King's Business - 1915-02

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THE KING' S B U S I N E S S Vol. 6 FEBRUARY, 1915 No. 2 Table of Contents E d itoria l: A Notable Christmas Card—The Christ Who “Came in the Flesh” and Who is Coming Again in the Flesh—"Things Which are for a Time, and Things Which are for Eternity ”— The Heathen Festival Called Christmas —February F ifth ........... ........................................................... 87 The Engineering of Eternity. By John Robertson ................. 90 Only Trust Him (Poem) ............. • • • ' ' ’ •........ 102 The Crisis of Our Modem Education. By W. B. Riley, M. A. 103 Sidelights on Home Mission Work in Tennesse. By William Thom e ......... ....122*.............’.................. .....|............. ;........ ....... 113 Missions in Mohammedan Lands .....,.......................................... 119 International Sunday School Lessons. By R. A. Torrey and T. C. Horton .... ............ ...................... ....-,..... .............................. 122 Daily Devotional Studies in the New Testament for Individual Meditation and Family Worship. By R. A. Torrey .......... 141 A t Home and A b road ....................................... ..... ............... ....... 156 Hints and Helps ....................§........ ;................ ............................. 161 Bible Institute of Los Angeles .......................................... ............. 166 “Should an Angel Whisper” (Poem) ........................................ 175 Light on Puzzling Passages and Problems. By R. A. Torrey . 176 What Our Subscribers Say of the King’s Business ................... 179

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The WONDROUS JOY OF SOUL-WINNING A NEW BOOK by R . A Torrey, D.D. SOME OP IN IONS Just Issued. “ English Churchman” :

“As an evangelist of world-wide experience, D r . T orrey knows much of the happiness of leading men and women to Christ. This little book, however, is not concerned with preaching to the multitude, but with individual dealing— what is known as.-‘personal work.’ It has been written at the request of M r . T h om a s TI ogben , Founder of the ‘One by One’ Working Band, and emphasizes the privilege of prayer, testimony, and winsome effort to draw first one and then another to the Saviour. The counsel given is sound and practical, and if followed is sure to produce blessed results. “ D r . T orrey , as everybody who has heard him or read his books knows, lays much emphasis on soul-winning. In ‘The Wondrous Joy of Soul-Winning’ he deals with the best methods of leading others to Christ, and the little book is one that ought to be in the hands of every Christian worker.” “T h is great -Evangelist and expert soul-winner writes in- spiringly of the joys of leading souls to Christ. The indi­ vidual believer is slow to realize the possibilities of such service, and we' are grateful to the ‘One by One’ Band for publishing, and D r . T orrey for writing, this inspiring but much-needed message to the Church.” ^ “W ritten at the request of the Founder of the One by One’ Band, and with a Foreword from his pen, this is an »earnest and practical appeal to the individual Christian to realize not only the responsibility but the joy of being a ‘fisher of men.’ ”

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“Witness,” Belfast: “T h is is an eminently practical book on a most important subject. D r . T orrey writes out of a large experience, and ' he illustrates his various points with telling incidents. In­ dividual work for individuals is the keynote, and the titles of the chapters will indicate {he author’s plan:—‘The Won­ drous Joy of Winning Souls,’ ‘Fishing for Men the Business of Life for Every Follower of Christ,’ ‘The Most Effective Method of Winning Others for Christ,’ ‘The Essential Con­ ditions of Success in One by One Work,’ ‘How To Go at One by One Work.’ It is a book to be read and pondered.” Price - - ■- Post Paid - 50 Cents Address all orders to TH E B I O L A B O O K ROOM Bible Institute of Los Angeles 536-558 South Hope Street Los Angeles, California BUY AND PASS IT ON

