Divine Truth as this is revealed to us in the words of the sacred Scripture; wherefore we read there: "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." There are, however, two modes of knowing "the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." The knowledge of God leads to a faith in God; without knowledge there can be no faith in God. As knowledge is the indispensable step to faith, therefore also we read: “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." There are, however, two kinds of faith in God, and hence also two kinds of knowledge of God, and these two kinds of knowledge of God the Apostle James had in view when he said, "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." There is therefore a knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ which may even be possessed by the wicked, but this knowledge is not meant by the Lord where He says, "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." There is a mode of believing in God and of knowing Him in the light of the world; and this mode is described by the Lord in the parable where the truth from the Word of God is compared to a seed which fell by the wayside, on stony places, and among thorns: and there is a way of seeing the Lord's truth in the light of heaven; and the truth from the Word of God is seen in the light of heaven by him who in the parable is compared to good ground, where the seed brings forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirtyfold. That the knowledge of the Lord's truth may therefore actually bring "life eternal" to the soul of man, it must bring forth fruit in his mind: i.e., he must do what the Lord's truth commands him to do; and by obeying the Lord's truth, the world, which has such a great hold upon man's soul, is conquered, and thus overcome; and then man also, in the sight of the Lord, is sanctified: hence also we read, "Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy Word is truth." This, then, constitutes the second lesson which we must endeavour to learn in the school of life. The first lesson is that we must search the Scriptures, because in them we find eternal life, and because they testify of the Father, the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom He has sent; and the second lesson is that we must be sanctified by the truth, by the Lord's Word; for the Lord's Word is truth. The particular mode, however, in which man is sanctified by the truth is described in these words: "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, because they are wrought in God." It is therefore by doing the truth, by obeying the Lord's commandments, that man is sanctified by the truth." The second lesson in our school of life here is, therefore, to try to do the Lord's truth, or, in other words, to keep His commandments; and the commandments which the Lord taught us to keep, in order that we may inherit eternal life, He specified to the young man who asked Him, "Good Master, what shall I do, that I may inherit eternal life?" to which the Lord replied, “Thou knowest the commandments,-Do not commit adultery. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Defraud not. Honour thy father and mother." In proportion as any one learns this second lesson of the school of life he becomes sanctified by the truth; and as he is sanctified by the truth, he becomes conjoined with the Lord; and when he leaves this world, he is received into heaven, and for him the Lord's words are fulfilled: "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am." R. L. TAFEL. (To be continued.) NEW KNOWLEDGE OF HEAVEN, WHENCE CAN IT BE OBTAINED? HENCE can W we obtain any knowledge of spiritual things? The Lord Jesus Christ is the Master Teacher. We can become versed in all highest knowledges only as we learn of Him. From the lips of no other speaker can we hear words so perfectly simple or so unfathomably wise. All other words must, by His true disciples, be read in the light of His words. For His true disciples there can be no alternative. They can never hear their Lord's question to the twelve, "Will ye also go away?" without replying instantly with Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." What saith the Lord? must ever be the first question of every one of His followers. But no man can truly go to Him for spiritual instruction without ere long going elsewhere. We turn towards Him with our perplexities, wonderingly asking each other, What will the Master say? and He meets us with the question, "What saith the Scriptures?" He declares that He has come not to destroy these, but to fulfil them. Fulfilled, He affirms, they "must be." Whether He is repelling the attacks of devils or replying to the inquiries of men, He falls back upon what "is written." And when He appears to His bewildered disciples as their risen and glorified Lord, His first work is to open their understandings that they may "understand the Scriptures." Indeed, the Lord and His Word are inseparable. Living and life-giving faith in the one rises and falls with living and life-giving faith in the other. No man, no body of men, can really revere and trust the Lord and yet distrust and contemn the Scriptures. Both are ultimately felt to be essentially Divine, or both are ultimately felt to be merely human. They are inseparable; they are also alike. No other book is either so perfectly simple or so unfathomably wise. It is unapproached and unapproachable in its power either to amaze the angels or to amuse the babes. No book but this is perfectly human. No book but this is Divine. And every step gained in the true knowledge of Scripture is a step gained in the true knowledge of the Lord. But we cannot in any large sense go even