of Him who died for us. For ever extending will be our capacity for enjoying God and Christ. This will go on indefinitely and infinitely. It forms one distinguishing difference between the creature and the Creator, that no new conception or enlarged capacity could ever be added to Him, else His knowledge would be finite, and He less than God; on the contrary, our progress will be limitless and eternal. How grand is the future we expect, and glorious the life we shall enjoy! THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. "THEY stand, those halls of Zion, All jubilant with song, And bright with many an angel, "There is the throne of David, And there, from care released, The shout of them that triumph, The song of them that feast."-Bernard. Twenty-ninth Part. THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. "Every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." THI ZECH. xiv. 16. HIS brings us to one of the grand commemorative days to be enjoyed in the land. Some think it going back to Judaism to keep the feast of tabernacles; but no, it is going on with God, and with His revealed Word. Do we reenact the cross, or renew the sufferings of Christ, when we remember His death? Surely not. Thus as the supper is an ever-repeated memorial of the Saviour and His work on the cross, so this feast will recall to Israel those wilderness days when their fathers were sojourning in booths or tents, having for forty years no homes in which to dwell. It will remind them of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived as pilgrims and strangers on the earth; also the cloudy pillar, the bread from heaven, the water from the rock, the shoes that never wore out, and the garments that never waxed old, with many other signs and wonders of the way. Other feasts-such as Pentecost and the Passover-have had their antitype, but not so this. Its joy is future. It is designated a festival, "a closing festival.” (See Lev. xxiii. 34.) They were told: It shall be a solemn rest, in which there shall be no servile work. Ye shall take the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. These seven days of festivity, in the age to come, will be carried out on a scale quite unknown before. How fair a scene to look upon! Princes, nobles, people, together with visitors from all lands, of every clime and hue. Not a few, we can imagine, whose delight was in the Lord, had been engaged in gathering the long branches of trees of varied leafy glory-"the living tracery of the season"-with which to form and adorn the booths themselves where His name, in the joyous assemblies was to be above every other Not only will Israel keep the feast, but a vast assembled brotherhood of nations will willingly unite in the thanksgiving and praise. And what rest! There will be no troubles to hinder; no hunger or thirst; no sun or moon to smite; nor entrance of anything defiling. The enemy has name. |