his heart, established a spurious form summoned his magicians, whose leaders, of Christianity, which swept over the says the legend, were two brothers world like a hurricane, but had almost Jaunes and Jambres, and they by their as soon spent its force. Yet he was but arts performed divers enchantments. one of the numerous false teachers of They also cast down their rods and his age. Sects arose like mushrooms in they became as serpents; but the sera summer night. Men without char- pent of Aaron swallowed up those that acter denied the commission of the appeared at the bidding of the sorcerapostles, and pretended to have received ers. special revelations from the Lord Him- This Scriptural history was greatly self. Pretending that they had discov- extended by legend and tradition. It ered in the Scriptures a secret meaning was said that these wicked brothers were which they alone could reveal, they the sons of Balaam who afterwards atcorrupted the Gospel and led the peo- tempted to curse Israel, at the desire of ple to the most fearful wickedness. They Balak. This is very improbable on did not do this ignorantly, but with the account of the time which elapsed beobstinacy of those who sin against light fore the children of Israel reached the and knowledge. The apostle Paul land of Balak and for many other reatherefore compares them with certain sons; but it is evident that they were similar opponents of the great law-giver influenced by a similar spirit. Balaam of Israel. "As Jannes and Jambres has been called the Judas Iscariot of withstood Moses," he says, "so do these the Old Testament—a man who knew also resist the truth: men of corrupt the Lord, and who had been honored minds, reprobate concerning the faith," by Him as a means of communicating II Timothy 3: 8. This illustration takes His will to those who sat in darkness, us back to a period more than 1500 but who suffered his wretched covetousyears before the Christian era. As we ness to overcome him to such an extent cannot find the names of Jannes and that he was willing to go directly against Jambres in the Old Testament it is, how- his conscience. The magicians of Egypt ever, evident that the apostle must have acted in a very similar manner. They derived his information from other had most probably been Moses' teachers sources, and the question as to what or schoolmates, and had with him pethey were has called forth an immense rused the ancient records that told them amount of research and conjecture. of the only true God. With him they Origen, who wrote in the third century, may have learned how to perform wonsupposed that St. Paul was in possession derful works, not for money or any kind of certain ancient Jewish books which were afterwards lost; while another of the early church-fathers supposes, with greater probability, that the fact was derived from a Jewish tradition which the apostle knew by inspiration to be true. That such a tradition existed we are informed by the most eminent of Jewish writers. It was said that Jannes and Jambres were the magicians whose pretended miracles were so utterly discomfited by the superior power which Moses possessed by virtue of his Divine commission. The account of this miracle is given us in the seventh chapter of the book of Exodus. It is said that when Moses and Aaron insisted that Pharaoh should let Israel go free, the Lord commanded them to perform a miracle before the king. So Aaron cast down his rod and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh of personal gain, but for the purpose of advancing the glory and knowledge of Jehovah. But the king and people were sunken in idolatry, and these magicians yielded to the temptation of keeping their knowledge to themselves for the purpose of advancing their own personal interests. When Pharaoh called them they ought to have told him the truth; but instead of doing so they determined to resist the power of God with their enchantments. Their object was evidently to gain money and popularity, while they seemed utterly unmindful of the coming judgment. Thus, while they were wise in one direction they were blind in another; they were therefore compelled to suffer the most intense mortification in consequence of their failure. If the tradition is true, they were drowned with their master in the depths of the Red Sea. We now understand what St. Paul means when he adduces Jannes and Jambres as types of those false teachers who in all ages have risen up to afflict the church, and to bring misery upon countless thousands. Like Jannes and Jambres, they have corrupt hearts. Of course, this may be as little known to their acquaintances as it was to the Egyptians, and indeed the fact may not be fully appreciated by themselves. The old doctrines of Christianity are for them too searching, or at any rate their rebellious nature yearns to be delivered from all authority. They would like to command the faith and consciences of others, while they themselves are free. Like the sorcerers of Egypt, they desire the reputation, at least, of possessing a knowledge of spiritual things on account of the power which it will bring them. Now, this desire in itself shows a corrupt heart. Whatever may be his professions, the man who seeks in this way to gain control over the consciences of his fellows thereby manifests a wicked nature. Such persons, like the magicians of Egypt and like Balaam in the wilderness, deserve to be called reprobate-a word which, though often used to designate wickedness in general, the apostle applied to those who are destitute of true reverence for those things that belong to Christ's kingdom. They may, indeed, claim to possess the faculty in the highest degree, but men often most boldly claim things to which they have not a single right. The true Christian for instance shrinks from trying to explain Scripture in a new way-if he imagines he has discovered the meaning of a passage of Scripture and finds upon research that the great and good Christians of former ages have not