in times past by many different ways and
voices, spoke at last to the nations by His Son, '_by whom also He made
the worlds_.' (Hebrews i. 2.)

Let us think for a little while of what was being done with the
Scriptures in the days when the Lord Jesus learnt to read their words
at His mother's knee; words which from first to last told of Himself.

We have seen that no people could possibly honour the actual letters of
the Scripture more highly than did the Jews. The care they took to
keep the words exactly as they had been handed down to them was
infinite; and God, who knows all things, knew that a time would come
when the pure Hebrew words of the old Bible would be eagerly sought
for, and treasured by all who truly honour His Book.

Therefore, although the eyes of the learned Jewish scribes were so
blinded, that they did not recognize their King and Saviour when He
came, yet God blessed all that was true in their work, and it is from
the Hebrew copies which they made of the Books of the Old Testament,
and not from the 'Septuagint,' or Greek translation, that the Old
Testament of our Bible has come to us to-day.

Yet, sad to say, while so careful to preserve the words of the
Scriptures, the Scribes and Pharisees forgot its spirit, the very
purpose for which the Bible had been given them.

A man might know by memory every letter of the Bible, but unless the
Spirit of God were in his heart, helping him to act out in his life the
words he repeats with his lips, all his knowledge of the Bible would
only lie as a dead-weight upon his soul. '_The letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life._' (2 Corinthians iii. 6.) So wrote the Apostle
Paul, who had, as we know, been educated by the Scribes and Pharisees,
and when he wrote those words he was recalling his own experience.

Thus, as year by year the learned Jews thought more of the letters of
their Bible, they saw less of its spirit; worse still, they began to
add to the teaching of the Books of the Law.

Not that they ventured to put other words between those of the Bible,
or to alter it as the Samaritans had done; but they invented long
explanations of almost every verse, and declared that these
explanations must be followed as absolutely as the words of the Bible
itself.

For instance, a learned Jewish teacher wrote an explanation of Moses'
command about obeying the Levites. (Deuteronomy xvii. 11.) Moses had
said that the people were to do what the Levites told t