in Him a mysterious friend in whose ear they could whisper the tale of their sorrows and their struggles, confident of sympathy and counsel. The decrepid sufferer touched His clothes, the penitent young woman shed tears on His feet, and the peasant's child sprang into His arms. "The common people heard Him gladly." It was confessed that "His word was with power." Men unused to the finer emotions of our nature declared that never man spoke like Him." The sublimity of simplicity clothed His style, the profundity of original wisdom marked His thoughts, and the earnestness of a Teacher sent from God characterised His manner.

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Villages, towns, cities, were moved by His presence. "Who is this?" passed from lip to lip as He approached. The learned wondered whence His knowledge came, for He had not been taught in their schools; the officials disliked His remarks, for He waited not for authority from them; the formalists shrank from His presence, for He stripped off the cloak of their hypocrisy; the selfish were enraged by His preaching, for He founded all moral action on the love of God and man; the time-servers rose against Him, for He invariably dealt with first principles; the guardians of the law became His enemies, for He exposed their childish traditions; the wicked defamed His character, for He kindled a fire in their consciences; the malignant called Him Beelzebub, for they hated a holiness which they could not appreciate, and denied the power of God in the Messiah whom they would not accept ; and the haters of the Roman yoke tried to take vengeance of His refusal to raise the standard of rebellion against Cæsar, by accusing Him to the governor as secretly aspiring to the throne of Judea.

His deeds were as surprising as the perfection of His character and the novelty of His doctrines. He found mankind the subjects of disease and death in a thousand forms; and, like a sun endowed with the power of chasing pestilence from the earth, He walked among men, pouring the healing rays of health, happiness, and life wherever He came. The loathsome leper crawled across His path, and perfect health was the boon of a word. The blind cried in His ear, and immediately the splendid scenery of Palestine greeted their astonished vision. The deaf heard His mighty voice, and the strange melody thrilled their hearts with joy. The paralytic looked on the Nazarene, and hastened home to his friends with his couch upon his shoulder. The master pleaded for his sick servant, the father and the mother for their dying children; and, though the sufferers were at a distance, the Healer spoke the word, and they were restored. The company of mourners were stopped by a Stranger, and the widow's only son started to life. The sisters wept bitter tears over a brother three days dead, and a voice called Lazarus from his grave. The frantic demoniacs rushed in all directions, and "Come out! was the instant signal for reason to return. Demons deprecated the anger of Jesus, cowered in His

presence, and prayed that He would not torment them before the time. Earth acknowledged its Lord, and the water yielded Him firm footing. The fig-tree withered; and the five loaves were multiplied so as to satisfy the wants of thousands. The boiling lake and the raging hurricane obeyed the command, "Peace, be still;" and the alarmed sailors were assured of perfect safety. The angels of heaven ministered to their Master; and the mount of transfiguration symbolised the coming glory.

Considering His character, doctrines, and miracles, we are astonished at the position which He chose in society. Though Son of David, and heir to the throne, His chosen companions were the humblest of men. Though Son of Abraham, and heir of the land of promise, He had not where to lay His head. Though Son of Man, the second Adam, and therefore heir of the world, He was poor and despised, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Though Son of God, and appointed heir of all things, He was often hungry, wearied, and faint. He could work miracles for the benefit of others, but would not for His own. He could dry the tears of others, but His own fell often. He could summon legions of angels from heaven, but alone He met the tempter, and suffered him to try all his wiles. He could speak of the glory He had with the Father before the world was, but He was familiar with the cold mountain and the midnight air. A load of mysterious grief lay upon His heart, a burden which no one else could have borne.

His whole life was a holy oblation, a sacrifice to God; and were it not for the solution of the mystery afforded by this wonderful truth, the life of Jesus of Nazareth would present the most inexplicable problem in the history of the world.

Passing from His chosen position in society, let us look next at what He experienced from men. Surely-we should be ready to exclaim-surely such disinterested benevolence, such invaluable instructions, such an exhibition of the most perfect human virtues, such an unprecedentedly beautiful character, such a combination of wisdom and meekness, of power and gentleness, of moral grandeur and humility, will be hailed with rapture as an honour to the human race, as an unequalled glory to the land of Israel, and as a conclusive proof that God has not forgotten mankind. Surely, bad as men are, they will open their hearts and homes to this wonderful Stranger. His very presence will make them ashamed of sin. If example can save, they will all be saved. The treacherous will become upright; the cruel, gentle; the unclean, pure; the drunkard, temperate; the profane, godly; the vicious, virtuous; the formalist, devout; and the selfish, benevolent. Society will become regenerated from its fountain-head to its farthest streams; grace will flourish in the Church, justice in the courts, peace in the cities, and joy in the fruitful field. Jerusalem will become the glory of cities, and Palestine of nations. With such a guest among them as Jesus, the descendants of Abraham will be the model

people of the world, and all nations will hear of their sublime preeminence. Angels will not think it condescension to visit such an honoured community, and even God Himself might say, "They will reverence my Son."

But was it so? Alas! a dark page in the biography of Jesus must now be turned over. "He came unto His own possessions, and His own people received Him not." Sin had performed many a foul tragedy since the club of the assassin struck down earth's second-born; it had rolled many a city in flames, and deluged many a field with gore; it had kindled many a fire of fury, and offered many a shrieking victim to the demon-gods; and it had imbrued its hands in the blood of the innocent, and murdered many a prophet of the Lord; but it had not yet borne its full fruit, nor reached the limits of its guilt. One act yet, and these limits will be reached. One act yet, and it must recoil upon itself exhausted by its labour, and stupefied by its own ferocity. Muttering along the ages, you hear it, gathering strength in its course, and growing reckless in the presence of the Omniscient, until, after four thousand years of practice, it braces itself up to the execution of one desperate resolution; and, fixing its glaring eye upon the Prince of Life, it growls, "This is the Heir; come, let us kill Him!"

