history, does this eleThere are times, even

ral, as in the progress of human ment of climax and crisis appear. in nature, when that which is old decays and is ready to vanish away, when the unfolding life casts off its outward vesture and takes on one more suited to its expanding powers. And especially along the track of history we meet with outbreaks and eliminations and consummating judgments and renewals. We may then agree with those who hold that there has been a continual coming of Christ through these centuries which have elapsed since His ascension, and that all along He has been sowing the seeds of a new and better order in the soil of the old. We may, with them, refuse to believe that the world has been all this while abandoned to Satan, that this long experience has been all a failure, and the world's progress a progress only to ruin. And yet on the other hand we must hold, with Scripture, that while the chaff of this great harvest field has served a most useful purpose as a calyx for the ripening grain, it must finally be condemned as chaff and given over to the burning.

While, therefore, there has been a coming of Christ along all the centuries, and a continuous judgment of the world in righteousness, there is to be a consummating judgment and appearing. His kingdom, now hidden, is to be revealed. His power, now masked behind what men call the energies of nature, is to be manifested, and these powers disclosed as the angels of His might. And just as in Nature, when the conditions are ripe, there are often sudden outbursts of hidden and unsuspected forces, so, the clouds that now conceal Him may at any time

gather for that final tempest which shall clear the sky and reveal the shining of His face. And that this event, which shall be to the world both a catastrophe and a joyful deliverance, is not far remote, is the conviction of very many who study both Scripture and the signs of the times.

Dr. R. S. Storrs would be loath to regard himself as in sympathy with Millenarian views. And yet we find something like them in this passage from his eloquent sermon preached at the late meeting of the American Board. "If Jesus is to be exalted in the centuries to come as He has been in this, now drawing to a close, it seems scarcely extravagant to think that, before that age closes, the heavens may be luminous again with His presence, as they were of old with His ascension; that not Olivet only, but all the earth will reflect the effulgence of His person and His throne. . . . Unto Him who arose from the world, blessing it as He went, whom its arts and kingdoms have always to serve, and who is surely to come again for universal dominion in it, be now and ever all the praise!"

The conviction we expressed in our last number is with us a growing one that, in ways hidden from men, the ascended Christ is fast preparing the world for His predicted triumph, and that His "coming" will be but the open manifestation of a presence already here, that the catastrophic changes which precede His coming have been occurring all along the centuries, and that what is yet to come will be only the consummation of what has gone before; that the mighty angels which attend Him. will be found to be the potent forces which flash through

this system of Creation, and which are now its active energies, that the kingdom they administer, and the judgment they execute are facts of the present as well as of the future, that therefore the coming of the Son of Man will be both a development and a catastrophe. And we are increasingly convinced that the church's attitude should be less that of watching for signs, or exulting in view of Missionary progress, and more that of preparation to receive her returning Lord. For this reason we have sought to awaken her to a sense of the sin of a divided state, its consequent weakness, and her responsibility to become a vessel fit to contain and to convey that fullness of grace and bounty which her Lord has in store for mankind. We believe that the signs which before proved that the kingdom of God was nigh will be given when He, whom the heavens received, is about to appear again. Yea more. The world shall then have this life from Him more abundantly. But first His church must be filled with it. It is in this way, indeed, that the saints shall be changed, lifted and transfornied by His indwelling life into the likeness of His resurrection. Not, perhaps, in the ex abrupto way that we have supposed. Christians have all along been led astray about these great mysteries by supposing that all the great events of the future, the judgment, the resurrection, the parousia, were simultaneous and not progressive. We are assured that the resurrection proceeds by stages. (I Cor. xv. 23.) It has its first fruits, its ripening harvests. So with all the divine processes of the kingdom of God. The translation, the "gathering together unto Him," the regeneration of the earth, the

passing away of the former things, the creation of the new heavens and earth are probably not to be so sudden in their character as we have supposed. Both the great characteristics of the divine procedure already noticed, evolution and catastrophe, will attend His administration to the close. And this emphasizes our position in reference to the duty of the church. She is not to suppose that all she can do is to sit still and allow everything to run out its evil course, and wait for the Lord as the only remedy. Nor on the other hand is she to delude herself with visionary dreams of the progress she will be able to make without His manifested presence. She is to view herself as His ordained channel of salvation to the world, and as therefore responsible to make herself ready as a proper receptacle for His saving health, and an unobstructed medium for its conveyance to mankind. Not until His body is perfected can the Christ enter upon His proper office of blessing all nations.

What then would we suggest? Church Congresses, such as the recent one at Hartford, are good things. The Lord is wonderfully stirring up the hearts of Christians of every name in this direction. Even the most conservative of all Protestant churches is now carrying on a most successful mission in New York, in which the revival methods long in use among "the sects," including extempore prayer and gospel hymns, and after meetings, and personal appeals are freely made use of. And the New York Churchman, speaking of the large gatherings at Trinity Church, asks why these assemblages of men of different parties in the church, should be divided?

"Here were men, sitting or stand

ing side by side, of all the divisions of Christians, and all finding in the words of the preacher the same truths to which they are accustomed to listen Sunday by Sunday. There was unity of thought, unity of hope, and unity of love for Christ. Why should they any longer give themselves denomination ? Why should they magnify their little differences? Why should they develop their differentiations? Nay, rather, why should they not strive to labor together, showing themselves to be one fold under one Shepherd." Such assimilating movements in our day are wonderful. Chief among their benefits is this drawing together of Christians into a better realization of their oneness. But we have something to suggest still more efficient to this end. It is that, wherever practicable, Christians of all connections, who long for the unity of the body should come together statedly, agreeing to keep their peculiar tenets in the background, first, to confess before their common Lord the sin and shame of these divisions, with the consequent hiding of God's power, and to implore Him to lighten our darkness and lead us out of this confusion, that so the Lord may fill it again with His own life. For, be it ever remembered, the idea of the church, for whose realization her Lord prayed just before His crucifixion, is that" they all might be one." And this oneness was to involve such union in life with Him as was His with the Father. Can we doubt, thent, hat what now hinders and confines the almighty energy of His abundant life in the church is the failure to realize this oneness? Or, that, with it once attained, the world would soon see that God in very deed is in the midst of