prompted the request. The Lord does not disclaim power to give these seats, but simply declares that in the awards of His kingdom He will still act in subjection to, and in fellowship with, the Father, who in His perfect foreknowledge has prepared each place for its occupant.*

This action on the part of the two stirred the indignation of the ten, but their anger only sprang from the same source as the request of the former, and equally needed correction. They appear to have given vent to their feelings at some distance from the Lord, and therefore He called them to Him that He might instruct them as to the difference between the principles of His kingdom and those that govern the nations of the world. In earthly kingdoms greatness is supposed to be displayed in the exercise of dominion and authority; in His kingdom it shows itself in lowly service: "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant; and whosoever will be chief [or first] among you, let him be your slave." In the kingdom of God greatness is shown in lowliness; he is the highest who is most ready to serve. Not only by precept does the Lord inculcate this humble spirit; He is Himself the great exemplar of it. He who must be for ever pre-eminent in the eternal kingdom stooped to a greater depth of humiliation than can possibly be measured by any one who shall, through grace, find a place therein. But it was to render a service that none but He could have rendered.

How grand in their very simplicity are the words, "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many!" He "came" from the bosom of the Father, and from the

* The correct rendering appears to be, "To sit on My right hand and on My left, is not Mine to give, except (to them) for whom it is prepared of my Father."

uncreated glory of the Most High, where He had indeed been ministered unto, being surrounded by myriads of holy and mighty angels who had ever delighted to do His bidding, and instantly to fulfil His every command. But, coming to a sinful world, He left all the glory and service that had been His, and Himself appeared in the lowly form and guise of a servant. His whole life was one great service. He always did the will of the Father, and the records of His earthly path show how He was ever ministering unto others. But the greatest act of service came at the close, when He gave "His life a ransom for many."

On this great statement we will not now attempt to dwell, but it should be remarked that so full was the Lord's mind of the peculiar character of His death that even in presenting Himself as an example He gave expression to it. The whole Bible does not afford a more explicit refutation of the Socinian theory, that the Lord both lived and died simply as an example, than these few pregnant words from His own lips. He had often spoken of saving the lost; He now tells His disciples that the great salvation was to be the fruit of redemption, the paying of a price, and that price nothing less than His own life. He had, indeed, announced the same truth in the temple, as recorded in John x., but it is here even more explicitly stated. In the words, " a ransom for many," the preposition rendered "for," properly signifies in the room of, or in the place of, and intimates how truly the Lord, in His infinite grace, became the substitute of all those who, by the teaching of the Spirit of God, ever have trusted, or ever shall trust in Him, and who, through personal appropriation of Himself and His wondrous work, are able to say, He "loved me and gave Himself for me.” W. H. B.

STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS.

“To the strangers scattered abroad" the apostle Peter addressed his first Epistle; and if we as Christians were better acquainted with this character of our calling, our hearts would be more effectually preserved from the "cares of this life" and the "deceitfulness of riches."

That the believer is a stranger on the earth is accepted as a truth by all Christians, but to live in the power of it is another thing altogether. What means the anxiety to accumulate wealth, the adding of house to house and field to field, so manifest among many who confess the name of Christ? Is not the explanation simply this—that they are not living out their profession of being "strangers and pilgrims on the earth?" (See Heb. xi. 13.)

No one whose mind is set on things earthly can carry out the truth of the first Epistle of Peter. With all his efforts to secure happiness here, such an one will fail to reach it, just because he is settling down in that upon which God has pronounced judgment. (See 2 Peter, iii. 10-12.) It is not God's purpose that the Christian should have his treasure and rest here. Moth and rust still corrupt, and thieves break through and steal, and God has frequently to permit His children to experience this corruption and loss in order to free their souls from the deadly influence and power of those earthly things on which their hearts are set. The Christian's treasure is in heaven, and God would teach us so to appreciate His treasure that the heart may be where the chief treasure is.

There are, however, treasures on earth on which our love may rest. It is not our loving them that is wrong, but

our loving them as belonging to earth. We should love as ourselves living in spirit above, in that scene to which we belong as children of God, begotten again in Christ Jesus.

It is quite lawful for the Christian to love, and to love intensely, his wife and children, and for them to love him likewise. But how? As an unbeliever does, with mere natural affection? No. The Christian husband loves his wife "as Christ loved the church." This is a far higher love than that of nature, for it is connected with heaven, from whence it is derived. If a husband so loves his wife, and the Lord sees well to take her to Himself, how different will be his sorrow from that of an unbeliever under like circumstances! The sorrow of the child of God is quite as real and as keen as that of the man of the world, yet he sorrows not without hope. The earthly link has been broken, but the heavenly one is thereby rendered only more real and more precious in spirit he ascends to heaven to hold communion with Him who has taken His loved one to be for ever with Himself.

Was not his sorrow
God had struck the

So also is it when Christian parents are bereaved of their children. Look at David as portrayed in 2 Sam. xii. In his case the Lord's hand was dealing with him in chastisement on account of his sin. both real and deep? It surely was. child so that it was very sick, and the father keenly felt the blow that God had measured out. David besought God for the child, and fasted and wept. But the child died. Will not David mourn and lament a thousand times more now that the child is dead? The servants thought so, and very naturally, too. But David arose from the earth and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped." His conduct perplexed those who had witnessed his sorrow, and in answer to their enquiry he said, "While

the child was yet alive I fasted and wept, for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now that he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Was this callousness on the part of David? Had all his love for the child vanished with its death? On the contrary; his love was linked the more strongly and blessedly to the child in the hope of a bright reunion in eternity. But he had learned practically the truth as to the believer's strangership while passing through the wilderness to the "rest that remaineth to the people of God."

May we all learn more and more to be in heart "strangers and pilgrims," "strangers and foreigners" in this world; for only as we do so shall we be able to enter into the present enjoyment of the truth that we are "fellowcitizens of the saints and of the household of God."

C. F.

NOTES AND REPLIES.

Is the cleansing from sins in Lev. xvi. 30, purely ceremonial? FROM the Epistle to the Hebrews we learn that the Levitical law was a shadow of the good things to come, but not the "image" of those things (see contrast in Col. i. 15, where Christ is said to be "the image of the invisible God"): hence we learn that the sacrificial cleansing under the law only shadowed forth the sacrificial work of Christ, and could not make the conscience perfect, as the apostle tells us. Yet they accom. plished a divine object under the Jewish economy, in that they secured to Israel, so long as they were outwardly obedient, a right and title to the land which they possessed. The "blood of bulls and goats" did sanctify "to the purifying of the flesh," and through these outward observances Israel occupied their land, and enjoyed their promises, as children of Abraham "according to the flesh;" but the whole law in its ritual and service contains types and shadows of the eternal realities and precious certainties which belong to those who in Christ are the children of Abraham by faith.