and leading an ascetic, a monastic, or an eremite one. There is often more religion on the Royal Exchange, and in the Corn Market, than there is in nine tenths of the convents of the Continent in Europe. I believe there is more holiness in many shops in London, than there is in all the cathedrals that cardinals and bishops have consecrated in mediæval Europe. Religion is for the heart, and is meant to overflow life's humblest as well as life's highest duties, spreading a sunshine over them all. We may depend upon it, that the religion that is not fitted for weekday work, never had a sabbath day origin. If you cannot be religious as servants in the kitchen, as tradesmen in your shops, as merchants in your counting-houses, as soldiers in your regiments, as sailors on the deck, as members in parliament, it is because you have no religion; for if religion be meant for any thing, it is to transform by its touch all that is on earth, and to fit man for all that is happy in heaven hereafter.

Right doing and right believing are absolutely inseparable. Some ask, why quarrel about opinions? Why fall out with such a one for what he believes? What does it matter what a man thinks, if he conscientiously thinks it? Such aphorisms are simply scepticism and infidelity. As a matter of fact, it does matter what a man thinks. For instance, the Revolution that shook France to its centre was an opinion in some man's head, before it became a Revolution in Paris. The Reformation was an opinion in Martin Luther's soul before it became a gigantic and a glorious fact, that thrilled the hearts of the nations of Europe, and of Asia, and of America. It was, for instance, the idea, "God is true, and Mahomet is his prophet," in Mahomet's head, which has been written by the scimitar upon the face of Europe. The pope is infallible, is a mere opinion, but that opinion has constructed an overshadowing despotism,

whose footsteps are to be traced by the blood it has shed, the fires it has kindled, and the repression of human freedom and of human thought of which it has been the origin and the author. That Jesus died for our sins, is an opinion, but it is an opinion that has transformed by its touch mighty masses of mankind, and made nations bless in loud songs that God who so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, so that many a heart can now say, "We love him, because he first loved us." Neither in the region of heaven, nor in the region of hell, nor on earth itself, is an opinion a dead thing, but an active power. Give me the moulding of men's opinions, and I will allow the six hundred members that meet in St. Stephen's House of Commons to legislate as they like. It is the man that gives forth opinions that rules the world; who makes men conclude what he believes to be true, who leaves an impression on the age and mankind that is not easily destroyed. The enlightenment that is increasing in our land is all the result of opinions; and if your opinions be drawn from what God saith, you cannot too soon, too early, or too unanimously carry them into practice.

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Above all, this believing, being, doing, will always be embosomed in prayer, if we be the people of God. We can neither hear, nor believe, nor be, nor do, unless the Holy Spirit inspire, teach, direct; and yet, if we do not, or believe not, or be not, the whole fault is our own. God says, Seek, and ye shall find." In fact, the feeling impressed upon your heart, "I can neither hear, believe, be, nor do, unless God's Holy Spirit teach me," is already hearing, believing, being, doing. The feeling growing in your heart, I cannot do these, is just prayer silently rising from it to God, "O`God, do for me what I cannot do for myself;" and he will do it.

CHAPTER XIX.

A FATHERLESS AND MOTHERLESS PRIEST.

"I wrapping round me your humanity,

Which being sustained shall neither break nor burn
Beneath the fire of Godhead, will tread earth
And ransom you and it, and set strong peace
Betwixt you and its creatures. In my brow
Of kingly whiteness shall be crowned anew
Your discrowned human nature."

"Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually."—HEB. vi. 20 to vii. 3.

THERE are more prefigurations of the gospel in the Old Testament Scriptures than at first strike the eye. The case of Melchizedek we should not have supposed designed to be a type or prefiguration of Jesus, if we had not been so informed by the Apostle Paul, and also by David in the 110th Psalm, where addressing the Messiah he says, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." All connected with this ancient priest is more or less wrapped in mystery. He steps upon the stage from circumstances which we are unable to trace. He disappears from that

stage after he has presented the prefiguration of Jesus. Like Simeon, having seen in Abraham the great progenitor of Christ, he says, or felt, if he said it not, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel."

Several interpretations have been given of Melchizedek. Some ancient Christians thought he was the Holy Spirit, but this seems untenable, simply because there is no Scripture foundation for it. Another sect, involved in great heresy, thought that he was a being superior even to Christ, one of the Æons, as they called them, of whom they said Jesus was also one sent from God. Origen, the ancient Greek Father, thought that he was an angel. Others, even in recent times, have alleged that he was Enoch, who walked with God; and a considerable number think that he was Shem, but how they can make this out I do not know, because Shem's father was known, and his name is given; but the characteristic of Melchizedek is that, whoever he be, he was without father and without mother. A few very able men think he was the Son of God in some form of humanity in which he appeared before his incarnation. Others, and I think most truly, conclude he was merely a most peaceful and righteous king, and that he was in this respect a prefiguration of the Son of God.

Now the argument of those who think he was Christ, or the Son of God, is this, that the kingly and the priestly offices were never united in the history of man,- David was a king, but David was not a priest, Aaron was a priest, but he was not a king; and they say, it would have been an intrusion into the absolute prerogative of Jesus, to have made any one a king and a priest beside him. We answer, May not God have raised up some special foreshadow of

the future, in order to give men a preconception of what Christ should be, by presenting an evidence and specimen of the kingdom and priesthood united and combined in one? That he was not the Son of God, but a peaceful and righteous priest and king, the prefiguration of Christ, is to me plain from the language of the Apostle, Paul, for he says Melchizedek was made "like unto the Son of God." Now it would be absurd to say, that the Son of God was made like unto the Son of God, and the very fact, therefore, that Paul asserts he was like Christ, implies necessarily that he was not Christ, but the prefiguration or type of him.

Let us now examine the strange characteristic, having neither father nor mother. Literally this is absurd. There is no proof that he was a creation, as Adam was; then what do we understand by the phrase, having neither father nor mother? The moment we refer to ancient usage we find exactly what it means. Livy, the Latin historian, speaking of a Roman general, says he was nullo patre genitus, "born of no father;" which meant that he was not of illustrious birth. Horace, speaking of a plebeian, says, Nullis parentibus natus, that is, "born of no parents;" not that they had no fathers or mothers, but that they had no patrician birth. Sarah is called by the Greek writers άuntwo, that is, she had no mother known to us. The Arabs contemptuously say, " He has no father nor mother;" and you will hear sometimes in England, a person who is not prominent spoken of in this way. "He is nobody," meaning by that expression that he is not of illustrious. lineage, or patrician or aristocratical descent. And in the same manner the Jews were in the habit of speaking of one whose name was not recorded in the priestly or royal tables of the land, that he was fatherless and motherless. The simple inference to be drawn from this is, that Melchizedek's parents were not entered in the public roll or