(Continued from page 72.)

3.-The second challenge of Satan and its results.

Again Satan presents himself before God as at the first, and again the Lord asks concerning Job, faithful in spite of the afflictions through which he had passed. Unabashed by his failure to move Job, Satan makes fresh demands, coupled with fresh accusations. " Skin for skin"-to save part of his skin man will give up another part; yea, to save his life he will surrender everything he has, including his fear of God. Hitherto God had not allowed Job's body to be touched; let the hand of God be laid upon that, and how quickly will Job's vaunted piety disappear.

We may be sure that divine love, as well as divine wisdom, subjected this afflicted child of God to fresh assaults at the hands of Satan. We see the tenderness in the words, " Save his life." The enemy is to do all, and thus prove the falsity of his own charge. Every prop is to be removed, every earthly joy taken away, and still Job will cleave to the God whom he has trusted, even though dimly. And on the other hand, through the very exercises through which he must pass, Job will learn the lesson of all lessons, for all eternity, that God is all in all; and as a step to that knowledge, he will see that he is nothing.

It is not necessary that we should know the exact nature of the disease which fell upon Job. Some have thought it to be leprosy, the most hopeless, loathsome and deadly of all human affections. Others have named it elephantiasis, a repulsive and fearful disease in which every part of the body is affected. It is accompanied not only by the distortion and swelling of the limbs, which gives it its name, but by putrid inflammation extending throughout the entire frame. It "begins with the rising of tubercular boils, and at length resembles a cancer spreading itself over the whole body, by which the body is so affected that some of the limbs fall completely away."

Without going into speculation, however, we may recall the solemn warnings of God if His people should depart from Him:"The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed" (Deut. 28:27, 35). When, in Old Testament times, practically all God's dealings with men were on an earthly plane, it is evident that such an affliction would be regarded as a particular token of His displeasure-at least by those who had not learned the varied uses of adversity in the school of God. We shall find that practically all-Job's friends, and even himself – labored under this misapprehension; and this accounts for the long and painful controversy between them, in which neither side could reach what God could approve.

And, apart from revelation, how wretched and hopeless was Job's condition! Who that knew him in the days of his prosperity could have recognized him in the abject misery of his present condition, sitting in ashes and scraping himself with a potsherd ? The ashes suggest his mourning for his losses, especially his bereavement; the potsherd might well typify his own broken condition, and while he vainly seeks to alleviate the intolerable pain and itching of his "putrefying sores," his self-contemplation is equally powerless to alleviate the sufferings of his soul.

The wife is the first to break down completely. As "the weaker vessel" this is not surprising, for the husband should ever be the leader in faith and love, as in the responsibilities which he cannot transfer to another. But there is something more than the outward collapse of faith; there seems to be a spirit of apostasy which had listened to the lie of Satan. As the woman of old was beguiled by the attractiveness of Satan's snare, so she seems to have fallen before the apparent hopelessness of Job's contending against a "sea of troubles."

The wives of men of faith have not always been on the same plane as their husbands. Sarah counseled Abraham to resort to human expedients to secure the promises. Zipporah evidently stood in the way, for a time, of Moses acting in faithfulness in his family (Exod. 4:24-26). Michal mocked when David exhibited the joy and liberty which a sense of grace always gives (2 Sam. 6:16, 20-23). Faith must necessarily be an individual matter between the soul and God. It cannot be received at second hand. On the other hand, however, God abundantly blesses the family of the man of faith, and often gives him the joy of seeing those dear to him resting also in the unfailing faithfulness of One who invites all to trust in Him.

We will not dogmatize about Job's wife. The root of the matter may have been in her, and she may have been only for a time overwhelmed by her grief. But her words are very evil;:" Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die." It has been thought that her love to Job prompted these words; that she could not endure seeing one so dear to her suffering such torture, and practically counseled suicide. We can leave her case with Him who searcheth the heart, and seek to get the benefit of Job's noble reply:" Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What ! Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" She was associating herself with the profane who despise God. She had been quite willing to enjoy good things at the hand of God, and no doubt to acknowledge Him as the Giver. If now He sees fit to send trial, shall we refuse to take it as meant for good ? It was God who was the giver in each case.

Alas, how few of us can bear adversity! "If thou faintest in the day of adversity, thy strength is small."And yet can we, would we, escape suffering in a world like this ?In one form or another, at one time or another, it must come.

"Aliens may escape the rod,
Nursed in earthly, vain delight.
But a true-born child of God,
Must not, would not, if he might.''

Judging from what follows, we might include the visit of Job's friends in the general assault of Satan. In that way we speak of that assault as threefold:first, circumstantial, in the disasters upon his property and family and himself; second, personal, in the advice of his wife and the arguments of his friends; third, inward, in the doubts of the goodness and justice of God which Job entertained. But strictly speaking, Satan's work ended when he launched his four bolts against Job and then smote him with disease.

These three friends of Job were evidently persons of age, rank and indeed piety. For we must distinguish between their erroneous dealings with Job and their personal character. Like him they were on the wrong track-more so than himself, but like him also they were in the end brought into a true realization of God's ways.
They came from districts noted for men of wisdom:" Is wisdom no more in Teman-? Is counsel perished from the prudent ? Is their wisdom vanished ? (Jer. 49:7). The "men of the East" were similarly famed. As has just been said, they seem to have been men of personal piety; at least they had a knowledge of the true God and of righteousness. Of the significance of their names we can say little. Eliphaz has been defined as "God is strength," and by others, "God is fine gold." Both meanings suggest at least the greatness and preeminence of God. His country, Teman, means "the south," the country lying under the sun, open to the light. But we have learned that while the south country is open to the light, it is apt to be dry and arid, as indeed Arabia was. It needs, as Achsah said, "springs of water." Light without life can never help.

Bildad is said to mean "son of contention." and he certainly answers to his name in these controversies. His place, Shuach, "depression or pit," is also appropriate. Zophar, "a sparrow," from the root verb "to twitter," is the masculine form of Zipporah, Moses' wife, and like her he was an unconscious opponent of God's judgment on the flesh though he was very zealous in condemning the fancied works of the flesh in Job. His vehement denunciations being utterly out of place, were as harmless as the "twitterings" of the bird for which he was named. His place, Naamah, "pleasantness " is, like the miserable comfort he offered, but a mockery of true happiness. But these meanings are only tentative.

These men have evidently heard in their distant homes of Job's affliction. As true friends they are not unmoved, and make an appointment to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. Certainly their motive was excellent; how they succeeded appears later.

The second scene in this divine drama may be said to open with the arrival of these friends. As they draw near what a sight meets their shocked vision! Can this wretched, loathsome object, covered with putrid sores, sitting in the midst of ashes, be their stately friend, the greatest man of the East? They burst into tears, rend their garments and sit down with him. Very touching and appropriate this is, and the silence of seven days emphasizes the reality of their sympathy. They wept with him who wept. Unable to help by words, their silence would indicate how deeply moved they were.

Meanwhile the thoughts of all were doubtless busy. After the first shock produced by Job's terrible condition was over, they must necessarily have begun to think-why has this evil come upon him? Long accepted principles would suggest an answer, to which they seem slow to give expression. God punishes the ungodly; the righteous are prosperous; therefore . . . can it be ? On his part too Job is meditating. He too had accepted his prosperity as a mark of God's approval. He has been righteous and faithful, and God rewards faithfulness-at least he had thought He did. Can it be that God . .? But he has not yet allowed these thoughts to find expression; indeed they may not yet have been present. But his sufferings are intense, his burden of grief and pain intolerable. The silent sympathy of his friends does not soften his heart. While he muses the fire burns, and at last the pent-up grief bursts forth in bitter cursings and lamentations. S. R.

(To be continued)

These words, found twice in the Song of songs," express the perfect satisfaction the heart finds in Christ.

In chap. 2 the spouse is seen sitting in the presence of her "Beloved" enjoying the rich clusters of truth that drop from His lips. He giving, she receiving, the fruit so sweet to her taste. For her it was "a time to keep silence," for Him "a time to speak." Sitting and silent she gives Him the joy of ministering to her. Lovely attitude ! Well may we covet such a place in this day of restlessness.

Love delights to serve as claims are upon us, but ability to serve is acquired while in the quiet of His presence. There we neither see nor are seen by others, save by "Jesus only." The heart undisturbed drinks freely, and treasure is stored. Thus furnished we become channels of blessing to others, as from the store gathered in His presence "things new and old" are brought forth. Such ministry meets the needs of men.

Brought next to the"banqueting house,"the sense of His love overwhelms her. " Sick of love " she now seeks "stay" and "comfort." Her words tell how deeply she had drunk of that full flowing stream; so deeply that only fresh tokens of His love can satisfy her. She is but drawn closer, and there finds rest.

Truth, love, rest are found in Him. Ah, to drink deeply of the "love of Christ!" Love of "this present world " will find no lodgment in a heart thus filled and satisfied. The "reproach of Christ " rather would be esteemed, "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt," whose fairest offers would fail to allure. Alas, that many of those dear to Christ should, Lot-like, seldom lift their eyes higher than the "plain of Jordan," so engrossed are they with the things "seen" and "temporal." "The things which are not seen" and "eternal" are thus obscured. What a loss now and "in that day "!

The second time the words are found in chap. 5. A great change had come over her. She had sadly failed. His voice had been heard telling of suffering passed through to reach her, while tokens assuring her of the constancy of His love were left as He withdrew.

Awaking to a sense of her shameful treatment of Him, and her own loss, she rises and opens to Him only to find that He had withdrawn Himself. Her bowels are stirred for Him-her actions showing the place He had in her heart. She seeks and calls, but He answers not. Sorrow and exercise are hers now, until thoughts of Him and of His love possess her, and she cries once more, "I am sick of love." Occupied with Himself she forgets the " things which are behind," forgets about herself, so enwrapped is she with the beauties she finds in Him.

Her heart has found its rest again; and presently she speaks out of its abundance. Bubbling over it requires no effort to spread before others the beauty that she sees in Him. Her failure has endeared Him the more to her. It is His person rather than His truth or love that is now the theme upon her lips. Rich and wondrous theme for sinners saved by grace to dwell upon!

The time of our confession of Him is drawing near its close. Blessed are the overcomers. Lord, give us the tender and exercised conscience, and truly separated heart! Keep us for Thyself "a spring shut up, a fountain sealed," that we may refresh and gladden Thy heart. The joys of heaven will soon be ours, Thy face seen, Thy praise our eternal employ. W. D.

(Continued from page 207.)

IV. (2 Kings chap. 5.)

As the subject of our last article presented the gospel according to the teaching of Paul, so the one now before us presents it according to the teaching of John. In Naaman the Syrian it is not the righteous settlement of a debt, but the cleansing of a leper; not deliverance from bondage, but from a defiled and a defiling condition. Doing evil makes a man guilty, and brings in the need of forgiveness and justification to make us fit for dwelling with God. Being evil is quite another thing. It comes from our birth, from the nature imparted to us by our progenitors, and shuts us out of God's company because we are inherently unclean by it. No leper was admitted within the bounds of the temple at Jerusalem, which means, in New Testament language, that in our condition as sinners- a condition in which every child of Adam is born- we cannot come near to God. We must be cleansed. What the needful cleansing is, the story of Naaman tells us in figure very fully.

First of all it is evident, by the concern of those about him, that he realized that he was a leper and desired to be healed. It is a great step, under the operation of the grace of God, when a man is conscious of being, unfit for God's presence, and desires to be made fit. He may not know the way, but he is ready to hear those who can tell him.

In the case of Naaman it was a little maid, brought as a captive from the land of Israel, who, knowing the way, was God's messenger to make it known to, him. What a proof we have, in her case, of the wisdom of bowing submissively to whatever circumstances God may see fit to bring upon us. Instead of fretting in her bondage, and struggling to get out of it, the little maid attends to her new duties, and displays the spirit of genuine love; so, instead of hating her master for having ravaged her country, and rejoicing at his deadly disease, she makes known how he may be cured.

Had Naaman followed the way she indicated he would have suffered none of his disappointments. She had pointed to the prophet, and he goes to the king. She would have him go simply as a leper, and he goes as commended by the great king of Syria. But God must have truth in the inward parts. A man who comes as being worthy when he should come as an unclean sinner, is doomed to disappointment.

When finally he is at the prophet's door, the message he gets is clear and simple:"Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean."

The Lord Himself supplies the New Testament language for this. He says:"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus, amazed, asks how this can be done. The Lord replies by first telling God's side of it:" The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (Jno. 3:8); that is, God is sovereign and almighty, and can work in man a new and spiritual creation as He had worked at first for the material creation. But there is this difference, that in creation He had worked with irresponsible clay, whilst in new creation He works with responsible man. So the Lord gives man's side of the new birth as well as God's side. He says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life " (Jno. 3:14, 15). When a poor sinner, no matter how vile he is, can look up in simple faith to Jesus on the cross, he is born of God (i Jno. 5:i), he has eternal life (i Jno. 5:13), he "is clean every whit" (Jno. 13 :10). Naaman had to wash seven times, to illustrate the Lord's words, ''Clean every whit;" for seven, in Scripture, expresses completeness, perfection.

If the reader of these lines is a believer in the Lord Jesus, he has the eternal life abiding in him (i Jno. 3:9), enabling him to have " fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ" (i Jno. 1:3). As by the possession of human life we can see, and enter into, and comprehend what belongs to the human sphere, so by the possession of divine life we can see, and enter into, and comprehend what belongs to the kingdom of God, for it is the seed of God which dwells in us; which shrinks from all sin and loves holiness. As we were constituted sinners by the life we received from man, so are we constituted saints by the life we received from God at the new birth.

Naaman is angered by the prophet's message. First of all, he had expected some fine religious ceremony over him. Was he not a great man? Had he not brought with him abundant money to pay well for his being cured? And if washing was all, could he not as well wash in the rivers of Damascus as in Jordan? His pride was hurt, as the gospel of the grace of God still hurts the pride of our day. Why so dependant on Jordan? Because Jordan tells of Jesus, and Jesus is the exclusive person by whom alone sinners can be saved. That is what necessitates every man to have to do with Him-now for salvation, or later on for condemnation; for as He is the God-appointed Saviour, so is He the God-appointed Judge.

Every man who follows Jordan to its end falls into the Dead Sea. This means eternal perdition. But when the ark, that lovely figure of Jesus, once came to the overflowing Jordan, it dried up a passage through it; it planted itself in the midst of its bed and held back the waters till all the thousands of Israel had passed through. As the brazen serpent spoke of the righteousness of God in the punishment of sin, so the passage of Jordan speaks of Jesus, standing in our place, made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21), that we might be perfectly at home with God. To be washed in the waters of that river was, typically, to be made as clean as the death of Jesus can make us. That death ends all the question of sin for us. It has left none for the believer to be accounted for. We are clean indeed. " He that is washed (bathed) is clean every whit," said our Lord to Peter, referring to the washing of regeneration; such need only to have their feet washed thereafter (Jno. 13:10).

The pleadings of love from Naaman's servants lead him to surrender. He goes to Jordan, washes, and is cleansed. He returns to the prophet to offer of "what he had brought with him as reward for his cure. The prophet refuses it, for under the circumstances it would have clouded the grace of God, and since it is by that grace we are saved, no veil, however thin it may be, must be suffered to be put upon it. An apostle, an angel from heaven even, bringing a gospel other than that is to be accursed. How deeply serious it is. How precious must the gospel be to God since He has so guarded it – it cost the Son of God the agonies of the cross to provide it.

If the prophet will receive no reward from Naaman, he will not refuse to give him holy ground with which to build an altar in his native land, for hereafter he could worship none other but the true God-the One who has freed him from his leprosy. One thing alone troubles him:an evil association with the king of Syria. His conscience feels it, but he has not yet the courage to break with it. "Go in peace "is the prophet's answer. An enlightened and exercised conscience can be trusted.

But now comes Gehazi, the covetous servant. If his master will, under no circumstances, allow the grace of God to be veiled, he is ready to take advantage of that grace to make himself rich. His profane spirit sadly represents a fallen Christendom, whose concern is money, procured in whatever way. As he runs after Naaman who is not yet far away, he invents a very sure means of getting what he wants without being called a beggar. He says, "My master hath sent me, saying, Behold, even now there be come to me from mount Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets:give them, I pray thee, a talent of silver, and two changes of garments." Then he hides what he has obtained and tries to deceive his master; but all is brought up to his face by his master, and the leprosy-of Naaman is in judgment fastened to him for ever. Such is the sentence of God expressed in Heb. 10 :26-31 against a fallen, apostatizing Christendom. It is indeed " a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

How much better it is to suffer the opposition of a corrupted Christianity, and at the end be able to say with the apostle :"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 unto all them also that love His appearing" (2 Tim. 4:7, 8).

(To be continued.)

(Rev. 16:12-16.)

Substance of an Address by J. B. Jackson. (Continued from page 280.)