to Holy Scripture, and go to it alone. Both the Word and the Lord send us to Man. "Like as a father," says the Divine Book. "A certain man had two sons," says the Divine Person. And the more we read of the one, and hear from the other, the more clearly are we led to perceive that all real knowledge must remain for ever out of the reach of every man who refuses to come home to himself, to hold intercourse with his own spirit, to acquaint himself with the needs, the powers, the possibilities of his own being. We cannot know man apart from Scripture. But neither can we know Scripture apart from man. And every step gained in the knowledge of the workings of the heart of man is a step gained in the living knowledge of the Scriptures of God. But even here we cannot stay. The Lord, the Scriptures, and the human soul, all point perpetually to (material) Nature. In the songs of psalmists, in the visions of prophets, and in the parables of the Lord, we are sent to the rock, the sand, and the soil; to pools, to rivers, and to springs; to the grass and the wheat, to the lily and the rose, to the olive and the vine; to the horse, the lion, and the lamb; to eagles and sparrows and doves; to clouds and rain and dew; to sun and stars and sky; to summer and winter, and to morning and night. In all these, and in countless other things of Nature, are we told by these Divine Authorities to look for lessons that we need to learn. And man himself appeals to Nature, in his measure, as constantly as do the Scriptures and the Lord. The more the hidden wonders of his heart and mind unfold themselves, the more does he find himself driven to appeal to Nature to teach him how to express the hopes and fears, the joys and woes, that struggle within him for the mastery. And the great poet who stands alone in his deep searchings of the spirit of man stands alone no less in the freedom and skill with which he uses the teachings of Nature. No man can be much with the Lord Jesus Christ without becoming intimate with Holy Scripture, with the subtler movements of the human soul, and with the manifold sights and sounds of this material world. And not possibly can this material world be understood by one who knows not man, who has "dominion over" all things that belong to it. Nor can man be understood by one who knows not Holy Scripture, which alone reveals man's origin and destiny. Nor can Holy Scripture be understood by one who knows not the Lord Jesus Christ, who is its Author, its Interpreter, and its only perfect Embodiment. These, then, are the sources of our knowledge of spiritual things. They are therefore the sources of our knowledge of heaven. This knowledge of heaven_must be taught by Nature; for if both the spiritual universe. and the material universe have but one Creator, must there not be unfaltering harmonies between them? It must be taught by Man; for if men and angels alike call God "Our Father," must they not be in brotherly relation to each other? And as to Holy Scripture, if it be in very deed "the Word of the Lord," must it not be! the very instrument by means of which "the heavens were made"? And, as a matter of fact, are not the Scriptures throughout bright with the smiles and musical with the messages of angels? In the Epistles we read of men on earth who have been made "a spectacle to angels" in heaven; of "an innumerable company of angels" into whose midst the members of the Lord's Church on earth have come; and of the "desire" of the angels to "look into" the things preached here amongst men. In the Acts of the Apostles we read of angelic visits. paid, of angelic services rendered to a Roman centurion; to Paul on a wrecking vessel; to "Apostles" shut up in a "common prison" for teaching and healing the people; and to Peter, bound in chains, and sleeping between two soldiers in a prison into which Herod had thrown him. As to the Old Testament, it is angel-haunted everywhere. Hagar in the wilderness is comforted by an angel. Jacob sees a ladder which joins heaven to earth, and which the angels use perpetually. Balaam beholds an angel who convicts him of his sin. Gideon learns from an angel's lips how the Lord has chosen him for the performance of a noble task. David saw, when he had sinned by numbering the people, that it was the hand of an angel that smote the people down. It was the hand of an angel, too, that smote so many thousands of the Assyrians whom Sennacherib had led against Israel. Elisha's servant found himself in the very midst of angelic presences as soon as ever his master's prayer led to the opening of his eyes. Elijah, weary, despondent, anxious for death, is bidden by an angel to partake of food which no earthly hand has made ready. Daniel rests in the midst of lions because he sees that their mouths are angel-held. The Psalmist sings (as if from actual experience of the fact) that "the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him." And in the Apocalypse an angel's touch is felt, or an angel's voice is heard, in almost every chapter. When we turn to the life and the teachings of our Lord, it is all the same. Mary first hears that He is to come into the world through her instrumentality from the lips of an angel. From the lips of an angel, also, the shepherds receive the intelligence of their Saviour's birth. In the wilderness the Lord Himself is "ministered unto" by angels as soon as "the devil leaveth Him." In the Garden, as He cries, " Not My will, but Thine be done," an angel "strengthens" Him. An angel rolls away the stone from His sepulchre; and angels chase away the tears of His disciples by telling them that "He is risen, as He said." The Lord's teachings, too, are full of angel-talk. After death angels