Whenever we get into trial, we may feel confident that, with the trial, there is an issue, and all we need is, a broken will, and a single eye to see it.

"Many of the most beautiful things in nature are so delicate in their structure that to touch them almost means to destroy them. Man could not pretend to imitate these works of beauty, they are so frail that they for the most part escape even his notice. Yet God builds this beauty, and delights to put it everywhere, to show us His beauty, and His tenderness as well. The delicate little flower, the wing of the butterfly, crushed by the rude hand of a boy, were made by the almighty God, who takes thought of them.

And so in spiritual things, there are characters so frail that the touch of man seems to mar them. The new-born sold, with its desires after God, its love for Christ, its almost inarticulate prayers and praises, is surely more beautiful in His sight than the fairest flower of earth. And yet by our cold criticism, our rigid exactness, may we not crush the beauty out of this flower ? Let us learn to be more tender with one another. Let not our rude touch mar God's beautiful work. May we rather be imitators of Him, and learn to develop rather than to dwarf that which is of Him.

For how does He deal with us ? How has He built us up ? By gentleness. Our love to Him, our joy, the early fruits of the Spirit, have been watched and nourished; our coldness has been borne with, and so He has gently led us on. Oh, to learn to do likewise in all our dealings with God's lambs !

'' 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."

(Continued from page 243.) CHAPTER IV.

But we must follow our Preacher, who can only turn away with bitterness from this closed door of Death, once more to take note of what is "under the sun." And sad and sorrowful it is to him to mark that the world is filled with oppression. He has already, in the previous chapter, noted that "wickedness was there in the place of judgment and iniquity in the place of righteousness," and the natural consequence of this is oppression. Wherever men have power they use it to bring forth tears; therefore far better, cries Solomon, to be out of such a scene altogether; yea, better still, never to have come into it at all. Have we no sympathy with the Preacher here? Does he not give expression to one sad "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin"? Do we not recognize that he, too, was traveling through exactly the same scene as we find ourselves to be in? That tears were raining on this crust of earth in that far-off time, exactly as they are to-day? Yes indeed, it is a tear-soaked earth he trod, as well as we. But then that other man was also in the same scene exactly, who said, too, that it was certainly "far better" to be out of it; but – precious contrast! that was because of the loveliness and sweet attraction of One known outside of it; whilst the very needs of others in the scene – those "tears," in away, of which the wise man speaks, and which he knew no way of stopping – alone kept him in it, and made him consent to stay. For Paul had "heard a sweeter story" than Solomon had ever in his wisdom conceived; had "found a truer gain" than all Solomon's wealth could give him; and his most blessed business it was to proclaim a glad tidings that should dry the tears of the oppressed, give them a peace that no oppressor could take away, a liberty outside all the chains of earth – a spring of joy that tyranny was powerless to affect.

Now let us, by the grace and loving kindness of our God, consider this a little closer, my readers. We have concluded that we find this book included in the inspired volume for this very purpose, to exalt all "the new" by its blessed contrast with "the old." We may too, if we will, look around on all the sorrows and tears of this sad earth, and groan "better would it be to be dead and out of it; yea, better never to have been born at all." And a wise groan, according to human wisdom, this would be.

But when such wisdom has attained to its full, it finds itself far short of the very "foolishness of God"; for, on the other hand we may, if we will, praise God with joyful heart that we are at least in the only place in the whole universe, where tears can be dried, and gladness be made to take their place. For is there oppression, and consequent weeping, in heaven? Surely not. Tears there are, in plenty, in hell; for did not He who is Love say, "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth"? But, alas! those tears can be dried-never. But here Love can have its own way, and mourning ones may learn a secret that shall surely gild their tears with a rainbow glory of light, and the oppressed and distressed, the persecuted and afflicted, may triumphantly sing, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us." Ah, is there not, too, a peculiar beauty in those words "more than conquerors"? What can be more than a conqueror? A ship driven out of its course by the tempest, with anchor dragging or cable parted, is no "conqueror" at all, but the reverse. That ship riding out the gale, holding fast to its anchorage, is truly a conqueror; but that is all. But the vessel being driven by the very tempest to the haven, where it would be, is better off still, and thus "more than conqueror." So it is with the saint now; the tempest drives him the closer to Him who is indeed his desired haven, and thus he is more than conqueror. Is not, then, this earth a unique place?- this life a wonderful time ? A few years (possibly a few hours) more, and we shall be out of the scene of sorrow and evil forever; nor can we then prove the power of the love of Christ to lift above the sorrow either ourselves or others. Oh, my soul, art thou redeeming the time – "ransoming from loss" (as it might literally be worded) the precious opportunities that are around thee on every side, "because the days are evil" ? The very fact that the days are evil – that thou art in the place of tears – gives thee the "opportunities." When the days cease to be evil, those special opportunities, whatever may be the service of the redeemed, will be gone forever.

But the Preacher still continues his search '' under the sun," and turns from oppression and tears to regard what is, on the surface at least, a comparatively happy lot-"right work," by which a man has attained to prosperity and pre-eminence. But as he looks closer at a case which, at first sight, seems to promise real satisfaction, he sees that there is a bitter sting connected with it,-a sting that at once robs it of all its attraction, and makes void all its promise of true rest,- for "for this a man is envied of his neighbor." His success is only cause of bitter jealousy, and makes him the object not of love, but of envy, to all about him. Success, then, and a position of pre-eminence above one's competitors, gained by skill-ful toil, is rather to be avoided as vanity and pursuit of the wind,-a grasping at an empty nothingness.

Is the opposite extreme of perfect idleness any better? No; for plainly the idler is a fool who "eateth his own flesh"; that is, necessarily brings ruin upon himself. So human wisdom here closes the meditation with – what human wisdom always does take refuge in – the "golden mean," as it is called, " better a single handful with quiet rest, than both hands filled only by wearying toil and vexation of spirit." And true enough this is, as every man who has tested things at all in this world will confirm. Accumulation brings with it only disappointment and added care,- everything is permeated with a common poison; and here the wisdom of the old is, in one sense, in full harmony with the higher wisdom of the new, which says "godliness, with contentment, is great gain," and "having food and raiment, let us be therewith content."

If we look "above the sun," however, there is a scene where no sting lurks in all that attracts, as here. Where God Himself approves the desires of His people for more of their own, and says to them with gracious encouragement, "covet earnestly the best gifts." Yes; but mark the root-difference between the two:the skillful,. or right labor, that appears at first so desirable to the Preacher, is only for the worker's own advantage,- it exalts him above his fellows, where he becomes a mark for their bitter envy; but these "gifts "that are to be coveted are as far removed from this as the poles. In that higher scene, the more a gift exalts "self," the less is that gift. The "best"-those which God calls "best"- are those that awake no envy in others; but bring their happy owner lower and ever lower to the feet of his brethren to serve them, to build them up. The Corinthians themselves had the lesser gifts in the more showy "tongues," and "knowledge"; but one family amongst them had the greater,-"the household of Stephanas," for it had addicted itself to the service of the saints.

But let us not leave this theme till we have sought to set our hearts a-singing by a sight of Him who is, and ever shall be, the source as well as the theme of all our songs. We but recently traced Him in His glorious upward path till we found Him resting on the throne of the Majesty on high. But "he that ascended, what is it but that he also descended ?" So, beloved readers, though it may be a happily familiar theme to many, it will be none the less refreshing to look at that "right work " of our blessed Lord Jesus, "who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." That is the glorious platform – as we might, in our human way of speaking, say -upon which He had abode all through the ages of the past. He looks above-there is none, there is nothing higher. He looks on the same plane as Himself-He is equal with God. There is His blessed, glorious place, at the highest pinnacle of infinite glory, nothing to be desired, nothing to be grasped at.

He moves; and every heart that belongs to that new creation awakens into praise (oh, how different to the "envy" of the old!) as He takes His first step and makes Himself of no reputation. And as in our previous paper we followed Him in His glorious upward path, so here we may trace His no less glorious and most blessed path down and ever lower down, past Godhead to "no reputation"; past authority to service; past angels, who are servants, to men; past all the thrones and dignities of men to the manger at Bethlehem and the lowest walk of poverty, till He who, but now, was indeed rich is become poor; nay, says of Himself that He has not where to lay His head. No "golden mean" of the "handful with quietness" here! Yes, and far lower still, past that portion of the righteous man, endless life,- down, down to the humiliation of death; and then one more step to a death – not of honor, and respect, and the . peace, that we are told marks the perfect man and the upright, but the death of lowest shame, the criminal slave's death, the cross! Seven distinct steps of perfect humiliation! Oh, consider Him there, beloved ! Mocked of all His foes, forsaken of all His friends! The very refuse of the earth, the thieves that earth says are too vile for her, heaping their indignities upon Him. "Behold the man," spat upon, stricken, and numbered with transgressors; and, as we gaze, let us together listen to that divine voice, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," for that is our "right work," and there is no fear of a man being "envied of his neighbor" for right work of that kind.

But time and space would fail us to take up in de-detail all these precious contrasts. All Solomon's searches "under the sun" tell but one story:There is nought in all the world that can satisfy the heart of man. The next verse furnishes another striking illustration of this. He sees a solitary one, absolutely alone, without kith or kin dependent on him, and yet he toils on, "bereaving his soul of good" as unceasingly as when he first started in life. Every energy is still strained in the race for those riches that satisfy not at all. "Vanity" is the Preacher's commentary on the scene. This naturally leads to the conclusion that solitude, at least, is no blessing; for man was made for companionship and mutual dependence, and in this is safety. (Verses 9 to 12.)

Verses 13 to the end are difficult, as they stand in our authorized version; but they speak, I think, of the striking and extraordinary vicissitudes that are so constant '' under the sun." There is no lot abiding. The king on his throne, "old and foolish," changes places with the youth who may even step from the humiliation of prison and chains to the highest dignity:then "better is the poor and wise youth than the old and foolish king." But wider still the Preacher looks, and marks the stately march of the present generation with the next that shall follow it; yea, there is no end of the succession of surging generations, each boastful of itself, and taking no joy in- that is, making little account of-that which has gone before. Each, in its turn, like a broken wave, making way for its successor. Boastful pride, broken in death, but still followed by another equally boastful, or more so, which, in its turn, is humbled also in the silence of the grave. It is the same story of human changes as " the youth " and " the king," only a wider range is taken; but'' vanity " is the appropriate groan that accompanies the whole meditation. In this I follow Dr. Lewis's version:-

Better the child, though he be poor, if wise,
Than an old and foolish king, who heeds no longer warning;
For out of bondage came the one to reign-
The other, in a kingdom 'born, yet suffers poverty.
I saw the living all, that walked in pride beneath the sun,
I saw the second birth that in their place shall stand.
No end to all the people that have gone before;
And they who still succeed, in them shall find no joy.
This, too, is vanity,- a chasing of the wind.

(To be continued.)

*For Chapter I., see " Help and Food," Vol., 1890.*

2. The Announcement of the King (Chap. 2:).

It is now happily familiar to many that, as we have seen, the four Gospels have four different stories to tell us of the Lord Jesus Christ – give us four different views of Him. In the Gospel of Matthew He is the King (in relation to Israel especially, still of the kingdom of heaven, therefore wider and higher far than merely Israel's King):in Mark He is the Servant, the minister to human need:in Luke, the Man; and in John, the divine Person, the Word made flesh. In saying this, of course, it is not meant but that we have all these four in every Gospel, more or less ; but we merely speak of what is emphasized in each one. Thus, for instance, while we have in the first chapter the Lord looked at as Son of God (John's theme), yet, at the same time, as there, this is in direct connection with the theme of Matthew, because God's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, would not be fully that unless He who ruled was a divine Person. So again, when you take the Gospel of Mark, what you find is the Lord's humiliation in a most distinct way, beyond any other Gospel. He is not even called Lord by His disciples till the resurrection ; yet it opens with, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." And why? Because, surely, the very thing that makes His ministry so precious is the apprehension of who it is that came down to serve in such a way, and therefore, that expression, though not characteristic of the book, coming in the place it does, is not only consistent with, but deepens our apprehension of its character.

Now, looking back to the end of the first chapter before we pass on, let us notice afresh that the King here is no less than divine, the living link between God and men, Immanuel, "God with us." To be that, He must be "Jesus," and save His people from their sins; yet in His very Person, Godhead and manhood are bound together in an embrace that is eternal, and implies all that is revealed in the gospel.

The connection of this, of course, is with the first chapter, where we rightly find it. Yet there is a connection, alas, of a very different kind with the second, to which we are now come, and which gives us the announcement of this divine King in His own world, and to His own people, and the results of that announcement. He has not only as a stranger to be announced ; but more, if exceptionally there are found a few to welcome, the mass are only troubled at the announcement.

Not only so:we shall find as we go on that it is, above all, for this pre-eminent glory of His that He is rejected. What man most of all needs, he most emphatically refuses. God's most wonderful grace he most stubbornly disbelieves.

The people were, already crying out, so to speak, for a Christ, for Messiah, but not such a Christ as Christ was, the Son of God. This is what they would have stoned Him for, and for which they condemned Him in the high priest's palace; and only as the con-sequence of this was he delivered up to Pilate, the Roman governor, with the charge that He made Himself King in Israel. The rejection of the King was in truth the rejection of a divine Person come into their midst:as the Lord says of them, "Now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father."
It is not, of course, inconsistent with this, when the apostle says, "Whom none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

They would not have dared; nevertheless, they had, consciously or unconsciously, looked into the face of the Son of God, and had therefore "seen the Father;" and had seen Him only to hate Him. What an awful thing it is to realize that this is the world we are living in, and the same world to-day, except where grace has made a difference!

