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August 1929
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
The laws of nature are just, but ter rible. There is no weak meYcy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the laws of man were as inevi table as the punishment of crimes against the laws of nature,—were man as unerr ing in his judgments as nature.— Long fellow. Those who devote themselves to the peaceful study of nature have but little temptation to launch out upon the tempes tuous sea of ambition; they will scarcely be hurried away by the more violent or cruel passions, the ordinary failings of those ardent persons who do not control their conduct; but, pure as the objects of their researches, they will feel for every thing about them the same benevolence which they see nature display toward all her productions.— Cuvier. The best thing is to go from nature’s God down-to nature; and if you once get to nature’s God, and believe Him, and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds; to see God everywhere in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks, and hear Him everywhere, in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling thunder, and in the fury of tempests. Get Christ first, put Him in the right place, and you will find Him to be the wisdom of God in your own expe rience.— C. H. Spurgeon. It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted accord ing to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable. Let us begin where she begins, go her pace, and close always where she ends, and we cannot miss of being good naturalists.— Wm. Penn. Sandow’s story of the way he developed his muscle was told by him in Leslie’s Weekly. He was a weakling as a child— was not expected to be fit for any stren uous career, but a vision of physical per fection kindled in him a resolve to at tain it. “I went into Italy,” he says, “and there my eyes were opened. The Greek and Roman statues I saw there inspired me at once to lift from myself the stigma of weakness, for I somehow felt that even in our time the weak man is despised. I went at the labor of revitalization with energy and persistence. You perceive I have somewhat succeeded. Let me tell you I am still at it. I maintain that it is possible for any man to emulate my ex ample, as I emulated Greeks and Ro mans.” So we, when we look at life ex amples in physical and in intellectual and in spiritual, should be drawn to make vows and inspired to a successful effort. An old gentleman remarked: “When I was a little boy somebody gave me a cu cumber in a bottle. The neck of the bottle was small and the cucumber so large that it wasn’t possible for it to pass through the neck of the bottle. I was greatly puzzled to know how it got there, but one day later, out in the garden, I came upon a bottle slipped over a little green fellow that was still upon the vines, and then I understood it all. The cucumber had grown in the bottle,” and then he added: “I often see men with habits that I won der strong, sensible men could form ; and then I think, like the cucumber in the bot tle, they started growing inside when they were young, and have grown so big that
Aug. 23. Mission to Rome. Acts 28:17-31. Aug. 24. First Mission to Asia. Acts 16: 9-15. C h o ic e N uggets How Much? “How much shall I give?” I asked the Lord, When I saw Him sore in need. “Shall I give a tenth of my herds and grain, A tithe of my garnered seed?” The Master was silent, but I saw How great His need was grown. “Shall I give half of what has come From the fields that I have sown?” Then answered He: “If you hold back aught, I can take no gift of thine.” So I gave Him all, and straightway more Than I had at first was mine. Christianity has conferred upon India moral, social, and religious benefits. It has covered the country with charitable institutions. It has protested against caste. -It has given a new idea of woman hood.— Lalit K. Shah. What is the greatest thing the United States has done during recent years ? Not the digging of the Panama Canal, magnificent as that work was. Not the establishment of the parcel post and of postal savings-banks, important as those undertakings are. Not the progress of education in the Philippines, great as that progress has been. N o; measured in per manent and beneficial results, nothing that our Government has recently accom plished equals the work of the nation’s reclamation department. It was established in 1902, and already it has added to the fertile regions of the country no less than three million acres that formerly were desert. Think of the happy families that will be supported upon these three mil lion acres! Think of the hungry that will be fed by their rich products! And all this is only a beginning, for we have one hundred million acres that may thus be reclaimed, an area fifty times as great as the tillable area of Massachusetts. This is noble work. It not only points a way. for the most profitable Government enterprises, but it should serve as a stimu lus to similar spiritual undertakings. For what are missions and what is the Church but the reclamation department of so ciety? Millions upon millions of lives all over the world, capable of bearing rich fruit for time and eternity, yet going to waste and worse than waste, breeding- places of miasma and of all disease! Is there, can there be, a nobler and more profitable work than to reclaim these lives? The recovery of farm lands is good for time, but the recovery of souls is good for the endless years. Someone going over to China jsked the captain of the vessel whether there were any missionaries in Shanghai. “Yes,” he replied, “the place is infested with them.” That was a fine testimony to the reality of Christianity in the great land of China. And yet six or seven thousand mission aries, all told, are not many among four hundred millions of people. But the Gos pel of Christ is influential in China out of all proportion to the actual number of workers and converts, and it is compelling
From Michigan: “I just ■wish to add, however, that in all my reading of relig ious matter, - outside of God’s Own Holy Word I have yet to find any that inspires me and feeds me with Bible Food, as this one magazine has, since it came into my home.”
nothing but a miracle can slip them out again.” A boy or girl can’t be too care ful about bottle habits. On Matt. 13:8. One of the mission aries, while talking to a native man about the wonderful revivals in Angola during the past months, said : “Eight hundred converted ! It does not seem possible ! Oh, José, if only all of them would standi” Whereupon the native replied: “Well, Senhora, it is just like when you go to the garden and dig a large basketful of peanuts . . . . Some fall off before you even get home with the basket. Then you hull them and you lose some more. You put them away and the rats get some, but even with all that you still have a large basket of peanuts.”— So. African Mis sionary Advocate. On Gal. 6:7. Dr. Frank Moore, presi dent of the American Prison Association, said at a railway luncheon : “They talk about sermons in stones—well, sermons in prisons might be a better phrase. A mil lionaire, turned bootlegger, is serving a long prison term. A prison reformer, a former friend of his, visited his prison the other day and came upon him sitting crosslegged with an enormous needle and a ball of twine, sewing burlap bags. ‘Hello,’ said the reformer, ‘sewing, eh?’ ‘No,’ said the prisoner with a grim smile, ‘reaping.’ ”— Philadelphia Bulletin. Unlike most trees, which shed their leaves when they want to dress up, the eucalyptus holds fast to its fruit and its foliage and sheds its skin. The outer bark comes dropping off in great strips and slabs, and a fresh skin very speedily grows out, making the big tree look as good as, if not better than, it would have if it had dropped its pretty green leaves. The Eucalyptus Amygdalina is the giant of the tree world, its towering branches even overtopping those of the great se quoias of the West. It often attains a height of four hundred and eighty feet, with a girth of two hundred feet. The eucalyptus tree grows so rapidly and its wood is so beautiful that it is regarded as one of the most valuable trees. Grow. Grow tall. Grow straight. Grow for ser vice. — o — August 25, 1929 Are Missions Proving Successful? Rom. 10:9-16 D a il y R eading s Aug. 19. A Successful Mission. Jonah 4: 1 - 11 . Aug. 20. A Home Mission. Luke 10:1-9. Aug. 21. Organizing a Mission. Acts 13: 1-3. Aug. 22. Mission to Foreigners. Acts 10: 1-5, 34-48.
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