ence felt towards that divine Being, who had taken our nature, had prevented men from expressing His person by any ordinary representation. As He was never spoken of save with holy awe-as His sacraments were never celebrated except in privacy, so neither was the appearance of His outward form displayed in such manner as should lead to familiarity. Rutilius could observe, therefore, that there was no picture of our Lord to be seen in the whole enclosure, but that the often-repeated figure of a shepherd, now watching his flock, now bringing a lamb home upon his shoulders, or sometimes bearing a cross, indicated the presence of Him who was never absent from the thoughts of Christians. On the same principle, when our Lord was set forth as the first begotten from the dead-the natural emblem on a Christian tomb-it was by the figure of Jonah, the prophetic emblem of His resurrection.

Rutilius's further inquiries were terminated by the entrance of Zambda, who had heard of his arrival, and wished to give him a letter with which he had been entrusted by Marcellus. "That good man," he said, "had been obliged to return to Egypt a few days before; but he had expressed an anxious desire to see his nephew, more especially since he had heard of the change which had taken place in his religious opinions." This was fully borne out by the letter, which expressed his uncle's urgent request that he would follow him to Egypt, accompanied by an intimation that he had an important statement to

make, which he should wish to communicate by word of mouth. Rutilius heard likewise from Zambda some particulars respecting the soldiers who had been admitted into the Christian community, while the detachment which Marcellus commanded had remained in Palestine; and it was not very difficult to persuade him to rejoin his former comrades, whom he was assured that he should find assembled at Alexandria. The same guide who had attended him in Jerusalem offered to accompany him in his first day's journey.

CHAPTER XIV.

Prophecies respecting the Jews. Their Nation to be really looked for among the Converts to Christianity.

He shall redeem them one by one,
Where'er the world-encircling sun
Shall see them meekly kneel:
All that He asks on Israel's part,
Is only that the captive heart
Its woe and burden feel.

Christian Year.

On the following day Rutilius rode forth again from the gates of Jerusalem, taking the road which led to Bethlehem. "Is Zambda," he said to his guide, "of the ancient stock of this country, or is this distinction still kept up among your brethren ?"

"Since the days of Adrian," replied his companion, "Palestine has been a forbidden soil to its former owners. No Jew could settle here, except he had renounced the distinctive peculiarities of his race; and those Christians who still retained them remained at Pella, where they fled from the arms of Titus. But since that time the distinction of the Jews as a nation has been understood to be ended. Their union was not national, but religious; and their connexion with all other members of the body of Christ has superseded any exclusive pre-eminence. which they had as children of Abraham."

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"But do not early prophets foretell the restoration of Israel," said Rutilius; and does not your Apostle St. Paul say, that the whole nation will one day become Christian ?"

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"Yes, he does," said the other; "but he no where says, that when converted it will retain its national distinction. On the contrary, he says that the birthright of the Israelites, as heirs of Abraham, passed to that portion of the nation which, in his own days, joined the Church of Christ. I, for instance, am myself descended by the female line from such a Jewish family. Now it is clear that the Prophets speak of Israel as though it were the chief and first of nations, and as though it inherited some peculiar privilege, which no other people in the world enjoyed. If this was designed to belong to that portion of the Israelites which still held together as a nation, then my family, and all which, like mine, have melted into the body of the Church, has lost its part of that pre-eminence which is promised by the ancient Prophets. For the vast mass of Jewish converts is no longer to be distinguished from Christians of other origin. This notion, then, would make that portion of the Jewish nation which St. Paul asserts to have exclusively inherited the promises of Abraham, to have been the only one which lost it. The error is very injurious; for the opinion that the prophecies will still be fulfilled to their nation as a separate body, and that by holding together they will share in the promised grandeur of their

people, is what, more than aught besides, retains the Jews in their impenitence."

"What is the meaning, then, of those predictions," asked Rutilius," which speak of the prosperity of Israel?"

"St. Paul has given us the interpretation of them," said his companion, "when he tells us that Jerusalem means the Church of God. And since the Jewish system has been overthrown by their exile from this land, in which only they could properly maintain it, his interpretation has been understood not only to be the true, but to be the only true meaning of that glorious name. It is but of late that our people have begun to bestow the name of Jerusalem at all upon this place, which, as you know, is commonly called Ælia. If the Jewish people had accepted our Lord's teaching, this city might perhaps have borne a different part in the new dispensation; the Jews might have been taught that their law had passed away in some manner less awful than by the destruction of their city and temple. Yet I have heard one learned man observe that there was a sort of providential order in the ruin which befel this city; for had it lasted, the natural honour paid to our Lord's earthly home might have produced for it a superstitious veneration. At present the metropolis of the Christian world is felt to be above, and no one city pretends to bear sway over her sister Churches."

While his companion spoke, they were looking