filled with the blood of an atoning victim, what the Jewish writer had evidently in his mind was a fountain filled with the tears of the people's genuine and deep contrition. Such was the fountain in which he conceived of them as losing " all their guilty stains." Like another Jewish writer, he had learnt to feel, " Thou desirest not sacrifice ; thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, 0 God, thou wilt not despise." He saw heaven's pardon granted at once to repentance. "What a fountain for washing," he thought, " in those silent and sincere tears of which I dream ! " x
*U In a work jointly written by [the Quaker saint] William Bayley [who died in 1675] and John Crook, the following remarks occur : — " We do in the sight of God really own the blood of the Son of Man, . . . both as bespeaking the remission of sin past, through faith in it, and as sprinkling the conscience of true believers, and cleansing them from all sin. ... By all which it is manifest to be of infinite value. . . . But because we testify that it is not the bare, historical, and literal belief of those things that justifies or makes us really free from that wrath which comes upon every soul of man that doeth evil; but only the life and virtue of this blood, received into the heart by that living faith which Christ alone is author of : therefore we are branded with slighting the blood of the Christ though we testify that without the life and virtue of this blood there is no remission." 2
1 S. A. Tipple. 3 F. A. Budge, Annals of the Early Friends, 211.
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Literature.
Arnold (T.), Sermons, i. 181, 190.
„ (T. K.), Sermons Preached in a Country Village, 143. Bell (C. D.), The Name above Every Name, 85. Blackwood (A.), Christian Service, 127. Brown (J. B.), The Sunday Afternoon, 20, 29. Burrows (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, iii. 241. De Quetteville (P. W.), Short Studies on Vital Subjects, 122. Jacob (E.), in Oxford University Sermons, 368. Little (H. W.), Arrows for the King's Archers, No. 44. Macaskill (M.), A Highland Pulpit, 15. Merson (D.), Words of Life, 289.
Moule (H. C. Q.), Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year, 117. Parker (J.), Sermons (Cavendish Pulpit), No. 18. Pierson (A. T.), The Making of a Sermon, 167. Punshon (W. M.), Sermons, ii. 267. Randolph (B. W.), The Threshold of the Sanctuary, 43. Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, iv. 200. Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, iv. 81. Vaughan (C. J.), Memorials of Harrow Sundays, 324.
„ (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xvii. (1879), No. 1099. Christian World Pulpit, lxiv. 33 (J. G. Greenhough). Literary Churchman, xxxii. (1886) 376 (E. J. Hardy).
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They that feared the Lord spake one with another : and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.— Mai. iii. 16.
The Bible is rich in special encouragements for the dark and
difficult day. Scattered all over its biographical pages are the
portraits of the good men of unfavourable periods, made strong by
grace to meet their trying surroundings, and not only to meet
them and endure them, but to illuminate and bless them. The
Psalms, in far the larger number of them, are, from the human
side, just the " good thoughts in bad times " of sorely tried and
tempted children of God. And the writings of the Prophets and
of the Apostles may often be described, from the same human side,
in the same terms. Here, in the last page of the Old Testament,
we have not the prophet's own utterance of this sort, but a very
beautiful allusion to many such utterances around him ; an
allusion full of cheer, and full of teaching, for ourselves.
If ever there was a time when the outlook was dreary and sin
abounded, when men had been almost justified in a policy of
despair, it was the time when Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to
be governor for his second term, with the express object of making
another effort to reform abuses, and when Malachi the prophet
stood by his side. God's love in the past, on which the prophet
bases his remonstrance, had seemed to be all in vain. Not the
wonders of Egypt, or of the Red Sea, or of the wilderness, or the
preservation in Canaan, had been able to preserve the chosen
people from a degrading fall. If the captivity in Babylon had
sufficed to eradicate idolatry, it seemed to have had but little
effect on the people's worship of the true God or on their moral
life. The prophet vigorously rebukes the priests, the natural
guides of the people, as mainly responsible for the nation's sins.
" A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master : if then I
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be a father, where is mine honour ? and if I be a master, where is my fear ? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, 0 priests, that despise my name." So little did they realize their responsibility or their guilt that they even asked, " Wherein have we despised thy name ? " They had offered to God offerings which they would not dare offer to a civil governor. They had murmured at the smallnesa of their gains. They had brought blemished and diseased animals to the sacrifice. Disgrace and punishment were impending for their reiterated sins. And as with the priests so with the people. They had robbed God by withholding from Him tithes and offer- ings which were due. They had gone on in rebellion against His government. The cup of their impiety was full. And side by side with this desecration of holy things there were grievous moral disorders. They had taken in marriage worshippers of false gods, and put away their own lawful wives by an unrighteous divorce. The marriage tie was desecrated, and with it the sanctity of the home had gone. If ever there was a time when men's hearts might fail them it was now. Yet " the more the ungodly spake against God, the more these spake among themselves for God." 1 So far from being daunted or discouraged by the badness of the times, they were driven the more to honour and meditate upon the holy name of God ; and their common love for Him and fear of Him drew them together in sweet intercourse, so that they spoke to each other on the matters nearest to their hearts.