works,-between his teaching and his doing,-between his preaching and his practice. One thing at all events is very certain. No lessons produce such effects on men as those which the teacher illustrates by his own daily life. Happy is he who can say with Paul, "Those things which ye have heard and seen in me, do." (Philip. iv. 9.)

We learn, secondly, from our Lord's words, how much more easy it is to admire dead saints than living ones. He says to the lawyers, "Ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them." They professed to honour the memory of the prophets, while they lived in the very same ways which the prophets had condemned! They openly neglected their advice and teaching, and yet they pretended to respect their graves!

The practice which is here exposed has never been without followers in spirit, if not in the letter. Thousands of wicked men in every age of the church have tried to deceive themselves and others by loud professions of admiration for the saints of God after their decease. By so doing they have endeavoured to ease their own consciences, and blind the eyes of the world. They have sought to raise in the minds of others the thought, "If these men love the memories of the good so dearly, they must surely be of one heart with them." They have forgotten that even a child can see that "dead men tell no tales," and that to admire men when they can neither reprove us by their lips, nor put us to shame by their lives, is a very cheap admiration indeed.

Would we know what a man's religious character really is? Let us inquire what he thinks of true Christians while they are yet alive.-Does he love them, and

cleave to them, and delight in them, as the excellent of the earth? Or does he avoid them, and dislike them, and regard them as fanatics, and enthusiasts, and extreme, and righteous over-much ?-The answers to these questions are a pretty safe test of a man's true character. When a man can see no beauty in living saints, but much in dead ones, his soul is in a very rotten state. The Lord Jesus has pronounced his condemnation. He is a hypocrite in the sight of God.

We learn, thirdly, from our Lord's words, how surely a reckoning day for persecution will come upon the persecutors. He says that the "blood of all the prophets shall be required.”

There is something peculiarly solemn in this statement. The number of those who have been put to death for the faith of Christ in every age of the world, is exceedingly great. Thousands of men and women have laid down their lives rather than deny their Saviour, and have shed their blood for the truth. At the time they died they seemed to have no helper. Like Zacharias, and James, and Stephen, and John the Baptist, and Ignatius, and Huss, and Hooper, and Latimer, they died without resistance. They were soon buried and forgotten on earth, and their enemies seemed to triumph utterly. But their deaths were not forgotten in heaven. Their blood was had in remembrance before God. The persecutions of Herod, and Nero, and Diocletian, and bloody Mary, and Charles IX., are not forgotten. There shall be a great assize one day, and then all the world shall see that "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." (Psalm cxvi. 15.)

Let us often look forward to the judgment day. There are many things going on in the world which are trying to our faith. The frequent triumphing of the wicked is perplexing. The frequent depression of the godly is a problem that appears hard to solve. But it shall all be made clear one day. The great white throne and the books of God shall put all things in their right places. The tangled maze of God's providences shall be unravelled. All shall be proved to a wondering world to have been "well done." Every tear that the wicked have caused the godly to shed shall be reckoned for. Every drop of righteous blood that has been spilled shall at length be required.

We learn, lastly, from our Lord's words, how great is the wickedness of keeping back others from religious knowledge. He says to the lawyers, "Ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and those that were entering in ye hindered.”

The

The sin here denounced is awfully common. guilt of it lies at far more doors than at first sight many are aware. It is the sin of the Romish priest who forbids the poor man to read his Bible.—It is the sin of the unconverted Protestant minister who warns his people against "extreme views," and sneers at the idea of conversion. It is the sin of the ungodly, thoughtless husband who dislikes his wife becoming "serious."—It is the sin of the worldly-minded mother who cannot bear the idea of her daughter thinking of spiritual things, and giving up theatres and balls. All these, wittingly or unwittingly, are bringing down on themselves our Lord's emphatic "woe." They are hindering others from entering heaven!

