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so that whoever runs may read, and whoever reads may run in the way of life. the great truths of life and salvation are so simple and clear that even a child can understand them so far that they may be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path.

At the same time there are the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the riches of his glory (Eph. 38, 16); the exceeding riches of his grace; rich in mercy (Eph. 2: 4,7) the breadth and length and height and depth . . . of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge (Eph. 3: 18, 19).

First. The daily reading of the Bible with special reference to our daily lives, and the most helpful, inspiring, and uplifting portions for our daily bread.

Professor Willis J. Beecher said: “For nine-tenths of us, I believe, the very best treatment of the lesson, this time around, would be to read the book carefully in the revised version a sufficient number of times, and then tell the story one to another, trying to see which could tell it most correctly." This advice will be greatly aided by reading the passage each time aloud, with the correct emphasis. It makes a great difference.

President Woodrow Wilson tells us: "I am sorry for the men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of this strength and pleasure. There are great problems before the American people. There are problems which will need purity of spirit and an integrity of purpose such as have never been called for before in the history of the Country."

Giving God a Chance from a story in the Youth's Companion.

When Doctor Morrison entered his study he found young Stanley pacing it in agitation. The young man went directly to the point:

"Doctor Morrison, I've made a mistake. I should not be honest either with you or myself if I denied it any longer.

'You mean in uniting with the church?" his pastor asked quietly. "Yes, sir.

"What makes you think that you have made a mistake?"

"Because," the young fellow answered slowly, "I can't feel it any more. I know, of course, that religion isn't simply emotion. But it shouldn't bore me. There's something very wrong when that is so. I-I can't tell you how I have fought it. Of all men in the world, I feel that doctors ought to believe. And yet, I can't believe."

"When you united with the church you were in Mr. Houghton's class, I remember. Did he make you study?"

"He certainly did!" the young fellow responded, laughing in spite of his trouble. "You had to study if you were going to hold up your head in that class.'

'And when he died, you kept up your Bible reading for a time, but it grew more and more perfunctory, and then you began to forget it altogether; and when you did take it up, you were bored. Is that it?" "That is about it, sir."

"You are studying medicine; have the doctors discovered any way in which a patient can take nourishment enough in a year to last the rest of his life?"

"Of course not, sir."

"When you have your degree will you never look at your books again?"

The young fellow's face flamed. "I don't know what you mean, sir. A good doctor never stops studying. He has to keep up with every experiment, every discovery."

And yet you expect, as a Christian, to take in enough Christianity in a year to last the rest of your life!" "But it hasn't lasted; that's exactly the point." Have

"Certainly. That is the point with thousands of Christians in the church to-day lack of food. you studied your Bible to see what it has to say to doctors? Have you studied it to learn about human nature and the way to treat it? You keep up with the latest medical discoveries -- have you laid out for yourself a course in the great discoveries of men whose work it is to interpret the word of God? Have you studied prayer as you have studied the nervous system? Have you ever put it all to practical tests, as you experiment in your laboratory? In other words, have you given God half a chance?"

The young man's face had cleared. He held out his hand.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

Second. Learning by Heart. I was sitting next to Professor Andrew P. Peabody of Harvard, and Bishop Phillips Brooks, at a college dinner only a brief time before their death, when the conversation turned to the Sunday School; and both deplored the neglect of memorizing the Scriptures, and urged the revival of the custom in the Sunday School. And they were right. One of the greatest blessings ever conferred upon any boy or girl is the learning by heart of the choicest passages of the Bible, the most life-giving, glorious truths, in supreme literary setting. There are no better companions, no better teachers, than in intimate communion with the best people, the best thoughts, the most glorious truths in the world. The best and richest words and thoughts continually in the mind become channels for our own thoughts to flow in, till they become a second nature, pervading the whole life,

" A Land of Promise flowing with the milk

And honey of delicious memories."

"The only Paradise from which we cannot be turned out."

Macaulay, it is said, gained his great eloquence by studying the great masterpieces of Greek oratory.

Third. The Literary Forms of the Bible.

NOTE the variety of literary forms in our Bible, history, story, biography, autobiography, arguments, orations, sermons, conversations, poetry in lyric, dramatic, idyllic, and epic forms, hymns, songs, epistles, parables, proverbs, fables, enigmas, metaphors, hyperboles, epigrams. These, written by all classes and conditions of men, are adapted to all conditions and all ages, to all classes of mind, all degrees of culture.

