"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus" (Heb. 3:1).

" The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth " (John 4:23).

" By faith Abraham . . . sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country … for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:8-10).

That man, having proved himself incapable of continuing in Eden, and in Canaan, should be made fit to dwell forever in heaven, is a surpassing wonder of the grace and power of God. Bearing as we do the elements and image of the earthy, though by faith made new creatures in Christ Jesus, no wonder we need continually to remind ourselves of our calling on high.

In keeping with this thought, I have lately been impressed by the simplicity of the ordinance of the Lord, wherein He has desired His own to remember Him, and thus show forth His death; for it is His death which has opened heaven to us. No words could be brought together of such significance as "The Lord's death," nor could anything be more simple than "This do in remembrance of Me." The
weakest intellect, taught of God, may most heartily respond; at the same time, the highest powers of thought cannot exhaust the significance of what is therein set forth. Bread is what has been ground and passed through the fire; and wine, the out-pressed blood of the crushed grape. The one loaf, the oneness of the Church, which is' the Body of Christ; broken, His body is given for us. The cup, the memorial of His blood shed for us, and also the joy of salvation; while we look back in remembrance of His sorrow, we know Him as now risen, ascended and exalted to the Father's throne. Besides, He vouchsafes His presence among His own gathered to His name, and thus brings in a halo of heavenly glory. While so significant and suited to the purpose, could anything instil within us a slighter hold on earth ?-especially as we have it through Paul from a glorified Christ, and linked with His coming again for us.

How thankful it becomes us to be, for having had recovered to us, in these last days, the first ways of the Church of God on earth. Everything committed to man by God has been spoiled, and surely nothing has been more encumbered with human thoughts than this ordinance, so that little of its real meaning is left. Indeed in Romanism, as all know, a flat contradiction is substituted. In the Mass, the stronghold of that dark system, a pretended sacrifice is offered, and as one has remarked, their saying that the wafer contains both the body and the blood, "recoils on themselves," for the word is, "Without shedding of blood is no remission."

God gave indeed an earthly system of ordinances to His earthly people to illustrate the eternal and unseen things. But as soon as Christ came and introduced the eternal things, the earthly order was brought to an end. It was made up of shadows, and now the reality had come. But with what tenacity man clings to what appeals to his senses. How slow the Jewish disciples were to relinquish the sensuous worship of the Temple for the one "in spirit and in truth " brought in by our Lord. And in spiritual declension, Christians have ever drifted toward ceremonials, whether Jewish or Pagan.
I think there is significance in the incident of the eunuch coming that long journey to the city of God. Apostles were there, but we are not told that he saw any of them. He was returning unsatisfied; but God saw it and sent Philip, from the midst of successful evangelizing, to meet this seeking soul in the desert way, and to tell him that the One led like a lamb to the slaughter, was Jesus, on whom believing he would be saved. The unnamed eunuch believed, confessed, was baptized, and went on his way rejoicing without requiring any material thing, as Naaman of old did, to worship God in his African home. The nominal church has fastened her roots in the earth, and reared the monuments of her shame to the sky, forgetting her true calling to strangership on earth, and her life and home in heaven. Midst all this, the Lord knows His own, and regards every worshiping thought, and every sigh for something better.

There is no thought of holiness attached to any material thing on earth to-day, except the bodies of saints, to be rendered a living sacrifice to God, as is due. Our bodies are not " vile," as our common translation has it, but bodies of humiliation, looking to be changed by our Saviour to the likeness of [His own. For this may all we tie found waiting; for though it seems long delayed, it is ever nearer, and never so near as now. B. Emslie

The Lord and the Law

The Lord had given a beneficent law to Israel, incorporating in it a day out of seven-the seventh-for complete rest. The good of man was in His mind. In the third chapter of Mark they are watching whether that same Lord will heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath day, that they may be able to condemn Him for violation of the law. The very thing He had given them for good, they are now ready to use against His doing good. This is always the mind of the Pharisee-the legal mind. The Lord, bent upon the good of man, is against that mind. He first calls up the precedent of David eating the showbread, which it was not lawful for him and his men to eat, but of which in their need they had nevertheless eaten. Then, while His wounded love is angered at their hardness of heart and want of sympathy toward a suffering neighbor, He boldly asserts His superiority over all law by commanding the man, "Stretch forth thy hand." The legalists may be angered and plot together to destroy Him, but grace has triumphed over law, and love has had its own way in spite of difficulties. And so it is still. It is easier to press some passage of Scripture to the bitter end than to search patiently into all the mind of the Lord as revealed in the Word concerning the circumstances through which we may be passing. There is no need of spirituality or prayerful mind for the first; there is for the other.

