despise His mercies, that at the close of this dispensation the same rebellious, apostate, and infidel spirit still prevails. When the Lord comes, shall He find faith on the earth? Will it not be again "as in the days of the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not till the flood came, and took them away: so shall the coming of the Son of Man be" (Mat., xxiv, 37-39. It is an awful thought, yet all Scripture tends to the same conclusion, that the world, instead of growing better, acquiring heavenly wisdom by past experience, and listening to the preachers of righteousness, who, throughout the world, are warning the thoughtless and disobedient to flee from the wrath to come, the greater mass of mankind will again reject all offers of mercy, and scoff at and deny the godhead and humanity of Christ, will accept Antichrist as their king, and even go the length of fighting against Him and His saints. "They will trample under foot the Son of God, and account as common the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, and insult the spirit of grace;" but vengeance belongeth unto the Lord, and He will recompense all those that reject and dishonour Him. He will judge His people; and when too late they will find out that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb., x, 29-31).

Let us turn now for a moment to Rev., xii. In verses 7-9 we see the great dragon, the old serpent, called the devil and satan, which deceiveth the whole world, is cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him, and the inhabitants are warned that Satan is among them, and hath great wrath because he knows his time his short."

Is not this in perfect keeping with the antediluvian type? But Satan and his angels are not content this time to pervert man by the means formerly so successfully employed, and such as Baalim suggested with such insiduous venom to Balak, but knowing it is the last chance, he and his host persuade men, as in primeval days, that in raising the standard of infidelity and rank rebellion against the Lord who bought them, "they shall not surely die," "but shall be as gods," and live for ever. Satan knows too well the reverse; he knows his hour is near, and he thus puts forth all his power, wisdom and craft to beguile unstable souls, and to lead them to perdition: his scheme is

ably seconded by the man of sin energised by Satanic might, the hearts of men are filled with hatred against all restraint, all systems of religion, open infidelity, and democratic principles of the most revolutionary stamp pervade every shade and class of men who have received the mark of the beast. And the whole world is gathered together to the war of the great day of God Almighty.

We thus see that as this dispensation approaches completion, sin and iniquity acquire an accumulative force: sheep according to our Lord's commands are, thanks be to God, drawn daily out of the world to build up the church of Christ (Mat., xxviii, 19) but, the great mass resist every overture of mercy, and God, who is only waiting to be gracious, as in the probationary days in the time of Noah, is compelled at last to let loose the vials of his wrath, and with the exception of the faithful remnant which, as in the days of Elijah, have not bowed the knee to Baal, to consume all flesh with the breath of his mouth, and with the appearance of his coming (2nd Thes., ii, 8).

Let us ever bear in mind that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for reproof, for instruction in righteousness." What takes place in one dispensation finds its antitype in another. Progressiveness is God's way of dealing with his people; what was dimly hinted at in the secret emblems, types and symbols of a dark and mystical age have now acquired by the lapse of time, by increase of heavenly knowledge, by the near approach of the end of all things, a comprehensiveness and intensity which never existed before, each step towards the final close shines with greater light and brilliancy, we see truly only through a glass obscurely, but in a little time face to face; we know only in part, but when Christ appears we shall know even as we are known, let us therefore press onward until we attain unto the perfect knowledge of the Son of God, unto the full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (1st Cor., xiii, 12; Eph., iv, 13).

NUMBERS, I, 47-54.

NUMBERS VIII,

5-26.

"The Lord had spoken unto Moses, saying, thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of testimony, and over the vessels thereof; they shall bear the tabernacle, and all the vessels thereof, and shall minister unto it, and shall encamp_round about the tabernacle, and when it sets forward the Levites shall take it down, and when it is pitched the Levites shall set it up. And they shall pitch round about the tabernacle of testimony, that there be no wrath upon the children of Israel, and the Levites shall keep the charge of the tabernacle of testimony."

To prelude the honour and dignity conferred on the Levites in this passage, it is desirable to refer back to the cause which led to this great distinction.

