying with them. They were under them. It was a condition of bondage.

But the Father's time has now come-that "fulness of the time," when " God sent forth His Son." Now of this Son whom God has sent forth we should take particular notice two things are said:First, we are told, He was "made of a woman;" second, He was "made under the law." He needed to be not only a Man, but a Man under law in order to give to all the heirs the right to take the position of sons. To redeem from the law, or buy out the heirs that were under it, He needed to be a Man under the law. He was made so, and has effected for them their release from its claims upon them.

But He is not only the Redeemer of the heirs under the law. He is also the Redeemer of the heirs taken out from among the Gentiles; and having effected the redemption of both He gives both the right to take the position of sons. In Christianity both believing Jews and believing Gentiles have the adoption of sons (verse 5).

It is because the heirs are now given the place of sons that the Spirit is given to them. God has now sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts (verse 6). Here I must remark, The teaching that we are made sons by receiving the Spirit is not according to Scripture. Nowhere does it so speak. Here it is very expressly affirmed that because God has now made His children to be sons He has given them His Spirit. It is not He sent the Spirit of His Son into their hearts to make them sons, but rather to be able to realize and enjoy the liberty that belongs to the place in which they have been put. Having been given the right to take the position of sons, having been put in that place, the gift of the Spirit is God's testimony to them that they are in it. In bestowing the Spirit He formally acknowledges them as being in it. Being in it and having the Spirit they cry, Abba, Father. The cry is by the Spirit. It is by His power they realize and enjoy the liberty of their position. What a wonderful condition! How different from the condition of bondage the heirs under law were in !

Verse 7 is the apostle's summing up of this part of his argument. Believers in Christianity, even if once they were minors and in the condition of servants, are no more that. No Christian is that. All Christians are sons-in the place of sons. With the apostle this settles unquestionably the matter of heirship. Under the law the children were heirs, surely the sons of Christianity must be heirs also. We Gentile believers of Christian times may rejoice in the assurance that God in His unmeasured grace has made us His heirs. We are surely the heirs of God's promises to faith-heirs of faith's portion.

We have already seen how far that portion is now possessed. We have begun to possess. The Spirit given to us is the commencement of possessing, but in a day fast approaching we shall fully possess the whole inheritance promised us. Now, possessing the Spirit, we are able to enter in faith into what shortly we shall actually inherit. We are already inheriting the adoption-the position of sons. We will ere long inherit the full blessing that has been promised. Once the heirs had promises and saw them afar off (Heb. 11:13). Now the heirs have received the adoption-the place of sons, and, being given that place, they have received the Spirit. He is the beginning of the fulfilment of promise-a present pledge of all that God has promised to faith, and a real foretaste of it all.

If we consider what Christianity means as unfolded by the apostle we cannot wonder at his touching appeal to the Galatian saints whose folly and delusion he has so fully exposed. Think of sons-those who have received the adoption, who by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ have the right to be in the position the grace of God has secured for them and have been supplied with the divine power needed to realize and enjoy the liberty of that position- turning away from it all in their minds and seeking to be again in the bondage from which they have been delivered! Surely it is great folly and those who are doing this must be under the power of a great delusion.

It may be asked here:Were not the Galatians Gentiles ? Were they under the law ? How can it be said of them, They have turned again to "the weak and beggarly elements ?" How can they be charged with desiring to be again in bondage to them ? The answer is simple. Self-help is a human principle. It characterizes every human system men have resorted to as a means of escaping from the evil of this present age. God took up that principle in the law of Moses to demonstrate its weakness and unprofitableness (Heb. 7:18). The nation of Israel was not the only nation that was under that principle. All men were really under it. The redemption that is in Christ Jesus, not only delivers believing Jews from the principle of self-help, it delivers from it also believing Gentiles-those who knew not God, had not the "form of knowledge and of the truth in the law "(Rom. 2:20). The Galatian saints were such, yet they had become the subjects of the redemption of God. They had been delivered from the principle of self-help, though they had never been formally under the law of Moses. But in taking up the law after becoming the subjects of God's redemption they were turning again to a principle to which they were formerly subject, the bondage of which they had been delivered from (verses 8-10).

Is it any wonder the apostle tells them, " I am afraid of you ?" Does it not look somewhat as if the apostle's labor among them had been in vain ? But if, in verse n, he raises the question of the reality of their conversion by way of rousing up the conscience, he at once lets them know that his remembrance of those days in which they heard and received the gospel of God from his own lips will not permit him to think his work among them was all for nothing.

Firm in this conviction he makes a most touching appeal to them (verses 12-18). First, he implores them to be as he himself is. He is still as he was in the days of his labor among them. If they have changed he has not. But more, he tells them their turning in their minds away from the truth has not in reality altered what they are before the face of God. It is still true he says, that "I am as ye are." He could say this as knowing how unchangeable the gospel of God is. He could thus tell them their surrender of the truth had in no way affected what he was before God. But beside this he gives them the evidences of the reality of their conversion. He tells them he has proof of the power of the gospel in their souls. He would have them recall those days when first he preached among them. As a man weakness characterized him. They must have remembered his infirmity-his "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7), what was manifestly a very great trial to him when he sought to declare the message of God. Well, he says, the power of what I declared to you so laid hold of your souls that you did not despise my infirmity. Such was your enjoyment of the truth I brought you that you did not reject me on that account. The truth so wrought in your souls that you received me as an angel of God-even as Christ Jesus. You spoke of the blessedness of the gospel as those who realized it, who were tasting and drinking in its preciousness. Had such a thing been possible you would most gladly have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me.

All this was fresh in the apostle's mind. It was to him a clear evidence of the reality of their conversion. He was fully confirmed in the belief that they were in Christ. The evidence of it was too strong for him to question it, though he did question it to sting their conscience.

But then it thus becomes the more manifest that their present attitude towards the truth is folly. It is very evident they have become deluded.

But we must notice a further argument. The apostle will leave no stone unturned in the ardor of his zeal to see his beloved converts recovered from their folly and delivered from the terrible power of the delusion they have fallen under. He asks now, Am I your enemy in telling you the truth ? I was not an enemy when I brought to you the gospel by which you were saved. Your reception of me and the message I declared to you is ample proof that you did not then see an enemy in me. Am I that now ? I am telling you the truth now. I am insisting on what I taught you then. Can it be that I am an enemy now if I was not then. If, then, you judge me now to be an enemy, what is it that makes me one?

What an irresistible argument! How the Galatian saints must have felt the force of it! Plainly the change was in them, not in the apostle. The real truth is, it was their defection from the truth they once had welcomed with great ardor that determined the present attitude of their minds towards Paul. They judged him to be an enemy, but it was not through any change in him that he had become one. It was through the change in themselves.

But this change in their minds towards the apostle had been brought about through the influence of the perverters of the gospel. Men had come among them who sought recognition, place and authority. To secure this they had labored with great zeal. They wanted the Galatians to be subject to them- to own their authority. They wanted to destroy their confidence in Paul. They wanted to so establish their own authority over them that they could make use of them in maintaining it. They desired to separate the apostle from them thereby to have them the more securely in their own power (verse 17) These self-seeking men were taking advantage of Paul's absence to intrench themselves in the minds and affections of the Galatians. Paul, in the wisdom of the Spirit, exposes them, shows" up their aims and motives. Having done this he reminds the saints of Galatia of their responsibility to continue in the same zeal by which they were characterized at the first. Their zeal then was for "a good thing "-the truth from God. He counsels them to persevere in that zeal, to suffer no man to take advantage of his absence to rob them of the truth and destroy its power in their souls (verse 18).

In verses 19, 20 he concludes the appeal he is here making by assuring them of his unchanged interest in them, of how delighted he would be to be back in their midst in the same happy, blessed way in which he had mingled with them. He lets them know that he is earnestly laboring to the end that Christ may "be formed in them." He had been formed in them at the first, but the development had been interfered with. Growth had been checked and the image of Christ had been shaded. Paul says, I want to see that image so developed that there shall be an uninterrupted reflection of it-a reflection continually increasing in the brilliancy and power of what Christ is. That was the apostle's desire, for that he was striving. Gladly would he be present with them to labor for it. How much happier and more blessed the positive ministry of Christ to the souls of God's people than the service of exposing the work of evil. The apostle did not shrink from this when it was necessary, but the other was more delightful. There was however a need for him to change his voice as he had done. Their folly and delusion made it necessary. Their defection from the truth was cause for real hesitation. It raised serious question. Yet he would have them know how ardently he desired to be with them with the same voice with which in former times he had served them. C. Crain

(To be continued.)

(Continued from page 123.) Chapter 5 :7-26.

We come now to the last part of the epistle. From chapter 5:7 to the end, the apostle is occupied with the practical side of things. He sets in striking contrast the practice that is the fruit of the gospel and the practice which results from its perversion by the admixture of the leaven of legality. In the preceding part, as we have seen, he was occupied with the truth-the doctrine of Christianity -and exposed the folly of entertaining a teaching which destroyed Christianity by nullifying its fundamental and distinctive features. He showed it to be a great delusion.

But the folly of it is no less apparent when we consider the apostle's discussion of its results in practice. His incisive characterization manifests fully the delusion which the Galatian saints had been led into. Let us follow the line of his argument.

First of all, we should notice the apostle's unqualified approval of their former walk after their conversion:"Ye did run well." They not only professed to have received the gospel, they lived in its power. There was a practical sanctification resulting from their reception of the message which the apostle proclaimed among them. Their walk was in reality the exemplification of the truth by which they had been laid hold of; so truly so, that Paul warmly commends it.

But a great change had taken place. They had turned aside from the path in which they formerly walked. They were no longer obeying the truth. Their practical ways were no longer the expression of the truth they had heard of him. The apostle could not commend or sanction their changed ways, and he denounces them as disobedient to the truth (ver. 7). These new ways were not learned from him (ver. 8). They had learned them of the perverters of the gospel. A different teaching had been presented to them, and by it they had been influenced to give up right practices for wrong ones.

Paul characterizes the new and different teaching as "leaven"-as evil (ver. 9). To mix error with the truth is to destroy the truth. The admixture of Christianity and legality is the nullification of Christianity. The perversion of the gospel makes it no longer the gospel. The practice of a perverted Christianity is no longer Christian practice. Once introduce leaven into the lump and it is a leavened lump.

The apostle in thus exposing how pernicious legality is-what baneful consequences result from its adoption by Christians-does not despair of the recovery of those who have been influenced to surrender their liberty in Christ and enslave themselves to the principle of law. He is fully aware of the authority of the Lord over His own. If he thinks of those who have been deluded, he has confidence the Lord will deliver them out of their delusion and restore in them the same mind by which they were characterized when they were in obedience to the truth (ver. 10). He knows how to make a difference between the deluders and the deluded. He counts on the deliverance and recovery of the deluded, but the deluders will not escape the full responsibility of their evil work:"He that troubleth you," he says, "shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be." The apostle held the workers of evil to be accountable, and those who maintain apostolic truth and practice will do the same.
There are many who find it difficult to understand why the apostle should be so severe in his denunciation of those who, to their minds, rightly held the principle of law in high honor. Let such weigh well what the apostle says in verse n. Circumcision, as originally given of God, was a mark put on the flesh as a shadow of the cross of Christ-which is God's judgment of the flesh. When Moses gave the law by the authority of God, he incorporated circumcision. It had still the same significance. It was still a shadow of the cross. Its message was, the flesh is no good-it is without profit. The law tells you what it (the flesh) ought to be, but as it is not what it ought to be, this mark that has been put on your flesh is a sign of the judgment of God upon it-the flesh cut off in judgment.

It is because the cross of Christ expresses God's curse upon the flesh that it was a stumbling-block to the Jew. To him circumcision was a work of merit, not a sign of the curse. The cross of Christ declares God's curse upon the flesh, and for that reason the Jew was offended. The apostle asks here, "If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Has the offence of the cross ceased?" The offence of the cross had not ceased, and it was in enmity to the cross that circumcision was still being preached. It was the enemies of the cross of Christ that were making circumcision a work of merit. The soul of the apostle so revolts from the thought of any fellowship with these evil workers in their enmity against the cross, that in verse 12 he bursts out in expressing the desire that these perverters of the truth and troublers of the saints would cut themselves off–their work was so obnoxious, so evil!

But the apostle felt the need of convicting the Galatians of the falsity of a claim they were making. Under the leadership of these perverters of the gospel they were pleading that they were practicing the law. As we have seen, Paul insists that Christians have been called into the liberty wherewith Christ makes free. Now he shows that Christian liberty does not mean liberty for the flesh (ver. 13). The Christian being a man who has the right to take before God the place of a son, is free to serve in the spirit and power of love. In serving thus, it is not as meeting a legal demand. But without being under the principle of law he is doing-practicing-the. very things the law demands. This is liberty-the liberty of grace. Under law it was bondage, because the law requiring love, did not give it. Under grace, the love of God fills the heart-grace produces it. Such service then, is happy, holy liberty.

