It is true, then, that this text describes what every king should be—gentle and humble, a merciful and righteous lawgiver, not a self-willed and capricious tyrant. But Josiah could not fulfil that. He was a good king: but he could not be a perfect one; for he was but a poor, sinful, weak, and inconsistent man, as we are. But those words being inspired by the Holy Spirit, must be fulfilled. There ought to be a perfect king, perfectly gentle and humble, having a perfect salvation, a perfect lawgiver; and therefore there must be such a king; and therefore St. Matthew tells us there came at last a perfect king—one who fulfilled perfectly the prophet’s words—one who was not made king of Jerusalem, but was her King from the beginning; for that is the full meaning of “Thy King cometh to thee.” To Jerusalem He came, riding on the ass’s colt, like the peaceful and fatherly judges of old time, for a sign to the poor souls round Him, who had no lawgivers but the proud and fierce Scribes and Pharisees, no king but the cruel and godless Cæsar, and his oppressive and extortionate officers and troops. Meek and lowly He came; and for once the people saw that He was the true Son of David—a man and king, like him, after God’s own heart. For once they felt that He had come in the name of the Lord the old Deliverer who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and made them into a nation, and loved and pitied them still, in spite of all their sins, and remembered His covenant, which they had forgotten. And before that humble man, the Son of the village maiden, they cried: “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest.”