Oh, happy house! where Thou art loved the best,
O Lord, so full of love and grace;
Where never comes such welcome, honored Guest;
Where none can ever fill Thy place;
Where every heart goes forth to meet Thee,
Where every ear attends Thy Word,
Where every lip with blessing greets Thee,
Where all are waiting on their Lord.

Oh, happy house! where man and wife in heart,
In faith, and hope are one;
That neither life nor death can part
The holy union here begun ;*
Where both are sharing one salvation,
And live before Thee, Lord, always,
In gladness or in tribulation,
In happy or in evil days.

*This is only true of union in Christ:marriage is, of course, dissolved by death.*

Oh, happy house! where little ones are given
Early to Thee in faith and prayer-
To Thee, their Lord, who from the heights of heaven
Guards them with more than mother's care.
Oh, happy house! where little voices
Their glad thanksgivings love to raise,
And childhood's lisping tongue rejoices
To bring new songs of love and praise.

Oh, happy house! and happy servitude!
Where all alike one Master own;.
Where daily duty, in Thy strength pursued,
Is never hard nor toilsome known;
Where each one serves Thee, meek and lowly,
Whatever Thine appointment be,
Till common tasks seem great and holy,
When they are done as unto Thee.

Oh, happy house! where Thou art not forgot
When joy is flowing full and free ;
Oh, happy house! where every wound is brought-
Physician, Comforter-to Thee.
Until at last, earth's clay's work ended,
All meet Thee in that home above,
From whence Thou comest, where Thou hast ascended,
Thy heaven of glory and of love.

Spitta

' Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you" (Jno. 16:23).

What liberty is given here, my brethren! "Whatsoever " ! Were it alone, it would be boundless, and the Lord would thus have opened the door to all the desires of unbroken wills among His people, But He adds, " in My name." This is His limit-the barrier He sets up.

If we apply to God for any thing in the name of Christ -and He will accept no other,-it must needs be in keeping with what Christ is. It is as if Christ Himself were asking it of His Father. He does not want us to make Him the messenger, as if we had not the liberty to approach. We have the same blessed liberty which He has, for grace has made us sons, and we are loved of the Father with the same love wherewith He is loved. He wants us to realize that holy liberty, and go ourselves with our request straight to the Father in His name,-that is, as if it were Himself presenting it-He who is always heard, because He always does what is pleasing to the Father. How could Christ present any request to His Father in any thing inconsistent with His own character and ways which were ever within the circle of the Father's will ? To pray in His name, then, involves our presenting to God only that which Christ could and would present. It calls for a real setting aside of our own wills, and for moving only within the circle of God's will, where Christ always was and is. Setting up our own plans, then making use of Christ's name with God, as if He were pledged by it to obey us, is an awful mistake, which He will rebuke to our shame.

But oh, for more of that lowly, broken spirit which finds its home in the Father's will, its delight in Christ's interests here, and which, burdened with that, knows how to plead with God, and never give up! And though He tarry long, victory is as sure as His throne. " Scripture cannot be broken," and He has said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you."

But, alas ! how much more earnest we are apt to be when our will is at work than when it has been surrendered! How much more earnestly men will work in a business of their own than in the employ and interests of others ! It but reveals that in us (that is, in our flesh,) dwells no good thing. Yet, though we be only servants as regards our service here, and, as such, owe absolute obedience to our Lord and Master, and should perform our service as pleasing Him and not ourselves, are we not sons too ? are we not going to be sharers of His glory, and partakers of every fruit of His obedience and of ours? Does He not call us "friends"? Does He not mingle with us ? And while we call Him " Master and Lord," and rightly so, is He not even our constant Servant? Surely, surely ! Let us, then, take courage. Let us lay hold of His business, carry it in our hearts, make it our own, plead with God about it according to the measure He has given. If Christ be our object, let us ask of God-ask much-and we will receive much, and our joy will be full here, and our reward great there. P.J.L.

"The Lord will give grace and glory." All blessing, I both for time and eternity, is folded up in these two words. Both come from Him, and both are the fruit, or expression, of His love. Grace was exhibited in David, and glory in Solomon. It was grace that raised David from his low estate to the highest honors, and it was the same grace that restored him when he wandered, that comforted him when in sorrow, that sustained him when in conflict, and that kept him safe until he reached his journey's end. But when grace had done its work in David, glory shines forth in Solomon. Glory was stamped on every thing under his reign ; yet grace shone in all the glory. The two things are inseparable. All the glories of the rose are folded up in the bud, but it is chiefly in this world that grace has to do with us. This marks the great difference between grace and glory. Grace has to do with us in our weakness, failure, sorrow, and willingly brings the needed strength, restoration, comfort, and holy joy. It is the sweet and needed companion of the days of our humiliation. Oh! what a friend, what a companion, what a portion grace is for a soul in this world ! and what an unspeakable blessing to know the grace of God in truth ! The Lord will give grace and glory. Forget not this, O my soul! reckon on both-on grace now, on glory hereafter. They can never fail.-(Med. on Psalms.)

" God of all grace, each day's march He'll bestow
The suited grace for all they meet below;
The God of glory, when their journey's done,
Will crown with glory what His grace begun."

A.M.

THE POWER OF AN ASSEMBLY TO BIND AND TO LOOSE. (Matt. 18:15-20.)-Continued.

3. THE LOCAL ASSEMBLY.

We need now to consider more closely the assembly itself. It is the only place in Matthew,-and in the gospels-in which the assembly is spoken of, this passage that we are now considering, except where, two chapters before, the Lord announces to Peter that upon that Rock which he had confessed He would build His Church. The reference is evident to that very passage ; for it is there that the power to bind and to loose is committed to Peter which here is committed to the assembly:not, however, to the whole Church, of which He there speaks, but to the local church (or assembly). The reason should be plain :the local assembly is the only practical means by which the Church as a whole can express itself. The Church at large is the whole membership of Christ all over the world. Such a body would be of course impracticable to bring together upon any occasion and unite in a common judgment. The assembly at any one spot is thus empowered by the Lord to act for Him, even though they be but two or three, the lowest possible number of which an assembly could be formed.

It is, moreover, as actually come together that they have authority:this is expressly stated both here and in the epistle to the Corinthians (i Cor. 5:4). Only thus could it be said, "There am I in the midst of them." Those actually gathered together, and no others, have power to bind and to loose.

This is of importance in connection with what some have maintained-that all gatherings in a city or town are but one assembly, and that for any one of these gatherings to act for itself apart from the rest is simple independence. It may not seem needful to mention it here, but as a principle that has proved itself fruitful of evil, it deserves to be considered still. Many yet hold it, who know not what it is they hold,-have not examined its consequences in the light of Scripture, nor even been aroused by what one might suppose abundant experience.

The plea for it is that Scripture speaks only of " the assembly" in a city, of "assemblies" in a district like Galatia. It has been answered that the now-accepted reading of Acts 9:31 speaks of "the assembly throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria," while in many cities no doubt there was but one assembly. Even in Corinth, a large city for the times (when cities were by no means what they are to-day), the whole church is spoken of as coming together into one place (i Cor. 14:23); so that the language cannot be pleaded in the very place where it would be of most importance to the argument, in the epistle namely in which the order of the church on earth is the special subject. If at Corinth they could all come together into one place, there must have been few cities, one would say, in which they could not.

But the true answer is that there is no doctrine in all this, and that the doctrine which we have in Scripture as to assembly-action is different and contradictory to the thought. The question is simply to what kind of an assembly is the power to bind and to loose intrusted by the Lord; and then the answer must be that it is such an assembly as actually assembles, and no other. This, is evident:it is "where two or three are gathered together in My name," says the Lord, "there am I in the midst of them." If such an assembly pronounces as to any matter within its province, where is the warrant for saying it does not bind ? or that which in a country place would be right and incumbent upon them to do, would be in a city mere independency ?

Scripture has no idea of an assembly composed of assemblies, but ever and only of an assembly composed of individuals. Membership is only in the body of Christ, and the local assembly, according to the idea of it, before schism had rent the Church, as it soon did, was just the " one body " in whatever place,-the practical working representation of the whole body of Christ. But if so,- and the first epistle to the Corinthians makes it undeniable,-there is then no possible place for another kind of assembly, whose units shall be assemblies and not members:the body of Christ gives us quite another thought. This kind of city-church contended for is really the beginning of an ecclesiastical system like to those around us, and far from the simplicity of Scripture. Its influence is morally evil, for we cannot violate Scripture without suffering the consequences of it.

The first effect is, that there must be some unifying third kind of a meeting to enable the whole to work unitedly; and since this cannot be a meeting of the whole, it must be a meeting of representatives, whether self-chosen or chosen by the gatherings. If the latter, a new kind of official is created; if the former, it is worse by so much as they act upon their own account, and without being responsible in any proper way to those they represent.

Other consequences are sure to follow. The representatives come to be the men of leisure, and, as naturally connected with this, the men of means, and not the better is it if they are, along with this, the men of gift; for so all the more readily is a clerical caste established,-the ruin of all divine order in the Church of God.

You have now a parliament, or congress, not an assembly such as the Word contemplates or the Lord authorizes here at all; and yet in their hands is the final decision practically left. And after in perhaps a dozen really competent assemblies-competent, it is owned, in any other place,-the matter has been apparently settled, it is put into their hands for final adjustment.

Thus the Lord is dishonored, for " there am I in the midst of you " is no longer what gives competency to act, and He being slighted, and the Spirit of God grieved, it is no wonder if there should be plenty of conflicting judgments to exercise the presiding board,-for such it is. Worse evils follow. These great city-assemblies come to have, necessarily, preponderating weight in the minds of the Lord's people round about. They become centers of influence, and soon courts of appeal. They attract the ambitious; they become temptations to the spiritual; they learn to feel their power and to exert it:metropolitanism grows apace. Alas ! we are but tracing the first steps of that decline which subjected the Church to the sway of the world, and eventuated in a Roman dictator issuing his decrees from the Vatican.

This will be thought by some mere raving and abuse. Let it be so. A John could wonder with great astonishment, when he saw in prophetic vision the harlot church. Rome was the slow growth of centuries, and the steps that led to it were almost insensible at the beginning. Yet there has been enough before our eyes to warn those who are capable of receiving it. It should be enough indeed for us that Scripture condemns it all, as it surely does, when it puts the authority to bind and to loose into the hands of two or three gathered to Christ's name, and makes the basis of that authority His own presence in the midst of those so gathered.
We may leave this, then, in order to insist more fully upon another thing which has been already in part before us, but which needs the strongest possible enforcement, and at the same time the fullest consideration that can be given it. All these points as to the order of the Church of God will be found to be most deeply affecting her spiritual condition. They are no mere formalities without moral importance. It would be really dishonoring to God to suppose so. This is the difference so pronounced between human regulations merely and the commandments of the Lord. Indeed, the human regulation is worse than this:in the things of God it is positively immoral, because it gives the conscience another master than the Lord; but I speak now of their character apart from this. What
God enjoins is always holy and promoting holiness. Nor can we go aside from it without the most serious loss in this respect. Yet among those most intelligent in divine order, nothing is more common than violations of this where plainest, as if it were really without any spiritual significance.

It is no new thing, however, that those who insist most upon church authority seem to know least of what the church is,-nay, to have the least respect really for it. It needs not to go as far as Rome, or even to high episcopalianism, in proof of this. Those who are clear enough in theory are often found in practice most opposite to it; and "theory" alone it surely can be which so little influences practice. What is the "Church"? It is the membership of the body of Christ:who doubts it? among those at least who are likely to read this. But when I ask, "Are women, then, of that church to which authority has been given, to bind and to loose ? is it necessary to consult them as to church-decisions? how many there are whose practice at least excludes them altogether ! Some even would plead that the apostle's prohibition of their speaking in the assembly would equally exclude them from being consulted as to its acts. But the two things stand upon entirely different footing.

In the first case, God, who has given the woman her long hair for a covering (i Cor. 11:15), has thus indicated that her place was not to be in public. The attractiveness of her modesty is as soon lost by such prominency as the bloom of a delicate fruit by handling. What can be more unfeminine than boldness in a woman ? What more dignifies her than, a retiring spirit? The head is set boldly upon the shoulders:the heart is safe guarded by its circle of ribs. If the man is, as the apostle says, the head of the woman, the woman is no less clearly the heart of the man.

But God has given woman a conscience no less than man, and to ignore her conscience is more to deny the God that gave it than to put her forward in the assembly is to deny what nature teaches by her long hair. For the conscience is just that in us which owns the divine authority. Deny the conscience, you have unseated God from His throne in the soul. If you can suppress it, the glory is gone from manhood, the beauty and grace from womanhood. Nay, humanity is lost, and a Nebuchadnezzar must be driven to the beasts (to which he belongs) until he knows that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men. Only when he owns that does his kingdom return to him.

The question of discipline is the question of good and evil,-of our association with what is for God or with what dishonors Him ; it is but our taking part in that strife from which no one, even from childhood, can withdraw himself. Force any one to walk hand-in-hand with what he believes in his soul dishonors God, and you have corrupted him, cast him out from fellowship with God, shadowed and perverted his life, and set him upon a road which, wind as it will, goes ever downward. Does it matter whether the pronoun be masculine or feminine- whether you say "him" or "her"? No one the least worthy of respect can think so.
Even a conscience not forced at all, but left unexercised, is a serious evil. " Herein do I exercise myself," says the apostle, "that I may have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men." A want of exercise means a soul indifferent-careless if it be with God or not. People may be drilled, no doubt, into a belief that they are irresponsible-that the responsibility lies elsewhere ; but this will not alter the nature of things, nor prevent the results which necessarily follow. Your belief about it will not make tares wheat, or thorns grow figs. The leak in your boat will scuttle it, though you may sleep easy because the responsibility is in other hands. God's truth turned to a lie is not a lie; and man's lie, though heartily believed in, will not act the part of truth. When God speaks, whosoever has ears is to hear; and if he has none, it is no less God that has spoken.

Now the "church" is not the men of the assembly merely; nor is it the leaders, or the gifted ones, or the intelligent:it is the church. And a judgment given must be, not the judgment of the few or of the majority, but of all. So, if it is truly their judgment, it must be their intelligent judgment, or it is not a judgment at all. They must know the case, know the scripture that applies to it, have full opportunity, without hurry, and waiting upon God. Here is the real duty of leaders, to see that there is no driving, no undue pressure brought to bear, no concealment, and no warping of facts or of the mind:and how helpful will leaders be who can do such work as this ! But in the moment of decision there must be no leaders, but all clear, each one for himself and before God, as if all depended upon himself and there were not another.

True, a judgment arrived at in this way will be a much slower matter than we often desire. Little do we realize what a safeguard God has provided for us by means of the very slowness and dullness of which we complain. God would have us walk in none other than a very plain path-a path which can be made plain to the dullest. To have to make it so plain means to have to rehearse it to ourselves, to look at it from many a side, to have opportunity to detect perhaps what in our haste we had overlooked before. The difficulties in the way are to force us to wait on God for a solution. Ah, God is wise, be sure, in thus linking us together as He has done, and not alone is help given by the wiser to the duller, but by the duller to the wiser also, that we may prove, not how necessary are the wise merely, but how necessary we all are to one another !

And if there are slow ones to be quickened, dull ones to be cleared, souls to be helped in various ways, think you God does not care for all this,-does not look to see it done, does not bless us in the doing it as well as those to whom it is done? See how He thinks of and provides for general blessing by that which seems to our haste only evil to be got rid of. Patience is one of God's own attributes, as it is the sign of an apostle also. And if patience has her perfect work, we shall be perfect and entire, wanting nothing (Jas. 1:4). No wonder that the world should be a place of tribulation, when "tribulation worketh patience " (Rom. 5:3).

It may be said that this is an ideal assembly-action, and that we cannot expect it to be often attained. Alas ! I believe it true that it has been very seldom so. The decision of an assembly counts as that, although half the assembly have never been consulted even,-though the whole matter was settled by a few in a brothers' meeting, and only the result has been communicated to the assembly for their adoption blindly; though the protest of conscience has been unheeded, and indifference and confidence in leaders have made it in fact the judgment of a very few. But in all this, what we sow we reap, and have reaped. God is not mocked; and under His government, the results of such courses have been manifest. Let us not talk of precedents, but honestly and faithfully, by the light of God's holy Word, consider our ways. Not the united voice of all the assemblies in the world can make evil good, or hinder the work of evil being ever evil.

We disclaim rightly association with evil. Have we been as careful about it in this form as we have been in some other forms? I am sure we have not. And thus on the one hand laxity has prevailed where there was indifference, and narrowness and party-action have had their opportunity upon the other, God has ordained help for us in a quarter from whence we never should have thought of it-help from the very ones who need help. The simple and ignorant, the weak and prejudiced, the "babes" of the assembly,-let us realize that these all are to have their intelligent part in assembly-action; and what a guarantee have we got against hasty and party treatment of what is submitted for it; while the result comes out that we must seek help from God to raise the general tone and condition of the assembly, if we would avoid disaster in the time of testing. How wholesome is this necessity! What a binding together of hearts would be the result of the acceptance of it! How would the meaning of church order-and of the church itself-become apparent to us ! Haste is self-will:even though it take the form of zeal for holiness, and care for the honor of the Lord. These, if real, will manifest themselves in care for the least of Christ's purchased flock, and in the endeavor that the separation from evil involve not a worse evil. What need have we of understanding better Christ's headship of His Church, and the omnipotence which we grasp when in helplessness we wait upon Him! And what need to remember that the Church, if one, is yet composed of many members, every one of whom is as distinctly the object of His care and love as if there were no other. His own tender and solemn words, do they not rebuke us all ?-" See that ye offend not (cause not to stumble) one of these little ones."

AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV. – XXII.

PART I.- (Continued.)

The Parenthetic Visions:-The Sealed of Israel. (Chap. 7:1-8.)

An objection may be taken to our interpretation of the convulsion under the sixth seal,-that it is not in harmony with that which we have given of the earlier ones. In these, the "earth," for instance, was assumed to be literally that; in the latter, it is taken in a figurative sense ; and it may be urged that this want of uniformity in interpretation allows us to make of these visions very much what we will,-in fact makes their alleged meaning altogether inconsistent and unreliable.

This is a mistake, though a very natural one, and it needs to be examined and shown to be such, or else a serious difficulty will remain in the way of further progress, if such indeed be possible. For the same inconsistency, if it be really that, will appear again and again as we proceed with our study of the book before us; we shall be using the same terms now in a literal and again in a figurative sense, as it may appear, arbitrarily, but in fact as compelled by necessity to do so, or according to the law of the highest reason.

Figures pervade our common speech, even the most literal and prosaic,-disguised for us often by the mere fact that they are used so commonly. We employ them, too, with a latitude of meaning which in no wise affects their intelligibility to us. They are used with a certain freedom in which there is nothing arbitrary, but the reverse. They are used rather in the interests of clearness and intelligibility, the main end sought, which governs indeed their use. It is simple enough to say that the whole art of language is in clearness of expression, and that the right use of figures is therefore for this end.

Now, in visions, such as we have in Revelation, figures, it is true, have a much larger place :the meaning of the vision as a whole is symbolic-figurative. Yet this does not at all suppose that every feature in it is so, and in no case perhaps is this really true.

Take the fifth seal as a sufficient example,-where the altar is figurative, and so are the white robes, but the killing of their brethren is real and literal. This mingling of the literal and symbolic in one vision makes it plain that they may be and will be found mingled through the whole series of visions. And if it be asked, How, then, are we to discern the one from the other? the answer will be, that each case must be judged separately,-the sense that is simplest, most self-consistent, and agreeable to the context being surely the right one. God writes, as man does, to be understood, and intelligibility gives the law, therefore, to all the rest. It is reassuring indeed to remember this:plenty of deep things there are in the Word of God, and more perhaps than any where else are they to be found in the book of Revelation, but the mystery in them is never from mere verbal concealments or misty speech, but from defect in us,-spiritual dullness and incapacity. This-most difficult of all Scripture-books God has stamped with the name of " revelation."