Aye, and have we – we who have in measure owned His grace, and the necessity of His work for our salvation-have we cleared ourselves altogether of this deepest sin, so as, looking upon the face of God's Beloved, to have opened our hearts and lives to Him according to what is implied in this tide, Immanuel, "God with us"? Would we have Him "with us" as His desire is to be with us? Do we keep back nothing from this glorious Visitant ? do we deliberately keep back nothing ? Have we flung the gates wide open, in joyous response to the wondrous condescension of the King ?

In the details of our life, which of us can answer for himself as to this ? The things that so much, and not in the way of duty but of choice, engage us, and crowd out the things in which He is interested;-the comparative occupation of our time with His word and perhaps a newspaper;-such things, and many like them, how do they speak in regard to the way in which we have accepted indeed this blessed title of His-"God with us"?

How He would fulfill it to us, if we would but permit it! "We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." These are His own words; and what do they imply? Rather, may we say, what do they not imply ?

How solemn it is, too, to realize, beloved, that when the Lord of glory comes into the world, He comes into it in the most humble form ; not as a King at all, but disguised as the son of a carpenter, in the utmost poverty! But was it not, after all, that which became Him ? Think of the Son of God coming among us born in the "princes of this world's" purple ! Would not that be but the real disguise ? What another picture we would have had of Him, had He been brought up in kings' palaces, rather than where He was ! How blessed for Him to come down to the very lowest, so that there should not be one who cannot find Him, so to speak, in a place lower than himself! The world is upside down with sin; and this voluntary lowliness it is that proves and sets Him highest. It is the only thing suitable in Him, who, because the foundations of the world are out of course, is to bear up the pillars of it.

In this second chapter, then, we have the Lord announced, and having to be announced among His own people by men from afar-by Gentiles. Yet we know that not only by Daniel had God predicted almost the exact time of Messiah's coming, and by Micah, as the Scribes could unhesitatingly tell the place of His birth, but that heaven had given its witness to Him as actually come. Zecharias and Elizabeth had announced His forerunner. The angelic vision had brought the shepherds to the manger where He lay. Simeon had blessed God for His salvation come; and with Anna had spoken of Him in Jerusalem itself. And yet the city is only startled into recognition when "magi from the east" come with their inquiry, "Where is He that has been born King of the Jews ? for we have seen His star in the east, and have come to worship Him."
Upon the star itself it is perhaps useless to speculate. It naturally connects itself with Balaam's prophecy of the "Star to arise out of Jacob," and which was, as we know, the prophecy of a Gentile among Gentiles. Prophecy had evidently spoken to them, or they would hardly have so definitely understood the object of their search to be a King of the Jews. The magi were, as we know, the great natural observers of those days, and here we have the witness of nature to the Lord. Nature is not rebellious to her Maker, and still gives plentiful witness- few as they may be who realize or care to read it. The star may not have been in the strict sense miraculous, although a miracle would, after all, seem most consonant with the wonder of the time, and miracle is that in which God has reserved for Himself a sphere in which to show Himself outside and above those fixed natural laws which form the necessarily stable world through which our daily path is. The disappearance and reappearance of the star, and its guiding them to just where the young child was, look, spite of all attempted explanation, like something very different from an object in the far-off heavens. At any rate, the love in it was not far off, and it spoke in no uncertain way to these glad pilgrims journeying at its word.

They come to Jerusalem expecting, doubtless, to find all the city ready for the inquirer with a gospel message. They come to find the Edomite on the throne, and with all the old Edomite hatred in his heart, craftily though he may hide it, and gather the chief priests and elders together to hasten them on the way. Of course, these can tell all about Christ's birth textually; and how the words must have stricken the old blood-stained tyrant to the heart! "And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall be Shepherd to My people Israel."

Such, literally, are the words they use:and one might suppose that in using them they meant to inflict a wound that Herod should not be able to impute to them, but should come home to him as the voice of God Himself. And so it was, though the words are not found in Micah just as they quote them here. For Hebrew was not any more the language, even of Israel as a whole; and it was quite customary to paraphrase-rather than give literally a Scripture appealed to. The Hebrew, besides other differences, does not give "shepherd " in this passage, but simply "ruler." The Septuagint Greek follows the Hebrew:so that the variation is their own. And yet who can deny that the one word is God's thought as to the other? He who had sent Moses to the sheepfolds to learn how to guide His people in the wilderness-He who in the land had chosen David, and taken him '' from following the ewes great with young" to feed and guide with no less tenderness the flock of His pasture,-He had indeed consecrated the "shepherd " to be the picture of the Ruler whom He had appointed and would raise up. And we all know how the Lord has filled out this picture.

The scribes, then, show in their variation from the letter their acquaintance with the character of Messiah as prophecy reveals Him. But we hear no more of them. They cite the text for Herod; and they do it well; but they have no heart for the One they testify to. They are like sign-posts upon a road on which they do not move an inch. They pass on the word to those who value it; Herod himself, also, becoming the instrument in guiding worshipers to the feet of Jesus. They only, obedient to the Word, turn their faces toward Bethlehem; and as they do so, the star appears again, and goes before them. Nor does it leave them now till they are face to face with Him they seek.

Then they worship. It is but a humble house, we may be sure, and there are in it but a young mother and her babe. But they worship,-and worship, not the mother, but the babe. Divinely taught, they pour out their gifts at His feet, "gold and frankincense and myrrh:" gifts which, no doubt, have meaning. The Church of old seems almost unitedly to have interpreted them as, in the gold, the recognition of His royalty; in the frankincense, the acknowledgment of His Deity; while the myrrh, used afterward at His burial, is taken thus to be the anticipation of His death. To some of these things, as we know, His disciples were long after strangers; nor could we argue, if there were no doubt about the correctness of the symbolism, that the magi knew the whole significance of what they did. God governed all here in a peculiar way; a way which, indeed, in Scripture is the rule, however. Here there is nothing unmeaning. Here, if prophets searched their own writings to find how much the Spirit of Christ which was in them had guided them beyond their knowledge, so words and deeds speak commonly with a divine intelligence, quite apart from those who are the speakers and the doers.

It is the shadow of the future that is passing before us:the Gentiles worshiping while Israel rejects, -a dispensational picture quite in keeping with the character of Matthew. If we turn to the Gospel of Luke, and put it side by side with what we have here, worshipers though there may be in both cases, how many points of contrast we shall find! Luke is the gospel of the manhood of Christ; and with this, no wonder if we find a nearness, a meeting of God and man, which Matthew has very little of indeed. Be it that we have seen in Israel's King Immanuel, "God with us," this is at present more a prophecy than a real fulfillment, even as the salvation which He is come to effect is, all through, prevailingly a thing to be worked out before it can be plainly spoken into man's ear and heart. We shall see a fuller statement and proof of this as we go on. But in Luke, even from the beginning of it, salvation is come. Zacharias, before the birth of the Lord, testifies of it as at hand. Simeon, with the babe in his arms, sees it as already here. And instead of great men coming a long distance to find the King of the Jews, no star, but rejoicing hosts in an open heaven preach of a Savior which is Christ the Lord, of peace on earth, and God's delight in men.

Nor is it afar off, but nigh at hand-a gospel for the poor, free and available for all that come. Men need not to labor after it, but only to receive it-as in the offerings for atonement, where no wild nor hunted animal was used, but the sin-offerings couched at the door. Thus spoke God's grace before, as yet, it could be plainly uttered. Now the hidden things are gone, and God is in the light forevermore. F. W. G.

(1 Sam. 30:) The most faithful servants of God have not been perfect. Moses, the meekest man in all the earth, "spake unadvisedly with his lips." Peter, a truly devoted man, learned from bitter experience that he could put "no confidence in the flesh." David is, in some respects, the most beautiful and striking type we have of Christ in the Old Testament, both in his rejection and his elevation to the throne. In all the time of his persecution by king Saul, he exhibited both a forbearance toward his enemy and a faith in God which are very beautiful. Again and again he refused to take his case in his own hands, but committed all to the One who had called and anointed him.

It is therefore specially painful to see the faith of such an .one fail, and to hear him say, in his heart, '' I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul :there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines." How prone are God's people to leave His land, the place of His appointment ! A famine drove Abraham into Egypt, where he learned that the path of sight, apparently easier than that of faith, ends in sorrow and shame. Isaac doubtless would have gone the same way, had he not been restrained by a distinct word. Since that day the road from the land into Egypt has been much traveled by the Lord's people, who, under stress of circumstances, have thought to get relief, away from God's path-a sad mistake. No matter what the trial may be, it is light if we remain in God's place with a good conscience, compared with the sorrow and chastening which accompany departure from Him. Naomi is a striking example of this. " I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty." Ah! how slow we arc to realize that perfect love has chosen our path, and that perfect wisdom knows exactly what is best for us.

It was in the face of distinct preservation from the king, and indeed of strange, if but temporary melting on his part, that David made the unbelieving remark we have quoted above. "Then said Saul, 'I have sinned; return, my son David; for I will no more do thee harm ; because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day :behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.'" (i Sam. 26:21.) If he wanted to walk by sight, here seemed to be a relenting on the part of the king which would for a time, at least, insure him quietness; but unbelief is without reason and once indulged will lead us on in a path farther and farther from that which counts on God alone. And so he finds himself in the land of his and God's enemies whom he had oftentimes met and overcome in battle, but to whom he now goes for protection. Le us not be too severe with him; let us rather remember our own inconsistencies in this very respect, and how they have led us to adopt courses for ourselves which we have condemned in others.

Humanly speaking, it was a wise move on his part, but he had left the place which God had chosen for him, and substituted as a protector, king Achish, of Gath-his name signifying, " truly a man,"-for the living God. And this was the very man who at the beginning of his rejection had refused shelter to David; before whom he had feigned himself a madman, until he rose to the dignity of dependence upon God, and went to the cave of Adullam-his true place.

Now he is back again in the same place, and in what strange inconsistencies is he involved. An enemy to God's enemies he must fight them, but with the courage to do that he at the same time uses deception and fears to acknowledge it to Achish. Strangest of all, he is found in the Philistine army ready to go up to Apheh to take part in battle against king Saul, the Lord's anointed. He who had refused to lift up his hand against the king of Israel is actually now found in the ranks of the enemy, and but for the mercy of God would have been found in that clay of Israel's sorrow and humiliation fighting against the very people over whom he had been anointed king, or what would have been also a blot upon his good faith, he would have turned against the Philistines in the day of battle. God does not want His servants to be traitors. He would never have them in such compromising positions that such a thing would be possible.

But the disgrace of fighting in the enemy's ranks is prevented by the Philistines, and, with a vigorous protest of faithfulness to their cause, David is compelled to retire. God in mercy would not let His servant go further in this path of unbelief.

And now begins the chastening which is to bring him back to the simplicity of his confidence in God. He came to Ziklag, the place where his family and possessions were, only to find the city a mass of smoking ruins, and those whom he loved carried away captive. If he can be willing to go with the enemy, another enemy can come upon him and spoil him. It was no doubt a bitter moment for David. His little all had vanished. "Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep." Ah! now he is beginning to taste the bitterness of being without the protection of God. As a homeless wanderer, pursued like a partridge upon the mountains, despised by the Nabals, who dwelt at ease in the land, he had never known the like of this. But now, under the protection of the king of Gath, and with a city of his own, he learns that without God's shelter he is exposed indeed. In the first shock of disappointment he can only weep:all seems lost. Perhaps we may know from experience something of his gloom. We have been hoarding for many a day to get a little about us, to make a comfortable home it maybe, and it is all taken from us. Perhaps it is bereavement that comes, and in the bitterness of the grief all seems to be against us. He is aroused from the lethargy of his grief by the anger of his faithful followers. Those who had been with him in the cave of Adullam, and shared without a murmur, so far as we know, his perils and trials, now speak of stoning him. His troubles accumulate. But this is God's way to bring him back to Himself. And at last we read that he no longer will place himself under human protection-it has sadly failed him. When all things are against him, David's faith comes back,-he turns to the One who had never failed, and from whom he had sadly departed. "But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God." Ah! blessed is the trial, no matter how heavy,-precious the disappointment, no matter how bitter, that can result thus! He is back now to God; and that, for him and for us all, means back in the place of blessing. Better, far better, to be in the midst of the black ruins of Ziklag, surrounded by a threatening mob, than in the ranks of the Philistines fighting against God's beloved people.

Have we, beloved brethren, in any way known what bitter disappointment means ? and have we in the midst of it turned to the One who has smitten us, and encouraged ourselves in Him ? Then, like David, we can say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; for before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word."

And how encouraging this is to all who are borne down with great sorrow. Never can it be so great, the disappointment can be never so keen, but we can find relief in God-in the very one who has sent the sorrow upon us. This faith in God, springing up among the ruins of all he had, was a precious and a beautiful thing. It marked a great turning-point in his life.

Nor does it stop here. His next step is, to inquire what can be done. Notice, he does not rush after the enemy who had done the mischief. He first inquires of God in the appointed way, and finds out what must be done. His restless self-confidence has disappeared, his soul is again like a weaned child. God shall now be his guide. Is not this a beautiful lesson? "Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them ?" Ah! he is in the right path now; and if he does not move rapidly, he goes surely. Would that we could learn to imitate him! for our efforts to undo the results of our own folly and unbelief are often but a fresh going on in the path which brought the chastening upon us. And this will end only in fresh disappointment. "Be still, and know that I am God " is the word we need to hear, and to let the hand that has smitten us lead us in the plain path that He alone knows. This is most needful, and one of the surest signs that disappointment and sorrow have been blessed to us is, to see this spirit of dependence on God.

And this brings us to the place of victory. This nerves them, weak as they may be, and, with some left behind, to press on after the enemy, to overtake them, and to recover that which had been lost. They arc now, too, in a state to enjoy their recovered possessions. They will not be a snare to them. When God takes a thing out of our hands to teach us a lesson we need to learn, He can, after we have learned that lesson, put the thing back in our hands. This He often, not always, does. But faith is now in its right place, and can appreciate recovered blessings, receiving them now from God.

