passed about with such a cloud of witnesses, that they were surrounded by such a vast multitude of God's saints, who by their lives and deaths had been witnesses for God. The words do not mean, as they have often been taken to mean, that we are called upon to run the race which is set before us, because we are compassed about with such a cloud of spectators, who witness our struggle and rejoice in our victory. Such a thought may be as true as it is beautiful; but it is not what the Apostle meant.

Above all, let them remember that Jesus Himself, their Lord and Master, the Apostle and High Priest of their profession, for the joy which was set before Him, endured the Cross, and despised the shame, and had entered into His glory; and if they would be faithful to Him, as they had borne His cross and endured shame for His sake, so also should they share in His glory, and sit with Him in His throne, even as He had overcome, and was set down with His Father on His throne.

But now let us remember that this solemn appeal of the Apostle, though it had this special, local application, has a wider, an universal application.

The character of our lives, the nature of our temptations, may be widely different from those of these Hebrew Christians. But we, too, have a race set before us, upon the issue of which our eternity depends. Each one of us has his own special sin, that sin that doth so easily beset him; each one is more or less heavily weighted by the things of time and sense.

And we, too, are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses for the truth, with the great multitude which no man can number, the great company of all saints, who have fought the good fight, and have entered into their rest.

And we, too, must run our race, ever looking unto Jesus; the whole attitude of our minds, the whole current of our lives, being set to Him, who, as He has been the Beginner, will be also the Finisher, the Perfecter of our faith.

Christ has gone before us, and has set us an example that we should follow His steps. Let us, then, not shrink from taking up His Cross, let us not hesitate to confess Him before men, and openly to take His side. And then His joy will be ours; not a selfish happiness,—that could be no joy to Him; but the joy of being at peace with God, the joy of working under the Master's eye, the joy of having a share in bringing on the Golden Year, "the dim far-off event to which the whole creation moves."

CHAPTER XLI.

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

(continued).

MONG the many opinions that have been held about the authorship of this Epistle, is one that ascribes it to S. Barnabas.

A

Whether the writer was indeed S. Barnabas it is impossible to say; but at any rate he was "a Son of Consolation." Though his warnings are most solemn, and his exhortations urgent, he follows them up with the tenderest consolation.

He reminds them of the exhortation of the Divine Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs, in which God reasons with His people, as a father with his sons, and calls upon them to endure His Fatherly chastise

ments.

He would have them remember for their comfort that whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth: and that the end and purpose of this loving discipline is for their eternal profit, that they might be partakers of God's holiness. And though all chastening must needs for the time be not joyous, but grievous, yet let them remember that it will work for their good, and will yield peaceable fruit, even the fruit of righteousness.

This passage not only brought comfort, as we may well believe, to those to whom it was addressed, but

has comforted many thousands of afflicted souls from that day to this; and has found a most suitable setting in the office for the Visitation of the Sick. Then follows a warning against worldliness and a life of sense. Our Lord had solemnly warned his Apostles, that they should not allow themselves to be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that day should come upon them suddenly.

So the Apostle cautions these Hebrew Christians against low aims of life, against unspirituality and earthliness of mind, by the example of Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

Ch. xii. 14: Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord: looking carefully lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright. For ye know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place of repentance), though he sought it diligently with tears.

This last sentence has sometimes been twisted to mean, that Esau repented of his sin, repented earnestly with tears, and yet that a place of repentance was denied to him.

Esau sold his birthright because he did not value it he did not value it, because it was purely a spiritual thing, and he did not care for spiritual things; but when he found that the blessing of 'the first-born went with it, then he was sorry enough, not sorry that he had done wrong, but sorry that he had sacrificed his interests, and cried out piteously, My father, hast thou but one blessing? Bless me, even me also, O my father.

He found no place of repentance, that is, he found that he could not alter what had been done.

It ought to be remembered that God dealt very mercifully with Esau. It is true he forfeited the special blessing; but for that special blessing he did not really care, he was not fit for it. Such a blessing as he was fit for, such a blessing as he would value, was freely given him, a blessing which, in temporal matters, was nearly as desirable as his

brother's.

Why, it may be asked, does the Apostle barb the arrow of his warning with the example of Esau? It was because these Hebrew Christians were tempted to commit the very same sin as Esau committed. They were tempted to despise their birthright, their spiritual calling, their privileges as Christians, and to barter them for material advantages, for immunity from persecution and ridicule.

And this naturally leads the Apostle to speak of what their spiritual birthright was, and how immeasurably it exceeded the vaunted privileges of Israel after the flesh.

The whole passage is one of the most striking in the New Testament. It opens with a description of the giving of the law, the establishment of the Mosaic Covenant, and of the terrors which accompanied it. In contrast with this, and expressed in the most glowing terms, is described the nature and privileges of the Christian Covenant.

The tangible, sensible mountain of Sinai, is contrasted with the spiritual mountain of Zion. The rigorous fencing of the bounds of the mountain of the law are implicitly contrasted with the free and joyful approach to the Mount Zion, the Spiritual Jerusalem.

Ch. xii. 18: For ye are not come unto a mount that X