But within also, the king's daughter, as David says, is all glorious, notwithstanding her blackness; and she is not only comely, as the curtains of Solomon, but also as she herself here tells us, as the tents of Kedar. The Kedarites were a pastoral people, living in the deserts of Arabia; and having no abiding place, they roved from pasture to pasture. They dwelt in light huts, or tents, some of which were made of black goat-skins, and others were made black by the scorching heat of the sun. Such are the Kedarites to whom the Shulamite compares herself. In the first place, because of her blackness; then, with reference to her position in the rays of the majestic Sun, and to her walk in the light of Jacob, and in the sight of the Lord. But by it her thoughts are chiefly directed to the idea of Christ in us;' whilst, in the curtains of Solomon, her eye contemplates, moreover, Christ for us.'

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Shulamite, a Kedar-tent, black in herself, worthless and unsightly, and burnt by the sun-deformed in her own eyes, in those of the world, and beset with misery; but fair, and lovely, and highly exalted-the dwelling. of the great Shepherd, the glorious Morning Star, to which he has free ingress and engress-the place of his rest, the theatre of his miracles, where all his wonderful works are made manifest. Christ has taken possession of her, and extends that possession continually. The new man within her also sighs, longs, and struggles upwards having fallen out with sin, and hating and abhorring it in every form-weeping and mourning over the weakness and corruption of the flesh, feeling himself forlorn, a stranger in the world, and finding no

pleasure in its ways; but loving, praising, singing, and praying-behold this is the work of the Lord, fashioned in his own likeness, and without weariness. The Lord is ever busied within her, by his Spirit, strengthening and maturing this new creation-in mortifying, weakening, and destroying the old Adam. It is Christ, who inwardly chastens the Shulamite and consoles her; who cheers and strengthens her; who visits her with wholesome affliction, and imparts to her delightful peace, exactly as the case requires. May she not therefore pronounce herself a comely tabernacle, a habitation of the Lord, a tent which her Bridegroom delights to visit? Thus she stands there with the door wide open, imploring and sighing; and it may with truth be said of her, Behold a tabernacle of the Lord among men ! O, Israel, where is there a people so glorious, to whom their gods are so near, as is the Lord our God and Savior to thee.'

'I am comely as the tents of Kedar :' this comeliness consists, lastly, in her no longer following her own inclinations; but as the tents of Kedar are borne by the shepherds, so is she borne by her King, removed and placed wherever it may please Him and His love. She is no longer her own, but her faithful Lord and Savior's, both soul and body, in life and in death. She knows herself to be in his hands, in his bosom; and she willingly surrenders herself to his guidance, whether he may please to lead her into green pastures, or assign her a place in the desert. And like as the Kedarites wander with their tents, and pitch them sometimes in one place, and sometimes in another; she also is aware that

she is a stranger in the world, and rejoices in the knowledge that she has here no abiding city, but seeks, with earnest longing, that which is to come, and contemplates the time with joyful hope, when her King shall entirely destroy her earthly tabernacle, and assigns her one all-glorious and beautiful. Yes, thou art black thou bride of the Lord; but we will not look upon thee because thou art black, for the Sun has made thee so. Thou art likewise fair and comely; comely as the curtains of Solomon, and as the tents of Kedar.

III.-Let us now attend to what the Bride has further to relate: My mother's children,' she says, ' were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.' By her mother's children, she means the children of the kingdom, who journeyed with her on the same road, and participated with her in the same spiritual privileges; but whose walk in the light of Jacob had been of too short duration, and their experience in Divine things too limited, for them to conceive that a life in God could be a concealed one, full of godly activity, but devoid of all exterior splendor. A child of God in a state of dejection was to them as yet an incomprehensible mystery. Now it appears to me, that it may have been precisely such a state of apparent dejection and barrenness, in which they discovered the Shulamite to be. She, whom they had known as so highly a gifted, joyful witness to the truth; whose distinguished and effective course apparently resembled that of a prophetess; who had been as a light shining in a dark

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place, inexhaustibly rich in sententious wisdom, in awakening addresses, in feeling effusions and fervent prayers; who understood how to make all hearts overflow with living waters, to melt them into sacred emotions, and to hurry them from one fragrant eminence to another;-she, who had only lived for the brethren and their communion; who had hastened from assembly to assembly, there to pour forth her treasures; who had devoted all her energies to the kingdom of God, and from morning to evening, with the most flaming zeal, had thought of nothing but converting, edifying, strengthening, rousing, and comforting the brethren; and in the performance of all which she had been so conspicuous;-behold, how suddenly she is overcome! This overflowing spring, how suddenly is it exhausted; this rose, so recently blooming and redolent, how quickly has it lost its beauty and its fragrance. Behold, the Shulamite's fire is extinguished, her zeal cooled, her sensibility dried up; her evangelizing spirit, how dead; her mouth closed; her carriage, how constrained, reserved, and unsocial! The sisters see it with sorrow; they are heartily grieved to have no further communion with their friend. Yes, they even behold it with indignation, for in this transformation they perceive nothing less than an entire relapse into a state of nature. Alas! to her own sisters she has become, not only a riddle but a vexation. Yet so far from having fallen away, or from having departed from the school of her Lord and Master, she has been elevated by him to a higher class in this school, where she shall learn to believe without seeing or tasting, and with Asaph to

desire nothing in the world but God: that though heart and flesh may fail, yet to rejoice and be in perfect peace-not as arising from any subordinate communications from the Lord, but because he is himself the strength of her heart, and her eternal portion. With these things her sisters were not then acquainted. Their inward light was too faint for them to perceive in the change that had passed on Shulamite, in her external sterility and blackness, the pure benevolent disciple of the Lord, the guidance of the most faithful of all shepherds. They imagined it to proceed from very different causes, and Shulamite could, not please them: My mother's children were angry with me.'

And what would they now in their folly do with her? They would make her keeper of their vineyards; that is, they would attract her back to the scene of usefulness, activity, and tumult, in which they so greatly delighted in their kind but blind zeal, they would have her re-assume their favorite form and aspect of Christian life, and thus interfere, uncalled, in the work of the Lord and behold they succeeded, at least for a short time. The Shulamite yielded, and the Lord permitted it. They made me the keeper of the vine

yards.'

The experience of the Shulamite has, in various ways, been that of many. Do you inquire how? Listen: Is a man a Christian, has he bid adieu to the world, and does he live to God? Is he enlightened, rich in experience, and by the brethren accounted faithful, sincere, active, and qualified; they at once begin to calculate how he may be made useful. He is asked to