But there is more to see. Only a portion of the men had the strength and energy to follow David over the brook Besor, to overtake and vanquish the spoilers. What about those who " tarried at home "? Pride and selfishness might say that they should not share in the fruits of the victory; but one who had been truly restored in his soul, like David,-who knew what his own failure had been, and how all was due to God alone, would permit no such selfishness. Those who remained at home were to share in the victory. This is true largeness of heart, and always marks one who has learned in God's school. Others may want to stint those with less faith and energy; he will rejoice to give them what he has gained. It is always comparatively few who do the active work of recovering truth, for instance; but it would be niggardly indeed to deprive any of God's people of the fullest enjoyment of what has been won. We need to remember this. If God has in mercy restored to us any truths of His Word, we owe it to the whole Church to impart it to as many as will receive it. "Feed the flock of God,"-not part of it, but all,- any who will share with us what we have won back from the spoiler, not hampered in our ministry by the fact that "he followeth not with us."

Thus, out of the ruins of Ziklag, and out of the ruins of his testimony, David rises to a brighter faith step by step,-dependence, looking for guidance, energy to pursue the enemy, and largeness of heart to share the spoil with all. So did Gideon in his victory.

The next notice we have of David's movements is, the childlike inquiry, " Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah ?" He had left them, inquiring of his own heart only; he will only go back as God may guide. And how fitting it is that he should be sent back to Hebron-"communion "! It is ever back to this that God would call us. He would never have us leave the place of communion; and if we do, He would call us back, and we can thank Him well if He gets us back at the cost of disappointment and sorrow.

This was the question asked of the writer by a lady as he pointed her to the precious and familiar passage in Heb. 10:-"For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Through the teaching of her "church," she was in the habit of praying daily for pardon, though a professed believer on the Lord Jesus Christ. It was to show her the finished work of Christ that the above passage was referred to, and it evidently arrested her attention. '' But who are the sanctified? " Here it seemed as though a loop-hole for unbelief was about to open. Did not "sanctify" mean "to make holy"? and who could lay claim to that ? But how perfect God's Word is! She was simply referred to the thirteenth chapter of the same epistle,- "Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate." (Heb. 13:12.) There could be no gainsaying this. The answer was so plain that she was obliged to receive it. Sanctified by His blood; set apart to God according to the value of that offering. Those, then, who are sanctified are those who have an interest in that blood, and those are sinners who believe. This is the sanctification spoken of in Hebrews, where the object is to occupy the soul entirely with Christ, to the exclusion of form, priest, and all else that unbelief would put between the soul and its Savior.

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!

(Continued from page 261.) Heb. 12:22-24.

Mount Zion is the center of earthly blessing, and in connection with an earthly people. We share in its glories, inasmuch as being associated with Christ we, the Church, shall reign with Him (2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 3:21). But earth and earthly blessing is not our goal, so our passage rises from earth to heaven, to show us our true place and portion. " The city of the living God " (as contrasted with the city of the great king, Jerusalem) "the heavenly Jerusalem." God has prepared for us a city of habitation, and it is where He dwells – His home, the Father's house. God is omnipresent, He fills immensity, but He dwells in heaven; the spirits of little children redeemed, do there behold His face. (Matt, 18:10.) The throne of God and of the Lamb is there; and His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face (Rev. 22:3,4). This is our eternal home, and how soon may we enter it! But even now we have come to it. We have '' boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." "Whom He justified, them He also glorified." In Christ we are already seated in the heavenly places. Heaven has been opened to us through the entrance of Christ into it. And while it is not meant that the passages from Ephesians and Romans just quoted are parallel with what we have before us, they are views of the same subject from another point.

What has one to do with an earthly priesthood, with carnal ordinances, with the law as being under it, who has come to the heavenly Jerusalem ?

(3.) We naturally come next to the inhabitants of this heavenly home; and the lowest grade is mentioned first:the innumerable company of angels, a universal gathering-a pan-angelic assembly. Such clearly seems to be the meaning of this clause, the general assembly describing the angelic host and not the Church. Angels foretold and announced the birth of Christ. They ministered to Him after His temptation; one strengthened him in the garden; two announced His resurrection; and again His second coming (Acts 1:) They are "all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation." (Heb. 1:) They excel in strength; they desire to look into the precious mysteries of the gospel (i Pet. 1:12). Of their nature and character we know now but little, comparatively. Their home, however, is ours; and we shall doubtless know them fully when there, and they will share with us in our divine worship, though they can never know the sweetness of redemption. For He took not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham (Heb. 2:).

(4.) Round about the throne, nearer than the angels (Rev. 4:ii) are the company of the .redeemed- kings and priests unto God. Of one part of this company our next clause speaks:the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven. The first-born has the place of dignity – of priority over all the other children. So, in His amazing grace, God has put the Church. He has given it to be the Bride, the Lamb's wife, to share His glory, to be forever united to Him in the closest intimacy. To be the exhibition of God's kindness, the vessel of His glory throughout all ages! (Eph. 3:21.) Soon will the Lord present it to Himself, a glorious church, not having a spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And even now we have by faith come into association with that heavenly church,- nay, through grace we are a part of it. What a position! How small do the things of earth seem in comparison with these holy, happy associations.

(5.) But we are brought to God Himself, who, if He be the Judge of all, God over all blessed forever, is also our Father. Sin resulted in departure from God, hiding from Him; and all the sacrifices and ceremonies could not bring us back to Him. But Christ has brought us to God, we are made nigh. "And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." (Rom. 5:2:) We have peace, access and standing in grace; we rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and can even glory in tribulations. As a crown upon it all the living God is now our joy; we can look into His face, by faith, and say Abba, Father. Praises be to His wondrous grace!

(6.) Those who have fought the good fight and have kept the faith, saints of all dispensations who have gone home to the Lord, are now set before us. Not in an unconscious sleep, but in happy rest they are shown to us for our encouragement. They are waiting for their glorified bodies, but are even now perfect. They have reached their home, they sin no more. Here are Abraham, the man of faith; Jacob, the tried and failing one ; David, the man after God's own heart. They have done with earth – its sins and its joys. We belong to that goodly company. Their joys are ours, their rest is ours. How cheering it is, amidst the sorrows, trials, and temptations of the way, to remember that we have come to the spirits of just men made perfect. We see some of them in the eleventh of Hebrews; but the time would fail to speak of all, and we hasten on to look at Him who is set before us in the twelfth chapter.

(7.) Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. In the midst of the angels, of the church, of the spirits of just men made perfect,- upon the very throne of God is One who has drawn our hearts to Himself. He who died for us now lives for us, interceding in the presence of God for us. The old covenant was the law. Under it man engaged to obey the commandments of God as a condition of blessing. How man failed under that covenant, presented under its most attractive forms and appealing to all motives of self-interest and gratitude, it is needless to say. The cross is at once the witness of the doing away of the old covenant, and the introduction of a new one with Jesus as its mediator. He has fulfilled its conditions, and secured its blessings to us. As nothing depends upon us in it, all upon Him, it can never be done away; it is "ordered in all things and sure." It is to this blessed person we have come,- not to Noah with his renewed earth, not to Moses with his legal covenant. Could we ask more ?

(8.) And upon what does all this blessing rest? What is the ground upon which we, as Christians, stand ? It is " the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Abel's blood cried for vengeance upon his guilty brother; the blood of Christ sprinkled upon the mercy seat, and seven times before it, tells of an accomplished redemption – God's righteousness fully vindicated, every demand of justice met by the sacrifice of our Substitute and God for us. We now, through grace, boldly stand before that blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. Who shall lay anything to our charge? How solid, how firm a standing,- how eternal. On the ground of the blood we are introduced into the holy society and position we have been looking at.

And what is the object of this unfolding of the completeness of the Christian's position ? " See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh " (5:25). Christianity had succeeded upon Judaism. The shadow had given way to the substance. And should they return again to the '' shadow of good things to come," when the good things themselves were before them ? But it is said we are in no danger of going back to Judaism. Let us not be too sure of that. A reformed earth, instead of a returning Lord; a legal gospel of works, instead of an accomplished redemption ; ordinances, seasons, a human priesthood between God and His people,- these are the characteristics of the religion of the day – going, gone back to – yea, beyond Judaism, into self-culture, universal brotherhood of man, with God and His word largely left out. His own, to His praise be it said, are and will be preserved through all this, but how needed is the admonition we have just quoted! And as the Christian's position is laid before us with all its holy associations, its wondrous nearness to God, its blessings, do not our hearts, with Peter, say "Lord, to whom shall we go, thou hast the words of eternal life " ?

As the year closes upon us, and another, darker as far as the world is concerned, opens, let us see what a goodly heritage we have, and stand fast in our lot "till He come."

TO THE EDITOR OF HELP AND FOOD:

My dear Brother,-Since our parting at B. two months ago, A. E. B. and I have been journeying together in fields altogether new to me, and, at different points, not lacking in interest. One feature has been especially cheering :Save in some places where circumstances, unconcern, or opposition, closed the doors against us, we had access to many, and invariably got the best possible attention. Under such circumstances it is a delightful task to sow the seed in "the morning" and in "the evening," for one is assured that He who has bidden us so to do will not leave it fruitless.

In the majority of places a lengthening of the stay daily increased the attendance and the interest, and it was in some occasions a trial to leave them. In a section of the country extending for many miles, we found a few godly men who had scarcely left a corner within reach of them without having preached the gospel to the people there. Nor were they men of leisure ; they were men of toil, caring lovingly for their families by their labor but lovers of men as well and constrained "by the love of Christ. How easy is one's service among such men! Yearning after the souls of the lost and conscious of their weakness in meeting the need they hail with gladness the help of fellow-workers and are but too happy to see others reap where they have sown. May God raise up such everywhere.

In certain places there were marks of another kind of work, one which mars that of the Spirit of God wherever it obtains. It consists largely of a combative kind of gospel which seems more inclined to expose evil than to weep over it and to make Christ precious to the souls of men. It savors of a craving after adherents rather than of a holy purpose to edify the people of God, and its inevitable and sad result is, to leave souls in a barren, dwarfed condition, without power for prayer or spiritual development.

To speak of individual cases might lead one to more length than one cares to go into here ; but it is where the refreshment is as you well know. One instance was an elderly gentleman. Upon nearing his residence we met him walking out.

Sir, he said, I once opposed much the things you preach, but it is another thing now. God has been showing me what I am in His sight, and it has been a dreadful pass I have gone through. In all my life, though a professing Christian, I never had an idea of being such a sinner as I now see myself to be. I therefore understand and value the grace you proclaim; but O tell me, is it truly possible that a man like me should be allowed to appropriate the wonderful riches declared in that grace?

What a mercy to have the Word of God! And what joy to minister it to such.

A most interesting feature of the journey has been the Roman Catholics. It is evident there is a movement going on among them. Their clergy is losing some of its power over them, and they are more easily persuaded to read the Scriptures, In one case it was a poor laborer who could not read, nor any of his family, but he had received a French Testament and found in his employer one who could read in that tongue and who loved the Scriptures. He got him to read some portions to him, and such became his interest in the book that he ever carried it with him. Now read to me, he would say, while opening his red handkerchief in which the Testament was carefully wrapped up ; and when some passage especially struck him he would beg to have it read again to him even to the third time so that he might be able to communicate it to his family. Often did it so operate in him as it was being read to him that he would sit in an adoring attitude :he was hearing the voice of God.

In another case a Testament had been given to an intelligent, sturdy farmer who was in some difficulty with his priest. After reading it a little he saw there was abundant material there with which to fight the priest and he began to read in earnest. Soon, however, the battle changed front, and his own soul became the object instead of the priest. He cried to God and found mercy.

Spending an afternoon among the French families who have been blessed as the result of this has increased the desire to labor among that teeming French population who seem to be opening to the Word of God.

May it please the Lord, if He tarry yet a little, to so give grace and peace to His beloved people as to leave more freedom to carry the light in the parts which need it.

Ever yours in Him, P. J. L.

No one would think of bringing a lighted candle to add brightness to the sun at mid-day ; and yet the man who would do so might well be accounted wise, in comparison with him who attempts to assist God by his bustling officiousness.

"The following hymn was composed by Madame A. Bouringnon, and translated by John Wesley. It was likely written more than a hundred and fifty years ago. It breathes a spirit of real and entire consecration to Christ. It is transcribed with the hope that it may, with the Lord's blessing, aid in promoting the same spirit in those who have greater light, so that they too may be able to say, " Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee,."-R. H.]

Come, Savior Jesus, from above,
Assist me with Thy heavenly grace;
Empty my heart of earthly love,
And for Thyself prepare the place.

Oh, let Thy sacred presence fill,
And set my longing spirit free,
Which pants to have no other will,
But day and night to feast on Thee.

While in this region here below,
No other good will I pursue;
I'll bid this world of noise and show,
With all its glittering snares, adieu.

That path with humble speed I'll seek,
In which my Savior's footsteps shine;
Nor will I hear, nor will I speak,
Of any other love but Thine.

Henceforth may no profane delight
Divide this consecrated soul;
Possess it, Thou, who hast the right,
As Lord and Master of the whole.

Wealth, honor, pleasure, and what else
This short enduring world can give,-
Tempt as ye will, my soul repels,
To Christ alone resolved to live.

Thee I can love, and Thee alone,
With pure delight and inward bliss;
To know Thou takest me for Thine own-
Oh, what a happiness is this !

Nothing on earth do I desire,
But Thy pure love within my breast;
This, only this, will I require,
And freely give up all the rest.

"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. 287.)

CHAPTER III.

