But the day dawn of Christian universalism is manifestly here.

In the case of the Syro-Phoenician woman the dawn grows brighter. Here also there is a double interest, a personal interest connected with the unfolding of a striking human character, and the didactic interest connected with the fact that the heroine was a Pagan. We all feel the charm of the story. The pathos, humour, and meekness blended together in the pleadings of this Syrian mother for her afflicted daughter conquer every Christian heart. Had the narrative told that Jesus persisted in His refusal, it would have been hard for us to have borne it. But there was no risk of that happening. Not that Jesus was not in earnest in the declaration made to His disciples that His vocation was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He meant that seriously,

and then and always acted on it. But faith made all the difference. Faith anywhere and everywhere must be respected. Jesus accordingly did respect faith in this instance, and in the light of His ultimate compliance with the woman's request, His rule of conduct became modified thus: Israel my ordinary care, with exceptions made in favour of faith. In Christ's own lifetime the exceptions were few, but these exceptions, and the one before us in particular, were prophetic of a time when the exception would become the rule. For Christian universalism was immanent in the Syro-Phoenician's faith; therein lay its profound religious significance. When she said meekly and wittily, "We are Gentile dogs, yet there is a portion even for the dogs of the household crouching below the family table," she expressed by implication her belief that the barrier between Jew and Gentile was not insurmountable, that election did not exclude the outside world from all share in Divine compassion, that Heaven's grace could not possibly be confined within certain geographical boundaries. She said in effect what Paul said afterwards, "God is not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also;" with him she

ascribed to God's love a length and breadth wide as the world. Her faith filled up the deep ravine of Pagan unworthiness, and levelled the mountain range of election. which separated Jews from Gentiles, and made a straight way for the kingdom with its blessings even into Syro-Phoenicia. All this Jesus understood, and all this He had in view in granting the request. His ultimate compliance was not a merely exceptional favour to a Pagan out of regard to a most unusual spiritual insight. It was a virtual proclamation that before faith all partition walls must fall, that wherever there is recipiency the blessings of the kingdom must be communicated, irrespective of race, rite, or peculiar privilege. It was an anticipation of the position taken up by the Apostolic Church in Jerusalem, when, in deference to undeniable facts, its members said, "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." In their case it was a reluctant acknowledgment in which deeply-rooted prejudice yielded to the force of events. One may feel disappointment that in this respect there is the appearance of a resemblance between their attitude and that of Jesus on this occasion. It is natural to wish that His universalism had been as pronounced and as undeniable as that of Paul, by the side of whom His reluctant yielding to the pressure of importunate faith wears an aspect of provincial narrowness. But that could not be. However like Paul in spirit and conviction, Jesus could not but be more reserved in utterance and in action. Respect was due to the law of development. Bright day is ushered in by the grey dim dawn. It was good and wholesome that the day of grace should thus gradually steal on. The public action of Jesus was guided by this consideration. fining His activities to Israel, He was exercising a self-restraint which was a veritable part of His earthly humiliation. How real the self-restraint was, appears from the heartiness and even eagerness with which exception was made on good cause shown. In the case of the Syro-Phoenician woman, as in

In con

the case of the Roman centurion, it would have been very easy for an illiberal churlish Jew to have minimized the merit of the words spoken. It is always so easy to put a sinister construction on the conduct of people we dislike! Good qualities may be turned into their opposites: humility into impudence, genial wit into mere pertness. Christ saw in that woman nothing that was not there; nevertheless He saw what He was very willing to see; what no scribe, rabbi, or Pharisee would ever have discovered. It was once asked with reference to Jesus Himself, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" That He was not inclined to ask, "Can any good thing come out of heathendom?" His admiring exclamation, "O woman, great is thy faith!"1 very sufficiently demonstrates. Though He did not say it, He doubtless felt that here again was a faith the like of which was not to be found in Israel. The remark might have been made with even more justice than in the case of the centurion. Faith was a scarce commodity in Israel in any form; and what there was of it was of a homeward-bound character-faith in a grace available for the chosen race, but not for those beyond the pale. Here, on Pagan soil, on the contrary, was a faith remarkable not only for its brightness and strength, but for its spiritual enlightenment and width of horizon; accepting as a truism what to the ordinary Jew seemed all but incredible, that there was hope in God even for Gentiles.

After the foregoing observations, it can hardly be necessary to point out that, in the view of Christ, faith was not only the necessary but the sufficient condition of admission to the kingdom. "Faith alone" was a motto for Christ not less than for Paul. Faith alone with reference to repentance, because including it; faith alone with reference to circum

1 Matt. xv. 28. Mark's version is less gushing: "For this saying go thy way" (vii. 29). The meaning is the same. The gush comes out in action: The devil is gone out of thy daughter."

cision and the like externalities, because rendering them utterly meaningless. Faith alone sufficed in the case of the Syro-Phoenician mother and her daughter. The mother came to Jesus a Pagan, and she returned to her home a Pagan, yet with a blessing for herself and for her afflicted child. It is true, indeed, that faith obtained, apparently, only the dog's portion, a crumb of healing for a diseased body. Might it not suffice for that, yet fail to obtain the full benefits of citizenship in the holy commonwealth without the aid of some supplementary qualification, such as, for example, circumcision? No, for there is solidarity in the benefits procurable by faith, as well as in faith's actings. The law of solidarity prevails all round. The soul exerts all its energies in believing; faith's individual acts all hang together; God's gifts to faith go in a body. If anything is given all is given. Faith makes the dog a child, and gets a share not only of the crumbs below the table, but of all the viands on the table. That is the law of the kingdom. Recipiency is the sole requirement. External conditions can have no place in reference to the Highest Good. Existing restrictions are only economical and temporary, and a sign that the era of spiritual reality is not yet come. The behaviour of Jesus towards the Pagans mentioned in the Gospels shows that He was of this

mind.

ALEX. B. BRUCE.

STUDIES IN THE MINOR PROPHETS.

JOEL.

2. The Background of Joel's Prophecy.

THE prophets were sent to proclaim the Word of the Lord. Their function was to put into discourses and verbal messages the mind and will of Jehovah. Events often speak plainly; and yet, because of the moral insensibility of those who are visited by them, it may be requisite that a preacher should appear, who can both point the lessons and enforce them. The sufferings which are the results of natural occurrences are apt to be regarded as separated altogether from Divine discipline. Men's hearts are, no doubt, softened by the weight of woe, but they are also hardened by it. The mercy of the Lord it is that accompanies the external visitation with the gracious utterance of warning and appeal. The prophecy of Joel is an example of this Divine forbearance. It will be evident what is the special character and value of the book itself, when we have studied the background on which its message stands forth.

A broad division of subject is easily recognised in the book of Joel. The whole of the first chapter, and the second chapter down to the end of the twenty-seventh verse, may be said to be a summary of Joel's preaching on the occasion of a great calamity sent upon the land, the destruction of its crops and cattle, and the sufferings entailed upon the population, together with the impoverishment of the national worship for lack of offerings. This terrible visitation was effected through the agency of locusts and destructive grubs, sent in immense numbers. Then at the twenty-eighth verse of the second chapter commences an entirely new subject. The religious revival