'Three days" seems to be commonly mentioned, and it may be interesting and profitable to trace it, as an ordeal for the soul that we may call the experience of death and the delivering power of God manifest at the close. The "third day " is of course resurrection, and " three days," death and resurrection; but what we find in Scripture in the frequent occurrence of the three days is something more definite than this-that is, as above first suggested, we shall find that it very plainly brings before us death realized in the soul -the experience of death as regards all human power-death to the flesh, but gone through, or realized in the power of what is only manifest at the end of the three days-the power of God- resurrection-power, of course.

Abraham rises morning after morning for three days, with the death of Isaac in prospect; he expected to offer him, but accounting that God was able to raise him even from the dead. It was the end of self-of all human possibility.

Joseph's brethren are put in ward three days (Gen. 42:17), and learn to confess their sin before being set free. Three days into the wilderness before the children of Israel learn the deliverance of God at Marah. In the third month (Ex. 19:) they came to Sinai, and until the third day they are kept waiting for the giving of the law. The law was not deliverance, but the delay was waiting for deliverance none the less, and opportunity given to realize their helplessness during the time of waiting.

In Numbers 19:, the water of separation applied the third day shows realization of sin in the power of resurrection-that is, real restoration of soul.

In Joshua 1:ii, they are told that within three days they would pass over Jordan. They were in face of Jordan, the river of death, for three days before realizing the power of God to take them through. It is true Joshua says on the third day, "To-morrow, the Lord will do wonders among you," still they were to cross that same day:" This day will I begin to magnify thee."

Rahab bids the spies (2:16) hide themselves three days;-three days they were under the shadow of death, but preserved in the power of God through faith.

In i Sam. 9:20, Samuel tells Saul that the asses lost three days before were found.

In i Sam. 20:19, David, who had escaped Saul's javelin, was to hide three days, when Jonathan was to come (as he did) with the awaited tidings.

After three days, David and his men (i Sam. 21:) came to the house of God, and take the show-bread and the sword of Goliath-priesthood and victory over death in the power of life.

In i Sam. 30:, David and his men rejected by the Philistines; when he had fled from Saul, comes to Ziklag the third day; and finding all in ruins, his soul is restored in the midst of distress, and he pursues and recovers all. And the Egyptian, the servant of an Umbilicate, who directed them to the enemy, was revived when he had been three days without food or drink (a. precious type of a saved sinner); he follows with David to victory, delivered forever from Egypt and Amalek.
In 2 Sam. 21:, we have not three days, but three years-three years of famine, and God's deliverance to David and his people when atonement has been made for Saul's sin against the Gibeonites by the death of seven of Saul's sons.

In i Chron. 21:12, we have brought together "three years," "three months," "three days;" where David, having sinned in numbering the people, is given his choice between three years of famine, three months of war, or three days of pestilence, and chooses the latter. And God's deliverance comes at Oman's threshing-floor (testing and sifting), where Abraham offered Isaac, and where the temple was to be built (Gen. 22:2; 2 Chron, 3:i), where David confesses his sin and offers sacrifice. An awful three days!-a going through death truly in spirit for the spared as actually for those cut off! but the end is the complete establishment of the ground of everlasting worship and peace. "The tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and its altar" (5:29), is left behind forever now. " David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord;" with it was the terror of the law. But now David stands upon new ground, where atonement was made, the redemption-price paid, the sword of vengeance sheathed. To have gone back to the tabernacle of Moses at Gibeon would have been to have met the sword of the destroying angel; but now, having passed through the waters of death and judgment, and standing on new ground, David declares, with the boldness of one who has come to the knowledge of God in grace," This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt-offering for Israel," though the building was not even begun, but God had accepted his offering and answered by fire.

In Ezra 8:15, 32, we have three days' solemn pause before a great or solemn undertaking. The people and priests gather with Ezra at the river Ahava for three days before starting for Jerusalem:Nehemiah abides three days at Jerusalem before going out by night to survey the ruins of the city wall.

