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Brighton.

O sacred mount, all bathed in dew,
More richly bathed in tears—
The tears of Him whose bitter grief
Slays all our foes and fears.
To many eyes this wondrous scene,
The storm without, within,

Most strange appears-but not to those
Who know what's meant by sin.

Oh, brethren, let us not forget,
Amid life's noise and din,
That this sad mount of Olivet

Must teach faith how to win;

From life's rude turmoil we must turn,
Its strife and every care,

Like Christ must meet and worst our foes
Upon the knee of prayer.

"SATISFIED!"

STRANGE and solemn is the power of words. "Satisfied!" how wonderful that word is. The fulness of peace-the hush of perfect rest the gladness of deep content; the conqueror's triumph, and the mother's lullaby, the angel's song, and the saint's "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace," all seem thrilling and echoing in every syllable of that word. One would like to know the feelings of the man who first uttered it. Perhaps, like the astronomer of old, he was one who in his ecstasy could exclaim: "O Lord, I think Thy thoughts after Thee.' We know not; for us it is enough that a word so full of the eternal, telling at once of infinite longing and of infinite power, is ours. Even though here we may never gladly proclaim ourselves satisfied, still we are the better for the word. It is one of the words born from the soul's richest experience, silently prophesying of immortality, and of the beyond where the weary are to rest, the hungry to be satisfied.

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This is one of the loveliest of summer days. The blue sky, as it bends over us, seems fathomless as

God's love, tender as His great compassion; and the trees, as they stand motionless in the glory of their autumnal foliage, seem like the high priests of nature, awed and reverent in the presence of the Shechinah. On such a day one should take the Testament and read again the story so full of thoughtful piety and generous giving-the feeding of the weary thousands on the mountain-side. Such a day as this forms a frame for that story, and brings it out into fairer and more exquisite beauty.

Yes, as we read on, easily can we see the green hillside thronged with the multitude drooping and fainting from want of food. We can hear the tender voice of the Bread-giver commanding that they sit down in companies on the green grass, and we can see the face shadowed from sympathy with human grief, yet radiant with the reflection of the Father's glory, that smiled on those famished ones as they ate and were satisfied.

Do we ever realise, I wonder, as we might, the depth of refreshment, healing, and comfort there is in this wondrous story, told in such

simple language by a plain Galilean ings and desires that in this world peasant? It is only a crumb of can only be longings and desires, the bread of life, but it is mighty to for ever denied and unfulfilled. satisfy the hunger and faintness of What a word is "satisfied" in such our heart. The power manifested need as this. It does not mock, on that hillside of many centuries it rather points solemnly upward to ago is potent still to-day. The the sky, where the cry of the human voice that spoke blessing then is will is hushed in the "praise God" just as tender now; the hands that of the immortal. broke the loaves then are ready still to aid and to sustain. But we, forgetful of the lesson so graciously taught, of the truth so lovingly told, go blindly groping onward, conscious only of our great want, unmindful of the great Master's power to help. In that vast company gathered on the green hillside there were as many unsatisfied souls, and many hungering minds, and hearts, and bodies; and the supplying of their physical wants was only a type of the unlimited power to satisfy the greater, bitterer needs of the spirit. And the miracle wrought then has been often repeated since.

One can understand somewhat of David's feeling, when, lone and hunting among the mountain fastnesses of Judæa, he could sing: "I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." By the very intensity of our hungerings and thirstings we are drawn at last to beg for the crumbs that fall from the children's table-we are glad to stoop to drink water from the well of life. From out of the dissatisfactions and craving of our lives, if rightly endured, we are borne into a higher sphere, our feet are lifted out of the valley and placed upon the mountain, and we are taught to look upward unto Him in whom all fulness dwells. As one by one our hopes are buried here, our hopes of heaven grow brighter. As day by day the cords of our tent are loosened, it is only that our title to our home in our Father's house may be surer.

