by a turn of the road, is at once brought full in view. At the descent from this. shoulder of Olivet, “ when he was come near, he beheld the city,” looking across the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Its temple, its buildings, its dwellings, rising full before him, were all seen in the clear air of a Judean sky; at the same time, its guilty inhabitants and their future fate were equally open to his eyes. 2. Jesus weeps. He paused and pondered. The sight of that splendid capital, the knowledge of its crimes, the remem- brance of God’s mercies, the thought that it might have been spared if, like Nineveh, it had known the day of its visitation and the things that belonged to its peace,—all these considerations awoke the sorrow and called forth the sympathy of the Saviour. “ Jesus wept over it,” as St. Luke informs us. He dropped a tear in silence (é3dxpueer) at the grave of Lazarus, a departed friend; but in view of the doomed city of Jerusalem he shed a flood of tears, weeping aloud (éAaveev), But while his tears testified hia love and showed his tenderness, his lips pronounced the city’s fearful doom. 3. His affecting apostrophe. “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!” Jerusalem had its day, and in vain was that day protracted. “If thou hadst known,even thou,” O ill-fated city; even thou, with all thy guilt; even thou, who hast so long abused the forbearance of a long-suffering God ; even thou, who hast been so often reproved, and yet ever hardened thyself against reproof; even thou, who hast had so many warnings from the prophets of God and apostolic men; even thou, whose children I would have gathered as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings; if thou, even thou, after so many days of mercy and of privi- lege have been misspent, after so many days of grace have been lost and for ever; if thou, even thou, hadst known, at least in this thy day, in this thy last day of privilege and of promise, in this thy last day of heavenly ministration, in this day of merciful visitation still thine, though the eleventh hour of thy existence and the eve of thy destruction] Never was apostrophe to place or person so tender, and never was aposiopesis so terrible; for the sentence is suddenly broken off and left unfinished; the clause which should state the consequence is omitted, After this omission the Saviour pauses, and then adds, “ But now they are hid from thine eyes.” The sentence might be taken as the expression of a wish: “Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace!” and the sense would have remained the same and the sentiment equally solemn, 4, Application to ourselves. Our Lord’s address on this occasion is as practical as it is pathetic. Persoi.»!ly applied, what an appeal it makes to each one of us! Jerusalem had its day, patriarchs and prophets had their day, evangelists and apostles had their day, ancient Jews and early Christians had their day, the apostolic and other Church Fathers had their day, the schoolmen and the reformers had their day, our forefathers and the men of preceding generations had their day; but “our fathers, where are they ? and the prophets, do they live for ever?” Now, the present is our day. God says to each of us—This, the present, is thy day! Let conscience re-echo the solemn truth, for the past is gone, and gone for ever; the future is to come, and may never come to us; the present is all we can call our own. This, then, is our day; for “now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation.” 5. The purpose for whtch é is vouchsafed. Day is not merely a measure of time, or portion of duration, or period of light, or a unit of a month or of a year, or a fragment of existence, made u
of so many hours; it is that season for getting good and doing good which God has given us, and which he has assigned us for accomplishing the work for which he sent us into the world It is thy day, reader; for God has given it to thee for a great purpose, and that purpose is the securing of thine own eternal well-being and the welfare of thy fellow-creature, and in both the glory of the great Creator. It is thy day ; for it is thy property as long as Heaven is pleased to continue the boon. It is thy day ; but not thine to waste or misspend; it is not thine to while away, or trifle away, or sin away, at thy option. It is thine; for it is a talent lent, a treasure given you by God, and for which thou shalt have to render an account. It is thy day for imitating the Saviour in working the work of him that sent thee: and “This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent ;” “ This is his commandment, that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ;” this is thy day for attending to the conditions of peace, the things that tend to and make for peace, such as the righteous- ness of Christ received by faith, repentance of sin, and reformation of life. It is thy day for cultivating personal and practical religion in thine own soul; thy day, more-
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over, for the discharge of the duties of relative religion, because, in a certain sense, every man should be his brother’s keeper, and no man is to live wholly to himself, or to seek entirely and selfishly, and therefore sinfully, his own things only, but to look also upon the things of others. It is thy day to do something for God, something for the Church, something for the world, endeavouring to leave it better than you found it —something useful in thy day and generation.—J. J. G.