HOUSE BEAUTIFUL; (continued 3)

"God spoke unto Manasseh, and to his people, but they would not hearken." Who could have marvelled, then, if the sentence had gone forth, "Manasseh is joined to idols—let him alone?" "He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

But Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, had doubtless been the child of many prayers, and the Spirit of his heavenly Father yearned still over this worse than prodigal son. God sent other messengers, to whom Manasseh could not choose but hearken. The Lord brought on him "the captains of the King of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon." Those chains were as the cords of love, with which mercy would draw the wretched sinner back from the gulf of destruction into which he was plunging.

"When he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers." The prayer attributed to Manasseh, though not contained in the inspired record, nor perhaps written by Manasseh himself, well expresses what must have been the feeling of his broken and contrite heart. "I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea. My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied, my transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven, for the multitude of my iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up my head, neither have any release; for I have provoked Thy wrath, and done evil before Thee. I did not Thy will, neither kept I Thy commandments. I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences. Now, therefore, I bow the knee of my heart, beseeching Thee of grace. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge my iniquities. Wherefore, I humbly beseech Thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me, and destroy me not with mine iniquities . . . For Thou art the God, even the God of them that repent; and in me Thou wilt show all Thy goodness, for Thou wilt save me, that am unworthy, according to Thy great mercy."

"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." The history of Manasseh is a most striking comment upon such a text as this. If "he" was saved, who need despair? If "he" was granted true repentance, what heart so dead in sin that it cannot be quickened by the Spirit of Life!

When God released the prisoner from captivity, and brought him again to Jerusalem to reign on the throne of his fathers, Manasseh proved the sincerity of his contrition by the change in his life. "He took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace-offerings and thank-offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel."

We believe that amongst the ransomed of Christ, Manasseh will at the last day be found with the pious Hezekiah his father, and the holy prophet Isaiah, whose inspired words were so touchingly fulfilled in the case of his own cruel murderer. "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

The history of Manasseh is fraught with hope and comfort, not only for those bowed down under the weight of manifold sins, but for parents enduring that anguish which is only second to that of remorse, grief for the wickedness of a child. Hezekiah was a man of prayer; he had, we doubt not, often fervently prayed for his boy, and long after his own decease his prayers were abundantly answered. The supplications of Hezekiah may have helped to forge these fetters for Manasseh, they may have helped to draw the Assyrians upon him.

Let us close our meditations upon this most striking history of God's abounding grace, in the words of one who was himself a miracle of pardoning love,—"Godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

XXX.

The Deed of Purchase.

A LIFE of bitter trial was that of Jeremiah, the messenger of wrath and of woe, the prophet who announced evil tidings of disgrace and ruin to a profligate court and a wicked people. Jeremiah stood like a light-house on a desolate rock, exposed to the fury of the blast of calumny, the fierce billows of persecution. What would be the position of a seer, even in these days, who should announce the utter devastation of our land by famine and sword, who should declare amongst us that we should become "an execration and an astonishment, a curse and a reproach," who should pronounce a sentence of death upon monarch and noble, bid our soldiers sheath their swords, and our volunteers submit to a foreign foe without so much as a struggle? Jeremiah has recorded his own sufferings in language which shows how deeply he felt them. "I am the man that hath seen affliction. He hath made me desolate. I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day."

Nor were hatred and mockery all that the prophet had to endure. His liberty was taken away; his life was in imminent peril;—it is said that he fell at last a victim to his countrymen's hatred. When we consider also that the ruin of his nation was the source of deep affliction to one who was a patriot as well as a prophet, that—like the blessed Saviour—Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem while he foretold her destruction, we shall conclude that amongst God's saints few drank more deeply of the cup of sorrow and will scarcely wonder that in his anguish Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth.

But the deed of purchase which we are now contemplating reminds us of an occasion when a gleam of joy may have shone on the darkened path of the prophet, a drop of sweetness have been mixed in his cup. The whole transaction connected with it is very remarkable.

When Jeremiah was shut up in the court of the prison at Jerusalem,—when the Chaldeans were investing the doomed city which he knew must fall into their hands—then received he an intimation from God that he should purchase a field in his native place Anathoth, of which the right of redemption was his.

"What have I to do with buying land!" may have been the first thought of the wondering seer; "is this a time to receive olive-yards and vineyards? I am a prisoner and cannot get forth; Anathoth is now in the hands of the enemy, and soon will Jerusalem be so also. My people will be led into captivity; the Gentiles will rule in the land: what profit can there be in this field to me or to mine!"

But if such a thought arose, Jeremiah's faith suffered it not to influence his conduct. The purchase was to be made as a pledge and token that the captivity of Judah was not to last for ever; that the ransomed of the Lord should return to Zion; that Anathoth of Benjamin should again belong to the chosen race. Jeremiah would not live to see the return of his people, but he foresaw it by faith, and in faith bought the field as the Lord had appointed. We see the prisoner with calm thankfulness weighing out the seventeen shekels * of silver in the balances; a small sum, and yet probably deemed by many a desponding Jew too large to be thrown away upon what might seem to be a worthless claim. Mocking smiles may have been interchanged between the witnesses to so strange a transaction, when the prisoner subscribed and sealed the deed, and gave it to the faithful Baruch to be carefully preserved for a time yet remote. But Jeremiah had full assurance that such a time would arrive; for thus said the Lord of hosts to His prophet: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land . . . for I will cause their captivity to return."

We look upon Jeremiah's deed of purchase as a type of that claim which both Israel and Judah hold still on the land of their fathers. Jerusalem, with all the inheritance bestowed by God upon Abraham, is now in the possession of the followers of the false prophet; Judea, for the sins of her people is again in captivity, and her sons are scattered abroad amongst the Gentiles. The olive-yards and vineyards of Palestine are now—and for many ages have been the spoil of strangers. But it shall not be so for ever. Not by purchase but by promise is the whole land reserved for the sons of Abraham. The deed has been carefully preserved, not—as Jeremiah's—in an earthen vessel, but in God's own Book. The whole deed is too long for transference to these pages, but a portion may be transcribed, gathered from various books of the Old Testament Scriptures; each prophet, as it were, setting his seal to the precious document.

"I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." * "Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, He hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more." † "At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth." ‡ "All nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts." § "For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." ¶

"And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore." * "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it." † "He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit." ‡

St. Paul, himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews, looked with faith and hope on this deed, and thus subscribed himself as a witness: "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." §

Yes, the time is coming, and now may be near, when it shall be said, "Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her"; ¶ when the gathering of her people shall be "as life from the dead." ║

Christian brethren, is this nothing to us? Shall we be cold and indifferent, nor strive to hasten the time of Israel's restoration by our prayers, and by such efforts as God may enable us to make? Oh! "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee." The word of the Lord to Israel still standeth firm, "blessed is he that blesseth thee!"

XXXI.

Jehoiakim's Knife.

IF the shadow of a curse could ever be said to lie on the inanimate instrument employed by man to work his evil will, surely it lies upon this, the first, as far as we know, ever used in the attempt to destroy a portion of God's holy Word.

On the dethronement of his brother by the King of Egypt, Jehoiakim had mounted the throne of his father Josiah, and for eleven years he reigned in Jerusalem. The sins of this wicked monarch drew down upon himself and his people the wrath of the Lord. For many years had the Prophet Jeremiah uttered the voice of solemn warning; sadly had he foretold the coming desolation. "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people! This whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon seventy years."

At the command of the Lord the prophet dictated to Baruch the scribe all the words of his prophecies against Israel and Judah, and they were written down upon a roll. The prophet confided the roll to Baruch, and bade him read it aloud in the ears of the people in the house of the Lord.

"It may be," said Jeremiah, "they will present their supplication before the Lord, and will return every one from his evil way: for great is the anger and the fury that the Lord hath pronounced against this people."

