of God-in a word, the shuddering sense that in some way His mere look and presence placed them in a nearer relation than they had ever been before with the Unseen World-all this, as it had not prepared them to accept the truth, tended from the first to leave them the ready victims of insolent, blasphemous, and authoritative falsehood.

And therefore, in a few calm words, Jesus shattered the hideous sophism to atoms. He showed them the gross absurdity of supposing that Satan could be his own enemy. Using an irresistible argumentum ad hominem, He convicted them by an appeal to the exorcisms so freely, but almost ineffectually, professed by themselves and their pupils. And when He had thus showed that the power which He exercised must be at once superior to Satan and contrary to Satan, and must therefore be spiritual and divine, He warned them of the awful sinfulness and peril of this their blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God, and how nearly it bordered on the verge of that sin which alone, of all sius, could neither here nor hereafter be forgiven. And then, after these dim and mysterious warnings, speaking to them in language of yet plainer significance, He turned the light of truth into their raging and hypocritical hearts, and showed them how this Dead Sea fruit of falsehood and calumny could only spring from roots and fibres of hidden bitterness; how only from evil treasures hid deep in darkness, where the very source of light was quenched, could be produced these dark imaginings of their serpentine malignity. Lastly, and with a note of warning which has never since ceased to vibrate, He warned them that the words of man reveal the true nature of the heart within, and that for those, as for all other false and lightly uttered words of idle wickedness, they should give account at the last day. The weight and majesty of these words-the awful solemnity of the admonition which they conveyed-seem for a time to have reduced the Pharisees to silence, and to have checked the reiteration of their absurd and audacious blasphemy. And in the hush that ensued some woman of the company, in an uncontrollable enthusiasm of admiration -accustomed indeed to reverence these long-robed Pharisees, with their fringes and phylacteries, but feeling to the depth of her heart on how lofty a height above them the Speaker stood—exclaimed to Him in a loud voice, so that all could hear-

"Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the breasts that Thou hast sucked."

"Yea"- -or as we may render it-"Nay, rather," He answered, "blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it."

The woman, with all the deep and passionate affection of her sex, had cried, How blest must be the mother of such a Son! and blessed indeed that mother was, and blessed was the fruit of her wombblessed she was among women, and blessed because she believed: yet hers was no exclusive blessedness; there is a blessedness yet deeper and loftier, the blessedness of obedience to the Word of God. "How many women," says St. Chrysostom, "have blessed that Holy Virgin, and desired to be such a mother as she was! What hinders them? Christ has made for us a wide way to this happiness, and not only women, but men may tread it—the way of obedience; this it is which makes such a mother, not the throes of parturition."

But the Pharisees, though baffled for a moment, did not intend to leave Jesus long in peace. He had spoken to them in language of lofty warning, nay, even of stern rebuke-to them, the leaders and religious teachers of His time and country. What gave such boldness to one-a mere empty cistern," a mere am ha-arets-who had but just emerged from the obscure and ignorant labours of a provincial artisan? how did He dare thus to address them? Let Him at least show them some sign-some sign from heaven, no mere exorcism or act of healing, but some great, indisputable, decisive sign of His authority. "Master, we would see a sign from Thee.”

It was the old question which had assailed Him at His very earliest mínistry. "What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things?"

To such appeals, made only to insult and tempt-made by men who, unconvinced and unsoftened, had just seen a mighty sign, and had attributed it at once without a blush to demoniac agency-made, not from hearts of faith, but out of curiosity, and hatred, and unbelief -Jesus always turned a deaf ear. The Divine does not condescend to limit the display of its powers by the conditions of finite criticism, nor is it conformable to the council of God to effect the conversion of human souls by their mere astonishment at external signs. Had Jesus given them a sign from heaven, is it likely that it would have prodnced any effect on the spiritual children of ancestors who, according to their own accepted history, in the very sight, nay, under the very precipices of the burning hill, had sat down to eat and to drink, and risen up to play? Would it have had any permanent significance for the moral heirs of those who were taunted by their own prophets with having taken up the tabernacles of Moloch, and the star of their god Remphan, though they were guided by the fiery pillar, and quenched

their thirst from the smitten rock? Signs they had seen and wonders in abundance, and now they were seeing the highest sign of a Sinless Life, and yet they did but rebel and blaspheme the more. No sign should be given, then, save in the prophecies which they could not understand. "That evil and adulterous generation," He exclaimed, turning to the densely crowded multitude, "should have no sign, save the sign of Jonah the prophet. Saved after a day and night amid the dark and tempestuous sea, he had been a sign to the Ninevites; so should the Son of Man be saved from the heart of the earth. And those men of Nineveh, who repented at the preaching of Jonah, and the Queen of Sheba, who came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, should alike rise up in the judgment and condemn a generation that despised and rejected one greater than Solomon or than Jonah. For that generation had received every blessing: by the Babylonian captivity, by the Maccabean revival, by the wise and noble rule of the Asmonæan princes, recently by the preaching of John, the evil spirit of idolatry and rebellion which distempered their fathers had been cast out of them; its old abode had been swept and garnished by the proprieties of Pharisees, and the scrupulosities of Scribes; but, alas! no good spirit had been invited to occupy the empty shrine, and now the old unclean possessor had returned with seven spirits more wicked than himself, and their last state was worse than the first.'

