My spirit."

[2] The first business of the interpreter of Scripture is to find out
precisely what every verse or paragraph meant at the time and place
where it was written; and there is endless profit in the exact
determination of this original application. But, whilst the
interpreter's task begins, it does not end with this. The Bible is a
book for every generation; and the deduction of the message which it is
intended to convey to the present day is as truly the task of the
interpreter. There is a species of exegesis, sometimes arrogating to
itself the sole title to be considered scientific, by which the garden
of Scripture is transmuted into an herbarium of withered specimens.

[3] Christ's word is _paratithemai_, and St. Paul's, 2 Tim. i. 12, _ten
paratheken mou_, according to the best reading.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SIGNS

There are indications that to some of those who took part in the
crucifixion of Christ His death presented hardly anything to
distinguish it from an ordinary execution; and there were others who
were anxious to believe that it had no features which were
extraordinary. But God did not leave His Son altogether without
witness. The end of the Saviour's sufferings was accompanied by
certain signs, which showed the interest excited by them in the world
unseen.

I.

The first sign was the rending of the veil of the temple. This was a
heavy curtain covering the entrance to the Holy Place or the entrance
to the Holy of Holies--most probably the latter. Both entrances were
thus protected, and Josephus gives the following description of one of
the curtains, which will probably convey a fair idea of either; five
ells high and sixteen broad, of Babylonian texture, and wonderfully
stitched of blue, white, scarlet and purple--representing the universe
in its four elements--scarlet standing for fire and blue for air by
their colours, and the white linen for earth and the purple for sea on
account of their derivation, the one, from the flax of the earth and
the other from the shellfish of the sea.

The fact that the rent proceeded from top to bottom was considered to
indicate that it was made by the finger of God; but whether any
physical means may have been employed we cannot tell. Some have
thought of the earthquake, which took place at the same moment, as
being connected with it through the loosening of a beam or some similar
accident.[1]

At critical moments in history, when the mind