to all His surroundings. See you not, tried and suffering believer, that to live in His presence is to be in the midst of power to meet all thy need. Very blessed is this when believed.

"In Thy presence is fulness of joy, at Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore (Ps. xvi. 11). And we are satisfied to look forward to this as wholly future. But is there not some of it to be enjoyed now? His Presence is power, and power for thee, sufficient to meet all thy need. Very similar is the case of the leper. "If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." "I will be thou clean" is the instant response. And the power is given (Mark i. 40, 41).

II. Who then can be saved? say the disciples when our Lord makes the astonishing statement that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark x. 23-26). His design was manifestly, not merely to show how detrimental are the possessions of time in steeling the heart and drawing it off from dependence upon God, but to throw us wholly into God's hands for the solution of all our difficulties and perplexities, to silence our too-curious inquiries, and to lead us into entire rest-fulness in Him. "With God all things are possible." Thine is the Power, and Thine alone.

III. Christ is both the Possessor and the Expression of His power. "Christ, the power of God" (1 Cor. i. 24). Not merely the giver of power to all who are neither stumbled by the seeming weakness of the cross-nor scandalised by its humility— but He Himself, the apparently weak One, the Lowly and the Meek, is the Expression of this might of God. Crucified through weakness, He liveth by the power of God (2 Cor. xiii. 4). And now as with the Authority, as we have seen, so with the might which nothing can withstand, He is "the Power of God." He possesses Omnipotence (John xiv. 13). "Whatsoever ye shall ask, that will I do." Omniscience; John xiv. 11). Omnipresence (John xiv. 18; Matt. xxviii. 20).

IV. Christ is at the Right Hand of the Power of God (Luke xxii. 69; Acts vii. 55). In the Central Place in the Universe. Exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour (Acts v. 31). The reins of government are in His hands. From that supreme position His commands are issued and uniformly obeyed. Take courage, then, ye weak and trem

bling saints. In Him is your life; from Him ever comes the power, a never-ceasing supply for every need of yours. "He no fail," said an old Scotchwoman to me, when telling me of her oft-recurring need and as oft-received supply.

There is a third aspect in which this Power is to be looked at, viz., the way in which it is imparted to all who trust Him. This shall be shown, the Lord willing, in the next paper. Let me close by a reference to an Old Testament statement of remarkable interest, pointing, as it did, so clearly to Him who is now the Divine Manifestation of this Power. It is in Ps. lxii. The theme is Salvation, and after the statement of wrong and failure, with which we are so familiar, and the consequent warnings, the writer concludes with "God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this-that Power belongeth unto God" (ver. 11). He has Spoken-in the display of Power in all ages, and under many circumstances; but on two grand occasions at Sinai and in Jerusalem - in giving the Law, and in sending His Son, as His Gospel of Salvation. Once more will He break silence when He who once came to die shall come to reign. This last utterance of Power shall change the whole aspect of the world, and prove that Son to be the God "Omnipotent to save" all who have believed His word and trusted Him for this Power.

HENRY F. BOWKER.

Notice of Books.

The Children of India. Written for the children of England, by one of their friends. Published by the Religious Tract Society, 56, Paternoster Row, London. Price 4s.

The brightest missionary book we have yet seen. With such clear, vivid pictures before us we need never be in the dark as to Indian ways. Children will delight in it, but the interest will not stop with them; parents and elder brothers and sisters will take it up, and we are sure that it will be the means of nourishing many a hidden missionary thought. We may thank God for this fresh quickening to the rising interest in the mission field, and we earnestly trust that it will turn the thoughts of many of God's consecrated ones to the claims of the heathen.

VOL. V.

GOD's Adventurers are His triumphant ones -more than conquerors, compassed about with songs of deliverance. At God's call they adventure themselves upon Him, at His word, and go forth, not knowing whither they go; knowing only that God knows, and they find themselves in the promised land, which is God Himself in all His fulness.

The world's adventurers are not so. Columbus-like, they may venture themselves upon unknown seas, trusting to find a short way to a known land, and find themselves intercepted by a land unknown, and by mistake discover a new continent, a new world; yet, even so it is only a new continent, a world; it is not God.