3:Why? When the longsuffering of God has reached its limit – man having been tested under all conditions-in innocence in the Garden; simply under conscience up to the flood; under government after the flood; then the separated people under the law; under grace since the Cross – utterly failing under all conditions and corrupting everything put under his responsibility-God then comes in, in power, to " destroy them that destroy the earth" (Rev. 11:18).

It has been a period of man's misrule from beginning to end, but now He whose right it is to rule is coming to reign. He came once in grace, and men said, "This is the Heir; come, let us kill Him and the inheritance shall be ours." They refused Him as a Saviour, now they must know Him as a Ruler, wielding the iron rod, for into His hand all judgment has been committed (comp. John 5:22, 27; Ps. 149:6-9; Rev. 19:15).

"Wherefore hear ye the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us:for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves" (Isa. 28 :14). It would seem that this " covenant with death and agreement with hell" refer to the covenant made by the Jews with the "prince " of Dan. 9:27, on account of whose abominable idolatry the "desolator" is raised up-1:e., the Assyrian. But " the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place; and your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, thence shall be trodden down by it" (Isa. 28 :17, 18).

No doubt, universal empire is in the leaders' minds; and it is to be fought to a finish on this plain of Megiddo. The revival of the Roman empire will astonish the world, and the vast western coalition, intoxicated with the power of its armies and navies, pours into Palestine to meet the Eastern hordes passing over the Euphrates, westward.

But One too long excluded from man's reckoning comes now upon the scene. "Thou sawest till a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors:and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them:and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth" (Dan. 2:34, 35).

It has been taught that the destruction of this fourth beast (the Roman empire) which involves the destruction of all Gentile powers, is something to be effected by the spread of the gospel. Not so; it is by the sudden appearance of the Son of Man. "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven
set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed:and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (Dan. 2:44; see also Rev. 19:19-21).

The suddenness of the Son of Man's appearance accounts for only half the city being taken and going into captivity (Zech. 14 :2); the dreadful excesses of the captors endure but for a brief moment:"Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle " (Zech. 14:3).

"And he (the head of the revived Roman empire) shall speak great words against the Most High . . .and think to change [the Jewish] times and laws:and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time" (1:e., 3^2 prophetic times, or years; comp. Rev. 13:5-7). "But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end" (Dan. 7 :25-27. See also Rev. 19 :15-21; Matt. 25:31, 32).

4:WHEN? "When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world " (age)? (Matt. 24:3.) Read attentively the whole chapter; see also Isa. 2:2, 4, 19; Hag. 2:6; Zech. 14 :4, 9; Matt. 24 :31-46; Rev. 19:11-21.

Do not expect me to fix a date for this stupendous event; an angel in heaven could not do that. "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only" (Matt. 24:36-42). Those who have fixed dates (in the very face of this Scripture) have invariably demonstrated their folly in so doing.

But if we cannot fix the date, we may gather, with considerable certainty, that the time cannot be far off. "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors " (Matt. 24:32, 33).

The course of events is rapidly tending toward the formation of this ten-kingdom form of the Roman Empire. Indeed this idea may appeal to the belligerents in the present European war as the only honorable way to peace (see Rev. 17:11-13).

It must be plain, from the foregoing, that the present war is not the battle of Armageddon, nor is it immediately connected with it. The Church- all true 'Christians – will be in heaven when that dreadful conflict rages, and indeed during the whole of that eventful 70th week of Daniel. "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee out of the hour of temptation (trial) which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth" (Rev. 3:10). Under the symbol of crowned and throned elders, the Church is in heaven, as seen in Rev. 4:4, surrounding Him who sits upon the throne, and is not seen again on earth, until in chap. 19:14 she is seen, clad in fine linen, accompanying the mighty Conqueror.

At Armageddon the Beast and false prophet are taken and cast alive into the lake of fire "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 19:20). Two men have been taken to heaven without seeing death, and these two blasphemous arch-deceivers are cast into hell without seeing death. Satan is cast into the abyss, chained for a thousand years, and the millennial reign of our Lord begins, a reign of righteousness. "And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord . . . And it shall come to pass from one new moon to another . . .shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord" (Isa. 66:20, 23).

"And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying . . . And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands" (Isa. 65:19-22). "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the falling together, and a little child shall lead them . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain " (Isa. ii:6-9).

"Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless " (2 Pet. 3:14). The Christian's attitude is well set forth in Luke 12:31-40:"Like unto men that wait for their Lord." J. B. J.

To those whose ears have heard His voice,
Who said, " I am the Way,"
Whose souls for ever He has brought,
From death's overpowering sway,
This wondrous change shall know no end,
A never-ceasing flow
Of richest, purest streams of truth,
They shall go on to know.

But while perfection is in view,
Revealed to faith's keen sight;
We would, until He come again,
Make Christ our chief delight.
And as we feed, and learn, and know,
New heights and depths divine,
We must with others share the bliss,
And thus be found to shine.

In giving forth what we've received,
Persistent day by day;
We'll find our own stock multiplied,
For this is still God's way.
To preach, to teach, to testify,
In simple, earnest strain-
Each day, throughout the present year,
We'll find the truest gain.

J. F.

(Continued from page 80.)

10.Justification By Works.

(James 3:14-26.)

It is evident that the subject here is justification as a believer in God by the works performed -works which proceed from a living faith:it is a living faith because connected with Him by whom we are begotten through the Word of truth (James i:18).

The important question is, "If anyone say he have faith but have not works, can faith save him ? " We may ask, What is faith ? It is trust in another, based upon testimony rendered; for "faith is by a report." Abraham believed God. He put his trust in the word of promise from God.

The exercise of faith was involved in the testing of man in Eden. Obedience would have shown (by refusing Satan's lie) that the creature had faith in God, believed and trusted God. This was not the result as we know; instead, Satan and his word were accepted. This was " the disobedience" (Rom. 5:19) from which has developed such awful results, growing out of that evil principle of lawlessness called "sin" (i John 3:4). The creature's act impugned the rectitude of God, disregarded His command, invaded God's prerogative of knowledge; thus he morally became like the tempter-a lawless being. Satan's character became impressed upon the creature, and thus the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life were brought in. It was what ministered to the taste, the sight, and the reason, but all in disobedience to God. Henceforth, it was self, not God, which ruled (Rom. i:25), and from this the grace of God alone delivers any soul of man. The man came into the knowledge of good and evil in the devil's way, through lawlessness; and as a result his whole moral being is corrupted. In yielding to Satan, man became his servant.

From all this, the intervention of God in grace alone can deliver. For God and His revelation are alone the right objects of faith:to have any other is to be in the unbelief in which the creature fell through trusting- Satan's lie. When God intervenes, and begins His work of recovery, He calls upon man to put his faith in the object He sets before him. This faith must be, not simply intellectual, but the renouncing of that system of unbelief introduced by the fall. Without such faith it is impossible to please God. The unconverted person is without it, for it is the result of the Spirit's work in man through the Word. Unbelief then is overcome, and we are turned from Satan back to God. And how comes the creature to put faith in God ? " Faith is by a report, and the report by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). God has given the testimony, and faith receives the word of God. The result is salvation, for the power of the Spirit is with the Word received (i Thess. 1:5; John 16:8). We are begotten by the Word, then, as a result of the Spirit's work with the word of God. Apart from this no change can be accomplished. When the report is heard and believed, man condemns himself, and puts his faith in God, saying as it were, " In Thee of whom I have heard is my hope and expectation."

Therefore it is not simply accepting certain truths (which even the demons believe and tremble at) which saves:this would save no more than saying to a naked and starving man, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," while imparting nothing to him, would accomplish those results. In like manner a faith which bears no fruit is dead, and what is dead cannot save. True faith is linked with God, and so with life; therefore it produces works; it works by love. It is faith of this order which Scripture contemplates and declares to be complete or "made perfect" (Jas. 2:22). If not linked with God, faith is "as the body without a spirit,"-dead. Such a faith, or belief-as a creed to which I assent -is dead, it produces no fruit.

Now as to the kind of works which faith produces, as in the case of Abraham and Rahab, they are peculiar to itself, often quite the opposite to the dictates of nature. The one, at God's command, prepares to slay his son, his only son and heir; the other forgets both king and country to make common cause with those whose God she believes in, and who, she is sure, has given them the land and will give them the victory. Thus was Scripture fulfilled in Abraham's case-fulfilled in the sense of what was said of him years before (Rom. 4 :16), and demonstrated as true by his works.

In this connection of faith with life, we get the basis of James' position:faith must have works which show it is not alone, not "dead," but producing fruit in us by the Holy Spirit. The fruits, or works of faith, show that it is not a mere intellectual thing. This, then, is akin to what Paul taught, as a brief consideration of Eph. 2:8, 9 will show. "For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God's gift:not on the principle of works, that no one might boast. For we are His workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them." As before said it is the grace of God which has brought salvation, appropriated through faith alone-faith in God's testimony. These are the kind of works that James insists upon.

Man, then, is not justified by the mere saying that he believes. That is not what justification by faith implies. Man is justified by a living faith which bears fruit according to God. He who shows by his works that a living faith is in him, a faith that is linked with God, is the man who being justified by faith before God, demonstrates it before the eyes of men by his works.

Of faith that links the soul with God we can say:it increases (2 Cor. 10:15; 2 Thess. 1:3); it develops affections; it purifies the heart (Acts 15 :9) and sanctifies it (Acts 26:18). Much else indeed is associated with it in Scripture, for there is not a single step of Christian progress apart from a living, active faith-faith in God. When man trusts himself, the evil heart governs his activity. When he has faith in God, how different-it governs the heart and purifies it.

The teaching of James may then emphasize for us what the Lord says in Matt. 7:20-23. May it search our hearts; not to bring about self-occupation, but wholesome self-examination that we may be exercised unto that which is good, and abound in good works which, like the good fruits produced by a good tree, may show that we are of the Lord's planting, rooted and built up in Christ.

We close this brief outline of the great and blessed subject of justification. May its consideration deepen in our hearts the appreciation of the grace of God, and the all-sufficiency of the work of Christ our blessed Saviour. J. Bloore

QUES. 14.-Would you kindly explain 1 Tim. 2:15; also 1 Pet. 4:1-3?

ANS.-(1) In 1 Tim. 2 :8-10 the apostle has been giving directions concerning the relative behavior of men and of yeomen in the House of God. To explain the reason for the directions there given, he refers to the creation and to the fall, -which naturally brings to mind the sore penalty put upon the woman for her part in the transgression (Gen. 3:16) ; and according to the character of Christianity to those in affliction, he gives her the comforting promise that she will be "saved in childbearing (brought safely through her danger and sorrow) if they continue in faith and love and holiness with sobriety." What a comfort for godly motherhood ! For what could give more pain to a godly mother than to think that, in the pains of giving birth to children, she was under the displeasure of God. This promise removes all such fear, and gives her holy courage, while the sentence of God is nevertheless carried out.

(2) The passage in 1 Pet. 4:1-3 refers to what Christ passed through here as He encountered "the contradiction of sinners against Himself." He suffered from sin as He met it, as He also suffered for it on the cross in atonement. We (Christians) also suffer from sin when we have come to Christ and apprehend our salvation by His cross. The man who practices sin does not suffer from sin, but enjoys it; but we who know what sin has cost our Saviour to atone for it, do not practice it any more-though, if unguarded, we may yet fall into it; we resist it, and this resistance produces suffering in us too, though in a very feeble way to what it was in our Saviour, for sin is in us as well as around us.

Refusing sin makes us sufferers in this sinful world. It also constrains us to go against the current of this world. Therefore every faithful Christian is a sufferer here, and will be until the Lord comes and takes us where sin is no more.

QUES. 15.-What is the meaning of the expression "Condemned sin in the flesh " in Rom. 8:3? Some here teach that "sin could not have been condemned in the body of Jesus if it had not existed there." It sounds badly, and I would be glad of what help you can give.

ANS.-Persons who thus suggest the existence of sin in our Lord grievously dishonor Him. They not only violate specific declarations of Scripture, such as 1 John 3:5, " Ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin," but it violates the whole tenor of Scripture concerning Christ. All the sacrifices offered upon Jehovah's altar according to the law, were to be "without blemish " (Exod. la :5 ; Lev. 1:3 ; 4:3, etc., etc.); and not only outwardly so, but the victim was " flayed " (skinned) and divided in two, exposing all, without and within, under the eye of God for His acceptance. If any trace of sin could have been found in Christ's person or life we would have no Saviour ; for one who is himself under condemnation cannot deliver others in the same condition. But God, whose holy eye saw in Christ only absolute perfection, declaring of Him, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased "(Matt. 3:17), "hath made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). Thus upon Christ as our Substitute God poured His full judgment, not only of our sins, but also of the sin which is in us, in which we are born, " sin in the flesh "-the tree which produces the sins. He condemned it there, and so "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus " (Rom. 8:1). " Sin in the flesh," and the "sins of the flesh "-everything that could hinder God's purpose to identify the people of faith with His Son-is removed. As they were by nature in Adam a sinful family, so by the new nature, received in new birth, they are now in Christ and Christ in them-a holy, spiritual family.

It is the blessed power of this new life in Him that is called "the law of the Spirit" (ver. 2), and which, when truly apprehended, gives full deliverance to our souls, and sweetest communion with God. It is the eternal life from Jesus flowing into His own, including them all in one bundle of life with Himself.

QUES. 16.-Please give a word on Hebrew 6:4. It seems that if they were partakers of the Holy Ghost, they could be saved and then lost again.

ANS.-Your question is already in measure answered in our previous No., Hay Help and Food (Ques. 11). Let us say again, however, that John 10:27-29; 5:24; Rom. 8:38, 39 are plain statements which need no interpretation, which any one can understand, and which, if they belong to the word of God, cannot possibly be contradicted by any other part of the word of God. Cling to them in your soul as a tree clings to earth by its roots ; and gradually, as you grow in grace and in knowledge, all other scriptures will fall into line, even the most difficult. Being "partakers of the Holy Ghost" does not necessarily imply the being indwelt by Him. One could easily be a partaker of a man's hospitality with all the comforts of his house without being a child of his-yea, even while being his enemy. It would be awful guilt, even as seen in this chapter and in the tenth ; but while it is a solemn warning, to the child of God as well as to all others, showing the effect of professing Christ and then denying Him (as "Higher Criticism," alas, and other antichrists do), it cannot be applied to God's true children, as verse 9 shows.

(Continued from page 220.)

Job's reply to Eliphaz (chaps. 6, 7).

In his reply to Eliphaz, as well as in those to each of the others, it is to be noted that Job addressed them unitedly, instead of individually. There is, indeed, an answer to the last speaker in each case, but Job evidently recognizes a unity of sentiment in the attitude of all three; each is the mouth-piece of all; and the answer is accordingly addressed to them collectively.

There is a marked resemblance between this first reply of Job, and the lament with which he began (chap. 3). Other matters enter in here, and there may be, perhaps, a greater measure of self-control in the utterances to Eliphaz, but the burden is the same; his affliction is unspeakably great, there is no possible cure, therefore death would be a welcome relief. There is no gleam of hope amid the gloom; faith is almost completely eclipsed for the time, and there is the sense of God's wrath which is the forerunner of a doubt of His goodness and justice. As to the friends also, there is the recognition of their failure to act the part of friends, wh ch is paving the way for further alienation, ending in the rough recriminations which follow.

There are two general features in Job's reply, belonging respectively to the two chapters devoted to it (chaps. 6, 7). In chapter 6, the friends are more directly addressed, while in the latter half of the following chapter, he speaks to God. There is in the whole reply, however, a unity and continuity
that encourages us to seek its divisions according to their numerical order and significance.

(1) The reality of his sufferings (chap. 6:1-7).

(2) Longing for death at God's hand (vers. 8-13).

(3) Friends manifested as useless (vers. 14-23).

(4) Let them truly test him (vers. 24-30).

(5) The brevity of life (chap. 7:1-11).

(6) God his enemy (vers. 12-19).

(7) The appeal in view of sin (vers. 20, 21).

There is a certain measure of similarity between the contents of these divisions and those in the address of Eliphaz. In answer to the reproach for Job's despair, we have here his reason for it. Eliphaz speaks of God's favor to the righteous; Job rather craves death at His hand. Eliphaz has a solemn vision of the greatness and holiness of God; Job displays the inadequacy of his friends. In answer to the experience of the friends, Job desires that they would truly test him. In place of the exhortation to seek God, Job sets the misery and brevity of his life. Eliphaz reminds him of God's assured victory over all devices of the wicked, but Job can only reply that God is his enemy. The close of the friend's address is a beautiful declaration of the uses of affliction, but Job only answers that it does not seem to apply in his case, else why should not God forgive and show mercy? But we can compare the address and reply as we take up the latter in some detail.

(I) Eliphaz had reproached Job for succumbing to despair, but the patriarch asks him only to weigh his misery; it would be found, in the imagery elsewhere used of numerical greatness, as heavy as the sand of the sea. It is for this reason that his words are "rash"_which is probably the better rendering. Who can refrain from impetuous words when he is pierced with the arrows of the Almighty, and His terrors overshadow him ?