The solemn announcement of coming ruin, though it led not, as in the case of Nineveh, to national repentance, yet excited interest and alarm. The princes of Judah sent for Baruch, and at their desire, he again, in their presence, read aloud the prophecies of Jeremiah. Fear fell on the nobles; "we will surely tell the king of all these words," said they unto Baruch. But aware of the storm of anger which might be roused in the monarch's breast, the princes counselled that both the prophet and the scribe should conceal themselves, and let no man know their hiding-place.

Then was Jehoiakim informed of the prophecies written against himself and his guilty land; and he sent Jehudi to fetch the roll, and read it in his presence where he sat in his winter palace, with all his princes assembled around.

Striking and solemn must that scene have been! There would be deep stillness in the royal chamber, broken only by the voice of the reader, uttering words of living power, which would fall on the ears of such of the silent listeners as had faith in prophecy, much as the voice of the judge pronouncing sentence of death falls on the ear of the criminal.

The nobles would watch the effect of the reading on the countenance of their king; would he, like Ahab, rend his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh, and by humbling himself before God avert the threatened judgments at least for a time? Would he, like Josiah his father, go up into the house of God, call around him the priests and the people, both small and great, and read to them the Word of the Lord, honouring it, and mourning because of the curses written in the Book?

To Josiah a message had been sent, "Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest His words against this place . . . behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place."

But the spirit of Josiah was not in his son. Instead of repentance and humiliation, anger and stubborn resistance to the will of the Almighty might be read on the darkening countenance of the King of Judea. He would not even suffer Jehudi to read to the end of the roll; Jehoiakim grasped it, and cut it with his knife, and not satisfied with this open insult to the Word of God, this defiance of the terrors of the Almighty, the king flung the mutilated roll into the fire which was burning before him, as if with the blackening parchment he could destroy that Word which abideth for ever! In vain two of the nobles present endeavoured to stay the rash hand of the king, entreating him not to burn the prophetic roll; the rage of Jehoiakim was not satisfied by the crime which he had committed, he wished to wreak his fury on the living witnesses for God, as well as upon His inspired Word; he commanded the seizure of both Jeremiah and Baruch, but the Lord hid them from the anger of the king.

What availed it to the wretched Jehoiakim that he had consumed to ashes the writing of the prophet against him? The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, "Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the King of Judah hath burned, and thou shalt say to Jehoiakim, King of Judah, 'Thus saith the Lord; thou hast burned this roll . . . therefore thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.' Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch, who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Book which Jehoiakim had burned in the fire, and there were added unto them many like words."

Such was the result of this first attempt to mutilate the Scriptures, and stop the free course of the Word of God. It may have been the first, but it assuredly was not the last effort of that kind. Jehoiakim's knife and Jehoiakim's fire have but been precursors of other instruments used for the same unhallowed purpose, notwithstanding the awful warning which is found almost at the close of the Revelation. "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life."

Superstition has been actively employed from early ages in using the knife to mar and mutilate the Scriptures; she has tried to cut away the Second Commandment, to rend from the roll all the texts on which, as emblazoned in light, are written the doctrine of justification by faith. Nay, when she has found, like Jehoiakim, the knife insufficient for the work, she has literally cast the Bible into the flames, and not only the Book, but the bodies of many of those who counted its doctrines more precious than life! But superstition has had no power to destroy one inspired sentence, "The Word of the Lord endureth for ever."

Heresy, also, has diligently plied the knife on various parts of the sacred roll. Here one would cut away the testimony to the Divinity of Him "whose goings forth are from everlasting," here another would deprive us of the consolation to be derived from the truth that Christ "was in all points tempted as we are" though "without sin." But vain has been every wild attempt to destroy any part of the sacred Book, let man or Satan do what they may, "The Word of the Lord abideth for ever!"

In the present day many an eager hand is stretched out to grasp the knife. Now this part—now that part—of God's truth is fiercely assailed. Unbelief would cut away the record of miracles, would cast aside much of those sacred writings of which He who is the Truth itself said, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me." Sceptics and unbelievers may, like Jehoiakim, draw down on themselves a heavy doom; but they will find at last that the so-called wisdom of man is foolishness with God, and that they have no more power to destroy His Scriptures than passing clouds have to extinguish the sun which shineth in glory far far above them! "The Word of the Lord endureth for ever!"

Is there no danger of our falling into the sin of mutilating Scripture, though not, like Jehoiakim, with the knife? If we search the Bible in order to "confirm" our own views on religion instead of to "form" them, passing lightly over everything there which clashes with our notions, almost secretly wishing that some passages in sacred Writ were not to be found there, do we truly honour God's Word? There were parts of Jeremiah's roll which probably even Jehoiakim would have willingly preserved. All would gladly keep the promises, could they put out of sight the warnings and threats.

And so likewise in matters of doctrine: one treasures all the texts which proclaim free salvation through faith, another lets his mind only dwell upon such as enforce the necessity of a holy life and good works. I was once surprised at the dissatisfied feeling with which an excellent man regarded the Epistle written by St. James, who has been called "the apostle of duty." The Christian did not seem to realize the truth which has been well illustrated by one who represented St. James and St. Paul as soldiers fighting "back to back," under the same banner, against the same foes to the truth, but necessarily from their position facing different errors; each soldier strengthening and supporting his comrade by guarding him from strokes "from behind," where the enemy might have taken him at disadvantage.

Let us receive—honour—and keep the Bible in its integrity, deeming no portion superfluous which God hath thought fit to preserve; waiting for more light from above to reveal its hidden mysteries, and being assured that though heavens and earth may pass away, yet "the Word of the Lord endureth for ever!"

XXXII.

The Rags of Ebedmelech.

WHO can doubt that the God of Love notices the minutest act of kindness done to His servants, when even these rags of the Ethiopian are carefully preserved in the Scriptures, memorials of considerate thoughtful tenderness shown to His afflicted prophet.

Let us review one of the most interesting passages in the history of Jeremiah.

The miserable Jehoiakim fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, by whose command he was bound with fetters and ordered to be carried to Babylon. As no account is given in Scripture of Jehoiakim's death, it is surmised that the prophecy which foretold that his burial should be as "the burial of an ass," was fulfilled by his dying on the way to Babylon, and his corpse being thrown into a ditch, exposed to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.

For three months Jeconiah (or Coniah), a youth of eighteen, reigned in the place of his father Jehoiakim. Of him Jeremiah had prophesied, "Thus saith the Lord . . . I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans."

And even so came it to pass that the young king and his mother, his officers and princes, and thousands of warriors and artizans were carried away captive to Babylon, with the vessels of Solomon's Temple.

Zedekiah (the son of Josiah), the last native monarch of Judah, then mounted the throne of David, to suffer one day a fate even more terrible than that which had befallen his two brothers and his nephew, who had successively reigned before him. Zedekiah sought help from Egypt, and, as it appeared at first, with success, as on the approach of Pharaoh's army, the Chaldeans, who were besieging Jerusalem, retired. If the heart of Jeremiah had shared in the joy which this gleam of returning hope had caused in Jerusalem, it must have been to him a task all the more bitter to quench that hope in utter darkness. Anguish must have been his when he thus declared the message of God! "Behold Pharaoh's army which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land; and the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire."

After uttering this terrible prophecy, Jeremiah made an attempt to quit Jerusalem, and return to his native land of Benjamin; but he was seized as a traitor by a captain of the ward, brought before the princes as one taken in the act of falling away to the Chaldeans, maltreated, and thrown into prison. For a time, the rigour of Jeremiah's captivity was softened by the king, who appears never to have doubted the innocence of the prophet. But Jeremiah's enemies were not satisfied with his imprisonment; they were determined to have his life, and to destroy him by a death of lingering suffering. Abusing the weakness of King Zedekiah, who delivered the prophet into their hands, the princes of Judah cast Jeremiah into a dungeon, or rather pit, in the court of the prison, which had mire at the bottom, in which their victim partially sank, and there his merciless foes seem to have left him to perish by inches from hunger and damp.

