life, are beautiful illustrations of family affection and trustfulness, and of prayerful devotion to God.

The chief facts to be kept in view in a rapid glance over the lessons of the quarter are:

(1) The comforting assurances of God to Joshua; his appeal to the people, and their response.

(2) The promise of power and conquest to the Israelites, on condition that they feared the Lord, and kept His commandments.

(3) Their early triumphs so long as they remained pure and faithful; their defeat at Ai in consequence of sin-sin that would have spread unless checked by immediate punishment.

(4) The reading of the law-of its blessings and of its curses-as a reminder to the people that only by strict obedience to God could they secure Divine protection, and enjoy national peace and prosperity in their new land.

(5) The provision of the six cities of refuge, where, amid the frequent wars and strifes, and revengeful feelings of those days, there might be some place of retreat and fair trial for those who had unwittingly or wrongfully taken away life.

(6) The last days of Joshua are distinguished by the earnestness of his appeal to the people to put away their gods, and serve the Lord with fidelity, sincere trust, and unwavering obedience. The people, however, forgot their vows, and fell into a state of moral pollution and degrading defeat, from which it required all the valour and faith of Gideon, and all the heroic strength and self-immolating desperation of Samson, even partly to rescue them.

(7) In the later lessons, Ruth is our pattern of inward truth, sense of duty, pure affection, and loyalty to God's people; Hannah a type of the praying, trusting, self-devoting mother who trains her child for God and unreservedly dedicates him for his whole life to a service in which she believes he will find purity, honour, and lifelong usefulness; whilst Samuel himself has a sweetness of temper, a simplicity of faith, a fidelity to God, and a kindly candour towards man which make him our model of youthful saintliness, of prophetic zeal, and honourably-acquired fame for veracity, spiritual power, and useful deeds. Both in the circumstances of his birth, his mother's song of triumph, his father's simple piety, his offices of prophet, priest, and king-like ruler, he is of special interest in the progress of Divine Revelation, and a fitting type of Him who is our only Prophet, Priest, and King-the Lord Jesus Christ.

OCTOBER 7.

SUBJECT-ELI'S DEATH.

Lesson-1 Samuel. iv. 1-18. Golden Text-ver. 22.

INTRODUCTION.-The character of Samuel as a prophet was now fully confirmed. "All Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord." Again and again did visions appear at Shiloh; "the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel" (iii. 20, 21), and through him revealed His will to the people. He was the recognised medium of communication with God. There was now an open vision," and "the word of the Lord" was no longer "precious" in the sense of infrequent (iii. 1). Probably the growing fame and power of Samuel as prophet, and as the virtual leader and judge of Israel, had excited the fear of the Philistines, who, having hovered on the borders of Israel, and kept the Israelites in awe ever since the death of the mighty Samson, were determined to prevent that national independence to which Samuel seemed destined to lead the people of Israel. Eli was now totally blind; he had upon him the infirmity of 98 years: and his sons still continued their corrupting ways. In these circumstances the Philistines became bold aggressors; and the Israelites, apparently without Consulting Samuel as to the will of the Lord, marched out to battle against the Philistines, and were defeated.

EXPOSITION.

1, 2. The word of Samuel, &c. This clause belongs entirely to the previous chapter. The Israelites went out to battle unauthorised by any

message from God. The Philistines had occupied a fortified place called Aphek (strength, firmness, fastness). Ebenezer, called such by anticipation of vii. 12; or perhaps a silent witness that the First Book of Samuel was compiled after the transactions which it records. Four thousand men slainan evidence that it was a long-contested battle.

3. The elders of Israel said, &c. It is quite clear Samuel was not amongst them, and was not consulted. Let us fetch the ark, &c. It was customary for heathen nations to take their gods and sacred ensigns with them to battle as the means of victory. The Israelites, forgetting that it was through their wickedness that God had suffered them to be defeated, and for putting their superstitious faith in the symbol of God's presence rather than in God Himself, thought that they would be victorious with the ark as their fathers had been, even though they had not, like their fathers, forsaken their sins. They were so blind as to think that "the Lord" had "smitten" them, and that "the ark" would save them.

4. Which dwelleth between the cherubim. An allusion to the Shekinah above the mercy-seat (see Ex. xxv. 18-22). The two sons of Eli. The fact that these profligate priests were with the ark is a proof that the people loved their own evil ways more than God, and were trusting more to the symbol of the Divine Presence than the Presence itself.

5. The great shout of Israel as the ark came into the camp is another evidence of their superstitious trust in the outward sign, and of their unbelieving departure from God. Had they humbled themselves and prayed to God for help He would have saved them.

6-11. God is come into the camp. These mighty Gods. The Philistines were now filled with still darker superstitious fears than those of Israel. Thirty thousand footmen slain. The Israelites were utterly routed. The first defeat had not opened their eyes. When one judgment avails not, God permits or sends a greater. The ark of God was taken. Probably the Philistines had made a determined assault on it at first, and that when it was captured the Israelites were panic-stricken, and fled, being pursued with great slaughter. Hophni and Phinehas were slain. A fulfilment of ii. 34, and iii. 11-14.

