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all men." Elsewhere he bids the Ephesian Christians stand fully armed, but with superhuman armour and weapons, "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints" (Eph. vi. 13–18).

Blessed, if only they correspond to their blessing, are those for whom many intercede. Blessed without exception are the intercessors themselves. Weariness, apathy, repugnance, so often a dead weight on prayer, are perhaps more readily routed by intercession than by any other form of devotion. Through perseverance in intercession cold hearts grow warm, narrow hearts expand, selfish persons wax sympathetic; soon they embark in self-denial; at length they mount (it may be) to the lofty standard of self-sacrifice. And no marvel: for every earnest intercessor, however imperfect he may be, copies Christ the Great Intercessor, and is moved by that Holy Spirit Who dwelling in us intercedes with groanings unutterable.

At length, completing the circle of God's

revealed Will and man's consequent duty, we reach the Fourth Commandment; and with this I trust to find the Tenth Commandment in correspondence. Well, I think, may we speak of the "circle" of both Will and duty; the Fourth and Tenth Commandments lead us back to the starting-point of a holiness spiritual and, so to say, immaterial; our strength will in great measure be to sit still; or as Moses bade Israel in all the haste of the Exodus, to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will show to us "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. iv. 18).

The circle, emblem of eternity, in old-established art often figures as a serpent biting its tail. Happy shall we be if we bring to bear the wisdom of serpents (St. Matt. x. 16) on our study of eternity; and of that circle of the Divine Will into which the circle of human obedience fits with such absolute accuracy as to leave no discrepancy between the twain, if only the lesser be perfectly

rounded.

These are to each other as the First Great and Second Like Commandments are also to each other, distinguishable while indivisible; as the outer and inner edge of a wheel-tire revolving in indissoluble union, yet of which one moving along its vaster orbit with a dominant sweep encompasses and entails the other.

"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day... In it thou shalt do no manner of work... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it."

God inhabiteth eternity, man time. God wills to constitute man a sharer of His eternity, and in preparation He graciously invites man to devote to Him a section of time.

This Fourth Commandment, in which the Table of man's duty to God culminates, serves as a test commandment, probing the heart, and, as it were, enquiring with a Divine voice: "Is thine heart right, as My heart is with thy heart?" The others are moral, this positive.

The others commend themselves to our own sense of fitness; this challenges less our intelligent assent than our obedience. For on the face of things we apprehend not why neither more nor less than one seventh of our time should be the portion claimed; to enthusiastic devotion the charge might seem too small, to earthly prudence too great. To either the answer is simple and final: "To obey is better than sacrifice."

He and he alone who sits loose to the world can keep this precept: for it requires him to labour, "six days shalt thou labour," as imperatively as it commands him to rest; yet so to labour that his rest be not trenched upon, so to rest that his work be resumed on the instant. Solemn Feasts had their silver trumpet call, workdays their rousing cockcrow.

During six days man must be diligent in the works of his calling; on the seventh he must empty not hands only but heart likewise of temporal business. His work must be worked, his rest rested, not according to impulse but

according to rule; otherwise into the Divine scheme of universal harmony he will intrude a discord, as of those children of whom we read, "We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented." Through going out of time he will practically wander out of tune; his labour will be spent for that which satisfieth not, his incense will become an abomination and his oblations vain.

In this critical point of duty our Creator deigns Himself to become our Pattern: and as the Commandment dates not from the Redemption but from the Creation of the world, so does the Example.

If we would at last rest as God rested, let us study first to work as He worked; for doubtless the Mosaic record is by condescension of Inspiration couched in such language as, while enlarging our knowledge, ought—reverently be it said!-to incite us to imitation. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

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