In verse 15 the apostle says:While you have undertaken to practice the things the law requires, you are in reality doing the very opposite things. Instead of serving one another by love, and so fulfilling the law, you are breaking it in biting and devouring one' another. In attempting to practice law, the sinful passions of the flesh had been stirred into great activity. It was impossible for them to endure the thought of others being better than themselves. They were belittling one another in their ardent desire to commend and praise themselves.

How striking the contrast between Christian practice and that resulting from the attempt to practice law! What folly is thus manifested in the legalist! How great is the delusion of those who put themselves under the principle of law!

But let us proceed. In verse 16 the apostle says, "This, I say, then." Let us remember he is speaking with apostolic authority, giving the mind of God. What then does he give as the rule for Christian practice ? It is simply this:Walking in or by the power of, the Spirit. For while the law stirs up the lusts of the flesh into activity, the Spirit is the power in which love manifests itself. Walking in the Spirit, then, is the way to escape what the flesh would lead us to do.

The Spirit and the flesh are opposites. They are antagonistic the one to the other; and for this reason the Christian does not always do as he would. He is always exposed to the liability of not doing the things he would (ver. 17). But the Spirit is the Christian's leader and power-not the law (ver. 18). The Christian, then, needs to learn wherein the Spirit manifests His leadership. It should of course be plain to all that the works of the flesh, such as are listed here in verses 19-21, are the opposites of the Spirit's guidance. Those who are characterized by these things are not inheritors of the kingdom of God. The power of the Spirit is entirely wanting to them.

But the Spirit manifests His power in producing fruit in those who are the subjects of His guidance, examples of which are given us in verse 22. Blessed fruits! We realize that no law prohibits the doing such things. How unreservedly and unqualifiedly the Christian may yield himself to the ways that are of the Spirit of God. In so doing, his practice is Christian practice, and it is Christian practice only in the measure in which he gives to the Spirit His own place and way.

Now the Christian belongs to Christ. He is of Him. He is connected with One whose crucifixion was God's judgment on man-the whole family of the fallen first man. There, in that crucifixion, God fully judged man according to the flesh-his every passion, his every lust. On being born of the water and the Spirit, a man becomes to be of Christ. Through a saying of God being deposited in his soul in the power of the Spirit, he becomes one who henceforth belongs to Christ. By the Spirit, through faith, he is forever connected with the Christ who was crucified. For him, the man after the flesh has been crucified. He has been crucified in toto-all he is and all his passions, all his lusts (ver. 24). He stands no longer before God as a man in Adam, in the flesh. He is in Christ. By a spiritual work, a work which can be only by the Spirit of God, He is in Christ. He lives in the Spirit. What he is before the eye of God is what the Spirit has made him.

Well, then, says the apostle, " If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (ver. 25). To take up the practice of law is to walk in the flesh, not in the Spirit; but to walk in the Spirit is to hold the flesh to be what God has judged it to be, to judge its passions as sinful, its lusts as abhorrent to God. It is to turn from it in subjection to the Spirit's reprobation of it and follow His lead in ways that are of Him and honoring to the Christ with whom we are connected.

The Christian who presumes to put himself under law, who undertakes to put that principle into practice, is making a serious mistake. It results in his doing what the apostle counsels us not to do. Christians are admonished and exhorted not to cultivate the spirit of vain glory. The practice of law will develop that spirit. Paul here tells us not to provoke one another. Through the practice of law that is what we will do. The practice of law will foster in us the spirit of strife, of contention, of envy. But such things are not Christian practice. Christian practice is the practice of love. In Christian practice we are objects of love to one another and subjects of unselfish service.

Beloved fellow Christian, let me here exhort you to study faithfully this description of the difference
between the practice of law and the practice of Christianity. It is a divinely authorized description. Its diligent study will surely result in edification and profit.
But there are still other considerations pressed by the apostle which we must turn to. C. Crain

(To be concluded in next issue.)

In taking up the study of the first epistle of John, a comparison of John's ministry with that of Peter and Paul will be helpful.

The words addressed to Peter in John 21 :18, 19 imply that in some sense his ministry was to have a character similar to that of the Lord Jesus. Is the implication supported by Scripture elsewhere ? If so, in what sense was Peter's ministry similar to the ministry of Jesus Christ ?

Light is shed on these questions in Romans 15:8 and Galatians 2:7,8. In the former passage Jesus Christ is called a "minister of the circumcision," the evident meaning being that His ministry was in connection with the people in the covenant of circumcision-that made with hands. In the latter passage there is mention of "the gospel of the circumcision " as having been committed to Peter. The thought evidently is that a gospel specially addressed to the circumcision was committed to Peter. Peter is also spoken of as having the " apostleship of the circumcision. " Undoubtedly the intention is to show that Peter exercised apostleship in connection with the circumcision. In this sense, then, Peter's ministry was similar to that of Jesus Christ.

But while this marks out the people for whom his ministry is intended, it does not define its theme and character, which are to be inquired into. If we refer again to Romans 15:8 we shall find it stated there that "Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy." This needs to be carefully considered.

In the Old Testament we learn about these promises to the fathers. It is plain we have a record there of a ministry of promises. Indeed there was a period which we may consider as specially characterized by the ministry of promises. From the call of Ab-ram until Jacob's going down into Egypt, at least, God was making or ministering promises.

For my present purpose I do not need to notice these promises in detail. I will merely cite the passages where they are found:Gen. 12:1-3; 13:14-17; 15:1-21; 17:1-22; 22:15-18; 26:2-5, 24; 28; 10-15; 35:9-12; 46:2-4 All these promises are absolute, made in the sovereignty of grace, and are entirely unconditional. It should be remembered that none of them are addressed to the Gentiles. God gave them no promises, no covenant (Eph. 2:12). It is true the Gentiles are contemplated in the promises, but the promises were not ministered to them. They were ministered to the fathers of the nation of Israel (Rom. 9:4),

Now while God ministered these promises to the fathers, the heads of Israel, the fulfilment of them was not yet to be. They heard them and believed them, but, if they were persuaded of them and embraced them, they saw them only as to be fulfilled in a time to them "afar off" (Heb. n:13). They died in faith, leaving these unfulfilled promises as a legacy to their children.

But God put their descendants on a different footing altogether. Promises and covenants He made to them also, but they were conditional, not absolute. The reason for this was the need of raising-not alone for their sake, but for all men-the question of man's ability to establish a righteousness on which to claim what had been promised. Under the Mosaic law the children of Israel were on the ground of responsibility. They took the responsibility of working out a righteousness they could call their own, by which a title to the things promised would be established, and which God Himself would necessarily recognize. But God not only would signalize by circumcision (as He had done and was still doing) the unprofitableness of the flesh, but He would practically demonstrate it. He would prove man's inability to claim as his own anything but his sins, and thus that he is shut up to sovereign grace, exercised on the principle of faith-not of works.

The trial was a long one, thus perfectly fair and conclusive. But while this question, raised by putting Israel under the law, was being worked out, to show how utterly void of righteousness man is in himself, the fulfilment of the sovereign, unconditional promises made to the fathers had necessarily to be delayed. The question raised had to be definitely answered once for all; and the lesson of the law now abides.

But on the ground of responsibility Israel lost the promises. If Israel was unable to establish a title to them, there is surely no power to recover them. No pleading of descent from Abraham could avail, no taking refuge under being circumcised could secure the forfeited promises (Matt. 3:9). Israel's only hope then is the sovereign grace of God.

Having demonstrated that Israel is in irretrievable ruin, having lost the promises beyond all hope of recovery, God then sent forth His Son, not only made of woman, but made also under the law (Gal. 4:4). This was God acting in the sovereignty of His mercy. It was raising up in Israel an Israelite in whom the promises were yea and amen. It was providing One who could establish a title to them. Jesus Christ was thus in their midst as maintaining the truth of God -His word, His promises. He was one of their fold -a minister connected with the circumcision, in behalf of the promises made to the fathers, to secure their establishment.

Having Himself a personal claim on them, He had also title to remove what was a hindrance to their fulfilment. He had a right to end the Mosaic dispensation and bring in the dispensation of the fulfilment of the promises. He had title to take the curse of the law, and thus be the end of the law as a way of getting righteousness for all who believe (Rom. 10:4). He had the right to be Israel's Substitute to sacrificially endure the judgment of their sins, and thus open the channel in which the grace of God could flow, in which God could in righteousness bestow the forgiveness of sins and fulfil the promises made to the fathers.

But, although Christ did thus establish or secure the promises, Israel continued in blindness and unbelief; therefore it became necessary to continue the dispensation of confirming the promises. It became necessary to appeal to facts in evidence that the promises have been permanently secured. It is this appeal that characterizes the ministry of Peter. Like Christ, he was connected with the circumcision. Like Christ, he was a minister in behalf of the truth of God:he announced to Israel the security of the promises and their permanent establishment. Like Christ, Peter had a ministry which was specifically addressed to the circumcision-to Israel as a nation.

The careful student of Peter's ministry as recorded in Acts, chapters 2 to 5, will readily see that his very first address to the Jews begins with a declaration that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the powers accompanying it are a beginning of the fulfilment of promise (Acts 2:16). When he says, " This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel," he does not mean that Joel's prophecy has had its complete fulfilment, but that what has occurred is of the nature and character of what was promised in Joel. It is fulfilment beginning. This announcement made by Peter means that the hindrance to fulfilment of promise has been removed, and the fulfilment has begun.

Next, in verses 22-36, he appeals to the resurrection of Jesus and His exaltation on high by the power of God as evidence that God has acknowledged His rights. This acknowledgment is conclusive proof that Israel must look to Him for the fulfilment of her promises. Accordingly, in verse 38, the nation is invited to submit to the One they have rejected, but whom God has made Lord and Christ, in order to receive the promise of the forgiveness of sins; and in verse 39, Peter encourages them to do so, by assuring them that the promise of forgiveness of sins has been made to them. He tells them plainly that if they will receive the forgiveness of sins in this way, 1:e., by submitting to Christ, they will also participate in the promise that accompanies forgiveness-the Holy Spirit.

Again, in chapter 3:19, still addressing himself to the nation as such, Peter tells them the promised
blotting out of their sins and " times of refreshing " are waiting on their repentance.

It is thus very clear that the ministry in which Peter addresses himself specifically to Israel partakes of the nature and character of our Lord's ministry in which He appealed to them. In both cases it was a ministry in behalf of the truth of God-a ministry of the security and establishment of the promises made to the fathers.

But Peter's ministry was rejected as that of Christ had been. The Israel of his day was a nation "stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears," as their fathers had been (chap. 7:51). Individuals submitted to Christ and became recipients of a blessing that was according to promise, but the nation in blindness and unbelief refused their blessings.

Peter had another ministry also, the character of which we shall now consider. C. Crain

(To be continued.)

(Continued from page 232.)

The links of the epistles of John with his Gospel are very close; so close, that an apprehension of the doctrine of the Gospel as to eternal life is essential to a right understanding of the epistles. Before we enter on our detailed study of John's first epistle, therefore, let us as briefly as possible outline the teaching of his Gospel as to life-the life eternal.

First, the teaching of John's Gospel is that life- essential, underived, unchangeable and eternal- dwells in the Son of God. In Him who was with God as the eternal, divine Word, was life (i:4). Living in divine community of life, He was personally the absolute expression of what God is, in essence, nature and character. He, in whom the life thus essentially dwelt, was the light-the truth-the Source of it to man. It is important to remark here that none of the living creatures created by Him had community of life and light with Him. Those that became living beings by the word of His power, cease to be also by the same Word. Man became a living being, not by the word of His power, but by an impartation, not of the divine, eternal life, but of the spirit-nature; so that as being by creation a living soul having spirit, a spirit-nature, he was in the image and likeness of God. But if man thus lives and moves and has his being in God by creation (Acts 17:28), that is not living in community with the divine eternal life of God-the life that is in the Son of God. Even if man had not sinned, a special work of God in his soul would have been necessary for him to possess life in community with God, to have become a participator in the divine, the eternal life.

But man sinned, and his mind became darkened. Sin alienated him from God and rendered him incapable of finding out God, or of understanding Him, or of discerning and receiving the things of God. Hence, from the garden of Eden to the present time, men have not apprehended the life and light dwelling in the Son of God. Whether it be the partial manifestations since Eden, or the full shining forth of the light in Himself become a Man and tabernacling among men, the light of eternal life in Him has not been perceived by man naturally.

Nay, more:the Gospel of John tells us when the Son of God was upon earth the testimony given of God to Him was rejected. There was adequate testimony-of John the Baptist, of the works wrought by the Son, of the Father's testimony and seal of the Holy Spirit; that of the Old Testament Scriptures also, and of the Son Himself-yet the world does not recognize Him ; even His own earthly nation does not receive Him (i :1:) Man's mind is darkness, under the power of unbelief.

