guest of the priest, and the priest in tum the guest of God. In this way God lifted a social custom to a holy use. ·we cannot but notice in the second chapter of Leviticus that while some things are mentioned as constituents of the meat offering, viz., oil and frankincense, and others ns excluded, viz., leaven and honey, a special emphasis is laid on the presence of salt. A special significance was to be indicated by that presence, and it agrees with this that when Ezra was going up from Babylon, furnished by Artaxerxes with all he might require for sacrifice, the salt is given without prescribing how much (eh. vii. :!2). We must, however, look further back than social customs even, to find the reason why salt was present in this covenant. Social customs, could they be traced back, rise, some of them at least, out of religious ordinances. Why was salt chosen as the symbol? It is something to notice that @alt gives flavour to that which is insipid. God's gifts may easily pall and become worthless if his presence is not associated with them ; with the sense of that presence they cannot bot be grateful. But the chief service of salt is to preserve that which is dead from decay. Salt will not bring back life, bot it will hinder putrefaction. Under the old covenant God did not give life, though he was pre- paring to give it; bot at the same time he did much to preserve the world, dead in trespasses and sins, from corpse decay, while he made ready in the fulness of time to bring back the dead to life. Thus the covenant with men through types and shadows was emphatically a covenant of salt. And the same may he said of the new covenant through the great reality in Christ Jesus. There is an element of salt in this covenant also. "Ye are the salt of the earth," said Christ to his disciples in the great and honourable burden of service which he laid on them. Indeed, what we call the old and the new covenant are really but shapes of that great covenant between God and man made in the very constitution of things. God, creating man in his own image, and planting within him certain powers and aspirations; is thereby recording the Divine articles in the covenant ; and man also, by the manifestations of his nature, by his recognition of conscience, even by his idolatries and super- stitions, and gropings after God, testifies to his part in the covenant. And in thi8 covenant all true disciples are as the salt, the solemn, continuous pledge from God to the world that he does not look on it as beyond recovery. Be it the part oE all disciples then to keep the savour of the salt that is in them. "Walk in wisdom towards them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt" (Col. iv. 5, 6). It rests with as to honour God's covenant of salt and make it more and more efficacious.-Y.
EXPOSITION. condescension which did not leave oven the CHAPTER XIX. rebellious and excommunicate without some THE ASHES OF AN HEIFER srRINKLINO eimple remedy, some easily-obtainable solace, THE UNCLEAR (vcrs. 1-22). Ver. 1.-And for the one religious distress which must of the Lord apake unto Jlloaea and unto Aaron. necessity press upon them daily and hourly, On the addition of the second name see on eh. not only ns Israelites, bot 119 children of the xviii. 1. There is uo note of time in connec- East, sharing the ordinary snperstitions of tion with this chapter, bot internal evidence the age. Through the valley of the shadow points strongly to the supposition that it be- of death they were doomed at Kadesh to longs to the.early do.ys of.wandering after the walk, while their fellows fell beside thom one ban. It belongs to a penod when death had by one, until the reek and taint of death resumed his normal, and more than his nor- passed upon the whole con~egation. Almost mal, power over the children of Israel; when, oil nations have had, as IS well known, an havintt been for a short time expelled (except instinctive horror of death, which has every- in a hmited number of cases-see above on where demonded separation ond purification eh. x. 28), he had come back with frightful on the part of those who hllva come in con- rigour to reign over a doomed generation. tact with it (Bahr, 'Symbolik,' ii. p. 466 sq.). It belongs also, as it would seam, to a time And this religious horror had not been com- when the daily, monthly, and even annual bated, but, on the contrary, fostered and deep- routine of sacrifice and purgation was sus- ened by the Mosaic legislation. The law pended through poverty, distress, and dis- everywhere encouraged the idea that sin ant1 favour wjth God. It tells of the mercy e.nd death were essentially connected, and that 240 THE BOOK OF NUMBEUS. [CH. XIX, 1-22,