Such would probably have been the fate of Jeremiah, but for the intervention of Ebedmelech, not one of his own countrymen, but an Ethiopian in the service of the king. This African went to Zedekiah, and roused him to make an effort to save his innocent subject from so cruel a death. "My lord the king," said Ebedmelech, "these men have done evil in all that they have done to the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is."

Ebedmelech succeeded in obtaining the king's order that he should take thirty men, and release the prophet from his dreadful situation. And here occurs the little trait of womanlike tenderness in the African, which God hath deemed worthy of record. Ebedmelech knew that Jeremiah must be drawn out of the pit by cords; he knew that in his probable state of weakness and emaciation the ropes would be likely to gall and hurt him. So he "went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. And Ebedmelech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords." And Jeremiah did so, and was safely drawn to the top.

The Lord did not fail to requite the deed of the Ethiopian, to whom was granted a special promise of deliverance in the coming time of trouble. "Thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid." And here the African disappears from our view, and we know nothing further of Ebedmelech; but the soft wrappings which he collected to put over the rough ropes may afford us a pleasant and profitable subject for our reflections.

Ebedmelech not only did a substantial service to Jeremiah, but he did it in a tender considerate way; he did not, as most men would have done, hurt the prophet even in helping him. The complaint of the ingratitude of those who have received great benefits is very common in the world, but we shall often find that ingratitude has been caused by the want of delicacy in the benefactor who complains; he has supplied the "ropes" but neglected the "wrappings."

For instance, a sufferer is sunk in the pit of poverty; he has seen better days, his feelings are tender, the very means used to raise him are likely to wound him, to gall even while they relieve. But Christian love must regard the feelings as well as the outward wants of the sufferer; it should bestow a gift almost as if it were asking a favour; it should smooth what is rough, soften what is hard, and let down the wrappings with the rope.

Again, there is the same, and even greater, delicacy to be observed when he whom we would help is sunk in the pit, not of poverty, but of sin. We earnestly desire to draw him forth, for we know that if he stay, he must perish. Fervent exhortation, faithful reproof, may be as the cords in our hands, and with a prayer for success we use them; but our efforts will be far more likely to avail, if gentleness, consideration, and tenderness accompany earnest effort; if, shrinking from galling pride, or giving one needless pang, we let down the wrappings with the rope.

Nothing is really insignificant that affects the happiness or the character of men; a look or a word may awaken far more kindly feeling than the gift of a purse of gold, and that reproof is usually most effectual which is uttered in a tone of love.

XXXIII.

The Golden Sceptre.

VERY different is the object of our present contemplation from the last—the gold from the tatters, the sceptre of a powerful monarch from the rags of an African servant—and even so our theme rises from man's mercy to that of God, from the kindness of Ebedmelech to the free grace of our Lord.

For it is not on the history of Esther herself that we will now dwell, except so far as she appears an emblem of the Church, the queen "all glorious within," whose clothing is "of wrought gold." Let us muse on how she, and with her every individual believer, dares to approach Him who is of "purer eyes than to behold iniquity," the great and terrible God, "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span."

There is, indeed, far too little of reverence in the way in which we too often enter by prayer the presence of our Lord. The careless posture, the wandering thought, the hastily-uttered supplication, seem to denote that Christians little realize how solemn a thing it is to draw nigh to the King of kings. Not thus did Esther approach the throne of Ahasuerus. If the traditional account preserved in the Apocrypha be true, her heart was in anguish for fear, she turned pale, and fainted, and fell. Not that God wills that such terrors should oppress His redeemed; they are permitted to "come boldly" to the throne of grace, they are commanded to draw near with a true heart, "in full assurance of faith;" but a certain degree of holy awe should be mixed with holy confidence; "let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; God is in heaven, and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few."

But for the golden sceptre of grace held out to us through the mercy and merits of Christ, the sentence of death would indeed go forth against us when we appear before Him. "For our God is a consuming fire." "The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence. Who can stand before His indignation, and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger?" But the love of Persia's king for his bride was but a faint shadow of the love of the Lord for His Church. "What wilt thou, Queen Esther? and what is Thy request? it shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom."

Such were the gracious words of Ahasuerus to the trembling supplicant before him; and so the Church hears the tender assurance of her King, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He will give it to you."

And what was it that Esther came to entreat, when the golden sceptre of Ahasuerus was stretched out towards her? In the first place, the presence of the king at her banquet, and, beyond this, the preservation from destruction of herself and her people. Much the same as hers is the petition of Christ's Church to her heavenly King, only with the loftier blessings implored their order is reversed. The Church prays first for salvation, deliverance from death eternal, and then for the presence of her Lord—not for an hour or a day—but even for ever and ever.

If Esther, an orphan exile, born to bondage and sorrow, was able in royal garments to approach her lord, and invite him to a sumptuous banquet which she had prepared in a palace, the robes which she wore, the feast which she spread, were all the gifts of his love. She could but offer him of his own. How strikingly does this exemplify the position of the Church in regard to her Lord! By free grace He holds out to her the sceptre of pardoning mercy; by free grace He clothes her with the royal garments of righteousness; by free grace He enables her to welcome Him and minister unto Him. He is more ready to hear than she to pray, more ready to grant than she to implore. He has loved and will love her for ever, will save her from all her enemies, and crown her with joy everlasting.

Such are some of the comforting thoughts suggested to us by the golden sceptre, thoughts of mercy, grace, and love. It is a "sceptre," the emblem of power and dominion; a "golden" sceptre, reminding us of the word spoken of Christ our King, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom." It is a token of free salvation; they to whom it is extended shall live in the presence of God, shall stand accepted before Him; and it is a sceptre held out to every one who, in lowly faith, approaches Him who loved and gave Himself for us.

XXXIV.

A Vessel of the Temple.

BITTER must have been the shame and grief of the Jews when Nebuchadnezzar, King of Assyria, plundered the glorious building which they had raised, the Temple which, eleven years later, was itself given to the flames. Well was it for the good King Hezekiah that he lived not to see that day when his precious things, his silver and his gold, with the consecrated gold of the Temple, were carried away to Babylon, according to the word of the Lord spoken by the Prophet Isaiah. Great was the quantity of sacred vessels taken from Jerusalem, even if Ezra's list of those restored comprises them all. Thirty chargers and twenty basins of gold; a thousand chargers of silver. "All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred." It was a humbling day to the captives from Jerusalem when the treasures of the sanctuary, the pride of their fathers, were placed as trophies in the idol temple of the Gentiles.

But we conceive yet stronger indignation excited in the breasts of Jewish exiles, when the sacred vessels were brought forth to add to the magnificence of the feast of King Belshazzar, when the heathen in riotous mirth quaffed wine out of those splendid chargers, and praised their own gods of silver and gold, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone! It was a sacrilegious hand that Belshazzar laid on the golden cup before us, a blasphemous lip that pressed its brim; and God at once avenged the insult to His Majesty. Part of a man's hand appeared writing on the wall terrible mysterious characters that no one present could read, and the king's countenance was changed, he trembled, his knees smote one another with fear. On that night was proud Babylon taken by the Persians under that Cyrus who subsequently restored to the Jews the vessels of their Temple, to be once more devoted to the service of the one true God.

The image of a vessel is repeatedly employed in the New Testament to represent human beings. St. Paul writes of God making known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He had before prepared unto glory; he describes a believer as "a vessel unto honour, sanctified, meet for the Master's use," and he was himself spoken of by the Lord as "a chosen vessel." It does not appear improbable that in each instance the idea was suggested by the vessels of the Temple. It seems as if some light might be thrown by the use of this simile upon the subjects of baptism and conversion.

