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RECORD OF CHRISTIAN WORK

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EDITORIAL NOTES.

The offer which we made in our April issue, to furnish readers of the RECORD OF CHRISTIAN WORK with reports of the Northfield meetings, known as "Northfield Echoes" at the reduced price of seventy-five cents, has been greatly appreciated. Orders have been received continually ever since our first notice appeared and we expect to have to renew our order. All remittances and orders should be addressed: Editor, "Record of Christian Work," E. Northfield, Mass,, and accompanied by blank, to be found on advertising page at the end of the magazine.

We have recently received a letter from a Pennsylvania minister enclosing a list of twenty-one names of members of his church who had subscribed to the RECORD OF CHRISTIAN WORK. The special attention given to Bible study and the helps afforded in devotional study had so commended the paper to the minister that he wished to place it in the homes of his congregation. Should others wish to form clubs in their churches we would be very glad to offer special club rates to ministers and to forward sample copies for their use.

Unquestionably the most difficult class to hold in the Sunday school is the young man from sixteen to twenty years of age. If his interest can be retained during this period, it is probable that the young man will always attended the Sunday school; but if the teacher fails to tide the class over these four years, it is likely that the loss will be permanent. For this reason Mr. Alling's article on THE YOUNG MAN AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL, that appears

in this number of our magazine, should have special weight, as his success as a Bible teacher has been with confessedly the most difficult class. To secure and hold six hundred young men year after year, recruiting them from every station and calling in life, certainly evinces a thorough familiarity with the needs and obstacles in Sunday school work that should constitute the teacher an authority on this subject.

We are enabled to announce another most important accession to the RECORD OF CHRISTIAN WORK in a new editorial department under the direction of Rev. R. A. Torrey. The need of direct Scriptural teaching on the Fundamental Doctrines has been a long felt need on the part of many Christians and no teacher is better fitted for this special subject than Mr. Torrey, who assumes a department under this topic in the July issue.

A young minister, writing to Zion's Herald, prophesies that in the next ten years, "God's law and personal responsibility for righteousness" are going to be emphasized by the Christian ministry more than they have in recent times. "Humanity," he says, "won't behave under a diluted gospel." There is great truth in this statement and it might be added that humanity is not well behaved by nature under any circumstances, "because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God." It is the old gospel of regeneration that the world needs today as much as it did in the day of Nicodemus.

The

It has often been said that the great trouble with most men is that they do not think. majority of men become mere machines and do their work by routine. And this is true also with Christian workers; many a man studies other men's thoughts, but never learns to appropriate them and make them his own.

In order to awaken the students at the Bible Institute to this fact, Mr. Moody recently offered a prize of five dollars to the young man who would send him the best thought that he had obtained during the month of April. The following was adjudged the best of those submitted for the prize:

"Men grumble because God puts thorns on roses. Wouldn't it be better to thank God that He puts roses on thorns?"

The following, taken from a recent sermon by Newell Dwight Hillis, D.D., so fully expresses our sentiment we reprint it:

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The Republic wages war not for vengeancewe leave our battleship to arbitration. We wage war not for the Monroe principle-we have waived that claim. We wage no war for territory, for no citizen asks for annexation. Our soldiers unsheath the sword not to slay, but to say to the slayers, "Here, stay thy murderous hand." They lift the shield not in defense of themselves, but in defense of a victim wounded and asking for mercy. ing absolutely nothing to gain, except the approval of the God of justice and of their own conscience, our knights go forth to say to peasants, "Henceforth in peace pass to thy vineyard"; to say to matrons and maidens, "Peacefully pass over an unstained threshold''; in the presence of starving children to say to brutal soldiers, "If any man offend one of God's little ones it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were cast into the sea." Therefore we commit our ships unto Him who holds the seas in the hollow of His hand. We commit our soldiers by land, who are to face swamp, fever, shot and shell, to Him who hath said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto Me." Our institutions, representing liberty, learning, law, religion, we commit to the God of mercy, who guides our hosts, and will lead all pilgrim bands unto the heights where justice and love do dwell, where at last all shall encamp and hang out the signals of final victory.

