relatives. One young woman whom we visited was making a crape bonnet. Her eyes were swollen with weeping, and the working in her throat told plainly of suppressed grief, while she gave an account of the finding of the body of her sister and husband, leaving behind a family of six young children. The man had been an atheist, but had been converted by the influence of Moody and Sankey's services; God blessing the preached word. We tried to lead her own mind to listen to God's word, and seek the salvation of her own soul. She owned she had been for getting God. She promised to come to our Mothers' Meeting. Her mind was evidently impressed by the trial she was passing through. She was going to follow their remains the next day."

THE TEXT-QUILT.

Notes from our Christian Jewess Nurse in Drury Lane. « Mr. T a young man of thirty-seven, had been in consumption for some time. I had visited him for three or four months. They were very poor and destitute. He had been a cab-driver, till his illness became so severe that he could attend to it no longer. His wife then went out to work at machine work, which, after awhile, she was obliged to give up, as her husband needed all her attention at home. She also became subject to fits, so that they were in very bad circumstances. When Nurse took up the case, she says, 'I gave him milk and eggs, as he could take them, every day.' His appetite was very bad, and I got some clothing for him from the 'Mothers' Home,' especially a sheet and nice text-quilt. This last was a great delight to him, and was, I believe, made very useful. He used to say, 'I can lie in my bed and read those sweet passages when I could not hold up a book; and they are so beautiful, and then when one and another comes in they read them to me and talk to me about them. I would not lose that quilt for anything, it has been such a comfort to me.' He was not a Christian when I first visited him; but he found the Saviour, or, rather, was found of Him in his affliction, and died very happily about a week ago, resting on Jesus alone for salvation."

THE SAVIOUR'S BIBLE.

BY THE REV. NEWMAN HALL.

UNDER this very impressive title a tiny booklet has been published by one of our great preachers (price 1d.) which does not yet appear to have met with the large circulation it deserves. That which our Lord Himself affirmed, and quoted, as the Word of His Father, every Christian man and woman would surely think it worth while to search out and meditate upon, and in this small compass they will find very much presented to their minds that should induce them to seek further, in this particular age of doubt concerning the value of the Old Testament Scriptures. We never profess to review books in the "MISSING LINK," as we have no space for it, but it seems to us that it will be quite within our line of things to let this little messenger speak at some length for itself; and we can only add, let all who approve of it, circulate it, and without delay.* The introductory remark is as follows:

"That portion of the Bible which is called the OLD TESTAMENT is the one that modern scepticism chiefly assails. On this question, if we accept the NEW TESTAMENT as a faithful record of the life and teaching of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, we can ascertain His Divine opinion.

"The Old Testament existed in the time of Christ just as it does now. It had been translated from the Hebrew into the Greek language nearly three hundred years previously, and both versions had become widely circulated. The Law, or the five books of Moses; the Prophets, or the historical and prophetical books; and the Psalms, constituted the Bible which was familiar to all pious Jews, and was publicly read in their synagogues every Sabbath-day. Christ, therefore, must often have seen it, heard it, read it. What did HE think of it?

* "The Saviour's Bible." By Newman Hail, LL.B. One Penny. London: Nisbet and Co., Berners Street; Snow and Co., Ivy Lane; Hamilton, Adams, and Co., Paternoster Row. If required for distribution, at reduced price, direct from the Caxton Printing Works, 88, Camden Road, N.W. Post Office Order payable to William Brown. 50 copies for 3s.

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"If He practically recognised the Book as Divine, would not this be a sufficient encouragement to us to do the same? He must have foreseen all that modern criticism would have to say, but still He urged men to trust its promises and obey its precepts as Divine. This Bible was Christ's Bible."

WHAT THEN WAS CHRIST'S TESTIMONY TO THE BIBLE DURING HIS EARTHLY LIFE?

grew in wisdom.'

"As a child, our Lord' We may be reasonably sure that the Bible had been His daily study, so that throughout His public ministry He had it ever ready to use for His own consolation and for the instruction of mankind.

