These are serious questions ! Multitudes, it may be feared, could not give them a satisfactory answer. Christian churclies and chapels, no doubt, are very unlike the Jew- ish temjile. They are not built after a divine pattern. They have no altars or holy places. Their furniture has no typical meaning. But they are places where God's word is read, and where Christ is specially present. The man who professes to worship in them should surely behave with reverence and respect. The man who brings his worldly matters with him when he professes to wor- ship, is doing that which is evidently most offensive to Christ. The words which Solomon wrote by the Holy Ghost are applicable to all times, " Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God." (Eccles. v. 1.)
We see, for another thing, in this passage, how men may remember words of religious truth long after they are spok- en^ and may one day see a meaning in them which at first they did not see.
We are told that our Lord said to the Jews, " Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." St. John informs us distinctly that " He spake of the temple of His body," that he referred to His own resurrection. Yet the meaning of the sentence was not understood by our Lord's disciples at the time that it was spoken. It was not till '' He was risen from the dead," three years after the events here described, that the full significance of the sentence flashed on their hearts. For three years it was a dark and useless saying to them. For three years it lay sleeping in their minds, like a seed in a tomb, and bore no fruit. But at the end . of that time the darkness passed away. Tliey saw the application of their Master's words, and as they saw it were confirmed in their faith. "They remembered that He had said this," and as they remem- bered " they believed."
It is a comfortable and cheering thought, that the same