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JESUS CHRIST AS A QUESTIONER.

BY THE REV. T. HENSON.

In the last number of The Church, Jesus Christ was spoken of as a great questioner ; it may be instructive to pursue the subject farther. His disciples formed a miniature of His whole Church, in which, while many details are ever being filled in, the broad outlines of character were even then clearly manifest. Their weakness and perturbations of heart, even in His presence, were just as natural to them as ours are to us. They were men of like passions with us; men of little, fluctuating faith, of limited vision, and slow learners; and though in some senses our advantages exceed theirs, we are too often closely resembling them. Words, which were intended to convey moral and spiritual lessons to their minds, often throw them into anxiety and bewilderment about carnal things. Thus it was when Jesus bade them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. That word leaven immediately suggested food, for they were too sensuous to think of doctrine rather than of bread. Nicodemus could not think of anything but a natural birth when Jesus told him he must be born again ; the woman of Samaria could think of nothing but the well of Jacob when told of " the living water," and only of natural thirst and daily toil when told of the everlasting spring of life. So it was with the twelve, leaven had no other meaning than bread. Jast at that moment they were nearly without bread ; Mark tells us they had only one loaf, and two evangelists tell us " they had forgotten to take bread for their journey.” The solemn warning against evil leaven could not reach the soul through an empty cupboard, but it did call up their fears and anxieties about their temporal wants. They said one to another, “It is because we have brought no bread.” Perhaps they did reach mentally as far as the ritual of religion, and thought they were not to buy from Pharisaic or Sadducean bakers, whose bread might partake of sectarian uncleanness. The care for bread is natural, and not wrong; but an empty larder may often betray us into needless alarms, unless we well learn the lesson, “ Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Jesus, perceiving their perplexity, and that a cloud was settling down upon them, reminded them of two miraculous feedings of great multitudes, and by two brief but pointed questions, He scattered the gloom at once. By one question, “Do ye not remember?" He appealed to their memories ; and by the other, “How many baskets full took ye up?" He appealed directly to their experience; as if He would say, Your concern about bread is very needless, you should know that a want of food cannot happen to Me, and if not to Me, how can it happen to you? He had before told them not to be anxious about eating, drinking, and wearing; and now, after such words and such

works of assurance, their anxiety about bread perverts His teaching, and completely blinds their spiritual powers. The soul which anxiously carries the earth can never lift itself up to heavenly things. Contentment with their one loaf and their Master's presence would have been boundless wealth in the midst of poverty ; but the fear and distrust awakened by His word leaven, showed that in the midst of unspeakable wealth they were wretchedly poor. His questions intimate to them that faith should draw support from recollection. The psalmist of old had done that, the disciples needed to be reminded of it. In the wilderness they set up stones of memorial—those twelve baskets full were memorials for faith to look upon, and they bid it dispense with such carking. His questions remind them that a miracle is not exhaustive; it does not wither the Divine arm, nor dry up the fountain of Divine care; it is but a momentary exhibition of a constant process, a brief manifestation of an endless but unseen operation, a display of results rather than of the steps by which they are reached.' The clear, modest water of Cana, so suddenly changed into good wine, was bat the accelerated work of the vine in nature every year; and the multiplied loaves and fishes as clearly indicated the gracious presence of Him who gives seed time and harvest to every passing summer. Why should they reason because they had no bread ?

To-morrow has always been a haunting shadow to man. Some men live more in sad recollections of yesterday, or in anxious borebodings of to-morrow, than they do in happy realisation of the present hour. He is a happy man in whom thankful enjoyment of the present can heal the wounds of yesterday and prevent the encroachment of to-morrow's care. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. "How many baskets full took ye up?" That question of Jesus Christ is left on the sacred page as a blaze of sunlight to dissipate human care and distrust. It is constantly telling us that the power which wrought that one miracle is able to supply the daily needs of overy creature that looks up to it. It is ever showing us the illimitable resources of God yet untouched; it is an immortal sermon against anxious fears for To-morrow. Calvin says : It was shameful ingratitude, having twice seen bread created in such abundance, to be so anxious then about bread, as if their Master did not always possess the same power ! This suggests & solemn thought. Experience of divine goodness involves solemn responsibility. He who has seen and tasted the goodness and care of God should never more be distrustful-distrust in Him is the worst form of unbelief. When to-morrow obtrudes its cares upon to-duy, remember the twelve baskets full. Says the “ Song of the Brook”

"Men may come, and men may go, But I go on for ever."

