has a whole language of its own. It welcomes and repels; it gives and it takes; it holds and it loosens; it refuses and it prays. Expressive of character as is every part of the body, none shows more than the hand. There are hands that tell of indolence and others of industry, hands that deceive and hide, hands that have no power to help, and hands that are good, true, faithful, and helpfulhands that one can trust. Has not enough been said to show that the right hand and its cunning are indeed to be reckoned among the marvels of our wonderful frames ? Holy Scripture itself testifies to the skill of the hand, when, in language such as we can understand, it tells us that, it is the hand of the Lord that hath made and fashioned us it is His hand which holds us when we are ready to fall; it is the "right hand of the Lord which hath the pre-eminence-the right hand of the Lord that bringeth mighty things to pass." "NONE, SAVE THIS STRANGER." The calm retreat, the quiet shade, COWPER. IN N a village among masters kind. But after the tour of the the Southdowns village had been made, and the Frenchmen, there stands a as was supposed, gone on their way, a small little church, | crowd was seen collecting at the church door, picturesque and it was reported that the men were in the outside and church-on no good errand of course, for beautiful in- were they not foreigners and Romanists? side, meet for And were there not articles worth stealing the worship of within the building? This was the rumour God. Twelve which reached the ears of one who went at years ago this once to look-and what was the sight which church was met her eyes? In the centre aisle, with face bare, neglect- towards the East, bent head and folded ed, and almost hands, knelt one of the strangers, engaged in a ruin; but silent prayer; while his companion held the through the patient brute at the porch without, soon energy of the doubtless to go within and pray, while the then newly-ap- other waited in his turn. A little group of pointed vicar, children stood on the road outside, whisperand the kindness and munificence of many ing and tittering. The simple devotion of friends and patrons, it has been changed to these poor foreigners, who could pray alone what it is, a little gem among country parish- in church in broad daylight and not be churches. Ever since its re-opening its ashamed, was new to them, and therefore doors have stood constantly open, as the laughable. doors of all God's houses should, to admit His fresh air and beautiful sunlight, and to afford a quiet retreat where toiling and weary men and women may disburden themselves, and private prayers be possible. One lovely day last June, when the roses were all in bloom and the hay was lying in the meadows, two travelling Frenchmen, in charge of a performing bear, passed through the village. They took the animal to the principal houses of the parish, where it went through its tricks, receiving, together with more substantial forms of sympathy, much compassion for its captive condition; though, indeed, the poor bear seemed docile, and its For more than eleven years this church had stood open, inviting her members to enter during the pauses of their daily toil, and refresh their souls by prayer within her sacred walls, and had, as far as was known, invited in vain. Two poor travellers, sons of a foreign soil, and children of a differing faith, had been (it was supposed) the very first to make use of a privilege disregarded so long. It did not matter to them that they could not speak our language, and did not understand our creed: the solemn arches, the quiet aisle, the crimson-draped altar, above all the speechless tender Figure on the Cross, pictured on the painted window above-spoke to their hearts, and made a familiar home for them in this strange land: it was the House of their God, and they could speak to Him there. May not we of the English Communion stoop to learn a lesson of these poor foreigners? To how very many is prayer possible only in VAR the quiet of the church? Companions and noise are with them everywhere else. Only there can they "be still and know that He is God." Can it be well, then, that it should be said of our quiet open church, "There was not found to give glory to God, save this stranger?" MANNA AND CORN. Nature and the Supernatural. BY THE REV. HUGH MACMILLAN, LL.D. FRANCIS CARR. "And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land."—JOSHUA v. 12. risk shrub, and frequently covers the ground to a considerable extent, which is used for food at the present day by the Arabs, and to which they give the name of manna. We cannot expect to trace an exact correspondence, for some of the qualities and conditions of the manna of Scripture were unmistakably supernatural. It is sufficient if the natural object could serve as a mere fulcrum for the miracle. But whatever might have been the nature and origin of the mysterious substance which God made use of, it is evident that the manna was intended to serve a wise and gracious purpose in the religious economy of the Israelites. They had followed Moses into the wilderness beyond the reach of ordinary food; where, owing to the nature of the soil and climate, they could neither sow nor reap, and where there was no native provision for their wants. They were in the wilderness in obedience to God's command, to be trained and disciplined under His own immediate ARIOUS conjectures have been formed regarding the nature of the manna which every morning whitened like hoar-frost the ground around the encampment of the Israelites in