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on account of the single tongue and ears of this poor man, but it is a com mon sigh over all tongues and ears, yea, over all hearts, bodies and souls and over all men from Adam to his last descendant.” How many myriads of the bereaved there were whom he could not then console! How many deaf and dumb there were in the world who could never hear and speak! His sigh was not a sign of weakness "and help lessness but a mark of sympathy and pity. While such feeling is a powerful incentive to doing good, since good men can never do all the good that they desire, their work is not one of unmixed happiness. THURSDAY, April 7. Mark 8:10-13. A Christian Is Not a Stoic, Some one has said that prosperity is consistent with worldliness,, selfishness and hardness of heart while on the other hand, self-sacrifice and devotion to a great cause have no tendency to bring good fortune.' The multiplied sorrows of the world combined with his own short-comings, prevent a noble-minded man from being always light-hearted. If a man is happy and content with himself and with what is around him, he may be decent and respectable but the highest is not in him and the high est 'will not come out of him. There may be guilty pleasure sweet and transient in spite of its poison. There may be guilty mirth, the laughter of fools, but there is no guilty happiness on earth. True and lasting happiness is the high prerogative of the people of God alone. FRIDAY, April 8. Luke 10:30-37. Three Possible Attitudes Toward Suffering. 1. The attitude of utter indiffer ence. vs. 31, “The priest passed by on the other side.” Perhaps he was, on his way home after the Temple ser vice. He would be very careful and conscientious in the discharge of his ceremonial functions, omiting no detail however trifling. A needy dying fel- low-man by the wayside is unworthy of his notice. The law can no nothing for us. 2. The attitude of interested curi osity. vs. 32, ‘‘The Levite came and looked and passed by on the other side.” He was inquisitive but not compassion ate. A lot of people want to know about everything but don’t want to help about anything. The Levite might have
We have been taught that all sacrifices are done away in Christ because ful filled. Nevertheless there are three things to which the word is applied in the New Testament. We may say therefore that there are 'th re e sacrifices which a Christain should offer in the present age. The first is the dedication of the body to God. Rom. 12 :1. The second is a testimony of praise and thanksgiving to God in public and in private for His goodness and mercy. Heb. 13:15. The third is the giving of our substance to relieve the necessities of o th e rs- Heb. 13:16. Consecration, thanksgiving and benevolence are car ried over from the Old Covenant to the New and are of perpetual binding force and obligation. This is the daily min- . istry of the kingdom of priests unto God. TUESDAY, April 5. Acts 11:19-30. Doing For Others. A Christian cannot look upon a fel low-man, however degraded, without a vision of possible saint-hood ,with its accompaniments of glory, honor and im mortality. No one can work for others Who has not had first a vision of him self. Quite as many become Christians under a conviction of righteousness as under a conviction of sin. That is-to say, the impulse which moves a man Christward may not be so much the fear of perdition which yawns beneath him, as the power of an ideal above him which he is struggling in vain to reach. Then this sense of unattaihed purity makes an evil life repellant and-begets a passionate desire to be delivered from it. A vision of Christ creates an irre sistible impulse to follow Him and a ceaseless prayer to be like Him. This is the qualification th a t one needs to seek and save tlie lost., WEDNESDAY, April 6. Mark 7:31-37. The Sigh of Pity a Stimulus to Action. On this occasion and one. other when Jesus wept, John 11:35, he was about to remove the cause of the misery. Why should he sigh when he was about to unstop the deaf ear? Why should he- weep when he was about to raise the dead? May we suppose th a t he was not thinking only -of th e 7 individual case? He had power to remedy that, but he was looking down info the depths of the world’s sorrow. Luther said, “That sigh was not drawn from him
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