Let us pray that this awful sin may never be ours. Whatever we are ourselves in religion, let us dread discouraging others, if they have the least serious concern about their souls. Let us never check any of those around us in their religion, and specially in the matter of reading the Bible, hearing the Gospel, and private Let us rather cheer them, encourage them, prayer. help them, and thank God if they are better than ourselves. "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness," was a prayer of David's. (Psalm li. 14.) It may be feared that the blood of relatives will be heavy on the heads of some at the last day. They saw them about to "enter" the kingdom of God, and they "hindered" them.

NOTES. LUKE XI. 45-54.

45.-[One of the lawyers.] The lawyers, be it remembered, were a class of men among the Jews who devoted themselves to the study of the law of God. We generally find them in league with the Scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel history. 46.-[Woe unto you also, ye lawyers.] These words are a striking instance of our Lord's boldness in rebuking sinners. He is appealed to in an angry tone, and He tells those who appeal to Him their sins and wickedness to their face.

[Ye lade men with burdens.] These burdens mean the many vexatious and trifling rules laid down by the Jewish expounders of the law, as requiring men's attention, if they would be saved. Chemnitius remarks the close resemblance between these Jewish teachers and the Roman Catholic priests, who hedged up the way to heaven with a long list of things to be observed,-penances, pilgrimages, fastings, flagellations, contritions, attritions, confessions, and the like.

47.-[Ye build the sepulchres of the prophets.] Let it be remembered that in every age of the Church, true Christians have been more admired and praised when they were dead than when they were alive. Chemnitius observes that the conduct of these lawyers related in this verse is that of the Roman Catholic Church. No people can be more zealous than the Romish priests in honouring the tombs and relics of saints and martyrs, and building costly churches in honour of them. And yet the

doctrines of these saints are not believed, and their lives are not imitated!

48.-[Ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers.] The meaning of these words can only be that the lives of the Jewish teachers were clear evidence that they agreed with those who murdered the prophets more than with the prophets. A man's life is the best proof of a man's opinions. It is absurd and hypocritical to pretend admiration of dead saints, if we do not at the same time endeavour to walk in their steps. Poole remarks, "It is gross hypocrisy for men to magnify the servants of God in former ages, and in the mean time to malign and persecute the servants of the same God in a present age, owning the same truth, and living by the same rule."

49.-[Said the wisdom of God.] It is a disputed question what these words mean. Alford thinks that they simply refer to the description of the death of Zechariah, in the book of Chronicles, (2 Chron. xxiv. 18-22.) and that our Lord gives a paraphrase and summary of the lessons contained in that passage. The more common opinion is that our Lord speaks of Himself under the name of "Wisdom," and that comparing the passage with Matt. xxiii. 34, it means, "I, the eternal wisdom of God, have said." 50.-[Of this generation.] Both here and in the following verse, it seems probable that the word generation means nation or people, as in Matt. xxiv. 34. It is a certain fact that the greater part of the men who were alive when our Lord said these things, must have been dead forty years after, when the great inquisition for blood took place, at the destruction of Jerusalem. 51.-[Zacharias.] There can be little doubt that this Zacharias was the son of Jehoiada, who was murdered in the days of Joash. (2 Chron. xxiv. 20.) Lightfoot gives some remarkable quotations from Rabbinical writers, proving how very great a crime this murder was regarded by the Jews themselves.

The temple.] Let it be noted, that the Greek word so translated, is commonly rendered, "The house."

[It shall be required.] This is one of those fearful passages of Scripture which teach us that sins are not forgotten by God because not punished at the time of commission. There are evidently many sins recorded in the book of God's remembrance which will all be brought to light and reckoned for one day. 52.-[Ye have taken away the key of knowledge.] It is a doubtful question whether these words should not have been rendered Ye have borne, or taken up, and carried the key of knowledge." Let the expression be compared with John i. 29, and the marginal reading in that place; and with such phrases as that translated, "Take up his cross," in Luke xi. 23. The meaning would then be, "Ye have been by profession the instructors of the Jews in