Acts xvi. 25.-" AND AT MIDNIGHT PAUL AND SILAS PRAYED, AND SANG 1 PRAISES UNTO GOD: AND THE PRISONERS HEARD THEM.

1634. The Prison not a Prison.

-The feelings of Paul and

Silas in prison illustrate the truth of the old stanza,—

"Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage."

John Bunyan.-The immortal dreamer, speaking on one occasion of the cell on Bedford Bridge where for twelve long years he was confined, said, "So, being again delivered up to the jailer's hands, I was had home to prison.”

Samuel Rutherford.-When Samuel Rutherford was sentenced to imprisonment in the city of Aberdeen "for righteousness' sake,” he wrote to a friend, “The Lord is with me; I care not what man can do. I burden no man. I want nothing. No king is better provided than I am. Sweet, sweet and easy is the cross of my Lord. All men I look in the face, of whatsoever rank-nobles and poor. Acquaintance and strangers are friendly to me. My Wellbeloved is kinder and more warm than ordinary, and cometh and visiteth my soul: my chains are overgilded with gold. No pen no words, no engine, can express to you the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus. Thus in haste I make for my palace at Aberdeen.”

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Madame Guyon.-When Madame Guyon was imprisoned in the Castle of Vincennes, in 1695, she not only sang but wrote songs of praise to her God. "It sometimes seemed to me," she said, as if I were a little bird whom the Lord had placed in a cage, and that I had nothing now to do but sing. The joy of my heart gave a brightness to the objects around me. The stones of my prison looked in my eyes like rubies. I esteemed them more than all the gaudy brilliancies of a vain world. My heart was full of that joý which Thou givest to them that love Thee in the midst of their greatest crosses ;"—a sentiment which she embodied, during one of her imprisonments, in a touching little poem, which begins thus:"A little bird I am,

Shut from the fields of air;
And in my songs I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there;
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee."

Teacher's Treasury.

Genesis xxxi. 48, 49.-"AND LABAN SAID, THIS HEAP IS A WITNESS BETWEEN ME AND THEE THIS DAY. THEREFORE WAS THE NAME OF IT CALLED GALEED; AND MIZPAH; FOR HE SAID, THE LORD WATCH BETWEEN ME AND THEE, WHEN WE ARE ABSENT ONE FROM ANOTHER.

1635. Towers in the Desert.-" Mizpah."-There were several places of this name in Palestine. The word, taken in one form, means a high place affording an extensive prospect; and in another, a watch-tower or beacon, as in the present text; whence we may conclude that the names were given to towns in elevated situations, or where watch-towers existed, or where commemorative heaps had been formed to mark the site of some important occurrence. A town built near the scene of the transaction between Jacob and Laban took the name which had been given to the heap of stones. It is mentioned in Judg. xi. and xii., and from the 29th verse of the former chapter it seems to have been "Mizpah of Gilead," to distinguish it from other towns of the same name. It belonged to the half-tribe of Manasseh beyond Jordan, and was the residence of Jephthah. In after times the Ammonites obtained possession of it, and it was in their hands when Judas Maccabæus utterly destroyed it with fire.-DR. KITTO.

Hebrews vii. 3.-"WITHOUT FATHER, WITHOUT MOTHER, WITHOUT DESCENT."

1636. Melchisedec.-This passage, which has ofttimes been misunderstood, presents no real difficulties. The last clause, " without descent," is explanatory of the two former. Melchisedec is thus styled "without father and without mother" simply because he was not, as were the Levitical priests, recorded in any genealogy. This is made more plain by the language used in ver. 6: "But he whose descent is not counted from them [i.e., the sons of Levi, ver. 5] received tithes," &c. "These words," says Tholuck, "denote him whose genealogy is unknown; while a priest, in the Levitical sense, could not, by any means, dispense with the proof of his descent." Stuart and others differ slightly from the explanation of the phrase, “without descent," given above. They take the sense to be, "whose father and mother are not mentioned in Scripture." Kuinoel takes the meaning to be, "who had not a father, a priest, nor a mother the daughter of a priest." The sense given by Tholuck, from whom Kuinoel differs but little, appears to us the most simple. All these authors substantially agree in the meaning they attach to the first two clauses.

That the words "without father and without mother" may be used in a modified sense to indicate those whose parentage is either obscure or unknown, is evident from many passages in the Greek and Latin writers. Thus Ion, in Euripides, conceiving himself of mean birth, says, As I am without mother, and without father, I attend the temple of Apollo." So Philo calls Sarah, of whose mother no mention is made, "without mother." In Latin authors this usage is still more common. Seneca, in his 108th Epistle, writes: "There are two Roman kings, of whom the one has not a father, the other a mother." He then refers to Servius Tullius and Ancus Martius. Of the former king, Livy states that he was born of a female slave, "of no father." Horace speaks of men 'sprung from no ancestors," who had risen to great eminence and renown. Even the Rabbins have the same sort of speech. In the Bereshith Rabbi, section 18, 18, 2, it is said, "The Gentiles have no father," having no Jewish pedigree.

