The following paper is intended to treat of our Lord's manner and ways in teaching and preaching, and it is hoped that not only the heart may be refreshed by coming in contact with Him, but that also we may learn practical and valuable lessons. Nicodemus styles Him the " Teacher come from God," and His adversaries bore witness that never a man spake like this man. While, of course, we know this as to the substance of our Lord's teaching, yet, His method, because it clothes like a well-fitting garment, attracting little attention to itself and enhancing the beauty of that which it covers, is, perhaps, very often lost sight of. Do we know to what extent He used metaphor and simile ? Have we a clear conception of the way in which He met the objector ? What external means did He employ upon occasion to emphasize the lesson ? Wherefore did He use so much parable, and how were these parables adapted to the circumstances amid which they were spoken ? Such are some of the questions which force themselves upon us.

But they also serve to bring us closer to Himself, and this is the purpose of every study of Scripture. His words are a mirror in which we behold Him, and far more than we might expect does the method of them bring us into contact with Him. Our manner is often assumed to meet the occasion, and is the product of surrounding elements, but with Him it was never so; it came fresh from His heart. Every attitude, every gesture was full of Him and the mission which had become part of Him. You remember how in the tenth chapter of John, the Lord seems to take delight in the knowledge that His sheep know His voice, and that they are so occupied with it, that they know not the voice of strangers ? And as His voice would correspond to the character of His words, our study should be one that is pleasing to Him. Oh that we indeed so knew His voice that the voice of the stranger repelled with that fear of the unknown that seems innate in the animate creation. Then would we indeed walk aright with His word a lamp for our path and a light for our feet.

The first topic that naturally presents itself in this subject, is what we may call the external character
of His speech, such as clearness, energy, bodily position, etc. Of these indeed there is very little given us, and yet there are some things that surely must prove of profit to him that considers them. While there may be no scripture which directly asserts it, we may be sure our Lord ever spoke distinctly and clearly.

Now, perhaps, it may seem to be a small thing to say that the Lord spoke clearly, so that all could understand Him, yet we will the better attach a value to it if we consider how indignant we should become were one to assert that He did not thus speak. We should regard it as nothing short of blasphemy, and very rightly. He was the Word who created the worlds, the universe, that wonderfully adjusted mechanism in which part is fitted to part with divine precision, and from which arises a harmonious melody to God. How then should this Master Harmonizer fail to utter His truths in a voice attuned to their importance ? It would be absolutely impossible. When we consider too how mind and matter are related, and how the Creator has framed us so that one should play upon and answer to the other in this dwelling-place of our spirits, who can doubt but that the voice was ordained of Himself to awaken music in the soul ? No slurred over words ever troubled those who listened to Him, and are not His ways Divine ?

Now this clear voice was sometimes raised so that it became loud and powerful. Thus we read in John that on the last day of the feast "Jesus stood and cried," and in another place it speaks of "His great Voice" as it rose over the weeping and wailing at the grave of Lazarus. And so when the storm
that gathered over Calvary was hushed to its close, "Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the Ghost." Now apart from the physical necessity there was of prevailing over the sounds that existed, on at least two of these occasions, there was in all of them an especial need that spoke to the Lord's heart, and to which we do well to give heed. There is a peculiar danger that on our feast days the things around us may lead us to forget the Giver and our need of Him. The feast of which we have been speaking is said to be the feast of Tabernacles, a time in which Israel was to remember her wandering in tents through the wilderness, and which very probably became a means of celebrating the fact that they no longer thus wandered. Now although not the object of the feast, spiritually this may be all right, but there is then danger of forgetting" that wherever we are we need Him as much as ever to watch over us; and such moments are full of peril.

At other times there are feasts of Satan's spreading, and the one who sits down thereto will be in dire need of hearing that urgent cry from the risen Jesus. "If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink."

But to refer to the suitability of that raised voice in the other instances, there are moments when some burden is laid upon us such as that which lay on the grief stricken crowd lamenting at the grave of Lazarus. How wonderfully thrilling that "Great Voice" must have sounded, and with what eager expectation and joy must they have looked for the response. When the cares of the world, its sorrows and griefs, flood in upon our lives, how refreshing will it be to hear it rise above our storms
and quell our fears. Then shall we burst into singing:

" How sweet the voice of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear. It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, and drives away his fear."

The last instance which we have mentioned answers to the time in which " he that hath the power of death " sows such fears as he is able, when we are called to leave it. Will it not be good too to recall that He over whom death's billows deeply went, cried out with a loud voice as they closed upon Him, proclaiming His power and triumph over them, and then yielded up the Ghost ? "No man taketh it from" Me, I lay it down . . . and I take it again." How eloquently do these words and that voice proclaim " The Prince of Life."

