He found, in manifold ways, toil, danger, sorrow, and reproach for Christ's sake. How strong the words of his own description:" "we are made as the filth of the world; the offscouring of all things unto this day." The offence of the Cross and the reproach of the Truth, prepared for him many a cup of sorrow. And there were some, who, like Clement, and Timothy, and the Philippians, shared with him these sufferings, and partook of the reproach of this blackness. But it was far otherwise with many even of those who knew and who prized the Gospel of the grace of God. The Corinthians prized the Gospel; but they loved not its separation nor its reproach. Whilst the Apostle was despised, they sought "before the time, to reign as kings." They had no desire to go without the gate; they wished rather to settle in, and if possible, to control, the City of man. Their sympathies were not with her whose place, and whose service, and whose "blackness" the Lord approved. Their sympathies were well nigh with her persecutors. They were almost, as to their feelings, one, and but for grace, would actually have become one, with "the daughters of Jerusalem."

It should cost us little effort to apprehend who they are, whom "the daughters of Jerusalem" denote. The daughters of Jerusalem are they, who are under the tutelage and control of those who are afterwards denominated in this song, "keepers of the wall"-i.e., the wall of man's City. From the time that the Apostles died, there have been in the professing Church, multitudes who have sought to elevate Truth, or that which they have called Truth, into the place of worldly dignity and strength and honour. They have loved, not all the principles perhaps, but the dignity and glory of the halls of Caiaphas and of the Courts of Cæsar. Ecclesiastical and secular greatness have been the idols before which they have bowed down and worshipped. They have coveted for their "Zion" as they have called it, that "Kings should be its nursing fathers, and their Queens its nursing mothers"-forgetting the destiny of Israel, forgetting that while the vail rests on Israel's heart, the hour of Truth's triumph cannot come. Impatient of the garb of Nazareth, not willing to own that at present "the foundations of all things are out of course,' they wish that Truth should be exalted now-that now "the glory of the nations should come to it as a flowing stream." Accordingly, they labour to maintain, and to strengthen, and to guard, the walls of the City of man. The prosperity of that City is their prosperity: its glory, their glory. Its melodies delight them: the rest of its

dwelling-places is the rest which their souls covet. And if, perchance, they behold any so awakened to a sense of the coming doom of this City of man's strength, as to quit it, and to go without the gate led by the voice of Truth, they persecute- unless, indeed, it suit better their Gallio-like indifference to sit still and to deride. Bitterness is

not confined to the active persecutor; it is often found even in greater intensity in those who sit in the seat of the scorner and mock. Are we then numbered among the keepers of the walls of this City ? Are our energies and talents and powers devoted to upholding the strength of the City of man's present greatness? Or have we in a more quiet and less active sphere, become like the daughters of Jerusalem,-imprisoned within barriers which other hands have reared, so as to be made the unreflecting instruments of others' will? Responsibility is not destroyed by the listless docility of willing igAre we numbered among either of these two classes? Or are we "without the gate?"

norance.

There may be occasions when they who have gone without the gate have opportunity to testify to "the daughters of Jerusalem," or even to the keepers of the walls of the City: but to testify is not to apologize. To speak in the power of Truth and of grace to men's consciences (for Truth and Grace are to be combined in our testimony), is very different from seeking to commend our ways to mens' natural judgments with the view either of averting their contempt, or of disarming their enmity. Whenever the servant of Christ sinks into the place of a mere apologist, it shows that his faith has lost its proper energy and its right power of discernment. This was, in measure, the case with this faithful one of Christ, when she thus addressed the daughters of Jerusalem. Her words had far more the tone of apology than of testimony. She appears rather to be pleading at the bar of human judgment, than as standing simply in the presence of her Lord. Her eye was fixed on them, rather than on Him. Accordingly, as soon as she had ceased, and before any reply could be returned by those to whom she had spoken, she suddenly remembers her Lord, and finds that while occupied in this appeal to the stranger, she had, in a measure, wandered from the footsteps of His flock. "Tell me," were her words, "tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon for why should I be as one that turneth aside from the flocks of thy companions?" These words plainly intimate that she was not as near as she might have been, and as she had been wont

to be, to the presence of her Lord. She had, for the moment, lost Him. Whilst she had been parleying with strangers and vindicating her ways to them, He had moved on with His companions and was feeding His flock, she knew not exactly where. Yet it was not that she had really wandered. She had merely tarried on the way, and that but for an instant; and the ready earnestness of her enquiry plainly showed, that desire after her Lord and the place which He practically occupied, had never ceased to be uppermost in her soul. She had no desire except to be found with Him. This He knew. Accordingly, He instantly replied to her appeal, and did not, as on some subsequent occasions, delay His answer-mingling, however, with that answer, a slight measure of reproof. "If thou knowest not, O thou fairest among women as if to say, "Is it indeed true

that thou knowest not? How is it that thou knowest not?" His words conveyed reproof; and her conscience doubtless recognised that it was deserved. But the knowledge for which she asked was given. "If thou knowest not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherd's tents. There I abide. There thou wilt find thyself with me."