12. With earth upon his head. A symbol of distress and humiliation among Eastern nations (Josh. vii. 6; 2 Sam. i. 2).

13. His heart trembled for the ark of God. He trembled because the ark had been removed without Divine sanction; and because he knew from prediction that God was grieved at the sins of Israel and of his sons. But the good man thought of the ark first. Weak as he had been, he had humbled himself before God, and found mercy. Notwithstanding his strange death, we cannot doubt his salvation.

13-18. Picture this scene: The aged priest, almost a centenarian, blind, sitting at the gate of the city on his official throne-a chair richly carved, superbly ornamented, high, without a back to it. He is waiting for news, his heart throbbing with fear. A messenger sweeps by him into the city, tells the people in the market-place, and soon widows wail and crowds cry out. "What meaneth the noise of this tumult? asks the sightless, trembling judge. The messenger is brought before him "hastily," and then stroke upon stroke falls mercilessly on the old man's heart as he hears the quick, breathless utterances : "Israel is fled-a great slaughter-among the people-thy two sons also are dead." All this the weeping, quivering judge bears with some degree of fortitude. But the ark of God?" he eagerly questions. "It is taken," is the rapid reply, and beneath this last most terrible blow to his hopes, the frail, trembling old man falls backward from his seat; his neck breaks, and he dies. But he dies heart-broken as well.

LESSONS.

(1) Go not up to any battle with your foes without first consulting God. (2) Let failure in your first conflicts with evil lead you to self-examination, self-humiliation, and return to God.

(3) Put not your trust in signs and symbols, or any ceremonial observances. The ark is nothing without the real Presence and Power of which it is the symbol. Mere profession and outward privilege will not save us. We must divorce ourselves from an evil life to be in true alliance with God. Then only shall we have definite victory, and not disastrous defeat. Then only will the Church be pure, the ark safe, and the blessing of God rest on us and our house.

THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

PILATE lost prestige and power too, when he made terms with rebels; yet, when he felt this, he was loath to yield. Evidently he struggled hard before he let go the old Roman sense of fair play. Jesus was "innocent" he had said, the Galilean Tetrarch had said the same, and there was that solemn warning from his wife. How could he stultify himself at a bound? In his dilemma he asked, "What shall I do with ” this Man you call " "Christ," ," "the King of the Jews"? suggesting probably some less severe punishment than crucifixion. Masters of the situation, the crowd yelled again, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" A third time Pilate responded,-"Why! what evil hath He done? I have found no cause of death in Him!" "I will chastise (scourge) Him and let Him go." "Let Him go!" the whole crowd cried out at once, Away with this Man!" They were in no mood to reason then: that time had passed. They saw Pilate truckling and quaking; saw that the helpless Jesus was in their own hands, and the shouts came louder and wilder, "Away with Him!" "Crucify Him!" True, they always released some criminal from jail at that festival, but they would not loose Jesus, as Pilate suggested; they would have the rebel, robber, thief, murderer "Barabbas," ‚""released." Again Pilate yielded, set free that notorious villain, and sent Jesus to be "scourged." We will not describe this horrible punishment in its more revolting details, because those details are too brutal for modern ears. But, we may say, the lowly, unresisting Victim was publicly stripped of His clothes, bound, with tied hands, to a post, and barbarously flogged by soldiers. The weapon was a heavy whip, of leathern thongs, weighted with sharp pieces of bone and lead. With this instrument of torture He was struck by unsympathising Romans, anywhere-back, shoulders, loins, legs, face, head, or eyes. Laceration, bleeding, fainting, and sometimes mortification and death resulted. Jesus was led forth to this punishment, and led back by coarse, bantering, military men: led back bleeding, with quivering, flickering heart to the barrack-room (pretorium)—there to be the sport of barrackmen. Josephus supplies the details usual on these "scourging" occasions, but we have said enough. The Evangelists show the spirit which reigned -the sport-making and coronation ceremony, in mockery of pretended "Kingship." These barrack-men-" the whole band" were called in to offer mock-homage-procured a crown of twisted thorns in a wreath-form, and placed it on the prisoner's brow; and put in his tied "right hand" a stick, for a sceptre. The "gorgeous robe," mockingly put on by Herod Antipas, was torn from His lacerated back and shoulders, and an old

scarlet military cloak was substituted; then these soldiers mocked again, on bended knees now, and spat upon and struck Him "on the head" with the sceptre-stick, as they moved in sham reverence backwards and forwards. With all this came the derisive shout of, "Hail, King of the Jews!" as if from grinning apes in some enchantment.

