2. Why are the books of the Bible called Holy? Because they were inspired by the Holy Ghost, 2 St. Pet. i. 21. It is reported that when Queen Victoria presented a Bible to the Ambassador of an African Prince she said, "This is the Secret of England's greatness." That was a noble saying. 3. To what is the word of Jer. xv. 16. Fire, Jer. xxiii. 29. Glass, 2 Cor. iii. 18. God compared? A Lamp, Prov. vi. 23. Food, 4.—Who made the first English Translation of the Bible? Wickliffe in the year 1380. Before that a Bible cost £300. Wickliffe's Bible was written, there was no printing. 5.-What other translation were there beside Wickliffe's? (1.) Tyndale's Bible, 1534. (2.) Matthewe's Bible, comprising translations of Tyndale and (3.) Cranmer's, or the Great Bible printed in 1539 was a revision of Bible 6. Why were there no Bibles in England before 1380? Because we were then Roman Catholics, and they do not wish people to read the Bible. Do not think the Bible is a dull book. How can a book which tells of Joseph, and David, and Daniel, and better than all, of Jesus Christ the great Saviour-how can that book be dull? If God's Holy Spirit teaches you, it will make you happy in this world and in that which is to come! Next Sunday, God willing, I shall give you three rules for reading the Bible. January 16th. THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. Read Deut. xi. 18-22, and Ps. cxix. 9–19. Learn St. John v. 39. Last Sunday I promised to give you three rules for reading the Bible. I very much want you to remember them. 1.-Read it prayerfully. Before you open your Bible always pray for God's Holy Spirit. You cannot understand it unless the Holy Spirit teaches you. Now I will give you a prayer always to use-say it after me now-O God, open my eyes by Thy Holy Spirit, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Word, for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen. 2.-Read it reverently. Your Bible is not like a history or geography or arithmetic book. It is a sacred, that is, a Holy Book. Never tear it, or throw it about. Always remember it is God's Book. Never make fun of anything in it. Use it reverently. Keep it holy. (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.) 3. Read it daily. Let it be like your daily food. Your dinner of yesterday will not do for to-day. And have some special time every day for reading it. You need not read a whole chapter at once. A few verses every day will help you much. But unless you have some special time you may forget. Early in the morning is best. Do you remember what St. Paul says to Timothy about his knowing the Holy Scriptures? He said Timothy had known them from a child. So have you. And those Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. iii. 15). Of whom do the Scriptures testify? Of Jesus Christ, St. Luke xxiv. 44; St. John v. 39. Therefore read them-Prayerfully-Reverently-Daily. January 23rd. THE GREAT MULTITUDE. Learn Rev. vii. 13, 14. Read Rev. vii. 9 to end. 1.—Who are meant by the “great multitude?" All God's people. 2.-How are they clothed? Rev. xix. 8. In white. White is the uniform of glory, 3.-How did their robes become white? They were washed in the blood of the Lamb, Isaiah i. 18; Ps. li. 7. 4. What have they in their hands? Palms-to shew that they are victorious over every foe, Rom. viii. 37. 5.-Where do they come from? Out of every nation and kindred and people and tongue. They came too out of "great tribulation," Acts xiv. 22. 6.—We may note three things about them : (1.) Their station. They are before the throne, verse 15. They see His face, Rev. xxii. 4. (3.) Where (2.) Their state, no more pain, etc., Rev. vii. 16, 17. January 30th. Read Job. I. SATAN. Learn St. James iv. 7. 1.-By what names is Satan called in the Bible? Satan-1 Chron. xxi. 1; Job. i. 6. Tempter-St. Matt. iv. 3. Beelzebub, the Prince of the devils-St. Matt. xii. 24. Enemy-St. Matt. xiii. 39. Father of lies-St. John viii. 44. Murderer-St. John viii. 44. God of this world-2 Cor. iv. 4. Adversary-1 St. Pet. v. 8. Abaddon (that is, the Destroyer)-Rev. ix. 11. Old Serpent-Rev. xii. 9; xx. 2. It is only the fool who says in his heart, 2. Is he clever? He was very subtle 6000 since he has been studying the heart of man. crafty now. "There is no Devil." years ago (Gen. iii. 1), and ever Therefore he must be exceeding 3. Should we yield to him? No. If we resist him, he will flee. St. James iv. 7. 4.-How can we resist him? (1) By word of God "It is written." St. Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10. (2) By watching. (3) By praying. "Watch and pray." Satan trembles when he sees, The weakest saint upon his knees. 5. What comfort have God's people when they think of the power of Satan? Their comfort is that Christ conquered Satan for His people, and they will be more than conquerors through Him. Rom. viii. 37; xvi. 20. You are on one side or the other: on Christ's side, or on Satan's side. If you are at peace with Satan, you are against Christ; if you are at peace with God, you have taken up His quarrel with Satan. "GOOD WORDS." We extract the following from a New Year's Address to his Parishioners by Rev. R. WALKER, Vicar of Wymeswold.* B EMEMBER, you must either be in the "strait and narrow way which leadeth unto life," or in "the wide and broad way" which goes down to death. How my heart often aches about this! I cannot tell some of my hearers what I feel about it. I see them getting older like myself, but not growing in humiliation and selfabhorrence as I am forced to do, and I shudder sometimes to think how they will accuse me at the last day if I do not warn and try to alarm them. I have known children excuse their ignorance sometimes by accusing their teachers of neglect "you never taught me this," and so on. It is a painful thing to a teacher who has laboured to instruct a pupil, but without success, to be thus accused; but oh, what anguish will it be to unfaithful shepherds at the last day to be accused (and that justly) by their hearers of never having warned and taught them! I like to dwell on the words "While the lamp holds out to burn I think the love of Christ "passeth knowledge," and this is one of the surprising effects of that love. We have seen some blessed