The tragedy of Calvary. Part 8.

The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings

by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920

The Jews, a Semitic people, followed the same custom all down the ages and times they lived as a nation. They neglected the prophets, laid more stress on their traditions than on the texts foretelling Christ, and when He came they did not know or receive Him. After the destruction of the Holy City by the Romans under Titus, Hadrian, etc., when they were forbidden to live in it, they made Tiberius the religious capital of Judea.

There in the second century, where Rabbi Judah had a college, they wrote down these traditions in a work called the Talmud, a Hebrew word meaning study, teaching or discipline. This is called the Jerusalem Talmud. But there is another, composed at Babylon, called the Babylonian Talmud.

The Talmud forms three texts, the first being the sacred text of the Old Testament, called the Micra, then the Mishna, which was written by Rabbi Judah, the holy teachings or the traditions, and the third the Midras or explanation of the-mysteries hidden in the text. The fourth, called the Ghemara, gives not only a running commentary, but is also explanatory of words and names of famous scholars. The fifth, called the Agadah, goes deeper into the hidden meanings of the Bible by Kabbalistic or Doctrinal explanations. The Babylonia Talmud the writer used in the Astor Library New York, is in twenty quarto volumes in English, and the Jerusalem Talmud, in French, is in forty volumes. It contains a vast amount of rubbish, with scintilations of truth scattered here and there relating to Christ, the Temple, and the time of which we write. It is a tiresome task to read it.

Peculiar writings, called " Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Revelations," come down to us from the earliest ages of Christianity. They once formed a part of the New Testament, and were read in the churches. But the Third and Fourth Councils of Carthage separated them from the New Testament, and fixed the Bible as we have it now. The Bishop of Rome confirmed the decrees and the Scriptures ever after remained as we have them to-day.

These works, not inspired, must be read with great care, for they contain many untruths. The earliest writers and fathers of the Church quote them, showing that they existed in their time. They go into minute details of Christ's life and throw great light on that important epoch of human history.

God foresaw that the Jews would reject Christ, that another race was required to administer the Church and spread the Gospel into other nations, and in a wonderful way He prepared for Christianity. Let us now see how He did that. While the Hebrews lived their simple farmer lives on Judea'g hills and plains, God's Providence directing nations is making ready two races which are to influence mankind till the end of time. The sons of Javan, " God be praised," whose fathers, Japheth's children, had settled the Isles of the inland Sea and Greece, are developing their civilization. In Macedonia was born to Philip's royal family a son he named Alexander, " Man's lover," 1 Feeling the instincts of that blessing N'oe uttered on the white man: " May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Sem," (Gen. ix. 27.) Alexander dreamed of universal empire.

Leading his Greek army, he swept over the earth, with a swiftness and a triumph which have astonished historians. All the east of Europe fell before him. Asia Minor, the north of Africa, Babylonia, Assyria, and even the Indies he subdued. Wherever he went he brought Greek civilization, language and customs. Why was this ? Because there was to come a religious empire of the Crucified, the Universal Church, and a universal language was required, that she might speak to the nations in a tongue they all could understand. Nearly all the New Testament, and the Masses, the Apostles composed in Greek. In 334 B. C. Alexander marched against Palestine. Now let us see, in Josephus' words, how God directed him, and how he came to Jerusalem. (Josephus, Antiq. B. xi. C. viii. 4.)

" Now Alexander, when he had taken Gaza, made haste to go up to Jerusalem. And Jaddua, the high priest, when he heard that, was in agony, and under terror, as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians. He ordered therefore that the people should make supplications, and should join with him in offering sacrifices." Then God warned him in a dream to open the city to Alexander.

"And when he understood that he (Alexander) was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations. It reached to a place called Sapha, which name translated into Greek signifies " a prospect," for you have thence a prospect, both of Jerusalem and of the Temple. And when the Phenicians and the Chaldeans, that followed him, thought they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high priest to death, which the king's displeasure promised them, the very re verse of it happened. For Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did altogether salute Alexander, and encompass him about. Whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass, that when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews ? To whom he replied,

" I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with high priesthood. For I saw this very person in a dream in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but to boldly pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army and give me dominion over the Persians. Whence it is that having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation, which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.

