deepest sorrow and trial. Go and tell POINTS PRACTICAL. 1. The words of John went home to the heart of Herod, but through fear he heeded not. 2. You may shut the mouth of God's servants but you cannot stifle the ser- mon that God has sent. 3. Herodias stained her soul, pan- dered to her vile passions and gloated over the gory head of God's Prophet. 4. Conscience knows no cleansing with a culprit, it clamors for a hearing and compels its victim to hear its cry. 5. Contrast the earthly life. Herod and his palace, power, pomp and pride, with John's prison poverty, persecu- tion and peace. 6. Contrast in eternity; John will be given a crown of glory, Herod and Herodias' habitation will be in hell. 7. Be thou faithful unto death. Be sure your sin will find you out (Rev. 2: 10; Num. 32:23). 8. Bear the burder of your sorrow- stricken soul to the sympathizing Savior. LESSON IX. May 29, 1910. Pood for the Famishing—The Multi- tude Fed (Matt. 14:13-21; 15:29. Golden Text: Jno. 6:35. OUTLINE. 1. Ministering to the Multiude. 2. Multiplying the Bread and Pishes. 3. Mindful of the Fragments. We have for our lesson, two stories of bread and fish. Some have confused them, believing them to be the same. The differences are definite. The num- ber fed in the first, five thousand; in the second, four thousand. The amount of food in the first, five loaves, two fishes; second, seven loaves and a few small fishes. In the first, twelve smaller baskets of fragments and in the second, seven larger baskets; two different Greek words being used; for the first was the wallet slung from the shoulder in which the Jew carried his food when traveling and the second, a hamper, used on a journey. In such an one Paul was placed when let down from the wall of Damascus. The place where the 5000 were fed was near villages (verse 15), and Luke says in a desert place near Bethsaida. The feeding of the four thousand took place somewhere on the southeastern shore of Galilee neat Dahnanthus (Mark 8:
10). The Lord mentions both in Matt. 16:9-10. MINISTERING TO THE MULTI- TUDES "There came unto Him great multitudes." The multitudes followed Him. The motives were as varied as those which move the masses today. There was something So strangely new in this teaching, " s e nt from Go d ." So differ- ent from the teachers in Israel. His message was so kingly and kind. He spoke so tenderly yet so truly. He spoke as one having authority. He un- folded the Scriptures illumining them. He had a doctrine concerning the King- dom unique. It was the King mingling with His subjects—having a heart bowed with a consciousness of their burdens and having a great longing for their relief. They brought their lame, blind and maimed and He healed them. The multitudes wondered and glorified the God of Israel. This satisfied the Lord. He asks no more than that we praise the God of all grace for His goodness. What better can we do than to bring to the Lord Jesus Christ our needy friends? MULTIPLYING THE BREAD. "He took the seven loaves." For three days they had waited on His words. We have the picture of a desert place, a tired teacher, a hungry multiude. Fasting and Fainting. The food was exhausted and the peo- ple were in need; the source of supply was distant; to send them away was to subject them to suffering. They were not all worthy; many followed Him for the loaves and fishes (Jno. 6:26-27), but all were needy and appealing to Him who loved the weary and heavy laden. To Him they were hungry sheep without a shepherd. The Faithless Disciples. From whence could we secure so much bread? In the fourteenth chap- ter it is " S e nd them a w a y " ; in both it is unbelief. The easiest way to get rid of a responsibility is to evade it. So we think. Send them away. We shut our eyes to the fields, we close our ears to the cry, we lock the door of our hearts against the lost. Send them away —they annoy us, they trouble us, these countless numbers of needy peo- ple; the million Jews in New York City who have never had a mouthful of Gos- pel grain; thousands of Indians; the
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