THE KING’S BU S IN ESS Voi. 6 FEBRUARY, 1915 No. 2 A Notable Christmas Card F ALL the Christmas cards that we have received this year, none I t has impressed us so much as the following from Dr. John Balcom I f Shaw: “Our Christianity is being challenged this Christmastide as —.---------- never before since the angels first sang their Gloria in Excelsis. This stupendous war belies the spirit of the Advent, and proclaims the wide­ spread absence of that good will which Christmas signalizes and should conserve. Our Great Leader’s advance is being halted. Our very religion is at stake. Who would dare to be self-indulgent or pleasure-centered through days like these? Altogether intolerable seems the conventional and flippant; the call for self-denial and service imperative. Let all who are jealous for the honor of their Lord and would prove themselves true to His Holy Cradle walk softly, gravely, steadfastly, through this Sacred Week, and seek by its chrism and schooling to step across the boundary of so somber a New Year with a firmer hold upon the unseen world and an unwithholding devotion to Him who is the Prince of Peace and the aloqe hope of a sad and torn humanity.” The Christ Who “Came in the Flesh” and Who is Coming Again in the Flesh HE central truth of Christmas time is, of course, the Incarnation, B p ^ g th e great fundamental truth that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1 :14). It was in view of this great truth that the angel on the first Christmas morn said, “Fear no t: for, behold, I bring you good tidings ot -great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is bom this day in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.” But this first coming in the flesh points forward to-a day of still greater joy to all people when He shall come again in the flesh, come again personally, visibly, bodily (Acts 1 :11). We rejoice in the Christ who came once in the flesh in the olden days in Bethlehem but we rejoice still more that He is coming again; coming again just as He went, that in like manner as the Apostles saw Him going into heaven, we shall see Him coming for us from heaven to save us in the fullest and completest sense, to fashion anew the body of our humilia­ tion that it may be conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:20, 21). His first coming in the flesh was prophesied centuries before He came, and the prophecies were fulfilled to the very letter. His second coming has been just as clearly prophesied and these predictions too will be fulfilled to the very letter, and when that day comes, and indications are multiplying that it will come soon, it will be the gladdest day that this old world has seen.

THE KING’S BUSINESS “Things Which Are For A Time and Things Which Are For Eternity"

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„mm HE one passage of Scripture that has been uppermost in the mind E 5 S of the editor during these Christmas days has been The things which are seen are temporal (literally, “for a season ) but the ^ T h in g s which are not seen are eternal (that is, for eternity). Never before have I been so deeply and constantly impressed with the fleeting character and valuelessness of the things belonging to this present world and of the infinite value of the unseen things which are so soon to be ours as in these days. Christmas eve as I filled the stockings of the two members of the family who were still with me, my wife and the one daughter, I could not but think constantly of the four who were not there, the son in China and the two daughters in Georgia and the other daughter in Heaven and when the day came to an end and I sat alone Christmas night, and thought of the absent ones, the loneliness was followed by a great sense ot exultant joy in the thought of the re-unions and the abiding possessions in that glad day so fast hurrying on when the Lord Himself shall come again and we shall have the things which are unseen now but which shall never pass away. How foolish we are to set our affections on the seen things which are for so short a time., g The Heathen Festival Called Christmas CHRISTMAS, called by another name, was originally a heathen I festival, afterwards adopted by the Church and rebaptized with a Christian name, and the average celebration of Christmas to-day ¡^Jis as heathen as its origin. Judging from the newspapers, the ^ ^ c e le b r a tio n of Christmas in 1914 was more heathen than usual and less of Christ in it. The one passage of Scripture connected with the birth of our Lord that has been most constantly in mind during these so- called “Christmas” holidays has been “There was no room for” Him. The Romans before the time of Christ had a rural festival called Saturnalia. .The Emperor Augustus about the time of our Lord’s birth ordained that the Saturnalia should embrace the whole three days, December 17th, 18th and 19th ; later the number was extended to five and even seven days. Early Christians found this festival had a great hold upon the people and so adopted it and tried to give to it a Christian tone. The festivities of the Saturnalia had many points of similarity to our present Christmas festivities. Virgil in his second Geòrgie, line 389, mentions a tree with its pendant toys and manikins like our present Christmas tree. The Norsemen held their Yule Feast, a heathen festival, from December 25th to January 6th, and the heathen origin of the festival among them still survives in such words as yule-log, yule-tide and similar words. We are not contending that we should give up all celebration of Christ­ mas though that was the position taken by our Pilgrim Fathers and also for many years in Scotland. But we are contending that if we are to call it Christmas, and keep it in honor of our Lord, we should keep it in a Christian way, that' is in a way that really magnifies^ Christ. There is little that is distinctly Christian about our present celebration. It is true that we do.make