Real, whole-hearted Adventurers upon God are conquerors, and more than conquerors; compassed about with songs of deliverance from the beginning of their course to the end. Not that they have no famine times to pass through, no storms to encounter, no rough seas to plough. No. But having adventured upon God, at His word, and accepted His call, and left their own boats and nets, and sources of supply, and given themselves up to the Lord of heaven and earth to follow Him wherever He leads, and do whatever He bids, they have Him with them always, even unto the end of the world; and under His benediction they find famine times turned into times of glorious supply, and storms and waves made His opportunities of giving the most heavenly peace by His own onecreative word. And at once they are more than conquerors; compassed about with songs of deliverance.

Not that there are no persecutions, no dun

[No. 60.

geons in their pathway. No. But the Angel of His presence is quite enough to fill the darkest dungeon with the light of His glory, and strike off at His touch the strongest chains, and make the heaviest bolts and bars fly back and the gates of iron or brass to open of their own accord, and give to His triumphal prisoners, with all their fellow-Adventurers on the Lord, the greatest glad surprise. Or, better still, His presence in the heart, really adventured upon without any outward sign, is quite enough to lift His Adventurers above stocks, and stripes, and darkness, and damp, and perils ahead, and compass them about with their own songs of deliverance, even while their feet are still fast, and backs bloody and lacerated, with no earthly prospect of anything better ahead. Yes, and quite enough to make the earth tremble and quake under His feet and theirs, the prison doors to open, the keeper to come to their feet; and, better still, to the feet of their Lord. And so they are more than conquerors; compassed about with songs of deliverance.

In truth, God's Adventurers, if only they are whole-souled and instant in adventuring themselves upon the Lord, and in obeying His voice, do really find each vicissitude of their life, each demand upon their service, turned to account by Him as His opportunity to make themeven though, with the Psalmist and the Apostle they are compelled to say, "We are killed all the day long," yet with the Apostle they will joyously add, "In all these things we are more than conquerors." And they will indeed be compassed about with songs of deliverance. Yes, even in dawn, and in the face of their troubles and perils. All glory to the Lamb! W. E. B.

GOD'S CHOSEN THINGS.*

"God hath chosen the foolish things of this world, . and the weak things, . . . and base things, . and things which are despised, hath God chosen."-1 Cor. i. 27, 28.

O GOD! I am so weak,

So prone to faint and fall,
How shall I dare to speak?

Canst Thou give me this call? "My child, it is the 'weak things' I must use; For then no flesh shall glory: thee I choose."

But Lord, so foolish too,

I know not what to say;
And even if I knew,

On my lips words die away.

"My child, 'tis 'foolish things' that I must use; For then no flesh shall glory: thee I choose."

But then so base am I

One moment serving Thee,

The next I may deny

The Lord who purchased me.

inquiring closely to whom the words are attributed. It was Eliphaz the Temanite who said, "He disappoints the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." This is the more striking because we read at the end of the book, "The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: My wrath is kindled against thee and thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath." This shows that the Bible is not like any other book. The Apostle takes one of those words, and simply says, "It is written."

From the same portion of the Scriptures-not from Eliphaz, but from Elihu-I would borrow my text, "Who teacheth like Him?" (Job xxxvi. 22.)

Our chief object in meeting here is to be useful to one another-by helping each other to come to a decision in our spiritual life. It may be said that each one of us has to come to some decision; that is to say, there is a further step to take. God is ever putting us to the test. We are ever on trial

But all around despise,

And scorn a word from me;
They know I am not wise,
My nothingness they see.

"My child, wilt thou not learn that I must use Such things as are despised'? thus thee I choose."

Teach me this lesson, Lord,

Teach me again, again!
Till on my heart Thy word,

Graven with iron pen,

Remain; and thus contented, I may choose
To be weak, foolish, base, despised, that Thou may'st

use.

WHO TEACHETH LIKE HIM ?†

BY PASTEUR THEODORE MONOD, OF PARIS.

"THE wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written: He taketh the wise in their own craftiness." Where are the words here quoted? In the book of Job, therefore we may feel that we are fully authorised by the example of the Apostle are fully authorised by the example of the Apostle in taking a text from the book of Job, without

*From a very choice collection of verses entitled "Lays of Lowly Service." By Georgiana M. Taylor. London: Morgan & Scott.

