So it ought to be translated (Titus iii. 5); the only other passage in the New Testament where it occurs. As the bride passed through a purifying bath before marriage, so the Church (Rev. xxi. 2). He speaks of baptism according to its high ideal and design, as if the inward grace accompanied the outward rite; hence he asserts of outward baptism whatever is involved in a believing appropriation of the divine truths it symbolises, and says that Christ by baptism has purified the Church. (Neander.) "By the word;" Greek, "in the word." The word is the cleansing element, the water is but the symbol. The water may be dispensed with, the word is essential.

Ver. 27.-" That he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish." "That He might present to Himself the Church in glorious beauty, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and blameless." (Ellicott.) "Holiness is inward glory. Glory is conspicuous holiness." "That he might present." This is true in a manner of the present life; comp. Chap. iv. 13. Rather it alludes to his coming, and is the final aim of the giving (ver. 25), and cleansing (ver. 26). To himself, as to a husband betrothed. A glorious Church (the Church glorious). From the love of Christ we ought to estimate our sanctification. What bride disdains her husband's bridal offering? Church, Gr. Thy, that Church which corresponds to his everlasting conception of it. Spot, from every wicked inclination. Wrinkle, from old age. Without blemish.-C. E. T.

Ver. 28 & 29.-" So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church." No man, unless, forsooth, he revolt from nature and from himself. His own flesh. (Ver. 31, end.) Nourisheth-nourishes it, inwardly. Cherisheth it, outwardly. The same word is found in Deut. xxii. 6; Job. xxxix. 14; 1 Kings i. 2-4. This refers to clothing, as nourishing to food. The Church, nourishes and cherishes. For kupios, the Lord, read xpiotós, Christ.-C. E. T.

Ver. 30.-"For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." There is an allusion here to the language which Adam used respecting Eve. "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." The words of course are not to be taken in a literal sense, for our bones and flesh are not parts of Christ's bones and flesh, but in a spiritual sense it represents the close and intimate union subsisting between Christ and His people.

Ver. 31-" For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." This verse is a quotation from Genesis vii. 2. The meaning is, because the relation subsisting between the man and the woman who are truly married, is more intimate than any other; more intimate than subsisting between parents and children. All other relationships are subordinate to it. One flesh, one common life.

VOL. XXVI.

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Ver. 32.-" This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." The Vulgate wrongly translates this, "This is a great sacrament." It is not the ordinary marriage which is here called a mystery, but the union subsisting between Christ and His Church. Ver. 33-Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband." There are in all three kinds of duties which the Law prescribes to the husband. (Exodus xxi. 10.) The Apostle has mentioned the two former in a spiritual sense (ver. 29); now the order would lead him to the third,. which is summed up in that expression of Hosea (chap. ii. 10), “Thou shalt know the Lord." But the Apostle suddenly breaks off. Minds of the rarest character and capacity are required.--C. E. T.

HOMILETICS.-The subject of this passage is "Ideal Matrimony; or, God's Idea of a Marriage State." As we look into it, our convictions will deepen that the Divine idea is but very partially, if at all, developed in matrimonial alliances of modern society. What is marriage?

(To be continued.)

Germs of Thought.

THE FOREIGN PULPIT.-No. XXXI.

Subject: THE COMPASSION OF JESUS.

(Continued from p. 279.)

"But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."-Matt. ix. 36-38.

II. OBSERVE THE OCCASION OF HIS COMPASSION. "And when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." Jesus went about from place to place in Galilee. He saw the condition of the people, and what He saw

filled Him with sorrowful sympathy. It was not the outward condition of the people that affected Him so painfully. Galilee was prosperous. It was more populous than our country, but the people were well sustained. We may not conclude from what it is what was its former condition. It has now gone to ruin, yet it still bears traces, though only feeble traces, of its former beauty and fruitfulness. If the ample enjoyment of the blessings of life could make a people happy, the Galileans ought to have been happy beneath their vines and their fig trees. But man doth not live by bread alone. Nor were the people free from wants and from the host of evils which follow in the train of sin, and which are the heritage of our race. We often read in the Gospels of their bringing the sick and the afflicted to Jesus that He might heal them; and we see clearly enough with what sorrowful feelings and with what intimate sympathy He devoted Himself to the services of the sick and the afflicted. It was in reference to this deep and intimate sympathy that the Evangelist applied the words of the prophet to Him (Matt. viii. 17), "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." But He was moved by something deeper than this. The spiritual need of the people moved Him more deeply: their religious desolation and moral ruin. They were as sheep having no shepherd. The priests and the scribes, the shepherds of the people, sat in Jerusalem and Judea; rarely did one of them come to Galilee to care for the poor, ignorant people. They were a susceptible people; this is clear from the reception Jesus met with from them, almost all His disciples being Galileans. But they were left to perish; and it was this inner spiritual wretchedness, spread out before His eye, that moved His heart so deeply.

