Chapter V: Part 5

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—

"Both worlds at once they view,
Who stand upon the threshold of the new;"

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—

"Dim lies the path to death before me."

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?

* Mrs. Gaskell. I quote from memory.

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:

"Whom heaven cannot contain,
Nor the immeasurable plain
Of vast infinity enclose and circle round."

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!'"

* By T. Dick, L. L. D.

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.