many a dagger of interrogation thrust at him by this method of reply. His stories were often rough and crude; they smacked of the farm, and the frontier, and the county courthouse; but there was always an irresistible point to them, and now and then an almost infinite pathos. Men went away from him rebuked, confounded, captured. Men who could batter down argument with argument, men who could listen to and resist his logic, who could fling back challenging questions and keep up a running fire of hot discussion, could not stand before one of his irresistible stories. Into these were often crowded argument, illustration, tenderness, appeal; and they frequently silenced where they did not convince. What Lincoln's method was in a crude, crass, but often effective way, Christ's method was in a finely fibered and flawless way. "Who is my neighbor?" asked a lawyer. Jesus did not pick him out. He told the parable of the Good Samaritan. He did not define the limits of neighborhood. But his story made each one of us kin to any one in need, and showed that the question savored of narrowness and ought never to be asked. Men have known ever since that if they found anywhere a man with the blood of the human race in his veins and in need of help, no matter of what race or sect or caste or color, they were to be a neighbor to him after the deed and the spirit of the Good Samaritan. All the moral dissertations of the centuries have not put that lesson in the world's heart like this gospel story.

Again, the question of Peter, "Lo, we have left all and followed thee; what, then, shall we have?" brought out the story of the laborers, all hired for a penny a day, tho at different hours, and each getting simply his penny; thus teaching that it is acceptance of a condition and not amount of toil that secures us heaven.

"Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" they asked Him. And seizing a common incident of Eastern life, He answered: "Is it lawful to help an ass out of the pit on the Sabbath, and wicked to help a man out?"

Incidents, anecdotes, word-scenes, - they are better than arguments. They illuminate, they translate truth into life, they take abstractions and put flesh and blood on them. They do not antagonize. They never fight. They win their way. Logic cudgels. Parables exhibit. We ought to have more of them, and have them handy, and learn to

grow facile in their use. Many a question can best be answered by a story.

Another feature in Christ's method of answering questions was this: His answer embodied a principle rather than a rule. The letter was nothing much to Him; the spirit was everything. Tithing of mint He by no means condemned; but upon the weightier matters He threw the infinite emphasis. Men came to Him asking questions in arithmetic. And their figures seemed impertinences in the spirit and sweep of His answers. They asked for some technical and formal rule. He gave them a great principle. One of the scribes inquired, "Master, which is the first commandment of all?" Christ did not begin to weigh the commandments, one by one, to see which was greatest. He did not pick out the first, or the third, or the tenth, and say, “For reasons this is the greatest." He said: "The first commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." That is, the second is also first. And there is no first, no second. Love is all! Love is the fulfilment of the whole law. Be not concerned about which commandment is greatest, lest you thereby miss the spirit that alone makes it possible to obey at all.

So when Peter asks the Lord, "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?" Jesus replies, "Not until seven times, but until seventy times seven"; that is, an unlimited number of times; that is, make no count of forgivenesses in the possession of the spirit of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a sum in addition or multiplication. "How many times!" When a man begins to count the times he has pardoned, the true spirit of forgiveness is dead in him.

"Who is my neighbor?" Does Christ answer this question by describing a neighbor, pointing him out and naming his characteristic? No. That is mechanical, artificial, arithmetic again. He exhibits and illustrates the neighborly spirit. And the Good Samaritan makes the whole world kin.

Have we not here a very wholesome lesson as to the method of dealing with a very large class of inquirers? A good deal of fog in the field of Christian casuistry would be dissipated if we answered inquirers with an illuminating principle rather than a formal rule. None the less, but rather the more, would there be abstention from matters of doubtful ex

pediency, if questions concerning them were answered after this method of the Master.

Another feature of Christ's method of meeting inquiry was this: He made much of the Word of God. He sent the questioner to the Scriptures. One would think He might have drawn upon His own resources. He had unsearchable riches of wisdom and knowledge. And the use of these would have helped to establish His claims, and could certainly have been made overwhelming in every case of inquiry. But He met question of friend and foe, of wavering faith and caviling unbelief, with the Scriptures. "To the law and the testimony," was His constant word. You ask for my credentials, He said to the unbelieving Jews. Search the Scriptures; they testify of me." And to answer the wondering query of doubting disciples, "beginning from Moses, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Whose wife shall she be? asked the skeptical Sadducees. And Christ's reply was: "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures. Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?" "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" said the lawyer, tempting Him. "What is written in the law?" was the prompt reply. "How readest thou?" And when the lawyer read the law, Jesus said, "This do, and thou shalt live." "Why do the disciples that which is not lawful on the Sabbath?" was the challenging question of the Jews, as the disciples plucked ears of corn. "Have ye never read what David did?" was the ready answer; and back they were sent to the oracles. "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause?" asked His enemies, tempting Him. And He answered," Have ye not read?" To the Scriptures! What is written? Did ye never read?" How commonly did He thus reply. Not much reasoning; little theological discussion; and no philosophy. What saith the Word?