THE KING’S BUSINESS 89 sacrifices and bestow gifts upon others, but seldom are these sacrifices made or bestowed for Christ’s sake, or in His name. The mythical Santa Claus is magnified instead of the real Christ. Of course, very few, even among children, any longer believe the lie that there is a Santa Claus, but even churches introduce this mythical and usually disgusting-appearing person in their Christmas celebrations. Is it not time that intelligent Christians had done with this sort of nonsense and worse than nonsense? In all that we do in our churches in connection with Christmas day can we not give the pre­ eminence to the Lord Jesus. In our giving gifts to one another, can we not do it from a Christian motive and in such a way as will magnify Christ even among those of our friends who do not know Him as yet as their Saviour. Can we not make use of the Day to lead our unsaved friends to a real knowledge of Him whose birth we are ostensibly celebrating? February Fifth ■ 5 N THE fifth day of February, 1837, seventy-eight years ago this Wmonth, one of the greatest men in all the history of America was Eborn in the little country town of Northfield, Mass., D. L. Moody. gNo one dreamed that a great man was being born. His father was a poor working man with a large family and practically no property, indeed in debt, but God who is ever “choosing the foolish thing the world to -confound the wise” and the “weak things of the worl confound the things which are mighty” had chosen this unheeded bab humble parents in an unknown country village as the one who should move the world for Christ and the truth as almost no other man, if any other man, of his generation. The early ,days of his life gave no promise of what was to be. His father died while he was a very young child. Even the opportunity of completing a common school education was thus taken from him, and the little work he did at school was not encouraging in its immediate results. But when at the age of seventeen he was converted through the faithful personal work of his Sunday school teacher in Boston, a great change came. He not only accepted Christ as his Saviour, but surrendered all that he had and was to Him as his Lord. He became untiring in his activities for his new-found Master and stopped at no sacrifice to win souls for Him. He was consumed with a passion for the salvation of the lost. He was “at it and always at it” in the work of bringing men to an immediate decision for Christ. In the store where he worked, on the streets where he walked, on the trains in which he travelled, he was ever alert for an opportunity to tell some one about his Lord. And God kept opening to him larger and larger doors of opportunity. Then he learned of and sought to obtain for himself a definite baptism with the Holy Spirit for service. He paid the price and obtained what he sought; and the result is a matter of history, but the whole result no historian could tell. To this day, though fifteen years have passed since he left, this world, new discoveries are constantly being made of lives that were transformed through the direct or indirect influence of D. L. Moody, The whole modern evan­ gelistic movement originated with him. The Student Volunteer movement and the whole Y. M. C. A. movement in colleges and universities received their first impulse and direction from him. Thousands of men and women well equipped for Christian service, have gone out from the schools in North-’

90 THE KING’S BUSINESS field, Mt. Hermon and Chicago which he founded. The whole Bible Institute movement originated in his busy brain. And the training even in the regular theological seminaries was largely modified and given a more practical ten­ dency through his word and indirect influence.

T h e E n g i n e e r i n g of E t e r n i t y B y JO H N R O B E R T S O N

[The author of this sermon had a most remarkable ministry at the Gorbals Tabernacle in Glasgow, and afterwards preached in many cities in this country. In the midst of this work, he had a complete nervous breakdown but is now restored to health and has been a Professor in the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary at Faribault, Minn. A great sorrow came to him in July in the unexpected death of his wife but in this heavy sorrow he was wonderfully sustained. The editor of this magazine has two beautiful letters from him, written at this time but which are of too personal a character to publish. In connection with this sorrow, Mr. Robert­ son was led to resolve to give up his work as a teacher and undertake an itinerant ministry of the Word both in this country and across the water.—Editor.] “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity .”—2 Tim. 2 :19,

guished patronage” on the church at Ephesus. As Atlas upheld the world, so they uphold this congregation. They “seem big pillars.” No sub­ ordinate position would do with them —the villa and the vehicle forbid. The Reverend Mr. Timothy they are now to lead by the nose where they like. He is to tack to their wind, he is to trim his sails by their longitude and latitude, and he is to cook his confession of faith to their delicate palate. But not he! So now the one never-failing result of fearless, faith­ ful preaching has come to pass at Ephesus; “the offense of the cross” has arrived. The firm tread of this young prophet has tramped on their gouty, corny toes, and there is a gnashing of teeth and a vow of ven­ geance. There is formed an anti- Timothy clique of the big men’s spit- tle-lickers, and there is plotting and planning and devising in their “gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity.”

DISEASE very common among occupants of the pulpit, they tell us, is / “ministerial sore throat.” Twill tell you of a disease

among them more common, more piti­ able, and more deadly than that—it is ministerial sore heart! Ill of this “cardiac affection” is Timothy to­ night. Sad and dejected is the young minister as he sits in his study. Bick­ ering has begun in his congregation. Two creatures have caused a lot of trouble in their midst. Bib men, ac­ cording to their own estimate, are Hymenaeus and Philetus. Their in­ creasing breadth of beam and expand­ ing girth of aristocratic fat are the evidence thereof. Like the pride- swollen frog of the fable, they are getting big to the bursting. Men of goods and gear, they are salaamed in the market place, honored and patted in the fashion of the day by the pass­ ers-by. They bestow their “distin­