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The explanation given above is further sustained by the ancient versions and the most eminent commentators. The Syriac version, peculiarly valuable for its antiquity and fidelity, admirably renders

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the passage thus "Whose father and mother are not inscribed among the genealogies.", The Arabic, being taken from the Syriac, substantially agrees with it. Chrysostom and Theophylact entertain the same opinion. Suidas thus writes:-"He is, therefore, declared to be without descent or genealogy, because he is not of the seed of Abraham, but of Canaanitish origin, therefore he is destitute of the honour of a genealogy." Thus," says Dr. Owen, was Melchisedec without father and mother, in that the Spirit of God, who so strictly and exactly recorded the genealogies of other patriarchs, &c., speaks nothing to this purpose concerning him." The opinions of better and later critics have already been given; to these two or three more may be added. Dr. Robinson informs us that Melchisedec is styled "without father, without mother," because neither his father nor his mother was found in the Hebrew genealogies. "Being a Canaanite, and not standing in the public genealogical registers, as belonging to the family of Aaron, he was a priest, not by right of sacerdotal descent, but by the grace of God." His priesthood, therefore, is of a higher and more ancient order than that of Aaron. "The context," says Schleusner, "requires us to believe that Melchisedec is called 'without father,' by Paul, because his father was not inscribed in the genealogies of the Jewish priests."

It may, however, appear somewhat to militate against this interpretation, that Melchisedec is mentioned immediately after the passage cited above, as having "neither beginning of days nor end of life." We may answer this objection in two ways. With Tholuck, we may adopt the language of Chrysostom, and say, "How 'having neither beginning of days nor end of life'? How? as it is not contained in Scripture; this is having no beginning,' this is 'having no end.'" 'We must," Tholuck goes on to add, "at 'having neither beginning of days nor end of life,' conceive added, 'in history.' These words would then be understood of the Mosaic annals, or of the early chronologies referred to by Josephus." There is another answer. It is this, in the language of Stuart:

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:

Having neither beginning of days nor end of life;' i.e., who, as high priest, has no limited time assigned for the commencement and expiration of his office; for so the following clause leads us to interpret this expression. The Levitical priests were limited in their service, see Numb. iv. 3; xxxiii. 35, 43, 47 (comp, Numb. viii. 24, 25). The meaning of the writer then is, that Melchisedec's priesthood was limited to no definite time, i. e., sacerdos perpetuus,

a priest without limitation of office." The latter explanation strikes us as being the best.

Melchisedec appears then, in history, as an enigmatic priest-king. From what race he sprung, where he obtained his knowledge of the true God, what was the nature and authority of his priestly office, we know not. He comes before us a mysterious being. He disappears we know not when nor where. In the dignity and perpetuity of his priesthood, how admirable a type he is of our High Priest; a priest for ever after the order (i. e., of an order or rank like that) of Melchisedec!

John ii. 11.-"THIS BEGINNING OF MIRACLES DID JESUS IN CANA OF GALILEE, AND MANIFESTED FORTH HIS GLORY; AND HIS DISCIPLES BELIEVED ON HIM."

1637. Christian Miracles.-" Miracles," says Fuller, " are the swaddling-clothes of the infant churches ;" and, we may add, not the garments of the full-grown. They were as the proclamation that the king was mounting his throne; who, however, is not proclaimed every day, but only at his accession. When he sits acknowledged on his throne the proclamation ceases. They were as the bright clouds which gather round and announce the sun at his first appearing; his mid-day splendour, though as full and fuller indeed of light and heat, knows not those bright heralds and harbingers of his rising. Or they may be likened to the framework on which the arch is rounded, which framework is taken down as soon as that is completed.-ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

Acts ii. 29.-"MEN AND BRETHREN, LET ME FREELY SPEAK UNTO YOU OF THE PATRIARCH DAVID, THAT HE IS BOTH DEAD AND BURIED, AND HIS SEPULCHRE IS WITH US UNTO THIS DAY."

1638. The Sepulchre of David.-It was, no doubt, hewn in the rocky sides of the hill, and became the centre of the catacomb in which his descendants, the kings of Judah, were interred after him. It remained one of the landmarks of the ruined city after the return from the captivity "between Shiloh and the guard-house of the mighty men" (Neh. iii. 16)—of his own faithful body-guard, and it was pointed out down to the latest times of the Jewish people. "His sepulchre is with us unto this day" (Acts ii. 29);