mena.

III. THE DELIVERANCE. 1. It was by means of angelic ministry. How absurd are the endeavours to get rid of the manifest meaning of the Lesson! One says it was an earthquake which set the Apostle free; another, some "Christian friends;' another, the keeper of the prison; another, that the cause was unknown even by the Apostle, who attributed the event to the intervention of an angel. But why shrink from the plain sense of the passage? Of course, if we do not believe in the existence of angels, or in the supernatural providence of God, or in miracles, or in the efficacy of prayer, we must cast about to account for the wonderful escape by natural phenoIn that case we must give up the Bible altogether; for it is full of the supernatural from one end to the other. If "the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them" (Ps. xxxiv. 7), then there is an instance of such deliverance in this Lesson. If the angel of the Lord is also the instrument of Divine vengeance, and persecutes the wicked (Ps. xxxv. 6), and "smote the camp of the Assyrians" (2 Kings xix. 35), then we have an instance of such a judgment in the case of Herod in this Lesson. 2. The deliverance was complete-the chains fell off from the Apostle's hands; ward after ward was passed; the iron gate swung back upon its hinges; the angel accompanied St. Peter through one street. But it was gradual -chains, wards, doors, street of the city-an image of spiritual deliverance, and the progressive attainments of the perfect liberty of the sons of God.

IV. LESSONS. 1. Form the habit of seeing beyond the evils which we have to suffer -their moral and spiritual purposes (Jas. i. 12). 2. To cultivate the habit of prayer; "made without ceasing," or, perhaps, better rendered "fervent " prayer, of which our Lord Himself is an Example; for the same word (éktevŵs) is used to describe the intensity of His supplication in His agony (Luke xxii. 44). 3. To rejoice in St. Peter's deliverance as an evidence of the efficacy of prayer, a witness to the overruling providence of God, and as a reminder of the spiritual agencies which protect and deliver the true servants of the Lord.

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.—EVENING FIRST LESSON.

"Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool: where is the house that ye build unto Me? and where is the place of My rest? For all those things hath Mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.”—Isa. lxvi. 1, 2.

1. The tendency to make religion consist in external actions, apart from the inward dispositions which should accompany them, is very common. The reason for this is discovered from the fact that outward actions are easier than inward. It is easier, for instance, to become outwardly poor than to become poor in spirit; easier to adore with the body than to worship with the soul. The tendency is observable in all dispensations. For instance, whatever other differences there may have been between the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, we are expressly told that it was "by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice" (Heb. xi. 4). The outward act was linked with the right inward disposition. So, again, in the time of the Levitical Law, the tendency often manifested itself to put ceremonial above moral obligations (Ps. 1.). And Isaiah, in his first chapter (vers. 11-18), shows how an outward service, without the putting away of evil, is an abomination to God. In the same way our Lord condemned the Pharisees. "This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, . . . but their heart is far from Me" (Matt. xv. 8).

2. This closing prophecy of Isaiah seems to contain a warning against formalism,

that is, the punctilious permanence of external religious actions without the right frame of mind and heart. It is not that the outward is unimportant, for this would be to run from one extreme to the other, but that the outward alone will not avail. The return of Israel from captivity will be followed by the building of a new temple, as the event has shown; and the warning of the text is twofold-one, to remind the Israelites that Jehovah had no need of a temple; the other, to impress them with a truth they were very apt to forget, that religion must be a matter of the heart.

First, the text contains a revelation of Jehovah; secondly, a reference to the external temple; thirdly, to the internal.