Here we have the element in his sufferings which in intensity probably exceeds their physical aspect. It was the sense that God's wrath was upon him, that the dreadful virus of His indignation was consuming him, that gave a poignancy to his grief. We know this was a mistake, and that it was but another proof of the love of God that His poor servant was being thus chastened. But he did not know it, and we should not be harsh with one who felt that the Lord was dealing bitterly with him. Necessarily he could not have the full light that is now ours, and could not therefore "count it all joy " that he had fallen into such straits. But we can appeal to his own words, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ?" What has turned him from this resting-place ? Dreadful doubts as to God's love and goodness have begun to gnaw at his heart with a pain beyond his bereavements and his sores.

One only, and He for no sin of His own, has felt the arrows of God piercing His holy soul. "Why hast thou forsaken Me? " He asks. But not for one moment does he doubt the holiness or goodness of God. "Thou art holy," suffices for Him, and in meekness He drinks the bitter cup; perfect in His sufferings, as in all else. God could not for a moment lay upon poor Job – though there was not another like him upon earth – the iniquity of mankind. Blessed be His name, of Another He can say, "I have found a ransom."

Job uses several figures to show that he has just cause for the complaints for which his friends reproach him. Even an ass or an ox will be content if he has his proper food. If he makes complaint, we know he has not received it. And can Job be expected to take his sufferings as if they were pleasant food-swallow them down, more nauseous than the slime of the egg? It is as though he said, "See what loathsome, things are set before me, and can you expect me to eat them without a murmur? " His "sorrowful meat" was the things that his soul abhorred.

But is this the language of faith-even of Old Testament faith? What of that noble army of martyrs who "were tortured, not accepting deliverance . . . had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings; yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment . . .destitute, afflicted, tormented" (Heb. 11:35-38)? Would we expect to hear from these the repining which fall from Job's lips? Paul could "take pleasure" in what fell upon him. But Job needs light, and must learn to trust God when he cannot understand Him.

(2) Job has but one thing to ask of God; that He would take his life. This, he says, would be a comfort, for his conscious rectitude would sustain him:he has not rejected God's words, has not been rebellious against Him. We have 'here, as throughout his long conflict, a statement of conscious uprightness. While true-as it was indeed the fruit of God's grace in him – Job is using this righteousness in a self-righteous way, to justify himself at the expense of God's righteousness; he follows this course until he gets more bold in it.

His friends indeed have no answer for it, but God will vindicate Himself.

This part closes with a pitiful plea of his utter weakness and helplessness, which should move the heart of his friends. Is his strength as the strength of stone or brass? Has he any help in himself?

(3) Most forcibly does the poor sufferer strike back at his unfeeling friends. It is a fundamental principle that pity should be shown to a sufferer by his friends, lest, under stress of trial – as some have rendered it-"he should forsake the fear of the Almighty." Agur therefore prayed that he might be preserved from extreme poverty, "Lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain " (Prov. 30:9). But the hard principle they were applying knew no mercy, felt no sympathy. At the time of his dire need they manifested themselves as utterly unfitted to be friends. The "brother born for adversity" they are not. These" brethren " are like a summer stream, swollen by melting snow and ice in winter, which gives promise of perennial supply for the thirsty, but when the troops of travelers come, they find only the dry stones to mock them. Yet he had asked nothing unreasonable at their hands-no money, nor rescue from the enemy, only a little sympathy.

If was indeed most disappointing. Eliphaz might speak in lofty language of the greatness and faithfulness of God, but what about himself; was he acting the part of a true friend ? As thus manifested, Job might say of them, "Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me." And when these failed, he could not add, "Thou art with me." How differently speaks Paul:"At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me . .. . Notwithstanding the Lord stood by me "'(2 Tim. 4:16, 17). Let us learn from Job's failure not to put the dearest earthly friend between us and God.

"Earthly friends may fail and leave us,
One day soothe, the next day grieve us,
But this Friend will ne'er deceive us,
Oh, how He loves!"

(4) Eliphaz had spoken of his observation and experience, Job now asks that true tests be applied to his own case. Let them prove, according to their rigid rule of " punishment for sin," that he is the sinner. Theories are all very well in their place, but if based on false premises they utterly fail. " How forcible are right words! " Let them teach him according to truth, and he will be silent; but of what value is all their arguing ? They are taking his poor, rash, desperate speeches, forced from him in the desperation of his sufferings, and treating them as if they were the well-considered statements of one who was propounding some philosophic principle. Why could they not make allowance for the anguish which wrings from him utterances which are as "windy words?" They were treating him in the same unfeeling way that :»arks those who would despoil the fatherless; for were they not trying to engulf him, their friend, and make him out to be like the wicked ? These are indeed strong words, but there is a good measure of justification for them. There was a studied heartlessness about the cold words of Eliphaz that seems to furnish ground for the bitterness of Job's charge. A little later it will be seen that they speak exactly as Job here accuses; he only anticipates their full meaning.

In contrast with their injustice, let them look deliberately at him:is he lying when he protests his uprightness? Let them return from their wholesale charges of evil against him, to the simple and self-evident fact that he is upright, with no iniquity that can explain the tortures to which he is now subjected. He can discern evil, and would not hide it, though it were in himself.

Thus he bids them " try again," as the word has been rendered, and be fair in their judgment, and see if they can explain the strange anomaly of a good man suffering as he does. It is as great a mystery to him as to them.

We have here the habitual state of Job's mind throughout all his controversy with his friends. There is a sense of moral rectitude, of genuine fear of God, which he cannot deny. It is the testimony of a good conscience, and it stands as a rock against all the outrageous suspicions and accusations. He holds fast his integrity, and thus proves the falseness of Satan's malicious charge, and the error of the friends' principles. Incidentally he disproves his own theory, for he too had thought as they. Indeed, his solution, from which he utterly shrank, was worse than theirs. For surely it is better that Job should fall than God's honor be touched.

(5) Having challenged his friends to test him, Job now returns to dwell upon his sufferings in view of the brevity of life. These sleepless nights of " tossings to and fro" through months of unrelieved pain, make him long for that "appointed time " for all flesh, with the eager desire of a hireling waiting for the close of his day's work. Already there are the harbingers of the grave upon him, the worm and the clod; any slight healing of his sores is but the signal for a fresh outbreak of loathsomeness. Like the swift passing of the shuttle in the weaver's loom, so pass his painful days. Soon they will see him no more, and his life will melt away as the cloud in the blue sky.

This is beautifully poetic, and true so far as man's view is concerned. "As a flower of the field so he flourisheth, for the wind passeth over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more." It is the dirge of human existence since sin has brought in death. "But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him" (Ps. 103:15-18). Ah, Job sees but the dark side, for while turning to God as he does here, it is' not of mercy but of wrath that he speaks.

(6) God is his enemy, watching as if he were the tossing sea, ready to overleap its bounds, or some monster of the waters to be taken and destroyed. Day and night His hand was heavy upon him. The fitful sleep as he tossed upon his couch was intolerable by reason of the terrifying dreams which God sent, so that strangling was preferable to the choking dread that filled his soul with terror. Poor sufferer! And he was attributing it to his best Friend!

So he abhors life, and would not live alway. He asks-but in how different a way from the Psalmist:What is poor, puny man that Thou shouldst thus afflict him, that he scarce has time to draw a quiet breath-"to swallow down my spittle ?" Sad indeed is the case of one who can find no relief even in God.

(7) At last Job will speak of his sin, though most briefly. "I have sinned;"but it is not the true acknowledgment of penitence, rather a hypothetical statement. Granted that I have sinned, what is that to Thee, O watcher of men? Why dost Thou seek me as a mark for thy weapons instead of pardoning and restoring me to my former prosperity ? Instead of that Thou watchest me until I shall sleep in the dust; then I shall be free from the intolerable burden of thy sore afflictions. Such seems to be the meaning of this concluding part. In the writhings of his soul-anguish, Job does not hesitate to accuse God. If he has sinned why does God punish instead of showing mercy ? Truly such challenges cannot be allowed to pass.

Thus the first reply closes. It is full of bitterness against man and God. Justified partly in what he says of man, Job appears throughout as one whose sufferings had absorbed him in selfishness. He sees no mercy in God, and therefore the only future he dwells upon is one of escape from His presence. This is not even an Old Testament view of the future, as we have already seen, but the one-sided view of a morbidly wretched man. We pity him, though, thank God, he no longer needs it, but we cannot endorse his unbelief. He too will ere long tell a different story, and out of his sorrow will come the morning of joy. S. R.

(To be continued.)

Dear Mr. Editor :

Your editorial in Help and Food for May referring to the reception of "A well known Evangelist" opens up a question that is becoming increasingly serious, and we might well ask ourselves, "Where are we at?"

There was a time when divine principles governed those gathered to the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ-when that meant something to both heart and conscience-when a man's oratory or gift was not a sufficient warrant for his reception or endorsement-when Jer. 15:19 ; 2 Tim. 2 :15-22 ; Heb. 13 :13, and other significant portions of the Word had weight, and which, thank God, is still blessedly true of many gathered saints. But the broad tendency to-day is to let down the barriers which the Truth has erected-to remove "the ancient landmarks" (Prov. 22 :28). The specious plea is made that, "He is such an orator; has such blessing; preaches the gospel as clearly as 'Brethren' do, and has such crowds," and so on. So our meetings are counted dull and uninteresting, and saints flock to swell the numbers attending more exciting services, and then come with the question, "Why cannot we have such meetings? " The answer lies at their own doors.

To forbid these preachers we neither could nor would (Luke 9 :49, 50), but our path lies separate from theirs. Gathered to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ forbids the lowering of the divine standard, and demands of us that we "earnestly contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." There should be no "looking back" (Lu ve 9 :62). Standing for the truth of God puts us into the place of reproach, but, "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye" (1 Peter 4 :14). We may be assailed by such remarks as, "Look at the divisions amongst you 'Brethren'-see how weak you are-how little you are doing to reach sinners," etc.-which may be sorrowfully true, and we must allow it to search our own hearts. But even those divisions, sad and dishonoring as they are, prove that, rather than tolerate evil, we are willing to suffer them for righteousness' sake.

How often too we are assailed with the remark, "You are a sect just as much as any other." Some, indeed, may have a sectarian spirit, but to assemble as members of the Body of Christ as we do is not sectarian. Some, also, take advantage of this unsectarian position to go where they please, which only proves how little power truth has over them. We have no board with ruling authority-I do not mean that we have no power to exercise discipline; for "Brethren" do have it in a truly Scriptural sense-but we have no human rules to enforce a certain line of conduct upon saints. The Word of God is our sufficient guide, our Statute Book, but only the obedience of faith avails there. Is it holy to plead Laodicea as a warranty for looseness? Must we be Laodiceans ? Should we not be Philadelphian in spirit without claiming to be Philadelphia, and remember that "to obey is better than sacrifice"?

Shall we not then cry to the Lord that there may be a turning back to first principles, a rallying to the Truth, holding up afresh the hands of, and supporting more fully the servants of Christ who " for His Name's sake " go forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles, and who assume no official place? We should remember too that to judge gifts is to judge God (1 Cor. 4 :6, 7). He who gave a Paul whose speech was "contemptible" was the same who gave Apollos, who was an "eloquent man."
If the Church has degenerated, the Truth has not. If she is no longer a collective testimony, all the more reason for those who claim to have taken the path of separation to go on in the practice of what is involved in that path, and so give heed to the exhortation of our blessed Lord :"Hold that fast which thou hast."

May God unite us afresh in power and in practice for the "defense of the truth."

Sincerely in Christ, F. J. Enefer

(Continued from page 13)

2-Delivered to Satan (chap, i:6-22)

The scene now changes from earth to heaven, where Jehovah is seen in His majesty, attended by the angelic hosts." I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right hand and on His left" (i Kings 22:19). "No man hath seen God at any time"; and, in the fullest sense, even angels cannot look upon His face who dwelleth "in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see" (i Tim. 6:16).The seraphim veil their faces as they proclaim His thrice holy Name (Isa. 6.).

No creature, be he ever so great, can "know the Almighty to perfection." Yet angels have an access into the presence of God which it would be impossible for man, as at present constituted, to enjoy. Apart from the fact that sin has severed him from God morally, man, as formed of the dust (although endowed with an immortal spirit), is "a little lower than the angels." His natural dwelling-place is the earth, not heaven, and his intercourse with God would naturally be modified and limited by that fact. The heavenly scene before us represents angelic access to God, as contrasted with human approach to Him.

The heavenly beings are called "the sons of God," for He is "the Father of spirits." While this is true of men as well-"for we also are His offspring "-it is because they also have spirits, and so far are like the angels. But in man all is linked with the body, and intercourse is had through that medium. It is only in resurrection that men will be "equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection " (Luke 20:36).

The expression " sons of God" seems to suggest, not merely a spirit-nature, but moral likeness to God as well. This is further emphasized by the fact that "Satan" is mentioned as in contrast. "Sons of God" shouted for joy when the material universe was founded (Job 38:7). And when the First-begotten is brought into His own, and reigns over the earth, these "ethereal virtues" will unite with all redeemed creation to give glory "unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever" (Rev. 5:13). We know too that infernal beings will also own "that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil. 2:10, n). But that is by compulsion; the worship of the "sons of God" is an outflow of their hearts.* *It is a mistake to think that the same expression in different parts of Scripture always means the same thing. Mere verbal similarity is not the guide, but the connection and the trend of thought. Thus, the "sons of God" who married "the daughters of men" (Gen. 6:2) were evidently, as the connection shows, men of the line of Seth who formed mixed marriages with the descendants of Cain. Also, "Ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26, R.V.), so manifestly refers to men that none would dispute it.*

We cannot intrude into things which we have not seen and must not make the attempt, nor seek to have a "religion of angels; " nor would this be the place to gather together the various teachings of Scripture regarding the host of heaven. It must suffice us to note that these beings, as their name both in Hebrew and Greek tells us, are Jehovah's messengers. They "excel in strength, and do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word" (Ps. 103:20). It is their happy privilege to worship and to serve, answering thus in some sense to the priestly worship and Levitical service of God's earthly children. In connection with this worship and service they are seen here gathered, as on some great occasion, before their divine Lord. In dreadful contrast with these worshiping servants, these "sons of God," we see one utterly unlike them in moral character, though having a spirit-nature like themselves. Indeed he was once morally like them, the very chief of them all (Ezek. 28)-the "covering cherub" that shadowed the throne of Jehovah. But "how hast thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning! "Dazzled with his own glory, wilfully forgetting the creature-place which he must ever keep, he has fallen into pride ("the condemnation of the devil"), by which he became the bitter, eternal enemy of all that is good, and of God Himself.

Revising ordinary views of Satan in the light of this scripture, we find that while morally fallen he still has access into God's presence, can still present himself along with the "sons of God." So far from being shut up in hell, or even confined to earth, we see this shameless apostate taking his place there as though it were still his right. The time is coming, and that ere long, when he shall be cast out of heaven to earth (Rev. 12:7-12), to tarry there but a short time, and then to be bound a thousand years in the bottomless pit (Rev. 20:1-3) ; and finally, after leading another brief outbreak of apostate men, will receive his eternal retribution in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).

How great is the patience of God! He has tolerated Satan's malignity and scheming through all the sad centuries of fallen man's history-permitted him indeed to tempt our first parents in their innocence-and allows him to make his accusations and insinuations that there is no good, before His very face. But all is permitted to bring out lessons for eternity. Satan is surely heaping up added wrath for himself, and meanwhile his very malice can but serve God's righteous purposes of blessing, as we shall see in Job's case.

In the dialogue between the Lord and Satan, we have God's challenge and Satan's accusation. The answer to the first question shows where Satan is carrying on his work. Like the restless raven flying over the waste of waters after the flood, he walketh about "as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." In heaven he is the accuser; on earth the destroyer; wherever he is, he is ever and only Satan-the enemy of God and of good.

"Hast thou considered my servant Job? "asks Jehovah, adopting for Himself the description of the patriarch already given. God delights in His beloved people, and in their righteous ways. If Satan accuse, He will commend. It is ever thus; judgment is His strange work; He would be occupied with good, and "if there be any virtue and any praise," He thinks upon that.

True to his character, Satan can only accuse. He cannot deny Job's righteousness, but impugns his motives. Having no motive himself but selfishness, he declares that Job is only actuated by that. Why should he not be righteous ? Does it not pay ? He is prosperous, blessed in every way, and nothing is allowed to come near him for injury. Let God but remove that safeguard, and let Job be deprived of all his wealth, "and he will curse Thee to thy face."

Is this accusation true ? Can good exist only with a pleasant environment ?Is God afraid to let His children see adversity ?Can one who knows and loves God be brought to renounce Him, to "curse Him to His face ? " Such questions are involved in Satan's charge. Not only for Job's sake, but the 'truth's sake, God will not permit this accusation to rest upon Him, nor upon Job. For Satan would ever strike at God when outwardly pleading even for righteousness.

