hinder our rendering, by the only channel we can render it, a fraction at least of that debt which we owe to the Jewish people, to whom the believer in Jesus owes his all? for of them, as concerning the ·flesh, Christ came.

Would Chrysostom (I say), would St. Bernard, would George Herbert, have gone to our popular journals to rejoice over the hard stabs they are wont to point at the Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews? in their ignorance, I will charitably hope, rather than their designed bitterness of hatred; or would they not rather have rejoiced that in so many large towns in Europe and in the East, wherever the Jewish population is large, as many as 134 labourers, of whom thirty-six are ordained ministers, forty-six are schoolmasters and mistresses, the rest Scripture readers, lay agents, Bible distributors, etc., are witnesses in behalf of England's beloved Church to the exiled Jew of Christ's unabated and long-suffering love, and of the unabated love of His Church? Ah! shall say unabated love, or rather the new springing up of love where was hatred before -for we all know something of what so-called Christian jealousy for God has been-against Israel? how envenomed its bitterness! how zealous in hastening to be the ministers of God's vengeance and justice! how jealous in hiding and holding back His love! But the Society has been the upgrowth of a new and better feeling it is an acknowledgment, if small, yet an acknowledgment, of our debt to the Jew. It gives him his own Scriptures, of which our Lord said, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."* It points out that the Old Testament is not contrary to * John v. 39.

the New Testament: in both there is "eternal life.” True love to Christ will embrace some love at least to the stock of which He sprang after the flesh, who were the flesh and blood of the Son of man, that was also the Son of God and the Lord of glory. Even as Pharaoh, after he set Joseph upon the throne next himself, had the best of the land of Egypt placed at the service of his brethren, so he that has set Christ on the throne of his heart will not exclude the brethren of Christ from all his sympathy; from all brotherly affection. At least, in the place of that zeal which was once only careful how it might persecute, pillage, and oppress, he will wish to be imbued with that genuine Christian zeal which speaks only the words of benediction and salvation.

Remember we, finally, the words of warning which the great Apostle gave to all those that are so ready to lend a helping hand in unseating the Jew from his place in God's kingdom: "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off;* for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee." ↑

III.

The Triumph of the Moral and Spiritual ober the Material.

DAN. iii. 25.

"He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S is a character which I

think has hardly been done justice to; it is true that there were some outbreaks of cruelty and ferocity in after years, but he would appear, on the whole, to have pursued a much more enlightened and liberal policy (as we gather from chapter i). And seldom have better words been spoken on the attributes than those preached by Nebuchadnezzar, and that under the most disadvantageous circumstances possible, with everything to prejudice him: being himself the high priest of a low and degraded idolatrous system; feeling himself possessed of the plenitude, the absolutism, the almost omnipotence of irresponsible and autocratic power; at one time, immersed in the cares incident to the administration of a vast empire; at another, steeped in the pleasures of sense-the luxury, splendour, and dazzling pomp of the most magnificent of Eastern courts.

But the Most High God was pleased to take this great and remarkable man under His own special training. "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock :"* * Rev. iii. 20.

the knocks of His word and of His providence at the door of Nebuchadnezzar's heart were repeated, startling, loud. Had he forgotten a lesson, the lesson returned in a new form, stronger and more pointed, more forcible, grander, and harder to be forgotten. Did Nebuchadnezzar's spirit fall asleep, and fail to discharge the office of guardian and watchful remembrancer, while his soul was captivated by imaginations and his body regaled by sweets of sensual indulgence, then there came a terrible waking up, a return to himself, that he might know "that the heavens do rule,”* and fear "the God in whose hand his breath is, and whose are all his ways." Thus was God pleased, from time to time, to reveal Himself to Nebuchadnezzar, by all those means which are described in Job xxxiii. The dream; the emaciation and humiliation of the body; the messenger, one among a thousand, who declares unto man his righteousness, which first includes showing him his unrighteousness. also, that he may follow that up by showing him what his true righteousness is.

We are not told that the lesson which was taught Ashpenaz and Melzar, in chapter i., was ever conveyed to the ears of Nebuchadnezzar; though we may well suppose it was. Be that as it may, the great lesson taught by the dream of the image of gold, and its interpretation, can hardly fail to have left a deep impression, for a time, at least, a solemn, overpowering conviction, of a majesty and sovereignty that was above his, the majesty of Him "that confirmeth the word of His servant, and performeth the counsel of His messengers," that declares "the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not + Dan. v. 23.

* Dan. iv. 26.

Isa. xliv. 26.

yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure."*

It was the lesson that Sennacherib had to learn. "Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it?" But this impression would appear to have faded; and in this third chapter, the only effect remaining of that instructive vision was not the humility and lowliness it was calculated to awaken, but rather an over-weening sense of superiority, an image of his own grandeur and omnipotence. An irrepressible ambition seems to have intoxicated him, and to have given occasion to one of those frenzied outbursts of pride to which Eastern potentates are accessible.

It is not necessary to go through the history of this chapter, so simply and artlessly told: the immense preparation; the imperious and haughty edict; the despatches sent out into the whole of the provinces of the empire, to secure universal and unquestioning acquiescence; the obsequious, servile compliance of that cringing multitude, summoned to this ignominious debasement of themselves, to become devotees, to make an offering and sacrifice, not of their bodies (which would have been a small thing), but of conscience, truth, duty, conviction, before Nebuchadnezzar's shrine. And this great sacrifice, this worse than Dahomian holocaust, of what is holiest in man, and his peculiar birthright, was inaugurated with a great flourish of music, and with all that pomp and splendour of outward circumstance, by which it was sought to hide from them the depth of that shame and disgrace to which they must descend. That is the first thing that must strike us; and then, secondly, the great threat by which every breath of * Isa xlvi. 1O. + Isa. xxxvii. 26.