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(SETO e7T1 at)Tel, Xi. 18).

Tuesday, 12th of Nisan (April 4).—This un equalled dignity and authority in the subjects and manner of his teaching was another mark of his Messiahship. It had been indeed observed by his hearers from the beginning of his career (Mark i. 22) ; but is reserved for perhaps its grandest deve lopment on the day upon which we are now enter ing ; a day inferior to none of the Saviour's life on earth in interest, not for miraculous display—for not a miracle was wrought—but for the amount, the variety, and the grave solemnity of the instruc tion which Jesus now vouchsafed, for the last time, to address to the general public. Full of expecta tion, the people resorted early to the Temple to hear him (Luke xxi. 38). On his way from Bethany, accompanied by his disciples, the astonished Peter calls his attention to the hapless fig-tree, dried up from the roots' (Mark xi. 2o), under the wither ing curse of the preceding day. The Lord points to it as an indication of the mighty power of God ; let them learn to put their trust in It. This im plicit faith, so necessary to them in the future to which they were called, would enable them to re move mountains. Theirs would izot be a walk by sisht, as the prevalent hopes of an imperial Mes siah might erroneously suggest. They would have to commend their cause to God in earnest prayer ; only let their prayers, would they have them pre vail, be tempered, as he had already taught them on the Mount (Matt. vi. 14, 15), with a forgiving spirit. Prayer from a vindictive heart was a ter rible impropricty which God would surely punish. On his arrival at the Temple, he was met by a phalanx of his bitterest foes, who had united their incongruous forces in the vain hope of confounding him with hard and insidious questions. Could they break the spell of his influence with the masses by this public discomfiture, their purpose would be effected and his ruin sure. Their first challenge [By what alit/unity he was effecting those mighty works, the reality of which they could not deny ?] he promptly parried, by proposing to them a dilemma about the Baptist and his mission. It was a fair retort. They instantly saw his advan tage ; and by declining to answer him, they only justified his own refusal to satisfy their irreverent and hostile curiosity. This first assault seems to have had somewhat of an oiffeial tone. The San hedrim, when in the beginning they sent a deputa tion to the Baptist to demand an account of his mission (John i. 19), thereby meant to assert their prerogative as triers and conservators of doctrine and spiritual gifts. The same function they now discharge by challenging the Lord's authority. On the former occasion of cleansing the Temple, they demanded of him a sign, or miracle, in attestation of his mission (John ii. 18). The insincerity of that demand they prove by now ignoring the wonders he had in the meantime wrought, and requesting a fresh voucher. As in the other instance, so in this, Jesus meets their demand with an authoritative re joinder in the shape of three weighty parables, that of The Two Sons (Matt. xxi. 28-32) ; of The Wickea' Himbandmen (Matt. xxi. ; Mark xii. ; Luke xx.); and of 7he Marriage of the King's Son (Matt. xxii. -4). In these we have a cztena of solemn protest and warning, in which the Lord exposes the failure of the Pharisaic party to profit from the labours, first of John the Baptist and then of him self. With all their sanctimonious pretensions of fealty to God, they were in fact forfeiting (like the second son) the blessings of his kingdom to the publicans and the harlots,' those objects of their proud contempt (symbolised by the first of the sons) whose simple faith was leading them to the heritage which the Lord of the vineyard would take from them. Like the husbandmen of the second parable, they were consummating the re probation of their ancestors, who had slain God's servants the prophets, by now compassing the death of his Son and heir. The vineyard of their church and nation would soon be judicially taken from them and transferred to other races, whom they indeed had superciliously cursed, but whom God would surely choose. The same stern truth is taught in the third of these parables, in which the graethusness of the provision which the King of Heaven had made for his subjects is conspicuously illustrated ; while their rebelliousness is visited with the burning up of their guilty city, and the offer of their blessings to wayfarers and stran gers, who would gladly accept and cherish the gifts which they had slighted and abused. Over powering was the effect of these parabolic dis courses, the second of which, delivered with an unmistakeable point, which converted parable into plain rebuke, so incensed the chief priests and the scribes, that nothing but their paramount dread of a rescue by the yet unestranged multitude deterred them from the imlnediate apprehension (Iv aOnj 1-47 C.TLI, Luke xx. 19) of Jesus. Foiled in their united effort, they separate their forces and renew their attempts to embarrass the Lord by dangerous and captious questions. One of the most remark able proofs of the intense hatred of all parties towards the holy Saviour occurs in the violent incongruity of the alliances which men formed to effect their deadly object. On the present occasion the Pharisees were content to make common cause with opponents, whose hostility on ordinary ques tions of political and theological interest was im placable. In their first attack they joined the Herodians in proposing the famous dilemma about tribute to Cirsar (Matt. xxii.; Mark xii.; Luke xx.) This was followed by the less perilous but equally insidious inquiry about the sevenfold widow and the resurrection. The Lord's answers were as uncvasive and full to the point as they were wise and suggestive of principles of eternal interest ; the first settles with delicate precision the compatibility of political and religious duty, and the second reconciles, on intelligible and simple grounds, the necessary discrepancy of social existence in the earthly and the heavenly states.* The Pharisees, undeterred by their first repulse, return to the charge. This time they selected one of their most able scribes to confront the Saviour (comp. Matt. xxii. 34 with Mark xii. 28). To his question about the great connzandment of the law, the Lord returned an exhaustive answer, which extorted even from his dialectic assailant an exclamation of approving surprise. The effect of Christ's replies was to silence his foes, one after the other, amidst the astonishment and delight of the listening crowds. The humiliation of his assailants was still further increased by their utter inability to meet him, when he retorted on them the profound but (considering their pretensions of knowledge) not unreasonable question respecting the Son and Lord of David. The Lord's victory was complete

