of Jerusalem. All places were to the Heavenly Teacher sacred to the work of teaching; the sea shore, the skiff tossed on the ocean, the mountain brow, and the road side, as well as the room, the synagogue, or the temple. In no case, however, is there anything approaching an unseemly and ostentatious intrusion of His sentiments; all is done with the most exquisite gracefulness. When He speaks, His words seem to blend naturally with the occasion. To whom did Christ address this exposition? To a crowd, or to a few of the intellectual elite? No, to two obscure men, one of whom was Cleopas. But they were genuine men; full of solicitous thoughts concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Christ did not derive His inspiration as a teacher from multitudes; He esteemed even one person worth talking to. He knew the relative worth of souls. He knew that one single soul, so far as capability of service, and power of influence, are concerned, is sometimes equal to many scores of ordinary ones. Some one man is greater in the universe than a whole congregation of thoughtless bipeds. The man who, by God's grace, converted Foster, Arnold, Chalmers, Robertson, or any other of such royal type, achieved perhaps a greater work for the creation, than if he had converted half the generation in which he lived.

From the expository work of Christ with these two poor travellers on the road, we deduce the following truths :

WITH CHRIST ARE

I. THAT THE THINGS CONNECTED THE THINGS OF THE MOST VITAL IMPORTANCE TO HUMANITY.

He now dealt with all Old Testament Scriptures only so far as they related to "the things concerning himself.” What are the things? They may be embraced under two divisions:-First: The divinity of His nature and mission. Faith in the divinity of His nature is a vital thing to man. If He be not divine, He was an impostor; the apostles who taught His divinity are not to be trusted, and we are not warranted to repose our confidence in Him. Faith in the divinity of His mission is also of vital importance to man. He

has undertaken the great work of mediating between sinners and a righteous God; to reconcile heaven and earth;—and unless He is divinely authorized we dare not trust Him. The question whether Christ is divine in His nature and His mission is of all questions the question most vital to man. Another thing is :-Secondly: The absolute indispensability of His work for man as the Divine Messenger of Heaven. Can I be saved without the reception of His doctrines, the appropriation of His spirit, and the practical adoption of His sacrifice? If not, woe be to me if I treat not His work as indispensable. These are the vital things. There is nothing within the whole range of human thought so important. The doctrines of philosophy, the discoveries of science, the speculations of theology, and ceremonies of ecclesiastics, are but idle vanities compared to these things ;"The things concerning Christ."

Another truth which I infer from this expository work of Christ is :

CERNING THESE THINGS.

II. THAT THE OLD SCRIPTURES REVEALED MUCH CON"Beginning at Moses and all the prophets," &c. The Old Testament had much concerning Him. It had much concerning the divinity of His nature. Isaiah spoke of Him as the " Mighty God," &c.; Daniel as the "Ancient of days," &c.; Zechariah, as "Jehovah's Fellow;" David, "As one who of old laid the foundation of the earth," &c.; Micah, as one whose "goings forth were from of old." So with the divinity of His mission. It speaks of Him as a prophet "like unto Moses; as a priest "like unto Melchisedek;" as a King "like unto David," &c. As one in fact whose grand work it was "to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins; and to make reconciliation for iniquity; and to bring in everlasting righteousness." Indeed the Old Testament is full of references to the person and offices of Christ. Its sacrifices are symbols of His death; its priesthood portrays His intercession; its prophets are but types of His teachings;

Take "the

its kings are but emblems of His authority. things concerning Christ" out of the Old Testament, and you take the corner stone from the edifice, and it falls into a mass of rubbish; you take the soul from the body, and a worthless carcass is left; you take the sun from the system, and leave all in darkness, confusion and death. He is the Bible.

