tudes of people in Africa and in Asia and in the islands of the sea who have never heard of Jesus, and have never received any of the spiritual blessings of which we have been speaking? Certainly there are. Then how can it be said that "all the families of the earth" have been blessed in him? This is a fair, honest question. Let us see if we cannot give a fair, honest answer to it. Now, we must remember that all the blessings of which we have been speaking, as those which Jesus gives to men, are spiritual blessings. They belong to the soul and to the life that is to come. But there is another class of blessings that we owe to Jesus. These belong to the body and to the life we have in this present world. But this life itself, with health and strength and food and clothing and all our present comforts, is embraced in this class of blessings. We owe all these to Jesus. They were all forfeited by sin, and bought back to us by the death of Christ. Before the missionaries of the gospel went to the islands of the South Sea, there was a heathen custom there called taboo, which well illustrates this part of our subject. The heathen priests in those islands, when they wanted anything for their idols, used to say that it was tabooed—that is, it belonged to their gods—and then no one dared to touch it. A tabooed thing was a forfeited thing. But when Adam and Eve sinned, they forfeited life, and breath, and air, and sunshine, and water and food. All these things were tabooed; we had lost our right to them. But when Jesus agreed to bear the punishment due to our sins, he took off the taboo; he recovered for us all that we had forfeited. And now every ray of light that brightens this world, every drop of water, and every particle of food that any enjoy, the air we breathe, the clothes we wear, our friends, our homes, and all that helps to make us comfortable and happy in this life, we owe to Jesus; and those who never heard of Jesus are indebted to him for these blessings, although they do not know it. And so we see how true it is, according to the promise made to Abraham, that "in his seed all the families of the earth are blessed." In this sense they have all been blessed from the beginning. They are blessed every day. The blessing of the world is in Jesus. JOSEPH AND JESUS COMPARED. HENEVER we hear or read about Joseph, we think of Egypt; and what a wonderful country Egypt is! It is the country of that grand old river Nile. There, too, are the famous Pyramids. People go from the ends of the earth to visit them. They climb their steep sides; they stand on the top of them, and look out over all the country around; then they go down into that dark chamber, which is in the centre of the largest Pyramid. Near the Pyramids is the celebrated Sphinx. This is a strange-looking figure, with the head of a woman and the body of a lion, cut out of the solid rock on which the great Pyramid stands. The greater part of it is now covered up with sand; but some years ago, when the sand was removed, the body of the huge figure was found to measure a hundred and forty-three feet in length, and from its feet to the top of its head it was between sixty and seventy feet high. What a won derful country Egypt appears to have been to 75 The history of Joseph is one of the most interesting in the Old Testament. We love to hear about it when we are young; and even when we grow up to be men and women we never get tired of hearing or reading the history of Joseph; and one reason why we love this sweet story so much is not only because such strange things happened to Joseph, but because there is so much in his life that reminds us of Jesus and seems to point us to him. If you look at the first line in the last book of the Bible, you will find that it reads thus: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ" This shows GREAT PYRAMID Ground-plan of the Pyramids. |