He

a Baptist Church, of which he became pastor. The next year he was chosen missionary of American Baptists. Then began a most remarkable career. visited every part of Germany and Denmark, preaching, distributing Bibles and tracts, and organizing churches.

He faced persecution; was several times imprisoned; but in 1842, during the great fire, his family and congregation so helped homeless sufferers that the Senate publicly decreed them unhindered worship. He gave himself anew to his work.

MARCH

1-5.-DIVINE TIONS.-Is. liv. 11, 12.

COMPENSA

This is the Divine message to the destroyed Jerusalem and to the exiled Jews.

But Scripture is capable of multiform applications. Here is a Divine message to us as well.

Our Scripture is poetry of the most soaring sort. But, in the large way of metaphor and various suggestion, poetry is the song of fact. And a most gracious fact sings itself forth in this sweet Scrip

ture.

Think, first, of a frequent fact of life "Oh, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted!" A frequent fact of life is that men are often thus. Analyze a little the terms describing this frequent fact of life. These terms are special; they are not synonymous.

(4) Men are afflicted, literally lowered, humbled. How true it is that passing through this life of ours men are humbled, brought low.

(a) By life's seriousness. Life gets painted in more sombre colors. Said De Tocqueville to Senator Sumner: "Life is neither a pain nor a pleasure, but serious business, which it is our duty to carry through and to conclude with honor."

(b) By life's failures. Think of the frequent picture of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Many a man must beat

a retreat.

(c) By life's infirmities. The keepers of the house tremble; the strong men bow themselves; those that look out of the windows are darkened; the almond

tree flourishes; the grasshopper is a burden; desire fails; or ever the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken."

(B) Men are tossed with tempest-that is, agitated as the waves are by the wind. (a) By life's fears. (b) By questionings. (c) By losses.

(C) Men are not comforted, literally not sighed with. They frequently feel the need of sympathy from their fellows. And sometimes, in life's direr straits, it seems to them as though they were without even a Divine sympathy.

Yes, the sad minor notes of our Scripture are in complete key with much of our experience.

But, second, listening further to our Scripture, hear the glad note of a most blissful fact. Listen! God speaks! "Behold I will lay." Ah, yes; humbled as men may be, and tossed about as men may be, and without sympathy as they may sometimes seem to themselves to be, God is with them. And of this there is utmost proof-better proof for us than for those ancient troubled

feel that here there is something more than man." The proof that God is with us is the Christ whom God has given us. Men are not orphaned. Says God, "I will lay thy stones."

And, third, let this Scripture, as it sings on, tell us of two great compensating results:

(a) Stability-"thy stones." The destroyed Jerusalem is to rise again, firm in foundation and in wall. By God's disciplines a man gets sturdy and compacted character.

(b) Beauty-" with fair colors," etc. Out of crosses spring graces. It is the tried saint who becomes a beneficent and benignant saint.

FROM

MARCH 6-12.-THE ONE ABOVE, ABOVE ALL.-John 3-31. Nature is a great word nowadays. Than nature there is nothing other or higher, many say. In the phenomena of crystallization we have the first gropings of the vital force of nature. The difference between those shooting crystal sides and the brain of Christ is a difference in degree only. Nature is sufficient for everything. Nature does everything. Nature will do everything. There is only one word of explanation and efficiency, and that word is-Na

ture.

With all this sort of thinking and speaking Christianity must be at constant war. For Christianity nature never can be enough. Christianity is the assertion of the supernatural; of that which is above nature; of that which is, rather, of Him who is the Source, Cause, Keeper, Ruler of nature -the Supernatural, Personal God.

And so Christianity is the assertion of the constant descent upon nature and into nature of the brooding God. God is not distant from the world. Even as the child lives its life within the parents' care does the earth spin round its orbit within the care of God. God is not a cold, passionless, infinite abstraction. God is a personal, powerful, loving, infinite Heart. Upon the shoulders of

His affection and His pity He bears the world. Human sorrow may speak to Him in prayer; human weakness may lean upon His strength; human blindness may trust to His vision; human sin may rejoice in His forgiveness; human death may be certain of the comfort of His rod and staff; human change and decay may be sure of His permanence, wisdom, heaven.

And now, that men may be sure of this, God has given men the most shining and convincing reason for certainty in the person of His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Christ has stood in our world, and Christ is above nature. The only possible explanation of His person and character is the explanation of our Scripture "He cometh from Above."

That Christ came from Above must be true because of the contrasts appearing in His life.

(a) The contrast between His lowly birth on earth and all the stir which went sweeping through the heavenly places concerning it. Think of the stable, and the manger, and the exultant choirs of angels.

(b) The contrast between the early death of Christ and the astounding achievement of His life. He was standing but upon the threshold of early manhood when He climbed the cross; He had seen but thirty-three short summers; His active ministry had been. scarcely three years long. And yet, from the moment when those young lips exclaimed, "It is finished!" the most permanent, controlling, revolutionizing, reforming, consuming force has been Christianity. As Jean Paul Richter says, those young hands "have lifted empires off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still govern the ages."

(c) The contrast between the place of Christ's birth and training and the universality of His doctrines. Standing amid that narrow Judaism, He first proclaimed a Heavenly Father for all men, and so a universal brotherhood.

(d) The contrast between the ritual

ism and ceremonialism of the time, and our Lord's teaching of a spiritual worship and religion.

(e) The contrast between the Jewish thought of a merely material Messianic kingdom and Christ's teaching of the severely inward and spiritual order of it. The only possible explanation for such sheer contrasts is that of our Scripture -Christ cometh from Above.