Gospel of Matthew has seven primary divisions. The two chapters we have been considering form the first of these, in which our attention is fixed upon the person of the King. That which commences with the third chapter presents the kingdom. It occupies five chapters, to the end of the seventh, and has five subdivisions, although these are not at all marked out for us by the chapters. The first subdivision has in fact, as I believe, only six verses, in which we have set before us the herald of the kingdom, John the Baptist, a remarkable person, both in himself and in the place he fills. "Among those that are born of women," is our Lord's testimony of him, "there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." And yet He adds, (and this connects itself with the place he fills between two dispensations,) "Nevertheless, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

It is not yet the place to consider this. We have first to see what the kingdom itself is, and what is the meaning of the expression for it, the "kingdom of heaven," which is peculiar to and characteristic of this gospel. In all the others we have only the "kingdom of God." Matthew has both terms, but predominantly the former.

The difference is implied in the terms themselves. "Heaven "is a place; " God " is a Person:"heaven" naturally suggests "earth" as the sphere of the kingdom; "God" suggests "man." God might reign upon an earthly throne, as He did in Israel, when He dwelt between the cherubim. All that had long
ceased; the glory had left its earthly tabernacle, and the kingdom upon earth had been put into the hand of the Gentile. The throne, so to speak, removed to heaven, the way is prepared for the coming of a " kingdom of heaven."

Heaven had always ruled upon earth in fact; it was a fact which probably would have been any time admitted even by Nebuchadnezzar, though his pride might forget it, that " the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men."But this was not the truth of the "kingdom of heaven"; for it meant a government of secret forces, and according to principles which might be themselves unknown. This kingdom, on the other hand, meant something open, God in this way drawing near, not even faith requisite to realize the fact. For we are not now speaking of the kingdom of heaven as it exists at present, with the King absent and the prevalence of evil upon the earth:that is for the first time made known, and then in parables, in the thirteenth chapter:where they are declared to be " mysteries of the kingdom of heaven."The very manner of speech was in accordance with this, as the evangelist applies the words of the prophet:"I will open my mouth in parables ; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world."

Of such hidden things the Baptist could therefore know nothing. He was not a prophet of the Christianity so soon to come, but the last voice of the dispensation passing away, which could not pass until it had pointed to Him in whose hand were the ages beyond it. He was the voice of the past in the present, the law in its moral significance, its testimony to its own insufficiency, its reference to Him that was to come. "Repent," says the Voice, crying in the wilderness, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Prophets had long before announced the kingdom and the king; always in connection with Israel, with the law going forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. It is the same kingdom that the Baptist declares to be "at hand," though now for the first time spoken of under this peculiar title. Yet Daniel had seen " One like the Son of man come in the clouds of heaven " to receive it, and Zechariah had announced that His feet should "stand" in that day "upon the mount of Olives, . . . and the Lord my God shall come, and all the holy ones with Thee."

Since then but one prophet had spoken, and he to show that the remnant brought back out of the captivity in Babylon were but filling up the measure of their fathers' sins. Priests and people were alike gone astray from God. There remained but a remnant of a remnant. The day that was to come would therefore have to discriminate, and be in judgment as well as mercy. But "Behold," says Jehovah, " I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare My way before Me ; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple."

The voice dropped, and the centuries had run on. Now, after a long interval, the messenger had come, with the express warning of his Master's feet behind him. The years had brought no recovery, and the promise had to come as warning still. The new "voice" cried in the wilderness, not in the cities of Israel :there where Jehovah remembered still the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals, when Israel was holiness to the Lord, and the first-fruits of her increase (Jer. 2:2, 3), and where again He will have to allure her, in order to speak comfortably to her (Hos. 2:14). There the cry of "Repent" was in its place.

The people were in fact being brought into the wilderness, whether or not they would accept the warning and return to God. They were under the heel of the Gentile fully. Even the bastard rule of the Herods was now over for Judea, (although it was destined to a brief revival,) and there was a Roman governor over the land. The sanctuary throne had long been empty; Lo-ammi, "not my people," had long been the verdict against them ; there was no Urim and Thummim by which God might be consulted ; for centuries no prophet had spoken for Him. God was outside, and the messenger of God had to deliver his message from a place outside. The son of a priest, John, exercised no priestly function. We never find him at Jerusalem. His clothing is of camel's hair-such as spoke of the desert, with a leathern girdle about his loins. His food is locusts and wild honey. Everything with him speaks of separation; as if he had heard (as he had) the word to Jeremiah:"Let them return to thee, but return not thou to them."

His baptism confirms his preaching. He baptizes to repentance, and in Jordan, the river of death; baptizes thus to death, the people confessing their sins, of which death was the just due. This is repentance :not a vain promise of reform, not the reform itself, but what is primary and antecedent to all this, the taking of true ground before God as hopeless and undone, with such an one as Job, who, though the best man of his day, and so pronounced by God, found his place here in self-abhorrence. " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear," he cries to God, "but now mine eye seeth Thee:therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Were repentance the same as reformation, or '' doing better," as is more vaguely said, we might well despair if the best man on earth, so declared by God Himself, had yet to repent in this sense. On the other hand, it is not hard at all to realize how the very perfection, comparatively, of his life and ways might hinder the apprehension of the evil in him, till he had measured himself fairly in the presence of God. This is his own account of it, as is evident. He had found in such light, deeper than his outward life, a self from which he turned in shame and loathing. Repentance was with him, at least, not doing, in any shape, but turning from all that he had done "and been, to cast himself upon mere mercy. And that mercy in God met him there and then with full deliverance and lifting up from all his sorrows.

Thus, then, was the way of the Lord to be prepared into His kingdom. As Isaiah renders it,- though the quotation is only found in Luke, not here,- the mountain was to be leveled, the valley filled, pride abased, the lowliest exalted, grace in God realized as needed alike by all, sufficient for any. So would He have His way.

John preached, and there was power in his word:"there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were all baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins."

We come now to the second subdivision, which contains only six more verses:and here we find the opposition of the heart to God revealing itself, and John emphasizing, therefore, the division that would have to be made between men when the King should come. For now, among the multitude, whether merely to be in the fashion, or moved by the power which yet they would not yield themselves to, many Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism. They were the religious leaders of the people, though far enough apart from one another, types of the two directions in which men turn away from God. The Pharisee was the legalist and formalist; the Sadducee, the rationalist and infidel of his day. Apart as they were, they could show their essential oneness by the way in which they could combine against the followers of the Lord, and John treats them as one, essentially:"O generation of vipers," he exclaims on seeing them, "who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come ?" He could not credit them with having felt the sting of such an incentive. They must prove the reality of it:" Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance"; and here self-judgment would show itself first of all:"and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father; for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."

Natural birth, outward participation with the people of God,- it is possible for men even yet, and under a very different dispensation, to attribute to such things an extraordinary importance. With the Jew, the promises to Abraham's seed, taken in the crudest way and with the grossest misconception, made him value himself exceedingly upon the connection with the "friend of God." John's language, therefore, attacked his most cherished expectations. Not only might all the promises fail him upon which he had built, but God could by His power bring into the enjoyment of them those who had no natural claim or birth-relation at all! To us who enjoy, in fact, a place so given, this is simple. For the Jew it would be an overwhelming thought. It did, indeed, show that the axe was being laid at the root of the trees. All turned upon the fruit that manifested the tree. If the fruit was bad, what matter though it might come of the finest stock ?

The sinner, as such, whoever he was, was under the wrath of God. Once the limit of forbearance reached, the tree cut down was destined for the fire. Very simple truth indeed, but no man loves it. Because he does not love it he will invent every possible way of escape; or, rather, hide from his own eyes that from which there is none. How terrible is the power of self-deceit in all of us; and what need for the plainest possible speaking where this is the case! For, thank God, there is a way of escape; not indeed from the need of repentance, but by its means. Repentance is only the back side of faith:he who turns his back on himself finds grace from Him to whom he turns.

All John's aim, therefore, was to bring man to repentance. For this he baptized with water:he mentions the "water," expressly to free them from the idea that there was anything in this, apart from the significance which it had as a baptism to repentance. Water is only water, can only produce a material effect, and not a spiritual. Nor does God ordain it to a magic use, perverting the nature of what He created. On the contrary, He takes up what is in itself nothing, in order that men should not lose sight of the spiritual by what might seem capable of inherent virtue. Baptism with John, as with Paul, was simple "burial"; not life, not resurrection, but the very opposite of these. The confession of death, – of the sinner's "need and helplessness,-that Another may be seen and known and trusted in; accordingly he turns to that Other' now:-

'' I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance:but He that cometh after me is mightier than I; whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

(To be continued.)

"Oh! there is a preciousness in Jesus that, if we saw it fully, would dazzle our eyes for discerning glory in external things; we should be unable to distinguish the great from the small, the bright from the dark…Do you feel what I mean ? that if Christ were apprehended, we should cease to know what the world calls little or great. The pursuit of an empire or of a butterfly would be to us alike little."

" I do not regret any of the trials I have had. Pilgrims must expect trials on a long journey:we cannot expect either good roads or good weather all the way; but the Lord Jesus has sanctified it all- foul and fair and made all to work together for our good. Whatever purposes are in your heart let them be high and heavenly ones for Christ and His kingdom:the world will soon pass away and all its glories, but that kingdom shall endure. Keep close to the simplicity of Christ; nothing will keep us from extravagances but talking with Him. He always moved so seriously to the object He had in hand-the fulfilment of His Father's will."

"The more the sense of my Lord's love presses upon me, the more does it make my heart mourn to think He should have been, served so much from cold principles, instead of that holy service of the heart He so desires and values."

'' I have learned much of the powerlessness of man to direct his own ways when in difficulty and perplexity. I know no resource, nor do I desire any, except to throw off my trials upon God, leaving it with Him to bring light out of darkness, and awaiting His time to do it. It is not that our Father has pleasure in our being in straits and difficulties that He thus permits them to try us, but He knows that our real life is hid with Christ in Himself, and whatever makes us feel this connection with Jesus necessary to our comfort, and constrains us to more close intercourse with Him, and makes the hope of final deliverance and rest more precious, is clearly to the happiness of our spiritual life, however mortifying it may be to the natural man."

'' In connection with these views, the state in which the Church is, is particularly affecting; for while the heart has individual experience of the need it has of these very trials of the cross to pull it out of the snare of the world, it has to mourn over the Church, not only as fallen in the dust, but as being more than ever reluctant to be raised up; and instead of following the revelation of God in all doctrine and practice, she gets rid of her difficulties in carrying them out, by weaving to herself various little texts of doctrine suited to the various sects of the day; and puts zeal for them in the place of zeal for God's holy and blessed truths, as His, without exception or innovation. Oh! who does not long that the warfare was accomplished, and the Church glorified together ? "-(Correspondence from the East, 1834.)

(Continued from page 153.)

Having, then, seen in these first few verses the purpose of the book and the stand-point of the writer, we may accompany him in the details of his search. First he repeats, what is of the greatest importance for us to remember(5:12), "I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem."He would not have us forget that, should he fail in his search for perfect satisfaction, it will not be because he is not fully qualified both by his abilities and his position to succeed. But Infidelity, and its kinsman Rationalism, raise a joyful shout over this verse; for to disconnect the books of the Bible from the writers, whose name they tear, is a long step toward overthrowing the authority of those books altogether. If the believer's long-settled confidence can be proved vain in one point, and that so important a point, there is good"hope"of eventually overthrowing it altogether. So, with extravagant protestations of loyalty to the Scriptures, they, Joab like, "kiss" and "stab" simultaneously, wonderfully manifesting in word and work that dual form of the evil one, who, our Lord tells us, was both "liar and murderer from the beginning." And many thousand professing Christians are like Amasa of old, their ear is well pleased with the fair sound of "Art thou in health, my brother?" and they too take"no heed to the sword "in the inquirer's hand. Judas too, in his day, illustrates strongly that same diabolical compound of "deceit and violence," only the enemy finds no unwary Amasa in Jesus the Lord.

" Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss" tears the vail from him at once ; and in the same way the feeblest believer who abides in Him, is led of that same spirit; and "good words and fair speeches " do not deceive, nor can betrayal be hidden behind the warmest protestations of affection.

But to return:"How could,"cries this sapient infidelity, which to-day has given itself the modest name of "Higher Criticism,"-"how could Solomon say, ' I was king,' when he never ceased to be that? " Ah ! one fears if that same Lord were to speak once more as of old, He would again say, "O fools and blind !" For is it not meet that the writer who is about to give recital of his experiences should first tell us what his position was at the very time of those experiences ? That at the very time of all these exercises, disappointments, and groanings, he was still the highest monarch on earth, king over an undivided Israel, in Jerusalem, with all the resources and glories that accompany this high station, preeminently fitting him to speak with authority, and compelling us to listen with the profoundest respect and attention.

Yes, this glorious monarch "gives his heart "-1:e., applies himself with singleness of purpose "to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven." No path that gives the slightest promise of leading to happiness shall be untrodden;-no pleasure shall be denied, no toil be shirked, that shall give any hope of satisfaction or rest. " This sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith." That is, the heart of man hungers and thirsts, and he must search till he does find something to satisfy, and, if, alas ! he fail to find it in "time," if he only drinks here of waters whereof he "that drinks shall thirst again," eternity shall find him thirsting still, and crying for one drop of water to cool his tongue. But then with what bitter despair Ecclesiastes records all these searchings ! "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit," or rather, "pursuit of the wind." Exactly seven times he uses this term, "pursuit of the wind," expressing perfect, complete, despairing failure in his quest. He finds things all wrong, but he has no power of righting them; "that which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered." But perhaps we may get the secret of his failure in his next words. He takes a companion or counselor in his search. Again exactly seven times he takes counsel with this companion, "his own heart." "I communed with my own heart." That is the level of the book ; the writer's resources are all within himself ; no light from without save that which nature gives ; no taking hold on another, no hand clasped by another. He and his heart are alone. Ah! that is dangerous, as well as dreary work to take counsel with one's own heart. "Fool" and "lawless one" come to their foolish and wicked conclusions there (Ps. 14:10:); and what else than " folly" could be expected in hearkening to that which is '' deceitful above all things"-what else than lawlessness in taking counsel with that which is "desperately wicked "?

