May 25, 1895, with twenty-five active mem

bers. From the first the real function of the League was understood to be to provide its members with a stock of real powder-that is, knowledge. "Education," therefore, became the watchword of the League.

As the chief means to carry on its educational work on behalf of its own members, the League has used the Luther League Topics and the REVIEW, the discussion of the Topics in the REVIEW being employed freely. The devotional meeting for the study of the weekly Topic occurs on Sunday evening, half an hour before the regular service. On one weekday evening of each month a business and literary meeting is held. At these meetings, ways and

tionment to the support of the general secretary.

The financial contributions are large and varied, generous in support of the home church, but reaching outside also. For instance, $30 was contributed to the building of Berks Hall at Muhlenberg College, and $20 toward Luther League Hall of the same college.

The social activities of the League were fairly represented by the production of the cantata, "Queen Esther," on three evenings in March, 1906, with an attendance of 985 people on the three evenings. Incidentally this production brought into the treasury of the (Continued on page 25.)

Eleventh Week after Trinity. August 18, 1912. The Christian Family

Luke 10:38-42; John 11:1-3.

Topic reviewed by Rev. Paul W. Koller.

In the glimpses we have of the house at Bethany we see how greatly our Master appreciated and approved the true Christian family life; indeed, there is nothing sweeter and higher than a Christian home.

1. The lack of Christian family life.

There is no lack of Christian families; the Gospel is making converts in greater numbers every year, and there are thousands of entire families that are Christian. But in many cases their Christianity is entirely individual and personal; there is no Christian family life, no Christian home life; this seems to be passing away.

For instance, the daily gathering of the family seems to be a thing of the past. Once in a while an advertisement shows a family group about the old fashioned round table in the sitting room, with the father reading, the mother is busy with her sewing, the children enjoying their books or games, while the grandmother in her cap and spectacles beams on the group from her armchair. This is charming and some of us have known such groups. But in reality such scenes are far from being common in our day. There is no family gathering in most families, and something of real value is lost to us.

With the passing of the daily gathering of the family, the family worship has become only too rare. That, too, is passing, I fear. Family worship is an ancient custom; the Scripture lessons for daily reading recognize its existence. It has been a most precious thing. The father gathering the family before or after the morning meal, or perhaps in the evening before retiring, and reading a portion of the Word of Life, and then all together coming in prayer to the throne of Grace. It influenced the father in his daily labor for his family, cheered the mother in her duties, and laid in the hearts of the children the truths of right living. Family worship is a blessed and sacred custom.

family took part in the worship. Go to almost any church today and what you find is quite different. If Sunday school is before the church service you see the children rushing— yes, literally rushing-out of the Sunday school and away from the church service. If Sunday school comes after the church service, the children are gotten ready and sent to Sunday school, and never get to the church service at all.

Without a thought as to what the result will be, many parents allow their children to come and go at their own sweet will, and the good old custom of gathering every child, and even the stranger within the gates, into the family pew on Sunday morning, is passing away.

These things, that mark the lack of true Christian family life today, are to the eternal detriment and hurt of true Christianity.

2. What can we do?

Just what the causes are for this lack of Christian family life is pretty hard to determine. That it results in loss of authority in the home and no laying of foundations in the fear of God for a true life, is most certain. The important thing, however, is, "What can we do?" What can Christian parents do?

You can make home a gathering place for your children by making it attractive and filling it with the Christian spirit.

You can insist upon obedience. It is often hard to obtain, but if we start early enough it can be gotten.

You can bring your children to church once a week at least.

You can have some form of family worship. Those of us who are not parents, but members of the family all the same, can do our part by obedience and co-operation.

Let us of the Luther League pray God for true Christian family life in the Church to which we belong.

Suggested Questions:

1. What can you tell of the Jewish family life?

2. What does the Christian family mean to the Church?

3. What, do you think, are the reasons for the lack of Christian home life today? 4. Can family worship be restored?

5. What are you doing to make your family a true Christian family?

Twelfth Week after Trinity. August 25, 1912. The Heavenly Home

John 14:2-3.

Topic reviewed by Rev. Paul W. Koller. This lesson follows naturally the lesson of last week, when we studied about the Chrisuan family. The home on earth, if it is a true Christian home, is a type of the home that is above. The fellowship, the peace, the joys of our earthly home are constantly reminding us of the heavenly home, and when our home circle is broken here we have the confidence that some day we will all come together in a home where there will be no partings.

Many are the lonely here whose faces are turned in confidence and hope to the home that is above.

1. Our true home.

A true home is refuge, rest, refreshment, the dwelling place of love. Heaven is our true home, because it is all these things in perfection and forever. The homes we enjoy here on earth are only temporary. Heaven is our true home, for there, after these few years of our earthly life are over, we shall dwell for

ever.

