of accident, for God does nothing by accident. It was not without a meaning, for God, in teaching man, says nothing without a meaning. It is not easy to explain. When we wish to unlock some of the symbols that we find in the department of numbers, 'Lo, the key hangeth by the door!' But others are left without a hint to indicate their meaning, and, when the Interpreter Himself does not come to our aid, we are lost in a maze of subtle trivialities, or puzzled at a game of religious riddles, unworthy of ourselves, and disrespectful to the great realities that are kept waiting. Archbishop Trench says, 'As to the number forty, which occurs so frequently in connection with remarkable events, it is everywhere the symbolical number or signature of penalty, affliction, confession, or punishment of sin.' If so, we can hardly see the nexus of all this with the forty days after our Saviour's passion.

We are inclined to adopt in preference the view of Canon Westcott, who says, 'The space of forty days is always in Scripture a period of solemn waiting, followed by issues of momentous interest. When the hope of the world was sheltered by the ark, there was rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. When the people had been rescued from Egypt, Moses was forty days on the Mount before he received the law. For forty days the spies examined the

land of Canaan, the image of our heavenly country. For forty days Elijah tarried in Horeb before he obtained the revelation of God. For so long repentance was offered to the Ninevites; for so long Ezekiel announced the typical punishment of God's people. Only once again the same period is mentioned in the Bible, where it is written that the Lord fasted for forty days before He began to proclaim glad tidings to the world. So it was that Christ's ministry ended as it had begun. The same mysterious, measured space in each case separated and united the old and the new.'

2. The place. There was to be just one more appearance, and at what place? Luke tells us in his Gospel that 'He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them, and it came to pass that while He blessed them He was parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.' After this he tells us in the Book of the Acts, 'Then returned they from the Mount called Olivet.' The two accounts harmonise. The place was evidently one of those wild uplands of Olivet which immediately overhang the village of Bethany. If we correctly understand the reason for this, it adds immensely to the charm of the final scene. Suppose you were on the point of setting sail to Auckland, or any other far distant spot, when you had passed through the last hurry, finished the last item of prepara

tion, and had spoken your farewells to friends all round, perhaps there would be some particular dwelling, or some particular room, to which you would run for one more look or one more word. Jesus, though Son of God, was also as truly Son of man as you are; He had natural sympathies and feelings just like yours; and I am, therefore, not surprised to find that, just as He was at the point of setting out for glory, He went to take one last look at His beloved Bethany, and, perhaps, to utter one last word to 'Mary and her sister, and Lazarus.'

3. The mode of the ascension. All through the forty days the great Lord had been pleased to temper, shade, and veil the dazzles of His face, so that the disciples might speak to Him. Speak to Him they did, in bolder and bolder tones, forgetting at length to keep their distance. The awe shed from the presence of the supernatural seemed gradually to dissolve; His familiarity led to their familiarity; they went on to talk and talk, and ask Him questions in the old free way, such, for instance, as this: 'Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' He hushed their curiosity, and told them what was their own business-namely, to live as His witnesses. Having consecrated them to this office, then-then the great High Priest rose, as if to intimate that the interview was over; then, I think, His voice began to swell into grander

cadence, and His form to tower into more commanding majesty-hardly believing their own eyes, they saw-yes, they saw-His feet begin to rise from off the ground! Almost unable to gasp while they looked, they saw Him slowly rise higher and higher, higher and higher, until ‘a cloud received Him out of their sight.' As at the first He rode into the world, so now He rode out of it, by a chariot of mystery. As if in a dream, as if the glory still scintillated, and the voice still hung in space, there they still stood, stood struck, stunned, fascinated, staring into vacancy, rooted to the spot, till a sound startled them back to time, and an angel said, 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? This Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven.'

II. The witnesses appointed at His ascension. What we are to understand by this appointment, and what are the functions it involves, are questions that immediately follow the subject that has just occupied us. It was a practical answer to a speculative question, when the disciples said to Christ, Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' He said to them, 'Ye shall be My witnesses.' They were to be witnesses, not of that glorious ascension alone which was about to take place, but of His life and death, His words and works, and of 'all

the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God,"1 revealed by Him before as well as after His Passion. This appointment was distinct from, though connected with, the missionary charge already given; not only were they to be preachers, but witnesses.

1. My first and radical remark on the passage recording the appointment is, that all Christians are appointed to be Christ's witnesses. Listen again, But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.' 'Yes, I was there.' So may each Christian say who is living at this hour. 'I was there, when these words were spoken and these things were done. I was there in my eleven representatives who were personally there.' 2 As says the great Austin, 'If the promissory words, "Lo, I am with you alway," were spoken in the hearing of "the eleven only," yet every one knows that through "the eleven"

1 In verses 12, 13, of the first chapter of the Acts, we are told that Jesus appeared to His disciples through the forty days, 'speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.' These, Tá phuara, included the whole substance of Christ's doctrine.

2 Assuming, as it has been the rule to do, that on this occasion, as at the Lord's Supper, only the Apostles were present.