Therefore Job is delivered into Satan's hands; all that he has is subject to that enemy's malignity:"Only upon himself put not forth thy hand." Not a hair of the child of God can fall without His permission. Satan is but the unintentional instrument to accomplish God's will; he can do no more than he is allowed to do. How good it is to remember this !If trials come as a host against us, we know that the Almighty is between us and them. They will but work out for us His own purposes of love.

Nor must we forget that not only was God going to vindicate His truth, silence Satan and wicked men, but He knew that His servant Job needed to learn lessons for his own soul. He would put the precious ore into the crucible, for He knew how much unsuspected evil lay hidden beneath all that outward excellence, mixed even with the inner piety of this good man. He would show that even piety cannot feed upon itself, nor righteousness lean upon its own arm. These are some of the lessons which Job is to learn. May we learn them too! S. R.

(To be continued)

How couldst thou rest, my heart,
Away from Him who loveth thee ?
Ah, sad thy lot
If thou couldst here content thyself
Where He is not.
Nay, if I know my heart,
No rest from Him apart.

This could not be our rest,
Where sin, and death, and sorrow stand
In dread array,
Where sickness, suffering, and heartache
Still hold their sway
And ply their silent quest,
We do not, cannot rest.

This is no place of rest,
Where Christ was hunted to His death,
Nailed to a cross.
In this poor sin-cursed earth there is
No rest for us.
'Tis but too manifest
Earth offereth no rest.

Nay 'tis no place to rest
Where thousands have been slain, for love
Of Him who died.
There's rest reserved for us, through Christ
Once crucified.
In Him alone we're blest;
With Him alone is rest.

What! rest among the dead,
Who seek to please themselves alone-
How could it be ? To live for Him who died for us,
Thus only we
May eat the Living Bread,
And live by Christ our Head.

No, this is not our rest;
We're only pilgrims, passing through.
We wait and serve
The Lord who's coming soon, and so
We would not swerve.
His path for us is best,
Who seek a better rest.

Not of the world, ah no!
Yet in it we would honor Him
Who bled and died
For love of us, our souls to win.
Though often tried,
"Tis well with us, we know,
For He would have it so.

We labor here-not rest.
'Tis sweet to know we shall behold
His gracious smile.
'Tis joy to work with Christ our Lord
The little while,
And soon we shall be blest
With Him we have confessed.

For there remains a rest
For those He has redeemed from sin.
We soon shall see
The hands that once were pierced for us;
We soon shall be
With Him, for aye at rest
Upon His faithful breast.

No rest on land or sea:
On earth the battles ceaseless roar-
The fruit of sin;
And sea and air afford no place
To hide within-
No hiding place can be
But, blessed Lord, in Thee,

Then here I rest and hide:
I know the coming judgment-storm
Will pass me by,
Because Thou art safe, then so am I
Eternally.
And here I shall abide
Close sheltered in Thy side.

H. McD.

Two Incidents and their Lessons

Four chapters in the book of Genesis (42-45) give us a detailed account of Joseph's manner with his brethren when they came to Egypt after food. They are important chapters, giving us, as Genesis does all through, the germ of great principles developed afterward in the body of the word of God.

In these chapters Joseph occupies, in a figure, the place and office of our Lord Jesus Christ- chiefly, no doubt, as in relation to the Jews at the end, when they are brought to repentance, but acting on the same principle with offenders among His people at all times.

The low moral state of Joseph's brethren had culminated in a serious wrong. With murder in their hearts they had sold him into the hands of strangers, and had stifled in their hearts the sense of this guilt, all the years of God's patience with them. No doubt they had found various excuses to hush right feelings in their hearts and allay their consciences. Was not their younger brother attempting to dominate them, as his dreams and visions indicated ? Was he not assuming to be a reformer by reporting their evil ways to his father ? At any rate he disturbed their peace, and he must be disposed of. Envy, that cruel monster, had hold of them, and it shrinks from nothing to reach its end. It hardens the heart, deadens the conscience, and brutalizes the tenderest feelings. A young brother's pleadings and an aged father's mourning are insufficient to move it.

But they had reckoned without God, and without His unchangeable, inflexible decree that "God requireth that which is past "(Eccl. 3:15), whether of sinners-at the coming day of judgment or of saints now. Accordingly those stout-hearted sons of Jacob are brought to hunger. Nothing humbles human, pride like fasting if long continued; and "when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness" (Isa. 26:9). The case rests with God now, and with Him they are about to have to do. They are driven to Egypt for corn, there to be brought face to face with the guilt they had well-nigh forgotten. Joseph recognizes them at once though they do not recognize him. His heart would have prompted him to throw himself on their necks and embrace them. It would have been the short and easy way-the way self-indulgent man. likes. But Joseph is, first of all, the "man of God," and such know that "the wisdom which is from above is first pure." He has no selfish end to serve, no theory to uphold, no pride to save by the hiding of his family shame. All with him is seen by the light in which he walks. In matters of state he might be a diplomat, but not here. It is not a matter between statesmen or business men, but between brethren, and only cloudless communion can satisfy him here. All that hinders that must therefore be honestly met and righteously ended. Nothing stirs guilty people like the voice of offended justice. Accordingly Joseph" made himself strange unto them, and spoke roughly unto them . . . and said unto them. Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come."What solemn things, involving their very lives, to be accused of by a man in whose power they are. It must have awakened the remembrance of the hour when their brother was once in their power, pleading for his life and his liberty, and they would not hear.

Quailing under the imperious words of the ruler, they tell things to clear themselves which only bring them into more trouble. They must now produce Benjamin, or be reduced to starvation. They are imprisoned three days. But the repentance wrought by the Spirit of God never leads to despair, so Joseph comforts them by telling them he fears God. They know the true God, that He is merciful, and a man who fears Him would show mercy. After this he sends them home with corn, but charges them to bring their youngest brother when they come again.

This course had effect, for "they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon ns. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear ? therefore, behold, also his blood is required." What an hour of awakening !

But the depth of their soul has not yet been reached. The finer sensibilities so long dormant must be re-awakened. So "Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way." How different this is from the rough words, yet coming from the same man, but to touch different cords in their being. Their souls are awed by it. What can it all mean ? They will fully understand only when, face to face again with their brother, he says to them in an outburst of weeping, "I am Joseph;" for how can love and grace be understood except in the presence of the light which exposes all the sin. Until then their dis.-tress may engross them, but before his very face who knows all the depth of their guilt, the true sense of it alone can be reached. Therefore all things combine to have them return to Egypt and stand before Joseph. How painful and manifold are sin's results, until realized and judged in the light of the Lord's presence-not merely by the pains it brings-we are forgiven, reconciled and brought back to a sweeter communion than ever before.

The Lesson

If we know and love " the communion of saints," we will wait patiently till God has wrought an unquestionable repentance.

Our second incident is related in 2 Samuel, chaps. 14 and 15.

Absalom had slain his brother Amnon and fled to Talmai, king of Geshur, his Gentile mother's father. In such environments he would probably be praised for his act of revenge rather than reproved for his crime, and praising a sinner is not likely to lead him to repentance. At any rate, before Absalom proves himself a repentant man, a movement is set up to recall and restore him. The enemy of Israel promptly finds suitable elements for his ends:David himself, who loved Israel, is the chief instrument for this unholy work. His "inordinate affection" for his son, whose beauty nattered his pride, and perhaps the demoralizing effects of his own recent downfall had weakened the powers of his soul; government in his hands had dropped to a lower plane. " David mourned for his son every day." Absalom's crime had not exercised David very deeply.

Joab, the selfish, self-willed man, who experienced little difficulty in carrying out any plan, is another instrument, and he soon finds a suitable associate in a wise woman of Tekoah, who can mourn, have two faces, confess, natter, reprove and bow low to high men as occasion requires. What a combination ! And all unwittingly working together to bring on disaster in Israel.

They succeed in their object, but God is not with their success. Absalom aims at domination. He "steals the hearts of the men of Israel." Who would have thought that a people so devoted to David yesterday, would to-day be so easily won to Absalom? But "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain" (Ps. 127:i). Absalom gets himself proclaimed king, causes David his father to flee, brings on a big battle in which many fall, and another page of shame is added to Israel's history.

The Lesson

If we restore before an unquestionable repentance has been produced, we but take in an enemy.

May we heed the lessons of the word of God. They are landmarks and boundaries which we may not neglect with impunity. God has put them there in love to us, that we may not fall into the same toils and sorrows. He loves us too well to leave us without warning.

(Continued from page 214.)

Chapter VI.

A few Examples illustrative of the Hope that was in the Old Testament Saints

In verses 16-19 of Gen. 3 God speaks directly, first to the woman and then to Adam. These solemn words express the condition of what human earthly life must be, now that sin has come in. Until it passes away it will be a life of toil, trouble, and sorrow. Fallen man is on the way to death. Everywhere on his earthly path, is inscribed the divine sentence, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

It is evident, however, that as Adam faced the new conditions which his transgression had brought him into, he was sustained and upheld by the wondrous revelations he had listened to when Satan's doom was pronounced. In the light of these revelations he could look beyond death. By faith he could see, in the grace of God declared, a scene of life upon which no sentence of death can come-in a resurrection to life, immortal, eternal. Not that he could yet realize all the blessedness of it, as further revelations surely were needed; yet faith, in the purposes of God thus far declared, could behold a future life in which the subjects of God's saving grace would be victors over death and corruption.

If challenged for proof of this, I cite verse 20:"And Adam called his wife's name Eve." We are not left to imagine his reason for so naming her. He did so, "because she was the mother of all living." Faith caused him to give her that name, "Eve." If it is said she was the mother of the human race, it is not denied; but if Adam had thought of natural descendants merely-doomed to death – he would have said, Mother of all dying. But if " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," was ringing in his ears to emphasize the warning threat, "Thou shalt surely die," he had also heard of a seed the woman was to have by grace, between whom and the tempter there would be perpetual enmity. Faith in the blessed announcement fixed his eyes and heart oh this new human race. To him it was not a dying race, but a living one. He called, therefore, his wife's name Eve.

This manifests a deposit of faith in Adam's soul. The living and abiding word of God had found entrance there, effecting a moral and spiritual change, making him thus a new creature. He believed in the life and incorruptibility which God had pledged to the woman; in the Deliverer whom He would raise up through her instrumentality-in a Man, whom Satan, sin and death would not conquer. Life and incorruptibility, though as yet not fully illuminated, shone upon his path. He lived in faith, in hope of a future life in the eternal favor of God, in which both soul and body would share.

Adam is a clear example of the faith which animated and cheered Old Testament saints; but we pass on to consider Abel, who both by his choice of occupation (a keeper of sheep) and his offering to the Lord (a firstling of the flock) set to his seal that the testimony of God is true. There is nothing to show that this testimony had come to him directly, but most probably from Adam and Eve. From them he could learn of the revelations God gave them; from them learn how God clad them in garments of skins, to procure which blood had to be shed; .that in clothing them thus God was testifying to their reinstatement in His favor.

The testimony of God taking lodgement in his soul, he could reason that acceptance before God must be on the ground of sacrifice for sin, not by culture of the soil, cursed for man's sake on account of sin. To have a sacrifice by which to declare his need before God he must be a keeper of sheep. His choice of occupation bears witness to the faith that was in him, and shows that he was a child of wisdom'; that he accepted the sentence of God against himself as a sinner, with no title in himself to divine favor.

In bringing his offering to the Lord he confessed that a substitute was necessary-a substitute able to suffer death, and remove the penalty to which he was exposed. That he believed the promised Seed of the woman was that Substitute is, I think, a just inference. His vision of Him may have been very dim, yet in faith he could associate life and incorruptibility with Him. Setting his firstlings before God as a type of the coming One he practically said, Though a subject of death, I shall live through Him who is typified by the offering I bring. God's acceptance of his sacrifice was witness to him of his acceptance on the ground of his faith in God's promise.

In this faith Abel died. He suffered for the faith he held, for the hope he embraced, for the testimony he received from God that he was righteous. God has witnessed to his faith, expressed in the sacrifice which he offered (Heb. 11:4).

Enoch is also a witness to the same truth, but in another way. Gen. 5 :21-24 describes him as one who "walked with God." Do we realize the import of this? We must remember he was not without divine testimony. He was in possession of the revelations God had given. As setting to his seal that the testimony of God is true, he believed men to be under the power of sin and subjects of death. He believed also that the same God who had appointed men to death and corruption had pledged Himself to give deliverance, to annul death, to bring into life and incorruptibility. In the light of divine revelation he looked beyond death. As seeking life and incorruptibility he not only witnessed to the judgment that is in store for the ungodly, but walked in daily intimacy with the One who had made known a way to life through One that would not be subjected to death. The realization of such blessed companionship was testimony to him that God found pleasure in his faith (Heb. 11:5). And Enoch did not die. God, the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, took him to Himself, transferred him from the visible and material world to the invisible and spiritual world. Divine power fashioned anew his body to be suited for existence in the spiritual world. His translation was a testimony therefore to life and incorruptibility.

At a much later day Elijah exemplified the same blessed truth. The evidence of his body being spiritualized is clear. The body that is of the earth and suited to man's earthly existence needs material covering; but when his body was spiritualized, his mantle was no longer required. The power of God wrought in his material body to refashion it; and by the same power the transformed body was taken up. In all this we see a testimony to life and incorruptibility. By exempting these two men from death, God gave proof of His ability to triumph over Satan. He had declared He would nullify Satan's work; and in changing the bodies of Enoch and Elijah, and transferring them to the spiritual world, He manifested His revealed purpose, and demonstrated His competence to defeat Satan, and accomplish for man the destiny for which He had created him.

The transformation and translation of Enoch and Elijah bore witness that the disembodied state is not man's final goal. The continued existence of the soul after death is plainly implied throughout the Old Testament, as well as in the New; but in the translation of Enoch and Elijah we have the witness, not only of the immortality of the soul, but of a final state of immortality in which the body will share, and dissolution be then no more possible.

Life and incorruptibility are also taught us in the record of the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who bore witness that their earthly life was a pilgrimage.

Abraham, as he staked his tent, declared himself to be a sojourner on earth. His tent declares, I am a stranger here-a pilgrim, seeking a country -not an earthly, but a heavenly one (Heb. n:16).

Isaac walked in the steps of his father; he too was a stranger and pilgrim on earth. He died in the same faith as that of Abraham; he shared in Abraham's hope of a future life. He gave up his spirit to wait still for perfection-the reunion of the spirit with the body, thenceforth nevermore to see death and corruption. If the city of God was the ultimate goal before Abraham's faith, it was the same prospect that animated Isaac.

Jacob confesses himself before Pharaoh to be a pilgrim, and declares that his fathers before him had traversed the same pilgrim path, though his own had been shorter than theirs (Gen. 47:9).

But if these fathers of Israel were pilgrims through their life upon earth, the prospect of a future life was before them-a condition of existence which they did not enter upon when they died, but for which they are still waiting. In faith they looked beyond the death which ended their earthly career. They were believers in a future life – a life in resurrection and incorruptibility. Their hope was of abiding with God in eternal blessedness and communion.

In saying this, I am not attributing to them the light and knowledge of eternity which has been graciously vouchsafed to us. Life and incorruptibility had not then been illuminated as they now are; but God gave them hints of it which they embraced, and by means of which eternity was in their hearts. If they were strangers on earth they were not strangers to the eternal God. They knew the only true God. Though He had not as yet revealed His relation of Father to them, they knew Him and walked with and before Him. They could rejoice in the grace which opened God's paradise for those who had been shut out from the paradise of man. They builded on God's testimony, hence their minds and hearts were not on earthly things. Death to them was but a temporary thing. They looked
beyond it to life in resurrection. As believing in the testimony of God> they knew they were linked with a higher life than the earthly life forfeited through sin. I am constrained to say that perhaps, in some cases, there was a more profound sense of eternal life than there is in many of us who enjoy greater light. If so, it is but to our shame.

I turn now to job. It needs not to determine the age in which he lived, whether before or after the time of Abraham; it has no bearing on the subject with which we' are concerned. It is evident that the faith as to what God had revealed was in him. Whatever his perplexity as to the governmental ways of God towards him, however much in the dark he was as to their purpose, it is clear he did not believe that death ends all. He believed in the continued existence of the soul after death. Chap. 14 :13 is sufficient to establish this ("grave " in this verse should be Sheol- the place of the departed spirit), though other passages might be cited. God's hand was heavy upon him, and hard to endure, therefore he desired to be hidden in sheol until the turning of God's anger, when he knew he would be remembered.

But Job believed in the resurrection; of this chap. 19:25-27 is a strong expression. In verses 6-20 he admits that his sorrows are from the hand of God. It is a touching description of the pitiable condition to which God had reduced him. While it is all a mystery to him, unable as he is to explain the needs be for it, he is firm in the conviction that his friends completely fail to interpret God's ways with him. While his own soul is under terrible anguish as he drinks of the bitter cup pressed to his lips, he does not abandon himself to absolute despair. He has at least one ray of hope, one source of comfort. If he sees no relief from what he seems to be doomed for this life, his eye and heart are fixed on the life to come. He says, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." There is in his soul the consciousness of a link of life with One in whom is essential life, One on whom death has no power; and faith in divine testimony has taught him that this Living One will stand at the latter day upon the earth. Here, I think we may read Job's faith in the living Redeemer becoming a Man, and as such being the Judge of all.