+Addresses delivered at the Glasgow Convention.

On the

blessing to be got; and it is always to be got in the very same way-by believing the promises of God and obeying His commands. I have no doubt that there are many sitting on these benches who know a great deal more about the deep things of God, and about God Himself, than any of us on this platform; but we give what we have. other hand, how can we meet the need of the advanced Christian, of the middle-aged Christian, and of the young Christian, by one teaching? It seems impossible. All that we can do is to lay down some general principles from the Word of after all, each one has to place himself under the God and to say: "this is the path." And then, direct and personal teaching of God. You may hear the very best human teachers of Divine things and yet not be truly, deeply efficiently taught.

"Who teacheth like Him?"—that is, God Himself. We must learn to turn from all other teachers, even those we most respect and love; we must do as the disciples of John the Baptist did: they left him and followed Jesus. And John was pleased; for the object of his ministry was that he should decrease and Christ should increase. When the disciples heard his testimony to Christ, they at once left him and followed his Master. Likewise, as regards those decisions that we have to come to, we must get beyond the mere province of wishing,

of admiring, or admitting that we ought to do such and such a thing; we have to do it. In order to come to that point we need God's teaching, and no other teaching will answer. After we have heard the truth expounded in such meetings as these, let us remember that we need to shut ourselves up with God, and to ask of Him that He Himself should teach us.

What do we require of a teacher? First of all, of course, a knowledge of the thing he has to teach. I need not say that all knowledge belongs to God, He is truth itself—the living truth. It would hardly be sufficient to say that God knows the truth: He is the Truth. All truth belongs to Him, and by giving us His mind He gives us truth, gives us reality, shows us things as they are. We may see them in a more or less distorted fashion. We see them very imperfectly, but God sees them as they He shows us the truth about Himself, first of all, and then the truth about ourselves, which we are not ready to perceive, and are unwilling at first to admit.

are.

Further, a teacher must not only have knowledge of the truth in itself, but he must know exactly what his pupil requires. Here, again, God not only knows the truth, but He knows what particular truth we need to learn at such and such a time. We are often greatly mistaken on the point. Here is one who thinks, perhaps, that what he needs is to go further into the consideration of the inner life, of the power of the Spirit, and so on. It may be that what he just needs is to learn the ABC of the Christian life; that he has never felt his sinfulness, that he has never trusted the Saviour in a true and living way. If so, of course that is the first lesson for him to learn.

There are others who may be wishing for great things, who may be longing for progress in holiness. And surely they ought to be. In fact it is a great mistake to consider any degree of holiness as a "privilege ;" it is simply our duty. "Be ye holy, for I am holy." But we may persuade ourselves that all that we need to make further progress in holiness is a little more light, a little more teaching. "We are perfectly willing, but we do not quite understand," we say. The fact is, we do understand quite as much as we need to understand, but we are not willing and we are deluding ourselves. We would like to have-excuse the word, it is the only one that comes to me—a certain feather to put

in our cap that we would call "holiness;" something very beautiful that people might look upon and admire us for. Ah, God is not going to give us that. Holiness means conformity to Christ. It means being emptied of one's self, becoming weak, becoming foolish, in order to have no strength und no wisdom but His. It means seeing where we are; and, apart from Christ, we are nowhere. We have nothing at all but Him. It means, as we have been singing-oh, that singing! have we really meant what we sang?" Anywhere "-was it not, "Everywhere He leads me I will follow on"? Are you sure of that? Are you ready to follow Him anywhere, everywhere ? That is a great thing-to follow Him whatever it may cost you, before those who are not in sympathy with you, though perhaps you have to leave your present situation for Christ's sake, though He sends you far away, or gives you some very humble, unknown, obscure work to do. Are you ready to follow Him then? There are many who think the lesson they need is a lesson in holiness, when the fact is they need to be sincere to be true. Do not pretend you want what you do not want.

