to his murderers for thirty pieces of silver. How literally this prediction, with all connected with the dispersion of the Jews, has been fulfilled! Surely, God's ancient people are a living monument of the truth of his word. All he has said regarding them, as far as their history has been unfolded, he has fulfilled. This will be even more abundantly demonstrated in their ingathering than it has been in their rejection. The world will again be taught that there is a God in Israel.

The three remaining chapters of the book of Zechariah contain a series of predictions, and constitute one discourse. These prophecies are generally referred for their fulfillment to gospel times. The former part of the twelfth chapter announces the preservation of Jerusalem against a frightful invasion in the latest ages of the world, and appears to be identical with the conflict of Gog, of the land of Magog, against Israel, described in the thirtyeighth and the thirty-ninth chapters of the prophecies of Ezekiel. Spiritually, it contains a prophecy of the defence, protection and security of the Church of God from all its enemies. The latter part consists of an account of the repentance and sore grief of the Jews because their fathers had crucified the Saviour. The thirteenth chapter "opens a fountain in the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness;" and this, by setting at naught the malpredictions of the false prophets, by the coming of Christ, by the smiting of the Shepherd, by the gathering of a remnant, and the open acknowledgment by the Lord of his people by saying, "It is my people," and they by professing that "the Lord is their God." Again, in the fourteenth chapter, as in the twelfth, the overthrow of the enemies of Israel-the enemies of the Church of God-is predicted; the final conversion of the nations is announced; Jehovah is proclaimed king over the whole earth; "holiness to the Lord" becomes the banner-inscription of all lands; and the sacred vessels, yea, and the pots of Jerusalem and Judah, are to become holiness to the Lord; everything is to be sanctified by

religion, and men are to find an occasion of being religious in everything

"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

What a heaven on earth will be enjoyed then! So far now as Christianity has done its work, mind has been strengthened, society has been elevated, man has been made happy, nations have been blessed, and God has been glorified. Let the whole world be so influenced, men become righteous, and most assuredly we shall have a "new heavens and a new earth." The prophet of the restoration anticipates for our world this hallowed consummation.

XXXV.

Ꭼ Ꮓ Ꭱ Ꭺ .

N the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, Ezra set out for Jerusalem with a company in all of six or seven thousand souls. Eighty years had now elapsed

since Zerubbabel and his company had returned to the holy city, so that he and most of those who accompanied him must now have been dead. Ezra was a descendant of the high priest Seraiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had put to death at the capture of Jerusalem. His chief object in returning was to reestablish fully and firmly the laws of Moses-a task for which his talents and training, as a ready scribe in the law, abundantly qualified him. He set out from Babylon, assembling his company at the river Ahava, a stream in Chaldea not now known. Four months were occupied in crossing the desert. Besides carrying with them a multitude of gold and silver vessels, Ezra and his friends had an order from the king authorizing the local treasurers of the imperial revenue to pay him what was necessary for his sacred mission.

On arriving at Jerusalem, he found, to his great distress, that his people had paid no regard to the law which prohibited their marriage with idolaters, and that the very princes had been foremost in forming those unhallowed connections. In the deepest humiliation of spirit, Ezra deplored their offence to the Lord, and, to his great relief, found soon after that the spirit of contrition had taken hold of the offenders. Measures were then

devised for separating them from their idolatrous wives and restoring the purity of the law of Moses.

Besides this important piece of reform, Ezra took a prominent part in another service, of the most valuable kind, with which his name will ever be honorably associated. This was the arranging, editing and publishing the Book of the Law, or canon of Scripture. It appears from various notices that up to this time copies of the law were very scarce among the Jews. Now that the people had returned from Babylon, they would not only be scarce, but to many the language in which the law was written would hardly be intelligible. Ezra's first care was to read the law publicly in the presence of the people, and as he read he explained the meaning in the ordinary dialect of the day. It has always been believed that Ezra was the person who, by divine inspiration, edited the books of the law, supplementing pieces of information that the original writers could not have supplied, perhaps compiling the Books of Chronicles, and arranging the order of the books in general, and of the Psalms in particular. Formerly the old Hebrew character had been used in writing; in place of this, Ezra substituted the better formed and finished letters of the Chaldee alphabet. The old character was preserved among the Samaritans, and is still to be seen in a very old copy of the Pentateuch, treasured by a small remnant of that people now residing at Nablous or Shechem.

Some of the changes thus introduced by Ezra were of the utmost practical importance. The full acquaintance with the word of God which the Jewish people were now enabled to acquire must have tended greatly to discourage idolatry, and promote that devotedness to the letter at least of the law for which they now became so eminent. Out of the arrangements which Ezra began, two things arose that had ultimately a very great influence, partly for good and partly for evil. One of these was the institution of synagogues and synagogue-worship; the other, the system of traditions. It does not appear that before the cap

tivity the Jews had synagogues; but after the captivity they were set up in every direction, for the reading of the law, exhortation and prayer. The reading and expounding of the law now became a regular profession, and it was not confined to the priests, or even to the tribe of Levi. By the "lawyers" (as the members of that profession were called) the written word was expounded and supplemented wherever it appeared obscure or defective. Gradually the notion gained ground that besides the written law there was an oral law, which God had communicated to the fathers, but not recorded, the knowledge of which could be obtained and preserved only by tradition. This constituted the "tradition of the elders," in connection with which our Lord often showed so great and so just indignation.

In the middle of

the second century after Christ, Rabbi Judah, the son of Simeon, a celebrated doctor, collected these traditions, and committed them to writing. The book in which they were collected was called the Mishna. Commentaries on the Mishna have been written by learned rabbis, the commentary alone being called the Gemara, and the commentary and Mishna together the Talmud. The Babylonish Talmud, or the Talmud compiled by the Chaldean Jews, is a work in twelve folio volumes. Out of this vast mass of tradition the real spirit of the law and the prophets has been almost entirely eliminated.