the wilderness. It was indeed a miraculous substance in the sense of its having been provided at the very time when, and in the very circumstances where, it was required. We can see most conspicuously God's hand put forth from behind the veil of His ordinary providence, in the abundance. and unfailing regularity of the supply, and in the exceptional feature of its corruption if kept over an ordinary day, and its preservation if reserved for the Sabbath. But we have no reason to believe that it was in itself a miraculous substance, a material previously unknown, created specially for the purpose and coming down straight from heaven. God economises the supernatural element in His working, and makes use of ordinary means as far as they will go. He did not create miraculous loaves and fishes in the miracle at Capernaum; He only increased the fisher-eye, and amid simple and severe conditions man's scanty meal into a feast for thousands; and the extended loaves and fishes were in all respects the same as those which formed the starting-point of the miracle. And we have every reason to believe that His mode of operation was not different in the desert of Sinai. He who used the ordinary thorny growth of the desert as the medium of His transcendent revelation when He appeared in the burning bush, and converted the simple shepherd's rod in the hand of Moses into a serpent, and made it the instrument of compassing the deliverance of Israel by signs and wonders, would in all likelihood employ on this occasion a substance indigenous to the desert as the basis of the great miracle which He wrought for the supply of the daily bread of His people. Such a substance might well have been the white hard exudation that drops from the thorns of the tama favourable for the checking of all that was evil in them and fostering all that was good, in order that they might thus be fit to occupy the Holy Land, and to become God's holy priesthood for the blessing of all the families of the earth. God therefore engaged to give them what they could not provide for themselves. He who said that if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all other things that we truly need will be given to us, furnished a remarkable illustration of the truth of the promise in the experience of the Israelites. There was no want to those who feared God and did His will; bread was given to them and their water was sure, even if the bread had to come down from heaven, and the water had to be produced from the flinty rock by the smiting of the miraculous rod. The whole life of the Israelites in the wilderness was a life of visible dependence upon the providence of God. They were the pilgrim nation, strangers and sojourners with God. They dwelt in His tent, they ate of His salt, and He made Himself directly chargeable for their safety and provision. What He did for other people by roundabout secondary means, He did for them directly and immediately. The arm that to other nations was clothed with the ordinary ways and means by which human food is supplied, to them was made bare. They saw behind the scenes, as it were, and God appeared to them visibly as the source of all their blessings. They had renounced the life of sense for the life of faith, and realised that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out of the mouth of God. But this supernatural life was not to last for ever. It was appropriate to the wilderness, God's special dwelling-place as it were, where there was nothing but God and nature; but it was not suitable to the Promised Land, where all the conditions of a natural human life existed, and which was the haunt of man as well as the scene of nature's most beneficent operations. It was necessary, when in the desert, where man could not sow or reap, or procure support by his own efforts, that he should be fed with manna from heaven; but in a region of agriculture, where man's ordinary labour sufficed to supply his ordinary wants, the manna would be altogether superfluous. And accordingly we read that when the Israelites first tasted of the corn of Canaan at Gilgal, the manna which had been their food for so many years previously ceased at once. The natural, which is always, superseded the supernatural, which is only occasional. The miracle must give place to the common processes of life. The training of the Israelites in the wilderness was that of children, in which all things were done for them; but the training of the Promised Land was that of grown-up men who were to keep themselves. As a father feeds his children in his household while they are children, but when they are old enough to leave the parental roof he allows them to take upon themselves the burden of their own support, along with the active duties of life; so He who fed the children of Israel at His own table in the wilderness, when He brought them into the Promised Land left them to provide their own food in the sweat of their face, and to undertake the work of persons who had grown strong and wise and capable under His fostering care. The manna ceasing when the Israelites ate of the corn of Canaan teaches us the lesson that God's help is given, not to supersede our self-help, but to enable us to help ourselves. He gave manna when the Israelites could not provide their own food, and continued it only till they were able to supply themselves. Thus was it with our Saviour's miracles of healing. He removed the disabilities which prevented the sufferers from earning their own bread and helping themselves in the struggle of life. Those who were lagging behind their