Mr. Dwight L. Moody recently preached a sermon in the Congregational Church at Northfield, Mass., having for his subject, "The Return of our Lord," from which we quote:—

"There is one thing in which we churches all agree, and that is that our Lord is coming back. I do not want to teach dogmatically on my own authority, but to my mind this precious doctrine, for such I must call it, of the return of the Lord to this earth is taught in the New Testament as clearly as any doctrine in it. Whoever neglects this has only a mutilated Gospel, for the Bible teaches not only of the death and sufferings of Christ, but also of His return to reign in honor and glory. His second coming is mentioned and referred to over three hundred times, yet I was in the church fifteen or sixteen years before I ever heard a sermon on it. There is hardly any church that does not make a great deal of baptism, but in all Paul's epistles I believe baptism is spoken of only thirteen times, while he speaks about the return of our Lord fifty times.

"I suppose, if we were asked for two of the sweetest passages in the Bible, we would say those passages in the Gospel of St. John and the first epistle to the Corinthians which bring out the death and resurrection and that He is coming again. No doctrine has suffered more from its friends than this one has. Some people have set the time, but it is clearly thought that the day and the hour will not be known. We find also that He is to come unexpectedly and suddenly. 'For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.' And again, 'Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.' Some people say that means death. But the word of God does not say it means death. Death is our enemy, but our Lord has the keys of death. He has conquered death, hell, and the grave, and at any moment He may come to set us free from death and destroy our last enemy for us.

"Christ is the Prince of Life. There is no death where he is. Death flees at His coming. Dead bodies sprang to life when He touched them or spoke to them. His coming is not death. Look at the account of the last hours with His Disciples. What does He say to them? 'If I go away, I will send death after you to bring you to me.' 'I will send an angel after you'? Not at all. He says, 'I will come again and receive you unto Myself.' Some may shake their heads and say this subject is too deep for young converts. But, my friends, Paul wrote about these things to the young converts among the Thessalonians.

"There are four great facts which were prophesied: The Son of God was promised and has come. The Son of Man has gone. The Holy Spirit has come and the Son of Man is coming again. You believe the first three; why not believe the fourth?"

The following clipping from the Waterbury American, is interesting in connection with Science and Health, p. 402, 1. 32.

The Boston Herald has this to say on the apparent decline of the drink habit. "The labor department returns, which are carried up to and through the calendar year of 1896, seem to indicate that the consumption of alcoholic beverages of all kinds is gradually declining in this country, when estimated on a per capita basis. So far as distilled spirits are concerned, there cannot be the least doubt of this. This is not, in our opinion, the result of prohibitory laws, but of the gradual upbuilding of a public sentiment which encourages resistance to the abuses of alcoholic liquors, and which makes it a disgrace—and this in nearly all classes of society—for a man or a woman to use these beverages to an excess."

We do not vouch for the strict truthfulness of the following, which is going the rounds of the papers:—

A Maine man who recently experienced religion now goes about the state preaching for the reformation of sinners, and the other day he was announced to deliver a sermon in a schoolhouse in the town of Wayne, the home of the gunmaking Maxims. When he got to the schoolhouse there was only one man in the building. After waiting a while for the crowd to appear the evangelist declared to the audience of one that he should go on and preach just the same as if the room were crowded. So he did preach for about an hour and a half, and at the close he asked the lone listener to lead in prayer. The man looked puzzled, and then, fishing out a little slate, wrote, "I am deaf and dumb and haven't heard a word you said."

In Boston the trolley lines run special cars for the convenience of Christian Scientists living in the suburbs. Observing this, the members of a certain other church near by, which also draws its attendance mainly from a distance, asked a similar privilege. To their surprise they were refused, and on asking the reason were given this explanation: "The Christian Scientists can be depended upon to use the cars whatever the weather. You could not, and we should frequently be 'out,' in case of a storm."

Wherever the Christian Scientists have erected churches, as in Boston, Chicago, and New York, they have been uniformly crowded. The step on their part is a new one, and it may well be regarded with attention, as it indicates an institutional quality which many were not prepared to see.

The Church Economist, New York.

Grand Army veterans will appreciate the honor which is done to them by President McKinley's selection of the head of their order for one of the commissioners to investigate the War Department. This is the President's tactful recognition of the fact that the veterans of 1861—65 have a very great interest in the war of 1898, and are competent to speak with authority as to the manner in which it should have been conducted. They are qualified to say what of the hardships of the soldiers were preventable and what unpreventable—for they have been "through the mill" themselves.

Boston Journal.

Says The Review of Reviews:—

"The September Atlantic shows remarkable activity in printing a brilliant sketch of the life and character of Bismarck, from the pen of William Roscoe Thayer. Inasmuch as the great German's death was on July 30, such a publishing feat seems to enlist the Atlantic with the foremost of timely magazines."

The Outlook, in commenting on Mr. Moody's Northfield conference, questions "whether more harm than good is not likely to result from his rash declaration, in the face of much Christian experience to the contrary, that one must hold to the story of Jonah and that of Noah's ark, Lot's wife, etc., as historical facts or give up belief in Christ and the Gospel."

Colonel Oliver H. Payne's gift of $1,500,000 to Cornell University for a medical school furnishes still another substantial testimonial to the soothing and beneficent uses of Standard Oil. Presumably the institution which is intended for the alleviation of pain will not be named after its benefactor.—Boston Herald.

The Christian Register says: "When it comes to measuring the value of any religious movement, it is not merely a question of size, but of quality. There was a time when one man with God was, indeed, a majority—one man misunderstood, standing alone or hanging on a cross."

"That no person can be in heaven in the full meaning of that term," says the Leader, "except as he is in a heavenly frame of mind, is a teaching of the Scriptures and of reason."