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The puny gnat with its incessant buzz can make the lion, monarch of the forest, lash his sides with the foam of his own wrath; so Timothy’s noble sensitive soul is stung in spite of him­ self by those miserable mosquitoes- of incarnate annoyance. Their very pettiness is a provocation, and this Hymenaeus-Philetus party had be­ come a scourge in the congregation’s side, a thorn in the minister’s eye. Timothy is reaping the tares that ev­ ery servant of Christ has to reap in his harvest of faithful dealing, and a bundle of bitterness sometimes they are. The crop is sometimes a thistly one to gather. The bright ideal of Timothy’s dear old ordination day has disappeared like the glowing saffron of sunrise in a close cloud of dank, chilling mist. The castle building of his sanctified imagination has crashed to pieces at his feet, and he feels well nigh choked with the dust and the stour of the fall. Poor sad Timo­ thy tonight, ill of the ministerial sore heart! “The flesh hath no rest, trou­ bled on every side; without fighting; within fears; nevertheless God that comforteth those that are cast down comforteth thee now by the coming of—a letter! Behold at the door a messenger from “Paul the aged,” Paul the devoted, Paul the prisoner, Paul the brave, the great, the good Apostle, Paul thy heart-fond father in the faith. Here are the great sprawling characters of his well- known hand. ' Read with swimming eyes his crooked inscription, “To Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy and peace—peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” “Cheer up,” runs the letter, “I have heard of thy trouble, but no strange thing has happened thee. It comes to one, it comes to all, it comes to me, it came to the Master Him­ self. When I returned to Jerusalem from Damascus, and was terribly

pressed on every side, Peter told me how one day, as the Lord spake of this very eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood, many of His disciples were offended, and with an­ gry murmurings went back and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, ‘Will ye also go away?’ And Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words' of eter­ nal life, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And what did Jesus answer but this, ‘Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a Devil?’ Some have left thee, Timothy, and in leaving thee have left Christ. They went out because they were never.of. The chaff hath fled with the rush of the winds, but look at thy feet, the pile of rich feed remains on the granary floor of thy ministry! Blessed be God, His chil­ dren are with thee. True, the most of them are humble and poor, but they are rich in the faith that brings the hundred per cent of the increase of Christ. On sick beds and in gar­ rets they are—nay, not so! Their place is in the very portals of the King’s palace. The sons and daugh­ ters of the Lord Almighty are with thee, the saints are with thee, God is with thee, never fear. Oh, my son Timothy, take thy harp from the wil­ low and string it to the highest halle­ lujah. Dissension and division and desertion around thee, ‘Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’ Fall alone will the never up, depart alone will the never come. Only the unconvert­ ed and the carnal have gone, and rather thank God for the remarkable deliverance and the disappearance of all the dirt. The people of God are yet thy people, where thou lodgest,

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have all been hung by Almighty hands, and no creature oscillation can swing them from their place. A star cannot fall, so that cannot be a “fall­ ing star.” No, that you see in its shining tumble is but a poor miserable splinter from this revolving mudheap. That is of the earth earthy. So it is in the spiritual sky; so it was in the church at Ephesus. Hymanseus and Philetus, with great noise and display of assertive dazzle, have se­ ceded from their midst, and Timothy is now not to bother himself about them. He is not to wring his hands in dismay, over those seemingly “fall­ ing stars,” in his congregational firm­ ament. Paul bids him remember that amid the fizz and crackle of these se- ceder fireworks the meteors alone de­ part and descend and disappear. The star is a star and shines on forever, for Christ hath given it light. “Nev­ ertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” Paul the aged has thus comforted Timothy the young, and very likely this Very text was. taken the next Sabbath for the sermon to the faith­ ful folk of Ephesus. What is it our revered father refers to? Timothy would ask. What is the foundation of God, let us also to-day, brethren, try to get at its comforting truth, and may God the Holy Spirit help us in our search! I. The Foundation “The foundation of God standeth sure.” Talking once to an architect from Hull, he told me that in that town they could not possibly rear a build­ ing such as some of the great, mas­ sive stone-block piles of our North­ ern Granite City. “There is no

there they will lodge, where thou abidest there will they abide, and there will they be buried. As for Hymanseus, Philetus, and Company, let them dance off to the Devil! His they are, and him they serve, and to him are they delivered. Their ‘cave Adullam’ is the porch of the pit (1 Tim. 1:20). The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Amen.” This, brethren, is the God-sent epis­ tle from Paul in Rome before Caesar the blood-thirsty and torturing, in the name of Jesus in Jerusalem before Caesar, the scourging and crucifying, to Timothy in Ephesus before Caesar the spitting and splitting in the of­ fended hate of Hymanaeus-Philetism. Timothy world-hunted, Paul world- hit, Jesus world-hanged—Apostolic succession! “Courage, preacher, do not stumble, Darkened sky will soon be bright; This has come to keep thee humble, Trust in God, and SPEAK the right.” • Yes, it is true, You have been out on a winter’s night, and have looked above to the twinkling lift. The great dome of darkness is in its place riveted to the horizon, and the burn­ ing spheres are all martialed in order on the black midnight bosom. Sud­ denly one of the bright orbs seems to leave its socket and dart down­ wards to earth, leaving behind it a blazing track. You look, and you say in a common saying, “Ah! there’s a falling star!” A falling star? A star? Nay. That is but a little speck of earthly dirt that has got inflamed by the friction of the atmosphere in its downward petty course. It is only a meteor. It is no star. The stars, they are all there on high. Not one of the fewer in their in­ numerable number, the great lamps of God are all alight, inextinguish­ able and immovable at His palace eate. The mazy multitudes of suns

