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THE K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
tory may be reduced to this maxim, that when man departs from the Divine means of reaching the Divine end, he suffers harm and loss.-—T. Parker. Cast out your Jonah or a tempest will be brought upon your ship and vexation to your spirit. —1Reynolds. Philistines fought. The man who never knew God is stronger than the man who forgets God.—Haldeman. No symbols of God will help us until we have put away our idols and laid our hearts hefore Him.-—- Meyer. There was great slaughter. Had they kept the conditions of God’s cov enant their corpses would not have been lying stiff outside the rude encampment. As they did not keep them, bringing the chest which contained the transcript of the covenant into their midst was bring ing a witness of their apostasy, not a helper of their feebleness.—Maclaren. v. 11. The ark was taken. It was the best thing that could happen to them. They must see their false props falling under them and they might be led to look to God.— Eliott. Sons of Eli slain. Evil deeds come back to roost. They may be slow of foot but they are sure of nose and never make a mistake in lighting.— Sel. Let no one think to shelter themselves from the wrath of God under the cloak of a visi ble profession, for there will be those cast into outer darkness that have eaten and drunk in Christ’s presence.— Henry. v. 18. Eli died. Eli’s death was a tragedy but may we not all pray to be equally devoted to the cause of Jesus Christ so that its victories or its de lays may touch us to the quick?—Meyer. So strongly were his sensibilities en listed on the side of religion that the news of the capture of the ark proved his death knell and yet his over indul gence or sad neglect of his family— the main cause of all the evils that led to •its fall— has been recorded as a beacon to warn all heads of Christian families against making shipwreck on the same rock.— Jamieson. Unfaithfulness Punished. 1 Samuel 2:12-17; 4:5-18. Memory Verse: “ Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Eph. 6:4. Approach: How many of you were
at Sunday School last Sunday? All but Clara. That is fine. Now let us see how many of you have good ears and can hear well. BEGINNERS Charles, let us start AND PRIMARY with you and see if Mabel L. Merrill your ears were real good listeners to the story last Sunday. You tell us some thing about a picture I drew on the board, and the rest can listen and see if he forgets any of the story. My, that was such a wonderful story and Sam uel grew to be a splendid man, because he was an obedient boy. How many would like to hear some more about the minister who was with Samuel in the church? After we bow our heads and thank Jesus for his loving watch and care over us, we will go on with our story. Prayer. Lesson Story: Now I expect the first thing is to introduce you to the min ister whom we heard about last week, for we did not learn his name because Samuel was the principal one of our story. The minister’s name was Eli, and he was a good man, loved God and was faithful in his services in the church and to his country, but in one thing he failed, and that one thing was very im portant, and because of his failure great sorrow came to him, for God punished him. Eli had two sons who were min isters in the church also, and God had said that His ministers should always obey Him and do the things that were right at all times, but these two sons did very wickedly and disobeyed God, even though they had such a good father who had trained them to love God and obey Him. Now their father Eli should have told his sons that they could not remain as God’s ministers and serve in the Lord’s house any more, and because Eli did not correct his sons, the people would not come to church and bring their offerings, and when there is sin in our lives and we do riot feel sorry and ask God to forgive us, but
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