Glimpses of the Golden Thread

IN EXODUS AND LEVITICUS.
3.
THE golden thread appears frequently in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, whether worked in massive form in the broad purposes of the books, or wrought in delicate details in their component parts.
It literally shines out in glory in the book of Exodus, viewed as a whole, while it is none the less apparent in its details. That book opens with Jehovah's people subservient to an idolatrous world-power; it ends with the redeemed people assembled around the sanctuary of Jehovah, and His glory shadowing their camp and filling His dwelling-place. The very story foretold by the prophets is thus in substance before us in this glorious and much-attacked book of the Bible. It is remarkable that the religious infidelity of our day practically denies three of the great features of the book of Exodus, namely: the power of idolatry—by giving to all religions a place of honor; the might of the redemption, which is Christ Jesus—by making light of the sin of man and the atonement of Christ; and the coming glory of God on the earth—by relegating to the land of dreams, the assurances of Jehovah respecting the coming kingdom.
While the future glory appears in type in the grand scope of Exodus, again and again is the thread of gold evident in the ordered unfolding of the rook. The song of redemption there recorded—the first given in the Bible—celebrates the overthrow of the opposing power of evil and the establishment of Jehovah's sanctuary on earth, and thus prophetically chords with "the song of Moses and the Lamb" of the book of Revelation. The overthrow of evil on this earth is a great purpose of God, which will be accomplished in His time, and He would have His people sing of that coming day.
A beautiful tracery of grace and glory occurs in the story of the gift of the manna, with the Sabbath rest to Jehovah, following upon that gift. Israel murmured and hungered in the wilderness, and God gave them bread from heaven to eat—a delightful type of His gift of the Bread of Life. Upon the end of the first week of Israel's reception of the manna, Jehovah connected His own Name with the seventh day, and Israel, as His chosen nation, kept Sabbath unto Jehovah their God. Thus we have a picture of Christ in grace bringing, man into the promised rest of God.
Another week of days in the wilderness opens out the same purpose of God, only from a different standpoint. Israel fought their way towards Horeb, the Mount of God, through opposing Amalek, and they overcame through the intercession of Moses as he lifted up his hands on the hill. The end of the strife was rest, and into this rest Jethro entered, and, together with Israel, partook of the peace offering before God. When the struggle and the war are over, and God's people are victorious through the intercession of their ascended Lord, the nations represented by Jethro and the chosen people Israel, shall in communion, together praise God for His deliverances and victories.
Design is abundantly evident in the structure of the book of Exodus—design which utterly repudiates the notion that the book is the patchwork performance of different sets of writers in different ages. To such as would trace the evidence of design We suggest the careful noting of such words as these: "The Lord commanded Moses"; and it will be found that they are part of a definite structure, upon which the number seven is marked.
Calling attention merely to a few prominent forms taken by this golden thread as it is wrought through the book of Leviticus, we first note the story of the seven feasts of Jehovah. At their head, as a kind of preface to their full story, stands that feast which occurred at the close of every six days—the Sabbath, the rest. As is very frequently the case in the first books of Moses, the Sabbath introduces a great plan of God. The seven feasts following, which ran through Israel's religious year, show how this rest should be reached. Now we must not forget that when the feasts of the Lord were established in Israel, the fulfillment of the whole of them was future. They were all prophetic in their purpose, as well as being designed for the worship of Jehovah in Israel during their commemoration. This stands outside controversy of the first four—the Passover, the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the Wave Sheaf; and the Wave Loaves at Pentecost.
We in our Christian era look back upon the four which have met their fulfillment; we rejoice that Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, and so we keep that feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We rejoice that He is the Wave Sheaf; the Corn of Wheat Who fell into the ground and died but Who is risen from the dead; and we rejoice also that at Pentecost the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven, and that Jew and Gentile, figured by the two leavened wave loaves, were presented to God as the Church. Through Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, the rest of God will be brought about, that Sabbath which shall yet dawn for Jew and for Gentile.
After the four feasts just enumerated had been commemorated, an interval of time occurred in the religious year of Israel, and these three took place—the Feast of Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. The three have not yet received their prophetic fulfillment, but they will do so as surely as the four have received theirs. The trumpets could be blown only in the land of Israel, and the Great Day of Atonement could only be kept there; and so also was it with the joy of the year—the Feast of Tabernacles. We cannot enlarge upon this glorious subject, but the day is at hand when Israel, "scattered and peeled" upon the face of the earth, shall once again hear the call of God. With supplications and with sorrow for their centuries of sin, and of rejection of their Christ, Israel shall enter into the full benefit of His atonement, and then joy shall be the portion of Israel, and of the earth, and the Feast of Tabernacles shall be entered upon.
Let us glance at one more institution noted in the book of Leviticus—that of the kinsman-redeemer.
All Israel's buying and selling of land and of persons were based upon the year of jubilee, upon which day, bonds were loosed and debts were canceled. The poor Israelite, whose stress had forced him to work off his debt by personal labor, was not a slave forever, and was set free in the year of jubilee—"the acceptable year of Jehovah." That year was the herald of the joys of God's kingdom, as the words of Isaiah and the Lord's quotation of them indicate. But there was an institution by which a wealthy kinsman might, if he so willed, become the redeemer of his poor brother. In order to effect the redemption, the rich man needed to claim kindred with the poor one, and in this we have a lovely type of Jesus our Lord, Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. Jesus, the Lord, in order that He might be our Redeemer, became our Kinsman. He did not take hold of angels, but He stooped down to man! He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He was very man, even as He was very God; and having become a man, He humbled Himself to death, even the death of the cross, and by His death and blood-shedding He has become our Redeemer.
