in daily discomforts and physical fatigue in the forty years of wilderness wanderings. Any man can pick up courage enough to be heroic for an hour; to be patiently heroic daily is the test of character.

4. AND HE MUST DENY HIMSELF THAT HE MAY FOLLOW CHRIST. -True! self-denial shall bring its reward; true! the cross shall bring the crown. But he who bears the cross only that he may get the crown, who denies himself to-day only that he may indulge himself in eternity, is acting only from a refined selfishness. The Christian counts the cost, but not the profit; he denies himself that he may win, not crowns, but crosses; that he may be found in Christ: that he may have His glory, the glory of the Crucified, the glory of a patient, suffering love.

5. Nevertheless, in the background there abides this truth: that

SELF-DENIAL DOES BRING CORONATION AND SELF-INDULGENCE BRINGS

DEATH.-Every man must deny himself. The only question for you, is whether you will deny the higher or the lower self; whether you will deny appetite or spiritual aspiration; whether you will deny ambition or love, pride or humility. The life is more than meat and the body than raiment. What shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and in the gaining have lost your life? What shall it profit you if you have acquired books and lost the love of reading; acquired pictures and lost the love of art; acquired money and lost the enjoyment of beneficence; acquired influence and lost the joy of usefulness; acquired power and lost the pleasure of service? He that thus gains his life loses it in the gaining; he who loses his life gains it in the losing. This is an enigma. Ponder it.

THE PRAYER MEETING.

OUTLINE LECTURE BY HENRY WARD BEECHER. THE church, according to the New Testament idea, is a family, a brotherhood, not by reason of blood connection, but by reason of the blood of Christ. Our family-tie is our common faith and hope in Jesus Christ, our Saviour. These are the fundamental elements, and we are drawn around them as a common centre. Now, take the idea of a family or a brotherhood. In every well-appointed household there are the superior and the inferior; there are masters and servants; there are parents and children; there are persons that know more and persons that know less ; and they are very different in their gifts. In a household that is well-ordered, where the sentiment of love is active, these differences, so far from being divisive, are rather connective, because they are promotive of sympathy. They draw men together.

Now, that which we see in the family we are to seek in every church-meeting. It should be our aim to use all the gifts of all the members of the church. You can at once perceive that it could be carried out if we really could have, fresh and living, the dwelling of God with each person all the time; and everybody knows that in times of revival the most interesting of the whole series of meetings are not the preaching meetings, but the experience meetings. Each one brings a lighted branch; it is only a branch; but when all the different branches come together they produce a large flame; and the fire-place is full; and it throws its red light out into the whole room with blessed warmth and illumination.

1.—I hold that it is part of the duty of members of a church to be present at the devotional meetings of that church once a week; and if they are conscientiously settled in their minds that they will attend such meetings I hold that it is part of their duty to prepare for coming to them, and to see that they never come overborne or overladen. If, in the providence of God, here and there it is impossible for them to make the necessary preparation, it does not alter the fact that generally men may so control their time as to bring with them to this meeting freshness, which is a condition that is accessible to moral instruction, moral incitement, and moral enjoyment.

2.-Then, in the next place, I think persons should come to the prayer-meetings bringing their latent or developed warmth. Some members in the church may be very influential in creating that invisible atmosphere, that vague mental feeling, which is, as it were, in the air, if he has been in prayer, if the spirit of prayer is about him, if he has a quick susceptibility either to things pathetic or things of an instructive character, if he has undergone a preparation, as it were, such that there is a divine magnetism in the atmosphere which surrounds him; and one should be prepared to bring this atmosphere with him as a part of his contribution to the meetings.

3. Next, there should be the leaving at home of all religious selfishness-for there is a great deal of selfish religion. There are a great many persons who come to the prayer-meeting to get something, and not to give anything. They come to be helped. They come to be comforted. They come to be aroused. They come to be inflamed with devotion. Their only thought, when they come, is that of the bather in the ocean, who carries nothing with him, but goes with the expectation of being washed. There are multitudes in whose minds the thought of giving to others in the prayer-meeting never comes. But, those who come to this meeting are a household. If I go to a family gathering, I have no right to sit as a dummy and do nothing, and give nothing, and say nothing, and be nothing, but carry away a

great deal; and yet multitudes of persons come to the prayer-meeting The thought never occurs to them that they can

in that way.
contribute anything to its usefulness.

4. Then there is another form of selfishness, where persons have a sort of experience an account of which might be very edifying to others, but where, from a real or apparent modesty, they make no mention of it. There is such a thing as real modesty ; but the greater part of that which passes for modesty is pride. Persons come to the prayer-meeting and say, "I shrink from being called upon to pray." I admit that there are differences of gifts, and that the spirit of prayer is a gift; but I hold that it is cultivatable. Let one look at the bottom of

his heart and ask, "Do I shrink from prayer because I have nothing to say? or is it because I have a fear of man? or is it because the love of praise and approbation in me is such that I cannot bear to utter a prayer which I know is inferior to the prayers of those around me?" If one is willing to do his part, and says, "I have no gift of prayer, I cannot pray, it confuses me," it merely shows that he refuses good company in religious things. If you put a person in good company, and he says, "I do not know what to do with myself; I never was so bewildered in all my life," it merely shows that he has not been accustomed to society; but he gets over it after a while as he accustoms himself to it.

