"Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." (Heb. 11:26.) " This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt front off you." (Josh. 5:9.)

As a young man, Moses had remarkably bright prospects from a worldly point of view. Of a despised race oppressed, and apparently doomed to destruction, he had been adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, and instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians; thus having every advantage that worldly wealth, wisdom, and position could give him. Nor were these things trifles. He who begins by despising allurements, often ends by succumbing to them.

But there came a time in his life when other motives began to have power with him. The seeds of truth, doubtless planted by a faithful mother during the time of his childhood, had sprung up, and he was not ashamed to call his brethren those despised and oppressed Israelites, whom, spite of their bondage, he doubtless recognized as the objects of God's favor, the subjects of His counsels of grace -His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Here he deliberately identified himself with those who were a reproach in the eyes of the Egyptians. To thus identify himself he had to give up his worldly prospects, to "refuse" them, as one at a later day could say, '' What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." But he had a true idea of the relative value of the things despised by the world, and quietly preferred them to the treasures in Egypt. Little difference did it make to him whether or not he might one day be king, his heart was set on God's blessings, and these, we are told here, were in and through Christ. The reproach, then, was not the reproach of Israel, but of Christ.

So for us to-day, there is a reproach in the eyes of the world connected with a faithful confession of Christ. It may be called by other names-it mostly is-but it is simply the reproach of Christ. It is the way He is regarded by the world. Have we, as Moses, learned fully to look at God's side ? He has highly exhalted Christ, delights in Him, has put all power and all glory in His hands. Through Him all blessings come-through Him alone. The day is fast coming when the world will see all this; but faith sees it now, and, in the light of it, esteems the reproach of Christ, the very thing the world sneers at, as more valuable than the best the world can give,- its honors, its riches, learning. Christ has been learned, and a true value put upon Him. Well it is for the soul, in days of worldliness like these, thus to appreciate and hold fast to what is despised with men.

Let us face it. If we will follow Christ, we will get some of His reproach. Is it dearer to us to be laughed at for His sake than to be bowed to by those who do not know or love Him? Nay, even those who are His, but "following afar off," may be the ones whose scorn we may have to meet, who will smile at our '' extreme views "or " peculiar actions." If Christ is precious to us, above all and every body, these reproaches will be welcome, even if painful. They will be more valuable to us that the rich things of earth.

But there is reproach of another kind. The reproach of Christ was that view of His people and cause by the Egyptians. The reproach of Egypt is God's view of that which savors of the land of death and judgment among His people. It is a reproach to remember the world. The circumstances under which the remark was made makes its meaning plain. The people had just set foot in the land, and were about to begin their work of conquest. But before they could strike a blow, a work among themselves was needed. During those weary forty years of wilderness wanderings they had failed to circumcise their children. So that the new generation which had grown up were in that respect not Israelites at all. Figuratively, circumcision was the application of the death of Christ to the person. It was entering into the significance of that death which has not only taken away judgment, but passed sentence of death upon the world as well. Until this is realized, the believer is to a certain extent conformed to the world; not to its vices necessarily, but to its thoughts, its ways. He will try to reform it, he will have his home in it. But let him realize that the cross has crucified the world to him and he will no longer be of it. And until this is the case, he is in no condition to enjoy heavenly truths. It is this which is a reproach in God's sight. It is the reproach of Egypt, being like the world.

If we are looking with the eyes of faith, God's eyes, we will esteem the reproach of Christ, but we will have rolled off the reproach of Egypt.

(Continued from p. 35.)

The Lord illustrated that word that is among us, " In the world, but not of the world,"-a form of words which, I suppose, has been derived from what He Himself says in Jno. 17:15,-"I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil."He illustrates this condition all through His life; for He was ever in the world, active in the midst of its ignorance and misery, but never of it, as one that shared its hopes or projects, or breathed its spirit. But in Jno. 7:I believe He is eminently seen in this character. It was the time of the feast of tabernacles, the crowning joyous time in Israel, the antepast of the coming kingdom, the season of ingathering, when the people had only to remember that they had been in other days wanderers in a wilderness, and dwellers in a camp. His brethren propose to Him to take advantage of such a moment, when "all the world," as we speak, was at Jerusalem. They would have Him make Himself important,- make Himself, as we again speak,"a man of the world.""If thou do these things," they say, "show thyself to the world."He refused. His time had not then come to keep the feast of tabernacles. He will have His kingdom in the world, and be great to the end of the earth, when His day comes; but as yet He was on His way to the altar, and not to the throne. He will not go to the feast to be of the feast, though He will be in it; therefore, when He reaches the city at this time, we see Him in service there, not in honor,-not working miracles, as His brethren would have had Him, that He might gain the notice of men, but teaching others, and then hiding Himself under this:'' My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me."

Very peculiar and characteristic indeed all this is. And all this was some of the moral glory of the Man -the perfect Man-Jesus, in His relation to the world. He was a conqueror, a sufferer, and a benefactor,- in the world, but not of it. But with equal perfect-ness do we see Him at times distinguishing things, as well as exhibiting these beautiful combinations. Thus, in dealing with sorrow which lay outside, as I may express it, we see tenderness, the power that relieved; but in dealing with the trouble of disciples, we see faithfulness as well as tenderness. The leper in Matt. 8:is a stranger. He brings his sorrow to Christ, and gets healing at once. Disciples, in the same chapter, bring their sorrow also-their fears in the storm; but they get rebuke as well as relief. " Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? " He says to them. And yet the leper had but little faith, as well as the disciples. If they said, '' Lord, save us:we perish! " he said, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." But they are rebuked, while he is not, just because there was a different thing before the mind of the Lord, and justly so. It was simply sorrow in the one case; it was the soul as well as the sorrow in the other. Tenderness-unmixed tenderness was therefore His answer to the one; faithfulness must form part of the other. The different relationship to Him of disciples and strangers at once accounts for this, and may show us how perfectly He distinguished things that came very near each other but still were not the same. But further, as to this perfection. Though He Himself rebuke, He will not allow others lightly to do it. As in earlier days, Moses may be humbled by the Lord, but the Lord will not allow Miriam and Aaron to reproach him. (Num. 11:, 12:) Israel in the wilderness will be chastened again and again by the hand of God, but in the face of Balaam, or any other adversary, He will be as one that has not seen iniquity in His people, and will not suffer any enchantment to prevail against them. So the Lord Jesus will beautifully and strikingly step in between the two disciples and the rebuking ten (Matt. 20:); and though He send a word of warning and admonition to John the Baptist, as in secret (such a word as John's conscience alone might understand), He turns to the multitude to speak of John only with commendation and delight. And still further, as to this grace in distinguishing things that differ. Even in dealing with His disciples, there did come a moment when faithfulness can be observed no longer, and tenderness alone is to be exercised. I mean in the hour of parting, as we see in Jno. 14:, 16:It was then "too late to be faithful." The moment would not have admitted it. It was a time which the heart claimed as entirely belonging to itself. The education of the soul could not go on then. He opens fresh secrets to them, it is true,- secrets of the dearest and most intimate relationships, as between them and the Father; but there is nothing that is to be called rebuke. There is no such word as, "O ye of little faith! " or "How is it that ye do not understand ? " A word that may sound somewhat like that is only the discharging of a wound which the heart had suffered, that they might know the love He had for them. This was the sacredness of the sorrow of a moment of parting, in the perfect mind and affection of Jesus; and we practice it ourselves in some poor manner, so that we are at least able to enjoy and admire the full expression of it in Him. "There is a time to embrace," says the preacher, "and there is a time to refrain from embracing." This is a law in the statute-book of love, and Jesus observed it.

But again. He was not to be drawn into softness when the occasion demanded faithfulness, and yet He passed by many circumstances which human sensibilities would have resented, and which the human moral sense would have judged it well to resent. He would not gain His disciples after the poor way of amiable nature. Honey was excluded from the offerings made by fire, as well as leaven. The meat offering had none of it (Lev. 2:11); neither had Jesus, the true meat-offering. It was not the merely civil, amiable thing that the disciples got from their Master. It was not the courtesy that consults for the ease of another. He did not gratify, and yet He bound them to Him very closely; and this is power. There is always moral power when the confidence of another is gained without its being sought, for the heart has then become conscious of the reality of love. '' We all know," writes one, "how to distinguish between love and attention, and that there may be a great deal of the latter without any of the former. Some might say, Attention must win our confidence; but we know ourselves that nothing but love does." This is so true. Attention, if it be mere attention, is honey, and how much of this poor material is found with us! and we are disposed to think that it is all well, and perhaps we aim no higher than to purge out leaven, and fill the lump with honey. Let us be amiable,
perform our part well in the civil, courteous, well-ordered social scene, pleasing others, and doing what we can to keep people on good terms with themselves, then we are satisfied with ourselves, and others with us also. But is this service to God ? Is this a meat-offering ? Is this found as part of the moral glory of the perfect man ? Indeed, indeed it is not. We may naturally judge, I grant, that nothing could do it better or more effectually; but still it is one of the secrets of the sanctuary, that honey was not used to give a sweet savor to the offering.

Thus, in progress, in seasonableness, in combinations, and in distinctions, how perfect in moral glory and beauty were all the ways of the Son of Man!

The life of Jesus was the bright shining of a candle. It was such a lamp in the house of God as needed no golden tongs or snuff-dishes. It was ordered before the Lord continually, burning as from pure beaten oil. It was making manifest all that was around, exposing and reproving; but it ever held its own place uncondemned.

Whether challenged by disciples or adversaries, as the Lord was again and again, there is never an excusing of Himself. On one occasion, disciples complain, "Master, carest Thou not that we perish?" but He does not think of vindicating the sleep out of which this challenge awakes Him. On another occasion they object to Him, "The multitude throng Thee, and press Thee, and sayest Thou, 'Who touched Me ?' " But He does not need this inquiry, but acts upon the satisfaction of it. At another time, Martha says to Him, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died;" but He does not excuse His not having been there, nor His delaying for two days in the place where He was; but instructs Martha in the wondrous character which His delay had given to that hour.

What a glorious vindication of His delay that was! And thus it was on every like occasion,-whether challenged or rebuked, there is never the recalling of a word, nor the retracing of a step. Every tongue that rises in judgment against Him He condemns. The mother rebukes Him in Luke 2:; but instead of making good her charge, she has to listen to Him convicting the darkness and error of her thoughts. Peter takes upon him to admonish Him:"This be far from Thee, Lord:this shall not be unto Thee;" but Peter has to learn that it was Satan himself that in Peter prompted the admonition. The officer in the palace of the high-priest goes still further-correcting Him, and smiting Him on the cheek; but he is convicted of breaking the rules of judgment in the very face and place of judgment.

All this tells us of the way of the perfect Master. Appearances might have been against Him at times. Why did He sleep in the boat when winds and waves were raging ? Why did He loiter on the road when Jairus' daughter was dying ? or why did He tarry where He was when His friend Lazarus was sick in the distant village of Bethany ? But all this is but appearance, and that for a moment. We have heard of these ways of Jesus,-this sleep, this loitering, and this tarrying,-but we also see the end of Jesus, that all is perfect. Appearances were against the God of Job in patriarchal days. Messenger after messenger seemed too much, unrelenting, and inexorable; but the God of Job had not to excuse Himself, nor has the Jesus of the evangelists.

Therefore, when we look at the Lord Jesus as the lamp of the sanctuary, the light in the house of God, we find at once that the tongs and snuff-dishes cannot be used. They are discovered to have no counterpart in Him; consequently, they who undertook to challenge or rebuke Him when He was here had to go back rebuked and put to shame themselves. They were using the tongs or snuffers with a lamp which did not need them, and they only betrayed their folly; and the light of this lamp shone the brighter, not because the tongs had been used, but because it was able to give forth some fresh witness (which it did on every occasion) that it did not need them.

And from all these instances we have the happy lesson that we had better stand by, and let Jesus go on with His business. We may look and worship, but not meddle or interrupt, as all these were doing in their day,-enemies, kinsfolk, and even disciples. They could not improve this light that was shining; they had only to be gladdened by it, and walk in it, and not attempt to trim or order it. Let our eye be single, and we may be sure the candle of the Lord, set on the candlestick, will make the whole body full of light.

But I pass on. And I may further observe that as He did not excuse Himself to the judgment of man in the course of His ministry, as we have now seen, so in the hour of His weakness, when the powers of darkness were all against Him, He did not cast Himself on the pity of man. When He became the prisoner of the Jews and of the Gentiles, He did not entreat them or sue to them. No appeal to compassion, no pleading for life is heard. He had prayed to the Father in Gethsemane, but there is no seeking to move the Jewish high-priest or the Roman governor. All that He says to man in that hour, is to expose the sin with which man, whether Jew or Gentile, was going through that hour.

What a picture! Who could have conceived such an object! It must have been exhibited ere it was described, as has been long since observed by others. It was the perfect man, who once walked here in the fullness of moral glory, and whose reflections have been left by the Holy Ghost on the pages of the evangelists. And next to the simple, happy, earnest assurance of His personal love to ourselves, (the Lord increase it in our hearts!) nothing more helps us to desire to be with Him than this discovery of Himself. I have heard of one who, observing His bright and blessed ways in the four gospels, was filled with tears and affections, and was heard to cry out, "O that I were with Him!"

If one may speak for others, beloved, it is this we want, and it is this we covet. We know our need, but we can say, the Lord knows our desire.

The same preacher whom we quoted before says, "There is a time to keep and a time to cast away." (Eccles. 3:6.) The Lord Jesus both kept and cast away in the due season.

There is no waste in the services of the heart or the hand that worships God, be they as prodigal as they may. "All things come of Thee," says David to the Lord, "and of Thine own have we given Thee."

The cattle on a thousand hills are His, and the fullness of the earth. But Pharaoh treated Israel's proposal to worship God as idleness, and the disciples challenge the spending of three hundred pence on the body of Jesus as waste. But to give the Lord His own,-the honor or the sacrifice, the love of the heart, the labor of the hands, or the substance of the house,-is neither idleness nor waste. It is chief work to render to God.

But here I would linger for a moment or two. J. G. B.

(To be continued.)

Q. 2.-" In what respect does Acts correspond with Exodus?" J. H. H.

Ans.-In general, Exodus is the book of salvation of Israel from Egypt (answering to the significance of its number-2.) Acts is the history of the actual salvation of the people from Judaism and the law to Christianity. While the death and resurrection of our Lord, prefigured by the opening of the waters of the Red Sea, are not recorded in this book, their effects and benefits form the theme of the whole; beginning with the descent of the Holy Ghost, answering to the pillar of cloud and fire, who is the Guide and Power of the true Israel of God. The power of Judaism has become a world-power, and, linked with the Gentiles, forms a bondage of which Pharaoh's sway was a fitting illustration. It is not meant that every portion of the book will have an exact correspondence in the other, but that in general the themes are similar. No doubt, too, careful study will bring out more exact resemblances as Paul's conversion and ministry answering to the tabernacle and its service, while the deliverance from law, for the Gentile Christians in the fifteenth chapter would be rather a contrast to Israel's deliberate acceptance of law at Sinai.

