THIS leads us to consider :

III. THE MEANS BY WHICH THEY ATTAINED

THEIR PRESENT CONDITION. They attained it by blood-by the blood of Christ-by their application to the blood of Christ.

1. By blood.—Once, they were guilty and condemned. They had broken the law, which is holy, just, and good. That law demanded their lives; for thus it is written, "The soul that sinneth shall die." "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Heaven's justice was thus in arms against them. "Die man, or justice must." Without shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins-no friendly approach to God by any child of Adam.

They attained their present condition,

2. By the blood of Christ.-No ordinary blood could wash away sin. The sacrifices and offerings enjoined by the law of Moses, were but types and shadows of the true sacrifices. They were just so many pictorial illustrations of the one offering by which the Lamb of God was to take away the sin of the world.

"Not all the blood of beasts

On Jewish altars slain,

Could give the guilty conscience peace,

Or wash away the stain."

Nothing less than the blood of God's own Son could atone for the sins of the meanest or the holiest man who ever lived. Many in that blessed company resisted unto blood striving against sin-willingly laid down their lives for the sake of Christ. But their own sufferings and death could not save them. While here, each one was ready to say,

"Not in mine innocence I trust,

I bow before thee in the dust,
And through my Saviour's blood alone
I look for mercy at Thy throne."

And now they ascribe all the glory of their salvation to the Lamb who was slain. In this are not we ready to join them?

"Worthy the Lamb that died, they cry,
To be exalted thus ;

Worthy the Lamb, let us reply,
For he was slain for us."

They attained their present condition,

3. By their application to the blood of Christ.-

As in Egypt, on that memorable night when

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the destroying angel was to pass through the land to destroy the first-born in every house, the blood of the Passover lamb was not only to be shed, but sprinkled on the lintels and doorposts of the houses of the children of Israel; so must the precious blood of Christ be applied to lost men, and by lost men, that they may be saved. There is but one way of making application to the blood of Christ, and that is by faith. We must renounce all righteousness of our own, come to Jesus, accept of the blessings which, having purchased for us by His blood, he is freely offering to us in his word, and make his finished work the only ground of our dependence before God. We must, like a servant of Christ in Edinburgh when dying, "take all our good deeds and bad deeds, throw them into one heap, and flee from both to Christ, and in him shall we find rest." It was thus that those now in heaven "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the

Lamb;" and "THEREFORE" it is that they are now before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. Feeling their guilt and danger, they fled to him for refuge, accepted of him as their saviour, prophet, priest, and king, and now they behold his face in righteousness, and are satisfied with his likeness.

In conclusion-This subject presents us with encouragement to rely on Christ as our Saviour, with the best ground of comfort in regard to departed Christian friends, and with a stimulus

to exertion.

1. Encouragement to rely on Christ as our Sariour.-Who is there who wishes not to get to heaven? The writer wishes to get there, and he feels certain that every reader cherishes a similar desire. There is but one method of getting there. Jesus Christ is the way. We must come to him, or perish! What are his own words? "He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned." But all who hear the gospel have every encouragement to come to him, and to commit into his hands their eternal interests. Sinner, come to him, and come now. How he loves you! He beseeches you to come to him that you may have life. Does Satan tell you that he is either unable or unwilling to save you

THE POSTERITY OF ABRAHAM.

THE families of Ishmael and Isaac have their millions of sons still living. Ishmael still holds his primitive and secure home in the Arabian peninsula. Though other nations have often planted their tents on his borders, and gone into the midst of his land, he still has, along with the posterity of Joctan, his genuine Arabian sons, who are wild like him, who live just as he lived, and who glory in their circumcision, independence, and patriarchal descent. And as to the other branch of the great family, the posterity of Isaac, the most proper inquiry is, Where are they not? Here they are, in thousands, among us. There they are, all over the world-known by their looks, still preserving many customs which no foreign people would ever willingly and presumptuously have taken upon themselves. These two families of brethren recognise each other. The rabbis call the Arabic language the language of Kedar, and the empire of the Caliphs goes among them by the name of the kingdom of Ishmael.