These thoughts are not an unnecessary introduction to the parenthetic visions between the sixth and the seventh seals, where just such questions have been asked as to the sealing of a hundred and forty-four thousand out of every tribe of the children of Israel. Is it in fact Israel literally, or a typical, spiritual Israel that we are to think of? The latter is the thought of expositors generally, though by no means all; and we are told (as by Lange, for instance,) that if we take Israel literally to be meant, then we must take all the other details,-the exact number sealed, etc., -literally also:to do which would not involve any absurdity, but which we have seen to be not in the least necessitated. We are free, as to all matters of the kind, to ask, What is the most suitable meaning? and to find in this suitability, the justification of one view or the other.

The context argues for the literal sense. The innumerable multitude seen afterward before the throne, "out of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues,"shows us plainly a characteristically Gentile gathering, and that they are in some sense in contrast with the Israelitish one seems clear. Taken together, they throw light upon one another, and display the divine mercy both to Jews and Gentiles in the latter days. While the separateness of these companies, and the priority given to Israel, agree with the character of a time when the Christian Church being removed to heaven, the old distinctions are again in force. We are again in the line of Old-Testament prophecy, and of Jewish "promises" (Rom. 9:4); "the Lion of the tribe of Judah " has taken the book.

Even apart from the context, (decisive as this is), the enumeration of the tribes would seem to make the description literal enough, even although Dan be at present missing from among them, and supposing no reason could be assigned for this.* Judah too is in her place as the royal tribe:not the natural birthright, but divine favor, controls the order here. Every thing assures us that it is indeed Israel, and as a nation, that is now in the scene. *Dan and Zebulon are both omitted in the genealogical lists of 1 Chronicles.*

Let us turn back now to see how she is introduced to us,

"After this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth; or on the sea, or upon any tree. And I saw another angel ascend from the sunrising, having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, 'Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.' "

Here it is manifest that, terrible as have been the judgments already, far worse are at hand. The four winds- expressive of all the agencies of natural evil-are about to blow together upon the earth, under the control of spiritual powers (the angels) which guide them according to the supreme will of God. It is the " day of the Lord of Hosts upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low" (Isa. 2:12). And as nothing lifts itself up as the tree does, so the "tree" is specially marked out here:the ax is laid at the root of it. The passage in Isaiah goes on quite similarly:"And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan" (5:13).

But this becomes, as in the Baptist's lips, a general sentence upon man as man, from which none may escape but as in the Lord's grace counted worthy. Thus the sealing becomes quite evidently the counterpart of what we find in the ninth of Ezekiel, though there the range of judgment is more. limited. "And He called to the man clothed in linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; and the Lord said unto him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.' And to the others He said in mine hearing, 'Go ye after him through the city, and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity; slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children and women, but come not near any man upon whom is the mark.' "

The sealing is as evidently preservative as the "mark" is. They are both upon the forehead,-open and manifest. If we look on to the fourteenth chapter here, we shall find upon the hundred and forty-four thousand there (a company as to the identity of which with the present one it is not yet time to ask the question,) the name of the Lamb's Father written, and the seal marks thus undoubtedly to whom they belong.

Let us notice also that we are just approaching the time here in which the beast also will have his mark, if not always on the forehead, at least in the hands (chap. 13:16). The time of unreserved confession of one master or the other will then have come; and no divided service will be any longer possible. The beast "boycotts" (they have already invented both the thing and the expression for him,) those who do not receive his mark:those who do receive it are cast into the lake of fire (chap. 13:17; 14:9, 10).

The sealing is angelic,-a very different thing therefore from present sealing with the Holy Ghost, and from any power or gift of the Spirit. No angel could confer this, and the creaturehood of the angel here is manifest from his words, " Till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." The "we " shows that more than one execute the ministry, and they that do this speak of God as "our God." This is decisive, apart from all dispensational considerations. But in what the sealing consists it seems scarcely possible to say:the effect is, that the people of God are manifested as His, and preserved thus from the judgments which are ready to be sent upon it.

" The seal of the living God " seems along with this to imply their preservation as living men against all the power of their adversaries-His, and therefore theirs. True, that the power of the living God is shown more victoriously in resurrection than in preservation merely; true also that to the souls under the altar it has been foretold of others of their brethren to be slain as they were, and who are no less marked as His by the deaths they die for Him than any others can be :yet the " seal of the living God" may clearly manifest its power in securing preservation of natural life, and the connection seems to imply this here; while thus alone do the two companies of this parenthetic vision,-the Jewish and the Gentile,-supplement each other, as is their evident design. This also to some will not be apparent, for the Gentile multitude are commonly taken to be risen saints in heaven. But the consideration of this must be reserved for the present.

Certainly the enumeration of the tribes speaks for their connection with God's purposes for Israel nationally upon the earth, where her future is. In heaven, as a nation, she has no place, but on earth ever preserves it (Isa. 66:22). And here the connection of both these companies with a series of events on earth is evident. It may be said that the souls under the altar find similarly their place in connection with the seals, and yet are passed from earth:but these are introduced to show the prevalence of persecution, the unchanged enmity to God manifesting itself thus after the first periods of judgment have run their course; while they bring on, as it would seem by their prayers, the crash which follows under the sixth seal.
No such connection can be seen here, but the saints here are to be sheltered from the judgments coming on the earth-being themselves on it, an Israelitish company, inferring national revival, significant enough for earth, but not at all for heaven.

Leaving this for the present, we must give our attention to the number so definitely stated, and so earnestly repeated, of this sealed company. The enumeration, so held up before us, and emphasized by repetition, cannot be a point of little consequence. Of each tribe distinctly it is stated that there are twelve thousand sealed. What, then, is the meaning of this number? It is evidently made up of 12 and 10, the latter raised to its third power, the number of government and of responsibility. But we must look at these a little further.

Ten is the measure of responsibility, as in the ten commandments of the law; raised to the third power, it seems to me to be responsibility met in grace with glory; while the number 12 speaks, as I have elsewhere sought to show, of manifest government. If I read the meaning right, the two together speak of special place conferred upon this company in connection with the Lamb's government of the earth ; and this, it seems to me, is confirmed by other considerations.

That they are not the whole remnant of Israel preserved to be the stock of the millennial nation is evident from the one fact before mentioned, that the tribe of Dan has no place among them, and yet certainly has its place in the restored nation. In Ezekiel (48:i), Dan has his portion in the extreme north of the land. Thus the hundred and forty-four thousand here are clearly a special company, and not the whole of the saved people.

But the case of Dan has further instruction for us in this connection ; and we shall find it, if we turn back to the blessing of the tribes by Jacob in the end of the book of Genesis. Jacob himself tells us here that he is speaking of what should befall them in the "last days;" and it is to these last days plainly that Revelation brings us :so that the propriety of the application cannot be doubted. Let us listen, then, to what the dying patriarch has to say of Dan.

"Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord."

Abrupt, fragmentary, enigmatic, as the words are, with just this passage of Revelation before us, they startle us by the way in which they seem to meet the questionings which have been awakened by it. We are looking upon a sealed company, "a hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel." But Dan is not found among them ! Can this tribe, we ask, have been suffered to drop out of God's chosen earthly family, so as to have no part in the final blessing? The voice from of old answers the question decisively :"Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel." No! the Lord's grace prevails over all failure :Dan does not lose his place. It cannot be that a tribe should perish out of the chosen people.

But more,-the company before us, if we have read its numerical stamp aright, is a company having a place of rule under the Lamb in the clay of millennial blessing; and among these, assuredly, Dan is not found. How the old prophecy comes in here once more with its assurance, "Dan shall judge his people"! The staff of judicial authority is not wholly departed ; but simply as what is necessary to tribal place he retains it, "as one of the tribes of Israel,"-nothing more.

The patriarch's first words as to Dan imply, then, a low place-if not the lowest place-for Dan, even as his portion in Ezekiel is on the extreme northern border of the land. He retains his place as part of the nation, that is all. And if we naturally ask, Why ? the answer is given in what follows :-

" Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider falleth backward."

Plainly these are characters which associate him in some way with the power of the enemy; for the "serpent," the "adder," speak of this. Jacob's words would show that in the apostasy of the mass of the nation under Antichrist, in the days to which we are here carried, Dan has a more than ordinary place. If the antichrist be, as every thing assures us, a Jew himself, what would be more in accordance with all this than the ancient thought that he will be of Dan ?

And here how natural the groan, yet of faith, on the part of the remnant which breaks out in the next words of the prophecy, "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord"!

In Gad, therefore, the conflict finds its termination :"A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last." Then in Asher and Naphtali the blessing follows, and Joseph and Benjamin show us in whom the blessing is. Upon all this, of course, it would be impossible to dilate now.

But all is confirmatory of the thought of this hundred and forty-four thousand being a special Israelitish company, destined of God to fill a place (but an earthly one,) in connection with the Lord's government of the world in millennial days. We have now to look at the Gentile company in the next vision.

(To be continued.)

I Believe there is great blessing attending family-prayer, and I feel greatly distressed, because I know that very many Christian families neglect it. Romanism, at one time, could do nothing in England, because it could offer nothing but the shadow of what Christian men had already in substance."Do you hear that bell tinkling in the morning? What is that for?" "To go to church to pray.""Indeed!" said the puritan, "I have no need to go there to pray. I have had my children together, and we have read a portion of Scripture, and prayed, and sang the praises of God, and we have a church in our house." "Ah ! there goes that bell again in the evening. What is that for?" "Why, it is the vesper-bell." The good man answered that he had no need to trudge a mile or two for that, for his holy vespers had been said and sung around his own table, of which the big Bible was the chief ornament. They told him that there could be no service without a priest, but he replied that every godly man should be a priest in his own house. Thus have the saints defied the overtures of priest-craft, and kept the faith from generation to generation.

A Well-known type of Christ. Take, for example, Jno. iv 6. Why is it mentioned, " Now Jacob's well was there "?Surely to arrest our attention in some special way, and Gen. 49:22 discovers the secret. Joseph, we read, is a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall.

In this wearied Man, therefore, who in that noontide heat sat by the well of Sychar, we see the true Joseph; and even while we gaze upon Him we behold His branches running over the wall of Judaism, and reaching, with their goodly fruit, this poor woman of Samaria. And if not actually, yet morally (for this characterizes this gospel), the archers had sorely grieved Him, and shot at Him, and hated Him; but His bow abode in strength, etc., as is shown by the deliverance He wrought that day for this poor captive of Satan.

We cannot help recalling that name given by Pharaoh to father Jacob's best beloved son-" Zaphnath-Paaneah " (Gen. 41:45). None can say positively whether it is a Hebrew or an Egyptian name, but strangely enough (and probably there was a divine overruling in the choice of the name, however little conscious Pharaoh might be), in the one tongue it signifies " The Revealer of Secrets," in the other it means "The Saviour of the World."

To the woman, He was indeed " the Revealer; " it was as though He had told her all things that she had done. To the Samaritans, He was "the Saviour of the world;" from among the Jews indeed, as He had said, but, like that " fruitful vine by a wall," of which Jacob spoke, "whose branches run over the wall," He had brought life and blessing and joy for them, for it was not possible that His love could be restrained by any Jewish limitations.

(Selected.) E.F.B.

'"There are two scriptures in the Old Testament that I seem to show plainly that God is propitiated by the sacrifice of Christ.

In i Chron. 21:16-27, when David had made his offering at Oman's threshing-floor, " the Lord commanded the angel (whose sword was stretched out over Jerusalem), and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof."

And in Gen. 8:20 :" Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings on the altar; and the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in His heart, 'I will not again curse the ground.'"

All Scripture agrees with this, but these two scenes are impressively pointed. E.S.L.

If our hearts are cherishing the abiding hope of the Lord's return, we shall set light by all earthly things. It is morally impossible that we can be in the attitude of waiting for the Son from heaven, and not be detached from this present world.

There are not two faces alike; not two leaves in the forest alike; not two blades of grass alike:why, then, should any one aim at another's line of work, or affect to possess another's gift ? Let each one be satisfied to be just what his Master has made him.

10.THE "EVERLASTING GOSPEL."

In the last chapter of this final three, we find, as I believe, not another aspect of the divine dealings with the mingled crop in the field of Christendom, but a new acting, whether in grace or judgment, after the merchant man has possessed himself of his pearl, or in other words, after the saints of the past and present time are caught up to Christ. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, and cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world (or age):the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (5:47-51.)

The parable closes thus (in so far, just as the parable of the tares of the field,) with the judgment executed at the appearing of the Lord. The common application of it is to the going forth of the gospel during the present time, and the final separation of bad and good when the Lord comes. That is, the meaning is considered to be almost identical with the tare-parable. I believe there are some plain reasons against such an interpretation.

For, in the first place, the parallelism of the two parables in that case is certainly against it. There would be little in the picture of the net cast into the sea that was not simply repetition of what had already been given. And this, at first sight, would not seem natural or likely.

But beside this, it is to be considered that Scripture plainly gives us another going forth of the gospel of the kingdom, and as the result of it a discriminative judgment when the Son of Man comes, apart altogether from the present going forth of the gospel, and the judgment of the tares of Christendom. The company of sheep and goats in Matt. 25:is an instance of this. For there will be no such separation as is there depicted between these sheep and goats, of the true and false among Christian professors, " when the Son of Man shall" have "come in His glory." The true among Christian professors, on the contrary, will come with Him to judgment on that day, as we have seen both Col. 3:4 and Jude bear witness. The judgment of Christendom will not then be discriminative at all:the wheat having been already removed from the field, tares alone will remain in it. Thus in Matt. 25:neither tares nor wheat can be at all in question.

But after the saints of the present time have been caught up to the Lord, and Christendom has become a tare-field simply, a new work of the Lord will begin in Israel and among the surrounding nations, to gather out a people for earthly blessing. It is when God's judgments are upon the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. And this will be a time of "great tribulation," such as for Israel Matt. 24:depicts. Antichrist is there, and the "abomination of desolation" stands in the holy place; yet amid all the evil and sorrow of the time, the "everlasting gospel" goes forth (Rev. 14:6, 7) with its call, so opposite to the proclamation of this day of grace now being made. "Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come."

Plainly, one could not say that yet. We say it is " the accepted time, the day of salvation," not of judgment. Only after the present day is closed could the everlasting gospel be preached after that fashion,-the old "gospel of the kingdom "indeed, but with the new addition to it of the hour of God's judgment being come.

It is this proclamation of the everlasting gospel that is the key to that company of sheep and goats standing before the throne of the Son of Man when He is come.

Now, if we look a little closely, it is just such a state of things as that amid which the everlasting gospel goes forth, that this parable brings before us. A " net cast into the sea" is the picture of the gospel going forth in the midst of unquiet and commotion, the lawless will of man at work every where, the wicked "like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." (Is. 57:20.)

Moreover, if we turn to the very earliest of Scripture types-to Genesis 1:-we shall find confirmation of this view, which is exceedingly striking. In those creative days we find, day by day, the successive steps by which God brought out of ruin the beauty of a scene where at length He could rest, because all was " very good." There need be little wonder to find this but the picture and type of how He, step by step, after the misery and ruin of Adam's fall, is proceeding toward the final production of a scene in which once again, and never more to be disturbed, because of its goodness He can rest. These days in their respective meaning it is not the place here to point out. The third day, however, speaks of the separation of Israel from among the Gentiles. The waters of the salt and barren sea are the representative of man left to the lusts and passions of his own heart (according to the figure in Isaiah just referred to), or in other words, the Gentiles.* *Compare also Rev. 17:15.* Israel is the "earth," taken up and cultivated of God, to get, if it might be, fruit. The third day speaks of this separation of Israel from the Gentiles, as the first parable of the three we are now looking at speaks of her as God's earthly treasure.

This is a scene all on earth. The next creative day gives us however, the furnishing of the heavens, as we have already seen the second parable of the " pearl" does. And if the sun be a type of Christ (as it surely is), that which brings in and rules the day,-the moon is no less a type of the Church, the reflection, however feeble and unstable, of Christ to the world in the night of His absence. The present time, then, is here figured, -the time of the revelation, in testimony, both of Christ and of the Church.

And now, if we pass on to the sixth day, we have as plainly in figure the kingdom of Christ come. The rule of the man and woman over the earth,-not rule over the day or night, not the light of testimony, but rule over the earth itself,- is a picture of what we call millennial blessing.

Finally, in this series comes the Sabbath, God's own rest:He sanctifies the whole day, and blesses it; no other day succeeds.

Now between the fourth and the sixth days, the Church and the millennial dispensations, what intervenes? A period, short indeed in duration, but important enough to occupy thirteen out of the twenty-two chapters of the book of Revelation:the very time to which, as I believe, the parable of the net refers. And then, what is its type, if the fifth day represents it? Once again, the "sea," but the waters now supernaturally productive, teaming with life through the fiat of the Almighty. And so it will be in the day of Rev. 7:as the hundred and forty-four thousand of the tribes of Israel, and the innumerable multitude of Gentiles who have come out of "the great tribulation," bear abundant witness. These are the gathering out of the people for earthly blessing, as the fruit of the everlasting gospel.

These passages, then, mutually confirm each other as applying to a time characterized by Gentile lawlessness, Israel fully partaking of this character, and not yet owned of God, though He be working in her midst. Into this "sea" the net is cast, and, gathering of every kind, when it is full, is drawn to shore.

It is not till AFTER this that the sorting begins:"which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, and cast the bad away." This shows us that the sorting cannot apply to any thing which goes on during the time of the preaching of the gospel at all events, for the net is no longer in the waters when it takes place. And it is thus the same thing evidently as that which the interpretation speaks of:"So shall it be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just." This is the clearance of the earth for millennial blessing. When the saints are removed, at the coming of the Lord for His own which i Thess. 4:sets before
us, the wicked will not be severed from the just, but the just from the wicked. The righteous will be taken, and the wicked left. Here it is the reverse of this-the wicked taken and the righteous left. Thus, with the divine accuracy of the inspired Word, which invites scrutiny and rewards attention to its minutest details, it is said in the judgment of the tare-field of Christendom, " They shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity," but not, "they shall sever the wicked from among the just" for the just have been before removed. Here, on the contrary, the righteous are those not taken away to inherit heavenly blessing, but left behind to inherit earthly.* *Parallel passages will be found in Matt. 24:37-42, and Luke 17:24, 37. In the Old Testament, the Psalms especially are lull of this severing of the wicked from among the just:e. g., Ps. 1:4, 5; 37:9-11; see also Mal. 4:l-3.*

With this glance at things which belong to that short but most momentous season-the season of the earth's travail before her final great deliverance, the sevenfold sketch of the kingdom of the absent King necessarily ends. The blessing of earth, as of Israel, necessitates His presence, and with that the close of the "kingdom and patience" the beginning of that "kingdom and glory" which will never end. Well will it be for us if we keep in mind the sure connection between the " patience" and the "glory."

" It is a faithful saying, " For if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful, He cannot deny Himself." (2 Tim. 2:II-13.)

As children of men we are known in this world; the world can point to us and say, " His father was so-and-so; and, according to our high or low connection in that way, honor or despise us.

As children of God we are not known, for the simple reason that our Father is unknown. Let any man in any circle, high or low, of this world's society be introduced as a child of God, and see what a blank astonishment will follow such an introduction. They know not God, therefore can they not appreciate such a relationship with Him. The man who is in that relationship, therefore, is, as such, a real stranger and foreigner in this world. His being born of God constitutes him that, and according to the degree in which he himself values this wonderful relationship, so will he realize his strangership among the very people where he, as a man, is so well known; so too will it practically separate him from their company, their object, their mode of life, their pleasures and pursuits.

