I. THE PROPHET OF HOREB-HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. HE mountains of the Bible will well repay the climber. There is a glorious prospect from their summits, and moral bracing in the breathing of their difficult air. Most of the events in Bible history, which either embody great principles, illustrate Divine perfections, or bear impressively upon the destinies of man, have had the mountains for the pedestals of their achievement. Beneath the arch of the Covenant-rainbow the lone ark rested upon Ararat; Abraham's trial, handing down the high faith of the hero-father, and typing the greater sacrifice of the future time, must be "on one. of the mountains" in the land of Moriah; Aaron, climbing heavenward, is "unclothed and clothed upon amid the solitudes of Hor; and where but on the crest of Nebo could Moses gaze upon the land and die ? If there is to be a grand experiment to determine between rival faiths to defeat Baal-to exalt Jehovah, what spot so fitting as the excellency of Carmel? It was due to the great and dread events of the Saviour's history that they should be enacted where the world's broad eye could light upon them; hence he is transfigured "on the high mountain apart," on Olivet he prays, on Calvary he dies,-and at the close of all, in the splendours of eternal allotment, amid adoring angels and perfected men, we cheerfully "come to Mount Zion." Precious as is the Scripture in all phases of its appearance, the quality which, above all others, invests it with a richer value, is its exquisite adaptation to every necessity of man. Professing itself to be his infallible and constant instructor, it employs all modes of communicating wisdom. The Man of our counsel" is always at hand, in every condition and in every peril. But we learn more from living exemplar than from preceptive utterance. The truth, which has not been realized by some man of like passions with ourselves, comes cold and distant, like a lunar rainbow. It may furnish us with correct notions and a beautiful system, just as we can learn proportion from a statue; but there needs the touch of life to influence and to transform. Hence not the least impressive and salutary Bible-teaching is by the accurate exhibition of individual character. A man's life is there sketched out to us, not that side of it merely which he presents to the world, which the restraints of society have modified, which intercourse has subdued into decorousness, and which shrouds his meaner self in a conventional hypocrisy, but his inner life, his management of the trifles which give the sum of character, his ordinary and household doings, as well as the rare seasons of exigency and of trial. The whole man is before us, and we can see him as he is. Partiality cannot blind us, nor prejudice distort our view. Nothing is exaggerated, nothing is concealed. His defects |