CHAPTER VI

TYPES

"This is the day when Christ arose So early from the dead; And shall I still my eyelids close And waste my hours in bed!

"This is the day when Jesus broke The chains of death and hell; And shall I still wear Satan's yoke And love my sins so well!"

"But you say that all these things were types," observed Amy. "Now, what is a type, dear mamma?"

"A kind of shadow or picture of something usually greater than itself," replied Mrs. Temple.

"I don't understand," said Elsie, raising her blue eyes gravely to the face of her mother.

"You know, my dear, that before you came to live in this house, when none of the family but myself had seen it, you still had some little knowledge of what it was like."

"Yes, for you brought us little pictures of the house, both of the back and the front," said Agnes.

"We knew that it was a pretty white house, and had a little tower on one side, and that trees were growing in front, and creepers all up it!" cried Elsie.

"Now, I might have described the place to you in writing, but you would not have known its appearance as well as you did from the pictures," observed Mrs. Temple.

"No, from a mere description, I should not have been able to find out the house directly as I did when I walked alone from the station," cried Lucius. "There are several white houses near this, but the remembrance of the pictures made me know in a moment which was the right one."

"Now, my children, just what a picture is to the object which it represents, so is a type to its anti-type; that word means the real thing of which it is a likeness," observed Mrs. Temple.

"I am afraid that I am very stupid in not making out what you mean at once, dear mamma," said Amy; "but if you would explain just one type in the Bible, I think that I might be able to understand it better."

"Let us take, then, the innermost part of the Tabernacle, the Holy of holies," replied Mrs. Temple. "It was a very beautiful place, full of the glory of God, in which no objects were allowed to be but such as were precious and pure; there was the mercy-seat like a throne, and there were the bright cherubim spreading their golden wings. Now, my children, if we compare small things to great things, cannot you of yourselves find out of what this Holy of holies was a picture or type?"

"A type of heaven!" exclaimed several voices at once; but Amy looked distressed, and murmured softly, "I hope not a type of heaven."

"And why not?" asked Lucius quickly.

"Because no one was ever allowed to go into the Holy of holies save one man, and he only once in the year," replied Amy sadly.

"And that 'not without blood,'" said Lucius, pointing to the seventh verse of the chapter which his mother had just been reading.

"Go on reading, Lucius," said his mother.

And Lucius, as desired, went on. "'Not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people, the Holy Ghost thus signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.'"

"Or, in simpler words," said Mrs. Temple, "that the way into heaven was not yet made plain. When Christ, our great High Priest, had gone into heaven, 'neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.'"

"Then, mother, the high priest must have been a TYPE of the Lord Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Lucius.

"No," interrupted Agnes, "the sacrifice was the type, the sacrifice whose blood had been shed."

"Both high priest and sacrifice were types of our blessed Saviour," replied Mrs. Temple. "The Lord was the victim offered, and He was also the high priest who made the offering, for He laid down His life of Himself, since no man had power to take it from the Almighty Son of the Most High."

"Was there any particular meaning in the veil of the Temple being rent in twain from the top to the bottom, as soon as our Lord died on the cross?" inquired Agnes, who had been listening with serious attention.

"We cannot doubt it," answered her mother. "The Temple was the far larger, more substantial building which took the place ¹ of the Tabernacle of the wandering children of Israel; it, too, had its veil of rich work to shut out from mortal view the Holy of holies. But as soon as the One great Sacrifice had been offered on the cross, when the dying Lord could cry out 'IT IS FINISHED,' then followed the rending asunder of the hiding veil, as a sign and type that all the Lord's people, through His precious blood, might freely enter heaven, the real Holy of holies, and appear without dread of meeting His wrath in the presence of God the Father."

¹ The Temple standing at the time of our Lord's death was not Solomon's, which had been burnt more than six hundred years before.