" If ye had known what this meaneth, 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice,'' ye would not have condemned the guiltless." (Matt. 12:7.)

The Lord does not here say, the guilty, yet He speaks of mercy.

The Pharisees were great sticklers for law, and thus professed to be the only ones who honored Moses, and God who gave it. They were orthodox enough, but there was one thing lacking-they had no hearts-no heart-movement toward God, and so no hearts for God's people; and this was an awful lack, was it not ?

Although we may not be Pharisees in the full sense, the same principles and the same condition of soul in a measure may possess us in our relations to one another. The cold letter of the Word kills now as then, and none more than those who themselves use it; so we too need to know what this means, " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." The Lord beautifully meets this hardness of their hearts, and justifies the poor of His flock by pressing upon their consciences (and bringing themselves in as witnesses), that it is lawful to do good at any time. For this, is needed a heart right toward God, and bowels of mercies toward men-a tender and compassionate heart. This will not leave out judgment, but it will show mercy. " I will sing of mercy and of judgment," said one who had learned something of this.

Our compassions-how easily, alas!-circle around ourselves, and plead for ourselves instead of others. We speak often of principles, too, and set to work to carry them out with hard and fast lines of Scripture, all clear and straight enough, but in the application of them, showing judgment is not tempered by mercy. " This ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone." There is no value in our taking "high ground," and talking about God and His claims however rightly, if there be lacking in us real heart-care for the least of His people. We cannot separate love to Christ from love to His people, and yet how much it is done!

It is easy to talk of love for brethren far off, and all the time be unable to live with the brethren at our door; of what account, then, is our talk ? '' for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God [or his brother] whom he hath not seen?" (i Jno. 4:20.)

And so, whether it be a question of the guiltless or the guilty, while we are bound to maintain the truth, it must be kept in even balance-as it ever was perfectly by the blessed Lord Himself-with mercy in the heart. The truth has no power when used as a whip for the backs of others-merely to beat and smite them, and thus drive them away, but, in the true love of the true Shepherd of the sheep, to do good with, and this is always lawful.

What a reaping for us it will be, even in the life that is, when "he who showed no mercy will have judgment without mercy "! How happy, on the other hand, to be able to enter into the joy and blessedness of that word, "And mercy glories over judgment." (Jas. 2:13.) The Lord graciously teach us more of it; for if we do not learn it, we too may condemn the guiltless. W. B. _______ d

("D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation."- Times of Calvin. Vol. 3:, p. 234.)

We are in the thick of the fight; the conflict is terrible; we are fighting man to man but the Lord giveth the victory. Take up the sword, set the helmet on your head, buckle on the breastplate, hang the shield to your loins, and being thus armed with the panoply of God, rush into the midst of the battle; hurl the darts, throw down the enemy on every side, and put all the army to flight. But, alas! instead of joining the soldiers of Christ, instead of rushing into the Lord's battles, you fear the cross, and the dangers that lie in wait for you. Preferring your own ease, you refuse to come to the assistance of your brethren. Is that the behavior of a Christian …. The holy Scriptures declare that the Lord will exact a severe reckoning for such cowardice . . . Beware lest you bury the talent you have received. Call to mind that you must give an account of all those souls whom tyranny holds captive in its gloomy dungeons. You can set the light before their eyes; you can deliver them from their chains. You must conjure them to throw themselves into the arms of Jesus Christ . . . Do not hesitate . . . Christ must be preferred to every thing. Do not trouble yourself about what your wife wishes or requires, but about what God asks and commands." April, 1531. " Loose him, and let him go." (Jno. 11:)

April, 1531.

Apparently, Caleb lost the best part of his life in the wilderness. Those forty years of aimless wandering were, to outward appearance, thrown away. Nor was he to blame. His faith was ready to take him into the land at Kadesh Barnea. He knew God was able to give the people their promised inheritance, and he was ready in the vigor of that assurance to act at once:'' Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." But he, with Joshua, stood alone, and in vain attempted to stem the torrent of fear, unbelief, and rebellion which swept the whole congregation past this point of opportunity-opportunity never to come again to any of that unbelieving host. '' So then we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." And so he must be chained to a rebellious and unbelieving people, compelled to go up and down in a waste land, and all that time the home of his choice, fair Hebron, lay away off in that "pleasant land," which the people had despised. What did it cost him to walk those forty years in peace and patience ? He was suffering under the government of God, not for his own sin, but because he was identified with Israel and had to go through all the circumstances of trial, sorrow, and temporary cutting off which, in righteous chastening, God was bringing upon the people. Personally he was guiltless, but this enabled him the more clearly and fully to enter into the reality of it. In all this, he presents a vivid illustration of our blessed Lord as Messiah, Israel's King. In the gospel of Matthew, He had attracted the people and awakened their desire for the "kingdom of heaven;" He had shown them, as it were "spied out" for them, the holy principles of that kingdom, in the sermon on the mount; He had exhibited the "power of the coming age," Eshchol's fruit, in healing every kind of sickness and infirmity; only to find the same unbelief that existed in Caleb's day, culminating in the same rebellion and apostasy, even ascribing to Satan the works of the Holy Ghost ! How like Kadesh Barnea! and how similar in result! The people as a nation refuse to enter with Him into the blessings of the kingdom, and so from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew we see Him, Caleb-like, turn from the prospect of an immediate earthly kingdom to tread in patience the thorny path of rejection, ending in His being "cut off" as Messiah. "For the transgression of My people was He smitten." We well know, thanks be to God, that this rejection, this cutting off, only opened up the '' new and living way through His death;" but none the less real was the pressure upon His soul, the disappointment we may say, as He realized that the people Israel "could not enter in because of unbelief." But, blessed Master, if He could not enter in because of Israel's unbelief, He showed the meekness and patience of complete submission to God's chastening hand – chastening undeserved by Him, more lovely even than any earthly glory could have been. In all this He has "left us an example that we should follow His steps." In one sense, He, like Caleb, could say, "I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nought and in vain; " but how surely could He, and can all upon whom apparently adverse circumstances press, add, "Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." After the deliberate and formal refusal of the people to recognize Him, He was just as patient, just as loving. He had sorrow and tears for their unbelief, but never a thought of deserting them.

And Caleb, too, in his measure, no doubt exhibited this same patience in accompanying the people in their wanderings-to be sure it was the only thing for him to do, but he evidently did not succumb to the surrounding circumstances, for we hear him say, when at last the people under Joshua had entered the land, a new race, "And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said, these forty and five years . . . while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness:and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; … for war, both to go out and to come in." (Josh. 14:10,11.) No man but one who had kept himself '' unspotted from the world " could have said that. Only of the "righteous" can it be said, "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and nourishing." (Ps. 92:14.) There is no need to mention the various instances where special patience, kindness, diligence was shown. His wilderness history is an unwritten one, to be filled out by each one who will walk in his steps.

And are not our circumstances very similar to Caleb's in many ways ? To be sure there is the added factor of personal failure and the need of realizing the chastening for this, but there are certain general characteristics which can be applied to us all.

To begin with the most general:we have an inheritance which is ours, purchased and assured, but we cannot yet enter upon it. This is not because of personal or general failure, but from the necessity of the case. The demoniac of Gadara longed to accompany the Lord, who had healed him, but was bidden wait awhile and testify what had been done for him. The new-born soul longs to be with Jesus, to see and worship Him, but must wait in the wilderness till the Lord's own time. Here is need for patience, and in a twofold way is the warning needed not to be "weary in well doing." One may be homesick for heaven and let that homesickness unfit him for service here. This is so rare that one almost is tempted to wish there were more such who were crying,

"Take me to love's own country."

But there is for those who so long and become faint the need to remember that service here is that to which the master calls, and it is only a "little while." More needed however is Caleb's example for those who, shut out for the time from their home, become absorbed with their surroundings and forget "the things that are before." Did not the memory of Hebron remain in Caleb's heart as fresh during all those years as at the first ? How is it with us, dear brethren? Is it a longing to be there? a desire to depart, if need be, and be with Christ ? Are our treasures realized to be there and not here? Let Caleb teach us, who, though his feet were in the desert, had his heart in the land. " Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." (Col. 3:2.)

But we can get help and encouragement from Caleb's example for individual cases. He was yoked with a carnal set, and had to outwardly follow where they were led. We, too, are in Christendom and
must accept, in a broad sense, the position brought upon it by unbelief. We have often heard it said that it is impossible to restore a ruin, and this is true, and we go wrong if we ignore it or attempt to extricate ourselves from the consequences of this ruin. Caleb could not leave the rest of the people, neither can we separate ourselves from the professing church; we must sorrowfully bear witness to the fact that we are in confusion (and who can, with Caleb, claim personal blamelessness in contributing to this confusion?) But, though outwardly with the people, who dreams of Caleb's taking part in, or by his presence countenancing the shameful scenes of Bethpeor ? So we have not the slightest excuse for mixing ourselves with practices which, if not so gross, are as much forbidden as the sin of Peor. Specification is not needed, '' Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." We are to hold ourselves ready to help in every way and minister to God's people wherever they are, but we are most assuredly not to partake in their unscriptural practices.

But we have lessons still more individual. One of the constant complaints of God's people, if not upon their lips, in their hearts at least, is that their circumstances are so unfavorable to a full enjoyment of divine things. One is hampered by absorbing business ; another is thrown with ungodly persons in the performance of his duty, a third has, it may be, a worldly family. If matters were different how much more would they enjoy the things of God,-congenial surroundings, pleasant associates, and so forth. Caleb teaches us to have the heart wholly set upon God's things, and then walk the path of duty. It is not said that we cannot alter some of our circumstances. We surely ought where they involve us in dishonor to God. But the vast mass will remain unchanged, and it will spoil us for service if we are going to be dragged down by it. Here is our lesson -to live with God and for Him where He puts us. Nay, we may have through unfaithfulness put ourselves in positions where we must quietly learn from God and glorify Him in the position.

What is the root of it all ? To be whole-hearted for God. If the Lord has not our whole heart, the world will, wedge like, enter and spoil all. Oh, for that confidence in His love, that conviction of His all-sufficiency which will abide with us in all our path, and give us such rest of soul that we may remain, like Caleb, fresh and full of vigor !

" Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity." (i Cor. 16:13, 14.)

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART VII.(Chap, 19:5-22:) THE CONSUMMATION.

The Holy City.

The last vision of Revelation is now before us :it is that of the city of God itself. But here, where one would desire above all to see clearly, we become most conscious of how feeble and dull is our apprehension of eternal things. They are words of an apostle which remind us that "we see through a glass darkly"- en ainigmati, in a riddle. Such a riddle, then, it is no wonder if the vision presents to us:the dream that we have here a literal description, even to the measurements, of the saints' eternal home, is one too foolish to need much comment. All other visions throughout the book have been symbolic :how much more here ! how little need we expect that the glimpse which is here given us into the unseen would reveal to us the shape of buildings, or the material used ! Scripture is reticent all through upon such subjects; and the impress to be left upon our souls is plainly spiritual, not of lines and hues, as for the natural senses. " Things which eye hath not seen " are not put before the eye.

On the other hand, that the "city" revealed to us here is not simply a figure of the saints themselves, as, from the term used for it, " the Bride, the Lamb's Wife," some have taken it to be, there are other scriptures which seem definitely to assure us. "Jerusalem, which is above, which is our mother" (Gal. 4:) could hardly be used in this way, though the Church is indeed so conceived of in patristic and medieval thought. But even thus it would not be spoken of naturally as "above."

In Heb. 12:we have a still more definite testimony. For there the "Church of the first-born ones which are written in heaven," as well as "the spirits of just men made perfect"-in other words, both Christians and the saints of the Old Testament-are mentioned as distinct from " the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem;" and this will not allow them to be the same thing, although, in another way, the identification of a city with its inhabitants is easy.

We are led in the same direction by the mention of the " tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God,"-something to which the apostle thought he might have been caught even bodily (2 Cor. 12:)-and here is the tree of life in the midst of the city beside the "river of the water of life" which flows from the throne of God. Figurative language all this surely; yet these passages combine to give us the thought of a heavenly abode, already existing, and which will be in due time revealed as the metropolis of the heavenly kingdom-what Jerusalem restored will be in the lower sphere. Indeed the earthly here so parallels and illustrates the heavenly as to be a most useful help in fixing, if not enlarging, our thoughts about it,- always while we realize, of course, the essential difference that Scripture itself makes clear to be between them. But this we shall have to look at as we proceed.

" The holy city, Jerusalem," is certainly intended to be a plain comparison with the earthly city. But that is the type only; this is the antitype, the true "foundation of peace," as the word means. What more comforting title, after all the scenes of strife, the fruit of the lusts that war in our members, which we have had to look upon ! Here is "peace" at last, and on a foundation that shall not be removed, but that stands fast forever. For this is emphatically "the city that hath foundations," and "whose builder and maker is God." (Heb. 11:10.) How blessed it is; too, that it should be just one of the seven angels that had the seven last plagues that shows John the city ! for no mere executioner of judgment we see is he :judgment (as with God, for it is God's) is also his "strange work." It had to come, and it has come:there was no help, no hope without it ; thus the stroke of the "rod of iron" was that of the shepherd's rod; it was the destruction of the destroyers only. But it is past, and here is the scene wherein his own heart rests, to which it returns with loyalty and devotion :here, where the water of life flows from the throne of God,-eternal, from the Eternal; refreshment, gladness, fruitfulness, and power are found in obedience.

But the city is the "Bride, the Lamb's wife." In the Old Testament, the figure of marriage is used in a similar way. Israel was thus Jehovah's "married wife" (Is. 54:1, Jer. 31:33), now divorced indeed for her unfaithfulness, but yet to return (Hos. 2:), and be received and reinstated. Her Maker will be then once more her husband, and more than the old blessing be restored. In the forty-fifth psalm, Israel's King, Messiah, is the Bridegroom; the Song of Solomon is the mystic song of His espousals. Jerusalem thus bears His name :" This is the name whereby she shall be called:'Jehovah our Righteousness.'" (Jer. 33:16, comp. 23:6.) The land too shall be "married." (Is. 62:4.)

In the New Testament, the same figure is still used in the same way. The Baptist speaks of his joy as the " friend of the Bridegroom," in hearing the Bridegroom's voice (Jno. 3:29); and in the parable of the virgins (Matt. 25:), where Christians are those who go forth to meet the Bridegroom, they are by that very fact not regarded as the Bride, which is still Israel, (according to the general character of the prophecy,) though not actually brought into the scene. Some may be able to see also in the marriage at Cana of Galilee (Jno. 2:i) the veiling of the same thought.

All this, therefore, is in that earthly sphere in which Israel's blessings lie; our own are " in heavenly places " (Eph. 1:3), and here it is we find, not the Bride of Messiah simply, but distinctively "the Bride of the Lamb." The "Lamb,"as a title, always keeps before us His death, and that by violence, "a Lamb as it had been slain" (Rev. 5:6); and it is thus that He has title to that redemption empire in which we find Him throughout this book. But "the Bride of the Lamb" is thus one espoused to Him in His rejection, sharer (though it be but in slight measure) of His reproach and sorrow, trained and disciplined for glory in a place of humiliation. And so it is said that "if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him;" and again, "If so be we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." (2 Tim. 2:12; Rom. 8:17.)

