III. But now let us note briefly what befell this sepulchre in Joseph's garden. There, with weeping and lamentation, the women and other disciples laid the body of the Redeemer. Surely there was no spot on earth so dark for them as they turned and left it on that Friday, nigh sick with the anguish of despair. But in a few short hours all was changed. They reached the sepulchre and found it empty. Their Lord had risen, and henceforth no spot so precious to them as this which told of His victory over man's last enemy.

To this very day the eyes of Christendom turn thitherward with grateful joy, and pilgrims from all lands gather at the reputed site to worship with adoring songs. So may it be with the sepulchre in our garden. For

"I hold it truth with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones
That we may rise on stepping-stones
Of our dead selves to higher things.'

"

Out of our deepest sorrows borne aright may spring our highest joys, nor all the plants in our garden yield so sweet a fragrance as the grief thus turned to joy. Oh, there are lessons to be learned beside the sepulchre that can be learned nowhere else!

But if we are to learn such lessons mark well that as the garden and the sepulchre were both within sight of the cross, so it is when we interpret life in the light that Christ's great redemptive act throws upon it that its joys and sorrows become fruitful of richest blessing. The garden of our delights, without the cross standing by to sanctify it, may be only a sensual

paradise and a snare to our souls. When the pleasant things of life bloom in abundance round us the danger is great lest we become selfishly absorbed in them, indifferent to the sorrowing, struggling world around us. We must take our station at the cross and look out upon all things from that view point. Then we shall see that our joys were purchased for us at a great cost, and that the highest joy of all comes through self-sacrifice.

Standing there we see that our sorrows, too, are gifts from a gracious Father's hand, enabling us to enter into fellowship with the man of sorrows, and assuring us that he enters into our sufferings. Thus borne up by his sympathy we shall come out of them stronger, purer, more faithful, more tender towards our brethren in their afflictions.

Such lessons learned, we may walk in our garden tasting its delights without misgiving, for He meant that we should enjoy it, drawing near to the sepulchre therein without horror, knowing what hands have placed it there. It will speak to us of Christ, and will talk with us there, and show us how, like him, we must be made perfect through suffering, and that death itself is the portal to endless life.

X

BUYING THE TRUTH

Buy the truth and sell it not."-PROV. xxiii. 23.

"ALMOST five thousand years ago there were pilgrims walking to the celestial city; and Beelzebub, Apollyon and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path the pilgrims made that their way to the city lay through the town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair, and that it should last all the year long. Therefore at this fair are sold all such merchandise as houses, lands, trades, places, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts. . . . And, moreover, at this fair are to be seen at all times. cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves and rogues, and that of every kind. Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false swearers, and that of a blood-red colour."

In these words John Bunyan describes that vanity fair of which we all know a little by experience, and into the ways of which Thackeray has given us a deeper insight in that marvellous book whose title was suggested to him by the " Pilgrim's Progress."

Now when Bunyan brings his two pilgrims into the fair he makes them set very light by all its wares,

and when one, beholding the carriage of the men, chanced to say to them "What will you buy? they, looking gravely upon him, said: "We buy the truth." The answer was undoubtedly taken from the book of Proverbs, for Bunyan had the scriptures at his pen's end; and he meant by "the truth" what the writer of our text meant by it, not a mere accurate knowledge of facts, but truth as it is opposed to vanity and emptiness, a knowledge of that which abides for ever as distinguished from the fleeting pomps and shows of Vanity Fair. That the writer of our text intended that, is evident from the words that follow if we omit the "also " of the A. V. which has no corresponding word in the original, or (if we insert anything) insert the "Yea" of the R. V. Buy the truth and sell it not, Yea, wisdom, instruction, and understanding." They are not additions to the truth but are included in it. Buy the truth, says this wise man, at all costs, and never part with it.

I. Let me name some of the coins with which truth must be bought.

(1) Buy it with time and labour. It will cost that. It is not to be had gratis; no, not even the lowest kind of truth, the knowledge of sensible facts.

The schoolboy who seems to imagine that he will imbibe knowledge without effort simply by being at school, that it will somehow distil upon him from the roof, or grow up into him from the form, or subtly diffuse itself from the page that lies open before his listless eyes, finds out his mistake in the examination and still more bitterly when schooldays

are over. But the error is venial in the schoolboy, which is unpardonable in the man, and yet how often it is perpetrated! You shall find numbers of men who think to get at the truth in religion and politics with hardly any expenditure of time or labour. They read a few flimsy articles in their daily paper or favourite review, and-"Oh yes, they have got to the bottom of the thing; they know the truth." People come to me sometimes with questions about religion which show they have never asked themselves what religion is. I put that question once to a class of twenty young men, begged them to think over it, and bring me an answer next Sunday. Only one out of the twenty had any answer ready. So small is the amount of study and reflection which the rising generation is willing to give to the subject; and yet they are surprised when, meeting opponents of the truth, they are worsted in argument, and put to silence. The schoolboy often fancies that he can construe his Horace or his Herodotus by the light of nature without the laborious use of grammar and lexicon. The grown man fancies that he can solve difficult social and religious problems by the inner light, without spending time in research or inquiry. On problems that require wide culture and most patient investigation, they cast a casual glance, and then give their opinion with dogmatic effrontery. They see it must be so it is evidently so only a fool can think otherwise. And unfortunately there is no one in authority over them like the schoolmaster to send them down for their impudence and make them write out the lesson three times.