66

Even yet Pilate had not quite silenced his conscience, nor smothered his sense of the injustice of destroying an "innocent" Man. He knew death would be a murder, and it is not unlikely the echoes still rang in his ears of his wife Claudia Procula's warning. He would have yielded gladly, with any show of evidence, but there was not a particle, and it may be he applied the "scourging," more to extort a confession, than as the usual preliminary of crucifixion. Jesus was brought out now, and stood on that floor of mosaic work, with His thorn-crown on, His scarlet robe, all His fresh wounds and marks of mockery exposed; but with a patience, meekness, Divine nobility, which wrung Pilate's conscience and heart, till he exclaimed-" Behold the Man!" Can you really do it to so innocent, harmless, quiet, half-alive Person as this? He tried to work on the better feelings of the mob, but the Sanhedrim kept them well in hand He had let slip his authority, and could not win it back by feeble appeals to their sympathy. They only shouted the more, Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" The heathen soldiers appear to have relented; but no attempts of Pilate could cool the burning hatred of the multitude and their leaders, who only answered with wilder cries of death. At length, in apparent disgust, the Roman yielded all, and, in a fit of desperation, said, "Take ye Him, and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him!" Innocent the Man is, but do as you like, and I will wink at it. A crime this which heaped blackness upon darkness. A judge having gone so far had no longer power not to go farther. The crowd would "take "Jesus on no such terms. They must have not simply his permission, but his sanction and authority. They had got thus far-whether he thought Him innocent or not, he must give his word for his death. Both the Prisoner and the Judge they felt were now fairly in their hands, and the cowardly judge, struck with "opaque wonder," was afraid of the mob, his position at Rome, and his place in Judæa. He could no more go back than he could leap across his own shadow. He had sold himself fairly, and, as a consequence, had to yield his judgment, conscience, convictions, authority to mob-dictation. Somebody must rule, and the weak Procurator gave the rule over to the roaring rabble. Here was a success they had hardly hoped for two hours before; they had won it by violence; they could win more by violence; and they boldly ventured now to recur to the original charge of "blasphemy." "By our law," they began, "He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." Here was a new aspect of the question to Pilate, and though in ordinary circumstances he would have laughed at it, he made it an excuse to re-examine the Prisoner Jesus saw the frightened man had sacrificed Him, and when Pilate in. quired, "whence art Thou?" He declined to answer a word, because He saw His interrogator had become more a slave than a governor. To force an answer, Pilate then told Jesus His life was in his hands. There was no terror in that threat, and it drew forth a glimmer of defiance and con

tempt in the calm reply, spoken in pity for the man's vacillation and weakness" thou hast no power against Me;" none at all, but "what is given thee from above." I see thy position, however, though thy sin is dark enough without this threat; I know thou wouldst release Me, if thou durst, and I acknowledge that they who brought Me here "have the greater sin." Cowardice, and the violation of conscience are bad, but the crime of Judas and the Sanhedrim is much worse. Pilate seemed to endorse this solemn judgment of Jesus, for he actually made another attempt to save Him. In a tumult of anxiety he brought Jesus to the front again, and, eyeing Him over, he said derisively to the crowd, "Behold your King!" This poor, helpless, lacerated, suffering Man you pretend to dread as a "King!" Look at Him! Can it be possible? But it was all in vain; for a storm, a hurricane of crucifixion-cries was the response, and threats about "Cæsar." In a half taunting spirit Pilate then asked, • Shall I crucify your King?" Ah! all had no effect; and they replied, "we have no king but Cæsar, and if thou let this Man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." Here was, again, a very prim promulgation of another falsehood. What they meant was that they would raise the cry of "treason in the palace and treason on the bench,” which shook Pilate's nerves more than ever and utterly unmanned him. There was a man at Rome then, smitten with ulcers, leprosy; Pilate knew how that man hated tumults in his Provinces, and he knew what would follow them there. At the shout of "Cæsar" images of bonds and banishment and confiscation waked within him, and brought on a mixed madness and misery. Pilate was not a man of fine feelings, but rather of cruelty, though Jesus won upon him by his innocence, gentleness, meekness, which inclined Pilate's heart towards mercy. Yet it was waste of time and breath, and only increased the "tumult" (Matt. xxvii. 24), till he washed his hands in water, as if he could wash out his conscience, and cried to the crowd, "I am innocent of the blood of this just Person: see ye to it;" I yield to your violence; all the guilt, remember, is on you! Very easy talking, very high-sounding; says Carlyle, "Talk is delightfully handy," compared with work; but public men cannot rid themselves of crime by a trick of the tongue. Pilate was false to his judgment, and to his official position; heedlessly let slip his power, and the mere "washing" ceremony and weak protest could not save him from odium and the stain of voluntary guilt. His affected indignation did not stem the immeasurable flood of foolish rage; did not stop the hideous yells, nor the dreadful imprecation, "His blood be on us and on our children!" The blood came, indeed, soon enough. And they had "Cæsar" after "Cæsar" enough, till their blood ran in all but rivers, and myriads of them (till, Josephus says, there was not room for the crosses in the City) were crucified as they had crucified Jesus. Nemesis was invoked, Nemesis did not long tarry; and Nemesis still pursues. The fierce rabble had its way, and Jesus was given up 66 to be crucified "to & people amongst whom sheer fanaticism had eaten into the very heart of social and domestic life.

The verdict was "Guilty;" the punishment Crucifixion; the cruelest and most degrading known to the Roman law. No second" Scourging"