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growing tendency here among the people to be more exacting in their spiritual duties. I believe that before many weeks there will be a great improvement not only in the churches here but also in other countries. The war has brought home to many the need of devotion.— Dr. Jowett. A convert of the Sunday meetings in Scranton remarked: “On my farm I raise blooded stock, and there was not a person for miles around who would not have gone to great lengths to warn me had one of my prize cows got on the railroad track; yet for twenty-five years never a man spoke a word to me about my own spiritual wel fare.” G reat men in every department of learn ing have been students of the sacred Book. Sir Isaac Newton diligently studied the prophecies; Sir David Brewster was famil iar with theological subjects; Faraday, the great -chemist, expounded the Bible on Sun days in the meeting house of a small de nomination ; Sir Humphrey Davy was a reader of the Scriptures; and Gladstone was not only a Bible scholar, but took part in religious services on numerous occasions. T he way David McConaughey puts the matter of Christian giving and Church get ting: “Every member giving according to, abil ity— “To every interest according to need— “Presented in an offering every week— “Secured by a canvass every year,” Now, assuredly there is no reason for your church going on with its old methods because it can’t understand what the new idea aims at. D r . E ugene L. F isk of New York told the Insurance Institute of Toronto last week that in one great insurance company the general death rate of the policyholders was 91 per cent, but the death rate of the policy holders who did not use alcoholic liquors was 27 per cent less than that of the gen-
II. The Tests in the Text. (1) Diver sity. There are not divers Gospels but one only (Gal. 1:6-9; Rev. 22:18, 19). (2) Strangeness. The true teaching is not new; it is that which is from the beginning, “once for all” (1 John 1:4; Jude 1:3; 2 John 10: 11 ) . III. The Test of Experience: Grace—(1) In the doctrine. The true teaching is, “saved by grace alone,” this is its characteristic. (2) In heart. The truth' leads to conscious dependence on grace; and to conscious growth in grace. He who observes these things is and shall be established (Matt. 7:24, 25).—6\ P rayer is the sincere desire of the soul. Are our prayers such? God hears every prayer. God would not be a God of love if He an swered every prayer. Prayer is meant to increase our achieve ments, not to lay them all upon God. The supernatural is God at work in life. Life accordingly is made up of both nat ural and supernatural. Life itself, as death proves, is supernat ural. It was here, and it has gone else where.— Speer. B enjamin F ranklin ’ s thrifty wisdom says: “Save, young man, and become re spectable and respected ; it’s the quickest and surest way.” The Wisdom which is from above has it quite different. It says : Get saved, young man, and become respect able and respected ; it is the quickest and surest way. C hristianity is the final religion. It is the same today as it has ever been, and will remain the same. Men have tried to add to it, and subtract from i t ; but their additions fall away, and their subtractions come .back. Christianity does not grow by the change of its nature, but in the. extent and measure of its application to man.
S ince the war began thefe has been a
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