elaborately ornamented with oxen, lions, cherubims, and palm-trees engraved upon them; and beyond these again he would see the great brazen altar of burnt-offering, with its never-extinguished fire; and overhead the roof of thick cedar beams resting on rows of columns. These were the courts of the palace of the Divine King of Israel, for the reception of His subjects and His ministers. [Compare the description of Solomon's own house, which besides its inner porch had another where he sat to judge the people, 1 Kings vii. 7. The arrangement of the Temple is plainly that of a palace.] The house itself again consisted of two parts, the outer of which, the holy place, was accessible to those priests who were in immediate attendance on their unseen Sovereign, while the inner, or holiest place, was the very presence-chamber of the Monarch who dwelt "between the cherubims," which spread their golden wings over the ark containing the covenant He had vouchsafed to enter into with His people, and itself forming a "mercy-seat," where was "the place of His throne and the place of the sole of His feet." In the position which I have, following the requirements of the narrative in the chapter before us, supposed Isaiah to be placed, he would see through the open folding-doors of cypress, carved "with cherubims, and palm-trees, and open flowers," and "carved with gold and upon the carved work," into the holy place, which he could not enter; and the light of the golden lamps on either side would show him the cedar panelling of the walls, carved with knobs and open flowers, with cherubims and palm-trees, festooned with chain-work, and richly gilt; the mosaics of precious stone; the cypress floor; the altar of incense; the table with the shew-bread; the censers, tongs, and other furniture of "pure and perfect gold;" and before the doorway to the further end, and not concealed by the open leaves of the olive-wood doors (carved and gilded like the others), would be distinguishable the folds of the vail "of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen," embroidered with cherubims. In the East the closed vail, or _purdah,_ declares the presence and secures the privacy of the monarch, into which no man may intrude and live; and in the Temple at Jerusalem it was the symbol of the awful presence and unapproachable majesty of the King Jehovah, Lord of hosts. . . . Perhaps on this occasion, or certainly on many others, Isaiah had been joining in the public daily sacrifice and worship, and had afterwards brought his own free-will offering--a bullock or a lamb without blemish. Such an offering, the symbol of his dedication of himself to Jehovah's service, would be the natural expression of