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just as we are made by the Holy Spirit new, not other, creatures in Christ. The conflagration that precedes the establishment of the kingdom need not, and probably will not, be universal, or such as must destroy the earth. "The beast and the false prophet shall be cast into the lake of fire," words that seem to imply the local, not universal. "The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple, and sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;" otherwise explained, "The day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up." There will be those on the earth whom no fire shall touch. mission of that fierce fire is to consummate the "perdition of ungodly men." We are persuaded, from these and many other passages of Scripture, that there shall be a physical as well as a moral transformation -the former by fire, the latter by grace. Justly and truly does the eloquent Dr Seiss write-" Knowledge, holiness, and liberty spread over the earth, from one end thereof to the other, cannot save a man from bodily aches, decay, and death. They cannot take the taint from the atmosphere nor the malaria from the earth. They cannot cover Sahara with fertility, or hush the storm and tempest, or close the volcano's crater, or stop the Mælstroom's whirl, or stay the earthquake's giant tread, or relieve the creation of its groans. Make every meal a sacrament, and every day a Sabbath, and every thought a prayer to God, and all that of itself cannot take

away the curse with which God has cursed the ground."

It must be obvious to every thoughtful reader of the Scriptures, that a process directly operative on the earth equal to the requirements of the case and to the accomplishment of prophecy-must accompany that stupendous moral renovation, which fits the hearts of men for the era and the inheritance of that blessed palingenesia which will overtake our world. The Son of God thought it no degradation to unite to His person the dust of the earth. There is a morbid spiritualism as well as a true spiritual life. It shrinks from materialism as if it were essentially and irrecoverably sinful. This is not right.

The Son of man will come with power-power that will revolutionize and regenerate the world, expel the curse, and inaugurate a reign that shall have no end, and extend from sea to sea. "He shall judge among the people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid." "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. The cow and the bear shall feed together, and their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like an

ox, and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child upon the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away."

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'They shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun: for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever." Towards that land the patriarchs wistfully looked; from the very hope of it the martyrs, driven into the catacombs, drew strength and inspiration. Our brightest summers on earth are but dim reflections of it. Into that Eden no tempter will penetrate; there will be no flower with a worm at its root, and no frost to blight; there the trees have no sere leaves; and there possession will be secure for ever; and the years of that happy land will be like the hours of a sun-dial, measured only by the sweet sunshine. A land it will be whose loveliest hours will last longest. If one could collect by a lens all the scattered rays throughout ancient prophecy, and concentrate them, it would fail to give a full picture of that land. The combined loveliness of this world-its sunny glens, its rivers chiming as they run towards the desert sea; the canopy of stars on a frosty night,

when the heavens seem shining like the very city of God; the soft and beautiful swells and curves of a landscape, like the smiles of nature rejoicing in the sunshine; the blending of flower, and fruit, and tree, and rock into one joyous scene, like fine thoughts blended in a poem-conceive all that is lovely, bring before imagination all that is exquisitively beautiful, and there will then be presented some proximate idea of its magnificence. We shall see the King in his beauty; and that land whose very atmosphere will be balm, and across which every angel that sweeps will only drop down blessings upon all that are beneath. The inhabitants shall not say, I am sick; there shall be no more tears; no more graves dug for the dead, no pallets stretched for the dying: they shall all be righteous; and sin and sorrow shall flee away as spectres that ought not to be and that were never meant to be.

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But the greatest excellence will be in the inhabitThe land would not be so lovely if the inhabitant were not made perfectly holy. A holy man anywhere must be happy; an unconverted and unholy man everywhere must be miserable; and hence the greatest attraction in that land, next to the King in his beauty, will be the subjects in their glory. But what will be their condition ? Consecration will be theirs without reserve; there will be no limits to their life but liberty; no "vile person" will be there; no churl: wisdom and knowledge will be the stability, as they will be the cohesion, of those happy and

blessed realms. There will be no hearts breaking, but all hearts bounding; there will be no aches, no griefs; the leaves of the heart will be always green, its blossoms always fragrant; for on every happy soul shall be felt the reality of these words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Thus we try to collect a few sketches of the future land as we gather a nosegay-a memorial of a lovely garden. Christ, however, is the source of all its beauty. Where the King is there the kingdom is; where the sun is there the summer and the sunshine are also. It is the King in His beauty that makes the land that is far off so lovely to the inhabitant. God's blessing will one day fall on the earth. The everlasting High Priest will come forth from the sunrise and pronounce a benediction, followed by power and great glory.

It has been urged by those who refuse to investigate this grand theme, that death is for all practical uses the same as the personal advent of the Lord. To this we reply: The real inquiry is not what we think equally good, but what is revealed by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the best answer is furnished by the Rev. Dr David Brown, whose views differ considerably in many respects from those enunciated in these pages. This excellent and able divine thus writes on the coming of Christ to individuals at death: " However warrantably we may speak so, and whatever profitable considerations it may suggest, it is not fitted for taking that place in the view of the believer