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Where goldsmiths are at work, the very dust is valuable. I stood, two days ago, in a room from the sweepings of the floor of which there is annually extracted more than two thousand dollars' worth of the precious metal; and if these had been carelessly thrown upon the dust-bin, there would have been just so much loss to the owners of the establishment. Now, in the Bible — which is more to be desired than gold — the portions that in other books may be accounted dry as dust, and hastily skipped over by the reader, have an element of value, not only because of their own importance, but also because very frequently there is found in them some suggestive expression which more than rewards for the patient perseverance that was required for their examination. Nothing can well be less interesting, in itself considered, than a genealogical table of names and dates and ages, yet we cannot forget that it is just such a place that we come upon the prayer of Jabez, which, by its very contrast with the details in the midst of which we find it, seems almost like a fountain in the desert, or like the well-known Alpine flower in the vicinity of the glacier.

(W. M. Taylor.)

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KJV: Salute Apelles approved in Christ. Salute them which are of Aristobulus' household.

WEB: Greet Apelles, the approved in Christ. Greet those who are of the household of Aristobulus.