[Zion's Herald]

Let us often turn in our Bibles to the passage where Paul says that he plants and Apollos waters, but God gives the increase. In this day there are so many who, if they would plant at all, would do it hurriedly. And then they would turn impatiently to the reaping, overlooking entirely the watering process. It seems to be the spirit of the age to demand results, and that right quickly. If no vision of accomplishment appears upon our little horizon, our courage ebbs away, and we say that God's Word is losing its hold upon men,—forgetting, the while, that a thousand years in God's sight are but as yesterday.

What we should keep in mind is that all cannot be reapers. There are those who must plant and those who must water, and they should perform their God-given work with a gentleness of spirit and a thoroughness that will implant the Word so firmly that the reapers, when God sends them, will rejoice at the abundance of the harvest, and will praise God for the lives of those who have planted and who have watered so lovingly. Our devotion for the Master cannot be too loyal, our faith in the great commission cannot be too strong, and our concern for our fellow men cannot be too compelling, for the noble work of planting and watering in the Lord's vineyard. It demands our best,—our faith, our love, our courage, our hope, our patience. And above all it demands a sweet and willing and undiscouraged spirit, which is content to labor and to pray at a work where the finished fruit is seldom seen.

[The Watchman-Examiner]

No man who despises the moments can meet with large success, either in hi own character-building or in his service to his day and generation. Our lives must keep pace with the passing moments, if our work is to be telling and lasting. "Practise not slothful sleep, lest the duties and good works which it is necessary for thee to do remain undone," says one of the world's greatest counselors. Alertness, watchfulness, readiness, are necessary to use the moments wisely.

Granting that a man must work,—work diligently and laboriously,—how shall he fashion the passing moments to make his life count for the best for himself and his fellow men? Briefly answered, he must exercise choice. He must use just discrimination. He must have a high purpose, a rule of action that will apply to all his thoughts, activities, and recreations. The conduct of his life can be neither haphazard nor opportunist. It must be founded upon the eternal verities, the highest human and divine ideals. Fortunately for us, we are not obliged to depend upon our own initiative here. The right motive for life has been provided for us. More than that, it has been exemplified for us. That motive is truth and Christ is the truth. The Christian motive, rightly pursued, furnishes the sure rule for wise and effective living. We need go no farther than this, for it is the divine rule, foreordained, revealed, and exemplified, the solution of human perplexities, the preparation for human destiny.

[J. Bruce Wallace, M.A., in The Christian Commonwealth]

For us our Lord is the great Example, the perfect sample man, the revelation that every man's nature is essentially divine. He is the promise and pledge of what at length every man shall know himself to be when he comes completely to himself, the demonstration that the true self of mankind is the divine nature and life, the eternal life, coming forth into manifestation. The divine humanity is thus not only the humanity of our Lord; it is also ours, to be through faith on our part gratefully and joyously recognized as ours, to be confidently drawn upon for our growth away from low levels of consciousness, to be progressively brought forth, and to be finally realized throughout the whole reconciled and united brotherhood of the human race, a fellowship "with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."

[The Living Church]

The real preventive of war is a relationship between nations which shall be based upon Christian love. It is not enough for us now to deny the charge that Christianity has failed. Certainly Christianity has not prevented this outbreak of hostilities between nations that have professed the Christian religion for a thousand years, and there is therefore failure somewhere. That somewhere is in international relations. They are not based on Christian love. Nobody ever pretended they were. Up to very recent years they were generally not even based on honor, though in this they have made great advance in our own generation.

The failure in our Christianity has been that it was too individual in its conception. It made Christian people; it did not make Christian nations. Men and women have tried, in many cases with real success, to live personal lives of holiness. Nowhere have they tried to make nations holy in their dealings with each other, or even, perhaps, in their internal relations with their own people. Perhaps we never would have learned this, if this war had not taught us so forcibly this limitation of our too individual Christianity.

[Rev. Harold E. Brierley in The Homiletic Review]

Do not think it manly to put away childhood's things. Paul never said that! What he did say was "childish" things—a distinction with a vital difference. Do not let the world crowd the child out of your heart. The secret of perennial youth is very much the secret of the eternal child Jesus. Was it not he who said: Except ye change—ye old hardened fossils of men, sin-petrified and sapless—unless ye change, "and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." If you want to be happy, cherish your dreams, cling to your visions, keep the child heart. Remember Bethlehem, and the well "which is by the gate." Do not be ashamed of the romance of life, and let nothing dim it. The world is not suffering from too much romance, but from too

[The Christian Work]

All men are feeling the impotency of human agencies alone to reach a stage of brotherhood and justice where wars shall be no more. We have had Hague conferences, arbitration treaties, peace conferences, and innumerable other agencies, and they have failed to prevent these unspeakable things. The world is feeling that without Christ in the heart first, they are unavailing. We believe that all the world will turn to him, after these awful days are over, as never before, saying, "To whom else shall we go? 'Thou hast the words of eternal life.'" Let us gather about the manger and see if he cannot do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

[The Pacific Baptist]

The new year is an especially favorable time for seeing the invisible. Eternity is real; time is apparent. Perhaps never more than with the passing of an old year do men in general become conscious of the permanence of eternity as contrasted with the transiency of time. Perhaps never more than on Jan. 1 does a community as a whole come so near to seeing the unseen.