I. A REVELATION OF GOD. "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool." 1. These words, or the substance of them, are again and again repeated in Holy Scripture; e.g. at the dedication of the temple of Solomon (1 Kings viii. 27; 2 Chron. vi. 4); in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 34); in St. Stephen's defence (Acts vii. 49). Repetitions in the Bible show the importance of a truth, or our difficulty in remembering it. The engraver goes over the line again and again when the substance is unimpressionable. 2. What is the truth? That God is incomprehensible (immensus). He is everywhere, and cannot be localized or contained within the walls of a building. "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord" (Jer. xxiii. 24). There is nowhere where God's power and essence and presence do not reach. He knows no limits of space or time, of knowledge or love. The Psalmist hymns this perfection, “Great is the Lord, and marvellous, worthy to be praised; there is no end of His greatness (Ps. cxlv. 3, Prayer-book Version). He is within the world and without it; "Heaven is His throne, earth His footstool." He is the only "complete Personality," because without the limits which are of necessity a part of created personality, which is therefore but a faint imitation of the Divine.

II. THE REFERENCE TO THE EXTERNAL TEMPLE. "Where is the house that ye build unto Me?" 1. It goes without saying that these words are not intended to deter Israel from building a material temple when they had returned to their own land. In the first place, the Prophet would be contradicting himself (Isa. lvi. 5–7 ; lx. 7); and, in the second, he would be running counter to the solemn injunctions of other Prophets, such as Haggai and Zechariah, who were in part raised up by God to further the work of building the temple. What the words are intended to rebuke is the falseness of the ideas that God requires a temple, and that His presence can be restricted to its walls. "What kind of house is it that ye would build Me?" "What kind of place for My rest?" God does not need a temple, but we do. In heaven there will be no necessity for any temple (Rev. xxi. 22), where the glory of God and of the Lamb floods with its radiance the whole place. 2. Here the Church, with its sacred objects and associations, appeals to us and excites our devotion; here in the sacred place there is a distinct promise to prayer; here God acts upon us, and we upon God, through prescribed ordinances; here He promises to be present in some especial manner; here we act upon one another and kindle fervour, and therefore must not forsake "the assembling of ourselves together" in the house of God (Heb. x. 25).

III. But the text alludes to the internal temple-THE DISPOSITIONS OF THE SOUL OF THE WORSHIPPER, WHICH ATTRACT THE FAVOUR OF GOD. "To this man will I look, ... who is poor,. . . contrite, and who trembleth at My word." 1. "Poor;" not merely outwardly, but poor in spirit-the condition of the first Beatitude (Matt. v. 3). God "hath respect unto the lowly, but the proud He knoweth afar off" (Ps. cxxxviii. 6). The man who at all realizes the Divine majesty will have a sense of His own nothing2. "Of a contrite spirit ;" that is, who has something of the publican's spirit, who smote upon his breast and cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" and so

ness.

returned from the temple to his house "justified" (Luke xviii. 13, 14). He who worships in a contrite spirit," God will not despise (Ps. li. 17). A perception of the Divine holiness brings self-humiliation by force of contrast (Job xlii. 6). 3. "Trembleth at My word." Fear is ever an element of the spirit of worship. A sense of the Divine justice and judgments fills the soul with awe in approaching God. The Word or revelation of God is received, not in the spirit of criticism, but with reverence and godly fear.

IV. LESSONS. 1. The remembrance of the all-pervading presence of God should be a deterrent from evil, and an incentive to good. 2. The obligation of regularity in attendance at Divine worship ought to be insisted upon, both as a recognition of God and our relations with Him, and for the sake of the subjective effects on human character. 3. But outward worship is of no avail without inward. There are tests, in the text, of the presence of the spirit of worship-lowliness, contrition, and awe, as products of the realization of God's Presence and Perfections.

SUNDAY IN SCHOOL.

JOHN THE BAPTIST BEHEADED.

MARK Vi. 14-29.