But what is Job's confidence as to himself? Death is in prospect. He fully expects to die. He quite anticipates that his body shall return to the dust, yet he is assured of resurrection. He boldly declares that he will see the face of his divine-human Redeemer – and not as a disembodied spirit himself, but as recovered from death. He has no thought of his spirit remaining forever in sheol. He expects a new body. He believes he will live again as a complete man:" Yet in my flesh shall I see God " is his confident and triumphant language.

Not only this, but such is his conception of the blessedness that will be his, when as a risen man he shall be able to gaze on the face of his living Redeemer, that he declares his soul earnestly longs for it. He says, "My reins be consumed within me." (The marginal reading is:" My reins within me are consumed with earnest desire.")

It was the hope of life and incorruptibility that comforted Job. He is a brilliant example of the faith that was in Old Testament saints.

I need not cite other scriptures, though many more might be mentioned. Those referred to sufficiently illustrate the fact that there is in the Old Testament a teaching on life and incorruptibility- a doctrine of life beyond death; a condition of eternal life of which the body will partake as well as the soul. C. Crain

(To be continued.)

HELP AND FOOD FOR THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH VOL. 34 NO. 12

SPECIAL NUMBER

A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST BY SAMUEL RIDOUT

" I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7.)

Departed to be with. Christ, at his residence, Plainfield, N. J., on Oct. 3rd, 1916, Paul J. Loizeaux, in the 75th year of his age.

While mere eulogy, whether of the living or the departed, is distasteful to every spiritual mind, it is equally unfitting that we should fail to recognize the grace of God as manifested in His servants, and to record some of the works of that grace, thus seeking to gather lessons of the life of faith for those of us who remain.

This is especially true in the case of the devoted and beloved brother who has recently fallen asleep. For fifty years he has given himself-time, strength, talents-to the service of Christ in the gospel of His grace, and in ministry to and care for the saints of God. In this labor of love he has traveled throughout the length and breadth of this country and Canada, and beyond the sea as well. Through the printed page he has ministered peace, comfort and counsel to how many!-and it will continue to do so. In his private correspondence, as multitudes will bear witness, his tender sympathy, and help and encouragement in times of need have been given without- stint. In personal brotherly intercourse, he has endeared himself beyond many to a generation that is passing, and to a younger company who have learned to love and esteem him very highly for his work's sake. His life was lived for Christ and His Church, and before the Church; he belongs to that Church, and in a special way the record of his life of loving service to them belongs to those for and to whom it was given. Such will value these pages, and for them they are written^ with the prayer that God will use them to stir in our hearts fresh love for our Saviour and Lord, with a deeper desire to follow our brother as he followed Christ.

I. ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE.

While France has been called " the eldest daughter of the Church " (of Rome), God has not left Himself without witness to the true grace of the gospel in that beautiful land. The great fundamental doctrines of the Reformation-justification by faith on the ground of the finished atoning sacrifice of Christ, the priesthood of all believers, the inspiration and sufficiency of the word of God, with many other precious truths-found a place in many hearts at the time of the Reformation. The names of many honored servants of Christ brighten the pages of the history of the Church in France. But as a nation the people remained under the sway of Rome. They knew not the day of their visitation, and instead of opening their hearts to the truth of the gospel, they stained the land with the blood of their best and noblest. Still the Protestant Church in France was established, and spite of persecution remains side by side to this day with the Church of Rome.

It is sad to think of that Church, with so much light, lapsing into the dead state of Sardis; but, generally speaking, such has been the case.

It was from parentage which had been Protestant as far back as the family history is known that Paul J. Loizeaux was born, at the town of Leme", in the Department of the Aisne, in Northern France in 1841. In the Evangelical revival under Cesar Malan and others, part at least of the family embraced the truth of the gospel, and this doubtless had its effect upon the more immediate household, begetting an atmosphere of confidence the mercy of God as well as the previous sobriety and earnestness which belong to the home where the word of God is read and obeyed.

The immense value of a consistent Protestant training can scarcely be over-estimated, as compared with the blindness, superstition and corresponding worldliness of that "Church" which rigidly deprives its members of the only guide to truth and holiness-the word of God. Even where there is a lack of establishment in the grace of God, and a corresponding legality and formalism takes the place of the warmth, peace and joy of a known salvation, yet we can use the language of the apostle in replying to the question, "What advantage then hath the Jew? . . . Much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God" (Rom. 3:2). Such was the advantage of the established Protestant Church of France.

It was the recognition of this advantage which induced the parents of the young family, f which Paul was the second member, to move from their home in the north to the south, which was the stronghold of French, Protestantism, where the children could have the advantage of the excellent Protestant schools found there. Here they remained from 1850 until their removal in 1853 to America.

There again the faith of the parents, in putting the chief value upon the eternal interests of their family, is seen. When they began to think of removing elsewhere-because of the decline in the silk business in which the father was engaged-it was found that special and attractive inducements were offered by the French Government to settlers in the newly acquired province of Algeria in Northern Africa. While the temporal advantages were far greater, and they would have remained near their beloved France, the majority of the settlers would have put no value upon the things most prized by these parents. So after seeking counsel from Protestants who could correctly inform them, it was decided to cross the ocean and settle in some of the newly-opened lands in the western part of the United States. Thus in due time they settled, after a brief sojourn in Illinois, in the fertile prairie lands of Iowa, near the village of Vinton.

While in the southern part of France the parents had come under the influence of evangelical teaching, and their sympathies were on that side. But as yet intimate personal acquaintance with the God of grace, as revealed in the person of His Son Jesus Christ and through His atoning sacrifice, was unknown to them. Like Abraham they had heard the call, scarcely recognizing whose voice it was, and had left country and kindred. But as yet their primitive cabin on the vast prairies could scarcely be called a "tent," in the pilgrim sense, and the "altar" of approach to God was as yet but dimly known. The lad of twelve years who had hitherto been led in willing obedience wherever his parents went, was yet to lead them in a way they knew not, in the full and blessed light of Him who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

By the blessing of God the settlers prospered in the beautiful and fertile prairie land, and in a few years their diligence and thrift was rewarded by all of temporal good that could be desired. Paul had been his father's constant companion in those early days, accompanying him in needed journeys and acting as his interpreter. Thus his youth was passed in the best way, humanly speaking, for the development of a character of sturdy self-reliance, energy, honesty, and intelligent endeavors. The Bible was still the book for the family, read morning and evening at the family altar, and reverenced. They had also identified themselves with a denomination, and were rightly known in their vicinity as a religious family.

2. EARLY MANHOOD AND CONVERSION.

In 1860 Paul could be spared from the home, and went to New York to attend the " Charlier Institute," an advanced collegiate establishment, of which his uncle was originator and proprietor, and offered its advantages to his young kinsman, with good prospects of later advancement. Here after two years he graduated with first honors, and after the reading of his essay was greeted by a member of Congress with, " I expect to see you by and by, sir, in the legislative halls of our nation."

Having been advised by a prominent lawyer in New York to adopt the legal profession, he entered the office of a firm near his home and began his studies. But he was being led in a way he knew not, and something higher than either statesmanship or law was to engage his time and abilities. An incident occurred after his entrance into the office which diverted him completely from the profession. An important case having been taken by the firm, the client confessed his guilt to his lawyers. Paul could not comprehend how they could argue such a case as though their client were "not guilty "when they knew the reverse from the man's own lips. Writing to the legal friend in New York upon whose advice he had acted in adopting this profession, he received the following answer to his questions:" Loizeaux, you must start with this, in law, that your client is not guilty till condemned by the jury."

While this was used of God to confirm that love of truth which was ever so prominent a characteristic in him, he by no means believed that all legal men are dishonest. It was doubtless God's way of further exercising him, and providentially leading him away from all other courses except the one for which he was to be later prepared by grace.

Returning to New York he accepted a position as associate in the Collegiate Institute from which he had graduated, with prospects of further advancement to " partnership" in a year or two. He had been regarded, and rightly from a human standpoint, as a fine Christian, and a "preacher's license" had been urged upon him in the denomination with which he had been affiliated in the West.

During his stay in New York he visited Y. M.C. A. meetings, the "Newsboys' Home," and some Missions, being more or less active in these things, while yet not knowing the true gospel of God's grace. About this time were the beginnings of those exercises which culminated shortly after in the great change in his life.

In early childhood there had been occasional glimpses of truth, with deep and serious thoughts. While crossing the ocean, he had felt as if he could trust in the goodness of God; and later on, as a boy in the West, he had said, while watching a young colt gamboling about-" Mother, I wish I were a colt like that." "Why, child! what makes you say such a thing?" " Why, mother, a colt won't have to give account to God as we have," answered the boy.

He became greatly interested in a book of George Muller's, of the Ashley Downs Orphan Homes, supported by confidence in God rather than by direct solicitation of funds. "Answers to Prayer" also stirred him, and finding himself more and more out of accord with the conduct of the Institute, he resigned and returned to his home in Vinton.

But the exercises above referred to, while sincere, did not find or make him a decided Christian in the Bible sense. He desired to "help others to be good," and was giving himself to his work, when he saw the "light above the brightness of the sun." Then for the first time he counted as loss for Christ those things which had been gain to him. His fancied righteousness was then cast away, and henceforth he had but one object and desire-to make known to others that which had brought peace to his own soul. But we will let him tell in his own words how this great event took place.

"I have been a most self-righteous man.* For years I groaned, expecting to find peace by regulating my life according to the Scriptures. *From " Saved by Grace." by P. J. L. The tract is prefaced with the following quotation from Scripture:" For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth " (Rom. 10 :2-4).* I could not but believe them true:they proved such a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart' (Heb. 4:12). I sought carefully for the commandments of the New Testament, but the more I sought, the more I got into difficulty. I read, 'He that hateth his brother is a murderer,' or, ' For every idle word which men speak they shall be brought into judgment,' and others of the same character, but they terrified me. I read also, ' Seek not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink,' but it did not seem to be for me-my labor brought in abundantly. I read also, ' Sell what ye have, and give to the poor,' and then I wished, ' Oh that I were rich, that I might sacrifice all!' Then I sought baptism and the Lord's supper; but after doing all, and living an irreproachable church life, I got no peace. The 'rejoice evermore' I read was only a mockery to me. When I was baptized, I expected some mysterious change, but there was none:I wept at the Lord's table, but there was no peace:I prayed in secret and in public, often so earnestly that others thought me mighty in prayer, but yet there was no peace. 'O Lord!' I cried in my agony, 'speak to me and tell me what to do; I will run and do it even at the peril of my life;' but no answer. I now visited the sick, and spent much time in prayer. I preached too-yes, dear reader, I preached-I tried to be a bearer of glad tidings, while my own heart writhed in agony. What did I preach? What others had preached to me- 'Do thy best; be a valiant soldier of Jesus Christ, and then He will save thee;' but no peace! no peace! In spite of all this supposed duty fulfilled, there was no peace!

One day I called on a sick man, and quickly introduced the subject of religion, as that was my object in calling. 'Ah, sir,' he said, ' they used to tell me to do my best, and I tried and tried, until I found that there was no best to be reached. When I examined myself, I found that I was still the same poor sinner. Then I watched my instructors, to see if I could detect in them what I found in myself, and they failed so visibly to live up to what they taught and professed that I set them all down as hypocrites, and turned infidel. But here, read this;' and he passed to me a Testament opened at Romans 3. I had often read it before, but now the declaration, ' There is none righteous, no, not one,' was strangely solemn to me. I read on:'There is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, . . . whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, . . . that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.' And as I read the Holy Ghost opened my blinded heart, and I saw it all. Then and there, in that log cabin, I got what Cornelius got as Peter spoke the wonderful message, 'To Him [Jesus] give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins’ (Acts 10:43).

I was then two miles from home, and my path lay mostly through fields of corn and tall grass; but all I remember of it that evening is finding myself several times on my knees on the ground, praising God for His salvation. What shall I do when I get to heaven!

I now had God's answer to all my difficulties in His precious Word, and there it was all the time, but I was blind to it. Is it not wonderful we should be so quick and intelligent about so many things and yet so stupid, about matters so important, and so simply and clearly stated in the Word of God ?"

His soul flooded with this light from heaven, his one great desire was to make it known to his dear ones, the members of his own family, and to friends and neighbors. Soon after he had found peace he mounted his horse and went from house to house asking them to meet him at the school-house, as he had something of great importance to tell them. A company having been thus collected he began to tell them the way of salvation as he had himself learned it from the word of God-by faith, without the works of the law. They listened for a while, then murmurs began to be heard and objections, until at last they quite drowned his voice as they burst out with the words of an old hymn, whose meaning they little understood:

"Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease ?
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed through bloody seas? "

The dear young believer in the finished work of Christ was not finding "flowery beds of ease," as
he proclaimed the free gospel of God, but never again would he put his labors as a ground of salvation. Work he did, unceasingly, but it was not for salvation which was now and eternally his, but because he was saved he could not cease to labor for souls. He could truly say,

"The love that fills my grateful breast
Makes duty joy, and labor rest."

And so began, in the peace and joy of a known salvation, his life in the service of Christ.

3. "YE ARE DEAD."

Before dwelling further upon these early labors in the gospel, we must narrate a further most essential experience through which our brother passed. Very soon after having found peace for his conscience through the finished work of Christ upon the cross, he began to find, as every true believer will, that sin still remained in him. He was conscious of sin, though thankfully free from condemnation. As this pressed upon him, he turned more and more to the word of God, devoting his whole time day after day to prayer, fasting and study of the word of God. He was seeking deliverance from his sinful nature, and in a modified way was seeking holiness through his prayers and struggles as he had formerly sought peace. Shut up in his room he struggled on. His mother would knock at his door beseeching him to take his food, but he had heart for but one thing, and seek it he must until he found the answer to the question, "Oh wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death ?" For more than a month the struggle continued.

One day as he was reading the third chapter of Colossians, he came to the third verse, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

" O Lord, that I were more dead," he prayed.

" For ye are dead," replied the word of God.

"Oh that I were dead to sin-more dead, more dead," he repeated.

" FOR YE ARE DEAD," the Word read.

Suddenly, the light flashed into his soul. He leaped to his feet and shouted, " Glory to God, I am dead, and Christ is my righteousness before God. What a fool I have been in beating a dead man!"

Thus was his soul set free, from the law of, or strength, of sin as well as from its guilt. As a bird let loose he soared aloft bathing his soul in the sunshine of heaven-free from self; "in Christ" his righteousness, his peace, his power, his all.

These two great truths never ceased to be the basis of all his service. While he had labored incessantly immediately after finding peace for his conscience, he himself has said he saw comparatively little fruit from his preaching until he had found deliverance through those words, "Ye are dead."

4.EARLY LABORS IN THE GOSPEL.

With conscience and heart now set free, in the deep joy that filled him he gave himself to the delightful work of winning others to the precious Saviour he had found. Beginning immediately after his finding rest, he goes on to say,

" My heart now turned toward all men, especially to those already dear to me by the ties of nature. It was no more praying and preaching and visiting to perform some worthy thing, it was fishing after souls of men. One having in prospect the ministry was most of all on my heart. I knew he was just where I was before. I wrote to him, and told him that I had been blind, but now I saw. I told him of that Man that is called Jesus, of the work which He finished on the cross, and of the wonderful results of apprehending it by faith. He replied that he was 'in great distress sometimes, and he did not know whom to believe. One said this, and another said that, and all seemed earnest. It was very puzzling.' One day he wrote, ' All you tell me is true. I have compared it with the Word. One thing only I cannot understand. You say, ' It is useless to try to better that which cannot be bettered,' and add, 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh.' Surely you do not mean to say we must not strive to improve ourselves.'

I prayed to the Lord that He would guide me in my answer, and thought of the joy of being made the instrument in bringing that dear one to Jesus. I then replied, 'Yes, that is just what I meant to say. I meant that it is useless, and even folly, to strive to better what cannot be bettered. 'Ye must be born again' Your only hope is in what another, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has done for us. This is humiliating, but there is no other way. ' He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already'! This is the testimony of the whole Scripture.'

A few days after, I received his answer:'Give glory to God, my beloved brother. I see! I see!! It is Jesus, and Jesus alone. Since yesterday, it seems I understand more than half the Word, which before was all darkness. I received your letter yesterday morning, and, as usual, I read it over and over. I read the passages you mentioned, and they were there:I could deny nothing; but I was miserable. I went to my task heartlessly. Toward evening, a gleam of hope reached me. I fell on my knees and prayed, and while there, the whole redemption which is through Christ Jesus was opened up to me-Jesus upon the cross my Substitute! My wonder is, that in view of such a salvation I can remain so calm. I almost tremble lest I should lose such a precious rest.'

