it is conscience that converts the rustling of a leaf, the shaking of a bulrush, into a spectre from the grave, or a flaming minister from heaven to execute vengeance. Under the awful terrors of divine glory, they had lately entreated, saying, "Let Moses speak to us, and we will hear;" but now, even the look of Moses, though he say nothing, is too much for a guilty people to bear. Alas, how little do men reflect, when engaged in criminal pursuits, that the pleasures of sin in which they riot, are one day to become hidden ghosts to disturb their repose, to scare the imagination, to harrow up the soul, to accuse them at the tribunal of God, to be their tormentors for ever.

Moses, conscious of good will to all, exulting in the thought of having procured pardon and reconciliation for them, but unconscious of the change which had passed upon his own person, observes with concern and surprise that every one avoided him. At length he discovers the brightness of his own countenance reflected from their guilty, blushing foreheads; and by words of kindness encourages them to return, whom the terror of his looks had dismayed and put to flight. We then find him, with the condescension of true goodness, accommodating himself to the circumstances of the people whom he was appointed to instruct. Intercourse with Heaven has raised him to a higher pitch of exaltation; guilt and fear have degraded them: but love levels the mountains, and fills up the vallies of separation. The interposition of a veil reduces him to their standard, because the confidence of innocence raised them not to his. The law of God must be taught to the people though the teacher is become more glorious. This is a plain and striking lesson to all who undertake to instruct others. It is a wretched ambition merely to shine. The great aim of a teacher should be to communicate knowledge; and he shows himself to be possessed of most, who knows best how to convey it to others. He is the truly rich

man, who, by the proper use of his wealth, assists in making many rich; not he who possesses a vast hoard which he knows not how to enjoy; nor he who makes an ostentatious display of riches, merely to insult his poorer neighbour. And he who speaks three words in a known language, to the edification of the hearer, has more real learning than the babbler of ten thousand, in a language which no one understands.

"Till he had done speaking," then, "Moses put a veil on his face," Verse 33; so that the sound of his voice might be heard, while the terrifying lustre of his face was obscured. But this was not merely an incidental circumstance, arising out of the occasion, and done away with it; but was designed, in providence, to be a symbolical representation of the whole Mosaic dispensation; which was nothing else but the gospel under a veil. That this is not a fanciful conjecture, we appeal to the great apostle of the Gentiles, who has removed the veil, and discovered the hidden glory which lies under it, and thus writes, "Not that we, meaning the apostles of the Lord Jesus under the New Testament, "not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious, had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. And not as Moses,.

which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded; for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away, in the reading of the Old Testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day when Moses is read, the veil is upon the heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away," 2 Cor. iii. 5-16.

From the days of Moses down to those of Paul, and by Paul himself, in the days of his ignorance, Moses was heard and read with the veil over his face; was understood in the letter, not in the spirit; and even after the veil was done away in Christ, who is "the end of the law for righteousness;" after the types were explained, the predictions accomplished, and the great prophet of the Jews had brought all his glory, and laid it at the feet of the great Apostle and High Priest of our profession, still the people who had the best means of information, who had the power of comparing spiritual things with spiritual, read them, and continue to read them to this day, under the power of passion and prejudice. And he who sees in Moses, and the other writings of the Old Testament, nothing but the histories of certain events long since past, and.confined in their operation and effect to a particular district; nothing but the religious usages and ceremonies practised by a particular people, that man looks with a bandage upon his eyes, understands not what he reads, and therefore cannot profit.

There is a gracious intimation in the passage we have just now quoted, that a period is approaching when Israel too shall turn unto the Lord; when the veil shall be taken away, and Moses in whom they trusted, shall be seen without a covering; and "if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?" Rom. xi. 15.

What glorious views of God, of his providence, of his grace, does the gospel disclose! The Gentile nations behold their admission into the family of God, and their privileges, as his children, in the promises which were made to Abraham and his seed. And the Jews will in time discover the intention and design of their political and religious establishment, in the nature, duration and extent of the Redeemer's kingdom: when Israel also shall be saved; as it is written, "There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob," Rom. xi. 26.

Human frailty rendered the interposition of a veil necessary between Moses and the people; because,

they could not look steadfastly to the end of that which is abolished;" but when Moses went into the tabernacle, to converse with God, a veil to cover his face being unnecessary, it was laid aside.

It is natural to hold out our most favourable appearance to men, to catch at their good opinion, to secure their approbation; but we see in Moses a mind intent only upon usefulness. He joyfully gives up a little fame, for the sake of doing much good. If the church of God be enlightened, what is it to him that he himself is a little obscured? His lustre is to illuminate Israel. Vain glory always defeats the purpose which it had formed; humility as certainly gains the point at which it aimed not. Who does not esteem Moses, modestly shrouded in a veil, infinitely more than all the loquacious boasters and exhibitors of themselves that ever existed? Moses, in talking with the people, employed a veil, not as a mask to insinuate a false idea of what he was not, but to conceal the real excellency which he had; unlike the hypocrisy and disguise of the world; and, to use disguise with God he knew would be impious, profane and unavailing. We find him changing his appearance, as the occasion required. This was not, in him, versatility and address, a cunning accommodation to circumstances for selfish ends;

but the compliance of wisdom and necessity, in order to be more extensively useful. Thus Paul "became all things to all men, that he might gain some." And, for the same reason, a greater than Moses, a greater than Paul, disdained not the festivity of a marriage solemnity; refused not the invitation of one ruler, nor rejected the visit of another; abhorred not to eat with publicans and sinners, if by any means the ignorant might be instructed, the proud and selfish checked and reproved, the modest encouraged, and the mourner comforted.

At the first descent of Moses from the mount, we see the glory of a man zealous for God: at his second, the glory of a man owned and honoured of God; "the skin of his face shining." But at his appearance many days afterwards on Tabor, we behold a saint from the world of bliss, altogether glorious. Such is the blessed effect of being with God and "seeing him as he is," not for forty days only, but during a series of ages. And what must it then be, to "be ever with the Lord," to glorify God, and to be glorified of him "in body and spirit which are the Lord's?" And why was Moses again exhibited on the mount of transfiguration? Wherefore again displayed in glory? Again to put a veil upon his face, to empty himself, and to deposit his glory at the feet of Him in whose light and likeness he shone-To talk with Jesus "concerning the decease he should accomplish at Jerusalem."

The Jewish Rabbins pretend to account for the unabated vigour, the unfading lustre of the latter years of the life of Moses, from these very circumstances. The eye, say they, which had endured the sight of God, could not become dim: the natural strength which supported a fast of forty days, could not sink under any future decay.

-Christian, consider Moses, the man of God, invested with lustre which dazzled the eye of every beholder, and which length of time could not impair, and reflect, to what a glory communion with God can raise