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January 10, 19121 THE!
CONCERNING THE CATECHISM.
Whatever decisions the ministers may reach
as to the final adjustment of preaching on the
Ileidleberg Catechism one thing is certain. It
is that the children of the Reformed Church
should in this period as in the past, be taught
by constant repetition the beautiful sentences
of that wonderful compendium of truth. From
the first to the last question the Heidelberg
Catechism is perfect in its simplicity, sweetness
and piety. Those who pity children for being
obliged to commit the Catechism to memory
might equally pity them for being compelled
in the secular school, to study geometry,
physics and Latin. The secular studies demand
mental effort While i?i
in vv^coo yj-i it (i
many students find their work difficult, and
during intervals of immaturity would drop it
if they could. A day dawns when they look
hack over the hard work with genuine gratitude.
Everything has suddenly become illuminated
and easy, and memory retains all that is
hest of what has been perhaps laboriously
learned. Members of the church militant require
in these days weapons of proof against
foes within and foes without. There are always
those connected closely or loosely with
the Church who are not entirely loyal. They
are half-hearted Christians. There are always
those outside who have no use for the Bible, no
interest in missions, and no belief in the sincerity
of professors. We are told in the Scriptures
that the disciples should be ready to give
a reason to every man that asks for the faith
that is in him. The child who committed the
Catechism to memory will, when grown to manhood
and womanhood, be able to give a reason
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- leu aaRcu. >??i eaiiuui get along without
creeds. A creed is faith formulated. The
ministers in preaching may easily, take the
spirit of the Catechism instead of the question
and answer, and thus absolutely fulfill every
needed requirement of the situation. To place
the Catechism above the Bible has never been
surely, the disposition of the Reformed Church,
but let the children be taught the Catechism
word for word. It would do them little harm
should they know the "Westminster Catechism,
too, both being identical in doctrine.?Margaret
E. Sangster, in Christian Intelligencer.
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Again the cry is made that the "working
girls must he provided with deceut dance
halls," that "you may provide all the libraries
and reading rooms you want, but they will be
deserted for the dance halls," and that "dancing
is the girl's chief joy." These were the
statements made by women intensely interested
and intensely in earnest in the work for the
uplift of working girls, women who have
studied the question and attempted various
solutions; but one cannot help wondering how
they hope to not merely establish, but maintain
a "decent" dance hall. It might start well,
hut no power on earth could maintain it as a
place of harmless amusement. The startling
article on "The Daughters of the Poor," published
recently in "McClure's Magazine," tells
of the use made of the dance halls by the panders
to vice, and we may be sure that so promising
a field as a dance hall under the seal of
respectability would not be over-looked by
them, and that they would be sure to find some
way to make it contribute to their horrible
gain. No public dancing place can be kept
respectable, and the throwing open of the
school houses for such purpose, as is suggested,
would make the whole mistaken plan one of
the most dangerous and disastrous that can be
imagined.?Lutheran Observer.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
THE CROSS
Ood laid upon my back a grievous load,
A heavy cross to bear along the road,
I staggered on, till lo one weary day
An angry lion leaped across my way.
I prayed to Qod, and swift, at his command,
The cross became a weapon In my hand,
tt slew my raging enemy, and then
(t leaped upon my back, a cross again.
1 faltered many a league, until at length,
Groaning, I fell and found no further strength.
1 cried: O God, I am so weak and lame;
And swift the cross a winged staff became.
It swept me on till I retrieved my loss,
Then leaped upon my back again, a cross.
T reached a desert, on Its burning tract,
I still preserved the cross upon my back.
No shade was there, and In the burning sun,
I sank me down and thought my day was done;
But God's grace works many a sweet surprise?
The cross became a tree before my eyes.
I slept, awoke and had the strength of ten.
Then fell the cross upon my back again.
And thus, through all my days, from that time to this,
The cross, my burden, has become my bliss.
Nor shall I ever lay my burden down,
Till God shall one day make my Cross a Crown.
?Author Unknown.
"JESUS PAID IT ALL."
A faint image of the grace of Christ in forgiving
our debts may he seen in an incident in
the life of Henry Clay. The great orator, at
one time of his life, was burdened with a debt
of $10,000. due to a bank in Kentucky. Certain
political friends of Mr. Clay raised a sufficient
sum of money and quietly paid off the debt
: A- 1 ' ... ?
mtuuui sn^iug aiiyuiuig to mm aoout it. in
utter ignorance of the fact, Mr. Clay went to
the hank and said to the cashier: "I have called
to see you in reference to that debt of mine
to the bank." "You don't owe us anything,"
replied the cashier. "Why! How am I to understand
you?" "Well, a number of your
friends have contributed and paid off that debt
?you do not owe this bank one dollar." Tears
rushed into Mr. Clay's eyes, and being unable
to speak, he walked away.