BAD men and good men are always being brought into contrast, if not conflict, with each other. It does not always appear that the right triumphs as we should expect it would. Brute force and low cunning have often borne down excellence and virtue. In this account we have an illustration of the supremacy of unseen and spiritual forces over lower and mere visible powers. It is to be noted that these

I. INSPIRE FEAR IN THE EVIL-DOER. Here we have a monarch whose will in the provinces of Galilee and Peræa was absolute. Obedient bands of armed men marched, as he bade, to battle or to pillage. Strongholds up and down the land were garrisoned by them. He built magnificent palaces and castles, and filled them with whatever his heart desired. Gluttonous feasts, drunken orgies, licentious carousals,-in these he stinted not himself. A capricious, sensual, superstitious, passionate despot he was, with heart made hard as crime and unbridled sin can petrify one. He was the personification of merely brutal instincts and agencies. Yet he was a man who could be made to fear. Though sovereign in his kingdom, he could not banish fear from it nor from his spirit. Only in seasons of intoxication could he escape it. The one person in his kingdom who disturbed him was a penniless and harmless ascetic, with only a staff for a weapon, and not a soldier to draw sword for him, and this man securely shut away in the dungeons of Macharus. This servant of the Most High had faced him on his throne, and called him a sinner and an adulterer. Such boldness he had never seen in any of the daring captains of his army, or in any of the courtiers who surrounded him. Like instances might be multiplied through all Christian history. The trembling man or woman has often been, not the one who stood to answer before him who sat where sentence of life or death was pronounced, but he instead who decreed their fate. It has been well said, "Fear is the homage which vice pays to virtue." The unknown potency of righteousness, so often surprising both its friends and foes, inspires them who oppose it with a fear ill concealed. For him who has heavenly alliance, none can tell what strategy is possible. Innocence over against muscle! only deluded souls can ever think the latter the stronger. The unseen and spiritual powers

II. CERTIFY TO A WORTHY CHARACTER. The king knew that his prisoner "was a righteous man and a holy." This humble soul, though priest and soldier and Pharisee came bending and begging to receive his baptism, made no claim to superior sanctity. It shone out, though, amid the general trickery, hypocrisy, and selfishness -the real godly heart and purpose-as the stars in the sky do, compared with the spangles which decorate some lofty ceiling, tinted after the blue of the heavens. A monitor who was himself morally weak would not have bearded this human lion in his den without being himself torn in pieces. Herod knew that man's heart had the stamp of God's mint on it. "One truth a man lives is worth a thousand which he only utters," says the Greek sage. As we ring coin on the marble, so is every man's character and reputation at some moments being tested. Then it gets popularly read as "righteous or unrighteous," "holy" or "unholy." One imprudent word or act on John's part had made Herod cease to fear him. His daily deeds made the people conclude John had a Divine mission, as no dress of sackcloth or prophetic staff or dervish-like frenzy could do. By the compulsion of unseen forces—

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III. TRUTH GAINS A HEARING. Lighthouse-keepers have sometimes had their windows almost blinded by the flocks of birds which, in the wild stormy night, have flown swiftly toward the friendly gleam, and with shattered beak and broken wing have fallen to the foot of the tower. Hunters have watched, back of their camp-fire as it illumined the dark recesses of the forest, the bright and curious eyes of the deer as they stole out of their hiding-places, and so have been easy marks for the rifle-ball. Fishermen with flaring torch attract their game within thrust of the spear. There is a fascination which some natural objects have for others which yield to the charm— their lure to death. So the strong clear blaze of truth, as it dwelt in the prophet's soul, brought the king again and again within its revealings. It struck him hard in his evil course. It dealt honestly with him. The better man within him pleaded guilty to every count. The uneasy hearer could not help but listen and reflect. Perplexed," the evangelist says he was. Repentance, however, was not a grace for the better man to impart to the worse. He could be the mouthpiece of righteousness, but not the giver of peace.-DE WITT S. CLARK.

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FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND.

MARK VI. 30-44.

