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'ness and boldness with which God’s prophets spoke is never theirs. Although there were express laws against this-evil practice (Lev. 19:31; 20-27), yet there were many in Israel and there are many yet to-day so wretchedly sottish as to seek to them and to counsel others to do so. God here gives a two-fold answer to all such. First: should not people seek to their God? Is not God the source of pardon and peace in time of guilt and trouble? Has He not promised- to give His people direction and protection? “ In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” Has He not made it clear that the spirits of the dead are not roaming about in space at the beck of certain weird and usually immoral people? Then why be seeking to the'dead when we have a living God? Second: to the law and to the testi mony. It iá a well known fact that the messages of these spirits seldom coincide with the Bible. They deny its authority, reject the deity of Christ and speak contrary to the plain teachings of the Word. Let men know, therefore, that the Word of God and the Spirit of God are to be their guide and no other counsellors are needed. Those who study their Bibles will give a good wide berth to spiritists. Make the Bible your counsellor and you will be coun selled safely. % GOD IS AT WORK Prof. Cairns of Aberdeen said recently: “We must not get into the way of thinking and talking as if we had to wait till the end of the war before God could begin His healing and creating work . . . but we must con tinue our prayers and our labors for the' evangelization of the world just because we believe that God is unremit tingly at work even now, alike in His Providence and His Grace, bringing His Kingdom.”
GERMAN DEMORALIZING SCHEME Ministers of tfle Gospel are not cabled to be apostles- of German rationalism. They are to be ambassadors of Christ. The Kaiser and his “ Kultur” gang played a mighty bold and effective game, when for twenty or more years they stealthily undermined the faith of the young men whom we so unthought- edly sent to Heidelberg, Bonn, and Ber lin for their' higher education. It is just beginning to dawn upon some of our thinking men that this was a part of the Kaiser’s demoralizing scheme to bring about German supremacy. And they held a winning hand when they played to the carnal pride of even those preparing for the American min istry.— Bible Companion. WORDY RHETORIC I have in my soul a thousand times cursed oratory, and wished thé arts of elocution had never been devised, or at least, had never profaned the sanctu ary of God; for often as I have listen ed with wonder to speech right well conceived, and sentences aptly arranged, I have felt as though I could weep tears of blood that the time of the congrega tion should be wasted listening to wordy rhetoric, when what was wanted was plain, urgent pleading with men’s hearts and consciences. It is never worth a minister’s while to go up the pulpit stairs to show his auditors that he is an adept i-n elocution. High- sounding words and flowery periods are a mockery of man’s spiritual needs. If a man desireth to display his oratory let him study for the bar, or enter Par liament; but let him not degrade the cross of Christ into a peg to hang his tawdry rags of speech upon,— C. H. Spurgeon. % ' The Bible was written not so much to tell how the heavens go, as to tell how to go to heaven.
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