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March 3, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIA well as in intellectual ability, and that every school may be a place of effective training in the formation of character and preparation for useful lives.?United Presbyterian. GREAT BRITAIN, AND MISSIONS. Great Britain is more conservative in most respects . ! * than is America, but in promoting intelligent interest in missions that country is more inventive if not more progressive last year. There was held in London an elaborate display and object-lesson presentation of mission work in the Orient. Mission stations, converts, heathen rites and customs, were presented true to life, and a great pageant was conducted at intervals. Another exhibit is being prepared for next summer to be called "Africa and the East." Still another method employed. to awaken interest and diffuse intelligence is the organization of a modified parliament which is conducted on the plan of the British parliament. Mission fields arc divided into departments and assigned to separate members of the narliament whose duties rennire that they study their fields and inform the entire membership through meetings conducted much after the plan of the legislative body of the empire. THE POSITIVENESS OF JESUS., Never docs doubt or uncertainty appear in Jesus. In His course in life He did not hesitate; He lived as one who walked in the light, to whom the path of duty was plain, and from which nothing could turn Him away. Temptations came to Him, but His decision was quickly made and there was no variableness nor shadow of turning from His decision. When He was taken up to Jerusalem, young as He was, He took His place witn tne learned men, Hearing and asking questions, He was not, we may be-assured, forgetful of His mother, but in the unfolding consciousness of His relation to God and a mission in the world, He rose above the relation of His home, and said, "I must be about My Father's business." From that service to the Father He never wavered. The will-and the work of His Father commanded the first place in thought and action. Not for a moment did He at any time allow even the love of His mother to delay Him in the performance of His duty. "He that loveth father and mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." The presence of danger did not cause Him to hesitate. There was no compromise, no shrinking, but in every word and every act He stood firm in His position as one who came from the Father to save the World. We SPP tVllQ in all Hie tpacliinor Tliora fimoi! when we feel the temptation to modify our words, times when it seems that prudence requires either silence or modification. But to His disciples, to the people in the presence of His enemies and before Pilate, He was the same. "Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning," was His answer to the questioning of the scribes and Pharisees. From the beginning of His ministry He spoke with authority. He did not grope His way to the truth ; He did not rise to higher and clearer views as He advanced in life, but from the first He taught the people with the absolute * 4 ' N OF THE SOUTH. 13 authority of His own consciousness that He came forth from God. Jesus never wavered or hesitated in the consciousness of His power. Men approached a great crisis with hesitation, but Jesus never did. Whether it was the appeal of the deaf, the dumb and the blind, or of the leper, or of those possessed of evil spirits, or of the bereaved mourners, the word was spoken or the touch was given. He said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," as promptly and as confidently as He said, "Rise, take up thy bed and walk." He rebuked the storm as con fidently as He reproved the Pharisees. We may, therefore, rest upon Him with confidence. "I give unto them eternal life" is just as positive to us as was His order to the disciples, when the hungry, fainting multitude was about Him. The whole life of Jesus is such as to give us confidence in Him as the Lord our Saviour, able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him. When temptation comes to us, when duty seems too difficult, when faith trembles and hope is in the shadow, we may come to this Jesus and feel the inspiration of His faith and accept .His promise in grace, His assurance of His love in that definiteness, in that vast extent, that positiveness of nivino * 1 . ? autwvjiiiy, in wnicn tie always spoke while on earth. It is easier for the heaven and the earth to pass away than for one word- of His grace to fail. ON JOINING THE CHURCH. Personal goodness does hot qualify us for joining the church of Christ. A man must have a better, more enduring claim than that if he would be received into the church as a worthy associate of the other church members. Yet some good people are actually remaining outside the church today because they hold to the mistaken notion that goodness is the test for membera amp. /\ young man who gives freely to church work, but who refuses to connect himself with the church that he largely supports, said the other day that he had "never seen the time yet when he was good enough to join the church." He never will. Nor has he ever seen the time when any one else he knows was good enough to join the church. If, indeed, he thought he had attained to that standard of goodness, What assurance would he have that tomorrow he would continue to hold it? He misses the fact that his present conviction of personal unworthiness is his first qualification for church-membership. The next question is whether he believes that Jesus Christ is able to save that which was lost. If he does, then his only rational and honorable conw ic ,f .w s.vv. IIIUI3CII iinconcntionally and publicly into the keeping of.the Savior. This is "joining the church." The church is not a collection of "good" people; still less a collection of people who think they are good. It is a body of persons who know that they are^ in and of themselves, hopelessly evil, and who because of this conviction have thrown themselves on to the love and mercy of an omnipotent Savior, knowing that their only hope for salvation and half-way decency lies in him. They find comfort and strength in banding themselves together in the name of their common Savior.?S. S. Times.