understood it so it will be to him a strong proof that he must be mistaken; for to imagine that he alone, after the church has existed for more than 1800 years, should have discovered the true sense of the Bible manifests, to say the least, insufferable vanity, and a lamentable want of reverence. The true Christian remembers that Christ does not want sects-that He prayed no less than four times in His intercessory prayer for unity in His church; but the false teacher glories in doing that from which the earnest Christian shrinks. He is proud of his ability to twist the Scriptures to suit his purposes; he delights in rending congregations and families, if he can but gather around him a circle that will glorify him and accept his words as the word of God. This wild seeking for popularity and personal influence is even more characteristic of those who seek to destroy the faith of Christians than it was of Jannes and Jambres. The magicians of Egypt resisted the truth in deference to the commandment of a king whose word was law; but the false teachers of the present day decide upon such a course of their own free will-therefore, theirs shall be the greater condemnation. Take, for instance, the foul so-called religion of Mormonism; which has well been so often exposed that it seems impossible that any one should still believe in it. It does not deserve the name of a religion-Judaism and Mohammedanism are infinitely superior. Even the Chinaman, who burns his josssticks before his idol, is more to be respected than the Mormon who becomes the slave of lust in the name of religion. Is it not evident that the men who could establish such a sect must have been "men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith"? And can we not see that it is the lust of power and popularity that induces men of intelligence to deceive and enslave ignorant multitudes under the pretense that they are infallible prophets of Almighty God? Is it not wonderful how such delusions spread? There are times when, like some fearful epidemic, they cast their malignant influences over a whole country before Christians awake to a sense of the pressing danger. Sometimes it seems as though the church was about to be utterly destroyed. But after all the danger is apparent only. Notwithstanding all the boastings of false teachers, the Scriptures tell us "their folly shall be made manifest." Some one has compared the work of the champions of falsehood to the palace of ice which was built, many years ago, by the Empress Anne of Russia. It was a very cold winter, and the em press conceived the strange idea of fur History also relates how the folly of nishing work for the poor, and at the the opponents of the apostles was made same time amusing herself, by erecting manifest. These false teachers were on the frozen river Neva a magnificent accounted great men in their day; the palace, to be built solely of massive number of their deluded votaries might blocks of ice. Every art of the archi- be counted by thousands; but where tect and sculptor was brought into re- are now the false systems which they quisition, and when it was finished it labored so hard to establish? Not one was the most beautiful edifice that was of them has remained to tell the tale of ever seen in the land. There were state- its early history. Their writings are ly domes and massive towers-imposing lost-their very names are forgotten; halls and extensive corridors-all glit- while the names of the fathers of the tering like diamonds in their icy loveli church still, in the language of the ness. The very furniture was carved prophet, " shine with the brightness of out of solid ice. Then the whole land the firmament." rang with the fame of the icy palace. The highest nobility held balls and parties in its cold and slippery halls, and hundreds there contracted diseases that caused their death. The empress was in raptures with her work, but, alas! sooner than she had expected, there came a warm spring day; the icy towers began to melt and crumble; then the ice on which they stood gave way, and the whole mass tumbled into the river and was seen no more. In the same way falsehood may rear magnificent structures that for a while entirely overshadow the more humble dwelling of Truth. They look very inviting they glitter with every grace with which the art of man can deck them and thousands hasten to them to their soul's destruction. But when we examine them we find, that they are cold and destitute of true Christian life. Perhaps when we least expect it, they begin to disappear before the rays of truth, and at last nothing is left but the remembrance of the folly of their founders. The application to the age in which we live is easily made. Every person who has given the subject the least attention must have observed, that no blessing rests upon those who seek to subvert the truth of Christ, and by precept or example endeavor to prevent the onward progress of His kingdom. Their folly is made manifest, for with all their opposition, the old truth remains unshaken. Does not all this plainly show the vanity of fighting against God? At last, we are told, we are all to stand before the judgment bar of God, where no excuses or prevarications will avail. There at least, the corrupt heart and the reprobate mind will be visible in all their naked deformity, and the wicked folly of the enemies of truth will be clear even to those whom they so shamefully deceived. May God preserve us from the sin of Jannes and Jambres, so that we may escape their fate at the day of judgment ! IOWA'S GRACE DARLING. These truths are exemplified in the age of Moses, in that of St. Paul, and Kate Shelley, to whom the Iowa Legin our own. The folly of Jannes and islature has given a gold medal and Jambres was proven by the futility of $200, is only fifteen years old. She their attempts to resist the power of lives near Des Moines, at a point where God. It was as though they had at- a railroad crosses a gorge at a great tempted to stem the