"God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises unto our King, sing praises. For God is King of all the earth." As the heavenly hosts, forming the triumphal procession beyond that cloud, approach the mansions of glory, they demand an entrance for their returning King: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in." And He entered into His glory, but what that was, who can tell? The language of the evangelist on this point, is striking from its very simplicity. "So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God." And very simple and suggestive are the words of our Saviour Himself. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" On the other side of the cloud, we contemplate the glorified Redeemer, whom "the Father hath set at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." Of His personal glory, as expressed in these words, we can at present form no conception.

That cloud was the entrance into the holiest of all within the veil in the temple above, not made with hands, "whither the forerunner has for us entered, even Jesus." When the high-priest of the Jewish nation entered once a year into the sacred inclosure which bore this awful name, he did so with the blood

of atonement to sprinkle the mercy-seat, and the assembled people outside anxiously waited for his return from the overshadowing presence of God. Christ, when ascending, passed through the veil between us and the heavenly world, not with the blood of slain victims, but with His own blood, with the tokens of His own sufferings, having obtained eternal redemption for us. In the visions of Patmos He is represented as a Lamb that had been slain, and in the songs of the redeemed He is greeted with the rapturous words, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." He pleads His shed blood before the throne, He appears in the presence of God for us. This is His plea for mercy to the guilty, and on this ground we build our hopes of acceptance with God. "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

In the ascension of our blessed Lord, God the Father hath set the seal of His approval to the finished work of our Great High-priest. He hath set Him on high, and the risen Saviour has received as the reward of all His sufferings "gifts for men, even the rebellious." It was but a few days after He had passed within the veil when the promise regarding the advent of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled. This was one of the great gifts which the risen Christ had received for men, and its bestowal on the day of Pentecost was the crowning proof that He had been raised to glory and honcur within the veil. Before He ascended, He told His disciples to wait

for this gift which was to endue them with power from on high. In the spirit of much prayer and earnest expectancy they did wait. In this precious gift and all the blessings that accompanied its bestowal, they had the highest and most convincing proof that could be given them, on this side of the cloud, that beyond it the Saviour was in glory, and wielding all power in heaven and in earth. There He shall reign till His enemies shall be put under His feet. But He shall come again without sin unto salvation. The high-priest returned to the people after le made atonement for sin, he passed out from the holiest of all, within the veil, into the presence of the assembled congregation, and so Christ will come again from the throne and pass through these visible heavens, and appear to the joy of all His redeemed ones. The Bridegroom is coming, let the Bride be ready to receive Him, "looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ." This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." "What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God?"

THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews xii. 1, 2).