Thus then "the shepherds' tents" is the object pointed out to us to guide our steps, and to fix the bounds of our habitation in the midst of the world's dark wilderness. We have to seek out where the proper ministration of Truth to the sheep of Christ is being carried on, and there we have to dwell or to sojourn—for if Truth merely sojourns, we have to sojourn likewise. We have to remember too, that there is a fulness and completeness and harmony in Truth as revealed in God's holy Word, and that it may suffer as much from mutilation as from corruption. Truth, therefore, in its integrity, is to be sought: and wherever our consciences tell us that its streams, or it may be, its streamlets, flow; wherever true shepherds of Christ minister in faithfulness His word, that is the spot in the wide wilderness which we have to seek; and there we find Christ. The place of His Truth is, and ever will be, His place. Have we then this practical fellowship with the Truth-or do other interests, or friendships, or associations, bind us? It is possible that the palace of Saul, even though it be the centre and spring of the corruptions of Israel, may be dearer to us than the cave of Adullam.

It was otherwise with this faithful one of Christ. She heard His voice, and she followed. And there she found not only quiet, peaceful

tents in which to rest: but she found employment too. "Go and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents." There were "kids" dependent on her care, part doubtless of the flock of her Lord -hers not in title of possession, but as being the subjects of her care. They who through God's grace show faithfulness and energy in cleaving to the Truth, are ever made channels of blessing to others weaker or less instructed than themselves. To receive, and also to communicate, are the characteristic blessings of all, who seek to abide near the footsteps of the great Shepherd of the sheep. Such was the place of her who is the subject of this Song. She stood, herself a shepherdess, among the shepherds' tents; there finding herself the object not only of the love, but of the approval of her Lord, who communed with her, and spoke to her of another, and far different, scene, where the lowly garb of the shepherdess should be exchanged for the stateliness and majesty of royalty and glory.

"I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold. We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver." Such were the words with which this lowly shepherdess was suddenly addressed by her Lord. What could be more contrasted, than the royal pomp and pageantry of the proud King of Egypt, and the condition of this wanderer in the wilderness, surrounded by her kids, few and feeble. "Every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians." There scarcely can be a contrast more marked and more vivid, than that which subsists between the service of the sheepfold, and all that Egypt honours. Yet which will be found the place of honour when the day of man ends, and the day of God comes? Already we have had many a typical intimation of the greatness of the change to be wrought in that coming day of visitation as when Moses was summoned from tending his flock in the wilderness, and set in that place of wondrous power before which Egypt quailed and fell: or as when David was chosen and "taken from the sheepfolds; from following the ewes great with young, he brought him to feed Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance." Yet not so sudden or so marvellous, in either of these cases, was the change, as will be that coming operation of God's power, whereby they, who have been hitherto outcasts from Egypt, and strangers often to their mother's children, will suddenly be surrounded by a glory and a majesty which the pageantry of earth may symbolize, but cannot express. As truly as the proud ones of earth-the

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mighty monarchs of this Egyptian world, have lavished their riches in adorning the ministers and instruments of their triumphs, so truly, soon and suddenly, shall the King of kings and Lord of lords from the resources of His own heavenly glory, clothe with brightness and majesty greater than eye hath seen, or ear heard, those, who, at present, strangers in a world that knows them not, shall then be manifested as being what they are, "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ," and be known as ministers to His majesty, and fall into the train of His glory, and constitute the adornment of His triumph. The despised shepherdess was reminded of this her destined glory reminded of it by her Lord, in order that she might be comforted and encouraged during the hour of her endurance and sorrow. But would she have been thus reminded if she had been as one that had turned aside from "the flocks of his companions"? There were afterwards occasions when we read of her in the Cityapart from her Lord-her hands and her fingers dropping with sweet smelling myrrh, in the rest and shelter of a palace, whilst His unsheltered head was "filled with dew, and his locks with the drops of the night"; but we read of no remembrances of glory then. So much has right position to do, not indeed with the possession of the Lord's love (that is secured to us on the ground of His own sovereign grace), but with the present manifestations of that love-such manifestations, I mean, as show His sanction of our ways and His fellowship with us in them-a fellowship which, through His grace, is made dependent neither on the degree of our strength nor on the extent of our progress; for, where there is straight-forward honesty of purpose in the right way, He is not "extreme to mark what is done amiss"; nor does He "despise the day of small things."

Such, then, as I believe, is the general character of the instruction which this interesting passage is intended to convey. May we have grace to receive it in simplicity, and not seek to turn aside the edge of its truth for the sake of vindicating our own consistency. If a path be honourable, let us pronounce it honourable, whether we have grace to walk in it or not. On the other hand, we must beware of imaginative notions, and not deceive ourselves by ideal pictures of pilgrim life. Imagination, when uncontrolled by fact and by the clear testimonies of revealed Truth, has often been a grievous snare to God's people. A day of weakness like the present — one of which the Lord Himself said, that because of the abounding of iniquity "the love of the greater part" (Twv Todλwv) even of His own people