Here, as often elsewhere, Moody was right. In this respect at least he followed Christ's method. The positively best answer to any question is an "It is written." In our replies to inquirers let us have less of human opinion and speculation and more of “Thus saith the Lord." Let us open the Book and find the page and read the words!

This cursory study of Christ's method of answering questions has disclosed another feature: that He looked at the spirit of the questioner even more than at the letter of the question.

He could.

Often we can not. His omniscient eye swept the field of motive. He knew all that was in every man that came to Him. How little we know. But how desirable that we should know-know something, at least, of the posture of the questioner's mind. Hence the need of turning inquirer and ascertaining the occasion of the question, the motive behind it, the attitude toward truth, whether doubt is born of fear that a thing may be false, or of a wish that it were false, before we make answer. Diagnosis before prescription is as good in causistry as in therapeutics.

See, now, how Christ devoted His answer to the spirit of the man who asked Him a question, meeting the real need of the inquirer first, and making the letter of the inquiry second and subordinate.

Some came to Him with idle curiosity. "Are there few that be saved?" asked one. Did Christ go into a calculation, counting up infants and covering centuries? No! The inquirer seemed more interested in a matter of arithmetic than of conscience. And to loose him of his folly, Jesus said, in substance, in answer to the question, Are there few that be saved? See that you are. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate," is His searching, solemn word; "for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able." Which was as if He had said: It is amazing folly to be paltering and pothering with a question of statistics in connection with salvation, when so many miss the way, and you may be among them! And yet Christ meets the letter of the inquiry before He gets through, and clearly implies that a great multitude shall be saved when He says: "They shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God." Again they question Him, and now it is the disciples who are the inquirers, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Did He speak of Moses, or Elijah, or John the Baptist? He takes a little child, sets him in the midst of them, and makes answer: "Except ye become as little children ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." And they were shot through with the shame and sin of their pride. And yet the letter of their inquiry gets answer; for Christ's reply is as if He had said, "The humblest; he is the greatest."

"When shall these things be?" asked the disciples, as they heard Christ speak of the coming of the Son of Man, and of the end of the world. And Christ's answer substantially is, "Dates, times, seasons, the day and the hour-what are these? Be ye ready. That is the vital matter."

"What shall this man do?" is another question of idle curiosity that is met with "What is that to thee? Follow thou me."

"Lo, we have left all. What shall we have?" Still it is speculation and surmise as to matters of no eternal moment. And while Christ answers that they shall have a hundred fold, He adds, “But many that are first shall be last, and the last first "-that is, "Have a care! Be not too eager about what ye shall have. The heavenly riches are not for those who are thinking more of what they have given up and what they are to get, than of what they were, and are, and ought to be."

So the Master always sought to meet the deeper need betrayed in the spirit of the questioner rather than the surface need indicated by the question. This should be our way.

Still further, in considering Christ's method of reply, it will be found that He often answered one question by asking another. But almost invariably this was when the question was in the line of challenge or rebuke.

"Why do thy disciples transgress the traditions of the elders?" they loftily asked. And the answer came, "Why do ye transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" They had assumed there was something wrong in Christ's deed or speech. His reply showed them that they were guilty of a deeper wrong. "Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar?" they questioned. Jesus perceived their wickedness and said: "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?" And holding up a penny, he asked, "Whose is this image and superscription?" And compelled to answer: "Cesar's." Christ's swift reply was: "Then render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." And seeking to entangle Him, they themselves got enmeshed.

Still another method of Christ's reply to questioners was by silence. He sometimes answered nothing.

"Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?" asked Pllate. "And he gave him no answer, not even to one word." "What! Carest thou not what is said of

thee? Hast thou no defense?" And the lips that could blast those perjurers were still.

Again, at the cross, they rail on Him, wagging their heads, saying, "He saved others; himself he can not save." And amidst that questioning and challenging Babel of hell the Son of God is silent; He answers nothing.

