like Mary, sit at her Lord's feet and listen to him. And even good people like Mnrth11 think such conduct not "a good part," and that opportunity for it ought to "be taken away from her." 4. The giving to him of her best, '!'his the meaning of "the wine prepared from the pomegranate" (ver. 2). Such a sincerely loving soul will not be content with mere ordinary and routine service, but the best of all she bas to give she will offer to him_. 5. But all this wins soor11, and dislike, She who speaks here was evidently "despised " for her devotion to her beloved, and so it is still when the like is seen t<:,wards Christ. lli. OUR AIM SHOULD, THEREFORE, BE TO SHOW MEN THAT WHAT THEY DESPISE IS ALTOGETHER REASONABLE AND RIGHT. That men might see this is what is 90 desired here. But men are as a child playing on a railway line in front of an advancing train. Some kind byst:.ander rushes forward and clutches the child and puts it out of danger before the train is upon it. The child probably only stares displeasedly at him who has roughly interrupted its play; no spark of gratitude is there. So men no~ do not see what Christ has done for them and is willing to do, and so their hearts are cold to him. The truth, therefore, that "God so loved the world" must be held up, insisted on, and shown by lives consecrated to him under the sense of thatlove.-S. C. Ver. 5.-The home-coming. "Who is this that cometh up," etc.? The end of this pastoral song is approaching. The speaker in the former verses has finished,her recital with words telling of her yearning love for her beloved., and an adjuration· to those listening to her that they should not attempt to alter her mind towards him (vers. 3, 4). They are the same as in eh. ii. 7; iii. 5. And now the scene changes. She has been rescued from or permitted to leave her gilded but none the less hated captivity in Solomon's palace, and with her beloved is returning to her old home. A band of friends exclaim, "Who .is this," etc.? Applying the words spiritually, we may take them of the soul's home-coming. And they tell- • L WHITHER SUCH soUL ooMEs. It is ever e.n upward coming. For all the charac- teristics of the soul's true home a.re far above the soul's natural condition. For here, assuredly, we have wt pea,ce. " Man is born," not to peace, but " to trouble." Who knows not that? For sin is the great troubler. Therefore, for the soul to have what it so desires, it must come up and away from the wilderness. Purity, likewise. How here can we keep ourselves undefiled? Who amongst men unregenerate and unsaved ever does so? But as t.he soul in coming home enters into the peace of God, so also shall it partake of his purity. Rest. The trials, crosses, and disappointments of life, its manifold adversities, all ceaselessly proclaim to the so.ul, "This is not your rest." But "there remaineth a rest for the people of God." And the soul, uprising in faith and love towards God, does even here know much of the truth of Christ's promise, "I will. give you rest." And then there is the course and consummation of all these in the presence of God eternally in heaven. Here we have pledges and foretastes, but there only are we made perfect. . IL WHENCE. "From the wilderness." How fit that word for the soul's condition here ere it is redeemed by Christ! Are not the distress of conscience, the sense of guilt, the tyranny and cruelty of sin, the trials. of life, and at length the grave,-are not all these wilderness-like things? But when the soul comes home, it comes away from all these. It is not a coming to them, as every soul has to make acquaintauce with them when it is born into the world; nor is it a coming through them-that is what we are occupied in now whilst we linger here; but it is coming from them, leaving them all behind. Oh, blessed home-coming of the soul I III. How. "Leaning upon her beloved." This tells of the sours relation to Christ. Re is "her Beloved." Of its union with him. As it were linked lovingly together as the soul leans upon him. Of its dependence upon Christ. It is e. long, rough, lonely, and difficult way that the soul has to traverse. It needs, therefore, that the Lord should be her "arm" every day (Isa. xxxiii. 2). Of its communion with Christ. Note the affectionate converse of the next verse. The maiden is represented as coming to a particular tree where once she had a waked him from a noonday slumbeJi, and where, too, he had been born. "In Oriente non raro accidit ut mulieres in aperto pariant" (cf. Gen. :x.xxv.16). And they ta.lk of these reminiscences. It was natural, and tells of the familiar intercourse, the happy communion. which the soul enjoys with Christ. Yes, on. vm, 1-14.J THE SONG OF SOLOMON. 195
U le thu~ that we make our vr,ay homeward, heavenward. In union, in dependence, in commumon, with Ohriet. Thus we c9me up from the wilderness leaning on our beloved Lord.-8. C.