fellows in the race because of physical weakness and incapacity, He brought to the front, and restored to them in full vigour the power which would enable them henceforth to hold their own. And there His aid stopped. He did not encumber any one with help; He did not enrich any one or give to any one advantages which others did not possess; He simply gave the subjects of His miraculous cures the power to help themselves. And as in natural so does God act in spiritual things. He helps us to help ourselves. We must work out our own salvation, for it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. No one can truly know what it is to find his sufficiency in God but he who puts forth all the strength which he himself possesses. It is exactly in proportion as we strive to do all, and strive in vain, that we can have an experimental consciousness of God's almighty aid. And thus the believer feels that God's strength is made perfect in his own weakness. No The difference between manna and corn is most suggestive. Manna was a supernatural product produced directly by Divine power. It came to the Israelites in the wilderness without any toil or trouble of their own. tiller of the ground had wrought for it in the sweat of his face, and therefore it was but little esteemed by the Israelites. They soon lost their relish for it; it became tasteless and insipid, and their souls loathed it in the end. It could not possibly satisfy natures so constituted that all their truest joys should come from sorrows, all their highest gains from losses, and all their noblest achievements from the sorest pains and greatest sacrifices. What was easily procured ministered no satisfaction. But corn, on the other hand, implies and involves great and continuous labour. A sacrifice is made, a loss sustained in parting with the seed - corn. There is much sweat of the face in preparing the ground for its reception; faith is exercised in entrusting it to the earth; patience and hope in watching its growth and waiting for its ripening; and toil again is required in reaping, storing, and preparing the harvest to provide for themselves by the toil of their for bread. Thus at every step and stage of hands. And how significant of the new its growth and preparation for food the corn life which it nourished was the new corn in The Israelites looked demands the sweat of the face and the sorrow these circumstances ! of the soul, and requires that man should be forward from the wilderness to the Promised a fellow-worker with God. And is there not Land as the place of consummation and rest. the same wide difference in spiritual things All conflict, hardship, and toil would there between manna and corn-between what is be over for ever; all hopes and desires would given to us without any toil or trouble of be fulfilled; and life would be one long holiour own, and what is wrought out for us and day of ease and enjoyment in a land flowing in us, as the result of our own toil and, it with milk and honey. But they found that may be, our own sad or sore experience? No their former discipline in the new circumdoubt we should prefer manna to corn; we stances was not ended, but only changed in should like to get heavenly blessings straight its character; that amid golden corn-fields out of God's hands. But the rule of the and rich pastures and luxuriant vineyards, Divine kingdom is, "no cross, no crown." they would have to practise in even higher Divine blessings are different from fairy degree the virtues which the wilderness-life favours. The same law that enjoined that in called forth. The tenure of the Holy Land the sweat of our face we should eat our was a moral one, and only on stern moral natural bread, has enjoined that in the sweat conditions could it be owned. They had to of the soul we should eat our spiritual bread. enter it as armed soldiers and to conquer We pray to God for heavenly-mindedness, every inch of it; and they had to hold it by and God, in answer to our prayer, places us a repetition of the same toils and self-denials in circumstances in which this grace will be by which they had won it. And how symthe result of our own experience. He takes bolical was the new corn of the land-the away some cherished object or beloved per- bread for which they toiled in the sweat of son, or defeats some favourite plan; and their face-of this life of self-conquest and weaned by disappointment, failure, or sorrow devotion which it sustained! It might seem from earth, we put our trust in heaven. We that their life in the wilderness, directly supcannot get any natural blessing that is worth ported by God and under His immediate having except by patient waiting and self-care, was higher and more heavenly than denying effort; and assuredly we cannot get any spiritual blessing without a similar expenditure of toil and trouble. In no other way would God's spiritual or natural blessings do us good. Only in this Divine way does the procuring of them act as a heavenly discipline, counteracting the evil tendencies of our nature, enabling us to sympathize with the plans and hopes of God, and fitting us for the enjoyment of His everlasting rest. When the Israelites entered the Holy Land, God gave them at first the corn of their enemies, as He had given them the manna of the wilderness. They spoiled the granaries of the former inhabitants of the land, and subsisted upon the fruit of their labour. They ate corn for which they themselves had not toiled, as they inhabited houses which they themselves had not built. That was necessary-just as it is necessary for the