"We are but strangers here,

Heaven is our home; Earth is a desert drear,

Heaven is our home.

Danger and sorrow stand Round us on every hand, Heaven is our Fatherland, Heaven is our home."

Truly we have no abiding city or home here, our true home is where we shall live eternally. What inspiration this thought of our true home should be to us; to face the beyond more than we do; to set thoughts upon the things that are above; to be concerned with that which is eternal.

2. The joy of heaven.

There has been a great deal of speculation about heaven and its promised blessings. Some men have tried to describe it. Some have wondered much about its employments and its joys. One has ventured to hope that he might spend the first thousand years with a lovely daughter who had preceded him. Another hoped that he might be commissioned to discover some new world. Christ does not tell us very much about heaven or the char

acter of the joys that shall be ours, but He does say, in the Scripture lesson of this topic, two things of very great significance. First, He is going to prepare the place. We need have no concern about its appointments. If Jesus prepares it, it will be just what we need. The second thing that He says is that it will be a place of fellowship with Him. "I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also." This will be the supreme joy of heaven-to be with Jesus. Heaven will be light with the light of His presence, and the inhabitants will have eternal fellowship with Him.

Whatever other joys of heaven are in store for us, and we feel there are many others, this fellowship with Christ will be the greatest of them all.

3. The way.

Whatever else we do not clearly understand about heaven, this one thing has been made. clear to us, that Christ is the way to our heavenly home. "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." He is not only the way, but the only way. To trust Christ, to love Christ, to obey Christ, to be concerned with Christ, is the way to our Heavenly Home.

Questions:

1. What did the Jews believe concerning the future life?

2. When do the joys of heaven begin?

3. Should we think more of heaven and its joys than of living right here?'

4. What are you doing to have others know the way to the Father?

Thirteenth Week after Trinity. Sept. 1, 1912. The Taking of Life

(Fifth Commandment.) Exodus 20:13; Matt. 5:21-26.

Topic reviewed by Rev. Paul W. Koller. When we examine our Scripture references and others of the same character we find that the fifth commandment covers a very wide range from the direct command "not to take the life of another" to our Master's statement that "whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment."

This fifth commandment is one that many Christians pass over with little thought or study, for they feel that here is one commandment they are in no danger of breaking. This may be true in a literal sense, and yet,

when we consider what this commandment embraces, we need to have a care lest we transgress its wide requirements.

The keeping of this commandment rests upon the God taught truth of:

1. The sacredness of human life. The Bible has always taught that human life is valuable and sacred and must not be taken lightly. While it is true that we find customs and practices in the early history of God's chosen race that differ widely from our conception of regard for human life, yet we always find the Jews far in advance of their times in this regard, and God's law standing high above all laws.

It might be well for us here to call to mind the truth, that what makes life-human lifesacred is that man was made in the image of God. This gives dignity and greatness to humanity.

The heathen nations made little of human life. It was neither sacred nor valuable in their eyes. Even civilized Rome allowed murder to be paid for; nine hundred pieces of gold was the price of a Roman citizen. This was a thousand years after Moses. It is said a life can be paid for now in Syria and Arabia. China has an elaborate system of morals without regard to the sacredness of human life, and not many years ago, in India, it was safer to kill a man than a cow or a monkey.

Scripture, however, speaks for the value and sacredness of life, and Christianity has tried to live it out practically.

2. Our keeping of the commandment.

As has been said, there is not much danger that Christians will commit actual murder, but if we are to keep this commandment as Christ interpreted it, we must be on guard in a number of important things. We must guard against anger. Many of us get very angry for trivial reasons. We fly into a passion over things that amount to nothing, and then perhaps talk piously of righteous indignation Now, anger is wrong, and more, it is a dangerous thing. Many and grievous are the wrongs and crimes that have been done because of anger. Christians should guard against being angry.

This commandment is broken also by allowing those things to exist which work harm to our fellow men. Even in the days of Moses, a man who kept a vicious ox was regarded as a murderer if that ox killed any one. What lesson there is here for us in our keeping of

this commandment. We who have the power allow to exist in our American life many things which take the lives of men, women and children every year. God will surely hold us responsible for ou selfishness and careless disregard of the lives of others. Suggested Questions:

1. How did the Jews regard the taking of life?

2. What provision did God make for the fa'r trial of one who took another's life?

3. Because the Jews put a murderer to death, is that a reason why there should be capital punishment?

4. In what ways may this fifth commandment be broken?

Our Medical Work

Col. 4:14; II Tim. 4:9-18.
By Mrs. Franklin F. Fry,

Chairman of Medical Missions in the General
Council Society.

