Christ the Central Sun of the Scriptures.
THE wonderful variety of style which pervades the composition of the word of God, is in singular contrast with the unity of design which reveals itself on all the heavenly pages. The Scriptures of divine truth are not like one blazing point of light, radiating its glory and shining like one great central sun, but rather, they are like the stars which gild the firmament with their golden light, some with fainter, and some with more dazzling splendor, yet all with harmonious brightness, mingling and intermingling their resplendent beauty till it falls in mellow floods upon the earth. The matter-of-fact histories, and wise statutes of the great Hebrew statesman, have little seeming correspondence with the choral strains of the Psalmist; with the bursting raptures of Isaiah; with the calm moralizing of Solomon; with the sweet simplicity of the Evangelists; with the mighty logic of Paul; with the saintly tenderness of the apostle John. Yet, varied as all these are one from the other, there is one point far up, where, like the sides of the pyramids, they meet and blend together. That point is God, shining out in the world in the face of Jesus Christ. Around this point, as a fixed and unvarying center, gather all divine laws, precepts, hymns, histories, arguments, entreaties, examples. Christ, the vicarious sufferer, shines forth in the sacrifices of the Old Testament; in the chaste simplicity of the New. As the Saviour of the world he is revealed in visions, chanted in Psalms, foretold in prophecy, proclaimed in the promises of God to the hearts of the faithful. The diligent student of the word of God cannot fail to observe how thoroughly the sacred writers were imbued with the conception of Christ and his divine work. To him their best praises are ascribed; their loftiest honors freely given; their hearts' love joyfully devoted, while many a place on their pages, veiled for the most part in profoundest mystery, reveals for the moment, as a curtain lifted and suddenly dropped, the Son of God, the Redeemer of Israel. As Christ is the great central thought of the Scriptures, so should he be of his church in all its vast and blessed labors, in all its sublime attempts to spread through the world the knowledge of his truth. The name of Christ should sound like sweet music, in all the service of his temple; in the humble instruction which breathes the glad tidings from house to house; in all the glow of the believer's consecrated life. It should quicken to unwavering labor and sacrifice on earth, as it kindles to hosannas and endless praises in Heaven.—Boston Recorder.