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ONCE

NCE more we see that it often calls for courage to be kind. Did you ever think how brave it was of Jesus to speak in this frank and friendly way to Zacchæus? Had Jesus been intent on being popular, He would never have cast His eyes upon the sycamore. No class was more hated in Jewry than these tax-gatherers, and the richer they were the more they were detested. Yet Jesus, in the strength of His great purpose, deliberately set that hatred at defiance; He made no effort to conceal from the crowd that the man they loathed was going to be His friend. Immediately they began to murmur at Him (v. 7) -it was the hoarse cry of a deep-seated anger. It was the breaking of the waves upon Him, which were soon, in floods, to go over His head. But calmly and very sweetly Jesus prosecuted the friendship; it called for wonderful courage to be kind. Would you have dared to act so, do you think? Have you ever tried it in your own small way? Zaccheus forgot himself, says Matthew Henry. But that was nothing to the self-forgetfulness of Jesus.

MARK next the moral influence of Gospel joy. We are told that Zacchæus received Jesus joyfully; you can picture the tides of gladness in his heart. He had only hoped to get a glimpse of Jesus, and now he was going to be His host. And it was just the joy of it all, I take it, filling his poor soul, and sweeping up into the empty creeks, that inspired him to the noble sacrifices of verse eight. I dare say the priests had often preached at him to go and give half his fortune to the poor. But somehow that had only closed his heart; they had never touched the spring of sacrifice. Now comes Jesus and fills him with great joy, and he cannot do enough for such a Lord-the joy of the Lord had indeed become his strength. Do you see the moral power of Gospel joy? Do you recognise the ethical worth of it? Even Jesus for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame.

L ASTLY, and in a word, observe how various are the tokens of the new life. How did it show itself in the Philippian jailer? It showed itself first by his faith. And how in the woman who anointed Christ's feet. First, by her much love. And what were its clearest tokens in Zacchæus? Repentance and earnest effort to amend. One life, yet showing itself in diverse fruits. One spirit, yet working outward in various ways. In which way is the hidden life of Christ revealing itself in those who read this page?

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY

Morning

SOLOMON'S TEMPLE

Passage to be read: 1 Kings v. 1-18.

E have seen how David had desired to build a

WE

temple to the Lord, and how he had been forbidden by the prophet. The times were not ripe then for such a splendid building, and the hands of David had been too deeply steeped in blood. But though David (to his own great sorrow) had been prohibited from accomplishing his project, he had not been forbidden to prepare for it. And we know from the Chronicles what lavish preparation David had made against the day when his son should build God's house. He had collected stone-masons and skilled artifcers; he had amassed talents of gold and talents of silver; he had gathered together great stores of brass and iron; he had ransacked the markets for gems and precious stones. All this was lying to hand for Solomon when the day came on which he resolved to build. Now the strange thing is that, reading to-day's chapter, you do not hear a word about all that. You would think that the whole work from start to finish was the unaided work of Solomon. All which should remind us of the simple fact that we owe more to our fathers than the world would sometimes think. I do not suppose the writer of this book deliberately meant to ignore David. And when a boy does something uncommon and says I did it, I do not suppose he means to slight his father. Still, it is well to be reminded sometimes of how our

parents have prepared things for us, and how by their love and their prayers by our bedside as we slept, and by their sacrifices for us in our childhood, they make it possible for us to build our temples.

THE 'HE hour then came when the way was open for Solomon. And the first act of Solomon was to send to Hiram with a view of getting cedar down from Lebanon. This Hiram had been on the friendliest terms with David; perhaps he had been a tributary prince. The story says that Solomon married his daughter; and to-day when the traveller climbs the hillside to the east of Tyre, and asks the dragoman what is that solitary and wind-swept monument, he is told it is the tomb of Hiram. This Hiram, then, was to aid in cutting timber, away up in the Lebanons where the cedars grew, 'for there is not among us any that can skill (a fine old verb that we have been very foolish in dropping) to hew timber like unto the Sidonians.' Can you remember any old Testament texts that dwell with delight upon the forests of Lebanon? Israel shall cast forth his roots

as Lebanon, says Hosea (xiv. 5). The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon, says Solomon in his song (iv. II), and perhaps the fragrant cedar logs of Hiram were being piled on Mount Moriah as he wrote. Have you ever seen a cedar of Lebanon, with its straightspreading branches and its resinous fragrance? In the parks of many of our old English castles you will find them, and the villagers will tell you how the old knight brought them home from the crusades. This, then, was Hiram's task (fulfilled so willingly that Jewish legend tells that he enjoyed a thousand years in paradise for it); he saw to the hewing of cedar in the Lebanons.

NOW you will see at a glance what a work it was to get these trees transported to Jerusalem. And when we remember that besides the trees there were

great stones that had been hewed up in the mountains, the work might seem almost incredible. There are stones in the ruins of the Temple to this day that are over thirty feet in length. No wonder, then, that we hear of such vast numbers of burden-bearers and workmen and hewers. If it took a hundred thousand men (as Herodotus tells us) to build the great pyramid of Egypt, we can hardly dispute the totals of our chapter. First, then, the timber was sent down from Lebanon on artificial paths of rounded tree-trunks-as it is sent down to this very day from the heights of the richly wooded Vosges. Then it was launched in great rafts into the sea and floated along, some hundred miles, to Joppa. And then by a steep and rocky road (and for nearly the distance that Glasgow is from Edinburgh) it was borne with infinite labour to Mount Moriah. It was on Mount Moriah (we believe) that Abraham laid Isaac on the altar (see Gen. xxii. 2). It was on Mount Moriah that David had seen the angel with his sword drawn over the threshing-floor (2 Sam. xxiv. 16). It was here, then, that the Temple was to rise, without the sound of hammer or axe or tool. So they prepared timber and stones to build the house,' and with that our passage closes.

Now

OW let us take three lessons from this chapter: and first, how vast are the preparations for God's Temple. They were begun by David and completed by Solomon. They embraced the whole country in a kind of network. They dotted the sea in the shape of the rafts of cedar. They set the echoes of Lebanon a-ringing. All this, for the Temple of the Lord. Now think of Jesus Christ, who said, 'Destroy this temple,' pointing to His body, and remember the mighty preparation before the building of that living Temple. For the law of Moses and the vision of prophets, and the sacrifices that smoked on Jewish altars, all that, with the struggle and failure of

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