VI. THAT THE TEMPTER OF OUR RACE IS COMPELLED TO DO HOMAGE TO THE VIRTUE HE HAS ASSAILED. The old prophet of Bethel having heard of the sad fate that had befallen the man he had tempted-struck, perhaps, with contrition-had his ass "saddled" and hastened to the spot. He finds "the carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase; the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass." He placed the dead body on the ass, brought it back to Bethel, laid it in his grave, wept over it, exclaiming, "Alas, my brother!" And then commanded his sons, saying, "When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones." Such is the homage which the tempter pays to the virtue of his victim.

Such homage vice must ever pay to virtue. There is not a being in the universe, even the prince of tempters, that is not bound by the laws of conscience to respect the virtue he seeks to destroy. Ye young men and women, whose hearts throb in warm sympathy with "the true, the beautiful, and the good," and whose aim it is to embody in your life the high moral aspirations of your soul; let me assure you that those who may endeavor from time to time to shame you out of your virtue by ridicule, or to win you from it by blandishments, have an inward reverence for all the good they discover in your character. It must be so. Universal conscience approves the right. Every groan in hell is an impressive tribute to virtue. The tempter

"Wails those whom he strikes down."

My young friends, I have endeavored to use this strange fragment of old Hebrew history in order to unmask the tempter, and show you his devious ways, and thus put you on your guard. Remember, however exalted the mission to which you are called, and high the virtues that distinguish your character, you are still within the sphere of the tempter. Remember, that the tempter comes not to you in any mon

strous or supernatural form, but comes in your own. nature, thinks with the brain, feels with the heart, and talks with the tongue of a man. Remember, that the men amongst whom the tempters are to be found in their most potent influence, are not the most manifestly and hideously depraved and wicked, but the most distinguished in virtuous avowals and religious professions. There are demon-daggers in sanctimonious smiles. Remember, that the tempter, after he has won you to his wish, and brought the fire of remorse into your conscience, instead of breathing to you a word of comfort, will taunt and torment you. Remember, that yielding even to one suggestion of the tempter is sin; and that even one sin must be punished either here or in the great hereafter. Remember, that those who seek to rob you of your virtues by the sneers of malice, or by the promises of love, will, if they are not made virtuous here, find an everlasting hell in rendering the homage of their nature to that virtue of which they have robbed you, but which they have not, and to which then they can never attain.

Trust in Him who is the great conqueror of Satan and the Captain of human salvation. Quit you like men. "Put on

the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." Unbounded trust and vital faith in Christ are our defence and our victory. I know of nothing else on which to depend.

"If this fail,

The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."

MILTON,

G

Vol. IX.

The Genius of the Gospel.

ABLE expositions of the Gospel, describing the manners, customs, and localities alluded to by the inspired writers; also interpreting their words, and harmonizing their formal discrepancies, are, happily, not wanting amongst us. But the eduction of its WIDEST truths and highest suggestions is still a felt desideratum. To some attempt at the work we devote these pages. We gratefully avail ourselves of all exegetical helps within our reach; but to occupy our limited space with any lengthened archæological, geographic, or philological remarks, would be to miss our aim ;which is not to make bare the mechanical process of scriptural study, but to reveal its spiritual results.

SECTION FIFTY-SEVENTH :-Matt. xvii. 1-8.

"And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only."

SUBJECT:-Transfiguration; the Visions and Voices of
Christianity.

REDEEMED men from heaven, and redeemed men on earth, here meet, on one of Palestine's mountains, the glorious Redeemer of both. Whether Tabor, so eloquently described

by Stanley,* or the southern slope of Hermon, hard by Cæserea Philippi, was the scene of this wonderful meeting, I am neither competent nor anxious to decide. We would not have the haze of mystery, which conceals the exact locality of this mountain, blown away by the breeze of certitude; this would only add a new impulse to the superstitious tendencies of humanity.

The apparent discrepancy between the account, as to time, which Luke gives of this wonderful meeting, and that presented by Matthew and Mark, is easily disposed of. Luke includes in his "eight days" both the day from which the event is dated-namely, the prediction in the last verse of the preceding chapter-and the day of the ascent into the mountain. The other Evangelists do not include these two days in their calculation, and hence the difference.

Very diversified are the views which have been propounded in relation to the scene. Some regard it as a record of sensuous illusions;-the visions were optical deceptions, and the voices too were only fancies of the ear. The imagination, highly excited by the strange circumstances of the hour, exerted an unnatural influence upon the hearing ear and the seeing eye. Some regard it as a record of mental visions; the whole had no objective or outward existence—the scenes and sounds were perceptions of the mind. The whole was a dream. This supposition, if the vision is regarded as a Divine

*"This strange and beautiful mountain is distinguished alike in form and in character from all around it. As seen, where it is usually first seen by the traveller, from the northwest of the plain, it towers like a dome; as seen from the east, like a long-arched mound, over the monotonous undulations of the surrounding hills, from which it stands completely isolated, except by a narrow neck of rising ground, uniting it to the mountain-range of Galilee. It is not what Europeans would call a wooded hill, because its trees stand all apart from each other. But it is so thickly studded with them, as to rise from the plain like a mass of verdure. Its sides much resemble the scattered glades in the outskirts of the New Forest. Its summit, a broken oblong, is an alternation of shade and greensward, that seems made for national festivity; broad and varied, and commanding wide views of the plain from end to end."

production, does not destroy the reality of the scene. No vision is so real to man as a mental one. But the fact that all the disciples had the same vision is fatal to the hypothesis. Some regard it as a mythical fabrication; it is to be classed not with the verities of history, but with the fables of a fabulous age. It is fiction not fact. The historical air of the whole record, repudiates such an unfounded notion. Others regard it as the record of a historical fact. In this view all the most competent and acknowledged critics agree. But though a fact, it is in a sense an allegory. God's allegories are not like the allegories of men; they are founded upon actual occurrences, not upon mental inventions.

We shall take the narrative to illustrate some of the chief VISIONS and VOICES with which Christianity favors its genuine disciples.

I. THE VISIONS. There are three visions here: Christ; The departed good; and The manifestation of God.

First: Here is a vision of Christ. He was transfigured before them. "The verb μeτeμoppwon," here rendered “ was transfigured," says Bengel, "implies that our Lord always possessed the glory within Himself." "His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them."

-"His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." Up to this point in His history the glory of His Divinity seemed to be enshrouded by His suffering humanity. For the most part He had been hitherto seen as the "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; "—but now, Divinity burst forth in overwhelming effulgence.

This glorious manifestation, would serve to impress the disciples with the unmistakable divinity of His nature; with the illustrious majesty with which He will appear for ever in the celestial world in the midst of the Universal Church; and with the idea of the change which would be wrought in themselves on the resurrection morning, when their "vile bodies would be fashioned and made like unto His own glorious body."