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fruit, and in consequence Adam was driven out of the garden, and Cherubim, with a flaming sword which turned every way, were stationed in the garden to keep the way of the tree of life, lest Adam should put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. The language implies that though after Adam had sinned, if he should continue to eat of the tree of life, death would have had no power over him. From this point of view it is evident that sin is the cause of the death of the body.

In recapitulation, then, we may briefly state that sin is the cause of death, but not of mortality; that the mortality of the body would naturally have resulted in death, except for the tree of life provided by God to counteract the natural decay and dissolution of the body; also, that through sin man forfeited the privilege of eating from the tree of life and therefore became subject to death. It should be observed that the preceeding views are in harmony, and as I believe are the only theory in full harmony with the various scripture statements that death is the result of sin. This view also is consistent with and explains Romans 8:2, where gin is

stated to be the reason for the death of the Christian. "If (though) Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin."

A MODERN MALADY.

To be without an impulse or desire,
A heap of fuel with no spark of fire
To be a prey to moodish melancholy,
Without the force for any other folly;
To watch the movement of the Universe,
And to believe it moves frem bad to worse,
Blind tendency the master of the whole,
And man without a purpose or a soul.
To see the good and evil, foul and fair,
And not to take a side and not to care,
But live contented in a calm despair.
Not live! exist; with power and passion filed,
A lean heart nourishing a thinking head.

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BY REV. M. M. HUGHES, PH. D.

I rise again to hail the dawn,
I see once more a smilling morn,
The Lord supports my mortal frame,
Glory be ever to his name.
He watched me careful while I slept,
From dangers God has safely kept
My precious soul beneath His wing,
Creator of the day and night,
Thy praise forever, Lord I sing.
Thy word restores the pleasant light.
Grant me grace to watch to-day;
Thy sweet mercies still are new,
Grace to follow Thee I pray,
Numerous as the morning dew.

EVENING PRAYER.

Again, I lay my weary head
To sleep, the busy day has fled,
Hear Lord, my evening cry:
To my pillow, God preside,
Guard me through the night be nigh.
For my wants wilt thou provide.
Oh, behold me from above,
Fill me with thy precious love,
My eyes see the glorious day
Should death take me this night, may
In the heavenly home above,
Ever to sing God is love."
Utica, N. Y.

PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY.
Ill customs by degress to habits rise,
Ill habits soon become exalted vice;
What more advance can mortals make in sin-
So near perfection, who with blood begin?
Deaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife,
Looks up, and from her butcher begs her
life;

Deaf to the harmless kid, that, ere he dies,
All methods to procure mercy tries,
And imitates in vain thy children's cries,
Where will he stop, who feeds with house-
hold bread,

Then eats the poultry which before he fed?
Let plough thy steers; that, when they lose
their breath,

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No Nature, not to thee, they might impute their death.

Let goats for food their loaded udders Tend, And sheep from winter-cold thy sides defend;

But neither springs, nets, nor snares employ.

And be no more ingenious to destroy.
Free as in air let birds on earth remain,

Nor let insidious glue their wings constrain; Nor opening hounds the trembling stag affright.

Nor purple feathers intercept his flight;

No hooks conceal'd in baits far fish prepare,
Nor lines to heave 'em twinkling up in air.
Take net away the life you cannot give,
For all things have an equal right to live.
But nourish life with vegetable food,
And shun the sacrilegious taste of blood.
OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
(Dryden's Transalation),

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THE USE OF LIFE.

BY T. H. LEWIS, PASTOR CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, DAWSON, MINN.

Every young person should ask himself, "How can I best use this life that has been given me?" The first impulse will be to answer it selfishly, with a view to getting on with the most comfort and with the least labor. It matters not if others are encroached upon, or our Maker ignored, so long as we prosper, we are satisfied. There is no difference between a purely selfish existence and the beast of the field, which never has any other care than for its own preservation and comfort. If that is all we are living for, better, like Nebuchadnezzar, be driven from men to eat grass as oxen, than to add to our own misery, and to that of those around

us.

