thought to those, "a ransom for many" (λúrpov dvтì Todλŵv) (Matt. xx. 28), which the Church has rightly treasured up as the charter of her life? (3.) Still limiting ourselves to these approximate instances, that we may reason from them to the law to which they point, we find that there is a wonderful union in them of joy and suffering, of curse and blessedness, of defeat and victory. The mother's hunger becomes more endurable; through the flames which flicker round the martyr there comes "a moist whistling wind." ."* In the midst of battle the wounded soldier feels a peace that passes understanding. The surgeon, the pastor, the nurse, who for the sake of others face pestilence and death, are more than conquerors through Him who loved them. St. Paul himself, at the very moment when he prayed that he might be accursed from Christ, was entering more fully into the joy of his Lord than he had ever done before, because then, more than ever, that mind was in him which was also in Christ Jesus. As the Master "did not count equality with God a thing to be snatched at as a prize, but emptied himself "+ (Phil. ii. 6, 7) even of the "glory which he had with the Father before the world was (John xvii. 5), of the conscious energy of the Divine attributes, so did the servant count that the glory yet to be revealed was not "a prize" for himself, was content, even while he pressed forward to the mark of his high calling, to forego even that, and to "empty himself" also of the blessings of the adoption and the promises. And therefore the joy of the servant also, like that of the Master, was unspeakable and full of glory. As the heart knew its own bitterness, the bitterness of that self-surrender, so there was a joy with which the stranger did not intermeddle. Can we wonder that, with this as the dominant feeling in his soul, looking at the mysteries of God through the medium of his own experience and the experience of mankind, the apostle should have gone yet further? Believing as he did that what is impossible with men may yet be possible with God; conscious that it was the presence of Christ in him that raised him out of his natural selfishness into this supernatural charity, was it strange that he should believe (I speak after the manner of men, setting aside for the moment the fact that he was divinely taught) that his Lord had perfectly accomplished that which he failed to "Song of the Three Children," ver. 23. It may be well to state, for the sake of general readers who may be startled by a rendering so different from that of the authorized version, that I follow Bishop Ellicott in thus interpreting these words. See his "Commentary," in loe. attain to, had done what he prayed that he might do? To one who had passed through that experience there would seem nothing strange or improbable in the thought that as he sought to be accursed for his brethren of the stock of Abraham, so Christ might, in very deed, become a curse for us" (Gal. iii. 13), for Gentile and Jew, for his brethren of the whole family of man. As in proportion to his sympathy with all men, he was ready to bear another's burden, so he would be able to apprehend the thought that He who "learnt "* an infinite sympathy with our infirmities, and was tempted as we are tempted, might be able to bear the yet greater burden when the Lord laid on Him the iniquities of us all. As he could say, with no boastfulness of speech, "Who is weak, and I am not weak; who is offended, and I burn not?" (2 Cor. xi. 29) † sharing, as it were, by that intensity of sympathy, sins that were not his, temptations he had never known; so reasoning upwards from the lower to the higher, from the sinful to the sinless, from the human to the Divine, he would find it the simplest, as well as the most wonderful of all truths, that "God should have made him who knew no sin to be sin for us" (2 Cor. v. 21); to identify Himself with man's evil, struggle with its power, bear its chastisement, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. As he passed through that craving after conscious participation in a curse, through that actual life of sacrifice, to the blessedness of one who knows that the sacrifice is accepted; as he could say, "If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all" (Phil. ii. 17); so he would be able to understand how, in the highest of all Sacrifice, the curse and the blessing, the glory and the shame, were joined inseparably; how at the moment of keenest anguish and sense of desolation, and the bitter cry, "My God, my God, why hast hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. xxvii. 46) there was also the fullest acceptance, the most entire confidence, the union unbroken The thought that the human nature of our Lord, as it "increased in wisdom" (Luke ii. 52), so also passed through the successive stages of progress to a perfect manhood, "learning" by his own experience "obedience and sympathy, is beyond all question the point of view from which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews looks at the mystery of the incarnation. (Heb. iv. 15, 16; v. 8, 9.) Popular theology, oscillating between Apollinarius and Renan, seems unable to contemplate the growth in mind and spirit, through stages analogous to those of other men, of the true and archetypal humanity. + It may be questioned, I think, whether any interpretation which limits the "burning" of this verse to anger against evil is in any degree adequate. The one other passage in which St. Paul uses the word is 1 Cor. vii. 9. and undisturbed of the Father and of the Son, the return after a moment to the conscious utterance of that trust, in the words, "Father, into thy hand I commit my spirit." (Luke xxiii. 46.) E. H. PLUMPTRE, M.A. (To be continued.) The Preacher's Finger-Post. THAT SIGHT. "Now, when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned. And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things." Luke xxiii. 