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You mean to say, then, Maggie, your mind is made up that you'd rather share the life of a poor man, who has all his way to make, a man weighted with heavy domestic burdens, a man from a low and disreputable neighbourhood, the child of a drunken father and

"I do, if you consent; and if that poor man is noble and loving, courageous and righteous, true and unselfish, has a large kind heart, and is like Christ Jesus; and, further, if my own heart loves him! Will it not be better to rise higher and higher with him from his lowly simple life than to fall from the giddy heights of worldliness with another ?"

"Brave child! You're right. Your eyes are open. God bless you, and make you and Fred as happy as your mother and I have been."

And she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him.

Another line of the love problem was worked out.

No. XV. Conclusion.

Next year but one Fred and Maggie were married. It was a simple wedding, but it created no small stir at the Bethesda Tabernacle. Maggie had many friends who were anxious not only to enjoy the usual excitement of a marriage ceremony, but also to express their admiration and love of her character.

George was in high glee when Mr. Kingsford told him "it was all his fault; he had made all this mischief," and

laughingly said he was happy to confess it. Old Simeon Goodman thought Miss Mostyn looked more lovely than ever, and yet felt that the beauty of face and form was not equal to the beauty of her chaste and pure spirit. Mrs. Crowdjer stretched across the high-backed pews to whisper to Miss Glaskin, "Didn't I tell you what it 'd come to at that 'eer tea-meeting. Such young things! Don't tell me I can't put two and two together. I knew all about it."

Two groups of children were there from the Ragged School; Fred and Maggie having agreed to make the children of their classes happy by giving them a feast; and another group of the poor, aged, and infirm attended, and each went into the vestry afterwards to receive from Mr. Mostyn, as Maggie's gift, a warm winter garment, some tea, and cake.

And now in this year of grace where are all our friends? Claude Vernon has broken his vow. He is not a bachelor. Mrs. Vernon lives in "style," and the world thinks she is happy. Perhaps she is. If having every material want satisfied is happiness, then her cup is full.

Charles Bradley is one of the most useful members of the church at Ropewood, Lancashire, and is deeply interested in the welfare and sympathetic with the struggles of young men.

About three miles from St. Paul's, in a northerly direction, is a good-sized factory, on whose front appears, in eighteen inch capitals, "Mostyn and Williamson, Builders."

George and Fred are in partnership. Mr. Mostyn has generously given them what he calls "a bare start," and they have made the most of it. They both work at their trade, and do not merely "overlook" it; and by personal attention and justice and thoroughness they have already got "a good connection."

George is unmarried and has rooms to himself in his sister's house. Maggie has not for a moment repented her choice, but thanks God that she has reclaimed Fred's father, got him to be a total abstainer, and that he is now timekeeper at the factory. Mr. and Mrs. Mostyn rejoice in their children, and say 66 Maggie was right," as they look into her happy face, hear the story of her bliss, and play with their merry romping grandchild, who is "just like his uncle," and is destined to go through the world bearing the triple memorial name of George Mostyn Williamson.

JOHN CLIFFORD.

THE difference as to doctrine is the difference, not of opposition, but of development. John does not go against the others, but he goes beyond them. The others set the Saviour before us, as the apostle Peter described Him on the day of Pentecost; "Jesus of Nazareth, a man from God, shown to you (to be so) by miracles and wonders and signs which God wrought by Him." This was the first stage of believing recognition. But as the believer steadfastly contemplated the Saviour, he recognized a divine glory shining through the human nature, and realized what John has set before us, that "the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." We notice a like development in the writings of Paul (2 Cor. iv. 6; v. 19; Col. ii. 9).

We have another exemplification of this doctrinal development in the prominence given to faith in Christ as the inner principle of the Christian life. Faith was, of course, required from the very first it was by faith that the hearer of the Saviour became his disciple: but to dwell upon it as the abiding source of spiritual life, as the condition of that renewing of the heart by the spirit of God, by which a man's whole being was transformed, was teaching alike springing foom a ripe experience and addressed to it: and in this teaching we again notice the similarity of John and Paul.* Therefore this feature, like the preceding one, is no indication of a post-apostolic origin.

The difference as to historical fact proceeds mainly from the doctrinal difference just noticed, and not, in my judgment, from John having related the history of an earlier part of our Lord's history, as Eusebius and Jerome supposed. At any rate their supposition can hardly apply to more than the first five chapters, for with the sixth we come, in the narrative of feeding the five thousand, on common ground with the synoptic gospels. The comparatively few incidents which John has recorded are chiefly introductory to the discourses which he has given, and which are chosen for their suitableness to his purpose. His account of our Lord's crucifixion, and of the week preceding it, which occupies nearly the latter half of his gospel, and

*Compare John i. 12, 13; iii. 5, 15, 16, 36; vi. 29, 40; viii. 24: x. 26; xi. 25, 26; xii, 46; xiv. 11, 12; xx. 30, 31; and Rom. iii. 25, 28, 30; Gal. ii. 20, v. 6; vi. 15.

where he is on common ground, contains much that is not in the other gospels, and this difference too must be ascribed to a difference of scope and purpose, not of time.

But those who tell us that the gospel is the production of a later age, affirm that there are not only historical differences but actual contradictions.* Even these, if relating to minor points, would not disprove either the authorship or the general credibility of the narrative. Indeed such discrepancies rather tend to confirm than to disprove these; seeing that a forger would be anxious to avoid all collisions with previously known records of good repute, while they might easily occur through the slight casual inadvertence of an author conscious of good information and honest purpose.

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"In the fourth gospel," it is said, "his ministry is almost exclusively confined to Judea proper;" while in the other gospels," his ministry was chiefly limited to Galilee;" "it was not till the end of His ministry that He entered the capital as the spiritual Messiah;" "only once in the course of His life did he come into the metropolis openly, and the event issued in martyrdom." It is a sufficient answer to this that the fourth evangelist, by such expressions as Jesus went up to Jerusalem;" "when He was in Jerusalem at the passover;" "Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea;" "He left Judea and departed again into Galilee;" He "walked in Galilee; for He would not walk in Jewry (Judea), because the Jews sought to kill Him;" and such statements as that He was known as "coming out of Galilee," and that His disciples were Galileans, shows that he was as well aware as the others that Judea was not the usual scene of our Lord's ministry, but that Galilee was. It is evident that he regarded the transactions at Jerusalem, however fully recorded by him, as taking place during our Lord's visits to Jerusalem, of which he cannot be shown to have recorded more than six, beside the last fatal visit which is fully given in all the gospels. Of these six, the first, third, fourth, and fifth were at the Jewish festivals; and the sixth was on occasion of the sickness and death of Lazarus; in the second alone is there any indication, and that *See Dr. Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, Vol. ii. pp. 357, &c. † John ii. 13 and v. 1; ii. 23; iii. 22; iv. 3; vii. 1, 41, 52; i. 44; xxi. 2.

not clear, of a design of making Judea the scene of his permanent ministry;† and the persecution which he met with then and afterwards determined him thenceforth to pursue his work chiefly in Galilee It is true that these visits are not mentioned in the Synoptic gospels; but omission is not denial, especially omission in records which do not give, and do not profess to give, a complete and exhaustive account of our Lord's ministry. It was, doubtless, only on the last and fatal visits that He went up openly as the Messiah, because it was only near the close of His ministry that he publicly assumed that character, His claim to which had been previously communicated only to a few, while the multitude murmured at the uncertainty in which they were left. §

Another marked diversity, we are told, is to be noted: "The Jews of the Synoptists are represented in lively and diversified colours agreeably to nature.

In the fourth gospel the Jews have one uniform character. There the hierarchy, termed the chief priests and Pharisees, are all in all." This description of the contrast is, I apprehend, much exaggerated; and so far as the contrast itself really exists, it may be fully accounted for. John has a much smaller number of incidents, and therefore much less variety both of incident and character, because his purpose required less. And is it to be wondered at, that he has spoken of the Jews generally as unbelievers? When the materials embodied in the synoptic gospels were written, there was a large Christian church at Jerusalem, and probably many others in Palestine. But when John wrote, Palestine was desolate, the Jews had been crushed by the judgment of God which their rejection of Christ had brought upon them, the provincial churches had apparently been swept away, and the remnant of that at Jerusalem driven into an obscure exile at Pella, in the country beyond the Jordan. To the mind of the evangelist, all other national characteristics were darkened by the shadow of that unbelief which had involved his nation in ruin, and driven him to end his days far from his birth place and from the sepulchre of his fathers; and above all, far from the haunts made sacred by the presence and glory

If the shadow

of his ascended Master. of approaching judgment had clouded the mind of Paul,* much more would the deeper shadow of judgment fulfilled affect the mind of the aged John.

It remains to notice the difference between the synoptic gospels and that of John in regard to the style of our Lord's teaching. I think most thoughtful readers must recognize and feel this difference even in our authorised version. Perhaps one of the most obvious features of the last gospel is the absence of those parables, of which the synoptic gospels have so many and of such beauty. To a certain degree this may be accounted for by the difference of doctrine, and by the different character of the audience to which the discourses in John were addressed. Parables were vehicles of instruction suitable to the Galilean peasantry and others like minded, who followed Jesus with the hope of benefit, and with a certain readiness to believe: they might be dull, low-minded, indifferent; but they were not captious, not hostile, like those to whom the discourses in the fourth gospel were mainly addressed. Yet in some of our Lord's discourses in the synoptic gospels, we have no parables properly so called; in the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, in the discourse on sending out the twelve, and in the severe rebuke of the Scribes and Pharisees in the gospel of Matthew;+ but we have instead, the metaphor and the simile as in John.

But the difference is mainly, I apprehend, to be ascribed to other causes. First, to the comparatively late date of the fourth gospel, and to the fact of its being produced without the aid of documents, and in a different tongue from that in which our Lord's discourses were delivered; and then to the fact that the truths embodied in those discourses had been so completely, in the apostle's ripened experience, appropriated by him, that in their reproduction they inevitably took much of their outward form and colour from his own mind, to which they had long become assimilated.

In estimating the comparative lateness of the date of the fourth gospel, we must reckon, not from the time of the publication of the synoptic gospels, but from the earlier, probably much earlier, time when the documents were written from which they appear to have been compiled. The influence, too, of the circumstance that the gospel of John was the product of unaided memory, would

*See Romans ix, x. † Ch. v.-vii.; x; xxiii,

be increased, if we regard it, as there is reason to think we should regard it, as dictated to an amanuensis, not written by the evangelist's own hand. Speech is a more spontaneous and less formal mode of utterance than writing, and therefore represents more closely the mind of the speaker. This supposition

of dictation would account also for the ease and apparent unconsciousness with which the evangelist passes from reporting the discourses of his Master to the expression of his own thoughts or feelings on the subjects to which they relate. This transition is a special feature of the fourth gospel; and the apparent unconsciousness of it is shown by the frequent difficulty of fixing the precise point at which it takes place.

I have now endeavoured to show that those features of the gospel on which the objections rest, were the natural consequences of the purpose, age, and circumstances of the writer. To me, the gospel seems to have a character altogether at variance with that of a forgery. There is a deep earnestness of tone about it which could hardly have been given to it by one writing with the consciousness of literary fraud. Look at the vividness of the narrative portions. How true to life they are. Take, for instance, the examination by the Pharisees of the man whose eyes Jesus had opened; observe the quiet sarcasm of his answers,* and the vexation of his examiners. Or look at the simple tenderness and pathos of the account of the raising of Lazarus,† and of the scene at the cross. Then again notice the accordance of this gosgel with the synoptic gospels in regard to the character of the persons introduced for instance, how completely alike in Luke and in John§ are the sisters of Bethany, the practical, energetic Martha, and the quiet, pensive Mary. The impetuosity too of Peter is faithfully given;|| and in the evangelist himself there is the same readiness to yield the lead to the more energetic Peter, and the same outburst of feeling at the remembrance of those who had wronged his Master, which we have in the other gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles. T

:

This lifelikeness in the narrative, and accordance in the representation of character with the other books of the New

Testament, are the more remarkable, when viewed in combination with the failure of our evangelist to give our Lord's characteristic manner to his discourses. There is a strange contrast here. In the evangelist himself, it is accounted for, as already shown, by the very thoroughness with which he had absorbed his Master's thoughts, and incorporated them with his own inner life; so that they were reproduced, not in their original form, but in that which they had taken in his mind. But with what his eye had seen, the case was different ; the deep impression of the outward form, which alone the eye sees, remained uneffaced, and was by the old man clearly remembered and vividly and faithfully given. The experience of my older readers will confirm the assertion that the words, the outward form of what we hear, fade away, though we may retain the substance of their meaning; but that the form of what we have seen remains with us.* In the case of the evangelist, then, the contrast is accounted for. But in the case of a forger it is not accounted for: he that is so vivid in his representation, and so accordant with others in one case, would have been so in the other; or conversely, he that had failed in one case would never have succeeded in the other.

The doubts which in recent years have been expressed as to the date and authorship of this gospel, and indeed of the others, will, by the attention which they excite and the inquiries which they stimulate, ultimately establish the old belief on a surer foundation than before: and this sacred record will recover, where it has not retained, its hold on the Christian's heart. It is of all the gospels that in which we come nearest to Christ, and behold Him in his divinest aspects; and we feel that no one but the disciple who lay in His bosom could have set Him before us in such a light. We watch him reverently as he walks by the banks of Jordan. We listen to Him as, resting by Jacob's well, He talks with the woman of Samaria; or as, at the pool of Bethesda, He bids the life-long cripple“ rise, take up his bed and walk."§ We watch with reverent wonder the gushing tear which speaks his tender sympathy with the grief that was so soon to be changed into unhoped for joy. We stand with the evangelist beside the cross, while the dying Saviour entrusts to his care His

* "Segnius irritant animos demisea per aures Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus. Horace.