But stop and reflect. What is the best use of life? We learn from the Westminster catechism that "man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. If that is true, and my Bible tells me it is true, all thought of selfishness must be abandoned, and the answer sought for in relation to Him whom we are to glorify and to enjoy. For whether we will acknowledge it or not, He is our Creator, and we are dependent upon Him for all things-the air we breathe; the water we drink; and the food we eat, though we may labor to procure it. If God should withdraw His providential care from us, we would soon die. Happily for us, He does not. But He does require our allegiance to Him. He wants us to please Him. How, then, may we please Him?

First, and always first, we must believe upon His Son whom He has sent. If we have not done this we cannot please Him, "for without faith it is impossible to please Him." The

unconverted think they can do some work for God, but God says such are "dead works" (Heb. 9, 14), being without faith. Certain ones asked Jesus "What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" He answered, "This is the work of God, that ye might believe upon Him whom He hath sent." (John 6.) Too many lose sight of this. We forget that God has condemned all as dead in trespasses and sins, so that our lives are of no possible use to Him, so long as we are in this deplorable state. The way into the new life is by the new birth. God does not count us as possessing life before. He considers us as though we did not exist. "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you," (Ex. 12), said our Lord to Israel when they were leaving Egypt. Israel's four hundred years of Egyptian bondage had been a blank. What is our history before conversion but a blank? God takes no account of it. It is of the utmost folly to speak of a useful life before we possess that life. Jesus continually spoke of Himself as the giver and source of life. "I am come that ye might have life." "I am the bread of life." "I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." My young friend, this is the fountain, and I trust you will seriously ponder it. No life, no ground for usefulness. No life without Christ.

If you have life, then you may very properly consider what is the best use to make of that life? We will find the answer in Colossians 3: 23, in a little phrase of four monosyllabic words, the largest of which contains only four letters, "as to the Lord." There is a tremendous amount of meaning in that little phrase. In the first place the word "Lord" means Master, which signifies that the sub

ject is a servant, not in the sense we use the word in the present day, but as used in Paul's day-a slave-one who did not own himself but belonged to another. It was for the slave that these precious words were written. We do not belong to ourselves, but are the slaves of Jesus Christ. "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price. (I. Cor. 6: 19, 20.) What was the price? Acts 20: 23 will answer, "His own blood." What a price! Having paid such a price, He claims full ownership of us, which means that we can do nothing except in obedience to Him. The servant does nothing except what his master bids him. Jesus gave perfect obedience, leaving us an example that we shall "follow His steps." "For I came not down from heaven to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." (John 6: 38.) Not one step of the way did He walk to please Himself. His path was all laid out by His Father, and He merely sought to know it. Such should be the whole aim and object of our

life.

How, then, may we answer our question? "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord." A young man starting out in life anxiously asks, "What shall I do for a life work?" Having settled this mat ter of the possession of life, by trusting fully in the blood of Jesus, the answer should be, whatever you can do, that you have an aptitude for, to glorify God. A certain occupation comes up for your consideration; can you live for God in that occupation? You want to learn a trade. serve God in it? You wish to go into business. Can you conduct it for God's glory? Can you deal fairly and squarely? Then ask, does God lead you into it? I do not mean for you to sit and wait like Micawber for something to turn up; for nothing is

Can you

THE EVIL OF TOO MUCH ELOQUENCE.

likely to turn up. But pray to the Lord to lead you into what will be for His glory. It does not matter so much what we do, as that we do what we do "as to the Lord." There was nothing so galling as that of being slaves in the Apostle's time, yet he said, "Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called," and whether bond or free, "as to the Lord" was to be the rule of life. How can the question be better answered than by saying, give your hearts to Jesus, and then live for Him, not being so. particular what you do, as to how you do what you do. "As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so ve shall walk in Him." Col. 2; 6.

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The subject of the lecture to-day is the way in which the preacher is now and always to receive the Word of God in order to deliver it to the people. It is a hard task to hold up a lantern to illumine the path for others, when the light exposes the manifold defects of the bearer.

