MATTHEW PROVED HIS TRUE WORTH as a disciple, by giving a feast to his former friends and acquaintances to meet the Master at his own house, in order that they too might come into the kingdom of God. This was all the more important because of the many obstacles in the way of the publicans becoming Christians. (1) They were exposed to very great temptations to crimes for which there was no punishment. (2) Their past life lowered their standard of morality and debased their character. (3) Their past became a hindrance by taking away the hope of being and doing better. They were outcasts, and the better society did not welcome them, but repressed every desire to be better. The brand of their profession was on them. The Cain mark was plain upon their foreheads. (4) Jesus' presence showed the true way to reach men, as contrasted with the way of the Scribes and Pharisees.

As the physician looks at disease from the standpoint of its cure, so Jesus the Great Physician looked, as his disciples should, upon sinners from the standpoint of salvation from sin.

WHAT THE MIRACLES TEACH US CONCERNING THE WORK OF JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES IN THE WORLD OF TO-DAY (continued).

We have learned:

The nature of miracles.

Their value to us as illustrating God's feelings toward men.

Their value in attesting the nature and authority of Jesus.

Their value in showing the kind of fruits the churches should bear.

That the power of the church lies in doing, in our degree, the same things that Jesus did.

How the church is doing these things.

the

I. Jesus is still doing directly for us to-day the same kind of works he did in Palestine. There still are faith-cures. Still more are enabled so to live that health is the fruit of their Christian living. Some one asked (1908) Dr. A. B. Richardson, who has had many years' experience in charge of institutions for the insane, the last being the United States hospital at Washington,-"Is insanity caused by religion?' "On the contrary," he says: good cheer, bright hopes, rich consolations, good tempers, regular habits, and glad songs of religion are such an antidote for the causes of insanity that thousands of people in Ohio are preserved from insanity by them. But for the beneficent influence of religion Ohio would have to double the capacity of her hospitals in order to accommodate her insane patients." And more, Jesus brings wonderful triumphs over disease and pain. I have seen sick chambers which shone with the radiance of heaven. Many a soul imprisoned in a sick body has sung songs of glory, as Paul and Silas sang in their Philippian prison.

"But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help is he;

And faith has still its Olivet

And love its Galilee.

"The healing of his seamless dress

Is by our beds of pain,

We touch him in life's throng and press,
And we are whole again."

II. Jesus is largely working through his disciples. They are doing in various ways the same kinds of work which Jesus did, the works which Jesus taught were the marks of those who are to be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 25), doing them in his name as when the cup of cold water was given.

A large part of the help we can give to others is when we give ourselves with our gifts, the action of our personal souls upon the souls of others, heart touching heart. Even our organized charities are turning from

to charity with heart and love and supreme desire to help.

He also works through the preaching of the gospel in every possible form. In a late San Francisco paper it is said:

"It is the characteristic of a vast mass, if not majority, of San Francisco men not to go to church; that is, to absent themselves from places where worship and obedience are taught. Consequently these men who do not go to church have forgotten how to worship, and with this also have forgotten the art of obedience, which means the art of self-control.

We preach no new doctrine. We only say to the men of San Francisco that the worship of God in his holy temples creates a civic character such as would render impossible such crimes as this and such travesties of justice as we are constantly seeing."

III. The complaints made that the churches are declining arise from one fact and two misunderstandings.

(1) The fact is that some churches are not as full of the Christ spirit as they ought to be. Either the preaching is not full of the gospel, or the members are not carrying out the spirit of Jesus in doing good deeds to men. Both must be united. A religious revival and a revival of all kinds of work for the good of mankind must go together.

(2) The very success of the church leads some people to imagine that it is declining. For the churches have created an atmosphere of righteousness and religion, which extends far beyond its direct shining, like the northern twilight around the day. The sun is not seen, but the twilight comes from the sun. There never was a time when there were so many Christians, so many people filled and moved by the spirit of Christianity, outside of the churches, as there are to-day. It is their misfortune and loss that they are outside. They could do better inside. But their life and power come from the shining of the Sun of righteousness through the churches.

