the insurance of total abstainers, has now become well established by a very successful experience, and its figures more than corroborate those of the London Society.

THE RAVAGES of small things, like insects and moths, small animals.

At the time of this writing a great number of men throughout this city are searching every tree, every hiding place, for the eggs of Gypsy moths and Browntail moths, to destroy every one in the city, because these small creatures are ruinous to the trees and gardens. So is the habit of cigarette using, and of using the lighter drinks among the young.

THE PLEDGED BRIGADE.

There is a small pamphlet by Henry Churchill King, president of Oberlin College, published by E. J. Goodrich of Oberlin, in which he gives cogent reasons

Why a man should be a total abstainer.

Why the temperate man should take a pledge.

On this last question he shows

1. That "it is for thy own highest good."

2. "Such a pledged attitude, moreover, seems to me to be most in line with the safe and sane rational life urged in the following paragraph of James's Psychology:

"The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding or regretting of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in anyone of my readers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right.'"

3. "Another reason for a pledged total abstinence is because a pledge-signing movement is the most natural, and perhaps the only way to make definite and decisive the much needed movement for personal temperance."

4. "Once more, a pledged total abstinence seems to me desirable because it is the most positive and definite way in which one's influence can be made effective for others. The man who has pledged himself to total abstinence has thereby put himself on record, as far as he possibly can, in favor of such a policy for all men. And the full weight of his influence in that direction can hardly be felt in any other way."

The little booklet from which these extracts are taken is worth circulating through every class and every school. Its price is only a few cents.

ALCOHOL OUT OF THE RACE.

The contestants in the Marathon Race, which is run on April 19 from Ashland to Boston, twenty-five miles, were notified this year in the following terms: "Alcohol in any form is positively forbidden before, during, and immediately after the race. It never does good, and usually does harm. Disregard of the foregoing shall be considered sufficient grounds for disqualification by the physician in charge."

In previous Marathon races some men who had become fagged had resorted to alcohol and other stimulants, and some of them fell unconscious soon after taking the stimulants. This year the six prominent Boston physicians who examined the one hundred and twentyfour men entered one hundred and three of whom started and seventy-five finished stated that the condition of the men was far superior to that of previous years. So far as can be learned, no alcohol or drugs were used. No runner collapsed, and the record of physical endurance in this, the greatest race in America, if not in the world, is a wonderful

one.

The twenty-five consecutive miles, up hill and down, were run in an average of less than six minutes each, which is only a minute and a half slower than the majority of mile races on the best cindered tracks. Previous Marathon records were smashed, because the men depended on long and careful training, rather than on stimulants. Alcohol was ruled out of the race, as it will be out of every contest of brawn or brains.

FOURTH

QUARTER,

OCTOBER 4 TO DECEMBER 27, 1908.

KING DAVID AND KING SOLOMON.

LESSON I. October 4.

DAVID BRINGS THE ARK TO JERUSALEM. - 2 Samuel 6. PRINT 2 Samuel 6: 1-12. COMMIT v. 12. READ Chronicles 13, 15, 16. GOLDEN TEXT. - Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. - PSA. 100: 4.

INDUCTIVE STUDY OF THE LESSON.

Compare the two accounts, in 2 Samuel 6, with 1 Chronicles 13-16, and note the differences, and what the second account adds to the first.

MAKE A STUDY of Psalm 24, which was probably sung on this occasion. Note its structure, its responses, its enthusiasm.

THE PSALM, I Chron. 16: 7-36, which David gave to be sung on the occasion, reappears -verses 8-22 in Psalm 105: 1-15 and verses 23-33 in Psalm 96; the concluding verses in Psalm 106: I, 47, 48.

OTHER PSALMS as 84, 132, and others express delight in God's house.

1 Chron. 23 5 and 25: 1-7 describe the organization of the service of song.

HOME WORK

AND CLASS DISCUSSION.

The connection of this lesson with the last quarter.
What David had accomplished for his kingdom.
How the ark came to be at Kirjath-jearim."

The value of the ark to religion.

Value of religious enthusiasm.

Why Uzzah was so severely punished.

AGELESS HYMNS.

"I love thy Kingdom, Lord."
"Glorious things of thee are spoken."
"The banner of Immanuel."

THE LESSON IN ITS SETTING.

The Course of the History. - Professor Beecher points out the fact that David's reign of thirty-three years in Jerusalem is divided up into three periods:

1. A period of war and conquest, about fourteen years.

2. A period of rest and upbuilding, about seven years.

3. A period of domestic troubles, about twelve years.

This lesson probably belongs to the second period, or to a period of rest during the conquest. But the exact order of events is not easily obtained from the narrative.

Time. - Either B.C. 1038 (Ussher); or 1002 by revised chronology of the Assyrian Eponym Canons. (So Professor Beecher.)

Place. (1.) The ark had been for a long time at Kirjath-jearim, about eleven

miles west of Jerusalem, in the valley of Sorek (where Delilah lived), a valley which leads up from the Philistine country toward Jerusalem. (2.) At house of Obed-edom between Kirjath-jearim and Jerusalem.

David's Counselors. Ahithophel, a very shrewd man; Nathan, the prophet; and Joab, his chief general.

THE TEACHER'S LIBRARY.

Professor Kent's History of the Hebrew People "The United Kingdom," and his Israel's Historical and Biographical Narratives. $2. 1905. Scribner's.

Commentaries on Samuel and Chronicles Expositor's Bible, Cambridge Bible, Pulpit Commentary, International Critical Commentary.

A Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, by Rev. W. D. Crockett, and Professor Little's Royal Houses of Israel and Judah, are both very helpful harmonies and arrangements.

The Life of David, by Wm. M. Taylor, Wm. J. Deane, Meyer, Maclaren, Edersheim, Blaikie, Krummacher.

Whyte's Bible Characters (Revell). Wharton's Famous Men of the O. T. (Treat). Matheson's Representative Men of the Bible (Armstrong).

Trumbull's Studies in Oriental Social Life, p. 52, on David's "Procession and Dancing"; John Henry Newman's hymn on "Uzzah and Obed-edom"; Dante's Purgatorio, X: 50-64.

Mrs. Sangster's Poems, "The House of Obed-edom."

I. The Development of the Kingdom Under David. — THE OPPORTUNITY. The extension of the kingdom under David and Solomon was aided by the condition of affairs in the two great nations, Egypt on the southwest, and Assyria and Babylon on the northeast, from one or the other of which regions most of Israel's enemies came. Professor Rogers tells us that it was a time of internal dissensions and Eastern wars, both in Babylonia and Assyria. "We have lighted on degenerate days." "The real Babylonian stock had exhausted its vigor." "A period not only of peace, but of stagnation had come. "It was a period of weakness and decay in Assyria." - Babylonia and Assyria, Vol. II. 33-45.

THE ARMY OF DEFENSE. David was surrounded on all sides by enemies who, during Saul's time, had made continual raids upon the Israelites.

David's first work, therefore, was to organize an army of defense and protection. He had during his outlaw life, and his reign at Hebron, gathered about him a brave and tried band of warriors.

(1) GENERAL JOAB. Chief among them was his commander, Joab, who combined with an intrepid courage rare skill as a military leader. "His faults were many, yet to him David largely owed his military successes. - Kent.

(2) THE BAND OF HEROES. "Next in honor stood thirty-seven heroes, who had each distinguished himself by acts of daring during the Philistine wars.' Kent. See the roll of names and catalogue of their valorous deeds in 1 Chronicles II.

(3) HIS BODYGUARD consisted of six hundred hired mercenaries, called Pelethites, Cherethites, and Gittites, their names indicating "that they were for the most part Philis