ordinated to the inferior one.

For an edition of the Curetonian this would have been quite right, but for a book bearing the title of Evangelion DaMepharreshe it is quite wrong. And Mr. Burkitt would have laid us under an additional obligation if he had indicated where the pages of the Sinai palimpsest begin. Syriac students who visit the Convent Library in future days will take this book with them. But if they wish to verify a word, or to coax a few more letters out of some faded page, they must also burden their camels with the Syndics' edition, or, better still, with my Select Narratives of Holy Women (Studia Sinaitica, No. ix.). For I have there indicated not only each page, but the verse which begins it, on the margin.

These considerations detract only a little from the value of vol. i.; and not at all from that of vol. ii. They are, however, of sufficient importance to make me resolve on the preparation of a more complete edition; so as to place on record what

I believe to be, in all particulars, the true text of the Sinai manuscript.

Postscript.

(By Mrs. Gibson.)

I SHOULD like to add a word about an expression on p. 17 of Mr. Burkitt's Introduction, namely, 'they knew.' It would be kind in him thus to include me in his account of the discovery, were it not for the fact that I did not know one word of Syriac on my first two visits to Sinai. I therefore left the investigation of the Syriac MSS entirely to Mrs. Lewis, whilst I confined my attention to Greek and Arabic ones. I have twice before remonstrated with Mr. Burkitt for stating that I, as well as Mrs. Lewis, recognized the nature of the Gospel text in 1892. We ought to be accurate about events that occur in our own day, as well as about those that took place eighteen centuries ago. MARGARET D. GIBSON.

ACTS XXIV. 25.

'And as he reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment to come, Felix was terrified, and answered, Go thy way for this time; and when I have a convenient season, I will call thee unto me.'R.V.

EXPOSITION.

'And as he reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment to come.'-This speech of Paul's was probably given in Felix's audience chamber, and the scene was an anticipation, on a smaller scale, of that described in chap. 26. Felix, however, was a man of a different moral fibre to Festus. Paul read his character well; he would also know that Drusilla was another man's wife. Therefore, instead of delivering an oratorical apologia,' St Paul, like another John the Baptist, reasoned concerning the first principles of the Christ, namely, righteousness, continence, and the judgment to come.-RACKHAM.

'Righteousness.'-Our English translation very poorly represents the Greek original περὶ δικαιοσύνης, a word embracing these varied duties which every upright citizen owes to another, how much more one set over his fellows as a judge!-HowSON.

'Temperance.'-This term must be understood in its widest sense of self-control: it implies keeping under the body with all its passions and appetites.-RENDALL.

THIS virtue was not unknown even in the story of pagan

Rome; and Felix' companion, the Jewess Drusilla, would call up before her mind many a fair example set by noble Hebrew matrons in the old days of Israel, an example she had never tried to follow.-HOWSON.

'Felix was terrified, and answered.'-His conscience told him that what Paul said was true. Note that it is not said that Drusilla trembled. Eugene Stock says that it was because she was too reckless and hardened. She was past feeling. Her conscience was seared as with a hot iron, for she, having been brought up as a Jew, had sinned against more light.-Peloubet.

'Go thy way for this time; and when I have a convenient season, I will call thee unto me.'-Felix was alarmed, and broke off the audience, saying that when he found another opportunity he would summon him again for a public audience. For in private Felix had frequent conversations with him. St. Paul remained in confinement in Cæsarea, waiting for the second hearing, two full years.— RACKHAM.

THE SERMON.

Now, Now Not By-and-By.

By the Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D. Felix was born a slave, but, becoming a great favourite with the Emperor Claudius, he was made procurator of Judea. He was not fit for the

supremacy of reason. But St. Paul spiritualized this moral conception. He knew that the triumph was assured by the aid of that Spirit 'who helpeth our infirmities.' Excitement, tumult, and ecstasy are not the normal constituents of the spiritual atmosphere in which the Christian moves. We know how our Lord calmed the wild excitement of the woman who cried, 'Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.' 'Yea, rather,' was the perhaps unexpected reply, 'blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.' In this age of restless excitement it is well to notice that self-control occupied the second place among the notes of the kingdom of God.

iii. Paul reasoned of Judgment to come.-That is the highest thought of all, the thought of man's relation to God, the thought that every man will be held accountable for all his deeds. Professor Huxley abandons the principle of free will, and so also the idea of responsibility. Mr. Greg does not believe in immortality. He says that we cannot prove the doctrine of immortality. We cannot prove it as we can prove the conclusion of a geometerical theorem, but as Sir William Hamilton has said, 'the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are not given as a phenomena; ... yet if the phenomena actually given do necessarily require, for their rational explanation, the hypothesis of immortality and of God, we are assuredly entitled from the existence of the former to infer the reality of the latter.' But what would life be if there was no sense of accountability, no hope of immortality; if all men said, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?' We dare not think of the result. We say with Voltaire, 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.'