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The fact that the Authorized Version is printed as if the whole Bible is prose, has led to various misunderstandings. Every great essential doctrine of the Bible is presented to us in a variety of literary forms, in prose statement, in story, in parable, in poetry, in dramatic presentation, in symbol, in metaphor, and especially in history and biography as actually lived out by men and nations. And this is necessary in order to guard against mistaken interpretations, errors, and half truths, which are sure to arise from any single presentation. That Massachusetts governor who quoted Satan's words in Job as divine truth, would never have done so if he had realized that the book of Job was a dramatic poem, and none the less true on that account.

Fourth. How a boy learned to love the Bible. Dr. Walter L. Hervey of the Board of Education, New York City, tells how a boy learned to love the Bible. There are portions of the Bible which are not written for children. But they can read and love to read and hear the stories of which there are so many in the Bible. "He not only loves the Bible, but he likes it. He likes the story of creation and of the flood, as told in the Bible, as truly as he likes the story of Quicksilver and of Philemon and Baucis as told in Hawthorne's 'Wonder Book.' It is hard to tell which he likes the better. But there was a time, when he was three or younger, when he had a passion for the Genesis story, for hearing it, for telling it, for dramatizing it, and for supplying a rational explanation of it. He likes and loves the stories of Jesus, and he liked and loved them from the time when he could understand the simplest of them. He never has refused to listen to these stories, at family prayers, at bedtimes, and at other times. “He has, as a rule, been eager for the Bible stories with the same kind of eagerness that he shows toward 'The Wonderbook,'' Alice in Wonderland,' 'The Odyssey,' 'Wild Animals I Have Known.'

'Family prayers are conducted regularly, and the boy has never been known to beg off. On the contrary, he is always eager for them, and settles himself down by his father with every apparent sign of anticipation and pleasure." Hints from a full

article in the S. S. Times.

Fifth. Making the Bible attractive to children. One of the greatest needs of the times is a Bible put in the most attractive form for children and for older people too. In the first place it must be as perfectly paragraphed as Shakespeare or the Twentieth Century New Testament.

"The translator who wishes to make the Bible interesting to those who are not scholars, whether young or old, will make as many paragraphs as the matter will bear : the best proof of this is to watch such persons turning over books to find one that 'looks interesting,' and deciding which to try by the openness of the page. The long paragraphs of the English Revision were a distinct loss to the hold of the Bible upon the mass of the English-speaking peoples; the American Committee have come part way back to the attractiveness of the Authorized Version in this respect." But both of them are too solid to make easy and attractive reading; and in both cases the Revisers forbade any change whatever in the paragraphing. The Authorized Version is much more attractive and easy to read and use than either. It should be paragraphed as really as the Revisions, but with perfect chapter and verse distinctions, and with all the poetic sections printed in poetic form. The Twentieth Century New Testament, and Professor Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible, come the nearest to the ideal Bible, and would attract many more children to reading it, for it would have the attractive features of the stories they read in other books. Pictures in the Bible, illuminating helps, the best maps made, are necessary.

Sixth. Many more children would be attracted to the Bible, if the superintendents would get the best readers to read some short passage or story in the Sunday School, and if all ministers would train themselves, as some do, to read the Bible as naturally and effectively as they read or speak their sermons, and to express in their public reading the meaning and power of the Bible as a message from God; and it will be a new book to many of their congregation.

Seventh. There are many other ways of finding the Bible, of finding more in it than a hasty reading can give. To these we can barely refer.

I. "The sweet compulsion of its unique literary charm; and its spiritual grace, which gave access to the Garden in which they can walk and talk with God.". - London S. S. Chronicle.

2. Keeping ever in mind the movement of the history, so that every statement of truth, or fact, or morals, shall be seen in its own environment.

3. A clear vision of the geography of the Bible, and especially of Palestine and of the travels of Paul. Always, as far as possible, compared with the modern names. 4. We understand the Bible most

perfectly when we are trying to put it in practice, and when we use it as a guide book.

5. On some parts of the Bible we receive no little light, from the monuments discovered, and the tablets, etc., found in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylonia.

6. Dwelling long and steadily on certain portions of the Bible will usually bring new views and visions.

It is mining deep and finding treasures which we had walked over again and again, unconscious of what was beneath the surface.

Layard.

Clay Tablets from Nineveh.

One of my brother ministers was nearsighted in his younger days. He had never seen a distant prospect. He did not know that there was any view beyond his narrow range of sight. When he was twelve years old, his father gave him a pair of near-sighted spectacles, when a new world was revealed to him, one that had always existed, but which he had never seen before. I have had a number of such experiences.

7. Connecting the Bible with its use in Literature, and noting how it is permeated with Bible quotations.

8. These and others are "like the enchanted Arabian grain, which opened doors doors not of robbers' caves but of Kings' Treasuries. "Remember the lamp of Aladdin, which needed only to be rubbed to bring forth unseen powers to do the bidding of the possessor."

