bring your own heart and give it to Jesus. You can each by prayer for His Holy Spirit give yourself to Him, and get Him to take you into His glorious, incorruptible temple. Let no children say that they cannot work for God's temple; God commands every one to do so. Remember, the more earnestly you work, the more holy you become; the more fervently you serve God, the more glorious shall you be; the more splendidly you shall shine in the temple above. The great number that worked in Solomon's temple are no doubt typical of that "great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, that stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." (Rev. vii. 9.) These had all worked for God's temple. They had all, at any rate, brought one stone. I think the time, seven thousand years, that Solomon took to build his temple, has a spiritual meaning. But as it is impossible to be sure of a spiritual truth unless it is plainly told us in God's Word, I shall not tell you my thoughts about that; but you can try if you can think of any probable fulfilment of time in the building of Christ's temple. The last thing I shall speak about is the immense expense of this temple of Solomon.

Just

think of Solomon having to pay more than a hundred and fifty thousand men, besides the costly materials of this splendid building! All within of gold! It seems to us, as it really was, a most expensive work-such a work as no one since has ever thought of undertaking. But, costly as it was, it was but a faint shadow of the price our blessed Lord paid for His Church, His own precious blood. Well might St. Peter say (1 Peter i. 18, 19), "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." No, indeed, no gold could have bought the Church. of Christ. All the gold on earth, all the precious stones in this and ten thousand other worlds, could never buy the pardon of even one sin. Nothing short of the blood of Christ could satisfy the justice of God, and enable Him to forgive sinners. Rest satisfied that if that price had not been paid, not one child could ever have been brought into the body or temple of Christ.

Let the thoughts of Solomon's temple lead you all, dear children, to think more of Christ. Try and help Jesus to build up His temple, and determine that, at any rate, you will each

of you bring one stone towards it, by giving your own heart to Him, and yielding yourself up to His service for ever.

SUBJECTS FOR TEXTS

FROM THE HISTORY OF SOLOMON AS A TYPE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Solomon was king over a very large territory.

Solomon built a temple

for the Lord.

Solomon full of wisdom. Solomon gifted with immense wealth.

Solomon's reign one of great peace and prosperity.

The Lord Jesus Christ will be King over all the earth.

The Lord Jesus Christ is building a spiritual temple. Our Lord also.

The riches of the Lord Jesus Christ unsearchable.

The reign of our Lord Jesus Christ over the earth for a thousand years will be one of perfect peace and happiness.

151

JONAH.

THE last personal type of the Lord Jesus Christ is Jonah. His history is very strange and interesting; and though there seems to be little in his character that reminds us of our blessed Lord, in his calling and circumstances there is, perhaps, more than we might suppose at first sight. That Jonah is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ we know, because our Lord compares Himself to him. The scribes and pharisees, you remember, asked our Lord to give them a sign. It would be hard to say what sign they wanted; but, I suppose, they wished our Lord to do some very wonderful thing before their eyes to prove that He was God. One would have thought that raising the dead, restoring the sight to the blind, and such miracles as Jesus was constantly working, would have been signs enough to prove who our Lord was. nothing is of any use if people have prejudiced, unbelieving hearts. Our Lord refused to give any other sign than the prophet Jonah, saying (Matt. xii. 39, 40), "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall

But

no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

We may just learn from this, that, if we do not choose to seek true knowledge in the way the Lord has appointed, and that way we all know is by earnest prayer and study of His blessed Word, we shall be ignorant, and die in our ignorance, and be lost in it. The Lord will not make any other way for us.

Let us see, now, in what respects Jonah was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the first place Jonah was a preacher, and was commanded by the Lord to preach repentance. Jonah was the first person that was commanded to preach to the Gentiles. He was told to go to a very large Gentile city, Nineveh, and exhort the people there to repent; to tell them that if they did not, in forty days their city should be overthrown.

In like manner our Lord was a preacher sent from God, and the first doctrine He preached was the doctrine of repentance. Look at Matt. iv. 17: "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." John the Baptist preached the same doctrine, and our Lord commanded His disciples to do the same, Mark vi. 12: “ And