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foundation,” were his words. Hull squats on the ancient sandbanks of the river Humber. With its lightly constructed houses squinting off the plumb, the town seems nervously flinging out its arms and clutching at anything or everything to keep it respectably upright. Of those im­ mense mountains of towering rock- masonry not one is to be seen. Shifty, fickle, unstable sand! “There is no foundation.” Like this is the unsteady, unsure bottom the so-called “Church” has purchased with the price of the Blood; like this the auctioned lot she has dared to exclusively ticket the Name of God upon. Sacramentarian- ism, so subtly increasing to-day, is just such a sandbank, and it is" left by the rapidly receding river of grace, and on this sloppy delta of devil’s delusion voices intoning by the ten thousand advise you to build. Be­ ware, beware, “There is no founda­ tion.” It is of man, not of God. The Sacraments seal grace, but grace must first be there to seal. Before you cook your hare, you surely must catch him. You cannot build a house from the roof downwards; you must begin at the bottom. Sacramentarian- ism begins with the chimney-cans, the slates, and the rain-piping, then comes down to the colored windows and walls of the “dim religious light,” and would fain finish the ornate build­ ing, but—the foundation where? the foundation what ? Debris and priestly deception, a molten mass of thin, por- ridgy, gruelly sand you could sail a boat in, but never think of building upon. “There is no foundation,” and when the house falls, great is the fall thereof. And yet poor souls per­ sist in giving their very all for this worthless lot, this sandy, rockless patch. They will hug for very life the grim old heresy of ex opere op- erato —the doing done of the Church of corruption. In France you notice

below the knob of a bell-pull on the doors of the cathedrals and churches this boldly inscribed' inscription, “Night-bell for the Sacraments.” Dy­ ing churchly sinner, dark night in the streets of the city, but a darker night in thy priestly-poisoned depart­ ing soul! What’s to be done ? Pull the night-bell for the Sacraments! Ring up the Roman rogue, and let him hurry to mumble thee away in that dreaming sleep of eternity! With his “extreme unction” he will safely ferry thee over to thy home in—• hell! O thing of infernal folly! O awful madness! to cram eternity into a dying gasp and to build eternity on a half-crown’s worth of profes­ sional priestly mud! High Church Sacramentarianism is not the founda­ tion of God. It is man’s invention— nay, it is the Devil’s. It is the “patent medicine” of the shaven and shorn “Supreme Quack” of the Seven Hills, that Vicar-General and Vicegerent of Satan! And yet this childish thing is spreading like wild fire south of the Tweed, and unceremoniously oust­ ing Protestant truth from its evan­ gelical _pedestal. Oh, for Wycliffe and Ridley and Latimer to protest to the death again! If John Bunyan were to write now the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” he would revise and change one passage of it. He would certainly bring out the Pope from the skull-thresholded cave, and would give him more effectual work to do than to sit and grin and gnash his teeth at the passers-by. That for England, but in the land where John Knox thundered from St. Giles we have not yet been thus far left to our foolish selves. Signs ominous and foreboding do multiply around, but, thank God, as in the brave days of old, the Queen’s throne would not yet buy the flung footstool of her Most Gracious Majesty Jenny Geddes! This, as it is : however, like a chem-