NOTE. The Bible, or parts of it, has been translated into 600 languages and dialects. "The thirty Bible societies of the world have published and distributed [in 1914] 18,000,000 of copies. To this must be added the 10,000,000 Bibles published and sold by bookmen who are in the business for gain. The tremendous total being 28,000,000 volumes."

THE CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH.-2 Kings 25:1-21.

PRINT vs. 1-12. MEMORIZE vs. 10, 11.

GOLDEN TEXT. - As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. - EZE. 33: 11.

THE TEACHER AND HIS CLASS.

The teacher may gain the attention of his class by a word picture, and, perhaps, a simple drawing, of the rapids above Niagara Falls. Some boys in a boat are carelessly drifting down the

stream swiftly and move swift toward the falls. They begin to hear the distant roar, and feel the tossing of the boat in the rush of the rapids. Friends on the shore shout to them; they fling ropes to aid them; they urge them to anchor to the island just above the falls.

I. THE FIRST CAPTIVITY. THE BEGINNING OF THE END, Dan. I: I 2 Kings 24: 1. Josiah, the good king and hero of our last lesson, died in battle in

B.C. 608, twenty-two years before the final destruction of Jerusalem. "He left behind him a family torn by jealousies, and supported by rival factions, a people hostile to the religious reforms he had carried through, and an army which had lost both its leader and its veterans." Sayce. Of the remaining four kings in the 23 years the nation yet existed, three were brothers, the sons of Josiah, Jehoahaz (3 months), Jehoiakim (11 years) and Zedekiah (11 years), and the fourth was a grandson, Jehoiachin, who reigned but three

months. How could so wise and good a king have such an array of weakness and folly in his children.

The First Captivity, in 605 B.C., was by Prince Nebuchadnezzar, in the last year of his father's reign. "It appears from Berosus that Nebuchadnezzar was not actual king at this time, but only Crown Prince and leader of the army under his father. As he would be surrounded with all the state and magnificence of a monarch, the Jews would naturally look upon him as actual king (Canon Cook), and speak of him as such because it was really the great Nebuchadnezzar who took Jerusalem.

This was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer. 25: 1, 18; 2 Kings 24 : 1; Dan. I : 1). It was at this time that Daniel and his friends were carried captive to Babylon (Dan. I : 1-6), and from this date is to be counted the 70 years of captivity foretold by Jeremiah (25:12; 29: 10). Nebuchadnezzar did not finish his siege, nor take many captives at this time because he was suddenly summoned to Babylon by the death of his father, so that he might take his place as king.

British Museum. Brick Bearing the Name of Nebuchadnezzar. About 14 inches square.

The Whirlwinds of Retribution seen coming from afar, bear the voice of God, enforcing his warnings. They were the lightning flashes and distant thunder of the storm that was sure to come unless the nation repented. This was their one opportunity to repent and be saved, in God's loving mercy.

II. IN THE RAPIDS. THE SECOND CAPTIVITY, B.C. 598-7, in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, at the close of the reign of Jehoiakim. The great Deportation. Toward the close of Jehoiakim's reign, so full of iniquity and rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar again came to Jerusalem, and bound King Jehoiakim in fetters to carry him to Babylon (2 Chron. 36: 6); but he seems to have died in Jerusalem before the plan was carried out (2 Kings 246; Jer. 22: 18, 19). His son Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) was made king in his stead. He was as bad as his father. He seems to have immediately rebelled against Babylon, for he had reigned but three months when Nebuchadnezzar sent back his army to Jerusalem, captured the city, sent a great amount of treasures from the palace and the temple to Babylon, with 10,000 of the more important of the people (2 Kings 24: 9-15), of which one deportation of 3023 (Jer. 52: 28) were a part.

Among these were King Jehoiachin, who lay 37 years in prison at Babylon, and then was released (2 Kings 25: 27-30); the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. I : 1, 2); and the great-grandfather of Mordecai, Queen Esther's cousin (Esther 2 : 5, 6).

Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem, sometimes discouraged, disappointed, almost despairing. He has been called "the weeping prophet " because he lived in such dark and evil times, but the only wonder is that he ever had such glorious gleams of hope, and that his prophetic eye ever pierced through the darkness of the night tempest and saw the silver lining beyond, and the rays of the coming dawn.

Some Interesting Stories concerning Jeremiah's methods of doing his work. (If the teacher will look up these, and tell them in word-picture stories, he will give his scholars a new understanding of what a prophet is and does, as well as some practical teaching.) Like most of the prophets, he used object lessons.

He took a girdle, and traveled hundreds of miles to the Euphrates, and hid it in a hole of the rock.

uselessness.

A long time after he made the long journey again, and found it rotted into
A thousand miles' journey to prepare for a single sermon (chapter 13)!