with fire; "and He will gather His wheat into the garner but the chaff He wil burn up with unquenchable fire."

"Think not," said Christ, "that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace but a sword." (Matt. 10: 34.) Again He asserted "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire if it is already kindled?" . "Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay, but rather division." (Luke 12:49-51.)

By reference to Isaiah we find the following: "He will have indignation against His enemies. For, behold, Jehovah will come with fire, and His chariots shall be like the whirlwind, to render His anger with fierceness, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will Jehovah execute judgment, and by His sword, upon all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many." (Isaiah 66: 14-16.)

St. Paul stated: "If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved: for the Lord will execute His word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short." (Rom. 9:27-28.) "You that are afflicted," also said Paul, "rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with

the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might." (II Thess. I : 7-19.)

"When therefore the Lord of the vineyard shall come," said Jesus, "what will He do unto those husbandmen?" They say unto Him, "He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen." (Mat. 21:40-41.) And Jesus having reference to this event said, "These are days of vengeance that all things that are written may be fulfilled." (Luke 21: 22.)

Kingdom of Peace.

To my mind these Scriptures clearly show that the reign of peace could not begin until after His Second Coming, and the "ax", the "sword" and the "fire" had accomplished their work, and all things which were written and prophesied had been fulfilled.

"Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and earthquakes in diverse places. But all these are the beginning of travail." (Matt. 24: 7-9.)

Signs of the New Kingdom Fulfilled. We quote the following paragraph from Peloubet's Select Notes. "Wars and Rumors of Wars." "Josephus gives an account of the troublous times before the fall of Jerusalem. The peace that prevailed over the world during Christ's life was soon broken. Rome had troublous times. Four Roman emperors were murdered in swift succession. But especially in Palestine the war fiend ran riot. The Jews themselves were divided into contending factions, who slew each other by the thousands. The neighboring nations joined one party or the other. Then the Jews revolted against the Romans, and the Roman armies overran the whole country. Blood flowed like water." "Earthquakes": "Perhaps no period in the world's history has ever been so marked by these convulsions as that which intervenes between the Crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem." "Famines": "A great famine, prophesied in Acts 11 :26, ocurred A. D. 49, and another of the reign of Claudius, and mentioned by Josephus. A pestilence, A. D. 65, in a single autumn, carried off 30,000 persons at Rome. These are the beginnings of sorrows; of travail, of that labor-pain of the world out of which the Kingdom of God is to be born."

Christ Coming Into the New Kingdom.

"So Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation." (Heb. 9:28.)

"That He may send the Christ," said Peter, "who hath been appointed for you, even Jesus; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of His holy prophets that have been of old." (Acts 3: 20-21.) "But He," said Paul, "when He offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, henceforth expecting till His enemies be made the footstool of His feet." (Heb. 10: 12-13.) And in the same generation in which "He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever," He came the second time and fulfilled the words of the One Hundred and Tenth Psalm and made His enemies His footstool.

Character of the New Kingdom.

The nobleman who went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, as soon as he had gained possession of it, returned and reckoned with his "servants unto whom he had given the

money, and ordered his enemies slain before him." (Luke 19.)

The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (Matt. 13: 41-42.) Then all the prophecies relating to the judgments of God were fulfilled, "and the world in the church comes to be exchanged for the church in the world," and the religion of letter and type to be superseded by that of spirit and life.

He came the second time to consummate the plan of redemption. "When these things begin to come to pass," said Christ, "look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21: 28.) "Now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed." (Rom. 13: 11.) "Salvation from our enemies and from the hand af all that hate us." (Luke 1:7.)

Again Paul says, "Waiting for our adoption, to-wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8: 23), having reference to the body of believers-the Church.