Lose such a precious rest ? No, never ! It cannot be lost, for it rests on a foundation which cannot be moved. It rests on what God did for us when He ' laid on Him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all.' That is what true peace rests upon. Blessed is the soul that rests upon this precious work of Jesus upon the cross for us!"

We must also let him tell in his own words of another case as illustrating the character of the dealing he had with those to whom he spoke, not as a religious duty, nor to relieve himself of responsibility, but to compel them to accept Christ and His finished work.

*" It had not been long since it had ' pleased God to reveal His Son in me.' *This narrative has been printed as a tract, entitled " The Two Discoveries."* No slave, however ill-treated, could ever feel more delight at being set free, than I had felt upon finding out that a man is 'justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 3:24). Ambitious purposes henceforth gave way to a burning desire of seeing others get the same deliverance, and I began to go about telling people what I had found and was daily finding in the word of God.

On one occasion, I had read the third chapter of Romans to a company of six or seven young men who had come, and I had tried to draw their attention particularly to some of the passages which show the condition of the sinner in the sight of God, and then to some others which show the way God has provided for the salvation of such sinners.

One especially dear to me was there, and on the way from meeting, after having walked side by side a long while "in silence, he said, ' If what you said tonight is true, I am no Christian at all!'

'What have I said which led you to such a discovery ?' I said.

'Well,' he replied, rather angrily, 'you said there was none good, not one righteous. You said it made no difference whether a man had sinned much or little, all alike were lost sinners before God; and then, to finish it up, you said that a lost man could do nothing to save himself, that it made no difference how much good he tried to do, it could neither save him nor help him to salvation. I say, if all this is true, I am no Christian at all, for I thought that a Christian is a man who tries to be good, and does all the good he can so as to find favor with God.'

' My dear –,' I said, ' the things I said are not mine; they are God's. The chapter we read says there is none good; it says there is none righteous, no, not one; it says there is no difference; all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It says, By the deeds of the law (that is what you call good works) there shall no flesh be justified. Ah, my friend, it is the word of God which has just been showing you the darkness you are in, and I am sure if the word of God has led you to discover you are not a Christian, your discovery is true. May God help you, and lead you to see Jesus the Saviour of sinners'

But all that man loves to boast in could not be given up so easily. A year before, he had passed through a series of meetings where, night after night, he had wept and mourned, asked the church to pray for him, humbled himself down as low as he could; after all this, finding no rest yet, he had asked in despair what he could do now to find God's favor, and the answer had been, ' Be faithful, pray much, strive on, work for Jesus, and you'll get what you are seeking for.' He had prayed much, he had worked with unbounded energy, he had done all the good it was in his power to do, and now, was all this useless? Was he going to get nothing for it all ? Was he no better off than if he had sat still ?

Ah! the conflict had begun. The Saviour-God receiving sinners and eating with them had roused to anger the righteous Pharisee. He could not bear to hear his righteousness called ' filthy rags.'

' Has God been reached by nothing of all this ?' he exclaimed.

'The cries of your earnest heart, my dear, have reached God,' I said,' but you have never reached Him yet, and never will in the way you have been following. It is a way which the natural heart loves, because there is some praise for self in it; it is the way the Pharisees were wont to bind on the backs of other people, but it is not ' the way.' You have been both deceiving yourself and being deceived. Before you can be saved, you must stop ' trying'; you must stop ' resolving'; you must stop ' working'; you must find out that you are lost, that you are 'dead in trespasses and sins.' That verse in our chapter, ' There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,' puts you on the same level with the thief, the murderer, the fornicator. You are a condemned man, and until your heart owns this to God, you need turn to Him for nothing, He has nothing for you. Be sure of this:He will never accept your terms, you must come down to His. But as soon as you find out that you are lost, you will rejoice to hear God telling you that you are 'justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood'! This puts an end to your idea of being brought to God by any thing from you. It teaches you what the second chapter of Ephesians says-' But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ!' When you know yourself a saved man by the blood of Christ, God will teach you then to live for Him; but until then, He has nothing to say to you save about His Son's work for you.'

By this time we had to separate, and I retired to my room, assured that 'the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,' had begun to prove itself indeed 'a discerner of the thoughts and intents' of that proud, self-righteous heart.

For nearly a year he continued in that strange state of mind which is seen in people who know what the truth is, but refuse to bow to it implicitly. His feelings toward me often bordered on hatred, because I seldom failed, when he spoke of ' doing,' to bring him before the cross of Christ with the solemn question, ' What was that for ? What meant that cry of agony -' My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?' Then he ceased pursuing the religious operations he had been engaged in, and, as a consequence, he was warned from all sides against the danger of believing that salvation is by the blood of Jesus alone. Thus, as is generally the case when God is about to deliver a soul, Satan puts forth, with great energy, every possible objection. He hates to see his slaves delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

How interesting to watch a struggle of this kind, knowing God is the One at work, and that He is Almighty.

One day he told me he was so miserable he didn't know what to do with himself. Knowing the cause of this misery and what the end would be, I could not but be glad; and as my face told what was in my heart, he went away with the thought that salvation by grace made one hard-hearted, since I seemed to have no sympathy for him in his sorrow.

A few days after, he asked me to pray for him; his misery was becoming intolerable. I told him my prayers could not make the work of Christ more perfect, nor His blood more availing. The supper was ready-complete – wanting nothing more. It was God's supper, and man's prayers could add nothing to it; yea, anything man would add would spoil it altogether. Moreover, my prayers could not make God more willing to accept him, since God Himself had taken the attitude of one who beseeches sinners to come to Him, as the last three verses of 2 Cor. 5 clearly show. The trouble was nowhere on God's side, but all on his. God told him all was finished, he must take Him at His word. His misery was the consequence of refusing to have salvation simply on the ground of what Jesus had done. If, therefore, I prayed for him, all I could ask of God was that He would please make him miserable enough to give up his own righteousness, and submit himself unto the righteousness of God; for 'Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth' (Rom. 10:3, 4).

Two days after, while he sat driving on the front seat of a sleigh, conversing with a dear one, who knew the Lord Jesus, about the all-engrossing subject to him, he suddenly exclaimed with a loud voice, 'I see it, I see it now! Neither prayers, nor tears, nor good works, nor anything from me can satisfy God for sin; it is the blood,-the blood of Christ alone can, and it has satisfied Him. Thank God! thank God!'

For a while he was so overcome with joy at having discovered the perfect satisfaction which God has found in the atoning work of Jesus, that he seemed like one beside himself; but we soon found he had just received ' the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind'" (2 Tim. 1:7).

We cannot fail to notice here the apparent harshness of a love which would not hesitate to probe to the depths of the heart of those near and dear, that all trust in self, feelings or doings might be removed. Thus their peace was made to rest upon Christ alone.
So one by one those nearest and dearest to him were brought to the solid rock of a known salvation -sisters and brothers were thus wrought into a closer relationship as children of God and heirs together with him of the coming glory.

It is touching to see how he was used to bring full light and peace to his beloved and honored parents, who had so carefully watched over his childhood and early youth. Now the docile scholar was to instruct, in all humility, those whom he ever owned as entitled to all his respect and obedience. To his mother it seemed that this new light was too great to be fully the truth. She was not clear that one could be justified by faith apart from works.

He opened her Bible at the 4th chapter of Romans and showed her, in the sweet tongue in which she was born, those precious words:"To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness " (ver. 5). The mother had been so constant a reader of those very scriptures, that in their frequent reading she had rubbed the words pale with her finger, yet had never seen their wondrous, simple truth.

One day, Paul went with his father to the distant woods where they had to spend the night. After a day of labor, he lay beside his father in the little cabin. Very weary, he soon fell asleep. The sleep of youth is not easily broken, but to his father's anxious words, "Oh, my son, I am so miserable," he roused and answered:"Father, trust in Christ alone !" But soon after the father woke him again with "Oh, my son, I am so miserable!" Again came the same answer:"Father, trust in Christ alone." The Holy Spirit used these simple words to bring rest to the troubled heart.

Thus, one by one, the dear members of the family circle were brought by the knowledge of the truth into peace with God through Paul's instrumentality.

At home, with his Bible and concordance, he drank deeply of the water of life. Eager to communicate to others the strange new truth of salvation by faith apart from works, he went everywhere with the glad tidings-to all who would hear.

Open opposition sometimes broke out. At one place, after preaching Christ in a log schoolhouse, he was hooted at as "the man going to heaven without works." The directness and power of the preaching would rouse the people to interest in the message, and while some were made angry by it, others found peace and joy in believing.

At one place, especially, the word of God was taking deep root, and though twelve miles from his father's house, Paul went there on foot every weekend, often through snow and bitter cold, to preach Christ in the school-houses and in the homes of the scattered people. What mattered reproach and hardship when Christ was so precious!

5. EARLY MARRIED LIFE.

While a student in New York Paul made the acquaintance of Miss Celia Sanderson, of Milwaukee, who was also attending a school in the Metropolis. On his return to the West, he went to Milwaukee, to obtain permission of her parents to correspond with their daughter. This resulted in their marriage in 1868.
Miss Sanderson had been converted early in life. Her father's death, and her mother's soon after, caused her to come and dwell with her uncle Howard Sanderson who had recently come to the knowledge of the Truth. She became greatly exercised by the condition of things in the denomination of which she was a member. She withdrew from it, and identified herself with the little company of believers gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus alone in Milwaukee.

It was at this time that Paul passed through the exercises which so changed the current of his life. Thus was the Lord preparing each for the path which lay before them.

After their marriage they lived at Vinton, Iowa, and our brother gave himself ardently to the preaching of the gospel. North, west and south, he carried the blessed tidings-salvation through faith in Christ. After a season of toil he would return to his companion, often walking to save expenses, but with a joyful heart in his Master's service, who gave him souls for his hire.

On one of these return visits he found a letter awaiting him, containing a liberal offer if he would return to New York, and take charge of the Institute where he had formerly studied and taught. As they sat at the tea-table, he passed the letter to his wife, saying, "What am I to answer, my dear? " As she read, her cheeks flushed, and looking up she said, "Is there any more than one answer to this? " " Yes; it is a direct question, which may be answered by a 'yes' or a 'no'; which shall it be? " To say "yes" meant for her a life of luxury in keeping with her past; to say "no" meant a life of privation and hardship. Fixing her eyes tenderly on him, she said, " No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." So they went on as heirs together of the grace of life.

6. EXTENSION OF THE WORK.

The interest then widened and deepened. Many had confessed Christ, and found themselves no longer at home where formalism was the rule. What should they do ? Our brother had become convinced that Scripture lays down a simple path. In some degree he had passed through exercises as to the Church and its testimony, similar to those which marked his finding peace and deliverance. He related how one day, while alone in the country, and pondering upon the truth as to the Church and its order, he was assailed by doubts:-Was it all imaginary, and were the denominations right after all ? At last he opened his Bible at the 4th chapter of Ephesians, and read it aloud. Here was the Church's constitution:"One body, one Spirit, and one hope of your calling." Christ had descended into the grave for us, and now ascended, was the Head of the Church, His Body. Where were many "religious bodies?" Where a place for man to be its leader ? The question was settled, and he became a steadfast witness for the truth of the Church of God as well as for the gospel of salvation.

Thus a company of believers, near "Yankee Grove," Iowa, began to remember the Lord in the breaking of bread according to His word. This was the first gathering of a "little flock" in the West.

Some times the opposition was intense. At one place where he had an appointment to preach, on arriving he found a clergyman had come there before him, determined to supplant him or break up the meeting. Finally a gentleman present called out, "Any who want to hear Mr. L. come to my house." So the closed door was still an opened one.

At another time a young Quaker who had become greatly interested in the truth, begged our brother to go with him to his friends and relatives in Muscatine, Iowa, about 100 miles away. On arriving there our brother found himself among Hicksite Friends, and at the home of their chief man, a person of influence and a Unitarian, as they mostly are. The message of salvation through a divine Saviour, and by His atoning sacrifice, was resisted and openly withstood. The ardent young evangelist therefore received scant courtesy at his hands, and school-houses were closed to him by his influence. The young man who had brought our brother to Muscatine, was son-in-law to the Hicksite, and was told that if he had anything to do with Mr. L.,his wife would be taken away from him. Another Quaker, however, took our brother in for the night.

Being obliged to pass on, the next day he met a Col. Hare, who had a school-house. In answer to the Colonel's question, what he intended to preach, our brother replied, " Preach Christ; " and received the desired permission to use the school-house. Being hungry as well as weary, our brother satisfied his hunger with partly frozen apples which remained on the trees, by the way; then covering himself with leaves, refreshed himself with sleep for the preaching in the evening. After the meeting, when all had left the school-house, while he prepared to pass the night where he had preached, a man returned and asked, "Stranger, where are you going to stop ?" and on finding out, he took him to his own home. Two years later, this man's house became the gathering place of the assembly there.

A touching incident occurred in one of these parts at that time. Believers had come to remember the Lord's death in a brother's house, as usual in those early days. A member of the family, insane for a long time, had become violent and had to be confined in a locked room. They had some misgivings as to having the meeting there, for fear of freshly exciting the poor sufferer. They decided, however, to go on in dependence upon the Lord. When they brought the sufferer's food after the meeting, he seemed strangely quiet. " What was that lovely singing I heard?" he asked. "It was like heaven." They soon found that the dark cloud had lifted:and ere long he also was sharing in the joy of the others.

In these same parts, a lady, "full of good works," though not then a Christian, filled his ears with an account of the good things she had done. "Now, what do you think of it all ? " she asked. " I think you are a first class Pharisee," was his reply. The sharp thrust was owned of God. Not long after she too learned to trust not in works of righteousness which she had done, but in Christ her Saviour. A life-long lover of the truth, she departed to be with Christ only a few years before our brother.

Interest in the truth then developed at Muscatine in a pronounced way among men. At a meeting, in a large hall, but one woman was present, and the proportion of gray-haired men was very large. The Word was taking effect; and one of its fruits was seen in their liberal giving. Surrounded by them at the close, they thrust bills into his pockets from every side. Thus he found, as the apostle, times of abounding as also times of privations.

New fields sometimes were opened in a very providential way. Our brother was going with a younger member of the family to St. Paul, in the winter. He had heard of a company of earnest Baptists at Plainfield, Iowa. As the train proceeded with increasing difficulty, they finally ran into such a snow-drift that it made it impossible to proceed further. Inquiring the name of the place, he found it was Plainfield. He then decided to get out and visit the believers of whom he had heard.

Finding they lived some seven miles away, he trudged away through the snow to the house of one of whom he had heard. He was preparing to go to a distant forest for a load of wood. Making himself known, our brother told him his object in the visit.

" Have you come out all this way to talk to us about Christ ?" Being assured that this was the case, the farmer said, "Fred, put up the team." Then the neighbors were sent for, and the work of God began. The brother who first thus opened his house, and received and acted upon the truth, was a "pillar "in that assembly to the day of his death. The testimony to the truth in Christ remains in the family and in that district to this day.

In one town in Iowa, a clergyman had been under contract to the people to preach for a certain time, which had now expired. Not receiving the stipulated payment for his services, the gentleman no longer preached, though remaining in the town. He attended one of our brother's meetings, and along with some others attempted to interrupt the preaching with cries of "Wolf, wolf!" One who had received blessing through our brother's ministry of the Word answered, to the confusion of the interrupter, "The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling."

So in the joy of the gospel and even amid the opposition of many, the work went forward. We may add, as describing it; "So mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed."

In a more remote place, a settlement of Hollanders led by their evangelical pastor, had come to this country for " freedom to worship God " according to their light, which had been denied them in their country. They had called their town " Pella," as the oppressed Jews in days of long ago had called their place of refuge. Their pastor had died, and many there welcomed the light through the preaching of our brother, and were led on into the blessedness of their standing in grace, not under the law, and in the order of the Church of God.

7. ACQUAINTANCE WITH "BRETHREN"

Although married to a sister already in the fellowship of "brethren," and profiting, doubtless, by their literature, especially as to details of the Church's place and order, our brother had never been thrown in contact with those called "brethren." From his own study of the Word, he had learned much which he found was held and acted upon by others as well. When, therefore, he received a warm invitation to attend a conference of "brethren "in Guelph, Ontario, in 1870, he willingly went.

It was here he first met Mr. J. N. Darby. As they met, Mr. Darby greeted him with a kiss, after the manner of the Continent.

" I have seen you before," said Mr. Darby.

"Where ? " asked our astonished brother.

"In your father's house in France, when you were a young boy."

It seems that Paul's parents had given lodging to an aged brother, "un Darbiste" at their house in France, and it was there that J. N. D., on his visits to this brother, had seen the young boy and taken notice of him-for he loved children. How little either dreamed of what grace would do in the future.