"And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the priest his right hand, the priests ran along with him, and he came into the city, and when he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest's direction, and magnificently treated the high priest and the priests. And when the Book of Daniel was shown him, (Dan. vii. 6; viii. 3-8, 20, 21, 22 ; xi. 3, etc.) wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that he himself was the person in tended, and as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present. But the next day he called them to him, and bade them ask what favors they pleased of him, whereupon the high priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their forefathers, and might pay no tribute on the seventh year. lie granted all they desired." (Josephus, Antiq. B.xi. Art viii. 5.) From that time the Greek language became the spoken tongue among the learned and the nobles of the Holy Land.

1 Mentioned three times in the first and second chapters of I. Machabees.

The tragedy of Calvary. Part 7.

The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings

by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920

Daniel, " God is Judge," was born in Jerusalem in the year of the world 3,429, 128 years after the founding of Rome and 626 years before the birth of Christ. He was of the royal family of Juda, and in the fourth year of Joachim's reign he was carried away into Babylonia with other Hebrew captives. In wisdom he was far superior to the wise men of Babylon, and he foretold many things relating to the destruction of the Babylonian empire, the coming of Christ, the reign of the Church, and the future deeds of Anti-Christ. One of his most famous prophecies was the reading of the handwriting on the wall of the palace, on the night Cyrus with his army was marching into the doomed city through the dry bed of the river  Euphrates, which he had drained. Belshassar had called for the sacred vessels of Solomon's Temple, and with his concubines, and the members of his court, he was mocking the God of Israel when the finger of God wrote his doom on the wall. As no one could read the words, Daniel was sent for and interpreted the writing. Daniel lived all the time in Babylonia and died in Persia.

These four great prophets, Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, and Daniel, are called the four Evangelists of the Old Testament. The minor prophets are to the number twelve, and they have been compared to the twelve apostles for the wonderful things they foretold about Christ. Osee, " the Saviour," lived in the time of Isaias and prophesied in the kingdom of Israel, of which the capital was Samaria. At the same time Joel, " Jehovah is God," lived in the kingdom of Juda. While these were pouring forth prophetic words, Amos, " a burden-bearer," from being a shepherd, was called by the Holy Spirit to foretell the future. He was born 808 years before Christ, at Tekoa, a little place six miles south of Bethlehem. He exercised his office during the reign of Uzziah king of Juda, and was contemporary with Isaias and the lesser prophets mentioned above.

Abdias, " Servant of the Lord," lived at the same time. Although his prophecy contains but one chapter, being the shortest of all, it yields to none in sublimity of character.

Jonas, "a dove," was born in Galilee, at Geth-Epher, in the days of Jeroboam II., 843 before Christ. This shows that the Pharisees were wrong in saying that no prophet ever came out of Galilee. He was the only Hebrew prophet ever sent to a pagan nation. The Lord sent him to warn the people of Nineveh to do penance for their sins, and he fled away on a ship; a storm rose, the sailors threw him into the sea, and a great marine animal swallowed him, where he lived three days and nights as a type of Christ in the tomb.

Micheas, " Who is like Jehovah ? " was born in the year 916 before Christ, in the days of the bad king Achab. He lived in Samaria and was a contemporary of Elias, Eliseus, and the other prophets of that time He lived with them on Carmel, in the " schools of the prophets " they had established. He foretold the Babylonian Captivity, the coming of Christ. He denounced the bad kings and the Hebrews for their sins, and foretold that the impious Achab would be killed in battle. The king of Israel, then living in Samaria, threw him into prison, where he was fed on bread and water till he died.

Nahum, " the Comforter," was born at Elcese in Galilee in the days of Manasses the king, but the exact time is not given either in the Scriptures or in the Hebrew traditions. It was probably in the times of Habacuc and Joel. He foretold the destruction of the Assyrian kingdom. He saw his words come to pass, and lived for long years afterwards.

