Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the mid--seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non--commercial purposes. Read more about Early Journal

more »

... ntent at http://about.jstor.org/participate--jstor/individuals/early-journal--content. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not--for--profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. 1Rotes anb @pinions. "Bring Us not into Temptation," Matt. 6: I3.-This petition in the Lord's Prayer perplexes every one sooner or later. Its meaning is difficult to grasp, especially when taken in connection with such a passage as Jas I : 13, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man." Yet certainly the latter passage is true-God does not lead any one into temptation, however much he may for chastening and discipline cause him to pass through trial. The distinction made between temptation and trial is a valid one, although the English versions of the Bible do not distinguish the terms, but use the word temptation for both. Trial means to place a man in such a position that he must make a choice between good and evil. Temjtation includes with the opportunity to choose good or evil, an objective inducement and a subjective inclination to choose the evil. We today use the term temptation in this bad sense, as the writer James used it in his epistle, and it gives a wrong conception therefore when one reads or speaks of the Temptation of Christ, or of the Christian who is to "count it all joy when he falls into divers temrptations," or of God "bringing us into temptation." In all these cases, and many others in the New Testament, it is the idea of trial only, of testing the character, and thus developing it. The distinction as regards the petition in the Lord's Prayer is clearly brought out by the Editor of the Sunday School Times in a recent number: "If God leads us by a path where we have to fight in order to triumph, he does not tempt us to do evil, but he calls us to resist and overcome evil. It is quite proper for us, in a sense of our weakness, to pray to God, "Bring us not into temptation;" but, on the other hand, if God [nevertheless] sees best to lead us where we are necessitated to fight evil, we are to be encouraged by the thought of the possible gain of all this. "Count it all joy, my brethren, when [in spite of your prayers to be kept away from the fight] ye fall into manifold temptations [in the path of duty], knowing that the proof [or testing] of your faith worketh patience." There is no discrepancy between the petition "Bring us not into temptation," and the declaration that we may "count it all joy" when our course brings us where we have to encounter temptation." The Origin of the Semites.-Professor Sayce explains, in the Sunday Sckool Times for January 27, the supposition now quite generally adopted concerning the origin of the Semites. According to the Old Testament, the Arabs, the Aramaeans, the Assyrians and the Israelites all descended from Shem. The Arabic, Aramaean, Assyrian and Hebrew languages form a linguistic family intimately bound together by a common pronunciation, grammar and 217