It is true that from Eden until now individuals have received Him, have discerned His personal and divine glory, have waited for Him, have welcomed Him, have bowed the knee to Him; but these, according to John's Gospel, have all been subjects of a work of God in the soul. They have been born of God by faith; they have been laid hold of by the testimony of God in the power of the Spirit (i:12, 13). They have been born of water and the Spirit (chap. 3:5). But until the Son came into the world, in full revelation of the Father, such were not given the privilege of taking, in the full reality of it, their place as children with the Father. That could not be until the place and the work to fit us for that place were fully revealed, and while, as we learn elsewhere, the children were being treated as servants. But the place of the children is now made known by the Son sent by the Father, and the right of the children to take it is divinely authorized (i:12). Even while our Lord was on earth He granted to faith this privilege, as John's Gospel abundantly shows (8:19; 12:44, 45; 14:7-9).

In chapter 3 the universal need of new birth is pressed (vers. 3-7). Everywhere, even in Israel, there was necessity that the testimony of God should lay hold of the soul in the power of the Spirit. This is needed no less in order to share in the earthly things of the kingdom of God than in the heavenly; both alike are subjects of divine revelation and testimony. The Lord was but insisting on a need the Old Testament Scriptures affirmed. The refusal to submit to this necessity is as fatal in connection with the earthly things as it is in connection with the heavenly. The Lord is not teaching that new birth is an earthly thing, but that it is essential to participating in either the earthly or heavenly things of the kingdom of God.

But how can new birth, giving that new life and nature which constitutes those upon whom it is conferred children of God, be bestowed upon sinners ? The Cross is the answer. The basis on which God ever gave life-life eternal-is the sacrificial death of the Son of Man. The Son of God became Man to die under man's penalty, that life might righteously, though in grace, be communicated to those deserving the death eternal. So earnestly does God desire men to live in the life that is eternal, and not abide in eternal death, that He gave His own Son, to become Son of Man to provide a righteous basis for the communication of divine, eternal life (vers. 14-16). The one that believes on Him, the object of divine testimony, receives the life-the eternal life that is in the Son; the rejecter of Him does not see life, but abides in death and under the wrath of God (vers. 36). This statement is absolute truth-true for all ages and dispensations, those preceding the Cross as well as since. Believers before the Cross believed on the Object of divine testimony. Such and only such were then born of God; and it is such and only such that are born of God now.

The measure of revelation and testimony has nothing to do with the matter of the communication of life. It is not at all the amount of revelation laid hold of; it is the laying hold of the Object of revelation and testimony. Wherever and whenever the object of divine testimony is laid hold of in the power of the Spirit, there is a child of God-one born of water and the Spirit; there is one to whom the life eternal that is in the Son of God is imparted.

In chapter 4 the imparted life is shown to be a spring of refreshment and satisfaction within the one to whom it is given. The possessor of this spring is independent of the world through which he is passing, since the spring within him rises up to the sphere of the abiding and eternal realities. Linked with these by the life and nature bestowed on him, he has capacity for their enjoyment; the measure of the enjoyment being, of course, according to the measure of the revelation and the energy of faith in the apprehension of it.

Chapter 5 insists that the eternal life that dwelt underivatively in the Son of the Father before the world began, dwells underivatively also in Him as the Son become Man; that thus He has the sovereign and divine right to be both the Life-giver and the Judge; and further, that His communication of life, divine and eternal, absolutely frees those that receive it from judgment; they pass out of death into life. It is eternal life they have passed into. Resurrection to life is thus guaranteed to all who have died in faith, from whatever age or dispensation.

Chapter 6 shows the Giver of life-the Quickener -to be also the abiding Bread of life, its sustainment, its nourishment. The life develops and expands as it feeds on Him. This explains the various degrees of growth in the divine life found among the children of God. If the life by -which we live is a common life-the life that is in the Son of God- the practical, experimental life, the life lived, varies in the different dispensations on account of the varying measures of the revelation, and in the same dispensation also on account of the varying degrees of the energy of faith.

We are instructed in chapter 7 that it is through drinking of the fulness that is in the Son that the possessor of life eternal becomes a filled vessel, the overflow of which the Spirit uses to bless and refresh others. He who drinks in the things of Christ as the Spirit has taught them, is in turn the Spirit's channel of these things to others.

Chapters 8, g and 10 show that the portion of those whom He quickens-those born of water and the Spirit-is communion with Himself. Life in the Son of God communicated to the believer, implies communion with the Son, after the pattern of the communion of the Son with the Father(10:14, 15). This communion in its full blessedness necessarily waited its full revelation. Those having life before the full revelation enjoyed communion in a partial measure, but after its full revelation, the communion is life abundant-fulness of joy.

In chapters n and 12 we are shown that the life with which we are quickened in new birth, given as it is by Him who in His own person is the annul merit of death and judgment, and on the basis of His own death and resurrection as grace for men, is a life that links its possessors with the sphere of life beyond death. Hence the certainty of the resurrection of all dying in faith in Old Testament times, while death is no more death for the believer in this New Testament age. Its power is annulled for those for whom life and incorruption have been illuminated (2 Tim. i:10). The quickened from the beginning are all the fruit of the Corn of Wheat that fell into the ground and died. It has risen. He is the manifested Living One, and all that receive life from Him, of whatever age, are by that life forever linked with Him in the sphere of life to which He belongs.

The Son of God, then, is the Source and Fountain of life. He is that as a divine Person; He is that as become Man. It is His right to give life, to quicken. Divine testimony deposited in the soul in the power of the Spirit is His way of imparting life, and life imparted thus is life of the same nature as life in its Giver. It is life in identification with the life eternal in the Son. It is a divinely bestowed capacity for the knowledge and enjoyment of God. It is that in every age; the measure of the knowledge and enjoyment depending on the measure of the revelation; the full revelation expanding the enjoyment into fulness of joy-life abundant.

The above statement of the doctrine of life, as taught in the Gospel of John, is very brief-too brief if we were engaged in the study of that Gospel; but it may suffice as presenting what needs to be kept in mind while studying the first epistle. As we proceed with the epistle in course, there will be frequent need of referring to the Gospel.

The Gospel record is for the purpose of showing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that they who believe the record may have life through His name (chap. 20:31), for life is communicated on the principle of faith.

This life, being a derived, dependent life in those to whom it is communicated, has those characteristics seen in the earthly life of the Son of God. This is what the first epistle insists on. He that says "he abides in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked."

We will now take up the epistle in detail. C. Crain

(To be continued.)

There are many voices to-day, in the babel of the world's religions, striving to be heard, and claiming that their way is the way of salvation and approach to God; but in Acts 4:, 12 we have a scripture which sets aside every other way of salvation that man might attempt to present:"Neither is there salvation in any other:for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

And this, let us mark, is not the name of Jesus Christ as a teacher or as a prophet, but as the crucified and risen Son of God. Peter and John had been imprisoned by the religious leaders of the day, and on the morrow were brought before " the rulers, and elders, and scribes, and Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest;" and what was Peter's reply to the question as to the power which had been displayed in healing the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the temple ? "Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. Neither is there salvation in any other:for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

God's thoughts and purposes from eternity center in Christ. As the promised One that was to come, every ritual in the Old Testament, every way there of approach to God, was but a shadow or type of Him who was to come, and God pretermitted the sins of Old Testament saints because He could look forward to Calvary and to the blessed Sufferer who made atonement there. God has thus declared His righteousness in passing over the sins done aforetime-1:e., before the cross (Rom. 3:25, margin). Since Calvary, faith in Christ crucified and risen is God's only way of salvation, so that he that hath the Son hath the life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life (i Jno. 5 :12),

The Spirit of God confirms this statement in Acts by one even stronger in Ephesians 2 :12:"At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." Notice how three things are linked together:without Christ, without hope, without God.

Many are trying to-day to reach God apart from Christ. Even some who profess to be Christians talk of the good there is in the heathen religions, and are trying to find a common basis on which Christianity can fraternize with Judaism, Unitarian-ism, Confucianism, Mohammedanism, and what not; but all cults outside of Christianity are without Christ, and if we believe Christianity to be from God, we must also believe that, "Neither is there salvation in any other:for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4 :12). Men talk about the "Fatherhood of God," which, as far as being creatures of God, is true; but the preachers of this doctrine ignore the solemn fact of man's fall, and that only through faith in Christ, and therefore as born anew, can any man now claim God as his Father. The Lord Jesus told the Jews (John 8:42), "If God were your Father, ye would love Me; " and this prevents any from calling God their " Father " who do not love the Lord Jesus Christ. The natural man loves hot the Lord Jesus, but hates Him.

And who is this Christ Jesus ? He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament (compare Jno. 12:41 with Isa. 6:1-3). He is "The Wonderful, the Counselor, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace " (Isa. 9:6); the " I AM " who spake unto Moses from the burning bush; the One who created all and upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb. i :3). But the natural man believes it not. And yet, "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins, . . . and whither I go ye cannot come" (Jno. 8:21, 24). Again let us say, that he who abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God (2 John 9). He is without the true God and without hope in the world.

But there is a glorious contrast to this! The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth (Rom. i:16). However vile the sinner, however wicked the past life, however full of iniquity one may have been, however self-righteous and full of a false religion one has been, such is the value of the death of Christ before God, such is the power of His name, that salvation is at once assured to every one who receives Him-the crucified and risen Son of God.

" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." And not only is the sinner at once cleansed from sin and given eternal life, but while the unbeliever has no hope and is without God, the humblest believer in the Lord Jesus has holy boldness to enter the holy presence of God by the blood of Jesus (Heb. 10 :19) ; nay, is looked upon by God as one risen and seated in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:5, 6).

Some day every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father. How blessed to bow and confess Him now, when hope and blessing may be ours, rather than wait for judgment and be compelled to bow at the end! F.

The Incorruptible Crown-The apostle Paul says that the people of this world strive after things that are quickly to pass away-men work to make money and to accumulate gold, and then it either leaves them, or they have to leave it. We who are Christians have something far better to strive for:we are to lay up treasures in heaven. We are to live for Christ here, to be true and faithful servants; and let us remember that there is a wonderful book of remembrance kept in heaven, where all our actions are recorded. If, when that book has been opened, we find our lives have been spent for ourselves, and not for Him who died for us, what then of that incorruptible crown ? If, on the other hand, through God's grace, we have lived for Him, then shall He give us that crown, with eternal joy.

Now that the fervid excitement and feeling of horror over the loss of the steamship Titanic has subsided, and the event is a thing of the past, already out of mind with many, it may not be out of place to recall some of the lessons of that dreadful disaster. They are lessons for all time, with a special living voice for such as have an ear to hear. What contrast, for instance, between that great ship and the poor little life-boat! yet safety lay in the life-boat. Thus this great world, with all its mighty inventions, cannot save one soul from eternal doom. Christ alone can. He is the life-boat for eternity.

There were aboard the Titanic all manner of people, illustrating quite fully all classes of those in the world. First, there were the wealthy, "faring sumptuously every day," surrounded with all the luxury and comfort of life which human ingenuity has devised and which wealth can command. Then the second cabin, of the well-to-do and respectable -the middle classes. Thirdly, the steerage, by far the largest in number, whose main capital is in their courage and energy to face new conditions and grapple with them. Then last, but not least, the captain, the officers and crew, and all who served; all making up the total of that little floating world. As in the world at large, it is safe to say all were as different from each other as it is possible to conceive- socially, intellectually, morally, and every other way, save only in one respect:in this they were all alike, and stood on the same level, namely, in their absolute helplessness to save themselves. Consequently they were, all alike, in the common need of rescue if they were to reach shore alive. Without that rescue they must inevitably perish.

Just so with the whole of mankind concerning the other world. Scripture affirms that "there is no difference" so far as man's relation toward God is concerned. True, there is every variety and degree of difference as between man and man, but there is no difference in this respect, that " all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Measured by this standard, all are brought in "guilty before God" and are "without strength," that is, helpless to raise themselves out of their condition. Consequently all need the redemption which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

All aboard the doomed ship who realized their danger were, no doubt, anxious to be saved. It is even so in eternal things:only those who are conscious of their need care for the Saviour. Only those who receive God's judgment of their real condition will care for His salvation. Some on board were asleep, and perished even without a thought about their safety. Again, there were those who, we are told, refused to believe their danger. The ship, they said, could certainly not sink, and they rested in their false security until she tipped her bow and sank with all on board.

How like the vast majority around us to-day all this is! Multitudes cannot be aroused even to a sense of need or danger, and so they have no concern whatever about their souls. They are wholly taken up with earthly things and earthly pursuits, slumbering away, unconscious of a hereafter. What an awakening for such, sooner or later! There may not be the despising, but they are neglecting the great salvation which cost our Saviour so great a price to obtain for us. Others, and they are sadly on the increase in this day of materialism and universal scramble for wealth and power, are those who refuse to hear, and who despise. Their pride scorns the gospel. After nineteen hundred years of Christian testimony and New Testament witness, they are still in heathen darkness. They have no knowledge of the true God, revealed in Christ. They can see no use in a life-boat. Their confidence is in the ship, though it is sinking under them. What is the need of a Saviour ? They profess blind confidence in "human nature." Human nature, with its many accomplishments and beautiful outward appearances, is still their hope. How blind! How fatal is the delusion!

They trusted still in the Titanic, with its unmendable breach; and in the same way these still trust human nature, with its breach of sin which thousands of years of trial have proved incorrigible. But rejecters of Christian truth require more credulity to screen them from the light than Christians have need of faith to be in the light. How Satan must laugh at the folly of his victims!

Reader, where do you belong among all these people ? Do you believe God, and make salvation your foremost concern ? or are you indifferent about it ? or do you despise and reject it ? Have you ever heard the gospel of God's grace ?-the wonderful salvation it offers ?-all free, as every good thing from God is. What have you said to it ? Did you say, To-morrow? Then Satan holds you still in his power, and he will not pity you when you wail in the outer darkness.

But to return a little more to our subject. Many of those who on the various decks of the doomed ship were ready and anxious to be saved, were denied this great privilege. There was not sufficient provision for all. Oh, the agony of this, not only for themselves, but also for their friends! How utterly in contrast is all this with God's ways! He feeds thousands with a few loaves, and there is an abundance left. The anxious cry of the convicted jailer, "What must I do to be saved?" is instantly met with the loving response, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." The Lord's invitation to anxious souls everywhere is, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " " Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out." " My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish." " I am the door:by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved."

None is ever denied. Christ "gave Himself a ransom for all," and all who come to Him for salvation find it. He goes further. He pleads with men. He draws near, and says:"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock:if any one hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in unto him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." Are any in perplexity through the confusion in Christendom and the many conflicting voices ? He says to them:" I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." To all He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life."

Thus the soul's transition is accomplished from darkness to light, and from the Adam-life of sin and death to life and incorruptibility in the risen Lord.

One thing more-the most solemn perhaps, for it involves the responsibility of the disaster-that which one would gladly pass over but for the sake of the spiritual lessons contained in it. According to the reports of both the American and English investigations, the Titanic, with all her living freight, went into a watery grave, not because of any fault of the ship, nor of the elements, but for wantonly steering a course known to be dangerous. The excuse was that others were taking the same risk.

So, too, multitudes are knowingly heading in the wrong direction-the direction of eternal woe-because other multitudes go the same way. Men of '' science " say there is no danger, and they trust in what is popular. God has warned them that " the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned;" yet they trust in "natural" men-men who have never been born of God. True science has a grand sphere, yet its sphere is within the realms of nature. The spiritual sphere lies beyond this, and even a Nicodemus, "a master in Israel," could not enter here without being born of God.

Captains of "thought" are increasingly belittling the warnings given; but, as heedless of the warnings given, the Titanic, with its sixteen hundred souls, plunged into a fathomless sea, let the followers of those men of "thought" beware lest they suddenly and hopelessly find themselves engulfed in a far, far greater calamity. Enough of the word of God has already been fulfilled before the eyes of all to assure them of the fulfilment of all the rest.

"Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away" (Mark 13:31). A. T. E.

The subject of our narrative was a little woman, not much over four feet in height. Nobody dreamed when she was a girl that she ever would become what she did become. She had a somewhat fiery spirit, which broke out in temper and hot word whenever there was a provocation. She loved excitement and lived for pleasure, with little concern about other aims. She had no real education, for she was doing something else at the period of life when it is easiest to train the mind. But if she had wanted such training ever so eagerly, it would have been difficult to have gained it, for her early home was in a back country district where the schools were poor and took the pupils only through very simple branches of study, with little or no culture. Twenty years ago this little woman found in Christ her own Saviour, and the very highest kind of culture began to show itself in her life. Everybody knew that something had happened. New traits of character bloomed out like fresh spring flowers, and a new kind of life commenced. She had always lived for herself, and never thought of doing anything else. Now, she went to living for Christ and for everybody who needed her.

She did not look for any far-off field, nor did she ache to preach. She bought a little country shop near a "four corners," and went to selling light groceries and such simple wares as she could handle. This shop soon became one of the principal centers of light in the community-a little temple from which spiritual forces radiated. The little woman lived in her shop, and could always be found night or day. Persons who had any troubles soon discovered that the little woman in the shop knew how to comfort them, and so they dropped in to tell their tale of woe and to find sympathy and encouragement. Slowly her feeble body was racked and twisted by rheumatism until almost every joint was stiff and sore, but she did not talk about her own troubles. She would sit and listen quietly to the ills of a neighbor, and her interest and sympathy would go out, and her face would light up as she talked, so that no one guessed that she herself was suffering.

Those who had money to spare and wished to distribute to the needy, gladly made the tiny rheumatic woman the dispenser of their charity; and she delighted to hobble about, carrying sunshine and something more into homes where trial and poverty made the struggle of life hard. She was never happier than when she had something which she could give, and it always seemed as though she was a messenger of love come from God Himself and as though the gift came from Him, only He chose her hand to carry it for Him. The little shop was one of the most joyous places in the whole town. She could laugh as well as mourn, and she could rejoice with those who rejoiced as well as weep with those who wept. Her humor was genuine, and her love of mirth and joy were known everywhere. She enjoyed life as the happy birds do, and the best cure she knew for pain and hardship was thanksgiving and praise. She enjoyed the beauties of nature. The sight of growing flowers, of autumn colors, of sunset tints, moved her as though she had seen through a veil and had caught a glimpse of the Creator behind the visible beauty. When she spoke of her Father in heaven her voice trembled and broke with a quaver, for the joy of relationship with Him filled her heart. It was all so real; it was all so wonderful.

Everybody, hardened sinners and gentle little children, knew that she was one of Christ's flock. In her was vividly manifested the fulfilment of the Lord's prayer for His own, "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also maybe one in Us:that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me " (John 17:21). She had the unmistakable marks which tell that the family of God, in whatever part of the earth, or with whatever tongue or people they may be found, is one family-from one and the same Father:those marks which witness for Christ in all the world and command attention to the message which they bring.

This transformed little woman, with no thought of herself, showed in her daily life that Christ dwelt in her. She was like Him. She gave cups of cold water; she loved those who suffered; she strengthened the tempted, and encouraged those whose faith was feeble. The little worn and twisted body now lies white and cold. The spirit has gone away. The soul that suffered much is happy with a new and deeper joy. There were few of her own kith and kin to weep by her grave, but an entire village mourned, for the little woman who was their trusted friend had gone home, and many realized that she who seemed an ordinary woman, was really one of God's great ones. R. M. J.

"In My Name.''

It is related of Andrew Fuller that when he went into his native town to collect for the cause of missions, one of his old acquaintances said:"Well, Andrew, I'll give five pounds, seeing it's you." "No" said Mr. Fuller, " I can take nothing for this cause, seeing it's me"-and handed the money back. The man felt reproved, but in a moment he said:"And, you are right. Here are ten pounds, seeing it is for the Lord Jesus Christ." Selected

SIMPLE PAPERS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS BY H. A. IRONSIDE

" Fear not, Paul; . . . lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee."-Acts 27:24.

BAPTISM AND CONNECTED TRUTHS

Baptism is the initiatory ordinance of Christianity. It expresses subjection to the Lordship of Christ. To fritter away what God has said concerning this beautifully expressive ordinance, as some do today, on the plea that it did not belong to the special revelation given to Paul, and consequently has no place in the dispensation of the mystery, is to ignore or pervert what our apostle has himself left on record regarding it. It is true that he was " not sent to baptize but to preach the gospel." If people made more of the servant than they should, he was thankful he had baptized none, save a very few, lest any should say he baptized in his own name. Nevertheless he did baptize; and when, for good and sufficient reasons, he did not administer the ordinance himself, he saw that some one else, some one of his fellow-laborers, did so; for even at Corinth it was as the result of his preaching "many of the Corinthians hearing, believed, and were baptized " (Acts 18; 8).

Baptism has a wider scope than Christianity, but no amount of sophistical reasoning can eliminate it from Christianity or from the epistles of Paul, which fully set forth the new order. The young Christian therefore should search the Scriptures on this as on all other doctrines and practices, and act before God according to what he there finds written.

I do not propose here to enter into a discussion as to the subjects or mode of baptism. I have done that elsewhere.* * In my booklet "Baptism :What saith the Scripture? "* But it is my present purpose to press upon the reader the distinctive instruction of Paul as to the lines of truth exemplified by, or connected with, baptism unto the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For in the revelation of the Trinity we have Christianity in its essence. The Father so loved the world that He gave the Son, who became man, and in the power of the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God for our salvation. This is the grand fundamental truth each baptized one is called upon to defend, if need be, at the cost of his life.

In baptism Christ's death is set forth in symbol. He, in amazing grace, because of our sins, bore on the cross the awful baptism of divine wrath, that we might enjoy forever the living favor of the God of all grace. This is pictured as the baptized one is immersed beneath the water. Every baptism is thus a fresh reminder of what we owe to the Lord Jesus. Like the communion supper, it sets forth His death (Rom. 6:3).

Then, secondly, it pictures our death with Him. If He died beneath the judgment of God for sin, it was as taking our place; so we, in this ordinance, are "buried with Him by baptism unto death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life " (Rom. 6:4). For the baptized one to be living a careless, worldly life, while yet enjoying what is called "a good conscience about, or through baptism," is a shameful thing. If baptized to death, it is that you should daily own in a practical way that you are through with the world; severed from its follies and all its ways through identification with Christ in death, and now living on the resurrection side of the tomb, called to walk in accordance with the new life in Christ risen.

Thirdly, baptism answers to a soldier's donning the regimental uniform:"For as many of you as have been baptized into (or, unto) Christ, have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). This is not to say that all the baptized are truly Christ's. That would be a grave error 'indeed. But he who has been baptized unto Christ, has thereby taken upon him the badge of subjection to Christ. A man being recruited for the army, the moment he signs the articles is a soldier. But the uniform marks him out as such. Even so baptism is the putting on of Christ and owning Him as Lord.

Closely connected with this is the fourth proposition :Baptism, is for the dead. '' Else what shall they do who are baptized for (or, over) the dead [ones]; if the dead [ones] rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the dead [ones] ? " (i Cor. 15; 29.) Here it is not baptized for a dead Christ, as some would have it ; because the word rendered " dead " is plural in each instance. Neither is it a vicarious baptism by living persons on behalf of others who have died unbaptized. This is a foolish and hurtful heterodox notion maintained by Mormons and a few other evil sects. But it is simply that each baptized one, since the first generation of Christians, has been, by baptism, filling up the ranks, taking the place of those who have died in the service of Christ. We are all baptized for the dead. We have taken their vacated places, and we are now called upon to fight the Lord's battles in their stead. If there were no resurrection this would be folly. We might better enjoy the world while it lasts, knowing that we must soon depart and then eternal unconsciousness follow! But, in view of resurrection, we take the place of Christ's soldiers, even though we "stand in jeopardy every hour" (ver. 30; and note the following four verses).

And now let me ask you who read these pages:Is this indeed what baptism means to you? With many, I know, it is merely a form. With others, it is a matter of duty, a command to be obeyed in a legal spirit. But to the instructed Christian it is a sweet and precious privilege, setting forth what Christ has suffered for our redemption, our identification with that blessed Saviour in His death, and the acknowledgment of His Lordship in the daily life.

If it does not, or has not meant all this to you, your place is on your knees in self-judgment and humiliation of soul, seeking grace to turn in singleness of heart from all that is of the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life-and to yield yourself unreservedly unto Christ, as one alive from the dead, who can never forget that the Red Sea of judgment rolls forever between you and the world that crucified Him. He is worthy of your highest, best service. He gave Himself for you, and thereby purchased you, body, soul and spirit, for His glory. Take heed that you do not defraud Him out of the fruit of His bitter cross.

THE LORD’S SUPPER

Apart from the historical accounts of its institution in the first three Gospels, Paul is the only New Testament writer who communicates anything to us on the precious theme of the Christian's "forget-me-not" feast-the Lord's Supper. Yet, of such importance is it, that he received a special revelation from heaven concerning it. This he passes on for our learning in the great Church epistle, 1st Corinthians. This letter has well been called "the Charter of the Church," because of the fulness of its instruction in all matters pertaining to assembly life. After Romans it is, I believe, the most important portion of the New Testament for young believers to become well-grounded in. It should be read and re-read until thoroughly familiar with every part of it, and controls the reins and the heart.

To chapters 10 and n we turn for truth in connection with the memorial feast. In chapter 10 we have "the Lord's Table," and in chapter 11, "the Lord's Supper." We need to apprehend the true character of the Table, ere we can properly enter into the blessing of the Supper.

Three tables are brought before us, each standing for a distinct fellowship or communion. In verse 18 we are told that "Israel after the flesh" "are partakers of the altar," which Malachi calls "the table of the Lord (Jehovah) "-see Mal. 1:12. The heathen are partakers of '' the table of devils (or, demons)," while Christians are partakers of the Lord's table (ver. 21).

I have sometimes heard very ignorant people speak of some celebration of the Lord's Supper other than the one they attended as the table of demons. This is a shocking perversion of the truth declared in i Cor. 10. No Christian celebration is dedicated to devils. All are in the name of Christ, however mistaken people may be as to method and principles.

