of the sea," but must needs be crowded out, and the scene of His excellent glory be located beyond the very border?

The fulfilled prophecies which proved Jesus to be the promised Messiah must need have their deepest rooting in His relation to, and manifest oneness with, the Jew. He was born in Judah and put to death in Jerusalem. "For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah." Heb. vii: 14. But a rational understanding of the Scriptures ought to expect to find, and should prayerfully seek for, some explanation for the fact that during Jesus earthly stay Galilee was the emphasized sphere of His ministry. Here He was brought up, here He labored as a "carpenter," here He dwelt after He was fully manifest, preaching and working miracles, till the due time for Him to be taken up. Is not the mystery in a measure solved when we consider that Christ's incarnation, and also His reappearance the second time,. were to both occur while the Jewish nation were in subjection to a foreign yoke? Christ was born and lived and suffered under the fourth kingdom depicted in Daniel. This kingdom was to continue its sway till Christ should come the second time, and the stone should smite the feet and toes of the image. The simple story of His stay in the Holy Land, told by the evangelists, is in harmony with this inspired forecast. Isaiah was one of the prophets who clearly foresaw the coming salvation, beheld a beautiful balancing of opposites, and could understand how strangely disaster and victory could be mingled in Jehovah's planning and overcoming, "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched dilligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ. and the glory that should follow." I Pet. i: 10, II.

The visions vouchsafed to Isaiah reached into the reign of Hezekiah, King of Judah. He lived when at the time of Sennacherib's invasion the good king prayed, and one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the enemy were slain in one night.

"For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!"

He lived when Shalmaneser came into northern Palestine, besieged Samaria and bore away captive the ten tribes. He saw a surprising contrast meet and coalesce in the borders of "Zabulon and Nephthalim." Here, where invading armies from the east, types and representatives of later ones from every point of the compass, gained their natural entrance into the land; here, by the way of the sea," through whose narrow gate south of the mountains and north of the desert, the captive tribes had been borne to Assyria, and would one day be borne to Babylon; here, where the touch of the foreign yoke was first to be keenly felt, would emerge a revolutionizing force would arise and spread and abide, a surprising glory; the incarnation would herald it; Messiah's second coming would crown it, "Watchman, what of the night?" "Would you know? "Aye, indeed, I would." "Watch then for a dread, ever-deepening gloom, and then the glad daybreak."

CHAPTER III.

Prayer.

THOU to whom the fates of future days

Are all laid bare; Hear thou my humble prayer
And grant in love thy servant, too, may share
The vision ever present to thy gaze.

He would possess the spirit that obeys,

That looks, when bid, on what has been revealed,
On what to unbelief has been concealed,

But to a simple faith bursts forth a blaze.

O Holy Spirit! use Thy sovereign word

And move therewith this heart, and fix my faith,
As when the tops of mulberry trees were stirred
In David's time; as when the plain "HE SAITH."
Made David see the armies of the air,

And know the battle turns, for God is there.

"BEHOLD, HE COMETH."

66

It could never be described. He came in glory as He said He would. Γέγοναν. "It has come to be." But the event can not be weighed, nor measured, nor counted. The Prince of Life, with His holy myriads, is here. Words can not compass the wondrous happening. The mind can not think it all the way through. Ecstasy must rest and recommence. Make room, make room for the King! Zion's King, my King. Rejoice, O my soul! This God is my God; lo, I have waited for Him.

'Can this be He who wont to stray

A pilgrim on the world's highway

By power oppressed and mocked by pride?
O God! is this the Crucified?"

Poor sinners saved by "so great salvation" may well exult, but their exaltation and transformation are almost forgotten in the conscious joy of such a Savior nigh. "Let the whole earth rejoice." "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." "Praise the Lord, O my soul."

"Fairer is he than all the fair

That fill the heavenly train."

As the stars are lost sight of in the smile of the morning, 'so the angels are, we will not say absent, we will not say unseen, but borrow their attractiveness by being seen in the presence of the "One altogether lovely." We can understand now the prophecy which boldly affirmed, “every eye shall see Him," yes, indeed, shall see HIM.

Do we look elsewhere, we turn back again to see the King. From His face the heaven and the earth flee away. Words fail; poor human speech breaks down in its endeavor adequately to convey the quality and fulness of what His person and immediate presence inspire. The babe can not yet return the mother's lullaby, but it can feel the folding arms, and can drop into perfect rest and wait for words of reply to the love woven song. How imperative that precious saying-" Ye are complete in HIM." Tongue and pen would fain reembody what has occurred and fix it all, and each least fact, in the lead and in the rock forever, but as the hand closes upon what it would grasp, the whole ocean has escaped. It outreaches thought, and yet nestles close to the heart. After waiting six thousand years of busiest intelligent, practical preparing, all at once Heaven's fullness floods the earth. Glory runs over the sod; music pulses on the air; countless armies crowd the sky. We are come unto an innumerable company of angels. Now is brought to pass that saying of His, "For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels.”

If such the escort what shall we say of Him whom seraphs herald? If their lustrous forms flung radiance round His cradle, then is not this sevenfold morning needed as a fitting mantle to heighten the honor, while it both softens and brightens the gleam of His crowning?

The glory accruing to God, as now signally seen in this wind-up of the world's affairs, pours back its radiance over all the way in which the saved have been mercifully guided. In the temple service of the early time, the children of Israel sang of the wise and loving might

which

led them forth by a right way;" on this evergreen shore, past the river of death, the redeemed of the Lord from all lands may well go back to the very beginning, and sing, out of happy hearts, all the steps of their strange recovery; setting up along the stages of their songful review fresh memorials to the God of truth, as the fulfillments of His promises crowd into the millennial epoch, and the consummation glorifies His name and puts untold emphasis into His word. Every glance of the eye and every sound that salutes the ear is a reminder of how "faithful is He that promised," and yet observation prompts no richer revenues of praise than do the moods and moments of reflection. The memory and the musing that quarry up the past put new inspiration into the present. The realization of more than the most ardent hope could possibly anticipate, puts value into the patience of hope and uncurtains a quality in God's long suffering.

All the pre-intimations in the ages round and ripen in this "Harvest Home." Down the years prophet succeeded prophet, until, at last, the Great Prophet sums all their sayings in Himself. For centuries, priests appeared before the mercy seat with blood in behalf of the covenant people; now the Great High Priest brings nigh an exceeding great number washed in His blood and robed in His righteousness. Rulers and nations, kings and empires, flitted like shadows across the earth till in time's fullness the King of Kings takes the throne of David. We ought to have understood the Scriptures better, but we can surely understand them now. Dear old Bible! how its priceless teachings stored in the memory and held fast by the heart toss their ecstasies like breaking billows across the glad spirit, making bliss more blissful. "Howbeit when He, the spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear that shall He speak and He will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore, said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you." Since the Pentecost of the primitive church the outpoured Spirit on the sacrifice offered has made known a crucified Messiah, but now once again the same Spirit outpoured, even more copiously than ever before, floods the Kingship of the lowly Nazarene.