moon and the stars which thou hast ordained." To a being who reasons and reflects, how overmastering and bewildering are the facts of astronomy! Think of the worlds on worlds that fleck the depths of blue above us; think of their inconceivable distance, so far away that they are massed together by their very remoteness; their separateness almost annihilated, closely and sweetly commingling their stellar fires and turning the darkness into a nameless loveliness! Think of their immense weight, and couple the thought with the delicacy of their poise, the force of their onrush, the wide sweep of their circuit, and yet the strange silence of their ceaseless march! But a fact, equally strange, noticeable all about us and experienced within us, is, that such a spectacle of outer majesty does not transform any one's moral nature and create a worshiper out of a rebel. To overcome hate in a sinful heart the mere exhibition of power, or even the exhibition of Almighty power, conjoined with Divine wisdom as a moral appeal, lacks effectiveness. And so a new and extraordinary method of recovery is employed. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of the enemy and the avenger." What is to be understood by this language? What is the inner meaning enwrapped by this expression?

Among others, this, at least, may well hold the worshiping heart. Humanity is the sphere within which redeeming help comes to the race. Here again is a rebuke to the man who expects to soar by tugging away at his boot straps. If man is to be lifted it must be by some force that reaches him; it must come so close it can put its hand of help underneath the sinning soul. According to physical law, force can only act within its own sphere to be effective; it must be brought near, and to be brought closest it must needs be introduced into the very nature. A two-fold need emerges here. Just as in an argument, wisely conducted, wherein some things must be agreed upon, there must be for both parties a common standing ground: so, if man, a sinner, is to be lifted up and made sinless, his Redeemer must be, whatever else He may be, undeniably human. He must enter humanity. And since by the same laws of force we can not lift any one to any higher level than we ourselves occupy, if humanity is to be actually raised to a higher level it must be done by the aid of an unfallen humanity.

New Testament writers unrolled from their wrappings many an Old Testament passage, and laid bare its living nerve.

In the very rush and ecstasy of Paul's argument on the resurrection he quotes from the one hundred and tenth Psalm; "He hath put all things under His feet." And adds, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." In the whole of the eighth Psalm, there is no citation of an enemy except in the second verse. Graves are possible because death is actual; and death is because sin is, for sin entered at the same time and through the same doorway that death did. So when Paul would have the believer rejoice in the assurance of a victory that is complete, he turns to this Psalm in order that death, and the cause of it, a vanquished Satan and a victorious Savior, may be seen in the same glance. The entrance of sin into our world was preceded by a similar entrance of evil into the very presence of God in the heavens. The supplication which rises up out of the Messianic Psalm carries along with it a confidence that the Divine supremacy will assuredly reach as high as ever revolt dared to lift its head, and will render the recurrence of such another apostasy impossible. "Set thou, O Lord, thine uplift above the heavens."

The united prayer and praise overleap the earth and the ages of time, and contemplate triumph not only below but where rebellion originated. "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Rev. xii: 9. Still once more, "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years." Rev. xx: I, 2.

But, while the force which was to effect this consummation, should overtop the universe, yet did Deity graciously purpose to come innermost and touch our nature at the core, and what was so inexpressibly comforting and matter for public grateful song by His redeemed, He published His method, so that love on its way to apprehend that for which it was apprehended of Christ Jesus, could exult in the confidence that He who had begun a good work would perform it until grace should be glory. And since the promised reign of perfect righteousness was to begin when the King should return to Olivet,

it was fitting the ceremony of triumph that heralded it should be on the slopes of the same Olivet.

Isaiah pictured this Golden age: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: And He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears: But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins.

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious." Isa. xi: 1-10.

What is this but the portrayal of a time when guileful men, full of wicked deceit, would lose the poison out of their serpent nature and have a harmless, trustworthy new nature; when savage, wild-beast men would lose the ferocity of their nature and a love would lead them; a child nature would control them, a child spirit would possess them; when the unselfish innocence of "a little child" would have dominion? David sang of the glad, gracious rule promised to his Son, and for which "hope waited with rejoicing" "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth." In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth."

"He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

"They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him; and His enemies shall lick the dust.

"The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him. For He shall deliver the needy when He crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. "He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight. And He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for Him continually; and daily shall He be praised." Ps. lxxii: 6-15. "His name shall endure forever: His name shall be continued as long as the sun and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed." Ps. lxxii: 17.

"Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Matt. xiii: 43. Did not this promise warrant a wondrous expectation? Could not faith, foresee quality in the characters that would be empowered each one to grasp a scepter? Was not the expectation by these plainly stated terms legitmate, that each saint. would have a character that would challenge inspection and compel admiration; a character with quality of intrinsic moral worth; and was not that quality to have all the force and beneficence of the sunbeam? Multiply this single product into the whole family of the redeemed and the solar splendor of that goodly company, would easily and naturally make the places long cursed on account of sin once again gladsome and glorious.

Now and henceforth summer would be outer and universal; but the tropic warmth conditioning agreeableness and insuring fruitfulness would be inner, and perennial, and eternal. The righteous would shine forth from a central, and an inexhaustible source. "God is a sun;" but God becomes the portion of His people, and in this day, the Lord is glorified in His saints and admired in all that believe.

In this time the nations do not turn their offered allegiance to some conscienceless Ahab. Not now are all the world's forces directed by some merciless Genghis Khan. In this period world wide. power is not wielded by a Caligula, nor a Nero, by a Charles IX, nor a Philip II, but earth's highest place enthrones a promised Messiah.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE JUDGMENT DAY.

LL truths stand in relations. Before we can see any one truth fully luminous, we must bring it and place it amid its conditioning companion truths. The Kingship of the Messiah was firmly held by the Jews, but in the divine plan it was to be made manifest, and efficient, along with His sufferings and atoning love, and its benefits could only be appropriated as they were accepted, bound up in the one bundle of a sacrifice even unto death. This was a doctrine unutterably distasteful to His countrymen, and sooner than accept it, they would reject the person, however divinely accredited, who in bringing a blessing, however desirable, chose to bring it and confer it in a disguire so obnoxious. Whoso has ever turned a truth into a falsehood by refusing a fullness of statement, has made a fruitless journey and learned a lesson of bitterness. When the Jew rejected a Heaven-sent Messiah because His amplitude of blessing embraced so much, the experience was costly indeed; the world knows the sad story, and the Jew knows especially, for his own lips have drained the cup of wormwood and gall; yet whenever it has been needful to fix the boundaries of any new unsettled truth, Jew and Gentile alike have always shown an instinctive recoil from the salutary lesson.

Take the Bible doctrine of a millennium; because the period in which it was to be experienced was set forth as a very felicitous one, it did not follow that it might not consist and co-exist with aspects of judgment. “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all," said Jesus. Let the stimulating rebuke be reapplied right here, at the entrance way of prayerful unprejudiced reflection upon the Judgment Day. The Scripture treatment of the subject exacts from faith an exceeding breadth. As we steadily look, the horizon lifts and widens. We become persuaded the entireness of meaning expressed in the term judgment is broad enough to embrace and modify and enrich our conception of the term