DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,— It has indeed been a cheer to find that though working under difficulties and discouragements, so many have kept steadily on with their happy work. Nearly all the papers received during January were good ones, many giving proof of very thorough painstaking Bible study, and very lovingly and warmly we welcome several newcomers, girls and boys who have not written before, but would like to join our Class.
We all miss Aunt Alice, do we not? We can’t have another Aunt Alice, can we? Even if we could, the new auntie would not be quite the same as the old one. Not the long-tried and dearly-loved friend we all seemed to know and trust.
But a Bible Class without a leader would hardly be a Bible Class at all, would it? Will you, dear ones, gather month by month round Cousin Edith? Send her your papers as regularly as you have been used to do to Aunt Alice, and with the blessing of the Lord, which she hopes every member of our Bible Class will seek for her, and for themselves, she will try to point out some ways in which happy and helpful half hours of Bible study may be spent together.
Our Editor has kindly promised again to offer prizes for diligent study and really good work. Six book prizes, two in each division, will, we hope, be awarded half-yearly: but next month we may perhaps be able to say a little more on this subject. Nora Styles, near Ashbourn. Accept thanks, dear Nora, for your loving little note. Your paper is very neatly done. You do not give your age, but as handwriting leads us to think you are one of our seniors, we shall have the pleasure of entering your name in Division I.
Genesis 24
What a lovely chapter we have before us this month. We never grow tired of reading or hearing the Gospel preached from the oft-told story of Rebecca, do we? She does not seem to have been a great talker. It only needed three words, “I WILL Go,” to tell the story of her decision to say good-bye to friends and home, and follow the “Eldest Servant” who had come so far to claim her as the bride for whom Isaac waited. But if she did not say a great deal, Rebecca acted. “She arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man” (verse 61). She had not seen Isaac, but her heart had been won for him, and she was not only willing but glad to cross rivers, and journey over desert sands to reach him.
But a far deeper interest surrounds our chapter if we read between the lines, and learn how God the Holy Ghost is gathering out of this poor dark world a Bride for Christ. This Bride is to be composed of all true Christians. One by one they came to Jesus and were saved, but when we think or speak of the Church as the Bride of Christ, it is of a company who, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, are being led often by rough and thorny ways, till they reach the Father’s House, and receive a glad welcome from their Lord and Saviour.