(Continued from p. 133.)

The Lord was ''poor, yet making many rich,"- "having nothing, and yet possessing all things." These high and wondrous conditions were exhibited in Him in ways that were and must have been peculiar-altogether His own. He would receive ministry from some godly women out of their substance, and yet minister to the need of all around Him out of the treasures of the fullness of the earth. He would feed thousands in desert places, and yet be Himself a hungered, waiting for the return of His disciples with victuals from a neighboring village. This is "having nothing, and yet possessing all things." But while thus poor, both needy and exposed, nothing that in the least savored of meanness is ever seen attaching to His condition. He never begs, though He have not a penny; for when He wanted to see one (not to use it for Himself), He had to ask to be shown it. He never runs away, though exposed, and His life jeopardized, as we speak, in the place where He was. He withdraws Himself, or passes by as hidden. And thus, again I may say, nothing mean, nothing unbecoming full personal dignity attaches to Him, though poverty and exposure were His lot every day.

Blessed and beautiful! Who could preserve under our eye such an object,-so perfect, so unblemished, so exquisitely, delicately pure, in all the minute and most ordinary details of human life ? Paul does not give us this. None could give it to us but Jesus, the God-Man. The peculiarities of His virtues in the midst of the ordinariness of His circumstances tell us of His person. It must be a peculiar person, it must be the divine Man, if I may so express Him, that could give us such peculiarities in such commonplace conditions. Paul does not give us any thing like it, again I say. There was great dignity and moral elevation about him, I know. If any one may be received as exhibiting that, let us agree that it was he. But his path is not that of Jesus;-he is in danger of his life, and he uses his nephew to protect him. Again, his friends let him down the wall of the town in a basket. I do not say he begs or asks for it, but he acknowledges money sent to him. I say not how Paul avowed himself a Pharisee in the mixed assembly in order to shelter himself, or how he spake evil of the high-priest that was judging him. Such conduct was morally wrong; and I am speaking here only of such cases as were (though not morally wrong,) below the full personal and moral dignity that marks the way of Christ. Nor is the flight into Egypt, as it is called, an exception in this characteristic of the Lord; for that journey was taken to fulfill prophecy, and under the authority of a divine oracle.

But all this is really, not only moral glory, but it is a moral wonder :marvelous how the pen that was held by a human hand could ever have delineated such beauties. We are to account for it, as has been observed before and by others, only by its being a truth a living reality. We are shut up to that blessed necessity. Still further, as we go on with this blessed truth, it is written, " Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." Our words should prove themselves as thus, always with grace, by ministering good to others-"grace to the hearers." This, however, will often be in the pungency of admonition or rebuke; and at times with decision or severity, even with indignation and zeal; and thus they will be "seasoned with salt," as the Scripture speaks. And having these fine qualities- being gracious and yet salted, they will bear witness that we know how to answer every man.
Among all other forms of it, the Lord Jesus illustrated this form of moral perfectness. He knew how to answer every man, as with words which were always to his soul's profit, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear; but at times seasoned, -nay, seasoned highly, with salt.

Thus, in answering inquiries, he did not so much purpose to satisfy them, as to reach the conscience or the condition of the inquirer.

In His silence, or refusal to answer at all, when He stood before the Jew or the Gentile at the end, before either the priests or Pilate or Herod, we can trace the same perfect fitness as we do in His words or answers; witnessing to God that at least One among the sons of men knew "a time to keep silence and a time to speak."

Great variety in His very tone and manner also presents itself in all this; and all this variety, minute as it was as well as great, was part of this fragrance before God. Sometimes His word was gentle, sometimes peremptory; sometimes he reasons, sometimes he rebukes at once, and sometimes conducts calm reasoning up to the heated point of solemn condemnation ; for it is the moral of the occasion He always weighs.