It is not therefore correct for any particular company of Christians to claim that they alone have the Lord's table. Every table spread with bread and wine upon it in remembrance of the one offering of the Lord Jesus on the cross, is His. There may be persons received there who should not be, and some excluded who have divine title to participate; but it is the Lord's, nevertheless, and He will judge accordingly. His table may be connected with tin-scriptural practices and teachings, but it remains His still; and He, as Son over the house of God, takes note of every infringement of His rights and authority, and of every unholy thing linked with the table that, in symbol, sets forth His death. It is not incumbent on any one to select one of the many companies of believers in Christendom, and decide which one possesses the Lord's table. What we are responsible to do is to see that we are identified with those who are gathered in a scriptural way and who observe the supper of the Lord " as it is written."

The symbolism of the table is explained in verse 16:"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? The bread (or, loaf) which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? " This is divinely simple, and in full accord with the words of the Lord Jesus when He instituted this feast of love. At His table we remember Him in death. The cup and the loaf, apart, tell of death accomplished, as when the blood is separated from the body.

A whole loaf upon the table would seem to be indicated by the next verse:" For we being many are one bread (loaf) and one body, for we are all partakers of that one loaf." The bread then symbolizes not only the actual body of the Lord given for us upon the cross, but it also pictures His mystical body, to which all believers belong. We express, in partaking of the loaf, our fellowship one with another, as well as individual communion with the Lord. But this must be in separation from evil, as verse 21 plainly teaches.

In the next chapter the mind of the Spirit is occupied with the supper itself rather than with its symbolism as in chapter 10. In verses 23 to 26 we learn that Paul had received a special revelation regarding the Supper, yet fully agreeing with the accounts given by the three Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke; only that the thought of the Lord's return is added to the remembrance of Him in His death:" For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." Thus are the cross and the glory linked together for faith, and ever kept before the soul in this observance of the Lord's Supper.

The word rendered "show" is often translated "preach" in the New Testament. Every celebration of the Eucharist (as the early Christians loved to call this feast-a word meaning thanksgiving) is in itself a sermon. It is a proclaiming of the Lord's death:and were there more holiness, and consequently more power with it, we might often expect to see i Cor. 14 :24, 25 fulfilled when we are thus gathered together.

Some of us will never forget such an instance a number of years ago in Sacramento, California, when an unconverted Japanese was present. We had barely replaced the bread and cup upon the table, before this heathen man rose to his feet in great emotion, and burst out in prayer, about as follows:" O God, I all broke up to pieces. I, a poor sinner. For long time, for one whole year, I fight you hard -but here I see your people eat the bread, drink the wine, that show how Jesus He die for sinners. O God, I can fight no more-I all break down. I take Jesus; He be my Saviour now! "

And that very day, at his earnest request, he was baptized as owning his personal faith in Christ. For years he has been in fellowship as simply gathered to the name of the Lord. Alas, that such scenes are not more common!

One more point and I am done. Never become so occupied with the form that you neglect the spirit of the Lord's Supper. It is a place for the heart's affections to flow out. Do not make it a ritualistic observance ; but let it ever be an occasion where Christ Himself is before the soul; who has said, "This do for a remembrance of Me."

By Thy cross, Thy death for me,
Suffered once on Calvary,
Thou didst mark my destiny,
Here and for eternity.

By the power of Thy cross
Earthly gain I count but loss.
In the glory of its light,
Earth's bright day doth seem as night.

'Tis the power of Thy cross
Separates the world and us,
Lifts our hearts above the gloom,
Draws us ever nearer home.

By Thy power, Thou risen Lord,
I am risen, so saith Thy Word;
Death has lost its dread for me
And the grave its victory.

Sweet and solemn was the hour
When I realized Thy power;
Sweeter, when with Thee above,
I shall better know Thy love:

Know Thee as I've never known,
Show, as I have never shown,
What Thy death, Lord, meant to me
In its deep reality.

Yea, and what it meant for Thee !
Blackness of obscurity !
Dying, suffering, all alone!
But for Thee, Lord, it were my own.

Mine! yet Thou didst in Thy grace
Take the poor lost sinner's place,
Wash the guilty and defiled,
Make me God's beloved child!

Guiltless, Thou God's wrath couldst bear,
Cleansed, I now Thy victory share,
Heir with Thee to heaven's estate,
Lord, Thy mercy, oh how great!
When the scoffers would deride
Him who once for sinners died,
I can love and pity too,
For they know not what they do.

When the world would beckon me,
I can point them unto Thee,
Tell them God's beloved Son
All my heart and soul hath won.

Now, I know Thee by Thy grace,
Then I'll see Thee face to face,
With Thee, like Thee, e'er to be,
Saviour, ever more with Thee.

H. McD

Watch, for the enemy ceaseth not night nor day,
Laying his traps and snares for thy feet unawares.
'Isms of every kind, blinding the heart and mind,
Meet thee on every side like a devouring tide
Wrought by mere human mind, borne upon every wind
Hid 'neath enticing smiles:-thus Satan works his wiles.

Pray, for the atmosphere filleth the heart with fear-
Lest some loved child of God fall 'neath this fearful rod :
Pray, lest thy heart grow cold, and the sweet things of old
Losing their charm for thee, thou mayest fall easily.
Think of His cross and shame, think of His glorious name,
Once 'twas the drunkard's song, and I fear 'tis not long,
Ere men with oath and curse, use that blest name far worse.
Now they would bring it low, say that they do not owe
Aught to this glorious One-that He is not God's Son.
Man is the God men seek; Jesus, the God-man meek,
Suits not the critic's mind, Him they've left far behind-
So say wise men to-day; but we're more wise than they.

Wait, He is coming soon, whether midnight or noon ;
Only be patient still, He must His word fulfil.
Yea, while you suffer wait, soon He will ope' the gate
Into His blessed home, saying "beloved come;"
Wait tho' the eyes grow dim, pray while you wait for Him,
Each look of faith, each cry pierceth the very sky.

Courage, each waiting saint! let not the heart grow faint
Just as the night is o'er, just as we near the shore.
Look for the morning star shineth-I'm sure, not far;
And its effulgent ray soon will declare the day.
Dark hath the shadow been over this world of sin,
Cast by His heavy cross-thank God, not over us.
We're on the glory side, there ever more to abide
Watching for Him to come, waiting to be caught home :
When that bright morning breaks, each sleeping saint awakes,
We shall be changed, and they, caught by the Lord away,
To our eternal home, no more on earth to roam.

Come! blessed Lord we pray; hasten that glorious day,
When the last gathered one turneth to Christ Thy Son.
Then we shall see Him crowned, then we shall hear Him
owned-
Jesus, the glorified, who once was crucified. H. McD.

READINGS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

A Personal Experience.

About four years ago I set out for a mela (a fair in India) with a large supply of Gospels and other books. On reaching the fair-ground, I filled my large satchel and went expectantly into the midst of the crowd. Up and down I wandered, in the heat and dust and clamor, past booths and stalls laden with sweetmeats, toys, charms, jewelry, beads, looking-glasses, etc., etc. For nearly an hour I went to and fro amid the thronging multitude, but not more than two or three books were sold. Something was lacking.

I stole away to a quiet spot on rising ground outside the fair, and sat down there to rest and pray for help. As I watched the busy throngs, intent on pleasure, all gathered nominally to pay reverence to their idols, I thought of One who, when He saw the multitudes, had compassion on them; and something of His divine compassion and sympathy surged up in my own heart. I waited awhile to gain fresh inspiration from the presence of the Lord, and then went back to my task. Before I left the fair-ground not a book remained of all those I had brought with me; and I reached home refreshed and strengthened in spirit, in spite of the babel of the crowds and the scorching, sweltering day. Selected

The differences are immense, and it is important to understand them. Law comes to man and says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself " (Luke 10:27). It says, Do this and live, but if thou fail in any measure, thy doom is sure. Such is Law, both in character and purpose. It is inexorable. It cannot bend; it cannot forgive; it demands of man what is right, but it gives him no power to do the right; it forbids and condemns the wrong, but cannot change the heart of man, who naturally loves evil and hates restraint. Like a dam across the river forbidding the waters to flow on, it stands as a bulwark against evil, only to find out that the flood breaks over the dam and still flows on. Law manifests the evil, but does not cure it.

Responsibility is what comes with the receiving of gifts from God. If, as Creator, He has bestowed upon man abilities, talents, a mind and a will, each and all of which make him a creature superior to all others, man is responsible for making use of all this in the way suited to the purpose God had in giving them. If as Redeemer He bestows new gifts upon man, those new gifts bring their own responsibilities.

When God came to Abraham and called him to leave his native land and kindred and go to a place which God would show him, it was because He had bestowed upon Abraham that which enables a man to confide in God as a little child confides in its father, trusting implicitly in the love that guides him. Faith had been imparted to Abraham. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." While dwelling in his own country the God of glory appeared to him and said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I will shew thee " (Acts 7:2, 3).

Abraham was thus brought into a new relationship with God, and this relationship brought responsibility. The true God having made Himself known to Abraham, Abraham could no longer serve false gods. Having bidden him to leave his native land and go to another, he can no longer feel at home where he is, but must go on as bidden. He may be checked and hindered in this, as he in fact was, but his new responsibilities press upon him.

It was not till after his father's death at Haran, part way to Canaan, that Abraham seemed free. From that moment, " they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came." They did not stop this time, but pressed on to the end. But all those days of Abraham's dwelling in Haran, the responsibility of obeying God was upon him, and while he lingers there, we hear of no word of any appearance of God to him, or of any altar built by him. Whilst as soon as he comes to a stopping place in Canaan, the Lord appears to him and he builds an altar. There is the obedience of faith on Abraham's part, grace and blessing on God's part. The relationship between God and Abraham was of God's pure grace; it involved responsibility on Abraham's part to believe and obey.

This responsibility was a very different matter from the law which was given 430 years after. "Get thee out, and I will make of thee a great nation," is very different from Do this and thou shall live, or, Cursed is everyone who disobeys. The principle is different, the purpose of both is different, and should not be confounded. One reveals God, the other reveals man and leaves God still in the thick darkness and amid the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai.
Christians are not under law, but they have wondrous blessing and grace and privileges and promises. This brings corresponding responsibilities, and this, if we understand our weakness, as displayed in Abraham, casts us the more upon God for grace to meet those responsibilities. The more a child of God realizes his absolute dependence upon God, and what God has in Christ for His people and gives them whatever they need, the more will he glorify Him, and the more will such an one enjoy the grace of God. A sense of our responsibility as children of God will bring us to Him for strength and wisdom and all else we need. It will, of necessity, make us a prayerful people.

But law sets men to trying in their own strength to do what is right, to keep the commandments. Under grace a believer walks in newness of life, walks after the Spirit, in love, and thus in him the righteousness of the law is fulfilled. Under law a soul is in bondage, trying to do what his fallen nature makes impossible. He is never at rest, always coming short. One's own doings are ever before the mind of the earnest legalist, and such a mind is never at peace. What brings peace is the knowledge of the grace of God through the work of Christ on the cross, thus keeping Him ever before us as the Friend who loves us better than anyone else, and is never weary of us.

As the sense of our responsibility presses upon us, we find all we need in Him. It is not trying and fearing and hoping under law, but turning away from all else to Christ, finding in Him strength and wisdom and every need fully met. J. W. Newton

"Behold My Servant, whom I uphold, Mine Elect, in whom My soul delighteth " (Isa. 42 :1).

In the midst of the ruin of the first man, how refreshing is the above passage expressing God's delight in One in whom He found no trace of imperfection! The previous chapter ends with, "I beheld, and there was no man . . . Behold, they are all vanity." Then we are introduced to this One of whom He testifies, " I have put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." At once we are led in thought to the opened heavens at His baptism, when the Spirit of God as a dove descends upon Him and the voice says, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

In chapter 49 the Servant is none other than the Speaker. Again, the last word of the previous chapter is, "There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked." The ruin is hopeless except for God. And now we hear the word addressed to the One through whom the blessing is to come:"Thou art My Servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." Israel in this passage is not the nation, but Christ who takes its place in the mind of God, and God is glorified through Him. "Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for naught and in vain." There were different times in the Lord's ministry on earth when, because of what they deemed a "hard saying," "many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him." Under such circumstances can we not think of Him as using such an expression as this ? For we must remember that He who was divine was also human. Perfect humanity was found in Him, and how keenly at times He felt the unbelief of man! Yet that faith which in Him was never weak, adds,' 'Surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God."

In the following verses of the prophecy we see the larger purpose of God in His coming revealing itself. "And now, saith the Lord that formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob again to Him:Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and My God shall be My strength." He had come to gather Israel. " He came to His own, and His own received Him not." But the Spirit of God in the prophet has anticipated this also, and the prophecy continues unfolding the larger purpose of God in blessing to the whole world:" I will also give Thee for a Light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth " So also in chapter 42:i, " He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles."

There is abundant prophecy to show that God had designs for blessing to the Gentiles, so that the Jews had no excuse for the hatred which they manifested at the mention of blessing to the Gentiles (Acts 22:21, 22); as Isaiah 9:2; "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great Light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the Light shined." In the fulfilment of this prophecy, the Lord having seen in the imprisonment of John the forecast of His own rejection, left Nazareth and went and dwelt in Capernaum (Matt. 4:12-16).

