them. He speaks of them as his "joy and crown, his dearly beloved and eagerly desired." God was his witness how he yearned after them all in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus. He was proud of this church and grateful for its record and for its future sacrifices and services.

The church in Philippi was held up before other churches to provoke them to do far more than they had been doing. It can be held up before churches to-day for the same purpose. For what the Holy Spirit approved in the first century He will approve in the twentieth. Every church that would have His approval and blessing now must have fellowship with other churches and with the Founder of the church in the furtherance of the gospel. Its ambition should be to be and to be known as a missionary church. That is a worthier ambition than to be known as the church with the costliest building, or the most eloquent minister, or the largest organ, or the best choir, or the largest and richest membership. The church exists to help Christ seek and save the lost; this is its sole and its supreme business. The entire membership of the church in Philippi was enlisted. Paul says, "Ye are all partakers with me of grace." The gifts were not made and the burdens borne by a few. The same should be true of every church on earth to-day. Every member should be enrolled as a contributor. The youngest and the poorest member, as well as the oldest and richest, and all between these extremes, should aid according to the ability that God has given. Every soul that intelligently and honestly accepts Jesus as Lord should be willing and eager to do what is in his power, that they may see to whom no tidings of Him came, and they that have not heard may understand. The missionary spirit is an indubitable proof of the life of God in the soul. The absence of it is positive proof that the gospel has been received only nominally. The Philippian church did not make one generous offering and then sit down contented, feeling that it had done its full duty. There was nothing spasmodic or sporadic about its giving. It

began at "the first day" and continued till the time the apostle wrote. Moreover he felt assured that they were going to keep right on for all time to come.

That was as it should

be now. The habit of giving should be formed, so that the offerings may be as confidently expected as the coming of the seasons. Now as then the church needs to do this for its own sake, no less than for the sake of the world that lies in the wicked one. The church is saved from selfishness and from provincialism and from worldliness and from a thousand other evils by its devotion to the cause of world-wide evangelism. God will honour the church that honours Him by doing its duty; He cannot honour and prosper the church that does not. It is true to-day as it was when Paul wrote that money given for the gospel's sake is an odour of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.

If all our churches were like the church in Philippi we could take the world for Christ in a generation. For every such church among us those who are responsible for the management and maintenance of our missionary societies thank God upon all remembrance of it.

XVIII

"MAKE ME A LITTLE CAKE FIRST

But of a truth I say unto you, There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; but unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. —Luke 4. 25, 26. Compare 1 Kings 17: 8–16.

I

N the time of famine Elijah was told to go to Zarephath,

for the Lord had commanded a widow there to sustain

him. Coming to the gate of the city he saw the widow gathering sticks, and said to her, "Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink." As she went to fetch the water he said, "Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand." The widow replied, "As Jehovah, thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in the jar, and a little oil in the cruse; and behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die." Elijah said, "Fear not; go and do as thou hast said; but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and afterwards make for thee and for thy son." This demand may wear a harsh and selfish aspect; but it was not that. The prophet of the Lord sought to test and to develop her faith. He added, "For thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, The jar of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that Jehovah sendeth rain upon the earth." The widow believed God and obeyed the will of His servant, and she, and he, and her house, did eat many

days. The jar of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of Jehovah, which He spoke by Elijah.

The thought in this story that needs emphasis is found in the words, "Make me thereof a little cake first." There is an axiom to the effect that self-preservation is the first law of nature. That may be true; but if so the question arises, "What method shall be employed in preserving ourselves?" Our Lord taught us not to be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ?" God knows that we have need of all these things. If we seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness, all these things shall be added unto us. By complying with the prophet's command the widow saved her own life and that of her household, and secured the blessing of God. Had she and her son eaten their morsel alone they would have perished in the famine.

There is a lesson here for the individual Christian. A child of God is not to put his own claims first; he is to recognize the priority of God's claims. God is not a beggar asking alms or the crumbs that fall from our tables. He is a preferred creditor. We are stewards of His manifold grace. What we have we hold in trust for Him. We cannot honestly use trust funds to gratify the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, while we give our leavings to assist His work in the world. We are living in a period of unprecedented prosperity. We are in graver peril than were the people in the prophetic age from "pride, and fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness." What were considered luxuries a few decades ago are necessaries now. More than ever before is there need of extraordinary stress being laid on God's claims, because they are anterior to all claims of fashion and society and appetite and vanity. They are of superlative importance. Mrs. Bishop has well said that our scale of living is constantly rising. "We decorate our lives till farther decoration be

comes impossible. Our expenditures upon ourselves are enormous." We are not any more comfortable or any better off on account of our extravagance and riotous living than we were before. As a matter of fact, we are not so comfortable or so well off. With the clamorous demands of self and the world the call of God for His rightful share first is apt to be ignored or forgotten, or all manner of ingenious excuses are invented to silence the reproaches of enlightened consciences.

There is a lesson here for the churches. Many congregations feel that they must have elegant buildings, and elaborate furnishings; they must have rich frescoes and pipe organs and costly music. When they have provided themselves with all that they need to eclipse and outshine their neighbours, and have had a good long breathing spell, then they may do something to give the gospel to those who are living and dying without God and without hope. That is a reversal of the divine order. God's law is, "Make me thereof a little cake first." The apostles evangelized the Roman empire without a choir or a pipe organ or even a church building. The great commission was given to eleven men who had no money and no credit and no social position. These men put the Lord's work first, and because they did they were able to "kindle the fires of the faith that burned down to the water's edge all around the Mediterranean and remade the Roman world." It is well to have convenient and comfortable houses of worship and such other facilities as the people of God need to serve God acceptably. But every dollar spent in a vain show is a dollar of trust funds misappropriated. In one of our cities there is a negro church that meets for worship in the basement of a building belonging to other people. That church supports a missionary on the foreign field. That church has made a little cake first for the Lord, and to that church He will say, "I was hungry and ye fed Me."

The world will never be won to Christ by gifts from our pin-money. The missionary enterprise is belittled and put on