The saints in the millennium have no heritage of suffering such as this ; even those who pass through the trial which ushers it in, have not the same character of it, although we must not forget those associated with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, who illustrate the same truth, but upon a lower platform. Even these are not His Bride.

Ephesians, the epistle of the heavenly places, shows us the Church as Eve of the last Adam, whom Christ loves, and for whom He gave Himself. Formed out of Himself and for Himself, He now sanctifies and cleanses her with water-washing by the Word, that He may present her to Himself a holy Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. In another aspect, this Church is His body, formed by the baptism of the Spirit as at Pentecost, complete when those who are Christ's are caught up to meet Him in the air. The doctrine of this is, of course, not in Revelation :the difficulty is in seeing the conformity of Revelation with it.

Outside of Revelation even, there is a difficulty in the connection (if there be, as one would anticipate, a connection) between the Church as the body of Christ now, before our presentation to Him, and the " one flesh " which is the fruit of marriage. Israel was the married wife, and will be, though now for a time " desolate," as one divorced. The Church is " espoused " (2 Cor. 11:2), not married. Thus the "one body" and the "great mystery" of "one flesh," of which the apostle speaks (Eph. 5:29) must be distinct.

Looking back to Adam, to whom as a type he there refers us, we find that Eve is taken out of his side,-is thus really his " flesh " by her very making. Thus, as one with him in nature, she is united to him,-a union in which the prior unity finds its fit expression. The two things are therefore in this way very clearly and intimately connected. The being of Christ's body is that, then, which alone prepares and qualifies for the being of His bride hereafter; and body and bride must be strictly commensurate with each other.

The mystery here is great, as the apostle himself says ; nor is it to be affirmed that the type in all its features answers to the reality. It is easily seen that this could not be ; yet there is real correspondence and suitability thus far:according to it, the Church of Christ alone, from Pentecost to the rapture, is scripturally only (in a strict sense) the " Bride of the Lamb."

Yet can we confine the new Jerusalem to these? There would of course in this case be no difficulty as to the character of a city which it is given in this vision. A city is commonly enough identified with its inhabitants, so that the same term covers both place and persons. But are none to inhabit the new Jerusalem except the saints of Christian times ? Are none of those so illustrious in the Old Testament to find their place there? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are among those with whom the Lord assures us we are to sit down in the kingdom of God (Luke 13:28, 29);-are they to be outside the heavenly city ?

This is positively answered otherwise, as it would seem, in Revelation itself. For while the general account of those who enter there is that they are those " written in the Lamb's book of life" (21:27), "without" the city are said to be only " dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie " (22:15).

In the eleventh of Hebrews, moreover, in a verse already quoted, "the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God," for which the patriarchs looked and waited, can surely be no other than that which we find here; and it is added that they desired "a better country, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God :for He hath prepared for them a city." It could not be the New-Testament church for which Abraham looked; for this was as yet entirely hidden in God. (Eph. 3:9.) Another and larger meaning for the new Jerusalem must surely, therefore, be admitted.

And why should there not be in it the inclusion of both thoughts ? Why should it not be the bride-city, named from the bride-church, whose home it is, and yet containing other occupants? This alone would seem to cover the whole of the facts which Scripture gives us as to it; and the Jewish bride is in like manner sometimes a wider, sometimes a narrower conception ; sometimes the city Jerusalem, sometimes the people Israel Only that in the Old Testament the city is the narrower, the people the wider view; while in the New Testament this is reversed. And even this may be significant:the heavenly city, the dwelling-place of God, permitting none of the redeemed to be outside it, but opening its gates widely to all. A Bride City indeed, ever holding bridal festival, and having perpetual welcome for all that come:its freshness never fading, its joy never satiating ; blessed are they whose names are written there!

As before, the city is seen "descending out of heaven from God." We shall find, however, here, that the present vision goes back of the new heavens and earth to the millennial age,-that is, that while itself eternal, the city is seen in connection with the earth at this time. Not yet has it been said, " The tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them." The descending city is not, therefore, in that settled and near intimacy with men outside of it in which it will be. A significant and perfect note of time it is that the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of nations (22:2). Tender as this grace is, the condition it shows could not be eternal.

All the nearer does it bring this vision of glory and of love, no more to be banished or dimmed by human sin or sorrow. The city has the glory of God ; and here is the goal of hope, complete fruition of that which but as hope outshines all that is known of brightness elsewhere. It cannot be painted with words. We cannot hope even to expand what the Holy Ghost has given us. But the blessedness itself we are soon to know. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

'' To fill any post really for God you must not expect it to be all happiness, though you will have the light and cheer of His countenance, even though the sun by day and the frost by night may try you on the human side. To find things pleasant is not the right expectation. To please the Lord is our summum-bonum, and as we do, we are happier pleasing Him than in pleasing ourselves."

Strangers here –
"Not a link with earth unbroken,
Not a farewell to be spoken,
Waiting for their Lord to take them
To Himself and like Him make them.

Strangers here –
With their hearts upon a treasure
That has dimmed for them earth's pleasure ;
Lamps well trimmed and brightly burning;
Eyes forever upward turning.

Strangers here –
Pilgrims in a hostile nation,
In a groaning old creation,
Journeying on through shame and scorning,
Gazing at the Star of Morning.

Strangers here-
Earthly rank and riches losing,
Worldly ties and claims refusing;
On to Christ in glory pressing,
All things there in Him possessing.

Strangers here-
But in Him their hearts are resting,
Faith looks up in days of testing,
Follows Him with true allegiance,
Loves to walk in His obedience.

Strangers here-
Christ has told them His affection,
Given them such a bright reception;
Not one word of condemnation-
Not one thought of separation.

Strangers here-
Soon to be at home together,
Going in with Christ forever;
He who bore their deep dishonor,
Giving them His wealth and honor.

Well known there-
Oh, what joy for Christ to take them
To the Father, who will make them
Welcome in His mansions yonder;
Strangers here-to be no longer!

"Now the end of the commandment is charity (love) out of a pure heart, and a good conscience and faith unfeigned." (i Tim. 1:5.)

The end of the commandment, charge, or exhortation, is "love out of a pure heart."" God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him."Naturally, we do not love each other any further than another ministers to our desires. We love ourselves, and we love our wives, children, brothers, sisters, friends, and neighbors only in proportion as they gratify or please us in some manner. Our natural love is then wholly selfish. But love that is according to God-like any thing else in Christianity-is from Himself and by the Spirit. It is through His love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which He has given unto us, that we love others "out of a pure heart." A pure heart is one in subjection to God, and such an one God dwells in by His Spirit, and His love goes out through him to others. It is of God, and, like every thing else in Christianity, all of God.

A heart truly in subjection to God is one over which He reigns and in which He rules, and, consequently the rule is in love, for He is love, and the love which is of Him must be out of a pure heart. In 2 Tim. 2:22, we are commanded to "follow righteousness, faith, love, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." Here it is the same thought, out of a heart so in subjection to God that He has, so to speak, His own way with it. When all hearts in an assembly are so in subjection we have the "unity of the Spirit," and we are all of one mind for "we have the mind of Christ." " Love out of a pure heart" also manifests itself in fellowship with others who are alike in subjection and so manifests itself that each realizes the subjective condition of his fellow. Therefore we are admonished to associate ourselves with them that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart.

"A good conscience." This can only be maintained through walking in the light. We are the children of light. God has introduced us into His light by Jesus Christ, and to keep a good conscience we are to walk in the light as He is in the light, and there we have fellowship one with another, and the blood, not the walk, cleanseth us from all sin. That is, we realize this by faith. We have the full consciousness of the fact. Thus we keep a good conscience. "If we say we abide in Him, we ought so to walk even as He walked." We are exhorted by Paul " not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God by which we are sealed unto the day of redemption," and to fail in this brings with it a bad conscience. But the end of the commandment is " a good conscience." This, then, can only be maintained while walking in fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. In this fellowship and communion there is, there can be, no sin; but when we fall out of that place, and begin to walk as men in the world, that moment sin comes in and we grieve the Holy Spirit and get a bad conscience. "My little children, these things write I unto you that ye do not sin ; and if any man (saint) do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One ; and He is the propitiation for our sins." "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This is restoring grace for failing saints, and again brings us into His presence with no conscience of sins. So is ample provision made for both keeping a good conscience and restoring it when lost through failure ; the work of the Righteous One still going on for us in grace. Let His name be praised by all His saints to the ages of the ages. Amen.

"These things write I unto you that ye sin not." This, dear brethren, is the primary word for us. The Word of God does not contemplate us as practicing sin. "He that committeth sin is of the devil."
'' Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God." "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not." This alone is the place of security. Abiding in Him is the place where there is no sin, and there alone can we keep continually a good conscience. It is a double abiding. He abides in us as life, the new life, and our place of strength is abiding in Him by faith where He is. May God our Father keep us so abiding by His Holy Spirit.

" And faith unfeigned." Faith unfeigned implies feigned faith. A man may say he has faith and yet not be born of God. Such a faith is a feigned faith, or man's own work, of his own volition; but unfeigned faith is the gift of God, and comes to man only when he has come to the end of himself. See the case of the man with the withered hand. The Lord Jesus commanded him to stand forth before the whole assembly in the synagogue (see Mark 3:). He obeyed, and stood there while the Master spoke to the assembly; at the end He said unto him, " Stretch forth thy hand," and he immediately stretched forth the hand that he could not stretch forth. There was faith unfeigned, and it came from God as a free gift by Jesus Christ when the man was ready to receive it. "As many as received Him, to them gave He the power (privilege) to become the sons of God," even to them that believe on His name, which were born of God. Unfeigned faith, then, is of God, and comes to every willing, submissive soul. '' If any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."

Mr. Darby somewhere says that '' faith is this power of God working in a man," and this is the truth, and only this is unfeigned faith. It is an old saying that " man's extremity is God's opportunity," and so when a man comes to the end of himself before God and is fully subject, then God takes him up. Faith unfeigned is, so to speak, the instrument by which God works salvation in man by Jesus Christ. "Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him ? Thou hast both seen Him and it is He that talketh with thee; and he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped Him." He was willing, he was submissive, and at once the Lord made him a worshiper.

May our God keep us full of love out of a pure heart, and with a good conscience, and a faith that is unfeigned for His ever blessed Son's sake. Amen. J. S. P.

(Continued from p. 8.)

But there are other combinations in the Lord's character that we must look at. Another has said of Him, "He was the most gracious and accessible of men." We observe in His ways a tenderness and a kindness never seen in man, yet we always feel that He was "a stranger." How true this is ! He was " a stranger here "-a stranger as far as revolted man was filling the place, but intimately near as far as misery or need demanded Him. The distance He took, and the intimacy He expressed, were perfect. He did more than look on the misery that was around Him, He entered into it with a sympathy that was all His own; and He did more than refuse the pollution that was around Him,-He kept the very distance of holiness itself from every touch or stain of it. See Him as exhibiting this combination of distance and intimacy in Mark 6:It is an affecting scene. The disciples return to Him after a long day's service. He cares for them. He brings their weariness very near to him. He takes account of it, and provides for it at once, saying to them, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest . awhile." But, the multitude following Him, He turns with the same readiness to them, acquainting Himself with their condition; and having taken knowledge of them, as sheep that had no shepherd, He began to teach them. In all this we see Him very near to the rising, varied need of the scene around Him, whether that need be the fatigue of the disciples, or the hunger and ignorance of the multitude. But the disciples soon resent His attention to the multitude, and move Him to send them away. This, however, will in no wise do for Him. There is immediate estrangement between Him and them, which shortly afterward expresses itself by His telling them to get into the ship while He sent the multitude away. But this separation from Him only works fresh trouble for them. Winds and waves are against them on the lake; and then in their distress He is again near at hand to succor and secure them! How consistent in the combination of holiness and grace is all this! He is near in our weariness, our hunger, or our danger. He is apart from our tempers and our selfishness. His holiness made Him an utter stranger in such a polluted world; His grace kept Him ever active in such a needy and afflicted world. And this sets off His life, I may say, in great moral glory; that though forced, by the quality of the scene around Him, to be a lonely One, yet was He drawn forth by the need and sorrow of it to be the active One. And these activities were spent on all kinds of persons, and had therefore to assume all kinds of forms. Adversaries,-the people, a company of disciples who followed Him (the twelve), and individuals; these kept Him not only in constant, but in very various activity; and He had to know, as surely He did to perfection, how to answer every man. And beside all this, we see Him at times at the table of others; but it is only that we may still notice further various perfections. At the table of the Pharisees, as we see Him occasionally, He is not adopting or sanctioning the family scene, but, being invited in the character which He had already acquired and sustained outside, He is there to act in that character. He is not a guest simply, under the courtesy and hospitality of the master of the house, but He has entered in His own character, and therefore He can rebuke or teach. He is still the Light, and will act as the Light; and thus He exposes darkness within doors as He did abroad. (See Luke 7:, 11:)

But if He thus entered the house of the Pharisee again and again, in the character of a teacher, and would then, acting as such, rebuke the moral condition of things which He found there, He entered the house of the publican as a Savior. Levi made Him a feast in his own house, and set publicans and sinners in His company. This is, of course, objected to. The religious rulers find fault, and then the Lord reveals Himself as a Savior, saying to them, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; but go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Very simple, but very striking, and full of meaning this is. Simon the Pharisee objected that a sinner should enter His house and approach the Lord Jesus; Levi the publican provided such as these to be the fellow-guests of the Lord Jesus. And according to this, the Lord in the one house acts as a reprover, in the other, discloses Himself in the rich grace of a Savior.

But we are to see Him at other tables still. We may visit Him in Jericho and at Emmaus. (See Luke 19:and 24:) It was desire that received Him on each of these occasions; but desire differently awakened-awakened, I mean, under different influences. Zacchaeus had been but a sinner, a child of nature, which is, as we know, corrupt in its springs and in its activities. But he had been just at that moment under the drawings of the Father, and his soul was making Jesus its object. He wished to see Him, and that desire being commanding, he had pressed his way through the crowd and climbed up into a sycamore tree, if he might but just see Him as He passed by. The Lord looked up, and at once invited Himself into his house. This is very peculiar,-Jesus is an uninvited, self-invited guest in the house of that publican at Jericho !

The earliest strivings of life in a poor sinner, the desire which had been awakened by the drawings of the Father, were there in that house ready to welcome Him; but sweetly and significantly He anticipates the welcome, and goes in-goes in full, consistent, responsive character, to kindle and strengthen the freshly quickened life, till it break forth in some of its precious virtue, and yield some of its own good fruit. "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." At Emmaus desire had been again quickened, but under different conditions. It was not the desire of a freshly drawn soul, but of restored saints. These two disciples had been unbelieving. They were returning home under a sorrow that Jesus had disappointed them. The Lord rebukes them shortly after He joined them on the road, but so orders His words as to kindle their hearts. When their walk together ends at the gate of their dwelling, the Lord makes as though He would go further, He would not invite Himself as He had done at Jericho. They were not in the moral state which suggested this, as Zacchaeus had been; but, when invited, He goes in-goes in just to kindle further the desire which had here invited Him-to gratify it to the full. And so He does; and they are constrained by their joy to return to the city that night, late as it was, to communicate it to their fellows.