Amid all the varieties of religious belief it is possible for us to-day to build our lives with highreaching aspirations, but in calmness, and peace and joy, so that we shall realize the apostle's idea of righteousness and temperance, and the glad looking forward to the 'judgment to come.'

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Choosing a personal Subject.-In his fourth interview with Queen Mary, John Knox insisted on speaking plainly to her about her purposed marriage with the King of Spain. A few days before he had preached in St. Giles': 'Now, my lords, to put end to all, I hear of the queen's marriage. Dukes, brethren to emperors, and kings, strive all for the

best game; but this, my lords, will I say-note the day, and bear witness after--whensoever the nobility of Scotland professing the Lord Jesus, consent that an infidel—and all papists are infidels-shall be head to our sovereign, ye do so far as in ye lieth to banish Christ Jesus from this realm. Ye bring God's vengeance upon the country, a plague upon yourselves, and perchance ye shall do small comfort to your sovereign.'

In his private interview, when Queen Mary argued that he had nothing to do with her marriage, he replied, "God hath not sent me to wait upon the courts of princes, nor upon the chambers of ladies; but I am sent to preach the evangel of Jesus Christ to such as please to hear it. It hath two parts-Repentance and Faith. Now, madam, in preaching Repentance, of necessity it is that the sins of men be so noted, that they may know wherein they offend.'-Knox's History of the Reformation (Guthrie's ed., pp. 328 and 331).

Self-Control.-Charles Burleigh, the abolitionist, in the midst of an anti-slavery speech, was struck full in the face by a rotten egg. 'There's a proof,' he said, as he calmly wiped his face with his handkerchief-'a proof of what I have always maintained-that pro-slavery arguments are very unsound.' The crowd laughed heartily, and Burleigh was allowed to speak without further molestation.

Go thy Way.-The clergyman of the village, who had taken a fancy to Gottlieb Fichte, and often assisted in his instruction, happened one day to ask him how much he thought he could remember of the sermon of the preceding day. Fichte made the attempt, and, to the astonishment of the pastor, succeeded in giving a very tolerable account of the course of argument, as well as of the texts quoted in its illustration. The circumstance was mentioned to the Count von Hoffmansegg, the lord of the village, and one day another nobleman, the Baron von Mittiz, who was on a visit at the castle, happening to express his regret at having been too late for the sermon on the Sunday morning, he was told half in jest, that there was a boy in the village who could repeat it all from memory. Little Gottlieb was sent for. He answered the first questions put to him with his accustomed quiet simplicity; but when asked to repeat as much as he could recollect of the morning's sermon, his voice and manner became more animated, and, as he proceeded, he became so fervid and abundant in his eloquence, that the Count thought it necessary to interrupt him, lest the playful tone of the circle should be destroyed by the serious subjects of the sermon.-Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy, p. 568.

A more convenient Season. It is recorded of Archias, a chief magistrate in one of the Grecian States, that he was unpopular in his government, and excited the hatred of many of the people, who conspired against his life. The Archias day arrived when a fatal plot was to be executed. was more than half dissolved in wine and pleasure, when a courier from Athens arrived in great haste with a packet, which contained, as it afterwards appeared, a circumstantial account of the whole conspiracy. The messenger being admitted into the presence of the prince, said 'My lord, the person who writes you these letters conjures you to read them immediately; they contain serious affairs.' Archias replied,

laughing, 'Serious affairs to-morrow'; and so continued his revel. On the same night, in the midst of that noisy 'mirth, the end of which is heaviness,' the assailants rushed into the palace and murdered Archias, with his associates, leaving to the world a striking example of the evil of procrastination.-S. LOWELL.

ON an old sundial at Alfric, in Worcestershire, runs the motto, 'On this moment hangs eternity.'

TO-MORROW, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.-Macbeth, Act v. Sc. v. 19.

THERE is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Julius Cæsar, Act IV. Sc. iii. 218.

FOR REFERENCE.

Banks (L. A.), Paul and his Friends, 121.
Church (R. W.), Village Sermons, 231.
Cooper (S.), Fifty-two Family Sermons, 213.
Fraser (J.), University Sermons, 118.
Gibbon (J. M.), The Vision and the Call, 33.
Hobhouse (W.), Spiritual Standard, 130.
Kingsley (C.), Discipline and other Sermons, 140.
Little (W. J. K.), Manchester Sermons, 62.
Maclaren (A.), Acts of the Apostles, 262.
Maclaren (A.), A Year's Ministry, Ist series, 165.
Morrison (G. H.), The Footsteps of the Flock, 362.
Nicholson (M.), Redeeming the Time, 36.
Oosterzee (J. J. van), Year of Salvation, vol. ii.
Pattison (M.), Sermons, 215.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, vol. iv. 17.

Trench (R. C.), Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey,

22.

Vaughan (C. H.), The Church of the First Days, 534.