Rev. Henry C. McCook, D. D., has undertaken the organization of an association to be called the National Christian Relief Association, whose object and methods shall be similar to the Christian Commission that existed during the Civil War. The movement was inaugurated in Philadelphia and has for president Mr. John H. Converse of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, and for treasurer, Mr. George C. Thomas, of Drexel & Co.

It is to be hoped that there will be little need of the services of this body; but in case of a protracted war, it is to be trusted that it will prove as effective in looking after the religious welfare of our troops and caring for the comforts of the sick and wounded as the Christian Commission.

With the present number of the RECORD OF CHRISTIAN WORK, the Bible Notes begin the study of the Prophecy of Jeremiah. Few of the Old Testament characters began their

public ministry at so early an age as Jeremiah, and the onerous burdens of his calling weighed heavily upon him. Comparing the Prophet Isaiah with Jeremiah, Dr. Kitto describes him: "There is none of the prophets with whom we contract an acquaintance so close and sympathizing, by virtue of those very indications of the natural temper and spirit of the man, which are permitted to ripple the surface of his prophetic career, and which enable us to recognize, in one so gifted from heaven, a man and a brother. The cries by which he attests the frequent anguish of his spirit, find a response in our hearts. We pity him, feel for him, love him, and this is more than can be said with regard to Isaiah, whose prophetic rapture more absorbed the individual man, and left no room for any other than feelings of admiration and awe towards him; whereas Jeremiah enlists our personal interests towards him by his starts of natural passion, and speaks to our hearts in his wails of human pain."

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you." Matt. v. 43, 44.

These words of our Lord come to us with extraordinary force at this time and should remind us of our relations as Christians with those with whom we are at war. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," and no such rallying cry as "Remember the Maine" is worthy of a Christian nation; vengeance, even if deserved, is the divine prerogative and not to be entrusted to finite judgment. "Bless them.""do good to them," all these are the Christian duties of the present time.

While it is all right to pray for victory and a speedy cessation of warfare, let us not forget to pray for the nation with whom we are engaged Already thousands of homes have been desolated in Spain by the last three years of warfare and the inglorious struggle in Cuba has made widows and orphans of the innocent. In these days of bitterness and darkness let us remember our suffering enemies and pray that God may use our nation to the furtherance of His kingdom in the land of darkness and superstition.

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NOTE.- -These Readings began April, 1893, with the book of Genesis. It is expected that the whole Bible will be covered in nine years. Back numbers may be had at the rate of 50 cents a year. Each period of three years will be bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.50 per volume.

Wednesday, June 1st.

Jeremiah i. 1 to 3.

JUNE, 1898.

Verses 1 to 3. Seventy years had passed away after the great Isaiah had closed his prophetic work, before Jeremiah received his prophetic commission. Isaiah is supposed to have been put to death about the beginning of the reign of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah. Manasseh reigned fiftyfive years; his son Amon reigned two years, and was succeeded by his son Josiah, in the thirteenth year of whose reign Jeremiah received his call (2 Chron. xxxiii. 1, 20, 21 and 25). From Isaiah to Jeremiah, 698 B. C. to 629 B. C., there were but few prophetic messages for Israel. During Manasseh's long reign of fifty-five years, there is no record of any prophet speaking to the people. They had killed Isaiah, and God was silent during that generation. With the reign of good Josiah, prophets sprang up on every side. In 2 Kings xxii. 14 to 20, we have Hul. dah; in Jer. xxvi. 20, 21, we have Urijah; then as contemporary with Jeremiah, we have Ezekiel, Daniel, Zephaniah, Habakkuk and Obadiah. Jeremiah continued to prophecy eighteen years through the reign of Josiah; eleven years through the reign of Jehoiakim; eleven years through the reigns of Zedekiah; six months through the short reigns of three months each of Jehoaz and Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah -and probably about two years in Egypt, where he was carried after the fall of Judah. This would be forty-three years in all. All of these kings were sons and grandsons of Josiah. Jeremiah's home was Anathoth, not far from Jerusalem, one of the four cities given by the tribe of Benjamin to Aaron and his sons (Josh. xxi. 17 and 18). Of his father Hilkiah, we have mention in 2 Kings xxii., as having found the copy of the law of Moses in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, five years after Jeremiah's call. We there learn that his father was the high priest, a position that would have given dignity and authority to his son. See Jeremiah's relations to his home at Anathoth indicated by ch.xi.21, and ch. xxxii. 7 to 9. Jeremiah is mentioned in the Old Testament, in 2 Chron. xxxv. 25; 2 Chron.xxxvi. 21; Daniel ix.2, and Ezra i. 1; in the New Testament, Matt. ii. 17. There are some thirty-six quotations from Jeremiah in the New Testament, twenty-four of these in Revelation. All else that we know of him must be found in his own writings.