A few weeks ago at Mildmay I told a very simple little story; as it seemed to be helpful to some, I will give it to you. It was about a child I know, the son of one of my relatives. He had a bad habit that children often have-he was a little bit of a boy-that of sucking his thumb. Well, he was told he must give it up, and one evening in his prayer he was heard to say: "O God, bless Edward, and make him give up sucking his thumb." That was a very good prayer. But, after a pause, he went on: "O God! don't bless him, because he is going to suck his thumb all the same." I think there is a world of practical teaching in that. The little fellow was more candid than we often are, and he understood that it was no use asking God to do a thing for him when he was determined it should not be done. I fear that in more important matters a great many are just like that little boy. We ask God to deliver us from this or that, when all the time there is a voice (although it does not express itself in the prayer) saying: "I shall go on all the same."

Now, then, let God teach us. He will show us where we are exactly, and what we need. He will impart to us this knowledge. Many have knowledge who do not know how to impart it to others; they make very poor teachers. Indeed,

they ought not to be teachers at all. But God is able and willing to impart the needful knowledge

to us.

Again, a good teacher is one who has sympathy for the learner. All teachers have not got that, and it is perhaps the greatest power in a teacher. The Great Teacher says: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." He is a loving Teacher, a kind, gentle Teacher. And if He has to teach us many a lesson that will humble us and break us down, He will do it in such a way that we shall feel all the time that He does it in love. Do not be afraid of that Teacher. He knows you perfectly, better by far than you know yourself; He knows precisely the lesson you need, and He is able to make you learn it.

He will teach you by His Word. He will show you the meaning of that Word. He will make your hearts burn within you as He opens to you the Scriptures. He will, as it were, hold up the word against the light, so that you shall understand it.

He will teach you by His Spirit, appropriating the Word to you. In reading the Acts of the Apostles see how the Holy Spirit directs the Church, how He directs believers, how the promise of Christ is fulfilled, that He leadeth forth His sheep and goeth before them. Thus will he teach you by His Spirit. He shall speak to you in your inmost heart as well as by His Word.

He shall teach you by His Providence. In the book of Job it is especially His Providence that is pointed out. "Who teacheth like Him?" When God sends you lessons, whatever they are, it is to teach you of His love. When He sends troubles and trials it is that He may teach you-that He may wean you from worldly things and draw you to Himself, that He may make you stronger to glorify Himself in you, that He may make further light to shine in the darkness that may be round about you. Let Him only be your Teacher. Without Him no Providence can teach us. His Word does not teach us without Him. It must be God Himself through His Providence, God Himself through His Word: then we shall be taught indeed.

Further, and finally, the teaching of God is practical teaching. It is not meant simply to enlighten our minds, and lodge some truth in our memories. It is meant to act upon our will and alter our lives. No human teacher can do that, but

you

God can teach in such a way that He leads us to do the thing that is taught. He can not only make understand it, but desire it, and love it, and obey it. Oh! what a teacher is that. On this subject of giving ourselves to God, or, in the words of the Apostle, yielding ourselves to God, there is no teaching which can lead us to the point, which can make us do it if we have never done it, or continue to do it if we have begun, but the teaching of God Himself. It was "through the Eternal Spirit " that Christ offered Himself up to God-so we are told. And we shall never offer ourselves up to God effectually except by the Spirit of God. He must come and take possession. He must receive us as we are. We cannot make ourselves ready. We must ever say, in the words of the hymn"No preparation can I make,

My best resolves I only break;

Oh, save me, for Thine own name's sake,
And take me as I am."

But taking us as we are, He does not leave us as we are. The great Teacher takes His pupils into fellowship, into partnership with Himself. Then He shows us the truth, not only from the outside, as it were, but from the inside. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." He takes us into His home and into His heart. He gives us more of His truth as we are able to bear it. He shows us more of His love, and uses us more in His service. It would be a great and glorious fruit of these meetings if each one of us said to himself now, "I will go to that Teacher. I do not always understand the others. I cannot always put this and that together. I cannot find a form of words that will exactly suit me, and express the Christian life. But there is One who does understand me, who knows me, who will give me the truth in the shape that is adapted to my mind, to my experience, to my education. I will take Him for my Teacher." I remember reading a letter from one who had attended such meetings as these, and a passage it read somewhat as follows: "Now I have got home after a few weeks. I enjoyed the meetings: I got some good in them. But I get much more good now directly from God. I find that the teaching of God—the teaching from His Word and from experience-is so much more adapted to me than the teaching we got in the meetings. Because," he went on to say, "in these meetings there seemed to be a kind of iron rule laid down. It was all good

in