gination,
striking out the broad design of the work and its uses first, and then
filling in the outlines. It is not natural at a time when freshness and
inspiration have departed, and squared timber, as we are told, has taken
the place of the living tree.

The priest, when cleansed, was next to be clad in his robes of office,
with the mitre on his head, and upon the mitre the golden plate, with
its inscription, which is here called, as the culminating object in all
his rich array, "the holy crown" (ver. 6).

And then he was to be anointed. Now, the use of oil, in the ceremony of
investiture to office, is peculiar to revealed religion. And whether we
suppose it to refer to the oil in a lamp, invisible, yet the secret
source of all its illuminating power, or to that refreshment and
renovated strength bestowed upon a weary traveller when his head is
anointed with oil, in either case it expresses the grand doctrine of
revealed religion--that no office may be filled in one's own strength,
but that the inspiring help of God is offered, as surely as
responsibilities are imposed. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
because He hath anointed Me."

With these three ceremonies--ablution, robing and anointing--the first
and most personal section of the ritual ended. And now began a course of
sacrifices to God, advancing from the humblest expression of sin, and
appeal to heaven to overlook the unworthiness of its servant, to that
which best exhibited conscious acceptance, enjoyment of privilege,
admission to a feast with God. The bullock was a sin-offering: the word
is literally _sin_, and occurs more than once in the double sense: "let
him offer for his _sin_ which he hath _sinned_ a young bullock ... for a
_sin(-offering)_" (Lev. iv. 3, v. 6, etc.). And this is the explanation
of the verse which has perplexed so many: "He made Him to be sin for us,
Who knew no sin" (2 Cor. v. 21). The doctrine that pardon comes not by a
cheap and painless overlooking of transgression, as a thing indifferent,
but by the transfer of its consequences to a victim divinely chosen,
could not easily find clearer expression than in this word. And it was
surely a sobering experience, and a wholesome one, when Aaron, in his
glorious robes, sparkling with gems, and bearing on his forehead the
legend of his holy calling, laid his hand, beside those of his children
and successors, upon the doomed creature which was made sin for him. The
gesture meant con