beset us.1 temptation." 2 IT "Watch and pray that ye enter not into THE WORD OF GOD. T is not by the bread which earth doth yield, That man doth live. From heaven above it comes, from God the Lord, No victory, by sword of sharpest blade, But by the Spirit's sword unto us given, When in an infant's hand the tempter sees None of God's little ones can Satan harm Whom with its might divine this sword doth arm- O sword of flame! I still would brandish thee, In this dread strife. By thee shall from the field my foes be driven; Prayer-Meetings Two Hundred Years Ago. AM going to ask you to come back with me in thought some two hundred years, and, in the first place, to the old city of Frankfort in South Germany. It is the time just after the Thirty Years' War. There is a great deal of trouble among the people; there never can be thirty years of war without 2 Matt. xxvi. 31. 1 Heb. xii. I. sorrow enough in many a household till that generation of mothers and wives and sisters are all gone. There was also a great deal of ungodliness. War, with all its horror and its hardness, if it does not make men gentle and better, is sure to make them harder and worse. There were other things, indeed, as well as the war to account for the prevailing deadness. Certainly in those times, though it was a theological age, there was too little life in theology or love in the churches. But, happily, many felt and mourned the spiritual death, and longed for happier days. The poor widows and mothers, victims of the war, had been under the discipline of sorrow. The gay, prosperous people who had learned French manners felt now and then that such pleasure could not fill the heart. The times seemed ripe for change. It was the first grey dawn of a new day. We are to think ourselves in Frankfort, as I said. And I choose Frankfort because about that time a new minister had come to the city whose name we ought not to be ignorant of, but to honour and preserve. Philip James Spener had just come, and his heart was full of thought and longing for a better way than the decent but dry and unsatisfactory religion of the times could show. In 1675 he published a little book which had the same name as some other similar books issued by somewhat similar men— "Pia Desideria: The Longings for a Better Day." Turning over in his mind every plan which seemed to him likely to bring the people nearer a living Christ, he thought of meetings among a few like-minded people for talk about the life of the heart. Why could not a dozen, or half-a-dozen men who wished to follow their Lord more fully speak a little oftener than they did one to another, and so cheer such other one? It seemed full of promise and free from objection. He spoke of it, and there was no great fault to be found with it, though it was somewhat of an innovation, for such things were not common in those days. At length the plan was tried. The friends met: some devout book was read, talked over; they sang and By-and-bye they left the prayed; and when they went home they felt as if surely they had been a little nearer heaven than before. The fellowship meetings prospered. pious books and read the Bible. called Conferences of Bible-loving the Religion of the Heart. These gatherings were Friends, or Schools for I am not going to tell the story of these fellowship meetings in Spener's day, or in the days of his devoted disciple Francke; how they grew popular, then began to attract some who were controversial and fond of novelty; were opposed, criticised, abused; how, after all and through it all, among the like-minded Christians, they became a deep and a deeper blessing; how they quickened the churches, how they aroused thought; how a time of revived and elevated Christian life came in; how, in fact, it was the honour and the happiness of Spener to see the beginnings of the time of which he dreamt; and how, in these days of ours, we look back to his schools for the religion of the heart-the fellowship meetings of Germany-as the beginning of a second Reformation, the incoming of a warmer spiritual year. Some of us who do not know much of German history, and to whom the name of Spener is new, will recollect a somewhat similar story in another age. They will think of a passage in Malachi: "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened and heard; and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His name." It was a fellowship meeting among the old Hebrews. I do not wish, as I said, to revive the history. But it is a good and hopeful thing to know thus much of the past; so that perhaps we might have the hope and interest put into our minds which comes from knowing what good and what happiness has always come to people's hearts from gatherings such as this. And who can tell but that He who used to meet with the few who feared His name in old Frankfort, may also meet with us. Who knows but some simple meetings of ours-the quiet prayer-meetings of village or city-may yet prove the earlier symptom and the fostering power of a revived and a more genial year? Well it will be for us if what Spener felt we really feel now. Well for us if we come actually to believe that the only true religion is to follow Christ, to be like Christ, to be for Christ, to be with Him, and to know that He is for us, with us, that He is making us like Him and leading us All else may be decent, and grave and good, but it is not the religion of the heart. A young man may like it, and be the better of the decorous form: but he will not live, nor will he love and be glad in God the Saviour. on. In one of Spener's books there is, on an engraved titlepage, these words, deep and keen words, but sad: "Nowadays there are many who say they serve Christ, but few who follow Him." And in another book, one lying before me, there are four little oval pictures, or picture parables, which are worthy our consideration. In the first you see the interior of a scholar's study: he sits at the table in deep thought; his head is on his hand, a book before him. The words underneath are, "Not in knowledge only." In the second picture you see a library; the folios are ranged round the walls on massive shelves; another volume lies open on a table bearing on its pages the word Christ, but there is no living creature near. The motto is, "Nor in books only." The third shows you a room with two friends in earnest talk. They are discussing some point of high and evidently of sacred character, and they seem quite in earnest. But the sentence below is, " Nor in words only." Underneath these three ovals is another; you see a heavenly form standing on the crescent moon; her face is fair, the law is written on her breast; she holds in her hand a mirror-the glass of truth-in which you see her face; in the other is a cross with a figure of her crucified Lord. And here the words are continuing the sentence of which we have heard the earlier parts-"But in Deed and in Truth, from the Will and the Heart." This is the parable in which Spener wished to show, to the eye, what the true Christian life is. Oh, that it may be ours! It is a great thing to have knowledge, the knowledge of science, of literature, of art. It is a great thing to have the wonder of the natural world opened to us to know how the plant lives, how the seasons roll, how the starry heavens move on their mighty way. Greater in some ways is it to know the glory, and to feel the charm of learning to walk at will, when your thoughts are free, in the pictured galleries, in the pastoral countries, in the old historic times, with Homer or Virgil, with Tasso or Spenser, with Milton as he visits the realms of Chaos and of Heaven, with Dante in his awful journey into the regions of the dead. 'It is a great thing to be familiar with the creations of the painters, so that as you sit by a winter fire you can pass before the eye the brilliant scenery you have watched when you saw the masterpieces of Raphael, or Michael Angelo, or the sweet landscapes of Ruysdael and Cuyp. It is a great thing to be talented and witty, to be the soul of company, the practical manager of successful affairs, the man of money who takes no thought for expense, the successful politician who is rising in the nation's view. These things are great things, and only little minds will count them of small regard. But the greatest mind, the greatest Man has told us, and we shall soon know, that compared with all these the life which is hid with Christ in God is far better; that compared with it the piety which is not in books only, nor in wisdom, nor in word, but in deed and truth, in love and life—they are lighter than vanity. Oh that it may be ours! and oh that our simple gatherings for prayer in these later days may help us to realise it! Let us take for our motto the words which used to be so dear to one of the reformers, the friend and minister of Luther, "If you know the Lord Christ it is enough, though |