same channel? We are not disposed to explain all the promises of the Lord's coming as referring to an intangible spiritual presence. We would not deny that His visible presence is promised. But during the forty days before Pentecost He gave us what is probably a picture of His way of manifesting Himself. He was always seen by and in connection with disciples. It will require an "opened" eye to see the Lord even in the day of His glory. The Jewish council did not see the vision which Stephen saw, in their presence, of an opened heavens and of Jesus standing on the right hand of God. The men who journeyed with Saul of Tarsus saw the light, but no man. So during the Millenium, while the Lord shall make His presence visible in all the earth, only the anointed eye may be able to see His Person. His throne of judgment is even now seated above the nations. But we do not see it. His glory is even now breaking through the clouds that veil it. But we are blind to it. His Presence is even now among us, but it is concealed. The coming age will differ from this in that the clouds and darkness round about Him will be brushed away-the Presence hidden will be manifested. But it must be first manifested in and to His church. They must be made strong with its power and shine with its glory. It will even transform them in body, as they are prepared for it, into His likeness. But all these changes will come, we believe, not in the ex abrupto manner which a surface reading of Scripture has led us to suppose, but through the outworking of a power in us which is now restrained, and which is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. The

church's first duty, therefore, is to seek to become a fit channel for this power. She cannot hold it in a broken and leaky vessel. God's mighty power cannot be put forth through an organism that is not in direct communion with the Head, and knit together by joints and bands into one living body. Nor can the Lord come to a church which is crying Lo here! and Lo there! and which at the same time does not know that the kingdom of God is within her.

Here also, we believe, will be found the reconciliation which must ultimately be made between what is true in both the pre- and the post-millenarian systems. Neither of these systems contains the whole truth. It will be a happy day for the church when she comes to realize in general that no fragment of the body can contain the whole truth, and that each section has something to contribute for the benefit of all. The prevalent idea of a kingdom of God advancing from within until it fills the earth, is true. And so also is the millenarian idea that this kingdom cannot come to its triumph without a fresh putting forth of power by the ascended Christ and an open manifestation of His glory now hidden from the eyes of men. The reconciliation is found in the fact that the church must ever be the body in which and through which it is to be displayed. The church which has as yet but tasted the powers of the world to come must be clothed with these heavenly powers. The ungodly world must be sifted in judgment by them. But it would aid us all to a better knowledge of the truth if we would come to see that our Lord, in order to this result, needs no other enthronement than that which He has already

received as the Christ, and no other angels of His might than those invisible powers which now rule in this created system, and no other servants than His own chosen brethren, for all the ends of rule and judgment and universal subjection which are set forth in His Word. For this high honor the church must be fitted by beBut she can coming more like her Head. "" come unto the measure of the stature of His fullness" only as she comes "into the unity of the faith." And for this purpose she has been constituted into a body. And this body must first be filled with His Presence before that Presence can shine out through all the earth. And therefore the first duty of those who love His appearing is to seek to put the church into that position in which it can be truly said of her that she represents the one Body of the one Lord, and is capable of receiving of His fullness.

WHAT IS RESURRECTION ?—The Scripture word for it is anastasis. This means a standing up again in life. The verb egeiro is frequently used to describe the method of it. This means to arouse as if from sleep. It implies a previous condition of slumber.

The idea of a life after death has taken hold, in some form, of all races of men.

1. The positivist reduces the idea down to such low elements that it virtually disappears. He makes men to live again in transmitted traits, in influence upon other mens lives.

2. The transmigrationist believes that the soul of man lives again in other bodies born into the world

it may be that of an insect or a beast. It may be a human body of either lower or higher type than the previous one. The embodiment is always according to previous character.

3. The Christian belief is that man is to live again. in the life of manhood. Here, however, we must distinguish between that archetypal manhood which is the perfected image of God—which is endowed with eternal life, and of which Christ is the First-born from the dead (Col. i. 15-20). To be raised into this form of life is that exanastasis-that out-resurrection from among the dead which was the object of the apostle's earnest striving (Phil. iii. 8-11). To this high honor an elect portion of the human race are called (Rom. viii. 14–30, Eph. i, Jas. i. 18). The resurrection of the mass of mankind must evidently be of a lower order than this, and will be according to character, and on the principle of recompense (Luke xiv. 14, John v. 29, Rev. xx. 11-14). Scripture speaks of two great orders in manhood, the earthy and the heavenly, and two grades of embodiment, the terrestrial and the celestial (πovpáva). The last order is that of the second man, the Lord from heaven. Only the saints shall rise into this heavenly order (1 Cor. xv. 49, Phil. iii. 21). It follows therefore that other men must come forth" in the "natural" order; that is, with bodies still under subjection to the natural system. Whereas the prime characteristic of the heavenly manhood is its unfettered mastery over this system and all the powers that rule in it. It is "the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 19–21).

STUDIES IN THE BIBLE.

RETRIBUTION IN THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES.

Passing on to the Catholic Epistles we find the same doctrine of retribution with that contained in the epistles of St. Paul. It is only to meet the requirements of a pre-conceived theory that any one would think of deriving from their references to future punishment the doctrine of an everlasting punishment in hell. Indeed they all relate either to threatening judgments which must overtake the ungodly in this world, or to that destruction of being which begins with bodily death, and is consummated beyond it in the loss of the soul, and the consequent ejection of the spirit into the outer darkness. But in no case is it affirmed or implied that this punishment lies beyond the resurrection. On the contrary it is something immediate and impending. The resurrection of the ungodly is not indeed distinctly taught. But there are some indirect allusions to it. And these imply that it must be even to them a deliverance.

Taking up these epistles in the order in which we find them, we come first to that of St. James. This epistle assumes throughout-as do all the others--that there is a way of life and a way of death. The last verse declares that "he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death." This indeed is the one clear, emphatic, oft-repeated testimony of Scripture upon this whole subject-that "sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death” (i. 15).