This is most clearly seen in heathen lands, where the good things shining from the small missionary churches with their schools and colleges compel the non-Christian to wake up and do some of the same kind of good deeds.

(3) The talk about the decline of the churches, even by some of its ministers, comes partly because some few individual churches are declining, but chiefly from a misapprehension of the function of the church. They see a great number of Christian institutions, Y. M. C. A.'s, Peace Societies, charity organizations, schools, colleges, civic leagues, and a hundred other organizations, doing splendid work for the good of mankind, but not under the control of the churches, nor a part of the church organizations. Therefore they imagine that the churches, which ought to do these things, are declining in influence.

One might as well say the same of our colleges. But the business of a college is not to do all things by its organization, but to train and educate men to do them. And all that their graduates are doing as the result of its training, is the fruit of the college, and reflects honor upon the college, and testifies to its value and growth.

So the business of the church is not to do all things through its own organization, but to inspire men with the spirit of Christ, to train them in good morals and good works, to awaken them into fulness of life; then under this influence continually exerted, they form Christian Associations, Missionary Societies, Christian Endeavor and Epworth League Societies, International Sunday School Associations, Rescue Missions, Salvation Armies, Red Cross Societies, and so many others that many volumes would be required to print even their names. They work as doctors and lawyers and school teachers, professors, reformers, labor organizers, government officials, for the healing of the sick, for the training of the young, for destroying the crimes and evils of the land, for the bringing in of the kingdom. These are the church at work in the wisest ways. It is false to say the churches are negligent, and that most of the reforms are done by outsiders. These are the fruits and work of the church.

Wm. T. Ellis in the Boston Daily Herald, says, "What mean these Red Cross stamps that brighten so many millions of pieces of mail these days, except that the war against preventable disease is an expression of the spirit which came to earth with Jesus? So also are the recent pure food laws, and the child labor laws, and the abolition of the convict lease system, and other prison reform measures, merely outworkings of the message of the Christmas angels. The old-age pensions, adopted by states abroad and by private employers here, and the legal requirement of safety devices on railroads and in workshops, the shop early' movement among holiday purchasers, the wide spread practice of special Christmas charity all these and a hundred kindred movements are in the spirit of Christ."

I have enjoyed several revivals of religion and received a permanent spiritual uplift from them. And in every case there accompanied it, was produced by it in the community a new impulse to good works for the blessing of others.

Whittier wrote a poem to a young physician and sent it with Doré's picture of Christ healing the sick. It ends thus:

"So shalt thou with power endued

From Him who went about

The Syrian hillsides doing good

And casting demons out.

IV. But the church is doing far more than this.

"The Good Physician liveth yet

Thy friend and guide to be;

The Healer by Gennesaret

Shall walk the rounds with thee."

The union of preaching with good

deeds which is bringing a new form of revival in our own land, is doing the same in a wonderful way in far away lands.

SENTENCE SERMONS.

"The thought unexpressed may fall back dead,
But God himself cannot kill a word that is said."

So a truth put into deeds is eternal.

What we need is a "new fashioned consecration to old fashioned truth."

Money is the means by which every one however poor or young may have a share in the good done by others.

"My faith now is far more helped by seeing the fruit faith bears than by anything else." Dr. Grenfell.

"I do know that I am far sounder in health, that I feel at peace with myself, that I want to live a better all-round life, and as you see, I've developed a passion for telling everybody of the good news about how I was cured." "A man is not really cured until his character is changed, until he has substituted peace, love, and courage, for fear, worry, sin. Physical disease is often only a symptom of deeper distresses of the personality growing out of sin and selfishness, and such a physical disease cannot be permanently cured until the deep underlying cause is removed. And these things are within the gift of religion and religion alone."

Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. - MATT. 4: 23.

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore. 1: 18.

REV.

These two "Golden Texts" express the truths and suggest the methods of one of the best and most interesting of Easter Lessons.

For they teach us the most important truths we need to know for our life here and for our life forevermore:

That the Jesus Who Once Lived in Palestine and Did the Works We Have Been Studying,

Showing the love of God for man,

Teaching the eternal truths of heaven,

Expressing in visible forms the loving kindness of our Heavenly Father,

Setting us a perfect example,

And giving his life that we should not perish but have eternal life.