cases of it, and are thankful, and I believe the case of Manasseh, in 2 Chronicles xxxiii. (which read), and that of the dying thief in St. Luke, are written on purpose that no convicted sinner should despair of the grace of God. Despair is very near some souls who little think of it. No amount of natural courage and high spirits will in the least shelter a man from it. If sinners were to seeas they might at any moment be left to see-their real state before God, with no view of Christ, and no ray of faith in Him for deliverance, I believe they would almost die from despair and horror. The state of the damned is really nothing but thisblack despair and the dreadful sense of punishment for their sins. You will think me very hard for even supposing that any of my dear hearers and neighbours are ever likely to come to this, and, say God forbid that I should leave any means which might be I * Published by H. WILLS, Loughborough, Price 2d. VOL. XII. 2 blessed by God to its prevention untried. But I must not flatter you because I love you; nay, rather should I not say, I must try to alarm you because I love you? Ask yourself—“ Do I forget God?" See what the 9th Psalm says about nations that "forget God." When I was a very little boy and heard this read, I remember slipping out of it by saying "I often speak of God, and say my prayers, so I cannot be one of those wicked people who 'forget God; and to make sure that I was not and would not be, I made a practice of saying a word or two about God every day to my sisters, and I used to justify myself by saying "I cannot be accused of 'forgetting God' because I say something about him every day." Thus I warded off the conviction of sin, and thus do many ignorant souls now. But, my dear friends, the forgetfulness which God speaks of in Psalm ix. means a different thing from this. Let me put it thus: when you are going to commit any sin, or to transact even a matter of business which is your duty, do you consider that God's eye is upon you? upon you? Do you feel as the poor young nobleman, of whom some of us have perhaps read, who complained that his guilty actions were often sadly embittered by remembering a hymn his mother taught him when a little child "Almighty God, Thy piercing eye Strikes through the shades of night; How many men go straight into sin and never once think that "for all these things God will bring them into judgment." Besides, in our business transactions, buying, selling, bargaining, and settling our accounts, how many think these are worldly things, and we need not (and some seem to think, ought not) to ask God's help and guidance in them. What is this but living" without God in the world," or in other words "forgetting God?" Do any of you feel as if remembering God in the midst of your business or pleasure would spoil all your delight in it? Then you derive your pleasure from "forgetting God." forgetting God." I do not say this to condemn you, but to warn you. Shall I tell you how a Christain feels about these things? He feels that his great comfort is that he may take all his business matters to God and ask His unerring guidance in them. It is his privilege, he does not regard it as an unpleasant duty, but as a happy privilege. I don't know if all men feel they are fools in business and cannot get on alone, but some men do. Well, what sort of success would they be likely to have if they had no God to go to? Besides, the Apostle Paul " tells us we may and we ought to cast off our cares by taking everything to God in prayer. See Philippians, last chapter. I think I may say I require and I value this kind permission and command. How many times have the "opening heavens around me shone, with beams of sacred bliss" (as the hymn says), when, after many sinkings of heart and humble cries to God for help through His blessed Son, my way has been cleared and made plain! And yet it has been perhaps only in what you might call worldly things." Yes, godliness really has the promise of this life as well as of that which is to come. You see remembering God is not the hindrance some think it would be to worldly business; in fact a Christian could not get on in worldly business without it. But, in addition to all this, the precious soul cannot be saved in Christ for ever, unless in this world it is brought to a sense of sin and of the need of Christ; and if this is effectually done, the "thoughts of Christ and things divine" will ever be in the heart, and we shall be in all things, temporal and spiritural, like the little child in the hymn, who "fears to take a step alone.' If the love of Christ never constrains you, you may well fear you are "none of His." Do, my dear friends, try to examine yourselves by this standard, and if you find reason to fear that you are living ungodly in the world, pray for grace and light and mercy, to show you the way and to cause you to walk in it. I hope my writing in a kind and affectionate strain to you will not lead any of you to think that I consider the matter any lighter than I used to do; far from this, every passing year makes your time and mine shorter, and therefore makes my opportunities fewer and your case more and more urgent. "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found," let that be my loving but urgent exhortation to all who are either careless or wavering. And let me add, however far you may have gone from God, and however evil your hearts may have been and are, and however many things you may remember which tend to fill you with despair, God says, "Yet return again to Me, saith the Lord."-See Jer. iii. 1. Also remember what Christ says to heavily laden souls, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest."-Matt xi. at the end of the chapter. I hope God will give you grace to consider what I say, and that He will "give you understanding in all things." I aim always at your salvation, for which I pray, and shall continue so to do, I do not doubt, as long as I live amongst you. But let me now come a little more to the experience of a child of God. I would ask any Christian, who is one in reality, and not only in name, what sort of a year 1880 was to him? Surely we have all had some sort of experience or other, and we must |