At the time that Jehovah was occupied at the top of Sinai (Ex., xxv, xxvi) in organising, for the guidance of Moses, an earthly sanctuary wherein he might dwell in the midst of his people, with a view of separating them from the rest of the world, and to establish a purely theocratic government, wherein God, and God alone, should be the object of worship and adoration; at that very moment, when all these mighty and exclusive privileges were in store for them, the people under Aaron (Ex. xxxii, 1—6) were erecting a golden calf as an object of worship, saying, "Up, make us gods which shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him;" thereby rejecting Jehovah, and virtually saying we will not have this man to reign over us. Their crooked and apostate hearts were incapable of receiving and recognising any God that was not visible; sight, not faith, was their creed. The gracious and miraculous acts of God were forgotten, and the image of a calf, the work of man's hands, was preferred to an invisible God, and invisible only for the short period of 40 days (Ex., xxiv, 18); but Jehovah was not to be mocked by Aaron's specious excuse (Ex. xxxii, 5), that the worship of the calf was but a way of keeping a feast to Jehovah. God saw through this casuistical defence, and dismissing Moses from his presence, said, "Away, get thee down, for thy people which thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves, and have turned aside

quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a golden calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereto, and said, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Now let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and I will make of thee a great nation."

Moses, however, who for forty days and nights had conversed with God and learnt His gracious intentions towards His people, would not let God alone, but reminded Him of His promise to the children of Abraham, that their seed was to be as the stars of heaven, and that the land promised to Abraham was to be for his seed for ever. God, who only waited to be gracious, repented at the mediation of Moses; and, Moses, knowing the Lord's mind, hastened down from the mount, taking the tables of the testimony with him, and encountering Joshua, was told that there was a noise of war in the camp; but Moses said it is not of those who shout for mastery, but the voice of them that do sing, and as he drew nigh and saw the calf, his anger waxed hot, and casting the tables out of his hand brake them beneath the mount; and after upbraiding Aaron, who still persisted in his casuistic line of defence, Moses stood at the gate of the camp, and, cognizant of God's unbounded love and mercy, offers an unconditional pardon to all who will accept it, for he called not any particular tribe to avenge the slight put upon God's name, but he cries out, Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto me.

The whole camp might have rendered themselves to Moses, and sought for pardon, but with the exception of the house of Levi not one of the remaining tribes responded to the voice of mercy; their hearts were hardened, and they would not accept the offers of grace. Then went forth the stern command, let each man gird on his sword, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother; and the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and slew of the people about 3,000 men, and this they did with holy zeal for the honour of their God. It was in consequence of this zeal and devotion to the will of God that the curse originally pronounced against them (Gen., xlix, 5, 7-consequent on their self-will, and disobedience to the commands of their father Jacob, when they cruelly murdered in cold blood Shechem and all the Hivites, Gen. xxxiv, 25) was removed,

and they now as a reward for their zeal were to occupy the place of Reuben, the first-born, who had originally been separated from among the people on their first coming out of Egypt (Ex., 13, 1, 2).

When Aaron was sanctified as High Priest, the Levites under the instructions conveyed in Num. viii, 5-19, and xviii, 2-6, were given to him to do the service of the tabernacle. They were separated from the rest of the house of Israel, and as servants of the High Priest and his sons had their portion in the Lord. They were to have no inheritance in the land of promise, for Jehovah was their portion, and the tithes of the heave-offering their maintenance (Num., xviii, 20-25). And in the passages under review are displayed the peculiar honour with which they were visited. They were the Lord's, and are wholly given unto Him from among the children of men, and they were taken in lieu of the first-born of the children of Israel, for these were the Lord's when he smote the first-born in the land of Egypt, and sanctified them unto himself (Num., viii, 14-18). They were constituted ministers of the tabernacle, whilst the sons of Aaron in the sight of their father were consecrated priests for the performance of the worship in the Holy Place. See Deu., xxxiii, 8—11; Mal., ii, 4-8.

MATTHEW, II, 18.

"In Rama was there a voice heard, weeping and great mourning: Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not."

The connection between this passage and that from which it is quoted is not at first sight very clear, it is only by a careful examination of the scope and intent of the prophecy that any satisfactory solution can be arrived at. It is easy to see and understand the allusion to Rachel, the wife of Jacob, who, for the love he bore, counted his servitude of seven years as but a few days (Gen., xxix, 20). Rachel's love for Jacob, her early death, entitled her, notwithstanding many faults in her character (Gen., xxx, 1, 2, xxxi), to be a fitful representative of a Hebrew mother; and as such we can fully sympathise in the thrilling cries of