In baptism every Christian adult or child becomes a vessel solemnly consecrated to God, even like the treasures of the Temple dedicated by Solomon to the Lord. Happy those who are never suffered to fall into the hand of the Enemy! What myriads of babes will there be in Heaven, little vessels of mercy that have never been defiled by wilful sin, but which have been safely laid up in the treasury above! But there are many baptized beings whose history is like that of the golden charger on which the mental eye now rests. They were indeed once solemnly devoted to God, but the world has them now, Satan has carried them away, they are no longer used in the Master's service. They are given to idols, they are filled with iniquity, and though some in the sight of men may be precious and beautiful still, they are no longer "vessels unto honour." They need to be washed, and cleansed, and given back—restored to their lawful Owner, and to their rightful use, and when God's grace has accomplished this, we call the blessed restoration "conversion."

It is therefore with feelings of grief, yet not unmingled with hope (like those which the Jews of old must have experienced in regard to their Temple plate), that believers should look upon the unconverted around them. It is not with loathing and contempt that the drunkard or the thief should be thrust aside; it is not with proud disgust that the Christian should turn from the multitude whose daily course of life proves them to be under the dominion of the Prince of this world, though they were baptized in childhood. These are all precious vessels, once dedicated to God, and which may be restored to His service still. They are in Babylon now, but they may be rescued from thence; that which has been filled with iniquity may yet overflow with grace; saved from the idol temple, snatched from the revel and the riot, they may yet be reserved to shine in glory amongst the jewels of their Lord.

What marvellous instances of such conversion have formed themes for the songs of rejoicing angels! Such men as John Newton and Vine Hall, and many others besides, were as vessels grasped by Satan himself and held up on high in unhallowed triumph: but they were to be wrenched from his hold, filled with grace and filled with glory, and made chosen vessels of the heavenly Temple which is built not by man but by God.

Fervent should be our prayers for the unconverted, whether they be those whom the world condemns or the world admires. There are some amongst them whose characters seem to bear no dark stain or spot: all acknowledge the metal to be precious and the form to be fair: they are so goodly—so bright—that it is hard to believe that they are not "vessels of honour." But alas! If they be not truly devoted to God's service and receiving His grace, they are like the golden chargers of the feast of Belshazzar, they are yet but "vessels of wrath." They are like beautiful chalices made to hold the wine of blessing, but taken from the church to the godless banquet. It is profanation when any baptized being is given up to the service of the world; the familiar sound of his own Christian name should remind him that he has once been devoted to God.

Let us close our meditation with the words of the apostle: "Every one of you should know how to preserve his vessel in sanctification and honour . . . And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, . . . faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it."

XXXV.

The Trumpet of Nehemiah.

THE trumpet of Nehemiah is one of the objects in what we may call the sacred museum of Scripture, on which the mind rests with pleasure. It tells of earnestness and unanimity in a great work; its sound was a call to God's servants to help one another in a time of difficulty and of danger, when the Jews, after their return from Babylonish captivity, rebuilt the wall of their Zion. What a scene of anxious and yet joyful labour rises before us as connected with that trumpet!

We picture to ourselves the brave men of Judah, with the tool in one hand and the weapon in another, toil-drops beading their sun-burnt faces, labouring from the rising of the morn till the stars appeared; some, as we know, not even putting on their clothes at night, but throwing themselves down in their garments to snatch needful rest, till dawn should rouse them to fresh exertions. We picture to ourselves not only the men bending their strong backs under the burden, and straining their muscles to lift great weights, but the matrons and maidens of Zion, nay, even the little children, lending what help they might, trying to make up by zeal for want of physical power, bringing food and water to the workers; bearing, perhaps, the lighter burdens, or carrying rubbish away, and speaking those words of encouragement which would add new strength to the strong, and energy to the active.

We hear them repeating one to another the rousing call of their leader when bidding them prepare for attack from their foes: "Be not ye afraid of them; remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses."

At one blast from Nehemiah's trumpet, weapons would have flashed from their scabbards, and a rush have been made to the spot whence the warning note proceeded, for thus writes Nehemiah: "He that sounded the trumpet was by me; and I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one from another. In what place therefore ye hear the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us: our God shall fight for us!"

Even such a scene of active, earnest labour is around us now, realized by faith; in the midst of an opposing world, surrounded by difficulties, encompassed by snares, the labourers for God are raising the walls of the spiritual Zion. The Word of the Lord is their trumpet call, bidding them quit themselves like men and be strong; to fight against their own besetting sins, and at the same time to be ready for every labour of love, and especially such labours for souls as are typified by the building of the wall of Jerusalem, that city of the great King.

There is something delightful and exhilarating in the feeling of working together, combining in efforts for God. The labourers are indeed engaged on different parts of the wall, they may be "one far from another," yet is there a union of purpose between them, and the trumpet at any moment may call them to union in action. Not all are fit for the same kind of work; some are employed but to clear away rubbish, others are laying the strong, deep foundations, those prepare mortar, these hew stones, the work of many shows no visible result, whilst beneath the busy hands of their brethren the wall rises with marvellous rapidity. But all are helping in the building for God, and when the bulwark is completed, the glorious task done, how joyfully may the weakest of the workers exclaim: "I, even I, was a labourer too!"

Yes—on this building there is room for the efforts, not of the pastor alone, but of the "people;" not of the men alone, but the women; nay, even of the feeble little child. Something will be found for each to do, if all combine together. And how inspiriting is the feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood between those engaged in working for God! We may regard the great and successful efforts of some highly distinguished Christian, as a Jewish child, bringing but a few pebbles to add to the wall, may have regarded the giant strength of some Samson, heaving up to its place a huge mass, which the boy's feeble arms could not have stirred. The child would admire and rejoice in the strength of the man; and, if humbled, yet not discouraged, by its contrast with his own weakness, would do the little which he could do with the cheering thought, "I, even I, am a labourer too!"

Oh, how far preferable the humblest kind of spiritual work, to the shame of standing all the day idle, while God's people are anxiously toiling around us for Him!

There are very many ways in which we may help to raise the wall of our Zion. Missionary labour amongst heathen abroad and heathen at home is the most lofty kind of building work. The earnest clergyman, the ragged-school teacher, the Bible-woman, the Christian visitor to the haunts of poverty and the dens of sin, are those "directly" engaged in raising stone upon stone. Such need refreshment, encouragement, help; and to give it to them for the sake of the cause is "indirectly" to forward the building.

There is one way in which we can, as it were, bring our little contribution of mortar to fix the stones, which, though a way neglected by many, is beyond the strength of but few—by "the circulation of religious literature." There is, indeed, judgment required in the choice of religious works for such distribution. The mortar should in itself be good, and be "laid" on, not carelessly "thrown" on; but no great courage is usually required, except by novices in the work. In nineteen cases out of twenty, the book or tract which is courteously offered is civilly received, and sometimes thankfully and eagerly accepted.

A Protestant lady, just before entering a French church to see the interior, gave a tract to an old woman who chanced to be near the door. On the lady's leaving the church, the woman—who was doubtless a Roman Catholic—returned the tract, which she probably regarded as heretical trash. The lady, whose English companion did not sympathize with her tract-giving, took back the despised paper with a little feeling of embarrassment, which instantly passed away as a man held out his hand for what the woman had rejected, so that the lady had merely to pass the tract from the one to the other.

Travellers, while in search of health or amusement, would do well to remember that valuable opportunities may be afforded to them, when thus casually meeting with those whom they never again may see, of helping to build the wall of Zion. They are not likely to behold any effect of their work here; but labour for God, with faith and prayer, is "not in vain in the Lord."

Would that reflection on this subject would induce every reader who may glance at this little volume to form a prayerful resolution never to let "one day" pass without doing something, be it ever so little, towards raising the spiritual wall! How cold is our zeal, how careless our efforts, compared to those of the Jews under Nehemiah! "They" did not sit quietly in their homes, buried in studies, or absorbed by business, while the din of earnest work was going on around them, or the blast of the trumpet summoned all true sons of Abraham to do brave battle for the right. The nobles thought it an honour to be engaged in the work; the governor himself set an example of devoted energy in it. It was a day of triumph for Nehemiah and his companions when their glorious work was finished; when, in the words of the leader, "all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, and were much cast down in their own eyes, for they perceived that this work was wrought of God."

