Thank God, that we may say truly that generally the superlatives might have been found sitting at the feet of Jesus.  The heavy, dull masses of meaningless masonry which belonged to Egypt or Assyria, flowered into the pure, delicate, ideality of the Greek builders, and this again developed into the warm, spiritual, suggestive style of Christianity which has covered Christendom with consecrated buildings like the cathedrals of Cologne or Chartres.  The art of twenty centuries has been proclaiming the Christ as perfect in beauty, in grace and refinement, as He is perfect in love and in sacrifice.  The music of the past, in all its highest reaches from Gregory to Mendelssohn, celebrates His grand redemption.  The most gifted poets, from Dante, pealing his threefold anthem from the topmost peak of Parnassus, to Shakespeare, with “his woodnotes wild”; from Milton, with his “sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies,” to Tennyson, with his “happy bells,” which

  “Ring in the valiant man and free,
  The larger heart, the kindlier hand,”

but chief of all which

  “Ring in the Christ that is to be,”

are resonant with loyalty and devotion to Him.  Thus, all voices and all gifts, as they come from Christ, and are claimed by Christ, should be used for Him and Him alone.  The lofty reach of genius is called to glorify Him, and the humblest gift of the peasant in the cottage, or the workman in the mill, or the little child at the mother’s knee, are all due to Christ, to be devoted to Him, and also to be appreciated and rewarded by Him.

[1]Gustav Schwab, quoted by Ullmann, in The Worship of Genius.

JEROBOAM

BY REV.  ALFRED ROWLAND, D.D., LL.B.

“Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.”—­1 KINGS xiv. 16.

Jeroboam’s character is worthy of serious study, not only because it influenced the destiny of God’s ancient people, but because it suggests lessons of the utmost value to His people still.  He may be fairly regarded as a type of those who are successful men of the world.  He was not an example of piety, for he had none—­nor of lofty principle, for he was an opportunist who made expediency the law of his life throughout.  Yet he was permitted to win all that he could have hoped for, and reached the very zenith of his ambition, though he went down to the grave at last, defeated and dishonoured, with this as his record—­he was the man “who made Israel to sin.”

Such a life as his throws a flood of light on our possibilities and perils, showing unscrupulous men both what they may possibly win, and what they will certainly lose.

Jeroboam appears to have been a man of lowly origin.  Of his father Nebat, whose name is so often linked with his own, we know nothing, although an old Jewish tradition, preserved by Jerome, identifies him with Shimei, who was the first to insult David in his flight, and the first of all the house of Joseph to congratulate him on his return.  All we know with certainty is that he belonged to the powerful tribe of Ephraim, which was always jealous of the supremacy of Judah, and therefore hated David, Solomon, and Rehoboam.  It was this feeling of which Jeroboam skilfully availed himself when he split the kingdom of David in twain.