is anxious to animate his ministers and people with like piety.

Following the history of David, he comes before us as a shepherd, hero, captain, king, minstrel, poet, prophet; a man not without several great blots, but, as a whole, ruled by those transcendant qualities and virtues which constitute the highest form of genius and of humanity. His taste was by no means exclusive and one-sided. He had an eye for the subordinate, as well as for the supreme instruments of civilization. He knew that the arts were flourishing in Tyre, and he availed himself of the friendship of Hiram to have a palace erected in Jerusalem.

But as this magnificent structure crowned the heights of Zion, the tent that had been made for the ark was close at hand. Nothing more than a tent; the ark of God still dwelt within curtains. A palace for man; a tent for God! A fixed stone residence, adorned with columns of richest cedar, for frail human nature; a frail erection of planks and hangings, and other ornamental furniture, that might be an easy prey to a spark, for the recognised abode of the authoritative testimony and symbolical presence of the Eternal! The contrast between what is and what should be is always seen in greater relief in proportion as the mirror of the soul is kept bright. The purest piety was glowing in the king's heart at this time, and this association of ideas, under the mental law to which we have referred, suggested the thought of a glorious and solid temple to Jehovah.

How little can we paint intellectual operations! How much of their fulness is lost in the successiveness with which we I must look at them! The noblest of athletes, the victorious antagonist of lions and bears, and the giant-champion of the Philistines, here rises before the imagination, seated in his palace, full of sublime religious musings and purposes. What human spectacle can there be greater than a hero-monarch bending before heaven, as feeling all his strength there, and meditating a plan by which all his subjects may be brought to do homage to the blessed and only Potentate? Three thousand years have passed away, yet the thoughts of that hour are the sublimest and most needful now for all monarchs and all men. Palaces we find in every land; but few stones of God's temple are yet laid.

David at length opened his mind to Nathan the prophet-a man sure to sympathise with every lofty aspiration. "Go," said he, "do all that is in thine heart; for the Lord is with thee." But the purest impulses of good, nay of inspired, men may be carried out more fitly at one season than at another. God knows the time that is best. Nathan urged the king to the good work at once, as prompted by an exalted piety. Nathan's Master, however, checked it. He was sent the same night to David to inform him that the execution of this noble purpose should devolve on another, and that it was under the more quiet dominion of his son and successor that a temple should rise to the honour of the great I AM.

Various reasons are assigned for this decision in the several historical notices of the incident. We should observe that al the Divine intimations on the subject were not conveyed by Nathan, or else they are not all given to us consecutively. There is one beautiful feature in his message worthy of notice. God gives David a promise that he will build him a house. The Divine Being assigns the work contemplated by the Jewish monarch to another, but meets the intention with a signal blessing. No sooner had David heard this than he went in and sat before the Lord, and poured forth one of the most humble, beautiful, and touching thanksgivings ever offered by mortal to the Author of all good.* At length then that day had dawned of which Moses had spoken.†

Other things here also are instructive. There was, it is hinted, no absolute necessity for a solid, massive temple fot Jehovah. He had dwelt with them in a tabernacle. Why was this suggested? Was it not to teach that God's presence in all changes and everywhere is the chief thing to be desiredthe joy and shield of his people Israel? Elsewhere, too, we see that David was taught a deep lesson in the love that should rule the latter days, by hints relating to the warlike character of his career, and the preparatory nature of his administration. Internally, his policy had been constructive, but he had been a destroyer. "Thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight." Though he could not build the house till God had given him rest from his enemies round about, yet when he had rest he was not to do it. While the intention met with the Divine approval, the work itself was to be achieved by one whe

* 2 Sam. vii. 18--29.

+ Deut. xii. 5--7.

had not been a warrior, and around whom and throughout whose kingdom peace should spread its blessings and hold its sway. Rich in suggestion then, it is richer now, and has been since the song of the angelic hosts at the birth of Incarnate Love. Wars shall cease, and the house of God shall be built in all lands, when the destruction that wasteth at noon day shall no longer ravage the earth.

Here we pause as to retrospective matter. God has ordained a lamp for his anointed, and, though gusts of wind may come from every quarter of the heavens, and threaten to blow it out, yet shall it illumine a first and second temple, and Jerusalem shall become a praise in the earth.

TOPOGRAPHICAL.

There can be little doubt that at first David intended to erect the temple near his own dwelling on Mount Zion. Jebus, that is Jerusalem, was originally allotted to Benjamin.* His southern border came down to the end of the mountain that lieth before the valley of the son of Hinnom, . . . . . to the side of Jebusi on the south, and onward descending to En-rogel. Yet a part of it must have belonged to Judah.‡ Magnitude, space, and all relations of locality are best learned by actual measurement and vision. The next best thing for this purpose is a good map or drawing. Farther, there is the power of looking on things when one's eyes are shut-a topographical imagination. The habit of viewing things mentally, as it were, in space, is absolutely requisite in order to render description and delineation of any value. We must map localities-ravines and rushing cataracts, vales and mountains, sweet as Tempe and beautiful as Carmel, cities, deserts, encampments, heights, and depths; these, we say, must be mapped upon the outspread surface of the mind; else we turn from model, atlas, descriptive outline, etc., and look on vacancy. Each man must have a projection of his own, derived from a thoughtful study of the subject. To aid the reader in acquiring a general conception of the configuration of Jerusalem and its environs, at the period now under consideration, we have given an outline picture on the next page.

We have just mentioned Zion; and if the inquirer will imagine himself standing on an elevation south of it, now

Josh. xviii. 28.

+ Josh. xviii. 16.

Josh. xv. 8.

known as "The Hill of Evil Counsel," he will have at its foot the valley of Hinnom, sweeping right and left; and directly in front of him, the city of David, rising in defensive attitude on the other side that place of abomination. Moving along to the right he will come upon Siloam with Ophel opposite. The Mount of Olives lies farther on, commanding the whole of the city as it slopes north-east; while the brook Kedron is belowusually only a winter torrent, that here rushes south-eastward along the valley of Jehoshaphat. Mount Moriah-the spot we have especially to notice-lies over against the Mount of Olives. It comes before us at an early stage of scripture history, as the scene of a symbolical sacrifice. Thither Abraham was directed to journey with Isaac his son, as if destined for a burnt-offering-a vision in act—a representative resurrection. The whole was meant to be limited to the representation. The patriarch's obedience and faith had reached their final limit; and looking upon his son as dead, he learned, when the Angel stayed his hand, although thus painfully and typically, truths of grand significance for all ages-the essence of true pietythe hope of immortal life-and the vicarious ground-work of human salvation.

Nine or ten centuries later this identical locality became invested with new and deepening interest. We are thinking of the times of David. Some deep-seated evil in his heartsatanic suggestions obeyed-brought an awful calamity on his subjects. The visible phenomenon of an Angel between earth and heaven, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, betokened the Divine displeasure. The monarch and the elders of Israel, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces, and their prayers were heard. David was then ordered to build an altar to the Lord in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite; and, being answered from heaven by fire, (verse 26) he continued to sacrifice there instead of going to the tabernacle of Moses, which was then in the high-place at Gibeon. The fact is thus referred to at a later date, after that hallowed spot had been chosen for the site of the temple: "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite."+

*