But there is more. The way he has become a child of God is through faith in Jesus Christ, who, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," was "lifted up" on the cross, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This blessed Jesus, therefore, becomes now the object and delight of his heart. How else could it be? It is by His suffering upon that cross that his sins are forgiven,-by His stripes that he is healed. It is by His blood that he has " boldness to enter into the holiest,"-the very presence of that holy God before whom the seraphim angels have to vail themselves. It is by His death that he is set free from the guilt and the dominion of sin,-that he escapes the visitation of the angel of death at midnight, passes out of the land of bondage, and passes into the land flowing with milk and honey.

Jesus is now, therefore, the object of his heart. " We love Him because He first loved us." As the man who, out of love, "leaves his father and mother, and cleaves unto his wife," so Christ left His Father and home in glory, and out of love to us suffered as none ever suffered. But, in return, the wife clings to her husband, and follows him all through. So with us who love Him. If He is in heaven, our hearts follow Him there, and are at home only there. If He is still rejected and despised by this world, we want naught else from the world than what they give Him. We cannot endure to be received and honored where He is refused and despised. Nay, more -we cannot even feel at home with His professed friends who give Him but a back seat, and grieve Him by their ways.

One will readily see that this is not pretending to be holier and better than this or that, but a natural outcome of a love that is true. No true wife could be at home where the husband she loves is not given the place which belongs to him. So no lover of Christ can ever be at home in this world while " Christ" is a despised name in it. Nor can he be more comfortable among those who profess His name while they have among them that which wounds the Lord. Therefore when the world has crucified Christ and cast Him out, God said to His children, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (i Jno. 2:15).

He also foresaw what His professing people would do, and how things would turn out in the end, so He said again to His people, "In the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:from such TURN AWAY " (2 Tim. 3:1-5).
Oh, beloved brethren ! children of the God of love !- oh, for such a measure of that devotedness of heart to our Lord as to make it morally impossible for us to abide with whatever dishonors Him, but will compel us to follow Him any where and at whatever cost! Thus, and only thus, shall we know the reality of our relationship with Him, even as He has said, "Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. 6:17, 18). P.J.L.

SUPPLEMENTARY.

I am thankful to have received objections to the preceding papers:thankful, not of course that there should be objections, but that being existent they should be made known, and fully examined. The difference of view itself the Lord would use for various blessing, that, exercised by His Word, we may be ruled by it,-not blindly follow one another, or any special teacher, however gifted. Persuaded as I am, that whatever may be our hindrances to receiving it, yet the truth once clearly known would have the allegiance of all, I am encouraged to take up what has been urged against me, not doubting that there will be blessing in it, on whichever side the truth may appear to be. And first, it has been said that-

" if we want to understand about the making of atonement, we must turn to Lev. 16:for information; for there only, in the ritual appointed for the day of atonement, shall we fully learn-as far as typical teaching can illustrate it-what is comprised in the thought of making it. . . . What was required to make atonement is the subject of God's communication to the lawgiver on that occasion. The noun "atonement" is not once met with therein. The verb only is used, to call attention by typical teaching to the making it."

Is this correct ? No doubt the day of atonement is exceedingly important for the doctrine of atonement :one could not dispute that. But is it the fact that we may limit ourselves to the sixteenth of Leviticus in order to see what is involved in making it? And what is the force and value of the fact that the noun is not found in the chapter, but only the verb?

First, as to the word "atonement:" the noun is found but eight times in the Old Testament. Three times we have the expression, " sin-offering for atonement" (Ex. 29:36; 30:10; Num. 29:ii). Once we have "the ram of atonement " (Num. 5:8). Once, " the atonement-money" (Ex. 30:16). And in the remaining three occurrences (Lev. 23:27, 28; 25:9) the application is to the "day of atonement" itself!

It is surely remarkable enough, if the omission of the noun in chap. 16:has the significance said to attach to it, that three out of the eight occurrences should actually be found to apply to the day of atonement!

If I understand the argument aright, "atonement" as a noun (kippurim) being used, would direct our attention to what in itself atonement is, the use of the verb to that which makes it. What, then, about the "day of atonement"? Would not that direct our attention to what atonement is, as much as the sin-offering, or the ram, or the money of atonement ?

On the other hand, in all the detail of the offerings in the first seven chapters of Leviticus we have equally no use of the noun "atonement," while the verb occurs no less than thirteen times ! How, then, does the argument apply here ?

And must we not in fact go to those earlier chapters in order to know the meaning of the day of atonement itself? What are sin-offering and burnt-offering here without the previous detailed explanation? Are these not the very means by which atonement is made ?

Coming now to the making of atonement, it is further said –

" Now, to do that, four things were absolutely necessary. I. An offering must be found which God could accept (Lev. 16:6) ; and that offering must die, because It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul (Lev. 17:11). 2. A substitute must be found to which the sins of the guilty should be transferred, and by it carried away into the land of forgetfulness:This was foreshadowed by the scape-goat (Lev. 16:10). 3. Blood of the sin-offering must be presented inside the vail, by sprinkling it on and before the mercy-seat,-an act done by the high-priest, and by him only, and when alone with God (Lev. 16:14-16; Heb. 9:7). And 4. Divine judgment must be endured by the victim, typified by the consuming of the burnt-offering, and the appointed parts of the sin-offering on the brazen altar (Lev. 16:24, 25). These are essential elements of atonement, without which it could not be made."

Again, I am compelled to make serious objections to this. If we are to take the day of atonement as our pattern, why should the work at the altar before the Lord be omitted (10:18, 19) ? Five essential elements may be thus reckoned instead of four; and with better reason.

A more serious objection still with regard to our present subject is, that for the priestly house, as is well known, there was no scape goat. For them, not a goat but a bullock was offered, and one bullock only. Was complete atonement made for them ? None surely can doubt that. Yet one of the four elements deemed essential is not found in it!

And this touches nearly some common thoughts about propitiation and substitution. There is no doubt that for the priests these two are found together in the one bullock of the sin-offering. The blood of propitiation is in this case the blood of the substitute; or to which of the goats, the Lord's lot or the people's lot, does this bullock answer ?

And this shows that what is essential in atonement may be implicitly contained in what explicitly does not teach it. Thus, Job's burnt-offering could be accepted for sin; and blood could ordinarily make atonement at the altar (Lev. 17:ii), which on the day of atonement was carried within the vail. The priests' bullock went beyond the two goats in reality, as the bullock was in typical meaning beyond the goat; while what was expanded indeed in the latter was yet contained in the former.

As a fact, was there no atonement made in Israel except upon the day of atonement ? Yet if the objection be rightly made, this must have been the case.

And again, is it not dangerous to take for truth our interpretation of a type, rather than the plain teaching of the New Testament? Would so important a matter as what constitutes atonement (or propitiation either) be left for the shadows of the law to unveil ? But to go on with the objections:-

" So far, then, we can all see what were essential elements of atonement-the death of the victim; substitution both in sin-bearing and bearing divine judgment; and the dealing with the blood inside the vail by the high-priest. In the making atonement, then, substitution, as this chapter shows, was an essential element, as well as the high-priest's work inside the sanctuary. Had either been omitted, atonement would not have been effected. Now, were these two services the same? Clearly not. Wherein did they differ? In the scape-goat, or in the service at the brazen altar (Lev. 16:24), we see typified One who was a substitute for others. In the picturing the blood on the mercy-seat, nothing of that was delineated, though it was the blood of the substitute which the high-priest presented to God."

Why "substitution both in sin-bearing and bearing divine judgment"? How can you separate between these? Was not sin-bearing really wrath-bearing? Or, if you speak of the scape-goat, were not the sins borne away by the very fact of the victim's death for them ? Why make differences in the work itself of what were only different aspects of the work? It is just this modeling of the truth by the type instead of interpreting the type by the truth, which has made propitiation a different work from substitution, whereas the one is but the Godward side of that of which the other is the manward.

But the type itself refuses this by the fact that for the priestly family (which represents the Church) there was no scape-goat. Yet the truth conveyed in it is ours surely (Heb. 10:17).

The service at the brazen altar (5:24) is, then, classed with the scape-goat as substitution, and not propitiation ! Necessitated as it is by the argument, it is indeed remarkable that it should not be seen how completely the argument is broken down by it. For the burnt-offering, although for man indeed, and substitutionary as every sacrifice was, went up directly to God, the whole of it, as a sweet savor! It was thus expressly denominated the olah, "that which ascends," as it is also said, " to make atonement for " the offerer, and to be " for his acceptance." (5:3; see R. V.) Yet this, which actually typifies all the preciousness of the work for God,-the glorifying of God in it,-is simply substitution in contrast with propitiation ! Does not this show how merely technical is the meaning given to "propitiation" in this reasoning?

It is settled otherwise that there is no propitiation but in the holiest; therefore, of course, the burnt-offering is not propitiation. Yet-if there is any meaning in words -it propitiates! But no :the burnt-offering is but substitution, the sin-offering glorifies God in " His holiness and righteousness" above the burnt-offering,-sweet savor though the latter is, in contrast to the former.

Let us look at things, not words merely, and the mists will surely disappear. The New Testament must interpret the Old, the antitype the type, and there is then no difficulty.

But again:in the blood on the mercy-seat "nothing of that"-substitution-"was delineated, though it was the blood of the substitute " ! But if it was, how shall this thought be kept out? Notice that, according to this, the whole work below-sin-offering, burnt-offering, and all- was substitution. Yet in presenting it to God upon the mercy-seat, an element is somehow found in-for we must not say, "introduced into"-the work below, which all these types of it fail to present! It would indeed scarcely be too much to say that one work was done outside the holiest, and another work presented inside !

Or shall we say, the burnt-offering was substitution, the sin-offering was not ? No, we may not that, for it has been acknowledged that the blood presented to God is the blood of a substitute. Does God, then, when it is presented to Him, not take notice of the substitution ?

But to go on :-

"And a marked difference-which helps us greatly in the understanding the character of the service within the vail-was this, that the blood was carried in to God because of the uncleannesses of the people, as well as for their transgressions in all their sins; whereas over the scape-goat Aaron confessed their iniquities, and their transgressions in all their sins, but not their uncleannesses. Not only, therefore, was there a substitute required to bear in the sinner's stead what he had deserved, but the holiness and righteousness of God had also to be met by blood for the uncleannesses as well as for the sins. Now, this last service is meant when we speak of making propitiation. An essential part of atonement it was, but not the whole of it, and markedly different from substitution. In this last the sinner's deserts and needs were portrayed. In the other, God's nature was first thought of and cared for."

Here, then, we are to find the meaning of propitiation. " The blood on the mercy-seat met the uncleanness of the people, as well as "-mark-"their transgressions in all their sins." Notice, then, this latter first. The blood did meet their "sins." Yes:"He is the propitiation for our sins."

But this last is the effect of substitution, is it not? The confession of the sins over the scape-goat is said to mark the substitutionary character. Why not here, then, in the holiest of all ? The addition of something else cannot take away this, at least. Addition is not here subtraction- like adding the law to grace; for there is here at least no essential contradiction.

Propitiation is, then, (so far, at any rate,) by substitution. The blood on the mercy-seat, whatever else it is, is surely-admittedly-the sign of an accomplished substitutionary work. And it is not according to Scripture to say that "nothing of that was delineated" in it.

But the uncleanness of the people-the meeting that -is the peculiar feature of propitiation. Strange, then, that in the New Testament we find nothing of this! "He is the propitiation for our sins." Precisely that which we are told is not the distinctive feature of propitiation is the very thing and the only thing which the New Testament insists on ! Will not our brethren now awake to the unscripturalness of all this? What is stated to be the peculiarity of propitiation is absolutely not found in the New-Testament use of it at all. And what is found is exactly that which it is attempted to distinguish from it !

Yet we are getting now upon the track in which we shall find, not indeed what propitiation is in the abstract idea of it, but what this propitiation in the holiest of all implies. It is expressly said to be an atonement for the holy place (10:ii, 17, 20, 23). That is its peculiarity; and that is the reason why "uncleannesses" are spoken of as well as "sins." " He shall make an atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins; and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation (tent of meeting) that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness."

What is "uncleanness" in this connection? Is it not tendency to defile the holy dwelling-place of Jehovah among them? What would defile it ? Any thing else than sin? Are not their sins just in another aspect their uncleannesses? What else ?

You may say, perhaps, there were ceremonial unclean-nesses, as in the fifteenth chapter, which were not sins. True; but you will hardly say that the great peculiarity of the work in the holiest was to provide for these. To say so would be to remove the whole matter from having any significance for us, such as is contended for, at least; and we need not wonder if the New Testament does not even notice it.

But the "purification of the heavenly things" the epistle to the Hebrews does notice (chap. 9:23), and I have elsewhere referred to it. It need scarcely be taken up again.

Now, if the blood on the mercy-seat be for uncleanness and sins, even if these should be considered different, how is "God's nature" more in question by the first than by the last? If you conceive of difference, would not even the reverse of this be true? And is not God's nature vindicated and glorified by the burnt-offering or the peace-offering, or the sin-offering whose blood never came into the holiest of all? Did the fire of the burnt-or sin-offering not vindicate God's nature ? How can it be that the blood itself-the very same blood-did not vindicate God when outside the sanctuary, and did as soon as it was brought in ?

No, it was the blood itself-the work implied in it- which glorified God, and made propitiation, and the bringing in once a year maintained (for Israel) God's holiness in dwelling among them; for us, throws open the glorious sanctuary in the heavens.

Now, as to propitiation in the New Testament, we need not go into so much detail. The objections made have been mostly met. The breadth of substitution and propitiation has been more than once examined. Substitution is not for the world as such, true; and propitiation is " through faith" only for it (Rom. 3:25). There is no difference here; and none, therefore, can show a difference.

As to the Septuagint, it is not at all a question between verb and noun, which could not make any essential difference of meaning. Indeed, the noun is more variously rendered than the verb, and so more loosely. But it is true that the Septuagint uses exilaskomai and exilasmos, while the New Testament in both cases omits the ex. The force of ex here being merely intensive, and the words given in the lexicon with precisely the same meaning, I did not apprehend any difference which could affect the argument; nor do I. As for Gen. 32:20, the passage seems to speak for itself. Translate it literally all through, allowing the correction, it will be:"I will cover his face with the present going before, and afterward I will see his face. Peradventure he will accept my face." It will surely be seen that there cannot be here the idea of hiding from his sight, and that " his face " may, as in other places it does, stand for "him."

A more serious question is, whether God can be said to be "propitiated" or "appeased." With Luke 18:13 before us, in which the Lord Himself puts into the lips of the publican what is literally "God be propitiated (hilastheti) toward me, a sinner," it seems strange that we should be bidden to " remember that God is never said in Scripture to be propitiated or appeased." The verb only occurs once beside (Heb. 2:17), so that it is not so strange that the expression should occur but once. Can it be supposed that the Lord puts a wrong thought into the mouth of one who is in designed favorable contrast with the Pharisee of the same story ?

And what, then, is propitiation ? and to whom is the propitiation offered ? God is not said to be reconciled in Scripture, true :for He never was man's enemy; but was there not righteous and necessary wrath to be appeased ?

As to propitiation being made outside the sanctuary, it needs to be shown that it cannot. And it is not contended that it could be completed without blood. But that God was really thus far propitiated when the wrath-cloud passed from the cross, has not been met, nor can be. Death surely had still to be endured, and that I have always said. But if propitiation had any meaning that we can recognize, it was accomplishing, not accomplished, before the Lord's actual death. If you say, No, the blood must be shed, your type-teaching will lead you farther than you wish; for you will have to say that the work was not completed till after death, and that there was no blood of atonement until the soldier's spear had brought it forth.

We want things, not words merely:all these truths are the deepest realities for the soul. What does propitiation mean? what is its power ? tell me. If it is not appeasal, what is it? for I want to know. If it is wrath removed,- if it is death borne by Another-precious and efficacious before God, then we shall surely soon agree about it.

Now for the question of the priesthood:"We learn that the priests were consecrated in connection with death, and as that having previously taken place-for the ram of consecration had to be killed for Aaronic priests to be consecrated to their office" (Lev. 8:22, 23). True; but the previous anointing of the high-priest alone without blood (5:12), has that no meaning? The high-priest, when associated with the priests, was a sinful man like them, and even on the day of atonement offered for his own sins. Alone, and simply the type of Christ, he is anointed with the oil without blood.

"We learn, too, that in their sacrificial service they normally had nothing to do till the victim had been slain." One of two exceptions to this is found, strange to say, in the very place to which we have been directed to look to see how atonement was made ! It is "the case of the high-priest on the day of atonement, who in the capacity of offerer, it would seem, killed the victims." No remark is made upon this, and I shall make none. But the trouble is all through that it is the type teaching (or supposed to be teaching) the truth, not the truth making plain the type.

What about the work at the altar? That must be confessed priestly. Does it typify what took place in heaven, or on earth ? Will the former be contended for, because it was after the death of the victim ? Surely not. But then the argument is gone, or rather it is on the opposite side; for the priest is then typically a priest on earth. Let us go on.

"Further, we learn that propitiation was made by the high-priest alone, and that in the holy of holies, not at the altar."

According to the type, which is the first view, where do we learn this? As we have seen, the word "propitiation " is not found, except we take the Septuagint, and then it is found where, according to this view, it should not be ! How, then, is this propitiation exclusively in the holy place to be made out ?

But the Lord, it is said, was " perfected through sufferings," and some would render this " consecrated." In the first place, it has the undoubted meaning of "perfected," and the apostle is speaking directly of the Captain of salvation, not the Priest:"to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."

We have no need, then, to "limit these" to sufferings short of death; and His entrance upon His Melchisedek priesthood was actually after this, as I believe, and have said elsewhere. What has been said before as to Heb. 8:4 is simply not noticed. Should it not be ? There is, I believe, no thought of "getting over" it at all; and the argument should be met.

The paper which I am reviewing was printed before my last one on "Priesthood," and naturally fails to answer what is there said. But it is strange to read-

"Now bring in His death between the commencement of His priesthood and His present exercise of it, and He ceases to be Priest after the order of Melchisedek."

If it had been stated that the Lord had been all through Melchisedek Priest, this would perhaps be true. I say "perhaps," for I read, "having neither beginning of days nor end of life, abideth a Priest continually." Now, if this apply to His human life simply, it had "beginning of days;" if to His divine nature, that had no "end of life." Any way, it does not affect the position which I believe to be the scriptural one.

But now, how, if death could interrupt His priesthood, could it possibly begin in death,-the view contended for against me? The argument that would affect the one side must surely equally affect the other. How strange to begin in death a priesthood taking character from an uninterrupted life !

Lastly, it is quite true that, as ministering in the sanctuary, the Lord would not be a priest on earth, and that there are only two sanctuaries,-the earthly and the heavenly. The service in the heavenly sanctuary begins only after resurrection.* *I have no need of the argument as to the cross not being on earth, although I had used it on a former occasion. Longer thought and deeper exercise in relation to this subject has led me to a different judgment on some points to that expressed in the letter I speak of. But I do not on that account accept the argument from Deut. 21:as to one hanging on a tree. The question cannot be so settled. The cross was not merely a malefactor's death. But I have raised no question of this in the preceding papers, as I am assured a broader ground must be taken as to the Lord's priesthood.*

So far from this view " bristling with difficulties," then, it is alone, as it seems to me, free from the difficulties which beset all others. Let brethren judge. The Word is open to all; the Spirit, blessed be God, given to us all.

" Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." " Lo, I am with you alway."

It came-the parting, and our weary
Hearts fell torn and bleeding at the feet
Of One who knew such pang:
His name-"The Man of Sorrows,"
No stranger He to grief, for once
Alone, despised, forsaken e'en of God,

His heart-divine, yet human-bore
The load of all creation's misery!
Man's hatred too-He bore it all,
And yet loved on.
And now we needed not to call, for
He had watched each moment
Of our fleeting joy with tenderest
Sympathy; His ear had caught the
"Farewell" which the lips refused
To utter; and His heart overflowed
With love-with yearning, pitying love,-
His arms He clasped around us,
And our heads cradled upon His
Breast; while to each weary child
Spake He of rest. And from those
Lips dropped on each wounded heart
The fragrant myrrh, soothing,-
Restoring (Cant. 5:13). Sweet was that hour of
Peace! Deep In the ocean calm, when
The waves are stilled, when the wild
Winds sink to rest, and the last
Thunder-roll dies murmuring away, and
Faint grows the note of the storm-
Bird's cry as she seeks her lonely nest.
But stealing-slowly stealing along
The eastern sky, are streaks of glory,-
Harbingers of morn, telling of
Coming radiance-of a cloudless day.
So stealing-sweetly stealing upon
The wondrous soul, came visions
Of His glory, of joys before unknown;
And on each listening ear fell there
A sound of words most sweet-
Speaking of love which could
Not change-of hope which fadeth
Not,-of meetings in a land where
Partings come not, and only joy
Is known.
….
So He spake peace; and from
Each heart burst forth a song
Of praise! We could not grieve:
Each aching void was filled;
For He was ours, and was not
He enough?

We were living in ignorance-"According to the former lusts in your ignorance;" but how in that state of ignorance we were nevertheless responsible and guilty, we learn from Eph. 4:18-."Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; " or, as in the R. V., "because of the hardening of their heart." Just as in Jno. 12:, "they could not believe,", because God had hardened them ; and then again the same passage is quoted (from Isa. 6:) in the last chapter of the Acts, to show that they had hardened themselves. " For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed."

But now it is no longer blindness and ignorance, but holiness-a holy walk before God, who is light, in all manner of living.

Three considerations are mentioned to produce in the Christian a right state-of holiness and fear. We are to be holy because God is holy to whom we now belong. And since God as our Father judges-that is, governs and chastens us without respect of persons, we are to pass the time of our sojourn in fear. And thirdly, we are to consider the cost of our redemption-"the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."

The blood of Christ has redeemed me. The Father chastens me according to my ways; and God is holy.

The fear is not fear of being lost, nor does " the Father judging according to every man's work" imply that. Jno. 5:27-29 and 2 Tim. 4:i show that the execution of judgment upon sinners is committed to the Son ; but the Father's judgment is, dealing with His own in chastening and discipline in the sojourn here.

But this is a solemn reality, and is too little considered. It is "without respect of persons"-a warning, to disturb our pride and hardness of heart, and to keep alive within me the fact that I have to do each moment with One who hates sin and loves me as His child. The Corinthians had become so dull as to need to be reminded that some of them were weak and sickly, and some had died (i Cor. 11:30), " that they might not be condemned with the world." This holy fear was lacking, so that, though having many gifts, they had exposed themselves to Satan. In Ps. 107:, this government of God over His people, and over all men, is unfolded, and is called " mercy and loving-kind-ness," however great the distress it may bring us into at times, to bring us to repentance, or to give a deeper tone to our character. The refrain of this psalm, four times repeated, should be a song in the heart of every one, however sharp the chastening.-" Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men !"-even though they may go down to the depths, and their soul be melted because of trouble. "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord." (Ps. 107:43.)

When redemption is known, then the heart can be governed by the fear of God. Ps. 111:is full of this spirit of worship and holy fear. " He sent redemption unto His people:He hath commanded His covenant forever:holy and reverend is His name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom:a good understanding have all they that do His commandments :His praise endureth forever."
We need to cultivate this spirit of fear, that we may not be rash, heedless, trifling, and self-confident.

And " it is written, ' Be ye holy, for I am holy.' " This is an exhortation which is deep and heart-searching beyond expression, and demands diligent attention lest we should trespass against God. The sixth chapter of Isaiah will illustrate this subject. The seraphim vail their faces before Him who sits upon the throne, high and lifted up, and cry, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts :the whole earth is full of His glory! " and Isaiah cries, "Woe is me ! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts."

The holiness of God is the opposite of that which so easily invades the heart, and unfits us for the presence and service of God.

By unholiness, priestly discernment is destroyed, and we have no clear judgment between good and evil, and become like the horse and the mule, to be held in by bit and bridle. It is not until after the eighth chapter of Leviticus, where Aaron and his sons are consecrated to the priesthood, that things clean and unclean are mentioned, and their obligation to discern between them; and it is in this epistle of Peter where holiness is so enjoined that Christians are called "a holy priesthood,"-as also in the epistle to the Hebrews, where our priesthood is implied, the obligation of holiness is declared with solemn emphasis.

In John's epistles holiness is not mentioned. There, the new life, as born of God, goes out in fellowship with God and love to the brethren, and overcomes the world; but here we are exhorted as having been redeemed- redeemed from a wicked world and from a life of vanity, as in Titus-"He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

"Holy and reverend is His name." May we rejoice in Him, as He has made Himself known to us; and beware of walking heedlessly in such a presence, while resting fully in that love that first sought us and took hold of us, and that upholds us, and that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is given to us. (Rom. 5:5.) E.S.L.

[Is it not time to " return to God's original plan " unreservedly, and not merely (important as that is,) in the matter of evangelizing ? "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me," saith the Lord, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). Alas! can this be so, when the writer openly advocates expediency in opposition to the truth of God? "Expediency undoubtedly restricts the exercise of certain rights"! How shall we know ? Where shall we find its shifting creed ? or where the interpreter who can speak so positively for it? Upon the same plea exactly the mass of departures from the Word of God may be excused. Dr. Pierson is too much the American here. The Church was never a "pure democracy;" it began as a theocracy, though it largely departed from it. And still "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."-ed.]

8.SECULAR POWER AND" THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH."

Thus we have compassed the whole history of the kingdom of the absent One, up to its solemn close in judgment at His coming. The two parables now before us, take us back from this, to look at the same scenes in other aspects.

And the two parables, however dissimilar in other respects, have this in common (wherein they differ from the former two), that they speak, not of individuals, but of the mass, as such. They give us the outward form as well as the inward spiritual reality of what Christendom as a whole becomes-of what it has become, we may very simply say, for the facts are plain enough to all, whether men question or not the application of the parables to those facts.

"Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field:which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof" (Matt. 13:31, 32).

Of this parable the Lord gives us no direct interpretation. It is stated, however, to be another similitude of the same kingdom spoken of by the former ones. And as Scripture must ever be its own interpreter, and we are certainly intended to understand the Lord's words here, we may be confident the key to the understanding of it is not far off. Let any one read the following passage from the book of Daniel, and say if it does not furnish that key at once (the words are the words of the king of Babylon):-

" Thus were the visions of mine head upon my bed:I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all:the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it" (Dan. 4:10-12).

This is interpreted of the king himself (5:22):" It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong." The figure, therefore,-which we have elsewhere, and always with the same meaning, (as Ezek. 17:5; 31:3-6)-is that of worldly power and greatness. But the strange thing in Matt. 13:is, that "the least of all seeds" should grow into such a tree. For the seed, here as elsewhere, is " the Word of the kingdom " (5:19). And we have seen already how men treated that Word. The kingdom of the Crucified could have but little attraction for the children of the men who crucified Him. Human hearts are sadly too much alike for that. How could, then, a great worldly power come of the sowing of the gospel in the world ?

Granted that it has become this, is this a sign for good, or the reverse? How could " My kingdom is not of this world" shape with this ? And what proper mastery of this world could there be, -what overcoming of its evil with divine good, where three parts of the professed disciples were, according to the first parable, unfruitful hearers merely, and (according to the second,) Satan's tares had been sown broad-cast among the wheat?
But if we want plain words as to all this, we may find them in abundance; and if, on the one hand, we know by what is round us that professing Christianity has become a power in the world, we may know on the other, both by practical experience and the sure Word of God, that it has become such by making its terms of accommodation with the world. It has bought off the old, inherent enmity of the world at the cost of its Lord's dishonor, by the sacrifice of its own divine, unworldly principles. He who runs may read the "perilous times" of the latter days written upon the forefront of the present days (2 Tim. 3:1-5).

Yes, the little seed has become indeed a tree, but the "birds of the air" are in its branches. Satan himself (compare 10:4,9) has got lodgment and shelter in the very midst of the "tree" of Christendom. The "Christian world" is the "world" still; and the "whole world lieth in the wicked one" (i Jno. 5:19) (not "in wickedness." Compare ver. 18; it is the same word). The opposition to Christ and His truth is from within now, instead of from without; none the less on that account, but all the more deadly.

Rome is the loudest asserter of this claim of power in the world, and what has Rome not done to maintain her claim? Her photograph is in Rev. 17:, 18:Successor to the "tree"-like power of old Babel she is called " Babylon the Great." And she is judged as having, while professing to be the spouse of Christ, made guilty alliance with the nations of the world; " for all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies" (chap. 18:2). And alas! with the power of Israel's enemy, she has inherited also the old antipathy to the people of God:"I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus:and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration" (chap. 17:6).

This is the full ripe result. The beginning of it is already seen at Corinth even in the apostle's day:"Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us:and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. . . . We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised " (i Cor. 4:8, 10).

Thus early was the little seed developing; thus quickly did the Christianity of even apostolic days diverge from that of the apostles. Paul lived to say of the scene of his earliest and most successful labors, "All that are in Asia have departed from me." Thus wide-spread was the divergence. Men that quote to us the Christianity of a hundred or two hundred years from that had need to pause and ask themselves what type of it they are following,-whether that of degenerate Asia, or " honorable," worldly Corinth," or what else.

That is the external view, then, which this parable presents, of the state of the kingdom during the King's absence. It had struck its roots down deep into the earth and flourished. Such a power in the world is Christendom this day. Beneath its ample cloak of respectable profession it has gathered in the hypocrite, the formalist, the unfruitful, -in short, the world; and the deadliest foes of Christ and of His cross are those nurtured in its own bosom.

But we go on to the other parable for a deeper and more internal view :-

"Another parable spake He unto them:'The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened" (Matt. 13:33).

Now what is "leaven"? It is a figure not un-frequently used in Scripture, and it will not be hard to gather up the instances to which it is applied and explained in the New Testament. We surely cannot go wrong in allowing it thus to interpret itself to us, instead of following our own conjectures.

The following, then, are all the New-Testament passages:-

Matt. 16:6:" Then Jesus said unto them,' Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.'" In the twelfth verse this is explained:" Then understood they how that He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees."

The passages in Mark and Luke are similar (Mark 8:15 and Luke 12:i).

In i Cor. 5:the apostle is reproving them for their toleration of the " wicked person" there. " Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out, therefore, the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

There the "leaven" is moral evil, as in the gospels it was doctrinal evil. In Gal. 5:9 (the only remaining passage), it is again doctrinal. " Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are justified by the law. . . . Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not from Him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

If we take Scripture, then, as its own interpreter, it must be admitted that " leaven " is always a figure of evil, moral or doctrinal, never of good. But it is possible to define its meaning and that of the parable still more clearly.

It is Lev. 2:that furnishes us in this case with the key. Among the offerings which this book opens with (all of which, I need scarce say, speak of Christ), the meat-(or "food-") offering is the only one in which no life is taken, no blood shed. It is an offering of " fine flour,"-Christ, not in the grace, therefore, of His atoning death, but in His personal perfectness and preciousness as the bread of life, offered to God, no doubt, and first of all satisfying Him, but as that, man's food also, as He declares, " He that eateth Me shall even live by Me."

Now it is with this meat-offering that leaven is positively forbidden to be mixed (5:ii):"No meat-offering which ye shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven." True to its constant use in Scripture, as a figure of evil, that which was a type of the Lord Himself was jealously guarded from all mixture with it. Now in the parable, the "three measures of meal" are just this " fine flour" of the offering. The words are identical in meaning. The flour is man's food, plainly, as the offering is, and thus interpreted spiritually can alone apply to Christ. But here, the woman is doing precisely the thing forbidden in the law of the offering,-she is mixing the leaven with the fine flour. She is corrupting the pure "bread of life" with evil and with error.

And who is this "woman" herself? There is meaning, surely, in the figure. And he who only remembers Eph. 5:will want no proof that figure is often that of the Church, the spouse of Christ, and subject to Himself. It may be also, as we have already seen, the figure of the professing body, as the "woman," Babylon the Great, is. In this sense, the whole parable itself is simple. It is the too fitting climax of what has preceded it:it is she who has drugged the cup in Rev. 17:, for the deception of the nations, adulterating here the bread also. The " leaven of the Pharisees" (legality and superstition), the " leaven of the Sadducees" (infidelity and rationalism), the " leaven of Herod" (courtier like pandering to the world), things not of past merely, but of current history, have been mixed with and corrupted the truth of God. All must own this, whatever his own point of view. The Romanists will say Protestants have done so; the Protestants will in turn accuse Rome; the myriads of jarring sects will tax each other; the heathen will say to one and all, " We know not which of you to believe:each contradicts and disagrees with the other. Go and settle your own differences first, and then come, if you will, to us."

The leaven is leavening the whole lump. The evil is nowise diminishing, but growing worse. No doubt God is working. And no doubt, as long as the Lord has a people in the midst of Christendom, things will not be permitted to reach the extreme point. But the tendency is downward ; and once let that restraint be removed, the apostasy (which we have seen Scripture predicts) will then have come.

But men do not like to think of this. And I am prepared for the question (one which people have often put, where these things have been so stated) how can the kingdom of heaven be like "leaven" if leaven be always evil? Must not the figure here have a different meaning from that which you have given it? Must it not be a figure rather of the secret yet powerful influence of the gospel, permeating and transforming the world ?

To which I answer,-

1. This is contrary to the tenor of Scripture, which assures us that, instead of Christianity working real spiritual transformation of the world at large, the " mystery of iniquity" was already " working " in the apostle's days in it, and that it would work on (though for a certain season under restraint) until the general apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin. (2 Thess. 2:)

2. It is contrary to the tenor of these parables themselves, which have already shown us (in the very first of them) how little universal would be the reception of the truth :three out of four casts of the seed failing to bring forth fruit.

3. The language from which this is argued – "the kingdom of heaven is like unto it" – does not simply mean that it is itself like " leaven," as they put it, but like " leaven leavening three measures of meal." The whole parable is the likeness of the kingdom in a certain state, not the "leaven" merely is its likeness.

Let any one compare the language of the second parable with this, and he cannot fail to see the truth of this.

Ver. 24.

" The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man, which sowed good seed," etc.

Ver. 33.

" The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took," etc.

Is it not plain that the kingdom is no more simply compared to the "leaven" in ver. 33 than to the "man" in ver. 24? In each case the whole parable is the likeness.

The kingdom, therefore, need not be bad because the leaven is, nor the leaven good because the kingdom is. And into a picture of the kingdom in its present form evil may-and, alas! must -enter, or why judgment to set it right?

There is indeed but too plain consistency in the view of the kingdom which these parables present; and a uniform progression of evil and not of good. First, the ill-success of the good seed in the first parable; then, the introduction and growth of bad seed in the second. Then the whole form and fashion of the kingdom changes into the form and fashion of one of the kingdoms of the world. This is the Babylonish captivity of the Church. And lastly, the very food of the children of God is tampered with, and corrupted, until complete apostasy from the faith ensues. Christ is wholly lost, and Antichrist is come.

Here, thank God, the darkness has its bound; and in the last three parables of the chapter, we are to see another side of things, and trace that work of God which never ceases amid all the darkness; His-

Whose "every act pure blessing is ;
His path, unsullied light."

(To be continued.)

Q. 1.-In Help and Food, 1888, p. 270:" Suffer little children to come unto Me," is no authority for their baptism, but must refer, as all "coming" does, to an act of faith in the child, which baptism expresses.

Ans.-You will find that the circumstances of the case contradict this common idea. " Suffer them to come " was said to the disciples who were hindering the children being brought. They had not " come" of themselves at all.

Q- 2.-How can you say, there is no resisting will in children, when all naturally are at enmity?

Ans. This is spoken of such as were there, young enough to be taken up in His arms; it does not at all imply the absence of an evil nature, but an undeveloped state simply. But it is plain also that in putting the child under the authority of the parent, the training of the will is a main point, and it is not considered as yet established. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The child and the adult are held to be on a different footing.

Q. 3.-Page 271:" As far as it goes, it is baptism unto death, not life." Scripture never severs baptism from resurrection, never leaves the one in death. (Rom. 6:; Col. 2:; 1 Pet. 3:) Where would the "good conscience" be to leave the child in death?

Ans.-On the contrary, I believe it will be found that baptism never goes farther than death. It is burial, contrasted as such with resurrection. Only it is " to Christ," and " to His death," which thus, as it were, pleads for him who is baptized. But the baptism in itself goes no further.

Take the passage in Col. 2:, which seems most favorable to the other thought, and indeed, as it reads in every translation that I know, really necessitates it; but in this case, how are we raised up with Christ in baptism? In figure only? That cannot be, for it goes on to say, "through the faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead." But faith is not necessary to make a figure a figure:it would not do to say, " raised up with Him in figure, through faith.''

If not figurative, it must be real, however. Are we, then, really raised up with Christ in baptism? That would be to attach virtue to an ordinance in a way contrary to all scripture elsewhere, and to the whole spirit of Christianity. This very chapter speaks of our not being "subject to ordinances; " and for my readers I need perhaps scarcely pursue that.

Read now, as the Greek gives undoubted right to do, "in whom," instead of "wherein," and the thought is clear:"In whom ye are raised together "-there is no "him"-"through the faith of the operation of God, who raised Him:" how evident that "through faith " is just what is needed here. It is by faith we pass into this condition,-not by baptism.

In the passage in Rom. 6:, there is no difficulty. All that is said is (I read it according to J. N. D.'s translation), "If we are become identified with [Him] in the likeness of His death, so also we shall be of His resurrection." If the meaning of baptism has been fulfilled in us, our walk will show the consequence-we shall "walk in newness of life." Happily true it is, as our correspondent says, that Scripture does not leave the baptized one in death. So far, true:but only the grace of Christ, and that not in an ordinance, can carry him beyond it.

No good conscience can be where the child-or adult either- is left in death. But a good conscience does not come through baptism. Baptism is the "demand" of one,-"request" would perhaps be better. "Answer" is generally admitted to be wrong. In baptism, Christ is owned, that a good conscience may be the result. But this is actually given, not by baptism, but "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," as the passage itself (1 Pet. 3:21) clearly says.

Q. 4.-Page 272:Circumcision is nowhere a type of baptism, but " a seal of the righteousness of the faith, being yet uncircumcised." Does not circumcision figure the private or individual faith toward God (the Romans' side), while baptism figures James' earthly or kingdom side? Col. 2:11, 12 shows both, and a distinction between them, not that they are the same thing. And both are true of a believer now; on which ground 1 Cor. 7:14 shows wife and children are holy-" in a place of privilege, etc.-the kingdom, I take it, without their being baptized,- grace outstripping law.

Ans.-"Circumcision is nowhere a type of baptism;" there are no types of it:it is simply analogous as the Jewish, as baptism the Christian, mark. Nothing more has been claimed for it than this. Moreover, although "the seal of the righteousness of the faith," which Abraham had, " being yet uncircumcised," it was by God's express command performed upon the child of eight days old. Should not this be weighed?

