the growing structure, strong in the hope which the words of Haggai had kindled. They had thus fitted themselves to receive a fresh assurance that, if they were true to God, He would be true to them. Possibly they were once more depressed in heart, or liable to depression. For, now that the seed was sown, there was no more corn in their granaries; and of course, it being early winter, none of the trees-such as the vine, the fig, the olive-would yield their fruit for months to come (verse 19). Hungry times were upon them and before them; and hungry men are likely to be hopeless, if not desperate, men. How could they tell but that the next harvest would be as scanty and insufficient as the harvests of recent years? Once more, perhaps, they might toil and wait in vain, although as they waited they were obeying the command of the prophet and building a House for God.

To these spoken or unspoken fears, Haggai replies, "No; your deficient harvests were simply a punishment on your neglect of God and his House; and now that the sin is at an end, you may be sure the punishment is at an end too." In order to make it clear to them that their sin against God was the sole cause of the failure of their harvests, he sets them to study a parable. They are to go to the priests and ask two questions about ceremonial purity and impurity. They are to ask, first, whether if a man should carry sacred flesh-i.e., the flesh of animals offered in sacrifice-in the skirt of his garment, and should touck bread with his skirt, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, it would thereby be sanctified? They ask the question, and, in accordance with the Mosaic law (Lev. vi. 27), the priests answer, "No; the skirt of the garment in which the sacred flesh is carried is itself holy, but it cannot communicate this holiness, let it touch what it will." They are then to ask a second question, viz.: whether a man, who has himself become unclean through touching a dead body, defiles any and every kind of food that he touches? And to this question the priests, still in full accordance with the law of Moses (Numb. xix. 22), reply, “Yes; whatever he touches for seven days after his personal defilement becomes unclean" (verses 11-14). Now if we conceive of the people as being sent to the priests on these two errands, and as bringing back the priestly replies to Haggai, we shall understand that they would have them well impressed on their minds, and that they would be very curious to learn what use he would make of them. Doubtless they would discuss the questions, and the true answers to them, as they went to the priests; and, as they came back, we may be sure they would speculate on the motive of the prophet in sending them to the priests, and wonder in what way he would turn their replies to purpose. The use he made of them was so simple and obvious that I dare say the people failed to anticipate it. It was this. The Jews themselves, in their relation to God, resembled, on the one hand, a man who carried sacred flesh in the skirt of his garment; and, on the other hand, a man who had defiled himself by touching a corpse. They were the chosen people. They carried with them a blessing for

the whole world. And in this sense they were holy, they bore in their garment that which was sacred. And they had thought that this purpose and election of God would give a sacred immunity from harm to all they touched; that, because to them pertained the adoption and the covenant, the seed they sowed and the trees they planted would thrive, and that they would gather in abundant harvests of corn and wine and oil. By comparing them to the man who carried sacred flesh in the skirt of his garment, but did not therefore sanctify the bread his garment brushed, or the pottage, or the wine, or the oil, Haggai taught them that the election of God was of itself no guarantee of prosperity, that it did not necessarily involve a blessing on all the labour of their hands. They must be true to that election. They must serve the God who had chosen them, and keep his law, before they could look for his blessing on their toils. And they had not been true to Him or to his law. They had lost their sanctity by their sins, just as the "cleanest " Hebrew lost his purity the moment he touched a corpse. They had forgotten God, and let his House lie waste while they built sumptuous houses for themselves. They had shown that they did not care for his presence or his law. And it was this moral uncleanness which had worked like an infection through the land, and which took visible form in the blight and the mildew which had destroyed their growing crops. Themselves unclean, everything they touched became unclean-all kinds of food, "all the work of their hands," and even "that which they had offered there "-that is, on the altar of sacrifice, which they had long since set up on its ancient base (Ezra iii. 3).

In fine, the sole cause of their deficient harvests was their forgetfulness of God, and the sins which that forgetfulness had induced.

While the people are pondering this simple yet startling application of Haggai's parable, he once more employs and repeats his favourite formula, "Set your heart," and bids them ponder the history of the last fourteen years. How had it fared with them before they resumed the building of the Temple, "laying stone to stone? Was it not true that up to that time, do what they would, they did nothing to purpose? If one of them went to a heap of sheaves from which he calculated on getting twenty measures of corn, it yielded, when threshed, no more than ten. Or if one of them went to the wine-vat, thinking the grapes crushed in it would yield at least fifty purûhs—a measure of unknown quantity-he obtained but twenty. And why were their just hopes thus miserably disappointed? Simply because God was against them, because He was punishing their neglect of Him. It was He who had sent the blight and the mildew to prey upon their corn; it was He who had smitten the budding vines with hail. And yet no one of them had had the wit to see whence their miseries came, or the grace to turn in penitence and amendment to Him who chastened them! Now at last, let them consider more wisely the years which lay between to-day and the day full fourteen years ago,

when the foundation of the Lord's Temple was laid; and they would see that it was their uncleanness which had defiled everything they touched, and made it abominable to God, so that all the labour of their hands miscarried (verses 15-17).