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ist’s search lor the presence of the acid with the blue litmus paper, we can detect a trace of Sacramentarian- ism in our Presbyterian custom and habit. Here it is : in an ordinary country parish the communicants are entered on the official records as 2,000. On an ordinary Sabbath cen­ sus the church, and you will find the attendance not a tenth of that. In Scotland the man is happy who preaches to a couple of hundreds. Now, let “Sascramint Sawbath” come round, and lo! “the gathering of the clans!” From high hill and deep glen they come, by brae, and burn and heather heath, the 2,000, young and old, poor and rich, feeble and forceful, wend their way in wet skin or dry skin to the House of God. How is all this ? The “Sacramint” to-day is to swing them on by grace conferred, by bood got, to the next Communion, a whole year before them! Sacramentarianism—oh, what a mistake! Unconverted communi­ cant, rather rise from that Table of the Lord, and fling that cup beneath your feet and depart than dare to drink it. Hear this word of God: “He that eateth and drinketh un­ worthily, eateth and drinketh damna­ tion to himself.” The great eternity of your God-given soul is a structure too mighty for this pitiful founda­ tion. Build on sitting down at the Lord’s Table, will you? As soon build the Pyramids of Egypt on the point of a pin! Not that, not that is “the foundation of God,” The Com­ munion is for the converted alone and only—are you, communicant, con­ verted ? “Have ,you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb ?” Again, in the “Black Country,’’ and in some other parts of England, you find whole towns tumbling to­ gether like a passion-emptied cart­ loads of bricks. Northwich, the salt- centre in Cheshire,, looks like a shock- shaken paralytic—walls bidding good­ bye to the roof; top stories becoming ground floors, and ground floors tak­ ing a despairing dip into the cracking depths of the unseen. What in all the world is the matter? What is wrong with the buildings ? The foundation, and the foundation is the Alpha and Omega, the A and the Z of the whole. The earth had been mined and tunnelled and bowelled below for its hidden treasure. Only a thin skin is the ground above this hollowed-out vacuum. Here, again, “there is no foundation.” Anything like this in the spiritual world? Yea, verily. The common profession of the Lord Jesus Christ by the lip of a formal adherence to His visible Church. Coming to' the Communi­ cant’s Class and “joining the Church” when you are big enough and old enough for the common custom. A fair like foundation to build upon, but where grace has not solidified and rammed together lip and life into an indivisible, incrackable whole, it is but a thin sheet of dangerous decep­ tion. Below it has been scooped out by that ever-working borer—the world. Below the profession the treasures of earth have been sought after, and found, and the void now yawns beneath, and some day the stately ,house disappears, and men hush their hearts and wring their hands over the terrible gap. Judas had perhaps the finest profession of the twelve apostles. So earnest, so firm and unfaltering his footstep in the now untried path, so devoted and

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What, then, brethren, is this “foun­ dation of God” ? Where be this mighty rock-surface that eternity can build on ? It is here, towering up amid the ages, and spreading its massive bosom for whole continents below—a foundation, solid, enduring, eternal, prepared by God-, the guar­ anteed concrete of the Blessed Firm of the Heavenly Trinity—it is the Rock of Ages, the glorious Person and glorious Work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you build here on this foundation of God, unshaken and un­ shakable, “when rolling years have ceased to move” ? This and this alone is “the foundation of God,” living, saving faith in the Saviour of sinners. Do you believe on the Son of God? Have you undergone the second birth of the Holy Ghost? Are you hiding in the Rock that is higher than you? Are you building on the foundation of God? Can you sing— “My God, I have found the thrice-blessed ground Where life and where joy and true com­ fort abound.” a personal salvation in a personal Saviour—Jesus Christ the living Son of the living God? Yet, after all, the foundation may remain immovable and mighty enough; but if in the storm the tiles go rattling to the ground, the roof gets stripped, and the gable and walls give way and crash together in a huddled heap, where’s the comfort of a sure-standing foundation? The great bridge at Dundee toppled over and tumbled in tbe careering tem­ pest of that December night, but the foundation stood firm, and the broken piers kept tremblingly peeping above the waves as in a feeble, faltering protest that they had done their duty and were not to blame. The founda­ tion stood; the structure fell—a Job’s comfort be this of sure-standing foun-

diligent, and do-alling, he is elected Kirk-Treasurer. He has “the bag,” or rather “the bag” has him, and we don’t generally put the worst-looking man among us to look after the cop­ pers. Judas must have been respected and believed in by the little band in no ordinary degree. Foundation sur­ passing fair of apostolic profession in the very presence of Christ! Here surely you can build eternity in secur­ ity and safety. Nay. In Judas’ pro­ fession the world has sunk a shaft, and a mine beneath it the devil has dug, and has left a fearful abyss of gripping greed and passion for the “pieces of silver” ! For £4 , the fifth of the price of one of your year- old stots, my farmer friends, Judas will sell his soul and betray the Mas­ ter! Ah! profession of Christ! ah! church connection, seat-letting, ser­ mon-hearing, “sustentation”-support- ing! There is no foundation. To build thereon is utter ruin. Say, soul, what would you take for Jesus? Has He a price for which you’d sell Him? Some church members to-day would part with the Lord of Glory for less than Judas—for a bottle of bitter beer or a three-ha’penny glass of whisky in a Monday market! Are you just a “good Christian” in Scot­ land for the same reason you’d be a good Hindu in' India, or a good bow­ er-down to a carved-out stick in the wilds of Africa, just because your father and grandfather have been so before you ? Dear, dear soul, on what are you building for eternity? Are you on “the foundation of God” that “standeth sure” ? “Say, where is thy refuge, my brother? And what is thy prospect today? Why toil for the wealth that will perish— The treasures that rust and decay? Oh, think of thysoul, that for ever Will live when Time’s sunshine is o’er, And build on the steady Foundation God lays

