As in Beethoven's matchless music there runs one idea, worked out through all the changes of measure and of key—now almost hidden, now breaking out in rich natural melody, whispered in the treble, murmured in the bass, dimly suggested in the prelude, but growing clearer and clearer as the work proceeds, winding gradually back, till it ends in the key in which it began, and closes in triumphant harmony; so throughout the whole Bible there runs one great idea—man's ruin by sin, and his redemption by grace—in a word, Jesus Christ the Saviour. This runs through the Old Testament, that prelude to the New, dimly promised at the fall, and more clearly to Abraham; typified in the ceremonies of the law; all the events of sacred history paving the way for his coming; his descent proved in the genealogies of Ruth and Chronicles; spoken of as Shiloh by Jacob, as the Star by Balaam, as Prophet by Moses; the David of the Psalms; the Redeemer looked for by Job; the Beloved of the Song of Songs. We find him in the sublime strains of the lofty Isaiah, in the writings of the tender Jeremiah, in the mysteries of the contemplative Ezekiel, in the visions of the beloved Daniel, the great idea growing clearer and clearer as the time drew on. Then the full harmony broke out in the song of the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.” And evangelists and apostles taking up the theme, the strain closes in the same key in which it began; the Devil, who troubled the first Paradise, forever excluded from the second; man restored to the favor of God, and Jesus Christ the key-note of the whole.—Evangelist.