But what will be the joy of those who have toiled for Christ, and in His strength, when they gaze on the jasper wall of "the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God," wherein those shall dwell who, ransomed and pardoned by the Saviour, have loved, lived, and laboured for Him! The trumpet in the hand of the archangel shall sound then no summons to conflict. And when the blessed review the time of their sojourn upon earth, with all its mingled trials and blessings while God's work was slowly rising to completion, will it not be one of their sweetest joys then to be able to say, "Unworthy as I was of a privilege so glorious, I, even I, was a labourer too!"

XXXVI.

Writing Table of Zacharias.

THOUGH mentioned but once in Scripture, there are circumstances which invest the writing table of Zacharias with peculiar interest, as on it may be said to have been traced the first written sentence of the Gospel—the fulfilment of the words of the angel, with the name of him of whom the prophet Isaiah had foretold, that he should be "a voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord."

As soon as Zacharias had written the words, "His name is John," what a thankful utterance of joy burst from the lips of the aged father! He that had been dumb now spake—his mouth was opened at once to prophesy and to praise. Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, as his venerable wife had been before, and rejoiced in the Day-spring from on high, that was rising to give light to them that had long sat in darkness and in the shadow of death.

As the rosy clouds, flushed with his upward beams, seem to cradle the rising sun, so we find, at the first advent of the Sun of Righteousness, a holy radiance brightening the latter days of four aged saints, who were chosen, as it were, to reflect the first rays of coming glory, and bear witness to the Messiah.

First Elisabeth, then her aged husband, afterwards the venerable Simeon and Anna, gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of the coming blessing to all them that looked for redemption in Zion. The song of the one seems to have been appropriate to all: "Lord, now let Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." With these saints, indeed, was the hoary head a crown of glory, for it was found in the way of righteousness.

The spirit of wisdom granted to these four aged believers reminds us of the words of the poet—

and lead us to reflect upon some of the privileges of a holy old age. When an aged Christian lady was once speaking of the different generations in a family, she remarked, "It is like a ladder—happy those who are near the top!" The observation contrasts strikingly with Moore's melancholy regrets for departed youth, and gloomy views of advancing age—

Age is commonly described by the expression, "descending into the vale of years:" with Christians, it should rather be, mounting towards the height of Pisgah; not going "down" into darkness, but "up" into light—nearer to God, and nearer to Heaven.

Thus it was with the four New Testament saints on whom we are reflecting; and the privilege which was granted to them, of witnessing to God's truth and rejoicing in His salvation, seems to be the especial portion of "aged" believers in every generation of mankind.

The old in years can, in a peculiarly forcible manner, witness to the truth and faithfulness of God.

"I have been young, and now am old," said David, "yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." "Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth," cried the venerable Joshua; "not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you."

Such words had additional weight from the very fact that those who uttered them were aged. When the old tell of the goodness of God—His power to sustain in trouble and to guide in difficulty—they speak, not merely of what they believe, but what they have "experienced." The respect due to the aged is enforced by the command of the Most High: "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord."

The law is general; but never do we more strongly feel its force than when the hoary head has the halo of piety around it—when the old man, like Zacharias, stands up as a witness for God. His feeble broken accents may then have more power than the most fervid eloquence of the young, to lead the heart to trust in the love of Him who so fulfils His promise:

"Even to your old age I am He, and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you."

But if age has its privileges, it has also its own peculiar trials, especially in the case of the childless, and those who are encompassed with many infirmities. Solomon calls theirs "evil days, . . . when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; . . . when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, . . . and fears shall be in the way, . . . and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail." How touching and how true a picture is here given of decrepit age, bowed down with feebleness and infirmity! When loneliness is added to all this—when the childless man has outlived all the companions of his youth, and the years of his long life have been marked out by gravestones—how deeply does he claim the sympathy and compassion of his brethren and sisters in the Lord! He may have a long, tedious time of waiting by the banks of Jordan, while they who were behind him press on before him; and though the prospect on the other side of "the narrow stream" be ineffably fair, on this side it is indeed a dry and barren wilderness to him.

But there is divine love even in the decree that so often weakens the powers and dims the faculties of the aged. Very beautiful is the simile used by a departed authoress, * when, alluding to the decay of sight and hearing which is natural to extreme old age, she remarks, that God acts towards His feeble servants as a tender mother towards her child as the time for rest approaches she draws the curtain to shut out the light, and stills every sound in the chamber, that, the outer world excluded, her beloved may more quietly sink into slumber. We may draw out the parallel further. When the memory ceases to retain its grasp upon what were once objects of interest, what is it but the same loving Parent gently taking from the child the toys of life's little day as the evening shades fall around, and laying aside whatever might keep the mind restless and awake?

God's love is remembered when the things of earth are forgotten. Who has not heard of the Christian, aged and dying, whose memory had so failed that he knew none of the friends around him, not even the wife, so fondly beloved; but when he was asked, "Do you know the Lord Jesus?" That name was so deeply imprinted in the heart and memory that the erasing of all besides left it but more distinctly legible, and the saint, in his second childhood, exclaimed, "Precious Saviour! He is my only hope." So, to pursue the simile, though the light was darkened and the room stilled, and all that had once delighted the senses was put away, God's child felt beneath him the everlasting arms, and knew the voice of the Parent hushing him to that sleep from which the same voice should awake him to life and to joy in the dawn of the everlasting day.

Such are a few thoughts suggested by a relic of the aged Zacharias, the saint well stricken in years, whose latter days were, we doubt not, his brightest and best. We know nothing of the struggles of his youth or the efforts of his manhood; but we know that the angel's visit and the message from God—the father's rejoicing, and the prophetic hymn inspired by the Holy Spirit—were reserved for the evening of a life which had been devoted to the service of God.

XXXVII.

The Manger.

IT is in no spirit of vain superstition that we regard this cradle of an incarnate God. Were the very manger in which Mary laid her heavenly Babe to be placed before our bodily eyes, we should not dare to fall down and worship it. But it is well that faith should linger by the manger of Bethlehem, and endeavour there to gain a more vivid perception of the amazing condescension of Him who came to visit us in great humility. While, therefore, with the shepherds, we adore the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, let us attempt to raise our thoughts to the divine nature of Him who, in His poverty and His helplessness, appears to us here so truly human.

"He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." There was no room for Him in the inn. In one sense we might say that there was no room in the world for One:

For, while we rejoicing cry, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," we must also with awe remember that "His name shall be called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father."

Let us glean from the Scriptures a few from the many proofs that He who was very Man was also very God; that the Babe who lay in the manger was one with Him who filleth the throne of Heaven. Unless we keep this "central truth" steadily before us, we shall have a very faint idea of the love and grace implied in the words, "who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him." Such is the sublime commencement of the Gospel of the beloved disciple, upon whom rested the Spirit of Truth.

John had probably been present when the lips of the persecuted Jesus of Nazareth uttered the mysterious sentence, "I and My Father are One;" and he heard from the risen Saviour that revelation of Himself, "I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last." Here was the Lord of Heaven, repeating His own solemn declaration, uttered when He abode upon earth—that declaration for which the Jews would have stoned Him as a blasphemer—"before Abraham was, I AM." In that mysterious sentence, Christ assumed to Himself that incommunicable name by which God made Himself known unto Moses as the eternal Deity, to whom the past and the future form but one everlasting present. Eternity, it has been said, is the lifetime of God.

St. Paul also bears witness to Him who lay in the manger of Bethlehem, as the Creator and Preserver, as well as the Saviour of the world. "God . . . hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things; 'by whom also He made the world:' who, being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and 'upholding all things by the word of His power,' when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." St. Paul quotes from the Psalms the testimony of the Eternal Father to the dignity of the Redeemer: "Unto the Son He saith, 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever!'"

Micah the prophet witnessed of Him who was to be born in Bethlehem, that "His goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." Zechariah, in a passage, part of which our Lord Himself quoted, exclaims: "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against 'the Man that is My Fellow,' saith the Lord of hosts smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." This is He who, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a Servant,—" yea, even that of a feeble Infant, lying in a manger, in an obscure corner of the world which He Himself had created.

