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April 24, 19121 1 H E P
CHINA'S CRY FOR BREAD.
Behold! A nation starving lies
Prone upon a blood-stained earth!
War, famine, pestilence stalk the land,
A vast Empire in darkness held?
Consumed with hunger their bodies waste,
And without hope their souls depart
Without our God?the Bread of Life!
With outstretched hands, withered with want,.
Eyes eloquent with pleading and longing,
They await the hand of the "Jesus Man."
Ix>! these whom Satan hath bound theBe many years,
Now bravely are struggling for freedom and light.
Awake! ye soldiers of the Cross,
On to the rescue, a great victory win!
We hear them cry, not to gods of stone,
But to hearts of flesh, with pity touched.
Helpless and dying, body and soul.
Now to the Christian's God they turn,
And shall we say them nay? ,
Should this new born faith be thus abused.
When the crisis is o'er and opportunity lost
Then too late to say: "If we had but known."
Their faith abuse, hate and distrust will cry,?
"Our pleading for bread, they heard us not,
And now this Jesus, we will none of Him."
?Carrie Primrose.
ARE SAINTS TO ENJOY THE SONGS OF
THE UNIVERSE?
BY TIIE REV. FREDERICK CAMPBELL, SCD.
That we are going somewhere when we
die is generally recognized. Of our friends
we say " mey nave passed away; they are
gone; they the in the other world." Ten
words are used of locality when Christ says,
"In my Father's house are many mansions; I
go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and
prepnre a place for you, I will come again and
eceive you unto myself that, where I am,
there ye may be also."
After Christ's own death and burial, He was
raised with a body which was material, which
could be touched and recognized, with which
Me came and went and ate; of which He said,
"A spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see
\f? )..?/. >> UTIlL /LJ- TT _ 1-t. tt
I.*** novc. vv il11 mis ne ascenaeu 10 Heaven,
where the dying Stephen saw Him and
asked to he received to Him. There it was the
hope of all His disciples to join Him, when
raised from their graves and, with those then
living, "caught up together to meet the Lord
in the air." "So shall we be forever with the
Lord." It is true that Paul said, "It is raised
a spiritual body;" but that does not mean an
immaterial body, which would not be a body
at all, but a body in full harmony with the
immortal spirit inhabiting it.
What the Bible teaches of angels agrees with
this. Angels have repeatedly visited this
world from other realms. When they did, they
appeared just- like man, though of superior
power, glory and dignity. They walked,
talked and ate; they flew hither; and they de- 1
parted to the regions from which they had
come. When Christ was born, the heavens appeared
full of them, praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest!"
We conclude, then, that there are other (
worlds. But Astronomy itself teaches this, (
telling us that every star in the heavens is a
sphere like our earth or our sun. Hence we
infer that the Heaven of Scripture is the
heavens of Astronomy, "that which is lifted
up," as the word means in both Hebrew and
English, the uplifted vault of the stars, shin- ,
ing over our heads every night, and equally so
hy day, though dimmed by the nearer glory
<>f our own sun. (
leaving out the five visible planets, every
8tar is a sun, of which we see 8,000 with the
naked eye; hut the largest refractor telescopes i
multiply these to 100,000,000; and the com- (
b/oed telescope and photographic plate in- j
crease these to one million million. What are <
they fort Just for a few interested ones to <
RESBYTERIAW OF THE SO
look at? Just for God to delight in? We can
infer only from what we find nearest. Suns
are for planets; planets are for the life that
depends on suns; life is for intelligent beings
made in God's image. We may therefore believe
that the angels are inhabitants of other
worlds, and that they are destined to receive
us when we are through with this world.
Just where, then, is the future home of God's
people to oeT Un which star are we to reside?
Maedler sought to make the brilliant Alcyone
of the Pleiades the center of the universe, from
which some inferred that there is the home
of the soul. But that would be to dwell "amid
everlasting burnings," and, even if that were
possible, would confine us once more to a single
world, to the exclusion of hundreds of millions
of other orbs. Far more reasonable is it
to believe that glorified saints are to enjoy the
free range of the universe, adapted no longer
to one world but to all, endowed no longer
with feeble locomotion but with the power to fly
swiftly from world to world, seeing no longer
through a glass darkly, but face to face, forever
studying the works of God, learning infinitely
more of our Creator, and gloriously
employed in the high and holy interests of his
universe.
Think of the wideness of creation, which
Professor Ritchey is preparing to enlarge 300
times our present knowledge; think of the
many mansions, whose million million already
known are but the beginning; think of the
eternal ages, in which the universe need never
run down, but, by processes of renewal, will
declare itself evermore the 14 new heavens and
the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."
it is a glorious fact that, by means of the
redemptive work of Jesus Christ, we may, as
we must, be made "meet for the inheritance
of the saints in light." This is the one world
into which sin entered, and which therefore required
the blood of the Son of God to effect its
redemption. As for those who neglect so great
salvation, let us speak of their fate with bated
breath, for they shall be "cast into outer
darkness."?New Yrrk Observer.
