that it is unable to 'save
our souls'?

There are in the Christian ranks some soldiers whose hands are too
nerveless or too full of worldly trash to grasp the sword which they
have received, much less to strike home with it at any of the evils that
are devastating their own lives or darkening the world. The feebleness
of the Christian conflict with evil, in all its forms, whether
individual or social, whether intellectual or moral, whether heretical
or grossly and frankly sensual, is mainly due to the feebleness with
which the average professing Christians grasp the sword of the Spirit.
When David asked the priests for weapons, and they told him that
Goliath's sword was lying wrapt in a cloth behind the ephod, and that
they had none other, he said, 'There is none like that, give it me.' If
we are wise, we will take the sword that lies in the secret place, and,
armed with it, we shall not need to fear in any day of battle.

We do well that we take heed to the word of God, 'as unto a lamp shining
in a dark place until the day dawn,' when swords will be no more needed,
and the Word will no longer shine in darkness but be the Light that
makes the Sun needless for the brightness of the New Jerusalem.

PEACE, LOVE, AND FAITH

'Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith.'--Eph. vi. 23.

The numerous personal greetings usually found at the close of Paul's
letters are entirely absent from this Epistle. All which we have in
their place is this entirely general good wish, and the still more
general and wider one in the subsequent verse.

There is but one other of the Apostle's letters similarly devoid of
personal messages, viz. the Epistle to the Galatians, and their absence
there is sufficiently accounted for by the severe and stern tone of that
letter. But it is very difficult to understand how they should not
appear in a letter to a church with which the Apostle had such prolonged
and cordial relations as he had with the church at Ephesus. And hence
the absence of these personal greetings is a strong confirmation of the
opinion that this Epistle was not originally addressed to the church at
Ephesus, but was a kind of circular intended to go round the various
churches in Asia Minor, and only sent first to that at Ephesus. That
opinion is further confirmed by the fact known to many of you that in
some good ancient manuscripts the words 'at Ephesus' are omitted from
the first verse of the letter; which thus s