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dation! A h ! but He that lays the foundation and pledges His Name for that, also builds the building and pledges His name for that, too. God is the contractor from foundation to roof, and He completes His contract and stands surety for the result. He guarantees • with the oath of His trademark. He stamps with His pro­ fessional seal every atom of His own production. The stars in their mazy whirl are merely His finger opera­ tions, but the conversion of a soul is His arm-work. All the shoulder mus­ cle to this! (Ps. 8:3; cf. Isa. 53:1). God has placed Himself for the eter­ nal security of the humblest believer in Christ. The chains of the iron work on this structure can never snap. “Whom He did predestinate, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Not the smallest, feeblest link can give way, or hell with its shouts of triumph would drown out the harps- of heaven into an everlasting hush. Fear not, humble believer, you are safe as Almightiness can make you. His contract He completes, for His honor is at stake in it. Sir Thomas Bouch, when the Tay Bridge of his engineering dissolved that night in the hurrying deep, sickened and died at the fateful news. So, indeed, should the very feeblest saint fail to get home, should God’s handiwork give way to the snapping of a single tiny rivet among the million million girders of His engineering feat of eternity, the Almghty would also turn His face to the wall for ever! Oh, so feeble the faith in my poor heart! Oh, so tiny the flicker oi grace in my faltering soul ! Oh, so trembling the touch of life in my fear­ ing spirit! Yes, but it is of God, and cannot be obliterated! It is the En­ gineering of Eternity, and nothing can touch it. Is Jesus thy Lord? Oh, yes, yes; “My Lord and Mv

God!” Now, then, “how readest thou?” “None can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost.” The Holy Ghost! Ah! here is the safety. Faith is not of earth; it is the product of eternity, and endureth as long as that “golden pavement” and “crystal sea” of the Everlasting City of God. Look at this little match. Rub the phosphorus tip—a wee, tiny flame! Yes, but it is not of this dull clod of earth. It belongs to that mighty center sun of ours: His is the mo­ ment’s spark, and he will look after it. Harnessed to this yellow speck in my hand is the whole immense mass of universe filled caloric! Every blazing star in the firmament stands surety for our little flicker, and hastens to its help! So with that maybe only microscopic faith in your heart. It is not of earth, not of nature, not of you, but of the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost is of God, and God is God. Oh, isn’t this enough, sad heart ? It is ! It is ! “Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast, In the tree-shadowed nook of “God’s acre,” where the dead lie, you wander. In the dear country kirk- yard you meditate at the sundown hour when “thought is born.” Silence and solemnity surround you, and the soul takes wings and passes beyond the horizon of time. Here is an old gravestone. At the top you read, “Sacred to the Memory of ----- ,” but what is that name below? Whose memory was this inscription to per­ petuate ? Alas! time’s grim teeth have been silently gnawing and gnaw­ ing for years, and the cunning handi­ work of the chiseller is now eaten out, and the pitying moss has drawn There by His love o’ershaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest.” II. The Inscription

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chary and canny do we get in the use of the possessive pronouns, “my, mine, thy, thine, etc., etc.” Experi­ ence has taught us this one thing, hasn’t it? to be slow to ticket our goods. “My ship,” would the mer­ chant say, and sit and day dream of the rich cargo of coffer filling treas­ ure from “the Indies of the blest.” God listens to the foolhardy boast and He “hisses” for another world- laden vessel to creep silently through the gathering fog, and the two cross at the same point at the same time, and with the crashing, splintering bows of awful collision, they plunge with their precious all to the bottom of the deep. Never, you merchant, say “mine” again! “My bank bal­ ance,” and the columns of an eager addition are run up, and the eye glis­ tens at the sum-total of clinking gold­ en coin. Whispering to-day on the Stock Exchange! Hearts standing still and faces pallid with fear! Oh, what has happened? The City of Glasgow Bank is down! Ah! never say “mine” again. “My boy,” and you stroke the yellow curls over th< wee white brow, and you mirror yourself in the laughing blue eyes, and you touch the pouting little lips, and you clasp your bonnie treasure to your loving breast. My dear, dear sonnie! Hush in the nursery! no little feet pattering! no prattling laugh like the summer hrook’s now! A little coffin has been carried from the house, and you sit in the silence with a breaking heart. “An art thou awa’ and awa’ for ever? That little form, that tender frame, That voice which first in sweetest accents Called me the mother’s thrilling name?” Ay, “awa’ for ever!” Never say “my boy” again. He is not yours; he is God’s, and oh! for God’s sake, take care of the loan. “My crops,” and the sun burns them, and the rain