Such a mystery as this the understanding of man cannot grasp; but faith meekly receives it, and reason bids us acknowledge, that He whose sacrifice was to be of "infinite" merit must needs Himself be infinite; that no created being could possibly have made satisfaction for the sins of a whole world, the redemption of which is a work as marvellous as was its first creation.

But nowhere do the marvels of that creation strike us with more overpowering force than when we muse on them beside the manger of Bethlehem. Let us consider Him who deigned to become a mortal Babe in the single attribute of power, as displayed in launching into space this globe in which we live, on which He stooped for a while to dwell, and which, as compared with the heavenly bodies around it, is but as a grain of dust in the universe created by Him by whom "all things were made."

Though the giving motion to our world was but a comparatively "small" exercise of such power, how overwhelmingly great it appears when set before us in the scientific page! Let us make an extract from "The Christian Philosopher": *

"However rapidly a ball flies from the mouth of a cannon, it is the flight of a body only a 'few inches' in diameter . . . The earth contains a mass of matter equal in weight to at least 2,200,000,000,000,000,000,000, or more than two thousand trillions of tons, supposing its mean density to be only about two and a half times greater than water. To move this ponderous mass a single inch beyond its position were it fixed in a quiescent state, would require a mechanical force almost beyond the power of numbers to express. The physical force of all the myriads of intelligences within the bounds of the planetary system, though their powers were far superior to those of men, would be altogether inadequate to the production of such a motion. How much more must be the force requisite to impel it with a velocity 'one hundred and forty times swifter than a cannon-ball, or sixty-eight thousand miles an hour,' the actual rate of its motion in its course round the sun! . . . The ideas of 'strength' and 'power' implied in the impulsion of such enormous masses of matter through the illimitable tracts of space are forced upon the mind with irresistible energy far surpassing what any abstract propositions or reasonings can convey, and constrain us to exclaim, 'Who is a strong Lord like unto Thee? Thy right hand is become glorious in power! The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!'"

And it was He whose Word could thus launch forth, and for thousands of years keep the world and the other planets whirling round the sun at a speed that baffles thought to conceive, it was He who deigned to inhabit a human form so helpless that a woman's weak arms were needed even to lift Him out of the manger in which that woman had laid Him! The thought is overpowering, we can but prostrate our souls in silent adoration. Well might the angels, bending over the manger, desire to look into such a mystery; "God was manifest in the flesh"!

O blessed Redeemer, when even a faint glimpse of the riches of Thy glory falls on the mental eye, it seems to dazzle and blind; and yet, for our sakes, Thou didst become poor, so poor that the stable was Thy first earthly dwelling-place, and Thy cradle this manger! Grant unto us, feeble worms, the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may be able to comprehend, at least in part, "what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge;" that love which is infinite as Thy power, and everlasting as Thy existence!

XXXVIII.

The Apostles' Net.

THERE is a danger, especially to imaginative minds, when meditating on Scripture, to allegorize what ought to be taken literally, to lose the clear outlines of fact in a haze of fancy. May we be watchful against this! But the Bible is full of types and emblems, and many objects of which we read in Scripture naturally form themselves into such.

The miraculous draught of fishes is at once a fact and an allegory; the fishes were types of souls; something far beyond a mere present supply of food was betokened by the abundance in which these fishes were caught by the apostles. That such was the case is evident from the Saviour's promise, "I will make you fishers of men." The net therefore appears to us as a type of what St. Paul calls "the foolishness of preaching," by which it has pleased God "to save them that believe;" and it may not be unprofitable to us to pause for awhile by that net, and to consider some of the characteristics in which it resembles the teaching of the gospel by the ministers of God.

Two especially suggest themselves to the mind; its imperfection in itself, and its power when blessed by the Lord.

This net before us is twined of the same homely material as that of other fishermen, the hemp has undergone the same rough process of manufacture, toil-hardened hands have with patient labour formed every knot in its meshes, there is nothing in its appearance to charm the senses or attract the eye. Yet we do not turn from it because the web is not silken; we look not—care not for brilliancy of dye in the net which enclosed the miraculous draught. But how strangely critical are many amongst us in regard to the preaching of the Word! A blemish in style, a defect in pronunciation will sometimes mar the effect of an earnest discourse. The net must be silken to attract us; truth, when homely, too often offends. The ear and taste must be satisfied, though heart and conscience be left untouched!

Then, again, the net is not only of common material, but it requires both cleansing and repairing; we read of the apostles both as washing and mending their nets. Here the application of the lesson seems to be rather for the minister than his flock. The popular preacher, to whose words hundreds—thousands listen with rapt attention, who feels his net heavy with the richest of prizes, needs constantly to remind himself of the weakness and imperfection of the instrument which the Lord is deigning to bless. It was when the apostles were drawing in a multitude of fishes "that their net brake." When in the midst of their successes, servants of God suddenly feel their net breaking, when their physical or mental powers are crippled, so that they need to beckon to their partners that they should come and help them, is not this sign of the imperfection of their noblest talents sent to them lest they should fall into the sin of pride, and, albeit unconsciously, "sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag;" rest complacently in those powers which at any moment might fail?

But if the net be but a poor instrument in itself, how marvellous its power when blessed by the Lord! How mysterious the faculty of stirring souls to their very depths, of sending forth words like arrows, which God Himself guides to the hearers' hearts! St. Peter, the illiterate fisherman, must have marvelled at the effect of his first recorded sermon. Three thousand souls gathered in at once, a number far larger than appears to have been drawn in during all the years of Christ's sojourn upon earth by the ministry of Him who spake as never man spake!

What were the emotions of the apostle when his preaching, by the might of the Spirit, brought into the Church such a harvest of souls? We know that the miraculous draught made him fall on his knees, humbled and overpowered under a sense of his own unworthiness, and exclaiming to the Divine Being who had wrought the miracle, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" May we not believe that St. Peter was far more humbled by the miraculous draught of souls, the mighty success granted to one who had, but a few weeks before, so sinned against light and love!

"What is this honour vouchsafed to me!" Such may have been the apostle's thought ere he laid down his head to rest that night, with his soul overflowing with thankful joy: "Have these lips, so lately polluted with cursing and swearing, these lips that have thrice denied my Lord, been permitted so to preach the gospel, that thousands are gathered into the Church! What am I that I should be chosen to enjoy a privilege so glorious!"

But though on that occasion the confession, "I am a sinful man, O Lord!" may have been uttered with far deeper consciousness of guilt than it was in the boat on Gennesaret; the "depart from me!" would never more be heard from the contrite Peter. His sense of sin would but make him cling the more closely to Him who taketh away sin; the greater his guilt, the greater his need that the Saviour should not depart, but abide with Him for ever!

XXXIX.

The Bed of the Paralytic.

WHEN was a burden ever lifted more joyfully than this was, when at the Saviour's command the light bed was raised by the strong arms that had, but a few moments previously, rested in helpless weakness upon it! How joyfully did the restored paralytic make his way on his own feet through that crowd whose presence had rendered it impossible for his friends to bear him in on his bed! We know not of a single word spoken by the rejoicing pardoned believer in that hour of intense happiness, but surely the utterance of his heart must have been like that of the psalmist.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits! Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, . . . so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's!"

We would gladly follow the restored sufferer to his home, and hear him recounting to eager listeners there what great things the Lord had done for him; describing his feelings of hope as—borne on that bed—he had approached the house in which the Master was teaching, then the fear, the anxiety, the difficulty which had followed when it was found to be useless to attempt to carry the invalid in. How grateful must he have felt to those friends whom difficulties would not daunt, especially to whoever first offered the suggestion to let him down through the roof!

The sufferer could not help his friends in their labour of love, but how anxiously he had watched it, and, when gently lowered down by kind hands, with what a trembling hope had he found himself in the immediate presence of the Redeemer! To hear such scenes described by those who were the immediate actors in them, may probably be one of the joys reserved for God's children in Heaven.

