about, lo! the city, with all its splendor, was gone as if it had never been. "Then he went and told his tale to the Caliph, and showed in proof of it the jewels which he had broken from the wall. And the Caliph sent men to seek the city, and they sought forty days but found it not; neither hath it ever been seen again since that day. For it was the will of Allah that the Paradise which man's pride had reared, should be hidden forever from the eyes of man; and who can resist Allah? Brothers, the story is ended."1 David Ker. A "NEIGHBORLY INTEREST." On the principle, probably, that there must always be a good aspect to even a bad thing, some one has attempted to justify a love of gossip by calling it a "neighborly interest" in the welfare of those around us. Very likely the person who invented the phrase was not the originator of the notion, and certainly he is far from being the only one who uses it as a curtain behind which all manner of Paul Prying may be considered justifiable. To find an illustration of the true meaning which should be attached to the term, "a neighborly interest," we have to look no farther than to the history of the poor fellow who traveling to Jericho, and falling among thieves, was left stripped, torn and helpless by the wayside. We all know that the only neighbor he found or who found him in his distress was the Good Samaritan, who bound his wounds and cared for him, and put him in a fair way to get upon his legs again. The Priest and the Levite of the story have long been classed together as two alike cold-blooded and unneighborly wretches, fully deserving the nearly nineteen centuries of obloquy which have risen above their stolid shoulders. But in thus considering the Priest and the Levite as equally guilty, a great injustice has been done to the Priest who, if he passed by on the other side, at least did so like a gentlemen, without staring at or commenting upon the forlorn condition of the hapless wretch who had fallen among thieves. The Levite on the contrary, no less selfish than the Priest, but endowed with a large amount of idle curiosity, comes swinging along the rocky Jericho road, flourishing his staff with empty emphasis, planting his sandaled feet with the firmness of self-complacency, looking this way and that, smiling to himself to see that old Simon's vineyard is less promising than his own, and that young Judah's olive trees are not quite so thrifty as they might be. But even with these pleasant subjects to reflect upon the road becomes monotonous; he meets with no traveler; he has seen nothing which will furnish him with material to make a story wherewith he may entertain his boon companions, at whatever may have been the ancient Jewish substitute for coffee house, bar-room or village store, and the Levitical mind is getting a little bored with this tiresome state of thinge. At last the flutter of something that might be the wing of a wounded bird or of a cluster of fallen leaves held captive where it fell, yet which hard'y looks like either, attracts his restless eye; and when the fluttering object seems to take the color of torn garments our Levite feels like a new creature, as with busy curiosity he hastily picks his way up to it. "He-l-l-oh-h!" he delightedly exclaims to himself; of course it is understood that we are quite literal in our translation. "Here's been a pretty to do! Man wounded; almost dead; left here by the wayside; robbed, most likely. What a fool to carry money about with him when he could n't take care of himself! Let me see," turning the moaning, unconscious wretch slightly with untender foot, "He's wounded in,-yes, actually in two, four, five, yes, five different 1 This tradition is to be met with, in a more or less perfect form, in every part of the East. places. He must have had a tough bout of it, I declare! Has rather a villainous countenance now I come to look at it; should n't be in the least surprised if he was the thief defeated in his attempt to rob some innocent traveler. Wonder if there are any more of them around? Guess I'd better be jogging along. Cluck! I shall have something to tell to Nicodemus now." And with a brisker step and a look of having gained a prize, Mr. Levite jauntily swings himself off again, stopping every passer-by to tell his tale of how a miscreant of a robber had been worsted in a fight, and left to die as he richly deserved by the Jericho roadside. Ten to one he will himself have become the victorious hero of the encounter by the time he reaches his destination, and tells the now well-commented story to gaping Nicodemus. The question of what is a genuine "neigh borly interest" might seem to have been permanently settled long ago, did we not constantly find the Levite claiming a share of the Good Samaritan's rightful laurels. If the Levite did not bind up the poor traveler's wounds, at least he counted them; if he did not help him to rise, it cannot be denied that he saw that the poor creature was helpless; if he did not remove the sufferer to a place of safety, and nurse and care for him there, he certainly knew how much such care was needed. But does all this justify the Levite? Have we, any of us, the right to look into, or upon, the wounds or afflictions of our fellow beings unless we do so with the earnest desire of extending material aid, or the sometimes equally grateful need of heartfelt sympathy? When we hear that so and so has lost heavily by bad investments, have we-not being creditors, and so being without the excuse of a personal interest-any right to.search