WHILE He sojourned in Jerusalem during the Passion-week, our Lord was compassed by a tempest of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, He was the hero of the multitude. Their enthusiasm had been raised to an unprecedented pitch by that transcendent miracle, the resurrection of Lazarus (Jn 129-11. 17); and, when they learned that Jesus was approaching, they went forth to meet Him, and escorted Him into the city with triumphant acclamation. He was, they were persuaded, the Messianic King of Israel, and it was fitting that He should receive a royal ovation when He entered His capital, as they fondly expected, to claim His crown and set up the fallen throne of His father David. On the other hand, the rulers, His inveterate and malignant adversaries, were hotly incensed against Him, and the popular enthusiasm fanned the flame of their fury. They would fain have seized Him incontinently and put Him out of the way, but they durst not. They knew the excitability of the multitude, and they foresaw that any assault upon the popular hero would provoke a wild and sanguinary tumult (Mk

I 118
Lk 1947-48; Mt 2142 Mk 1212= Lk 2019;
Mt 265 Mk 142 Lk 222).

=

=

Restrained from violence, they sought to compass their murderous purpose by craft. As He taught in the Temple court, they approached Him, and with feigned lips propounded to Him a succession of captious questions, in the hope of surprising Him into some unorthodox pronouncement which might serve as a pretext for arraigning Him before the Sanhedrin, or, at the least, of gaining a controversial advantage over Him and lowering Him in the popular esteem. But they were disappointed. He sustained each onset unshaken, and parried each thrust with consummate dexterity; and, when at length, recognizing their impotence, they fell back, crestfallen but the more exasperated, He exchanged defence for attack, and in His turn propounded a question to the Pharisees. The interpretation of the Scriptures was their peculiar province, and He met them and put them to shame on their own field and with their own weapons.

He adduced Ps 110. If it be read without prejudice, the psalm is easy of interpretation. It is

the work of some unknown psalmist, and it celebrates the invincible prowess of some king of Israel, the psalmist's 'lord,' who owed his triumph to the help of Jehovah. It is possible that the victorious king may have been David, but v.4 points rather to a much later period when the king was, 'after the manner of Melchizedek,' both king and priest.

ment.

less of probability and sometimes even of possibility. This psalm they entitled A Psalm of David, and they regarded it as Messianic. David, they conceived, wrote prophetically of his Lord, the Messianic King of Israel.

The Rabbis then made two assumptions regarding the psalm, one false: that David wrote it, and the other true, though not in their sense that it had a Messianic reference. They were right in regarding it as Messianic, but they erred in ignoring a principle which was enunciated by the Christian Fathers and recognized by Calvin, that master of the science of interpretation, and which may be summarily defined as the double reference of prophecy. The prophets were pre-eminently God's spokesmen (cf. Ex 416 71), charged with a message to their contemporaries—a message of encouragement or reproof in view of immediate and urgent circumstances; and hence it follows that, whatever ulterior significance it may have had, a prophecy always referred primarily to the present. Had it dealt exclusively with events, however glorious, which would emerge in the far distant future, it would have been no message for living men. It would have been a mere wonder, unavailing alike to those who believed and to those who doubted. What men need is always present guidance and relief; and it were sorry comfort, it were sheer mockery, to tell them of a deliverance which will arise centuries after they have passed from the scene of conflict. The prophet was God's messenger to his own generation, and, when he spoke, he had the immediate situation in view and had no thought beyond it; but this is the marvel, that he ever spoke more significantly than he

1 Cf. Chrysost. In Matt. 8: Ovтos #роpηтelas vóμos Tò πολλὰ πολλάκις λέγεσθαι μὲν ἐπ ̓ ἄλλων πληροῦσθαι δὲ ἐφ' ἑτέρων.

God' (2 P 120-21).

It is because this principle was hidden from them that the Rabbis erred in their interpretation of the 110th Psalm. Had they understood that, like every prophecy, it must needs have a double reference, they would have recognized that it applied in the first instance to an historical king of Israel, and, though they might have held that David was the king, they could by no possibility have supposed that he was the psalmist.

The Rabbinical interpretation was known to Jesus, and He employed it to put His boastful adversaries to shame. 'What think ye of the

Messiah?' He asked. 'Whose son is He?' It seemed an easy question to those theological experts, and, never suspecting that they were delivering themselves into His hands, they answered disdainfully, ‘David's.' 'How then,' He retorted, 'doth David by inspiration call Him "Lord," saying, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool"? If then David calleth Him "Lord," how is He his son?'

It is truly amazing that some have so utterly missed the point of our Lord's argument that they conceive Him as here putting His seal to the Rabbinical theory of the Davidic authorship of the psalm, and stigmatise the denial thereof as an impious rejection of His authority. It is a question, they allege, between believing Christ and believing the critics. Surely this is the extremity of ineptitude. It was the Pharisees that asserted the Davidic authorship of the psalm, and Jesus quoted their opinion, not because He approved it, but, on the contrary, in order that He might demonstrate its absurdity. The Rabbis of old were quicker-witted than certain Christians of to-day. They acknowledged the force of the