Prayer would be valued regarding the faithfulness of this little magazine. Readers can

hardly imagine the continued pressure under which we seek to maintain our stand.

Inducements are held out from many sides, either to commit ourselves to unproved

teaching, to omit any reference to debatable doctrine, or to take up an attitude for or

against certain ideas from the position of the champion of a creed. These things are ever

so much harder to meet than direct opposition. They come from well meaning friends,

not from open enemies. We do not want to be unkind, but we must speak plainly. Under

no circumstances can this magazine champion any one line of teaching to the closing

down of enquiry into some other opposing line.  Under no circumstances can the

magazine hesitate to follow the teaching of the Word merely because in past pages we

have made certain statements which would be rendered untrue by such following. We

desire the truth, and if the discovery of truth should render null and void every number of

The Berean Expositor yet published we should not consider that it had failed of its

purpose, but should rather see in this its greatest fulfilment. No reader of the magazine is

asked to make it his Bible. All we can do, or dare attempt, is to open up the Word.

Dear reader, if this is your desire we gladly welcome your fellowship. If, however,

you have some pet idea which must always be favoured, never discussed and never upset,

then we are afraid you will be out of sympathy with our little witness. It is human nature

that expresses itself in the words so often uttered or written to us to the effect that we are

afraid of facing certain lines of teaching, or that we are prevented from so doing by

certain considerations. We feel fairly easy, however, on these points, as the same thing is

said from so many sides as to render the statement contradictory. We feel a sympathy

with Paul the apostle when we find how much he was misrepresented and abused, though

by saying this we do not pretend to be as faithful or as innocent of self-seeking as that

man of God, far from it. Readers will pardon, we trust, this somewhat personal note, yet

sometimes these statements are necessary to clear the atmosphere and keep us walking in

a straight path.

The words "truly" (verse 1), "verily" (5: 13), and "surely" (5: 18), of Psalm 73:, are

renderings of the same Hebrew word, and may be rendered uniformly by the one Phrase,

"after all." Psa. 73: commences the third book of the Psalms, and gives particular

prominence to the sanctuary. The first verse is practically a summary, not merely of the

whole Psalm, but of the whole section (73: - 89:). "After all, God is good to Israel,

even to such as are of a clean heart." This conclusion, however, was not reached by

Asaph at once. Verse 2 commences his experimental lesson. Asaph was envious at the

arrogant when he saw that they were not in trouble as other men. He, like so many of us,

saw merely the external and present, "Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then

understood I their end" (verse 17). From that standpoint envy turns to pity. He no longer

says that he has cleansed his heart in vain, but confesses, "After all, Thou didst set them