How would the restored paralytic in the course of his after-life regard that bed on which he had lain perhaps for weary year after year! Would the associations connected with it be those of pain or of pleasure? Would he dwell on the long wearisome days, the dreary nights which he had spent on that bed when he had no power to lift himself from it? Would he sigh when he looked on it from the recollection of all that he had had to endure? We cannot think this, however long, or painful, or trying, his illness may have been; it is far more likely that the sight of that bed would bring to his mind recollections on which memory would dwell with rapture.

"It was when stretched on that bed that I first looked on my Lord, and met His glance of ineffable love and compassion! It was when stretched on that bed that I heard those accents which will thrill delight through my soul to my dying day, yea, and through all eternity,—'Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee!' Oh, God be praised that I ever was sick! I thank, I bless, I adore Him for the weakness, the helplessness, the disease which brought me so close to my Lord, and made me a monument thus of His everlasting mercy and grace!"

And thus will many a dear Christian brother or sister, long afflicted by sickness, look back on the couch of suffering when the Lord has restored health to the feeble frame, or when—through what man calls death—He has bidden the pardoned believer "arise," never more to lie down in pain. Many will doubtless have cause to say, "It was in love and mercy that sickness and suffering were permitted to chain me down to my bed; it was from thence that I first looked through faith on my Saviour—there first I knew that my sins were indeed forgiven. My weakness made me rest in Christ's strength—my sufferings brought me to His feet. I would not exchange the lessons learned, the privileges enjoyed on that sick-bed, for all the wealth of the world!"

The story of the paralytic man is fraught with comfort also to those in sorrow for loved ones afflicted either in body or in mind. It is terrible to watch sufferings which we cannot relieve, to seek aid from physicians but to find that their utmost skill is exerted in vain. Which of us has not known the wearing anxiety, the sickening suspense, when a precious life is at stake? Oh! Let us not then rest on earth, and put down our loved burden in despair. We must "go up higher," we must carry our friend upwards on the strong arms of prayer, we must lay him at the feet of the Saviour. The Son of Man hath still power to say, "Arise, take up thy bed and walk."

Still more earnest should be our efforts when the sickness of him for whom we pray is that of the soul—the sickness of sin. Bodily health and strength and beauty may be united with deadly spiritual paralysis. Some seem as if they would not—could not—come to the Saviour; they have no power to rise, they are chained down by the cares or pleasures and follies of the world; when others are pressing in to hear God's Word, they remain in peril without.

Let us, as it were, carry those who will not or cannot walk, let us bear the burden on our hearts. God is trying our faith and our patience. Have we clambered the outward stair, have we toiled to uncover the roof—to remove as far as we can the obstacles which divide the paralyzed soul from the Lord? And then, using the bands of love, the "cords of a man," have we gently placed our burden even at the feet of our Heavenly Master? He has still power to say to the diseased and paralyzed soul, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," and to bid it arise to walk in newness of life, to tread in the paths of holiness, to run with vigour that blessed race of which Heaven itself is the goal!

XL.

The Cross.

IN the olden times when legends and traditions, like parasites mantling a tree and hindering its healthy growth, had appeared well-nigh to choke gospel-truth while meant to adorn it, the day of the supposed discovery of the true cross was made a festival; * its name was given to province and city; and fragments, however small, of what was deemed so inexpressibly sacred, were esteemed amongst the greatest treasures of princes. Satan would be well pleased to see adoration paid to pieces of wood, if he could so draw away the minds of the pious from contemplation of the true cross, as it is preserved for believers in the Bible alone, to be touched only by Faith as she repeats the words of St. Paul, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

With the deepest, most solemn reverence, let us now draw nigh in spirit to this altar, on which was offered the one "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world." Let all worldly thoughts be put off; it is on holy ground that we tread, as the cross—stained with that most precious blood which alone cleanseth from all sin—draws our contemplation to Him who upon it agonized and died for mankind.

That Christ "could" suffer proves that He was human; that He could "so" suffer, proves that He was divine, for Deity alone could so hold the tortured frame in subjection as to keep it suspended for six hours in agony upon the cross. A mere man, by the force of strong will, may give himself up to death—may so overcome the shrinking of nature as to spring down the chasm, or throw himself into the waves. Many martyrs have yielded up their lives willingly and cheerfully, "but who could die as Jesus died?" His was no single effort of will, but a prolonged exercise of it, hour after hour, amidst sufferings more excruciating than the mind can conceive. We cannot doubt that He who is "the mighty God" could at any moment have ended those sufferings; no nails could have fixed Him to the cross; not the united powers of a thousand peopled worlds could have kept Him there for an instant! The unutterable pangs which the Saviour endured were His own deliberate choice, and it was His own infinite love which made Him sustain them even to the end. We know this from the Lord's declaration:

"I lay down My life . . . No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."

Christ had but to will it, and the cross of shame would instantly have been exchanged for the throne of glory, and the mocking crowds have been stretched blackened, blasted corpses before Him! We speak of our Lord's temptation in the wilderness—what must have been His temptation "on the cross"? Such as none but Deity could have resisted—none but God have overcome. A Paul might have consented to be crucified for the sake of his brethren—but could even a Paul have remained long on the cross had it needed but an act of volition to release him? Human nature must have failed under the trial. The fondest of mothers clinging by her hands to the edge of a precipice, with her infant fastened to her shoulders, must let go ere long, though conscious that her child as well as herself will be dashed in pieces by her fall.

The weight of a world's salvation hung on the Redeemer, and He "would not let go."

"Come down from the cross!" shouted the rabble.

"Come down from the cross!" urged the tempter.

"Come down from the cross!" cried out agonized human nature,—Christ could, but He would not come down. This was constancy beyond that of humanity; this was the endurance not of a man but of a God!

There appears to be a mysterious analogy between the great act of the Creation and that of the Redemption of the world. After the six days in which the Lord made earth and the things within it, He "did rest the seventh day from all His works;" and so, after the six hours of anguish, the Saviour rested in death from the more awful work of redemption. Another analogy arises in the mind, though it is mentioned with some hesitation, as Scripture warrant cannot be brought forward to support it. It is an ancient well-known tradition that the world will endure six thousand years under our present dispensation, and that then will come the long Sabbath of rest. If it be so, is it impossible that each hour on the cross may have had a mysterious relation to each thousand years—that the two first hours of agony may have expiated the guilt of the antediluvian race; the succeeding, that of its successors; the increasing numbers of sinners corresponding with the tortures which, towards the close of the awful time of sacrifice, would naturally most fearfully increase?

If such a suggestion be admitted, what a peculiar interest have we, who live in these latter times, in the dying thirst—the agonized cry, which appears to have marked the climax in the sufferings of our blessed Redeemer! The idea links itself on to another. Is it impossible that before Him who knoweth all things may have passed in prophetic vision every human being who should enter Heaven through the merit of those pangs which He at that moment was enduring? That the Lord "waited," with arms outstretched, strained muscles and bleeding hands, until the last, the very last, should be safe; and till—knowing that none, not the least of His flock should perish—Christ could at length exclaim, "It is finished", and so bow the head and yield up the ghost?

There is something inexpressibly touching in this thought, especially if we regard the possibility that some one now breathing on this globe may have been the last one for whom the Lord waited on the cross! Perhaps some prodigal for whose soul a mother is now wrestling in prayer; perhaps some poor heathen slave in a distant land; perhaps some despised one brought up in haunts of vice, the answer to whose first cry of faith and repentance, "God be merciful to me a sinner," will be the sound of the trumpet announcing that the world's great suffering-time is ended, and that the last saved soul being gathered in, the glorious Sabbath shall commence!

Let us pause for a few moments, and with closed eyes and bended knees attempt to realize the thought,—"the Saviour waited on the cross for me!" For "me" was that awful thirst, for "me" that intolerable pain. Christ would not save Himself from a death of torture, because—with all my coldness, selfishness, sinfulness—He could not, would not, suffer me to perish!

