With some points of difference, it is like the distinction between Scotland and England in the dark days of the Stuart reign. The hand of persecution did not fall so heavily in the south, and England had its Howe and Baxter and Bunyan, who, when they could not speak, could write though it were in the prison. But our forefathers were among those who. "wandered in deserts and on mountains;" they had a short passage from the prison to the scaffold, and their history is that of their devotion to the death. If we had then the fewer prophets, we had the greater martyrs.

There is one period of prophetic work to which During the we can refer only briefly, though it is of great Captivity. importance. It is that of the prophets of the Captivity--Ezekiel and Daniel, and of the return— Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These men had a double duty; first, to be watchers over the remnant, and to keep it steadfast as the world's religious hope; and, next, to represent in some measure to the outside world the great light which was yet to visit it. They were what may be called the " missionary prophets," and after Isaiah, who towers above all, there are none who so distinctly bring out the design of God for the whole race of man, or so prepare the heart of Jew

After the
Return.

and Gentile for the coming of Christ. If we find throughout the world at the time of our Saviour little bands of Jews and proselytes to whom the apostles first addressed themselves, and who became hearths for the sacred fire, we owe it through God's guidance to the men who lifted the thoughts and hopes of the chosen people above the natural limits of their land and race into the atmosphere of those grand truths which express the needs and meet the wants of all mankind.

This closes the line of divinely inspired teachers whom we call, in the highest sense, prophets. But, as we have already said, the word prophet has a far wider meaning, as applied to all teachers of religious truth. In this sense we find men in the time of Jehoshaphat and Josiah reading and explaining the Word of God, and not less in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. These were evidently epochs of great religious revival and reformation under what we call "the ordinary teaching of the Word." Such teaching continued down to the time of our Lord, with many a turn of the tide, but exciting desires and giving knowledge which made the world more ready for Him and for the Gospel. If the survey we have taken be at all a just one, then the prophetic office grew in importance all

through the Old Testament till it took the leading place. You will not understand me as depreciating the history or the divinely appointed symbolism. The prophet accepts these as the basis of all his teaching, but more and more does he penetrate to the heart of them, show the symbol to be nothing without its inner meaning, and turn away to the great reality, to Christ before and to God above. Moses, Isaiah, Christ-the law, the prophets, the Son of God-that is the ascending scale, and then the Son of God becomes the centre of the law and the prophets, and sends us forth again as His messengers of truth and grace.

If we follow this ascending scale, we shall be The teaching of this survey guarded against several errors.

as to

Some critics tell us that the more minute develop- (1) Course of ment of Jewish ritual was superimposed long after Jewish history the time of David; that Judaism was simpler in its elements as it came from Moses, but became more detailed and elaborate in its later history. We could understand this if it were a merely human growth; for it would resemble the addition of ceremonialism to the simplicity of the New Testament by the Romish Church. But if the Old Testament be, as we believe, a Divine education, then to put the law in its full form after the

(2) The place of preaching.

(3) The mater

ing.

prophets, is to misapprehend and invert the whole course of Jewish history. The mission of the prophets was to pass from form to substance, from symbol to reality, from ritual to righteousness and truth. God's path is from the dark to the clear and ever clearer, shining more and more unto the perfect day.

We shall also be warned against giving ritual or symbolism a higher place than preaching in the Christian Church. Even under the Old Testament, the whole course of progress was towards presenting Divine truth in its simplicity and power by bringing it close to the understanding. God gradually sets aside the mere form, and it is not for us to reimpose it.

We may also learn something as to the matter ials for preach of our preaching. In some respects the work of the Old Testament prophets was very different from ours, and yet in many respects it was the same, since they too had to instruct the people. We find that their teaching was occupied with three great spheres. (a) It laid its basis in the past, in the facts of a Divine history-what God had done in His great interpositions. Nothing moves men like this. He who does not care for the past is doomed to mental and spiritual poverty.

(6) Further, they faithfully brought the past to bear on the present-present sin, present duty; without this the past is dead. (c) And still more they pointed to the future, for without the future the present cannot be understood; unless we know the end how can we know the way?

Now the Christian preacher has still these three spheres. He has their past, but a greater added to it in the history of Christ and of what God has done through Him. Yet this will be dead-mere orthodox doctrine, unless you bring it to bear on present life, on the wants and duties that are here and now. And you have also a future to point to, a greater future, when Christ shall return to make all things new. Whatever may be said about the magnanimity of thinking only of the present life, and the grand unselfishness of letting the future alone, we must take our teaching from the apostle's maxim, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable," and from Christ's saying, "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice." I could not believe in a Christ who excited desires which He could not satisfy. I should as soon think of taking the pole-star from the sky, and the haven from the voyage, to make the sailor safe and happy. Men may call it magnanimity to