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One day when James Brainerd Tay lor, then a young man, was out driv ing, he stopped at a water-trough. An other young man was watering at the same trough. Taylor said, “ I hope you love the Lord; if you do not I want to commend Him to you as your best friend.” The strangers went on their way. The young man turned to God as a result of Taylor’s words. He en tered the ministry, went to Africa as a missionary. Years after he said, “ Over and over again I wished I knew who that man was who spoke to me at the watering trough. But I never knew until some one sent to me in Africa a box of books. Opening one I turned to the title page and saw a por,trait, “ Oh, that is the man! That is the man who preached to me at the watering place.” It was a picture of Brainerd Taylor. Sorcery Exposed. Charles Spurgeon tells us that Dick ens was kept from becoming a spirit ualist. He went to a seance and asked for the spirit of Lindley Murray. When the spirit in due time appeared, Dickens inquired, “ Are you Lindley Murray?” The spirit replied “ I are.” Dickens at ohce knew it was a fraud because Lind ley Murray would not have used such grammar, as that. A husky young man had been told that his deceased aunt, who was a great favorite of his, would appear in a booth and put her hand out and shake hands with him. So the medium had the lights dimmed and the hand appeared. When the young man got hold of the hand he held on and would not let go. The result was the owner of the hand struggled till the booth was tipped over. The people present insisted on having the lights turned on and to the amaze ment of all and the chagrin of the spiritualists the owner of the hand was one of the vilest women in the com munity whom the spiritualists had hired for the occasion.
Golden Text Illustration. Mr. John R. Mott visited a college in Ceylon where he found a band of stu dents so poor that sixteen of them oc cupied one room. Near the building was a garden, in which they spent their spare time cultivating bananas. When he inquired, “ What do you do with the money?” they took him to a shore and pointed him to an island off in the sea. “ Two years ago,” they said, “ we sent one of our graduates there. He started a school, and it has developed into a church. We are going to send him to another island this year.” Their cook laid aside every tenth handful of rice that they might sell it, in order to have Christ preached more widely. v. 4. They that were scattered abroad. Every member of the church" became a preacher. They took the commission to preach the Gospel as applying n o t COMMENTS FROM only to the MANY SOURCES apostles b u t Keith L. Brooks also to them selves. All went “ except the apostles” (v. 1).-—Torrey. This persecution (v. 3) was overruled to scatter the church which needed to be reminded of the Lord’s injunction to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. How often God has to drive us by trouble to do what we ought to have done gladly and spontaneously. — Meyer. Christ not diffused is Christ abused.— Sel. The blood of the martyrs (v. 2) is the seed of the church.— Sel. How often has the rage of Christ’s enemies “ turned rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel”-' (Phil. 1:12, 13).— J. F. & B. The vio lent hand of the persecutor acted as the scattering hand of the sower. It flung the seeds broadcast and wherever they fell they sprouted. It is not every be liever’s duty to go into the pulpit but it is his duty to preach Christ.—Mac- laren. Went everywhere. When Chris tians settle down in one spot, God scat ters them.-gPalmer. Things got better for the Gospel in proportion as they got worse for the people.—McNeill. Preach ing the word. It is strange how some Christians can withhold from the world
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