incumbent pressure, and of gladness, from the feelings of cheerfulness, of vernal delight and joy, which are breathed into every soul alive to the sense of natural beauty, by the spectacle of a fair and stately tree, thick-mantled with its unfaded foliage, and exuberant with clustering fruit. It was for the purpose, therefore, of rendering to Jesus a symbolic, but not the less expressive and emphatic, welcome as the Luminary of the world,-the Victorking of Zion,—the Bringer of salvation, and prosperity, and joy, that the multitude, when they went out to meet him, took branches of palm-trees in their hands, whose green and glossy foliage, waved on high in sign of triumph and of exultation, seemed to the company that approached from Bethany a moving forest, diversifying with a livelier green the russet shades of Olivet. At length they met, the little glad procession from Bethany, and that mightier host, out-poured from the city's wondering gates. Onward he came in lowly pomp,-a serene and tranquil triumph on his brow, though not unshaded, perhaps, with a pale cast of majestic melancholy; and, struck with admiration as he passed, with exulting and adoring reverence the multitude cast down their garments and their boughs before him, carpeting with softness and with verdure his mountain-path,―till, just as he approached within view of the Sacred City,-"when," as St Luke informs "he was come nigh, even now at the descent of

us,

the Mount of Olives," when Zion rose before them across the valley, towering up to heaven "in holy beauties," a sudden impulse thrilled through all that vast assemblage, and, rousing the echoes of Jerusalem's guardian hills, they shouted with unanimous heart and voice, "Hosanna: Blessed is the king of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!" "The whole multitude," to adopt the glowing description of St Luke, "The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and to praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying "—that we may gather into one from all the four Evangelists the various expressions of adoring exultation with which they sought to surpass each other in the competition of emulous praise," Hosanna: Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!-Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!-Blessed be the kingdom of our Father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord! -Blessed be the king of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!-Hosanna to the Son of David!Hosanna in the highest!"

The word hosanna, some among you are aware, is just the Hebrew form of the first clause in the 25th verse of the 118th Psalm, "Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity;" which verse is immediately followed, in the 26th, by the expression, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord." The first

idea, therefore, involved in the acclamation of the people on the memorable occasion now before us, is their acknowledgment of Jesus as the glorious personage predicted in the Psalm to which we have referred. On turning, therefore, to that Psalm, the 118th, you will readily perceive that it consists of a triumphant processional song, in which a conqueror, with his train, is represented arriving before the temple-gate, and demanding admittance in order to offer thanks for his deliverance and final success in an enterprise of great difficulty and danger. In answer to his request, the Priests and Levites who keep ward at the gate unfold at length the sacred portals, singing, at verse 20, "This is the gate of God, into which the righteous shall enter in." He enters accordingly, and the hymn of thanksgiving begins, continuing onwards to the close of the Psalm, and sung in alternate parts by the conqueror and the surrounding assembly,-as the interchange of the singular and plural numbers very distinctly indicates. "I will praise thee, O Lord," he says, "for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation;" on which, remembering that adoring Victor's former humiliation, and contemplating his present glory, the multitude around exclaim with wonder and rejoicing, "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head-stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made; we

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will rejoice and be glad in it." Again his single voice is heard in prayer, for like success in the time to come as that which had been enjoyed in the past,"Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord,-I beseech thee, send now prosperity ;" and again the chorus of the attendant priests breaks in pronouncing blessings on the Victor and his followers," Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord: we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, who hath showed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords unto the horns of the altar." One distich more of responsive adoration terminates the Psalm Thou art my God," he says, " and I will praise thee: thou art my God, I will exalt thee." "O give thanks unto the Lord," they answer with a mighty voice, "for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever!" Now, that the Psalm of which we have explained the structure, and from which the Jews borrowed their words of acclamation on the memorable occasion before us, does refer to the Messiah, and was therefore properly applied by the multitude to Jesus,-acknowledging in him the Christ of the living God, is certain, not merely from the interpretations of the more enlightened Rabbins themselves, or from the fact, that the appellation, "He that cometh,"-" the Coming One," borrowed from this sacred ode, was at the time of our Lord's appearance on the earth one of the most familiar titles of the expected Christ,

but from the express authority of those inspired interpreters of the ancient Scriptures, the Apostles of the New Testament,—who frequently introduce the remarkable description of the stone at first refused by the builders as absolutely useless and unsuitable for filling even the most trivial station in the edifice, and ultimately selected by the Lord himself to occupy the most important and most honourable place of all,-to be the chiefest stay and ornament of the whole majestic structure, as a prediction of him who was by experience the "despised and rejected of men," but " chosen of God and precious."

Since, then, it is expedient that we should pause for the present in the exposition of this narrative, let us, in concluding, take occasion, from the comparison of the triumphal prophecy with the triumphal history, to anticipate the magnificent accomplishment which is yet awaiting the prediction, and of which the history contains but the faint shadow and the imperfect emblem. There is a glorious time approaching when, borne in brighter pomp amidst a tide of fuller jubilee and the thunder of louder acclamations, the King Messiah shall celebrate a triumph worthy of the name,—when, returning with all the multitude of his redeemed from that dim spot where they had dwelt so long in obscurity and shade,-the land of their now finished sojourning, the place of their now empty sepulchres, the Conqueror Messiah, -his victory completed over death and hell, and all