Circumcision does not figure faith, but sealed it (in Abraham). It figures, according to Col. 2:, the " putting off the body of the flesh;" and "we are the circumcision who . . . have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3). Nor does baptism figure the earthly or kingdom side, by which I suppose is meant the introduction into the kingdom. It actually introduces into it. Baptism figures burial with Christ, according to Rom. 6:4. The two are thus very nearly allied in meaning. A great difference is, that while circumcision simply speaks of the judgment of the flesh, the Christian rite, as burial, shows death (and Christ's death) as what sets it aside for us, and all hope for us in a resurrection from the dead.

"On what ground," I do not understand. The wife and children of 1 Cor. 7:14 are not alike said to be holy:only the children are. The wife is sanctified only " in the husband," not in herself. As one flesh with her husband, she is covered by this:that is all. But the holiness of the children is different:it is a recognized thing, and thus proves the wife to be sanctified in the husband. The acknowledgment of the relationship is shown by the acknowledgment of the fruit of it, which surely implies that there was some open acknowledgment. Of course the holiness is not renewal of nature, but whatever is dedicated to God is, in the Scripture-sense, "holy." But this cannot show that there was no way of dedication (as by baptism). Rather, it argues for it.

Q. 5.-Page 236:" Two keys . . . admits into the body of the disciples." Thus also in Eph. 4:5, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," are found together." How is it true of unconscious infants?

Ans.-In the passage from which the first words are quoted, it is said, "Here there are two keys:'baptizing' and 'teaching' are the joint-methods of discipling. In the one, we have the key of knowledge; in the other, that which, as the outward part, authoritatively admits into the body of disciples upon earth."

Our correspondent will see that only baptism is the authoritative admission–one key, not two; but that to be in the kingdom in its full thought, the key of knowledge also must introduce. Therefore the word " Bring them up in the nurture and discipline of the Lord."

As to the rest, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," are joined together in the kingdom in God's thought of it, and thus again the previous exhortation.

The only thing in all this world that truly delights and refreshes the heart of God is the faith that can simply trust Him; and we may rest assured of this, that the faith that can trust Him is also the faith that can love Him and serve Him and praise Him.

I. PROPITIATION.- (Continued.)

And first, let us notice that the purification of the sanctuary is, in Hebrews as in Leviticus, what the blood accomplishes. "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." (Chap. 9:22-24.)

Thus Christ enters into the heavens to cleanse them for us; not as if His sacrifice had not been accepted already, but He brings in the power of the accepted sacrifice to give us entrance there. Of entrance indeed on our part the Old Testament type said nothing; there was yet no rent veil, the "first" or outer "tabernacle was still standing." This the later revelation adds to the earlier.

When He enters (once for all) He enters how? " By (Δια, "by means of," chap. 9:12) His own blood," says the apostle-" in the power of it.* *Εv, "in" instrumentally, "in the power of,"-"with blood of others," ver. 25.* "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place; having obtained eternal redemption." And again, " Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high-priest entereth into the holy place every year with"-or "in the power of,"-"blood of others; but now, once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

In the last case we have indeed but the inference from the type, "in the power of blood of others;" but the first quotation is direct proof. He entered (as High-priest, of course,) by His own blood. Thus the power of the blood was proved by His very entrance. And this is seen by the fact that literally He carried in no blood ; He simply went in Himself. Acceptance of His work preceded entrance, and thus in triumph and in power He entered.

At what time, and in what manner was this entrance for all? I answer, it was assuredly as risen from the dead, not otherwise. Take one of I lie beautiful and emphatic types of the Old Testament,-that of the two birds. The second bird, released after the death of his fellow, is the well-known symbol of Christ risen from the dead. But it bears with it, as it spreads its wings toward heaven, the precious blood which speaks of atonement finished. This, it may be said, is a matter of interpretation. This is true, but the interpretation is not doubtful; the sprinkling of blood upon the leper before release shows that He is raised again for our justification before entering heaven as thus viewed. It shows that this last is by ascension.

And the doctrine of Scripture is every where of one piece with this. If it is for our justification that Christ is raised, we are quickened and raised up with Him and after this follows "seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Would it be Scriptural or consistent, to disturb this order, and to make the seating in the heavenly places precede the being quickened and raised up with Him?

Again,-" Wherefore He saith, when He ascended up on high He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men;"-and again:"That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places." (Eph. 4:8; 1:19, 20.) Is not this the same entrance into heaven as when the apostle speaks of "the forerunner for us entered". and "an high-priest set on the throne of the majesty in the heaven," who "by His own blood entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. 6:20; 8:i; 9:12)?

If it be "once"-that is, "once for all," He entered in, is not this His entrance? or could we say, that God set Him twice at His right hand?

Is not all this consistent? Has it not one voice? And is it not abundantly confirming of the immediate acceptance of the precious blood which needed only to be shed to be accepted? For "Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost, and behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matt, 27:50-53.) Christ having been in the distance, there is none ; and dying, death gives up its prisoners.

What, then, is the Scriptural doctrine of propitiation?

We have seen that propitiation and atonement are in fact identical:atonement is propitiation or satisfaction of the divine nature; apart from it wrath rests upon the sinner, even although God loves and seeks us when we are dead in trespasses and sins. This propitiation is by Another standing in our stead, bearing the wrath necessarily upon us, and then dying for our sins; His blood, therefore, the witness of complete satisfaction.

In the type the application of the blood propitiated as to whatever it was applied to:altar, throne, person were cleansed by its being sprinkled on them. In all this the blood itself was never in question, but manifested its power, and was borne witness to, in this application of it. In the antitype it is spiritually, not literally applied, of course:our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience ; by His blood Christ enters the heavens for us.

And this propitiation is manifested in progressive steps, in which all its value is brought out and made over to us.

First, by His passing out of the darkness into the light, the wrath borne and ended, which means satisfaction found.

Then the rent vail which follows His death, in which the way into the holiest is shown to be prepared.

Next, resurrection is the public justification of those that are His own.

Then He ascends to heaven, our forerunner and representative, and the Holy Ghost coming out is a witness to us. (To be continued.")

PROF, DRUMMOND AND THE TEACHING OF NATURE (Continued.)

Yet I have already stated that there is truth in Prof. Drummond's book ; and it is this which has laid hold upon so many; it is truth, too, which we cannot give up because of the association in which we find it there. But it needs limiting and defining, both:it needs, in fact, re-statement; and this, if we get the right standpoint, I believe it not to be difficult to give it.

Really we cannot give up nature to the infidel, nor the facts of nature, where truly that; no, nor the study of nature, as if it were God's witness no longer, and could only deceive the one who listened to it. It is true, godless science can even manufacture "facts,"-just by reason of its supreme faith in theories which necessitate them; while it is certain to select them according to the " law " of which Mr. Lewes speaks, " that we only see what interests us, and only assimilate what is adapted to our condition," and which thus "causes the mind to select its evidence." How great in this way must be the evil done by text-books in which not all the facts, but a chosen number of them only are presented to the learner, who perhaps never goes beyond these, unable, save as to the merest fraction, to. verify them at all! But this only shows the danger of leaving science in the hands of unbelievers. Shut men's minds out from the study of nature, we cannot if we would. It is God's own witness, expressly appealed to by Scripture itself as that, and that witness it would be a terrible thing to have to renounce as if it were false witness, and to answer the apostle's question, " Doth not nature itself teach you?" with a negative of this kind. Shut men's minds out from it, therefore, we would not if we could.

Yet the danger is terribly increased by the fact which this book of Prof. Drummond's so alarmingly illustrates, that not only from unbelievers comes this perversion of truth, but that Christians so easily can be carried away with what is not science, but usurps its name. This ought surely to make us ask, Is there not some guiding principle of interpretation, which may be a safeguard to us ? Has God not provided such ?-some clue-line by which to thread our way through the forest whose depths we can never fully explore, yet where we should be able to pause and worship, without danger of being lost ? Such a clue indeed there is, if only we will accept it, and it lies near where Prof. Drummond's error lies, in the adoption of that " Principle of Continuity," or, as we may better call it perhaps, the principle of Unity which pervades the works of the one God,-Creator and Redeemer.

I cannot express myself better here than I have done in the pages of a MS. which may, if the Lord permit, one clay see the light. Its argument at this point is just the continuity of nature and Scripture,-the unity of the first with the later witness for God; and that, according to the very principle of nature itself, the later revelation must interpret the earlier,-not indeed without getting back from it some of the light which it throws upon it, as we may easily understand, yet keeping ever its own higher place.

"The God of revelation has but one Revealer. Christ it is in whom, from first to last, He has manifested Himself to us. He is the Word, His Living Utterance. ' By Him,' little as it may be even yet believed,' were all things made ; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.' Creation is thus part of revelation, as indeed we are distinctly told:the primary one, but as that, the least distinct, and not the most. The written Word itself begins obscurely, brightens as it goes on, and ends in mid-day splendor, which illumines all before it. Thus here also not the beginning gives us to know the end, but the end rather the beginning. So not creation interprets the Word, but the Word creation. And for this last, Christ must be known. Not the seed interprets, but the flower and fruit.

" It must be one revelation, for the God of whom it speaks is one. Thus, as one has argued, the law of continuity is not broken. The types and parables, and indeed our common speech as well, are all based upon this essential unity. It is thus we argue from the natural to the spiritual, and are really just as much entitled to argue from the spiritual to the natural, instinctively accepting the truth of analogies which a more deliberate judgment approves and confirms. But, as I have said, the usual way is, to take the natural as illustrating and enforcing the spiritual, and for obvious reasons. The analogy must needs work both ways, if it work one, that is clear. But it takes, we think, only nature to know nature:to know the spiritual, we must be spiritual. True this is, but not the whole truth. Conviction of spiritual truth may be impressed on natural men,-the very parables are witnesses of this. And then-however unwelcome the thought may be,-nature itself can be only deeply known by the spiritual understanding. In the end, which is Christ, we find the beginning. He is both ; Lord of all worlds, whom when the elders praise, the heavens and earth and all therein break out in harmony. (Rev. 5:9-13.)

"This is the attractive truth in what we have heard much of lately, the presence of ' Natural Law in the Spiritual World.' It is only the order of apprehension which troubles us in this. Put in the reverse way, you have more the order of fact; and from ' Spiritual Law in the Natural World,' no believer in Christ would for a moment shrink. We may put it in a better form still, and call it, 'The Unity of Divine Manifestation every where.' But this would no doubt bring our wonder to an end. The attractiveness of novelty would be lost in such a proposition ; and novelty there is in the author's view, as well as truth also, as I have said. But the trouble is here:not that the earth should be, down to its elemental foundations, part of its Maker's universal kingdom, but that, in the way of statement, nature should seem rather to govern than be governed, and actually be put in the interpreter's place to read the riddle of spiritual things. Here, indeed, there is room for plentiful confusion, which our author has not escaped; and when the chiefs of an agnostic evolutionism are elevated to the rank of professors in the college of spiritual truth, it is not strange if many should refuse it, it is rather strange that any should accept.

" Yet nature remains unfallen from its place as the eldest of revelations. Corrupted indeed in man, even this has only, in a sense, confirmed its witness to us as from Him to whom man's ruin was no surprise, and redemption no after-thought. Assuredly, such a world as is around us would to an unfallen being be an inexplicable mystery; and we do not wonder to see the yet unfallen parents of our race shut off from it in a specially prepared and sheltered Eden of delight, which might be for them a better witness of creating Love,-a memory of blessing to them when fallen. And when sent forth into the earth then, they could find still amid conflicting elements around the assurance from this strange sympathy with the new strife within them, of omniscient foresight, undeceived and un-dethroned.

" Has science altered this when she bids me note that the very ground they trod on was already but the wreck of former worlds? yet that mountain-upheavals and glacier-plow, and the long list of catastrophic forces, had been used of Him who is the God of resurrection to prepare and fertilize and beautify their yet wondrous dwelling-place? 'Out of death, life' was already the grand redemption-hymn, prophecy and promise of an infinitely grander one.

" ' Doth not nature itself teach you ?' asks a guide we may not refuse. What shall we answer him ? If man has filled Olympus with his deities, the sky is still serene as ever there, and we may worship there without suspicion. But for this, the later revelation must fill up the gaps and interpret the parables of the earlier one, and then with fear dispelled, neither the demons of the mist shall hurt us, nor the earth be filled but with the whirr of soulless machinery, using souls for its material,-an infinite and remorseless prodigality without return. Nay, with one of old we will sit and sing,-

" ' Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ?
Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there!
If I make my bed in hades, lo, Thou art there!
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there shall Thy hand lead me !
And Thy right hand shall hold me ! ' "

This principle of continuity (or of unity) we may well accept, then. God's work and His Word are thus one, and it does not need for this that we should apply the law of gravitation to spirit, as even Prof. Drummond allows us to escape from this, if spirit be in no sense material, which we take to be the fact. We might and should make other limitations, but which detract nothing from the truth that God's work and His Word have a real and beautiful correspondence, of which Mr. Drummond gives us in his first example, "Biogenesis" (or, Life from life alone), an instructive illustration. He is here on the safe ground of fact, as wide as the whole field of organic nature. It is quite otherwise when he undertakes to define "eternal life" by Herbert Spencer, and say of the Lord's words in Jno. 17:3, " For eighteen hundred years, only one definition of eternal life was before the world. Now there are two."

Even the Lord's words are not a definition of what in itself it is, but only of the character by which it is manifested in the soul that receives it,-a very different thing. And Herbert Spencer's definition would necessitate the annihilation of the wicked, a result which indeed to many now would be not unwelcome.

The doctrines of science must not be allowed to recast the doctrines of the Word ; but the Word must mold our science, and enable us to interpret aright the teachings of nature.* *Take but one fact,-that of the fall; how are we to have any true science or philosophy if we ignore this ''. The evil that is here, if man take not the shame of it, must he imputed to God as weakness at least, as one well-known man of late explicitly imputed it. He thought God had done the best He could ! Of old, Gnosticism and Manicheism had said similar things:mutter was, in their eyes, too intractable.* And this will give us lines large enough to inclose and give its true position to every fact with which nature can furnish us; while thus the whole will be transfigured into new and spiritual beauty, fit for the display of Deity to us, and surrounding us continually with admonitions of His presence and encouragement of His love. How would " day unto day " thus " utter speech, and night unto night tell knowledge"! The argument that Scripture was not intended to teach us science would be then seen as a partial truth miserably misused. Who indeed shall dare to say what Scripture cannot teach to him who is before God to learn ? And once let all truth be claimed for God as that which must needs testify for Him, the opposition between secular and sacred will end here as it ends in every true Christian life devoted to Him. Here, if the business be secular, can the life be as it should be-sacred? Have we not seen enough to know that a merely secular means a merely godless science? The realm in which Scripture has no voice is a realm in which God is not the King. Woe to the man who enters there !

Still more evidently is it true, then, that " where He speaks, whatever be the subject, it must be truth He speaks. ' Satan is a liar, and the father of it.' God is no more 'a man, that He should lie,' than He is 'the son of man, that He should repent.' And this applies equally to all subjects. He could no more give me false physics than false argument,-untrue statements as to sun or moon or firmament than as to Christ or salvation. Once admit a possibility of error, though it be infinitesimal, it must shake one's conviction as to the whole. 'If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?' Take away the truthfulness of Scripture in matters in which it can be tested, how shall we accredit it where it cannot be tested ? 'He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.' Such is the declaration of the Lord Himself. And with the Word of God, what may be pleaded for man may not be pleaded. Man is fallible and ignorant where yet he may be honest and true. With the Omniscient, mistake is impossible, and we dare not urge it."

To conclude, the work of God is as really a revelation of God as His Word is. The principle of continuity (or unity) requires that they should speak one language, and they do throughout. Spiritual law reigns in the natural world. While just as the plant in its flower and fruit interprets the seed, and just as the New Testament is the interpreter of the Old, so is the Word of God that which must give the proper understanding of creation. A science careless of God is none. It cannot be permitted to "recast" for us the truths of Scripture ; but Scripture is adequate to "recast," purify, and perfect science. The clue to the natural is to be found only in the spiritual, for which indeed alone it exists.

Q. 5 – "Do you think that the star which directed the Magi was a true star, such as we are to see this year?"

Ans. – I don not see how such a star could stand over the particular house in which the young child was. This would surely point to some special phenomenon, and not to any of the ordinary heavenly bodies.

Q. 6.-The translation of Mark 9:44, etc., is perfectly accurate. The expression " their worm dieth not," speaking, no doubt, of the gnawing tooth of conscience, shows clearly that it is eternal torment, though from within, but to which the fire (of God's righteous wrath) answers from without,-eternal, therefore, as the other.

Q. 7.-" How do you explain Matt. 21:38 ("They said, 'This is the heir,' " etc.) in connection with Acts 3:17,- ' I wot that through ignorance ye did it.' "

Ans.-I apprehend that their willful ignorance partook of both characters-ignorance acknowledge:so that while grace could count it one, their responsibility was that of the other. Perfect, demonstrative proof had been given them, but the eyes are in the heart, (as Eph. 1:18 reads really,) and the world had seduced and hardened their hearts, and their minds were blinded. At bottom, it was the claim of God upon them which was the motive of their resistance, as the Lord tells them. But with this disposition of heart, they could easily gather many an argument against submission, and be really blind. If we shut our eyes, we do not, in fact, see; but then why did we shut our eyes?

Q. 8.-"Please explain Jno. 19:II, last clause,- 'Therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin.'"

Ans.-Is it not that Judas, knowing as he did Christ's power to be beyond all that could be brought against Him, had availed himself of what He had declared as to the will of God concerning His death, to give Him up to it? Terrible was indeed the condition of heart which could pervert that blessed will for its own purpose. Compare the connection, Matt. 26:12, 14.

Q. 9.-"How do you reconcile Gen. 11:12 with Luke 3:35,36 ? In the first, Arphaxad is said to be the father of Salah, and in Luke, Cainan."

Ans.-Cainan is found in the present copies of the Septuagint in the genealogy of Shem in Gen. 10:24, 11:12, and i Chron. 1:18 ; but not in i Chron. 1:24, and is nowhere named in the Hebrew copies, nor in any of the versions made from the Hebrew. Its insertion in the Septuagint is thought to be modern, and to harmonize with Luke. Beza's MS. (of the sixth century) does not contain it either, nor (it is thought) did the copy of Luke used by Irenaeus. It is probable, therefore, that it is a very early interpolation.

Q. 10.-"What does Lev. 27:28, 29 teach? a man devoted was not to be redeemed, but put to death ?
Ans.-Yes ; but this necessarily applied only to cases where the law pronounced the penalty, as in the judgment of idolatry. Otherwise, the life even of slaves was carefully guarded.

Q. 2:-"Would not Jephthah's offering up his daughter be an abomination, as in Deut. 12:30, 31 ?"

Ans.-Certainly, if a real burnt-sacrifice is intended. But there is, after all, a question as to this on this very account. Keil's objections are worthy of consideration, and they are briefly these :-

(I) From the form of his vow, Jephthah must have contemplated the possibility (to say the least,) of a human offering. Yet not only did the law prohibit a sacrifice of this kind, but to have been offered, it must have been by a priest, upon the altar, or before the ark, and it is incredible that this should have been. Nor is a confessedly illegal offering to be thought of as designed to procure Jehovah's favor.

(2) Jephthah in his conduct toward the Ammonites shows no rashness nor want of knowledge such as this would have shown and this latter in all round about him.

(3) It is her virginity alone that she laments with her companions upon the mountains, and after the vow was fulfilled it is said, " she knew no man." Would not this point to a dedication to the Lord of another nature?

(4) The word " burnt-offering " is not the literal meaning of the Hebrew :it is literally "what ascends"-all of it; a whole-offering, and is at least susceptible of a spiritual meaning.

