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April 10, 1912 ] T H E P
the talents. A young man sat alone at his club,
with bowed head, while round about him the air
was filled with figures of others who had toiled,
while the opportunities of his life had been lost
and thrown away; and beneath was the simple
verse taken from our Lord's parable of the
talents: "And he went and hid his talent in a
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parables come driving right home into the heart
of our modern life as though they had been
spoken to-day. All these parable of our Lord's,
spoken nineteen hundred years ago, cast first of
all in his native setting in the East, but always
and everywhere alive, are only typical of the
universality and eternity of his living sympathies.
He is the world's still distant ethical
ideal. He is still the friend of all. The first
century Jew is the whole world's and all the
centuries' Saviour.)?Dr. R. E. Speer, "The
Deity of Christ."
A TEMPLE TO THE KING.
I saw a shining angel touch the earth;
And as his finger rested on the sod,
The great ball trembled with new life from God,
And every atom knew another hirth.
The crystal valleys flashed in radiance white.
The mountains, palest sapphire veined with gold,
As clear as morn the rainbow ocean rolled;
Within its depths a core of opal light
This field of battle, black with death and sin,
Strewn with the wreckage of an age-long strife,
Where once the pierced hands, through toil and din
Wrought out for God and man the perfect life,
To Him the Conqueror its homage brings,
Itself a temple to the King of kings.
Montevallo, Ala. Robert Todd Liston.
PETER: WAVE OR ROCK?
AMOS R. WEL.LS.
Peter's life found its key-note when Christ
transformed his name from Simon to Peter, "a
rock."
By nature he was a wave-man and not a rockman.
He was impetuous, as waves are. He
went hy fits and starts. He was driven by the
winds of passion. He was tossed hy the latest
whim. He was sensitive to any impulse, a man
in unstable equilibrium.
Some of the most striking episodes in his life
were connected with literal waves. One of them
was that burst of fickle faith, the walking on the
sea. It was jnst like the Wave-man to stride
forth over the black water. It was just like him,
also, to sink in it before he ha'd reached the
Saviour. His faith was wave-like. He launched
himself on the crest of it, and, presto! he was
floundering in the trough.
Another of these wave episodes was that
plunge into the sea, after the resurrection, to
meet his Lord on the shore. Stripped, as he was,
with one glad shout: "The Master!" Peter made
I the dash, heedless of boats, heedless of fish, eaerer
onlv beside this morninsr fire to regain the dis
( cipleship which he had Inst so lamentably beside
a certain fire at night. ITe was on the crest of
another wave, and it carried him farther than
the former one. To he snre, it did not lift him
above the shoals of jealousy. and in a short time
he wonld he casting nnhrotherly eyes on John:
bnt it did carry him to the Saviour's feet, and
into a renewal of his commission, "Feed My
sheen."
There was another wave, a maemifieent uprising
of faith, when Peter made the great confession
: "Thou art the Messiah." "And thou art
the Pock-man," was Christ's glad reply. Put
alas; in a moment the wave had receded, and the
Pock-man was so pitiahlv floundering in the
xrontrh of it that hp heard his Master cry, "Get
thep behind me. Satan!"
Thns it was ever, throngh the Gospel record.
Peter is honored with the vision of the transforation?another
wave crest; bnt, down he
voes with that pilly proposal abont the booths.
Peter assents to the feet-washing, "Not my feet
? M H f Ira #
RESBYTERIAN OF THE S <
only, but my hands and my head!" and in an
hour he is asleep amid the agonies of Gethsemane.
"Though all leave thee, never will I!"
had been his boast, and he dramatically flourishes
an ear-slashing sword under the olive-trees;
but in ten minutes he is scurrying away through
the darkness, and in an hour he is denying that
he ever knew his Lord. Up and down, down and
up, Simon and Peter, wave and rock!
None of us can afford to sneer at Simon Peter!
Each of us is a wave-man called to be a rockman.
Happy our lot if we make out as substantially
as he did. Water is a mineral, though a
liquid mineral. We see it solidified every winter.
And God's chemistry knows how to transform
the most fickle of men into men of eternal
adamant!?Bible Miniatures.
DISCOURAGEMENT FROM MISCONCEPTION.
BY THE REV. HENRY T. SCIIOL.L, D. D.
Elijah, on Mount Carmel, as sole champion
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ui ueiiuvau, uou. was ieariess ana courageous in
his encounter with the four hundred and fifty
prophets of Baal, and when handicapped, meanwhile,
by the hostility of A hah, and the chilling
indifference of multitudinous Israelites. In the
wilderness, to the south of Beer-sheba, with no
one at hand to antagonize him in will or in work,
he was manifestly discouraged. Other heroes of
faith, before him and since, have given way to
like discouragement. In some cases, this discouragement
has been the outcome of misconception.
