CHAPTER XIII.

THE HABITABLE CAPACITY OF THE NEW EARTH.

THE foregoing discussions lead to a consideration of the capability of the new earth to sustain so vast a population as that indicated by the dimensions of the symbolical city.

The first question which presents itself is that of space. Would there be room on the surface of the globe for the comfortable residence of so immense a multitude? The circumstance, that the company of the redeemed is symbolised under the emblem of a great city, appears to denote the high civilisation which is to characterise the future and everlasting state of human society. It may hence be fairly inferred that the generality of mankind shall not be scattered in isolated families over the surface of the globe, but that they shall dwell in great and wellordered societies, living in cities of a large but not immoderate size-only of such dimensions as shall most conduce to the welfare of the inhabitants, enabling them to partake of the enjoyments both of urban and rural life.

We may even take the superficial area of the symbolical city as an indication of the extent of surface that will be occupied by the actual dwellings of the redeemed. To each individual there is appropriated one square model or 144 square cubits, equivalent to 36 square yards, giving a rate of about 86,044 per square mile. There being in

the city 273,248 millions of square models, this is equivalent to 4,337,852 square miles for the total area occupied as habitations. It is not necessary, however, to suppose that the redeemed are to be collected into one great city. It appears more probable that they shall be distributed into numerous cities of moderate size, but so linked together by easy means of intercourse, and by a community of sentiment and feeling, that they may all be regarded as fellow-citizens of one great city.

The present habitable area of the dry land is about 51 millions of square miles; and supposing the future habitable area of the globe to be of no greater extent, there might be as much as 20 millions of square miles assigned for the habitations of men, with the needful spaces around them, and yet leave ample room for other purposes. This would reduce the density of the population to 21,500 per square mile, which for urban population is not excessive.

Nor is it improbable that, in the course of the alteration which the globe appears destined to undergo by the action of fire, its habitable surface may be very much enlarged, at the expense of its specific gravity, by its being converted into a hollow spheroid of larger external dimensions than it has now. Such an alteration would not affect its relations to the other members of the planetary system, and might act beneficially, by causing the earth to intercept a larger amount of solar energy, which would become available for enabling our globe to maintain a greater amount of continually subsisting organic life.

Then, as respects the question of food, there are various circumstances to be taken into account in forming an estimate. First, there is the perfect assimilation of the aliment, which will render unnecessary so considerable a quantity for each individual as that now consumed; secondly, there is the increased fertility of the soil, attending

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the removal of the curse of barrenness; and thirdly, there is the circumstance of the food's growing on trees without the aid of culture. This last perhaps affects the question more than either of the other two. If the phrase, employed in the original to express the fruitfulness of the trees, is to be understood as meaning that each species yielded a fresh crop regularly every month, this statement would indicate a twelvefold increase in the fertility of the soil. But, according to this view, it is to such an increase in the production of tree-borne fruit that we are to look, and not to the general capacity of the soil alone.

Now, in the case of the banana, we have an instance of the food-producing power of trees, sufficient to afford an indication of what may be expected from similar sources in the new earth. It has been estimated by Humboldt, that a square mile of ground planted with bananas is capable of yielding yearly 50,000 tons of nutritious food. The quantity of aliment capable of perfect assimilation, required for each person, might be fairly estimated on an average at a quarter of a ton yearly-being over a pound and a half a day; so that a ton would suffice for four individuals. But to avoid fixing too low a limit, suppose half a ton annually to be produced for each person; then 50,000 tons would sustain 100,000 individuals-being at the rate of 10 square miles of plantation per million. Hence, supposing the fruit-bearing trees of the new earth to be only equal in food-producing power to the banana, the space required for affording sustenance to a population of 374,000 millions would be only 3,740,000 square miles-a space quite trifling compared with the superficial area of the dry land.

This is the estimate which may be formed, if we understand the description given in the original to mean that the trees yielded their fruits in successive months; but if we understand that each tree yielded a fresh crop every

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month, concluding thence that the productive powers of the soil are to be increased twelvefold, then a space of little more than 300,000 square miles would suffice. Thus it appears that, for the dwellings and sustenance of the vast multitude of the redeemed, as estimated from the dimensions of the symbolical city, less than half of the present superficial area of the dry land would be quite adequate, leaving the remaining half free for other purposes.

There is something very significant too in the tree's growing beside the Water of Life. It brings to mind the beautiful simile-He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.' (Psalm i. 3.) In a physical sense, this circumstance appears to indicate that the trees which are to supply bodily nourishment to the redeemed shall, by Divine Providence, be so cherished and cared for that their fruits shall never fail. They shall continually yield such abundant supplies that the redeemed shall never have, on the subject of their sustenance, one anxious thought: They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.' This security will, to the great mass of mankind, who have during all their lives on earth been maintaining a constant struggle to obtain their daily bread, be of itself no small happiness.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE METAPHYSICAL MEANING OF THE FRUITS OF THE TREE OF LIFE.

WHILE it is thus probable that the emblem of the Tree of Life has a subordinate physical meaning, as shadowing forth the provision made for the bodily wants of the redeemed, it appears more certain that it has a primary metaphysical signification, and that it symbolizes the provision made for the mental nourishment of the nations of them that are saved.

The food of the mind is ideas, without which it is a mere blank; consequently by the fruits of the Tree of Life, taken in a metaphysical sense, we are to understand ideas. As by far the larger proportion of the redeemed will consist of infants and young children, and of adults who have enjoyed but small opportunities of intellectual improvement in the present life, the great mass of the human family, on commencing their career in the future life, will obviously have but a very slender store of ideas. Even those, who have acquired the highest attainments in this life, will find their accumulated stores to be as a drop to the ocean, compared with the inexhaustible treasures of knowledge from which they are to draw a continuous and never-ending supply in the life to come.

Each individual will begin the future life in the same state of mental development as that in which he stood at the moment of death; for the mind can receive