But to return to our subject, in Isaiah 52:13-15:"Behold My Servant shall deal prudently … As many were astonished at Thee; His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more
than the children of men; so shall He astonish many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at Him" (J. N. D. version).
The Messiah they had pictured in their imaginations was so different from the true one that they were astonished. They had not expected One so meek, who would be the object of insult and scorn, and whose personal appearance would be disfigured. They did not know their own hearts, or the wickedness of which they were capable. They little realized what enmity would be provoked in them by the very holiness of that blessed One who would walk in their midst. He was the Man who walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful. His delight was in the law of the Lord. His passivity and weakness astonished them then, but His power and glory will astonish kings when He returns to the earth. Ere He rises up to reign and to execute His judgments, the kings of the earth are invited to " Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."

Again we find the Servant in chapter 53 :" He shall see of the fruit of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied:by His knowledge shall My Righteous Servant instruct many in righteousness; and He shall bear their iniquities " (ver. 11, J. N. D.).

The time is coming when the Righteous One will see the full results of His atoning work; when the trophies of His grace in heaven and in earth will be gathered to Himself, and He will set up His kingdom on earth, and instruct in righteousness those in relationship to Him.

The prophet Zechariah, after showing the future cleansing of Israel's iniquity in the figure of her high priest, says, "Behold I will bring forth My Servant the 'Branch" (chap. 3:8), and this Man (chap. 6:12) is He who builds the temple of the Lord and sits and rules upon His throne. He is the true High Priest, but not that alone:He is both Priest and King. " He shall be a Priest upon His throne!"

With what joy the loyal Christian heart anticipates that time when He " who made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a Servant" shall have been exalted to the place ordained of God for Him. And not alone in His glory then, but His bride, the Church, shall share with Him as joint-heir all the possessions He receives from His Father. R. B. E.

QUES. 30.-In Romans 11 :21 it reads :"If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee." Also in John 15 :6, " If a man abide not in Me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned."

Some think by these words there is a possibility of a saved man being lost. This I know cannot be, because it would contradict other scriptures, and I cannot believe that contradictions exist in Scripture ; but I should be very thankful for some light on this subject, if you have space in help AND FOOD.

ANS.-You are quite right in believing that no contradictions can possibly exist in Scripture. If it could, it would prove that the Scriptures are not the word of God-as infidels are ever busying themselves to do to their invariable defeat, and worse, to their eternal ruin. We may find difficulties in some of its statements, and that chiefly because we have not apprehended the subject of which the Spirit treats. But these difficulties, if carried to God in prayer, will prove the very means of our progress in divine learning.

In your present question there are three great and important subjects involved. First, the eternal salvation of man, which is by grace, through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In that unchanging basis the Scriptures affirm again and again that the believer in Christ can never perish. Christ has given him eternal life, atoned for his sins and put them out of God's sight, and has given him the Holy Spirit as the seal of his eternal security. He is forever saved therefore.

Next, the first scripture you quote from (Rom. 11:21) applies to the nation of Israel and to the testimony which God had committed to them. The olive tree is used as the emblem of testimony, as the vine of fruitfulness, aa the almond of resurrection, etc. "When God called the nation of Israel to be His own, arid separated it from the other and idolatrous nations, He committed His oracles to them (see Rom. 3 :1-4), and this made them responsible to live accordingly. They did not. They were unfaithful to that which was committed to them. So God took away His oracles from them and transferred them over to us Christian Gentiles. And if we do as the Jews-prove unfaithful to the far higher testimony which God has committed to us in Christianity, He will also cut off Christendom from being His witness in the world, aud take up again the Jewish nation-on a new footing, on the ground of pure grace. This is the subject of Rom. 11, as you may easily see by careful reading. In verse 25 of that chapter He actually declares the downfall of Christendom as God's witness on earth. But, as you can see, this has nothing to do with the eternal salvation of the individual believer.

Lastly, in John 15, Christ is contrasted with Israel. Israel was a vine which God brought out of Egypt (Ps. 80), and upon which He bestowed much labor and pain, but it only brought forth wild grapes. Christ is " the true Vine," whose fruit is precious to God. All professing Christians are the branches. The true are pruned for more fruit-bearing. The false, who have no living link with Christ, will be burned. It is not now the time for this, but it will surely come when every false Christian will be manifested and judged more severely than the heathen, for they have known the Master's will and have not done it, whilst the heathen have not known. This, as you can see, does not conflict with the everlasting salvation of the true Christian. It should, however, urge the true Christian to fruitfulness, and make him gladly submit to the pruning shears in God's hand.

Some one has said, Never allow a plain passage of Scripture to be obscured in your mind by one that is not clear. Sooner or later the difficult one will become as plain as the other. This is good advice. It is six thousand years since God created man and all that is around him, and how little man yet knows of the many phenomena of his sphere after all his study and research. It is no wonder then if in the higher sphere of revelation there be yet many difficulties for many of God's people-even the most studious and devoted.

SIMPLE PAPERS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS BY H. A. IRONSIDE

" Fear Dot, Paul; . . . lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee."-Acts 27:24.

THE VOYAGE ENDED! THE JUDGMENT-SEAT OF CHRIST

Soon those who sail with Paul will have weathered the last gale, endured the final storm; and, the voyage over the sea of Time completed, will have reached their desired haven. Even though the vessel of testimony may seem to fall to pieces, still, either swimming to shore, or "some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship," all shall escape safely to land-and not to find themselves among strangers either, needing what Charity's kindness might bestow, but welcomed there by all their brethren of all ages, and above all by Him whose loving care had watched o'er all their way, and whose grace will have safely brought them home.

Depend upon it, no self-denial for His name's sake will then seem to have been too great; no trials because of His truth will appear to have been too many; no suffering or toil for the spreading of His gospel too much, in that day. Nay, on the contrary, how many will there be who would then gladly give the wealth of a world, were it their's to offer, if they had only been more devoted to Him in the day of His rejection, more unworldly, more Christ-like, and more concerned about the dire need of the perishing thousands about them. But the day for faithfulness to an absent Lord will then be over, and the hour of manifestation will have arrived.

Paul himself looking on to this solemn time could write:" I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but also unto all those that love His appearing" (2 Tim. 4; 6-8). It was not the final " day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men " that he had in view. Paul had no thought of ever being judged for his sins. He knew all that had been settled in Christ's cross. Hence for him, as for all believers, there could be no judgment in the future, so far as the question of sin was concerned. But elsewhere he tells us that "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad " (2 Cor. 5:10). And he shows us that, for the Christian, this will mean a complete manifestation of all his works and motives, that the Lord may express His own mind regarding them, and reward all that was of His Spirit in the life of His people after His grace had saved them.

The third chapter of 1st Corinthians is most instructive in this connection. In its primary application, the subject under consideration is the building up of the assembly of God in its local aspect. But the principle involved applies to all Christian work and service. Every believer is building on the rock-foundation which is Christ Himself. "Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious [or, costly] stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest:for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is" (vers. 12, 13). I have little doubt that an historical incident was in Paul's mind as the Spirit led him to pen these words.
Among the "seven wonders" of the ancient world was the magnificent temple of Diana, outside the city of Ephesus. It was built on marshy ground, and before the building could be erected, a great foundation of rock had to be planted in the mire. This was the work of years. When the foundation had thus been laid, the superstructure was reared under the direction of the most famous "master-builder " of his day. The building was entirely composed of gold, silver and costly stones. But the roof and the rooms adjoining the main sanctuary, used by the priests and priestesses of Diana, were made of wood, hay and stubble. On the night that beacon lights on every hill-top of Greece and Asia Minor flashed the news of the birth of an heir to Philip of Macedon (who became celebrated as Alexander the Great), Erostratus the Ephesian set fire to this temple of Diana. In the morning it was found that the gold, silver and costly stones remained unharmed, while the wood, hay and stubble had been devoured by the flames.

Now every Christian is building upon the foundation laid through the gospel. All that is in accordance with the word of God is likened to gold, silver and costly stones. That which is of the flesh is pictured by the wood, hay and stubble. At the judgment-seat of Christ all will be tested by the fire of infinite holiness. Then everything that was not the fruit of the Spirit will be destroyed. Notice, that "the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." It does not say "how much it is." It is not quantity, but quality that is in question. A vast amount of so-called Christian work will be destroyed in that day; but all that has really been for Christ will stand the test. " If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire " (vers. 14, 15). This last clause supposes an extreme case where, if even not one thing is found that can be rewarded, still, so absolutely is salvation of grace that "he himself shall be saved " though all his works be burned up. But verse 5 of chapter 4 shows us that there will be none in that day who will fail utterly of reward. "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God."* *We know that many have so interpreted this passage, but does not the context show that it is a question of the source from which the praise comes, rather than an affirmation that all will have praise? The apostle tells the Corinthians that it is a very small thing with him to be judged of them or of man's day (in contrast to the Lord's day). Even a good conscience about himself does not settle the matter. Neither the Church's approval, nor the world's, nor his own, will do; the praise at that day will come from none of those sources, but from God.-[ED.*

The rewards are pictured in other scriptures as "crowns." These crowns should never be confounded with salvation, which is entirely of God's sovereign grace; while the crowns were given for individual faithfulness. There are five different designations used, as follows:

The "incorruptible crown," promised to all who in godliness and self-control run the Christian race (i Cor. 9:25-27). The "crown of rejoicing" for the winner of souls (i Thess. 2:19; see also Phil. 4:i). The "crown of righteousness," for all who love Christ's appearing, and labor now in view of that day (2 Tim. 4 :8). The " crown of life," for those who witness amid trial with unyielding perseverance (Jas. i:12; Rev. 2:10). The "crown of glory," for faithfully shepherding the sheep and lambs of Christ's flock (i Pet. 5:1-4).

In Rev. 3 :11 the Lord Jesus says:"I come quickly:hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." This is an exhortation we may all take heed to, remembering that the Lord's work will be accomplished according to His purpose, whether we have a share in it or not. But it is our happy privilege to be "fellow-laborers under God," working in subjection to His word, to be rewarded when our Saviour comes again. The opportunity to serve will soon be over. May grace be mine and yours, dear reader, to labor on in hope, remembering that " If a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully" (2 Tim. 2:5)

With this paper, our present series comes to an end. Let me, in closing, urge each young Christian to live alone in view of the end of the voyage, so fast approaching, heeding the farewell message of the ascended Lord:"Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give each one according as his work shall be" (Rev. 22:12).

"In Matthew 12 the Lord rebukes the Pharisees by saying, ' Have ye not read what David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests ?' This is noted in three of the Gospels, and so of great importance.

According to the established order of things David in this act might have been wrong, but morally he was right, and the Lord justifies him fully. We are naturally legal; fond of ecclesiastical law; great sticklers for it. It is wonderful how we can magnify an ordinance made for our blessing into such proportions as to make it a hindrance to that blessing, and to prevent God's government having its way. But He loves the moral condition of soul which acts for Him in the moment of crisis, and which we may easily mistake. We always incline to tithe the anise and cummin and neglect the weightier matters of mercy and judgment. ' I will have mercy and not sacrifice is a great word.' "

Yesterday was when my Saviour
Died on Calvary;
Yea, the past of my life's story
Graven there for me.

And to-day is just the living
Of that life divine,
Which He gave when I received Him-
Mine, for ever mine.

But to-morrow-oh, the glory
That is yet to be !
I shall then behold my Saviour
Through eternity !

H. McD

No confession short of, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God " will do. The people may have high and honorable thoughts of Jesus, as I have just said. They may speak of Him as " a good man,"or as "a prophet," as Elias or Jeremias -but nothing of this kind will do; nothing less than the faith which apprehends and receives Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God.

The reason of the need of this faith is simple. Our state of ruin in this world, ruin by reason of sin and death, calls for the presence of God Himself among us, and that, too, in the character of conqueror over sin and death. And He whom God has sent is such an One. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the living God in flesh, come here for the very purpose of bringing back life into this scene of death, destroying the works of the devil, and putting away sin. This is the one whom our condition demands. Such is our ruin, that nothing less than this will do for us:and if we can, in our own thoughts, do with anything less than this, we show that, we have not yet discovered our real condition, our condition in the presence of God. All acceptance of Christ short of this is nothing. It is no acceptance of Him. He may be a Prophet, He may be a King, He may be a doer of wonders or a teacher of heavenly secrets; but if this be all our apprehension of Him, our all is nothing.

Faith has great and noble work to do in such a scene as this world, and in such circumstances as human life furnishes every day. It has to reach its own objects through many veils, and to dwell in its own world in spite of many hindrances. It is the things not seen, and the things hoped for, that it deals with; and such things lie at a distance, or under coverings; and faith has to be active and energetic in order to reach them and deal with them.

