and water, and so its parents speak of them at first as things only to be feared, and the qualifications with which these statements must be received, in order to give a complete representation of the truth, are out of place at this stage of education.

So it is most wisely in God's revelation to man. Many of its statements appear to contain only halftruths, because they can in no other way find an entrance into the dull, untutored mind of the spiritual babe. Thus, when Christ finds the Pharisees consumed with covetousness, and despising the poor, He tells them the parable of Dives and Lazarus. He represents the rich man as enduring torments, and the beggar as going to Abraham's bosom; nor is there any moral reason assigned for the difference. The rich man is not represented as wicked, nor the poor man as pious; there are none of those qualifications stated that are necessary to give complete expression to the justice of the award. There is seemingly a partial and one-sided description, but the great Teacher knew how to press home a great truth through the thick crust of human selfishness. He wished to strip riches of their meretricious glory, and show

the insignificance of man's earthly lot, comparea with his eternal destiny; and so He wisely concentrated attention on that single point, and did not weaken the effect by throwing in qualifying statements. This principle furnishes a key to many difficulties in interpreting the Bible. It is not its habit to surround great truths with all their balancing considerations; it leaves those to be gathered from other portions of the field. When Christ says "Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away," He does not in the same breath warn against encouraging imposture, and giving to vagabonds; but we find the Apostle Paul, in writing to the Thessalonians, forbidding that widows be supported by the Church unless they are old and deserving, and declaring, with respect to idle Church members, that "if any man will not work, neither shall he eat"-a pretty sure proof that He reprobated indiscriminate alms-giving.

The Bible is a book full of sublime truths, stated in the most striking manner, and so as irresistibly to penetrate the self-love of man. God well knew the tendency of the human mind to sophisticate

and explain away distasteful duties, till nothing remained but a few shreds of the original principle. He knew how the Pharisees paid tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and neglected the weightier matters of the law-justice, mercy, and the love of God; how they robbed widows' houses, and for a pretence made long prayers, and therefore He told them, in words that could never be explained away, "Sell that ye have and give alms, provide yourselves bags that wax not old, a treasure in the Heavens that fadeth not, where no thief entereth neither moth corrupteth, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." But lest this saying, if isolated from all other teaching on the subject, should prove too hard a rule of life, we find that the Apostle is enjoined by the Spirit thus to define the duties of rich men: "Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal

life." The great principle is laid down by Christ that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth, and the practical application by Paul is that, when God gives wealth, He intends it to be used, like all His other gifts, in subservience to His glory and the good of men. We find the same twofold style of teaching regarding prayer, chastity, patience, and the leading virtues of the Christian character. Certain mandates are delivered respecting them of terrible incisiveness, which cut so deep indeed into the propensities of man and the customs of society, that they appear impracticable when looked at nakedly; but in searching the Scripture we come upon balancing truths which take off the hard edge of the commandment, and bring it into harmonious adjustment to the varied necessities of life; and hence it happens that the timid believer, who is at first staggered by the apparent harshness of the Divine commandments, discovers after a while that they admit of wonderful adaptation to the exigencies of life; and that, though they stand out in virgin purity, like the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, never condescending to accommodate them

selves to any form of human evil, they do not harshly override the intricate mechanism of social life, but rather mould it so as to prove the truth of that Scripture: "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come."

If we are right in this view of the Bible, it will follow that man will draw from it various lessons at the different stages of his spiritual growth. When his eyes are first opened to the supreme importance of eternal things, he is apt to despise altogether temporal things; he hears only such language as this: "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." "This world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God continueth ever." There is no room to attend to such minor injunctions as, "We exhort you to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you." Like the early Christians, who lived in daily expectation of the coming of the Lord, and thus neglected their temporal concerns, he sees no importance in man's earthly relationships while his mind is absorbed with the things of eternity;