The new hospital for women and children in Rajahmundry, India, was completed in July, 1911. The services attending its dedication were impressive and attracted a large and interesting assemblage.

The hospital was built and furnished by the Women's Missionary Societies of the Pennsylvania Ministerium and the Augustana Synod, each of which assumed one half of the cost. Its completion marked a distinct forward step in our missionary propaganda. It is truly an enduring monument to Christian faith and love, and will be the means of bringing the gospel to all classes of people.

In addition to the main building a maternity ward has been erected by the Women's Missionary Societies of the Western Conference of the New York and New England Synod, with the aid of the Canadian societies. The hospital represents an outlay of more than $34,000, while the maternity ward, including the furnishings, cost $3,877.

The medical staff consists of Dr. Lydia Woerner, who is the physician in charge, Dr. Amy B. Rohrer and Dr. Betty Nilsson. Dr. Woerner's salary has been assumed by the Eastern Conference of the New York and New England Synod. Dr. Rohrer's salary has been provided by the Congregational Society of the Church of the Reformation, Rochester, N. Y. Dr. Nilsson is cared for by the Augustana Synod.

At the recent convention of the General

Council in Lancaster, Pa., which was held early in September of last year, there was farewell service for our new band of foreign missionaries. Among those who sailed for India was Miss Agatha Tatge, who will be the supervising nurse in charge of the hospital. The Church of the Advent in New York City, of which Miss Tatge is a communicant member, has counted it a privilege to guarantee her support.

But the hospital work is only one department of the larger work of medical missions. Dispensaries also are needed in various centers of our mission field. Indeed, the importance of dispensaries can hardly be overstated. For instance, in the last two years more than 42,000 visits were made to the dispensary in Rajahmundry. This is almost double the number of visits during the preceding biennium. In addition to this 525 patients were treated in their homes, necessitating upward of 3,000 visits.

Many were the opportunities to relieve distress and to teach the love of Christ to the afflicted. Naturally, there were some disappointments, but also much appreciation and sincere gratitude. God has been very good

to us and has crowned our efforts with success.

Another dispensary is to be opened in Bhimawaram, where there is a large and promising field, and for it suitable accommodation remains to be provided. With three capable physicians and a graduate nurse there is no limit to the usefulness and possibilities of the medical work.

Rajahmundry is a city of about fifty thousand inhabitants and is one of the centers of Telugu culture and literature. The total number of Christians, counting all who have been baptized, adults and children, is at least 18,000, of whom nearly 10,000 are adult communicants. The mission has never been in so promising a condition as it is now.

But more missionaries and more funds are needed. To cultivate our field in an adequate way we ought to have three times the number of missionaries now engaged in it. We dare not cease or relax our efforts until the whole earth is covered with the knowledge of the Lord.

The greatest gift which the young men and women of our Luther Leagues can bestow in furthering the evangelization of the world is the consecration of themselves to this great and glorious work.

Fifteenth Week after Trinity. Sept. 15, 1912. Purity of Heart and Life

(Sixth Commandment.)

Exodus 20:14; Matt. 5:8; 23:25-28.
Topic reviewed by Rev. Paul W. Koller.

1. The sacredness of marriage.

There is no question but that this commandment was given to teach men and women that the marriage relation is sacred in God's sight, and that it is not to be entered into lightly nor broken without God's disfavor and harm to the human race.

If men and women needed such teaching in the days of Moses, what shall we say of its need today, when family ties are to many as ropes of sand.

We get some idea of how important this commandment was in God's thinking when we remember that the breaking of it was punished, at God's command, with death.

Marriage is not a sacrament, but it is sacred because there is a divine idea and plan underlying it; and as a rule it is essential to the development of the highest perfection of human nature. "Most of us require marriage to redeem us from selfishness, to form us to habits of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice, to develop tenderness of affection, to subdue wilfulness, to teach us in the common human sphere the ultimate and divine secret which God reveals to angels and to saints, the secret of living not for ourselves, but for another."

The institution of marriage is closely related to the destiny of the human race, and without it and a right keeping of its requirements of devotion and purity, humanity cannot advance Godward, but must go downward. 2. Love and faithfulness.

In the true marriage there are many factors that enter into the making of it what God would have marriage to be. But above all others, two virtues stand pre-eminent. One is love and the other is faithfulness.

Love has not always been a factor in marriages, but nevertheless there is no true marriage without love. That true love which, in its deep tenderness and affection, leads to a complete surrender of its life to another is a wonderful thing. It should be maintained and not allowed to waste itself in a few short months, or even years.

With God's help and honest trying the vision will not fade, and love will abide for

ever.

Where there is true love there will be faithfulness. How quickly the marriage vows are