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lon to Rome; Samaria, the very heart of Israel, had apostatized; the north had become the Galilee of the Gentiles; all Palestine, a prey to a denationalizing lust for empire, had fallen under the yoke of Caesar, and the entire population, by the exigencies of business and politics, was hourly exposed to heathen defilement. Then it was that the Pharisees arose to be the saviours of the nation. Self-constituted expounders of the law, they proceeded to throw around each member of their race at home and abroad such a network of ordinances concerning years of jubilee, Sabbath observance, sacrifices, purifications, his food, his clothing, fasts and tithes, that at every turn, in every little circumstance of life, his nationality and his religion were brought prominently before him. In all their outward observances, too, the Pharisees themselves were scrupulously exact. What wonder then, that having preserved intact the " remnant " of prophecy, this aristocrat, this patriot, this zealous stickler for the law, should enter God's Temple with a sense of proprietorship, and proudly elbow his way to the first place, and, standing, thank his God that he was not as the rest of men! Was he not God's champion against the heathen dogs, and the extortioners and unjust and adulterers of his own race? Did he not fast twice a week and give alms of all that he possessed? With half such good reasons, I repeat, any one of us would give way to self-congratulation, and of us as of the Pharisee would be true the words of the Spirit to the Church of Laodicea: " Thou sayest: I am rich and wealthy and have need