added heed that our faith henceforth shall rest, not upon it, but upon the Divine promise. The faith that does not rest upon God's word is not faith at all. Once removed from this foundation, it becomes a false and wandering light, which will lead us astray, and forsake us when most it is wanted. Working simply from the stimulus of success, our labour will be in vain. Thus there is a danger even in success. Perhaps a larger measure of it may be withheld for this very reason, that we are not strong enough to bear it. Is there not already amongst us too much work done under the kindling influence of this strange fire? God will assuredly leave us to see how fruitless in converting souls are all such efforts as are the product of natural excitement and impulse.

And to those whose love and pity for Israel are so great that they are bitterly weeping, though not fainting, in their work of faith, who, on account of the sterility and hardness of the soil, drop many a tear alongside of the seed they scatter, let it be said, Take comfort, success has been given, but it is not all that you desire. The vision is yet for an appointed time, but it will surely come, it will not tarry. These things must first come to pass. Your faith must be tried and strengthened by trial. The soil must be fertilised by prayers and tears. The seed must be buried in the ground, and must be left there in darkness and in silence to germinate. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Time must be allowed for this. This hidden process must precede the open and apparent result.

"Let those that sow in sadness wait

Till the fair harvest come,

They shall confess their sheaves are great,
And shout the blessings home."

THE MONTH AB.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE.

THE month Ab in the present Jewish year contains thirty days. It commences on Monday, the 31st of July, and ends on Tuesday, the 29th of August.

On the ninth day of Ab, Tuesday, the 8th of August, a fast is observed in commemoration of the burning of the temple by Nebuzar-adan, captain of the guard to Nebuchadnezzar,

B.C. 588, 2 Kings xxv. 8, 9; Jer. lii. 12. The rabbis tell us that the burning began on the ninth day and continued to the next, which explains the statement of Jeremiah, that the burning occurred on the tenth day. This fast was early solemnised by the Jews, and is mentioned by Zechariah as "the fast of the fifth month," Zech. vii. 3, viii. 19.

The destruction of the second temple also is said to have happened on the same day, and therefore the fast is now observed in commemoration of both calamities. The services of the synagogue are long; the book of the Lamentations is read, with other lessons suited to the mournful occasion. The day is kept with the strictness of a sabbath; all labour is suspended; and every Jew, who is in health, is required to abstain from food from before sunset, when the fast commences, till after sunset the next evening, when it ends.

"This desolation," says Josephus, speaking of the burning of the second temple, "was a calamity to make one's heart bleed; the ruin of the most wonderful fabric that ever was seen or heard of, both for structure, bulk, state, magnificence, the honour of religion and of holy things." Many years passed on from the days of Josephus, but they did not heal the wound inflicted on the Jewish heart, by the loss of the holy and beautiful house where his fathers worshipped. Though scattered into all lands, and forbidden to lodge within the walls of Jerusalem, multitudes of Jewish pilgrims braved a thousand dangers in their efforts to approach the spot to which, amid their wanderings, their eye was ever turned. "Oh that I were able," cried the celebrated Rabbi Judah Hallevi, in a beautiful Hebrew poem yet extant, and written during a journey to Palestine in the year 1140, "Oh that I were able to pour forth my spirit there, where the Spirit of God descended upon his elect! Thou wert the abode of the eternal King; and I behold slaves seated upon the throne of thy princes. Why, O my soul, mayst thou not pour thyself out upon these places where the Almighty revealed himself to his prophets? Give me wings, and I will bear unto thy ruins the fragments of my broken heart. I will embrace thy mute stones, and my brow shall touch thy sacred dust." Even the lapse of eighteen centuries has not erased from the memory of the Jew, the temple that is in ashes and the altar that is desolate. "Do you see this mosque of the Mussulman ?" asked Rabbi Saadiah of the missionary Dr. Wolff. "On that spot once stood our

temple, but it is destroyed. Alas! alas! alas! And henceforth Israel must long remain without a sacrifice." Every Friday do the Jews in Jerusalem assemble under the high wall which incloses the ground on which the ancient temple stood, and beside the solitary fragment of old wall which yet remains, and there weep and lament for the desolation. And not in Jerusalem alone, but all over the world, do ber dispersed children observe an annual fast, in memory of the stroke which severed them from their country, and laid low their brightest hopes. In all times and in all lands, has the wailing of the Jews been heard for their ruined temple.

