advanced age, and was buried with great pomp at Jerusalem. Thus ended the course of this faithful servant of God. Well were it if all priests belonged to his course, took him for their head and model, and served their little fortnight of existence in God's temple with the same diligence. He was, indeed, one of those bright and burning lights in the Church of God, to which posterity turns with reverence and thankfulness, for the blessed radiance of truth and comfort, which flows to them from it. The word of the Old Covenant, which we at this day hold in our hands, we mainly owe, under God, to his diligence and piety. So carefully did he provide for its maintenance and diffusion, so inculcate it into the hearts of the people, that in despite of attacks such as it had never experienced under the old temple, in despite of the bloody attempts of the Syrian kings to blot it out of the catalogue of books, it has never once come, nor been in danger of coming, into the jeopardy which befell it in the days of Josiah. Through him we have the law and the prophets bearing their testimony to our great spiritual head, and we see Moses and Elias attending upon him. Let us study the example of this great benefactor. He left all for the word of God, as did afterwards Andrew and Peter for Christ. He gave up all the comforts of life, a settled home, a civilized people, the leisure enjoyed under a regular government, for an unsettled life amid the revolting turbulence and distraction of a newly settled colony. Like his great predecessor Moses, he preferred suffering with the people of God, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater

riches than all the treasures of Babylon'. When we consider how the habits and cultivated mind of the scholar revolt from the turbulent vulgarity and ignorance of the multitude, how his thoughts are dispersed, his feelings wounded, his time broken up by most occupations which bring him among them, and when we take into the account the reluctance to practical detail produced by his speculative habits, we cannot but admire Ezra's piety, entire self-deovtion, and complete surrender of all his desires, and all his gifts to the service of God. He was a scholar of the only true school, and therefore his masculine vigour of mind was never in danger of being broken by the effeminate dreaminess, by the moral ricketiness, which is so often the wages of ill-directed literary leisure. The truth of God was his sole aim, the word of God was his study, and wherever these are, there is all the buxom health and freshness of mind. For there it is uncontracted and unbenumbed by unnatural position, unfettered by narrow room, but stretches itself forth in all the graceful freedom of action to the whole extent of its excellent proportions. It is fresh with the life of the life-giving spirit, it is strong from the manly exercise of spiritual wrestling, it is pure from bathing in the wells of truth. Such is the learned priest of God, such is the Christian scholar, after the model of Ezra. And God be thanked that he hath granted many such shining examples to our Church, blessed be his holy name for the many and great benefits which we are at this

1 Heb. xi. 26.

moment, but too unwittingly, deriving from them. May it please him to prolong the illustrious succession, to maintain his word pure, and rightly understood among us. And may we, on looking towards them, count light after light, as lamps of the temple of the living God, and bow our heads in thankfulness to him who hath done so much to prepare us for his service, as a peculiar people.

JAMES THE ELDER.

A. D. 44.

SIX hundred years had past away, since the glory of the Lord had forsaken the temple, and Judah cast a dissatisfied look at the pile, which, however superb in outward decoration, wanted that inward boast of its predecessor. Directed by the voice of the last prophet, men were anxiously looking forward to the re-appearance of that heavenly indweller, and crowds expecting to walk in its light, and enjoy its illumination, when it once again shone in the land. The bright shining cloud, the peculiar symbol of the Lord's presence, descended upon the Mount, and spread its glittering folds over the heads of three disciples of Jesus, who there beheld him transfigured into the Lord of glory, and attended by Moses and Elias, the representatives of the old and expiring dispensation. These were Peter, and the brothers John and James 1, the same who were admitted as witnesses of the contrasted spectacle of his agony in the garden 2. Thus they saw him in his extremes of exaltation and humiliation, and although they understood neither at the time, yet the deep spiritual sense of both came upon them afterwards, through the gift of the Holy Ghost, and their gloomy conflict with the per2 lb. xxvi. 37.

1 Matt. xvii.

secuting world, which was prefigured to them by the one, was ever comforted with the blaze and light of joy which poured in upon them from the memory of the other1. They were his favourite disciples, with whom on several occasions he communicated exclusively. They therefore present themselves first to the notice of one who is entering into the particulars of the lives of the disciples of Jesus.

James, of these three, was the first to quit the tabernacle of mortal flesh, and called to enjoy a perpetuity of the fruition of that heavenly vision, of which he had been favoured upon earth with but a transitory glance. This early removal forbids much detail of his history, nor is there any of Scripture narrative in which he bears a separate part, except in the close of his life. Since the case is very different with his companions, it will be convenient to refer to him alone what he has in common with them.

Jesus had returned into Galilee after experiencing among his own kinsmen and acquaintance at Nazareth, the first-fruits of the general rejection of his fellow-countrymen. Attended by an immense crowd, which prest upon him, he came to the side of the Lake of Gennesareth, and there relieved himself from the pressure by betaking himself to Peter's boat, where he sate, and preached to the people as they stood on the brink. In company with this boat was another containing fishermen of the same party. These were the brothers, James and John, with their father Zebedee. Jesus having called Peter and

1 2 Peter i. 16.