Even so, ages and generations of men may come and go, but no age takes away with it the anxious care of to-morrow; each age leaves that behind it, each following one will carry it. But in every age Christ is still present, saying to it, “ Do ye not remember?" To overy age He offers memory as a precious pot of manna, fragrant with the happy experience of the past, and the baskets full of unused good. ness left by those who have been fully satisfied. And yet each coming age is prone to forget how the past was satisfied, and to act as if it were dealing with an untried hand. Hence Christ, who has been bappily styled “ the contemporary of every age,” continues to put His question, “ Perceive ye not yet, neither understand ?" How many baskets full are yet remaining? There is an unimpoverished store left for each coming need. No age can empty God's granaries.

Among the many excellent qualities in Jesus admired by the author of “Ecce Homo ” was this, " that men could listen to His talk, and ask Him questions.” But this amiability was not so striking in Him as it is in many another man; it was not the result of good breeding, or of refining caltare, it was the natural outcome of His own sweet spirit, an essential part of His very nature. He came with a definite purpose --with a clear and well-defined end and aim, and this graciousness was one of His preconcerted plans. He came to be questioned by souls, and to question them in return. He had knowledge which by questions they should draw from Him, each soul as it needed; and He put questions to men in like manner, as channels of instruction instruction not in words and elements, but in great truths and principles. Who can fathom the depth of that question He put to the Pharisees, " What think ye of Christ ? ” (Matt. xxii. 42).

To understand this question rightly we must view it in the light of the surroundings, the spirit and circumstances of His interrogators. It had been a day of great questions, as may be seen from the narratives of the synoptic gospels; a day of interrogatory conflicts upon which great issues depended. The Herodians, hounded on by the Pharisees, had tried to impale Him on a great political issue between Herod and Cæsar ; but His question as to the superscription on the penny had completely discomfited them. No sooner were they put to the rout than the Sadducees came on to the field. Denying the doctrine of the resurrection, they sought, and that most meanly, to foil Him with a question respecting the teaching of Moses. He vanquished them by exposing their ignorance of the Scriptures. The Sadducees silenced, a lawyer entered the lists with Him. This lawyer appears to have been put forward by the Pharisees—the over implacable foes of Jesus though, from Mark's picture of him we may infer that he was better than his masters ; nevertheless, be lent himself to a bad business, illustrating Christ's own words, “ He that is not with me is against me." . Geikie represents him as only “ half-hearted in his task.” But he has a question to ask which touches closely a point that had long been keenly, almost fiercely, debated in the schools of the Rabbis, and Shammai and Hillel were at daggers drawn respecting it. “Which," he asks, " is the great commandment in the law ?" The Rabbinical schools in their zeal for law, had entirely buried the “ Ten words” of Sinai beneath a heap of their own worthless traditions and impositions. They had made the number of commands to exceed six hundred. They had divided these into greater and lesser, lighter and heavier. But which were great and which small, which heavy and which light, was the subject of constant controversy. Amid the commotion, reckless souls would take licence to do evil, because the standard of right was broken down ; ceremonious and Pharisaic souls would be enslaved by the unintelligible medley; and devout souls would be scandalized by the dearth of love and piety. Still the question was ever coming up, Which is the greatest command ? Shammai exalted one, Hillel another. The lawyer's question to Jesus was, according to the casuistry of the times, one of immense importance and consummate skill. Christ's reply was so discreet, that it ended this conflict of questions, no man dare ask Him any more questions after it. He had now the vanquished parties before Him, but chiefly his worst enemies, the Pharisees, and He in his turn began to question them. It was within a very few days of His death, and ere they filled up their cap of iniquity He offered them another opportunity of repentance. He would make another effort to open their eyes, and to win their hearts. He knew their exact position in rejecting Him as The Christ, and by His question, “ What think ye of the Christ?” He tried to open up an entire re-examination with them of the whole subject. It must be expressly noted that His question imported not a mere name, but a divinely appointed character; it sought to elicit or draw out earnest thought, not so much as to His humanity as His divinity. " Whose son is He?” What an opportunity tenderly offered to them, even in that hour of intenso irritation—to repent, and at last, ere it would be too late, to accept Him and acknowledge him as the Son of God, their own heaven-sent Messiah! It was as if He had emphatically asked them to accept the mystery of His daal nature, and with it the blessing of His mediatorial character. It was of no use for them to look for a Christ moulded according to their corrupt minds, they must accept " the Christ of God” as He was revealed to them in their own Scriptures. They made much of their devotion to the One God, but they must accept Him as the Son and revealer of God, Nay, they must accept Him as “God manifest in the flesh ” if they would escape the coming wrath. They had ample means for understanding Him, both as the Son of David and the Son of God, and His question is a last effort to lead them into the light of love and glory.

