not succeed, if the real effort which is in you does not touch men and help them, must not one of the reasons be that your goodness lacks spirituality? Ask yourself whether, perhaps, it is not too hard and machine-like and unloving. Ask yourself whether, made infinite, it would be God's goodness. Take it and bathe it in love, glorify it with prayer, get the last unselfishness out of it by consecration, and see if then it does not start to life, and whether men do not feel its power.

The other exhortation is for Assyria and Egypt -for men of worldly ways and hard, unyielding natures. If you do not feel the power of Judaism, you ought to be very much afraid about yourself. If a spiritual life can be lived right by your side, and you receive from it no rebuke or invitation, then beware! That is a terrible condition. The spring wind calls to the rock, and it has no green answer to send back. God calls to you by His voice in an enlightened soul, and you are dead. Oh, beware! oh, be afraid and pray! cry out and pray that your life may be rekindled before it is quite dead!

The time shall come when all the heavens shall be full of light; when, as the prophet prophesied, men shall not need to say to one another, "Know ye the Lord, for all shall know Him, from the lcast to the greatest". While that blessed day lingers and has not yet come, God be praised that no star can

break forth anywhere without the whole dark heaven being brighter for it, no man's soul can be filled with God without the voice of God to His children becoming thereby fuller and richer on the earth.

THE UNBROKEN CHAIN.

"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."-1 THESS. iv. 13, 14.

FIRST and Second Thessalonians contain nothing. of argument. Once, indeed, the writer warms up in earnest denunciation of the constant hinderers. of his work. This is near the close of the Second Epistle. In a verse or two, almost as if by accident, he expresses himself about the Jews who opposed the Gospel. It is an exceptional instance.. In general, these two Epistles are such discourses. as one would address to his dearest friends, by whom he is perfectly sure of being understood. We encounter a difficulty in interpretation from our desire to be too systematic. There is here no scheme drawn out. Paul is simply uttering, carnestly and faithfully, exhortations as they come to his mind.

The First and Second Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians were written earliest of all the books of the New Testament-before the other Epistles, before the Apocalypse, and before the Gospels.

No other Christian writings that have gone forth into the world bear so early a date. When we think of the multitude of writings that have gone forth, there must always be something of special interest in these two books of the Christian Scriptures that head the long pro

cession.

We shall better understand these Epistles if we read, in connection with them, the first half of the seventeenth chapter of the Acts. At Thessalonica St. Paul found a synagogue of the Jews; and, as his custom was, he went in and preached Christ. He tried to make the Jews take this great heritage of Christianity. But he found here no welcome among the Jews. His reception was the same as in other places. The preaching of the Gospel seemed to be an interference with the life of the community. It was followed by confusion and tumult. The Apostle was hurried away by the friendly solicitude of those who believed in him, and he went on to Athens. At length Timothy followed, bringing to Paul some account of what was taking place in Thessalonica. He said that the disciples who were left behind had not been spared from persecution, but they had been steadfast in the midst of their sufferings. St. Paul seems to have sat down, his whole soul glowing with sympathy for the persecuted Church, and poured out his heart in the First Epistle. Certain things. in the First Epistles were misapprehended, and

the Second Epistle was written to correct the misapprehension.

What is the teaching of St. Paul to the Thessalonian Church? We find something of what might have been expected from the working of the spiritual life in the Apostle and in the Church. We cannot read any of the Epistles of St. Paul without seeing how constantly he is thinking of the everlasting life opened to the world by Jesus. He was brought to Jesus by the Divine utterances of Jesus Christ Himself, speaking to him out of the spiritual world. The picture which St. Paul had of Jesus was of Jesus as He is in the spiritual life—not as He was while walking in Galilee. He was to St. Paul not so much the Jesus of the Crucifixion as the Jesus of the Resurrection. The RESURRECTION ! That is the great cry and watchword that St. Paul is always uttering. Jesus, rising from the grave, opened the doors of eternity for every man. To the story of the Resurrection the Church turns in her persecution and distress for comfort.

The disciples at Thessalonica had taken to their hearts what Paul had told them of the life of the world to come. They looked on the picture with eyes quickened by the sufferings that they were undergoing every day. They saw Jesus in His immortality; and in the immortality of Jesus they saw their own. The First Epistle was written for consolation to the suffering. It contains instructions and assurances in regard to the ever