Nay, let them consider the present, and forecast the future, as well as ponder the past. What were their present prospects? Miserable enough, alas! There was no corn in the granaries, now that the seed-corn was sown, so poor and limited had been the produce of the previous year. Where, then, were they to look for bread, or for that which they might substitute or exchange for bread? The vine and the fig-tree, the pomegranate and the olive, had not borne so plentifully as to leave any yield on their hands. They were destitute and afflicted; they might be able, if Darius were element and listened to their appeal with favour, to tide over another winter and spring; but should the harvest once more fail them, what would become of them then? The harvest will not and shall not fail them, replies the prophet. From this day forward God will bless them. The fields shall be covered with corn; the terraced hills shall be loaded with the purple grapes. Now that they have returned to Him, God will return to them. The heaven shall no more withhold its dew, nor the earth its fruit (verses 18, 19).

This was Haggai's first word on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, a word full of promise. But to this first word a second was added, of still diviner promise. On the very day on which he prophesied of the returning favour of Heaven to the people, Haggai also animated the heart of their prince by disclosing God's purpose to fulfil His covenant with David through the line of Zerubbabel. Just as Judah had been chosen from among the sons of Jacob, and David from among the sons of Jesse, and Solomon from among the sons of David, so now Zerubbabel is chosen from among all the descendants of the royal house, to be the heir of the promise. Of him, concerning the flesh, the Messiah was to come, and did come.

In studying the prophecy of verses 6-9, we found in it a Messianic prediction, and that mainly because its words were too wide and deep to be exhausted by the historic fulfilment; and the most cursory comparison of verses 21-23 with verses 6-9 will show that Haggai is here falling back on that earlier prediction. Then, he had represented God as saying, "I will shake the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the dry land; yea, I will shake all the nations, and the good things desired by all the nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory and the last glory of this honse shall be greater than the first." Now he represents God as saying—

:

"I will shake the heavens and the earth,

And I will overthrow the throne of the kingdoms,
And I will destroy the might of the kingdoms of the nations,
And overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them:
And the horses and their riders shall fall
Each by the sword of the other,"

Obviously the prophet has the same great convul sion in his mind on both occasions-a convulsion far

greater than any which occurred during the comparatively peaceful reign of Darius. As we saw when we studied his former prediction, he was looking forward to the disruption of the Persian, Greek-Syrian, and Egyptian empires, and forecasting the advent of the Messiah's kingdom, when these great empires of the East should have passed away. Possibly he was even looking through the convulsions that were to issue in the coming of Christ's kingdom, to the final catastrophe of the world's history, and to the establishment of that heavenly kingdom which shall embrace all generations and races of men. And obviously, when he goes on to speak, in verse 23, of the future of Zerubbabel, we must admit that once more the words are too large for an exhaustive fulfilment within the narrow lines of that prince's personal history. No doubt Zerubbabel inferred from these words, and was entitled to infer, that in the troublous years before him God would defend and cherish him, and delight in him, as an Eastern merchant or magnate cherished his signet ring, which was to him what a signature is to us, a symbol of authority, a key to all his possessions. And no doubt this promise of the words was fulfilled. But the heavens and the earth were not shaken in his time, nor was the might of the great heathen empires destroyed, nor did the lieutenants of Alexander all fall " each by the sword of the other." And therefore we are compelled to look for a larger meaning-to take Zerubbabel as a symbol and representative of the Davidie monarchy. To David God had granted an everlasting covenant, assuring him that there should never lack a man of his house to sit upon the throne. Zerubbabel is now taken into that covenant; and just as that covenant was finally fulfilled in Him who was Son of David and yet Son of God, so also the promise made to Zerubbabel was finally fulfilled in Christ-the promise, namely, that, in the day that the heathen empires of the East were destroyed, God would take him, his servant, and make him as a signet, because He had chosen him. For it was not till Jesus, the great descendant of Zerubbabel and David, came and dwelt among us, that the empires of the East were destroyed by the conquering armies of Rome; it was not till then that the great spiritual empire which cannot be moved was set up. And of Him all the tender images connected with the signet ring are emphatically true. To an Oriental prince the signet ring, which was made of some precious metal, or still more precious gem, carved with the most exquisite art of the time, was an inseparable and valued adjunct. As it was the symbol of his authority, and gave unlimited power to its bearer, it was never parted with save at some extraordinary conjuncture. Worn commonly on one of the fingers of the right hand, or suspended round the neck by a costly chain, it was loved for its familiar beauty as well as prized for its worth. And this image of the signet is used in some of the most impassioned passages of Scripture; as, for example, in the Song of Solomon (viii. 6)—