This meeting in Guelph was not only helpful to the diligent student and preacher of the Word, who valued the company of one whom he gladly recognized as a marked gift of Christ to the Church, but made him acquainted with various zealous evangelists proclaiming the glad tidings in different parts of Canada, who had gathered there a harvest of souls for Christ. What cheer, what help in Scripture understanding, what joy of fellowship in the truth were those gatherings for the study of God's word! After some clear exposition of certain parts, or even passages of scripture, we can imagine the satisfaction with which our brother would reply, Ah, that is very clear and helpful.

It is to be hoped that the Bible Reading will never lose its place among us. For general instruction, solution of difficulties, answering of questions, it has a place which nothing else can fill.

8. DANIEL MANN.

Among the fellow-servants in the Lord's work whom our brother met at Guelph was Mr. Talbot who, with others, had recently had much blessing at Kingston, Ont. He urged Mr. L. to go there and carry on the work, and he consented. He was led thus, all unknown to himself, to a work which he ever regarded as one of the most important in his long years of service.

Visiting the prisoners in the jail, he found a man under sentence of death for the murder of his keeper, and was privileged to be the honored instrument of leading him to Christ, and into the fulness of the blessings of Christian truth.

It is difficult to describe in a few sentences the charm which has always made the story of the conversion and establishment of this dear soul in the grace of God so attractive to all classes of readers.

Entering the cell of the condemned man, who could read with difficulty, the moral, educated, refined young man found himself face to face with his exact opposite. His ardent temperament made him ever intense, but here was a soul hovering on the brink of eternity, without Christ, and therefore without hope. It was no time for soothing words. The sword of divine truth was plunged into the bosom of the poor criminal, in order that the abundant consolations of the gospel of Christ might be poured into the wounds. It was this faithfulness in dealing with souls that doubtless was used of God, when softer words might have been useless.

The light soon broke into the poor, darkened heart. The third chapter of Romans, which had brought peace to the young evangelist a few years before, came as a beam of heaven's own light, giving life and peace to this poor child of sin.

Aflame with joy and love, Paul clasped the newborn man to his bosom. All the ardor of his own first love was transferred to Daniel Mann's breast, and sitting together in the cell they poured out their hearts in a joy that none but those who have experienced it can understand.

And now began a series of visits, with the open Bible as the one theme. Mann was an apt scholar and diligent student, and within the brief compass of three weeks was led on in the practical knowledge of divine truth in an amazing way, beyond what many Christians learn in a lifetime. The Completeness of the finished work of Christ was enlarged upon, and the believer's perfect standing in Him. The heavenly position and destiny of the child of God, and the blessed hope of the Lord's coming were eagerly grasped and assimilated.

What is exceedingly instructive in the history is that the dear man was not without experience of the fact that, though born of God, he still had the old nature, which was as sinful as ever. He fell into the painful snare of making unkind and ugly charges against the jail officials, and as a result passed through deep soul-exercise. This lapse, however, was but the occasion of a fresh and fuller grasp of the truths of the two natures, the advocacy of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Speedily restored, and chastened in spirit, he grew all the faster.

The nature, destiny and ministry of the Church of God were also clearly grasped, and most ardently did Mann enter into the wondrous thoughts of God concerning the Body of Christ.

Bowing to the government of God that the death penalty was righteously to be visited upon the slayer of his fellow-man, no effort was made to secure executive clemency for the prisoner. So he went on calmly, with deep humility and self-abasement, but unshaken confidence in the grace of Christ, to his appointed end. The last night was spent in praise by these two together, and in the morning, with heart torn between grief and joy, Paul returned from the prison yard.

Brethren had heard of this marked work of grace, and wrote to Paul for some particulars. Sitting down with a full heart, and voluminous notes of various conversations, and while memory was fresh, our brother wrote the manuscript of "Daniel Mann." Completing the first half, he mailed it to the brethren in Toronto, who having read it, grieved at the thought that the second half had been lost, as they supposed. This, however, soon followed, and shortly after the printed narrative of "The Lord's Dealings with the Convict Daniel Mann," was in the hands of the public.

At once it became in great demand, and has continued to be one of the most widely circulated and blessed of the large pamphlets. In the United States alone 170, 000 have been printed, and several millions in Great Britain. It has also been translated into eight or more languages, thus carrying the precious truth in many parts of the world.

This pamphlet has been used of God in the conversion and blessing of multitudes. The author would frequently receive word of some soul having found peace through its pages. We give a few of these-though no record has been preserved of the very many letters telling of souls saved and blessed by its means. In his closing years, in infirmity and suffering, these came as a breath of those bright early days to cheer our dear brother.

Major S of the Royal Engineers was a passenger on a steamer returning to his post at Aden after his well-earned furlough. Among his fellow-passengers was an American missionary, returning to Egypt to his much loved work among the Copts.

Both the major and the missionary were earnest Christians, and many were the talks they had together. When they parted the missionary gave his friend some books and pamphlets, among them being one entitled, " Brief History of the Convict, Daniel Mann."

Such things as the giving of this book do not happen by chance, as the sequel will show.

Some weeks before the arrival of the steamer at Aden, a soldier in the garrison had been punished by his sergeant. Confined in prison, he determined on revenge.

He managed to shake loose one of the bars of the window in his prison. Taking advantage of the firing of the one o'clock gun, under cover of the noise he shook the bar quite free, squeezed through the window, dropped to the ground, gained the barracks, secured and loaded his rifle, and shot his sergeant dead.

He was tried by court-martial, and condemned to death. In three weeks' time, the official authority to carry the court-martial into effect arrived from headquarters in India, but some irregularity in it caused the delay of its return to the authorities for correction. This gave the condemned man a further and quite unexpected respite. Had this not occurred, the soldier would have been executed before the arrival of Major S—- at Aden.

But God had purposes of blessing for the condemned man. From the first, the chaplain of the troops had earnestly sought the eternal blessing of one so soon to enter eternity, but without any apparent result. Knowing the major to be a Christian officer, he put the case before him for his prayerful sympathy. He at once remembered the striking book the missionary had given him, and handed it to the chaplain. It quickly found its way into the hands of the poor murderer.

It was just the message for him. God had saved one murderer, why should he, too, not be saved ? The book was happily the means of his conversion, and was his constant companion with his Bible till the end came. Letter from a Japanese Christian-to Loizeaux Brothers. my beloved brothers:

Lately I got a copy of a Japanese magazine called "Grace and Truth." In it was the following story, which I relate as briefly as I can. A young man of a prominent family, whose brother is a professor in a university, was on the Osaka Stock Exchange. A stock buyer sent him much money by a boy to buy stocks for him which the young man had advised him to get. But alas, the young man, tempted by the money, took the errand-boy to a lonely place, murdered him, and hid the body. After a few days he was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. A little girl about twelve years old read this awful story in the newspapers, and it moved her tender heart. She could not go to see him, because Osaka is many hundred miles away from her; so she sent a letter to a pastor at Osaka, and asked him to visit the condemned young man in the jail and hand him the tract which she was sending. The tract was, " The Lord's Dealings with the Convict Daniel Mann," translated into Japanese by Mr. Hasada. The pastor went as desired, and handed the poor young man the little girl's tender letter and the tract. The young man read many times the tract " Daniel Mann," and through it found the way to escape eternal condemnation. He felt so peaceful as he drew near the execution that he wrote the little girl, telling her how kind to him she was so to think of the eternal punishment to which he was going without the Lord Jesus Christ. In thanking her, he said that of the fifty million people in Japan she was the only one who cared for his soul-he a cold-blooded murderer! and she only a little girl, who believes in Jesus Christ, and loved a sinner's soul so much as to send him a tract with tender words! Dear Brother, it was labor to show Daniel Mann the way, but that labor was for many more. Far off in my own country it reaches too, and we thank God for it.

Your affectionate brother in Christ, Y. Y.

" The Power of the Name of Jesus.

While laboring in the gospel a few years ago in a little village of Ontario, the lady at whose house we were entertained proposed a visit to an afflicted family six miles away. On our way there she pointed to a cottage by the roadside, and said, "An aged Scotchman lives in that cottage; he loves the children of God, and I am sure he would enjoy a call from you." So we alighted at his door and went in.

Judging by the deep furrows of his face, he must have been at least eighty years of age. Addressing him, I said, " The Scriptures say, ' We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.' This lady tells me you love brethren; and as I am one of them, I have come in to see you."

His face fairly beamed with joy, and he expressed himself thankful for a visit on such a principle.

" Have you known the Lord very long? " I asked.

" Well, there is a story to that," he replied. " I belonged to the kirk when quite a young lad; but whether I belonged to the Lord, He alone knows; I canna tell. But I came to Canada, and was steward in a gentleman's house in Kingston, when a poor penitentiary convict killed his guard in trying to escape. He was sentenced to be hung, and during his days of grace was converted through the ministry of an evangelist then preaching in Kingston. This evangelist wrote a little book telling about his conversion. I read the book ; and ever since that time I know I belong to the Lord, and no doubt about it; and I tell ye, it's a mighty different thing to belonging to the kirk."

" I am very glad to hear my little book has helped you, I said."

" Na !" he cried.

" Yes, I wrote the book."

" Na, it canna be! " he cried again, with excitement.

"Yes, it was I who was preaching then in Kingston, and ministered to that poor convict, and wrote the book."

Convinced at last, he rushed to me, grasped me in his arms, and for a long time sobbed aloud.

Our brother once said that he believed there would be more fruit from " Daniel Mann " than from all his other ministry. His wife sometimes would try to dissuade him from exposing himself to excessive fatigue in inclement weather by saying, " Daniel Mann is preaching all the time ; you need not go out." It is touching to remember in this connection, that in those closing days, when Mann longed for life that he might tell others the way of salvation, and was told a narrative of what the Lord had done for him would be published, he would especially pray for God's blessing upon its circulation. Truly, his prayers have been answered in a ma:-ked and abundant way.

9.ACTIVITIES WEST AND EAST.

Our brother had now entered upon a wider sphere of activity. Doors for the gospel were opened in many places, and it was his joy to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ in both new and old fields. Marked interest was shown in many places. He was often privileged to preach to crowded audiences in large halls night after night, and during the day was sought after by enquirers.

As to our brother's manner of preaching, it was utterly devoid of sensationalism. He was preeminently a preacher of the Word. The great truths of the gospel as laid open in the epistle to the Romans formed the basis of his preaching-the ruin of man, the holiness and righteousness of God, the perfect sacrifice of Christ as the means of justification and peace-it was by these truths his soul had been set free, and they were pressed upon his audience.

Such truths solemnize the heart, and he had none of the levity into which some are betrayed. Yet there were few who could attract and hold an audience so effectually. Doctrinal his preaching was- preeminently so, but never dry. Apt illustrations were often used, with an occasional incident, but all was subordinated to the one great aim of winning souls to Christ. As he dwelt upon the sufferings of Christ, the eyes often suffused with tears at the thought of the peace, the joy and deliverance which follows the acceptance of the Saviour, it seemed as if he would sing. All the ardor of his nature lent itself to the greatness of the subject, and both he and his audience were carried along in the swift rushing current of his utterance. Not with mere excitement were hearers carried along, for the word was in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Their faith stood, therefore, "not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." His converts "stood."

Our brother was a great preacher because of the greatness of his theme and because of its power over his own soul. He preached always that which he had first experienced. Well grounded in the entire teaching of the Scripture, and delighting to minister instruction to the saints, he was ever at home in the precious gospel of the grace of God. This was meat and drink to him, and it became the bread and water of life to many who listened to him.

His labors extended, as has been said, over a wide field-in Canada, in New York City and the East, and again in the West:Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. These were days of happy and unremitting toil, and of fruit whose abundance the day alone will declare.

It was during this time that the conferences for brethren in the West, at his father's farm, took place. To this Western farm, lumber was brought five miles to erect the necessary sheds, which willing hands of brethren helped to erect. Mr. Darby attended two of them, and we may well believe with what profit and blessing to the Lord's people. Great blessing and joy flowed from these meetings. The closing prayer-meeting would be protracted far into the night, as brethren lingered before the throne of grace, loath to part from one another.

God has greatly used these conferences, which are continued in those parts, and all over the country. Altered slightly to meet the varied requirements of time and location, they have preserved, we are thankful to say, much of the simplicity and spirituality which were so marked at the beginning.

10. THE BIBLE TRUTH DEPOT.

Our brother's name will ever be associated with the Tract and Book Depot, from which millions of tracts and books have gone to all parts of the world . with their messages of peace and blessing. It is therefore fitting that some brief account be given of the beginning and growth of that work in which he took so large a share, and which ever had a prominent place in his interest and prayers.

While he was still in Iowa and engaged in gospel work in various places, cases of tracts and books were received from England. x With intuitive promptness Paul saw here an opportunity for a wider field of service to the Lord through the printed ministry. This little stock of tracts and books were put in the hands of his brother Timothy, who was detained at home by asthma. Shelves were put up in the latter's home, and in a small way, the " Bible Truth Depot" was begun.

About a year after this, a sum of money was inherited by Mrs. Paul Loizeaux, and this, after seeking the Lord's guidance, was entirely devoted to the Lord, for the purchase of a press and the needed materials for printing and publishing the truth. A room was rented, a brother in the Lord, Mr. Robert Seed, was engaged, and the printing began. There was no formal "opening" of this little establishment, but a wall motto served as the dedication of the press to this work:

"Unto Him that loveth us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.'

And this has ever been the aim and character of the ministry sent forth through the press, and the conduct of the work-to glorify Him whose redeeming love and precious blood is

" Our theme of joy and wonder here, Our endless song above."

For three years the work went on in this way. A number of tracts and booklets were reprinted:the "C S. Railway" series, and the " Plain Words" series of gospel tracts, followed by " The Lord's Dealings with the Convict Daniel Mann," "How to get Peace," and a number of others were turned out. Twice a week the families gather

(Continued from page 23.)

CHAPTER II

Man's Place Among the Creatures of God

God has revealed Himself as an uncreated r Being-a living Personality, whose existence is from everlasting to everlasting (Ps. 90 :2). He has declared Himself to be the Author of all created beings and things. In Col. i :16 we learn there are two distinct created spheres-an invisible and a visible one, an immaterial and a material one. God is the creator of both; the Son of God made all things.

Man is the link of connection between the Immaterial and the material creations. By his very nature and constitution he belongs to both spheres, being a part of the material and visible universe and of the spiritual and invisible also.

Tn Gen. i, where the record of God's work in the material creation is given, there is no mention of any purely spirit-beings. Their creation forms no part of the material creation; it probably preceded the material one. The fact that angels as creatures are called "the sons of God," indicates this. In any case, all purely spirit-beings are a distinct creation.

In the material creation itself we readily see distinct divisions also. It naturally divides into two great realms-the inanimate and the animate. Each of these again subdivides into smaller spheres, with distinctive characteristics. The inanimate realm divides into gases, liquids and minerals; and these again have their smaller divisions, which we need not mention. The animate realm also has its divisions, as the kingdom of the unconscious, living plant, and the kingdom of the self-conscious, personal soul. Man belongs to this latter kingdom, as is evident. Plants have no soul-nature; they live, die and cease forever.

Turning to animals, we at once see they possess a higher nature than plants. They are free, self-determining, in a sense, yet it is not self-conscious and rational determination. This higher nature is the sentient or soul-nature. All living animals are called "souls" in Scripture. In dying, they cease to be "living souls"-the animal nature has perished.

Now in considering man, we see in him a higher nature still, having characteristics absolutely lacking in all animals. Articulate speech, language, art, induction, deduction, and other rational activities, mark him as belonging to a higher rank of being; they manifest him as a self-conscious, self-determining personality. How is this to be accounted for ? Scripture explains it, and its explanation is the only one possible. Man is the crown of God's visible creation and its head; made a little lower than the angels in the order of creation, to link thus the immaterial with the -material in an eternal embrace, so that the tabernacle of God should be with men. Never until the creation of man was there a creature possessing endowments making such a wonderful purpose possible.

Let us remember that all through the work of creation, whenever God introduced anything new, He spoke it into being. He said, " Let there be." This was the word of power-"He commanded, and it stood fast." But when the time arrived for God to produce a foreshadow of the end He had in view, He took counsel with Himself (Gen. i:26). This divine consultation over the new creature then to be introduced, clearly indicates his importance in God's mind over all His previous works. And not only this, but if the end God has before Him is to be realized, the creature He is now to make and introduce into His creation must be a figure of the incarnate Son of God. He must be in kinship with God-a man in God's image, with a spirit-nature as His own, while possessing a corporeal nature. He must have a material body, and a soul with the quality of spirit, otherwise he could not be in the image or likeness of God. The soul, or sensuous nature in his case is lifted to a higher sphere through its possessing the nature of spirit. Such is the creature whose introduction into the material creation is announced in Gen. 1:27:"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him."

But his rank or position among other creatures needs fuller elucidation. In Gen. i we have the fact of his introduction stated; in chap. 2 the manner of it is given. A study of this will throw much light on the nature and character of man's relationships to other creatures. In verse 7 we read :"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life :and man became a living soul." This statement warrants our saying, Man has a double origin. First, as Scripture elsewhere puts it, he is "of the earth" (i Cor. 15:47). By his corporeal nature he is allied to other earthly creatures. He and the "living souls" around him, came from the earth -though not in the same way as he. They came forth at the fiat of the Creator. He was formed, or fashioned, and in breathed. No "living soul" ' other than man was in breathed. Still, in a true sense, he and they have a common origin-they are both of the earth.