child to be supported at first by its mother's nourishment, and the young plant by the provision stored up in the seed. But this old corn would last only a little while; it would cease as the manna had ceased. When it was done the Israelites would have to sow and reap their fields in order to get a new supply; they would have their life in Canaan, sowing and reaping their The incident of the manna of the wilderness giving place to the corn of Canaan is in entire harmony with all God's dealings with man. The dispensation that was inaugurated by supernatural manifestations is carried on by common helps, and through the homely experiences of human life. The signs and wonders which opened a new era, or were needed to produce faith in great emergencies, are not perpetuated in ordinary circumstances. The creation commenced with a stupendous miracle, but is preserved by the quiet and uniform methods of nature. The law of Moses, that was given amid the thunders and. lightnings of Sinai, was put in force throughout the continuous history of Israel by its own solemn sanctions. The Christianity which first took its place in history by the aid of astonishing miracles appealing to the senses, now maintains its position by its own unobtrusive spiritual power. The gifts of Divine inspiration, which were shown objectively to men in the tongues of flame and the mighty rushing winds of Pentecost, were discontinued when the work of the Holy Ghost was carried on spiritually in all places and in all hearts. What is necessary on the stage of initiation disappears from the stage of a fixed institution. The morning glow fades into the common light of day; the heavenly manna of the desert merges into the corn of the cultivated land. Our Saviour said even of Himself, the archetype of the manna, that it was expedient that he should go away from the disciples and from the world. The continued presence of the Saviour visibly upon earth would have been a continual stimulus to the faculty of wonder and awe, and in that respect would have been hurtful to the life of faith. It was necessary therefore that He should be withdrawn from sight, in order that He might be apprehended in His true character by the soul. The supernatural life in the visible presence of Jesus must merge into the natural life of faith and hope amid ordinary circumstances. The restored demoniac would have liked to remain constantly with Jesus, feeding upon the manna of Christ's wonderful words and deeds. But Jesus knew that it would not be good for himself or others that he should thus repose idly upon the bosom of incarnate love and be sustained in this miraculous way; and therefore sent him away to proclaim to others the wonderful tidings of his restoration, and to find that in doing good to others he was getting good to his own soul; to feed upon the corn sweetened to him by his own toil and trouble. The young believer who has seen with rapturous eye the ascended Saviour on the throne of glory must forego the contemplation of the sublime spectacle, and return to the streets of Jerusalem, and there, among the hard realities of every-day life, work and wait for his Lord. The enthusiastic disciple must go down from the Mount where he has seen his Lord transfigured, and amid commonplace cares, duties, and trials, strive to work out his salvation with fear and trembling, and to make the world fairer and happier because of his presence and his work in it. God gives, at appropriate times, meat to eat which the world knoweth not of-hidden manna, living bread direct from heaven. And when the manna is withdrawn and we are supplied with corn-with human nature's daily food-let us seek to profit by what the manna has done for us and taught us. We have received spiritual food that we may have grace and strength to carry on the common duties of life. We have tasted that the Lord is gracious on the Holy Mount that we may follow hard after Him along the beaten paths of life. The life imparted by Divine power must be sustained by human means. The extraordinary, appropriate to times of religious excitement, must pass into the ordinary experience. What is the birth of a remarkable occasion must become the habit of an ordinary life. If we only have faith, the corn of every-day duty will minister to us nourishment and growth in grace, as truly as the manna of special communion and fellowship with Jesus at His own table.. The corn is as much God's gift as the manna. It is as wonderful and as Divine. It is as truly heavenly food, and it is the food convenient for us. Our bodies, if nourished exclusively by organized materials and chemically prepared food, would waste and starve; and our souls, if fed exclusively upon spiritual things, would become weak and inane. This common every-day life of ours-whose petty details and weary routine we are apt to regard as inconsistent with the high ideals of the soul-is in reality the most sacred and momentous thing in the universe. Let us seek by the grace of God to make it what Jesus made it by His experience on earth. Let us adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, not by fellowship with Himself only in the lonely wilderness, not by communion with His people on sacramental occasions only, but by the spectacle to the world of our industry, our purity, our truth, our honesty, our kindness and charity in all our duties and relationships. And thus we shall continue to eat angel's food; and while labouring for the meat that perisheth, we shall be nourished and strengthened at the same time by the meat that endureth unto everlasting life. |