1046 call the “ simple Gospel,” believing that this in itself is antidote enough for any and all of the peculiar religious va garies and extravagant perversions of Scriptural teaching with which the church is so much annoyed. Person ally we believe this to be a mistake. It is well understood that an investi gation of the constituency of Russell- ism and Christian Science and other such curious cults reveals the fact that their members were, nearly all of them, at one time members of our evangeli cal and orthodox churches. The two perverted forms of religious belief just mentioned, as well as most others, un dermine practically every fundamental doctrine of the Bible and of the Christian faith, and is it missing the truth far if we say that, if our people were more thoroughly schooled in these essentials of the Christian faith and more faithfully warned and intelligent ly taught concerning the dangerous and fascinating errors, they would be less easily led astray? BIEDERWOLF. Dr. Munger says in his book, The Freedom of Faith: “ Philosophy has eyes to see man’s guilt, but no hands to lift him out of it.” What shall we say of improperly applied Christian truth except that it has hands to lift men out of guilt but can find no hand-hold. It is our business as preachers to discover the hand-hold by means of which the truth of the Gos pel may be enabled to lift our hearers into a new life in Christ Jesus. We must mortise the precepts and prom ises of the Word into the every-day life of our people. The glorious facts con cerning the cross of our Lord must be articulated into the guilt and corrup tion of men’s lives if they are to be “ made clean.” I have sometimes won dered whether a good deal of our preaching is not like “ sheet lightning” that makes a great splendor for the mo ment but never hits anything. It is
THE K I N G ’ S BUSINESS the lightning bolt that is demanded if graves are to be rent open and dead souls led forth into light and life. H. W. McQUILKIN. “ How is it?” said a Christian man to his companion, as they were both re turning from hearing the saintly Bram- well. “ How is it that Brother Bram- well always tells us so much that is new?” The companion answered, “ Brother Bramwell lives so near the gates of heaven, that he hears a great many things which the rest of us do not get near enough to hear.” J. H. HITCHENS. CHRISTIANITY AND GLOOM Christianity a gloomy system! The world and devils may may say so; but a thousand eyes that sparkle with a hope that maketh not ashamed, and a thousand hearts that beat happily with the full pulse of spiritual life, can tell thee thou liest. Christianity a gloomy system! Why, it is the Christian only, that can thoroughly enjoy the world; to him, to his grateful vision, earth is garlanded with fairer beauty, lovely because it reminds him of the paradise of his hope in prospect, which his father once lost, but which his Saviour has brought back again, as a family i n h e r i t a n c e forever to him the ocean rolls more grandly because it figures out the duration of his prom ised life; to him the birds in their forest minstrelsy warble the more sweetly because their woodland music takes him -upwards to the harpers harp ing with their harps in heaven; to him the mountains tower the more sublimely because their heaven-pointing summits are the emblems of his own majestic hopes.—W. M. Punshon.
Yesterday is* gone forever; tomorrow never comes; God places the emphasis upon the NOW of life’s day.
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