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and 24 confirmed alcoholics. The wages of sin here need no comment. Subject illustration — Victory through prayer. “ In all our forty years’ experience we have never failed, when led to His Word for guidance, to get an answer. Facing, as we have for nearly twenty years the problem of feeding and caring for a houseful of drunkards (13,000 in all have been welcomed to this home), we have many, many times found our selves hard pressed but with the need has always come the supply. First of all, has come the needed grace to han dle men whose lives had been so-badly warped and cursed. The sum of nearly twenty thousand dollars each year has come in answer to prayer.— G. S. A. v. 5. When the ark came. When God smites us we should always seek to And the reason why. The sooner we fipd the cause and remove it, the sooner will the chastise- COMMENTS FROM ment be with- MANE SOURCES drawn. (1 Cor. Keith Li. Brooks 7 :2-T). Israel’s mistake was in not going deep enough in seeking the cause of their defeat. They did not look into their own hearts.1 They thought the trouble was outward and that the ark would set things straight. — Torrey. It is common for those who have estranged themselves from the vitals of religion to discover a great fondness for the rituals and external observances of it. Even those who deny the power of godliness have an admira tion for the form of' it. The ark of the Lord is cried up by those who have no regard at all for the God of the ark. —Henry. To trust in the ark of the covenant instead of the God it symbol ized was scarcely different from the wor ship of the idols of the Philistines.— Gray. Their religion was degenerating into superstition. I become supersti tious whenever the means of worship are permitted to eclipse the objebt of worship. I then possess a magic instru ment and I forget the holy Lord. A crucifix may become a mere talisman and so supplant the Lord.— Jowett. All Israel shouted. It is possible for one
to go out with a Bible under their arm and a shout on their lips and yet not have God.-—Sum. Bible. It is probable that they were sotnewhat influenced by the heathenish ideas of their idolatrous neighbors who carried their idol Dagon or his sacred symbols to their wars, be lieving power resided in the images. The shout raised in the Hebrew camp on the arrival of the ark indicates this superstitious sentiment.— J. F. & B. v. 6. When the Philistines heard. The noise was all that accompanied the ark and many of our great campaigns today are for the most part noise.— Sel. There is a good deal of vain shouting in the world over merely outward re ligious performances when there has been no real heart progress.— Torrey.. Ark of the Lord. Even God appointed symbols become snares. Baptism and the Lord’s supper-¿re treated by multi tudes ak these Hebrews did the ark. - • Alexander. v. 7. God is come into the camp. Even the natural conscience suggests this— that those are in a woeful con dition that have God against them.— Henry. v. 8. Plagues in the wilderness. Welhausen, the critic,: remarks upon this inaccuracy of the Bible—-the Egyp tians were not smitten in the wilder ness. However, Welhausen did not see that the Philistines said this. They; ex pressed their inaccurate knowledge of what had happened and Samuel reports’ it as it was spoken by them.— Gaebe- lein. v. 9. Quit yourselves like men. If God had been on the side of Israel as the Philistines thought, it would have done them little good to quit themselves like men. (Rom. 8 :3 i).— 1Torrey. It sounds strange that the .Philistines’ be lief that the Hebrews’ God had come to their help should issue in exhortation to fight like men, but polytheism makes that quite a natural conclusion and there is something almost fine in the boldness with which they set their teeth for the fierce struggle.—“-Maclaren. v. 10. Israel was smitten. The whole secret of this awful defeat is re vealed in Ps. 78:56-64.— Sel. The en emy never can defeat God’s people un til some Achan tries to hide his sin in the camp. (Judges 7:11-12; see v. 4). — Eliott. We are saved from nothing if we are not saved from sin. Little sins are pioneers of hell.—Howell. The whole sum and substance of human his-
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