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ACTS VII-"EARTH IS MY FOOTSTOOL"

33 Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground.

34 I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.

35 This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.

36 He brought them out, after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty

years.

37 This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me: him shall ye hear.

38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

39 To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

40 Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

42 Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness ?

43 Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

44 Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.

45 Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;1

46 Who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.

47 But Solomon built him an house.

48 Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,"

49 Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?

50 Hath not my hand made all these things?

"The "Jesus" referred to in this passage is the "Joshua" of the Old Testament. Isaiah 66, 1, etc.

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The Widow's Mite

BY A. D. RAHN, A CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ARTIST.

66

'And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing."-Mark, 12, 42.

H

EARING how the priests and courtiers had been foiled by Jesus, the Sadducees came to argue with Him. These were the philosophers, the "hard headed" cynics among the Jews. They did not believe in immortality, and hurled at Jesus their favorite paradox: Suppose a woman had had several husbands, how could she be wife to them all in Heaven? Christ gave them His celebrated answer, "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." Then He proved to them from their own Scriptures, which they believed, that immortality was not a fancy but a glorious fact.

The Pharisees also sought to puzzle Him, but were met with that grand central teaching of the Christian faith, that the whole Law of Life may be embodied in one word, LOVE, to love God and love our neighbors. And Jesus pointed to a poor widow, who passed and, out of her thin stock, gave a penny for the Temple's treasure. Her gift, He declared, was greater, more generous and more loving than that of any of the rich who out of their abundance gave large sums, since she out of her poverty gave "all the living that she had."

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