And, accordingly, by wicked hands He was seized, and condemned, and crucified, and slain, and buried, and sealed in His tomb.

Such were the character, doctrines, miracles, social position, and experience of Jesus Christ at the period of His long-looked-for, and long-prayed-for, advent. And is this all? Yes, so far as narrative is concerned. The mere historian can do no more. He lays down his pen here, the ink becomes dry, and we should be lost in speechless perplexity, but for the appearance of two other ministers of God seated by the side of the historian, each of whom holds a parchment in his hand, on one of which is written the word, "Grace," and on the other the word "Glory." In other words, the teacher of doctrine and the prophet of the far future are placed by the side of the historian at the same writing-table, while above the three hovers the Spirit of the living God to "guide them into all truth." We feel that the narrative of the biographer wants an explanation and a sequel. The scribe with the word "Grace" in his hand gives the former, and he who holds the roll on which "Glory" is written, gives the latter. The first tells us the significance of this extraordinary history, and the second assures us that the book shall have a sequel yet to be published as the History of the Kingdom of God upon the earth.

The teacher explains that all this awful maltreatment of the Holy One was foreseen by the Omniscient God: that His foreknowledge, accompanied by infinite mercy, took occasion, from the crimes of men, to work out deliverance to an innumerable

multitude, who, through a long series of generations, should believe in the Messiahship of Jesus, and follow His steps; that the murder committed by rebels stood side by side with a vicarious sacrifice offered by the sinless sufferer, that God might be just when He justified the ungodly; that the sorrowful life and the awful death of Jesus had their real interpretation in the united light of the enormity of sin, the holiness of law, and the love of God to that sinners were permitted to go to the utmost possible extremity of rebellion for the purpose of showing by contrast the inexhaustible resources of grace; that the experience of Messiah during His first incarnate appearance among men was exactly in conformity with the foreshowing of inspired prophets hundreds and thousands of years before; that an appropriate antitype to the Levitical economy of streaming altars was One, who, by His own blood, can purify the conscience from works that cause death, to serve the living God; that the ceremonial law maketh nothing perfect, but that whosoever cometh to God by the great Passover Christ, shall have eternal life; that the union of Hebrew and Roman in cutting off Messiah was a prefiguration of the grace that should make Jew and Gentile one in Him; that those things which God had before showed by His prophets that Christ should suffer, have been fulfilled to the letter for the express purpose of showing His unalterable love in the redemption of men; that the rending of the veil of the temple and of the body of Christ was symbolic of the new and living way by which sinners of every nation under heaven draw nigh unto God; that the pardon and justification of the conscience-smitten sinner require no conditions, but simple faith in Jesus as his Saviour and substitute; that the crowning act of human iniquity in the crucifixion of the Lord of glory was the event selected as the crowning act of Divine love in the salvation of the Church; and thus that the last arrow thrown from the quiver of Satanic malice should pierce a holy heart from which life eternal should flow to generations yet unborn!

So far the teacher, as he sits by the side of the historian. Surprising doctrines these! Marvellous revelation this! constrained to exclaim, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His counsellor ? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom. xi. 33-36). Truly, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord' (Rom. v. 20, 21).

But a review of the history and the doctrine starts questions of great moment. If men ruled, and God overruled, in this strange

way; if sin abounded, and grace superabounded, in this previously unheard-of manner; may we not reverently ask if there be not another seal on the great book of God, which shall one day be broken to afford room for fresh disclosures of His unfathomable wisdom? Do His dealings with man terminate with the life of Jesus as given by the Evangelists, and the doctrine of salvation as taught by the Apostles? Is the Old Testament rich with prophecy, and is there no room in the New for the pen of the inspired seer? Are the very next things that meet our vision, as scholastic theology tells us, a terrible day of judgment, a burning world, a heaven and a hell, without any intervening picture on which the aching eye can rest and find repose? If so, what becomes of the inspiration of the Jewish prophets who predicted in many a gushing song the joy of their countrymen, the happiness of Israel and Judah, and the wealth, peace, and prosperity of Jerusalem and the land of promise under the reign of their adored Messiah? These prophecies, hundreds of which might be quoted, have not been fulfilled; no, not one of them; and if the general opinion of Christians concerning the time of the second advent, and the nature of the promised restoration of Israel, be correct, they never can be fulfilled. The predictions to which I refer are such as to render a metaphorical or mystical fulfilment impossible. They must receive a literal accomplishment or none. Some of them will be examined in a future number. In the meantime, assuming what shall then be proved, I proceed to ask if the series of strange things which the past has unrolled-the moving panorama of providential wonders-do not suggest the strong probability that something else shall yet occur on our earth, something whose characteristics shall be every way worthy of the preparatory past, and of the infinite resources of eternal wisdom; and something, too, which, while it shall fulfil all outstanding prophecy, shall also prove a becoming recompense to the rejected and slain Messiah? Does it not seem right in itself that He should be publicly honoured in the world in which He was publicly put to shame?"The things" relating to His advent, suffering, and death, 66 were not done in a corner." Why should not His claim to Messiahship be as publicly recognised as it was publicly rejected? This earth seems the appropriate platform on which such recognition should be made. Here men apostatized from God; here false deities usurped the worship due only unto Him; here the King was insulted, mocked, despised, and slain, in His own peculiar dominion; here the great sacrificial atonement was made; here the Church entered upon her inheritance of suffering; and here the enemies of the Lord have borne crushing and foul sway for many long ages. What world like this, then, for the vindication of refused rights, and the justification of the ways of God? If Joseph was made ruler over the land where he was unjustly enslaved and degraded, and if Daniel was raised to renown