for a fringe, that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them. (Numbers xv. 38, 39.) The blue was the heavenly colour. It was as a sound-a profession to all, of their character. But with this there was also to be the fruit-the "doing of the commandments." The bell and the pomegranate were for ever to be united in the garment of the Jew. How fearfully there had been a divorce between these two was seen in our Lord's day when they "made broad their phylacteries." The lives of the very people who wore them was in many, if not most, cases, infamous: The sound of the bell was heard very loud. The fruit was nowhere. And what it was in our Lord's day-the end of the Jewish dispensation-it will be in our day-the end of the Christian dispensation. The "bell" will be loud but the "fruit" will be absent-" having a form of godliness, but denying the power."

We are told that the high priest was to have these bells on his robe when he went into the holy place on the day of atonement, "that he die not." Not, mark, that the people might know he was not dead, but, as the word means, "lest he should die." The bells did not protect the high priest in the most holy place. The blood did that. In God's presence there was only one ground of standing—the blood. It is so now. Entering into the holy place-the Church of Christ on earth-we must have an alternate bell and pomegranate-profession and practice, faith and works a holy life as well as a holy profession. But these are not the ground of our standing before God.

It is the blood of the Lamb-that only! Before the Church and the world it is the bell and the pomegranate, and before God also we must have them. But while the high priest had to have the bell and the pomegranate in the holy place, yet when he went into the most holy-the presence of God-he put these off him. The blood was sprinkled before the mercy-seat because there he had to stand. Our only standing before God is the blood.

In the New Testament we see the fruit on the hem of our great High Priest's garment-" but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” (Gal. v. 22, 23.) All the pomegranates together were one fruit. So the “fruit (not fruits) of the Spirit" is one fruit, each fruit growing out of, and inseparable from, the other. So also our Lord calls himself" the Vine," which includes the branches. It is one vine and one fruit. The seamless robe of Christ lying next to his own heart represents to us the oneness of the Church and everything connected with her-one in Christ. And the time is at hand when our blessed Lord's prayer will be fulfilled as to the outward or manifested union-"that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee."

The robe of the ephod was that rent by Caiaphas the high priest when Jesus stood before him. By this act he was subject to the penalty of death. The high priesthood departed from him. How remarkable that this, the first and only time recorded in the word, the high priest should thus have rent his garments! It was no accident. It was God Himself testifying

by the very act-" yonder is the true High Priest." He is not here it is Jesus. How strange that this man should by his act be instrumental in showing the true High Priest, and by his word that it was necessary one man should die for the people that the whole nation perish not," point out the true sacrifice for sin!

CHAPTER VI.

THE EPHOD AND CURIOUS GIRDLE.

EXODUS xxviii. 6-8.

It

THE ephod was placed over the blue robe. was the distinctly representative garment of the high priest. It consisted of two parts, one falling down behind, the other in front. These two parts were joined together by straps or shoulder-pieces, one over each shoulder. (Exod. xxviii. 7.) The curious girdle, by which it was bound to the person, was of the same material as the ephod itself. (Exod. xxviii. 8.) The ephod was made of blue, purple, scarlet, and finetwined linen, interwoven with wires or threads of gold, beaten out of golden plates. This is why the garments of the high priest are called golden garments, in contrast with those he wore on the day of atonement, and also worn by the inferior priests, which were simply "linen."

We have said it was the distinctly representative garment because it was connected with the symbols of representative service, viz., the onyx stones borne on its shoulders, and the breastplate of judgment borne on the breast. It is called the garment of the shoulder, from which the word is derived.

Blue

The colours of the ephod were the same as those of the veil and the curtains of the tabernacle. is the sky or heavenly colour. Purple, the kingly colour. Scarlet, the blood colour. Fine-twined linen, the righteous colour. Closely inwrought with all these colours was the glory and strength of the gold, which is invariably in the Scripture the representative of the divine and imperishable nature. Thus Christ, our great High Priest, was the heavenly man, indicated by the blue. He was "King of kings," indicated by the purple.

He was the perfect Sacrifice, indi

One," indicated by the fine-twined linen. Running through all these blessed features of his character