They live in the house founded upon a rock. What presentiment of his nation's doom came to him in that moment of clearer insight, of more candid intercourse with truth? "_The thoughts of many hearts_"--"the uneasy working of the understanding in the service of a bad heart":--how much was revealed, how much was mercifully concealed? We cannot tell; but strength was given him to bear the gleam of the vision, and still wait. "_O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him_." He saw the Child go out of the Temple; and if, for a moment, a breath as of a chill wind smote his soul, he retired into the deeper consolations of God, where the sun smites not by day, nor the moon by night. If it was his last visit to the Temple, he had seen what would have made it worth his while to have gone there every day for seventy years or more. And let it not be forgotten that God still gives His Child to those who humbly, faithfully wait for the consolation of Israel. Such a picture as that of Simeon gives piety its divinest charm. It is not simply that men have wished to be in his place; but--what is far better and far more practical--they have wished to be in his spirit. He draws them towards him, and after him. He stands in a glorious company of winsome souls, who not only lead to heaven, but attract men on the way. "They are, indeed, our Pillar-fires Seen as we go; They are that City's shining spires, We travel to: A sword-like gleam Kept man for sin First out; this beam Will guide him in." PONTIUS PILATE BY REV. PRINCIPAL WALTER F. ADENEY, D.D.