writing for particular occasions, God used their pen to speak His truths-truths which need no further proof than their own enunciation. These great writings are rarely at large, so to say. They are offspring of fiery zeal born of passing incidents, dealing with urgent current affairs. And hence they are so human, so all-penetrating. They are no mere platitudes, but truths wrung from experience. Take Haggai for example. His people are given to their vineyards, their olive-yards, their husbandry, their tillage, the building of houses-in other words, they are wholly engrossed with thoughts of temporal prosperity, and the House of the Lord is neglected, His temple is not built. “Ye sow much, and ye bring in little," and ever thus the nation that sets its eyes on material progress alone. The higher life must be sought from within, and not from without. And thus its message to all people and all ages.

21. And how these holy books have come down to us has been one of the engrossing questions of our times. Many theories have held the stage, but it is doubtful if we can find any more satisfactory than that just given in the writings themselves. It certainly fits in better with the facts than many a more elaborate hypothesis. In it we see Ezra, a Babylonian Jew, known as the scribe, and famous for his great learning. He is a profound antiquarian, and is saturated with everything that relates to his people and their story, whether in record, tradition, or in song. But in its complete state he has not got their holy law. It has been burnt. And he is called-of this he has not the slightest doubt-by his God to replace it. And more than any man he has the qualifications to do so. And we see him at his work. It has been preceded by a life-long preparation, and he has by him a mass of ill-digested material which he reduces to order as he thus dictates it to his scribes. His task is no easy one. He has a long thousand years to cover, in the main years of calamity and terror. We have read the list of horrors which made the history of this people

and which culminated in the sack and desolation of their city and temple and in the captivity itself. With printing unknown and writing rare, time makes ravages of matter better preserved. And in his work itself is evidence of the conditions under which it was produced. There is not a single source of information which he does not use. He lays under contribution every scintilla of fact or tradition that he can collect. But above all we note his reverence for his material. Some he lingers over with the love of an old virtuoso delighting in some gem of antiquity-the chant of Miriam, that grand war-song for instance, which we still have in archaic form. And where possible he gives us all he has saved. He does not collate. All is sacred to him. Hence some of the books of Moses. Exodus is obviously patchwork, whilst want of arrangement is noticeable in all. But all testimony to the fidelity of his work-a fidelity receiving corroboration from a strange quarter. The Samaritans, who probably hated Ezra more than any man who lived, yet accepted his version of the law. And with this acceptance of theirs a difficult question rises up. What were included in the two hundred books that Ezra dictated? Were they covered by all which the Samaritans took or were they more extensive? The non-acceptance of some by the Samaritans is far from conclusive of their not having been included. The Samaritan so hated the Jews that one is surprised not at what they repudiated, but at what they accepted. In their desire to be offensive they would no doubt give the pleasant reason they were far too redolent of Persian lore to be acceptable to any true son of Israel.

But what seems probable is that in Ezra's collection was to be found the nucleus of all the books ultimately included in the canon. These, of course, show signs of editing and re-editing again and again, e.g. in Nehemiah the list of High Priests is brought up to the end of the Persian Empire, and, in fact, finality is hardly reached a hundred years after Christ. But at the same time there are so many books which are so vivid, so

intense so obviously born of the terrific times and passions to which they belong, that by no possibility could any future age have wholly imagined them. The Lamentations of Jeremiah, most exquisite and pathetic of poems, must have been the work of one who had dearly loved and deeply suffered. It is inconceivable that we do not owe its preservation to Ezra. And then some of the songs of the captivity. They have the mournful note born of real and not imagined sorrow. And thus our ballad poetry. But in addition to these sources there seems little doubt that Ezra incorporated much of the learning of the Persians with which he was in full accord. They had a body of devotional writings, and in some of the psalms we recognize their sentiments, if not actual words. Then it is clear that he either used or checked his writing by the official records of the Persians as well as by the many inscriptions in clay and stone with which he must have been fully acquainted. With so much in common with their general notions, he naturally incorporated in his collection the then universally accepted Chaldean account of the creation of the world. And he had no reason to do otherwise. It was found in actual Chaldean books themselves to be read by him in originals dating before the time of Abraham himself. This we know for most amazing of facts one or two of these very originals we have in our own great British Museum. And more, the Jews prided themselves on being a Syrian tribe of Chaldean origin. Then, as to the nomenclature adopted by him or later editors. The general and convenient and not unparalleled idea seems to have been to attribute all proverbs to Solomon, all psalms to David, and all laws. to Moses, save so far as there was reason for ascribing some particular writing to some particular individual. That Ezra was a singularly able and conscientious editor is proved by modern discoveries which so largely confirm most of what we owe to him. No doubt it is difficult to separate his original work from subsequent additions; but though it would be pleasing

to have his works exactly as he left them, yet we must not forget that they were living books or messages or sermons for living people, and as such were liable to change and amplification as occasion demanded. We have an instance in our law schools, and I doubt if our most revered Blackstone would now recognize the commentaries which still pass under his name. We have been rather misled by the tales told of the meticulous accuracy with which these writings were copied. But this was a phase of a much later period only in vogue after the canon had been settled, more than five hundred years after his time.

But the great outstanding fact is that, though there is change in form, now historical, now allegorical, now apocryphal, now apocalyptic, the underlying message is always the same, and the message till then was the highest message ever delivered to humanity. And it is the message that is all in all, and not the very human agency by which it has come down to us. But it is not all the message to man, and on the horizon is promise of the day when a greater than Ezra is to complete it in all its fulness, and in its perfection give it not to a people but to all mankind.

22. The convenient year, B.C. 444, is fixed upon as the one in which Ezra completed his work. Then next we are given a graphic description of the first public reading of the law thus recovered. But it was in the ancient tongue, and this was no longer spoken or understood by the people. "So they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." From a critical point of view this has had important consequences. It is to these readings, thus explained, that we owe a number of the books of the Apocrypha. These readings ultimately became so complete as to form a translation of the original writings into the spoken tongue, which was a mixture of Chaldean with local dialects, and which, known as eastern Aramaic, became the general language of the country. Hence it is we find in several of the books of our translation

of the Apocrypha the statement that they are not found in the Hebrew, e.g. "The Song of the Three Holy Children." Besides these works, the Apocrypha as we have it also includes writings of a relatively late period, but so far as books in it cover the same ground as those in the Old Testament, they are of the highest interest. Being translations of the Hebrew text in its earlier form, they enable us by a simple comparison to see to what extent such early Hebrew text was revised and altered by the editors of the canon. It is true that this earlier text is lost, but whilst we make every allowance for the difficulty of translation, yet for the substance of such earlier text the Apocrypha is of higher authority than the canon, and we get from it a better idea of what that ancient text must have been as a whole rather than from any later emendated text, though in the Hebrew. Where anything turns upon a particular word or phrase, this might perhaps be the more satisfactory, but for general features the former is the more reliable.

And this reading of the law was made the occasion of a great festival and the reviving of the Feast of Tabernacles, which had then fallen into desuetude. "And Nehemiah . . . and Ezra, the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not nor weep. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the Law." This note of joyousness in religion is a striking one, and one which our Lord above all made His own. And again it is a very real practical joyousness that is ordained. "Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto your Lord: neither be ye sorry, for the joy of your Lord is your strength. So the Levites stilled all the peoples, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved. And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words.