THE K I NG ' S BUS I NES S Abraham’s bosom; but if we die with out love, what will knowledge avail? Ju st as it avails the devil and his angels! I will not quarrel with you about any opinion; only see th a t your heart be right towards God, th a t you know . and love the Lord Jesus Christ, th a t you love your neighbor, that you walk as your Master walked, and I desire no more. I am sick of opinions; I am weary of hearing them; my soul loathes this frothy food. Give me solid and substantial religion; give me an humble and gentle lover of God and man; a man full of mercy and good faith, without partiality, and without hypocrisy; a man laying him self out in the work of faith, the pa tience of hope, the labor of love.” THREE SIEVES One good Quaker woman, notable for her ■Christ-like conversation, ex plained th a t she always used “three sieves” for all utterances struggling to pass her lips. She first sieved, “ Is it true?1” and th a t left much unsaid! Then she strained it, “Is it kind?” and much more was never uttered; lastly, “Is it necessary?” and th a t disposed of more. Let us all get these good sieves set up and working. TESTIMONY AND CONTROVERSY The value of personal testimony Is immense. To defend the gospel in controversy is congenial to most Christians; it calls our combative in stincts into play, and to debate Christian doctrine in the abstract is an intellectual exercise that implies nothing difficult or distasteful; but to bear personal ■ testimony, to declare what we have felt and seen, to set to our seal th a t God is true, is often a task calling for courage and sacrifice. Yet such witness is of infinitely more value than all our scholarship and cleverness of argument.—Watkinson.
348 Mains, and many others have for some time been teaching th a t Christ’s com ing would not be literal but spiritual; th a t it is nothing more than the grad ual betterment of world conditions and th a t Christ is already here in the only sense in which He ever will be. Some of them went so far as to assert in 1914, at the beginning of the world war, th a t the glorious millennial day was about to dawn for the whole world. It is quite evident th a t some of the liberalists know very little about what the Bible says concerning the second advent or what Russell says about it. If they did, they would not be so fool ish as to identify Russellites with those th a t believe in the literal and imminent coming of the Lord.—K. L. B. PRAYERLESS PRAYING We once heard an eminent and saint ly preacher, now in heaven, come abruptly and sharply on a congregation th a t had ju st risen from prayer, with the question and statement, “What did you pray for? If God should take hold • of you and shake you, and demand what you prayed for, you could not tell Him to save your life what the prayer was th a t has ju st died from your lips.” So it always is, prayerless praying has neither memory nor heart. A mere form, a heterogeneous mass, an insipid compound, a mixture thrown together for sound and to fill up, but with neither heart nor aim, as prayerless praying. A dry routine, a dreary drudge, a dull and heavy task is this prayerless praying.—E. M. Bounds. § ^ LOVE VERSUS OPINIONS Wesley was naturally a keen con troversialist, and had marvellous skill in attack and defence, but as he grew older his pleasure in it died away. He says: “We may die without the knowledge of many truths, anti yet be carried into
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