what heights could it plant its votaries, as compared with Christians being in Christ, who is the head of all principality and power? To state this should be enough for a subject mind.

Would Judaism prove a snare, bringing into bondage. to its observances those who were never put by God under law? A religion of ordinances is often attractive. Now it was true that the injunctions about new moons and sabbaths, and regulations about meats and drinks, were from God, and were really shadows of things to come. The body however, of which they were true shadows, is of Christ. Correct then as they were as shadows, delineating truth about Him who has come, they could not even foreshadow all that He is. Judaism could never present to those who were nurtured in it the full truth about Christ. "The body is of Christ." How souls would lose if they turned to that! There is in Christ what is positive, substantial, and full; and since Judaism could present but the shadow of things to come, why turn to the shadow after the substance has appeared?

(To be continued, D.V.)

C. E. S.

DEPARTED LEADERS.

THE apostles had no successors.

Both Paul and Peter

alike, in the prospect of their own departure, commended the saints-the former to God, and the word of His grace (Acts xx. 32); the latter to the written Word. (2 Peter i. 15.) It has been the same in principle with the vessels of testimony of every age. They have lived and served, and have departed to be with Christ. We are left; and what, we ask, is the light in which they. should now be regarded? The word of God supplies

the answer. (See Heb. xiii. 7.) We are, in the first place, to remember those who have been our leaders, and who have spoken unto us the word of God; and, secondly, "considering the end of their conversation," we are to "imitate their faith." When bereft therefore of any to whom God had especially committed His testimony in a dark and evil day, the Holy Spirit would lead out our affections in divine channels. And it is a consolation, a divine solace, to be directed to remember such eminent servants of the Lord, and to recall their faith, both as an incentive and an example. To do so in this spirit will obviate the danger of human idolatry, and enable us to glorify God in the energy, the courage, the consecration and zeal, which they displayed.

In this connection, moreover, we are told—and it may be as comprising the faith of these departed teachers— that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." They may disappear from the scene, but He abides, and abides as our unchanging and unchangeable resource. Amid all our vicissitudes, and even amid all our failures and unfaithfulness, if our hearts are but stayed on this blessed truth, we need never be discouraged or disheartened. Christ remains, and here we can rest. He is ever the same, and He will never cease to care for His Church. What comfort to us in our conscious weakness! and what an antidote to our apprehensions, and to our craving after visible helps! Nor let us forget that His truth is bound up with His immutable character. We must not therefore be carried about with divers and strange doctrines. When standardbearers fall, it is but a summons to us to hold fast all the more tenaciously the testimony they proclaimed. “Behold, I come quickly: hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." (Rev. iii. 11.)

E. D.

CHRIST DEPARTING TO THE FATHER.

JOHN Xiii.

THIS chapter begins the communications of the Lord as regards His going away. In the previous chapters we have had the account of His ordinary ministry, and statements of the glory of His person, the power of the divine life come into the world, and light too. All that had been gone through, and then in chaps. viii. ix. you get the rejection of His word and works. Chap. x. is a statement of what the real purpose of His coming was to get out His sheep. "He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out." In spite of all opposition, He could not be hindered from having His sheep. It is our heavenly portion in contrast with the fold. The "porter"-God in His prophets, opening the door. He did come in at the door, born at Bethlehem in the appointed way, and then He becomes the door to anybody else. He had come in in God's way according to prophecy; but any who come in by Him "go in and out and find pasture," perfect liberty, not shut up as in a prison, but the Shepherd's care instead of the prison-fold. There they were, saved by Him, and God's pastures to feed upon.

That closed what He was doing on earth, and what He was bringing them into-heavenly blessedness. Then the hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father. He was come there to be put to death, so that all through these chapters He is looked at as actually gone. Having shown that the Jews would not receive this light of

H

life, they remained in darkness of course. He was putting before His sheep much better things. Now that He comes to the point that He was actually going away, He takes up the heavenly things to which He had gathered these poor sheep, and unfolds them in chap. xiii.

In the gospel of John the blood of Christ is not the subject, though we cannot think too much of it, and that is the reason it is said in the epistle, "This is He that came by water and blood;" not merely by water that purifies and cleanses, but by the blood too that expiates. The cross was the absolute wickedness of man, hating Christ who had come in love, God having displayed Himself in all Christ's walk on earth; it revealed God, and they could not stand that. It is not only that man has been turned out of the garden of Eden on account of his sins, but man has turned God out of the world when He came in grace. In this chapter we find it is water spoken of, the practical purifying of man's heart. There is no repetition of the blood, but there is of the water. To have the work done that clears our sins the blood must be shed. Nothing ever showed what sin was as much as Christ's death did; He was sweating as it were great drops of blood only at the thought of going through it.

The point here is, that He was going to His Father. The Father had put all things into His hands, and He came from God and went to God; and the question necessarily was with the disciples, How could He be with them or they with Him? It looked like giving them up, and so He presses upon them His unalterable love; nothing stopped it, He went perfectly on till everything was done, and everything done that would

bring us into the same place He was in. After His resurrection He sends Mary Magdalene to say what was never said before: "Go tell my brethren I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." "Looking at God in His holy righteousness, you are before Him just as I am; looking at Him in the Father's love, you are before Him just as I am." And in John xvii.: "Hast loved them as thou hast loved me." A wonderful word, beloved friends; but that is where we are brought, and that is what Christ does, and it is well to have it thoroughly before our souls in thankfulness for this love. "Peace I leave with you," a peace made at the cross. When the world gives, it gives away; that is, it has not got it any more. But Christ never gives in that way; if He gives us His glory He does not lose any of it Himself. He puts us into the same place with Himself. What the Lord was telling them about was that He was going up on high to God. He "came from God" in all His absolute purity, and "He went to God" in the same holiness in which He came from Him.

They were sitting at the evening meal. It is not that supper was now ended, but it was going on. They were sitting together, and He gets up from supper; that is, from association with His disciples in this world-He among them, and they with Him. He had been among them as one that served; they had been with Him day by day, and seen the gracious condescension of His ways, and it is well to see it, and eat the bread of God which came down from heaven. But if He is going to God, and the Father has given everything into His hand, there is an end of His service, they thought. No," He says; "I am not going to give up this