as never before. For instance, God fed his
people for forty years (except on the Sabbath) with manna. Again, in
the times of Elijah and Elisha, the narrative amplifies, and the
miracles multiply. And once more when we come to the Messianic period,
as exemplified in the story of Christ, the narrative becomes fourfold,
and the miracles multiply as never before. What is the reason for this
amplification of narrative and simultaneous multiplication of the
miraculous? It is because these periods were exceptionally
significant. In them God was trying to teach men lessons of peculiar
importance. So he led the writers to tell the story more in full, and
he himself emphasized the teaching by his own Divine interposition.

#5. In the Patriarchal period# God was calling out him who was to be
the founder of that people which was to preserve God's law through the
ages, and from whom at last was to come Jesus, the Redeemer of the
world. This was a most important period, and one with which we might
well become acquainted.

#6. In the Mosaic period# God was bringing out his people from bondage
and was giving to them laws that were to shape their national life
for all time. He was also giving to them a typology in high priest,
tabernacle, and sacrifice that was to lead them in the way of truth
until, in the fulness of the time, he was to come who was the
fulfilment of both law and type, Jesus of Nazareth, the Lamb of
God, and the Son of God.

#7. In the period of Elijah# and his great pupil, Elisha, God was
making a great effort to call back to himself Israel, or the Northern
Kingdom, which had been led into gross idolatry by Jeroboam, and later
by Ahab.

#8. In the Messianic period# God was fulfilling all that he had
promised from the beginning as to a Redeemer who was to come. He who
had spoken to the fathers through the prophets, and the various types,
was now to speak to men through the person of his Son. Good reason
then why, at the four periods to which we have called attention, God
should provide that the narrative should be more full than at other
times, and that simultaneously there should be the marked intervention
of the miraculous, to prove that God was truly speaking to men, and
giving them divine directions as to how to act, and what to believe.

#9. It follows, then,# that there are four periods to which we should
pay especial attention, as being of unusual importance, and these are
the Patriarchal period, the Mosa