Before us, and for us, day after day, our little is magnified into enough, and yet we do not heed, we do not comprehend, In this fair world to-day there are so many sad, unsatisfied discouraged natures. There is the bitterness of aspirations that like a mirage lure us onward only to mock with their nothingness at last. There is the loneliness of hearts that yearn and burn, and find none to understand, none to answer to their cry. There are hopes that promise well, but that fail us when we seek to prove them." And none will murmur or misdoubt There are all the passionate longWhen God's great sunrise finds us out."

Ah, we can well endure to sorrow for awhile here, we can bear to walk under the cloud, to fast for a night (if need be) in the wilderness, knowing that by-and-by the morning cometh,

NEWS OF THE CHURCHES.

THE Baptist Chapel at Presteign, | Rev. C. Hood, of the Metropolitan Radnorshire, has been reopened Tabernacle College, to Nuneaton; after alterations.-A new chapel has the Rev. W. Gay, of Pembroke, to been opened at the corner of Lockwood, near Huddersfield, to Meyrick and Speke Road, Clapham take charge of the branch stations; Junction, London.-The chapel at the Rev. J. Thompson, of Bristol Shotley Bridge, Durham, under the College, to Parley and Christchurch, care of the Rev. J. Brooks, has Hants; the Rev. H. C. Atkinson, of been reopened after alteration and Accrington, Lancashire, to Shipley, improvement. The chapel at Hol- Yorkshire; the Rev. R. J. Rogers, beach, Lincolnshire, has been re- of Regent's Park College, to the opened after alteration.-A new chapel has been opened in Charles Street, Camberwell New Road, London, for the ministry of the Rev. J. A. Griffin. The chapel at Poynton, Cheshire, has been reopened after alterations.

Lower Chapel, Chesham, Bucks; the Rev. W. Osborne, of Gamlingay, Cambs, to Thrissell Street, Bristol; the Rev. J. F. Smythe, of Canterbury, to Claremont Chapel, Bolton, Lancashire; the Rev. T. Bray, of Beckington, Somersetshire, to King's Sutton, near The Rev. A. Brown has been Banbury. The Rev. D. Jennings recognised as the pastor of the has intimated his intention to resign Church at Fenny Stratford; the his pastorate at Evesham. The Rev. R. Davies of the Church at Rev. G. C. Williams has resigned the Tabernacle, Morley, near his pastorate at Chesterton, Leeds; the Rev. R. Shindler of the Staffordshire. The Rev. W. H. Church at Kington, Herefordshire; the Rev. J. Usher of the Church at Dacre Park, Lee, near London.

Wright has resigned his pastorate of the Church at Leith. The Rev. E. P. Barnett has resigned the pastorate of the Church at Hereford. The Rev. J. Jackson has relinquished the pastorate of the Church at Addlestone.

The following reports of MINISTERIAL CHANGES have reached us since our last issue:-The Rev. J. Berry, of Droitwich, to Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury; the Rev. W. H. Price, We regret to announce the death of Tonyrefail, Glamorganshire, to of the Rev. R. A. Jones, of Swansea, Builth; the Rev. F. W. Goadby, at the age of fifty-one; also of the M.A., of Bluntisham, Hunts, to Rev. R. Griffiths, of Bethany, Watford, Herts; the Rev. W. L. Cardiff, at the age of sixty; also of Mayo, of Heywood, Lancashire, to the Rev. W. Lloyd, of Yatton, Chepstow, Monmouthshire; the Somerset, at the age of sixty-two.

ON SOME OF THE SUBORDINATE CHARACTERS

OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM BROCK.

VI.-THE HOUSEHOLD OF STEPHANAS.