records, inquire of bank officials, and patch fragmentary bits of information together, to find out just what those investments were, and why and when and for what amount they were made, and what is the exact loss? If the "wild boy," the "heaviness of his mother," has mysteriously disappeared, and his shame-stricken family have carefully tried to shield his still beloved name by paying his just debts and keeping silent about his delinquencies, is it a friendly interest that prompts the Levite to unearth the sickening details, and rub gleeful hands and shake a solemn head over the treasuretrove? A citizen has gained for himself a welldeserved prominence as a man of integrity, kindness and intellectual power; but his early history is unknown. He has his own reasous-sorrowful enough they may befor keeping this to himself. It concerns no one else he thinks, and he is right; no publicity will undo the past and he wrongs Do one by his silence. Is it, then, the Good Samaritan who, stumbling by chance upon the clue to this hidden past, follows it up and ferrets it out and rushes on eager feet to tell to gaping, idle listeners all that he knows, suspects or imagines concerning a matter with which neither he nor they have any rightful interest, and which if it were his own he would most carefully bury and jealously guard? Or is not this the part of the Levite, and will not he who is really neighbor reprove by stern words, or sterner silence, the jackal-like appetite of the Levite and his hearers? The Priest of the parable is not a lovable character, but he does not add to the afflic tions of the already afflicted by heartless curiosity and vulgar comment; he does not insult the helpless before passing by on the other side, and he will always command, if not the love of others, yet the respect which is due to those who, if they do not succor the afflicted, at least meddle not with their affairs. His is not the kindness of intention and therefore he may deserve no credit for it, but in the very many instances where words, however kindly meant, are like sharp arrows piercing anew the already wounded, the haughty, indifferent silence of the Priest is as beneficent as the oil and wine of the Samaritan. We cannot all of us in the nature of things be at all times actually Good Samaritans; but if we take a genuine "neighborly interest" in those around us, our wisest and kindest course is often that of the Priest, who, without looking, “passed by on the other side." Helen E. Smith. THE STILL HOUR. O HOPE of the world that risest again New-born from the clod, O life that brightens on meadow and fen O daffodils brave whose banners fly At the snow's retreat, O sweet warm winds of the South that sigh O birds that tell in the branches bare Read me your lesson; teach me your prayer; THE great truths of the Gospel require for their apprehension some moral discernment. How can a thoroughly selfish man understand the truth of Christ's divinity? Divinity to him means force or quantity rather than quality of being. How much would you know about the Apollo Belvidere if one should simply tell you that it consisted of so many cubic inches of white marble, and weighed so many pounds? What idea of its beauty would those words convey to you? Some such quantitative notion of Christ's divinity a selfish man may get, and it is the only idea of him that we find in the writings of many theologians. Such a notion may well be disputed about, but it is of no practical value. To apprehend the beauty of Christ's character, in which his divinity chiefly resides, one needs much schooling in the services of obedience and love. And the more men know of this the less they will be inclined to dispute about it. "A READER of SUNDAY AFTERNOON," referring to certain counsels of resignation and trust, asks these questions: "What if pondering over life's dreadful problems has shaken and ship wrecked trust in God, hardened the heart, and shut out every view but that of a supreme stern Ruler and Governor of the Universe? What if prayer for temporal and spiritual good, the deep heart-cries and anguish of the soul, fall back unheeded on one's own head?" The mental suffering out of which such questions spring awakens the sincerest sympathy. The answers that can be given to them in this place must be altogether inadequate, but one is inclined, first, to ask this troubled soul, Do you then believe that this is the worst possible universe? If that is your trouble read history. For history makes nothing plainer than that the Power that is shaping the destinies of the human race is a righteous and benevolent Power. Even Strauss says that "order and law, reason and goodness" are the soul of the universe. Much suffering exists, the reason of which we cannot see, but a large view of human history shows us that an "increasing purpose" of benevolence is running through the centuries. If there is a God, then, he is neither cruel nor simply "stern;" he is good. And if there is a God and he is good the evidences of his goodness must be visible, not only in the large view of history, but in the events that are happening all about us, in the circumstances of our own lives. Would it not be well, then, to cease "pondering life's dreadful problems," and to think more of life's cheerful and blessed issues? There is sorrow and darkness and mystery enough to see, no doubt; but there is much that is the reverse of all this to see, if we will only look for it. And, however it may be concerning prayer for "temporal good," it cannot be that sincere prayer for 'spiritual good," for patience under trouble, for power to do right, ever does "fall back unheeded on one's own head." The soul that asks with sincerity for help of this kind, and that wills at the same time to do the thing that it asks for help to do, never asks in vain. And the soul that finds such help as this has a hold upon God that no trouble can shake. 