How full of various beauty all these cases are ! The guest in the house of Pharisees, the guest in the house of publicans, the guest in the house of disciples, -the invited and the uninvited guest, in the person of Jesus, sits in His place, in all perfection and beauty. I might instance Him as a guest at other tables, but I will now look only at one more. At Bethany we see Him adopting a family scene. Had Jesus disallowed the idea of a Christian family, He could not have been at Bethany, as we see He was. And yet, when we get Him there, it is only some new phase of moral beauty that we trace in Him. He is a friend of the family, finding, as we find to this day among ourselves, a home in the midst of them. " Now Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus," are words which bespeak this. His love to them was not that of a Savior, or a shepherd, though we know well He was each of these to them. It was the love of a family friend. But though a friend, an intimate friend, who might whenever He pleased find a welcome there; yet He did not interfere with the arrangements of the house. Martha was the housekeeper, the busy one of the family, useful and important in her place; and Jesus will surely leave her where He finds her. It was not for Him to alter or settle such matters. Lazarus may sit by the side of the guests at the family table, Mary may be abstracted and withdrawn as in her own kingdom, or into the kingdom of God within her, and Martha be busy and serving. Be it so. Jesus leaves all this just as He finds it. He who would not enter the house of another unbidden, when entered into the house of those sisters and brother, will not meddle with its order and arrangements, and in full moral comeliness this is. But if one of the family, instead of carrying herself, in her family place, step out of it to be a teacher in His presence, He must and will resume His higher character, and set things right divinely, though He would not interfere with or touch them domestically. (Luke 10:)

What various and exquisite beauty ! Who can trace all His paths ? The vulture will have to say it is beyond even the reach of his eye. And if no human eye can fully see the whole of this one object, where is the human character that does not aid in setting off its light by its own shadows and imperfections ? We none of us think of John, or of Peter, or of the rest of them, as hard-hearted or unkind. Quite otherwise. We feel that we could have intrusted them with our griefs or our necessities. But this little narrative in Mark 6:, to which I referred, shows us that they are all at fault, all in the distance, when the hunger of the multitude appealed to them, threatening to break up their ease; but, on the contrary, that was the very moment, the very occasion, when Jesus drew near. All this tells us of Him, beloved. "I know no one," says another, "so kind, so condescending, who is come down to poor sinners, as He. I trust His love more than I do Mary's, or any saint's; not merely His power as God, but the tenderness of His heart as man. No one ever showed such, or had such, or proved it so well-none has inspired me with such confidence. Let others go to saints or angels, if they will; I trust Jesus' kindness more." Surely, again I say, this is so-and this occasion in Mark 6:, betraying the narrow-hearted-ness of the best of us, such as Peter and John, but manifesting the full, unwearied, saving grace of Jesus, verifies it. But further:there are in Him combinations of characters, as well as of virtues or graces. His relationship to the world, when He was here, exhibits this. He was at once a conqueror, a sufferer, and a benefactor. What moral glories shine in such an assemblage ! He overcame the world, refusing all its attractions and offers; He suffered from it, witnessing for God against its whole course and spirit; He blessed it, dispensing His love and power continually, returning good for evil. Its temptations only made Him a conqueror; its pollutions and enmities only a sufferer; its miseries only a benefactor. What a combination! What moral glories shine in each other's company there! J. G. B.

(To be continued.)

Although we're oft discouraged, we confess-
We are not left as orphans in the gloom
Of this dark world, for Thou hast spread a feast,
Pledge of Thy love, till Thou shalt come again.

O blessed place, in deepest reverence bowed,-
To think on Thee, and on Thy death, dear Lord.
To worship at Thy table till Thou come,
In sweet obedience to Thy holy Word.

Lost in Thyself, enveloped in Thy love-
Forgetful for the moment of life's pain,
We look from Calvary's cross, with brightest hope,
To that glad day, when Thou shalt come again.

We stand between that cross of shame, and scorn,
(Our sins all buried in the Savior's tomb,)
And glory, in expressible, untold,
While memory feasts on Him, "till He shall come."

O bliss transporting !who hath words to tell,
Of love, and grace, and mercy intertwined:
In one sweet mingled cord of endless joy,
Forever to His heart, our hearts to bind.

Then let us labor on, that other souls
May share our joys, while thus we journey home.
Yea, never weary telling of His love,
His wondrous grace and mercy, "till He come."

H. McD.

Thou deep unfathomable source of every joy we know,
How can we ever drink at broken cisterns, of our own device,
When living water from the living Rock
Flows at our feet, exhaustless, pure, and free.
We would, our God, have all our springs in Thee.
Thence let us draw, we shall be satisfied.-

We often hear the expression " heavenly."Well, no person can be "heavenly"unless he lives in heaven. The fact is, we all of us have too much the tendency to put off heaven until we die. We think of it as the place where God is, and where Christ is, and it is the resource for us when we leave this world, when we leave our bodies behind us. When we cannot live any longer here, we go to heaven. Or, it may be, if you advance a little upon that, when a person has every thing blighted and ruined down here, and there is not a single thing left, then he turns to heaven. It is like a person taking refuge from the storm, and when the storm is over, coming out again to enjoy the things around. Is that the case with you and me, beloved friends? That is the natural tendency of our hearts. We have very poorly, if at all in our souls, the thought of continuously abiding in that wonderful place where God is free to express Himself in all the infinite fullness of His love to us. He does not express Himself to us here. He gives us His care, His sympathy, His help, His cheer, His solace; He takes us by the hand, and leads us along the way, every step of the journey :but He does not express Himself to us here. He does there-that is the difference. That is what I feel, beloved friends, that we want, every one of us, in these days,-a more habitual dwelling in the house of the Lord. You may depend upon it, we should be a different kind of people altogether if we dwelt there. It is not visiting there, it is not running there for shelter out of the storm; but I will tell you what it is,-it is knowing it as home, with all the joys of home. Do you know what they are ? Home ! It is not being driven there through sheer necessity, but it is the attractiveness of it that draws us there. What do you know of the attractions of that blessed One who is up there? You see, it is not a doctrine, nor a theory; but it is a divine, living, adorable, blessed, transcendent Person for our affections. It is a Person who has an attractiveness peculiar to Himself, and one who throws this attractiveness, and blessedness, and beauty connected with Himself, around the affections of my heart. It is not, as I said, that I am driven by mere necessity from all the things that are round about me here, but I am attracted by the beauties and blessedness and glories of that scene where Christ is every thing to God, and where God delights to express Himself in all His fullness.

There is the spot I long more to dwell in, to live in, to abide in; that is the place I desire to know as my home, and that is the one thing the Psalmist speaks of here. To me, it is a beautiful instance of the expression of this divine life in a person, the life of God-" One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."

Now I see all this in its perfection in Christ as a man. We get it in that beautiful passage, " No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, the Son of Man "-who was in heaven. Is that it? No. "Who is in heaven." Take Him as a man (He was the mighty God, the Creator and Preserver of all things, as well)-as the perfect man, He who walked that magnificent, blessed, shining pathway, that we have traced out for us in the gospels, and which, by the Holy Ghost, we can read and think over and delight in. Was it not this continuous, blessed, wonderful communion, intercourse with all that belonged to that blessed place from whence He came, that so marked His way? As He said, '' I know whence I came, and whither I go." There was all that blessed distinctiveness and separateness about His walk here. Is there, in our measure, that about us? Are we like people who know whither we go ? Is that the thing which day by day is telling itself out in your business, in your home, in your intercourse one with another, in your families? What I am speaking of is a practical thing. It goes down into the most minute circumstances of our daily life. There is to be this blessed testimony stamped upon it, that "I dwell in the house of the Lord." What sort of people should we be if there were that distinctiveness about us, and divine satisfaction and rest! W. T. T.

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART VII. (Chap. 19:5-22:) THE CONSUMMATION.

The Little Season, (10:7-10.)

Of the millennial earth, not even the slightest sketch is given us here. The book of Revelation is the closing book of prophecy, with the rest of which we are supposed to be familiar; and it is the Christian book, which supplements it with the addition of what is heavenly. Thus the reign of the heavenly saints has just been shown us :for details as to the earth, we must go to the Old Testament.

In the millennium, the heavenly is displayed in connection with the earthly. The glory of God is manifested so that the earth is filled with the knowledge of it as the waters cover the sea. Righteousness rules, and evil is afraid to lift its head. The curse is taken from the ground, which responds with wondrous fruitfulness. Amid all this, the spiritual condition is by no means in correspondence with the outward blessing. Even the manifest connection of righteousness and prosperity cannot avail to make men love righteousness, nor the goodness of God, though evidenced on every side, to bring men to repentance. At the "four corners of the earth," retreating as far as possible from the central glory, there are still those who represent Israel's old antagonists, and thus are called by their names-"Gog and Magog." Nor are they remnants, but masses of population, brought together by sympathetic hatred of God and His people,- crowding alike out of light into the darkness :a last and terrible answer to the question, "Lord, what is man?"

The Gog, of the land of Magog, whose invasion of Israel is prophetically described in the book of Ezekiel (38:, 39:), is the prototype of these last invaders. There need be no confusion, however, between them; for the invasion in Ezekiel is premillennial, not postmillennial, as that in Revelation is. It is. then that Israel are just back in their land (38:14), and from that time God's name is known in Israel, and they pollute His holy name no more (39:7). The nations too learn to know Him (38:16, 23). There needs, therefore, no further inquiry to be sure that this is not after a thousand years of such knowledge.

But the Gog and Magog here follow in the track of men who have long before made God known in the judgment He executed,-follow them in awful, reckless disregard of the end before them. This is clearly due to the loosing once more of Satan. While he was restrained, the evil was there, but cowed and hidden. He gives it energy and daring. They go up now on the breadth of the earth-from which for the moment the divine shield seems to be removed, and compass the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city. The last is of course the earthly Jerusalem. The "camp of the saints" seems to be that of the heavenly saints, who are the Lord's host around it. The city is of course impregnable :the rebels are taken in the plain fact of hostility to God and His people; and judgment is swift and complete :"fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." The wicked are extinct out of the earth.

The arch-rebel now receives final judgment. "And the devil, that deceived them, was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are; and they shall be tormented day and night for the ages of ages."

These words deserve most solemn consideration. They are plain enough indeed; but what is there from which man will not seek to escape, when his will is adverse ? The deniers of eternal punishment, both on the side of restitution and that of annihilation, are here confronted with a plain example of it. Two human beings, cast in alive into the lake of fire a thousand years before, are found there at the close of this long period still in existence ! How evident that this fire is not, therefore, like material fire, but something widely different! All the arguments as to the action of fire in consuming what is exposed to it are here at once shown to be vain. That which can remain a thousand years in the lake of fire unconsumed may remain, so far as one can see, forever; and it is forever that they here are plainly said to be tormented.

But it is objected that there is, in fact, no verb here:the sentence reads simply, "where the beast and the false prophet," and that to fill up the gap properly we must put "were cast" which would say nothing about continuance. But what, then, about the concluding statement, " and they"-for it is a plural,-"and they shall be tormented day and night for the ages of ages" ?

Finding this argument vain, or from the opposite interest of restitution, it is urged that " day and night" do not exist in eternity. But we are certainly brought here to eternity, and " for the ages of ages " means nothing else. It is the measure of the life of God Himself (4:10). No passage that occurs, even to the smoke of Babylon ascending up, can be shown to have a less significance.

Growing desperate, some have ventured to say that we should translate " till the ages of ages." But the other passages stand against this with an iron front, and forbid it. We are, in this little season, right on the verge of eternity itself. The same expression is used as to the judgment of the great white throne itself, which is in eternity. It will not do to say of God that He lives to the ages of ages, and not through them. The truth is very plain, then, that the punishment here decreed to three transgressors is, in the strictest sense, eternal.

Whether the same thing is true of all the wicked dead, we now go on to see.

The Judgment of the Dead.

The millennium is over:"And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life :and the dead were judged out of those things that were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hades delivered up the dead which were in them:and they were judged every one according to their works. And death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And whoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

This is the judgment of the dead alone, and must be kept perfectly distinct in our minds from the long previous judgment of the living. The judgment in Matt, 25:, for example, where the "sheep." are separated from the "goats," is a judgment of the living,-of the nations upon earth when the Lord comes. It is not, indeed, the warrior-judgment of those taken with arms in their hands, in open rebellion, which we have beheld in the premillennial vision. The nations are gathered before the Son of Man, who has just come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him; and that coming, as when elsewhere spoken of throughout the prophecy, is unquestionably premillennial. As mankind are divided into the three classes, "the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God," so the prophecy in relation to the Jew is to be found in chap. 24:1-42; that in relation to the professing Church, to the thirtieth verse of the next chapter; and the rest of it gives us the sessional judgment of the Gentiles, so far as they have been reached by the everlasting gospel. The judgment is not of all the deeds done in the body :it is as to how they have treated the brethren of the Lord (5:40) who have been among them, evidently as travelers, in rejection and peril. The Jewish point of view of the prophecy as a whole clearly points to Jewish messengers, who as such represent Israel's King (comp. Matt. 10:40). There is not a word about resurrection of the dead, which the time of this judgment excludes the possibility of as to the wicked. It is one partial as to its range, limited as to that of which it takes account, and in every way distinct from such a general judgment as the large part of Christendom even yet looks for.

Here in the vision before us there is simply the judgment of the dead; and although the word is not used, the account speaks plainly of resurrection. The sea gives up the dead which are in it, as well as by implication also, the dry land. Death, as well as hades, deliver up what they respectively hold; and as hades is unequivocally the receptacle of the soul (Acts 2:27), so must "death," on the other hand, which the soul survives (Matt. 10:28), stand here in connection with that over which it has supreme control-the body.

The dead, then, here rise; and we have that from which the "blessed and holy" of the first resurrection are delivered-the " resurrection of judgment." (Jno. 5:29, R. V.) From personal judgment the Lord expressly assures us that the believer is exempt (5:24, R. V.) Here, not only are the works judged, which will be true of the believer "also, and for lasting blessing to him, but men are judged according to their works-a very different thing. Such a judgment would allow of no hope for the most upright and godly among mere men.

And this would seem to show that though a millennium has passed since the first resurrection, yet no righteous dead can stand among this throng. The suggestion of the "book of life" has seemed to many to imply that there are such; but it is not said that there are, and the words, "whoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire," may be simply a solemn declaration (now affirmed by the result) that grace is man's only possible escape from the judgment. May it not even be intended to apply more widely than to the dead here, and take in the living saints of the millennium negatively, as showing how in fact they are not found before this judgment-seat?