From Rev. Henry T. Sell:

The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah is a combina. tion of History, Biography and Prophecy. It marks the utter destruction of the Holy City and Sanctuary, and closes the period of the monarchy. It treats of the death agony of a nation, and that nation the chosen people of God. Jeremiah's mission was a sad one; "his office was like that of the minister obliged to accompany a criminal to the scaffold." Judah had disobeyed God's law and turned a deaf ear to all invitations and warnings to return; the end was approaching. Jeremiah was of an emotional and sensitive nature, and his work might have caused the stoutest heart to shrink from the task. His book contains abundant notices of how he lived and the treatment he received. He was commanded not to marry and to form no social ties. Pashur, the priest, caused him to be brutally treated and put in the stocks (ch. xx.); King Jehoiakim throws his roll of prophecy into the fire (ch. xxxvi.). Never did a man who loved his country and his God have more indignities heaped upon him for faithfulness to both.

Text for the day, verse 2.

Thursday, June 2d.

Jeremiah i. 4 to 10.

Call, consecration and commission. Verses 4 and 5. "Before I formed thee I knew thee." These are remarkable words for meditation. God thought of me before I had an existence. This is true of every member of Christ's spiritual body: "Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. i. 4); "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them" (Ps. cxxxix. 16). "Known, sanctified and ordained," before he was born to be God's messenger to men. We have the same words of John the Baptist (Luke i. 13-17). See also Gal. i. 15 as to Paul. God knew me before I was born, and marked me out as one to be called, and so the call came, and I have heard and obeyed it! If Rom. viii. 28-31 does not mean this, what does it mean?

Verse 6. So Moses felt after forty years with God in the desert (Ex. iv. 10); so Solomon when God called him to the throne (1 Kings iii. 7), and so all

men must feel whose call comes direct from God. "Fools rush in where angels dare not tread," but it is difficult to conceive how even a fool could have the Omnipotent God revealed to him and not be humbled. It is a great responsibility to speak for God, "And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God" (Heb. v. 4). Do not be influenced by men, by father, or mother, or dearest friend, but be sure if God has marked you out, your call will come from Him in a way that you will know it is from Him.

Verses 7 to 9. Here we have the consecration following the call. We are reminded of Isaiah's similar experience in Isa. vi., also of Paul's consecra. tion in Acts ix. 17, and of the promise of our Lord Jesus to the church in Acts i. 8. It is fulfilled to all who trust the blood and who are willing to obey the command given to Jeremiah: "Go to all I send thee, speak what I command thee," and have faith in the promise, "I am with thee to deliver thee." So Matt. xxviii. 18, 19. As you go, you will get.

Verse 10. This is the prophet's commission. So the preaching of the gospel by us, is a "pulling down" and a "building up," foolishness to them that perish, and the power of God to them that are saved (1 Cor. i. 18).

From A. Monod:

We can have no idea what we should be able to do if we were completely lost in accord with God; if we sought no will but His; if not a word of our mouths, not a beat of our hearts, not a thought of our minds, not a movement of our souls or bodies but were turned to Him obediently in the spirit of Samuel, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." There have been men who have shown what a man can do-a Luther, a Calvin, a St. Paul, a Mosesthese men have shown what a man can do when he only seeks to obey the will of God.