A few words inscribed under a picture of the Crucifixion were once made the means of converting a soul; they were as a question from Him who hung on the cross, these touching words are addressed to us all—what reply dare we return? "I suffered this for thee; what dost thou for Me?"

XLI.

The Stone at the Sepulchre.

WHO has not known the pang of bereavement,—

Let the mourner draw nigh to this stone which closed the sepulchre of the Lord, and beneath its quiet shadow meditate on the solemn and most blessed doctrine of the resurrection.

With aching hearts, with drooping heads, the disciples of the crucified Saviour turned from the sepulchre in which they had seen His sacred body laid. For Him, indeed, the awful trial was over; He was beyond reach of the cruelty of soldier, or the malice of priest. Those holy eyes were clothed in death, no cry of anguish would ever more burst from those pallid lips, the blood had ceased to flow from the pierced hands and side. For the Master indeed there was rest, but for the disciples desolation, for none in that hour of anguish appears to have believed or understood the re-iterated promise,—

"After three days I will rise again."

What was the world, then, to the followers of Christ, without Him who had been their Friend and their Guide, the Life and Light of their souls! That tombstone seemed to shut them out from all that remained to them of One so deeply reverenced, so tenderly beloved.

And when early in the twilight which preceded the Easter morn, women drew near to the grave to pay the last honour to the body of the Lord, this same stone, heavy, sealed and guarded, appeared to their anxious minds as a barrier between them and Him.

"Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?" was the perplexed enquiry of those whose love was stronger than their faith. But the stone had been rolled away by an angel's hand, and had become the seat of a messenger from Heaven, whose countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; at the sight of whose glory the guards had trembled, and become even as the dead!

The Lord of Life had risen indeed, the first-fruits of them that sleep; the sepulchre had yielded up its heavenly guest; Christ had led captivity captive, and by dying abolished death! Thenceforth all believers could exclaim, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

This stone stands as a representative of all that shuts out from the eye of love, from the sunshine of Heaven, the mortal forms that once held souls that Christ hath redeemed. The little grassy mound in the churchyard over some babe whose brief span of life—

"Left no trace behind,—save in a parent's breast;"

the heavy monument in the cemetery, the solid walls of the vault, the earth-covering in the deep pit on the battlefield, the unfathomable sea which rolls over the dead,—all, all shall yield up their trust!

Again shall an angel of God descend from heaven; again shall the solid earth tremble and shake; again shall rocks be rent and graves be opened; and as Christ, the Head, arose, so shall the body—the Church—arise! Hear the glorious words of Isaiah's prophecy, omitting the italics which are not in the original text, and which seem to obscure its meaning:

"Thy dead shall live, My dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead."

Oh, joyful Easter morn, for which Faith is watching and waiting! When the first dawn of its coming light is around us, and the shadows of night are beginning to flee, well may our Lord address to mourners for departed saints the question, "Why weepest thou?"

Christ when He rose from the dead was again restored to His loving followers, but, as regarded visible presence, for only a little space; but when the graves of His saints shall be opened, when from countless sepulchres the heavy stones shall be rolled back, it is to no transient glimpses of the Lord, to no brief moments of blissful intercourse that they will then be admitted.

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not a stranger—" (marginal reading).

No, NOT A STRANGER! When Mary first beheld her risen Lord, her eyes were holden that she should not know Him, and as a stranger she addressed Him! But the saints as they burst from the sod in the morn of the resurrection shall at once recognize Him, whom not having seen they have loved! They will know the voice of the Good Shepherd who has led them through the wilderness of life, and the valley of the shadow of death!

"And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation."

The Queen and the Twelve Names.

WE find in the seventh chapter of the book of Revelation a description of the sealed ones, the spiritual Israel, under the names of the tribes to whom was granted the promised inheritance of Canaan. If it be, as many believe, that we here behold Christ's Church under a different symbol, yet identical with her of whom we read in the forty-fifth Psalm, the twelve names in Revelation beautifully fill up the description of "the King's daughter, the Queen," who is "all glorious within," for all these names have meanings. The virgins, her companions, that shall be brought into the King's palace with gladness and rejoicings, may be regarded as representing "the multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds, and peoples and tongues," who appear to be distinct from, and yet in some degree sharers in the blessedness of the sealed ones, "the hundred and forty-four thousand." Let us examine the meaning of the names mentioned in Revelation vii., and see if they are not as twelve stars in the crown of the "Church of the firstborn," * placed on her head by Him whom she worships, because He is the Lord her God.

And, first, we mark what name is "omitted." DAN had a place amongst the twelve tribes of Israel under the Law, but none amongst the spiritual Israel. The signification of the word may throw light upon what is otherwise dark and mysterious. Dan signifies judgment. There was judgment stern and terrible under the Law, but in the Gospel "mercy rejoiceth against judgment." The curse has been removed, the penalty endured by another; Dan is, as it were, absorbed and disappears. It is remarkable that when Jacob on his death-bed blessed his sons, after speaking of Dan, "judgment," then, and then alone, he burst forth into the exclamation, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!"

Following the order in which the names of the tribes are given by St. John, the first of which we read is:

JUDA, "the praise of the Lord." And so praise unto Him who hath chosen and redeemed her is, as it were, the first gem, the central star in the crown of the Church, the spiritual Bride.

REUBEN, "see the Son, or who sees the Son," a name of deep meaning if we may take it as descriptive of the precious privilege of her whose "eyes shall see the King in His beauty, the pure in heart" who shall look upon God.

GAD, "a band," or "happy," or "armed and prepared." * The interpretation seems to speak for itself. The Church is a chosen "band" of those who are "happy" in the love of their Lord; who have been "armed" to fight the good fight, and "prepared" for the coming of Him whom, not having seen, they have loved. Of such is the spiritual Israel.

ASER, "blessedness," or "happiness." The Church, when she enters the palace of her Lord, will shine in blessedness for ever. Immortal happiness will beam from her countenance, the reflection of the light of Him in whose presence is the fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

NEPTHALIM, "my wrestling, or one that struggles." Here we are reminded that they who bear the palms of victory are they that have endured the conflict. A reference may also be made to earnest wrestling in prayer. Esther, ere the hour of triumph, might be said to have earned the name of Naphtali. The Church who will wear the garment of praise, now appears in the spirit of heaviness, wrestling, struggling, till He with whom she pleads grant her more than she dares to ask for, or to desire.

MANASSEH, "forgetfulness." This name was given by Joseph to his firstborn in Egypt; "for God," said he, "hath made me to forget all my toil, and all my father's house." The patriarch's words sound like a response to the exhortation addressed to the bride in the psalm,—"Hearken, O daughter, and consider . . . forget also thine own people, and thy father's house." The vanities of earth, with its sorrows and sins, put away and forgotten for ever!

SIMEON, "that hears or obeys." In this word is described a special attribute of the Church of Christ, the obedience of faith. "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, He it is that loveth Me," saith the Heavenly King. It is the Church that listens to His voice, that seeks to follow wherever He leads. Of Reuben, the patriarch, it was said, "unstable as water thou shalt not excel;" but Reuben's name taken in its hidden meaning may remind us that "even water, hearing and obeying" the Lord, became as a well at His bidding, or firm as a pavement under His feet.

LEVI, "joined," or "held and associated." Here is a description of that union of which, alas! amongst those who are called Christians, we now see so little. There is too much of the party spirit which cries, "I am of Paul—I of Apollos," with believers who should be one in Christ. Should mere form and ceremonies, the colour of a garment, a posture, or a name, have power to separate those whom God Himself hath joined together? We need larger Christian charity. The higher we rise towards Heaven, the wider spreads the horizon around. Not but that purity of doctrine must ever be jealously guarded, we must earnestly contend for the faith once given to the saints; but as regards those non-essentials by means of which the enemy would divide us, and bring discord into the Church, well may we say,—