Habacuc," Love's embrace," was born at Bezocher in the year 582 before Christ, 172 years after the founding of Home and in the 37th year of the Captivity. An Angel brought him from Palestine into Babylonia to Daniel, for he had remained in Judea after the destruction of the Holy City. He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, the conquest of Chaldea by Cyrus the Persian king, the return of the Jews from the Captivity, and many things relating to Christ. His prayer, in chapter iii. is very fine.

Sophonias is the Greek form of Zephaniah, "the watchman of the Lord," being the son of Chusi, son of Godolias whose father was Amasia. He was born in Sara-batha, in the tribe of Simeon, in the days of Josias. He fore told the punishment which would fall on the Jews for their of crime of idolatry; the calamities which would fall on other nations; the coming of Christ; the conversion of the Gentile nations; the blindness of the Jews, who would not receive their Messiah ; their rejection by God, and their conversion towards the end of the world.

Aggeus, whose name in Hebrew is Haggai, " Festive," was born in Babylonia during the Captivity. The Lord sent him in the second year of Darius', reign to Zorobabel, prince of the Hebrews, and to Jesus the high priest to exhort them to begin again the building of the second Temple, which they had left off, because of the opposition of the Samaritans, telling them that this second Temple would be more glorious than the first, erected by Solomon, because the Messiah, the future Christ, would honor it with His presence. Then he passes on to the glories of the Church, and the superiority of the New Testament over the Old.

Zacharias, in Hebrew Zechariah, " Jehovah is renowned," was one of the last of the prophets. He foretold many things about Christ. He reproved the Jews for their sins, and they killed him in the Temple, at the west of the great altar of sacrifice, near the door leading into the Holy of Holies. Christ denounced the Jews in withering terms for this crime. (Matt, xxiii. 35; Luke xi. 51.)

There were twenty-five persons of this name mentioned in the Scriptures. Isaias the prophet mentions this prophet five times, he being contemporary with him.

Malachias, "Jehovah's Messenger," in the fifth century before Christ, last of the prophets, lived under Darius Hystaspes, king of Persia, when the second Temple was being built in Jerusalem. He denounces the priests, who despising the Lord's name offer polluted sacrifices, and foretells the coming of the Baptist, the preaching and works of Christ, the rejection of the Jews, and the sacrifices of the clean oblation among the nations from the rising to the setting of the sun.

After him no prophet spoke to Israel, and for four centuries the Jews were led by the Rabbis, Scribes and Pharisees.

The Scribes and Pharisees held, that with the written word of the Old Testament, came down traditions mentioned often in the Gospels; (Matt. xv. 8. 3, 6; Mark vii. 3, 5, 8, 9, 18; Acts vi. 14.) that these had equal weight with, and should be received as the written word of the Old Testament, which they explain. The word tradition is not found in the Old Testament.

We do not always understand what a legend or tradition is in the Orient. It is not like a changing, vague tradition handed down from our fathers. Before writing was known, in all the East, the leading man, the sheik of the tribe, gathered the children around him every week, and told them the religious truths, the history of the tribe, the glories of their fathers. At weddings and meetings the stories were retold. If a single change was made in a word, all the people cried out, the speaker, was decried. Nothing was changed, nothing received, except what had been handed clown. The story never varied from age to age.

A priest from Babylon, head of 2.000 families, told the writer, that as lie was the eldest son, he was both leader and religious teacher of his tribe. Every Sunday he gathered the children around him, while their parents stood by, and he told them the history of their nation. He could go back almost to the clays of Noe. He told the the very places from which came the tribes of white men, who first settled Europe, Asia and Africa. He went beyond all history. He said that was the way Abraham and the partriarchs taught their children, till Moses gathered up these histories in the book of Genesis.

The tragedy of Calvary. Part 6.

