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July 1930
T h e
K i n g ’ s
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written KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF. LORDS. Oh, then will you bow your rebel heads and know too late that you rebelled against pure Love ! Oh, come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.” And it seemed to Nikolai, the Russian, that the heavens had been rolled up as a scroll. He felt himself in the presence of the everlasting Judge, and his soul was riven in twain. Until, casting himself upon the divine mercy, and finding himself wondrously upheld as he clung, he walked unsteadily forth into the outer world. Once there, he hardly realized that the Law, which he had tried to evade, had found him. The very irons behind which he was presently lodged were less real than this new glory that had broken upon his soul. And those who came, wondered at his stillness, the stillness of the spirit of one who is in the immediate presence of the King. Ifc Many a sin is committed that friendship is expected to justify. It is not exactly what we would have done if we had been left to ourselves to decide, but, under the circum stances, we could not see what else to do. Rather than to be disobliging, rather than to be thought puritanical or “ righteous over much,” we yield, waive the obligation to conscience in favor of the desire to oblige a friend, and charge the debt of conscience to the score of kind feeling. But it is at bottom a question of allegiance. The Master asks an undivided heart, and we have no right to betray Him in the home of our friends. To hate father and mother and friends for His sake is ethical, not emotional. It is a question of loyalty. To please them would we dis please Him? If so, we are not His followers, but theirs. No man can obey two masters. Solomon’s building a heathen shrine to oblige a heathen wife was heathenism pure and simple; idolatry, root and branch. To neglect a duty, to compromise a principle,, to pull down colors, to do a little wrong rather than to be thought a religious prig, bigoted, or, at least, peculiar, is a great temptation; but then is the time for the uncompromising, “ the everlasting NO,” to ring from us, showing firm loyalty to God. Friendship that calls for disloyalty to God needs destruc tion or reconstruction. — Watchman-Examiner.. . Unveiling the Shrouded Continent ( Continued from page 339) dark continent. Yet even Africa has not wholly escaped from this peril. Another menace is Mohammedanism. The Mohamme dan is a hardy man who is always a missionary and goes far afield. He is in his own land, knowing its customs, and having a tremendous advantage over the foreign missionary. In the face of these perplexing problems, the Africa Inland Mission and other societies are bravely and persist ently reaching out to plant themselves in new territory, to discover new tribes, to uncover new languages through which to give forth the Gospel message. Their one mo tive is to hasten the coming of that Kingdom for which the Christian prays daily. They invite the cooperation of all who will respond to the pleading voice, of oUr Lord who says, “ Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” They are engaged in the greatest work in the world. Who will share it with them? Friendship and Right B y M altbie D. B abcock
Word, the Bible, and the claims of Christ that would have gripped and convicted the very heart of Babylon itself, ancient or modern. They knew as they watched the fa ther of Armand that this son of Israel was a portent and a prophecy of what God’s Israel was to be, in that coming time, when, having looked on Him whom they had pierced, they were to give themselves utterly to the mission for which they were intended—witnessing to His saving grace. He began with Palestine and ended with the world; began at Jerusalem and extended to the uttermost part of the earth, looking forward to the time when “ the earth shall be full o f the knowledge o f the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” It was an assembling of facts that those who were secure in their faith rejoiced to hear, and that those who knew not where they stood, trembled to con template. As Aunt Margot listened, she realized that never before in her life had her soul beheld such an un veiling of the eternal purposes of God the Father in His Son Jesus Christ. She was thankful that she was shel tered beneath the shadow of the Almighty; The great wisdom of God in choosing the Jewish people for His testimony came home to her. What fire! What eloquence! And with these, a clear, concise grouping of well-made points. So might Paul have spoken. Yes, here was an Israelite at home, at last! At home in a world hostile! At home because doing the work God had always intended for His great people. And Nikolai, the Russian, what of him? He had sat during the first part of the address with his head bowed, his red beard trailing upon his breast, and his hands hanging limply between his knees. He had the general effect of enduring a hard shower of words, and of allow ing it to rattle about him indifferently. And then! Then he found it impossible to be indiffer ent any longer. He was hearing things he had never heard before. His own soul told him they were true. They bore the unmistakable stamp of truth. He wondered dully for a while, after he raised his head, why no one had ever told him. He was conscious of a deep melancholy as he wondered. The Halutzim and the Young Jews were longing to possess the Mosque of Omar— the mountain of the house of the Lord, these many centuries so significantly in the hands of His enemies! Was it to be marvelled at, the speaker cried, that earth’s final battle was to be waged about it? When that Northern power should come down . . . and Nikolai listened, recognizing this northern people. This nation of his was turning away from life, the speaker said. Only a little time ago their poet-leader, Mayakovsky, became a suicide because “ there was no other way out” and he could stand life no longer. And then in a voice of silvery, yet piercing sweetness, the peroration! “What is it you fight in fighting our God and His Christ, you Soviets? A hostile force? Nay, it is the Force of Love against which you hurl yourselves. Oh, Love di vine, eternal, that proved forever, beyond a doubt, upon the cross, that our God is a Saviour-God and that all the mighty physical forces and facts of this material uni verse weigh as nothing in His sight beside the soul of one of the least of these. This fact of Christ, as God and Saviour, is proved, I tell y ou ! It is proved! It is proven to me in my soul today. I who speak to you know it. And all that you Soviets have done and are doing will have to be undone, and He Himself will undo it, with the armies of heaven behind Him! Clothed in white raiment, with Faithful and True written upon Him, will He come! And upon His thigh and His blood-dipped vesture will be
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