In John ii we look on a scene of death, such, as I have said, our ruined condition in this world really is. Everyone, save the Lord Himself, seems to have apprehended nothing but death. The disciples, Martha and her friends, and even Mary, talked only of death; and as far as the present moment went, have no faith in anything beyond it. Jesus, in the midst of all this, stands alone, eyeing life and talking of life. He moved onward in the consciousness of it, carrying in Himself light in this overshadowing of darkness and gloom. Bat there was no faith there, doing its duties:that is, discovering Him. Martha represents this absence of faith-just as the multitude do in Matt. 16:14. She meets the Lord, but her best thought about Him is this, that whatsoever He would ask of God, God would give it Him. But this will not do. This was not faith doing its proper work, discovering the glory that was hidden in Jesus of Nazareth.

The Son will empty Himself. He will take the form of a Servant. He will be obedient unto death. He will cover Himself as with a cloud, and lie hid under a thick veil, a veil not only of flesh, but of flesh in humiliation, and weakness, and poverty. But while He is doing all this, He cannot admit the absence of that faith which does its proper work only when it discovers Him. He will not be in company with depreciating thoughts about Him. He looks for faith's discoveries of His glory, in the saints that He walks with.

He therefore rebukes Martha. Instead of admitting that God will give to Him, as Martha had said, on His asking Him, He says to her, as on the authority of His own personal glory,'' Thy brother shall rise again." And instead of complying with her afterthought, that He should rise again in the last day, He says to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."

How all this commends itself to our souls! The Lord will give no place to these imperfect apprehensions of Him. Needful it was, in the riches of His grace, that He should empty Himself; our sins could find their relief in nothing less than that. But right it is that faith should make a full discovery of Him under this veil of self-emptiness. J. G. Bellett

The prism is usually a solid piece of clear glass in triangular form-that is, having one base and two sides. A ray of white light passing through such a prism is bent twice-once on entering and once on leaving the prism. The wave-lengths for each color being different, they are thus separated, so that each color embodied in the ray of white light is revealed to our eye. The same result is produced by the rays of the sun passing through the drops of rain, and the majestic "rainbow in the cloud" is produced. A complete rainbow spans the firmament from horizon to horizon-a beautiful symbol of the immutability of God's covenant with man and the whole earth that the waters of the flood shall never cover it again (Gen. 9:9-16).

Now if the rainbow's form is significant, we may surely look for the colors to be no less so.

Beginning with RED, we see in it humanity-man (Adam, means red earth), formed of the earth as Scripture tells us; and our blessed Lord has taken on humanity, to link it with Himself for ever.

Next to the Red in order we have the ORANGE, which, being a combination of red with yellow, to understand it we must first interpret the YELLOW. This, like the gold in Scripture, speaks to us of God in His divine glory. All the vessels of the Tabernacle were covered with gold. The beautiful sunsets also bear to us like witness. Therefore, in the Orange (red and yellow combined) we see "God manifest in the flesh," having come down from the glory and taken upon Himself the form of man. GREEN is nature's garb. It gives us that color of which the eye never tires. There is nothing of red in it, all comes from above-the yellow and the blue combined. It speaks of eternal life from the living, life-giving God, as imparted by BLUE, the Spirit from heaven. It was the Spirit by whom our Lord was conceived in the Virgin, and by the same "eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God," and by the same Spirit Jesus "was raised from the dead." The combination of yellow and blue tells of life from above-the gift of God! Here "the flesh (red) profiteth nothing," but by grace it is raised up in the body of Christ and appears as INDIGO, the Man Christ Jesus at the right hand of God in heaven for us. " Flesh and bones, as ye see me have " is there, and there for us, as God's pledge of our glory. Then, when all the redeemed are with Him, God's purposes will have been accomplished, and then appears the VIOLET. The "sons of men, in whom are His delights," are at last seen with Him in a heavenly sphere, in heavenly character and glory, fitted to dwell with and commune with Him who is love, through Him who is light, in the Father's house for ever!

J. E. H. S.

Gideon's Ephod Judges, chap. 8

No more magnificent victory is recorded in the history of Israel than that of Gideon over the Midianites. Faith shines out in that man of God in Jewish splendor. He is therefore nothing in his own sight. Jehovah is all to him; and if Jehovah be all, who can withstand the feeblest being to whom He is all ? Thus the victory over the enemy is complete, and it is manifestly Jehovah's victory by reason of the realized weakness of the instrument. Such men it is who live to the glory of God. Their works and the way of their works tell of God and not of men. But alas, how the best of God's men are after all only men, and, as men, able to fail most grievously.

The mighty victory won, Gideon still acting in faith, refuses to accept the proffered place of ruler over Israel. Jehovah was that, and in that place; and Gideon will not trespass against God's rights. But he asks the people for the golden ornaments which they have taken from their foes, and with them he makes an ephod by which he causes Israel to sin greatly against God. That ephod told of the victory, and they worshiped it. The victory given them by Jehovah's grace took the place of Jehovah Himself. It was idolatry; the sad effects of which soon broke out in Israel, and in Gideon's house especially.

We have long had in mind that Gideon's course illustrates pointedly a very common course among Christians. The cross of Christ and His death thereon is their victory. There all their foes were overcome. It was the end of all condemnation for all who are of faith (Rom. 8 :i ; John 3:17, 18). It was the end of themselves as sinners before God (Col. 2:20-3:11), even as in His resurrection it was their introduction as saints-a set-apart people to God by redemption-into the very presence of God.

The Holy Spirit sent to dwell in the believers was the seal of all this glorious victory of Christ on their behalf, making them perfect before God, that if any man glory he should glory in the Lord (i Cor. i:30, 31). But instead of glorying in the Lord, many turn to glorying in the fruits of His victory-in what the Holy Spirit does in or through them, in experiences, powers, etc. Hence all the shades of "Perfectionism" in existence. Some glory in their "holiness " or "perfect love." Others in their powers to "heal," or in "tongues." Others in their superiority over their brethren who, not having had this or that experience, are not therefore indwelt as they are by the Spirit. All these, and other forms of the same idolatry come from putting the victory in the place of the Victor, and the effects of this are no less deadly than in the case of Gideon. It is hard to be still nothing in our own sight when Christ's victory has put us in such an elevated position before God. It is easy to glory in the victory rather than in the blessed One who won it and turned all its benefits to us.

"Thou hast left thy first love" was our Lord's complaint to Ephesus. It may seem a small matter, but it opens the door to all the idolatry around Gideon's golden ephod. When you hear people preaching the Holy Ghost instead of Christ, you may be sure they are a proud people, who have shaken off more or less the reproach of " Christ crucified."

for the encouragement 'of those who labor in the word

" It has been matter for regret that before coming away I had not made known to you the blessing I had received through your Bible Class, so I do it now, even if late. I cannot tell how thankful I am for the change which has taken place in me. Before attending your class I was withered in heart by worldliness. I never read my Bible, I prayed seldom, and then only in moments of great stress. I had attended Christian services but once in three years, and I had no desire to attend a Bible Class. But God used dear M. to shove me there one evening. I really only went to get rid of her urging me to go. I was attracted at once, however. At first only intellectually, but later spiritually, until finally I became so interested that I believe no member of the class considered it more a privilege to attend than I.

" Now I feel as though I had formerly been cheated out of my birthright for years, for I did not have the faintest conception of what it really meant to be a child of God -a true Christian. But at last I have come to realize what is the meaning of God's grace, and it makes me deeply grateful to have thus been converted while it is yet time to influence my children. I suppose every mother, as she sees her children's characters and temperaments unfold, makes plans for their future, in view of their best securing places of honor among men. At any rate, this is what I did; but my plans have very materially changed since the word of God has reached the depths of my being. It has first of all changed the environments in the home, and though but for one year yet, I already notice that the children's minds are running in a different direction.

"You must surely have seen, and been encouraged by, the manifest blessing received by various members of the class. Mrs. — was deeply impressed last winter, and, in writing to me, never fails to refer to it. Her sister also, and Miss—and the—, and myself and husband. As I think of us all in our widely-scattered homes, and what we have brought into them from your work away down in your southern clime, I realize what an honor God has put upon you in imparting to you such a measure of His truth. Your faithfulness with it has a far-reaching influence. May all who have already been blessed through it be much in prayer for you and your work, that many of the strangers who may assemble there during the coming season from all parts of this great land, may also be blessed and carry the blessing with them to their homes. You will have our own prayers that strength, both physical and spiritual, may be given you for all the requirements and developments of the work. "Yours most sincerely,"

We have spoken of Christ in His lonely walk on earth; also of the Christian following in the Master's footsteps and sharing His portion. We have looked a little at the compensation side of the lonely life, and seen that the gain is greater than the loss:notwithstanding this, we have to own there is a great deal connected with loneliness that we would gladly avoid, and it is with feelings of relief and gladness that we turn our thoughts to the fact stated at the heading of this chapter, that one day we shall find "loneliness abolished."

Our thoughts turn to that bright, eternal home where, our Saviour tells us, He has gone to prepare a place for us, where He who has been our satisfying compensation down here shall be seen face to face. There faith will give way to sight; we shall behold Him, and see the marks in His hands and His feet:He who suffered for us is crowned there with glory and honor; we shall praise, with the song of the redeemed, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." What a wondrous reunion, too, there shall be! All the loved ones who "sleep in Jesus" we shall meet again. We can hardly imagine what it will be; pen cannot describe it-the aching void made by their having been called from us one by one all gone-no trace of sin left, as when we knew them on earth-no weary body, no feeble frame; but, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, they have put on immortality, and shall know weariness, pain, or death, no more; and there shall be no more partings, which have so often saddened us here. There will be the surpassing joy of seeing Jesus, and being forever with Him. We may perhaps say that He will so rivet our gaze that we shall have eyes only for Him, and our fellowship and joy even in reunion with our loved ones will find its center in Christ our one Redeemer and Lord, Himself the great Center of all the worship and praise in heaven. The Father delights in Him; angels delight to do His bidding; and the redeemed shall cast their crowns before Him as the One only worthy of them. Does it seem so much in the future, dear friend?-so long to wait ? Yes, but it surely comes; and the joys of heaven will be as real as the pains of earth have been.

And does it all seem too good to be true ? Ah, so faintly is it spoken, compared with what it really will be, that we can only say with the apostle, " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." It is true he adds, "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit;" so that we do already enjoy them here. But it is what we enjoy of them here which makes us realize what unutterable bliss it will be to be there, and see no more "through a glass darkly." True, if the Lord tarries, we shall have to '' pass through the valley of the shadow of death" ere we can enter into these blissful scenes; but what is death to the Christian but being "put to sleep" by Jesus, to awake in His likeness ? Our Saviour has taken away the sting and the power of death for all who love and trust Him, as we have it in those beautiful verses in Heb. 2:14, 15-" That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Christ rose triumphant o'er the grave, and therefore death is just the door opening for us to step into the Father's house. There are no desolate hearts there, and no lonely lives. Perfect love reigns supreme in and over all. The earthly body, with all its earthly limitations, is superseded by the spiritual body, with all its heavenly capabilities.

But what is the title for admission there ? Only one-one that cost the Giver a great price, but the receiver has it "without money and without price." That title is, the precious blood of Jesus. Is the reader "washed in the blood of the Lamb ?" If so, you are entitled, through the worth of that blood, to enter the Father's house and share in its joys and glories. We need to be very clear on this point; otherwise our anticipation of that happy time will be clouded by doubts and uncertainties. It is wholly and solely on the ground:

"No merit of our own we claim,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name."

It is for such this little paper has been written-to encourage, cheer and comfort the lonely Christian, and point him on to that glad day when all shall be brightness and joy.

But it may be that some lonely one who has never yielded to God, whose heart is unhappy because he has never sought and found Jesus as Saviour and Friend, may read these lines. The thought of '' loneliness abolished " will strike such a one as something much to be desired, and with a dart of pain will come the remembrance, "I have not the title." Thank God, dear friend, that you may have it if you will. God's great heart of love yearns over all, and His faithful promise is, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." Come to Him, and He will change the loneliness and sighing to peaceful communion and fellowship with Himself, so that life will no longer be a dreary, comfortless road, but all the way along 'twill be Jesus, and at the end the door will open and admit to the Father's house.

Let us remind ourselves that for the Lord Jesus Christ loneliness is past. He knew much of it here. In patience and humiliation He trod the painful path for us. But now it is over. He is exalted, crowned with glory and honor at God's right hand, angels delighting to do His bidding; but methinks our loving Lord will not be fully satisfied until He welcomes home His bride, the Church for which He died; as He prays in John 17:24, "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me." It was not enough for Him to be welcomed back by His Father in all the glory which He had willingly laid aside for our sakes; but He must have His redeemed ones, His purchased possession, with Him, to see and to share His glory. Oh, what love! Well might the apostle Paul reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Let us seek to lose the pain of the "alone"-life in fellowship and communion with our Lord, learning from Him the inestimable privileges which may be derived from such a lot; and ere we know it that day will be upon us when

" He and I, in that bright glory,
One deep joy shall share.
Mine to be forever with Him,
His that I am there."

M. M. S.

BY G. J. S. (Matthew 25:1-13.)

(Concluded from p. 83.)

He who loves them, however, will arouse them. Awake! awake! He cries. Therefore,

3. THEY AGAIN GO OUT TO MEET HIM.

God is not satisfied that He who is His Son should come and find a sleeping company, and so at midnight, when things are at their darkest, He sends forth the cry, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him" (verse 6).