At any rate, the principle of judgment-"according to their works"-seems to exclude absolutely any of those saved by grace. And there are intimations also, in the Old-Testament prophecies, as to the extension of life in the millennium, which seem well to consist with the complete arrest of death for the righteous during the whole period. If "as the days of a tree shall be the days of" God's "people" (Is. 65:22), and he who dies at a hundred years dies as a child yet, and for wickedness:because there shall be no more any one (apart from this) that shall not fill his days (5:20), it would almost seem to follow that there is no death. And to this the announcement as to the "sheep" in the judgment-scene in Matthew -that "the righteous shall go away into life eternal," strikingly corresponds. For to go into life eternal is not to possess life in the way that at present we may; in fact, as " righteous," they already did this :it means apparently nothing less than the complete canceling of the claim of death in their case.

And now death and hades are cast into the lake of fire, -that is, those who dwelt in them are cast there. These exist as it were but in those who fill them; and thus we learn that there is no exemption or escape from the last final doom for any who come into this judgment. The lake of fire is the second death. The first terminated in judgment man's career on earth; the second closes the intermediate state in adjudged alienation from the Source of life. The first is but the type of the second. As we have seen, it is not extinction at all; and indeed a resurrection merely for the sake of suffering before another extinction would seem self-contradictory. In fact, death-what we ordinarily call that-is now destroyed. "It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment," which is thenceforth, therefore, undying (Heb. 9:27).

With the great white throne set up, the earth and the heavens pass away, and there come into being a "new heaven and a new earth in which dwelleth righteousness." (2 Pet. 3:13.) F. W. G.

( To be continued.)

Wells, in the east particularly, have a special importance and prominence. In the desert they form the oases, spots of life amid surrounding death, and even in fertile places water is so precious that the well is never ignored. It is the nucleus, the rallying-point, about which the people gather, and by which they are held together.

But wells are more than fountains, the latter springing up spontaneously, and offering their refreshing draughts to every passer by, beautiful type of that " fountain of the water of life," which flows freely for all that are athirst. Wells, "on the other hand, have to be dug, calling for labor, and each draught of water has to be brought up from its depths. Water is life, both literally and typically, and is constantly used thus in Scripture:"born of water," "a well of water in him," " rivers of water flowing from him," show us the Holy Spirit imparting, maintaining, and manifesting divine life. The well is particularly a type for the believer, yielding its waters to the digger, and rewarding with its never-failing refreshment him who will draw it up.

These wells which Isaac opened, had previously been dug by his father Abraham, and then choked by the Philistines, dwellers in the land, but without right there- types of professors laying claim to heavenly things, but without title to them. As has been noticed, these dwelt in the lowlands of Canaan, near neighbors to Egypt, a fact of significance in our present subject, as we shall soon see. These men choke the wells dug by Abraham. The precious truths, brought to light by godly servants of the Lord, in the energy and illumination of the Holy Spirit, are deprived of their life-giving force by those who are merely traders in the Word. The letter they may retain, as even Rome has in considerable measure the form of correct doctrine, but there is no power in connection with it. She has choked the wells, and while many correct statements of truth may be found in her writings, all is emasculated by the spirit of the world that pervades the mass and rules throughout. Nor is Protestantism without its Philistines:Reformation doctrines without Reformation piety and power are but choked wells. Such are creeds, in which much precious truth is contained, the expression, it may be at first, of what was a divine reality, but long since made by profession into a dry and empty thing-tombs of the prophets, memorials of what no longer exists for the ecclesiastical bodies holding them.

But do we individually know something of these closed wells? The joy of the Lord which once filled the heart and overflowed into the life has ebbed, it may be, until scarce manifest now. Love, zeal, power, progress, have all gone. The water, thank God, has not gone; but the well has been choked-filled with things of earth. Too easily has the charge been made that the Holy Spirit leaves the unfaithful believer. Such, we know, is never the case; but how often is He grieved and quenched! how often are His manifestations so checked that God and faith alone know He still remains ! A choked well! how useless ! Dear brother, what are you and I? Have we allowed our hearts to become filled with earth till the Holy Spirit no longer manifests His fruits? This is the work of the Philistines-both without and within. For it is not only true that there are people who answer to them, but there are in our hearts principles, habits of thought, and desires which also correspond to them. Outwardly, they are, as we have seen, those having the form of godliness, but denying its power. Inwardly, they are those habits of soul which do the same,-which would not have us give up our profession, our religious duties-prayers, Bible-reading, and such-like, but which deprive these things of their spiritual freshness, turning them into mere forms, food only for self-complacency, and leave our hearts the while empty and chill. Resting on past experience is a Philistine, choking up the well of present communion. Allowing sin to pass unjudged is another, quickly quenching the Holy Spirit-" hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." It is not necessary to approve sin; if it is neglected-allowed to pass the conscience unchallenged and unjudged, it soon hardens, the well is choked. We must live day by day in all reality, or we will soon find that the Philistines have been at work, the flow of service, love, and joy is checked.

It was in Gerar that Isaac met with the Philistines. The famine in the land tempted him to follow the steps of his father Abraham, who, under similar stress, went down into Egypt. But Gerar was on the border-land. It was the next thing to Egypt, though in the land of Canaan. To dwell there was taking low ground as compared with Hebron. So we see a corresponding moral state. Isaac had not courage to confess his wife (the sin of Abraham in Egypt), and though the Lord protected and blessed him, he does not seem the ideal pilgrim and stranger. His valley may be called "Gerar," "a place of sojourn," "a tarrying-place;" but, like everything under the power of the Philistines, it did not answer to its name. Most naturally, therefore, do we find the wells choked-the water stopped. The Holy Spirit cannot give joy and blessing where our ways so plainly contradict our knowledge. The Philistines, however, see beneath the unfaithfulness of the man a reality, and would have him leave them. " The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and these are contrary the one to the other."

If the choked wells bear witness to his condition, his effort to open them shows a desire not to continue in that condition. Very simple would seem to be the lesson for us in this. Has the well become choked in us ? dig out that" which has choked it,-remove the things of earth from their place of power in the heart, and the sweet refreshing of the Spirit will be quickly felt.

But it costs something to regain that which has been lost. The enemy will not quietly resign the place he has occupied, and will dispute our right to recovered joys. This we see in the four wells of Isaac, at once the evidence of the hostility of the Philistines and a test of his purpose of heart to recover what had been lost.

First, we have Esek, "strife," the name given to the first well, because they strove for it. How strange it seems that they should want a well which they themselves had choked. How like those who contend and fight over doctrines until they lose all sweetness to the soul, and become distasteful even to the child of God. Many a truth has been thus snatched out of their hands, and come to be the symbol, not of food for the soul, but the battle-cry of contending factions, until for very weariness the soul says, "Enough ! let us speak no more of this matter." So what should have refreshed becomes repulsive. Is not this true of the divine side of truth-election, final perseverance, and the like? Strife, discord, war of words, perverse disputings, have so choked the wells of divine truth that men have been ready to take one another by the throat in the maintenance of what they may hold. Within too, in the history of the soul, do we not see the same strife? The self-righteous spirit resisting, opposing that which is according to godliness, and such conflict waged about the very truth which would help ?

The effect of this conflict can be one of two. Either wearied with struggle, the baffled one may yield in despair, and no more seek for recovery of lost blessings; or, as in Isaac's case, he may turn his back upon Esek and dig again, well knowing that the water can surely be found. It is a good thing to know how to yield without giving up. Let men turn our wells, which we have dug at great. cost, and from which we have drawn refreshing streams,- let them turn them into scenes of strife :our love is for the water, not the well, and we can dig elsewhere. The time comes when the child of God must in faithfulness turn from what was once a well of springing water to him, and seek to find elsewhere the refreshment his soul craves. Inwardly, we are to abstain, withdraw, from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.

Next comes Sitnah. The water comes afresh, only to be the occasion of renewed conflict. "Sitnah "does not mean "hatred," as in the margin of our common version; but "accusation." It is from the same root as "Satan," " the accuser of the brethren ; " and if strife characterized the first well, more bitter and active enmity is shown here. Luther was accused of all sorts of blasphemies when he dug afresh the wells of truth at the Reformation. Accusations are a common weapon of attack by the enemy, and they are satanic weapons. Let them accuse; if still associated with them, we can withdraw, and leave to them what was a well of refreshing, only now designated by this name. Alas! how many wells have become Sitnahs -whispered accusations, backbitings, railings, turning the outflow of refreshing into waters of bitterness and sorrow !

But faith and a steadfast purpose knows how to turn from such scenes with the renewed determination to find what it longs for-unlimited fellowship with God. And surely every one with such a purpose will sooner or later come to Rehoboth, "room," rather "streets," an enlarged place, a broad highway, and the plural indicating abundance of enlargement. Ah ! here no enemy contends or accuses. We can look around and realize that at last we are away from the Philistines. Freedom to enjoy God is now ours. How significantly Rehoboth is the third well! resurrection-power and ground cannot be reached by outsiders. There is this place of enlargement. Have we reached it ? where we can call our wells no longer by names which remind us of strife and accusation, but of the liberty in which we now stand.

Beer-sheba completes the list, giving us the positive side. The well of the oath, while referring to the oath between Isaac and the Philistines, which ends their strife, also reminds us of that sure word of Him who cannot lie, and who will confirm all that He has spoken, making good to us the precious things which grace has given us. Here let us dwell, drinking daily more deeply of the pure waters of eternal love, growing more and more into the image of Him who loves us, as we drink. The Lord give us purpose of heart to reopen these wells with the determination to persevere until we reach Rehoboth and Beer-sheba.

Surely no part of God's most precious Word is more so to the believer than the record of those last scenes of our Lord's life, and especially of those last words, saturated, so to speak, with the tenderest affection, the most considerate thoughtfulness, and sweetest communications;-and of these, no portion has given, through the long centuries that have wearily revolved since He left, more comfort to the mourning, more confidence to the feeble, more cheer to those who were departing this life, than those words found in the fourteenth chapter of John's gospel. They appear to be the full, sweet, musical voice itself that spoke once long before, through the prophet of old :"' Comfort ye, comfort ye My people,' saith your God."

Let us, then, dear fellow-pilgrim, ponder a single clause of them together :" I go to prepare a place for you."

Have we not often asked in what possible way did any place in that glory called His " Father's house " need preparing for such poor things as we ? Could there be any thing there that lacked " preparation " for a poor redeemed sinner? No doubt, the Lord's people have ever fed upon the precious comfort of the words, and many a tempest-tossed spirit has been stilled, like unconscious Genesareth of old, by the infinitely tender considerate love that recognized something lacking even in His Father's house ere it could be said to be prepared for the reception of His redeemed, even though it might not grasp the full bearing of the words;-nay, I feel sure that to many who read this it will be no new thought; but such will not refuse to enjoy it with me again, whilst to some it may bring, in God's mercy, a little light on these few words that shall make Him who spoke them the dearer. So may it be !

Then let us look at it:-let our eyes follow Him into His Father's house, and view the scene there. We find the vail withdrawn in the epistle to the Hebrews-the heavens are opened, and we may make count of their glories:Angels and thrones and principalities and powers :all the beauty and wealth patterned by the tabernacle of old here seen in living reality:all, too, of one heart and mind, without discordant note, all filled with joy and praise. For so it has been ever. Praise has never lacked there. Every movement of God only gave fresh cause of joyful praise, as we see when the foundations of our earth were laid, " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Ah, who can tell the glories of that scene? But is that what our hearts crave for to give them rest ? No, surely. Glories in themselves may be the opposite of restful. To illustrate:you are introduced into a palace on earth; every thing about you there is rich with the glories of earth; gold glitters on every hand, and each apartment, from floor to ceiling, is filled with its evidences of the wealth and refinement of the owner. Would all that make you feel the more at home? No, surely. Sad and lonely would your heart be amidst all that grandeur. It has been made with another capacity, and if that be lost sight of, every thing is gone. It must find love. It insists on that. But introduce the same one into the lowliest cottage, and there let him pillow his head on a breast he knows, of whose love and sympathy he is well assured, and this, he says, is my home, this is my rest. Now that is just the need that our blessed Saviour recognized in His grace; and He says, as it were, "I will go, so that when you reach My Father's house, you may find there what will make you feel at home-make it "home" for you.

Let us now throw the light of that beautiful scripture we were considering in the October number of help and food (p. 270). It was of very similar bearing. God Himself there was seeking a rest, and Solomon was " preparing a place " for Him. Nor did, in that case, "glories" satisfy God's heart any more than they would ours in this. Not till He heard the sound of joyful praise, which spoke of overfilled hearts that knew Him, did He fill it with His presence. Exactly the same here :our blessed Lord is fully acquainted with man's need, and meets it as perfectly as (speaking reverently) the trumpet-sound of praise met God's requirements in the case of His earthly house. Let me hear there the sound of a divine yet human voice; let that voice be of One who, whilst God Himself, has yet tasted every sorrow of a walk as a poor man through this world;-let me find One there on whose human sympathy none ever called in vain,-whose eyes have shed human tears (just like ours) in the presence of human sorrow and death that we know so well;-nay, more, One who, in His divine love for us, has washed us in His own blood from every thing that would make us unfitted for that place. Ah, my reader, can we not feel "at home" there, even in those courts ? Is not that the place in all the universe in which we should feel at home? Does not that meet the need of our hearts? Is not the "place prepared" now by His being in it?

But what spot in heaven is thus made "homelike" for a poor redeemed sinner? Just inside its gates? as some dear souls, with low thoughts of His love, speak. No; we should not feel at rest there. Amongst the angel-ranks, or in the courts of the principalities and powers of those bright scenes ? No, not there has He chosen for us. But see where He is !-sitting at the right hand of God in the place of nearness and power. There is He, and there, after He has fulfilled His word, and come again and received His own to Himself, we see, in Rev. 4:, the crowned throned elders nearest the throne of God-nearest the center of all glories, and yet perfectly at rest, perfectly at peace, perfectly at home,-they prepared perfectly for the place, and the place prepared as perfectly for them. F. C. J.

It is instructive to notice, in the case of Elisha and Elijah, and the case of Ruth and Naomi, as well as that of Abraham and Isaac, a phrase used by the Holy Spirit. "And they two went on,"or "both together," in the case of Abraham and Isaac. It pictures to us the devoted disciple and his Leader. No others are before us. These are the actors-others are but onlookers, or (as Orpahs) left behind. It presents to us, beautifully and affectingly, the path of the true disciple, alone with Christ. The disciple himself thinks only of his Master. The onlooker beholds, as it were, just the two-the disciple and the other-Christ, of whom the disciple bears witness. Others may remain at the foot of the hill, like Abraham's young men, or, like the fifty sons of the prophets, may stand to view "afar off," but "the two" went on.

Notice that the words "they two" are first used in the case of Elijah and Elisha when their faces are turned toward the Jordan (in 2 Kings 2:6). Elisha had followed his leader from Gilgal to Bethel, and from Bethel to Jericho, and had left the sons of the prophets behind; and now only the Jordan of death was before them, and immediately and for the first time the words are used "and they two went on." The difference is at once manifest between religious routine and real power. It was the same with Abraham and Isaac, and also with Ruth in following Naomi. Death was faced, and there was the leaving behind all that would naturally be clung to, through confidence in the one that was obeyed or followed.

