a calm consideration of the circumstances was assured ; and only if proved guilty of wilful murder could the man be delivered up to the goel-avenger. I. THE SOOIAL WORKING OF THE REFUGE SYSTEM:. Its influence may be shown in : l. Its cultivation of a worthier sense of J°u,stice. 2. Its teaching as to the relation of motive to crime, such motive giving the act of crime its serious quality. 3. Its tendency to relieve the individual from the thought of executing his own vengeance. 4. Its claim to have a fixed authority for the settling of all social laws, and their vindication by due punishments. A worthy and strongly enforced legislative system lies at the very foundation of the peaceful order and stable progress of every nation. The element of personal passion must be removed if punishment is to be wisely administered; men must be willing to put aside their own avengings if social order is to be secured. Nations need to be very careful to secure purity in the adminis- tration of justice. IL THE RELIGIOUS SUGGESTIONS OF THE REFUGE SYSTEM:. These will differ accord- ing to the school of thought to which the preacher may belong. From the evangelical standpoint, the city of refuge symbolizes Uhrist. The avenger represents the law- penalty under which the sinner comes, which seeks his death. There is made by Christ Jesus a free and open road to himself, the Refuge. But the sinner must himself arise and flee, running into the shelter of the ever-opened gates. When "in Christ," if a due examination be made of his sins, the all-sufficing answer which secures eternal safety is this: "Jesus bas already borne the penalty of them all, and the Law cannot revive its satisfied claim." There is "no condemnation" for those who have "fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them in the gospel." More generally treated, we may learn: 1. The Divine righteousness in affixing a natural and necessary penalty to every act of sin. 2. 'l'he fallen state of man, in that l,e so readily makes holy avenging into passionate revenging. 3. The mercifulness of the Divine administration, in that God puts man's passions under wise restraints; aod secures the fair, considerate, and honourable treatment even of the sinner.-R. T.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER VTI. and as this fact is not stated elsewhere, it is pretty clear proof that the compiler hud VeJ'. 1.-The great tribes of Judah and other sources of informatiou in addition to Levi bein~ !'.CW passed, o.s well as the minor those possessed by us. ones of bimeon, Reuben, and Ga.cl, we reach Ver. 3.-J!'ive. The na.me of IZl'BhiBh's the sons of lsmchar. Issachar was JBCob's sons count up only four ; but if, with four fifth son by Leah (Gen. xxxv. 23). In the of Kennicott's manuscripts, the words, and list of Gen. xlvi 13 our PllBh (;::i~1i'l) ap- the sons of Izrahia.h, should be omitted, the pears differently spelt BS PhuvBh en~~), five will count ri~ht for sons of Uzzi, and o.ud Jashnb is fonnd as Job, which is cor- the little clause beginning this verse will rected by the Samaritan Codex to Jashub, correspond exactly with that beginuing ver. and this reading the Septuagint follows. 2. The Syriuc, however, does not omit In the other parallel passage (Numb. xxvi. "and the sons of Izro.hiah ; " but alters the 23) the Phuvah form obtains, but the other numeral " five " to " four." names a.re the BBIDe as here. Tola. We Vera. 1, 5.-The meaning of these verses, read (Judg. x. 1, 2) of another person of especially of tho former of them, is not q uito this name, who judged Israel twenty-three evident. This seems to say that as the years, at Shamir, in Mount Ephraim, and Tolo.ites were in David's time twenty-two wlio is called "the son of Puo.11, the son of thousand six hundred, so the Uzzites taken Dodo, B mau of Issa.char." '!'his is a good from among them ( or the" sons of Izmbi11,h," i □ stance of how the use of the same names, o.s the case mo.y be) numbered thirty-six tliough in different order, clung to B tribe thousand 1ulditional. But were not tho ,,r family through long periods. Uzzites included in the Tolnites? and did Ver. 2.-Tbe six fiODB of TolB given here not the figure thirty-six thousand embrace are stated to be the six hea.ds of the house tho accumulo.tod numbers, whilst the ho.lanoo ut the time of th,e census of David (2 Sam. ol' fifty-one thousand necessary to make up xxiv. 1-17). The verse furthor states the eighty-seven thousand of ver. 5, we.s that the Tolaites had grown to number at <lre.wn from o.11 the other branches of tbe that time twenty-two thoUBand si.z hundred, lsijuchar tribe? This i11 uot thoview,however, on. vu. 1-4.0.J TUE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 9'.l