God woos again His people, as He will also Israel in a coming day. He says, "Awake, awake, stand up, O My people. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, put on thy beautiful garments! Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing, go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord" (Isa. 51:17; 52:1, 11.

Again, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee" (Isa. 60:i).

Wherefore He saith, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from among the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee" (Eph. 5:14, N. Trans.)

The Midnight Cry has thus in grace been raised in Christendom. Eighty years ago God sent forth His heralds in the power of the Spirit to shake a sleeping Christendom to its very center with the astounding cry, Awake! awake! Behold, behold the Bridegroom! Go ye forth to meet Him! Some few saints were first awakened by this cry. Enquiry was raised, scriptures were opened up, proofs were forthcoming, and hundreds of preachers again heralded it, until at last there is scarcely a portion of Christendom where, with a greater or lesser degree of light and accuracy as to details, the coming of the Lord as a doctrine is not known.

So has our God in His mercy given another opportunity to that company in this stage of its history to prove its desire for, and faithfulness to, Him for whom they should wait. Infinite mercy of our God! A revival of truth in the midst of the years! "Happy the people that is in such a case, yea, happy the people whose God is the Lord."

At the first this happiness was possessed by a few, who again went forth, taking nothing but a light. They trimmed their lamps, they sold their possessions, and laid aside their honors to announce again their coming absent Lord. In unison with the Spirit and the bride they called upon Him to come, and in view of His near approach took up the cry, Behold the Bridegroom! The ironical world looked on, chagrined at this renewal of divine and living power, and asked, How long will this new freak satisfy their hearts ?

All those Virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. Trim a lamp that has oil in it and up shoots the light. But of what use is it to trim a lamp that has no oil in it? The more it is trimmed the more surely it will go out. While all slept all were alike. A spiritually dead man is as good as a live sleeping man for a moment. A mere lamp will do for this state of things. All are at ease and in quiet. But let all be aroused as God has aroused them according to His own purpose, and then the difference between the wise and foolish appears. The brightness of the light from the lamps of the wise shines out, and the failure on the part of the foolish becomes apparent even to themselves. So they turn to the wise, saying, "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are going out!"

This cry at midnight has certainly produced an awakening almost universal in Christendom. Wise and foolish are all awake and all at work. We hear very little, if at all now-a-days, of the old-fashioned card-playing and fox-hunting parsons. The dark days when all slept were more suitable to this kind of thing, and produced it. But when the thought of the Lord's coming takes possession of hearts, and all are more or less alive to it, these things will not pass muster.

The cry has set in motion a huge wheel of work, as it were, which goes round and round, and groans out work! work! ! WORK!!! The wise are really at work again for their Master now, and in His light down here while awaiting His return. The foolish are working to get that which they know they have not, and thus prepare themselves for His coming, whom they are consciously unready to meet. One set, therefore, is at work for the Lord as His servants, the other for themselves. The one with some sense of their shame is having gone to sleep, and it may be with some of the effects still hampering them; the other, with a foolish idea that they can obtain by their own efforts and means what they lack.

"Give us of your oil; for our lamps are going out." What a discovery for them to make! They seek the wise. Ah! they that are foolish know who are wise. In other words, the mere professors know who are real men. And though they may revile them and belittle them .in the eyes of others, yet when real alarm lays hold of them they know who has what they need.

But the wise virgins can not give them of their oil. If this were possible, how many are there who would at this moment impart it to some one-how many a wife to her husband, or father or mother to their children. Only Christ can impart life and the Spirit, and it is with Him they must have to do. The advice of the wise virgins is:" Go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves." They direct the foolish to the source whence this oil could be "bought," in a Scriptural sense, that is, "without money and without price." But the foolish go to "buy" by their own efforts, and this introduces us to the moral state which surrounds us at this moment. It is a day of activity; a day of Christian endeavor:with multitudes perhaps an endeavor to become Christians by that activity rather than through repentance.

Do not all the unchristian methods introduced into so-called Christian work tell of the influence of the foolish virgins in their endeavor to buy the oil ? Their bazaars and bruce auctions; their fancy and international fairs and sacred concerts, all tell of the desire to be accredited as those who are what they are conscious they are not.

But all this, though it may pass muster with some, cannot deceive Him who is coming as the Bridegroom, and, alas for them, as the Judge. All attempts to buy the oil thus come near to that which Peter so scathingly denounced, "Thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God can be purchased with money." My reader, of which are you ? The wise or the foolish ? Which f The wise have eternal life. Their sins are forgiven -washed away by the blood of Jesus. The Spirit of Christ is in them. They work too, but their work is the "work of faith, and labor of love," wrought in the "patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ" (i Thess. i:3). They are ready for His coming.

4. "WHILE THEY WENT TO BUY THE BRIDEGROOM CAME."

We have reached the last stage, and some are not ready. Spite of all fair appearances, and all the works,-Christian works, so-called,-in which these foolish virgins are engaged, there is underneath it all a sense that the Lord is coming; that things can not go on as they are, and that they are not ready. All the bestowal of money, goods, time, has not really satisfied the heart. There never has been a real desire for the Lord Himself in the hearts of these foolish virgins. Their activity has been but a salve to an uneasy conscience. The Lord's arrival brings everything to light, and makes manifest the essential difference between the wise and the foolish.

" They that were ready went in with Him to the marriage."-Happy moment for the ready virgins! A bliss supreme, divine! To the heart that loves Him and is ready in the spirit of expectancy for Him, to be with Him is the chief, primary satisfaction. Blessed, indeed, to be found among that company who, with girded loins and burning lamps, shall hail the coming of the Lord for whom they have waited with joy. Not in vain will have been the sorrows of the night to them when they behold His blessed face. They come into His presence, to go no more out for ever.

"And the door was shut." These are five of the most solemn words that were ever uttered. When, in their fulfilment, the horrors contained in them flash into the consciences of those who are outside that closed door, one can conceive nothing more appalling, nothing so like hell upon earth. Mercy's stream, as it now flows throughout Christendom, will be cut off from that channel for ever. The stream may flow into another channel, but no more toward a Christ-despising Christendom.

Oh, the horrors of that moment when the truth forces itself upon the heart! When the doom pronounced by the Lord shall burst upon the soul, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still "(Rev. 22:11)! When friends and relatives whose company has comforted us are suddenly^taken from us and we left behind bereft of all hope!

"Lord, Lord, open to us!" they cry. But His only answer from behind the closed door is, '' Verily, I say unto you, I know you not." In hopeless despair they must now turn away, the wail of the lost wringing from their hearts, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved " (Jer. 8:20).

Reader, that hour is near. "Watch, therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh."

SIMPLE PAPERS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS BY H. A. IRONSIDE

" Fear not, Paul; . . . lo, God bath given thee all them that sail with thee."-Acts 27:24.

ACCEPTANCE

It is a precious truth that God accepts every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, not according to any real or fancied goodness in himself but according to the Father's estimate of His beloved Son.

I remember well a striking illustration of the power of this in practical life, which I saw several years ago. A dear colored woman, who had herself known the Lord from her girlhood but had erred in marrying an unsaved man, asked the prayers of a little company of Christians one night for her husband who had become a depraved drunkard and gambler. In wondrous mercy, while we prayed, God heard and answered; for into our meeting came Alex Beck himself, and cried:'' Friends, I want to find my wife's God! I was gambling and drinking in a saloon on S– Street (it was in Los Angeles, Calif.), and twenty minutes ago it seemed to me a voice cried in my soul:'Alex Beck, you must be saved to-night or damned forever!' I threw down the cards in fear, and rose from the chair and fled from the place. Tell me how I may be saved !" It was a solemn moment for us all, thus to see God's power so manifest. We pointed the anxious, trembling man to the cross, and, perhaps an hour later, he was rejoicing in God's salvation, and husband and wife were one in Christ.

A few evenings afterward I heard him give his first public testimony. These were substantially his words:"My friends, I want you all to look at me. I know I ain't a pretty sight to look on. I'm just a great big black ugly man,* but in God's sight I'm altogether lovely, for I'm all dressed up in Jesus!" *He used a different word, but which I omit as not desiring to give offence to any of his color.*

He had been truly taught of the Spirit. For this is none other than Paul's doctrine of acceptance, " He hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. i:6). Once, all our guilt and sin were imputed to Jesus when He hung upon the cross as our Substitute. Now we appear before God's face in all His perfections. " God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). Carefully observe:-It is not, as theologians sometimes put it, that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. Scripture never so speaks. It is this, that God reckons us, looks upon us, as righteous, because of the work His Son has accomplished and of the new place in which we now stand before Him:that is, in Christ, perfect and complete in God's sight.

And as so accepted we are as dear to His heart as is our blessed Lord Himself, who, when He prayed to the Father said, " I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them even as Thou hast loved Me" (Jno, 17:23). Could language be clearer, or words stronger, to declare the unbounded love of the Father for all who are accepted in His Son ?Well may the happy Christian sing with chastened joy:

"So dear, so very dear to God,

I could not dearer be ; The love wherewith He loves His Son, Such is His love to me."
And being thus brought so near to God in the per:son of our Lord Jesus Christ our security naturally follows. We are in Him, and, consequently, as safe from judgment as He is. He died in our stead, and faith reckons His death as our death. Now He lives forever beyond the reach of death and judgment. And in Him we are accepted! If He falls (far be the thought!) then do we also fall; but He has said, "Because I live ye shall live also." We have died out of the old relationship, in which we had part by nature, but we have now been raised with Christ and our life is hid with Christ in God. Ponder carefully Col. 3:1-4.

Already God sees us as a heavenly company, for Christ is in glory as our representative. So we are told:"God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus " (Eph. 2:4-7). Thus our destiny is forever settled. Our past, present, and future we know, on the authority of the word of God. Once dead in sins, now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and for all eternity to be to the praise of His glory as an exhibit of the power of His grace!

And it is well to remember that true Christian living springs from a recognition of our acceptance. So the apostle adds, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them " (ver. 10). He who has been thus taken into favor in the Beloved is called to show by a holy, blameless life his appreciation of the grace bestowed upon him, and to manifest Christ in his walk and conversation.

The same truth is put before us in the chapter already noticed in Colossians. He whose life is hid with Christ in God is called upon to put off all that belonged to him as a man in the flesh, and to put on the new ways of the man in Christ.

But let it never be forgotten:-no merit attaches to the believer because of his godliness and devoted-ness. He needs none. He is already accepted in the Beloved, and nothing can be added to this. No loving obedience he can render can make him one whit dearer to the heart of God.

But it should now be the object of his life to be well-pleasing to Him in whom he is accepted. This is what Paul means when he writes:"We labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him" (2 Cor. 5:9).

All believers are accepted in Him, and this for eternity. Henceforth it should be the object of our souls to so live that we may daily be accepted of Him, or well-pleasing to Him. This is to walk worthy of our high and holy calling.

It was a sweet reply a woman once made, upon her death-bed, to a friend who asked whether she was more willing to live or die. "I am pleased with what God pleases." "Yes," said her friend, "but if God should refer it to you, which would you choose?" " Truly," said she, "if God should refer it to me, I would refer it to Him again." Ah! blessed life, when our own will is swallowed up in the will of God, and the heart at rest in His care and love, and pleased with all His appointment.

Only to live for Thy glory,
Only to know Thou art mine,
Close to my heart like a treasure,
Holding each promise of Thine.
Only to live for Thy glory,
Loved and protected by Thee,
Jesus, my blessed Redeemer,
This my petition shall be.

Only to live for Thy glory,
Only to wait at Thy throne,
Only to walk in Thy footsteps,
Led by Thy Spirit alone.
Only to live for Thy glory,
Casting my burden on Thee,
Jesus, my blessed Redeemer,
This my petition shall be.

Only to live for Thy glory,
Bearing reproach for Thy name,
Ready to do or to suffer,
Whether in good or ill fame,
Till home at last in the mansions
Thou art preparing for me-
Jesus, my blessed Redeemer,
This my petition shall be.
Fannie J. Crosby
May, 1913.

Stone, seal and watch were all in vain
To hold, past the appointed hour,
The Prince of Life through weakness slain;
He rose in resurrection power.

The angel sat in calm repose
Upon the stone he rolled away,
And scorned the might of all His foes
Upon that resurrection day.

The superhuman labor o'er,
The Toiler's napkin* laid aside,
Behold, alive forevermore
Is Jesus who was crucified!

*Napkin (soudarion); literally, "sweat cloth." So also Luke 19:20; the wicked, idle servant used his soudarion to hide his talent, but labored not.*

See now at glory's highest height
The very Man who died for sin,
With glory crowned-oh wondrous sight!
The mighty God is human kin!

The lowest place upon the earth
The Holy Spirit occupies,
He dwells in all of heavenly birth;
The meek and lowly sanctifies.

Oh truths transcending thought and word,
Which make our hearts within us burn!
We have a living, loving Lord,
For whom we watch till His return!

E. H.

FRAGMENT