prayed with the spirit chiefly, not fathoming the depth of those Psalms, which they sung with their lips and set to their instruments. We who can sing the Psalms with understanding, seeing Christ in them-His struggles, His death, His agony, His victory-we to whose minds the bygone enigmas of the Law have been unravelled by the opened preaching of the Gospel, why, because we have deeper insight, are we to sing with less fervour? why can we not act out in our own practice that resolution of the Apostle's; "I will sing with the spirit; and I will sing with the understanding also?" In order to this singing "with the spirit," let us endeavour to realize the transactions of the earthly house of prayer as giving a glimpse of the worship of heaven. Our Lord called heaven His Father's house; "In my Father's house are many mansions." He called the temple by the very same name; “Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise," indicating a deep and mysterious connexion between the two. It is this connexion, felt and recognised in the inner man, which is the secret of the attractiveness of all Church worship-Jewish or Christian. The mere thought of heaven is a great balm and solace to the distressed, disquieted heart, a great means of raising it above the cares and troubles of this life, because the soul by a true instinct, of which it can give no account, feels

C

heaven to be the bosom of its Father and its home. If Church worship, joyously and solemnly conducted, draws from us a single aspiration towards that bosom and that home, it has done much towards our sanctification, it has refreshed and braced us for our spiritual conflict, as a draught of pure morning air, coming to him from the far off sea or across the purple heather, refreshes the toil-worn artisan for the labours of the day.

III

The Daily Office as the Business of Life

ST. LUKE ii.

36. And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity;

37. And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

38. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

HEN it is said that Anna "departed not from

WHEN

the temple," we need not understand that she never quitted the building. Of the Apostles, after our Lord's Ascension, it is said that "they were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God." Yet the Book of the Acts, as well as the reason of the case, clearly shews that they spent a large portion of their time outside the temple, in the city of Jerusalem. What is meant by their "continually being in the

temple," may be gathered from the indication of their habits, which is given us in the first verse of the third chapter. "Now Peter and James went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour." It is here indicated that at the hours of prayer and sacrifice, the Apostles used to present themselves in the temple, to attend the appointed service. We are to understand in the same way the notice of Anna's manner of life which we have in the text. Her habit was to attend the daily morning and evening sacrifice; to be present when the Levites sang their anthems during the night watches; and, in short, to assist at all the stated devotions, which were carried on daily in the house of God. Of course such a life, though it did not absolutely confine her to the Temple courts, could never have suffered her to wander very far from them; a privation of liberty this which, to a mind not wrought up to a high key of spirituality, must have been more or less irksome. But there are indications in the Old Testament that to a spiritual mind—a mind weaned from earth, and whose affections were set on things above-such a life was a perpetual refreshment and feast of the heart. Witness the pious aspirations of the Psalmist after the glimpses of God's power and glory, which had been vouchsafed to him in the sanctuary: "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek

thee my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." And again, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD." And again, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple." For (as we showed in our last Sermon) the tabernacle and temple worship was framed to emblematize the worship of heaven, where Christ, our high priest, offers for us the Blood of His atonement, and the incense of His intercession, and where angels form the choir and surround the throne of God and of the Lamb with perpetual chants of praise. And, accordingly, we cannot wonder that the temple services, waking in their minds the far-off echo of heavenly things, should have proved so great a refreshment of spirit, that certain religious devotees were found among them, who though not ministers of the temple, as not being of the sacred tribe of Levi, yet attended upon it as constantly as those who werehaunted it, like the martlet who made his nest in the roof, and hung about it as persistently as the porters,