"Pastor Russell'

There was recently left at our door in Plainfield, N. J., an advertising sheet which, because it professes to be Christian, demands Christian examination and judgment. It presents a picture of the American continent emerging from the waters, and, most prominent of all, the picture of "Pastor Russell" himself as the showman in his "Photo Drama of Creation." Beneath his picture are the following printed words:

NEW YORK-BROOKLYN-WASHINGTON LONDON

World-famed as editor, author and lecturer; forty years on the public platform; a profound Bible scholar; the world's most famous "Anti-Hell-fire preacher."

His writings on the Divine Plan of Creation cover more than 5000 pages, and record the labors of a life-time.

You can reap the benefit of all this in a few hours by seeing the Photo-Drama of Creation.

International Bible Students' Association, London, England; Brooklyn, N. Y.

We have little comment to make. We read in Scripture of two striking characters. Of one it is said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus :who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:6-8).

The other is thus described:"But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that Himself was some great one" (Acts 8:9).

We leave it to our readers to judge which of these two characters is portrayed in "Pastor" Russell's advertising sheet. Our own mind is that should the poor " pastor " become born of God some day, and the light of Christ shine into him, as once into Saul of Tarsus, like Saul he will have, we fear, a dark retrospect to go over, when, instead of thinking himself " some great one," he may have to call himself "the chief of sinners" of his times. May this grace be granted him before it is too late, for when our Lord carries out His threat, " Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," He will have no more regard for "the greatest anti-hell-fire preacher " than for any other sinner; nor will He be moved by any juggling with the Greek.

The "pastor" uses an abundance of pictures to caricature the doctrines of Scripture which he hates. It is easy in this day of universal rebellion against all government to excite men into rebellion against God's; but oh, that men would pity themselves and not run amuck against a power which they can no more resist than the rising of the sun or the incoming of the tide.

" Pastor Russell," like the pope, though in an opposite direction, has found the road to men's pockets, and it is evident he enjoys it. And no wonder, for he knows absolutely nothing of the Christian's heavenly calling. All is earth and earthly things with him. Even in the eternal state, he knows nothing more than a restored Edenic condition, with all its earthly bliss. Nor is his conception of Christianity, as expressed in the advertisement of his show, out of keeping with this. Listen to it:
"Brains, time and money invested for you. Free exhibitions; an education in one day." God takes our lifetime to educate us by His Word and Spirit, and through many trials and exercises of heart and conscience. This man can do it all up in one day by a "movie." Surely the U. S. can boast of celebrities! Since the advent of Joe Smith they have followed in quick succession.

Our readers will find on the last page of this number a series of pamphlets, laying bare the devious teachings of this "pastor." We recommend a wide distribution of them.

Wars and rumors of Wars

The "friends of peace," whose hope has been so to educate men as to make an end of wars, must feel cast down at the present conditions in Europe. Those who believe God and are governed by His word, know that instead of the world moving on by human training toward a millennium of peace, it is nearing day by day a deluge of blood. When the disciples asked the Lord concerning the signs of His coming again, He told them plainly that they would "hear of wars and rumors of wars:see that ye be not troubled:for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows " (Matt. 24:6-8). If men believed the word of God how undeceived they would be. How it would prevent their running after phantoms.

Unprecedented wars and catastrophes are then to take place at the close of this dispensation, introductory to the establishment of the kingdom of the Son of Man. The " gospel of the kingdom," that is, the announcement that the Lord as King of kings is about to return from heaven to rule this world from east to west and from pole to pole, will be made throughout the world, and then shall He appear. Thank God, throughout that season of dire distress in the earth, the Church (the company of all redeemed people), will be safely sheltered, being, before the worst comes, translated to heaven, where her home is-where Christ has gone and prepared her a place. "Wars and rumors of wars " therefore need not put us in anxiety, though we may well pity this poor world, and especially the Jews, who will be the chief sufferers in the coming tribulation, and pray for them.