carry the beggar into Abraham's bosom. Nathanael is told to anticipate the time when he will see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. In the great harvest-time, the coming of which He so emphatically predicts, the angels, He declares, will be the reapers. And when He comes in His glory, all the holy angels will, He promises, come with Him. It may be suggested that all this is about angels rather than heaven. But to know Englishmen is to know much of England; to know man is to know his dwellingplace; and to know angels is to know the heavens in which angels live. Or it may be suggested that we might with greater profit turn our attention to teachings of Scripture “more practical" than these. But it is surely not for us to parcel off in Scripture that which we think to be most practical from that which we think to be least so. All Scripture is "given by inspiration of God," and all is "profitable." But these sources of heavenly knowledge have been with us always; and can we hope, from sources with which the world has been so long familiar, to obtain knowledge altogether new? Can we hope to find in Scripture to-day much more than men like Augustine found there fifteen centuries or more ago? Are we greater than our fathers who gave us the theology we have found sufficient for our needs so long? Well, let us look for a moment at Nature. We eulogize the successes of those who have lived and died in the effort to win her well-kept secrets. But we do not straightway condemn all Nature-students who to-day strive to use the triumphs of their ancestors only as means by which to secure altogether greater triumphs for their descendants. Every one admits right willingly that as yet Nature's most ardent and eager suitor has but barely touched the hem of her garment. It is true that even through contact so remote as that, strange "virtue" has streamed into such suitor's frame. But this only stimulates his desire to approach more closely, and to come into more intimate relationships. Man Then as to Man, the majority of really thoughtful students are beginning to recognize, and to acknowledge that here even less has been accomplished. himself, not his vesture; man as the offspring and image of God has scarcely yet been even distantly or dimly We have not yet learned all that man has to seen. teach us of heaven; nay, we have scarcely as yet learned anything. As to Holy Scripture, why should it be, if Divine, less "wonderful," less inexhaustible, than nature or than man? We must begin to believe that there must be more, infinitely more, of true knowledge in Scripture than we have ever yet obtained from it, or else cease at once to believe that Scripture is in any real sense Divine. Give me a Divinely-written book and you give me what I know must be--as to its every paragraph, as to its every sentence, as to its every syllableinfinitely full of that wisdom by means of which Divine Love fashions the angels and builds the heavens. As to the Lord Himself, instead of resting content with what they know of Him, men are just beginning to ask with an earnestness new to human history, "What think ye, what shall we think of Christ?" That is the question. The answer to that involves the answer to all other questions. What think ye of Scripture? What think ye of Man? What think ye of Nature? What think ye of the Spiritual World? What think ye of your own position in that world? The answers to all these questions wait upon the answer to that earlier, deeper question, What think ye of Christ? And men are beginning to "think" about this Christ in earnest at last. And the more deeply they think about Him, the more readily will they unite with those who call Him "Wonderful," even though they cannot yet unite with them in also calling Him "Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." C. H. WILKINS. STRENGTH. T is only those who live in holy love that can acquire strength. All power has its origin in the union of truth with goodness. Love is the motive force by which truth operates, and from which its power is derived. Allow the affections to flag, and the thoughts will soon lose their vitality. All real power comes from heavencomes down from God. "A man can receive nothing," says the Saviour, "except it be given him from heaven" (John iii. 27). The blind man who had his sight restored to him by the Lord acknowledged this great truth, for he testified of Jesus to the Pharisees, saying, "If this man were not of God, he could do nothing" (John ix. 33). And when the Lord was brought before Pilate's tribunal, and the question was put to Him, "Knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to release Thee?" we are told that Jesus answered: "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John xix. 10, 11). which is the most lasting,-which produces the grandest results, which is able to hold its own against all opposing forces. The song of the bird may operate more effectively upon the heart than the grandest music ever poured forth from the king of instruments; one gentle word of love may produce far greater wonders in the soul-yes, and in the world itself-than ten thousand explosions of dynamite; kindness will touch the inmost fibres of the spirit and fill it with gladness and delight, whilst cruelty and revenge will deaden its vitality, and possibly crush out from it every spark of true nobility. Just let us consider, too, whether the power of the Almighty is not displayed as much in the creation of an insect's wing, with all its beautiful tissues and delicate tints of colour, as in the flashing of the lightning or the rolling of the thunder. The fact that we predicate power of that which operates most violently upon our senses