It is quite as likely that the appellation 'Lamb of God' was taken from Is. liii. 7 as from Ex. xxix. 38, seq. It is more probable that the passage quoted by the evangelist, A bone of Him shall not be broken' (xix. 36), was taken from Ps. xxxiv. 20 than from the law relative to the Paschal offering (Ex. xii. 46; Num. ix. 2). On any reasonable view of the case, had the evangelist thought that the minute identification of Jesus with the Paschal lamb was of so vital consequence that he must needs run the risk of devising a false chronology in contradiction to the received Gospels, he would surely have made the parallelism much more obvious. He would have gone farther than merely to insinuate it. How could he have considered it essential that Christ, as the antitype of the Passover lamb, should die on the 14th of Nisan, when, according to the theory of the Tübingen critics, it was known to him that He did not? The Quartodeciman observance in Asia Minor is a topic closely connected with the foregoing. That was on the 14th of Nisan; but what did it commemorate? Many scholars have thought that it was the crucifixion of Jesus. If this be so, it is a direct argument for the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, which would make the crucifixion on the morning of the day when the lamb was killed and eaten, and at the same time confirms the evangelist's accuracy on this point. But since the able essay of Schürer, his opinion, which corresponds with that formerly defended by Bleek and Gieseler, has gained ground, that the Quartodeciman Supper on the evening of the 14th of Nisan was primarily the Jewish Passover, kept at the usual time, but transformed into a Christian festival. John found the festival in being when he came to Asia Minor, and may well have left it to stand,' whether he regarded the 13th or the 14th as the day of the Last Supper.' It is certain that the defenders of the Quartodeciman practice in Asia found nothing in the Fourth Gospel to clash with their views. Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus towards the end of the second century, pointed back to the example of John, who leaned on the bosom of the Saviour.' It appears quite astonishing that a Gospel should have been forged in opposition to the tenet of the Quartodecimans, but treating the matter so obscurely that their leaders failed to discover in it any condemnation of their custom. It is not agreed what precise position on the Paschal controversy was taken by Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, the successor, and it may be the next successor, of Papias, in the second century. But this is known, that he recognised the Fourth Gospel and made his appeal to it. We may dismiss the Quartodeciman discussion as affording, even in the view of such opponents of the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel as Schürer, no argument in favour of their opinion on this subject. Were there space to compare various features in the history which are common to the synop tists and the Fourth Gospel, we should find the statements of the latter worthy of credit. If we are obliged to choose between the first and the last Passover as the probable date of the driving of the money-changers from the temple, the probability is decidedly in favour of the date assigned by the fourth evangelist. Then John the Baptist was fresh in the recollection of the people. As another example may be mentioned the account given in John of the temporary connection of several of the disciples of Jesus with Him immediately after His baptism; a circumstance which explains what would otherwise be difficult to understand, their instant obedience to His call to forsake their occupations and enter into a permanent connection with Him. (To be continued.) Lovest Thou Me. If Christ the Lord should come to-day, And low and tenderly should say, What would our answer be? Would this the answer be? And if He showed His hands and feet, What could the answer be? For life is like a summer day, And roses strew the onward way, What answer could there be? This would the answer be. Our strength is weariness at most, And all things work for good, if we This should the answer be. Entelligence. THE NATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND.-At the annual meeting of this society in Glasgow, on the 2d ult., an encouraging report was submitted. During the past twentyone years the annual revenue had grown from £8000 to £26,000, the auxiliary contributions from £931 to £8105, and the annual issue of Scriptures from 103,610 to 468,766. The sum expended on foreign work had increased from £731 to £13,127, the foreign circulation from 11,248 copies to 327,229. The total receipts in the twenty-one years had been £438,564, and the total issues 6,578,781 copies. The free income for the year had been £16,691, including £9388 of annual subscriptions and contributions from associations, and, adding £9701 of returns for Scriptures, the total receipts had been £26,392—an increase of £619 on 1881. movement in the work of missions comparable to that witnessed in Southern India two or three years since; but, considering the whole line of conquest by various boards and societies, it may be doubted whether any previous year has garnered so rich a harvest. The forces engaged in this work have settled into steady action. The day of experiment, of fitful and precarious effort, has passed. The cause of missions is better understood by the Churches, and on the whole receives a steadier support. It is also more thoroughly appreciated on heathen soil, both by natives and by foreign residents. Guarantees have been gained in China for the exemption of native Christians from the oppressive exactions of ancestral worship. The wars of South Africa have been brought to a close, and the Christian colonies, which must be the chief hope of Africa, are suffering no further compromise. The Church Missionary Society and the London Society have enlarged their missionary operations in the Lake region, and the English Baptists and the Congo Inland Mission have pushed forward their enterprises from the West Coast toward Stanley Pool. Two American societies, the American Board and the American Missionary Association, have inaugurated missionary operations the one for Bihè, and the other for the Upper Nile; and the Southern Presbyterian Church has decided to establish a mission near the mouth of the Congo. MANITOBA. The yield of wheat in Manitoba, along the line of the Canada Pacific Railroad, is said to have afforded fifty-five bushels per acre. Do you ask what this has to do with missions and the advancement of Christ's kingdom? It means this: the influx of Anglo-Saxon immigrants, the development of another great centre of Anglo-Saxon, and we trust Christian, civilisation. It enhances the value of British America as a mission-field, as an educational centre, as a source, not merely of wealth, but of all elevating influences-it means another fulcrum for moving the world. Gold-fields have more than once exerted their influence in this way; but here is a field of the best kind of gold-the yellow In the general statistics of Africa, where harvest which carries with it all that belongs forty societies are at work extending the line to peaceful agriculture, permanent industry, of their stations from Sierra Leone southward settled institutions, the school, the college, around the Cape to Natal, and thence to the church, the missionary organisation.- Zanzibar and Egypt, there is shown an aggreThe Foreign Missionary, a valuable missionary gate of about 170,000 communicants, 220 magazine, issued by the Presbyterian Mission-native ordained preachers, and over 5000 House, 23 Centre Street, New York. other helpers. NEW MISSION ON THE UPPER NILE.-Messrs Ladd and Snow, of the American Missionary Association, started in September last for their allotted mission-field on the Upper Nile, near the mouth of the Sobat River. Their route lies from Cairo to Suakim, on the Red Sea, and thence overland to Berbez, whence they will proceed by the Nile. Their plans contemplate the ultimate possession of a small steamer for river navigation. JAPAN.-Let us not be discouraged. Buddhism was 900 years in gaining the conquest of Japan. The first Protestant Christian Church was organised there not quite ten years ago. At the rate of progress witnessed in this decade, a half century of Protestant Christianity will make a vastly deeper impress upon Japan than nine centuries of Buddhism. The Foreign Missionary. MISSIONARY WORK FOR 1881.-The year 1881 has not been signalised by any great The statistics of missions in India, where British, and Continental-are at work, show over thirty different societies — American, a healthy growth. By the last computations there were 109,249 communicants, 598 native preachers, and about a thousand other native helpers. In China twenty-eight societies are at work; but two converts, there are now reported by and where thirty-six years ago there were the latest statistics 19,668, with 1139 native preachers and helpers. Ten years ago no church had been organised in Japan, where now there are 90 organisations, under twenty different societies, and a total membership of 3972, with 28 ordained native preachers, besides other helpers. That the average per cent. of gain in foreign missions, taken year by year, is far greater than that of our home churches, with all their co-efficient means and facilities and long-existing Christian influences, is now con ceded. What grander demonstration could be wished of the feasibility of the missionary enterprise, or of God's impress of favour bestowed upon it?—The Foreign Missionary. KAFIR TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.