"The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown
In deepest adoration bends;
The weight of glory bows him down

The most when most his soul ascends;
Nearest the throne itself must be

The footstool of humility."-Montgomery. "Humility is the truest abstinence in the world. It is abstinence from self-love and self-conceit, the hardest and severest abstinence."

Text for the day, verse 6.

Friday, June 3d.

Jeremiah i. 11 to 19.

Verse 11. "What seest thou?" A man who is to speak for God must see something to speak about. "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know His will, and see that Just One, For thou shalt be His witness unto all men, of what thou hast seen and heard" (Acts xxii. 14,15). "What seest thou?" O brother, about to preach to men of the unsearchable riches of Christ, what do you see in Christ for yourself?

Verse 12. For the meaning of what Jeremiah saw, see Num. xvii. 6-8. Aaron's rod was the rod of an almond tree and it budded, blossomed and brought

forth fruit, in one night. So the things that God should reveal to Jeremiah, of the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah and the fall of Jerusalem, were to be quickly accomplished. The Jews have great reverence for the almond tree; in countries where it flourishes, modern Jews carry a flowering bough of it to their synagogues on the feast days.

Verses 13 to 16. "The swelling waters of a flood are a usual type of an overwhelming calamity (Ps. lxix. 1, 2), and especially of a hostile invasion Isa. viii. 7 and 8); but this is a flood of scalding waters, whose very touch is death. The caldron represents 'the great military empires upon the Euphrates.... The tide of passion and carnage is sure finally to pour itself upon Judah. The caldron looks ominously towards Jerusalem, but it has not yet overturned; and if Judah repent, God may make it exhaust its fury upon itself (Nineveh and Babylon being in conflict), or a defeat instead of victory at Charchemish may alter the whole tide of event. But if Judah remains impenitent, it must become the prey of whosoever conquers in the plains of Mesopotamia."

Verses 17 to 19. "Speak unto them all that I command thee." Messages of condemnation and judg ment, and denunciation of ruin and coming wrath. were to be the burden of Jeremiah's utterance, during his forty years ministry. Men would hate him and fight against him, but in the strength of God be was to go on, and he should be upheld. "I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." Princes. priests and people, should not prevail against him. From Matthew Henry:

God excites and encourages Jeremiah to apply himself with all diligence and seriousness to his business. A great trust is committed to him; he is sent, in God's name, as a herald at arms, to proclaim war against his rebellious subjects; for God is pleased to give warning of His judgments before hand, that sinners may be awakened to meet Him by repentance, and so turn away His wrath, and that, if they do not, they may be left inexcusable. With this trust Jeremiah has a charge given him: "Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins; free thyself from all these things that would unfit thee for, or hinder thee in, this service; buckle to it with read ness and resolution; and be not entangled with doubts about it." He must be quick-Arise, and lose no time; he must be busy-Arise, and speak unto them in season, out of season; he must be boldBe not dismayed at their faces, as before. v. 8. In a word, he must be faithful; it is required of ambassadors that they be so.

Text for the day, verse 19.

Saturday, June 4th.

Jeremiah ii. 1 to 6.

Verses 1 to 3. "I remember for thy sake, the kindness of thy youth." Very precious to God are the manifestations made by His people of their trust in Him and their love towards Him. Very sweet in His ears are their songs of praise, whet with full hearts they celebrate the deliverances He has vouchsafed to them. In Exodus xv.1 and 13 we

Daily Scripture Readings.

have Israel engaged in such a song. "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation." The Spirit of God moved the people as they thus sang on the banks of the Red Sea after the destruction of Pharaoh's army. Again, in Ex. xxxv., we have a beautiful picture of Israel moved by God's Spirit to offer willingly for the Tabernacle, and full of love and joy as they brought their gifts. With all their failures and sins in the wilderness, it was very instructive to note that, eight hundred years after, the Lord does not speak of the sins and failures, but of the rare manifestations of faith and love. You did from the heart praise me, and exalt my name; you did believe in me, and trust me. I can never forget you for the sake of those good times "when thou wentest after me in the wilderness." Though Israel might forget their espousals, Jehovah could not. "Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (Ex. xix. 5 and 6). Who ever touches this people must deal with God. "Evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord." "They that strive with thee shall perish" (Isa. xli. 11).