It will be a relief and a help to turn to the life of Samuel Rutherford, one of the most inspired men of his period, and note how, during his ministry at Anwoth, it was his custom to spend hours at a time in a little wood near the manse, seeking and obtaining a direct communication with Christ. The consequence was, that when he appeared in the pulpit on Sundays, the people were overawed

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with the sense of Christ being in the preacher. It was Christ's face they saw beaming on them in the face of their new pastor, and his tones thrilled with the power of the voice which once spoke on earth as never man spoke. Whether or not this man was gifted with eloquence we are not certain, but one cannot help feeling that the effects produced by his ministry were decidedly independent of eloquence.

Indeed, eloquence is a gift which the Lord does not often use for his purpose; it is too prancing a palfrey for the Son of Man to ride. Moses was not eloquent, Aaron was. The word of the Lord came constantly to Moses. Aaron, with all his gifts of speech, made a golden calf. Jeremiah stands on the summit of prophetic work, and the wordy men who gained the popular ear in his day are pilloried in the history of the kingdom of God as the deceivers. Paul was not eloquent, so he tells us, Apollos was, and mighty in the Scriptures, too. Yet Paul, with his poor presence,his involved periods, his arguments like the fiery grinding of a wheel on granite, received and delivered more of the word of the Lord than Apollos. It is enough simply to say that natural eloquence may be a snare to the preacher. Words may come so abundantly that he will not wait to hear the Word of the Lord. To obtain the copious flow of ideas and feelings may be so easy to him that he will not take the trouble to traverse the barren wastes which lie between him and the Mount of God. Now what is the threefold way of receiving God's Word? How easily we

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to speak of these ways in succession lest they should seem to be divided, yet I must need speak of each separately, for the triple way de mands all three.

It is not possible to lay down what departments of knowledge must be studied by the preacher. Indeed, since no man can study everything, each must follow the line of his own bent and capacity. One preacher may be specially a student of science, another of history, another of philosophy, another of literature. Here and there a man may have grace to be a student of theology without being spoiled as a preacher. The lines of thought and work are various, but the point to be enforced is that real study should be bestowed on whichever line is selected. Desultory reading is the bane of preachers, followed by a rapid decline into anecdotage.

If a man expects to hear God speaking in this day and generation, he must be alert and active. Every faculty must be used. Too often the man of God becomes indolent and intellectually self-indulgent. He ceases to work hard at things. He makes newspapers and magazines the staple of his self discipline, and even with his Bible, he follows ingloriously any commentator who may be at hand. When God wishes to play upon an instrument and give a high music to men, he does not want to find that the best shops are out of use and that the swell organ and the pedals were never finished.

Habits of meditation are not easily formed. A certain strength and agility of soul are demanded for it. Not without reason did the great seer, Michael Angelo, paint the prophets in heroic mould, with tough sinews and massive brows. They must be athletes that would tread the path of meditation. On the one hand, it is comparatively easy to study

and to reason: on the other hand, it is far too easy to wander in the idle ways of listless reverie. Meditation is the steadfast setting of the mind on things unseen and eternal, on God and the soul, on the authority and dictates of the moral law, on life, not as it is broken in the kaleidoscope of experience, but as it is apprehended in the white light of its idea: As a rule men have not faith enough to meditate. It requires a drop of rare faith to be persuaded that the author of things is not far from the conscious mind, and watches for the unruffled waters to be still that He may mirror Himself in their bosom and send the gleam of His glory along their shining face.

We now turn to the third strand of prayer, which must be closely and constantly interwined with the other two. A man who is to be the spokesman of God must be much in prayer; he must pray without ceasing. Beating the air on the strong wings of prayer, he must scale the mountains of meditation and remain poised in the vision of God to see the things which He is to communicate. He must feel sure that if the fountain of prayer has run dry, his sparkling waters of rhetoric and reasoning will prove to be a mirage in the sand. "Much reading and thinking," said Berridge, "may make a popular preacher, but much secret prayer must make a powerful preacher."

We have to remember that the Word of God is not merely a collection of truths which can be written in a book and learned by rote. reports of sermons can never give us their real quality. It is only by hearing a sermon that you can tell whether it is drenched in prayer.

How comes it, that when God is so ready to speak to men, and is indeed ever seeking mouthpieces for His living and life-giving Word, there are so

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