refracted and reflected by the shower-drops above Ararat, will be the pledges to you that when you are restored I will no more scatter and forsake you. And then, to show the certainty of this, he says, "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee;" or, in the words of our Lord, "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my word shall not pass away.”

Then he speaks to her in her desolation and her sorrow in such tender and touching words as these : "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted"—the picture of a crew in a ship, and in the midst of a storm at sea-behold, I will land thee safely; "I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires." "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant; that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the Lord, and stay himself upon his God." Then this exquisite promise is fulfilled in Revelation: "The building of the wall of it was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones." He adds, "I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." Or as it is in the Book of Revelation: "The twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." Now assume that in the rest that is to come we are to be raised, and that we are not only to be spirits, but spirits and bodies;

that flesh and blood, refined, purified, disinfected of all its infirmity, imperfection, and decay, is to inhabit that rest that remaineth for the people of Godassume that, which I am sure is certain, and is there anything absurd or unreasonable in the expectation that there will be literally and materially all the splendour that is here the burden of this glorious promise? A city is not necessarily a sinful thing; on the contrary, all its inhabitants may be righteous, all its people may be taught of God. If this passage were alone, I would try to interpret it figuratively; but when I find it repeated constantly from Genesis to Revelation that there remaineth for us a city that hath foundations; that the new Jerusalem cometh down from heaven; that its foundations are as they are delineated in exquisite language in the ApocalypseI do not see why we should suppose there is anything in matter so polluted, so irrecoverably polluted, that it is incapable of being restored, and purified, and consecrated to the Most High. It looks to me as if ancient Paradise, when it fell, exploded into fragments; and that those fragments are the diamonds, and the amethysts, and the carbuncles, and the precious stones that men so much value. May we not suppose that all these shall be collected together, and that there shall be a city, not figuratively-I cannot see why it is necessary to construe it figuratively-not figuratively, but materially and literally, as delineated in the 21st and 22nd chapters of the Book of Revelation, or what is promised and predicted in the chapter which I have now read? Surely God made these things; and it does seem to me a very natural, I call it not an unscriptural hope, that all

that sin has tainted shall be disinfected; that all that the fall has scattered shall be regathered and restored; and that this earth shall again be as one vast diamond; and that this city shall be built of all precious stones; and that believers, or Christians, shall enter into it; and its gates shall not be shut; and they shall no more go out; and that the hope that kindled the hearts of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the world's grey fathers, shall not be realized in an airy and ethereal metaphor, but in literal, substantial, and actual fact. We are beset I know with the notion that there is something in our nature so bad that it is irrecoverable. Now I hold that is not so. All that was lost in Paradise shall be restored when Paradise returns. There is nothing in our nature intrinsically and incurably corrupt. We were made once holy, perfect, happy; why should we not be made so again? What is the definition of man? Not spirit; not an angel; but spirit and matter the link that connects the world of spirits with the world of matter. And if so if man is to be restored as man, not a new creature created; but the old and corrupted creature purified and restored I do not see anything absurd in the hope of a literal city in Jérusalem, on the banks of the Jordan, the metropolis of the universe; and that city of such beauty, such exquisite proportion, such splendour, irradiated by such glory, as eye hath not seen and heart hath not conceived. It may be that I am mistaken, but I do not see anything absurd, or irrational, or unreasonable in the hope; and I will indulge it till I find a better.

3:

Here, however, is the grand moral lesson: "All

thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children." Now this promise is expanded and repeated in many passages of Scripture; for instance, "Many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." And again it is quoted by our Lord: "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." Then it is promised that "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things." And the result of this divine teaching, when there shall be no more mediate teaching-no more ministers, no more sacraments, no more prophets, no more evangelists-the result of this immediate teaching will be: "In righteousness shalt thou be established; thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near thee."

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Then, lest they should suppose that all this was impossible, that the opposition was too great, too intense, ever to be removed, he says: I have created the artizan who invents the weapons of war that in this year are so formidable; but no weapon, rifled cannon, Enfield rifle, Minié rifle; no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper;" for I have chosen thee to be my bride; I have prepared for thee a city of unprecedented beauty and glory; I have made all things to work together for good to thee; and, therefore, let genius make its discoveries, let the smith forge his weapons; let such power,

such range be attained by weapons of destruction as never was attained before; yet all this, and more than this, will not in the least degree obstruct my purpose or prevent thy development; for this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord; and this is the oath and the promise by which I am bound, saith the Lord that hath mercy upon thee.

THE GREAT INVITATION.

ISAIAH LV.

THIS chapter forms an address not to the Jew, but specially and primarily to the Gentile. He begins first of all by representing the Saviour as standing by a spring discovered in the Sahara, or the desert, and addressing those that have been digging in the desert and found no water, but have exhausted themselves by their toils, their sacrifices, and their efforts, and saying to such, "Ho, every one that thirsteth," I have now discovered a spring of refreshing waters, come ye and drink." The condition and the character of every human being is that he is athirst; athirst ever since God left his heart, and sin parched that heart with its presence, its poison, and its power. But man, conscious of his thirst, ever seeks to remove it by draughts from broken cisterns, and by an appeal to sources which irritate and inflame instead of removing it altogether. What is ambition? It is simply the instinctive thirst of the human heart trying to find springs in thrones, in dignity, in honour. What is covetousness? The