Verses 4 to 6. As a wife forsaking a husband who had been true, so Israel had forsaken the Lord, and He challenges them to show cause for their action, and upbraids them for their ingratitude in forgetting what He had done for them in the past.

From Joseph Parker:

If the sword of judgment fell upon the criminal in the very act of his transgression, superficial thinkers would at once be cleared of all doubts as to the reality of a superintending and judicial Providence. But they make no room for mercy; they do not see how divine patience may be equal to divine righteousness; they think the punishment of the sinner a greater deed than his possible salvation. Punishment might be instantaneous, but salvation requires long processes for its accomplishment. How noble is the mercy of God compared with the fitful wrath of man! God indeed does pronounce judgment upon evil, and shows Himself hotly angry against it in all its varieties and moods; at the same time He is faithful to Himself; He promised that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and He associates even wickedness itself with the vast scheme of remedy, amelioration and redemption, for the full working out of which immeasurable time may be required.

Text for the day, verse 2.

Sunday, June 5th.

Jeremiah ii. 7 to 12.

Verse 7. God's goodness to them had been shown in delivering them out of Egypt, bringing them through the wilderness, and bringing them into the goodly land. "The land of Carmel," it is called. This is God's infinite goodness to all who are called by the gospel now. "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 26). "Heirs with God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ" (Rom. viii. 17). "Having therefore these promises, dearly be

loved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor. vii. 1). It was a sad charge to bring against Israel, "when ye entered ye defiled my land." All that belongs to God must partake of the character of God, so the land being God's it was a holy land and was defiled by aught that was unholy. If we be truly the people of God, we must be a holy people: "Because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Pet. i. 16). Is any reader claiming to be in the land and yet living so as to defile the land? Let us seek grace that this be not so.

Verse 8. Priests, pastors and prophets all had part in the defilement of the land. Set as shepherds to guard and restrain the flock and keep them within the fold, they had all failed. Priests had allowed the barriers of the law to fall down; pastors had themselves transgressed instead of keeping others from transgression; prophets, instead of giving God's warnings, had prophesied the smooth things of Baal.

Verses 9 to 12. "Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?" This is a striking question. Heathen nations remained faithful to their false deities, but Israel turned from the true God! Not until Christianity was promulgated were nations known to abandon national religion, and give up their gods. No wonder the words are so emphatic in verse 12.

From C. H. Spurgeon:

We forget Christ because there are so many other things around us to attract our attention. "But,' you say, "they ought not to do so, because though they are around us, they are nothing in comparison with Jesus Christ." But do you know, dear friends, that the nearness of an object has a very great effect upon its power! The sun is many, many times larger than the moon, but the moon has a greater influence upon the tides of the ocean than the sun, simply because it is nearer, and has a greater power of attraction. So I find that a little crawling worm of the earth has more effect upon my soul than the glorious Christ in heaven; a handful of golden earth, a puff of fame, a shout of applause, a thriving business, my house, my home, will affect me more than all the glories of the upper world; yea, than the beatific vision itself: simply because earth is near, and heaven is far away.

Text for the day, verse 9.

Monday, June 6th.

Jeremiah ii. 13 to 18.

Verse 13. As when they rejected Christ and chose Barabbas (Acts iii. 13, 14), their sin was shown in what they denied, and in what they desired, so here, they forsake Jehovah, "the fountain of the living waters," and seek to supply their need by making "broken cisterns that can hold no water." God known in Christ is indeed a "fountain of living water." He satisfies the soul and makes fruitful and glad the life. Yet men reject this wonderful Christ, who so fully meets the need of sinful men, and turn to speculations, and philosophies, to sophistries and spiritualism, and all the vain delusions of man's disordered intellect, and the devil's ma

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