Take not, then, for thy counselor "thine own heart," when divine love has placed infinite wisdom and knowledge at the disposal of lowly faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, "who of God is made unto us
wisdom," and "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

But does our Preacher find the rest he desires in the path of his own wisdom ? Not at all. " For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." " Grief and sorrow " ever growing, ever increasing, the further he treads that attractive and comparatively elevated path of human wisdom. Nor has Solomon been a lonely traveler along that road. Thousands of the more refined of Adam's sons have chosen it ; but none have gone beyond "the king," and none have discovered any thing in it, but added '' grief and sorrow"-sorrowful groan! But the youngest of God's family has his feet too on a path of " knowledge," and he may press along that path without the slightest fear of "grief or sorrow" resulting from added knowledge. Nay, a new song shall be in his mouth, "Grace and peace shall be multiplied through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord." (2 Pet. 1:2.) Blessed contrast! "Sorrow and grief " multiplied through growth in human wisdom:"Grace and peace " multiplied through growth in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord !

My beloved reader, I pray you, meditate a little on this striking and precious contrast. Here is Solomon in all his glory, with a brighter halo of human wisdom round his head than ever had any of the children of men. Turn to i Kings 4:29-"And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea-shore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men,-than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Chalcol and Darda the sons of Mahol:and his fame was in all nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees- from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall:he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom." Is it not a magnificent ascription of abounding wisdom ? What field has it not capacity to explore ? Philosophy in its depths- poetry in its beauties-botany and zoology in their wonders. Do we envy him ? Then listen to what his poor heart was groaning all that time. " In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow"! Now turn to our portion above the sun-"the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord:" infinitely higher, deeper, lovelier, and more wondrous than the fields explored by Solomon, in constant unfoldings of riches of wisdom; and each new unfolding bringing its own sweet measure of "grace and peace." Have not the lines fallen to us in pleasant places ? Have we not a goodly heritage ? Take the feeblest of the saints of God of to-day, and had Solomon in all his glory a lot like one of these ? F. C. J.

(To be continued.)

(Continued from p. 65.)

Renouncing Egypt is not idleness, nor is the breaking of a box of ointment on the head of Christ waste; though we thus see that a certain kind of reckoning among the children of men, and even at times(and that too frequent)among the saints of God, would charge these things as such. Advantages in life are surrendered, opportunities of worldly promise are not used, because the heart has understood the path of companionship with a rejected Lord.

But this is "idleness" and "waste," many will say:the advantages might have been retained by the possessor, or the opportunities might have been sought and reached, and then used for the Lord. But such persons know not. Station, and the human, earthly influence that attaches to it, is commended by them, and treated almost as "a gift to be used for profit and edification and blessing." But a rejected Christ -a Christ cast out by men, if known spiritually by the soul, would teach another lesson.

This station in life, these worldly advantages, these opportunities so commended, are the very Egypt which Moses renounced. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

The treasures of Egypt were not riches in his esteem, because he could not use them for the Lord. And he went outside of them, and the Lord met him there, and used him afterward, not to accredit Egypt and its treasures, but to deliver His people out of it.

I follow this a little here, for it is, I feel, important to us.

All this renunciation, however, must be made in the understanding and faith of a rejected Lord; it will otherwise want all its fine and genuine and proper character. If it be made on a mere religious principle, as that of working out a righteousness or a title for ourselves, it may well be said to be something worse than idleness or waste. It then betrays an advantage which Satan has got over us, rather than any advantage we have got over the world. But if it be indeed made in the faith and love of a rejected Master, and in the sense and intelligence of His relation to this present evil world, it is worship.

To serve man at the expense of God's truth and principles is not Christianity, though persons who do so will be called "benefactors." Christianity considers the glory of God as well as the blessing of man; but as far as we lose sight of this, so far shall we be tempted to call many things waste and idleness which are really holy, intelligent, consistent, and devoted service to Jesus. Indeed, it is so. The Lord's vindication of the woman who poured her treasure on the head of Jesus tells me so. (Matt. 26:) We are to own God's glory in what we do, though man may refuse to sanction what does not advance the good order of the world, or provide for the good of our neighbor. But Jesus would know God's claims in this self-seeking world, while He recognized (very surely, as we may know) His neighbor's claim upon Himself.

He knew when to cast away and when to keep. " Let her alone," He said of the woman who had been upbraided for breaking the box of spikenard on Him; "she hath wrought a good work on Me." But after feeding the multitudes, He would say, '' Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."

This was observing the divine rule, "There is a time to keep and a time to cast away." If the prodigal service of the heart or hand in worship be no waste, the very crumbs of human food are sacred, and must not be cast away. He who vindicated the spending of three hundred pence on one of these occasions, on the other would not let the fragments of five loaves be left on the ground. In His eyes, such fragments were sacred. They were the food of life, the herb of the field, which God had given to man for his life. And life is a sacred thing. God is the God of the living. "To you it shall be for meat," God has said of it, and therefore Jesus would hallow it. "The tree of the field is man's life," the law had said, and accordingly had thus prescribed to them that were under the law-"When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an ax against them; for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down to employ them in the siege; only the trees that thou knowest are not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down." (Deut. 20:) It would have been waste, it would have been profaneness, to have thus abused the food of life, which was God's gift; and Jesus in like purity, in the perfectness of God's living ordinance, would not let the fragments lie on the ground. '' Gather up the fragments that remain," He said, "that nothing be lost."

These are but small incidents; but all the circumstances of human life, as He passes through them, change as they may, or be they as minute as they may, are thus adorned by something of the moral glory that was ever brightening the path of His sacred, wearied feet. The eye of man was incapable
of tracking it; but to God it was all incense, a sacrifice of sweet savor, a sacrifice of rest, the meat-offering of the sanctuary.

But again. The Lord did not judge of persons in relation to Himself, – a common fault with us all. We naturally judge of others according as they treat ourselves, and we make our interest in them the measure of their character and worth. But this was not the Lord. God is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. He understands every action fully. In all its moral meaning He understands it, and according to that He weighs it. And, as the image of the God of knowledge, we see our Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of His ministry here, again and again. I may refer to Luke 11:There was the air of courtesy and good feeling toward Him in the Pharisee that invited Him to dine. But the Lord was "the God of knowledge," and as such He weighed this action in its full moral character.

The honey of courtesy, which is the best ingredient in social life in this world, should not pervert His taste or judgment. He approved things that are excellent. The civility which invited Him to dinner was not to determine the judgment of Him who carried the weights and measures of the sanctuary of God. It is the God of knowledge that this civility has on this occasion to confront, and it does not stand, it will not do. Oh how the tracing of this may rebuke us ! The invitation covered a purpose. As soon as the Lord entered the house, the host acts the Pharisee, and not the host. He marvels that his guest had not washed before dinner. And the character he thus assumes at the beginning shows itself in full force at the end. And the Lord deals with the whole scene accordingly, for He weighed it as the God of knowledge. Some may say that the courtesy He had received might have kept Him silent. But He could not look on this man simply as in relation to Himself. He was not to be flattered out of a just judgment. He exposes and rebukes, and the end of the scene justifies Him. " And as He said these things unto them, the scribes and Pharisees began to urge Him vehemently, and to provoke Him to speak of many things, laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him."

Very different, however, was His way in the house of another Pharisee, who in like manner had asked Him to dine. (See Luke 7:) For Simon had no covered purpose in the invitation. Quite otherwise. He seemed to act the Pharisee too, silently accusing the poor sinner of the city, and his Guest for admitting her approach. But appearances are not the ground of righteous judgments. Often the very same words, on different lips, have a very different mind in them. And therefore the Lord, the perfect weigh-master according to God, though He may rebuke Simon, and expose him to himself, knows him by name, and leaves his house as a guest should leave it. He distinguishes the Pharisee of Luke 7:from the Pharisee of Luke 11:, though be dined with both of them. So we may look at the Lord with Peter in Matt. 16:Peter expresses fond and considerate attachment to his Master:"This be far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be unto Thee." But Jesus judged Peter's words only in their moral place. Hard indeed we find it to do this when we are personally gratified. "Get thee behind Me, Satan," was not the answer which a merely amiable nature would have suggested to such words. But again, I say, our Lord did not listen to Peter's words simply as they expressed personal kindness and good-will to Himself. He judged them, He weighed them, as in the presence of God, and at once found that the enemy had moved them; for he that can transform himself into an angel of light is very often lurking in words of courtesy and kindness. And in the same way the Lord dealt with Thomas in Jno. 20:Thomas had just worshiped Him. "My Lord and my God," he had said. But Jesus was not to be drawn from the high moral elevation that He filled, and from whence he heard and saw every thing, even by words like these. They were genuine words,-words of a mind which, enlightened of God, had repented toward the risen Savior, and, instead of doubting any longer, worshiped. But Thomas had stood out as long as he could; he had exceeded. They had all been unbelieving as to the resurrection, but he had insisted that he would be still in unbelief till sense and sight came to deliver him. All this had been his moral condition ; and Jesus has this before Him, and puts Thomas in his right moral place, as He had put Peter. '' Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Our hearts in such cases as these would have been taken by surprise. They could not have kept their ground in the face of these assaults which the good-will of Peter and the worship of Thomas would have made upon them. But our perfect Master stood for God and His truth, and not for Himself. The ark of old was not to be flattered. Israel may honor it, and bring it down to the battle, telling it, as it were, that now in its presence all must be well with them. But this will not do for the God of Israel. Israel falls before the Philistines, though the ark be thus in the battle; and Peter and Thomas shall be rebuked, though Jesus, still the God of Israel, be honored by them. J. G. B.

(To be continued.)

(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.)

God's saints have journeyed long
The promised rest to gain;
And still, through grace, their hope is strong
That they with Christ will reign.

They started on the way
Six thousand years ago;
And oft, without one earthly stay,
Have passed through scenes of woe.

But God has been their stay,
And not a fleshly arm;
And they have trod the desert way,
Where foes have sought their harm.

Now they are almost home!
They know the rest is near, –
To Canaan's border they have come,
The Lord will soon appear!

He'll greet them with a smile,
And bid their wandering cease, –
He'll place them in a heavenly clime,
And give them endless peace.

They give all praise to God,
And glory to the Lamb;
They trust alone His precious blood,
And don't deny His name.

They joy before the Lamb;
They worship and adore
Him who was so humbled here, –
In grace their sorrows bore.

R. H.

"Then said one unto Him, Lord are there few that be saved? And He said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets. But He shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." (Luke 13:23-28.)

Some persons seem constantly occupied with religious questions. Their inquiry is not, "Am I saved?" but, "Are others saved?" Sometimes we find a fond parent solicitous about the future state of a dying child, a kind master anxious about his afflicted servant's spiritual condition, and others manifesting concern for the ignorant and poor around them, without laying to heart what their own state before God really is. It was so in the days of our Lord. "One said unto Him, Lord, are there few that be saved?" to which Jesus replied, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Thus He sought to lead him away from the consideration of others, to ponder the all-important question of his own soul's salvation; and exposed the folly of appearing concerned for others, while he himself was in the broad road to destruction. So weighty, so essential, is the point, and so fatal would a mistake be, that He commands them to "strive (or agonize) to enter in at the strait gate."

I. WHAT IS THE STRAIT GATE? There could have been no way of escape for sinners from the wrath to come, had not Jesus died upon the cross. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." It is the cross of Christ that speaks to us of sin put away, redemption accomplished, and of the sinner's only way to God. Christ crucified, then, is the " strait gate." Jesus lifted up on the cross is the door of access. "I am the door," said He:"by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." The cross of Christ, therefore, becomes the point of separation between the saved and lost. Not to enter into God's presence through this gate is still to tarry in the place of death and judgment; but to enter into the Father's presence through the atoning work of His dear Son is present peace and eternal salvation. The gospel thus presents to us a door of escape, and it is still wide open ; it welcomes all guilty sinners that "enter in" by faith, thus sheltering them for ever from the wrath of God, and shutting them into the peace-speaking presence of the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort.

2. IT IS A STRAIT GATE. True Christianity is an individual thing. The gate is so strait, so narrow, that all who enter go in one by one. Many long to take others with them, but each person is accountable to God for himself; every one must be exercised before God on account of his own sin. The gospel appeals to the individual conscience. "He that believeth on the Son"- "He that hath the Son "-"He that believeth and is baptized," &100:Paul said, "I know whom I have believed"-"I obtained mercy"-Christ "loved me!' This is very weighty, and shows us the deep necessity of each one asking the all-important question, "Am I saved?" We may be members of religious bodies, and outwardly appear consistent; but those only who have entered in at the strait gate are saved.

3. STRIVE TO ENTER IN. This solemn subject calls for earnestness. The eternal importance of the work of Christ demands it. God cannot bear indifference. Embracing views merely is a poor thing. Learning a few religious ways and phrases will not do for God. All the world are guilty before Him. Judgment is quickly coming. The wrath of God is soon coming, and fall it must upon all Christless souls. His almighty arm and perfect love have made a door of escape, and His gracious voice exclaims to sinners, " Strive, or agonize, to enter in at the strait gate !" Do not be content at having serious impressions, or good desires. Rest not till you have entered in at the strait gate. Be in real earnest. Let not formal duties suffice ; let not a little concern satisfy you ; let not the credit of being religious among men be enough for yon. Oh, no ! Have real concern, for eternity is at hand. Your life is short ; many will miss the strait gate; many will be deceived ; many will find out their mistake when it is too late. Strive, then, agonize to enter in at the strait gate ; escape for thy life, flee from the pit, turn to the Savior; on no account miss His great salvation.

