The Blessing of the Tribes; or, How Moses, the Man of The Blessing of the Tribes; or, How Moses, the Man of God, Blessed the People of Israel before he died. By the Rev. T. G. ROOKE, B.A. No. VI.-Joseph The Blessing of the Tribes; or, How Moses, the Man of God, Blessed the People of Israel before he died. By The Blessing of the Tribes; or, How Moses, the Man of The Blessing of the Tribes; or, How Moses, the Man of APPREHENDED OF CHRIST. BY THE REV. H. PLATTEN. "But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”—Phil. iii. 12. WHATEVER of force there may be in these words as they stand alone, we have but to remember that they were written in the last year of the great Apostle's life, and then the force and volume that they gather is immense. They constitute a sublime picture of the undecaying freshness and immortal energy of one life lived by faith upon the Son of God. The end is near, as he himself anticipates in this very letter. "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." And yet, look at him: how little is there about him of the worn-out man! What a fine fire is in his eyes, and what a strange light falls upon his face! What burning words, too, drop from his pen! How the vision of a wearied old man dies away while we look and listen! The very spirit of his early life clothes him from head to foot. Then he had said of himself, "I run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." And now at the end of life, the aspiration, and the longing, and the great peace of hope, are all present; and just when men have often turned their faces to the blank wall, and to despair still more blank, saying "My years are in the yellow leaf; The flower, the fruits, of love are gone : The worm, the canker, and the grief, this man cries, "O that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. . . . I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." I propose to expound :-The secret of this feature of a noble life, so far as my text contains it; the one law that obtained in this man's history, and which, governing ours, will help us also to live even to the end, bringing forth fruit in old age, to show that "the Lord is upright, and that there is no unrighteousness in him." We have that secret in this idea. Christ laid hold on this man for a purpose,-a purpose distinctive and personal. For something or other-what it was he does not say he was "apprehended of Christ." And in this idea as well, the man in his turn tries to grasp Christ's purpose concerning himself. To fulfil Christ's idea, and to miss none of it, is to apprehend that for which Christ apprehends him. Now, upon the very face of the question, it will be seen that two VOL. XXI. N.S. I. such ideas underlying human life must impart to it significance aud bliss. There can be no room for failure or littleness in such a history; and as to "the worm, the canker, and the grief," they never appear. The life is set at once and for ever in a haze of glory, for Christ is not likely to entertain for any man a poor or an uninteresting ideal. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." Christ is king here, and in His purpose transcends all power of prayer or thought, according to the power that worketh in us. And to the earnest soul, all-anxious to reach the measure of Christ's conception concerning it, what can happen but just what did happen in this case? Life that has to be taken a passage at a time, one half antagonistic to the other, a thing of shreds and patches, and full of miserable inconsequences, is at once united to a perfect whole. "He hath put me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious." The purpose of Christ redeems the life; His very touch clothes it with beauty; His name expounds all its wonderful resolves and most earnest endeavours. "To me to live is Christ." Now, as to the first idea. Observe how soon the man is introduced to Christ's secret. Born into the life of God with a great cry"Who art Thou, Lord? What wilt Thou have me to do?"-the plan of his life has not then to be matured; it had been cherished long enough, and awaiting him. "Rise, and stand upon thy feet; for I have appeared to thee for this purpose: delivering thee from the people and the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee." In that one line you have Christ's will-the Apostle of the Gentile world. This was again and again the revealed term of his apostolate given first of all on the road to Damascus amid a blaze of light that drowned the brightness of the sun; repeated in the temple at Jerusalem, when with dejected heart he said, "Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on Thee," and, when work amongst the Jews was an impossibility, "Depart," said Christ, "for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles; again, for the last time, in the deep silence of a fearful night, on the deck of the distressed ship, "Fear not, Paul; for thou must be brought before Cæsar." This aspect of his calling of God in Christ Jesus had been ever before him. With a passion that amounted to a magnificent rage, he hastened through the cities of Europe, fulfilling his destiny, and laying deep the foundations of the Church of God. It is nearly ended now, this splendid effort to overtake Christ's idea. From Jerusalem to Rome has been a long long, journey. To make of this essence of a Hebrew the herald of Gentile Christianity has been a most strange work; but it has been done. All along the path he has come, lie the instances of his success and of Christ's marvellous power. Corinth lies there in the light of His gospel; for, in simplest fashion, avoiding terms and methods of elo quence or wisdom, he had preached a truth above and beyond all human discovery, and in its power to bless and save mightier than all the moral forces of this world. Ephesus, too, has her share in the glory; for under the very shadow of Diana's temple, in the presence of idolatry beautified and enthusiastic, there rises a building of God: Diana and her shrine vanish, while a fairer vision than that of the Apocalypse rises to fill the gap,-a habitation of God through the Spirit. Philippi, the city of his stripes and imprisonment, holds some of the fruits of his most cherished work: the Church there is a resting-place for his weary head; the prison-house in Rome is lighted by Philippian memories-"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, from the first day until now, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy, my crown." These people are about his heart, and for a moment come between his desire to depart and be with Christ. And from what city he ever entered could he so fitly pass to his rest, as from the City of the Gentile world? Not that he had founded the Church in Rome. This was the one place to which he came and found the gospel planted. Christ had outstripped His missionary, and was in Rome before him. There they met again; not, as at first, Christ enthroned in light and His servant in the dust, but at the close of all service, Christ enthroned in His servant's heart,-his peace, his joy, and his immortal hope. "I look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change this vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself." But we are not to suppose that Christ calls to work alone; and in this instance labour was but the visible sign of the invisible and magnificent inspiration within. And may we not say that Christ laid hold on this man, that to all the ages He might give an instance of what is possible in a life informed by the love of Christ, and wholly given up to His sway? This was at least his own expressed conviction; "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on Him to everlasting life: not an over-bold conviction, seeing how it is fenced in by other words— "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief;" and, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, to the only wise God, be honour and glory. Amen." On this point it is enough to say that the love of Christ has all to itself the making of this man. Of all the natures ever influenced by the force of love, this was the greatest of them all. Of that ministry he made full proof indeed. He is the Apostle of the love of Christ. This is all the more remarkable, in that he seems to fill the place of another who, as the disciple that Jesus loved, had all the qualifications for such an apostolate. The phrase that distinguishes John, however, is, "The love o |