We see from this how we should esteem the condition of a people and our own. We willingly allow ourselves to be deceived by outward appearances, instead of going to the root of things. The chief question is, how a man stands in relation to God. The inner religious life is the proper man. Outwardly his position may be good, his intellectual life may be strong and vigorous-yet he may, nevertheless, be a ruined man, simply because his relation to good is bad; because he has no spiritual life. It is his relation to God that decides a man's

condition, and this alone. This is that which lasts for ever. All else will fall away at death. It is by this we stand or fall.

"When He saw the multitudes He was moved to compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." We do not need to look far to see that this is so still. The Christian should have a heart for all men. The heathen world cannot be better described than in these words, "faint and scattered." They have souls, and are capable of salvation. Rightly considered, it is a strange thing that Christianity does not embrace one-third part of the human family. And verily no informed man will say that the heathen are blessed. "Faint and scattered." Even of the cultured peoples of antiquity, we can only say, "How sad a lot; how unspeakably better off are we than they were!" If we look at their religious and moral life, what a sorrowful picture. Look, moreover, at the heathen world of to-day. But we need not go so far. The so-called Christian world is much as our text describes. How many with immortal souls live without God, religion, or faith; without comfort, or hope, or a Saviour, never having heard of Jesus? How many are there in our great cities living in sin, trained up even from infancy in the ways of the wicked one? And what have we close about us? We are accustomed to speak of the night-side of our social life. so accustomed to it that we believe it must needs be. we were only once to bring before our souls the numbers of poor creatures who are ruined, body and soul, year by year; children of our people; the baptised of our churches; souls called to eternal salvation-lost for time and eternity; if we were to compute all this, and then to presentiate to ourselves all the sorrow and wretchedness, the trouble of soul surrounding us on all hands, hid beneath the roofs of our houses, or covered with the veil of night; if for once that veil were lifted, and we could see all this wretchedness of body and soul; if it were all suddenly laid bare to our view-I believe we should never be cheerful again while life lasted. And yet we live on, and how few ever inquire into these things, and how little are our hearts affected by them!

We are

But if

But it is not simply where hunger and trouble exist that sorrow has set up her dwelling among men. The deepest sorrow

is sin; the inner desolation, the estrangement of the soul from God. It is the sorrow which is most real, because it makes men wretched for ever. And this is found where the body is adorned with silks and satins, and the mind with the choicest culture. It is not the wealth, or culture, or knowledge, or toil, or honour that is the man himself. This is the clothing, but it is not the man. He must have clothing; he ought to work, to acquire, to possess, to attain culture, &c.; but the man, the man that shall live, is beyond all this. The question is, not what we have, or have attained, but what we are, whether we are God's, or not. It is this alone that decides, and it decides for eternity. One may be rich in possessions, in culture, and yet be inwardly a poor, lost, ruined man. It is vain to attempt to conceal the inner poverty by outward adornments, and to hide our emptiness of soul from ourselves. What avails all these outward things, which must be left behind? Our knowledge-if we are not wise unto salvation—the flocking of great men about us, when none of them can intercede for us before God, or receive our eternal sentence? All these may be means of life; they are not its object. The goal of life is to live in God, and to belong to Him. And who belong to Him? By nature, none. By destination, all; but really, only those who have returned to Him out of the "far country." All we like sheep have gone astray; but there is One who is the Shepherd of souls, and in His great heart He has felt and borne all the sorrows of humanity; and He has prepared help for us.

III. WHAT HELP? "The harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest." Labourers -there is the help. Prayer-there is the way to help. If we could do nothing else, at least this we could do, ask, pray for labourers-there is the help; not in organizations, institutions, &c. It is something personal, for it must spring out of the heart. The compassion which lays to heart human sorrows, and gives itself to personal service-there is the help. But the fountain of help is in the heart of Jesus Christ; for He has become the revelation of mercy in the world. He has brought it down out of the heart of God into the earth, and has dis