66 "I BESEECH you brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," writes Paul to the Christians at Rome. Do not give God decrepitude and feebleness and gray hairs; give him the freshness of youth and the vigor of maturity. "The Lord of Life," says an ancient Hindoo writing, "should not be worshiped with faded flowers. Those that grow in thine own garden are far better than any other." CHRIST is our example; but he who supposes that Christ's work consists simply in furnishing us an example has a very inadequate idea of what man needs and of what Christ is. It is true that we have some power of copying, by observation and volition, the conduct of those that are better than we are; but it is also true that the lives which .are mainly the result of imitation are defective and unlovely lives. "That peculiar character," says Dr. Mozley, "which we admire in another, would become quite a different one in ourselves could we achieve the most successful imitation. The copy could never have the spirit of the original, because it would want the natural root upon which the original grew. We ought to grow out of our own roots; our own inherent propriety of constitution is the best nucleus for our own formation." This, then, is what we need-the healing, the quickening, the replenishing of our spiritual life. It is not a model to grow by; it is "more life and fuller that we want." That is what Christ came to bring: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." By faith in him we are made partakers of his nature, and thus the very elements of virtue in us are reinforced. The tulip bulb does not need a full grown tulip to look at that it may learn how to blossom; it needs to feel at its own heart the warmth of the sun and the moisture of the soil. Not Christ before you as an example, but "Christ in you," communicating to you the vitalizing energy of his own eternal life, is the power of God unto salvation. "THE Lord is thy keeper," but not thy jailer. His keeping is not confinement, it is protection. When you commit your ways to him, he does not abridge your liberty; he only defends you against the evil. with the skepticism of this time who thinks that it consists in the disbelief of certain doctrines which need to be re-proved, who does not see that its heart and essence is in the conflict of life with faith, in which the victory can be secured to faith only by clothing and filling her with new and more personal vitality." "Popular skepticism being what it is, the main method of meeting it must be not an argument but a man." "There must be no lines of orthodoxy inside the lines of truth." After all the preaching of rewards and punishments through all these centuries, the truth remains that no man in any century ever yet healthily and helpfully desired heaven who did not first desire holiness, and no man ever yet healthily and hopefully feared hell who did not first fear sin." "If atheism is dislodged out of the minds of men in this and the next generation it will be because they come to see that man rejecting God becomes inhuman." "The best method of dealing in the pulpit with popular skepticism is really this: make known and real to men by every means you can command the personal Christ, not doctrine about Him but Him; strike at the tyranny of the physical life by the power of his spiritual presence. Let faith mean trusting Him and trying to obey Him. Call any man a Christian who is following Him. Denounce no error as fatal which does not separate a soul from Him. Offer Him to the world as He Do not be so eager to disclaim personal merit that you shall fall into the tone of abjectness and offered and is forever offering Himself.” self-contempt. Doubtless it is only by God's grace that you stand, yet doubtless it is you who stand by God's grace. Does God who gives this grace despise you? What right then have you to despise yourself? Since you are precious in his sight, you ought to be honorable in your own. Between self-righteousness and abjectness there is a wide interval, and it is not necessary in departing from the one vice to fall into the other. "As for me," says David, "I will walk in mine integrity." THE one word of current speech which every minister ought to ponder in the first "still hour" that he can get, is that noble Concio ad Clerum of Phillips Brooks's in the Princeton Review. The topic is "The Pulpit and Popular Skepticism," a phrase that has a polemic sound, but like everything that Mr. Brooks writes its value is in its spiritual power, in its deep sense of the eternal verities of righteousness. If the solemn truths to which this utterance points should not be heeded it will not be because they are not needed. For it is the failure to perceive them that is robbing Christianity of its influence to-day, and turning hundreds of earnest young men away from the calling of the ministry. There are scores of quotable sentences here that ought to stick in the memory: 'No man can do anything 66 REMEMBER that peace is not passivity. It never comes to the man who sits down and waits for it. It is not the antithesis of action but the fruit of action. "Great peace have they that love Thy law," who love