length, and breadth, and depth, and height, and can cause us to know that love of Christ which passeth knowledge, it is this which follows: "The day of the gladness of His heart." "I am content to do it," says David, speaking in the person of the Son of David. "I have a Baptism to be baptised with," said He Himself, "and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?" But here, most clearly, most strangely of all, the Holy Ghost tells us of the greatness of His love, by calling the day when His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood, the day of the gladness of His heart.

And why gladness? Because from the Cross, as from a watch-tower, looking into the long year of futurity, He saw the lines of His followers taking up their own crosses, and treading in His steps; because He saw sin overthrown, death destroyed, the kingdom of Heaven opened to all believers. This was the one pearl of great price, to buy which He laid down all that He had. This was the joy beyond which there could be no other; joy enough to sweeten even the bitterness of that Passion; joy enough to turn the Via Dolorosa into a passage of gladness. He, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is

set down at the right hand of the Throne of God.

To which Cross we have now come; and it is for us to see how we can most meetly, at this time, approach it. God's priests throughout the world are, each in His own way, calling on God's servants to play the man for Christ's sake; are reminding them that it is a faithful saying, "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him;" and demanding, "What! shall we receive good at the Hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" Shall we exult in Christmas, and Easter, and Whitsuntide, but shrink back from Passion-time? Thus, as with one voice, they are speaking; thus also I would speak, and He, Who spake as never man spake, shall Himself, by the actions of His Saints, teach us of His own sufferings.

And, therefore, it was that, having been thus taught, I called you to look on Him as the Solomon of a better land than that of Canaan. That ancient Jewish king spake three thousand proverbs-but what untold stores of types and lessons has our Prince of Peace laid up for us! All the whole Bible is full of shadowings out of His Passion, just as all the whole world is full of the types of His Cross. To bear out that analogy, shall be

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the business of this week, in its morning services; and, as we then shall see the Lord's Passion in His servants, so in the evening we will trace it in the writings of His Evangelists. Thus, the Head not without the members, the members not without the Head; thus the Captain of our Salvation will be, as it were, girt round with His followers; and Moses, and the Prophets, and the Apostles together, will teach of the Cross. And this, we may bear in mind, is the day of gladness in another sense; the triumphal procession is entering into Jerusalem, the streets of the Holy City are full of them that cry, "Hosanna! Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord;" they are strewing the paths with palm and olive, and, if the multitude should hold their peace, the very stones would immediately cry out. A bright sun-gleam before a dark stormcloud, but a day of gladness still. It will pass, and we shall have entered the dark valley.

And so may we hope to behold Him-the most faithful of the faithful, the most beloved of the beloved, hanging on that same Cross. So, like the dove, we may make our nest in the clefts of this only and True Rock, secure that the storms and tempests of this world

cannot approach thither to molest us. So we shall see the Prince and Chief of all that bear the Cross, hallowing, by the touch of His own most sacred Body, that tree of Life, turning the symbol of torture and dishonour into the sign of the Son of Man letting His prayer for His murderers be set forth in the sight of the Father as incense, and making the lifting up of His Hands the true evening sacrifice. We shall draw nigh to that Cross, which was the footstool of the dying Son of God; the ladder by which His saints ascend into Paradise; the Altar whereon the Sacrifice of the world was offered; the balance where the sin of man was weighed against the Blood of God; the ark that bears us up from the waters of the Deluge; the golden urn, with its manna; the mountain of myrrh, and the hill of frankincense, whereof the Bride speaks in the Song of Songs. And thus, watching now at the foot of the Cross, God grant that some day we may be counted worthy of the Crown, for the sake of Him who endured the one courageously, and now wears the other triumphantly, Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom with the Father and Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory for ever. Amen.

J.

MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK: MORNING.

THE ROD OF MOSES.

Exodus, xiv. 16.

"But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the

sea."

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AND we, like the hosts of Israel, are encamped on the edge of the Red Sea. Behind us, as then the army of the Egyptians, so now the recollection of past sins, the remembrance of former slavery to Satan, the threatening of that vengeance which is pursuing after us. Before us, that Sea of Death, which seems to be a barrier against all hope for the future: which seems so to shut us in, so to "entangle us in the wilderness" of this world, that, whether we look forward or backward, there is nothing but misery and despair.

Now let us see what God appointed as the means of salvation; for He, Who is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever, has or