2); and having drank of the waters of life, he cries out with the Psalmist, "I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed. The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him" (xxxiv, 4-8).

Compare this with the whole action of the woman that was a sinner, and mark the wonderful harmony and affinity that exists therein. If the Psalmist had the poor woman in his mind he could not have selected words more appropriate to describe the scene; but one sinner is like another, all are guilty in the sight of God, whether the sin be great or small; all are under the curse, and it is only those who have fled to the cross, and have been washed in the blood of Christ that can exclaim with the Psalmist, "O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him." It is only those that have tasted and cast all their burden upon him, that can truly go forth and proclaim to their fellow sinners the love of God which passeth knowledge.

As the loving bride in the Song of Songs can the redeemed sinner cry out "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?" The soul is so filled with praise, love, and thanksgiving, that it longs to proclaim to others the riches of Christ's love. And the bridegroom, anticipating her thoughts, replies, "O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flocks, and feed the kids beside the shepherds' tents.' A similar exhortation is given by the loving Jesus (John, xxi, 15, 17), when he tells Peter to feed his lambs. Having received mercy, we are to publish to our fellow-creatures the boundless love of God in Christ, to tell all men that "God is love," and that whosoever cometh to him, though his sins be as scarlet, shall in no wise be cast out, for God is ever waiting to be gracious, and is willing and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous

ness.

NUMBERS, XV, 38—41.

"Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughont their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue; and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, that ye may remember and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God."

The circumstances under which this gracious memorial was instituted is deserving of notice. We find in the thirty second verse that "while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a man who gathered sticks upon the sabbath day, and they found him and brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and they put him in ward, and the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall surely be put to death, and the congregation brought him without the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died.”

The crime and the punishment may not harmonise in man's estimation, but God's ways are not as our ways, and all his judgments are righteous. The law had just been given; it was just and holy; rules, and ordinances had been laid down with the most minute scrupulousness, every sin not unto death was remittable under certain conditions, but no sin of whatever nature could be condoned except by conforming to the law of sacrifices enacted by God and adminstered by his recognised priests. The people were thoroughly acquainted with these laws; so that there was and could be no excuse for not obtaining full and ample release even for involuntary sins. The tabernacle, the priest, and the required sacrifices were all at hand, and he who did not or would not avail himself of the means provided of God must necessarily receive punishment, the sin no longer rested in the category of those capable of remission, but were reckoned as ones of wilful rebellion against God; and he who acted thus was cut off from Israel!

Here was a man found picking sticks on the sabbath day, the object being to light a fire, thereby infringing two specific enactments, one to do no work on the sabbath day, the other not to kindle a fire on that day (Ex., xxxv, 3), and as both these acts were diametrically opposed to the written law, and no plea of ignorance

could be adduced in mitigation, the law, which was holy, just and good must be vindicated; and here mark God's gracious dealings with his people-he willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance; so he institutes the memorial heading this note.

The law and its precepts did not fully display God's blessed characters of mercy; it was given to show man his sins, and convince him that in the flesh was no good thing: it was but a shadow of a better covenant, and in all its types, figures, and symbols was intended to lead poor fallen man to that covenant of grace which was to be manifested in the MAN-GOD, the holy and blessed Jesus.

The blue, which throughout the Scriptures represents the gracious character of God in love and mercy, was here ordained to be the ornament of the Israelite's dress, so that as he walked, or wherever he went, he might have a clear and beautiful demonstration of God's love. This, of course, required faith, and as the Israelites lived by sight and sense the secret meaning was limited to the few-those who had not bowed the knee to Baal-and we consequently see in the gospel that the Jew had wholly perverted the benign object of this institution, for all their works were done to be seen of men; they had made broad their phylacteries and enlarged the borders of their garments (Mat., xxiii, 5); "they loved the reputation of the creature more than that of the Creator; they preferred the honor which cometh from man better than that which cometh from God" (John, v, 14).