THE original readers' of the apostolic letters must have been struck, even more than we can be, by the personal references, the friendly private commendations, which light up their graver and more general contents. Imagine, for instance, one of the elders of the Corinthian Church reading out for the first time in some assembly of its members the first of the two Epistles which bear their name. It is full of the most weighty practical instructions for the Christian life. The attention of the hearers has been strained to the utmost, as the letter has passed from vindicating the divine simplicity of the gospel to give orders about the discipline of unworthy members, the proper celebration of the Lord's Supper, the rules of social intercourse with the heathen, and the use of spiritual gifts; and as it has risen to a climax in the glowing demonstration of the reality of the resurrection, and of the eternal life beyond. With what a sense of delighted relief they must have listened to the homely words with which the Epistle concludes, about the collection for the poor Christians in Jerusalem, and Paul's projected travels, and the probable visits of this missionary or of that, and the good work of their own brethren! What a touch of natural interest as the reader went on, "Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints; I beseech you that ye submit yourselves unto such!" The house of Stephanas? There, probably, they sat among their brethren, and every child knew them familiarly. The words must have seemed like an autograph signature to the Epistle, making it lifelike and personal; and now they set us of the later time enquiring who these people were, and what is to be learned from them.

"The house of Stephanas" may mean one of two things. Either there was a heathen master of that name, and the persons referred to were his Christian slaves; or else Stephanas was himself a Christian, and his children, and perhaps his servants, were one with him in faith. We choose the latter alternative as the more likely one, for the obvious reason that we read, in the very next verse of the Epistle, of Stephanas himself engaged in the service of the Church.

This family, then, were the earliest converts at Corinth," the firstfruits of Achaia," the province of which Corinth was the capital. It was now four or five years since Paul had arrived in that bustling

* 1 Cor. xvi. 15-16. Compare also chap. i. 14-16, and xvi. 17-18. VOL. XIX. N.S. VI.

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heathen city, a solitary stranger, "in weakness and fear, and much trembling. He came seeking fruit there, the fruit of redeemed souls, consecrated to God. During eighteen months of untiring labour he had been permitted to reap a rich harvest of such souls; and he now addressed a numerous and flourishing Church. But no subsequent successes could make him forget the toils of the early days at Corinth, and the joy of the first-fruits. There was fierce opposition to conterd with; and the Apostle was obliged to withdraw from the synagogue, and to take a preaching-room of his own in a house hard by. With what anxiety he was filled lest all should be in vain! And when men began to listen eagerly; when he caught the look of interest on the face of Stephanas, and of the group which surrounded him; and when, going to their house, he heard their inquiries, and was enabled to guide them to Christ, must it not have been like an earnest of the harvest-home? The ancient Israelite was to bring an armful of the new corn from his field every year to the priest, and the priest was to wave it before the Lord, in token of grateful obligation. And here Paul seems to stand rejoicing, with that saved family, the sheaf of his first-fruits, in his Master's presence, forasmuch as he now knew that his labour was not in vain in the Lord.

This allusion serves to explain another. At the outset of this Epistle, Paul refers to the ordinance of baptism, and his own practice in regard to it. His practice was never to baptise with his own hands, lest he might be suspected of baptising in his own name, and so of creating a sect or a schism. "I thank God," he writes, "I baptised none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;" and then, as if recollecting himself, he adds, " and I baptised also the household of Stephanas." The reason for these exceptions to his ordinary rule is at hand. They were the first-fruits of Achaia, and there was no one else to baptise them. After their reception, Stephanas himself, or Crispus, would undertake the office of baptising, and Paul would be left free "to preach the gospel." The administration of ordinances is no prerogative therefore of pastors or teachers, though it may be convenient usually to entrust it to them. As a principle, any Christian may baptise; and it is surely matter for surprise that, where the pastorate is vacant, the honoured deacons and elders of our churches should hesitate themselves to undertake the office.

One would fain picture to oneself that first baptism at Corinth. Probably it was a very quiet service; either by the seaside, under the broad sky; or in one of the spacious public baths which abounded in all great cities; or in a private house. There were the family; with them a few sympathising friends, such as Aquila and Priscilla; and in the midst the Apostle, knitting his enfeebled frame to the unaccustomed work. First the father steps forward, lays aside his outer robe, and with the solemn words, "I baptise thee in the name of the Lord Jesus," is plunged beneath the water; and then his household, from the greatest to to the least. Were there children among them? It is quite

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