It is doubtless out of the chaos produced by such a dreadful conflict of mighty nations that the first Beast of Rev. 13 comes forth-a man of extraordinary powers who, with the second Beast of the same chapter, are the devil's exponents of his hatred of God and the testimony for God in the earth. They cause "the great tribulation," of which the Lord warns the Jews (Matt. 24:21), and bids them hide from its violence (Matt. 24:16-20). Immediately upon this the Lord Himself appears and takes all in hand (Matt. 24 :29, 30). How 'near must be the rapture of the heavenly saints! Solemn and sweet are these closing days. We have waited long, but our hope is about to be fulfilled. Then too, like the Lord, over Jerusalem, we may weep over the fields which we have evangelized and which have turned away from God's entreaties.

(Rom. 1:7.)

Thou lovest me! And yet Thy child
Is wayward, foolish, oft defiled;
Is slow to learn and dull to hold,
Quick to forget what Thou hast told;
In service feeble, seeking ease
Ofttimes, instead of Thee to please;
Thus poor my record e'er will be,
And yet, O God, Thou lovest me!

Thou lovest me, because that love
Is in Thee, of Thee, yea, above
All acts. Love's self is all Thine own!
Thou, God, art love; Thou, love alone!
Hadst Thou but waited for my call,
Or love in me, then not at all
Had I this purest ecstasy
Known ever, that Thou lovest me!

Thou lovest me with that rich heart
That sought its objects far apart
From all that's winning, all that's good,
Thou lovest, just because Thou art God:
Thus Thou and I the story tell,
Spanning all distance possible;
I, nothing; Thou, infinity;
I, hateful; but Thou lovest me!

Thou lovest me! yes, Thou, God, Thou!
Thyself told out completely now-
Thy holiness, Thy majesty;
Yet this Thou addest, Thou lovest me!
Me! me the bad, without one claim,
Whose fellowship and touch were shame;
In this prevailest Thou mightily,
Thou takest no taint by loving me!

Nor is it shame to love me so!
None but Thou, God, durst stoop so low;
Because Thou art Thou! Thy glory this,
The high prerogative of bliss
Like thine-Thyself the bliss-to love
With grand imperial love, to move
With sovereign will, and so to be
All things to me by loving me.

Thou lovest me, shall be my boast,
Whenever the foe annoys me most;
Parades each circumstance of ill,
And magnifies the griefs I feel;
Intensifies the bitterness
Of trials, talks of my distress,
As though I could forsaken be !
I know, I know Thou lovest me!

Yes, he will speak of wrath, of rod,
Blaspheme Thee to my fears, my God!
Make light my gains, enlarge on loss;
My soul makes answer, "There's the cross! "
Beyond that wrath can never come;
Upon it Christ met all my doom;
I shout the paean, " I am free! "
For there I find Thou lovest me!

Thou lovest me! And that shall stand
Deeper than sea, firmer than land,
'Gainst all that Satan can evoke,
'Gainst destitution, sorrow, stroke,
Scorn, tribulation, hate of man,
And ways of Thine I cannot scan;
I see, above all mystery,
This one clear fact, Thou lovest me!

This settles every doubt and fear;
Makes me a happy worshiper;
Gives to the weary feet a spring;
Makes the face shine, the tongue to sing;
Gives conscience, too, a clear release,
The heart a confidence and peace;
Fills every day and hour with glee- .
The joy of heaven-Thou lovest me!

That I am so beloved of God,
Must form my manners on the road
I journey, till I meet Thy Son, My Lord, who all
Thy love has shown; Must separate from world and sin,
From every path that He's not in;
Incite to toil, bring victory;
The only power, Thou lovest me!
And how Thy love invites my love!
Draws my whole soul toward Thee to move!
Makes possible to faith Thy facts
And all assurances! Thine acts,
The most astounding, no more strange "
Can be, since I'm within their range
By knowing Thee, through love so free,
By knowing how Thou lovest me!

It is enough; no element
I want, to give my heart content,
I sit within this love's pure glow
With great delight, and waiting so,
The certain coming of my Lord,
So clearly told in love's pure word,
Then the full flow of life shall be
In heaven as here, Thou lovest me!

When a man's own will is at work, it leads to strife and separation. When the Holy Spirit is at work, He may lead different individuals in various ways, yet in harmony; and the glory of Christ is the object.