4. The door will be shut. "When once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door." The gospel is not always going to be preached. God will not always send forth the message of peace. He is the God of judgment as well as the God of peace, and Christ is a Judge as well as a Savior. He is now seated on the right hand of God, but He will ere long rise up and shut to the door. The preaching of the cross will then cease ; the seeker will not find, the knocker will be disappointed, the asker will be refused; the gospel testimony will close, the church be removed to glory, and the hypocrite and unbeliever left for judgment. Men will discover their mistake then. The folly of putting off salvation will be made manifest. The door will be shut, and man's doom eternally settled. "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still." How imperative, then, is the necessity to " strive to enter in at the strait gate."

5. The eternal torment of the lost, "He that believeth not shall be damned," and "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," are words of the God of truth which must have their fulfilment. Not to "enter in at the strait gate" for salvation, is not to believe in that Savior whom God hath sent, but to be a "worker of iniquity," living in rebellion against the God of love and peace. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." They will have the consciousness that others are saved, but themselves for ever lost; they will know that others are for ever happy through the redemption-work of Christ, and they themselves cast into the lake of fire, into everlasting punishment; "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." How powerful were the Savior's appeals! How simple, yet how thrilling, were the reasons He assigned why persons should " strive to enter in at the strait gate! "

" Take heed" !"Everyman's work shall be tried.

We are laborers together
In the harvest-field for God;
Some may plow and some may harrow,
All may sow the blessed Word;
'Tis the precious seed that springeth,
And a plenteous harvest bringeth,-
'Tis our only weapon:this the Spirit's Word.

He that planteth, he that watereth,
Work together, e'en as one;
The reward shall be according
To the work that each hath" done.
Let us labor till the reaping,
For the judgment's surely creeping
On poor souls that through' our efforts might be won.

Through the Spirit's noiseless labor
God is building living stones ;
Let us be His willing helpers,
For our work He gladly owns:
We may give out many a warning-,-
We can tell of that glad morning
When forever this poor world shall cease its groans.

Let us faint not, nor be weary,
The foundation well is laid,
And we've only to be careful
To build "precious things," He said.
Let us work, then, not for hire,
But with love-constrained desire,
That the Master's last command may be obeyed.

(Don't forget the closet, brethren,-
Here is where so many fail !
Need we wonder if we're heavy,
Or our hearts begin to quail ?)
Let us pray, then, without ceasing,-
Look to God for the increasing;
Thus, on Him depending, we can never fail.

Then, if courage seem to fail us
With the smallness of our gain,
Just remember, God works with us,-
This will soothe all needless pain,
And the glorious harvest-morning
Will reveal (His crown adorning,)
Souls of those we never thought to meet again.

H. McD.

*From the Introduction to Joshua, in the second volume of The Numerical Bible.*

We have now reached a place from which it will be most convenient to review the pretensions of what assumes to be the " higher" criticism; lofty enough indeed in these, and manifesting abundantly the spirit of the latter days,-days which Scripture characterizes with sufficient plainness. To its advocates, that it should manifest this will not even be a reproach; for nothing is more the boast of these latter times than the scientific spirit, and here is but in their eyes the scientific spirit in religion:where should it be more needful ? The spirit of science being to-day evolutionist, the higher criticism will be found to be little else than Darwinism (morals and all) in another sphere,-a sphere which, so much the more important as it is, craves the more for it an earnest examination.

It is the well-known characteristic of Darwinism, that it substitutes a theory of the how for the why, with the effect of removing the appearance of design from nature. What appears like design may be but a consequence of the mode or conditions of production,-a consequence, not a cause; and the universe be the result of the operation of natural laws, apart from all supernatural superintendence or interference. As Huxley says. "For the notion that every organism has been created as it is, and launched straight at a purpose, Mr. Darwin substitutes the conception of something which may be fairly termed a method of trial and error. Organisms vary incessantly; of these variations, the few meet with surrounding conditions which suit them, and thrive; the many are unsuited and become extinguished." It is on account of this elimination of design out of the world that skeptics and materialists range themselves so unanimously under the leadership of Darwin; and this they proclaim a distinguished merit of his scheme. Others have, of course, taken it up who can by no means be classed with these, and thus it has received various modifications. But the original vice of the thing manifests itself through all, as far as possible from the spirit of Scripture, the attempt, which we have even been told is "the duty of the man of science, to push back the Great First Cause in time as far as possible." The beauty and blessedness of Scripture consists in its persistent effort to bring God nigh.

It is certainly a bold and subtle plan of the enemy to import in this sense the scientific spirit into Scripture itself, to fix our minds upon theories of its production which are proclaimed incapable of damage to our faith because merely that, until we find that unawares we have indeed "pushed back" God far into the distance. The "higher" criticism, as distinct from that of textual integrity, concerns itself, it is said, only with questions of "authorship, etc."*-where the "etc." will be found much the most important part-of the Bible books. * Sanday:"The Oracles of God," p. 30.* "Its conclusions," says Prof. Driver, "affect not the fact of revelation, but only its form.

They help to determine the stages through which it passed, the different phases which it assumed, and the process by which the record of it was built up. They do not touch either the authority or the inspiration of the scriptures of the Old Testament. They imply no change in respect to the divine attributes revealed in the Old Testament, no change in the lessons of human duty to be derived from it, no change as to the general position (apart from the interpretation of particular passages) that the Old Testament points forward prophetically to Christ" (Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament." Preface, p. 11:).
Harmless as it thus looks, it is an admitted fact that the patchwork theory which the higher criticism accepts was born of infidelity, cradled in rationalism, and is to this day claimed rightly by professors of it such as Kuenen, for whom " the Israelitish religion is one of the principal religions,- nothing less, but also nothing more:" a "manifestation of the religious spirit of mankind." The babe has been stolen, taught a somewhat different accent, smuggled in among Christians, and passed off as Christian; but though made to appear lamb-like, its voice is still the dragon's. Even as interpreted by Dr. Driver, it can contradict Christ to the face, as where, in His application of the hundred and tenth psalm to Himself He avers that "David in spirit calls Him Lord," while the higher criticism says, " This psalm, though it may be ancient, can hardly have been composed by David"(Introduction, p. 362). But indeed, everywhere it contradicts Christ, who says, and just of these Old-Testament books, "Scripture cannot be broken" (Jno. 10:35), while these men are continually, to their own satisfaction, proving that it can, and their system could not be maintained apart from this.

The very criteria by which they distinguish the different documents that make up, for instance, the book of Genesis, involve the idea of contradictory statements, too inconsistent to be from one hand. Thus the order of creation in the second narrative (chap. 2:4-6, seq.) is said to be "evidently opposed to the order indicated in chap. 1:"(p. 7). True, the editor who, in their conception of the matter, put them together, did not see it, and thus has left (happily for them) the seams of his patchwork visible, when once the critical eye rests upon it. So the narrative of the deluge, where in one document " of every clean beast seven are to be taken into the ark, while in 6:19 (cf. 7:15) two of every sort, without distinction, are prescribed."(p. 7). Again:"The section 27:46-28:9 differs appreciably in style from 27:1-45, and at the same time exhibits Rebekah as influenced by a different motive in suggesting Jacob's departure from Canaan,-not to escape his brother's anger, but to procure a wife agreeable to his parents' wishes. Further, we find two explanations of the origin of the name 'Bethel;' two of 'Israel:' 32:3, 33:16, Esau is described as already resident in Edom, while 36:6, seq., his migration thither is attributed to causes which could only have come into operation after Jacob's return to Canaan."(p. 8.).

" Scripture cannot be broken "?-why, here it is broken ! All these are plainly given as statements contradictory of one another; for that is the only reason why one writer should not be supposed to have written them all. It is easier to suppose an editor who put them together not perceiving the contradiction between them, although strangely too, as none of these statements lie very far apart. But Scripture can, then, be broken:and "if we are forced to answer" how the Lord could make such mistakes as these, Dr. Sanday tells us piously " that the explanation must lie in the fact that He of whom we are speaking is not only God, but Man. The error of statement would belong in some way to the humanity and not to the divinity "! (Oracles, p. 10)

Can, then, He who for Christians is the Great Teacher, and who claims to he in some sense the only one (Matt. 23:8) lead us astray? To prove the possibility, Dr. San-day stamps the expression He uses, " He maketh the sun to rise" as "imperfect science" (!) and to those who, timidly enough, "maintain that questions relating to the authorship of the Old Testament touch more nearly the subject-matter of Revelation," he puts the question, "Are these distinctions valid? Are they valid enough to be insisted upon so strongly as they must be if the arguments based upon them are to hold good ? "
He answers for himself:"I greatly doubt it;" and by and by undertakes to read us a lecture on humility:"In regard to these questions, I think we shall do better to ponder the words of the psalm,-' Lord, I am not high-minded; I have no proud looks. I do not exercise myself on great matters which are too high for me " (!!)

So Scripture is broken, and we must not be so haughty as to defend it. Dr. Sanday, with all the scientists of the day, have expunged the word "sunrise" from their dictionary, and of course never use it. Scripture, even in its most positive assertions may mislead us ; only let us talk piously:"I should be loth to believe "-notice, my reader, it is Dr. Sanday who would be " loth to believe that our Lord accommodated His language to current notions, knowing them to be false. I prefer to think, as it has been happily worded, that He ' condescended not to know.' "

Piously, however, or impiously, it is the same thing in result:Scripture has passed out of our hands. Even the author we have quoted confesses, as to these changes in men's thoughts about it, that "it must be admitted frankly that they involve a loss. … In old days, it was very much as with the Jews in the time of our Lord. When any question arose of doctrine or practice, all that was needed was to turn the pages of Scripture until one came to a place which bore upon the point at issue. This was at once applied just as it stood, without hesitation and without misgiving."* Dr. Sanday owns that this, according to their view, is gone, although he is not so candid as he seems, when he tells us how far it is gone. *Oracles, p. 76.* It is not merely that "the inquirer feels bound, not only to take the passage along with its context," which was always true, nor even "also to ask, Who was the author? when did he write? and with what stage in the history of revelation is the particular utterance connected?"-questions, some of them, which have no likelihood of being ever answered,-the much deeper question is now, Is the utterance true? and instead of our becoming as "babes" to have divine things revealed to us, we must be learned men, and that to no ordinary extent, in order to pass judgment upon the mingled truth and error presented in Scripture ! By and by, Dr. Sanday hopes, with the help of specialists who are devoting themselves to this, we shall have an annotated-really, a purged-Bible, which will make things easier for simple souls. Practically, thus, another great principle that our Lord announces is taken from us. Scripture becomes like a morass-with firm footing, indeed, somewhere, if I could only find it; but, alas! without help, I cannot even know what is firm from what is treacherous ! We are not to be delivered from the necessity of faith:"I, like them,"-the intelligent among his audience-" must take a great deal upon trust," * says Dr. San-day ; but it is trust in the competency of the critics! * Oracles," p. 7.* The "open Bible" of which we have boasted is to be taken from us, and that more completely than by Romanism itself.

As to the historical books of the Old Testament, with which we are now concerned, they are, according to this view, "in many parts," (how many, we have no means of knowing, it would seem,) "traditions, in which the original representation has been insensibly modified, and sometimes (especially in the later books,) colored by the associations of the age in which the author recording it lived." No wonder, then, " (2) that some freedom was used by ancient historians in placing speeches or discourses in the mouths of historical characters. In some cases, no doubt, such speeches agreed substantially with what was actually said; but often they merely develop at length, in the style and manner of the narrator, what was handed down only as a compendious report, or what was deemed to be consonant with the temper and aim of a given character on a particular occasion. No satisfactory conclusions with respect to the Old Testament will be arrived at without due account being taken of these two principles "!* *Driver, "Introduction, pref. 13:n.*
"Scripture cannot be broken"!-how far have we got away from this! Perhaps, however, the Lord never said that. Perhaps it is some chronicler of a tradition, piecing and patching some musty manuscripts, who put that sentence into His mouth ? They were very little careful about such things, those old historians. Man had not developed, at that age of the world, into the moral being that he is today. The criticism of the New Testament is steadily progressing. Volter, Visher, Weizacker, Pfleiderer, hailing from authoritative German universities, have shown us, but a short time since, the composite character of the Apocalypse. Steck has done the same for the epistle to the Galatians, and has proved, to his own satisfaction, that neither this nor Corinthians nor Romans is of Pauline origin. Voller has found later still that Romans is made up of no less than seven different epistles; Spitta, only the year before last, that the Acts is of two accounts, put together by a " redactor."* *Prof. Jacobus, in The Hartford Seminary Record.* All these are Germans, are professors, or at least students, of colleges, and of course, competent men! Is it not safer to withdraw, while there is yet time to do so with honor, from the extreme position of verbal inspiration which all these and a host of others so determinedly attack ? Is it not more reverent to believe that the Lord did not vouch for this, which, after all, these learned men cannot accept as fact?