"Lay me as a signet ring upon thy breast,
As a signet ring between thine arms;"

or, again, in Jeremiah (xxii. 24), "Though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, were even a signet ring upon my right hand"—though, that is, he were as that from which it would be well-nigh impossible to separate "yet would I tear thee away thence." So that the image, as applied to Christ, suggests that of all the Divine possessions He is the dearest, that which most authoritatively symbolises the majesty of God, and which He most tenderly cherishes and esteems.

Here, then, while his prophetic soul is, not simply dreaming of things to come, but seeing in Him who was to come the Darling of Jehovah and the Desire of all nations, we part with the prophet Haggai. Three times we have heard him speak-at the Feast of the New Moon, at the Feast of Tabernacles, and during the early autumnal rain. And though his theme be

narrower than that of most of the prophets, and cover no wider space than the limits of the Temple area, yet even in Haggai we find an emphatic enunciation of the moral truths we hear from every other member of the goodly fellowship, and see that, like them, he caught glimpses of the Messianic hope. Like them all, he teaches that sin brings judgment; that judgment means mercy, and is designed for correction; that repentance secures the forgiveness of sin, and that amendment of life has power to turn the very curse of God into a benediction. And, like his brethren, he is made strong for teaching these truths in an evil age, by his assured conviction that good will yet triumph over evil; that, sooner or later, the Christ of God will bring in a kingdom, wide as the earth, in which truth shall reign, and righteousness, and peace.

M

EN have usually given the Miracle of Pentecost-the Gift of Tongues-a signification which neither the New Testament allusions to this gift, or the early history of the Church, in any way support.

The supposition that the power of speaking in various languages was bestowed on a number of the first believers for their after-use in preaching the Gospel1-a supposition at variance with all early record --has raised up a host of hostile critics, who characterise the event related in Acts ii. 1-13 as a baseless tradition-as quite contradicting the Pauline description of the gift of tongues (1 Cor. xii. 10 and 1 Cor. xiv.).

The genuineness of the section has never been doubted. It is inseparable from the Book of Acts, a book reverently received as undoubtedly inspired from the earliest days of the Church. The ablest of the hostile critics, while maintaining the legendary character of the whole of the episode, now decline to contest the ancient interpretation of the words which tell us of this first gift of the Holy Ghost to the Church of Christ. It then generally is allowed on all sides that those worshippers who " were all with one accord in one place" waiting for the coming of power from on high, were endowed at the time with the gift of uttering the praises of God in languages different from their own.

(1.) What now was this strange gift? (2.) Did it differ in any way from the gift of tongues described at length subsequently by St. Paul ?

(1.) The gift of tongues, promised by the risen Lord (St. Mark xvi. 17), and first bestowed by the Holy Ghost on the 120 disciples assembled together on that

1 Cf. Wordsworth's Comm. on Acts ii.; Milton's Paradise Lost,

xii. 497-504; and apparently the proper preface for Whit-Sunday and six days after, in the order of the administration of the Lord's Supper.

Pentecost which succeeded the Ascension, was one of the special miraculous powers peculiar to the apostolic age, and seems to have been an ecstatic expression of thanks and of praise to God, never apparently an instrument of teaching.

The speaker rapt, though not losing all command of himself, not always fully conscious of what he was uttering, poured out his ecstatic stream of praise; thanking God for his glorious, mighty works, in words, in a language not usually comprehended by the bystander. These utterances needed an interpreter; at times the speaker became his own expositor; more generally the gift of explaining the strange, beautiful utterances was bestowed on another-one spoke, and another interpreted.

(2.) The miracle of Pentecost. only differed very slightly from those manifestations of the Spirit described by St. Paul in his Corinthian Letter. The " 'tongues" we read of in the Church of Corinth needed an interpreter, either the speaker or some other inspired person, as the utterances were in a language not comprehended by the bystanders. In the Pentecost miracle, though, no interpreter was needed. The inspired ones spoke then, as the Spirit gave them utterance, in new languages certainly; but on that memorable occasion cach new language was addressed to groups familiar with the sounds.

The Greek-speaking Jew and proselyte heard one inspired man proclaiming the glorious deeds of God in his own Greek. The strangers of Rome and Italy listened to another uttering the same praises in their familiar Latin. The Eastern pilgrims caught the same strange, beautiful words of praise and thanksgiving spoken by others of the inspired company in the various Oriental dialects they knew so well.