-The Free Church monthly for February reports that the Rev. Bryce Ross Pirie, the senior Free Church missionary in South Africa, has during the last thirty years given careful attention to the translation of the Word of God into Kafir. The version of the New Testament was revised some time ago, and he and others are working at a new edition of the Old Testament in Kafir. They have got as far in their revision as Isaiah. HOME MISSION WORK IN NEW YORK.-The New York Gospel in All Lands with the New Year has become a weekly instead of a monthly magazine. Its first number is devoted to Christian work in cities. New York naturally occupies the first place. Mr Lewis E. Jackson gives an interesting account of what is going on in that city. In the evangelisation of the city by union efforts five societies are engaged; by denominational unions, six denominations are engaged; by individual churches, twelve chapels with twelve missionaries, at an annual expenditure of £8000, are kept up by the several Presbyterian Churches; ten chapels with ten missionaries, at an annual expenditure of £3000, are kept up by the Protestant Episcopal Church; and five chapels with five missionaries, and an expenditure of £3000, are kept up by the Reformed (Dutch) Church. By independent missions no less than sixteen are specified. In all, there are 118 Protestant missions in the city, where Sabbath schools and preaching, and other religious and moral services for adults or children, or both, are regularly carried on. In another paper, by Rev. Horace F. Barnes, on 'Practical Christianity in Cities,' an account is given of the labours of the Rev. Edward Judson, son of the pioneer missionary to Burmah. Mr Judson has resigned charge of one of the most prominent Baptist churches in the country-a charge which, under six years of a laborious ministry, grew from a membership of 240 to 750, and was paying him a large salary-solely in order that he might build up a church for the people in lower New York. In the closing pages of the Christian Treasury for 1881 will be found a specimen of Mr Judson's preaching in his new sphere. HOME MISSION WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. In a second number, The Gospel in All Lands, in accordance with its plan to devote each number to a distinct subject, takes up Home Missions. It gives an account of the work of the principal Societies in the field. The American Home Missionary Society, organised in 1836, since 1860 has been mainly supported by those in connection with Congregational Churches. Its receipts, in its fifty-fifth year ending March 1881, were about £58,000, besides about £11,600 in supplies. The number of missionaries employed was 1032, of whom 660 laboured in States and Territories west of New York. They preached regularly in 2653 stations, and at frequent intervals in hundreds more. The Methodist Mission, but the account given of it in The Episcopal Church have a very large Home Gospel in All Lands does not enter into details. The Protestant Episcopal Church received last year for Domestic Missions £54,120. Out of this sum there received stipends, among white people-12 missionary bishops, 288 clergymen; among coloured people-13 white readers, 14 teachers; among Chinese-1 clergymen, 11 coloured clergymen, 3 lay Chinese clergyman; among Indians-1 missionary bishop, 12 white clergymen, 13 native clergymen, 1 white catechist, 9 native catechists, 3 teachers, 13 women helpers; TOTAL, 394. The Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States had 1217 men in commission last year in 40 States and Territories, who preached the gospel at stated intervals in not less than 3000 places. The account of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society does not give details, further than the work is done in 22 States and Territories, having a population of 20,000,000. In this field there are 5587 Baptist churches, with 367,530 members. Among the Indians there are 90 churches, with 6000 members. CHINA. The New York Gospel in All Lands, for January 26, is devoted to China. It contains a list, drawn up by Rev. L. H Gulick, occupying nearly six columns, of the names and stations of the missionaries belonging to the different Societies having representatives in China. In all, there are 305 agents from British, 280 from American, and 40 from German Societies, with a grand total of 625. Details from the Hong-Kong Catholic Register are given of the strength of the Roman Catholic Missions in China. They are Bishops, 41; European priests, 664; native priests, 559; colleges, 34; convents, 34; Roman Catholics, 1,092,812. These details at first sight compare favourably with the 20,000 communicants in connection with more than 300 Protestant churches in different parts of the country. But it must be remembered that all these Protestant Christians have been gained since 1843, whereas the numbers of the Roman Catholics are the result of labours among the Chinese for nearly three hundred years. How WE GET REST.