we find Peter at Joppa, the seaport of Jerusalem, where a vision came to him of a sheet let down from heaven, wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air. And a voice said, "Arise, Peter, slay and eat." He answered, "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." The Voice said, "What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common." At that moment a knocking at the door below gave a clew to the vision; for a Gentile Centurion stood there, inquiring after "Simon, which is surnamed Peter," and summoning him to a world-wide ministry. "Of a truth," said Peter, "I now perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."

Our religion is, by these tokens, the broadest, most inclusive, comprehensive, far-reaching, magnanimous religion that ever was known or dreamed of. It is the very antithesis of class prejudice and bigotry. It requires one thing and one thing only of the penitent sinner, to wit, a frank, honest, unreserved acceptance of Christ; that given, all the rest is "Go, bring others in!" There is room in the Christian Church for all sorts of Christians, and all such are one in Christ. There is room for all sorts of workers; and all are expected to co-operate for him. There are more believers in the world than we think. Many hypocrites and heretics, no doubt, but a great multitude of true followers of Christ. What is this that he says, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, that there may be one flock, one shepherd"?

It is a wide world that we are living in, and there is room for all to walk without jostling and to work without let or hindrance. The harvest truly is great and the laborers so few! Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, not that he would exclude any from the field, but that he would bring multitudes into it. Not that he would multiply the number of those that "follow us," but the number of those that cast out devils "in his name." The right to serve is the supreme privilege of the Christian life. Ich dien is a princely motto; and all true followers of Christ may bear it embossed upon their shields whether they speak our shibboleths or not. There are those among the Israel of God who to this day "have no dealings with the Samaritans"; but the Good Samaritan nevertheless goes on with his gracious work on The Bloody Way.

There is no place in the economy of the Gospel for envy and jealousy, bigotry and exclusiveness. The elder brother of the Prodigal, contemplating with black looks the unconventional merry-making in the Father's house, cuts but a poor figure in the domestic annals of the Church. Let him find his seat at the table and join in the general rejoicing over the return of every sinner from the far country.

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IX

THE LARGER CHRIST

In which a fond mother is strangely used to teach the doctrine that Salvation is for all.

A Woman of Syro-Phænicia: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon."

Jesus makes no answer.

The Disciples: "Send her away; for she crieth after us."

Jesus: "I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

The Woman: "Lord, help me."

Jesus: "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs."

The Woman: "Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

Jesus: "O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt."-Matt. xv, 21-28.

IN the north country, among the hills of Syria, dwelt a woman in the school of sorrow. She was a

lone woman, it would seem, with but one fledgling in her nest. Her only child was an invalid, "possessed of an unclean spirit." The mother's love-a love that many waters could not quench-was betrayed in the fond title, "my little daughter." But love kept company with shame in solitude; for hers was a nameless

sorrow.

A picture by a famous artist represents a woman sitting on a ledge of rocks beside the sea, in an atti

tude of hopelessness, staring into the distance with eyes of stony grief. Beside her hovers the Angel of Hope, touching the strings of a lute; but the woman. sees not, hears not. So was it with this Syro-Phenician mother; the music of consolation was not for her.

Her heart was breaking; and there was none to help. The physicians whom she consulted pronounced the case incurable. There was no relief in prayer; for her god was Baal, the god of the Phenicians, the god of the Cold Eyes. In vain would she lay her sorrow before him; "there was no voice nor answer nor any that regarded."

It was rumored that down in Galilee a prophet was going to and fro among the villages healing all manner of diseases. There were commercial travelers for at this time Phenicia was the most wealthy and enterprising of commercial nations-who had met him in Galilee; and wonderful were the tales they told of his miraculous cures, the opening of blind eyes, cleansing of lepers, casting out of evil spirits. But so far as this woman could learn, his benefactions were confined to the people of Israel, whose Messiah he claimed to be.

It happened just then that Jesus, wearied by the work of his Galilean ministry and persecuted by the ruling faction whom he had mortally offended, came up into Syria and sought retirement in the obscure town where this afflicted mother dwelt. She heard of his presence and straightway sought him out. It was a forlorn hope. She knew that, as an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, she was without claim; but her great love constrained her. "O Lord, thou Son of David," she cried, "have mercy on me and heal my

little daughter!" It was the appeal of quenchless love and baffled hope. What could "the Son of David" be to her? It was as when a sailor in midocean waves a signal of distress and calls to a ship passing afar off.

I. "And he answered her not a word."

Why? Was it by reason of indifference? Oh, no; he always heeded the cry of the suffering; his was the gentlest heart that ever beat. He was surely not indifferent to that "me" of her appeal, in which she so pathetically identified herself with her ailing child. Was it then because of inability to help? Not so. There was no limit to his power; he was fond of applying his divine skill to the most desperate cases. It is recorded that when he passed through the villages the people brought out their sick and laid them in couches along the way; and "he healed them all." No, these were not the grounds of his strange silence. He had an ulterior purpose. The healing of this woman's daughter was not a matter of supreme moment; he fully intended to grant the request, but merely as a relatively unimportant thing; an incident in the pathway of his kindness toward her.

The woman's faith, as manifest in her appeal, was but a feeble, rudimental, nascent thing. It was "faith like a grain of mustard seed"; that is, small but with large possibilities in it. He would correct and foster it. In calling him "Son of David" she disclosed the fact that she wholly misconceived the scope of his ministry of mercy. Her utmost hope, as an outsider, was that some of the droppings of his gracious ministry might fall on her. He would teach her that he was no provincial Christ, that his mission was not