when, as king and priest, in Jerusalem, he should reign on that throne on which her greater Son should sit forever. Orpah's affection was human. It clustered around the dead; it held fast to the living. It could be loosened, but with sorrow, with tears; it could leave Naomi alone to her hard journey, and go back to seek new, or revive old affections. Not so the love of Ruth. She had been won to the better faith. She accepted the God and the people of Naomi. And that love that waters can not quench, that can cut off the right hand, and leave father and mother for God, was hers. Human affection is strong, but it is brittle. Many love you for your talents, your position, or your hold on popular favor. Take these away, and the fickle multitude seek others, or go back to their idols of old. But religious consecration come out in dark and tearful scenes, and is the tenderest and truest in the time of disaster.

Friendship, true as human friendship can be, is seen in tears and desertion. Friendship sanctified by grace shines in Ruth, lives and labors for loved ones, takes part in the peril and dust of long journeys, sheds tears with adieus, but puts its face as a flint toward the new destination, saying: "Whither thou goest, I will go; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried. Naught but death shall part thee and me.' What lessons come from that field of Boaz! How rich the reward for filial affection! How humble piety blends with the daily duties and adorns the homely virtues of domestic life! How firm a stay, and how divine the refuge of that humble piety that guarded the maiden of Moab, and made her friends

and patrons on all her lonely way, and, while shielding the head of the mother of her husband, was rearing a home for herself, and sending down to all time, her name with Mary, Elisabeth, and other holy women who are immortalized in sacred history in connection with the humanity of the blessed Son of God!

XVII.-JOSEPH, A TYPE OF CHRIST.

"But who shall see the glorious day

When, throned on Zion's brow,
The Lord shall rend that veil away
Which binds the nations now?
The fount of life shall then be quaffed
In peace by all who come,

And every wind that blows shall waft
Some long-lost exile home."

THE old patriarch was about to die. He had attained the full ripe age of "one hundred and forty-seven years." When he stood before Pharaoh, he said: "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and I have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." His life had been checkered, but his end was peace. He died in a royal abode. He loved the tent-home of his fathers more than the palace of kings. He wished his dust to repose in the sepulcher of Machpelah, where the bodies of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Rebecca were laid. He gave his dying blessing to all his sons. To Joseph he gave a double blessing, as a type of the coming Messiah, and elevated the lion-hearted Judah as the one from whom the Shiloh should come. As the type of Christ, Joseph stands out prominently:

I. IN THE NAME HE BORE IN EGYPT, which was

above every name. Besides Pharaoh, it was the greatest name in all the land. It was omnipotent to open and close prisons. At it all Egypt was to bow. It was supreme. Men were to honor it as they honored Pharaoh. All dishonor to Joseph was dishonor to Pharaoh. So ran the royal command. So all Egypt knew and obeyed. It is thus with God's highly exalted Son. To him a name has been given that is above every name. At it men and angels are to bow, and all who insult it, insult God, who him that name. "Wonderful," "Councillor," "the Mighty God," "King of kings," "Creator," "Redeemer," "Judge," the "Prince of Peace," among the names by which the Lord of life and glory is named among men.

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II. BREAD COULD BE HAD ONLY IN THE NAME OF JOSEPH. By it the granaries in Egypt were full. ' Bread, and to spare, in that land was garnered. But it could not be sold nor distributed unless the name of Joseph was invoked. No appeals to Pharaoh could avail, for it had pleased him to commit the distribution of the precious food in the time of famine to Joseph. Men who would appeal to Pharaoh, could only approach him in the name of the great ruler and savior of the land, to whom all rule had been committed. Hungry, suffering, starving men, who came from the surrounding country to get bread, lest their wives and little ones should die, found the doors barred, and all appeals in vain, till they sought relief in the name of Joseph. "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth."

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Jesus presides over the treasury of nered up those stores of mercy, that in the house of his Father"there should be bread enough, and to spare." For this purpose he was bruised and put to shame, and his soul made an offering for sin, that he might "give repentance unto men and remission of sin." "No man can come unto the Father but by the Son." "All who come unto God through him" will be accepted. All who reject the Son must die in their sins.

III. HE BLESSED THOSE WHO DID HIM THE GREATEST WRONG. Joseph was the most affectionate of the sons of Jacob. He neither did nor thought his brethren wrong. It was not his fault that his father loved him too well. It was not his fault that there was given to him the coat of many colors, a badge of his sire's partiality. He was not responsible for the interpretation his brethren put on his dreams of the sheaves in the field, or the obedience of the sun, moon, and stars to the single star that shone in its magnitude. Yet envy and hate, without cause, fired their bosoms, and they resolved to kill him. When the opportunity came for the maddened brothers to put their bloody resolves into execution, Joseph was on a visit of kindness to them. He sought them, laden with tokens of a father's affection. He roamed from field to field to find them. "Behold! the dreamer cometh," they cry; "let us kill him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams." On an errand of mercy Jesus came from heaven, when he was seized by wicked hands, crucified, and slain. His mission was full of peace and good-will to men. "He came to his own,