The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings

by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920

In reading the prophecies, we must not fall into error and think that because God had foretold what would be done to Christ, that therefore the Jews were obliged to put Him to death. For the Jews were free beings, masters of their actions, with liberty and free will. They freely and with malice aforethought brought all these sufferings on Him and nothing can excuse their sin.

We must also remember that God looks not on the past and future like men. With Him all is the present and there is no time. For time is the measurement of the movements of the material world. Time is the duration of matter. With God all is the eternal present, and He sees all things as being present. He saw his Son Christ, all his life and Passion, as being present to the eternal mind. Therefore with His infinite knowledge. He saw the sufferings of His Son, and the wickedness of the men who put Him to death. It was as though you were looking at a person committing murder. Because you saw him do it, that did not take away his free will, nor was he forced to commit the crime for the reason that you were looking at him while he did it. Thus it was with God, who ever saw before Him the Passion of the divine Son.

This is also why the prophets sometimes speak as though the thing they foretell took place in the past, or in the present, or will happen at some future time.

Prophecies foretelling Christ were given in a peculiar way, so as not to reveal God's plans before the time or He would not be put to death, and man would not be redeemed. They are hidden in Hebrew words, in detached sentences, mixed with other truths, in lives of patriarchs and prophets, in Temple ceremonies, in personal names, in Jewish feasts and traditions.

He rises from every page of the Old Testament. Men and things foretelling Him are given, those who did not are left out, and therefore the history is hard to under stand. The Bible, being a book of belief and practice, telling what men must believe and do in order to be saved, requires a living court to define its meanings, whence men, guided by themselves alone, divide up and found on it most any kind of a religion.

Now let us look at these prophecies of Christ. Do we stop to think of what a prophecy is ? How little we know what we will do next hour, to-morrow, next week, next year ? We are free beings. While we can foretell what will come to pass by the laws of nature, we ourselves do not know what we will do ourselves. But to foretell hundreds, or thousands, of years beforehand, what a great Personage will do, to write his history in its most minute de tails, foretell his life and the awful tragedy of his death by crucifixion, his funeral, resurrection and ascension, that he will establish a world-wide empire of religion, is a tiling that only God can do, for He alone can foresee the free acts of men.

First revealed to Adam that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head, that truth streamed down among all primeval nations; and learned men say that behind pagan religions was the idea of a divine Person, who would restore mankind to the golden age lost in the dim past.

From the gates of paradise victims were sacrificed to foretell him, every nation had its temples or sacrifices, and tourists look with wonder on the ruins of these great buildings, in which once were offered sacrifices with ceremonies foretelling a future Victim. Found everywhere among the tribes and nations, they must have come from the primal religion of mankind before the separation of the nations.

But we will confine ourselves to the prophets of the Old Testament, for this question would take too long.

In the days of Abraham, 1,724 years before Christ lived in Edom a holy man born of Esau's race, Jobab, (Gen. xxxvi. 33.) called Job, (Dutripon, Concord, S. Scripturae, Job.) whom God punished with a frightful skin disease, to foretell Christ's flagellation. His friends could not see why God would affiict him if he were innocent, for they did not understand how the sinless Saviour was to take on Him self the wickedness of all the world and suffer for our sins. In matchless poetry Job justifies himself, and pours forth prophecies of the Passion of the Prince of Peace. Isaias alone is greater in sublimity of thought and diction.

Isaias lived 750 years before Christ, whom he calls his Cousin, because, like the Saviour, he was of the family of David. His name, Isaias, means " Jesus is the Lord." (Challoners

Bible, Isaias.) He foretold Christ so clearly, that he is called the Evangelist of the Old Testament.

He lived a most holy life, and both in public and in private he reproved the Jews for their sins. He was arrested by the Jews, near the place where long after they arrested Christ. Down in the Cedron valley, to the south of Ophel, grew a hollow olive tree, and they thrust him into the hollow trunk and tied him there. Then they sawed off the tree, cutting the holy prophet in two. They buried him in the tomb of the prophets, on the western side of the Mount of Olivet, not far from the place where they sawed him to death.

