before the Holy of Holies, was the golden altar of incense, on which the red coals

glowed. To his right (the left of the altar - that is, on the north side) was the table of

shewbread; to his left, on the right or south side of the altar, was the golden candlestick.

And still he waited, as instructed to do, till a special signal indicated, that the moment had

come to spread the incense on the altar, as near as possible to the Holy of Holies. Priests

and people had reverently withdrawn from the ne ighbourhood of the altar, and were

prostrate before the Lord, offering unspoken worship, in which record of past

deliverance, longing for mercies promised in the future, and entreaty for present blessing

and peace,21 seemed the ingredients of the incense, that rose in a fragrant cloud of praise

and prayer. Deep silence had fallen on the worshippers, as if they watched to heaven the

prayers of Israel, ascending in the cloud of 'odours' that rose from the golden altar in the

Holy Place.22 Zacharias waited, until he saw the incense kindling. Then he also would

have 'bowed down in worship,' and reverently withdrawn,  23 had not a wondrous sight

arrested his steps.

On the right (or south) side of the altar, between it and the golden candlestick, stood what

he could not but recognise as an Angelic form.24 Never, indeed, had even tradition

reported such a vision to an ordinary Priest in the act of incensing. The two super-natural

apparitions recorded - one of an Angel each year of the Pontificate of Simon the Just; the

other in that blasphemous account of the vision of the Almighty by Ishmael, the son of

Elisha, and of the conversation which then ensued25 26 - had both been vouchsafed to

High-Priests, and on the Day of Atonement. Still, there was always uneasiness among the

people as any mortal approached the immediate Presence of God, and every delay in his

return seemed ominous.27 No wonder, then, that Zacharias 'was troubled, and fear fell on

him,' as of a sudden - probably just after he had spread the incense on the altar, and was

about to offer his parting prayer - he beheld what afterwards he knew to be the Angel

Gabriel ('the might of God'). Apart from higher considerations, there could perhaps be no

better evidence of the truth of this narrative than its accord with psychological facts. An

Apocryphal narrative would probably have painted the scene in agreement with what, in

the view of such a writer, should have been the feelings of Zacharias, and the language of

the Angel.28 The Angel would have commenced by referring to Zacharias' prayers for the

coming of a Messiah, and Zacharias would have been represented in a highly enthusiastic

state. Instead of the strangely prosaic objection which he offered to the Angelic

announcement, there would have been a burst of spiritual sentiment, or what passed for

such. But all this would have been psychologically untrue. There are moments of moral

faintness, so to speak, when the vital powers of the spiritual heart are depressed, and, as

in the case of the Disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration and in the Garden of

Gethsemane, the physical part of our being and all that is weakest in us assert their