veils of mountain and flower. Our whole life is spent in the effort to see more of heaven in nature and in revelation. Now and then, while we work and pray, the covering is partially lifted, and we obtain a glimpse of the hidden effulgence."*

But let us look at the aspect of the tabernacle in its relation to man. In speaking of the origin of the word temple, we have seen that our Blessed Lord applies the term to the human body, and St. Paul also, in such words as, "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost?" And here we see the singular appropriateness of the word and the typical aspect of the tabernacle. "Man is a temple-the grandest of all temples. He is a part of nature, cut off by God for higher and nobler purposes than the common earth and sky can serve, but still retaining the peculiarities of the rest of nature. His material frame is ennobled by being made the abiding place of an immaterial principle destined to immortality, which individualizes and makes him the most complete and vital unity in creation, just as an earthly tabernacle is ennobled by being consecrated to the service of the Most High. And being thus a temple, separated from and yet one with nature, moulded and inhabited by the soul, in order that by its organs and functions articulate, conscious utterance may be given to the inarticulate, unconscious worship of nature, we should expect to find the human body an expression of all the forms and forces of the universe; we should expect it to be an incorporation of nature-creation integrated-a * Rev. Hugh Macmillan, LL.D.: "The True Vine."

miniature of the whole world. And this it actually is. Man is a microcosm in even a fuller and more significant sense than that in which this familiar phrase is commonly understood.

"The body of man seems to me to stand very much in the same relation to the whole world as that in which the Jewish tabernacle stood. The Jewish tabernacle was primarily meant to be a miniature model of what the apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, calls the agion cosmicon: translated in our version worldly sanctuary, whereas it should be rendered the world-sanctuary or world-temple. And we find that the plan and construction of the tabernacle are described in the Bible in precisely the same way as the plan and construction of the earth are described. The tabernacle rested upon the naked sand of the wilderness-it had no flooring-as if to indicate that while it was separated from nature for higher and holier uses, it was still a part of nature. It contained, in its structure and furniture, a representation of everything existing in nature. It was an agion cosmicon-a holy microcosm. The three kingdoms of nature were summed up in it. The mineral kingdom was represented by its golden ornaments and vessels, its silver sockets and brazen utensils, and the jewels on the high priest's breastplate; the vegetable kingdom, by its boards of shittim wood or acacia, and its linen wrappings, and the materials of the incense, and the table of shewbread, and the almond pattern of its golden candlesticks, and the ornamentation of its furniture; the animal kingdom, by its coverings of badgers' and

goats' skins, and by the crimson colours of its curtains, procured from the juice of a shell-fish or an insect. The light of the natural world was represented by the sacred lamp that burnt perpetually in the holy place; the provision of the natural world by the pot of manna; the natural perfumes of wood and field, of tree and flower, by the incense that smoked on the altar. In short, every object in nature had its counterpart in some form or other in the sacred building; and the whole structure was just the sum and representation of nature in a miniature form-the key by means of which the typical or spiritual significance of nature was explained in a clearer and more pointed way than nature itself could do it since the fall. Now man's body is also a tabernacle sojourning in the wilderness of this world. It is an epitome of the whole history of the earth. Inscribed upon its fleshly tablets are all the commandments of God. As the apostle says, without the law, man is a law unto himself. In his constitution God has wrought out in higher form the great truths which He has inscribed upon the objects of nature, and which were symbolized in the Jewish tabernacle. His body is composed representatively of the matter of the whole universe. On the veil of its flesh, that separates between the physical and spiritual worlds, between the holy place of the world-sanctuary and the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, through which alone matter can hold communion with spirit and heaven with earth,-on that fleshy veil is woven the cherubic forms, the shadows of the true, symbols at once of the things that are on

the earth and of the things that are unseen and eternal in the heavens.

"Look, in the first place, at the substance of which man's body is composed. Like the tabernacle, it rests upon the dust of the earth, It was created out of the dust and speedily returns to it again. Its foundation is laid in the mineral kingdom; this is the basis and primary factor of its perfection. Man is first of all a mineral: the foot of that ladder whose top reaches to the throne of heaven, rests upon the naked rock, upon which the pious eye sees Bethel inscribed. The limestone of the earth gives solidity to his bones; the iron of the earth gives the rich crimson colour to his blood, and the tint to his lips and cheeks and hair; the phosphorus of the earth, by its susceptibility to change, composes the continually fluctuating walls of his tabernacle; the very core and centre of his brain itself, the place where Descartes supposed the soul to be, is a crystalline mass of mineral matter, so that the wheels of thought, like those of a watch, revolve on a jewelled pivot of the mineral kingdom. There is no substance found in nature, but in some shape, or quantity, or combination, is represented in man's body; it has its gold and its copper, its salt and its arsenic, substances that are poisonous and destructive, and substances that are innocuous and nutritious, all balanced and working together for the common good of the whole living structure, in subordination to the wonderful vital force." *

Lastly, let us view the typical aspect of the tabernacle in relation to work.

* Rev. Hugh Macmillan: "The Human Temple."

"We are accustomed to limit the inspiration of God's Spirit to thoughts and words. For this limitation, however, of the Spirit's mode of operation to thought and language, to purely spiritual channels, we have no warrant in Scripture. The sevenfold Spirit has differences of administration and operation. He imparts diverse gifts. The body as well as the soul experiences his sanctifying influence. He enters the sphere of man's labour as well as of his thought, and inspires the work of his hands as well as the meditations of his mind. The same Spirit that inspired the eloquence of Isaiah, and the melodies of the chief musician Asaph, also imparted to Samson that marvellous bodily strength which he displayed in herculean labours and tremendous feats upon the Philistines; and to Bezaleel and Aholiab that fine æsthetic taste and mechanical skill by which they were enabled to construct the tabernacle after the pattern shown on the mount. Gideon and Jephthah carried on their military campaigns, Elijah and Elisha wrought their miracles, Hiram of Tyre forged and engraved the precious metals employed in the temple of Solomon, directly under the inspiration of God's Spirit. The impulse to perform these secular actions came upon them from God, quite as much as the impulse which compelled the prophets to proclaim religious truths. In short, it would appear from Scripture that the influence of the Spirit is co-extensive with the whole sphere of human affairs; that nothing with which man has to do is without and beyond the proper field of his operations.

"It is very necessary that we should grasp the full