King's Business - 1914-07

416

THÈ KING’S BUSINESS

Christ bore our deformities ; and Israel’s hump is for our sakes. If One has suffered for my salvation should I not show kind­ ness to His brethren? “But,” you say, “though the Jew’s disadvantage is to my advantage, yet his loss was no voluntary sacrifice on his part.” Granted. But if a man were ruined, maimed or blinded inci­ dentally to the saving of my life or fortune is there no place, no debt, for grateful com­ passion ; no heart to help in his calamity, because he suffered unintentionally to my salvation ? Nor may we forget that it was the Jew who preached the Gospel to us in the be­ ginning. It was a Jewish-Christian Church that on learning -that a gentile, Cornelius, had received the Spirit, forgot its prejudices and prerogatives and cried joyfully, “Then hath God also granted salvation to the gen­ tiles!” It was a Jew, Barnabas, who when he had “seen the grace of God” among tht gentiles of Antioch, “was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.” Do you won­ der that it is added, “for he was a gooo man” ? And what of that Jew of the Jews, that Saul of Tarsus, who rejoiced in his “sufferings for you,” pouring out his peer­ less soul that Christ might be “preached among the gentiles 1”

T a u g h t in th e school of p atien ce to endure T h e life of an g u ish an d th e d e a th of fire. T h eir whole life long w ith th e unleavened b read And b itte r h erb s of exile an d its fears. T he w astin g fam ine of th e h e a rt th e y fed, A nd slaked its th irs t w ith m a ra h of th eir te a rs.” Moses Mendelsohn, deformed in body but famed for grace of mind, asked by a mer­ chant, Guggenheim, of Hamburgh, to visit him with a view to winning his beautiful and amiable daughter, after calling upon her asked the father what she thought of him. Guggenheim gently opened the way for his reply and then frankly said, “She was frightened on seeing you, because—” and he hesitated. Mendelsohn came to his help, saying, “Because I have a hump; however, I will call again and bid her adieu.” The evening passed in interesting and brilliant converse, for she was an intelligent girl, and Moses adroitly directing the talk, she a^ked, “Do you really think that marriages are made in heaven?” “Yes,” he replied, “and when I was born my wife was named and it was said, ‘She will have a dreadful humpback.’ ‘O God, said I, she will be­ come bitter and miserable; a girl should be well-formed and beautiful; I pray Thee, let me bear the hump.” ’ She fell upon his shoulder,—he had won his bride.

Prayer FOR TH E LOST SHEEP OF TH E HOUSE OF ISRAEL By J. H. S. OH EPH ERD of Israel, haste! ^ P i t y thy scattered sheep; Behold thy pastures drear and waste; Thy sheltering lodge an heap. Gather thy flock, for now They’ll know their shepherd’s voice,

And seek the restful river’s flow Where meadow’s green rejoice. Restore thy ruined fold And David’s booth repair; And sit and sing, as once of old, Amid thy flock all fair

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