These are two lines of descent from one patriarch, of wonderful length, and most wonderfully preserved. And when we come to examine closely the facts in the history and present position of these two nations, we find ground for increasing wonder. We will arrange our thoughts under the two simple and novel inquiries, How are the two families alike? and how are they unlike?

Ishmael and Isaac resemble each other in the following points:

1. In a numerous posterity and mighty influence. The prophecy before the birth of Ishmael, that he should become a great nation, has been literally fulfilled. The Arabs stand forth in history, wild, isolated, terrible, and unconquerable. They have never suffered long under the arm of foreign oppression. The family of Isaac now numbers probably more than six millions. These two families have been transcendently great in influence among the nations of the earth. Mohammed produced a register of his descent from Ishmael; and his family, to this day, boast of the same descent. Ishmael, through his son Mohammed, gives this day to more than one hundred millions of mankind their religion; and Isaac, through his seed, gives the profession of faith to more than two hundred millions.

2. In their Unitarianism.

The leading doctrine of the Koran is Unitarianism in opposition to the Trinity. It asserts and repeats that God is one, and cannot have any son. It warns the reader, for the sake of his soul, not to think that God can have a son. The Mohammedans consider themselves especially designated in providence to be the witnesses for the unity of God. They are preeminently wise in this point, and wisdom would die with them. Mohammed, as the faithful prophet of God, brought the heavy charge against the Jews, that they had made Ezra a son of God, and protested against the Trinitarian blasphemy of the Christians. The Jews are equally proud of their supposed position as witnesses for the unity of God. They teach their children, as soon as they can, to repeat several times every day in Hebrew the assertion of the unity of God. The child opens his eyes in the morning to speak out the unity of God, and the last thing he says as he closes his eyes at night is the same unity. This is a coincidence between the Jews and Arabs worthy of special notice.

3. In their abhorrence of idolatry.

The repugnance of the Jews to idolatry ever since the captivity in Babylon, and the same feeling among the Mohammedans, are matters of universal notoriety.

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4. In their attachment to a religion of stated ceremony.

Mohammed received fifty daily prayers for the faithful from the Almighty; but his remonstrance, in consideration of human weakness, reduced the fifty to five, and these must have their place in the course of every day, without any surrender to necessity, or business, or pleasure. Ablutions are also a matter of particular enactment. Every year has its month for fasting. Benevolence has its well-defined measures. The law is very particular and imperative in all matters of food and drink. Pork and wine are entirely excluded from the supports and refreshments of life. Circumcision is one of the immemorial sacred rites. The other branch of the Abrahamic family have, with similar formality, their three daily prayers, their annual fasts and feasts, their laws in food and drink, and their many other corresponding ceremonies.

5. In their striving for justification from the law. The Mohammedan, equally with the Jew, expects his happiness after death to be the corresponding reward of his obedience here. Each holds his law to be the tree of life. The one, as well as the other, has no sympathy with the Christian doctrine, that we are justified and saved in the name and by the' imputed righteousness of a divine representative. Neither recognises any ground for the hope of justification, except the ground which our own deserving furnishes, or the ground which it is hoped justice will give over to divine mercy. If the Apostle Paul was correct in representing the Jews as in bondage to Mount Sinai in Arabia, he might have represented the Arabs themselves as in like bondage to their own mountain.

6. In intercessions for their suffering dead.

Mohammed has promised that all his disciples, through his intercession and their faith, shall be delivered from eternal pain; and the Jews have their special prayers and intercessions for their relatives who have lately died.

7. In the nature of their hopes of future happiness. The Arabs look forward before them, with an almost realizing faith and transporting rapture, to the objects and enjoyments of paradise, the groves, fountains, and rivers," the pearls, diamonds, robes of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines, and numerous attendants." The Jews, with equal enthusiasm, look forward to their expected King and General, their triumph over the infidels, their new temple and golden altar, their restored Jerusalem with its fountains and cisterns of sacred water, their hills crowned with vineyards, their land flowing with milk and honey, and their universally acknowledged preeminence in the earth. There is indeed this difference, that the Jews locate their Messianic golden age on this side of the grave, though some of them are in doubt whether the grave lies on the other side or not; while the Arabs despise the enjoyments of this life, and see beyond the grave the realities on which they rest their highest hopes.

