But there is no grief yon can conceal from Him. He became in the person of His Son " the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," that we might feel how He follows us, or rather, goes before us, in every path of suffering. There is room in the great fatherly heart of God for us all, with all our burdens, and we can never measure the uplifting and sustaining power that comes to us by casting ourselves and them upon it-" In everything by prayer and supplication," &c. (Phil. iv. 6, 7); "Cast thy burden upon the Lord," &c. (Psa. lv. 22). But this expression, "the plague of his own heart," has a deeper meaning. It opens to us all the dark sad mystery of personal sinfulness, the moral disease that lurks within. There are times when the most careless, reckless spirit has glimpses of the unwelcome truth that this, aftez- all, is the deepest cause of its disquietude. The multiform, mys- terious evil of the world has its central root in the world's heart. Something of that "root of all bitterness" is in every human heart. Here lies the fatal mischief. It is not the tribulations of outward life, it is yow-self you have most reason to mourn -0ver. Not so much from them, but from something in yourself you have need to pray to be delivered. Christ always taught, by word and deed, the vital connection between the external calamities and the internal" plague." He took upon Him our sicknesses and sorrows, not only to show us how they may be nobly borne, but that He might bring His power as the Great Physician of souls to bear upon the seat of our deadly disease, and by the efficacy of His blood might heal and save UB all. Go penitently in His name to the mercy-seat with the "plague of your heart," and you shall be redeemed from it. lL THE RECOGNITION OF SOMETHING OUT OF ONE'S SELF AS THE GROUND OF HOPE, This essential element in true prayer is suggested by the words, " And shall stretch forth bis hands towards this place." An interesting view is here given us of the relation of the temple to the individual religious life of the people. It was intended to be a witness to the unseen, a help to faith, an incentive to all holy thought and feeling. It stood through all the changes of time, the shifting lights and shadows of the world around it, as an impressive symbol of the "everlasting covenant." It enshrined the "sure mercies of David." Within its hallowed enclosure were gathered the sacred historic records and relics, and the types and shadows of "better things to come." It told both of what God had done and what He had promised-the monument of the glorious past, the prophecy of the brighter future. There was deep meaning, then, in the suppliant "stretching forth his hands towards that house," as expressive of the attitude of his soul towards that which it symbolized. When some lonely worshipper in a distant corner of the land, some patient sufferer, some soldier in his agony on the field of battle, some cap~ive, like Daniel, in a strange country, directed his eyes towards the holy pla.ce, 1t wns n, sort of pathetic appeal to God's own faithfulness, a silent but eloquent plea that He would not forget His covenant, would ful1il the hopes that He Himself had on. vm. l-66.] THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 179
awakened, and not for their sakes alone, but for His own truth and mercy's sake would bear and save. In all this the temple was a type of something noble{, diviner than itself. The temple was the shadow, the substance is in Christ. "In him are hid all the treasures," &c. The cross of Christ, in which all the promises are confirmed and see.led; the cross, which is both the altar of the Redeemer's sacrifice and the throne of Hi~ sovereignty, is the shrine of "truth e.nd grace" to men. The glory alike of the pa.et e.nd of the fllture is centred, focUBeed there. " All the light of sacred story Ge.there round its head sublime," and from it there stree.ms forth an ever-brightening radiance into the ot erwise dark futurity. It stands the connecting link between bee.van and earth, tbe meet- ing-place of God and man, the key to all human history, the basis of our i=ortal hope. Here, then, on this central object alike of Divine e.nd human interest, must the eye of the suppliant be fixed. It is that pledge of Divine love and faithfulness, external to ourselves, embodied in the cross of Christ, that we must plead if we would find acceptance in our prayer. When God bas thoroughly taught us what the "plague of our own bee.rt'' mee.ns, e.nd bas unveiled to us the blessed mystery of His mode of curing it, it will be the sustained habit of our life to stand as suppliants before Him" in the ne.me of Jesus." Thus alone can we so link our- selves with the se.nctities of a higher world as to ma.ke our common life Divine.-W.