had been at work at Aphek. It was the Lord who had smitten them before the Philistines, and not the Philistines who had smitten them before the Lord. With the dead yonder, and the wounded here, and the shouts of the victors still ringing from the valley, there fell a new sense of God upon their souls. But where was God? that was the vital question. And how could they bring Jehovah to the camp? Then they remembered the promise of their Lord to dwell between the cherubim that stretched their wings above the ark at Shiloh. Come, then, went up the cry, and let us fetch the ark to Eben-ezer! And when they got it, and Hophni and Phinehas with it, there rose such a shout of enthusiasm in the camp, that even the Philistines guessed their gods had come. 'Woe unto us, who shall deliver us out of the hands of these mighty gods?' they cried; 'these are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness.'

BUT it is one thing to have a living God, and quite

another to have a lifeless ark. And when the morning dawned, and the battle broke out again, the camp of Israel found it had shouted too soon. Somehow, in the cold light of that new day, the noisy enthusiasm of last night had vanished. The Philistines were never fiercer than this morning, for they were fighting with the courage of despair. The ranks of the Israelites wavered and broke. That whirlwind-charge was irresistible. In vain the leaders tried to rally their men. They scattered and fled for their tents, leaving thirty thousand dead upon the field. Worst blow of all, the ark of God was taken-the glory was departed from Israel. And then we read how the news was brought to Eli, and how the old man heard with fortitude of the slaughter of Israel and of the death of his unworthy sons, but fell back from his seat, and died, when he was told of the capture of the ark.

Now

OW note as the great lesson of this sad episode, the fatal mistake that Israel made. Instead of seeking to God Himself, they sent to Shiloh to fetch His ark. They thought that if that chest was in their midst, the God of battles could not be far away. Was it not before the ark that Jordan parted? Had not the walls of Jericho so fallen? Now, surely, if the ark was in the camp, there could be no question as to victory. But what they forgot was that the ark was powerless without the invisible presence of the Lord, and the presence of the Lord was never promised to a rebellious and wicked people. If they had turned to God in true repentance, they would have won without an embassy to Shiloh; and embassies to Shiloh were all useless, so long as their hearts were turned away from God. God dwells whereever there is faith and love. He is always present in the camp that trusts Him. When faith is dead, and love has fled away, no ark or cherubim can bring me victory.

I SEE, too, from this passage how men learn by their

losses. The loss of battles was not so sore to Israel as was the loss of the ark. The ark was linked with their most glorious past; it seemed the centre of their national life. The crown of glory had fallen from Israel's head when the ark was taken captive by the Philistines. Yet it was through the capture of the ark that Israel was led to the feet of God again. It was when the ark was far away that they learned again how near Jehovah Who knows, if the ark had never been carried from Shiloh, but that Israel might have swiftly fallen to idolatry? That sacred coffer was so associated with the Lord, that it was always easy to reckon it divine. But now the ark was lost, and God was found. They were cast on the living invisible Jehovah. It was a truth with which Israel was to bless the world, and it was graven on their hearts by this disaster.

was.

K

A

We may

ND there is one minor lesson in the story.

still triumph where we have been defeated. For what was the place called where Israel camped? Eben-ezer. And Eben-ezer was the very spot where Samuel won his victory later on. Did Samuel recall these two days of disaster when he erected the stone to commemorate his triumph? His heart may have been flooded with the joy that God can give clear shining after rain. Here Israel had fallen because of unbelief. Here Israel conquered, when once more trusting God. And if our want of faith has well-nigh wrecked us, we may return, and on the very scene of our defeats, in His strength, we shall be victorious still,

J'

TWENTIETH SUNDAY

Evening

THE RICH FOOL

Passage to be read: Luke xii. 13-34.

ESUS was often interrupted in His teaching, and some of the choicest sayings in the Gospel spring

from these interruptions of the Lord. When we are interrupted at our work or play, you know how cross we generally are. But Jesus, in His perfect trust and wisdom, turned even His interruptions to account. He had to stop preaching at Capernaum once when the paralytic was lowered through the roof. But instead of fretting, He so used the moment, that the crowd in the cottage glorified God. And here, too, as He is teaching, He is brought to a halt by an unlooked-for question. Yet He so answers it, and uses it, and preaches such a memorable sermon on it, that I am sure there was not a disciple but thanked God for that unseemly interruption.

Christ felt that not one man could interrupt Him, without the permission of His heavenly Father. It was that present and perfect trust in God that kept Him in His unutterable calm.

WHILE He was speaking, then, of heavenly things—

of forgiveness of sins and of the Holy Ghost-and when He paused, perhaps, for an instant to see if Peter and John had understood Him, there came a grating voice upon His ear, 'Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.' Now, whether this man was really wronged or not, it is of course impossible to say. And it was not that which stirred the wrath of Jesus-it was the betrayal of the speaker's heart. A single sentence may be enough to reveal us. A single request may open our inmost soul. And here was a man who had listened to peerless preaching, and might have been carried heavenward on the wings of it, but the moment Jesus stops, he blurts out his petition, and his whole grievance is about his gear. Does not that show what he was thinking of? Cannot you follow back the workings of his mind through these magnificent teachings that precede? It was that earthly mind that stirred Christ's anger. It was that which led Him on to preach on greed. There was life eternal in the words of Christ; but this man, in the very hearing of them, could think of nothing but the family gold.

THEN Jesus told the story of the rich fool, and as

He told it His mind went back to Nabal (1 Sam. xxv.). For 'Nabal' just means a foolish man, and as his name was, so was he. Like Nabal, too, this churl was not a bad man. He had not stolen the wealth that was to wreck him. It was God's rain that had fallen on his seed. It was God's sunshine that had ripened his harvest. It was God's gentleness that made him great. But for all that, his riches ruined him. He gave his heart to

them he gave his soul. Then suddenly, when he was laying his plans, and dreaming his golden dreams about to-morrow, God whispered, 'Senseless! this night they want thy soul!' Who the they is-for so it reads in the original-we cannot say. It may be the angels of death: it may be robbers. In any case it is God's instruments, and the rich man must say good-bye to everything. O folly, never to think of that! He had thought of everything except his God. And so is he that layeth up treasure for himself, if he is not rich towards God.'

Now

WOW there are three things we must notice about this man and the first is how very anxious he was. When we are young we think that to be rich means to be free from anxiety altogether. We can understand a pauper being anxious, but not a man who has great heaps of gold. But this rich man was just as full of cares as the beggar without a sixpence in the world. He could not sleep for thinking of his crops. That question of the harvest haunted him. It shut out God from him, and every thought of heaven, just as that family inheritance we spoke of silenced the music of Jesus for the questioner. Who is the man whom we sometimes call a fool? It is the man with the bee in his bonnet, as we say. But better sometimes to have a bee in the bonnet than to have nothing but barns upon the brain. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.

SEE next how very selfish the man was. Do we hear one whisper of a harvest-thanksgiving? Is there any word of gratitude to God? You would think the man had fashioned the corn himself, and burnished and filled the ears with his own hand, he is so fond of talking of my corn. Do you remember what we learned in the Lord's Prayer? It is never my there, it is always our. And the Lord's fool is at opposite poles from the Lord's Prayer, for he is always babbling about my. And then