"And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off ; and they two stood by Jordan. Here is a test and a witness for God. There is neither halting nor haste. They face the difficulty before all. It was the same with Israel centuries before. "And Joshua rose early in the morning, and they removed from Shittim (no doubt significant) and came to Jordan-he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. That was the other side of Jordan, just opposite where the prophets stood. The prophets were going by the way of death-the death of the cross in figure, outside the land, "without the camp." And here, the others (the fifty) stopped short. They cluster together. We like company and numbers and popularity, without giving up religion. "They two" looked lonely. The others were looking at them. They were "a spectacle to angels and to men,"-the two, the leader and the follower. It was at such a pass that Peter shrank :" Far be it from Thee, Lord ; this shall not be unto Thee." Peter was still among the fifty. He savored, not the things that were of God, but those that were of men. " For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it."

Elijah and the Lord went outside the land for the same reason, because the nation was not in it according to God. The Lord went outside it and all its religion by the cross, and we are to go forth to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. Then only can we return to our old circumstances as Elisha came back through the Jordan to his-in the power of God, we as risen with Christ.

Let us abhor that would make us compromise. It will be an infinite loss.

"And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground."

The follower was as safe as his leader. The channel was made bare. They passed by where the twelve stones had been placed five hundred years before by Joshua, when the ark was borne by the priests who "stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan." But these two are now going in the opposite direction ; and only two ! No army-not a nation, with an array of priests and warriors and the ark as of old. That was a type of how God's people are brought into their inheritance, and how we are dead and risen with Christ; but in this case (that of Elisha and Elijah) we have a different lesson, namely, the confession that God's people have failed in their witness, and the one who would be faithful to Christ must act now for himself, not waiting for his dearest friends or religious companions ; he must give up seeking the approval of the religious world, with its routine to promote self-complacency and hinder self-judgment; he must cross the Jordan,-he must put the cross between himself and all that is merely religious without Christ. What a test is here ! who is sufficient to bear it ? How troublesome to have to test by the Word all we are attached to !-so troublesome that the common thing with Christians is to refuse to be troubled about it. The reproach is too much, or the world has so blinded them that they have little or no exercise about bearing their cross and following Christ.

And now they have crossed the Jordan, and "they still went on and talked." It was solemn and joyous converse. The cross has been taken up, and the bliss of communion is being enjoyed-the reward of victory. We know well what they talked about-" the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." (i Pet. 1:11) They were beyond Jordan now, as the Lord was in Luke 24:, with His two companions when He talked with them and said, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory ?" It was the same on the mount of transfiguration-they spoke of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, that event of all events when the passing the Jordan would be forever fulfilled. There Elijah is again before us, and the cross is the shame. Brethren, may we follow the Lord for ourselves. It is a matter between one's own soul and Him. Alone with Christ is the Christian's pathway; the only way of true fellowship if with others.
E. S. L.

More literally, the expression might be rendered, " Buying up the opportunity ; " as the merchant, looking out for bargains, buys up every thing that promises profit. In the ordinary sense of the words, we can never redeem the time. Time once passed is gone forever, only to meet us with its record at the judgment-seat of Christ. We can never make it up if it has been misspent or wasted. Each hour carries its own responsibilities, and can never be made to atone for former wasted ones. Lost opportunities ! – what a solemn theme ! Wasted time ! Well may we pause at the close of another year, and think on the swift-flowing stream which has swept past us never to return, and ask ourselves how we have spent it. Humbling, no doubt, will it be to many of us to dwell on the past, but wholesome too if we take to heart the lessons it teaches, and learn from past follies to buy up present opportunities.

Opportunities are manifold, and each moment carries with it an opportunity. In general, they may be divided into two classes, given to us respectively in the two passages where the same expression is used. "See, then, that ye walk circumspectly; not as fools, but as wise ; redeeming the time, because the days are evil." (Eph. 5:15, 16.) "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." (Col. 4:5, 6.) The first of these passages gives us more particularly the opportunities which relate to ourselves-personal; the second, those which link us with others-relative.

We live in evil times. The whole tendency is away from God, and it is only too easy for us, if unwary, to be carried along with the stream. Hence the exhortation " See that ye walk circumspectly," or carefully. We absorb easily the flavor of our surroundings; let us, then, be careful. The days are evil:God is not known, loved, or honored. But though the clays are evil, they are none the less crowded with opportunities. There is the open page of God's precious Word ever ready to reward the diligent seeker; the throne of grace invites to believing prayer; while there is not a circumstance or event of our lives but affords golden opportunities to learn, to do, or to bear. And how fleeting these opportunities are !The quiet time for reading and prayer, if not availed of, gives place to the turmoil of every-day life. The solicitation of temptation, to evil thought or word or deed, soon passes into actual sin, or gives place to something else,-in either case, leaving a scar upon the soul, unless the opportunity is availed of to resist it in the energy of faith. The merchant eagerly seizes upon every bargain which will profit him; let us too learn to make use of the opportunities which crowd upon us. Naturally, we look for the great events of our lives, and usually wait in vain. Our lives are made up of little things, and unless we make use of these, we will have nothing.

In Colossians, it is our relation to our neighbor which is contemplated, particularly " those who are without." Man is a social being, made for intercourse with his fellows. Conversion does not alter our natural constitution and tendencies, nor is this to be desired. Separation from the world is in spirit, not in contact." I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil." We are thrown with men of the world, on every hand; in business and travel, intentionally and accidentally; we are visited by strangers, are accosted on the street, asked the way or the time. Do we realize that we in this way have thousands of opportunities for speaking to men of Christ ? and are we buying up these opportunities, making use of them? Many of these opportunities come but once; we cross a man's path, and may never see him again. We are not saying that every one we meet can be spoken to, or that a tract should be thrust upon persons, without seeking guidance. There may be very much legality in such work, bringing one into bondage instead of ministering joy. But the fact remains that we are brought into contact with persons daily, and have many opportunities for influencing them. " Walk in wisdom toward them that are without." Alas ! how often does folly rather than wisdom characterize Christians in their intercourse with those that are without ! The unprofitable conversation,-frivolous remarks, levity, worldliness,-too often is heard rather than speech with grace, seasoned with the salt of truth, pungent and painful though it may be. Do we realize the lost condition of those that are without? Did we but think that we would never in this life see again such, would our last words be of this world, or would we not seek for an opening to speak for God and their immortal souls-at least, would we not be praying for them ? Surely we have a responsibility in all this which we cannot shun, -nay, if the love of Christ constrains us, we will not desire to shun it.

Nor need we confine this responsibility in speech to our intercourse with the unsaved. There are countless opportunities of helping one another by a word of advice, or the mutual edification which comes from talking over the things in God's Word. But if we follow the usual course, and allow the things of sense to absorb our talk,-or worse, if criticism, backbiting, and railing are indulged in, we lose an opportunity never to be recovered.

All this is plain enough, and familiar to us all ; we all assent to it, but a little reminder may not be out of place. If there is aroused a spirit of self-examination, of prayerful desire to avail ourselves of the opportunities afforded us, the admonition of these verses will not be in vain.

But how, in brief, can we be ready to buy up the opportunity ? By being right in heart. If the heart is in communion with Christ,_if His Word fills and occupies our minds, we will almost involuntarily avail ourselves of openings. It is easy to tell sinners of a precious Saviour if our own hearts are overflowing with His love ; easy to have a suited word for all-sinners or saints,-a word in grace seasoned with salt, if we imitate Him whose ear was ever open to learn from God, and who therefore knew "how to speak a word in season to him that is weary."

Q. 14.-"Please explain Matt. 5:8. Are there any ‘pure in heart.’ "

Ans.-Yes. That is the character of those who will see God. "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." The verse is true in the same way as 1 Jno. 3:9-" Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin."As born of God, he does not; bring into view the flesh, and he does when he fulfills its lusts. So with purity of heart; it is the broad line which separates God's children from the men of the world. But the flesh is there too, and to be watched-fleshly lusts to be abstained from. Coming
down to individual cases, surely the most spiritual will not claim for himself heart-purity in the sense generally understood-complete holiness. Above all, there is no such thing as a change of the natural heart." A new heart will I give unto you." The old remains there, a witness of what we were, and ever ready to assert itself in power again.

I said, " I will be a reaper, and toil with all my might,
For the laborers are few, though the harvest is so white."
So I took my sharpened sickle and sought the ripened grain;
I took in my hand my sickle-God took it out again.

I saw that in fields beyond me the corn was in the blade,
But the weeds were thickly choking. I took my hoe and spade,
And said,"I'll dig for the Master, and how the corn will
grow! "
But the Master came behind me and quickly answered, "No! "

I said, " I will be a sower, and scatter tiny seed:
Sowing is as sweet as reaping, and quite as much a need."
So I took the yellow kernels to drop as I should go-
The Master gathered them again as fast as I could sow.

Then I said, "I know, dear Master, how little is my skill;
It is wise I should not garner and well I should not till;
I will walk behind another, and hold the homely plow."
" I have those to tread the furrow," He answered, " Go not thou."

So I took my burnished sickle and hung it again to rust,
And my hoe and spade and basket, to gather mold and dust;
I left the earthly furrow for another's feet to tread,
And said, " To the hungry reapers I'll carry drink and bread;

For surely no sweeter service I need to ask or seek That to strengthen with refreshment the weary and the weak." I filled my cup at the fountain, I cut my loaf in twain, Looked in the face of the Master and knew it was in vain.

"Oh, Master! " I murmured, weeping, "I may not work for
Thee !
Thou desirest not my service!" He whispered, "Thou shalt see."
Then my arms He gently folded, my feet securely bound,
And laid me down all helpless upon the parched ground.

Then my eyes I closed in silence and hushed my eager breath,
For I thought He had brought me into the dust of death;
But, as I lay in the darkness, anew to me He spoke,
And out of a fervered slumber I dreamily awoke.

And awoke to find beside me a reaper wounded sore,
With never a hand to soothe him or stay the flowing gore;
I drew from my cup of water and laved his burning brow
I staunched the tide of crimson and smiled for service now.

"Child," said the loving Master, " sigh not for the open field,
For here in the lonely shadows rich service canst thou yield "
And all day long till the evening work unto me He brought,
Looked tenderly on my fetters and blessed me as I wrought.

I whispered the word of courage, I sang of hope and cheer,
I told of the Lord's forgiveness, I dried the contrite tear
And many a heavy burden I might not even share
I lifted unto the Master on outstretched arms of prayer

And I think when night has fallen and the harvest all is stored,
There'll be little sheaves in garner, known only to the Lord,
Of the gleanings that He gathered unto a captive's feet;
I think the captive's harvest-joy may be of all most sweet.

(Selected.)

"And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul." (Ps. 106:15.) "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." (Ps. 37:4.)

Pray without ceasing," says the apostle ; " Ask, and it shall be given unto you," says our Lord ; and the impulse of the new-born soul is to pray. One of the tests of a new life is, " Behold he prayeth."Our God delights to hear prayer and to answer it. Surely in His heart there is no thought but for our blessing; but for that very reason His dealings with us vary according to the state of soul, and our real necessities. He certainly would not give us any thing to harm us ; and when we ask for what would injure us, He knows how refuse. But there may be a condition of soul where refusal does not touch the conscience; where the will instead of being subdued, is only made the more stubborn by refusal. Then it is that divine wisdom may grant the request, in order that the one who will not learn to trust God in His way, may find the folly of his own. It was thus with Israel in the case alluded to in the passage be-fore us. God has undertaken to deliver them, and to bring them into the "good land and large."He had provided suited food for them in their journey, in the manna, which, as it lay all about the camp each morning, silently bore witness to the love and care of One who never slumbered nor slept. But they never realized the privilege of being so cared for, and so take their case in their own hand. They ask for quails and quails they must have. Their longings for the food which perishes was so great that it eclipsed every thing else. Such a people could not be benefitted by a refusal They would not learn except by tasting the bitter fruit of their own lusts.

At first, they might have been tempted to boast in the answer to prayer. Is not answered prayer always a proof of divine favor and special good-will? But there was no gratitude, no sense of humility, no asking, "Who am I?" They had carried their point, and now proceeded to gratify to the full the desires which had demanded this gratification. They became the more alienated from God by His very mercies. This was the leanness which came into their souls-the natural result of self-will uncontrolled. It never checks itself, never is satisfied with any possession of good, but craves and craves, and the granting of each new craving but results in still further alienation and leanness; unless, indeed, through mercy, the eyes are opened to see where we are. So Kibroth-hattaavas speaks to us most seriously, warning us against "asking amiss," lest that leanness come on us, which, unless delivered from, is but the precursor of dealings in severity.

Lot looked over to Sodom's plains with the same longings that Israel had for the quails, and the mountain cave where his light went out in obscure darkness, is his grave of lust. He wished for himself and got what he wanted, but the leanness in his soul resulting from gaining his point, stands out to-day in all its clearness for our warning. And how many Lots since that day can bear witness to this truth, " He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul" ! Could Lot have dreamed as he looked with such longing over these pleasant plains that they lead directly to that lonely mountain cave, we can well believe he would have drawn back in horror. And yet they were but the way and the end of a self-will which craves indulgence and will take no refusal. Beloved, is the personal application difficult ? Let us beware of this subtle working in our hearts, lest blight and sorrow come upon us to teach us.

But let us hasten from these sad things to look a little at the sweet assurance of the other verse :" Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He will give thee the desires of thine heart." At a glance we see the difference. In the former case self was the center and all revolved about it, everything must contribute to self-gratification, and, as we said, when one is bound to have his own way, God allows it. Here, how different! we are in another atmosphere. God is the center, about whom all revolves. His interests are the important ones, His good pleasure, His glory. Self is subordinated and out of sight-God fills the horizon.

But there is more. "Delight thyself in the Lord. He rejoices over us, wonderful that it can be, and wishes us not merely to be absorbed, occupied with Him, but to delight in Him. He wishes no compulsory attachment- He draws free hearts, and attaches them to Himself by the sweet constraint of love. It is the glory of redemption that it does this, wins the heart, as well as enlightens and arouses the conscience. Mere sense of duty will sooner or later say, "Thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends." The elder brother admits, with all his correctness in service, there was no joy in it, and he seems to fail to see how there can be joy in the father's house. How different the language of One who always delighted in His Father. " In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore,"-language to be taken up and repeated by lips of faith in all places and at all times. " God my exceeding joy," says David; "We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ," says Paul. When joy goes declension soon follows. But what an object for our delight! Well may we ask,-

" Where shall our wondering souls begin ? "

We need never be at a loss for fresh delights. His Person, His works, His attributes, counsels, His Son, and the vast plan of redemption, the depths of His love- surely here we have themes to charm and delight the soul.

Delighting in Him, our desires are secondary and ever subject to His will. But if we almost forget them, He does not. " He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." No fear that riches or prosperity will lead astray. Abraham places God first, delights in Him, only to prove that the blessing of the Lord was his-" He maketh rich, and ' He addeth no sorrow with it."