His discourse was broken at this point by a sudden interruption. News had again reached His family that He was surrounded by a dense throng, and was speaking words more strange and terrible than ever He had been known to utter; above all, that He had repudiated with open scorn, and denounced with uncompromising indignation, the great teachers who had been expressly sent from Jerusalem to watch His words. Alarm seized them; perhaps their informant had whispered to them the dread calumny which had thus called forth His stern rebukes. From the little which we can learn of His brethren, we infer that they were Hebrews of the Hebrews, and likely to be intensely influenced by Rabbinical and sacerdotal authority; as yet, too, they either did not believe on Him, or regarded His claims in a very imperfect light. Is not the time again come for them to interfere? can they not save Jesus, on whom they looked as their Jesus, from Himself? can they not exercise over Him such influence as shall save Him from the deadly perils to which His present teaching would obviously expose Him? can they not use towards Him such gentle

control as should hurry Him away for a time into some region of secrecy and safety? They could not, indeed, reach Him in the crowd, but they could get some one to call His attention to their presence. Suddenly He is informed by one of His audience-" Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee." Alas! had they not yet learnt that if they would not enter, their sole right place was to stand without? that His hour was now come to pass far beyond the circle of mere human relationship, infinitely above the control of human brethren ? Must their bold intrusive spirit receive one more check? It was even so; but the check should be given gently, and so as to be an infinite comfort to others. "Who is My mother?" He said to the man who had spoken, "and who are My brethren ?" And then stretching forth His hand towards His disciples, He said, "Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother!"

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE DAY OF CONFLICT.

Up to this point the events of this great day had been sufficiently agitating, but they were followed by circumstances yet more painful and exciting.

The time for the mid-day meal had arrived, and a Pharisee asked Him to come and lunch at his house. There was extremely little hospitality or courtesy in the invitation. If not offered in downright hostility and bad faith-as we know was the case with similar Pharisaic invitations-its motive at the best was but curiosity to see more of the new Teacher, or a vanity which prompted him to patronise so prominent a guest. And Jesus, on entering, found Himself, not among publicans and sinners, where He could soothe, and teach, and bless-not among the poor to whom He could preach the kingdom of heaven-not among friends aud disciples who listened with deep and loving reverence to His words—but among the cold, hard, threatening faces, the sneers and frowns, of haughty rivals and open enemies.

The Apostles do not seem to have been invited. There was no sympathy of a Thomas to sustain Hiri, no gentleness of a Nathanael to encourage Him, no ardour of a Peter to defend, no beloved John to lean his head upon His breast. Scribe, Lawyer, and Pharisee, the guests ostentatiously performed their artistic ablutions, and theneach with extreme regard for his own precedence-swept to their places at the board. With no such elaborate and fantastic ceremonies, Jesus, as soon as He entered, reclined at the table. It was a short and trivial meal, and outside thronged the dense multitude, hungering still and thirsting for the words of eternal life. He did not choose, therefore, to create idle delays and countenance a needless ritualism by washings, which at that moment happened to be quite superfluous, and to which a foolish and pseudo-religious importance was attached.

Instantly the supercilious astonishment of the host expressed itself in his countenance; and, doubtless, the lifted eyebrows and deprecating gestures of those unsympathising guests showed as much as they dared to show of their disapproval and contempt. They were forgetting utterly who He was, and what He had done. Spies and calumniators from the first, they were now debasing even their pretentious and patronising hospitality into fresh opportunity for treacherous conspiracy. The time was come for yet plainer language, for yet more unmeasured indignation; and He did not spare them. He exposed, in words which were no parables and could not be mistaken, the extent to which their outward cleanliness was but the thin film which covered their inward wickedness and greed. He denounced their contemptible scrupulosity in the tithing of potherbs, their flagrant neglect of essential virtues; the cant, the ambition, the publicity, the ostentation of their outward orthodoxy, the deathful corruption of their inmost hearts. Hidden graves were they over which men walk, and, without knowing it, become defiled.

And at this point, one of the lawyers who were present-some learned professor, some orthodox Masoret-ventures to interrupt the majestic torrent of His rebuke. He had, perhaps, imagined that the youthful Prophet of Nazareth-He who was so meek and lowly of heart-He whose words among the multitude had hitherto breathed the spirit of such infinite tenderness-was too gentle, too loving, to be in earnest. He thought, perhaps, that a word of interpolation might check the rushing storm of His awakened wrath. He had not yet learnt that no strong or great character can be devoid of the element of holy anger. And so, ignorant of all that was passing in the