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THE KING’S BUSINESS man officers and men, evidently under Governmental orders, makes it easy to believe any cruelty attributed to German soldiers. We cannot find the heart to record here, the awful brutalities committed upon young children, and the horrible mutilations of children and women, and the more awful things done to women. There is a God in Heaven and He will judge, but one must cry, “Oh! God, how long, how long.” But let us be fair to the German* people as a whole. Doubtless very many, quite likely the majority, disapprove of these things as strongly as we do. Why, then, some one may ask, do they not say so? They can not. The liberty of the press and freedom of speech are unknown at the present time in Germany. The suppression of any word of criticism of the powers that be is ruthless. We sometimes think the people most of all to be pitied are the Germans themselves, who entertain really Christian sentiments. trust with the Word.” The minister is significantly called “the minister of the Gospel.” The Gospel in its broad sense is the Bible. It is to the honor of the missionary that, among the heathen, he has been called “the man with the Book.” And it is to be deplored that in so-called Christian lands the same absolute reliance on the Bible has not been deemed essential, and that the minister has become known more as a man of books, than of the Book. It is not as a conventional echo that we utter a profound conviction, namely, that Jehovah’s charge to Joshua is his charge to us, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night,” and that our true success is conditioned on the devout observance of that _charge. The Word is the water wherewith the Spirit baptizes us unto service, as well bs that with which He baptizes us unto regeneration. It is the instrument whereby all the effects of that baptism are to be and must be accomplished. With the Book, the minister is “thoroughly furnished unto every good word and work.” As he is a preacher, a herald, it is his procla mation ; as an ambassador, his commission of conciliation; as a soldier, it is his sword; a workman, his hammer; a sower, his seminary; as he is a steward, it is the treasury whence he derives the true donative, his storehouse whence he brings and breaks the children’s bread; as he is a shepherd, it is the well from which he draws for the flock; or is he a teacher,- it is his universe and cycle of the knowable. Without it he can do nothing, with it he can do all things incumbent upon him. The minister should, therefore, be salted, satu rated and submerged in the Bible; its facts, doctrines, phraseology, types, figures, metaphors, prophecy, spirit and life, should be webbed, woven, wrought, into the texture of his mind and thought; The Word should, thus, be nigh him, even in his heart and in his mouth. As truth is the mould of character and the inspiration of service, its use is essential. The minister needs no book but the Bible to attain the highest ends of his calling, namely, the evangelization of the world, and the saving and edifying of souls. His study is fully equipped in all essentials, with a bench, a table, pen, ink, paper and an open Bihle in his own vernacular, and that of the people to whom he The minister’s commission is comprised in two words, “preach the Word.” The true successor of the apostles is the man who, leaving lesser service to others, “gives himself to the ministry of the Word.” We “are put in The Minister and His Message
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