• I loved-but those I loved are gone; Had friends-my early friends ere fled. How cheer.less feels the heart alon.i, When all its former hopes are dead I Though guy companions o'er the bowl Dispel awhile the sense of ill; Though pleasure stirs the mllddening soul, The hea.rt-the heart--is lonely still." And again in the stanzas written at ¥issolonghi, when he was thirty-six- " My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone: The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone I " The fire that on my bosom preys Is lone as some volcanic isle; No torch is kindled at its blaze- A funeral pile." Was it not to taste the full consequences of human sin that our Lord had to enter the desolation which constrained the cry on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" IV. ON THE OTHER HAND, THE PnIEST IS DIRECTED HOW HE HAY ASCERTAIN WHEN 'l'RE LEPROSY HAS BEEN CURED. For this ·direction contemplates cases of cure, where "the stroke of God " in the leprosy has been followed up by the mercy of God in removing it. Now, one general principle runs through the cases of cure. If the priest has evidence that the disease has all come to the suiface, then he is to pronounce the leper clean. 'l'he spiritual counterpart of this is not far to seek. If sin be hidden, if the sinner, like the Psalmist, keep silence about it, then his bones wax old through his roaring all the day long, and his moisture is turned into the drought of summer (Ps. mii. 3, 4). But if the sinner confesses his sin, acknowledges all he knows, and that there is mnch besides known only to the Lord-in a word, if the sinner makes "a clean breast " of everything, then is the cure of God in process of accomplishment. The lesson here is consequently the great desirability of a full and heartfelt confession of sin. There is hope of a man when he hides nothing from the Lord. V. MAN SHOULD BE AS CAREFUL ABOU'r HIS ENVIRONMENT AB ABOUT HIMSELF, It is evident from the possibility of leprosy infecting garments, and even houses, that the disease was contemplated as having a wuch wider range than the person of the leper. The directions given to the priest, moreover, contemplate the purification of man's surroundings. Every effort is to be made to stamp out the plaguo. The pure or purified are to be surrounded by the pure. Now, this conveys the spiritual lesson surely of man taking the utmost pains to have a pure atmosphere, so to speak, in which to cultivate purity of life. Wherever sin is allowed free play, it will extend its ravages to man's environment. The world itself is a different world through man's sin. 'l'he duty of God's people in this case is plain. "The very appearance of evil" must be avoided (1 Thess. v. 22). We must carefully keep ourselves unspotted from the world (Jas. i. 27). Whenever we find sin tempt- ing us, we must, if possible, have it removed and consumed. Does it meet us in literature? let us avoid it, and, if possible, destroy it. And even the ravages of sin in the world itself must be contemplated in the hope of having them one day completely removed. Let sin be slain in the light of day is the great practical lesson of this chapter.-R. M. E.
Vera. 1-59.-Leprosy. That leprosy is a type of sin is evident from David's allu- 11ion in confessing his own horrible offences (see Ps. li. 7). This also appears from tho words of Jesus to the only leper, out of the ten cleansed by him, who returned to give glory to God: "Thy faith hath saved thee" (see Luke xvii. 11-19). The others had faith which availed them to remove the leprosy of the body; but this mau's faith availed to remove the leprosy of the soul. Hence this plague often came as a judgment OB, x.m, 1-46,] THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 203