several acts, we have studied, in all ages, the grand problem of human existence, and concluded, as its scenes unfolded, now one thing, now another, until the very intensity of the mystery has wrapped the attention of the listening world.

The curtain rises upon the first scene of its closing act, and what a surprise awaits the audience. As the thought speeds backward over former passages in the drama, the past at last is understood, and with the dawning light the present, too, assumes proportions far beyond cyclopean. The hero is at last disclosed. The secret of his many phased identity is given out. At once we recognize him as he stands before us, not only in his long familiar character as the Anglo-Saxon race, but the intellect of humanity is staggered at the crowding possibilities involved in his recognition, also, as the dim shadow that in every eye has hitherto so mystified the plot. This mighty race of modern times, this giant of the story, is now revealed as identical with Israel itself-with that Ten-Tribed Kingdom "lost" amid the mountains of the Medes so many centuries ago!

A silence falls upon the audience as, hushed in its intensity, it waits to hear the hero speak. What may we not expect beneath this strange, unlooked for recognition of an origin we least anticipated?

The curtain has not fully rolled away; the huge proportions. of the stage require a large one; so, as it rises, we will study what we see before us, for the play will soon begin again and sweep us onwards with no time for retrospection.

C. A. L. TOTTEN, U. S. Army.

The first four steps in our exposition of Isaiah xxii, 15-25Shebna's office, his treasury, what he had there, and who he had there-lead us to the consideration of the fifth:

(5) What Shebna had done there. He had hewed him out a sepulcher there, probably "on high," in imitation of the treasurer with whom he is compared. Had he followed what was customary in the conversion of a treasury-stronghold into a monumental tomb, he would have hewn out his sepulcher in the rock foundation on which his treasury stood. The usual subterranean sepulcher seems referred to in the figure under which Ezekiel predicts the downfall of Tyre: "When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down into the pit." (xxvi: 20.) Its association with a treasury is seen in the reason of Job's wish that he had died in infancy: "For then had I been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver." (iii: 13-15.) Add to this the expression in Isaiah lix: 10, "we are in desolate places as dead men," and we see clearly that the "desolate places" which "kings and counselors of the earth built for themselves" in Job's time, and in which "princes who had gold, and who filled their houses with silver, " slept their last long sleep, were monumental tombs, converted into such from their primary use of treasury-strongholds. It should be observed also that "kings and counselors" are kings and treasurers, the king's treasurer or ruler over his house being his privy counselor. It was therefore by no means an unprecedented ambition in Shebna, that of desiring to be buried in the "desolate place" wherein he would have served in the capacity

His sin appears to

of treasurer while it was yet a treasury. have consisted in presuming upon the honor of a superterranean sepulcher, like that of the treasurer whose act of "hewing. him out a sepulcher on high" was celebrated in sacred song, without an imitation of those humanitary virtues and achievements which justified the anticipation of such an honor in that distinguished exemplar. Shebna had no proprietary right in the honor to which he aspired.

(6) The logical connection between the possessions and the deed. This is the point of crucial interest: by what right the king's treasurer could hew out for himself a sepulcher on high in the king's treasury. It was, if I mistake not, by virtue of treasures there of his own more valuable than the king's, and by virtue of an image and likeness of himself there so true to nature as by no reasonable contingency to be taken for anything else than the original. The reason of such means to such preferment lay in their proof of divine inspiration, and in the divine right of God's prophets over the divine right of kings. Treasures of infinite wisdom and goodness, symbolized in precious stones and appropriate forms of silver and gold, as reflex embodiments of their manifestation in man and the material universe, constituted the sacred mysteries of that grand masonic structure, the Great Pyramid, and of similar structures of the house of David, independently of the mere financial wealth with which they were associated; and if the man who was inspired of the divine Spirit to represent them in such forms was the treasurer himself, as in the case of Joseph, they belonged to him rather than to the king. This, with a divinely inspired image of himself, as I will endeavor to show by-and-by, entitled him to burial in his Great Treasury-Stronghold, rather than under it, on the principle that "where his treasures were his heart was also ;" but Shebna could lay claim to no such honor.