8. In the early reception and rejection of Christianity.

There is some evidence that Christianity was first planted in Arabia by apostolic labourers. Origen, the great Alexandrian pastor, took a special interest, in the third century, in the Christian communities in Arabia; but almost every trace of Christianity in Arabia eventually disappeared. All are acquainted with the abundant evidence, that tens of thousands of Jews once embraced Christianity; but Palestine has, in this particular, a history very similar to that of Arabia. The Mohammedans in foreign countries are often seen putting their fingers in their ears, and running away when they hear the Christian mission

sick room, M. Darval, though by no means an unfeeling man, was almost tempted to wish they might meet with a sudden death. But, thanks to God, sudden deaths are rare, and the precursors of departure from life usually precede it a sufficient length of time to give opportunity for some preparation. Such being the case, M. Darval had but to submit; but still he sought to avoid these tasks. Whenever he would put off a visit to the sick, a journey, business, however unimportant, a slight indisposition, was sufficient to hinder his going out, and he felt relieved -almost happy! In case these resources failed him, he would go out to walk, or would shut himself up in his chamber, and would not reply to the knock at the door, so as to produce the impression that he was not in, and of course could not go out.

Yet, I repeat it, M. Darval was a good son, a charitable man, a perfectly honest man; but what of all this? He did not love to visit the sick. I believe he charged this to the account of his extreme sensibility, which would not permit him to witness the sufferings of others without suffering himself. Imagine, then, the feeling of our poor pastor, when one day he saw in the distance coming straight towards his dwelling, a poor woman whose husband was very ill. His instinct, or rather his constant fear, told him that she came to seek him. Without hesitation, he ran on tiptoe to the door of his room and locked himself in. There, secure against further interruption, he took a book and seated himself noiselessly in his arm-chair by the hearth. A knock is heard at the street door, the servant runs and opens it, receives the message, and ascends to her master, whom she believed to be in the house; but, alas! the door is shut. She knocks, no one replies; she calls, no answer; she calls and knocks at the same time. Finally, she descends, and tells the poor woman that her master is not at home, but that she will send him as soon as he returns. The woman departs, and M. Darval breathes more freely. But now, how shall he leave the chamber without being seen by the servant? M. Darval keeps silent and motionless, seeking for some expedient, which unfortunately he cannot find. An hour passes, and the poor woman returns and says that her husband is dying. The servant searches again for her master in the garden, in all parts of the house, and finally knocks at her master's door. Ashamed at not having answered the first summons, and not knowing how to explain his refusal to open the door, M. Darval keeps more quiet than ever; and again the servant is obliged to descend and say, "He is not at home." "But wait," says she to the woman, "I will give you my Bible, and you can read a chapter from the Bible to the sick man, which will do him good. I recommend to you the twelfth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews."

"Alas!" replies the poor woman, "I do not know how to read."

"You can make your Attle boy read."

"But he is at school."

"Ah! then, wait a moment, I will go myself;" so saying, the servant takes off her kitchen apron, puts on her bonnet, shuts the door, and follows the desolate woman.

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She

Undoubtedly this was not the first time that the good Jeannette had gone to read a chapter to a sick afflicted neighbour; but on this occasion she went, as it were, in her master's place, and this circumstance seemed to impart more importance to her new mission. While on her way she collected her thoughts, put up a prayer to God, and came in a suitable frame of mind to the consolation of the dying man. took her place at the foot of the bed, explained the motive of her visit, read the chapter which she had pointed out, and after some kinds words, directed by a simple faith and a feeling heart, proposed to pray. The two women knelt, the dying man uncovered his head and clasped his hands, and the three with one accord joined in asking for the restoration of the sick man to health if possible, but in any event for his salvation through Jesus Christ. The prayer was fervent, their hearts were in unison, tears flowed freely, and the sick man felt solaced. But, alas ! his hour had come, and a few moments later he expired, trusting in the mercy of God.

Jeannette returned to the house, whose door she had left closed, and from whence her master had not come forth. As he descended to the kitchen to seek for an egress from the house, which would permit him to escape so that he could come in again as if returning from abroad, Jeannette opened the door and stumbled upon him, cane in hand, and hat on head.

"You have returned then," said Jeannette, "how did you get in ?"