The real faith of the woman who had an issue of blood is strongly exhibited in Mat. ix, 20-22. She must have remembered and recognised that the hem of blue bordering the garment of the Saviour was a pledge of mercy, and strong in this conviction came stealthily behind him and touched the riband of blue, saying within herself, "If I may but touch his garment, I shall be made whole," and so it was, for straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up, and Jesus immediately knowing in himself the power which had gone forth from him, turned him about in the crowd, and said who touched my clothes? And seeing the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, she came and fell down before him and told him the truth, and he said unto her, daughter, thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace, and be whole of thy plague" (Mark, v, 25-34).

In the whole compass of the gospel, considering the awful infidelity and hypocrisy stalking rampant through the land, I do not know a greater instance of faith than was exhibited in this sore-stricken woman; and it is, moreover, the only instance where we see the efficacy of the gracious memorial given by God to his people: it resembles the brazen serpent and the cross of Christ. Whoever looked upon the serpent was immediately healed, and he who takes hold of the cross of Christ, and believes that Jesus died for him, it is reckoned unto him for righteousness. He takes God at his word, for the promise is unto you and your children, and to all that are afar off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call unto him. And that all were called is evident that "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," "for God came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance;" so that none can say I am not called. All, all are called, and if you hear not the gracious sound it is not because God is not waiting to be gracious, but because you wilfully close your eyes to the truth, and will not believe that you might be saved. Oh, reader, remember the day is at hand; "be not like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charming never so wisely" (Ps., lviii, 4, 5; but come while it is called to-day, for now is the day of grace, now is the day of salvation. But, awful words, "the night cometh when no man can work" (John, ix, 4); therefore turn unto the Lord, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness" (Joel, ii, 12-14).

One word with regard to the hypocritical pretensions of the Pharisees in enlarging their borders and phylacteries, imagining or pretending to imagine that such outward adornments gave unction to their religious observances. May we not enquire if something of the same sort is not rapidly gaining ground in the present day. Do we not see men bearing the title of priests who deck themselves out in strange and varied vestures, regarding the shadow of these childish trifles greater than the substance? Such outward and Pharisaical displays of a self-styled religious pomp engenders pride and self-aggrandisement, rather than meekness, lowliness, and humiliation; they tend to nourish instead of to mortify the flesh. Such a system is opposed to all true religion, which consists not in wearing of gold and silver, but in the hidden man of the heart, in the

incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price (1st Pet., iii, 3, 4).

MATTHEW, III, 1.

"In those days cometh John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea."

The wilderness here mentioned is the same as the "hill country," mentioned in Luke, i, 39, 65, "and Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, a city of Judah," or, it might be rendered, the "city of Jattir," which, with its suburbs, was given at the time of the division of the land under Joshua to the children of Aaron. See Joshua xxi, 11, 14, where it is distinctly stated to be in the hill country of Judea: it is the same land as that called the desert in v. 80. The house where Joab lived and was buried was in the wilderness, meaning the wild hill country of Judea (1 Kings, ii, 34); yet in this very wilderness we read that there existed six cities with their villages (Josh., xv, 61, 62), and in Judges, i, 16, we learn that this same wilderness was identical with that where John was brought up, it being then called the wilderness of Judea. It is probable that the Psalmist alludes to these regions when he says " My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is" (Ixiii, 1). The Hebrew in this passage read "wilderness." In 2 Sam., xvii, 16, it is also styled the plains of the wilderness.

It began near Jericho, and extended along the shores of the Jordan and Dead Sea to the mountains of Edom; many parts of it were cultivated and inhabited, we may therefore conclude that John came preaching in the country of Judea, a place thinly populated, and in certain localities devoid of culture or inhabitants. But it is not to be supposed that the term desert implies a place infested with wild beasts, or composed solely of sand, rocks, and stones. John would not seek such places to preach in: that he lived in retired spots, and pursued a self-denying, Nazaritish life, is evident, but he did not necessarily seclude himself from his fellow-creatures.