This Same Jesus Is as Really Living To-day as He Was Then on Earth.

He is with us now as when he dwelt in Galilee,

Is now inspiring the same life,

Teaching the same truths,

Doing the same works,

Is our present King, Saviour, Helper, Guide, and Friend.

To realize these things will make a blessed Easter Day. The teacher can take up the lessons one by one with his scholars and show that the Risen Saviour is our present Saviour. We are tempted. Jesus is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" since "he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin."

We study the laws of his kingdom, and we know he who "as a Son learned obedience by the things which he suffered," "became, unto all them that obey him, the author of eternal salvation," "for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."

The review of Lessons IV. to IX. will bring these truths to mind.

We have been studying his good deeds to the bodies and souls of men. Jesus the living Saviour, is continually here and now fulfilling his promise, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father."

Lessons X: to XII. show what these works are.

The O. H. M. S.

"I read a story once told by H. S. Toomer which I would like to tell to you because of the fine ending it has. It was about a girl called Flora, who was so poor-looking that she had come to be known by the other children as The Ugly Duckling.'

"Oh, I wish I was beautiful,' she cried one day, it is so dreadful to be ugly.' "You can be beautiful,' spoke the Queen of the Fairies. 'I will help you if you wish.'

"The girl was carried off to the fairies' home. There she was set to waiting on an old sick, rheumatic woman.

"At first she rebelled, but soon pitied the sick woman, and forgot her own troubles thinking how she might be of help.

"She made her a soft cushion. The old lady held a mirror, saying, 'Look, my child!' "Flora was astonished. Her crooked eye was straight.

"She wheeled her mistress out into the sunshine.

"The mirror showed a new pretty curve in her mouth. "She rubbed the rheumatic limbs.

"The mirror showed beautiful dimples in her cheek.

"You may go home now, you are beautiful,' and the old sick woman returned to her fairy form.

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"I have kept my promise, you see,' said the fairy. See thou lose not that which thou hast gained. Farewell.'

"Oh, stop,' cried Flora; the poor old woman, who will take care of her?'

"I was that poor old woman.'

"But she was all crippled with pain.'

"Yes, I bore that pain that you might grow beautiful.'

"That is the beauty of all service rendered with love for others; it makes us nobler, finer, sweeter, prettier in face, in heart, and in life. Try it, young folk.

"Then how great a life of real love-service is! On His Majesty's Service on the service of the Heavenly King! Professor Drummond, giving some reminiscences of his days at Stirling High School to the scholars there, told how, in honor of the marriage of the Prince of Wales — now our King- the boys illuminated the High School. They bought a great deal of colored paper, red, blue, pink, and yellow, and they cut out the Prince of Wales' feathers, and all kinds of appropriate mottoes, and then pasted them on the windows. Candles were then procured, and when people passed they saw the Prince of Wales' feathers shining in every window. They cut out crowns, diamonds, and stars in this paper, but as he was a very small boy then, he was only allowed to stand in a corner and look on. One of those who were busy pasting up the papers soon came over to him, and asked him to run down town and buy two-penny-worth of pink paper, but he thought it was much more glorious to watch the performance going on there, so he said, 'No.' 'Why won't you go?' resumed the big fellow. 'Because I want to stay,' he replied. But,' continued his interrogator, 'do you know that it is "O. H. M. S. "?' 'You don't really say so,' replied Drummond, and he was off like a shot. He tells us that, as he ran down King Street, he thought he was ten feet high. He told the boys that he would never forget that sensation to the end of his days." Rev. James Learmount in an English paper.

་

HOW MANY MISSIONARIES? "A bishop asked a returned missionary, How many missionaries have you now on your stations?' 'Three thousand,' was the reply. I did not ask you how many converts, but how many missionaries,' said the bishop. I understand, and I again reply, three thousand. They are all missionaries.' That is the ideal state, but how far short of this ideal are we living in our church life to-day? After all, it is personal work that counts everywhere.". The Christian Evangelist.