MEEKNESS.-Urged to cultivate the grace (Zeph. ii, 3; Jas. iii, 13; Col. iii, 12, 13). 1. Its Characteristics: The Greek means "easiness of spirits." Different from gentleness, which is an active grace. Meekness is rather a passive grace-a controlling power; "hidden man of the heart," God's value of it (Jas. iii, 4, N.V.); 2 Cor. x, i. -2. Its Exemplification: Abraham (Gen. xiii, 5-9); Moses (Num. xii, 1-3); Paul (1 Cor. ix, 19-22); Christ (Matt. xxi, 5; xi, 28, 29). -3. Its Source: Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. v, 22, 23).-4. Its Use: (1) With erring brethren (Gal. vi, 1); (2) in instructing the wayward (2 Tim. ii, 24-26, N.V.); (3) giving testimony (1 Pet. iii, 15).-5. Its Rewards: (1) Satisfaction (Ps. xxii, 26); (2) guidance (Ps. xxv, 9). God so loved the world that He gave His Only begotten S on that whosoever believeth in Him should not E verlasting Life. OUT OF EGYPT.-It was never God's plan that the children of Israel should spend those dreadful forty years in the wilderness. He led them up to Kadesh Barnea within a very few months after they came out of Egypt; and had they been obedient they would have gone into the land at once, and that without passing over Jordan at all. But on the border of that land they murmured and doubted, and sent up spies to see if the Lord's promise was true-to judge for themselves whether they could possess the land. They fell into unbelief there. And when the spies came back, in spite of the earnest remonstrance of faithful Joshua and Caleb, the Israelites rebelled against the Lord, and would not go up to possess the land. Then it was that the Lord turned them back; and for forty years they lived only to provoke and tempt Him.-Pentecost. BELIEVE AS YOUR MOTHER TAUGHT YOU.-This day we have evidence before our own eyes, and in our own hearts, that the prophecies are true, and the Bible is true. Yet the infidel rejects the Sacred Volume? And why? Oh, because he is a reasonable man; and he cannot, without a prostration of everything like reason, embrace a system so preposterous and absurd! Ah! if I mistake not, when afflictions shall make him more sober, and the near prospect of death shall make him more thoughtful, he will then see the evidence of the truth of the Bible more clearly than he does now! Like Ethan Allen, who, being asked by a dying daughter whether she should believe what her pious mother had taught her, or he, replied with tears, "My daughter, you had better believe what your mother has taught you." Oh, how plain it is, and how appropriate is our text, "Their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges."-Baker's "Address to Young Men." CHURCHES NOT ENOUGH.-When God bade Moses to go down He did not tell him to build a pulpit on the border of Egypt and cry "Come!" Jesus indeed says "Come unto Me!" but it is a great mistake to think we have fulfilled our commission when we have erected a church or chapel in some well-to-do quarter of the city, and then advertise for the people to come to us. Churches, as places of worship and instruction for the people of God, we all agree with; but I think the Master would have us go down into Egypt, where the enslaved people are, and take possession of the theatres, halls, and markets, or any other places we can get, and declare the good tidings to the people who do not come to our churches. ASK AND RECEIVE.-I was told lately by a young man who had been in Scotland that he came one day to a gate, when the gatekeeper's little girl ran down and shut it, saying-" You have not to pay anything to pass; you have only to say, 'Please allow me to go through.' The young man did as he was directed, and simply repeated, "Please allow me to go through," and the gate was immediately opened. The owner just wished to preserve the right of entrance-that was all. So, simply" ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."-Spurgeon. GOD AND THE WORLD.-The world is the glass through which we see the Maker. But what men do is this: they put the dull quicksilver of their own selfishness behind the glass, and so it becomes not the transparent medium through which God shines, but the dead. opaque which reflects back themselves.-F. W. Robertson. BOASTING. A gourd wound itself round a lofty palm tree, and in a few weeks climbed to its very top. "How old mayest thou be?" asked the new-comer. "About a hundred years." "About a hundred years! and no taller? Only look, I have grown as tall as you in fewer days than you count years!" "I know that well," replied the palm. "Every summer of my life a gourd has climbed up around me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt be." CHRIST AND WOMEN.-Our Lord, in the days of His flesh, encountered various classes of enemies, but none of these ever included a woman. On the contrary, the gentler sex always appear to have been His followers or friends. Not only were they, as has often been said, the last at His cross, the first at His sepulchre, but throughout they ministered to His wants. A woman anointed Him. for His burial; a heathen woman interceded for His life with her husband, Pilate; women bewailed and lamented Him as He went to Calvary; to a woman He first appeared when He rose again. All this was most fitting, since of a woman He was born, and to woman His Gospel was not only a means of salvation, but a source of domestic and social elevation from the present life. SIN. For sin is the greatest and highest infelicity of the creature; depraves the soul within itself, vitiates its powers, deforms its beauty, extinguishes its light, corrupts its purity, darkens its glory, disturbs its tranquillity and peace, violates its harmonious, joyful state and order, and destroys its very life.-John Howe, 1630-1705. THE OLD FAITH.-My young friend, you see the broad new truth, and you have put it in very manly words. Only don't lose hold of that belief in the old faith, which is more precious to my reason, as well as to my moral sense, the older I grow, and have to do with sorrows and difficulties which you, in youth and strength, do not know yet.— Charles Kingsley. LIFE. We are kept alive by two actions-vital and chemical. Secretly and ceaselessly the two forces work in perpetual antagonism, life weaving in its mysterious loom the cell-tissue that makes up the human fabric-how we cannot tell. Science cannot unravel the process. All that we can say is, that it must be the hand of Creative Life Himself that holds the thread and throws the shuttle.-Dr. Munger. TO CORRESPONDENTS. EDITOR'S Address : REV. F. WAGSTAFF, Binfield, near Bracknell, Berks. SEVERAL Communications are omitted simply because our correspondents will persist in disregarding the standing rule of the Press, and write on both sides of the paper. O. P. Q.-Certainly we have no idea of providing articles and outlines for one religious body alone. There are "lay preachers" in connection with the Established Church as well as among Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, &c. Your threat of discontinuing your subscription to the LAY PREACHER, next year on the ground that "it is not now edited by a Wesleyan " serves no other purpose than to reveal your own folly and narrow-mindedness. We have had to encounter such exhibitions of bigotry before, and have no doubt we shall survive this as we have done others. 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