47-49. as shone on such a sight as this. “That sight!” I. THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF THAT SIGHT." What does it mean? First: The enormity of human wickedness. Every phase of human sin comes cut here-ingratitude-falsehood, cruelty-blasphemy. Secondly: The transcending excellence of Christ. He could have saved his life. But in Him goodness was supreme. Love for truth, loyalty to his Father, compassion for souls, were in Him stronger than the love of Thirdly The infinite philanthropy in God. “Herein is love, not that we loved God," &c. Has the universe in all time ever had such an exhibition of Divine philanthropy as this? WE have elsewhere* at con- * See "Genius of the Gospel," p. 689. : II. THE SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE OF THAT SIGHT. First: It convicted a hardened heathen. "Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, certainly this was a righteous man." The centu rion must have been a man of a most hardened heart, for though it was his duty to see the sentence of Pilate carried out, and superintend the execution, he might have prevented by his authority, much that added to the agony of the sufferer. He might have restrained the wanton insults of the people. But now after the tragedy was over, a moral power went from that cross that smote the heart of this hardened sinner. "He glorified God." There was a moral omnipotence in "that sight." Secondly: It alarmed the thoughtless masses. "And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned." These people, though not actors in the terrible tragedy, joined as giddy spectators in the blasphemous insults. "And the people stood beholding, and the rulers also with them deriding him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself." But now moral conviction had smitten their souls, and they returned not one, but "all" of them. Imagine their emotions. These people, perhaps, were among the thousands gathered together on the day of Pentecost, and after the sermon of Peter, cried out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?" Thirdly: It entranced the loving disciples. "And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things." It would seem that they did not hurry off, they were chained to the spot, they waited until He was taken down from the cross. "That sight" to them was magnetic. What "that sight" did then, it does now— convicts the hardened-alarms the thoughtless, entrances the disciple. It is noteworthy that nothing is said about the influence of "that sight" on the principal actors-the chief priests, the scribes, and Pharisees, and the rulers of the people. Their souls were so bound up by prejudices and selfrighteousness, and theological dogmas, and ritualistic formalities, as to be inaccessible to this mighty moral influence of God. There is far more hope for pagan soldiers like the centurion, and the thoughtless masses who smote their breasts, than for formal professors of religion. THE SUFFERING WORLD AND THE RELIEVING MAN. "And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."-Isa. xxxii. 2. THIS prediction was uttered in the days of Ahaz, and its primary reference might be to Hezekiah, who delivered his country from the trials of a corrupt government. It is capable however of a wider and grander application; it illustrates the moral trials of humanity and the remedial work of Christ. I. THE SUFFERING WORLD. Here is a description of suffering humanity not only grandly poetic, but true to fact. The world's trials are here represented by the imagery of a tempest, a drought, and an exhaustion. First: A "tempest." Tempests in nature are often most terrible and devastating. They not only alarm the voyager on the sea and often hurl him and his into the depths of the ocean, but often strike terror and bring ruin to those who dwell on the earth. Spiritually, the world is in a tempest, it is beaten by the storm of (1) conflicting thoughts, (2) sinful passions, (3) guilty memories, and (4) terrible foreboding. The billows that dash over human hearts, the storms that beat on human souls are known to God only. Secondly: A drought. "A dry place." The Oriental traveller under a vertical sun, and on scorching sands without water is the picture here. He has a burning thirst and is in earnest quest for the cooling stream. Is this not a true picture of man spiritually as a traveller to eternity. He thirsts for a good which he fails to get. It appears often before him as a mirage which melts into thin air as he approaches it. "Who will show us any good?" This is the deep and never-ceasing cry of the soul through all lands and ages. Thirdly Exhaustion. 66 In a weary land." The Oriental traveller has exhausted his strength, and he lies down in prostrate hopelessness. Man, spiritually, is in a condition somewhat thus: He is weary and heavy laden," "he is without strength." Without strength to discharge his moral obligations, to please his Maker, to serve his race, and reach his destiny. "A 66 II. THE RELIEVING MAN. man shall be," &c. Hezekiah did much to relieve Israel in its political troubles, but Christ does infinitely more. Herelieves the moral troubles of humanity. First He is a shelter from moral storms. "A hidingplace from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." It is but one figure, for the latter clause, as is common in Eastern poetry, is only the echo of the fomer. What a safe port is to the mariner in a storm, an impregnable castle to the traveller, Christ is to the human soul in its sorrows. "He is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble." What a secure, accessible, capacious refuge is Christ. Secondly: He is the river in moral droughts. "As rivers of water in a dry place." "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." Christ refreshes and satisfies souls by |