(7) The person with whom Shebna is compared. Who it was, though abundantly presupposed, has not yet been proved to the extent possible. Hebrew Joseph was to Pharaoh-Shofo, or at least to Pharaoh somebody, what Hebrew Shebna was to King Hezekiah, so far as the office of treasurer was concerned. answer to Joseph's advice, "Let Pharaoh look out a man dis

In

creet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt," etc., Pharaoh replied, "Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: thou shalt be over my house, and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou." We see by the marginal reading, in connection with the Scripture parallels already adduced, that a more correct rendering of the above would be, "Thou shalt be over my treasury, and according to thy word shall all my people be armed." If Joseph was to be "set over all the land of Egypt" for the accomplishment of the stupendous work before him, it was necessary, first of all, that he should be put in complete control of the means in men and money, as well as possessed of the wisdom and discretion, commensurate with the end. The people were required to be armed according to the word of Joseph, either with implements of masonry or implements of war, because his treasury was a stronghold, requiring to be defended by military power, and possibly to be replaced by a larger, as the most concentrated and comprehensive means to the defence of the Pharaoh and his kingdom.

Of the words translated "be ruled," Lange says, "be armed,' as some read it; and then it bespeaks him general of the forces." According to the same authority, the words to Joseph, "I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt," mean, "without thee shall no man lift up his hand to hold a weapon, or his foot to ride a horse." We read also that in place of the name "Zaphnath-paaneah," the Septuagint gives us "Psotom-phaneh,” which "signifies, as Jerome observes, and as the Coptic or old Egyptian language shows, Saviour of the world." It reminds us of Isaiah's statement of the humanitary object of the altar and pillar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, that the Egyptians "shall cry unto Jehovah because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them." It also confirms my opinion that Joseph is the Bible's most perfect type of the Saviour of mankind. In these respects the relation of Joseph to Shebna is that of contrast rather than of comparison. Godfrey Higgins, in his "Anaca

of treasurer while it was yet a treasury. His sin appears to have consisted in presuming upon the honor of a superterranean sepulcher, like that of the treasurer whose act of "hewing. him out a sepulcher on high" was celebrated in sacred song, without an imitation of those humanitary virtues and achievements which justified the anticipation of such an honor in that distinguished exemplar. Shebna had no proprietary right in the honor to which he aspired.

(6) The logical connection between the possessions and the deed. This is the point of crucial interest: by what right the king's treasurer could hew out for himself a sepulcher on high in the king's treasury. It was, if I mistake not, by virtue of treasures there of his own more valuable than the king's, and by virtue of an image and likeness of himself there so true to nature as by no reasonable contingency to be taken for anything else than the original. The reason of such means to such preferment lay in their proof of divine inspiration, and in the divine right of God's prophets over the divine right of kings. Treasures of infinite wisdom and goodness, symbolized in precious stones and appropriate forms of silver and gold, as reflex embodiments of their manifestation in man and the material universe, constituted the sacred mysteries of that grand masonic structure, the Great Pyramid, and of similar structures of the house of David, independently of the mere financial wealth with which they were associated; and if the man who was inspired of the divine Spirit to represent them in such forms was the treasurer himself, as in the case of Joseph, they belonged to him rather than to the king. This, with a divinely inspired image of himself, as I will endeavor to show by-and-by, entitled him to burial in his Great Treasury-Stronghold, rather than under it, on the principle that "where his treasures were his heart was also ;" but Shebna could lay claim to no such honor.

(7) The person with whom Shebna is compared. Who it was, though abundantly presupposed, has not yet been proved to the extent possible. Hebrew Joseph was to Pharaoh-Shofo, or at least to Pharaoh somebody, what Hebrew Shebna was to King Hezekiah, so far as the office of treasurer was concerned. In answer to Joseph's advice, "Let Pharaoh look out a man dis