over every opponent and at every stage of these discussions. Nothing is more emphatic in the gospels, than the statement, again and again re peated in the history of this great day, of the silence to which Christ reduced his adversaries (comp. Matt. xxi. 27; xxii. 22, 46; Mark xi. 33; xii. 12, 34; Luke xx. 7, 26, 4o). Having thus stilled them, the Lord proceeds, in a final attempt to convince and win them to conversion, to deliver that most solemn of his addresses which St. Matthew has preserved in his 23d chapter. Free from passion (vers. 2, 3), but full of love, he begins by warning his disciples (Luke xx. 45) and the well-affected multitude (Matt. xxiii. r) against the hypocritical teachers, who had misled them by perverting the doctrines of Moses. Then in words of righteous but withering indignation he goes on to condemn the fatal casuistry of these scribes, who were closing the kingdom of heaven against others and themselves. They were worse than their fathers, whose guilt they were fast con summating, so that upon that reprobate generation must burst the storm of vengeance which had long been gathering. And all this was in spite of his dear love which had so often yearned over the children of Jerusalem in vain! (see the tender expostulation over the city, which he had uttered first in Pera and repeated here and now, in Matt. xxiii. 37-39). SS. Mark (xii.) and Luke (xxi.) mention one affecting incident, which gives point to the Lord's burning censures. Foremost amongst these he had placed the extortion of the false teachers, who (not -unlike the Sophists of Athens) doubled their sin by first poisoning know ledge and then vending the noxious doses at high prices. They enriched themselves by devouring widow's' houses and robbing the poor and simple. One of these victims of their rapacity was observed by Jesus humbly offering at the Temple-treastmy the scanty remains of her living- at the call of unaffected piety. The Lord bestowed his com mendation on the widow's mite as the sig,n of a higher sacrifice, given in her penury, than the copious offerings of the affluent, who felt not the want of their costlier gifts. And now this great day of teaching drew near its end, but not its sacred instructions. For as Jesus was taking his leave of the Temple his disciples remarked on the beauty of its structure and materials. He answered their admiration by prophesying the complete overthrow of the splendid fabric. After pensively traversing their way, Peter and his brother and the two sons of Zebedee, availing themselves of a halt on the Mount of Olives, where the Lord turned another look towards the Temple, anxiously desired an explanation of the mournful prophecy. Their inquiry afforded Jesus a ready opportunity of discoursing on two events fraught with pro foundest interest to them, as Jews and as men —the end of the Jewish polity and the end of the world. After what Lord Bacon calls the germinant way of prophecy, which often ignores chronological sequence and springs from a crisis to its analogue, Christ on this momentous occa sion, in the long foreview of his prophetic in, tuition, couples together the two analogous events, the fate of Jerusalem and the final judgment, from which Ile wishes his immediate audience, and after them his church, throughout all genera tions, to learn the lessons of vigilance and endur ance and preparation, under many trials on earth, waiting for the coming of the Son of Man. He inforces his injunctions of watchfulness and patient discharge of duty by the solemn parables of the Ten Vigins and the Talents ; and winds up the ipstructions of this most memorable day by a revelation, sucli as he alone could make, of-the scenes and processes of the last judgment (Matt. 3i-44 Wednesday, 13th of Nisan (April 5), —This, the perfect contrast of yesterday, was a day of no excitement and but little incident. In its quietness, however, was planned the treachery which brought about the death of Jesus. The Lord seems to have spent the whole of this, his last day of freedom, in the retirement of Bethany or on the slopes of Olivet. By some the supper of Simon the leper, which we have assigned to the preced ing Saturday, is supposed to have taken place to-day. Its sequence in the narrative of SS. Matthew and Mark is the only ground (and it is a most inconclusive one) for the conjecture. More consistent with probability is the view of those who think that Holy Scripture now removes the Saviour from the gaze of men, and throws a veil over him as he approaches death. In the profound causes of that death, in the endurance of it, and in its momentous issues, what room for meditation and prayer, and what need of communion with his heavenly Father! Whether his disciples, whom he loved to the end,' were the sharers of his thoughts—or whether he spent these precious hours in absolute solitude—we are not informed. One at least avoided his presence during a part of the day. The Sanhedrim, as we have seen, had long been seeking some means of apprehending Jesus. Though thwarted hitherto by the favour of the people, they were still bent on their malignant purpose, and were met to-day for consultation at the house of Caiaphas, the high-priest. To this body did the traitor Judas, one of the twelve, now go—probably in the afternoon—and offer his miserable services. This unexpected aid put them in higher hope than they had yet dared to enter tain of the speedy accomplishment of their wishes. Two of the evangelists expressly mention their joy (Mark xiv. ; Luke xxii. 12). They gratify the cupidity of their new accomplice with the paltry sum, which Moses appointed for the life of a servant or slave (Matt. xxvi. 15, comp. with Exod. xxi. 32). We have sometimes called attention to the accomplishment of prophecy in this history of our Lord. Not the least remarkable of these prophetic coincidences is connected with this fee of treachery (see Zech. xi. 12, 13, and Matt. xxvii. 9,1o). The bargain thus made in privacy was to be carried out as quietly as possible. The fear of the populace still haunted the rulers, who were laying their plans for the secret death of Christ. This, however, would not accord with the appoint ment of prophecy, nor with the intimations which the Lord had himself occasionally dropped about the great event So recently as this very morning he had distinctly said to his appalled disciples, Ye know that after two days is the passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified' (Matt.