and priests, we blame her rich and great ones, but we seldom look into our own hearts for the cause of the mischief. Yet it is plain that if men point to us, and ask us where are the fruits of our religion in our lives, we must find it hard to give a satisfactory answer.

Our religion has not made us unworldly; we are not detached from the things of this present life, and in the things of God we are very cold and indifferent. We are certainly not deeply interested in the welfare of others, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, for the brethren. We have not the bearing of the Master in our daily walk, our words like His words, our conduct patient, unselfish, forgiving. It is we who give answer- "Thou sayest it."

Third Thought.—It must often be true, furthermore, that the soul of the believer in colloquy with his Lord is fain to ask, "Art Thou the King of the Jews?" 'Art Thou indeed my Saviour, the King of my life?' 'Art Thou in very truth all that I have been taught that Thou art to Thy faithful ones?' 'Why then do I seem to serve Thee in vain ?' 'I cannot feel Thy presence-Thou seemest very far away; I do not get help when I am sure that I need it very greatly indeed; I am not conscious of answers to my prayers. It is not that I do not know Thee to

be the very Lord God, but what art Thou to me? Have I so failed in discipleship that Thou hast cast me off?' The gracious Master is always to be thought of as replying to such queries— "Thou sayest it." "Thou makest the answer to thy questioning to be what thou wilt by the manner of thy discipleship'-His presence is not wanting, nor is His ear dull of hearing, nor are the channels of His grace stopped. But first of all the soul must want Him, as it wants nothing else. And it must wage life-long battle for heart-purity, that He may find a fitting dwelling-place within it. And it must learn to depend upon Him in all things, with a faith which never wavers.

CXIII.

"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"-St. Mark xv. 34.

The

Exposition.-Isaac Williams says: "It is evident that our Lord here speaks in the person of mankind, addressing God not even, as at other times, as His Father, but as His God. whole circumstance is matter for silent contemplation, rather than that we should venture to say much, but it is a subject of inexpressible support and consolation, under the weight of the heaviest calamities we can endure; inasmuch as they are not only in themselves light in comparison; but we have this strong living evidence, that depression of mind and spiritual desertion are no proofs of the rejection of God; but rather, like bodily sufferings, form part of that resemblance to His Son, which renders us on that account the more acceptable to our heavenly Father. We know not indeed what these ago

nies of Christ were, nor whether this was the bitter cup of which He had spoken on the preceding night; but we know that the sufferings of lost mankind consist in their being forsaken of God, nor need we entertain any fear in this life, but that of being forsaken of Him."

And Sadler: "Into the awful meaning of these words, that is, as to what they expressed of what He was suffering or had suffered in His most holy Soul, it seems not befitting to inquire. They surely are not words to be curiously examined, analysed, or scrutinized. We cannot say of such words, They cannot mean this; they must mean that. All that we can say is that they are the expression of the extremest bitterness of His bitter cup. But to the true children of God they minister a very great consolation, for the deepest distress that a true child of God can feel is that God is hiding His face from him, and these words assure us that Jesus felt this, and put forth under it this cry of extremest desolation and distress, and so He is our perfect High Priest, and can feel for us when we are at our lowest. Besides this, these words assure us that if the sinless Son of God felt desertion for a time, it is no sin for us to be utterly cast down, for even in this He was our fellow-sufferer. And again, as I said before, He was now bearing our sins in His own Body

on the tree. God was now laying on Him the iniquity of us all, and this to His human nature must have been a crushing weight. Let it be remembered that these words, My God, my God, are especially the words of His human soul, which alone could suffer desertion, so that in the lowest depths of distress He still retained the consciousness that God was His God. . . Quesnel remarks: 'How many things does this why comprehend? It is a question which cannot be fully answered, but by explaining the fall of Adam, and of his posterity in him, the design of God's mercy in their recovery, the nature and rigour of His justice, the necessity of a Sacrifice worthy of God, and all the incomprehensible designs of His wisdom in the establishment of the Christian religion and in the work of eternal salvation." "

Lange says: "While God apparently forsook Him, the suffering Head of humanity, in tasting death as the appointed curse of sin, and separation from His communion, Christ did not forsake God, and thus restored for man the bond of union with God which man had broken."

And Stier: "First of all, we hold fast that Christ as the Son of God could never be forsaken by His Father; and this is expressly testified in John xvi, 32, Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. Sooner may