That Christ came from Above must be true because of His sinlessness. Other men have been noble, but not sinless; other men have wielded the sceptre of a great power, but they have not been sinless; other men have been gracious, but not sinless; other men have been cultured, but not sinless. Sinless-He only. When all other men, in every possible circumstance, from Adam down, have failed, He triumphs.

That Christ came from Above must be true because of His assumptions. His assumptions are such as these power to forgive sins, power of conferring salvation, equality with Deity, Himself the world's only hope and help, authority of judgeship, the rightfulness of worship toward Himself. Now what does such assumption mean ?—either our "adoring devotion" or our 'indignant sham." Aut Deus aut non bonus." But the "non bonus" is impossible. He must then be "Deus"very God of very God, Immanuel, God with us. And so from Above.

Lessons :

First. Since Christ is from Above, He is above all; and His teachings are the highest possible. This is my chiefest and most reasonable duty-that I listen, beyond all other teachers, to Him.

Second. Since Christ has come to us from Above, let it not be said of us, "No man receiveth His testimony."

Third. If a man will receive the testimony of this Christ who cometh from Above, he" will set to his seal that God is true.' Accepting Christ, one comes into personal possession of the very truth of God.

Fourth. If a man reject such descent of God Himself to him, he rejects the

utmost even God can give him. Even God can have nothing higher or more convincing for him. Necessarily, Christ is God's last and utmost word.

MARCH 13-19.-PRAY WITHOUT CEASING.-1 Thess. v. 17.

For many months no clouds have drawn their grateful folds across the glaring sun; no dews have ministered refreshment to fainting fields. Panting and lean the herds; shrivelled the harvests; dried up the springs. Into every window, from the palace to the hovel, stares famine gaunt.

Then the Divine promise and announcement: Behold, I will send rain upon the earth." One would think, especially after the mighty victory on Carmel, Elijah now had all he wanted. One would think that now Elijah s work was done, and that he could surrender himself to rest and leisure. Think what he has-the Divine promise, and backed by so great a triumph.

But not thus thinks Elijah. He must still bestir himself. What the apostle James calls the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man must yet urge heavenward its cry before the rain shall come. There on the jutting peak of Carmel Elijah's prayer must stand, mediating between God's promise of the rain and the falling of the rain upon the blistering fields.

I cannot altogether understand it or explain it. But it is this high place of mediation and connection which prayer holds between the Divine promise and the fulfilment of the promise.

Take another instance. Our Lord is urging on His ministry. There amid the cities and villages of Galilee the people seem to Him like sheep shepherdless. Then our Lord turns to the disciples and exclaims: The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.” And then, as though there could be no laborers for the waiting and ripened harvest of souls except the disciples lifted heavenward their mediating and priestly prayer, our Lord continues: "Pray

ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest."

I cannot altogether understand it or explain it. But it is this high place of mediation and connection which prayer holds between a crying and hungry need and the Divine filling of the need. Take another instance. The need of these disciples, that they may do their world-subjugating duty, is the power of the Holy Ghost. And the Master does not forget their need. They shall be girded with such strange and awful power (Acts i. 4, 5, 8). One would think now the disciples had enoughthis unequivocal promise of the Master. But no. (See Acts i. 13, 14; ii. 1.)

I cannot altogether understand it or explain it. But it is this high place of mediation and connection which prayer holds between the Divine promise and the fulfilment of the promise.

Notice, also, in this connection, the crowned place the Lord Jesus is continually giving prayer; how He insists on it and reinsists on it (Matt. vii. 7, 8, 9, 11).

Notice, further, in this connection, how our Lord Himself steadily made use of prayer (Luke vi. 12, 13; ix. 28, 29; xxii. 22-24; Mark i. 25; Matt. xxvi. 36.

It is this, then, I have been urging-the imperial place of mediation and connection between Divine promise and the fulfilment of the promise which the Scriptures give to prayer.

Pass now to a second fact concerning prayer-the present so great scepticism as to the value and validity of it. Two gentlemen were passing a lighted chapel. Nodding toward the open door, one of them asked: "Do you believe in this matter of prayer?" "Yes," was the reluctant answer; "I suppose I do, in a certain way. I think it is a good thing for those who really believe in it. But whether there is any one at the other end of the line who does actually listen and respond is a thing about which I am not certain." " 'It seems to me," replied the other, " that your posi

tion is that of a man who believes in prayer, but not in the answer." A far too common thought and feeling about prayer! Yet even Mr. Tyndall tells us : "It is a matter of experience that an earthly father listens to the request of his children, and if they do not ask amiss, takes pleasure in granting their request. We know that this compliance extends to the alteration, within certain limits, of the current events of the earth. It is no departure from the scientific method to place behind natu ral phenomena Universal Father, who, in answer to the prayers of His children, alters the currents of those phenomena."

No; there is nothing unscientific or irrational about prayer. And remember, too, that a Divine denial to our prayer, for infinitely wise reasons, is as really a Divine answer as is a Divine granting of our request.

Since, then, the Scripture gives such place to prayer, and since there is nothing irrational and unscientific about it, hced the injunction of the apostle and "Pray without ceasing"-that is, Pray, and do not let intervals break in upon the habit of prayer.

(a) We confine our praying too much simply to crises.

(b) We too much pray in fits and

starts.

(c) We too much pray about special things and not enough about everything (Phil. iv. 6).

(d) We too much pray in mere routine; we simply say our prayers.

We need the exhortation of our Scripture-have times for prayer, but unite the times of special prayer by a steady lifting of the heart Godward. Make prayer habitual. Make everything a point of contact between your soul and God.

MARCH 20-26.-DIVINE BULWARKS. -Ps. xlviii. 13.

Who has told the story better than one of the masters of our English verse? You remember the familiar lines of Byron :