How came it to pass that the ark was in one place, and the tabernacle and the brazen altar in another? How did it happen that the ark was in Jerusalem, and the altar of sacrifice at Gibeon? Surely they should have been together. So it was originally ordained; so it was at the beginning; and that was the final disposition. There was something irregular and not according to the commandment in the arrangement described in the text. It is difficult to understand how such a departure from the Divine plan could exist in a dispensation in which careful and even minute conformity to detail was accounted a virtue. The connection and the disconnection of these two institutions may suggest to us -

I. OUR TWOFOLD OBLIGATION AS SYMBOLIZED BY THE ARK AND THE ALTAR.

1. Of these one is worship or sacrifice. Men approached the altar of Jehovah with their gifts or sacrifices, and they then came consciously into his presence; they brought their oblations to him; they made a direct appeal to him for his mercy and his blessing. This forms one part., and a large part, of the obligation under which we rest toward God. Jew or Gentile, under any dispensation whether old or new, we are sacredly bound to draw near to God in reverent worship, to bring to him our pure and our costly offerings, to entreat of him his Divine favour, to pay unto him our vows.

2. The other is obedience. The ark contained the sacred tables of the Law on which were written by the hand of Moses the ten commandments. This was the great treasure of the ark, and it was always associated with these two tables; it was, therefore, the symbol of obedience. Both Jew and Gentile are under the very strongest bonds to "obey the voice of the Lord," "to keep his commandments," to do that which is right in his sight, and to shun all those things which he has condemned.

II. OUR TEMPTATION. We are often tempted to do in life and in fact what was pictured here - to put a distance between the altar and the ark, between worship and obedience. Too often there is a very wide gap, even a deep gulf, between the two. One man makes everything of forms of devotion, and nothing of purity and excellence of conduct. Another makes everything of behaviour, and nothing of worship. We are led, either by the current of the time or by the inclination of our own individual tem- perament, to go off in one direction and to leave the highway of Divine wisdom; to exaggerate one aspect of truth and to depreciate another; to put asunder what God has joined together and meant to go together. And this exaggeration, this separation, ends in error, in faultiness, in serious departure from the mind and the will of God.

III. OUR WISDOM. As, later on, the ark and the altar were reunited, as they both stood within the precincts of the temple, and spoke of the vital connection between sacrifice and obedience, so should we see to it that, if there has been any separation of these two elements of piety in our experience, there should be a reunion and, in future, the closest association.

1. The habit of obedience should include the act of worship; for worship is one of those things which God has enjoined.

2. Each act of obedience should spring from the impulse which worship fosters - a desire to please and honour the present and observant Lord.

3. Worship should lead up to and end in obedience; for "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" The devotion that ends in service, in purity, in truthfulness, in fidelity, in self-forgetting kindness, is after the mind of Jesus Christ. Let the ark never be far from the altar, but worship and obedience be always in close companionship. - C.

I. THE ADVANTAGES OF COMMERCE. In softening manners and breaking down prejudices, in helping industry, promoting peace, and stimulating into Nature's resources.

II. THE BLESSINGS OF THE NATION WHOSE SOVEREIGN TAKES AN INTEREST IN COMMERCE

(J. Wolfendale.).