it well enough to obey it. OUR Fast-day services may have important political uses, but it is a question whether they bring to individual worshipers much spiritual benefit. Those who participate in the Fast-day prayer-meetings generally confess and deplore other people's sins and not their own. This is an easy thing to do, but it is not always improving. It is liable to produce Pharisaism rather than humility. To engage in social humiliation and fasting is, indeed, a somewhat delicate and difficult business. Thanksgiving is, by its nature, a social act; but the humiliation and contrition which have any spiritual value are by their nature so utterly personal that it is not easy to engage in them publicly. "When thou fastest enter into thy closet." That is the fittest place for the specific acts to which the Fast-day summons us. At the same time, the devotion of one day in the year to a serious consideration of our social and political obligations may be a useful observance. EDITOR'S TABLE. CHRISTIANIZING THE CHURCHES. MANY of our churches are full of missionary zeal. The gospel which has been committed to them they are eager to impart to those who have not received it. The evangelization of every kingdom and nation under the whole heaven, and of all the institutions of society governments, constitutions, schools, - is the task which they have set themselves, and for the achievement of which they are working with boundless energy. This is just as it should be. Christianity is a missionary religion; its first word is "Go;" it always calls men forth from themselves and sets them at work in behalf of others. A Christianity which feels no impulse of this sort is altogether spurious. Nevertheless the missionaries must "begin at Jerusalem." The genuine ones always do. And the churches that are so eager to export the gospel to distant places, must take care that they keep a good supply of it on hand for home consumption. "Physician, heal thyself," is a proverb that is beginning to be quoted to them with some sharpness, and they must heed it. It is of the utmost consequence that the churches which are so full of zeal for the Christianization of all that is outside of them should take good care to Christianize themselves. It is not so clear as it ought to be that all the churches of the land are Christian churches. There are large numbers of them whose orthodoxy can be guaranteed, whose order is perfect after its pattern, whose governmental machinery always moves smoothly, whose sacraments obey the reddest of rubrics and the strai(gh)test of canons, but whose Christianity is by no means above suspicion. The church that excludes from its own fellowship those whom in the judgment of charity it must acknowledge to be true disciples of Jesus Christ is not a Christian church. Any church which by the methods of its administration puts intellectual opinions or ritual observances above the facts of character and discipleship is not a Christian church. There may be Christians in it, but the organization itself is not of Christ and needs to be Christianized. The church whose works prove that it is more zealous to propagate its own denominational peculiarities than to secure the advancement of pure and undefiled religion in the community where it stands does not deserve to bear the name of Christ. The church that is full of zeal in the making of new converts and careless of the character of its membership, that gathers every year to its communion a multitude to wrangle and backbite and cheat and lie, is not a Christian church. It was not the Christians of whom it was said: "Ye compass land and sea to make one proselyte, and when he is made ye make him tenfold more the child of hell than yourselves." The church whose operations indicate that it thinks more of quantity than of quality in its evangelizing work is none of Christ's. Even those churches that may be fairly said to belong to Christ show in many of their doings a deplorable lack of respect for the fundamental principles of his religion. The social relation of many of them can hardly be called Christian. The pride and exclusiveness, the lack of friendly sympathy, the division of the body into distinct classes of rich and poor, cultivated and illiterate, between whom no real bond of brotherhood exists-all this is in direct disobedience to the organic law of the Christian church. And not only by these unseemly gradations of rank and caste, but also by the spirit that is manifested in the relations of Christians when they are brought together in the churches, is this law set at naught. There are a great many petty quarrels about small matters, and the inconsistency and shamefulness of this state of things does not seem to be recognized by many church members. Each man wants his own way, and is ready to fight if he cannot have it. In many churches there are chronic dissensions. Are these Christian churches? Look at that wrangling and raging church court now in session in Brooklyn! Is there anything in that city that more needs Christianizing than that Presbytery? The financial methods by which these churches are often managed find no authorization in the New Testament. The principle of competition upon which the commercial operations of society rest, and which is also brought in to regulate the financial affairs of most of our churches, is not a Christian principle. And it can hardly be said that Christian principle has much to do with the secular side of our church organizations. So long as the man who has the most money gets the best |