now give, and leaving it to take its chance without

their patronage.

Vain, impotent, and impious pride of the poor potsherds of the earth! What! and do you really fancy that the Lord is indebted and obliged to you, because you are graciously pleased not to turn your power wholly against him?-that he must purchase your forbearance by concession, and bow his head to you, lest you should be provoked to declare more openly against him than you do? Nay, but know, O vain man! that He who sitteth in the heavens laughs (Ps. ii.) The Lord holds such haughty bearing in derision. Yes; and he will speak to you in his wrath. What! dost thou think that it is as a criminal at thy bar, a suppliant at thy footstool, that the Son of God standeth before thee? Is he not thy Lord, thy King? He, indeed, dependent upon thee! Thou worm of the earth, He challenges thee to do thy worst! Yes, use thy power against Him, if it seem to thee good. Only remember it is at thy peril; it is on thy responsibility. And think not, though thou givest up the Saviour, thou canst have peace. No, thy weakness, thy imbecility, is still thy curse. Thou carriest to thy grave the sting of an uneasy mind. Thou hast not succeeded in braving and bullying either thy conscience or thy God. Thou art driven at last to desperate measures to suicide or self-murder itself; to the worst form of suicide-the hardening of thine own heart-the destroying of thine own soul. Only in spiritual death wilt thou find that end of thy strife, which the miserable Roman was fain to seek by imbruing his hands in his own blood.

But enough of this. The parallel between Pilate in a great strait between the Jews and Jesus, and a

worldly man now struggling in the grasp of certain spiritual convictions which he cannot shake off, and to which his worldly lusts will not suffer him to yield, might be followed up at greater length and in much more minute detail. It is a painfully interesting study, and it suggests not a few important practical lessons. One in particular may be noticed.

If the question be once fairly and seriously raised between Christ and his enemies, or between the claims of vital Christianity and the demands of the world, neutrality becomes impossible-neither party will suffer it. Christ, on his part, cannot endure it: the authority with which He speaks-the Truth of which He is the Witness the relation in which He stands to God as his Son, and to men as their Saviour, Sovereign, and Lord, are all of such a kind as to forbid his being satisfied with any thing short of a full and unreserved acknowledgment of his claims.

But the point of the moral lies rather in the consideration, that the world on its side is as intolerant of neutrality as is the gospel of Christ itself. Let the question come to a trial before you, and the world will never let you off until it extorts from you a sentence against the Lord. Your inclinations, your convictions, your good feelings of every sort, may be all in favour of some middle course. But it is all in vain. You cannot long escape. You are at the mercy of evil principles and evil men with whom you are not prepared to break; and, as you will not give them up for Christ, the issue is too plain and certain on the other side, you cannot but in the end sacrifice Christ to them. There is, therefore, no safety in a neutral position-neither the prince of this world nor the Prince of

Life will let you rest in it. There must be a decision for or against the Lord. "He that is not with me is against me." Let the inevitable alternative be pondered well.

And not only let the decision be on the side of Christ let it be also on the side of Christ as having authority. Too often is the question weighed between Him and his enemies in the spirit of haughty or headstrong independence; as if He were at our mercy and disposal, as if we had an absolute discretion, and might own or reject him at our pleasure. He seems to stand before us at our bar, awaiting our verdictor we conceive of him as if he were to be obliged to us for a little water, such as he asked of the woman at the well of Samaria; or for a courteous act of hospitality, such as he accepted in the Pharisee's house when he sat down to meat with him. No wonder that our decision in reference to his claims partakes of the character of compromise and evasion when we regard him as thus a suppliant merely, or an accused person, at our gate. But let us conceive of him as he stood before Pilate, in high and holy majesty; or as he appeared to Saul on the way to Damascus, in the glory of his divine sovereignty and grace; and our attitude will be that of Saul-prostrate on the ground before him; and our language also will be that of Saul-"Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?" Let us hear his word to the woman of Samaria-" If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." And let each one echo the woman's prayer, with intelligent, prompt, and guileless faith, "Lord, give me this water, that I thirst not."

VII.

HEROD OF GALILEE-WEAKNESS GROWING INTO

WICKEDNESS.

ON THE CHARACTER OF HEROD, THE TETRARCH OR GOVERNOR OF GALILEE.

"And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her."-MARK Vi. 14-29.

THERE is a very remarkable quality in the evangelical histories and writings-the tone of calm simplicity and candour which uniformly pervades them. Among many singular and admirable characteristics of their style and manner of writing, this is not the least. There is every where a mild and passionless equanimity, a quiet dignity, which marks the guidance and superintendence of a spirit truly divine. Not a trace, not a vestige or feature, any where occurs of wrath, or bitterness, or envy, or railing accusation, or evil speaking, or malice, or resentment,—or any of those seeds and symptoms of human passion, which are so apt to disfigure the writings of uninspired men on subjects which interest and excite their feelings. With entire self-possession, or rather with an entire oblivion and

K

forgetfulness of self, they write as the disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus-who, when reviled, reviled not again when buffeted, threatened not.

Nor is theirs the calmness of affected philosophic impartiality; the indifference or insensibility which some think it the height of wisdom to assume when they write, as if in carelessness or scorn of all the high and spirit-stirring recollections, and the deep affecting associations, which their subject should suggest. The writers of the New Testament are not thus destitute of interest and sympathy in what they write. They write with feeling. They write from the heart. None indeed could write narratives so simply and profoundly moving, without being themselves impressed. But yet what is remarkable in them is, that they are never betrayed or hurried into the slightest excess. There is not a word, not a hint, of extravagance or exaggeration, or unbecoming heat and intemperance; all is fervour indeed, but the chastened and subdued fervour of heavenly meekness. They never lose their temper. They are never hastily provoked to utter unadvisedly one single sentence. They never wonder, though they have wonderful things to tell of. They never fret or rage, though they have intolerable wrongs to set forth. They show no studied enthusiasm to recommend their cause no impatient resentment against its adversaries; although theirs was a cause to rouse from their depths all the soul's emotions of admiration, exultation, triumph, and revenge. Still there is no violence of feeling in what they write, but a plain, temperate record of facts.

And is not this especially singular? Is it not a proof of divine influence restraining all human pride