proves to us how much immersed we are as yet in natural things. We regard the effect rather than the cause; we keep on the outside of things instead of penetrating within and ascertaining their real quality; we forget that the secret workings of spirit are more potent than any of the operations of matter. Our natures are so bound up and trammelled with the things of time and sense that we find it difficult to make our thoughts travel beyond them. We are apt to form very mistaken ideas of power if we do not keep our minds elevated above worldly things. We get into the way of attributing the greatest power to that which affects our senses most perceptibly. Thus we listen to the deep, rolling music of the organ, and say, "What a powerful instrument!" A great explosion of gunpowder or dynamite takes place, and we speak of these compounds as "very powerful agents." A monarch goes to war, lays waste hundreds and thousands of acres of fertile land, slaughters men, women, and children, and burns down their habitations; we speak of him as powerful monarch,"-"a great king." And yet, if we calmly philosophize upon the subject, we shall find that there is as much power in the chirrup of the sparrow as in the rolling of the organ; in a movement of the tongue as in an explosion of dynamite; in the philanthropy of a Howard as in the greed of an Alexander the Great. 66 2 That is really the most powerful agent the effect of But when we begin to understand things spiritually, and to think calmly and wisely about them, we shall be compelled to acknowledge that wherever justice, honesty, purity, and love enter as essential elements into any effect, that effect is more lasting, more durable, than when the opposites of those virtues are to be found in it. Every effect in the natural world contains within it, as a primary cause, something of affection or love, proceeding from a heavenly or else an infernal origin. The Divine Love operating by the Divine Wisdom is the cause of everything beautiful and good; whereas everything horrible, distorted, and evil is the result of infernal love perverting the Divine work, and endeavouring to nullify it. All accidents, failures, and mistakes; all wars and insurrections; all tyranny, slavery, and disorder, have their primary origin in evil loves which sap the foundations of everything truly human, and thus pervert the understanding and render it almost useless. The very instability of these latter effects demonstrates their utter powerlessness; whilst the fact that order, beauty, and freedom succeed in keeping the upper hand and asserting their superiority proves, beyond doubt, their stability and their power. All real power, we are convinced, springs from goodness, from holy, heavenly love; and everything which opposes it will in the end have to give way before it. Wickedness has really no power whatsoever; goodness will completely triumph over it, and become stronger and more durable throughout eternity. "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, says the Apostle (Eph. vi. 10). This was the strength which Moses recognized in his charge to the Israelites, when he said: "Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land" (Deut. xi. 8). Those who keep the Lord's commandments will acquire true strength, for all the faculties of their souls will receive their true development, and "nothing will by any means hurt them" (Luke x. 19). "Five shall chase an hundred, and an hundred shall put ten thousand to flight; and their enemies shall fall before them" (Lev. xxvi. 8). Only to them that "wait upon the Lord" is the promise made that "they shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint" (Isa. xl. 31). LAURENCE ALLBUTT. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas!" CHAPTER I. N its ordinary acceptation, the term "figurative," when applied to written or spoken language, denotes certain picturesque or poetical ways of expressing ideas, as when the Psalmist says that "they who sow in tears shall reap in joy;" the novelist, "the old love that won and warmed his heart in the long-ago was in her eyes;" or the author of Comus : "He that hath light within his own clear breast, Figurative language, taking the term in its popular sense, covers also a very considerable variety of elliptical and indirect modes of expression, often by no means pictur; esque, but resorted to for the sake of brevity, mild rebuke, satire, the exciting of pity or admiration, desire not to give offence, concealment of one's meaning from the dull and unintelligent, and many other reasons, as many, perhaps, as there are motives for speaking. Literature in all its forms, the conversation of the cultivated, sermons, speeches, even the quarrels of the brutish, and the slang of the vulgar and criminal, alike supply examples of such modes of expression. Rhetoric long since distinguished the different kinds of figure, and gave them names,-metaphor, metonymy, irony, hyperbole, personification, and so forth, as illustrated in books; the minutely analytical subdividing these into a hundred or more. The variety and the universality of figures of speech declare them an integral part of the very life of language. The clear understanding of figures contributes immensely to our intellectual happiness: mistaken apprehension of figures has caused unspeakable trouble and bitterness, not to say persecutions, cruelty, and the shedding of innocent blood: the study of their origin, fabric, and purpose forms an important portion of genuine culture, and is indispensable to sound criticism. In the present volume it is proposed to go a little further than the rhetoricians have gone: to show that the bulk of all language is figurative