MOTHERS.
The love of the mother's heart never dies.
It is imperishable. It is intensely interesting
to trace it. Behold the young lad going away
fwArr, ?1-- /-1-U XT .1 ~
iium numcj even in me v^oiu iNonn, in scotland,
where love lives less upon the lip than
in the heart, at such a time it flows forth into
crystalline speech. When Walter Inglis
went away from his moorland home in
Brothershiels, his mother went with him to
see him on the way. Over the lonely moor
they went, and when the time for parting came,
mother and son kneeled down upon the heath,
and the mother prayed for the son, commending
him to God, who alone could keep him
from the evil powers about him. "Now, my
dear bairn, if you go astray, you will bring
down your old mother's gray hairs with sorrow
to the grave." How grand is that! Nothing
on earth grander. What a fine subject for
a picture! The Scotch mother's farewell. This
is not a singular case, but it is a typical one.
Robert Moffat's leaving Inverkeithing for
Chester had in it the same religious concern
for his welfare on the part of his mother. She
engaged him to read a chapter of the Bible
every day, which eventually turned to his salvation.
Dr. Thomas McCrie, when going to '
Edinburgh University, not being at that time
a Christian, his mother accompanied him to a 1
distance, and ere fehe parted from bim. led him I
into a field and prayed for bin) and gave him '
munsels for his guidance. That prayer 1
charged his iif*.?Ex. 1
DTH (465) 5
PRAYER.
In our prayer, our Heavenly Father, we desire
to be consciously grateful for the opportunities
this new day affords us of being helpful to each
other. The inspiration so to act comes from Thee.
Thou art the constant and never-failing Helper
of thy children. May we be mindful of the fact
that our noblest service to another may not be in
aims, but a look of encouragement, a word of
cheer. Enable us to be not too sensible of others'
faults and failings. Assist us to see and magnify
the good in other lives. To this end may we
be to others such examples in conduct and character
as we would have them be to us. We offer
and ask all in the spirit of Jesus. Amen.?Leroy
W. Coons.
THE PASTOR IN THE HOUSE OF SORROW.
The pastor is the comfort-bearer to the house
of sorrow. He lives and ministers under the
command of his Lord, "Comfort ye my people."
His heart goes out to those into whose home
the angel of death has entered. And yet there
is no part of his ministry more delicate or that
requires more prudence. The heart is so very
tender under bereavement that even words
of sympathy may be painful. He may be
without personal experience of sorrow and
knows not yet the best way to the heart. Someil.
U . -1- i* ?
minis ne ieeis mat tne sorrow is so great that
he fears to intrude and is silent. But he
should remember the special object of his ministry
to the afflicted. He should school himself
in the sympathy of sorrow, so that even if
inexperienced, he may be able to speak a word
in season.
But commonly it is not many words that are
needed. Rather the quiet expression of sympathy,
with a short reading or appropriate
prayer. It is to be assumed that mourners are
open to the words of Divine comfort from the
scriptures and to simple, earnest supplication
to the God of all grace and consolation.
At the same time those to whom the visit
is made should remember that the pastor often
feels constrained to wait until there is some intimation
that such ministration is desired. It
is to he assumed on the part of the sorrowing
that the pastor comes as the bearer of consolation.
He should be made to feel that his prayers
are desired and longed for. If there seems
to he hesitation, open the way by a request for
prayer. Quietly hand him a Bible and ask
for prayer and you will find there was a heart
full of sympathy waiting for this opening of
the way. It is thus that perfect sympathy is
established.?Exchange.
If a man is not willing to go to Heaven by
the way of Calvary he can not go at all. Many
men want a religion in which there is no
cross, but they can not enter Heaven that way.
if ? A - i- i ' - - ? -
n ?re 10 ue aiscipies ot Jesus Christ we
must deny ourselves and take up our cross
and follow him. Do not think you will have no
battles if you follow the Nazarene; many battles
are before you. But men do not object
to a battle if they are confident that they will
have the victory, and, thank God, every one
of us may have the victory if we will.?D. L.
Moody.
To many there comes no Mount of TransfitmrflfiAn
K11+ * 11
..0 uuu uiug jb ior an ine speecn ot
the Son. If the majority are not called to
some mount of vision, where they may behold
the glory as the three men beheld it, yet to every
soul amid the multitudes of the redeemed
he speaks in every passing day. God forbid
that the babel of earth's voices should drown
the accents of his "still, small voice."?G.
Campbell-Morgan.