The disciple is not above his Master. There may be times in our lives when a challenging question will best be met by silence. We may suffer thereby. The unspoken answer, if uttered, might free from suspicion, rid us of calumny, vindicate us before an onlooking crowd, save us from the shame of seeming to be weak and false; yet it may be better that the word be left unspoken. Doubtless this is one of the bitterest acids that can be applied to the coin of Christian integrity. It may cut to the quick to be thus questioned and answer not a word; but the spirit of glory and of God is on us then. So the Master walked on silently, when they thrust their sneering, jeering questions at Him. But it was the way to His crown and kingdom!

And now the question of questions, What shall I do to be saved? How did Christ answer that? Not by labored reasoning, not by metaphysical and abstract terms, not in the exhibition of profound philosophic or scientific research. "Come unto me," He replied. "Believe in me." "Follow me." "I am the way." "No man cometh to the Father but by me." Marvelous simplicity! And how every answer points with unmistakable directness just one way-to the feet of Jesus!

"What shall I do to be saved?" The answers to this question may be varied and yet scriptural. The answer ought to depend on the posture of the inquirer's mind. Paul replied to the jailer's question, What shall I do to be saved? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." But Jesus did not answer the rich young man that way when He came running and kneeling to Him, and asked that question. He said: "Go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." He struck at the root of the difficulty. And our answer must likewise have regard to the posture of the questioner's mind. But any answer that does not send the inquirer straight to Jesus Christ is big with possibilities of false guidance and disaster.

"THE HEART OF THE WISE STUDIETH TO ANSWER.

By the Rev. Epiphanias Wilson, A.M., Epis

copalian, New York City

Has the church of Christ a right to refuse the alms and offerings of any Christian man, simply because the authorities of the church suspect the rectitude of the methods by which he who offers the gift has acquired the means of making it?

If the church of to-day claims the right of investigating the source of every member's fortune, and pronouncing on the methods of every one who drops a quarter into the plate, the church of to-day will be taking upon it an inquisitorial prerogative as tyrannical as it is unhistoric. The church in this case must become bank examiner and auditor to the whole business world; it must initiate a detective bureau and secret-service corps, for money that is not earned or acquired according to ecclesiastical ideas of honesty can only be condemned and refused after thorough investigation; and to take money without inquiry must, in accordance with the new ethics, make of the church a possible receiver of stolen goods. For where once the church begins to pass judgment on one man's right to the privilege of almsgiving, she must pursue the same course with all; she must refuse the dollar of the man who is well known as a gambler or a fraudulent bankrupt, and the dime of the laborer who is notorious as neglecting to support his family. Every member of the congregation before he or she is permitted to make an offering to the support of the ministrations and work of the church will have to appear before the trustees and receive a certificate of fitness as a contributor.

This is the logical outcome of the newly claimed prerogative of ecclesiastical bodies, for in the light of religion it is required of a man according to that he hath, not according to that he hath not; and the dime of the poor man is as great a gift and sacrifice as the tenthousand-dollar check of the millionaire. But why is the offering of the man suspected of

dishonorable or oppressive business methods to be discriminated against? In any case no one would pretend to say that a multi-millionaire has acquired all of his fortune by double dealing. Some of his money, at least the comparative morsel which he offers, must have been come by lawfully. Christian charity might be permitted to presume that he is offering what is justly acquired property. But suppose he is intending to give to the church something which came to him as the profits of a nefarious transaction. Would it harm the church to receive the gift? The money in the eyes of the Christian religion is offered to God. It is actually the property of the man who offers it; the law of a Christian land protects that property and the possession of it is in no wise invalidated by the ethical standard of the man's business life. The money will pass current in doing the church's work, and the church can not and does not make herself responsible for the rich man's character. The church has not even cast him out from her communion, but he may possibly be welcomed as a lay helper. In no known instance have his lesser contributions, made during public worship, been refused.

But the refusal to receive the rich man's gift seems open to still graver objections.

All offerings made to support the work of religion are theoretically made to God. There is no other way that the rich man can make an offering to God, in the ecclesiastical sense, than by pouring his wealth into the treasury of the temple, from whose funds investments are made the return for which can only be expected in another world. It seems a monstrous piece of presumption for priest or preacher to put forth his hand and say: "You shall not make this offering to your Creator and Savior. I forbid you to approach the throne of your Father which is in heaven. This command of mine may hinder the work of God on earth, and deprive some of His sons of food and shelter, or keep some poor heathen in the darkness of idolatry-but