young glad with a double joy; and may business teach us that we are children of heaven and not of earth, of eternity and not of time, and that there are no good things to be found below which can satisfy the capacity of the soul.

The Lord hear us in these things: his attention shall be a blessing; his condescending to listen shall be a help; and as for the reply the holy answer, the gracious response of Heaven-will it be less than the Cross? Will it be more than the earth and time can receive? Will it be a surprise of benefaction? We know it will be worthy of the name in which our prayer is prayed, and there we rest. Amen.

Deut. xvi.

"Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the Lord thy God for in the month of Abib the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night” (v. 1).

THE

CONDITIONS OF WORSHIP.

HE time is specified, and the reason is given. This is the law, rather than a mere accident. The law is: that every month has a memory, every day has a story, every night has a star all its own. Selected instances help us to ascertain general principles. Acting upon those instances, we become familiar with their spirit and moral genius, so much so that we begin to ask, Are there not other memorable events? Are there not other times of deliverance? Have we been brought out of Egypt only? Are not all the days storied with providential love? Thus, from the particular we pass into the general, and from the general to the universal; and thus all time is lighted up by the divine and comforting Presence. The time is only dull when we make it such. If the events of our life had been brighter, then our moments of temporal rejoicing would have been more numerous: every day might have been a birthday; every hour might have been labelled with some deed of love; the whole week long we should have had festival as well as fast, the sound of trumpet and mirthfulness as well as the voice of groaning and confession of sin. The Lord knows what he has done for every month of the year. It would seem as if the calendar were kept in heaven. We may not consult the diary, but God looks at it, and according to the time of day and the time of year he expects the psalm and hymn of earth. Why do we blur the pages of the daily journal so that we cannot tell

what happened this day twelvemonth, so that the day shall be but a moral vacancy in the life? Who died this day year? Whose death does this day for ever commemorate—what martyr, what apostle, what great leading thinker, what sweet life at home? Were these questions asked at every dawn, what time in the whole year would there be that might not be an "Abib”— a "time of putting in the sickle," a reaping time, having even in the winter a touch of harvest gladness? We should try to make the time more memorable. This is impossible to some, if heroic and chivalrous deed be required, but it is possible to all who can love and serve and think and patiently endure.

If God is so careful about time, has he any regard for place?

"Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee:

"But at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt " (vv. 5, 6).

This is morally consistent with God's claim for gracious recollection of definite times. May we not slay the passover where we please? The answer is, Certainly not. May we not insulate ourselves, and upon little church appointments of our own creation carry out the ceremony of our worship? The answer is, Certainly not. We should strive to move in the direction at least of unity, commonwealth, fellowship, solidarity. The sacrifice is the same, the man who offers it is the same; but because it is not offered at the place which God has chosen the sacrifice and the sacrificer go for nothing. That is in harmony with all the social arrangements which experience has approved. There are fit places for all things, as well as fit times. Has God chosen a place? There can be no hesitation as to an affirmative reply. God has always been solicitous about a house for himself: he would have a building put up from foundation to pinnacle for his own service-a house that should be called by his own name, and that should owe all its dignity and worth to his presence and sanction. But, whilst all questions of locality have their importance within given limits, the great doctrine of the text is that there is an appointed place, where God and man shall, so to say, face one another in solemn and joyous interview. There is only one place, and all related places are only of

importance and value in proportion as they are vitally related. What is that one place? It is called Golgotha-Calvary,-the place of the Cross, the shadow of the altar on which the Saviour died. We can only meet God at the Cross, if we have to meet in the name of mercy, compassion, hope. If we would meet on Sinai, we have no answer; if we would meet on Golgotha, the answer is with God-an infinite reply of love and pardon and release. It is wonderful how God has fixed certain great centres and allowed us liberty only within the radius. Dwelling upon that radius, we call it liberty; but, fixing the mind upon the centre, we call it law, divine sovereignty, heavenly supremacy. The centre is not fixed by us, but by the Lord; and our liberty is also determined by his wisdom. There are, then, holy places, and there are holy times. There are holy places without referring to the Church, distinctively so called; and there are holy times. without referring to the Sabbath day. The grave is a holy place. Blessed be God, there are yet men who cannot play a fool's game within the boundaries of the churchyard filled with the sleeping dead. There are places marked by moral strife, which happily ended in conquest wrought by righteousness and truth. There are altars where we prayed victorious prayers; there are times of light-well-remembered light: we know just when the light came, how full it was, how it struck us to the earth for one moment, and how amidst its lustre we heard appeals and directions, out of obedience to which came our noblest life. Want of veneration is want of dignity. To be able to treat all places and all times alike is simply to be able to say that we have destroyed the very faculty which may become the beginning of the noblest life and service.