Such reasons as these cannot but make doubtful the performance of so atrocious a deed as the literal sacrifice of his daughter, by one of those judges of Israel raised up of Jehovah to deliver them, and on whom His Spirit came. Q. 12.-"How do you account for the apparent discrepancy between i Kings 16:6, 8 and 2 Chron. 16:i, as to the time of Baasha's reign ?"

Ans.-The text of Chronicles is here apparently incorrect, the letters "1" (30) and "i" (10), which are somewhat similar in the ancient Hebrew characters, having been interchanged by some copyist. It should be "the sixteenth year." In the same way the "forty-two" in chap. 22:2 is a mistake for "twenty-two" (Keil).

Q. 13.-"Does Isa. 22:22-24 refer to Christ? If so, what does ver. 25 mean,-the nail removed and cut down?" Ans.-Eliakim and Shebna are surely (typically) Christ and Antichrist. But the last verse applies to Shebna's removal to give place to Eliakim. The nail that is fastened (at the time the prophet speaks) gives way to the nail that God will fasten.

Q. 14.-"In Num. 20:9, Moses took the rod from before the Lord,-Aaron's almond-bearing rod, I take it,- and in the eleventh verse, with his rod smote the rock. Was this Aaron's rod, or Moses'? C. H. M. makes it Moses' rod. Is this correct? and can it be made plain from Scripture?"

Ans.-The most literal interpretation would seem to be the best. The only question that can be raised is, Could the rod of the priesthood be called "his (Moses') rod"? Loosely it might, no doubt, as the rod he was then using, be called his, but strictly it was not so; and the spiritual meaning seems best to agree with the strict sense.

Q- 15–"In i Sam. 17:12-14, we find David was the eighth son, but in i Chron. 2:15, he is the seventh :why is this?"

Ans.-Keil supposes that one of Jesse's sons may have died without posterity, and so be omitted from the list in the latter place. I have nothing better to offer.

Q- 16.-"Why is no blood carried into the holiest in Lev. 8:9, while it is in chap. 16:?"

Ans.-No blood was ever carried in, except on the day of atonement, in which alone the entering of Christ into heaven once was represented, as far as could be under the law, by this entrance of the high-priest into the holiest "once a year." The sacrifices of this day were exalted over all the rest, and took place for " all their transgressions in all their sins," as if no other sacrifice had any efficacy. It is this day which the epistle to the Hebrews, therefore, dwells upon throughout; and it shows the one effectual offering which displaces all others. Yet, as being only the type, it was itself repeated year by year :its own witness that it spoke merely as a shadow of the coming substance.

Q. 17.-"What is meant in Lev. 8:10, II by the anointing with oil of the altar and laver, as well as the tabernacle, before the sacrifices were offered? If the anointing of the tabernacle without blood indicates the Spirit's witness to Christ's personal glory throughout the created universe, does the anointing of the altar, etc., as well link it with redemption, and also indicate that by the eternal Spirit He offered Himself?"

Ans.-The altar and laver are of course the way (by blood and water) into the presence of God ; the tabernacle, His dwelling-place with men. All is consecrated and prepared by the Spirit of God according to perfect holiness, His necessary character. Then the same Spirit marks out and sets apart the One who is to make all this a reality for us; necessarily, therefore, Himself anointed without blood. The order of the anointing seems to me rather to connect these things (tabernacle, altar, and laver,) with Christ as Man, coming forward in due time and place to give effect to what was ordained of God for blessing.

Q. 18.-"How would you explain the scriptures which speak of God repenting, as in Gen. 6:6, 7, and other places?"

Ans.-In Jer. 18:7-10, God openly proclaims the principle:" At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." Nineveh spared, as in the book of Jonah, is a case in point. God acts as a man would who did repent; while in fact "God is not a man, to lie, nor the son of man, to repent." (Num. 23:19.) Yet the whole truth is not in this change of action. God is not indifferent and without feeling, although we must take care not to impute imperfection to Him; but indifference would be the saddest of imperfection. The language used by Scripture is a necessary accommodation to our understanding, but, as a writer well says, " If it is an accommodation, let us be accommodated by it; since here all human minds are very much on a ,par. Our right feeling is much more concerned in this than our right understanding. We cannot rise to God, and we should reverently adore the effort, if we may so call it, which He makes to come down to us, to think our thinking, and thus to converse with us in our own language."

MOTTO FOR 1888:-"For to me, to live is Christ,"

"And he put all upon Aaron's hands, and upon his sons hands, and waved them for a wave-offering before the Lord. And Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt-offering; they were consecrations for a sweet savor; it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord." (Lev. 8:27, 28.)

It has been often remarked that "consecration" in this passage is filling the hand. Aaron and his sons are practically consecrated to God by the putting into their hands the fat and shoulder of the ram, with cakes and wafer of the meat- (or meal-) offering, and waving them for a wave-offering before the Lord. Then they are taken and burnt upon the altar as a sweet savor.

Before this, and in order to it, we must remember, they have been washed (these priests) in water, and sprinkled with the blood of sacrifice; and this has been put upon the tip of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the great toe of the right foot. Even so must we, if we are to be priests
to God, be washed with the " washing of regeneration," and have our "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," being set apart to Him as His by the power of the same cleansing blood which has bought us, that we should be no more our own. Thus cleansed from sin, and become the servants of God, we have our fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life.

As priests, our occupation is with the holy things; and this practical consecration is just occupation. All Christians are priests to God, and it is our business to attend to these things. The hand, in the type before us, speaks of all our activities, our labor. The ear is that by which we receive instruction; the foot speaks of our individual walk before God; but the hand is that by which we lay hold of things around, and mold and transform them. By the hand, man shows himself the natural vicegerent of God upon earth; and thus, while the ear and foot have been equally set apart to Him by the blood of atonement, the hand it is now that is to be filled for consecration:we are to be taught our business. Blessed be God, it is indeed true that-

"With Him is all our business now."

Some one may object, indeed, that in saying this we go much too far. Our circumstances in the world will not allow of any thing like this; indeed, it is our mere secular employment that we habitually call our "business." And it is true that as Christians, alas! we not only pick up the language of the world, but sanction its thoughts. Nevertheless, it is also plainly true, and easily to be proved from Scripture, that the Christian's business is with Christ. No less than Paul's is our motto to be, "To me to live is Christ;" and what does that mean, except that all that makes up our life-the whole business of our life is Christ?

By this it is not denied at all, as it would be absurd and impossible to deny, that each one of us has his earthly calling, duties to fulfill which carry us into the world, and require a large part of our time to be spent in their discharge. We have families to provide for, and that is often a work of much toil, yet "he that provideth not for his own, specially for those of his own house, has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Christianity loses sight of none of these claims, but enforces them all upon us:they are as many as our links of connection with other men ; every link is a responsibility ; every responsibility toward man a responsibility to God also.

This is sufficiently solemn; and it is nothing but a misuse of grace to make it lessen for us its solemnity. Life is full of seriousness; the more serious our sense of it the better.

Yet while "all things are full of labor," as the preacher says, and the Christian does not escape from this, yet "Labor not for the meat that perisheth" is the Lord's own word to us; a word of simpler meaning than we may have apprehended in it. For, in truth, we are never to labor for the perishing food, but are privileged rather to labor for Him who has appointed our path, and to whom our duty is. Our duty thus becomes to us that yoke of Christ which is easy, and in which we find rest. Our business is with Him:its recompense from Himself; and if we had to toil ten or more hours a day for Him, would it be a spiritual weight to drag us down from communion with Him, or rather a service in which for all our need and in all our weakness His power and fullness should be more than sufficiency?

Alas ! for these Christless businesses in which self-will is rampant, and the "gain to me" is not "loss for Christ"! When shall we learn that there is no spot on earth in which there is not a battle between two forces? no course that we can take which is merely neutral between Christ and the world, between God and mammon? Here is a spiritual leprosy which pollutes the whole life and secularizes it:for if the business be secular, no part of the life can be kept sacred.

How significant a thing, then, is this priestly consecration, in which our hands are filled with Christ. Our hands are to wave before God the fat and the shoulder and the cakes of the meal-offering. We are to keep Him thus before God, presenting Him in the energy of His devotedness (the fat), in the burden-sustaining "shoulder," in the perfection of His life of holy balance and consistency in the power of the Holy Ghost. God is to see in us this memorial of His beloved Son, whatever we put our hand to; not merely an imitation of Him, but a devotedness derived from the apprehension of His, a power which is His strength made perfect in weakness,-a life, in short, which is but the life of Christ, developed by the power of the Spirit in us. For "out of His fullness have all we received, even grace upon grace."

Is it not of our priestly consecration we are reminded, when, from week to week, on the first day of the week, before its toil begins, we, as His disciples, come together to break bread? Is He not for faith put afresh into our hands, that we may receive Him in the place He has taken for us, and in occupation with Him begin again and again the henceforth of our lives? He thus claims possession of us every way, fills our eyes, our hands, makes Himself ours that we may be His, that henceforth whatever we look at, it may be Christ we see; whatever we handle, we may touch Christ in it. How sweet to be reminded ! how solemn the need of being thus reminded!

Christian reader, have you so learnt Christ? To see Him in every thing, find Him every where, have your whole business with Him, take in nothing any other yoke than His yoke? This is rest, liberty, power. To come short of it is distraction and confusion. "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."

" That I am Thine, my Lord and God,
Sprinkled and ransomed by Thy blood,-
Repeat that word once more,
With such an energy and light,
That this world's flattery nor spite
To shake me never may have power.

" From various cares my heart retires,
Though deep and boundless its desires ;
I 'm now to please but One :
Him, before whom the elders bow,
With Him is all my business now,
And with the souls that are His own.

" This is my joy that ne'er can fail,
To see my Saviour's arm prevail,
To mark the steps of grace ;
How new-born souls, convinced of sin,
His blood revealed to them within,
Extol the Lamb in every place.

"With these my happy lot is cast!
Through the world's deserts rude and waste,
Or through its gardens fair;
Whether the storms of trouble sweep,
Or all in dead supineness sleep,
Still to go on be all my care.

" See, the dear sheep by Jesus drawn
In blest simplicity move on ;
They trust His Shepherd's crook.
Beholders many faults may find,
But they can guess at Jesus' mind,
Content if written in His book.

" O all ye wise, ye rich, ye just,
Who the blood's doctrine have discussed,
And judge it weak and slight:
Grant that I may (the rest's your own)
In shame and poverty sit down
At this one well-spring of delight.

"Indeed, if Jesus ne'er was slain,
Or aught can make His ransom vain,
That now it heals no more,-
If His heart's tenderness has fled,
If of a Church He is not Head,
Nor Lord of all, as heretofore,

" Then,-so refers my state to Him,
Unwarranted I must esteem,
And wretched all I do.
Ah, my heart throbs, and seizes fast
The covenant that will ever last;
It knows, it knows, these things are true.

" No, my dear Lord, in following Thee,
And not in dark uncertainty,
This foot obedient moves :
'Tis with a Brother and a King,
Who many to His yoke will bring,
Who ever lives and ever loves.

" Now, then, my Way, my Truth, my Life,
Henceforth let sorrow, doubt, and strife
Drop off like autumn leaves;
Henceforth, as privileged by Thee,
Simple and undistracted be,
My soul which to Thy scepter cleaves.

" Let me my weary mind recline
On that eternal love of Thine,
And human thoughts forget;
Childlike, attend what Thou wilt say,
Go forth and do it while 'tis day,
Nor ever leave my sweet retreat.

"At all times to my spirit bear
An inward witness, soft and clear,
Of Thy redeeming power ;
This will instruct Thy child and fit,
Will sparkle forth whatever is mist,
For exigence of every hour.

"When all the sequel is well weighed,
I cast myself upon Thine aid,
A sea, where none can sink ;
Yea, in that sphere I stand, poor worm,
Where Thou wilt for Thy name perform
Above whatever I ask or think."

(Gambold.)

" Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift."

In the heart of London city, '
Mid the dwellings of the poor,
These bright, golden words were uttered,-
"I have Christ! what want I more?"

By a lonely, dying woman,
Stretched upon a garret-floor;
Having not one earthly comfort,-
" I have Christ! what want I more ?"

He who heard them ran to fetch her
Something from the world's great store :
It was needless-died she, saying,-
"I have Christ! what want I more?"

But her words will live forever;
I repeat them o'er and o'er.
God delights to hear me saying,-
"I have Christ ! what want I more ?"

Oh, my dear, my fellow-sinner!
High and low, and rich and poor,
Can you say with deep thanksgiving,-
" I have Christ! what want I more?"

Look away from earth's attractions,
All earth's joys will soon be o'er;
Rest not, till each heart exclaimeth,-
" I have Christ! what want I more?"

M. J. W.

The learning the place that grace has given us in Christ risen has brought very great delight, for the sense of the blessed nearness to Him which it gives us remains a settled thing. Yet how needful to remember that the power for resting the head on His bosom is through our having our feet in His hands. Nor does all this alter the fact that as the moment of His coming draws near, and our longing hearts repeat, " Even so, come, Lord Jesus," the sense of His absence grows too. We cannot be satisfied till we see His face, and are forever with and like Him.

The fig-tree is used by our Lord as a figure of the Jewish nation. It was to enforce upon them the necessity of repentance that He uttered His well-known parable, in which a fig-tree planted in a vineyard, fruitless after three years' visitation, is made to shadow the peril of their condition.

Israel had been of old God's vine, planted in a very fruitful hill, fenced and cared for as He only could care. But they had repaid it all as only man repays the toil of the divine Husbandman. They had brought forth but wild grapes; and He had to take away the hedge, and break down the wall, and lay the vineyard waste.

Out of the Babylonish captivity a remnant had been allowed to return to their land once more, and to be planted, not as the vine that once was, but as a fig-tree planted in the vineyard. This it was that God had now visited. Christ had come to His own, but His own had not received Him. He found but a cross; yet at the cross intercedes, like the dresser of the vineyard, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." So after the cross, Jerusalem gets the gospel, and, by the ministry of the Holy Ghost, is digged about and dunged. Nationally, there was rejection still, and the Roman ax cut down the tree.

But there is still hope of a tree, though it be cut down ; and for Israel there is hope. The same prophetic Word that centuries before its occurrence predicted her long dispersion declares its end, their national revival, their partial return (still in unbelief) to their own land, the consequent judgment of God, inflicted by the hand of surrounding nations, which befalls them there, the deliverance of a repentant remnant in their last extremity by the coming of the Lord from heaven, and their final complete restoration and blessing.

It is only with a small part of this that we shall be occupied at present. The large part of it waits for fulfillment at a time which (near as it may be,) will find the present dispensation at an end, and when Christians will be with their Lord. Let us trace briefly what has been fulfilled only, and look at what is being fulfilled before our eyes, the witness given by a nation in its unbelief to Him whom it has rejected and still rejects.

Seven hundred years before it came to pass, the prophet Micah foresaw this rejection. Looking on to a day even yet future, he beholds the last trouble of Jacob, out of which they will be delivered, and announces the reason for all this coming upon them:"Now gather thyself in troops, thou daughter of troops :he hath laid siege against us :they smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. . . . Therefore will He give them up." (Ch. 5:i, 3.)

Here is a plain declaration of the reason why Jehovah delivers His people into their enemies' hand. But who is this "Judge of Israel"? The verse between the two that I have quoted gives a perfect explanation :" But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me who is to be Ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting!" Born at Bethlehem, yet the Eternal, spite of man's rejection, ordained of God as Israel's King,-could it be more perfectly declared that for their refusal of the Lord Jesus Christ they have been nationally given up?
But there is a limit to the period of this setting aside of the people:"Therefore shall He give them up until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth ; then the remnant of His brethren shall return unto the children of Israel."

Israel herself is this travailing woman :when she hath brought forth for God, (as yet she has not,) then will the purpose of His chastening be attained, then will He withdraw His hand and speak comfortably to her; and then, mark, "the remnant of His"-the divine Ruler's-"brethren shall return unto the children of Israel."

That is, Israel will have again, as of old, her distinct place with God. Now, if a Jew be converted, he becomes a member of Christ's body, and there is neither Jew nor Gentile. In the time of which we speak, the present dispensation will be over, the body of Christ complete :a converted Jew will be henceforth once more a Jew.

The cause of Israel's long abandonment by God is here fully revealed in those very Old-Testament Scriptures which they own to be of God. But we see also distinctly that on their repentance they will be received nationally once more. In the meantime, as the apostle says, "Blindness in part is happened unto Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in ; and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, ' There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." . . . As concerning the gospel, they are enemies,"-treated by God as enemies,-"for your sake; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake ; for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. 11:26-29.)

As long as the gospel-our Christian gospel-goes on, then, Israel (far from being brought in by it,) remain as enemies. The least true sign of national revival among them is a sign, therefore, of the gospel dispensation nearing its close. It is a sign that Christ is coming, that the blessing of the earth which comes with Israel's blessing (Rom. 11:12,15) is at hand ; and therefore that Christians shall be soon gathered home to be with Christ. And so the Lord says; after having announced His appearing in the clouds of heaven, He adds, " Now learn a parable of the fig-tree:When his branch hath now become tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh ; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." We do not see, indeed, nor can we as Christians expect to see, all the things of which He speaks, for His words clearly contemplate a Jewish remnant in Jerusalem after the Church is removed ; but the fig-tree beginning to put forth leaves we do surely already see.

In a book which has been recently issued in a second edition,* Dr. Kellogg has so well summed up the evidence of this that there can be no need to do more than refer to its deeply interesting pages. *"The Jews:or, Prediction and Fulfillment." By Samuel H. Kellogg, D. D. May be had from Loizeaux Brothers, 63 Fourth Avenue, New York. Price, $1.25, post-paid.* He there first of all reminds us how literally have been accomplished the prophecies of the long season of Israel's humiliation. They were to be scattered from one end of the earth even to the other; to go into captivity; serving their enemies in hunger, thirst, and nakedness; and among these nations they were to find no ease, nor the sole of their foot to have rest, with a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind,- great plagues, and of long continuance. They were to be left few in number, an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations (Deut. 28:41-67).

Their religious condition is pictured in a few striking words by Hosea :"The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim." Thus, while not idolaters, they would be without the ordinances of their own religion. A strange thing indeed, but which must be the case while they are not in possession of the place where alone their offerings can be offered. It is significant that according to their own ritual atonement for their sins can be no longer made. How clear a testimony to them that the true atonement has been made !

As to the land itself, the predictions are no less exact. It was to become "utterly desolate." "The land shall not yield her increase, neither the trees of the land their fruits." (Lev. 26:20.) "I will bring the land into desolation ; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it." (5:31.) " Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house shall become as the high places of the forest." (Mic. 3:12.) "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." (Luke 21:24.)

Details as to the accomplishment of these things are given by Dr. Kellogg; but it scarcely needs to follow him here, for they are facts more or less familiar to us at the present day. He goes on to consider the promises of their restoration to their land " in the latter days," the reunion of the ten tribes with the two (Jer. 30:31; Ezek. 37:), this restoration being final (Jer. 31:40; Am. 9:15) and complete (Ezek. 36:8, 10 ; Isa. 27:12). He notices also their political condition to be an independent one (Jer. 30:8), and (the history of their long apostasies at an end,) the sanctuary of God to be in the midst of them for evermore (Ezek. 37:28). In all this, he is still upon ground familiar, through grace, to an increasing number of believers in the literal truthfulness of such prophetic Scripture in the present time.

