that thou wast begotten of them, and how canst thou recompense them the things that they have done for thee?" That a father's and a mother's blessing was prized as sacred, and its being withheld regarded as the saddest loss, shows how deeply such teachings had sunk into the Jewish mind. Family life, resting thus on the holiest duty and reverence, has been nowhere in any age more beautiful than it was, and still is, amongst the Jews.-GEIKIE.

MARCH 28,

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto Me.-JOHN xii. 32.

It is an additional peculiarity of the Holy Land, in relation to the history of religion, that its physical features and its position together brought it, from its earliest ages, in contact with the widest range of peoples and empires. Egypt and it are two oases in widespreading deserts, and, as such, attracted race after race. In all these inroads of new nationalities, the Holy Land, as the highway to Egypt, necessarily shared; and hence, as centuries passed, race after race was brought into contact with the Jew, in spite of his isolation, and the Jew into contact with them. It leavened widely distant nations, more or less, with the grand religious truths which had been committed to the keeping of the Jews alone. It led or forced him abroad to distant regions, to learn, as well as to communicate. That was a fitting scene, moreover, for the advent of the

Saviour of the world, in which, small though its bounds, He was surrounded not by the Jew alone, but by a population representing a wide proportion of the tribes and nations of the then known earth. The inscription on the cross, in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, was the symbol of the relation of Christ's life, and of His death, to all humanity.-GEIKIE.

MARCH 29.

He made the stars also.-GENESIS i. 16.

Tell me, ye shining hosts,

That navigate a sea that knows no storms,
Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud,
If from your elevation, whence ye view
Distinctly scenes invisible to man,

And systems, of whose birth no tidings yet
Have reached this nether world, ye spy a race
Favoured as ours; transgressors from the womb,
And, hasting to a grave, yet doomed to rise,
And to possess a brighter heaven than yours?
As one who, long detained on foreign shores,
Pants to return, and when he sees afar

His country's weather-bleached and battered rocks,
From the green wave emerging, darts an eye
Radiant with joy towards the happy land;
So I with animated hopes behold,

And many an aching wish, your beamy fires,
That show like beacons in the blue abyss,
Ordained to guide the embodied spirit home
From toilsome life to never-ending rest.

Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires

That give assurance of their own success,

And that, infused from Heaven, must thither tend.

COWPER.

MARCH 30.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.
PROVERBS iv. 7.

The higher the objects that engage our minds and hearts, the higher their tone and the greater the honour. We rise or sink, as we fix our regards worthily or the reverse. Our affections are the mirror of our nature. Degraded, they reflect our degradation; pure and refined, they reflect their own nobleness. And what we admire and choose, we, even insensibly, imitate—sinking progressively towards a low standard, or rising towards a lofty. Our likings mark our moral affinities and develop them. We respect ourselves and are respected, as we look above or below our own level in worth and intellect. Intercourse with goodness or genius both honours and raises us. Even mere outward dignity sheds a light on those in its circle. We are the more in honour the nearer the king; and if with dignity there be illustrious worth, intimacy is a certificate not only of rank, but of character. What, then, shall I say of religion? It looks to the Highest, the All-wise, and All-good, the Eternal Light that knows no shadow. If character be fixed by the standard we choose, what model is there like the All-perfect? The divine character is the only unclouded perfection; the uncreated glory, of which all that is good and fair in the universe is but the reflected light.-GEIKIE.

G

MARCH 31.

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.-HEBREWS xi. 10.

Heaven is a city never built with hands, ncr hoary with the years of time-a city whose inhabitants no census has numbered a city through whose streets rush no tides of business, nor nodding hearse creeps slowly with its burthen to the tomba city without griefs or graves, without sins or sorrows, without births or burials, without marriages or mournings—a city which glories in having Jesus for its King, angels for its guards, saints for its citizens; whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise.-GUTHRIE.

APRIL 1.

Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 2 PETER iii. 13.

I praised the earth, in beauty seen
With garlands gay of various green;
I praised the sea, whose ample field
Shone glorious as a silver shield;
And earth and ocean seemed to say,
"Our beauty is but for a day."
I praised the sun, whose chariot roll'd
On wheels of amber and of gold;
I praised the moon, whose softer eye
Gleam'd sweetly through the summer sky;
And moon and sun in answer said,
"Our days of light are numbered."

O God! O Good beyond compare !
If thus Thy meaner works are fair;
If thus Thy bounties gild the span
Of ruin'd earth and sinful man,—
How glorious must the mansion be

Where Thy redeemed shall dwell with Thee!

HEBER.

APRIL 2.

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that the Saviour died for me,

O Lamb of God, I come!

Let our studies turn more and more on that which is the core and centre of the Bible. The Bible is a revelation of God; and the core and centre of God's revelation is Christ crucified. Many other subjects are treated in the Bible besides this; but this is really the pith and marrow of it all; this wraps up in itself the whole compass of edification. In the book of the Revelation we read of "the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and the (very) leaves of which were for the healing of the nations." It is the passion tree or cross of the Lord Jesus, which, planted by faith in the hearts of His followers, brings forth there all the fruits of the Spirit, and even the leaves of which—every slight circumstance of it—are medicinal to the soul. Study, then, the passion of Christ, in all its details -the apprehension, the binding, the buffeting, the spitting, the scourging, the mockery, the gall, the nails, the crown of thorns, the burning thirst, and the precious death which crowns the whole. Study