In the little city of Bethlehem, " the house of bread," belonging to the tribe of Juda, 2,950 years from the creation of Adam and 1,104 before Christ, was born David, Jesse's seventh son. It was 407 years from the delivery of the Hebrews from the Egyptian bondage. David was of remarkable beauty, of fine physical strength; gifted with all the virtues of the best of the young Israelites. He was brought up to keep his father's flocks, and often he rescued them from bear and lion. When he was fifteen years old, Saul usurped the functions of the priesthood, and God rejected him from being king, and under the directions of the Almighty, Samuel anointed David as king over Israel in his place.

He was the best and the holiest of the Hebrew monarchs. He loved the services of the tabernacle, and wrote the psalms as sacred hymns to be sung in the services. These Hebrew hymns contain many revelations relating to Christ, his Passion and his death.

Jeremias, whose name means "Jehovah is high," was born 3,410 after Adam's creation, 644 before Christ, in the year 110 from the founding of Rome. He was of a priestly family, of the village of Anathoth, his father being Hilkiah, He was justified in his mother's womb from original sin, by the infusing of sanctifying grace from the merits of the future Redeemer.

In his fifteenth year, the Spirit of God came on him and

filled him with prophecy. In sad and heartrending words he foretold the destruction of the Holy City by the Baby lonians, and the Captivity of the Jews because of their sins. Baruch, another prophet, was his secretary, and wrote at his dictation the many things he foretold regarding the city, the people, and the coming Redeemer. The Jews persecuted him, imprisoned him, and he acted out in his life the Passion of the Lord. He never married, but remained a virgin all his life. He was stoned to death in Tanis in Egypt.

Ezechiel, " God is strong," was born 3,420 years after Adam, and 634 years before Christ, of a noble priestly family. He was carried away to Babylon with Jeconia, the Jewish king. In his twentieth year, he began to prophesy in the place he lived, near the river Chebar, called now the Nahr Malcha. Filled with the Spirit of God, for twenty-two years he poured forth prophecies relating to the future, to Christ, and the rebuilding of the city. He described the great Temple Herod restored with the most wonderful minuteness of measurements, so that his words might serve as its plans and specifications for the architect; for it was to be honored by the presence of our Lord. He tells how the Lord will come to this Temple and offer His sacrifices in it as the future Prince. The delivery of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, the rebuilding of the Temple, the coming of the Messiah, the calling of the Gentiles, the glories of the Church—these are the chief burdens of his story. But neither the Bible nor the Hebrew traditions tell us where or when he died.

The tragedy of Calvary. Part 5.

The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings

by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920

In the Old Testament, in hundreds of places we find the Hebrew Memra, " the Word." In the Pentateuch or the Books of Moses the word Memra is given 320 times, and it is always translated as "the Lord." The Targum Onkelos has the word 179 times. In the Jerusalem Targum it will be found 99 times, and in Pseudo-Jonathan 321 times. Hundreds of passages of the prophets have it. In these writings Memra is always God, as Wisdom revealing himself, as "Light," "Knowledge," the "Idea." But St. John, in the beginning of his Gospel first brings out the term as the Divine Logos, the Word of God. " And the Word was God." (John i. 1.) Here for the first time in the sacred writings, the Memra, the Word, is given as a Divine Person, the Son of God co-eternal with his Father.

MEANING OF THE NAME JESUS CHRIST.

Again we find the Hebrew word Jehovah: " The Existing One," hundreds of times in the Old Testament and in the Jewish writers. It was so holy a name, that in later times they even feared to pronounce it and they used in its place Adonai or Jah, its root, the latter being found in numerous Hebrew names of persons and places.