Our practical interest begins with Dr. Kellogg's book when he asks the question, "Have any signs and beginnings yet appeared of a literal fulfillment of the ancient promises to Israel, such as, if the literal interpretation of these promises be correct, we have sooner or later to expect?" He adds,-

"The answer which history gives to this question is clear as the sunlight. That answer is without doubt affirmative. It is the indisputable fact that for now more than a hundred years the Jews have been steadily rising out of that depth of subjection and abasement in which they had lain for centuries; and that, concomitant with this have appeared among both Jews and Gentiles many other exceptional phenomena predicted by the prophets, as to accompany or usher in Israel's final restoration. The facts which support this assertion are most impressive when we look at the past, and full of very solemn omen as to the swiftly approaching future."

The emancipation of the Jews from civil and legal disabilities began in the middle of the last century, the first act being the enfranchisement of the Jews in England in 1753, though parliament was compelled to repeal this the next year. About the same time, a Jew, Moses Mendelssohn, in Germany, by his influence upon his own people, and the effect of his life and writings upon the European nations, began the breaking down of hostile feelings on both sides. On the other hand, in France, as the result of manifold oppressions, both civil and religious, began the propagation of the reactionary doctrine of the absolute equality of men which brought about the revolution which convulsed at a later period, not only France, but Europe. In 1776, the United States of America embodied in their constitution this principle, that all men, without regard to creed or race, Gentile and Jew, should be held equal in right and privilege before the law.

"In Europe, the new and decisive movement began in 1783, when Joseph II. of Austria sounded the signal of the approaching revolution in an edict of toleration liberating the Jews throughout his dominions from the oppressions of centuries. By this decree, the odious 'body-tax' was abolished, and most of the vexations restrictions upon them (such as, for example, forbade the Jew to wear a beard, or to leave his house on the festival days of the church, or to frequent places of pleasurable resort, etc.,) were removed. All the schools and universities of the Austrian empire were thrown open to the Jews. The spirit of revolution was now abroad. The air was full of voices presaging impending change. In 1784, Louis XVI. of France also abolished the body-tax, which reduced the Jew, as far as possible, to the level of a beast. In 1787, Frederic William of Prussia repealed many of the oppressive laws against the Jews which Frederic the Great had enacted ….

"So things were going on, when the French Revolution, with all its unprecedented terrors, burst upon bewildered Europe. The Lord had said by the prophets that when the hour of Israel's deliverance should come, He would make them that had oppressed her 'drunk with their own blood' (Isa. 49:24-26), and that He would then take the cup of trembling out of the hand of Israel, and 'put it into the hand of them that had afflicted her' (Isa. 51:22,23). And so, as every one knows, it came to pass at that time. The great timepiece of the dispensation struck the predestined hour, the great revolution began, and Europe was straightway filled with fire and blood. Throne after throne went down in flame and judgment; and as the thrones of the Gentiles fell, everywhere fell with them the chains of ages from the limbs of Israel."

Space will not permit further detail. Dr. Kellogg next points out, from the thirty-seventh of Ezekiel, that a "tendency to external organization in the scattered nation was to be looked for, antecedent and preparatory to their actual reinstatement in their land and their conversion to God by the power of the Spirit of life." And he says, " In this again do we find fulfillment answering to prediction in the age in which we live." He adduces especially in proof of this "the formation, in 1860, of 'The Alliance Israelite Universal,' an organization which has for its object the promotion and completion of the emancipation of the Jews in all lands, and their intellectual and moral elevation, as also the development of the Jewish population of the Holy Land."

He proceeds to speak of their predicted wealth, to be derived from the Gentiles that oppressed them (Isa. 60:9; 61:6), and points out the startling way in which they are becoming the actual or virtual owners of the soil through a large part of Central and Eastern Europe.

"One of the liberal papers of Germany is quoted by the New-York Tribune as saying that ' the rapid rise of the Jewish nation to leadership is the great problem of the future for East Germany.' The writer justifies this opinion by the statement that 'all the lower forms of labor, in the workshops, the fields, the ditches, and the swamps, fall to the lot of the German element, while the constantly increasing Jewish element obtains enormous possessions in capital and land, and raises itself to power and influence in every department of public life.' "

Again, we are told,-

" ' It is a fact which can no longer be denied, that the population of the remote districts of Russia, Austria, Hungary, and Roumania are only the nominal possessors of the soil, and, for the most part quite strictly, cultivate the land only for the Jews, to whom they have mortgaged their estates for their liquor debts.' 'In Russia, it is said already in 1869, seventy-three per cent of the immovable property of certain provinces in the west, where the Jews are the most numerous, had passed from the hands of the Russians into those of the Jews.'"

"According to Le Telegraphe, Constantina, Algiers, and Oran belong almost completely to the Jews. The whole trade of Algiers is in their hands; and, in consequence of high and usurious rates of interest, a large proportion of the natives are fallen into the power of the Jews."

Again, in the matter of education, " Every where, they have entered eagerly into the intellectual contest; and already, as compared with Christians, are found in a much larger proportion of their total number, among the educated and educating classes."In Berlin, where the Jews are but five per cent of the population, they are thirty per cent of the students. In the University of Berlin, at a recent date, out of 3,609 students, 1,302 were Jews. In the High Schools of Vienna lately, of 2,448 students, 1,039 were registered as Jews. Prof. Treitschke, of the University of Berlin, is quoted as saying that, " while in the whole German empire the proportion of Jews is only one in seventy-five, yet in all the higher institutions of learning the proportion of Jews is one in ten. Prof. Von Schulte argues, from the educational statistics of the German empire, that "it needs no prophet to foretell that the offices of state, the legal and medical professions, trade and industry, will pass in ever-increasing proportion into the hands of the Jews;" and he adds, "The educational returns show the same state of things in Austria also."

After the statement of many like facts, Dr. K. gives the opinion of M. de Lavaleye, the eminent publicist of Belgium, that "the rapid rise of the Jewish element is a fact which may be observed all over Europe. If this upward movement continues, the Israelites, a century hence, will be the wasters of Europe."

The increase of the Jews is another prediction (Isa. 60:22; Jer. 31:27; Ezek. 36:37), according to the book before us, being now remarkably fulfilled. Basnage, a hundred and seventy-five years ago, estimated their number to be about 3,000,000. The lowest estimate at present more than doubles this. A high authority reckons them at not less than 12,000,000. There are said to be among them a larger proportion of births, and an exceptionally low average of mortality.

There is much more of exceeding interest in Dr. Kellogg's book, but it must suffice us now to mention one thing only-the preparation for their restoration to their land which is evidently being made. The crippling of Turkey, the power in possession of it, the increased and increasing interest in the " eastern question " on the part of the powers of Europe, the effect of recent Russian hostility in directing the eyes of many of the Jews in those parts to the land of their fathers, lying nearly vacant for them,-with these things almost all are familiar. We are all aware, also, that they are increasing in number in the land. Dr. Kellogg's statement, however, will add definiteness to our knowledge. I quote briefly, and fragmentarily only :-

"Until the year 1841, only three hundred Jews were permitted to live in Jerusalem. In that year, this restriction was removed, though the Jews were still confined by law to a narrow and filthy district of the city, next to the leper quarters. In 1867, however, by a firman of the Sultan, this restriction also was removed, and the Jews were allowed, in common with all foreigners, to purchase and own land in Palestine without becoming subjects of the Sultan." " Many Jews began at once to avail themselves of the right. The movement was further accelerated in 1874 by the adoption by Russia of the German system of military conscription, whereby the Jews-for the most part previously exempt from military service-found themselves all obliged to serve in the ranks for their worst oppressor. At once began a movement of the Jewish population from Russia to Palestine." "The outbreak of the Jewish persecutions in Europe, especially in Russia, has still further quickened this Palestinian movement." "Mr. De Haas, lately U. S. consul at Jerusalem, numbers those there as high as 20,000. This estimate, which takes no account of Jews found in other parts of Palestine, is yet nearly one-half the whole number that returned in the restoration from Babylon. " Even before the recent Russian persecutions had given new impulse to the movement of the Russian Jews toward the Holy Land, The Jewish Chronicle wrote, "We are inundated with books on Palestine, and the air is thick with schemes for colonizing the Holy Land once more.'""There is abundant evidence that the desire for the restoration of the Jewish nationality in Palestine, however it may have died out with most of the comfortable Jews in Western Europe and America, is keenly alive and active in that larger part of the nation which is found in Eastern Europe. A writer in the Jewish Chronicle says,
'Israel must once again take up the staff of the wanderer, and abandon the graves of his ancestors. Where are the poor people to go? This question the Jews of Russia have themselves answered. The greater portion have determined to proceed to Palestine, the scene of our former glory and independence. 'The Russian Jews number about 4,000,000, or about a third of the whole Jewish race.'The Russian and Roumanian Jews,' again says The Jewish Chronicle, 'are bent on going to Palestine.

Whatever we may think or say as the practicability of the new exodus, it is evidently to take place. To all the objections that can be pointed out, the Jews of Russia and Roumania have one all-sufficient reply,–We cannot be worse off there than here! The movement is irresistible.'"

We close these extracts from Dr. Kellogg's book with sincere thanks to him for it. May our hearts be stirred as we realize in this budding of the fig-tree the sign of the summer at hand. While no signs are necessarily to precede the coming of our Lord, but we are to watch as not knowing the time, yet who can deny that there is all abroad in the air the voice of One who speaks in human history as the Governor of all its course; and that this voice says to us now, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!"
"Surely, I come quickly."May His whole church be roused to give Him welcome, as it should!

I. FRANCE.

In drawing attention briefly to the work of the Lord in the mission-field, it is hoped to interest those who know little as yet as to it to look further into what He is doing in the present day. It is not my thought to be able to add any thing to the knowledge of those who have been already aroused to inquiry, as the means of satisfying it are now so abundant. But with very many yet of the people of God, there is a lack of interest which is largely due to ignorance-an ignorance which should no longer any where exist. " The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." His work in the salvation of souls is what must have preeminent claim on all who are themselves the subjects of it. And His ways of carrying on this work are worthy of adoring observation.

In speaking of France as a mission-field at all, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, we cannot but realize that the Church has not fulfilled the condition upon which alone the goodness of God is assured toward her:"Toward thee, goodness," says the apostle of the Gentiles to the Gentile profession, "if 'thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou also shall be cut off." (Rom. 11:22.) France has been a professedly Christian country (one brief terrible period excepted) for many centuries, and however gratifying it may be to hear of the success of missions in it at the present day, yet we cannot escape from the thought of what the need of them implies as to that long lapse of time in God's forbearance.

Since the Reformation, France has been in constant struggle with the gospel. She has had her religious wars and days of savage persecution, her St. Bartholomew and her dragonnacles. Again and again the cause of Protestantism seemed about to triumph, but its apparent victory which set Henry IV. upon the throne was its worst defeat. In the Edict of Nantes, it accepted toleration and compromise,-with these, retrogression and decay. Then followed the Revocation of the Edict, the slaughter and dispersion of the Protestants, and Rome reigned once more absolute over the desolated land.

But she had prepared the scourge for her own back. Allied with the most cruel and oppressive civil despotism, she nursed the spirit of revolt into a flame, and the reaction aroused in one frantic outburst overthrew Church and state together. Since the Revolution, Rome has never been able to recover her old supremacy. The hand that reinstated controlled her too, and Protestantism has been from that time tolerated. But it was no more in its old vigor; it too was controlled by the state, leavened by the infidelity that was now abroad, and with little life or hope in it. From this time, France became really a mission-field, her help from without rather than from within; and though this help was given to some extent, and workers of many sorts entered into the field, yet there was for long no very marked success. Of late, however, an encouraging change has taken place, and it can now be said, by one well qualified to speak,-

" Never before has there been such liberty in France to spread the gospel. There is now freedom for meetings of all kinds. . . . Protestantism-rather let us say, the religion of Christ-is now, so to speak, in the air one breathes in France. A breath of revival has passed over our torpid population, and the gospel is every-where welcomed."
It is my purpose to speak here of two special movements in which it is impossible not to recognize the power of God, sovereign in the instruments it employs, working in a way to give confident assurance of widespread blessing begun, which, if the Lord tarry but a short time, may be expected to manifest itself much more abundantly. Both are already well known to those whose eyes are on the fields of God's eternal harvests; but there are many of the Lord's people whose eyes are not yet there, and who are thus deprived of so much fellowship with the Lord in His blessed work, and of matter both for thanksgiving and prayer, if not of more active sympathy, I can, of course, but briefly summarize what has been said by others.

The first of these movements is that of the McAll mission, of which a much better account than I can give will be found in Mr. Loomis' interesting volume on "Modern Cities."* My own is extracted principally from that of Mr. McAll himself, in his "Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire." *"Modern Cities and their Religious Problems,"by Samuel Lane Loomis. For those who would go move at length into the subject, there are " The White Fields of France," by Dr. Horatius Bonar ; and "A Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire; " "Records of the McAll Mission," London, Hodder & Stoughton; with "French Protestantism in the Nineteenth Century," by Louise S. Houghton; published by the American McAll Association, Philadelphia.*

Mr. McAll was a Congregational minister, the pastor of a church at Hadley, England. In 1871, he was with his wife for the first time in Paris, during a short summer vacation. It was just after the Franco-German war, and the horrors of the Commune were linked in vivid memory with the quarter, on a street in which they took their stand to distribute tracts to the passers-by. They stood alone there:such was the repute of the district that their friends, having warned, declined to accompany them.

"The 'blouses,'" says Mr. McAll, "were all around us. As yet, few evidences of Christian interest had reached these remote and dreaded 'citizens.' What had been done was chiefly in supplies of food, etc., sent from England. No sooner was a friendly purpose on our part recognized than large and eager groups gathered around us, desiring the tracts. . . . The ' man of Macedonia, awaited us. My wife having offered a tract to the waiter of the large corner wine-shop, he begged her to enter, ' for,' said he, each customer wished to possess one.' Just as she emerged from the door, a working-man, French, but marvelous to say, speaking excellent English, stepped forward, and in the name of the bystanders, addressed to me the identical words with which this volume commences. I never saw him afterward so far as I know, but his earnest bearing, each word, his very countenance, were engraved indelibly in my memory."

The words were, " Sir, are you not a Christian minister ? If so, I have something of importance to say to you. You are at this moment in the very midst of a district inhabited by thousands and tens of thousands of us working-men. To a. man, we have done with an imposed religion-a religion of superstition and oppression; but if any one would come to teach us religion of another kind-a religion of freedom and earnestness,-many of us are ready to listen.'"

Five months later, Mr. and Mrs. McAll returned to devote themselves to the work in Paris. There were many difficulties to surmount. He was past fifty, quite ignorant of the French language, unacquainted with the people or their ways. He had but two sentences of French to begin with,-" God loves you," and " I love you." Their very meetings were illegal, as was the giving away of tracts, religious notices, etc.

"We chose for our residence," he says, "a humble lodging in the very midst of the workmen's habitations. The very day we had hired our rooms, a friend gave us the pleasing intelligence that it was a most dangerous quarter, and that nothing was more probable than our being assassinated in the streets."

The work began at once. From twenty-eight at the first meeting, the attendance grew to over a hundred at the second;-

"and if to-day we were again brought face to face with that Belleville workman, we could point him, as the direct fruit of his appeal, to nearly one hundred stations of our own mission, besides not a few others more or less connected in origin with the impulse then received. . . . And we should have to bid him look beyond the boundaries of France proper,-to Corsica, to the African colonies, to Switzerland, to the French-speaking people of America."

The means have been very simple.

" There was no novelty in the character of our meetings, except for these poor neglected ones, unused to religious services of every kind before. We had hymns, reading the Bible, short, pointed gospel-addresses (usually two in an hour's reading,) prayers, with the added feature of free lending libraries, children's religious gatherings, etc. . . . And the same simplicity of organization and procedure characterizes the entire work to this day."

As to the meetings,-

"Ordinary shops fronting on frequented streets are usually rented and fitted up for this purpose. The halls are thus always comparatively small. . . . Great advantages are claimed for this system. In the first place, such rooms are easily secured in any part of the-, city where they are needed. … It is furthermore claimed that they are much more easily equipped with speakers than great ones. A large audience can only be effectively addressed by a man of extraordinary power; but a man of smaller caliber can do equally good work in a smaller meeting. Other things being equal, many little meetings are more useful than a few large ones. In the former, the speaker is brought into closer contact with the hearer, his influence is more forcible, his message more personal, and each auditor involuntarily takes a larger share of it to himself. In a small meeting, it is also possible, as it never is in a great assembly, to extend a cordial welcome to every one who enters, to observe the effect of the discourse upon all, and to follow up the preaching by personal effort.

"Shops have still another advantage for mission purposes:they are much more accessible to the throngs of the street. Made so as to be easily entered-but a single step from the sidewalk-they open their inviting doors to those who, fatigued with walking, desire a few moments rest; to those who are prompted by curiosity to enter, and to all who for any reason care to go in. An illumination, suspended over the sidewalk before the door, announces, in blazing letters, the name and character of the hall, and the time of the meetings, and extends to all a cordial invitation to attend them. … A gentleman stands on the sidewalk in front of the entrance, and distributes printed invitations to the passers-by, enforcing their message as often as possible by a kind word of welcome. Those who enter are received by the inner door-keeper-a lady, who politely welcomes each one as a guest, shows him a scat, and provides him with a hymn-book.

"All polemics are, by an inflexible rule, forbidden. Not one word derogatory to the Roman Catholic Church, or even to rationalism, must be spoken. The addresses are not to be learned, rhetorical, or philosophical; their single aim must be to present, simply, clearly, vividly, and positively, the great facts of our faith." The McAll mission "meets the questions of the papacy and of infidelity, not controversially, but by constant insistence upon gospel truths, so that thousands listen with sympathy whom controversy could never reach."

Mr. Mr All speaks of two great hindrances to the spread of (he gospel in 'France,-the deadness of conscience fostered by the long prevalence of Romanism, and the "actual and prevailing oblivion of" the Bible. Among those devotedly attached to popery, this is lamented by the intelligent. He gives an instance:-

"A gentleman high in the legal profession in Paris, on occasion of arranging recently the deed of a mission-hall, inquired from me our purpose in opening it. On receiving my reply, he said, with heart,-felt emphasis, 'Sir, do all in your power to persuade my fellow-countrymen to head the bible. If you can induce them to do that, you will bring to France the only power which (tan save us from decadence and ruin.' After attending the opening meeting in that hall, this notary sought me out, and grasping both my hands in the characteristic French manner, said, ' I, a Roman Catholic, desire to assure you of my entire sympathy,-my fervent wish for your success.' "

This was written in 1886, and it is striking that at the end of the same year another movement began, initiated by a Roman Catholic of the most devoted type, whose object was, to give the Bible to the people. The story, strange in itself, and with a stranger ending, if we can say it is yet ended, is told by Dr. Wright in a pamphlet from which I borrow all that I have to say.* *The Power Behind the Pope:A Story of Blighted Hopes."* Many have read it, reprinted and commented upon it more or less in different periodicals of late; but many are yet ignorant of it too, and the narrative needs must confirm our belief that God is working in a remarkable way in France at the present time,-our hope of blessing to numbers through it.

Henri Lasserre is a well-known name just now, and was indeed before the last and most truly notable part of his history. He is a lawyer, descended from an ancient family, and till lately connected specially with the fame of "Our Lady of Lourdes." She had cured, as he believed, his sore eyes. In gratitude, he wrote the history of the appearance of the virgin to the peasant-girl of Lourdes.

"The book created 'Notre Dame de Lourdes.' The Archbishop of Albi wrote this to M. Lasserre:' Sir, our Lady of Lourdes owes you a recompense.' In fact, she owed him every thing. He may safely be considered the patentee of the whole business, for without his prismatic and potent pen, the wonders now so famous would scarcely have been heard of beyond the little Pyrennean village."