Mr. Clay felt the joy of a great deliverance
?a deliverance from a galling debt. And deliverance
is the key-note in the "new song" of
all the blood-bought millions on earth and in
Heaven. "Jesus Paid it All." Let this beautiful
hymn ring all over the land from sea to
sea:
Jesus paid it all?
S All the debt I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed me white as snow."
He who carries about a face that says: "Can
I serve you?" who maintains an aspect of sincere
sympathy with everybody's pleasures and
sorrows, triumphs or failures; who listens to the
tedious tale that unloads some breaking heart;
who shakes hands as if he meant, and who really
does mean, "God bless you," who gives hope
without hope or wish for any return; who sees
no alien behind ignorance or crime, color or
race, but always a fellow creature, and limits
his charity to no sect and no condition; who loses
no chance of rendering a small but needed kindness,
and counts no day happy in which he has
not blessed some fellow creature with an unexpected
and unclaimed service; who quenches
wrath by his meekness, and banishes irritation
bv his Re! f-nnntrnl -roVirk tolroc. +V.? ??? 1 ' -
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when it is the just one; who defends the absent
or protects the weak; who calls things by their
proper names at the cost of his own reputation,
when virtue and vice, right and wrong are universally
confounded; who is brave among social
crowds and politicial poltroons?he is surely
making himself the servant of humanity, and a
chief among God's children and Christ's followers.?Ex.
4- *
TJ T H (29) f 5 '
WHAT MAKES THE STRAIN? <&?',
R. POOUE.
The strain of the ministry does not consist in
of the performance of the multitudinous duties,
that devolve upon a busy pastor, however exact
ing and trying these may be. The minister's
work is no heavier than that of the business man
or the newspaper man. The mental tell of preparing
three or four addresses a week is no greater,
possibly not so great, as that of writing a
brilliant editorial for one of our newspapers,
every day in the week, week in and week out.
The work of attending to the business and executive
affairs of the church is not at all so onerous
as that which devolves upon the head of any of
our great financial or business institutions. The
preparation of these addresses, the executive
work of the church, the pastorial calls he will
have to make and the performance of all other
duties which devolves upon him, make his life a
busy one. But none of these, nor all of them
combined, constitute the real strain of a minis
ter's life. Paul hints at it in a mimber of passages.
Tn one where he speaks of carrying on
his mind and heart, the care of all the Churches.
Tn another, where we read: "My little children,
for whom I am again in agony, until Christ be
moulded in you." And again: "I have great
heaviness and continual sorrow." No man who
knows what Paul meant when he used these
words, needs to he told what it is that makes the
work of a faithful minister onerous and exacting.
The minister should make no special plea
for sympathy and help on the ground of the burden
of his work. TTis members have their cares
and burdens as well as he. Yet no minister is
asking for their prayers, that he may be faithful,
that he may not shirk his task, that he may have
strength and grace for all his duties. This much
at least, he is entitled to.?Ex.
*t
THE LURE OF THE GOSPEL.
The lure of the gospel is the lure not of wages,
not of leisure, not of prestige, but the lure of
thin <r< to ha rlnno whinV? IP 1 ~ ?
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world would be left a wreck along the shores
of the miverse. If the gospel be not utterly
necessary, it is utterly unnecessary. There is
no half-way permission or commission to this
Christ apostate. Man is so great and so lost
in the theory of Jesus as to lift all that touches
him into the supreme passion of the world. Unless
a man feels this like the back of a sword or
the fierce jab of a spear, he must not preach. He
is not big enough to preach to whom this Gospel
is not supremely great. Except a man's ministry
be momentous, he himself is trivial. If a
body kept a lighthouse on a bleak coast, shut up
of storms and prisoner of dangers, could his
manual toil become bitter or commonplace, if
so be that the keeper knew that on his fidelity
to keep the lamp lit depended the safety of a
fleet of ships? The days might be wintry, dark,
monotonous, the coast might be one barren
dreary stretch of sand, the lighthouse might
shiver to the waves' onset crash on crash, the
ice-floe might cinch around slow and ruthless,
but these would only clamp his lips a little
firmer for his resolute task, to keep brave ships
safe from grim catastrophe. The value of his
deed makes his whole life an epic achievement.
What thinlr vnn * * *
? w...mu ^vuj cci^aci, i?i your UlSK SUD*
lime??Bishop Quayle.
Suppose we endeavor to translate the Christ
of the past into the Christ of the present; the
Christ of theology into the Christ of ethics; the
Christ of ritual into the Christ of practice; the
Christ of the church into the Christ of the
kingdom; the Christ of yesterday into the
Christ of today; the Christ of today into the
Christ of to-morrow.?George Dana Boardman.