In this particular only differs the great Pentecost

miracle from the gift of tongues spoken of at such length by St. Paul in the Corinthian Epistle. The first striking instance of this new and marvellous power needed no subsequent interpretation; the new language in which each utterance was conveyed, on this occasion, was comprehended by each group of listeners at

once.

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Neither in the Acts or the Epistles, or in early ecclesiastical history, is any intimation given that the "twelve," or "the hundred and twenty," or any of the converts to Christianity during the first hundred years after the Resurrection, were supernaturally endowed with power to preach the Gospel in different languages which they had never learned. On the contrary, the currently received interpretation of Acts xiv. 11 points to St. Paul, who spake with tongues more than all," not understanding the dialect of Lycaonia. St. Jerome,' too, tells us St. Paul was accompanied by Titus as an interpreter; and Papias writes of Peter attended by Mark, who acted in the same capacity in the missionary journeys of the great Jewish Apostle. One solitary passage alone, from Irenæus,3 of doubtful meaning, is urged in support of the hypothesis concerning the presumed miraculous power of preaching in new tongues. He is speaking of those who had prophetical gifts, who, he says, “spoke through the Spirit in all kinds of languages (παντοδαπαῖς λαλούντων διὰ τοῦ Πνεύματος γλώσσαις). But, as we have observed, there is an almost total silence in the early Fathers on the subject of the gift of tongues. To them evidently it was no mere power of speaking in various languages; it was something quite different, something they could not understand or explain, and which had evidently ceased when the first generation of believers had passed away. Again, the elaborate notice of the gift of tongues in the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians forbids any notion of this power being used for teaching purposes in their own Corinthian congregation at home, and totally excludes all idea of the "tongues" as an instrument for missionary work among strange peoples abroad; for its chief characteristic is that it is unintelligible-the man speaks mysteries, prays, blesses, gives thanks in the Spirit, but no one understands him.

powers are alluded to, supplemented by a study of the documents, some fragmentary, some tolerably perfect, which have been left us by eminent men in the early Church, leads to the conclusion that the miraculous gifts of the first days bestowed on the Church for a definite purpose, when the apostles and those who had learned Christ from their lips had fallen asleep, were gradually but quickly withdrawn from men. Among these supernatural powers we can well believe that the earliest withdrawn were those new tongues first heard in their strange sweetness, needing then no interpreter, on that Pentecost morning; those tongues which during the birth-throes of Christianity gave utterance to the rapturous joy and thankfulness of the first believers. They were a power, however, which if misused might lead men-as history has subsequently shown-to confusion, to feverish dreamings, to morbid imaginings— to a condition of thought which would utterly unfit men and women for the stern and earnest duties of their several callings; in a word, would lead to a life unreal and unhealthy. And so that chapter of sacred history which tells of these communings of men with the unseen, which speaks of those thrilling moments of rapt joy, of those sweet unearthly utterances which now and again beautified with a beauty not of earth the lives of those brave witnesses who first set the bright example of giving up all for the love of Christ—that chapter was closed for ever when the " tongues" had done their work.

ON THE VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF INTERPRETATION OF THE GIFT OF

TONGUES.-The interpretations of the "Miracle of Pentecost" and the "Gift of Tongues" may be roughly massed under three heads: -1 and 2 accept the miracle related in Acts ii. 1-13 in its strictly literal sense. (1), however, considers the miraculous powers of tongues conferred at Pentecost as a permanent gift, and used purpose of preaching the Gospel to the various peoples of the generally by the Apostles and certain of their followers for the

world speaking different languages. Bishop Wordsworth's learned and interesting comment on this passage of the Acts may be taken as a fair exponent of this school of exposition. (2) also accepts

the miracle in its strictly literal sense, but sees no proof that the gift of tongues was ever used for teaching purposes at home,

or for missionary objects abroad; it considers it to have been a power bestowed rather for individual solace and refreshment than

for public ministration; it looks on it as a special instrument for ecstatic praise, and not as intended for systematic teaching. Professor Plumptre, while powerfully advocating such an interpretation, discusses with more or less fulness, from various stand

1 St. Jerome quoted by Estius on 2 Cor. xi.

2 Papias, referred to by Eusebius, H. E. iii. 39. 3 Cf. Irenæus, Contra Hareses, liber v., c. vi.

apostolic history. (3) considers the whole story of the Pentecost miracle as purely mythic, not only improbable, but even prepos terous. For a summary of the views of this unhappy school, and the necessarily cheerless deductions, the elaborate Excursus of De Wette on this passage (Apostelgeschichte, pp. 23-36, Ed. 1870) is perhaps the clearest and most exhaustive.

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