its soft, clinging veil over the sad decay. You cannot with all your ef­ forts spell out the sleeper’s name. Ah, vain seal! cynical, sarcastic words, “to the memory of!” Ye have let slip the charge ye have sworn to keep! The name is gone forever. Yes, inscription powerless, empty, boasting, passing! This is when man’s chisel has scraped over the tablet; but let God’s finger write as The Ten Words were written on Sinai, and the “Tables of Stone” will break, and the fragments fade and decay, but that writing, never! What He hath written, He hath written. Yes; and on this great eter­ nity building of a faith-finishing soul God has stamped His personal seal. On its portals are the “armorial bear­ ings” of Heaven. Here Jehovah has carved His own crest, has engraved with His own Hand His own great Name. The “process of the suns” can bring no obliteration to this. Be­ yond the wear and tear of cruel- teethed Time, beyond the weathering and crumbling of the earthly atmos­ phere, above wind and mist and rain and storm, the inscription will never be blotted out. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away; bui the word of the Lord endureth for­ ever.” Oh, come nigh, then, believ­ er, and read this God-written inscrip­ tion. For you it is; on you it is. Two lines—as if in no heedless one- line postcard hurry—have been carved by God. Surely He is interested in His own MSS.; be you interested and comforted now. “The founda­ tion of God standeth sure, having this seal.” i. “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” Brethren, the longer you and I live in this everchanging world, the more

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longs to our country. Only a few hundred paces in breadth, of no ma­ terial worth at all, it is only a speck in this never-sun-setting Empire. For­ gotten surely will be this wave- washed tip of foreign stone. Nay, let another flag than the Union Jack this night wave its folds across the beetling cliff, let another hand be laid on the little place, and at the first click of the telegraph needle in the Foreign Office in London, the 'whole mighty ironclad force of our Thun­ derers and Devastations, the whole ponderous line of the men o’war and battleships of Great Britain will put their “bulwarks on the brine.” The British Navy will steam at once to its rescue and defense. And why? Because Great Britain “knoweth” the Rock. It is a possession of our coun­ try, and the whole honor of the United Kingdom is pledged for its in­ violate keeping. In this pin-point of a place the Imperial Throne is at stake! Oh, poor humble downcast child of God, isn’t this comfort for you? “The Lord knoweth” you. Do you think He will let the Devil press too hardly upon you? Do you think the black fist of the smutty fiend will ever catch hold of your fainting, fee­ ble soul? Never, never! The Gov­ ernment of Almighty God is pledged for your keeping. The seizure of your soul would be the signal for the" down-topple of the throne of the uni­ verse. Oh, eternal safety of- the be­ liever in Christ! “The Lord know­ eth them that are His,” you are His, He knoweth you, saveth you, keepeth you. “Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my right­ eousness. Behold all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded; they shall be as nothing, and they that strive

drowns them, and the frost bites them, and the mildew blasts them. “My stock,” and horses drop, and cattle take rinderpest, and empty byre and empty stable keep empty company with the empty barn. “My,” you farmer, never! The possessive pronouns belong to God alone. “My” and “Mine” are only for Him to say, not for you, and He says them, and means them, too. The word is “His.” Blessed “His” ! “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” So the Lord after all has property in this world. The Devil after all dare not yet run up to the masthead the pirate’s black flag of exclusive, defiant possession. The Lord has possession on this sin- sodden earth, and He will look after it, never fear, “The Lord knoweth,” that is, not merely enumerateth, not merely runneth over in finger-tip reckoning, as the eager-eyed miser yon golden heap he cannot keep from the sprouting wings of speedy flight. The word “knoweth” means “grasp- eth, embraceth, pLdgeth, looketh aft­ er, standeth surety for, keepeth! Ah! yes, poor doubting believer; God hath sworn a mighty Oath to keep thee, and concerning thee His Highest honor is to-day at stake. He hath said, “I will never leave you nor for­ sake you.” “The Lord knoweth them that are His,” “knoweth” with all the assurance and power of the pledging of Infinite love. What more for your safety can you, have than the guarantee of the throne of Al­ mighty God ? Isn’t doubt, then, an awful thing? Isn’t disbelief? Isn’t even trembling and fearing? Dare we give God the lie, and fling back His word in His very face? “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” Oh, isn’t that enough for you and me to make a soft, soothing pillow of for the last long sleep of the grave? It is ! It is ! Gibraltar is a barren rock on the shores of Spain, but it be­