rang out in persistent warning against all that could socially blend the Jew with the Gentile. Knowing, too, the Jew's weak place and the strongest current he must stem, this law laid its restraining hand on his commercial passions, and set to work to make elaborate commerce impossible. It broke up intricate money relations by its system of jubiles, it cut short obligations of long debts, it abhorred usury and interest, and, finally, threw into the very thick of commercial transactions the bar of the Sabbath day. The Sabbath-the pledge of loyalty to the covenant-was to be kept as the recurrent and ever-renewed witness of God's peculiar relations to his people, holding them marked out and distinct in unmistakable isolation. The Sabbath-the test of the Jew's heroic adhesion to his God, summoning him week by week to cut across every tie that knit him to his Gentile fellows. Such in every aspect and operation and demand was the law-a call to the Jew to shake himself loose from every encumbering relationship, to retreat within the hidden seclusion which his God kept ever open for him, even as a hole in a rock, where he might be hidden under the covering of God's hand and hear Jehovah pass by and proclaim the name of the Lord. Such was the law. It had world-wide issues, promises and hopes, which should follow on what was now doing. But for the Jew its one insisting cry was: "Come out from among them: be separate; touch not the unclean thing; hold aloof in meat, in drink, in coming and going, in sleeping and waking, in the house, in the market, in marriage and in death, cut yourself off, be a peculiar people." Nothing could fuse the Jew and the Greek, nothing could destroy the identity of Israel so long as he sustained a continuous, unchanging social habit, so that every time he ate or drank he went apart and withdrew into the secret of his religion. No wonder, then, that meats and drinks, and keeping of sacred days, and washing of pots and kettles, became to him the very bulwark, and at last the

center and substance of his creed and piety. The law made
the touch of heathen things pollution to him.
But he was
immersed in heathendom. He could not be sure that any
vessel he was about to use had not just before been in hea-
then hands, given to some unclean purpose. And so in his
very zeal for the law, he frittered it away at last in scruples
about things that perish with the using. And so, in the end,
the successors of Ezra and the great makers and transmit-
ters of the law were the Pharisees, who, "when they come
from the marketplace, except they wash themselves, they
eat not and many other things there be which they have
received to hold, washing of cups, and pots, and brasen
vessels." We see how, beginning with a noble motive,
they carried their principle to this sad excess and absurdity;
how, when the law became the end rather than the means,
they soon forgot the law itself and made it void through
their traditions; how, immersed in minute problems about
mint, anise and cummin, they let slip the weightier matters
of the law, judgment, mercy and faith. All this was far
away from the time and the practice of Ezra, but the germs
of it lay in his reformation, and some shadow of the mis-
chief which it was to work already darkened his counsel
and his procedure. To him the law was more sacred than
human hearts and homes. He had yet to learn that man
was not made for the law but the law for man.
He was a
man of his age and his situation. How terribly dark was
his
age and hard was his situation, that we have tried to see,
and against that dark background, the struggle of Ezra and
the men of the law to carry through their sacred trust is one
of the most noble and inspiring efforts among all the con-
flicts and sacrifices of the heroes of faith. One thing they
did, and did most bravely: they retained, secured and trans-
mitted that light of truth and hope of redemption which had
been entrusted by God to Israel's keeping. They kept the
channels clear and free down which the grace of God could

arrive at future generations. Without their supreme effort that message had been dissipated into thin air, that river of hope would have been choked in the waste of sand. Through their strugles to hold fast the identity of Israel, the way of the Messiah was cast up and prepared; and we are to-day living in Christ through their tough and unconquerable persistence.

Let us ask ourselves, Have we any touch of that heroic virtue? For we too are here on earth, not merely to find God for ourselves, but to secure our heritage of truth for those who are yet unborn. We too have our task set, to hand on to our children the deposit of the gospel. Only through us can God transmit his good news. What, then, have we to pass on to those who shall follow us? Our generation, too prone to speak hardly of the legalist and scribe, may well stop now and ask itself, "What am I doing, comparable to the service that those narrow, earnest, strenuous men did, who shaped the old law and molded a people to its shape? What real, substantial and effective thing that I have thought out and lived out shall I leave to those who follow after? God help me to arrive at a measure of truth, solid, real and lasting, that I may leave behind when I am gone."

Charles L. Noyes.

334

PSALMS OF DELIVERANCE

PSALMS LXXXV AND CXXVI

"Lord, thou hast been favourable unto thy land," etc.

The noblest songs of deliverance are typified by these psalms. Their similarity emphasizes three things, thanksgiving for mercies past, earnest thought and prayer in view of present trials, and hope for larger good to come. These psalms take hold of the past, the present and the future. Sincere gratitude, springing from a sense of God's providential deliverance, can never end in only gratulation and ease. A thankful retrospect forms a good background for the present, which must be more or less strenuous if worthy of human life. And the present, however arduous or sorrowful, should be filled with the confidence of sure victories and satisfying attainments ahead. These Hebrew poems are so true to human life, they comprehend so well the heights and depths of human experience, that they cannot fail to strike responsive chords in human hearts so long as men suffer and hope. Three main points are indicated:

I. Thankful acknowledgment of God. Probably these psalms were written after the return of the exiles from the Babylonish captivity. A returning people are represented as praising God for their deliverance out of bondage in a foreign land. They confess God's mercy to a sinful people. The opening strain of their song magnifies the Deliverer. Thanksgiving and praise come first. These people do not allow anything of present hardship or threatened evil to check their grateful worship of Jehovah. The occasion for

gratitude to God is unmistakable. They will not forget their Deliverer. Their thanksgivings do not wait upon present or prospective conditions. It is plain that God has helped them. They have sinned and suffered, but God has not forgotten them. He has remembered them with his mercy. God has brought them out of captivity. He is to be praised. This definite acknowledgment of God is a marked feature of these psalms. The people here represented have no mental confusion respecting the source of their help, nor have they any doubt about their dependence upon God. They frankly confess their sinfulness and unworthiness, and make hearty acknowledgment of the good hand of the Lord upon them.

This is a strain which ought to be sounded much more abundantly in our life. There is always cause for gratitude to God. Adversities never have sufficed to crush out a living faith. Hardships and tribulations seem only to have made more clear to many people the good providence of God. Here is a remnant of a once powerful people, returning from bitter exile, aware of their broken fortunes, viewing their desolate land, facing tremendous difficulties and new enemies, yet praising God for their deliverance, and lifting up sincere thanks for his merciful goodness. The greatest apostle of Christianity was always giving thanks, and his thanksgivings appear mostly in connection with cruel adversities. The Pilgrims at Plymouth, during that awful first winter, gave thanks fuller and heartier, doubtless, than do most of their prosperous descendants. The sweetest songs of thankfulness have been inspired in troublous times.

Thankful remembrance of God is one of the most important elements in religion. Without it there can be no vital faith. True benevolence finds unfailing inspiration at the altar of genuine thanksgiving. Hope springs ever fresh and powerful where true gratitude abounds. Devout