Jacob supposed that Joseph was dead, and
that, through the unwisdom of his elder sons, he
was about to be parted from his beloved Benjamin.
In his misconception of matters he was
manifestly discouraged, and sadly said: "All
these things are against me." Not long thereafter,
when the matchless workings of divine
providence were clarified, he discovered that
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mese an inings wnicn evoKea disheartening
complaint, were really co-workers for liis good.
At the Red Sea, fugative Hebrews were hemmed
in by the angry waters, by the mountains,
and by the pursuing forces of Pharaoh; and they
voiced their discouraged cry unto Moses. Death
seemed imminent, and their attempted escape
from Egypt worse than folly. A few hours passed,
and their discouragement and their misconception
had departed together. The Red Sea
had been passed by them in safety; and their
dreaded pursuers had sunk like lead in the
mighty waters.
Naomi returned with Ruth to Bethlehem. In
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MU- v>tiiiiuMUi^ IClliaiUS UL 111*1
beloved husband, and of her two boys. Friends
in Bethlehem recognized her with difficulty
when, a foot-wearied widow, she re-entered the
village whence she had gone forth with a goodly
store of worldly possessions. In her discouragement,
through misconception, she said unto
them : "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara; for the
Almighty had hath dealt very bitterly with me.
I went out full, and Jehovah hath brought me
home again empty; why call ye me Naomi, seeing
Jehovah hath testified against me, and the A1
mighty hath afflicted me." Naomi was discouraged
then, for the chastening of Jehovah seemed
not to her to be joyous, but grievous. Ere long,
that chastening produced for her the peaceable
fruitage of righteousness; and when her grandson,
Obed, was born "the women said unto Na
omi, blessed be Jehovah, who hath not left thee
this day without a near kinsman, and let his
name be famous in Israel. And he shall be to
thee a restorer of life, and a nourisher of thine
old age; for thy daughter-in-law who loveth thee,
who is better to thee*than seven sons, hath borne
him."
Partly because of physicial exhaustion, and
largely because of misconception Elijah was dis
) U T H ?" " (417) 5 '
oouraged. "He requested for himself that he
might die, and said, It is enough, now, O Jehovah,
take away my life; for I am not better
than my fathers." Manifestly he thought his
mission to Israel had been a practical failure.
and that there was nothing more for him to do
that could make life worth living. This was a
double misconception, and he came to know better
when he communed with Jehovah in Iloreb.
With the correction of his misconception he went
forth dauntlessly, and dutifully to the accomplishment
of the new mission wherewith Jehovah
specifically charged him.
The misconceptions of Elijah were corrected
in the still small voice; not in the tornado, the
lightning flash, nor the earth-quake. Elijah had
come, indeed, as had the Hebrews of old, "unto
a mount that might be touched, and that burned
with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness;"
and it is presumable that, like Moses, he did "exceedingly
fear and quake." But the messaere
was not in these scenes and sounds of terror.
God spake in the gentle voice, the voce wherewith
the mother soothes and comforts her apprehensive
child. The voice was gentle, and the
message was helpful. Elijah was not alone in
Israel in the service of Jehovah. There were
seven thousand who were loyal to Jehovah, despite
their heathen environment. Nor was the
work of Elijah ingloriously finished. Jehovah
had still for him an important and complex mission
; and he strengthened his servant to go
forth courageously to its fulfillment.
Thus saith Jehovah to whole-hearted servants
of to-day: "As one whom his mother comforteth,
so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted."
He is made known to us as "the Father
of mercies, and the God of all comfort." He who
ministered to the physical invigoration of Elijah,
and dissipated his discouragement by motherly
consolation has done great things for other dutiful
ones in their distress, and has made them
glad. "The thing that hath been, it is that which
shall be." As Saint Paul tells us expressly:
"Whatsoever things were written aforetime
were written for our learning; that we, through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might
have hope."
East Palmyra, N. Y.
THE PROBLEMS OF TODAY.
(Continued from Page 3.)
Though here and there the shout of victory is
heard, let us understand that this life is a
battlefield! Let us leave guidance and results to
God, and let us fight!
"Fight on my soul till death
shall bring thee to thy God!"
No matter what we have done, no matter what
we have achieved?often foes and dangers will
assail us! The problems and difficulties, and
the opportunities that confront us are calls to
play the man! Our concern only is to be faithful.
"Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold
on eternal life!"
Every generation has had its problems. They
also have in their day faithfully stood for God,
are now victory-crowned! Our generation, our
own land his its problems?momentous problems!
The end is not yet. What is needed is personal,
persistent, heroic Christian service/
Martha's trouble was not devoting too much
trouble to domestic cares, but worrying over
them. She took her life too hard. She allowed
herself to be too "much cumbered in serving.
Hypocrisy is folly, for it is much easier, safer,
pleasanter to be the thing which a man seems
to appear than to keep up the appearance of
being the thing which he is not.?Lord Burleigh.