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THE K I N O ’ S B U S I N E S S
March, 1940
a heathen influence that Bible teaching in the school would be curtailed or for bidden. In view of student strikes that have occurred in certain mission schools where this policy is not followed, does this seem a fair and wise provision? Would this regulation be necessary or right in all mission fields? APRIL 21, 1940 It is an interesting fact that one- third of our Lord’s sayings are recorded in thirty parables. He used the parable because it enabled Him to present truth in a veiled form. Thus the truth would not be rejected immediately, and in pri vate He could explain it to His dis ciples. “The disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered . . . Because it is given unto you to know the mys teries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them [i. e., the multitude] it is not given” (Matt. 13:10; 11). In our lesson for today we have the advantage of possessing the Lord Jesus’ own interpretation of the parable of the “sower.” If we come to the Word with an eagerness to know His will, we having eyes may see, and having ears may hear. The scene of the story is about the shore of the Sea of Galilee. A great throng of people gathered about Jesus, and He went into a boat and sat down to teach them from this vantage point. Like an amphitheater before the Great Teacher stretched the beach £with its throng of people. Perhaps the Lord Jesus at that moment saw a man sow ing seed, for He drew His illustrations from familiar objects. “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” Some seeds fell by the wayside, some in stony places, some among thorns, some in good ground yielding fruit. The narrative might easily he regarded as a story and no more* except that it was told by thé Master Teacher, and His disciples rec ognized that there must be a deeper meaning. He graciously gave it to them. The field is the world; the seed is the Word of God; the four different kinds of ground typify four different kinds of hearers. We still have the seed, the Word, and we still meet with the four kinds of hearers. Yea, we our selves are included in one of these groups! What kind of hearer am I? Am I, as representing the Lord Jesus Christ, sowing the Word ? These ques tions should bum themselves into our hearts. The Lord is still saying, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” If His heart went out in com passion to the multitudes in Palestine “because they were . . . scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd,” SOWING THE SEED M atthew 13:18-32, 37-43 Meditation on the Lesson
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A mere handful of white and colored S o u t h e r n Presbyterian missionaries have gathered about them eight thou sand earnest Christians in the region around Luepo, in the west part of the Belgian Congo, Africa, and out of this number three hundred teachers and evan gelists,1who, while they themselves are under training, have daily under in struction thousands of children and grown people. Do you wonder my soul is stirred when I think of this work’s being carried on for a nine-days’ jour ney on foot in almost every direction from Luebo as the base or center, and by laymen? Not one ordained preacher as yet, and two hundred of the force of three hundred self-supporting! These men are not preachers. They do not pretend to he. They are Christian school teachers; they are expounders' of the Word of God as they themselves have been taught; they organize cottage prayer meetings and establish and superintend Sunday-schools. They have learned how to talk with God. —Bishop W. R. Lambuth. n . F aithful to the E nd The young native teacher in a school near China’s Great Wall, in the absence of the American teacher was left in charge of the pupils. When the Boxer outbreak came at the beginning of the present century, influential relatives wanted to hide her, but she refused to leave the seventeen girls who could not reach their homes. They hid in fields of tall grain, in caves of the mountains, wherever they could find shelter. Finally they were captured and were led away to a Boxer temple for execu tion. ■ All the way, this young teacher en couraged the schoolgirls. She said in substance: “You know our dear Lord Jesus suffered and bled on the cross that we might have life. You know how the apostles, one by one, followed in His steps. We indeed are not worthy to die for Him, hut we are willing and glad to do so, and will pray God to give us strength in this hour of trial.” The Boxers threatened to kill her at once. They stopped the procession by the roadside, and without a tremor she offered her head to the sword. Do you wonder that not one, not even the youngest, would bum the incense or bow down to the idol, but that all gave their lives for their Master? —Frances Patterson. Questions for Discussion One well-known mission in China re quires that seventy-five per cent of the children in its schools shall be from Christian homes, lest there be so strong
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sound, searching and S c r i p t u r a l . They should have a w ide reading.”
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