In this question, Christ is still preaching the gospel to the gainsayers of every age. It is useless to accept Him as David's son, or even as David's Lord, if you reject Him as the Son of God. He who accepts Him truly as, the Son of God having eternal life, accepts Him as the only Begotten Son by whom the world is redeemed, the expression of the Father's love and mercy towards the guilty and the lost, the propitiation which God Himself has set forth for the sins of the whole

world. Blessed is the man who has wisdom from above to think of Him and to accept Him as the atonement for sin, the Son of God on. whom He has laid the iniquities of us all !

Amid the din and strife at present surrounding the person and work of Christ, no question could more effectually reveal the thoughts of many hearts. Whether men answer it candidly, or turn away from it with pride, or pass it by with indifference, it turns them inside out: tho thoughts of their hearts are made known. Thought is sometimes louder in action than in speech. With no question can it be more decidedly so than with this. It is not, Who is He? but, What is He ? He is a unique person in the race, thoroughly human and truly Divine. Not one of the facts of His strange history can be dropped out without losing Him altogether. In view of this, how it behoves every man to settle in his own mind what he will think of Him! What we think of Him will mould our lives and shape our eternal destiny. Men will be glorified with immortal glory, or doomed to everlasting destruction, according as they think of Him. His question involves His divine generation-His dual nature, human and divine-His sinless life in servent love and pure obedience-His strange, mysterious death-His' resurrection from the dead--all His miracles and His words before and after His death -His ascension into heaven, and His present position as Mediator and Lord of all things. What think you, reader, of His claims to your faith and obedience ; nay, to yourself ?

Long Buckby.

THE SABBATH OF MISGIVING.

A F£w years ago, as I was anxious- to procure a supply from abroad, ly preparing, in a season of revival even if there were no other among the people of my charge, obstacle." “But you must go, for the services of the Sabbath, I sir,” calmly said the stranger; "it was suddenly startled by a loud is all arranged. You will be supknock at my door, It was evening, plied, and you must go.” “I fear to and the Sabbath being at hand, I go," I replied, " and leave 'my rose, with not a little wonder what people so abruptly, when there are the unusual occurrence mightmean, so many inquiring and anxious ones and opened the door. There, to my among them who expect me to be at surprise, stooď a stranger, who an- home.” “I believe, sir," rejoined nounced that he had come from the stranger, " that God calls you T-, several miles distant, in to go, and will take care of his own order to inform me that I was work among your people while you expected, in the absence of the are gone." pastor, to supply the pulpit in that. There was an air of almost place on the approaching Sabbath. imperious seriousness in the whole "I cannot do it," was my quick appearance and manner of the reply ; “my duty is here. I am messenger that strangely impressed responsible for the supply of my me; and though I now feared to own pulpit, and it is now too late say no, it was only with great re