In five years, the editions book had run through eighty-seven editions.

But God had something better for him than this.

" On a happy day he discovered the four gospels. He felt the spell of the simple but profound narratives which reveal Jesus of Nazareth in all the tenderness and loveliness of perfect manhood, and in all the might and majesty of Godhead. He saw that the fourfold story of Jesus was the very book that the French people needed. He believed that the gospels would be received with joy by his countrymen, and he resolved to prepare for them a version worthy of their acceptance.

"Prompt and zealous, he began the work of translation; his aim being, not to render the gospels in the French as it ought to be, but in the French as it was. The result was, a living translation. . . . Every page said, ' Read me.' The arbitrary divisions of chapters and verses which trip up Frenchmen who attempt to read the Bible for the first time, had wholly disappeared. The narrative fell into natural clauses and paragraphs well spaced out, and the current of the Book of Life flowed on the page in abundant light."

It was, of course, a Roman Catholic translation. The perpetual virginity of Mary, the primacy of Peter, and other doctrines are maintained; but-

" In questions of larger importance, M. Lasserre breaks away from the traditional renderings of the papal church. With splendid courage, he translates the Greek word 'repent' by 'be converted, repent,' instead of by 'do penance;' and he declares in a note that the Latin rendering (Paenitentiam agite) fails accurately to represent the Greek original, 'which means, change your sentiment, repent, be converted,' and does not like the Latin, bear the idea of voluntary austerities with the object of expiation. . . . The same fearlessness is manifest in the translation ' Adore the Lord thy God, and do not render worship to any but Him alone;' and ' We are servants without merit,' etc."

But the preface to the book is as remarkable. He deplores in it the notorious fact that the gospels are scarcely ever read by those who profess to be fervent Catholics, and never by the multitude of the faithful. He declares that the Bible was not always so neglected; that all the fathers of the Church urged the people to read both the Old and New Testaments; blames the Protestants1 , » (for their free handling of it, which led the Council of Trent to decree that every translation should have episcopal sanction and explanatory notes, and considers that in consequence, through the suspicion of heresy, the Bible ceased to be a household book. And he laments the substitution of other books of a different character for this, and declares " We must lead back the faithful to the great fountain of living water which flows from the inspired book. . . . We must put the earth again face to face with Jesus Christ."

The book was published with a dedication to " Notre Dame de Lourdes " ! " But there was something still more strange. The book appeared with the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Paris, and the approval and benediction of the pope ! " the latter in a letter from Cardinal Jacobini officially communicated through the Nuncio of France. " The imprimatur of the- Archbishop of Paris placed Lasserre's version regularly in the hands of the French people. The pope's letter placed the stamp of authority, not only on the translation of the gospels, but on the terrible preface which is expressly mentioned in it."

The ages might seem to have returned upon themselves. The unchangeable Church of Rome was giving up her cherished traditions, and putting the -Word of God in the hands of the people. Rather, it was God to whom man's bulwarks are as nothing, bringing down the wall which had shut out the light so long from millions, that many might receive, perhaps, His closing testimony to them. But infallibility had pronounced its benediction on the reading of the gospels, and the people read them. Within a year, twenty-five editions had issued from the press commended by priests and prelates far and wide, and welcomed into the homes of Frenchmen every where. What must have been the effect ? Let him who knows the Word of God answer. Eternity will disclose it. Time may yet disclose it also.

The permanent acceptance of the work was secured, if papal infallibility could secure it. It was God's will, however, to expose its pretensions, and after having allowed the power of His Word to be proved in the hearts and consciences of many, to show that Rome was still and ever in hostility to it. One morning, Frenchmen waked up to find the translation of the gospels, papal benediction and all, upon the Index ! As a book of "degraded doctrine," it was proscribed and condemned, forbidden to be published, read, or retained by any one, under the penalties proclaimed in the Index of forbidden books.

Little more is known than this. It is said that M. Lasserre has bowed, called in all copies of his book, and suspended the translation of the whole Bible on which he was engaged. Upon the issue, we will not speculate; but it is clear that the Lord's design in all this will not be disappointed. God is moving. What are popes and "sacred congregations" before Him? But we can pray with a new hope-can we not ?-for France, for Henri Lasserre, and for this missionary work which has been so owned of Him. Shall we be with God, and not awake to realize our sweet sanctuary responsibilities as to all this? The Lord enable us !

And shall we not take lesson and encouragement from the McAll mission ? Have we not responsibility to bring the precious truth which God has given us in this earnest and familiar way before those to whom the Lord would send it? "Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse." Ought not we ?

Could we but have these missionary stores, with their fronts proclaiming the truth they know not to the gaze of those who would not go even a step to seek it,-tract-depots, reading-rooms, inquiry-rooms, preaching-rooms in one,-how might we trust God to bless this earnest, face-to-face dealing with the multitudes around? I do, not hesitate to say, that I believe it would be a beginning of such new and wide blessing as now we have not faith even to imagine.

If we give to laborers only when we meet them, or because we desire them to come to us, will not those going to remote parts be left to want, and a premium be set upon going to certain centers? Proper exercise about this, and true interest in the ministry of the Word every where, with earnest petitions for guidance from the Lord of the harvest, will result in a right distribution of what is given. Let no one undertake to patronize the Lord's servants; and may none seek it. If not in prayerful communion with God, we are blunderers often in the holy things of His service. But the Lord is gracious, and encourages the cheerful giver. E. S. L.

A correspondent writes, perplexed, as many more have been, to reconcile the forgiveness which every believer has in Christ, and the baptism for the remission of sins which the apostle Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, and which Ananias pressed upon the repentant Saul of Tarsus :" Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord."

It is a point of real importance, and as to which many interpretations are given which disfigure the precious gospel of Christ, and even destroy its efficacy. The Romanist uses the latter class of texts in behalf of a sacramental system in which the grace of Christ flows only through the channels of church-ordinances. The ritualist of every grade agrees substantially with the Romanist. The so-called Disciple body, with many more heterodox, though making faith in some sort a necessary prerequisite, take otherwise the same ground, while one at least of the smaller and wilder sections of Adventists argue for them the necessity of the baptism of infants on exactly the Romanist ground, that without it there is no salvation. Many Protestants, on the other hand, overlook or practically deny this class of texts.

They become simple when we learn to separate the actual remission of sins through the blood of Christ to those who believe in Him, from that testimony of it upon earth which He has ordained to be preached, not only in the gospel to all, but individually to every one who owns Him as Lord in the day of grace. " Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved" is the apostle Peter's text in the second of Acts. The application of it in both the cases mentioned is the same. The convicted Jews, repenting of their rejection of the Lord, are baptized in His name for remission of sins. Saul washes away his sins calling on the name of the Lord. But the cleansing by blood and the washing of water are distinct, and the latter saves in " figure " only :" The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us." (i Pet. 3:21.) It is a preaching in act to the individual who had received the word of the gospel -a beautiful, definite making over to him who believes in Christ of the effect of Christ's work.

But this is necessarily, on man's part, declarative and conditional only. Man cannot read the heart, nor has he heaven's treasury of grace in his hands. He can but witness to it. Hence baptism is but initiation into the kingdom on earth of which men have the "keys." Not of heaven, but of the kingdom of heaven. Baptism and the Word, as these two keys, are thus the means of discipling (Matt. 28:19, 20.) But the parables of the kingdom and the warning as to discipleship fully show that the blessing here is conditional, not absolute, as in the case of remission itself (Matt. 18:32, 34.) In this line, all the conditions and warnings of Scripture will be found.

Mischief will result to the soul who confounds this declarative remission of the disciple on earth with the absolute grace of Christ to the believer, which is apart from all ordinances, complete and eternal. Never is a child of God, justified and accepted in Christ, the possessor of eternal life, put as such upon any doubtful footing. And no rite or ordinance can impart these blessings.

DEUTERONOMY 8:7-9; 11:10-12.

I was musing a little on the beautiful description given to Israel of the land (before they entered it) by Moses in Deut. 8:7-9; 11:10-12. He exhibits it to them in its positive and comparative excellencies-as it was in itself, and in contrast with Egypt. In itself, it was to be full of all manner of good things-wheat, wine, and oil (8:8); of which good things another scripture says, " Wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart." (Ps. 104:15.)

And not only was the soil, or land, itself to be thus the storehouse of these most needed and best things, but their hills and stones were to be warehouses of brass and iron, wanted in the common traffic and use of life in their place as well as the other (8:9).

But in contrast with Egypt, the character of the promised land is very blessedly described. Egypt was watered by the foot,-1:e., the common industry of her people drawing off the water of the Nile upon their fields and gardens (11:10). Their river was every thing to them-and all they wanted was to be busy round its banks, and they could supply themselves out of it.

But Canaan was to be tilled by the Lord. He would water it from heaven Himself-His heart would care for it, and His eyes would rest on it from one end of the year to the other (11:11, 12). As another scripture says, "Thy land shall be married." (Isa. 62:) A strong figure. The Lord was Himself the husband, or the husbandman, (kindred words, no doubt,) of the land of His people.

But, beside, Canaan was to be a land "of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills " (8:7). Egypt had a mighty river that was every thing to it, but the source of that river was unknown. Canaan, on the contrary, had no mighty river. A "brook," as it were, was its largest stream-even Jordan, compared with the Nile, was but as a streamlet of a river. But it had "fountains" springing up in all its hills and valleys. Its currents and channels may have been small, but it was full of the source and springs of those currents. This was just the opposite of Egypt. There, the current was mighty, but the source unknown; here, the channels were small and unimportant, but the sources were all known and enjoyed, together with their waters and streams.

And, as we know, beloved, that these two lands were mysteries,-the land of Egypt representing the world, or the place of nature, out of which the redeemed are called, and Canaan, the scene of communion with God, into which the redeemed are brought,-so we may learn that these features of the two lands have meaning also. For the world can go on supplying itself from the great current of daily providential mercies and leave the source or parent of it altogether a secret, while the believer, or the Church, has to do with the great source or parent in all things and in every place; a fountain is to be known in every hill and every valley; and if the little tiny brooks be tasted, it is well known where they rise, and from what recess in glen or mountain they broke forth. Has not this a voice in it? The Nile itself commanded the notice of the world, while its birthplace was a mystery. No river in Canaan was worth the geographer's notice-at least, in the scale of rivers, but every hill and valley there had its fresh and sweet springs. And we may ask ourselves, In which land are we more at home? Do we like to walk in a place that is full of the presence of God-like Canaan? or would we choose a place like Egypt, where we may get all providential supplies, while keeping the great source of them at an unknown distance.

The character of heaven too is signified by this Canaan. It will be a rest, surely so; it will be deliverance from a dreary wasted wilderness, but it is to be a rest full of the presence of God, and of the incessant and abiding witnesses of that presence. The fountain is to be every where. (Rev. 7:17.) May we the more welcome it, because of this! and the more we can dwell in the presence of the fountain now, may we be the better pleased. If we go up a hill or down to a valley, may the fountain meet our gladdened eye! J. G. B.

2. PRIESTHOOD.

"Propitiation we have seen, then, to be the immediate effect of the work here; the work itself was the propitiation. It would be certainly impossible, according to Scripture, to separate from the work any presentation of it as making this. Quite as impossible to separate it from substitution, save as a different aspect only. The whole work was a substitution-Jesus standing in the sinner's place. The whole work was a propitiation-what satisfied God as to sin. Faith, in either case, is needed in order that it shall avail. If we be believers, Christ is a substitute for such. If there is not faith, there is no real propitiation. Christ, says the apostle (Rom. 3:25), is "a propitiation through faith." That is the necessary condition either way, and there is no real difficulty in the matter. Substitution is as broad as propitiation ; or, if you will, propitiation as narrow as substitution. Otherwise, if upon the "gospel basis" of propitiation one sinner should come to God for whom there had been no substitution, could he be saved? If he could, substitution were unneeded; if he could not, then propitiation is no more real basis of appeal to all than substitution.

There is no scripture for this separation of Christ's work into two different works for different classes. There is no work for unbelievers at all, but one equal precious work for all upon condition of faith. There is no propitiation for all or any apart from the value of a substitutionary work. There is no inefficacious work which does not avail for those for whom it is offered. The work is for believers, and all men are most truly invited and responsible to believe.

Propitiation and atonement are absolutely one. A substitutionary work is what atones or propitiates. Christ offered for men is the propitiation. The blood offered is the blood shed; and its sprinkling here or there is but propitiation applied to this or to that; not a part of the work, but an application of it, a propitiation for this or for that.

It is the priest's part to make propitiation. Christ became " a merciful and faithful high-priest to make propitiation for the sins of the people." When, then, did this high-priesthood of Christ begin?

If Aaron be the typical high-priest, then, it is certain that he made propitiation not merely in the holiest. Upon one occasion only he did this:the regular offering of the blood was upon the altar. " For the life of the flesh is in the blood :and I have given it you upon the altar to make atonement (or propitiation) for your souls" (Lev. 17:11). If the type, then, thus emphasized as it is for us, is to speak to us in the matter, it would seem to say that propitiation,-and priestly work-might be done outside the holiest. And certainly the priest was that outside.

But it may be argued that in these things the law " was not the very image " of the things it spoke of. Then, I ask, when the darkness over the cross passed, and the Lord said " Father," was propitiation, satisfaction, thus far accomplished? Was the wrath gone? and how? If we take the truth affirmed in propitiation, when did the wrath pass? Will any one say, Only when He entered heaven,-that in fact He entered it with God yet unsatisfied, to satisfy Him there? Surely, none could believe that!

So the epistle to the Hebrews speaks of His entering by His blood, as we have seen; and, as to His priesthood, of "a great High-priest that is passed into"-or through-"the heavens" (chap, 4:14), and of a " High-priest made higher than the heavens" (7:26):words which naturally speak of the exaltation of One who was high-priest before.

But it is urged that chap. 8:4 distinctly states that our Lord was not a priest on earth:"For if He were on earth, He should not be a priest." Let us, then, for a moment, suppose that He was not, and follow this out to its consequences.

When, then, did He become a priest?

He must have been a priest to make propitiation, clearly ; of course, before this,-before propitiation had been made. But that means, in the mind of some, while atonement was being made, and before acceptance! This is, however, in complete contradiction to what we have seen as to the time of His entrance-that He entered upon ascension. But it is a contradiction also to what is urged from chap. 5:7-9, that not till after He was perfected He was saluted of God a high-priest. Then that perfecting was acknowledged, was it not? So that it would be, not He was saluted high-priest and made propitiation, but in the reverse order:He made propitiation, and was saluted high-priest. Every way, we stumble over Scripture.

It should be plain that if His high-priesthood be based upon His work, He could not obtain this till His work was acknowledged:which would mean, according to the general thought, till propitiation were made. This would set aside absolutely His being high-priest to make it. On the other hand, if He be high-priest to make it, then His priesthood must be based on something else than His work.

But does the passage produced say that Christ was not a high-priest upon earth? The answer must be, it does not. The apostle is not looking back, but looking up. "We have such a High-priest," he says, " who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Now, then, "If He were upon earth"-if He were now there,-"He would not be a priest." And why ? " Seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law." He does not speak even of sacrifices now. The sacrifice is offered, and the Priest is in the sanctuary:for such a Priest there could be no room on earth, for the earthly sanctuary is in the hands of the priests ordained by law!

Surely this is no question of what He was on earth. But what of Heb. 5:7-9? Could He be priest before He was made perfect? Was it not as being made perfect He was " called (or saluted) of God a high-priest after the order of Melchisedek " ?

Yes, that is plain. Only let us observe that the word "called" here is never used for calling to an office; whereas the word for that is used at the beginning of this chapter:"And no man taketh this honor unto himself but He that is called of God as was Aaron."

Mark, then:"So also Christ glorified not Himself to be made a high-priest, but He that said unto Him, ' Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.'"

Is this, however, the actual call, or only the Person by whom He is called? No doubt we might understand at first sight the latter. We have exactly the same form of speech, however, in the seventh chapter:"But this with an oath by Him that said unto Him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever." Now here it is not only the majesty of the Speaker that is affirmed:we find the oath in what is quoted as His saying.

Not only so. For if His priesthood were not founded upon His work, upon what, then, is it founded? Upon His person, surely. This is the glory of His person, then, which the epistle to the Hebrews dwells upon in its first chapter:"Unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee?" Here is affirmed a personal glory higher than that of angels, yet of a Man, begotten upon earth in time.

Is it not just this wondrous manhood of His whereby indeed He becomes the high-priest of His people ? able to take a place in their behalf in things pertaining to God, the Mediator by His twofold nature? The priest is the very fullest type of mediation, and in this Son of God in perfect manhood we have assuredly, then, the Priest.

But it is not even His blessed person that constitutes Him priest. He must be called, for His path is the path of obedience; and He must be anointed, for the high-priest has for his designation " The Anointed Priest." And if, again, through the Eternal Spirit He offer Himself without spot to God, here are three marks by which, if we find them together, we may find a threefold divine testimony to Him as consecrated by God for His propitiatory work.

The type of the passover-lamb will here assist us much. We may remember that it was taken on the tenth day of the first month, and kept up till the fourteenth day of the month at even. Then it was sacrificed.

Now 10 is the number of responsibility as seen in the ten commandments, and this time is allowed to pass, the lamb of sacrifice not yet being marked out as such. There was clearly such a period in the Lord's life-a time of private life, as we may say; of which Scripture says little therefore, while the apocryphal gospels (one expressly called "The Gospel of the Infancy") fill it up with fabulous narrations. Thirty years of the Lord's life pass thus, in which He lives as a private person; then He comes forward for His appointed work. It was the age at which the Levites in the wilderness took office, and the priests, it is believed, similarly. This 30 has, again, the number 10 in it, and it evidently characterizes the Lord's time of retirement as that in which He is fulfilling as man in His own personal responsibility. Then He comes out publicly before the eye of God, and is owned of Him as the unblemished One-the Lamb designated for the sacrifice.

Notice, then, how it is He comes forth.

John has been calling the multitude to his baptism of repentance, baptizing them in Jordan for the remission of sins. Jordan is death, as we all know well; and John's baptism is a baptism to death (Rom. 6:4). They (and we) have merited death:it is appointed unto men once to die:the wages of sin is death. They come out to him owning this place as theirs; they are all baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.

Then the Lord comes also:having no personal need, as a baptism of repentance it has necessarily no significance for Him; but if death is the due of these sinners, and yet they are to have remission of sins, He must come into death for them, Jordan for Him the type of that greater baptism with which He was to be baptized. He offers Himself without spot to God.

And without spot is He owned. It is there the Father's voice breaks out in the words which at once own the relationship of the Man Christ Jesus (which is, according to Heb. 5:, the call to priesthood), and the Lamb without blemish for the sacrifice, "Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased."

Here is the Priest, then, to make propitiation, and at the same moment, with the call to the priesthood, the heavenly anointing comes upon Him for it:"the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him." It is the anointing without blood which is the special sign of the high-priest in Lev. 8:12, an anointing which is not found again in the Lord's case until, gone up on high (ascended), He receives from the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:33).

Here are the three signs, and they meet nowhere else. He is now the Lamb kept up, and the Priest to make propitiation; not yet, indeed, as it seems to me, after the order of Melchisedek, or in the power of an endless life. He gives up this life. There is a cloud for awhile over all, until perfected by suffering, and risen from the dead, He is greeted of God as priest after the order of Melchisedek, priest upon the throne. His priesthood is re-affirmed and exalted; by the oath of God He is " consecrated for evermore," and the Holy Ghost afresh anoints Him.

There He abides, and as such, blessed be God, we know Him, ever living to make intercession forus. Well may we, "seeing that we have a Great High-priest who is passed into the heavens, Jesus,the Son of God, …. come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find graceto help in every time of need."