The record-union., 1896-05-24

always be liable to the reproach of
making the best business arrangement
they can, and there will probably be
those who will assume that the main
reason why ministers choose their pro-
fession is to get their living out of it,
Such cases are not unknown, but it is
vastly truer. on the whole that the
great majority who enter the profess
sion and remain in it choose it because
they feel called to devote their-lives to
the promotion of religion and the dis
semination of the truth. The minister's
salary, small or large, simply furnishes
the conditions under which he can live
and work. The most of it goes to his
butcher, baker and candleStick- max
err He usually can save little out of it.
His is not a money-making profession.
He must find his chief joy in his work
1t is not merely his privilege, but his
duty, to make the best use of his pow
ers. Years of responsibility and hard
work may render change desirable
or necessary The high places must be
filled as well as well as the low ones
1t needs high-class men to fill them
Fresh opportunities usually bring fresh
inspirations, and after a minister has
preached for twenty years to the same
should not only find relief and change,
but freshening and stimulating influ-
ences, in a new field Granted that
there are selfish ministers who think
more of the loaves and fishes it is true
of the Christian ministry, as a whole,
that its chief rewards are found in
breaking the bread of life"
Referring to a recent lecture by the
Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke upon Mario
latry, the New York Christian Intel
ligencer" RefD observes: THE theme
prompts us to call attention to one of
the chief characteristics of the Bible
which distinguishes it from human the
ologies. 1t is that the Scriptures set
up no female deity. 1t is a wonderful
fact that they do not, when all the
world was doing it and has continued
to do it. The Koran is not to be ex-
cepted. It does declare one God in a
degree of pure spirit, but Mohammed
borrowed from both Jews and Chris
tians, and vitiated his system by peO
ping heaven with hosts of houris. All
religious systems purely human have
invented female deities and declared
them constantly and eminently domi-
nant in the celestial disposition of hui
man affairs. The counterparts to Juno,
Venus Minerva and the various Greek
goddesses are to be found in all man
made religions, and, as they sprang
from men holding the low ideas of fe-
male character which Christianity has
corrected these inventions have been
among the most cOrrupting potencleS
of false religions. An impressive proof
that the Scriptures are not of man but
of God is found in this absence of fe-
male deities. The Bible reveals a God
who is pure spirit the I am the
source of all being, glorious in absolute
perfection That the Hebrews were in
constant communication with idola-
trous peoples has been established by
the records of monuments and tablets.
Knowing as the world does to-day the
intimacy existing among the nations
at the head of the Mediterranean from
the time Of Abraham to the day Of
the destruction of Jerusalem by the
Romans. knowing also his comparative
inferiority in the arts which gave dis
tinction to men, it is incredible that the
Jew in absolute antagonism to all the
world could invent the Jehovah of their
Scriptures.