ppealing to those covenant promises in which, since He could swear by
no greater, God had sworn by Himself, that He would never leave nor
forsake, and that when the sceptre departed from Judah and the
law-giver from between his feet, Shiloh should come.

Zacharias was a priest, "of the course of Abijah," and twice a year he
journeyed to Jerusalem to fulfil his office, for a week of six days and
two Sabbaths. There were, Josephus tells us, somewhat more than 20,000
priests settled in Judaea at this time; and very many of them were like
those whom Malachi denounced as degrading and depreciating the Temple
services. The general character of the priesthood was deeply tainted
by the corruption of the times, and as a class they were blind leaders
of the blind. Not a few, however, were evidently deeply religious men,
for we find that "a great number of the priests," after the
crucifixion, believed on Christ and joined his followers. In this
class we must therefore place Zacharias, who, with his wife, herself of
the daughters of Aaron, is described as being "righteous before God."

The phrases are evidently selected with care. Many are righteous
before men; but they were righteous _before God_. Their daily life and
walk were regulated by a careful observance of the ordinances of the
ceremonial and the commandments of the moral law. It is evident, from
the apt and plentiful quotations from Scripture with which the song of
Zacharias is replete, that the Scriptures were deeply pondered and
reverenced in that highland home; and we have the angel's testimony to
the prayers that ascended day and night. In all these things they were
blameless--not faultless, as judged by God's infinite standard of
rectitude, but blameless--because they lived up to the fullest limit of
their knowledge of the will of God. They were blameless and harmless,
the children of God, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and
perverse generation, among whom they were seen as lights in the world,
holding forth amid neighbours and friends the Word of Truth.

But they lived under the shadow of a great sorrow. "They had no child,
because Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in
years." When the good priest put off his official dress of white
linen, and returned to his mountain home, there was no childish voice
to welcome him. It seemed almost certain that their family would soon
die out and be forgotten; that no child would clo