In this sense, therefore, man and animals partake of the same corporeal life, connected with and belonging to the earth. But, unlike animals, man has a higher origin, and possesses a higher nature, which we must now consider. Man became "a living soul," not by the mere fiat, but by the in breathing of God. A widespread impression should be corrected here. Many think that God first formed man's body of the dust and afterward breathed the breath of life into his nostrils ;but the Hebrew does not admit of that explanation of the divine act. It represents a two-fold combined activity in the creation of man:the forming and the breathing being a united action, a single exercise of divine energy. This manner of man's creation shows that within his corporeal frame is an invisible, an immaterial element not derived from the earth. The in breathing shows that God imparted something; and it was by this impartation that "man became a living soul."

Man, then, has a double origin-an outer nature which is of the earth, and an inner one which is of God. But let us exercise care here, lest we exalt man to a position to which he does not belong. When we say, man's inner nature is derived from God we do not mean that he partakes of the essence of God's being, but that he possesses a nature like the nature of God. Angels too have a nature like God's nature, yet have no part, do not share in, the divine essence.

We have said that by the impartation of his immaterial, inner nature, man became a living soul _a soul element is in him then. But animals too have a soul element. Wherein does the soul of man differ from that of an animal? It ought to be clear that man's sentient nature, or soul, is of a higher order than that of the beast. He perceives arid feels what the beast does, but how much more! By observation we clearly perceive that the soul or sentient element in beasts is impersonal, not self-conscious in any rational sense as in man. It also lacks man's moral characteristics, and the religious element is altogether wanting. The beast has no sense of moral obligation, no capacity for the reception or acceptance of responsibility and guilt.

We need not press further the contrast of soul in man and in the beast. However true it is that in a sense men and animals are by nature allied, there is a wide gulf between them-a gulf so wide that the sentient nature in man is super-sentient. Undeniably the soul element in man has a quality altogether wanting in the animal.
C. Crain

(To be continued.)

(Continued from page 79.)

Chapter III.

Man unfallen in the Garden in Eden

In Gen. 2:8 we read, "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed." While the historical narrative is strictly true, is there not an allegorical meaning in it as well ? I think there can be no question of it. It is important, however, that we should impose upon ourselves a rigid rule. We must not interpret a parable arbitrarily, nor allow mere imagination in allegorizing, but look for Scripture interpretation. What is there in Scripture, then, to guide us in allegorizing the account of the garden in Eden ?

First, there is this well known characteristic of the Old Testament, that it gives the truth, not in fulness, but in germ. This is so generally recognized that we frequently hear the expression,"The Old Testament in the light of the New." We hear it commonly remarked, "In reading the historical records of the Old Testament we are in the midst of types and shadows." The New Testament itself tells us the things that happened to Israel were for types (i Cor. 10:n). Peter even speaks of the word of prophecy being made plainer, or clearer, by the transfiguration on the mount (2 Pet. i:19. See Greek).

But further:we know the Greek word for Paradise represents the Hebrew word for garden; and in 2 Cor. 12:2, 4, Paradise is called "third heaven" -the home and dwelling place of God. There is
no difficulty there fore, in seeing in the garden of Eden (the place which God prepared for Adam. whom He had made in His likeness) a reflection or shadow of the home of God. But while this may be granted, it may be asked. Even so could Adam have understood it thus ? Was it possible for him to see in that garden a type or figure of heaven ? Could he read in it a parable and say, This is a picture of the home of God ? I reserve the answer until we have looked at the account of God's ways with him.

In verse 9 we read:"And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." It was the provision God made for man, as suited for his earthly existence. As belonging to, and part of the old creation, man is a creature of tastes, appetites, desires. He did not become such through his fall; he was so originally-God made him so. Hence, in Gen. i:29 and 2:9, we see how God provided for the cravings that were natural to man as God had constituted him. He needed food, drink, sleep and other things-inherent and sinless infirmities- cravings, we may call them, divinely implanted in his nature. What a lesson of the goodness, care, and love of God we may read in the abundant provision He has made for the needs and desires of the creatures He had brought into being!

Verse 16 tells us that man was given free use of all that God had provided for his sustenance and pleasure. No limitation was put on the satisfaction of these desires. But had man no cravings beside what we may call his earthly appetites ? Did he lack in spiritual aspirations for the things of the spiritual sphere with which he was connected by the very spirit which was in him ? If he had a super sensuous nature (which he had, as we have seen) did he not then have also super sensuous cravings? If by means of the body his spirit took its part in his corporeal life, must there not have been also a longing for the body to have part in the life for which his spirit capacitated him ? Surely, aspirations natural to the spirit there must have been; and if the body, even when sinless and not yet mortal, was a limitation to the activities of the spirit, must there not have been in his spirit the longing for the spiritualization of the body ? We cannot think of man – otherwise than having longings also for things in the sphere of his spirit as well as for those linked with his body.

We have mentioned God's provision for the bodily needs; was there also provision for the spirit's needs? We find there was. The tree of life in the midst of the garden, if not the actual provision, was a shadow of it. Parabolically God was saying to Adam, I have anticipated and provided for the aspirations of the spirit which is within you. By the tree of life God was giving a hint of One, out of the very bosom of humanity, to be a Fountain or Source of life to men. What a beautiful picture of the incarnate Son of God this tree of life is! We have seen that God had formed man of the dust of the ground; now we see that He not only made to grow "every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food," but " the tree of life also in the midst of the garden"-a picture surely of the one only Man who could say, "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself."

The incarnate Son of God is the real Tree of Life. As supernaturally born into the world He had human, dependent life; He is a Man sprung up out of humanity. As the divine, eternal Son He has independent, divine life-essential, intrinsic life:it is both divine and human; both independent and dependent in the incarnate Son of God. Thus He is the Fountain of life for men. He is the Source of the life which applied to the soul makes it a quickened soul, and applied to the body makes it a spiritualized body.

Now Adam had the privilege of eating of the tree of life. He was as free to eat of it as of the trees that were good for food. But what was the significance of this privilege ? What was the lesson Adam was to learn from this ? In providing the tree of life, and giving Adam liberty to eat of it, God was teaching him that the condition in which he was by creation was not the perfected condition for which he was destined; it was a hint of a higher position and condition; it suggested the prospect of a higher life than the life he then possessed. The human earthly life he had by creation was necessarily temporary and to pass away, though not necessarily by dissolution-by death. As Adam came from the hand of his Creator he was not a victim of sin, and so not a subject of death. He was an earthly living creature in whom was a capacity for life of a higher order-a basis for exaltation to a higher sphere of being.

I must here emphasize, as just said, that Adam as originally created was not subject to death; his body was not mortal-not designed for dissolution. He was so constituted as to be capable of death, yet not as an absolute necessity. But if capable of death he was also capable of exaltation without dissolution. Now the tree of life was a reminder to Adam of his capability of exaltation to a higher sphere of existence with a higher character of life.

Keeping in mind man's constitution, and remembering that originally he was not a victim of sin or a subject of death, it is impossible to resist the conviction that in the tree of life God was inviting Adam to choose the higher life of which it was a distinct hint. He was setting before him a fulness of life-life in perfection; and the question was, Will he choose it for himself ? Will he choose for himself the destiny God has in mind for him, to be exalted to a higher position ? Will he choose to be transferred out of the condition in which he is-a condition necessarily to pass away-into a condition of permanence suited to the spiritual sphere with which by his spirit he is linked, and the exaltation to which he has been designed ?

I may be told I am treating the tree of life as if there was some mysterious virtue in it. (This indeed is the thought many have.) 1 answer, No, not in the tree itself. But if Adam had availed himself of his privilege to eat of it, he would have set to his seal that the testimony of God is true. By it God was testifying to the incarnate Son-was offering life in Him. Though Adam was in a very suited condition for life here on the earth, he was not for life in heaven. For this he needed life in Christ- in the incarnate Son of God-the designed Head of new creation. The tree of life was God's witness to man's need for the higher sphere. It was a promise of life in Christ. True there was a veil, but even so it was a testimony to Christ. Had Adam received the testimony, signifying his reception of it by eating, of the tree, it would have been a new birth-a quickening with the life that is in the Son, a divine, eternal life. When the body would have been quickened, I do not pretend to say, but with the quickening of his soul he would have received the guarantee of the quickening and spiritualization of his body.

Before we leave the subject of the tree of life another consideration needs to be noticed. In his original constitution man could not be transferred into the sphere of the spirit. To enter that sphere and take part in its things he needed to be spiritualized. He could not enter God's home in the condition in which his corporeal frame then was. God could visit him in his earthly home, but he could not be with God in heaven. Whenever God visited the creature made in His likeness, they could converse, they could commune together:chapters i:28-30; z:16, 17; 3:Bare illustrations of this. But the communion was necessarily limited. It was in relation to the things pertaining to the sphere in which man was able to participate-his pleasures, his food, his responsibilities. But in the tree of life God was giving a hint at least of what was necessary for man in the home of God. Even as unfallen, to enter there he needed to be born from above. To become a dweller in the home of God he must be quickened with the life of the Man that is of heaven. Not only must that life be applied to the soul, but to the body also. To be in the dwelling place of God as complete man, man's corporeal nature must be spiritualized.

To what extent Adam understood all this it is hot for me to say. All I say is, God was giving him various hints of it, and these hints must have made some impression on his mind. It is true the life God was hinting at needed to be illuminated, and the illumination came in due time; but in these ways of God with Adam in the garden He was instructing him concerning the life, the higher life, which it was His purpose and desire to confer on him. He was pointing him to life in a changeless and enduring form, and giving him the opportunity of deciding for himself whether he desired it. Thick as was the veil as yet over it all, we cannot but believe that through it some light was seen. C. Crain

(To be continued.)

F. W. Krummacher, a faithful German preacher of a century ago, foresaw already in his times the coming in of the destructive criticism which to-day is fast leading Christendom into the apostasy which is prophesied -to be the end of this dispensation. He therefore warns of the danger.

You who exercise influence over others, take heed that you prove not in this respect the agents of the great enemy of souls; for if through you any weak brother perish, his blood will be required at your hands. Remember that whosoever destroyeth a soul, him will God destroy.

Woe, then, unto those men of talent and acquirements, who, with revolting ingratitude, transmute the gifts and abilities which God has vouchsafed them into weapons of darkness, who under the influence of the great deceiver assault the most sacred things of God'.

Woe unto those much admired rulers of literature who, in wicked self-exaltation, use the power they possess over the minds of men, to rivet more firmly the bonds of infidelity and hostility to Christ (take notice of this fact) upon the neck of the present generation, and who exert their genius in preparing those intoxicating notions and anti-Christian systems which delude themselves and others, to their destruction.

Woe to those laurel-crowned heads that cover the kingdom of sin with fantastic enchantments, and overturning every sacred restraint, implant the horrible delusion in the mind that he sinneth not who only contrives to sin elegantly and poetically.

Woe to those whose voices give the tone to the world, who have sufficient talents for becoming the Ezras and Nehemiahs of their time, but who are a pestilence to the age they live in, by darting forth their wit in seductive and blasphemous falsehoods, and abuse the weak understandings of those who hang in admiration on their lips, in order imperceptibly, under the pretense of superior light, to scatter sparks of rebellion against Jehovah and His Anointed.

Woe unto these betrayers of mankind! Their part will soon be acted. Be not deceived; mistake not the present course of things for the final decision. That decision will be pronounced by Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who weighs with other scales than those of the deluded world, which only pays homage to external glitter. Your glory has its season, like the flower of the grass. '' The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away."

Dear Mr. Editor :

More than two years ago I wrote you a letter which you published in Help and Food (May 1914) under the heading, " The Lord's Speedy Return and the Gospel." I was impressed at that time that the closing days of this dispensation are no time for Elijah-like discouragement, but that we should count on God's grace to work in souls to the very end, and that we should encourage one another to labor expectantly for the blessing of souls, no matter how limited our sphere might be.

At that time, however, I was transferred from the place where I had the privileges of a growing assembly with opportunities for service in the Lord's work, to this city in which was no assembly gathered according to the principles laid down in the word of God, and the people were unusually conservative and hard to get acquainted with. This period was a time of soul exercise and waiting upon God.

After nearly two years, the doors began to open without any of my efforts – in cottage-meetings, Bible-readings, Bible-classes, and calls to speak in many places. It has been a great joy to see many souls finding peace and blessing. To some the Bible has become a new book, and its authority is established in their hearts. Now, from among those who have been blessed a gathering is forming on the principles of our common membership in the body of Christ. What cause to rejoice in the Lord, and to praise Him for His mercy! May we all thank God and take courage, sowing heartily till He come.

The outbreak of this terrible European war seems to have let loose the hatred of men's hearts, and shown the impotency of civilization's thin veneer, foreshadowing the soon coming end of man's day. Yet in spite of all God is making new occasion for turning men's hearts to Himself and bringing spiritual blessing to very many out of their trials and affliction. If the Lord leaves His people here a little longer may we not expect a considerable measure of exodus of God's true saints from the apostatizing religious systems about us? There are overcomers in Laodicea; may we come in touch with them in God's holy way. To-day, it is not merely sectarianism or human organization, but a question of the very fundamentals of Christianity, and should not our endeavor and hope be to see true Christians delivered from the wreck? May we be prepared for such a service.

Fajardo, Porto Rico, July, 1916.

To Loizeaux Bros.

Dear brethren in Christ:- Since my coming here I was anxious, perhaps too much so, to take up again an active part in spreading the message of salvation by faith in Christ; hut such did not seem to be the Lord's mind for me just now, for He has kept me on a sick bed. Why? Because His ways are not as our ways (Isa. 55 :8).

Under His ways, though the body suffer, how the soul enjoys being at the Saviour's feet, listening to His blessed voice. I write to tell you some of the things learned, and the precious teachings received. My desire is that others might share in them also.
The precious truths of the Holy Scriptures cannot be understood nor explained by mere human intelligence, nor retained by mere efforts of memory. Why? Because God has hidden them from the wise and prudent (Matt. 11; 25). They belong to the domain of faith. Only faith can appropriate them and convey their beauty and sweetness to the human heart. And we can appreciate them only as we desire Christ. Faith feeds upon Him alone.

Truths only apprehended by the mind do not give life; and faith does not feed upon mere truths, but upon Christ; it makes us look to Christ who reveals the truths to .the heart in which He dwells. It is therefore a necessity that Christ dwell in us by faith to be able to understand (Eph. 3 :17, 18). Efforts of the will are of little use; they who seek thus the hidden treasures of the Word learn only external things, instead of Christ filling the heart. Oh for a humble, obedient heart, learning in the sanctuary of God, guided by the Holy Spirit who abides in us to teach us all things (1 Jno. 2 :27). If Christ does not dwell in the heart, they who study the Scriptures without such dispositions, have yet need to learn the simplest truths, even after having read and studied much (Heb. 5 :12), for it is spiritually that they are discerned (1 Cor. 2 :14).

The apostle's desire was:"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him :the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints … in Christ" (Eph. 1:17-19). Happy experiences, blessed lessons received in the sweet intimacy of the divine Master, our adorable Saviour!

With the joy of passing through experiences which, by the Lord's grace, teach such precious and sweet lessons, what matters it if the body be in suffering? Truly, His ways are not as our ways, but that they are all for our good, Scripture itself declares (Rom. 8 :28). Furnished through such means, how much more availing our ministry to others may become. May He prepare hearts for the reception of the truth even as He prepares the servants to minister it.

Having yourselves traveled the same road, you will, I am sure, rejoice that younger brethren are being trained in the same way and to the same ends. In that perfect and eternal love of His, I remain your affectionate brother, Henry Ruga.

Mr. editor :-

May I add a word for your correspondent in answer to Question 9 in the May issue? The writer once had to face the same question as your questioner, and he proved that the one thins; above all is to follow the Lord Jesus in obedience to the word of God. When I faced the same question twenty years ago, I was superintendent of a prosperous Sunday-school of several hundred members. A dear Christian mother urged me to stay where I was, and give to those under me the instruction I was receiving from God's word. "Just think of your influence," she said. But conscience urged, and I turned from the position, soon after beginning anew, in a very humble way, a little Sunday-school on Sunday afternoons, and some preaching on the street. Now, after all these years, for nothing in this world would I retrace the step I took then in separating from associations I felt were not according to the word of God. It has resulted in being furnished with deeper, fuller and richer truth; and as for "influence," the step then taken opened a wider field of service than where I had been.

But even if such were not the case, surely "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Fellowship with evil is forbidden of God. Our part is to obey. Christ is coming, and we have only a little time in which to hear His voice and show our love by our obedience. Let Col. 3:11, "Christ is all, and in all," be our watchword. Only make sure it is His path-then follow it.