in another place, "line upon line;

" and if this be correct it denotes a nation lined with sorrow as with furrows. The word is also used in the sense of judgment: "I will stretch on Jerusalem the line of Samaria;" that is, I will thus destroy it. "Line upon line" is also employed to denote the limit of judgment or affliction; and therefore Mr Chamberlain justly concludes it is a people under judicial infliction, measured in length and limits by the lines of ancient prophecy, beyond which it cannot go, and on this side of which it cannot possibly cease. It is a

condensed description of a race labouring under a universal judgment, having no rest for the soles of their feet, no refuge from cruelty and proscription, no home for the heart, no permanent pillow for the aching head, a people alone in suffering, and sublime in its endurance, and separate in national life among the nations of the earth.

The next feature is that of "A people terrible from the beginning." The literal translation, says Bishop Horsley, is "a people awfully remarkable." The translation "from the beginning," is scarcely correct; it is literally, "from that day forward; and the date of the "day forward" is not that of the date of the prophecy, but the date of their being "brought as a present to the Lord of hosts in Zion; meaning, that from the day when they shall be gathered, restored, and reinstated in Zion, they shall thenceforth appear a people awfully remarkable; they will present a brilliant close to a bitter and disastrous career;

so that the people of the nations of the earth shall gaze and marvel that, once the scoff and the offscourings of Christendom, they have become the glory of the earth, the elect of the nations, the admiration of all lands.

The next feature is, "whose land the rivers have spoiled." The preceding chapter, the 17th, closes with a similar expression, "This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us." If we accept the phrase, "the rivers have spoiled," in the strict and literal sense, there is no land, either Ethiopia, Egypt, or Palestine, of which it can be said that rivers have destroyed it. It cannot be said of Palestine, for the overflowings of Jordan do not injure it; nor of Egypt, for the overflowings of the Nile benefit it. We must therefore take the phrase, "whose land the rivers have spoiled," in a figurative sense, provided Scripture usage warrants it. In the Scriptures we find rivers and floods employed to denote invading hostile forces. Thus, in Isaiah viii. 7, we read, "Now, therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory; that is, hostile armies. In Isaiah lix. 19, we read, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood." Bishop Horsley in his letter says very justly, "Rivers, that is, armies of devastating conquerors, have destroyed it." In the history of Palestine, we find all this prophecy historically fulfilled. The Roman, the Saracen, and Turco-Moslem in succession, overflowed

the length and breadth of Palestine, and exterminated the thousands which the victorious eagles of Titus had spared. The Crusaders, under Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit, going forth to deliver the tomb of a dead Christ, forgetting they daily crucified afresh a living Christ, inflicted lasting devastation upon the land. The armies of France have trodden its soil, the boom of French guns has echoed from Mount Zion to Tabor and from Tabor to Olivet. The hoof of the Bedouin steed, the bare foot of the monk, and the tramp of the haughty Moslem, and recently the feet of the Druse, have in succession trodden down the land, and left upon its bosom the deep marks of the floods that have torn, and destroyed, and spoiled it. In all these descriptive expressions is found the inevitable proof of the identity of the people, and that it is the picture of the very race described in Leviticus xxvi., where are specified in detail all the curses destined to light upon them, and all the devastations sure to overtake their unhappy land.

No nation has endured so long, and so severe, and wasting treatment. Hostile nations have swept it from the heights of Lebanon to the Dead Sea like overwhelming torrents, one no sooner exhausted than another poured along its channel, deepening the desolation and multiplying the ruins.

Having identified the persecuted race here described as that of the Jews, let us turn to the second fact, that this people is to be presented at the close

of this dispensation an offering to the Lord of hosts on Mount Zion. This idea is elsewhere variously expressed. Kings shall be their nursing fathers, and the shoulders of the Gentiles shall carry them home. The same thought occurs in Isaiah lxvi. 19, in these words: "And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles." At the 20th verse it is prophesied; "And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts; or, as it might be rendered, "swift chariots;" "to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord." The time of this is specified in the 22nd verse, it is the time when God creates a new heaven and a new earth: "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.” The word translated in one place "offering," and in another place "present," is the Hebrew word Mincha, which constituted the ancient offering of Israel presented in Zion, laid before the Lord, and irreclaimable for ever; for once presented it was not to be recalled. We read elsewhere of a people being made an offering. The apostle thus speaks of the Gentiles being made an offering to God, Rom. xv. 16: "That

the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable." In the 72nd Psalm, the Psalm which describes the brilliant scenes that distinguish the millennial day, it is said, "The kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, shall bring presents." What presents? Evidently a people to the Lord. For "The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts." It will be the present or offering to God of a people long peeled and meted out, whose land the rivers have spoiled.

Having thus ascertained and identified the offering, or the people, let us now try to ascertain what nation is at the time of the end to make the offering, or to present the race to God on Zion. They are described at the commencement of the 18th of Isaiah in these words: "Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from the beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled." These people thus characterized, whoever they may be, are to “present the Jews as a national offering to the Lord on Mount Zion or in Palestine." The word "woe" is an unhappy rendering. It is the same Hebrew word which we find in the beginning of the 55th of Isaiah, translated, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." I do not deny that the Hebrew word denotes also woe; but in the 55th of Isaiah, at the 1st verse, and in other passages,