-We get rest from Christ only when we come to Christ. We must come to Him in faith, in humility, in obedience. We must take His yoke upon us and learn of Him. He does not put His yoke on us in any arbitrary way. We must stoop and take it on our shoulders in token of the free choice of the heart. A chosen yoke is easy, and a burden freely borne is light. MARCH 19. A Daily Portion. 'HE THAT WALKETH WITH WISE MEN SHALL BE WISE.'-Prov. xiii. 20. Associate with sanctified persons. They may by their counsel, prayers, holy example, be a means to make you holy. As the communion of saints is in our creed, so it should be in our company. Association begets assimilation.-T. Watson. MARCH 20. 'WITHOUT HOLINESS NO MAN SHALL SEE THE LORD.'-Heb. xii. 14. the breastplate of holiness, which, though it may be shot at, can never be shot through. Are there any here that are sanctified? He hath done more for you than if He had made you the sons of princes, and caused you to ride upon the high places of the earth. Are you sanctified? heaven is begun in you; happiness is nothing but the quintessence of holiness. O how thankful should you be to God! Do as that blind man in the gospel, after he had received his sight, He followed Christ, glorifying God. Make heaven ring of God's praises.-T. Watson. MARCH 23. ME.'-Job. xxvii. 5. God is a holy God, and He will suffer no unholy creature to come near Him; a king I WILL NOT REMOVE MINE INTEGRITY FROM will not suffer a man with plague-sores to approach into his presence. Heaven is not like Noah's ark, where the clean beasts and the unclean entered; no unclean beast comes into the heavenly ark. Though God suffer the wicked to live a while on the earth, He will never suffer heaven to be pestered with such vermin. Are they fit to see God who wallow in wickedness? Will God ever lay such vipers in His bosom? Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. It must be a clear eye that sees a bright object; only a holy heart can see God in His glory.-T. Watson. MARCH 21. 'BE YE HOLY IN ALL MANNER OF CONVERSATION.'-1 Peter i. 15. Where the heart is sanctified the life will be so too; the temple had gold without as well as within. As in a piece of coin, there is not only the king's image within the ring, but his superscription too without; so where there is sanctification, there is not only God's image in the heart, but a superscription of holiness written in the life. Some say they have good hearts, but their lives are vicious. If the water be foul in the bucket, it cannot be clean in the well. The king's daughter is all glorious within-there is holiness of heart; her clothing is of wrought gold-there is holiness of life. Grace is most beautiful when its light doth so shine that others may see it; this adorns religion, and makes proselytes to the faith.-T. Watson. MARCH 22. 'GIVING THANKS UNTO THE FATHER, WHICH Hath God brought a clean thing out of an unclean? Hath He sanctified you; wear this jewel of sanctification with thankfulness. Christian, thou couldst defile thyself, but not sanctify thyself. But God hath done it; He hath not only chained up sin, but changed thy nature, and made thee as a king's daughter, all glorious within. He hath put upon thee The believer is resolved never to part with his holiness; let others reproach it, he loves it the more; let water be sprinkled on the fire, it burns the more. He saith, as David, when Michael reproached him for dancing before the ark, If this be to be vile, I will yet be more vile. Let others persecute him for his holiness, he saith as Paul, None of those things move me. He prefers sanctity before safety, and had rather keep his conscience pure than He saith, as Job, my integrity I will hold fast, and not let it go. He will rather part with his life than his conscience. -T. Watson. his skin whole. MARCH 24. NEVERTHELESS THE FOUNDATION OF GOD The godly are sealed with a double seal. 1. A seal of election, The Lord knoweth who are His. 2. A seal of sanctification, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. This is the name by which God's people are known, The people of Thy holiness. As chastity distinguisheth a virtuous woman from an harlot, so sanctification distinguisheth God's people from others. Ye have received an unction from the Holy One. -T. Watson. MARCH 25. 'NO MAN CAN SAY THAT JESUS IS THE LORD, and rose again, that He went up into heaven, and there, at the Father's right hand, sits in our flesh, and that glorified above the angels, is the great mystery of godliness. And a part of this mystery is, that He is believed on in the world. This natural men may discourse of, and that very knowingly, and give a kind of natural credit to it, as to a history that may be true; but firmly to believe that there is divine truth in all these things, and to have a persuasion of it stronger than of the very things we see with our eyes; such an assent as this is the peculiar work of the Spirit of God, and is certainly saving faith.