which the precious blood of Jesus was spilt. At the base of the same mountain probably the blood that cried for revenge and that which "speaketh better things than the blood of Abel" mingled on the same sacred soil.

Long before Abraham sacrificed his son, this locality was holy unto the Lord. Here Melchisedek lived and reigned King of Salem and Priest of the Most High God. He was so great, that to him

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even the Patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of his spoils." When Isaac was to be made a sacrifice, God appointed the place. He chose Moriah, Zion, and Calvary. Why that long journey to "one of the mountains that I will tell you of?"-why take the journey, the wood, the servants, the lad, traveling three days and looking up toward the Mount of Vision" afar off"-when the sacrifice could have been made at home? But if, as tradition asserts, on this group of mountains Adam worshiped and Abel sacrificed, then we know why Melchisedek ruled and reigned in Salem, and why Abraham made his long journey to the "Mount called Moriah;" for, in the purposes of heaven in the fullness of time, the Lamb of God must be sacrificed on the same hill-top in Judea, and thus the type and ante-type meet.

The foundations of the City of the Great King were laid in religious faith and service. From the sacrifice of Isaac to the time of the Saviour the mountain was a place of worship. Here the children of Abraham called on the God of their fathers. Rude tents were pitched to shelter the worshipers. Rude booths formed a more permanent habitation.

Dwellings were builded here and there to accommodate priest and people. Advancing civilization and strength extended the foundations around Moriah till Jerusalem became the home of the nation and the joy of the whole earth.

The land of the Bible is the cradle of law and government, as well as religion. On the summit of Moriah civil and religious service joined hands to begin their mission of blessing to the children of men. When David reigned in Hebron, Calvary was a waste, Moriah a threshing-floor, and Zion a walled city, which David took from the Jebusites. But he purchased Moriah as a holy place unto the Lord. "With money current with the merchants" he purchased it, and dedicated to God, as the spot where saints and patriarchs had worshiped from the early time. The Most High accepted the offering. And when the sweet-smelling savor went from that ancient place of worship, God sent down the healing power, and the plague was stayed in all the land.

The erection of the Temple on Moriah was by the express command of God. Solomon was ordered to "build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had purchased in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite." And the mighty Temple builded by Solomon crowned the high top of the Mount of Vision, where Adam worshiped, Abel sacrificed, Abraham was tried, and David bowed in prayer. God accepted the house as his own, filled it with his glory, and called up the great nation to worship within its gates, to pour its full living tide

with song and joy into the Temple to keep holy time. Then Moriah, Calvary, and Zion were not more sacred to Divine service, than they were in those hours of the world's infancy when men began to call on the Lord. God has ever had a seed to serve him and a place for the Altar of praise. All along the pathway of the Church he has marked and hallowed this locality, from the sacrifice of Abel to the hour when the only begotten Son was crucified, there making his soul an offering for sin.

Identified as Calvary is with civilization, the arts and sciences, it will be more precious to the Christian and memorable as the hill-top on which the Great Expiation was made. Around it cluster the mysteries of redemption, when mercy in rich drops of blood wet the ground and silenced the voice of blood that cried for revenge. The name Calvary, so sweet to the redeemed soul, is named but once in the Bible. It is associated with ignominy, shame, and terror. Yet not one base or infamous thing would the Church have blotted out. The blood-stained sword of the patriot who died for his nation is a precious relic in the eyes of his children's children. The rope, the chain, the gibbet, by which the noble ones of the earth have passed to their reward from earth are more precious than rubies.

The Christian holds the soil of Calvary in all reverence. Men of all sects and nationalities tread its sacred dust beneath their feet with reverence, bow in prayer under the great dome that covers the site where the Lord of Life and Glory was crucified between two thieves. There are millions who adore

the Holy One whom men sought to dishonor on Calvary. And, as Napoleon said on the rock-ribbed Helena: “There are millions to-day that would die for the Son of God," who died for man.

IV. CALVARY IN THE TIME OF OUR LORD.

WHEN the Redeemer was among men, Calvary was the foulest spot in the sacred city. It was without the walls, and infamous. It was the Tyburn of Je'rusalem, where the vilest men were crucified and buried. Crucifixion was a great disgrace. No Roman could be subject to it. It was the last mark of detestation on the most abandoned and base of men. The soil on the hillside was thin and scanty. Victims had a hasty burial, and from their scanty graves the limbs protruded; and often the bodies of the slain were unearthed by jackals and beasts of prey, and the ground strewed with the skulls and bones of dead men. The hill was popularly known as “Golgatha, the place of the skull."

As our Lord was to die the most ignominious of deaths, he must die in the place most infamous. So the councils of men decided. But, long before Herod, Pontius Pilate, or Caiaphas took counsel together, the death, the season, and the spot, were appointed, in that council in which the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world accepted the mission to save ungodly men. “Die man or justice must, unless for him some other, able as willing, pay the rigid satisfaction, death for death." Infamous in the eyes of men, Cavalry has hallowed all forms and hours of service, from the earlier days, till the blessings of God