it might have been at the bottom of the
river now. The man who felt its loss called on a higher power than his
own. He told his sorrow to one who had sympathy for him. Do we cry unto
God about those who have sunk out of our reach? The lapsed masses, as we
call them, were not all born so. Many of them have been Sunday scholars,
and some of them church members. How do we feel about them? Does the
thought of their degradation ever bring an "alas!" from our hearts?
Elisha's God is nearer to us than the prophet was to the man who lost the
axe. "Call on Him WHILE He is near."

"The iron did swim." How was it done?

SOMEBODY SHOWED IT THE WAY.

An example was put before it. A stick was thrown in, and the iron
imitated it. O, the power of a godly example! Let us who work among the
ungodly show them the way to live. Let the churches move over the places
where the degraded lie. We shall never lift them while we remain in our
beautiful churches and chapels. Only this week we saw the iron made to
swim, by the personal contact of ministers and well-dressed people taking
hold of the street folk, and cheerily inviting them into God's house. A
man may be only "a stick" when in the pulpit; but in hearty personal
dealing with the degraded, he may be one who can make the iron to swim.

* * * * *

"LIVE IT."

A good man, the other day, was advising Ministers to preach more on the
doctrine of "Entire Sanctification." One of them replied,

"LET US LIVE IT, THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO PREACH IT."

Perhaps both were right; one thing is certain, that the way to make the
doctrine more popular is, to have more of those who believe it to "live
it." We might greatly increase the number of preachers, for every
Christian might preach. Women as well as men, we might preach every day,
for every duty would be a pulpit, and every trial an oration. No one
would complain the sermons were too long; for all people are willing that
you should never cease to do them good. What say you reader! Will you
enter the ranks of this Ministry?

V. THE BATTLE OF THE BEANFIELD.
2 SAMUEL, xxiii, 11, 12.

What a picture is here! A field of ripe beans, just ready for the
harvest, and then the leaves and pods all blood-stained or trampled down!
Those Philistines liked to fight rather than to work, preferring plunder
to ploughing, so they would cross the border and carry away the results
of the farmer's toil. But they made a mist