Matt. 15:has struck me as a chapter in which this perfection, in much of its various beauty and excellency, may be seen. In the course of it, the Lord is called to answer the Pharisees, the multitude, the poor afflicted stranger from the coasts of Tyre, and His own disciples, again and again, in their different exposure of either their stupidity or their selfishness; and we may notice His different style of rebuke and of reasoning,-of calm, patient teaching, and of faithful, wise, and gracious training of the soul:and we cannot but feel how fitting all this variety was to the place or occasion that called it forth. And such was the beauty and the fitness of His neither teaching nor learning, in Luke 2:, but only hearing and asking questions. To have taught then would not have been in season, a child as He was in the midst of His elders. To have learnt would not have been in full fidelity to the light, the eminent and bright light, which He knew He carried in Himself; for we may surely say of Him, "He was wiser than the ancients, and had more understanding than His teachers." I do not mean as God, but as One "filled with wisdom," as was then said of Him. But He knew, in the perfection of grace, how to use this fullness of wisdom, and He is therefore not presented to us by the evangelist in the midst of the doctors in the temple at the age of twelve either teaching or learning; but it is simply said of Him that He was hearing and asking questions. Strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God upon Him, is the description of Him then, as He grew up in tender years; and when a man, conversing in the world, His speech was always with grace, seasoned with salt, as of one who knew how to answer every man. What perfection and beauty suited to the different seasons of childhood and manhood! And further. We find Him, besides this, also in various other conditions. At times He is slighted and scorned, watched and hated by adversaries, retiring, as it were to save His life from their attempts and purposes. At times He is weak, followed only by the poorest of the people; wearied, too, and hungry and athirst, debtor to the service of some loving women, who felt as though they owed Him every thing. At times He is compassionating the multitude in all gentleness, or commanding with His disciples in their repasts or in their journeying, conversing with them as a man would with His friends. At times He is in strength and honor before us, doing wonders, letting out some rays of glory; and though in His person and circumstances nothing and nobody in the world-a carpenter's son, without learning or fortune, yet making a greater stir among men, and that, too, at times in the thoughts of the ruling ones on earth, than man ever made.
Childhood and manhood, and human life in all its variousness, thus give Him to us. Would that the heart could hold Him! There is a perfection in some of the minute features that tell of the divine hand that was delineating them. Awkward work would any penman, unkept, unguided by the Spirit, have made of certain occasions where these strokes and touches are seen. As when the Lord wanted to comment on the current money of the land, He asked to be shown it, and does not find it about Himself. Indeed, we may be sure He carried none of it. Thus the moral beauties of the action flowed from the moral perfection of His condition within.

He asked His disciples, in the hour of Gethsemane, to watch with Him; but He did not ask them to pray for Him. He would claim sympathy. He prized it in the hour of weakness and pressure, and would have the hearts of His companions bound to Him then. Such a desire was of the moral glory that formed the. human perfection that was in Him ; but while He felt this and did this, He could not ask them to stand as in the divine presence on His behalf. He would have them give themselves to Him, but He could not seek them to give themselves to God for Him. Thus He asked them, again I say, to watch with Him, but He did not ask them to pray for Him. When, shortly or immediately afterward, He linked praying and watching together, it was of themselves and for themselves He spoke, saying, " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." Paul could say to his fellow-saints, "Ye also helping together by prayer to God for us:pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience." But such was not the language of Jesus. I need not say, it could not have been; but the pen that writes for us such a life and delineates for us such a character is held by the Spirit of God. None other than the Spirit could write thus.

He did good, and lent, hoping for nothing again. He gave, and His left hand did not know what His right hand was doing. Never, in one single instance, as I believe, did He claim either the person or the service of those whom He restored and delivered. He never made the deliverance He wrought a title to service. Jesus loved and healed and saved, looking for nothing again. He would not let Legion, the Gadarene, be with Him; the child at the foot of the mount He delivered back to His father; the daughter of Jairus He left in the bosom of her family; the widow's son at Nain He restores to His mother. He claims none of them. Does Christ give in order that He may receive again ? Does He not (perfect Master!) illustrate His own principle-"Do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again"? The nature of grace is, to impart to others, not to enrich itself:and He came that in Him and His ways it might shine in all the exceeding riches and glory that belong to it. He found servants in this world, but He did not first heal them and then claim them. He called them and endowed them. They were the fruit of the energy of His Spirit, and of affections kindled in hearts constrained by His love. And sending them forth, He said to them, "Freely ye have received, freely give." Surely there is something beyond human conception in the delineation of such a character. One repeats that thought again and again. And very happy is it to add that it is in the very simplest forms this moral glory of the Lord shines forth at times,-such forms as are at once intelligible to all the perceptions and sympathies of the heart. Thus He never refused the feeblest faith, though He accepted and answered, and that too with delight, the approaches and demands of the boldest.

The strong faith which drew upon Him, without ceremony or apology, in full, immediate assurance was ever welcome to Him; while the timid soul that approached Him as one that was ashamed, and would excuse itself, was encouraged and blessed. His lips at once bore away from the heart of the poor leper the one only thing that hung over that heart as a cloud. '' Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean," said he. " I will:be thou clean," said Jesus. But immediately afterward the same lips uttered the fullness of the heart, when the clear, unquestioning faith of the Gentile centurion was witnessed, and when the bold, earnest faith of a family in Israel broke up the roof of the house where He was, that they might let down their sick one before Him.

When a weak faith appealed to the Lord, He granted the blessing it sought, but He rebuked the seeker. But even this rebuke is full of comfort to us; for it seems to say, "Why did you not make freer fuller, happier use of Me ? " Did we value the Giver as we do the gift,-the heart of Christ as well as His hand, this rebuke of weak faith would be just as welcome as the answer to it.

And if little faith be thus reproved, strong faith must be grateful. And therefore we have reason to know what a fine sight was under the eye of the Lord when, in that case already looked at, they broke up the roof of the house in order to reach Him. It was indeed, right sure I am, a grand spectacle for the eye of the divine and bounteous Jesus. His heart was entered by that action as surely as the house in Capernaum was entered by it. J. G. B.

( To be continued.)