"When He was in the wilderness, hungry from His long fast, and tempted to escape suffering by turning stones into loaves, He defeated the devil, not by power we cannot imitate, but by the Bible we may quote. It is written―man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word of God' (Matt.iv. 4; Deut. viii. 3). Man lives not by loaves, but by God, and must obey the Divine will, not indulge his own. Jesus, as Messiah, had come, not to rule but to serve, and the law of His service was the Bible.

"As the first temptation was to self-indulgence, so the second was to self-assertion. If thou be the Son of God cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee' (Matt. iv. 6; Ps. xci. 11, 12). Our Lord had repelled the devil by quoting the Bible. His adversary returned to the attack by adopting as his own that very weapon; an acknowledgment of the honour our Lord gave to that Book, was thus unconsciously the devil's own homage. But the promise of protection applies to the believer only when in the path of duty, and Jesus replied, 'It is again written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God' (Matt. iv. 7; Deut. vi. 16). I may be sure of protection in the path of obedience, but I must not expose myself to danger uncalled.

'All these

"The third temptation was to self-glorification. things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.' Jesus replied: "Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve' (Matt. iv. 10; Deut. vi. 13; x. 20).

"Our Saviour triumphed by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.' He would not relieve His hunger unlawfully, nor expose Himself to danger unbidden, nor attain to dominion by any compromise with evil, because all this was contrary to Holy Scripture. The passages He quoted were all from Deuteronomy, one of those early records of an ancient race, which some regard as unsuited to our present spiritual necessities, one of the books of that Moses whose authority is so much questioned.

"Our Lord commenced His public ministry at Nazareth. 'And there was delivered to Him the book of the prophet Isaiah.' Our Lord evidently knew His Bible well. He knew just how far to unrol the parchment in order to find the text, Isa. Ixi. 1; Luke iv. 18. When He had opened the book He found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor,' &c. And He began His discourse by saying, 'This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears' (Luke iv. 21), demanding to be accepted as the Saviour of the world because He fulfilled the predictions of the Bible. He drew His illustrations from the same Old Testament. When His hearers asked, 'Is not this Joseph's son ?' (v. 22), He said, 'Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, but unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow' (v. 26 and 1 Kings xvii. 9). And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed save Naaman the Syrian' (v. 27; 2 Kings v. 14). So in his sermon on the mount. • Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil' (Matt. v. 17). Do not suppose I have come to call in question the accuracy of Moses, to suggest critical doubts as to the inspiration of the Prophets. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled' (v. 18). Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments (of the Old Testament), and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven' (v. 19)—a solemn warning to many in our own day. He said: 'Is it not written in your

law (Ps. lxxxii. 6), I said ye are gods? (John x. 34.) If he called them gods unto whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken,' &c. Here the word spoken in the psalm to the magistrates of Israel is declared by Christ to be the word of God,' and therefore not to be set aside."

When the Pharisees complained of His disciples for transgressing the tradition of the elders, He replied: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother; he that curseth father or mother let him die the death." (Matt. xv. 4.) Our Lord quoted Exodus (xx. 12) and Leviticus (xx. 9). Jewish tradition was ancient and venerable, but valueless in comparison with the Bible. "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying (Isa. xxix. 13), This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, but their heart is far from me; but in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (Matt. xx. 8, 9.)

There is a verse in Hosea : "I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings." (Hosea vi. 6.) God had appointed sacrifice, but in the absence of righteousness this was not simply unacceptable, it was displeasing to God. The tendency of the priesthood was to exalt church-ceremonies; the mission of the prophets was to demand love and obedience. God said by Isaiah: "To what purpose the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow." (Isa. i. 11-17; lviii. 1—8.)

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The priests of our Lord's time imitated their predecessors, winking at real sin while insisting on ceremonies. Jesus ate familiarly with persons regarded as very wicked by the Pharisees, who slandered Him as "the friend of publicans and sinners." Our Lord replied: "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, for I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Matt. ix. 13.) When the Pharisees pretended to be shocked that the disciples broke the Sabbath by plucking a few ears of corn, Jesus referred to the case of David and the shew-bread (1 Sam. xxi. 6),