But another day is dawning. To borrow the words of the prophet, "Thus saith the Lord, The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts," Zech. viii. 19. The temple built with hands is destroyed, for its typical design is answered. God, the universal Father, is gathering to himself materials for a spiritual temple from all lands. 'They that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord." This new and spiritual temple is now in process of erection. Oh that its completion may be hastened! Oh that the Spirit of God, accompanying by his saving efficacy the agency furnished by the faith and prayer of his people, may speed the time, when Jews and Gentiles shall become "fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and be together built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone!"

OLD TESTAMENT INTIMATIONS OF THE TRINITY.

"CANST thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Such an inquiry reminds us at once of our utter inability to penetrate the mystery which must ever enshroud the essence of the Divine Being. On & subject so awful, and so far beyond the reach of our faculties, it were impious to offer a conjecture, and equally impious to refuse belief to such revelations as God has seen fit to impart

to us.

For we are not left altogether in darkness. From the light which is unapproachable—the throne of Majesty, on which no man can look and live-intimations have reached us concern

ing God. He has spoken to us of Himself. He has drawn aside something of the veil which He wraps around His inscrutable glory. And in His word, He has afforded to us abundant means of gaining all that knowledge respecting Himself which is adapted to our limited faculties, and necessary to us in our present state of being.

In this revelation, the Old and the New Testament unite. There is nothing in either one of these which contradicts the other. Our Jewish brethren, who have studied the exhibition of the character of God afforded in the Old Testament, will find their views only confirmed and enlarged by the study of the New.

The Old and New Testaments unite in bearing witness to the unity of God." Hear, O Israel," cried the inspired lawgiver, "the Lord our God is one Lord,” Deut. vi. 4: and again, "Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine beart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath; there is none else," Deut. iv. 39. With this agrees the language of the New Testament: "There is none other God but one," 1 Cor. viii. 4; For there is one God," 1 Tim. ii. 5; "One God and Father of all," Eph. iv. 6.

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But not only do the Scriptures unite in bearing testimony to the unity of God-they are also full of numerous and remarkable intimations of a plurality of subsistences in the Divine nature; or, in other words, they explicitly ascribe Divine attributes to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Far be it from us to dogmatise on subjects altogether beyond the reach of our investigation or comprehension. Our simple inquiry is, What saith the Scripture? We believe the Scripture to be the voice of God, and, so far as we understand it, it will tell us true.

Without, then, forming any hypothesis conjoining the facts presented to us in the word of God, our simple purpose at present is, to lay before our readers, and especially before those of our readers who may be classed amongst the descendants of Abraham, the testimony of Scripture concerning a plurality of subsistences in the Divine nature. For obvious reasons, we shall confine ourselves to the writings of Moses and the prophets.

To begin with that very announcement, by which every devout Jew is wont to express his belief in the one universal Father, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," we

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remark that both unity and plurality are here asserted. According to the proper import of the words in the original language, it stands thus: "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our Gods (Elohim) is one Jehovah." Is it not remarkable, that the sacred penmen, writing as they did at a time of general polytheism, and careful as they were to set the unity of God in the strongest light before a people ever prone to prostrate themselves in idol worship-is it not, we ask, remarkable, that they should have selected a plural term by which almost invariably to designate the Divine Being? "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth"- Heb. thy Creators. God said, “Let us make man in our image;" while, immediately after, the idea of unity is resumed; "so God created man in his image." We are told by some that this peculiar construction is accounted for by a rule of Hebrew grammar, that words expressing dignity and honour, are generally put in the plural, even though they refer to singular objects. This is a rule invented for the occasion, it has never been substantiated-and the language of no less an authority than Professor Ewald is, “it is a great error to suppose that the Hebrew language, as we find it, has any feeling for a so-called plur. majesticus.”

In the case above referred to, where Jehovah makes use of the first person plural, saying, "Let us make man in our image," it has been alleged by some, that he is speaking to the angels. How unworthy a supposition! How derogatory to the Divine glory! The rabbis themselves spurn it with indignation: "The Blessed himself," says Abarbanel, “created all these, without any other thing, by his own infinite power;" and Kimchi writes, "None of the angels, much less any of mankind, directed his Spirit, or suggested counsel to him when he was creating the world.”

But many other proofs may be adduced. In not a few of the Old Testament narratives, there is a manifest distinction made between Jehovah as invisible and sovereign, and Jehovah as visible and active. A mysterious being is introduced, called the angel, or messenger, of Jehovah, who assumes and receives the homage due only to the Supreme Being. He cannot be a created angel, or he would not dare thus to arrogate to himself that reverence which belongs to Him only who has declared that his name is "Jealous," and that his glory he will not give to another," Isa. xlii. 4. He cannot be a created angel, or the names, Jehovah, and the Angel