The expression of our Lord's face is, as I remember, given but once, and yet that same instance, in its impressiveness, is referred to in two of the Gospels. It is on the occasion of the healing of the withered hand, when, because of its being the Sabbath, they seek to bar the path of His mercy. He then looks round about upon them all with anger. But how wonderfully touching is the moment. They seek to hinder good reaching another, and His ' shepherd's heart is aroused and His anger blazes out. " Is it not lawful to do good on the Sabbath day?" He cries, and in answer heals the hand. They might seek to kill Him ; they were going to nail Him to the cross on Calvary, and He would cry in wonderful compassion, " Father forgive them, for they know not what they do," but let them try to injure another and indignation shines in His Face. When we consider how that by and by, before it, heavens and earth will flee away, we no longer marvel at the impression it made, and we wonder at the beauty of the thought, that on such occasion alone have we mention of it.

When our Lord teaches He is generally seated. The attitude is one of repose and authority. His words are so certain, and carry so much authority with them, that any other position would seem less suited. He was seated all through the Sermon on the Mount. Such words as " Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy," appear to stand on such pillared foundations as rather to lose than anything else by seeking to enhance their value. So also was He seated in a boat, when giving forth the parables of the Kingdom, in the thirteenth of Matthew. In contrast with this position, however, He rises to announce the fulfilment of, and read His Father's words; while when in the Temple He momentarily relaxes His stooping posture when confronting the Pharisees with that majestic charge, " Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her." How well adapted are these attitudes to the sentiments which they accompany, and how they should prevent us from getting careless with what we may call minor matters.

There is one other beautiful position which our Lord assumes, and coming as it does at the end of His earthly sojourn, seems to sum up the whole of His ministry on earth. "Having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end," and as He is about to leave them He leads them out to Bethany, and body and spirit uniting together in one long, lingering attitude of protection, those blessed hands but so recently stretched out in such a different way, now spread themselves broodingly over them, while from His lips the words of blessing fall, and a cloud receives Him out of their sight. ''Out of their sight?" Yes, and yet that sight, which no earthly cloud should be able to obscure, shall be their last recollection of Jesus, and all through their lives hover in Divine benison over them.

Although not directly connected with our subject, the words following in Luke, have such a beautiful touch to them, that one would fain linger for a moment to meditate. " And as He blessed them He was parted from them and carried up into heaven." In the opening of His ministry we see Him going to John and saying, upon the latter's protest against baptizing Him, " Suffer it now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Baptism is a burial of self. John says he has need to be baptized of Jesus. The Lord in effect replies, "That is true, but consider not what I am as to right, for I am come to lay all that personal right of Mine aside, yea to lay self aside, to work for the people among whom I have come." Having then taken such a position, as He comes up from Jordan, as if they no longer could contain themselves, the heavens are rent asunder, and the voice of God breaks out, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." So now may we not think of that same delight as expressed in the words, "carried up " ?

One of the most marked features of our Lord's teaching is its parabolic form, and this so marked that it could scarcely escape even the cursory reader. We know that among the nations of the East the parable is a very much used method of communication, and yet, however true that may be, it would scarcely suffice as a reason for our Lord's using it, unless, indeed, there be something in the parable itself that meets a special need in all climes and countries. We all know how fond children are of it as a means of instruction, and learned men assert that in what they call the childhood of the race, the early days, it was constantly employed in ordinary conversation. But are we not all children in heavenly things ? And what after all in the words of Jesus makes things so plain as the parable ? How the gates of heaven seem thrown open to us as the father's arms are clasped around the prodigal, or the shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulder. They speak with a plainness that reaches even the lowest depths.

But we must notice that although this be true as to a great many of them, yet our Lord says that some others were given with a. distinctly opposite purpose. "For unto you it is given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them it is not given." The parable then is often used to hide truth, and we are led to ask the further question:If to hide, why then speak them before all those from whom He would wish to conceal the truth of which they speak ?

Our answer may, perhaps, be twofold. Of course it is very plain that for the Pharisees, who entered not into the Kingdom, the mysteries would scarcely be a subject to explain to them. Such would be a veritable casting of pearls before swine. And yet, on the other hand, it must be that after all He is seeking the Pharisee, otherwise our question would remain unanswered. We who know the Lord, know also that He loved even the Pharisee, and to them a mystery was a great incentive to study. Here, however, were mysteries that no human mind could very well fathom without the key, and a search for the key might indeed bring the poor Pharisee into His presence. I cannot but believe that this was the Lord's object, and any other thought than this would militate against plain scriptural teaching. If He ate with publicans and sinners He also sat down in the house of the Pharisee, and both Pharisee and Publican were welcome at the feast of the great King.

Taking this then as a correct interpretation of His words, we may remember that to speak plainly is not always the part of a good teacher. Often and often is the scholar to be aroused by that which he does not understand. Thus we may learn a lesson of the " Teacher come from God," and remember that if we attend the lecture of another, and do not understand a great deal that is said, even so, we would not have understood the One like whom man never spake. He knew that the disciples would not understand Him, and yet was in no wise deterred from speaking in the form in which He did. "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search it out." Oh, brethren, are we among those kingly ones whose glory it is to search out the things hidden by our great Teacher ? Be assured that he who does will find much pleasure. It is true in heavenly, as well as in earthly things, that we must labor for those things which are of most value, excepting necessaries, which God asks us not to labor for, such as water and light and salvation. F. C. G.

(To be continued.)