pray, who never prayed before, for the mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of the Judge. But no, that cannot be; for it is added in another Scripture, “ They also that pierced him.” We all, whether ministers or members of the Church of Christ, are bound to watchfulness—“* What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch! ”—and that lest (5) we should be found among those that pierced him, This refers to his actual murderers in the first instance—the Jews that condemned him, the Romans that crucified him, the scribes and Pharisees that plotted against him, the priests and people that persecuted him, the passers-by that wagged the head, the men that scoffed him, and those that scourged him, and they that spat upon him; the fierce mob that cried, “ Away with him! away with him!” the judge that condemned him, the disciple that betrayed him—all that imbrued their hands in his precious blood or had aught to do with his death. But we may not stop here. Others have pierced him, too; for we read of those who “crucify Christ afresh, and put him to an open shame.” Ah! is there any of ourselves included in that number? Is there any of us who have pierced his heart by our sin, by our disobedience, by cur ingratitude, by our backsliding, by our coldness, and by our carelessness? Ah! is there none of us to whom he can say, “See, here are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends”? ‘“ Watch ye therefore!” is repeated once and again and a third time. While one of the terms used signifies to keep awake and remain sleepless, the other means to awake or arouse from sleepiness; and thus the sense seems to be, if the distinction is admitted, to guard against sleep overtaking us at the post of duty; or, if unhappily we have been overtaken by drowsiness, to rouse ourselves at once trom our slumber and repent of our sinful somnolence, And all the more as we are left in such entire uncertainty and ignorance of the hour when the Master shall come and reckon with us in our individual capacity, and, if we are found culpable, condemn us with the wicked. That hour may be at any of the four watches of the night—nine o’clock, or twelve, or three, or six in the morning. So important is this lesson that our Lord, in St. Matthew’s Gospel, enforces it by two parables—that of the virgins and that of the talents; the former inculcating watchfulness over the spirit, and probably implied in ver. 36 of the present chapter; the latter quickening faithfulness in duty, and seemingly epitomized in the two preceding verses of this same chapter.
VY. OTHER LESSONS OF THE CHAPTER. 1, The truth of Scripture, Besides the lessons already noticed, there are others to which we can only advert. The lessons scattered through this chapter are like flowers in a summer field. Anotker of these is the truth of Scripture. ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away.” The frame of nature, stable as it now seems, has in it the elements of change. There are changes in the geolovical strata of the earth beneath us, in the sky above us, in the natural world around us. Great changes have already taken place in earth and sea and sky; great physical changes are daily going on; still greater changes may be expected to occur in time to come. The surest inductions of science point to such changes and collapses, “But my words,” said our Lord, “shall not pass away.” His words have passed into the spiritual fibre of his people, living in their lives, exhibited in their conduct, illus- trated by their character, and consoling them in the hour of dissolution. Statesmen have been guided by them, lawgivers have framed laws by them, philosophers have made more use of them in building up their systems than they have been willing te acknowledge to others, or have even been conscious of, themselves. The words of Christ have for eighteen hundred years or more blended with the inspirations of the poet; they have almost moved in the marble of the statuary, and spoken frem the canvas of the painter. Time has not exhausted their fulness; no taint has touched their freshness, nor has aught of their fragrance decayed. Further, the inspiration of Scripture is safely inferred from the statement in ver. 11, “It is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost,” compared with St. Luke’s parallel statement, “I will give you a mouth,” the expression, “ and wisdom,” the matter to be expressed. 2. The publication of the gospel amoig all nations. The gospel must first be published. Here was the great end to be attained. We have seen how this was virtually accomplished before the fall of Jerusalem; but the world has widened its boundaries since then. Con- tinents and islands have been added to it; navigation and travel have enlarged geography, and geography has added to the dimensions of the globe, or at least has revealed those before unknown. And still the gospel is preached, and shall be.
o#, xIv. 1—72.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK.
* Jesus shall reign where’er the sun Doth his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.”
3. Watchfulness the lesson of the ages. Scenes similar to those that preceded Christ’s coming at the fall of Jerusalem may be repeated, and repeated over a wider area and on a grander scale. Then, as before, there may be wars—some actual, others rumoured— great international conflicts, and fata] internecine strife; then, as before, there may be physical catastrophes, providential visitations, as the travail-throes of greater events— the travail-pangs in the genesis of the new order of things; then, as before, there may be persecutions, prolonged and repeated, and the severance of the nearest ties of kinship, with universal hatred for the Saviour’s sake. Yet, through all, men must possess their souls in patience, or rather, according to the correcter reading, gain their souls, their real life, by patience—patient endurance, not violent resistance. Men may be worn with watching, pining for peace, and aweary for rest; still the same lesson has to be repeated, the same duty practised: “ What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch!” Watchfulness is still the duty of the Church and of the Christian,
“Yet saints their watch are keeping ; Their cry goes up, ‘ How long?
And soon the night of weeping Shall be the morn of song.”
d. 3. G.
EXPOSITION.
CHAPTER XIV.