significance of this universal working of the Holy Spirit; for both religion and common life suffer from the false and limited views which we entertain of his agency. We parcel out our life into separate and distinct portions, and call one part sacred and another secular. This, we say, belongs to the world-that belongs to God; one action is religious, another is purely worldly. In this way we put asunder what God hath joined together. What does the ascension of our Lord teach us? Is it not the unity of life-the oneness of the natural and the religious life? Our Lord carried up with Him into heaven his body as well as his soul-the results of his whole life on earth-the thirty years of silent and obscure labour as a carpenter in Nazareth, as well as the three years of his recognized ministry of doctrine and miracle, and transfigured and elevated them both for ever. By his life on earth He imparted to the whole earth a heavenly character, made every spot of common ground an altar, every common meal a sacrament, every action of daily life a worship. Godliness is now profitable unto all things.

"Bearing in mind this solemn truth of the unity of all life, let me proceed to consider the significance of the inspiration of Bezaleel and Aholiab. This fact is not of individual but of general application. It is not unique, but representative. It shows to us the true meaning and design of all work. It teaches us that natural as well as spiritual talents are the good gifts of God-that the right use of the powers of the artist, the musician, the poet, the artisan, the mechanic, the day labourer, is due to the inspiration

of the Spirit. Rightly considered, all nature is the tabernacle of God, constructed for his worship. The tabernacle of the wilderness was but a miniature model of the whole earth; just as the people of Israel were but the miniature pattern of all nations. Every man has a part assigned to him in the erection and adorning of this wonderful tabernacle, whose floor is the green fields, whose walls are the rocks and mountains, and whose roof is the ever-changing sky. Every man who does a day's work is a fellow-worker with God in carrying out his great design in creation.

"Such is the aspect in which we ought to regard our daily work. It is not an aimless, capricious thing. It has a wise plan, a noble purpose. Like mechanics and artisans and common labourers working at a building, each in his own particular department helping to complete the whole, and to realize the plan of the architect, so each of us in our special worldly calling is carrying out the plan of the Great Architect, and helping to build up a noble and enduring structure. Toil is the first stage of the process of redemption—the condition of man's elevation out of the estate of a sinful, suffering, degraded creature, to the friendship, fellowship, and likeness of God. Let me explain my meaning by a simple illustration. In the Pacific Ocean there are lovely islands built entirely by coral zoophytes, out of the profound depths. Raised above the level of the sea, floating germs of vegetation alight on them, and speedily cover them with a fair clothing of verdure. Man comes and takes up his abode on these Edens, and makes their resources subservient to the purposes of

human life. By-and-by the missionary appears, and by the preaching of the gospel changes the moral wilderness into a garden of the Lord. The last great result is thus but the completion of a process begun by the mere natural instinct of a creature in the depths of the ocean. The work of the missionary rests upon, and is closely connected with, the work of the polyp. So is it with human toil. It may be a mere instinctive process carried on in the depths of spiritual ignorance; a blind, aimless motion, having no higher object than the mere satisfying of natural wants. Man may be induced to work purely by physical necessity, because he cannot otherwise get his bread; and yet toil is absolutely necessary as the foundation upon which the spiritual structure of our soul's salvation is laid. It begins the discipline which the higher influence of grace must complete." *

May our thoughts and our hearts be more and more drawn to the study of this glorious subject as unfolded in the pages of God's blessed Word.

* Rev. Hugh Macmillan: "Design and Inspiration of Work."

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL OUTLINE OF TABERNACLE AND

ENCAMPMENT.

EXODUS xxv. 8.

THE tabernacle of the wilderness was the em

bodiment of Israel's national and ecclesiastical polity. It gave meaning and character to the nation. Israel can hardly be said to have a history apart from it. On it depended the moral and spiritual welfare of the people. The tabernacle was everything to them, spiritually, socially, and nationally.

Let us first glance at the position of the Israelites themselves in the midst of whom it was set up.

The Israelites consisted of thirteen tribes, all the posterity of one man named Israel. Eleven of the men giving names to the tribes were his sons. Two were grandsons by Israel's son Joseph. Led by the providence of God into Egypt in a time of famine, they were sustained there by Joseph, who, long lost to the family, had become governor, under Pharaoh, of all the land. In Egypt they settled, and increased greatly in numbers, to at least 2,500,000—including men, women, and children. They had "flocks and herds" innumerable. (Exodus xii. 37, 38.) Another

king arose, however, who subjected them to great persecutions and hardships. They were all made slaves. Out of this slavery they were delivered by Moses, and brought into the wilderness, under the command and guidance of Jehovah. The wilderness into which they were led is described as being terrible in its character. (See Deut. viii. 15; xxxii. 10; Jer. ii. 6; and other passages.) Burckhardt, Dr. Olin, Dr. Robinson, and other travellers, inform us that its population, consisting of a few Arab tribes, does not number more than from 4,000 to 7,000 persons; that there are scarcely any birds or other animals in it; that it abounds in barren mountains, shifting sandhills, and gravelly, flinty plains; that it has little vegetation, the mountains being entirely devoid of it, what it has being chiefly scattered shrubs, food only for the camel; that the water is deficient in quantity, and generally bad in quality; and that the rain sometimes fails for two or three successive years.

Dr. Robinson, writing in April, 1838, after travelling in it seventeen days, says that "he had only once seen a blade of grass." He also adds, "We were told that many camels had died in the present year, owing chiefly to the excessive drought, there having been little rain (or, according to the Arab mode of speech none) for now two seasons. As we saw the peninsula, a body of 2,000,000 of men could not subsist a week in it without drawing supplies of water as well as provisions from a great distance." Yet Jehovah supplied his rescued people in this dreadful desert with every needful blessing, for a period of forty years!