essentially, and that although we may appear to ourselves to use the simplest words and phrases, and even deliberately strive to avoid figure, yet, like M. Jourdain in Molière, who had "spoken prose all his life without knowing it," "Our mouths we cannot ope, But out there falls a trope!" Reflect but for a moment on the multitude of common words which possess several distinct meanings, the word to see, for example. This we apply both to the observation of material objects by the bodily eye, and to the comprehension of things which address themselves exclusively to the understanding, such as the meaning of a person's remarks, the force of an argument, or the tendency of particular events. Thus: "I see your drift," "I see how it will end." In these two expressions the word is employed in a purely figurative sense. original or primitive signification, or that which relates to corporeal eyesight, to express which optical power the word was primarily contrived, is the literal one; and as every meaning cannot be the primary one, it is plain that all the other meanings must of necessity be figurative. So with the beautiful promise, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This does not refer so The much to future vision as to discerning the hand of the Almighty now, to-day, in this present world, in everything the pure in heart shall have clear ideas of God's love and government. The literal sense is known to be the original one, because the physical sense of a word is invariably the eldest. Thoughts and feelings and mental processes are named without exception from material things, or from other external circumstances, as will presently be shown. There is no other way in which it can be done. Such words as see are thus both physical and metaphysical, corporeal and spiritual, possessed of two natures, but only one person. Every one of them forms a beautiful emblem of man himself, who is a word of the Creator. Etymology and the philosophy of language in general, -things which can never be dissociated if we would achieve true and useful ends, certify to us that not only are vast numbers of words used, like the above, in two distinct senses, one literal, the other figurative, but that very many words have actually lost their primary meaning, and retained only the metaphorical or extended one. Such, for instance, is the word calculation. This word now denotes an arithmetical process, no matter how performed; we also speak of our calculations as to future events. These are purely figurative uses. The physical sense, that which the word was originally intended to convey, referred to the mechanical contrivance used for counting by the Romans, of which pebbles or calculi formed the chief part. "Ambition" is derived from ambo ire, and in its primary sense meant a going about; thence it came to mean a going about to solicit votes, and thence a desire of honour and preferment, such as resulted from procuring the votes. The old meaning is retained, however, in the word " ambient," as when the poets speak of "the ambient air." Stylus, again, was the name of the instrument with which the ancients wrote upon their waxen tablets: "Sæpe stylum vertas, iterum quæ digna legi sunt "He who desires that his works should be read more than once with pleasure must often turn the stylus,” i.c., must often efface what he has written, using for that purpose the flattened upper extremity of the stylus, and write anew. Shortened into "style," the word is now used to denote the character of literary composition, and thence has come to signify what is elaborate in other things. We live "in good style;" a performance is gone through "in good style." A "fanatic," or religious enthusiast, is literally "one who frequents temples," the temples understood being those of the heathen deities, so that again it is figuratively that the term is applied to Chris. tian churches. "The cottage homes of England, By thousands on her plains, They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks, And round the hamlet fanes." "In The "profane" among men were originally no more than the "outsiders," the laity as opposed to the priests, or, as we should now say, to the clergy; and "profane books" were simply those which were not written or preserved within the sacred precincts of the fanes. terval" belonged originally to the language of the Roman camp, designating the space between the stakes or palisades which strengthened the rampart, the inter vallos spatium. Figuratively it came to denote intervening portions of time as well as of space, and now it is so exclusively applied to time that to speak of an interval between two places would convey no idea. In the writings of Lord Bacon many such words are employed in their original or physical sense. To "edify," with that great author, is to "build," and to "incense is to set on fire. Such instances are not confined to words derived from the classical tongues. The Anglo-Saxon word faran signified primarily nothing more than to go or proceed as a traveller does, the sense preserved by Milton: "So on he fares, and to the border comes Of Eden." Excepting in a few compounds, such as thoroughfare, farewell-which means "safe journey to you!" welfarewhich means pleasant progress, warfare, seafaring, fieldfare, this term is now employed only in the figurative senses which have superseded the original, viz., as the name for what we pay at the booking-office for permission to go, and for the food which we receive while upon our journey. When about to start, we ask, "How much is the fare?" and at dinner-time we inquire for the "bill of fare." Still further extended, fare has become the figurative name for food in general: "There was a