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us then look and live now; believe in Christ and have peace now, wash our robes and make them clean in his precious blood now. In the case of those who have thus accepted the provided ransom, death is the exchange of earth with its troubles for eternal blessedness, it is a march from life to life, from this world's bitter bread to that living bread which is in our Father's house. There is no condemnation to a soul that is in Christ. No curse can light on that man who has received as his Saviour Him who was made a curse for us.

"What is the thing of greatest price,

The whole creation round;
That which was lost in paradise,
That which in Christ is found?

"The soul of man, Jehovah's breath,
That keeps two worlds at strife;
Hell moves beneath to work it death,
Heaven stoops to give it life.

"And is this treasure borne below,
In earthly vessels frail;

Can none its utmost value know,
Till flesh and spirit fail?

"Then let us gather round the cross,
That knowledge to obtain;

Not by the soul's eternal loss,

But everlasting gain."

Christ on labor.

M tt. xvii. 1-9. Mark ix. 2-10. Luke ix. 28–36.

OR many centuries Tabor has been accepted as the scene of the transfiguration. Robinson and Dean Stanley think it cannot have taken place on Tabor, as at that time the "summit was occupied by a fortified city." Thomson says, "There are many secluded and densely wooded terraces on the north and north-east sides admirably adapted to the scenes of the transfiguration. After all the critics have advanced against the current tradition, I am not fully convinced."

It is a suggestive fact, that many of the scenes of the events recorded in the life of our Lord are so hard to be identified. Perhaps this is to make us fix our minds less on historic places, and far more on the person and work of our loving Lord. It nevertheless seems most probable that Tabor was the mount of transfiguration.

On this mount there appeared with Jesus Moses, the representative of the law, and Elijah of the prophets, deputies apparently from both, to attest the advent of the Messiah. They appeared with Him in the glory in which He shone, bright "as the sun," and his raiment "white as the light;" or, in the language of Mark, "white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them."

When the apostles were introduced to this sight, which dazzled Peter, "a bright cloud overshadowed them"-for the very clouds of

Christianity are lined with light-and a voice came out of the cloud; which pointed neither to Elijah, nor to his companion Moses. It withdrew all attention from each of those on whom the wondering eyes of the disciples were fixed, and directed their interest to the Son of God alone. In the brightest throng in heaven or on earth that Divine Person ever must be to a Christian's eye the central one. Hear not the saints, but Jesus. In his view of the glories of the blessed, the Crucified and the Crowned One must be, to a Christian, the commanding sight. Where He is present, all others fall into the shadow.

The transfiguration was no doubt meant to show that his death was not the result of sin or of necessity; that when He died, they were not to conclude that it was because He had not power to avert death. He proved to them by this manifestation that all power in heaven and earth was his-that all the splendours of the skies might be his radiance and his retinue, and that all the angels and archangels around the throne might, if He pleased to summon them, be his immediate ministry. Perhaps it was also designed to teach that the body which we commit to the dust shall one day be like his glorious body. Jacob's Rachel, whose dust sleeps beneath the green sods of Palestine, shall rise, and her body shall be made like His glorious body; and the dead dust, that we have committed to the tomb in the hope of the dawn of the resurrection morn, shall be quickened, raised, and made like unto His glorious body. This transfiguration was perhaps also intended to give us an idea what the resurrection shall be, and what the future happiness of the saints is. The cloud was rolled away for a little, that we might see the gorgeous splendours that lay hid from mortal eyes behind it. A gate was opened from this poor crypt of human life, that we might look up into the grand cathedral, and hear the everlasting anthem peal, and witness that bright glory which man's eye has not seen, nor his ear heard, nor man's heart suitably conceived.

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This glorious vision was seen by our Lord's disciples only. They needed encouragement. They were so depressed by the tidings of his approaching death, that they required some strong stimulus to sustain and invigorate their fainting and failing hearts. He therefore shows them in this bright apocalypse that the crown was connected with the cross; that the throned One was very near to the crucified One; and that He who should sink so low that his own friends would ignorantly forsake Him, was He, nevertheless, who should ascend so high that angels and archangels would be his convoy to his palace in the skies, and remain his worshippers at his footstool, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, art thou; the whole earth is full of thy glory!"

With Jesus there appeared Moses and Elijah. What was their function, and why did they appear? To be witnesses of the spectacle then presented; to return to the choirs of the blessed, and tell them what they had seen; but more probably still, to testify, Moses, as the representative of the law, that Jesus is the prophet, who, he said, should come after him, and whom men should obey in all things; and Elijah, as the representative of ancient prophecy, to attest that all the prophecies meet and mingle, and are magnified in Christ. The law points with the finger of Moses, and the prophets with the finger of Elijah, to the Lamb of God as the great substance of the law's foreshadows, as the great echo of the promises, as the woman's seed who shall bruise the serpent's head, the great Messiah, the glory of his people Israel. Thus the Old and the New Testaments are one; the types and the shadows all meet in Christ, and have their harmony there. They talked with Him, we are told by Mark and Luke, respecting his death. How remarkable that these two celestial visitants just come down from the unutterable glory should, when they conversed one with the other, and both with Christ, speak only of his decease that He should accomplish at Jeru

salem! That very event which Peter deprecated they discussed. That very thing which the apostles scarcely understood formed there and then the burden of their conversation.

Surely that was no mean death that was thus magnified. Surely that was no mere martyr's suffering that formed the leading topic of the conversation of the blessed in glory. And still amid the choirs of the saved the Crucified appears in the Glorified; the cross is not merged, but rather magnified in the splendours of the crown. The burden of ancient prophecy, as we find in the Apocalypse, is the substance of the songs of the redeemed around the throne: for they see a Lamb just as if He had been slain; and angels and redeemed saints say unto Him-" Thou art worthy; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests."

"Let us make here three tabernacles," said Peter. In this there was much of piety, and not a little of human frailty. Peter would labour in order to build a tabernacle for his blessed Master, but not without his Master's consent; for he says-" If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles." There was something most unselfish in this conduct of Peter; and yet there was great infirmity: he knew not what he said. He was evidently bewildered and dazzled by the splendour of the spectacle, and gave expression in the impetuosity of his feelings to thoughts, imaginations, and dreams, he knew neither the drift, aim, or origin of. Under the same excitement he once said-"Lord, depart from me ;" and on this occasion no doubt under great excitement, he said "Lord, let us make here three tabernacles." Peter unhappily looked for permanence on Mount Tabor. He did not regard it as a momentary burst of sunshine in a lonely and a black night, but as a permanent heaven where he might dwell for ever. He could not bear the idea that Calvary still remained before them, that Gethsemane must yet be

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