-Leighton. MARCH 26. 'WHOM HAVING NOT SEEN, YE LOVE.'- The soul that so believes cannot choose but love. It is commonly true the eye is the ordinary door by which love enters into the soul, and it is true in this love; though it is denied of the eye of sense, yet you see it is ascribed to the eye of faith; though you have not seen Him, you love Him, because you believe; which is to see Him spiritually. Faith indeed is distinguished from that vision that is in glory; but it is the vision of the kingdom of grace, it is the eye of the new creature, that quick-sighted eye, that pierces all the visible heavens, and sees above them, that looks to things that are not seen, and is the evidence of things not seen, that sees Him that is invisible.-Leighton. MARCH 27. 'IN WHOM, THOUGH NOW YE SEE HIM NOT, YET BELIEVING.'-1 Peter i. 8. It is possible that one may be much loved upon the report of his worth and virtues, and upon a picture of him, lively drawn, before sight of the party so commended and represented; but certainly when he is seen, and found answerable to the former, it raises the affection that it first begun to a far greater height. We have the report of the perfections of Jesus Christ in the gospel, yea, so clear a description of Him, that it gives a picture of Him; and that, together with the sacraments, are the only lawful and the only lively pictures of our Saviour. Faith believes this report, and beholds this picture, and so lets in the love of Christ to the soul.-Leighton. MARCH 28. 'YET BELIEVING, YE REJOICE.'-1 Peter i. 8. Further, faith gives a particular experimental knowledge of Christ, and acquaintance with Him. It causes the soul to find all that is spoken of Him in the Word, and His beauty there represented, to be abundantly true, makes it really taste of His sweetness, and by that possesses the heart more strongly with His love, persuading it of the truth of those things, not by reasons and arguments, but by an inexpressible kind of evidence, that they only know that have it. Faith persuades a Christian of these two things, that the philosopher gives as the cause of all love, beauty and propriety, the loveliness of Christ in Himself, and our interest in Him.-Leighton. MARCH 29. 'DELIGHT THYSELF ALSO IN THE LORD.'Ps. xxxvii. 4. There is in true love a complacency and delight in God; a conformity to His will; loving what He loves. It is studious of His will, ever seeking to know more clearly what it is that is most pleasing to Him, contracting a likeness to God in all His actions, by con versing with Him, frequent contemplating of God, and looking on His beauty. As the eye lets in this affection, so it serves it constantly, and readily looks that way that love directs it. Thus the soul that is possessed with this love of Jesus Christ, the soul which hath its eye much upon Him, often thinking on His former sufferings and present glory, the more it looks upon Christ, the more it loves; and still the more it loves, the more it delights to look upon Him.-Leighton. MARCH 30. 'THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE.'- Grace doth not pluck up by the roots, and wholly, destroy the natural passions of the mind, because they are distempered by sin; that were an extreme remedy to cure by killing, and heal by cutting off. No, but it corrects the distemper in them; it dries not up this main stream of love, but purifies it from the mud it is full of in its wrong course, or calls it to its right channel, by which it may run into happiness, and empty itself into the ocean of goodness. The Holy Spirit turns the love of the soul towards God in Christ, for in that way only can it apprehend His love. So, then, Jesus Christ is the first object of this divine love; He is the medium through whom God conveys the sense of His love to the soul, and receives back its love to Him.—Leighton. MARCH 31. 'THOU WHOM MY SOUL LOVETH.'—Song i. 7. with belief, and a pious affection, receiving There is an inseparable intermixture of love divine truth; so that in effect, as we distinguish them, they are mutually strengthened, the one by the other, and so though it seem a circle, it is a divine one, and falls not under censure of the school's pedantry. If you ask, how shall I do to love? I answer, believe. If you ask, how shall I believe? I answer, love. Although these expressions to a carnal mind are altogether unsavoury, by gross mistaking them; yet to a soul taught to read and hear them, by any measure of that same spirit of love wherewith they were penned, they are full of heavenly and unutterable sweetness.— Leighton. |