certain rich man who fared sumptuously every day." Practically, figurative language is thus of two separate though blending kinds. In the one, the rhetoricians' figurative language, the metaphors are, if not designedly, at all events consciously, made use of; in the other they are employed without suspicion of their actual nature. "What," says Carlyle, "is all language but metaphors recognized as such, or no longer recognized? still fluid and florid, or now solid grown and colourless? Nonmetaphorical style you shall in vain search for; is not your very attention a 'stretching-to?"" That the metaphorical nature of colloquial speech should be unrecognized by the generality of people is of course perfectly natural. The non-recognition comes partly of the words being derived from ancient and unfamiliar languages, partly of long habit, with the taint, perhaps, of incuriousness and indifference. Figures of speech, in short, are not simply beautiful and ingenious but still arbitrary and fanciful devices of the rhetorician and the poet, as some consider them, but the spontaneous utterance of the universal human mind, and are inevitable to it. "The entire language of mankind has been fashioned by that ancient and public spirit of poetry which pre-eminently dignifies our human nature and stamps it with the impress of Divine workmanship." Figurative expression, as we shall see presently, is not only co-extensive but contemporaneous with the simple and original fact of language: the origin of the one is the same as the origin of the other. The figures which constitute the first class, the rhetorical ones, or those designedly made use of, may for convenience' sake be distinguished as "artificial;" the latter may be called natural or colloquial. There is no absolute difference between them: there is no point at which the one kind ends and the other begins; thousands of expressions might be referred with propriety to either. Expressions, moreover, which would be considered rhetorical or the property of the poets to-day, often become colloquial to-morrow. Employed first by some one possessing a quicker aptitude than is common for perceiving analogies, the bases of all figurative expression, after a while the rhetorical rank becomes lost, and they float into the ordinary diction of the multitude. It is with the "flowers of speech" precisely as with the flowers of nature which for the sake of their loveliness are brought home by travellers. Admired at first as beautiful exotics in ducal saloons, after a while they deck the windows of the cottager. Thanks be to God that the lily, the fuchsia, everything that is peerless, will bloom, if it be loved, as well for the poor man as the rich one. T A Sermon, preached at Argyle Square Church, London, HE picture presented by these words and their context is one of peculiar beauty and significance. They direct attention to a state of unbroken peace, in which all the powers which now occasion discord are brought to tranquility and order. The wolf is seen dwelling with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid; and the calf, the young lion, and the fatling are described as resting harmoniously side by side. And, as the centre and focus of this scene of calm and safety, we behold "a little child," the gentlest and weakest of God's creatures; not flying in terror from the mighty beasts around him, nor enjoying security at the cost of their restraint, but living in their midst, as their recognized and willingly-honoured ruler: "a little child shall lead them." A lovelier image of unruffled, blissful peace, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find. I purpose to see what spiritual instruction applicable to ourselves the text may furnish; whether it contains any suggestion of hope or help or consolation, any precept or counsel, available for the varying trials and dangers, infirmities and temptations, of our common lives. And I believe that, in this respect, the words just read are full of interest and value. To perceive this instruction we must of course see, in the context, some meaning deeper than that apparent on the surface. For whether true or not that cruel wild beasts will at length lose their fierceness, such an interpretation could furnish no practical help in our spiritual necessities and dangers. But if the animals enumerated bear a relation to ourselves, if they resemble and represent principles, affections, or passions living in our own minds and hearts, we may expect to discover some very important lessons. And that such an analogy actually exists may be readily perceived. Nothing in ordinary speech is more common or expressive, than to describe men and women by the names of animals with whose dispositions they show an affinity. Thus history commemorates a lionhearted king; mothers call their innocent babes their little lambs; thieves are known as kites or vultures; the sensual and gluttonous are swine; the rude and ungracious are bears. And the similitude thus recognized in every-day talk is abundantly sanctioned in Scripture. Jesus styled Herod a fox (Luke xiii. 32), and the perverse and hypocritical Jews a "generation of vipers" (Matt. xxiii. 33). He sent forth His apostles as "sheep in the midst of wolves," and charged them therefore to be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matt. x. 16). He likened His own tender pity for Jerusalem to the brooding of a hen over her chickens (Matt. xxiii. 37); and He was Himself called "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (John i. 29). Now the reason for this peculiarity in speech and in the diction of the Bible is the fact that the human mind includes the characteristics of every animal mind. Were |