Well, what is left us? It is impossible just yet to know. We shall, of course, have the criticisms left; but even the value of these is doubtful. Certainly, " to the poor," their gospel cannot be preached. With all their wisdom, they cannot distinguish a stone from bread, and know nothing of the need of the human heart,-of the sickening sense of having only uncertainty when the future is to be faced,-of the awful silence in the soul when what was held for the voice of God has died out of it. Is there no possibility of distinguishing what is really that from every merely human voice whatever? Drs. Sanday, Driver, and many of their fellows agree that He has spoken; but it is something in the air, which has not shaped itself in definite words:the words are human! Yes, and is there no possibility that He who became man, in His desire to be with us,-if that is among the things left still,-can speak definitely in a human voice? Oh, if I must yet "take a great deal upon trust," may I not trust this wondrous book, which, like the Unchangeable in whose name it speaks, is the Past in a living Present, rather than all the opinions of all the critics in the world? Can they reconstruct this life pervading it, which their dissections in vain search after? Can they give me, with all their wisdom, another Bible, or add a book to it, even? No, they cannot; and by that fact, Scripture is shown more authoritative than its would-be judges. I may have here to "take a great deal upon trust," but it is a trust which heart and conscience approve, and which gives rest and satisfaction to them. It has the witness of centuries to it, and of adoring multitudes in every century, who in every circumstance have found faith in the Bible the one thing sufficing them. Are these modern critics more to be believed than the living Christ this book has given me ? No, says my highest reason ;-no, ten thousand times :it is here I trust alone,-with the faith of a little child, if you will,- trust and rest here.

But we need not be afraid of their arguments. As with evolution in its other branches, the facts which the higher criticism produces-so long as they are facts,-are always interesting, and can be read with profit in the light of the "why." The "why"-the design-reveals the heart of the designer; and where the " how," if it can be ascertained, and while it is connected with this, may illustrate the wisdom of the designer, the purpose in it exhibits him in his whole moral character. If there be no design, the mere "how" of accomplishment is utterly trivial. If the apparent footprint in the sand be not human, and my solitude is to find no relief, how much to me is it to learn how winds and waves have mocked me? But think of men being frenzied with delight in being able to show that what seems mind in all around is not that, and that chance really rules in all the law and order that exist! This most certain truth that chance is nowhere makes every fact at once of interest:they are real foot-prints that are round about me,-and not of a human comforter, but a divine! F. W. G.

(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.

The dark picture in the Epistle of Jude is enough to overwhelm one with" an awakened conscience, did not the closing verses give us the bright side for faith. Everything else has gone to ruin; corrupters have come in, defiling the church; and we cannot be blind to it. What can we do? Reform the evil? go on with it? Neither. "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Here we have a fourfold word, the wilderness number, and that of our walk through it. The darkness could not oppress us with its gloom, did we follow this divine exhortation.

Then, too, we would have discernment and compassion for others caught in the snares which, through mercy, we may have escaped-teaching with pity the ignorant, and snatching others with fear from what, as a fire, would consume.

In the midst of all the peril, Jude ("praise") can lift his heart in worship; and surely we should be able to join in it-"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."

(Continued from page 207.) CHAP. II.

This then brings us to the 12th verse of chapter 2:, which already, thus early in the book, seems to be a summing up of his experiences. "I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly:" that is I looked "full face," or carefully considered, these three things that I had now tested; and whilst each gave me only disappointment and bitterness as to meeting my deepest needs, yet "I saw that there was a profit in wisdom over folly, as light is profitable over darkness." This then is within the power of human reason to determine. The philosophy of the best of the heathen brought them to exactly the same conclusion. Socrates and Solomon, with many another worthy name, are here in perfect accord, and testify together that "the wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness." Not that men prefer wisdom to folly; on the contrary; still even human reason gives this judgment:for the wise man walks at least as a man, intelligently; the spirit, the intelligence, having its place. But how much further can reason discern as to the comparative worth of wisdom or folly? The former certainly morally elevates a man now; but here comes an awful shadow across reason's path:"but I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me:and why was I then more wise ? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity." Ah! in this book in which poor man at his highest is allowed to give voice to his deepest questions, in which all the chaos, and darkness, the "without form and void" state of his poor, distracted, disjointed being is seen; Death is indeed the King of Terrors, upsetting all his reasonings, and bringing the wisdom and folly, between which he had so carefully discriminated to one level in a moment. But here, death is looked upon in relation to the "works" of which he has been speaking. Wisdom cannot guarantee its possessor's enjoyment of the fruits of his labors. Death comes to him as swiftly and as surely as to the fool, and a common oblivion shall, after a little, swallow the memory of each, with their works. This thought the Preacher dwells upon, and, as he regards it on every side again and again he groans, "this also, is vanity" vs. 19, 21, 23. "Therefore I hated life, yea, all my labor which I took under the sun," and "therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all my labor which I took under the sun." For what is there in the labor itself ? Nothing that satisfies by itself. It is only the anticipation of final satisfaction and enjoyment that can make up for the loss of quiet and ease now; prove that to be a vain hope, and the mere labor and planning night and day are indeed "empty vanity." Thus much for labor "under the sun," with self for its object, and death for its limit. Now for the contrast again in its refreshing beauty of the "new" as against the "old" "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know your labor is not in vain in the Lord." "All my labor vanity" is the "groan" of the old, "for death with its terrors cuts me off from my labor and I leave it to a fool." "No labor in vain" is the song of victory of the new, for resurrection with its glories but introduces me to the precious fruit of those labors, to be enjoyed for ever.

Oh my brethren, let us cherish this precious word, "not in vain;" let us be indeed "persuaded" of it, and " embrace " it, not giving up our glorious heritage, and going back, as the Christian world largely is in this day, to the mere human wisdom that Solomon the king possessed above all, and which only led then, as it must now, and ever, to the groan of "vanity!" But "not in vain" is ours. No little one refreshed with even a cup of cold water but that soon the fruit of even that little labor of love shall meet its sweetest recompense in the smile, the approval, the praise of our Lord Jesus; and that shall make our hearts full to overflowing with bliss; as we there echo and re-echo our own word:it was indeed, "not in vain."

The chapter closes with the recognition that, apart from God, it is not in the power of man to get any enjoyment from his labor. Our translation of verse 24 seems quite out of harmony with the Preacher's previous experiences, and the verse would better read (as in Dr. Taylor Lewis' metrical version.)

''The good is not in man that he should eat and drink
And find his soul's enjoyment in his toil;
This, too, I saw, is only from the hands of God."

Chapter 3:may be paraphrased, I think, somewhat iii this way:Yes, life itself emphasizes the truth that nothing is at one stay here;-all moves. There is naught abiding, like the winds and waters that he has noted in chap. 1:; man's life is but a wheel that turns:death follows birth, and all the experiences between are but ever varying shades of good and evil, evil and good. (Let us bear in mind this is not faith's view, but simply that of human wisdom. Faith sings a song amidst the whirl of life:

" With mercy and with judgment,
My web of time He wove;
And aye the flews of sorrow
Were lustered with His love."

But then if nothing thus rests as it is, it becomes a necessary deduction that, if wisdom has collected, and labored, and built, folly will follow to possess and scatter, what profit then in toiling ? For he sees that this constant travail is of God who, in wisdom inscrutable, and not to be penetrated by human reasoning, would have men exercised by these constant changes, whilst their hearts can be really satisfied with no one of these things, beautiful as each may be in its time. So boundless are its desires that he says, "Eternity "has been placed in that heart of man, and naught in all these "time-changes" can 611 it. Still he can see nothing better for man, than that he should make the best of the present, for he cannot alter or change what God does or purposes, and everything he sees, speaks of His purpose to a constant "round," a recurrence of that which is past (as verse 15 should probably read.)

But still man's reason can make one more step now one further deduction from the as soon as God, even though He be known only by nature's light, is introduced; and that is, the present wrong and injustice so evident here, must in some "time" in God's purposes, be righted; God Himself being the Judge. This seems to be a gleam of real light, similar to the conclusion of the whole book. Yes, further, this constant change-is there no reason for it ? Has God no purpose in it ? Surely to teach men the very lesson of their own mortality:that there is naught abiding-men and beasts arc, as far as unaided human wisdom can see, on one level exactly as to that awful exit from this scene. It is true there may be-and there are strong grounds for inferring that there is-a wide difference between the spirit of man, and the spirit of beasts, although the bodies of each are formed of, and return to the dust; but who can tell this absolutely? Who has seen and told what is on the other side of that dread portal? None. So then, again says the wise Preacher, my wisdom sees only good in enjoying the present, for the future is shrouded in an impenetrable cloud, and none can pierce it.

Precious beyond expression becomes the glorious bright beam of divine revelation, as against this dense and awful darkness of man's ignorance on such a question. How deep and terrible the groan here, "For all is vanity." Yet the pitch-dark background shall serve to throw into glorious relief, the glory of that light that is not from reason, or nature; but from Him who is the Father of Lights. Yes, He bids us look on this picture of the wisest of men, tracing man and beast to one end and standing before that awful door through which each has disappeared, confessing his absolute inability to determine if there be any difference between them. Death surely triumphs here. It is true that there may be a possible distinction between the "breath," or vital principle of each; but this uncertainty only adds to the mystery, and increases a thousand fold the agonizing need for light. God be thanked that He has given it. The darkest problem that has faced mankind all through the weary ages, has been triumphantly solved; and the sweetest songs of faith ever resound about the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus- nay rather, about the glorious person of that risen Christ Himself, for He is Himself the leader of the joy. "In the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee."

So then, in sharp and blessed contrast to the wise man and his groaning, let us lift our eyes up and ever up, past the tombs and graves of earth; yea, past thrones and principalities, and powers in the heavens; up and still up, even to the "throne of the Majesty on High" itself; and look on One sitting ever there, a Man-oh mark it well, for He has been of woman born-a Man,-for of that very One it was once said, "Is not this the carpenter?"-now crowned with glory and honor; and listen, for He speaks:"I am He that liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore." Consider Him! And whilst we look and listen, how does that word of the Preacher sound, "a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast!" And this is our portion, beloved reader. He might indeed have had all the glory of that place, without the agony of the garden, without the suffering and shame of the cross, had He been content to enjoy it alone. But no-He must have His own with Him; and now death has been
abolished as to its terror and power, so that the of old is replaced by the triumphant challenge :O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?"

The resurrection of Jesus not only makes possible _ not only makes probable – but absolutely assures, the glorious triumphant resurrection of His own who have fallen asleep:"Christ the first fruits, afterward they are Christ's at His coming." But further, is this "falling asleep " of the saint to separate him, for a time, from the conscious enjoyment of his Savior's love? Is the trysting of the saved one with his Savior to be interrupted for awhile by death? Is his song

"Not all things else are half so dear
As Is His blissful presence here"

to be silenced by death? Then were he a strangely conquered foe, and not stingless, if for one hour he could separate us from the enjoyed love of Christ. But no, "blessed be the Victor's name," not for a second. "Death is ours" and "absent from the body" is only "present with the Lord." . So that we may too, in our turn, answer the Preacher's word "A man hath no pre-eminence above a beast," with the challenge, To which of the beasts said He at any time, " This day shalt thou be with me in paradise ? " Let the Preacher groan "For this is vanity;" the groan is in perfect-if sorrowful-harmony with the darkness and ignorance of human reason; but "singing" alone accords with light; "Joy cometh in the morning" and if we but receive it, we have in "Jesus Risen" light enough for perpetual, unending, song. F. C. F.

(To be continued.)

It has been long held by farmers that the neighborhood of barberry bushes produces rust in wheat, and science has recently established this opinion-has shown that the well-known orange-red spots so common on the leaves of the barberry, caused by a fungus, develop minute secondary seeds, which appear on the wheat in the shape of rust. A barberry hedge was recently planted on one of the railway embankments in the Cote-d'-Or, in France, when immediately the crops of wheat, rye, and barley in the neighborhood became infested with rust- which was unknown before in the district. The railway company's own commissioners, after investigating the case, admitted that the account of the origin of the disease given by the farmers was correct, and considered them entitled to compensation. So, also, a species of blight on the pear-tree is closely connected with a glutinous parasite which grows on the juniper.

Analogous to this natural fact is the spiritual one, that "evil communications corrupt good manners." We have a tendency to become like those with whom we associate; and if our friends are tainted with special evil practices, we lie very much at their mercy, if not to ruin us, yet to make us unhappy and sin-stained-to rob us of self-respect, and cloud us with perplexity. Christians are not altogether exempt from the common failing of falling into worldly and not scriptural estimates of men and things-of being misled by the customs of society, and adopting the peculiar conventional code of morality followed by the multitude among whom they live. Instead of giving examples of a higher standard of morality, they descend to the level of the average rate. The evils of the world cleave to them; their very Christianity is infected with worldliness, and thus becomes stunted, diseased, and uninfluential. ("The True Vine," by Hugh McMillan.)

What's this poor world to me,
Jesus, my Lord ?
I'm ever missing Thee,
Jesus, my Lord.
I long Thy face to see,
And evermore to be,
Joy of my heart, with Thee,
Jesus, my Lord.

Oh, it would be sad indeed,
Jesus, my Lord,
And oft my heart would bleed,
Jesus, my Lord,
But that Thy footprints dear,
Mark all the desert drear,
Through which I journey here,
Jesus, my Lord !

Bright shines the star of hope,
Jesus, my Lord.
Lighting the pathway up,
Jesus, my Lord.
Soon shall the glorious day
Chase all the night away,
Then Thou shalt have full sway,
Jesus, my Lord.

Sovereign Thou shalt be owned,
Jesus, the Lord.
Once in derision crowned,
Jesus, the Lord.
God's hand shall crown Thy brow,
Then every knee shall bow,
Every tongue own that Thou
Only art Lord.

Though time shall cease to be,
As saith Thy Word,
Still through eternity
Thou wilt be Lord;
And while its ages roll,
Life of my ransomed soul,
My being all control,
Jesus, my Lord. 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.-

All Scripture combines in teaching us our need of constant watchfulness and dependence upon God, if we are to be here for Him in a true way, and of any real service to others.

The Lord's people so often think (or appear to) that they know better ways of serving His interests, they easily turn aside to their own way, only, alas! to prove in the end the bitter misery of it. This only betrays where we really are, and how far and how fast we depart at times from the way of faith and patience and true waiting upon God.

