6 ml tbo foot tbo.t the characters yod liheth mentioned in the po.ro.llel. The selection (IA) cuu cnsily supersodocl by lamed he (35), of what is said bas in our present text so it is perha.ps likelier thnt we hnve here mach the appearance of haste, that this simply o. clorico.l error. Tho pnro.llel place may account for the abrupt appearance of tells us thot these pillars 11,nd the cho.piters the allusion here. Otherwise the words, were ca,st of brass; that" o. Iine (1 Kings vii. " in the oracle," tempt us to fear some 15 • Jer. Iii. 41] of twelve cubits [not seven] corruptness of text, sce.rcely BBfely removed did compass either of them o.bout;" that by Bertheo.u's suggestion to subBtitute i•:;i,-:i ~l\e onrnmentation of eo.ch cho.piter was "o. (" ring") for i•:;i:i ("oracle"). An hundred »et of checker-work, and a wreath of chain- pomegre.nates (comp. eh. iv. 13; 1 Kings work;" tbR.t upon the five cubits of cha,piter vii. 15, 18, 20). These passages indicate there was another" four cubits of lily-work," that the total number of pomegranates was etc. If this last feo.ture o.pply to the two two hundred for each pillar. pillars, and not (as some think) to the Ver. 17.-J'achin . , . Boaz. The margin porch only, the pillars would reach o. height of our Authorized Version gives with of 27 cubits, and if it he supposed that they sufficient correctness the meaning of these stood on some stone or other superstructure, no.mes of the pillars, which purport to set it may still be that our" thirty-five cubits" forth the safety and sure strength that has its meaning. Meo.ntime the passo.ge in belong to those who wait on, and who Jeremio.h (Iii. 41) tells us tho.t the pillars calmly and constantly abide by, the Divine were hollow, and tho.t the thickness of the leading. The latter, however, is one word, metal was "four fingers." a substantive, not a compound of preposition, Yer. 16. - Chains, o.s in the oracle. pronoun, and substantive; and the former, Though the writer of Chronicles ho.a not in though by derivation the future of the hiph. this description mentioned o.ny chains as conjugation of the verb rn, is established o.pperto.ining to the oracle, yet they o.re as a substantive in its own right.
HOMILETICS. Ver. 1-ch. iv. 22 (see also on eh. iv. in its proper place).-These two chapters are occupied with the subject of the preparation for the building of the temple; its site, its exact proportions and measures, its contents and furniture, vessels and instruments. Upon the first glance, and merely superficial reading of these, it may seem that they bear little relation to us, address no special messages to us, and proffer but little instruction adapted to our light, our time of day, our confessedly more spiritual form of religion. A little longer thought, more patient inquiry, and deeper consideration will go far to correct, or, at any rate, to modify, an estimate of this kind. Perhaps no devout mind, in a healthy state, unsophisticated and nnvitiated by special freak of education, will fail to feel, free of argument, that the principles underlying the direc- tions of minutest detail of outward work once, find their use and application now within the domain of motive, of purity of motive, and exactitude in judging, not the motives of others, but our own; within the domain, again, of cheerful, ungrudging giving to Christ and to his living Church; and within the domain of that exalted but perfectly simple law of giving, not the lo.me, the blind, the blemished, and the utter superfluity of our own possessions, but the first and the best, and of what may call for some self-denial, some self-sacrifice. Add to these considerations the hard fact that, in the name of Christianity, in the purer no.me of Christ himself, and for the love of him, now for fifteen centuties (repudiating that narrowest of all things, a narrow construction of the spirituality of the simplest and purest religion possible) the instinct of the disciples and followers of Christ has expended on the art of ecclesiastical architecture, the art of ecclesiastical painting, the art of ecclesiastical music-all things of the outside, if sc, they must be called-an amount of ea.re, time, skill, devotion, exactness, and wealth of precious things, exceeding by millionfolds all devoted to the temple of Solomon and all its successors, and required for them, even by highest inspiration of the pattern showed on the mount. It is, therefore, a great historic mistake, and a blinded or oblivious readi11g of history, when any presume to suppose that the detail, exactness, matorial grandeur, and contribution of all costly things commanded for the templti of the ancient Jew aro not paralleled by their almout identical likes in the Church of the ~l)risti~n I For such reasons as these it is interesting, and it is useful, to review the IDJunct1ons and the methods and the accomplished results of Solomon's work as 36 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. [on. m. 1-17.