Another truth which I infer from this expository work of Christ is :-

III. THAT THE GREAT WORK OF THE CHRISTIAN TEACHER WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT IS TO EXPLAIN IT

IN ITS CONNEXION WITH CHRIST. I say this in contradistinction :-First: To the work of explaining its connexion with scientific discoveries. What if some things in the Old Testament do not agree with your chronologies, cosmogonies, astronomies, geologies, &c. Such things are the accidentals of the Bible, not the essentials-the essentials are "the things concerning Christ." In contradistinction :-Secondly: To the work of explaining its connexion with theological schools. What if the Old Testament clash with your Calvinism, or Arminianism. It does not matter. "The things concerning Christ" are its things. In contradistinction :Thirdly To the peculiar rites of religious sects.

:

Brother, Christ is the Spirit and substance of the Bible. If you believe in Him you believe in the Bible. Whatever may be a man's doubts about certain passages, or his views about the inspiration of certain writers, let no one call him an infidel, who in all honesty of heart believes in Christ. In Him; not in what theologians say about Him. Not merely in the truth of His doctrines and the facts of His life; but in Himself as the living, loving, personal, Son of God, and Saviour of the world. There are many zealous, intellectual, defenders of the faith, many Bible-worshippers, whose faith is not rooted in Christ, and in "the things concerning Him," and who are therefore, notwithstanding all their boasted faith, infidels. Help us, O Christ, to believe in

"the things concerning thee."

Let us not trust vapid

theologies, sapless creeds, and men's opinions about thee!

"Our little systems have their day,

They have their day and cease to be :

They are but broken lights of thee,

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."-HERBERT.

SUBJECT:-Godly Instruction; The True Method by which Generation helps Generation.

"Which we have heard and known, and our father's have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.”— Psa. lxxviii. 3-8.

Analysis of Homily the Five Hundred and Thirteenth.

MAN is necessarily dependent upon instruction. He requires instruction for his Body. He comes into the world the most helpless of all helpless creatures. He neither knows how to use his limbs, nor to get the nutriment he requires. He is ignorant of the fundamental conditions of his physical well-being. Thus he continues a helpless creature, whilst millions of other existences come into life, reach perfection, play their part, and pass away. Other animals seem to have stored up within them a sufficient amount of innate knowledge to direct them at once to the means of subsistence, safety, and enjoyment. But man requires instruction for all these things. He knows not what is injurious, or what is beneficial, what is poison, or what is food. He requires instruction for his Intellect. He knows no more how to use

his mental powers, than he does how to use his limbs, without instruction. Unless his mind is developed what is he better than a brute? Give him a palace for his home, feed him at the table of kings, and robe him in the costume of princes, what is he if his intellect is undeveloped? Mere organized dust-nothing more. The spirit within him is buried in breathing flesh. He needs instruction to raise his intellect from its animal grave, breathe into it the life of truth, and set it to the work of reflection and research. He requires instruction for his Soul. Man has a conscience, a religious nature, a nature which has moral relationships, and eternal affinities. This, in truth, is the very essence of his being. Unless this is developed the man is morally dead, however physically vigorous or intellectually elevated; and the development of this soul depends upon religious instruction.

The text leads to three remarks on this subject :

KNOWLEDGE IS A THING IM

I. THAT TRUE RELIGIOUS PARTED TO MAN. It is that "which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us." It is not inbred nor discovered. Religious knowledge may be divided into two branches; the knowledge of God as the Creator and the various obligations which we owe Him in that capacity; and the knowledge of God as the Redeemer and the obligations which we owe Him in that new and extraordinary character. Without denying that man has a capacity to discover something of the Infinite in the former capacity, all history shows that he has never done so ; and as to His Redeeming capacity, that, in the nature of the case, transcends all human conceptions. As sinners this is the knowledge of God we require, and it involves the former. And we have it, not by intuition or discovery, but by impartation. "Our fathers have told us." It has been transmitted to us through many generations. First: They have handed it down to us in inspired documents. We are indebted to the "holy men" who wrote this wondrous book; and we are indebted to the men who have compiled this book; and we are indebted to