Even as to spiritual blessings, this truth applies. If we are asking for gifts, or even for holiness for ourselves, we will find that whatever apparent attainments we make, instead of ripening and mellowing us, do the reverse. The holiness is in name only, contributing to self-complacency, not God-likeness. On the other hand, let God be delighted in and the desire of the heart to be like Him is granted; we grow like Him, by being occupied with Him, and holiness results.

Dear brethren, have we desires ? Longings it may be for temporal things, or for blessings on others; for greater power in the assemblies of His people ; for simpler and clearer testimony before the world ? Let us learn to delight in Him more, for His own sake, and He will give us the desires of our heart.

While Season like a Levite waits
Where priest and people meet,
Faith by a new and living way
Hath reached the Mercy-Seat.

While Season hath but barely said
That earth can not give rest,
Faith, like a weary dove, hath fled
Unto the Saviour's breast.

"There are no two people alike" is an expression we often hear ; which in one sense is quite true. In another sense we are all alike, for " as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." (Prov. 27:19.)Our hearts are all alike. We naturally love self amazingly. We may put it down emphatically, " The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth enviously." (Jas. 4:5.)"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing." (Rom. 7:18.)

If we could only keep in memory the truth as to what "the flesh" in us is, Christian fellowship might be maintained where it otherwise is so often marred; for we would, as a matter of course, turn from it completely to Christ Jesus, in whose face we would thankfully behold every believer. But, alas! we too often " look one another in the face " (2 Kings 14:8), and as a consequence, become occupied with the blemishes there.

If we would but remember when we do so, that we are but receiving the answer to our own face, "as in water," would we not be ashamed? Paul says, "I knew a man in Christ. … Of such an one will I glory:yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities." (2 Cor. 12:2, 5.) As a "man in Christ," the thought would ever be present, "by the grace of God I am what I am." (i Cor. 15:10.) Consequently, "by the grace of God" we each are what we are ; though as "in Christ" there is absolute perfection, yet in ourselves there are ''infirmities." In other words, there is that in each one of us which ought to cause shame and self-abhorrence rather than self-satisfaction or self-righteousness. Can we look at our past, and say, "I am pleased with it"? Would we dare to look at our present, and say, "I am satisfied"? And yet do we not forget this when we mark the "infirmities" of others? Of course, this is short of "wickedness." I am but speaking now of that in our nature which makes the diversity between us, and calls for forbearance. We hear Christians talking of the bad traits of character in others, and then closing with the remark, "I could not do such a thing;" or, " I cannot see how such an one can do so-and-so; now I do so-and-so." Is not this the unwise thing of which the apostle speaks ? " For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves; but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." (2 Cor. 10:12.)

Can there be real Christian fellowship where such thoughts and words are indulged ?

But, beloved, the "virtues" of Christ are to be seen in all who are His, and " by the grace of God" they are what they are. Then let us cease this busied effort of digging up evil, as it is the work of the "ungodly." (Prov. 16:27.) It is an unholy practice, which we can easily fall into if not "sanctified by the truth"-preserved. (Jno. 17:17-19.)

We are to recognize the fact that there are human weaknesses in all, and ought we not rather to pray for the needed grace to overcome these infirmities, and so " provoke unto love and to good works?

It is a painful fact that Christians often cannot live together? Why is this? Is it not because they are not grounded and established in the truth we are considering? I am sure it is. Is it not frequently also a painful fact that Christians are not in fellowship together very long before these "little foxes which spoil the vines" appear and endanger the "little flock"?

And is there no remedy ? Yes, the remedy is twofold. I believe, before any real abiding soul-progress can be made, true "repentance toward God" as to our natural condition is absolutely essential. In other words, to abhor self as Job did (Job 42:5, 6). This can only be by getting a good view of ourselves as in God's holy presence,-by believing the truth as to our condition already referred to. Second, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ sufficient to draw upon the grace needful for daily piety.

Our infirmities remind us of our natural condition, and consequently humble us, and thus serve the purpose of exalting Christ in us, as we must lean on Him or fail miserably.

Let us, beloved, turn away from occupation with the blemishes in others; and when tempted to be so engaged, let the remembrance of our own nature bring the blush of shame to our face, and the grace of Christ prostrate us before Him-the absolutely spotless One, in whom alone we "stand " or can alone hope to be "holden up."

"Let brotherly love continue." (Heb. 13:1:)

[NOTE.-It is to be remembered that the writer is referring, not to the wickedness of the flesh In the believer, but its weakness. All true fellowship is based upon righteousness-"in the light"-and righteousness cannot turn away from sin in a brother. The sin must be dealt with, in all gentleness and love, and wisdom, but it cannot be ignored.

What is most to be deplored is the lack of power to deal with evil. It is perhaps easy to speak of this, easier than to manifest that power. Where one is walking with God, he can and will rebuke sin and in so doing not offend, save the incorrigible, but commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. It should be owned with sorrow that fellowship is a thing easily marred, and the writer notes the spirit of criticism as the cause. But we must remember too that neglect of evil only allows it to increase, and meddling with evil without power also spreads it. The only remedy is to be cast upon God, to be much alone with Him and thus have His mind. We shall then be able to act in faithfulness and to verify that sure word which says, "faithful are the wounds of a friend." Let it be seen that there is no selfishness, no party spirit, at the bottom of the rebuke or the discipline, but a true desire for God's honor, and His blessing will go with us. How many have had occasion to bless God for the faithful dealing of a fellow-Christian, or even of a whole assembly. But let us remember, we are to walk with God if we are to act for Him.-ed.]

Driving along the road with a companion the writer remarked the great number of spider's web son the grass along the road-side. His companion replied, "Yes, the dew brings them out," which was in fact the case:they were made visible by the dew which lay upon them. How simple yet true a picture of our way in this world ! Our path is beset with snares, on the. right and the left. Satan spreads his nets at every step to catch the unwary. But the dew brings them out.

Israel had to gather the manna when the dew was yet upon the ground. The reviving, refreshing influences of the Holy Spirit are thus typified. It is in communion with God, enjoying the guidance and comfort of the Holy Spirit, in the Word of God, that we are enabled to detect the snares of Satan, and so to avoid them. How often do young Christians ask the question, "Is there any harm in this or that habit, or association?" How often, alas ! do they step into what is nothing but a snare of Satan! How can they avoid these snares ? Simply by letting the dew bring them out-abiding in communion with God, the Holy Spirit ministering the Word to them and the snares are detected. Many apparently harmless things will then be seen to be snares.

May we thus let the Holy Spirit be our detective, and as we press on our way see the traps of the enemy and say, "we are not ignorant of his devices."

There are three fruit-bearing trees, much esteemed and cultivated by the inhabitants of Palestine, which are fruitful in instructing us who possess and peruse the New Testament. They are the olive-tree, the fig-tree, and the vine. It was these of which Jothan made mention in his parable to the men of Shechem, which furnish parabolic teaching about Gentiles, Israel, and Christians. Privilege, profession, fruit-fulness, such are the topics in illustration of which these trees are severally introduced.

1. The olive-tree furnishes special instruction for Gentiles, as such, in the way of dispensational teaching. We meet with it once in this manner in Rom. 11:, where a word of warning is given to those who are not of the race of Israel. Promises belonged to Israel as the children of Abraham. (Rom. 9:4.) To the covenants of promise Gentiles were strangers. (Eph. 2:12.) Promises there were, as has been remarked, about Gentiles, but not to them. To Abraham they were made and to his seed. (Gal. 3:16.) Israel, on the ground of their lineage " after the flesh," looked for the fulfillment and enjoyment of them. John the Baptist had warned them how mistaken they would find themselves, if they trusted in this matter to natural birth without being born of God. God could of the stones around them raise up children to Abraham. The warning was in vain, as far as the nation was concerned. For they rejected the One to whom the promises made to Abraham were confirmed- that One was Christ, the patriarch's seed. God, therefore, has cast them off, nationally, for a time, and is now dealing with Gentiles. It is of this dispensational change that Paul writes in Rom. 11:, and, to illustrate it in a manner within the comprehension of his readers, he makes use of the simile of an olive-tree, with which those in Italy would be familiar. From this tree, a good olive-tree, some of the branches have been broken off, that is all the nation of Israel, except the remnant according to the election of grace, who remain branches in the olive-tree, where they, had always been.

Into this same tree other branches have been grafted, taken from a wild olive-tree, one which had never been brought under culture. Now these are the Gentiles, with whom God is at present dealing in sovereign goodness, brought thus outwardly into connection with Abraham, "the root of promise – the root, to carry out the figure, of the olive-tree. Before the cross God was dealing with Israel as the elect nation, but not directly with the Gentiles. Privileges belonged to the former, in which the latter had no part. The Syrophoenician woman had to acknowledge that. She felt it, and she owned it. After the cross a new feature in God's dealings with man was displayed. The privileges which had marked Israel as God's special people on earth they enjoyed no longer, for they continued in unbelief. The aged Simeon had declared that the child he held in his arms would be "a light for revelation of the Gentiles," to bring them out of the obscurity in which they had hitherto been dispensationally, as those with whom God could prominently deal in goodness; and Paul teaches us this took place when Israel for a time, as a nation, was cast off.

Advantages, then, Gentiles now possess such as they never had before the cross. The root of promise has not changed. The olive-tree has not been cut down, but some branches have been broken off, and branches from a wild olive-tree have been grafted in on the principle of faith. As grafted in they partake of the "root and fatness of the olive tree." Privileges are theirs, as brought into direct association with the root of promise, Abraham, the father of the faithful. What flows from the root, therefore, they share in ; "of the root and fatness of the olive-tree" they partake, being, as Gentiles, grafted in by faith into the line of promise on earth.

Now this is not salvation, for they might be " cut off." It is not church position, for church position is new both to Jews as well as to Gentiles who enjoy it. But here it is, Gentiles coming in to share the privileges on earth as those who, as faithful among the Jews, had never lost them. We say on earth, for the simile of the tree teaches us, that the position thus illustrated is one enjoyed on earth.

Would, then, the Gentiles continue in this privileged place ? That depended upon them. " If thou continue in goodness." Have they? One must surely admit they have not. Excision, therefore, must take place. And, if the natural branches abide not in unbelief, they shall be grafted into their own olive-tree. The good olive-tree is Israel, the root is Abraham; and the advantages Gentiles as such possess they can lose by unfaithfulness, for they stand in that place only by faith. God is now visiting the Gentiles (Acts 15:14), and the outward result of this is what we term Christendom. Privileges those possess who are part of Christendom, but these privileges entail responsibility. Could the Gentile glory, then, over the branches broken off? He could not. To the Jew his natural place was in the olive-tree, it was only through his sin of unbelief that he was broken off. To the Gentile it was of divine goodness that he was there at all, grafted in on the principle of faith, to be continued there only if he abode in God's goodness. All those, then, who are really saved are in the olive-tree, but far more than they are numbered amongst its branches. It takes in the faithful remnant of Israel. It includes all Christendom. The Gentiles, if once cut off, will never be restored. The
Jews may be, and will, if they abide not in unbelief. How truly will that be felt and confessed by and by, when that which Zech. 8:13 says, shall receive its accomplishment !

2. The fig-tree suggests teaching of a different order, and was used as an illustration to a different audience. The Lord made use of it when warning Israel, and instructing His disciples. (Luke 13:6-9; Matt. 21:19-21; Mark 11:12-14, 20-23.) Its fruit makes it of such value. If the tree is fruitless, why let it occupy the ground? Now there is one feature in the fig-tree which made it so suited to depict the state of Israel. Its flowers are formed before the bursting out of its leaves. Hence the presence of leaves suggests the promise and appearance of fruit. One sees at once, then, how fit an emblem such a tree would be of Israel, who by profession were God's people, but who, nevertheless, when the Lord came, proved by rejecting Him their unfruitfulness for God. The olive-tree, as an evergreen, fitly represents the continuance of the line of promise on earth, which would never end, even in appearance, during all the ages that should precede the establishment of the kingdom of God in power upon earth. As the olive-tree from its character suggests the thought of continuance, the fig-tree from its habit is well adapted to illustrate profession, which should be accompanied by the proofs of fruitfulness. And if it lacks such proofs, cutting down surely the tree richly deserves. God's forbearance, then, with the nation of Israel till the cross, the parable of the fig-tree in Luke 13:sets forth. The sentence on the barren but leaf-clothed tree on Olivet was the indication of the carrying out of the judgment against Israel, of which the Lord had previously warned the people. A tree cut down ceases to be seen by men. Israel, as an ordered nation, would cease to exist. Profession without fruitfulness will never do for God.

3. Turning to the vine, we get instruction of a different character. It speaks of, and to, Christians in truth.

God had a vine, which He had brought out of Egypt:that vine was Israel. (Ps. 80:8-2:) A vine which is unfruitful is useless, as Ezekiel (15:2-4) reminded his countrymen. The Lord then, in Jno. 15:, teaches His disciples that He is the true vine :hence, fruitfulness in them could only be produced as they abode in Him. For those who were of the Jewish race this teaching was important :national position, a lineage after the flesh, such would not avail. They must abide in Christ to bear fruit for God:-teaching, too, this for us, useful, needful at all times. "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away :and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches :he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples." (Jno. 15:1-8.)

When we come to the Lord's teaching about the vine, we leave dispensational truth about Gentiles and Jews, and come to that which is vitally important. But, to understand it aright we must ever remember, that the simile of a tree suggests something which is upon earth, not something about heaven. Keeping this in mind, we shall understand the bearing of what He says. He speaks of that which is seen upon earth :a branch, therefore, might be in the vine and yet be unfruitful. But no one could be in Christ before God without being really a child of God. If we bring in standing before God when we read of the vine, we shall get all wrong. If we remember that a tree is a simile of something existing upon earth, we shall be kept right. A branch, therefore, in the vine is a professing Christian. There might be that without the person being a true believer. At the moment the Lord was speaking there was a marked illustration of it in Judas Iscariot. He was one of the twelve, appeared to be a believer, was a branch in the vine ;but his occupation at that very moment indicated that he had not abode in Christ. Mere profession, then, would not do. He is not merely impressing on them that there must be reality and life to be fruitful; He is telling them how, and how only, they can be fruitful, viz., by abiding in Him. The curse on the fig-tree showed that God would not be satisfied without fruit. The Lord's teaching about the vine makes plain how fruitfulness can be insured. Professors there might be, there have been, there are still. Of such, if that is all they are upon earth, the Lord speaks in ver. 6, but let the reader remark He does it in language which, while pointedly showing the dreadful future of such, carefully guards against the idea of any real Christian perishing. Speaking to those who were true, He says, " Ye." Describing the barren professor, He says, "If a man" etc. There is no discouragement to the weakest believer. There is the most solemn warning for the mere professor. -Bible Witness and Review.

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART VII.(Chap, 19:5-22:) THE CONSUMMATION.

The Restraint upon Satan. (Chap. 20:1-3.)

