23. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; laid up considerable money, and was growing rich. But it happened that he had been for a long time with stomachic pains for which he found no relief, and which were the bane and torment of his life. A.D. 28. ON THE Sidney Smith's Now, were that man to send for a physician to consult him about his malady, what would he think if the doctor should say, 'My good friend, you surely will not be so rash as to attempt to get rid of those pains in your stomach! Have you not grown rich with those pains there? Has not your situation improved every year? You surely will not be so indiscreet as to part with those pains?' Story. "Monster of rhubarb !' the man would reply, 'I am not rich in consequence of those pains, but in spite of them. And I would have been richer, and a thousand times happier if I had had no pains in my stomach at all.'" Power of Expression. 22. ANGRY-SHALL SAY.-Expressing feelings by word or act tends to increase the feeling, and make it permanent in the character. If you prevent a tree from expressing its inner life in leaves and fruit, the tree will die. The tree grows by means of the outward expression. So we gain a victory over angry passions by keeping them from outward expression. On the other hand, pity for the poor, unless expressed by word and deed, tends to harden and deaden the heart. SAYINGS.-" Anger is a brief madness." “Anger wishes (like Nero) that all mankind had one neck; love, that it had only one heart."-Richter. "Angry men turn bees, and leave their lives in the wound.'” "Animasque in vulnere ponunt." LIBRARY.-Whately's "Annotations," "Anger"; Coleridge's Poems, some lines in "Christabel." 22. HELL FIRE, Thν yɛɛvvav Tov Tурóç, the Gehenna of fire. Gehenna is a compound of Ge (land) and Hinnom, a deep, narrow glen south 24. Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. The Gehenna of Fire. of Jerusalem. On the brow overlooking the valley Solomon erected high places for Molech (1. Kings xi. 7), and in the glen Ahaz and Manasseh made their children "pass through the fire," and "the fiendish custom of infant sacrifice seems to have been kept up." This place also "became the common refuse-place of the city, into which the bodies of criminals, carcasses of animals, and all sorts of filth were cast." 'It became the common cesspool of the city." The fire that burned up this refuse was kept perpetually burning, and the smoke continually ascended. "The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna called, the type of hell.”—Milton. Thus the place became a fit symbol of the punishment of sin, the refuse and corruption of the soul, of the sinner who has become unfit to dwell with his fellows on account of his vileness and evilbreeding, contaminating power. It is a type, too, of the sinful soul itself. 24. FIRST BE RECONCILED.- For an illustration of the necessity of being reconciled to man before we can truly worship God, see Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," part iv., and the two stanzas preceding the last two in part vii.: The Ancient Mariner. "I looked to heaven and tried to pray; But e'er ever a prayer had gusht " "A spring of love gushed from my heart "He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast; 25. Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 26. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. 27. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: A.D. 28. ON THE 28. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. 29. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 30. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 31. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement : 32. But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. 25. THE OFFICER, iлпρéтη a servant, or under officer. "This word presents a good example of the influence of the gospel in lifting words into higher and purer associations. Formed with the verb kpéoow, to row, it originally signified a rower, as distinguished from a soldier in a war-galley. This word for a galley-slave comes at last in the hands of Luke and Paul to stand for the noblest of all officers, that of a minister of the Lord Jesus (Luke i. 2; Acts xxvi. 16; I. Cor. iv. 1).”—M. R. Vincent. 27-32. LIBRARY.-Juvenal "Satires,” xii. 209: "Scelus intra se tacitus qui cogitat ullum Facti crimen habet." "Who in his breast a guilty thought doth cherish, THE CITY OF FALSE PLEASURE.-The seventh commandment thus interpreted by Christ is a wall around the family, the city of true love, with its homes, its children, its heavenly life of love,—the type of the city of God. This wall defends the home against the demons of selfishness, the dragons of sensual love and divorce, the 33. ¶ Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: storms of vile literature, the armies of evil thoughts and bad companions. It is also a wall to keep men from entering another city, the city of False Pleasure, the city of Destruction, from which Bunyan's Pilgrim fled. In its centre is a burning whirlwind of flame, filled with diseases, remorse, and death. This vortex of fiery evils is hidden from the sight of those without by being surrounded with palaces of sensual delight, magnificent temples of lust, brilliant saloons of intoxicating drinks, conversation halls of lewd stories, libraries of obscene literature, debasing theatres, obscene pictures, all kindling the fires of evil thoughts. And the flames within so light up these pleasure palaces that they seem often like the heavenly towers and golden spires of true joy, and many are attracted by them to their ruin. It is against these avenues and enticements, which lead to the awful hell unseen within, that teachers need most to warn their scholars by means of these verses. And they should note specially that most sinful and dangerous pleasures have two sides,-one for argument, the other for practice. They are like the dome of St. Peter's on festival days, brilliantly lighted toward the city of Rome, but all darkness toward the country without. THE BELL OF THE ANGELS. It is said that in heaven at twilight a great bell softly swings, And man may listen and hearken to the wondrous music that rings, If he put from his heart's inner chamber all the passion, pain, and strife, Heart-ache and weary longing that throb in the pulses of life- So, then, let us ponder a little-let us look to our hearts and see --Atlanta Constitution. EVIL THOUGHTS.-"You can't prevent the devil from shooting arrows of evil thoughts into your heart; but take care that you do 34. But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: 35. Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. 36. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. 37. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. A.D. 28. ON THE 38. Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. 39. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. not let such arrows stick fast and grow there. Do as a good old man of past time has said: 'I can't prevent a bird from flying over my head, but I can prevent him from making a nest in my hair.'" -Luther. 34. SWEAR NOT AT ALL.-"What does Satan pay you for swearing?" said a gentleman to one whom he heard using profane language. "He don't pay me anything," was the reply. 'Well, you work cheap,-to lay aside the character Cheap Pay for Swear ing. of a gentleman, to inflict so much pain on your friends and civil people, and to risk losing your own soul, and all for nothing,—you certainly do work cheap-very cheap indeed!" THE EVIL OF PROFANITY.-Men always lose faith in that which they take lightly on their tongues. And this is the reason why God holds up the Third Commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." This is the deadly nature of profanity. Because to take God's name in vain is to raise up an army of doubts. Oaths are like the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus of old, from them spring a harvest of armed giants of doubt and unbelief. There is no possible way in which you can make God seem a myth, an unreality, and destroy his power over men, more easily than by taking His name lightly on the lips. 39. RESIST NOT EVIL.-"A modern philosopher, Mr. J. S. Mill, has said that Christ, in giving such instructions, had done wonders for the ideal of humility and charity in the world, but had failed to inculcate manliness and that courage which was so amply developed |