Everywhere we find the name, it conveys the idea of the Eternal revealing Himself in mercy. Jehovah is the " God of mercy," the " God of forgiveness," the " God of love," preparing them for the coming of the Redeemer, establishing the tabernacle, directing Moses, founding the ceremonial. When the name as Jah makes a part of their personal names, it relates to the Messiah all down their history. Josue, the name of their leader after Moses, or Jesus, its Greek form, means in Hebrew " The God of mercy will save," and four persons of the Old Testament were thus called. After the Greek conquest, the name was translated into that language as Jesus, the name given Christ before He was conceived. Thus we see His very office or mission was written in His name, as the angel said: " For he shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. i. 21.) The word Christ is the Greek for anointed, for priests, prophets and kings of Israel were all anointed; because they typified the Messiah, who was anointed by the Holy Ghost to be the Redeemer and to fulfil all they foretold. The meaning then of Jesus Christ is : " The anointed God of Mercy will save."

The word Elohim the plural of Eloi, or the Hebrew Elohai, " my God," occurs in numerous places in the Scriptures. The plural Elohim given in the beginning of Genesis, seems to show forth the Persons of God, and down through the holy writings we often find it. But everywhere the word shows God as the "God of justice," punishing sin, destroying the wicked. It is in His terrible unbending justice the word revealed Him, till the last time it was spoken, it fell from the lips of the dying Saviour on the cross, when He cried out " My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" He was the Victim of the world's sins, offering himself to the justice of His Father. He repeats the first words of the Psalm xxi, written by his father David more than 1,100 years before, wherein his Passion and death are so fearfully and realistically foretold. (Matt, xxvii. 46: Mark xv. 31.)

With wonderful wisdom the Eternal had prepared the Hebrews, filling them with the Wisdom of the Memra, speaking to them through the Shekina, calling Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans, now Mugier, to be the father of His chosen people, a type of Christ, Father of his Christians, brought forth from him in baptism. He rescued them from Egyptian slavery, the figure of the slavery of sin. Pharaoh their enemy was like the devil, enemy of all mankind. The passage of the Red Sea was symbolical of the Christian baptism. The wanderings in the desert shadowed forth this life of exile, the manna on which they fed was the Eucharist, Moses their leader was not to bring them into the Promised Land, but Jesus, named in Hebrew Josue, for he foretold the true Jesus, who brought man kind back to heaven, for the land of Palestine shadowed forth our home in heaven after the wanderings of this life. And the blessings of moneymaking given the Jews in the blessings of the patriarchs, and which still rest on them, remind us of the blessings of religion on the whole race.

For the Hebrews represented in their delivery from Egyptian slavery the whole human race saved from the bondage of sin. The prophets teaching them foretold the teachers of -the true religion. The high priest Aaron, from whom the priests by birth descend, typified the priesthood descending from Christ, the innocent animals slaughtered in the Temple pointed to the future Victim of the cross. The rivers of blood which flowed in that Temple were to tell them of the atrocious death these priests were later to bring on Him. The Passover service with its lamb and unleavened cakes were images of the crucifixion and of the Mass and the Lamb of God immolated there in mystic ceremonies. " Now these things were done in a figure of us," says St. Paul. (1 Cor . x. 6.)

The tragedy of Calvary. Part 3.

The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings

by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920

The word Bible comes from the Greek, Biblia, " The Books," first used by St. Chrysostom, "The Golden-mouthed," in the fourth century, when he was preaching these magnificent explanations of the Sacred Books in Constantinople and Antioch. Up to that time, they had been called the Scriptures, " Writings." The word Testament means a will, by which a person disposes of his property after death, for the benefits of redemption were given mankind after Christ's death.

The Old Testament was called the Covenant, for it contains the agreement, or contract, between God and the Hebrews. At the death of the Saviour it was extended to all mankind. We will use only the Old Testament texts in the following pages for the New Testament did not exist at the time of Christ.

The Jews divided the Old Testament into the Law, the Prophets, and the Sacred Writings. The Law was composed of the first five books of the Bible which were writ ten by Moses, viz., Genesis : " The Generation " or " Beginning " of all things; Exodus: " The Going out" of Egypt; Leviticus: Regulations relating to priests and Levites; Numbers, called by the Hebrews Bemidbar : " In the desert," from the leading word of the opening sentence; Deuteronomy, a Greek word meaning the " Second Law," giving what happened in the wilderness from the be ginning of the eleventh month, for five weeks, to the seventh day of the twelfth month, forty years after the Hebrews went out of Egypt. These works, written by Moses, form the sacred Torah," the Law," among the Jews.