Esther calls upon the Jews in Shushan to gather together and fast for her for three days. " I also, and my maidens, will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law ; and if I perish, I perish." " Now it came to pass on the third day that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king's house, . . and the king sat upon his royal throne," and "she obtained favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand." What a clear and impressive setting forth, in type, of intercession based upon death and resurrection as the salvation of God for His people! The Jews were condemned to death through the subtlety of their enemy; and Esther, at the end of three days of facing death, enters the king's presence, is accepted, and intercedes for her people, who are delivered without the repealing of the law by the word of the king-annulling him that had the power of death. The new decree permits the Jews to stand for their lives; and again we have the three days, for the Jews in Shushan (9:18) maintain the conflict against their enemies until the third day, when they rest, and make it a day of feasting and gladness. And they were to celebrate a memorial of this occasion, as a time when they rested from their enemies, and when their sorrow was turned into joy, and their mourning to a good day. There was to be feasting and joy, and sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.

May we remember this, and may the song of praise be ascending from our hearts. And may we be so full as to be always ready to send portions to one another, and so in communion with the Savior as to be able to preach the gospel to the poor. It was a celebration to be maintained throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city-it was not to fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial perish from their seed. The fastings and the cry were to be remembered, " and it was written in the book," and the glorious end of the despised but faithful Mordicai's influence and Esther's intercession was the wealth of his people and the peace of all his seed.

Let me go a little beyond my subject here to speak of the tempered tone of the joy of God's people in view of His judgments. The joy of God's people is a joy tempered and deepened by solemnity -the solemn sense of the awful judgments of God due to us, but from which we are forever sheltered by the blood of the Lamb, but which are about to fall upon the world through the wrath of the Lamb.

" And ye shall observe this thing (Ex. 12:24) for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever. . . . . And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. …. And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt; …. this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations."

In this day of pride and folly, when man is. scouting the thought of judgment to come, and. saying, " Peace and safety," let us turn to the fountain of holy writ, and refresh ourselves with the company of the apostles and prophets, whose testimony is one, "Alleluia! Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God:for true and righteous are His judgments. …. And again they said, 'Alleluia!' And her smoke rose up forever and ever. . . . And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, 'Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.' "

There is " the acceptable year of the Lord," and there is also "the day of vengeance of our God."

The song of praise will go up forever and ever, but the mouth of them that speak lies will be stopped. " The shout of a king is among them " is forever true of the redeemed of the Lord; but there are blind leaders of the blind, so perverse that they must be let alone, and they shall both fall into the ditch. The joy, therefore, of the people of God is deep-toned and solemn. Upon dry ground themselves, they behold the dreadful walls of water that are to overwhelm the enemies of God forever.

Mighty the deliverance of God that will come at the end of this scene of affliction and Satan's wiles! and grand the chorus of praise that will be heard, in a mighty volume, from the Red Sea, from many a victory in the land, from the persecuted prophets and martyrs, from the Church in all ages, from the feeble and despised, who out of weakness waxed strong-victory by the blood of the Lamb! The pent-up song will go forth then unhindered any more forever. There will be a sort of glad vengeance taken upon our own folly that song due to the Lord of glory should have been so often choked and silenced here by the subtlety of Satan, and that we should have so little lived out the word, " The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us."

"As true as God's own Word is true,
Nor earth nor hell, with all their crew,
Against us shall prevail.
A jest and by-word they are grown ;
God is with us-we are His own,
Our victory cannot fail.

" Amen, Lord Jesus, grant our prayer ;
Great Captain, now Thine arm make bare,-
Fight for us once again ;
So shall Thy saints and martyrs raise
A mighty chorus to Thy praise,
World without end. Amen."

Of Jonah, and of the resurrection of the Lord the third day, we need say but little. Upon the latter, all is based, and all that has come before us from the Old Testament pointed onward to it.

Paul being three days blind, and neither eating nor drinking, before he was baptized and filled with the Spirit, is in the same line of teaching. And so as to a thorough experience of its kind, the Lord's experience of Satan's power over man in this scene of death, where He says, (Luke 13:32) " Go ye, and tell that fox,' Behold, I cast out demons, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.'" And this in response to the word, "Herod will kill Thee," and followed by the word, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets."

We may appropriately close this review with the utterance of Jonah, giving his experience of death -of utter helplessness in the fish's belly-in the deep-the very embrace of death for three days and three nights, before he is cast out upon the dry ground of resurrection.

" Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, ' I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice. For Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas ; and the floods compassed me about:all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me.' Then I said, ' I am cast out of Thy sight; yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul; the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottom of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about [or, closed upon] me forever:yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption ["In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing,"], O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.' And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." E.S.L.