I. The first thing we notice in this narrative is CHRIST'S COMPASSION. When He saw the great multitude "He had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd." There is something that strangely stirs the heart in the sight of a crowd. There is a mass of humanity whose needs are beyond estimate. There are men and women, each with his own burdens, carrying his own sorrows, full of his own longings. Here are weighted hearts; here are souls fashioned in God's image, but battered and marred by sin. How much sorrow is there represented! What grand possibilities are there which as yet are sadly unrealized! There are occasionally men of our acquaintance whose dominating quality is sympathy with their fellows. The thing about them which impresses us most is their great heart. They love their kind, and are always trying to make others happier and better. Such a one was Christ in a pre-eminent degree.

II. But it is significant in the narrative that Christ's compassion was PRIMARILY EXCITED FOR MAN'S SPIRITUAL NEEDS. As a result of His sympathies for these multitudes that sought Him, "He began to teach them many things." Men's sympathies are ordinarily more deeply touched by the temporal disabilities of their fellows. All that

is well; but, after all, the body is of the least value. After the soul has fled, how utterly worthless is the body that is left behind! A while since a wealthy English lady lost her mansion by fire. It was burned to the ground. In the house at the time was a diamond necklace, worth far more than the house itself. After the fire careful search was made, and at last, among the ashes, as they were raked over, were found the diamonds uninjured, just as brilliant and beautiful as ever. In the same way the soul survives the body.

III. Yet while this great lesson is set out first in the narrative before us, there is an evident intent to lay emphasis on OUR OBLIGATION TO AID MEN IN THEIR TEMPORAL NECESSITIES. "Give ye them to eat." The times are laying great stress upon this duty. It involves questions of political economy and questions of legislation which only experts can solve, and they only after long and patient experiment. But the first steps towards a solution are taken when a nation permeated with the principles of Christ rises up determined to find a solution.

He

IV. We see here the OBLIGATION WHICH CHRIST LAYS ON MAN towards his fellowman. "Give ye them to eat." Why did not Christ Himself feed the multitudes ? He did, but only through the ministry of man. This is His universal method. appeals to us to aid Him in supplying human needs. We must do it in temporal matters. Our gifts are few, our resources small, but if Christ is with us and sends us forth, somehow the little that we have is adequate to any need. It marvellously multiplies, and thousands are fed.

V. THE IMPORTANCE OF SYSTEM. Why was that order preserved in the miracle before us? Partly from the necessity of the case to facilitate the work and prevent confusion. But still more was this orderly method followed to teach the lesson of system to an impatient world. Christ proposes to save men by orderly methods. does not encourage guerilla warfare, but organized companies.

He

VI. THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITIES. It appears both before and after the Divine blessing is offered. The five loaves and two fishes were furnished by a lad. There must be small beginnings. The seed must be sown by the hand of man, and then God takes care of it, and gives it marvellous growth. He teaches us thus to study the principles of self-help. It is an injury to men to aid them too much. Every follower of Christ, for his own good, needs to be assigned a place of service.

VII. There is here a lesson of FAITH. We do not know how this miracle was wrought. All acted on Christ's direction without question. They were glad to put themselves in His hands. They knew not how the blessing would come; it was not necessary, for they knew it would come. It is essential that we live to-day in the same spirit. We have Christ's directions in His Word, given us just as plainly as they were to the multitudes in the desert, and we are to accept them in the same unquestioning faith. When one says, as it is sometimes said, "I should like to be a Christian, but I am afraid I shall not hold out," it is lack of faith. Christ is as able to help us to continue steadfast to the end as He is to save us at the first. The same faith is needed also in the Christian life to battle with the tendency to spiritual despondency. All that we require is by faith to lay hold upon the mercies of God.

VIII. THE DIVINE SUPERABUNDANCE AND ECONOMY. There was a wonderful combination in this miracle. Not only were all fed, but there was more than enough. The tables were loaded. But Christ would allow nothing to be wasted. Look where we will in creation, we see the same superabundance. There is fuel and to spare, mines of coal and forests of timber seemingly inexhaustible. But all this is not to be wasted; for, if it be, it becomes naught. By man's improvidence forests have been destroyed and fair lands have become desert. The same law holds in the spiritual