The Prophets comprise the books of Josue, Judges, Kings, or Samuel, Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel; the poetic books Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and the twelve minor prophets from Osee to Malachias, with the " Five Rolls " formed of Canticles, called Solomon's Song, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, then came Daniel, etc., comprising the rest of the Old Testament.

There is no doubt but these books were written by the persons whose names they bear, although some writers in our day, following what; is called Higher Criticism, try to make out that they were composed by writers long after their time, because they contain words, expressions, and things which took place ages after they were written. They do this in order to prove that God never spoke by the prophets, or foretold what would come to pass in the future. But this is all false.

If the Five Books of Moses were written long after his day, how could the Jews have known or practiced his religion ? How could they have been deceived regard ing him or the prophets and their history ? The only solution is to say, that these sacred books of the Hebrews were composed by the persons whose names they bear, and at the times given in Jewish history.

Christians and Jews receive these Books of the Old Testament as being inspired, that is " breathed into " by God himself. In that the Bible differs from all other writings: "Because having been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and have been delivered as such by the Church herself." (Vat. Sess, III.) From Christian countries to pagan lands mill ions of copies of these Books are sent each year. In every place where he has passed the Jew comes carrying with him these holy writings.

For sublimity of ideas, poetic feeling, difficulty of under standing, these Books are incomparably superior to any other writings. They have various meanings. You must read between the lines, you must penetrate beyond the literal sense, and there you will find that they all point to a future glorious age, to a great Personage called the Messiah, the King of Israel, the Shilo, the Prince, God born of a Virgin, the Prince of David's dynasty, who will come and establish an empire over all the earth. It would take too long to go deep into this matter.

In these Books, hidden in names of places, men, and things, run revelations Jehovah gave of the coming of this Messiah, the glories of His kingdom, but hidden in such a way that you will find them only after deep study. Many are lost in translations, hidden to the ignorant, but shine forth with such wonderful clearness as to startle the reader learned in Hebrew and divinity. Behind the writings seem to scintillate the face of the Holy Spirit,

Learned men are discovering wonders in the Bible, cryptograms are seen, and perhaps all its treasures will never be discovered. No human mind could write even a page and fill it with such mysteries.

The original Hebrew, in which most of the Bible was written is most lofty. The writers are filled with the wonders, importance and holiness of the truths they pour forth with an intensity of feeling, magnificence of style, sublimity of poetry and grandeur of subject, no one can dream, who has not read the original.

The burden of their story is the Christ, the sins of the Jews, the destruction of their government, the scattering of the whole race into every quarter of the globe, for the crime of killing their Messiah. Every one of the prophets who foretold most clearly the coming of the Redeemer was persecuted and suffered martyrdom, because he told his countrymen what God, through his Shekina, had revealed.

The Shekina comes from a Hebrew word, Shekina, "to dwell," "habitation," meaning to "appear," and you will find it in hundreds of places in the Talmuds, and in Hebrew writings. (Talmud, Baba Bathra, fol, 23 a.) It means "the Majesty of God," "The Divine Presence," "the Holy Spirit," " resting," "dwelling" in tabernacle and Temple. Said the Lord: "I will appear in a cloud over the oracle." (Levit, xvi, 2.) The term is first found in the Targums as the " Word of the Lord." The Rabbis say it was the " Spirit of God." The word Shekina is not found in the Bible, but in all the ancient Jewish writings. They tell us that the Shekina spoke to Adam before the fall, and condemned him after his sin, guided the patriarchs before the flood, directed Koe, called Abraham out of Ur, (Gen xii) spoke to him in Palestine, and four centuries later for the first time spoke to Moses from the burning bush." "And the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush." (Exod, iii 2.)