The judgment upon living men is followed by that upon Satan their prince, though not yet is it final judgment. This partial dealing with the great deceiver means that the end of man's trial is not even yet reached. He is shut up in the abyss, or bottomless pit, of which we have read before, but not in hell (the lake of fire). As restraint, it is complete ; and with the devil, the host of fallen angels following him share his sentence. This is not merely an inference, however legitimate. Isaiah has long before anticipated what is here (chap, 24:21-23):"And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days they shall be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion. and in Jerusalem, aud before His ancients gloriously."

Here the contemporaneous judgment of men and angels at the beginning of the millennium is clearly revealed, and just as clearly, that it is not yet final. The vision in Revelation is also clear. The descent of the angel with the key and chain certainly need not obscure the meaning. Nor could the shutting up of Satan mean any thing less than the stoppage of all temptation for the time indicated. The " dragon," too, is the symbol for the explanation of which we are (as in the twelfth chapter,) referred to Eden, "the ancient serpent," and then are told plainly, "who is the devil and Satan." It is simply inexcusable to make the interpretation of the symbol still symbolic, and to make the greater stand for the less -Satan the symbol of an earthly empire o.r any thing of the Sort. What plainer words could be used? which Isaiah's witness also abundantly confirms. God has been pleased to remove all vail from His words here, and it does look as if only willful perversity could misunderstand His speech.

That after all this he is to be let out to deceive the nations is no doubt at first sight hard to understand. It is all right to inquire reverently why it should be; and Scripture, if we have learnt Peter's way of putting it together,-no prophecy to be interpreted as apart from the general body of prophecy,-will give us satisfactory, if solemn, answer. The fact is revealed, if we could give no reason for it. Who are we to judge God's ways? and with which of us must He take counsel? It should be plain that for a thousand years Satan's temptations cease upon the earth; and then they are renewed and successful, the nations are once more deceived..

What makes it so difficult to understand is that many have a false idea of the millennial age, as if it were " righteousness dwelling" on the earth instead of " righteousness reigning" over it. It is said indeed of Israel, after they are brought to God nationally, "My people shall be all righteous" (Is. 60:21); but that is not the general condition. The eighteenth psalm, speaking prophetically of that time, declares, "The strangers shall submit themselves unto Me," which in the margin is given as "lie," or "yield feigned obedience." They submit to superior power, not in heart; and so it is added, " The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places." (Comp. 66:3; 81:15.) And Isaiah, speaking of the long length of years, says, "The child shall die a hundred years old," but adds, "and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed." (65:20.) So Zechariah pronounces the punishment of those who do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the glorious King (14:17).

The millennium is not eternal blessedness; it is not the Sabbath, to which so many would compare it. It answers rather to the sixth day than the seventh,-to the day when the man and woman (types of Christ and the Church) are set over the other creatures. The seventh is the type of the rest of God, which is the only true rest of the people of God (Heb. 4:9). The millennium is the last period of man's trial, and that is not rest:trial in circumstances the best that could be imagined, righteousness reigning, the course of the world changed, heaven open overhead, the earth filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, the history of past judgment to admonish for the future; the question will then be fully answered, whether sin is the mere fruit of ignorance, bad government, or any of the accidents of life to which it is so constantly imputed. Alas ! the issue, after a thousand years of blessing, when Satan is loosed out of his prison, will make all plain; the last lesson as to man will only then be fully learned.

The Resurrection and Reign of the Saints, (20:4-6.)

And now we have what requires more knowledge of the Word to understand it rightly; and here, more distinctly than before, there are vision and the interpretation of the vision, so that we will be inexcusable if we confound them. The vision is of thrones, and people sitting on them, judgment (that is, rule) being put into their hands. "The souls of those beheaded for the witness of Jesus and the word of God " are another company separate from these, but now associated with them; and "those who have not worshiped the beast" seem to be still another. All these live and reign with Christ a thousand years, and the rest of the dead do not live till the thousand years are ended.

That is the vision. The interpretation follows :" This," we are told, "is the first resurrection;" and that "blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection:upon these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."

We must look carefully at all this, and in its order. First, the thrones, aud those sitting on them:there should be no difficulty as to who these are, for we have already seen the elders crowned and seated in heaven, and before that have heard the Lord promise the overcomer in Laodicea that he should sit with Him upon His throne. That being now set up upon the earth, we find the saints throned with Him. In the interpretation, it is said they reign with Him a thousand years. The vision is thus far very simple.

Daniel has already spoken of these thrones:" I beheld," he says, "till the thrones were placed," (as the Revised Version rightly corrects the common one,) "and the Ancient of days did sit." (Chap. 7:9.) But there was then no word as to the occupants of the thrones. It is the part of Revelation to fill in the picture on its heavenly side, and to show us who these are. They are not angels, who, though there may be "principalities" among them, are never said to reign with Christ. They are redeemed men,-the saints caught up at the descent of the Lord into the air (i Thess. 4:), and who as the armies that were in heaven we have seen coming with the white-horsed King to the judgment of the earth.
This being so, it is evident that the " souls " next spoken of are a separate company from these, though joined to them as co-heirs of the kingdom. The folly that has been taught that they are "souls" simply, so that here we have a resurrection of souls, and not of bodies,-together with that which insists that it is a resurrection of truths or principles, or of a martyr-"spirit"-bursts like a bubble when we take into account the first company of living and throned saints. In the sense intended, Scripture never speaks of a resurrection of souls. "Soul "is here used for "person," as we use it still, and as Scripture often uses it; and the word "resurrection" is found, not in the vision, where its signification might be doubtful, but in the explanation, where we have no right to take it as other than literal. What is the use of explanation, except to explain?

The recognition of the first company here also removes another difficulty, which troubled those with whom the " blessed hope" revived at the end of the last century, that the first resurrection consisted wholly of martyrs. The second company does indeed consist of these, and for an evident reason. They are those who, converted after the Church is removed to heaven, would have their place naturally in earthly blessing with Israel and the saved nations. Slain for the Lord's sake, during the tribulation following, they necessarily are deprived of this :only to find themselves in the mercy of God made to fill a higher place, and to be added, by divine power raising them from the dead, to the heavenly saints. How sweet and comforting this assurance as to the sufferers in a time of un-equaled sorrow!

When we look further at this last company, we find, as already intimated, that it also consists of two parts:first, of those martyred in the time of the seals, and spoken of under the fifth seal; and secondly, the objects of the beast's wrath, as in chap. 13:7, 15. This particularization is a perfect proof of who are embraced in this vision, and that we must look to those first seen as sitting on the thrones for the whole multitude of the saints of the present and the past. To all of which it is added that "the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished," when we find in fact the resurrection of judgment taking place (10:11-15). All ought to be simple, then. The "first resurrection" is a literal resurrection of all the dead in Christ from the foundation of the world, a certain group which might seem not to belong to it being specialized, as alone needing this. The first resurrection is "first" simply in contrast with that of the wicked, having different stages indeed, but only one character :" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection ! upon such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."

To suppose that this passage stands alone and unsupported in the New Testament is to be ignorant of much that is written. " Resurrection from the dead," as distinct from the general truth of " resurrection of the dead," is special New-Testament truth. The Pharisees knew that there should be "a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." (Acts 24:15.) But when the Lord spake of the Son of Man rising from the dead, the disciples question among themselves what the rising from the dead could mean (Mark 9:9, 10.) Christ's own resurrection is the pattern of the believer's. The "order" of the resurrection is distinctly given us :" Christ the first-fruits ; afterward, they that are Christ's at His coming " (i Cor. 15:23):not a general, but a selective resurrection. Such was what the apostle would by any means gain:not, as in the common version, " the resurrection of" but "the resurrection from the dead." (Phil. 3:2:)

In his epistle to the Thessalonians, the same apostle instructs us more distinctly as to it, speaking in the way of special revelation, by "the word of the Lord:" "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent"-or, as the Revised Version, "precede"-"them that are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God:and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (i Thess. 4:15-17.) Thus before He appears shall His saints be with Him; and, of course, long before the resurrection of the lost.

But the Lord Himself has given us, in His answer to the Sadducees, what most clearly unites with this vision in Revelation (Luke 20:34-36). They had asked Him of one who had married seven brethren :" Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection ?" meaning, of course, to discredit it by the suggestion. "And Jesus said unto them, 'The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more ; for they are equal unto the angels ; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.' "

Clearly this asserts the fact and gives the character of the special resurrection which the vision here describes. It is one which we must be " accounted worthy" to obtain, not one which nobody can miss:it is grace that acts in giving any one his place in it. Those who have part in it are by that fact proclaimed to be the "children of God," thus again showing that it cannot be a general one. They die no more :that is, (as here) they are not hurt of the second death. They are equal to the angels:above the fleshly conditions of this present life. Finally, it is the resurrection from the dead, not of the dead merely. All this is so plain that there should be no possibility of mistaking it, one would say ; and yet it is no plainer than this scene in Revelation.

How dangerous must be the spell of a false system, which can so blind the eyes of multitudes of truly godly and otherwise intelligent persons to the plain meaning of such scriptures as these ! And how careful should we be to test every thing we receive by the Word, which alone is truth ! Even the " wise " virgins slumbered with the rest. Which shows us also, however, that error is connected with a spiritual condition, even in saints themselves. May we be kept from all that would thus cloud our perception of what, as truth, alone has power to bless and sanctify the soul! F. W. G.

(To be continued.)

THESE THREE, BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE."

Faith-blest answer to each yearning,
Hope-bright lamp so ceaseless burning,
Needed now our hearts to prove.
But beyond life's storms and tossings,
Earth's enticements and engrossings,
Stretches forth an endless Love.

Faith will cease when sight is given :
Hope is needed not in heaven,
But its atmosphere is Love.
Faith to keep our souls from drifting,
Hope our vain affections sifting,
But our rest is in His Love.

Higher than the heavens around us
Is the love that sought and found us,-
Free, unfathomable love.
Deeper than the depths of ocean,
Swifter than the lightning's motion :
Vain attempt its worth to prove.

He who doth so deeply love us,
And in faithfulness doth prove us,
Measures not His wealth of love.
Still for us too deep its meaning,
Till this moment's intervening
Fades, and we're caught up above.

Hope shall reap her full fruition
When each blood-bought son's petition
Comes in answer from above,
When the Lord, with shout descending,
Speaks the rapture now impending,-
" Rise, and come away, My love."

Faith and Hope forever ceasing,
Love eternally increasing.
Oh, the depth of Jesus' love !
We shall be forever learning.
Ever needing, ever yearning
For that priceless, precious love. H. McD.
Plainfield

"In every thing and in all things I am initiated both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer privation." (Phil. 4:2.-J. N. D.'s Version.)

Secrecy always has a charm for the natural man. It is this which in greatest measure attracts to the many orders and societies which profess to have knowledge of something hid from others. In religions also the same craving for secrets has been freely made use of by the priests of these false systems. Mysteries, strange and secret rites have been the attractions by which the unlearned have been allured,-mysteries which in many cases were but the " hidden things of darkness," revolting and degrading ceremonies which revealed only the utter corruption of the heart of man, and drew him on into still greater depths of evil. It was charged by the enemies of Christianity that, while its outward teachings were moral, its secret and hidden practices, known only to the initiated, were dark and terrible orgies, revolting even to the heathen mind. In reply, it could be truthfully said, of course, that this was utterly false,-that Christianity had no secrets, nothing for the initiated beyond the simple and clear and holy teachings of God's blessed Word. It is true indeed that " we speak wisdom among them that are perfect," but this is only the unfolding of that which every babe in Christ knows in an elementary way.

But there are, in one sense, secrets in Christianity known only to the initiated,-secrets, not of the intellect, but of the heart, learned, not by study, but through experience. In blessed contrast to the empty husk that man has to offer as his secret, Christianity offers a solid reality. But one must be initiated to learn what these secrets are. They are not hidden from view, we can read in a few words what they are, and yet there must be initiation to properly appreciate them. There must be the learning, by experience, by. denying self, either as to worthiness or power, which answers to initiation.

What, then, was the secret the apostle had learned by initiation ? It was simply this:a satisfaction of soul under all circumstances, a quietness of heart no matter what need oppressed,-a quietness which, as it could not be disturbed by trial, could not either by prosperity. It does not seem to be a great secret at first sight, but the longer we dwell upon it, the more will we see how deep and far-reaching it is. With many, how easily does trial oppress ! They forget the admonition which speaketh to us as sons-" My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." Trial comes, and it overwhelms them. It may be loss of property, and they mourn as though they had forgotten that "better and more enduring substance""reserved in heaven." Repining, they lose the opportunity of knowing the fellowship of Him who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor. They are not initiated. Or health fails, giving a good opportunity to show the precious truth that "though the outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day." But instead of bowing to a Father's loving dealings, the person grows morbid, selfish, becomes nervously sensitive, and exhibits not the power of grace, but of selfishness. Why this failure? The person has not been initiated, has not learned the secret how to suffer need. And so, without multiplying illustrations, whatever the circumstances of trial may be, if possessed of this happy secret, all is for our profit. Or, on the other hand, are our circumstances prosperous? unless possessed of this secret, we will not "know how to abound." Many a Christian who has walked humbly and closely with God in sorrow, poverty, obloquy, has grown cold and careless when earthly joy and wealth were given. Nor is this because there is inherent evil in wealth or prosperity; surely our God does not delight in making our circumstances uncomfortable. The trouble is with our corrupt hearts (Sodom's plains have allured many a poor Lot on to shipwreck),-hearts which cannot be trusted. What is the remedy ? Not the hair-cloth garment, or the vow of poverty, but the initiation into this secret.

But looking deeper, we find in this epistle to the Philippians the very root of the secret. It is the person of our blessed Lord as the object before the apostle's heart -he knew Him, longed to know Him more-that kept him above all circumstances whether of joy or sorrow. This epistle is precious to us all; it seems to carry us along with it, and yet it speaks of an experience which is that of but few. Take the second chapter, as giving the habit of mind in the believer, how little we know of it! or the third, where we see him pressing on with ever-increasing speed toward a prize, which is a precious, glorified Christ; and we do not wonder that the man whose whole heart is after that Object should know how to be abased or to abound. He was indeed initiated,-he had a secret which would take him through all circumstances, and show him how to distill sweetness and blessing from every bitter and baneful happening. The " fathers " in i Jno. 2:were initiated-they knew Him that is from the beginning. They need no warning so long as that One is before them.

But there is a counterfeit to all this. We have been speaking of that rest of soul with Christ for its object which is the secret to be learned by the believer, and which lifts him above circumstances. There is an indifference to circumstances which is nothing but selfish sloth. The truly initiated one is not unmoved by circumstances,-he weeps at sorrow and rejoices in blessing, but these things do not hold his heart captive. Let us beware of mere indifference; it is most benumbing and dangerous.

When a neophyte sought initiation into the mysteries of a heathen religion, he had to give himself up to his guide. He knew not what was before him; but at all cost, he was determined to learn. So if we are to learn-really learn the "secret of the Lord," there must be the abandonment of self, that Christ may be all.

Even here we can know something of the joy of having a secret with the Lord,-of getting a glimpse of that "white stone" which is given to those who in days of looseness hold fast to Him.