tide, to breast the height. One night there was a furious avalanche, or to turn the hurricane storm, and the bridge was carried away. from its onward course. Their magic The first that the Shelleys knew of it was brought to shame; their enchant- was when they saw the headlight of a ments could not save their country from its plagues, nor deliver the monarch from impending death. Their whole conduct was marked by wicked folly, and met with a fearful retributiou. locomotive flash down into the chasm. Kate climbed to the remnant of the bridge with great difficulty, using an improvised lantern, and the engineer's voice answered her calls; but she could do nothing for him and he was drowned. Then she remembered that an express train was almost due, and she started for the nearest station, a mile distant. A long, high bridge over the Des Moines River had to be crossed on the ties-an easy thing to do in calm daylight, but perilous in stormy darkness. Kate's light was blown out, and the wind was so violent that she could not stand. So she crawled across the bridge, from timber to timber, on her hands and knees. She got to the station bedraggled and exhausted, but in time to give the warning, though she fainted immediately. speak, I It cried, a particle-a speck—a mite I asked old father Time himself, at last "They talk," said Tom Marshall to an intimate friend, "of my astonishing bursts of eloquence, and doubtless imagine it is my genius bubbling over. It is nothing of the sort. I'll tell you how I do it: "I select a subject, and study it from the ground up. When I have mastered it fully I write a speech on it. Then I take a walk, and come back, and revise and correct. In a few days I subject it to another pruning, and then recopy it. Next I add the finishing touches, round it off with graceful periods, and in the fields, in my father's lawn, and commit it to memory. Then I speak it before my mirror, until gesture aud delivery are perfect. It sometimes takes me six weeks or two months to get up a speech. When I have one prepared I come to town. I generally select a Court day, when there is sure to be a crowd. I am called on for a speech, and am permitted to select my own subject. I speak my piece. It astonishes the people, as I intended it should, and they go away, marveling at my power of oratory. They call it genius, but it is the hardest kind of work." HOW TO JUDGE MEN Don't judge a man by his family relations, for Cain belonged to a good family. Don't judge him by the clothes he wears. God made one and the tailor the other. Don t judge him by his speech, for a parrot talks, and the tongue is but an instrument of sound. Don't judge a man by his failure in life, for many a man falls because he is too honest to succeed. Don't judge a man by the house he lives in, for the lizard and the rat often inhabit the grandest structures. Judge him not by his acts alone, but by the motive of those acts. A holy fragrance, like the breath of prayer; "Until the evening " we must weep and toil, Oh! when our sun is setting may we glide, FIDELITY. BEWARE OF UNKINDNESS. When we look back on this life from the heights of the heavenly world, we shall doubtless marvel that the dearest friends, who would have died for one another if need be, could consent to give each other so much pain with little unkindnesses. How strange it will seem, then, that we were so exacting in matters so unimportant; that we were so careless of the sensitive places in a fond heart and touched them so roughly; that we were so ready to answer an impatient word with a more impatient one; that we were so forgetful of the little ministries of love that are worth so much more when unsolicited; that we were not more patient and sympathetic with unstrung nerves and childish fears. God help us who are trying to lead Christian lives, that we may not have to wait for the other world to see these things in their true light. THE TRUE WIFE. Oftentimes I have seen a tall ship glide by against the tide as if drawn by some invisible bowline, with a hundred strong arms pulling it. Her sails unNever forsake a friend. When ene-filled, her streamers drooping, she had mies gather around, when sickness falls neither side wheel nor stern wheel; on the heart, when the world is dark still she moved on stately, in serene and cheerless, is the time to try friend- triumph as with her own life. But I ship. They who turn from the scene knew that on the other side of the ship, of distress betray their hypocrisy, and hidden beneath the great bulk that prove that interest only moves them. swam so majestically, there was a little If you have a friend who loves you- toilsome steam-tug, with a heart of fire who has studied your interest and hap- and arms of iron, that was tugging it piness-be sure to sustain him in ad- bravely on; and I knew that if the versity. Let him feel that his former little steam-tug untwined her arm, and kindness is appreciated, and that his left the ship, it would wallow and roll love was not thrown away. about, and drift hither and thither, and fidelity may be rare, but it exists-in go off with the refluent tide, no man the heart. They only deny its worth knows whither. And so I have known and power who have never loved a more than one genius, high-decked, fullfriend, or labored to make one happy. freighted, idle-sailed, gay-penuoned, but The good and the kind, the affectionate that for the bare, toiling arms, and and the virtuous, see and feel the heav-brave, warm-beating heart of the faithenly influence.-Selected. Real JOHN LIVINGSTONE preached a single sermon in Scotland that brought five hundred souls to Christ. But some of his people had been in prayer the whole night before. If you want to see God do wonders among you, pray and wait. ful little wife, that nestles close to him, so that no wind or wave could part them, he would have gone down with the stream, and have been heard of no more.- Oliver Wendell Holmes. Aim at pleasing God in all things, and you will never go far astray. |