5. On the same ground stands speaking. If the prayer-meeting were a place for competitive oratory, if there were a premium or a present to be given, as in colleges, for speaking in oratorical display, if men were to be ranked as first, second, third and fourth, according as they exhibit their fluency of speech, there would be some sense in the excuse which men make for keeping silent; but a meeting of a Christian family ought not to entertain, for a single moment, the question of relative comparison. Some persons say, "I want the pastor to speak; I came to hear him, and I do not want to hear anybody else." The more shame to you. You are the very persons that need more than anybody else to hear others speak. All of us need, in coming to the house of the Lord, to feel the all-subduing power of the Holy Ghost, and to be so drawn to each other by the power of sympathy as that the spirit of pride and vanity and selfishness in us shall be crushed out.

We represent the body of the Saviour; we are brothers one of another, because we are all brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and does it ever occur to you that the object of the church meeting is to bring up the young, to inspire boldness in the timid, to give experience to the unwise, and to develope graces which at present are nascent? As in the family we teach children to talk by letting them talk, so it

should be in the church. We are to bring out the needs of all. We are to be patient one with another. We are to rejoice in each other's gifts. It is to be a matter of rejoicing to us that any man, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, is enabled to make some contribution to the Lord's cause. Now, Christian brethren, will you not bring into the meetings, and help bring into them, the spirit of the New Testament-the spirit by which men shall feel that they are welcome here though their speech is a little rude, and by which they shall be relieved from the embarrassment and mortification and pain which they might otherwise feel? Will you not come here, not with such a feeling that you are dissatisfied if you do not hear the pastor, but with a desire to meet one another, and to mingle the flames of your hearts upon a common altar?

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK.

SUGGESTED NEW TRANSLATION.

MARK XIV, 1-11.-And after two days was the Passover and the unleavened bread; and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might lay hold on Him by guile and murder Him. For they said, "Not during the feast, lest there shall be a tumult of the people."

And being in Bethany, and in the house of Simon the leper, as He was reclining a woman came, having an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly; and she brake the flask and was pouring it over His head. But there were some who were displeased within themselves, saying "For what has this waste of the ointment been made? For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." And they were murmuring at her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do ye trouble her? She hath wrought a good work on Me. For the poor ye have always with you, and when ye will ye are able to do them good; but Me ye have not always. That she had, she did; she took it beforehand to anoint my body for the entombment. And verily I say to you, wherever the glad tidings shall be proclaimed in the whole world that also which she did shall be spoken of in remembrance of her."

And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went away to the chief priests in order that he might give Him over to them. And having heard, they rejoiced, and promised to give him silver; and he was seeking how he might have an opportunity to give Him over.

NOTES ON THE VERSES.

MARK XIV. 1, 2.-A question has arisen as to whether our Lord finished His public ministry on the third day of the week (Tuesday), or whether He also devoted the fourth day to the work which His Father had given Him to do. If the former be the correct view, then the Wednesday was probably spent in retirement at Bethany. According to Matthew, "When Jesus had finished all these sayings "-i.e., His discourses on the Mount of Olives-"He said to His disciples, Ye know that after two days is the passover" (Matt. xxvi, 2). With this agree the words as given by Mark. If the reference here is to the Tuesday night the passover was on the Thursday; if to the Wednesday, then we are carried over to the Friday, and the real passover was not that which Christ ate with His disciples, and did not commence till after the crucifixion. This, we think, conclusively fixes the chronology, and outweighs Dr. Conder's opinion, based on Luke xxi, 37, 38, that the Wednesday as well as the Monday and Tuesday, was devoted to teaching in the Temple. Instead of "feast day," read “during the feast," covering the whole period.

3.-The date of the incident now to be related-(compare Matt. xxvi, 6-13, and John xii, 1-8)-is clearly carried back to the evening before the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the narrative is evidently deferred both by Matthew and Mark, in order to connect the treachery of Judas with the feast in Simon's house. John's words, "they made Him a supper," indicate something more than the common evening meal; it was an entertainment prepared in the house of a man of some wealth, expressly in honour of Jesus, and other guests beside the disciples were invited.-"Jesus arrived in Bethany a week before the passover; and on the evening before the entry to Jerusalem He supped in the house of Simon, probably a kinsman of Lazarus, who was one of the guests, while his sister Martha assisted in service. Mary, the other sister, who sat at the feet of Jesus, and with humility and love received all His words, seems to have understood the meaning of what had been said respecting His death, more fully than the apostles. As the last expression of her personal affection, she brought a very costly perfume, and poured it on the head and feet of Jesus. The apparent extravagance of the gift was censured by some; but it was graciously accepted, justified and commended by the Lord. He declared it to be a proof of love, which should receive universal and everlasting honour. The name of the host is given by St. Matthew also; the names of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary are mentioned only by St. John, who also names Judas as the chief censurer of the costly offering. St. Luke relates the anointing of the feet of Jesus by a