The grace of the Kinsman-Redeemer and the glory of the year of jubilee are linked together in the story of the book of Leviticus, and in them we behold the glory and the grace of the golden thread which we delight to trace throughout the varied books of Holy Scripture.
From the Mission Field
The following papers are selected from "India's Women”:—
CALCUTTA A STRONGHOLD OF ISLAMISM.
Its foundations are deeply laid. Its walls of bigotry and superstition rise up around it, shutting out all view of heaven. Its inhabitants are ignorant and self-righteous. "Give us knowledge, but no Savior," was the cry of one of our Mohammedan sisters; to whom Miss Bardsley made answer, "But, Bibi, if you do not care to hear, I cannot come, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and I could not come to you and not speak of Jesus." "Then, Miss Sahib," was the answer, "do not come; I like to see you, but I do not care to hear of Jesus.”
Another woman, a pupil of Miss Wrangham, who has joined the Mohammedan Mission in Calcutta this year, is very eager for her secular lessons, but places her hands over her ears when the Bible lesson is given.
Yet the steady labor goes on, and in time indifference gives way.
One of the lady workers thus writes:—
“I wish I could take you one and all with us for one day's work. Those we work amongst are for the most part very poor, and they do indeed hear gladly. I can only remember five occasions when entrance has been refused. At first some have said no' through fear, or the thought that we wanted pice, which they were too poor to give; but a few words and kind looks have quieted their minds; they have made us sit down, and have listened to our message.
“Come with me into this house; it is a Mohammedan one. Two sisters live here. We sit down on mats; they listen attentively, but suddenly one jumps up.
“Do not leave, Bibi,' I say; just sit a little while.'
“She answers, Why should I hear all these good words to myself? I must call my friends.' She calls them, and then Miss Roseboom has to begin and tell the same words over again. If she leaves anything out, she is interrupted, showing that the woman has really listened to the Gospel message.
“Now we are walking along a narrow path to a house which we wish to visit. An old woman stops us; we do not know her, but she knows us, and has heard us speak before. She says, Miss Sahib, come to my house and sit and speak to me. I am in sorrow, and your words bring comfort to sorrowful hearts.'”
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BURDWAN.
Upon one occasion when I was taking my seat in a third-class zenana carriage in the train from Burdwan to Calcutta—a journey of some sixty miles—our bearer, an earnest native Christian, who had come to help me into the train, opened the carriage door, and, handing in an old lady, said to me, "Ma'am, this woman wants to hear about religion.”
Naturally my sympathies and interest were at once aroused in my traveling companion. She was tall and thin, and must have had a handsome face in her youthful days. Her widow's garb was a spotlessly clean white sari without any colored border; but what struck me most was the earnest, fervent look in her dark eyes. She thanked the servant graciously, and then, seating herself beside me, said, "He says that you will tell me of the true religion.”
I cannot tell you how earnestly she listened, asking questions such as these: "Then can I get pardon for my sins?" "Will the Lord Jesus receive such a sinner as I am?" "I never heard of this beautiful religion before!" she exclaimed. "Oh, how I wish I had such faith as this!”
We talked on rapidly for half an hour, and I quoted texts to show her God's way of salvation. All too soon we arrived at the station where my interesting friend was to alight, to go to her old home in a village near Mymaree. She told me the address of her son with whom she lived; he was postmaster in a remote village in the Burdwan district. As she bade me good-bye, the tears stood in her eyes as she said:
“Oh, how I wish I were going all the way to Calcutta with you, that I might hear more of these beautiful words! I want to get eternal life. I have told my son I want to go and lead a religious life as a fakir [religious beggar], that I may obtain peace of mind; but he will not hear of it. How I should like to come to you and hear more!”
I gave her a warm invitation to our mission-house in Burdwan, and I can never forget her sad, yearning look as she followed the carriage along the platform as far as she could.
Afterward I wrote to her son, sending a Testament (marked by one of our orphan girls), begging him to read it aloud to his mother, as she could not read herself. He wrote a most polite answer, but said, "The Christian religion is for you, and our religion is for us. My mother must remain in her own religion.”
There was no missionary within reach of their village whom I could ask to visit them, and although I kept the address for years, yet I was never able to go there.
Oh, if you could only realize what pain it gives us to feel the great responsibility of being unable to reach these numberless villages where there are many like this dear widow, thoroughly dissatisfied with their own round of meaningless rites and ceremonies, and groping longingly in their deep darkness after the true Light. We have that Light; are we seeking to diffuse it? This story is only one of many we might tell to illustrate the crying need there is for us to extend our village mission stations in this populous district, where Hinduism has many of its almost impregnable strongholds.
The seed of God's Word has been sown in many young minds as well as in the minds of those reached in the zenanas. With God we leave the result.
Yet for our encouragement we often hear of instances where childlike faith begets perfect confidence in the love and protecting care of God. We give two of such instances.
“The heathen mother of one of our little girls in Virudupattie told us that when the cholera was very bad in that place she said to her little girl of seven, 'You must not go to school, or you will catch it.'
“Oh, no,' said the little girl, I shalt not, because the Lord Jesus Christ will take care of me if I ask Him; I am not afraid.'”
Does not this little heathen girl teach a beautiful lesson of trust?
“A sad story comes to our ears today of a little girl strangled and her jewels stolen. The child lived not far from here. The mother of two of our dear girls, Kusheem and Kiron, fears for her children, and does not wish them to go to school.
“' Mother, no harm can happen to us, for God will take care of us; we cannot die unless it is His the children pleaded with simple faith.”
“Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them.”