Absalom had sinned (2 Sam. xiii). He had sinned with deliberate and wicked purpose; and, as a consequence, was outside the privileges of Israel, and away from all the happy associations of his father's presence. He dwelt in Geshur, among a judged people, (i Sam. 27:8.) His sin was against the throne of David, as well as against his brethren; yet David's heart was toward him,-open, we may surely say, clay and night, for the repentance and return of the self-willed wanderer. This was right, and like God Himself, so far as it was a desire for a return upon a basis that should be for the glory of his throne, and the real blessing of Absalom as well as for the whole people.

Joab now conies before us as one who would fain help to right things, but being evidently a man without faith,- though with remarkable natural energy, which at times appeared to carry him on in such a path,- and having no wisdom from God, he works for a restoration that would be a dishonor to David's throne, and which would, in its turn, surely work – except the mercy of God intervene – its destruction, as well as that of David and Absalom too. In the carrying out of his scheme, through the wise woman of Tekoah, the basis of righteousness which sustains the throne of God is wanting; and David, failing to maintain this, opens the door to Absalom's return to Jerusalem. It is only a very distant and very partial restoration. There is much still wanting, for he is not permitted to see the king's face. Does this not evidence there is more than a doubt in the king's mind ?

Absalom, in whom there is no realization of his sin, cannot long remain satisfied with this. He has now a record of five years and more since the day of his judgment, and there has been no continuation of the sin for which he had been excluded. The blot in the past is there all unjudged, as well as the state of soul that produced it. But his present record,- what about that ? And so he must appear as one fully justified, and must stand in all the favor of the king. The unjust knoweth no shame, and he un-blushingly asks, Where is my sin ? " Let me see the king's face, and if there be any iniquity in me let him kill me." There is profusion of apparent humility, "and the king kissed Absalom." It was, indeed, a fatal kiss. How much for the sinning one, and all concerned, as well as the Lord's name, is involved in having the true mind of God in such circumstances. David had not been watching, 'and he slips easily into the fault of having too open a heart, and too much tenderness for one under a righteous sentence.

Perhaps it was pressed upon David that a change had come over Absalom; that the five years that had elapsed had not been marked by any distinct outbreak of the flesh, in what any mere natural judgment would distinguish as wicked. Any way he is at length restored to the fullest enjoyment of all the privileges of the court, as well as the favor of David; and this without one word of acknowledgment of his guilt, or judgment of his past.
The sequel shows the result of this lack of loins girt about with truth. " It came to pass after this." These words are full of meaning. " After this " Absalom exalts himself, and becomes a great man in his own thoughts. He will become popular also, evidencing, in the way he goes about it, the awful lack of principle that displays as surely his corrupt state as his original unveiled sin, although to the uncircumcised eye he is the opposite – everything that is good. But the moral condition is there, betraying not only that there is no wisdom and no fear of God, but also that there is a moral obliquity that infects others, corrupting and blinding them to what should seem to call for little eyesight to see. He flatters and kisses, and would be the friend to them that David is not; and at last he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

One step leads on quickly to another. Many become defiled and an easy prey to the conceit and deceit of Absalom. Ahithophel comes forward to assist in a way kindred to Absalom's own; and now David suffers the consequences of his unwatchfulness and lack of salt in his dealings with Absalom. Who can estimate the far-reaching results of such a lack in ourselves as David shows ? Those judging by the sight of their eyes might point to the years of agreeableness which Absalom had shown, and the diligence which marked him in every good work and kindness to others; and if they at all acknowledged at length that blot in the remote past, by the later years they would judge and pass it all over. So David, but not so God. He cannot overlook that unjudged past; and in a fuller way this lesson is taught us in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Men may forget, or attempt by many ways to blot it out of the world or the mind of the world. Centuries may roll away, but for God and for the faith of His people that cross still stands, and speaks as surely of coming judgment as of present grace for every repentant soul. And if David be overtaken in a moment of unwatchfulness, God will take care of him and restore him again, but the results of his unfaithfulness fall more heavily on Absalom, whose cup is at length full, and who now brings down upon his own head the judgment of an accumulated lifetime of scheming and of sin.

David's grief has poignancy added to it (has it not ?) by the remembrance of his own failure in relation to one who was very near and very dear to his heart; by the remembrance, too, of what might have been, if he had been firm in the moment of testing, even though it should be thought by the Joabs and others that he was narrow and severe and lacking in love.

God's principles remain always the same, from beginning to end; and these scenes, drawn by the finger of God, are there for our warning; but also, in His goodness, "that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope"; and He is "the God of Hope." So we may take fresh courage,-looking for a bright end, but remembering the journey is not yet over. Shall we not, then, earnestly seek to be not too fast and not too slow, but only and always to be imitators of God as dear children, walking thus in line toward one another and toward all. This love will be according to truth, and magnify God, and result in our truly serving the interests of Christ in His people here.

We need hearts as well as heads, perhaps even much more; and to let patience have her perfect work. The Lord helps us in these graces that we may abound in them, and that we judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. W. B.

(Continued from p. 187.)

As a humbler, lowlier witness of His full fidelity to all His pledges, we may observe, He meets His people in Galilee, as He had promised them. As a larger expression of the same, I may also observe, He takes them to the Father in heaven, as He had also promised them, sending a message to them, that He was ascending to His Father, and to their Father, to His God and to their God. And thus, whether it was in our Galilee on earth, or in His own home in heaven, that His presence had been pledged to them, both are alike made good to them. And well we may meditate on the condescendings, the faithfulness, the fullness, the simplicity, the greatness, the elevation, of all that forms and marks His path before us. The Lord had very much to do with Peter, beyond any of the disciples while He was ministering in the midst of them, and we find it the same after He rose from the dead. Peter is the one to occupy, as I may say, the whole of the last chapter in St. John. There the Lord carries on with him the gracious work He had begun ere He left him, and carries it on exactly from the point where He had left it. Peter had betrayed special self-confidence. Though all should be offended, yet would not he, he said; and though he should die with his Master, he would not deny Him. But his Master had told him of the vanity of such boasts ! and had told him also of His prayer for him, so that his faith should not fail. And when the boast was found to have been indeed a vanity, and poor Peter denied his Lord even with an oath, his Lord looked on him, and this look had its blessed operation. The prayer and the look had availed. The prayer had kept his faith from failing, but the look had broken his heart. Peter did not "go away," but Peter wept, and "wept bitterly." At the opening of this chapter, we find Peter in this condition-in the condition in which the prayer and the look had put him. That his faith had not failed, he is enabled to give very sweet proof; for as soon as he learns that it was his Lord who was on the shore, he threw himself into the water to reach Him; not, however, as a penitent, as though he had not already wept, but as one that could trust himself in His presence in full assurance of heart; and in that character his most blessed and gracious Lord accepts him, and they dine together on the shore. The prayer and the look had thus already done their work with Peter, and they are not to be repeated. The Lord simply goes on with His work thus begun, to conduct it to its perfection. Accordingly, the prayer and the look are now followed by the word. Restoration follows conviction and tears. Peter is put into the place of strengthening his brethren, as his Lord had once said to him ; and also into the place of glorifying God by His death, a privilege he had forfeited by his unbelief and denial.

This was the word of restoration, following the prayer which had already sustained Peter's faith, and the look which had already broken his heart. He had in the day of John 13:taught this same loved Peter, that a washed man need not be washed again, save only his feet; and exactly in this way He now deals with him. He does not put him again through the process of Luke 5:, when the drought of fishes overwhelmed him, and he found out that he was a sinner; but He does wash his soiled feet. He restores him, and puts Himself in His clue place again. (See Jno. 21:15-17.)

Perfect Master! the same to us yesterday, to-day and forever; the same in gracious, perfect skill of love, going on with the work He had already begun, resuming, as the risen Lord, the service which He had left unfinished when He was taken from them, resuming it at the very point, knitting the past to the present service in the fullest grace and skill!
And a little further still, as to His redeeming His pledges and promises. There was a very distinguished one which He gave them after He had risen. I mean, what He calls "the promise of the Father," and "power from on high." This promise was made to them in the day of Luke 24:, after He had risen, and it was fulfilled to them in the day of Acts 2:, after He had ascended, and was glorified.

Surely this only continues the story and the testimony of His faithfulness. All witness for Him,- His life ere He suffered, His resurrection intercourses with His disciples, and now what He has done since He ascended,-that no variableness neither shadow of turning is found in Him.

And I would not pass another instance of this, which we get again in Luke 24:The risen Lord there recognizes the very place in which He had left His disciples in His earlier instructions. "These are the words," says He, "which I spake unto you when I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me." He thus reminds them that He had already told them, that Scripture was the great witness of the divine mind, that all found written there must surely be accomplished here. And now what does He do ? That which is the simple, consistent following out of this His previous teaching. "Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." His power now knits itself with His instructions before. He is making good in them what He had already communicated to then.* *To our comfort I may add, that after He had risen, He never once reminded His disciples of their late desertion of Him in the hour of His sorrow.*

But even further, in some sense, the very style and spirit of this intercourse with His disciples during that interval of forty days is still the same. He knows them then by name, as He had before. He manifests Himself to them by the same methods. He was the host at the table, though bidden there only as a guest, a second time, or after, as before, His resurrection (Jno. ii; Luke 24:); and in the deep sense and apprehension of their souls they treat His presence as the same. On returning to Him at the well of Sychar in Jno. 4:, they would not intrude, but tread softly. And so on their reaching Him after the drought of fishes, in Jno. 21:, they tread softly again, judging a second time from the character of the moment, that their words must be few, though their hearts were filled with wonder and joy.

What links, tender and yet strong, are thus formed between Him who has been already known to us in the daily walks of human life, and Him who is to be known to us forever! He came down first into our circumstances and then He takes us into His. But in ours we have learnt Him, and learnt Him forever. This is a very happy truth. Peter witnesses it to us. I have looked at this scene already with another intent. I must now give it a second look.

At the drought of fishes in Luke 5:, or before the resurrection, Peter was convicted. The fisherman Peter, in his own eyes became the sinner Peter. "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." The drought of fishes (giving proof that the stranger who had asked for the loan of his boat was the Lord of the fulness of the sea) had brought Peter, in spirit, into the presence of God, and there he learnt himself. We never, indeed, learn that lesson anywhere else. But the Lord at that moment, as from the glory, spoke comfortably to him. He had said, "Fear not," and Peter was at ease. The glory or the presence of God had now a home for him as well as conviction, and Peter is in full quietness of heart before the Lord. And accordingly, at the second drought of fishes, in Jno. 21:, after the resurrection, Peter was still at ease, and had only to practice the lesson which he had already learnt. And he does so. He experiences the presence of the Lord of glory to be a home for him. He proves in himself, and witnesses to us, that what he had learnt of Jesus he had learnt forever. He did not know the Stranger on the shore to be Jesus; but when John revealed that fact to him, the Stranger was a stranger to him no more, but the sooner and the nearer he could get to Him the better.

What further consolation is this! If it be joy to know that He is the same, whether here or there,- whether in our world or in His own world,-in our ruined circumstances, or in His own glorious circumstances,-what further joy is it to see one of ourselves, as Peter was, experiencing the blessedness of such a fact in his own spirit!

Jesus-the same, indeed-faithful and true! All the pledges He had given them ere He suffered, He makes good after He rose:all the character He had sustained in the midst of them then, He sustains
now.

The Lord was continually giving, but He was rarely assenting. He made great communications where He found but little communion. This magnifies or illustrates His goodness. There was, as it were, nothing to draw Him forth, and yet He was ever imparting. He was as the Father in heaven, of whom He Himself spoke, making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sending His rain on the just and the unjust. This tells us what He is, to His praise-what we are, to our shame.

But He was not only thus, as the Father in heaven, the reflection of such a One in His doings, but He was also in this world as "the unknown God," as St. Paul speaks. The darkness did not comprehend Him; the world, neither by its religion nor its wisdom, knew Him. The rich aboundings of His grace, the purity of His kingdom, the foundation and title upon which the glory He sought in such a world as this alone could rest, were all strangers to the thoughts of the children of men. All this is seen in the deep moral mistakes they were continually making. When, for instance, the multitude were exceedingly hailing the King and the kingdom in His person, in Luke 19:, "Master, rebuke Thy disciples," the Pharisees say. They would not brook the thought of the throne belonging to such a One. It was presumption in Him, Jesus of Nazareth as He was, to allow the royal joy to surround Him. They knew not-they had not learnt-the secret of true honor in this false fallen world of ours. They had not learnt the mystery of " a root out of a dry ground," nor had they in spirit perceived "the arm of the Lord." (Is. 53:) It was where His own spirit led, that discoveries were made of Him, and such are very sweet, and various too, in their measure.

In Mark 1:His ministry, in its grace and power, is used by many. People under all kinds of diseases come to Him, congregations listen to Him, and own the authority with which He spake. A leper brings his leprosy to Him, thereby apprehending Him as the God of Israel. In different measures, there was then some knowledge of Him, either who He was, or what He had; but when we enter chapter 2:, we get knowledge of Him expressing itself in a brighter, richer way:we get samples of the faith that understood Him; and this is the deeper thing.

The company at Capernaum, who bring their palsied friend to Him, understand Him as well as use Him; understand Him, I mean, in Himself, in His character, in the habits and tastes of His mind. The very style in which they reach Him to get at Him tells us this. It was not approaching as though they were reserved, and doubtful, and overawed. It was more:"I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me"-a thing more welcome to Him, more according to the way that love would have us take. They ask no leave, they use no ceremony, but they break up the roof of the house, that they may reach Him; all this telling us that they knew Him as well as use a Him; knew that He delighted in having His grace trusted and. His power used by our necessities without reserve. So Levi, shortly afterward, in the same chapter. He makes a feast, and seats publicans and others at it, in company with Jesus. And this, in like manner, tells us that Levi knew Him. He knew whom he entertained, as Paul tells us he knew whom he believed. J. G. B.

(To be continued.)