that he who casts it away is by that very fact dwarfed, defiled, undone, destroyed!

Inspiring as these suggestions are there are others which come to us of which Paul did not dream, because he did not know the evolution of the temple as it is known today. Men thought at first that their deity dwelt in some natural object, a tree, a spring, a crag, or something of that kind. Such had been the belief of the early Hebrews and their ancestors. Then they conceived the idea that God could be persuaded to reside in a stone of their own selection; thus Jacob set up a stone at Bethel and called it God's house. These monoliths, or heaps of stones as they sometimes were, served at first as temple, idol and altar all in one. To come into contact with them was to come into contact with the god who dwelt within. Sacrifices were offered on them, blood poured out over them, and other gifts cast on them. In course of time they were carved into various idol forms or houses built over them. The houses, rude at first, in course of time gave place to temples like those of Solomon and Herod,

elaborately adorned with gold and precious stones, into which God, though inhabiting the heaven of heavens, which could not contain Him, nevertheless deigned to come.

Is not the development of the temple from the uncarved and rude pillar up to the magnificent building, radiant with all that is precious, a parable, too, for our encouragement? The heart that has welcomed its heavenly Master is a temple, but how poor a temple it knows itself to be! It is like the rude pillar naked to the sky. It lacks the sheltering power of the character which is to be, it lacks the beautifying power of the Christian graces which are yet to grow. The years of Christian experience, however, produce their effect. The divine Indweller of his temple transforms the rude, stony heart into His own image; He adorns it with graces like unto His own, graces which are the fruits of His own spirit, till, by-and-by, it is not only a temple in some sense fit for its heavenly Inhabitant, but like the ancient temple it has made its environment holy, and sanctified and purified as much of life as it can influence. It

is only the Christian who knows the power of this mystic experience who can realize the poet's dream :

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift season's roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting
sea!"

Another parable, too, suggests itself as one broods over Paul's mystic figure. The temples of ancient times had no windows. They were little chambers for the deity, not churches for the accommodation of the worshippers. The deity within dwelt therefore in thick darkness. In time this came to be symbolic of the mystery which enshrouded God and all His ways. It was thus that the thick darkness of Solomon's temple, (1 Kgs. viii, 12; 2 Chr. vi, 1), is to be understood. In the New Testament God no longer is thought to dwell in darkness, but in the light which no man can approach unto, (1 Tim. vi, 11). God is as before. enveloped in mystery, but Christ has now

come and the mystery is no longer one of darkness and gloom, but a mystery of light and of hope. Is not this, too, a parable of Christian experience? The world with all its wondrous order, life with all its pain, bereavement, disappointment, and suffering are always a mystery, but, whereas at the first, the Heart of the mystery is enveloped in the gloom of hopelessness and the fear that God may be unjust and unlovely, when the soul has welcomed its heavenly Guest and has become accustomed to His presence, the mystery remains, but it is a mystery of light, hope and love, the deep things of which " eye hath not seen or ear heard."

"Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests." Ex. xix, 6. “A royal priesthood, a people for God's own possession.' 1 Pet. ii, 9.

"Not on one favored forehead fell
Of old the fire-tongued miracle,
But flamed o'er all the thronging host

The baptism of the Holy Ghost."

-Whittier.

IN early Semitic tribal life no domestic animals were killed except in sacrifice, and every man was his own priest. In other words, every occasion when meat was eaten. had a sacrificial significance, and every man could prepare his own meat. The memory of this primitive custom is preserved in the ritual of the Hebrew Passover, the lamb for which was slain, not by a priest, but by the head of each family. The introduction of the Levitical priesthood was a later occurrence, and in the lapse of time that priesthood so transformed the simple life of early times, that almost all priestly functions were denied to the ordinary man. The