The time having been fixed and the place having been determined, what remains ?

"And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee (v. 10).

Here is the beginning of another kind of liberty. A wonderful word occurs in this verse; there is no larger word in all the language of devotion and service. That word is "a freewill offering." Reading the Scriptures carefully up to this point,

VOL. IV.

17

He only would count

we would suppose that everything had been claimed, taxed, and insisted upon that could possibly be given to God's altar; yet we are reminded that such is not the case: the very opportunity of giving unto the Lord a "freewill" offering shows that still something has been left. How wonderfully God educates the human race: he will insist upon definite claims and obligations being answered, and yet he will also give opportunity for freewill action, as if he had said,-Now we shall see what you will do when left to yourselves; the law no longer presses you: the great hand is lifted, and for the time being you shall do in this matter as it may please your own mind and heart. That is an element in the divine education of the human race. God gives us opportunities of showing ourselves to ourselves. the gift no one should know what had been done: the sweet transaction should lie between the one soul and the living Lord. The Church could not live upon that to-day. Here and there instances would occur of almost superhuman liberality-instances amounting to complete devotion and sacrifice: blessed be God for these; but remove public opinion, public criticism, and all the other considerations which operate upon human action, and then stand in amazement at the result which would accrue. The soul must be revealed to itself; the man must be compelled to drag up the coward that lies asleep within his own nature, and he must look that coward in the face, and call that coward by his own name. We are not to be permitted to live in rush and tumult and such tempestuous excitement as shall lead to false estimates of ourselves. At given periods of time we have to see what we are in God's sight; and whether we be saint or sinner, coward, liar, or hero and truthful man, we must know the reality of the What is given under pressure is not given: what is given to a subscription list in order to keep up the harmony of the numbers is wasted money; only that is given which cannot be kept back; only that is accepted which carries with it the blood of the heart.

ase.

Another singular word occurs in this tenth verse :-" a tribute." The literal meaning is that the gift is to be proportional. It is a word with a strong arithmetical or numerical aspect: not only is there a gift, but the gift is the result of thought, calculation, and expresses the serious and responsible judgment of the giver.

That consideration alters the whole case. It would have been easy to throw a dole to the Lord that had no reference whatever to what was left behind: that would be a broad, easily-opened gate to heaven; but such is not the condition stated in the bond. Even the freewill offering is to be tributary: it is to be based upon the original substance, the actual property, whatever is in the hand as momentary possession. Thus, sacrifice is to be calculated; worship is to be the result of forethought; nothing is to be done of mere constraint or as consultative of ease and indulgence. A word of taxation touches the very poetry and pathos of oblation.

"And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place his name there” (v. 11).

This gives us the joyous aspect of religion. An ancient Jewish annotator has made a beautiful remark upon this verse, to the effect that "thy four, O Israel, and my four shall rejoice together." Observe how the numbers are divided into fours, and how the one four may be said to be man's and the second four may be said to be God's. This is the distinction drawn by Rashi, the Jewish commentator: "Thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant "-let them rejoice, let them be glad in response to music, and let them call for more music to express their ever-increasing joy; but my four must be there also the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow; they represent the divine name as authority for admission to the feast. The religious servant, the poor stranger, the orphan, and the widow, they sit down, in seats divinely claimed for them, at the festive board. So the company shall be representative : -son, daughter, manservant, maidservant; priest, stranger, orphan, widow;-this is the typical company sitting down at the symbolical feast. God will not have our small houseparties, made up of people of one class, equally well-dressed and accosting one another in the language of equality; he will have a large feast. We can have no true feast that some orphan child does not partake of. If the desolate and the stranger eat nothing of our feast, the feast will be but an evil memory to the