xix. THE BLOOD OF THE PASCHAL LAMB. 339 



works are bound together by a wonderful unity and 

 harmony. It is the discovery of such harmonies be- 

 tween the Divine and the human, the spiritual and the 

 natural, that approves the religion of the Bible to us as 

 eminently truthful and reasonable. 



Nor do these considerations detract from the fitness 

 of the occurrence as a type of higher things in the 

 sphere of grace. The fact that the incense of the Old 

 Testament worship was composed of substances which 

 modern science has proved to be eminently favourable 

 to purifying and deodorizing the air, does not take 

 away from the force of its spiritual significance, as a 

 symbol of the prayers of God's people and the inter- 

 cession of our great High Priest. Rather does this 

 new information give a new appropriateness and force 

 to the old symbol. Is it less appropriate that incense 

 should have been used symbolically in the house of 

 God, because we know how useful it is to purify the 

 air of hot, close places in an Eastern climate, where a 

 large number of people congregate together, and to 

 neutralize the effluvia arising from the decomposition of 

 animal matters in the sacrifices of the sanctuary ? Is 

 it less appropriate to plant flowers and shrubs in 

 churchyards, by the graves of our dead, because we 

 have found out in these days what our forefathers, who 

 followed a mere blind sentiment a natural sense of 

 fitness were ignorant of, viz., that shrubs and flowers 

 actually do purify the air and disinfect the noxious in- 

 fluences that emanate from places of interment ? And 

 reasoning in a similar way, is the blood of the paschal 



