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

Whether challenged by disciples or adversaries, as the Lord was again and again, there is never an excusing of Himself. On one occasion, disciples complain, " Master, carest Thou not that we perish?" But He does not think of vindicating the sleep out of which this challenge awakes Him. On another occasion, they object to Him, "The multitude throng Thee, and sayest Thou, ' Who touched Me?' " But He does not need this inquiry, but acts upon the satisfaction of it. At another time, Martha says to "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." But He does not excuse His not having been there, nor His delaying for two days in the place where He was, but instructs Martha in the wondrous character which His delay had given to that hour. All this tells us of the way of the perfect Master. Appearances might have been against Him at times. Why did He sleep in the boat when the winds and waves were raging? Why did He loiter on the road when Jairus's daughter was dying ? or why did He tarry where He was when His friend Lazarus was sick in the distant village of Bethany? But all this is but appearance, and that for a moment. We have heard of these ways of Jesus,-this sleep, this loitering, and this tarrying, but we also see the end of Jesus, that all is perfect. Appearances were against the God of Job in patriarchal days. Messenger after messenger seemed too much, unrelenting, and inexorable; but the God of Job had not to excuse Himself, nor has the Jesus of the evangelists.

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

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

I have heard of one who, observing His bright and blessed ways in the four gospels, was filled with tears and affections, and was heard to cry out, " Oh that I were with Him !"

If one may speak for others, beloved, it is this we want, and it is this we covet. We know our need, but we can say, the Lord knows our desire.-(From "Meditations on the Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ")