of the topic, both in itself, and in its bearing upon the life of the Church at home, must be the writer's apology for offering to public notice a sketch which he feels to be miserably slight and superficial. THE TEMPLE, January 26, 1874. PSALM XLV. 10, II. HEARKEN, O DAUGHTER, AND CONSIDER ; INCLINE THINE EAR: FORGET ALSO THINE OWN PEOPLE AND THY FATHER'S HOUSE. SO SHALL THE KING HAVE PLEASURE IN THY BEAUTY: FOR HE IS THY LORD GOD; AND WORSHIP THOU HIM. FORGET THINE OWN PEOPLE. A PLEA FOR MISSIONS. I. HAT Christ is here-in this 45th Psalm THA Christ, and the Church-shall be assumed and not argued. It is not that we would efface the human subject, any more than we deny the human authorship. "The sword of the Lord," in this part as in every part of the Bible, is first, and to human eyes, "the sword of Gideon." Only we say this-that, whether in allegory, or in type, or in prophecy, or rather, and as including all else, in that real, that living Presence, which is the true Inspiration and the true Sanctity of the Bible everywhere, Christ is here-in this 45th, this Christmas Day Psalm-far more certainly, far more intelligibly, far more visibly to the faithful, than any Jehoram, or any Hezekiah, or even any Solomon, amongst whom an ingenious criticism, whether English or German, has hesitated and vacillated hopelessly. We claim, indeed, for a Messianic interpretation, for a Christ-Presence, rightly understood, throughout the Old Testament, not only (though it is decisive) the authority of Evangelists and Apostles and of Christ Himself, but also the minor corroboration of probability and of reason. If there was any voice of God at all in the Law and the Prophets, it was to be expected that it should be one voice, however muffled or distant, with that which was to speak afterwards in the |