Church in calling her attention to it, and in urging her to amend her statements so that in a matter of such fearful import they shall be in all respects conformed to the Word of God.

THE AMERICAN BOARD.-It is becoming increasingly apparent from the tone of The Independent, and the party in the Congregational Church of which it is the mouth-piece, that there is great danger of a schism in that church, and of a rupture of the Board. Great pity, this, when the doctrine of redemption through resurrection furnishes to both parties a framework in which both sides of Scripture truth concerning the future of the heathen fit into their proper place, Would that they could both see the truth of this "word of reconcilation'

THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS.-We find in an exchange the following remarks upon this scene taken from a sermon by the Rev. Dr. W. M. Taylor:

There is further revealed here the eternity of the duration of the punishment. I cannot see how else the fixity of that gulf is to be understood. It is as true that no change of place is possible to those who are here described, as it is that, if Moses and the prophets be not heard, the mission of one from the dead will be in vain. For both of these announcements stand on the same plane. I know that it is said that this is Hades-the state of disembodied spiritsintervening between this life and the general resurrection and judgment. Be it so. I accept the representation. But that com

pletely explodes the modern notion of Dorner and others, that probation continues through the state, and is only terminated at the resurrection and the final judgment. For how can there be probation, with this impossibility of passing from one place to the other? There is here no possible probation in the intermediate state; and there is not a single word in all the Scriptures which indicates that there will be probation after the judgment-not one. That ought to be enough, and with that I leave the subject to stand before you in its own dread and awful solemnity.

Dr. Taylor's comment is right in that he perceives that this passage excludes the Dorner and Andover notion that there is an intermediate state of probation before judgment and punishment.

His error consists in the assumption that this judgment takes place, with consequent punishment, after resurrection. Whereas it is apparent upon the face of the narrative that the rich man passed at once into hell-the place of punishment. The fact that the original word here is hades does not alter the fact, that it was a place of anguish, of torment and of flame. If this be not the sinner's hell, what is it? But if Dives had passed into the place and state of punishment he must have been judged. And yet Dr. Taylor assumes that he is yet to be judged and punished. It is this unscriptural figment of a remote general assize to which final judgment is postponed, that has introduced such confusion into our modern eschatology. What a monstrous incongruity this!-that God sends men into the torments of hell, and then brings them out to be judged and sent back again. And yet if this parable teaches anything it teaches that judgment is immediate. The whole trouble lies in the wrong idea that has fastened itself upon the church with respect to the purpose and effect of resurrection. She has been betrayed into conceiving of it as the prelude to final retribution Whereas it is of the very essence of it that it is recovery from death--the wages of sin. All Scripture is belied if resurrection does not belong to the redemptive side of God's working. From this point of view the parable of the rich man and Lazarus admits of easy explanation. There was no possible relief for him during the whole hadean period. His was a lost soul, vanishing into the darkness of an agelong destruction, from the light and life and blessedness of the saved. But even from that outer darkness, resurrection must sometime reach and recover him. What effect this change will work in his condition and prospects is not alluded to in the parable. But it is, from other Scriptures, a legitimate subject of inquiry. The vital mistake in all such remarks as those above quoted is that a representation of punishment in hell which, upon the face of it, precedes resurrection, is treated as if it did not describe the real punishment of sin, ‚—as if that awaits a distant future judgment, and as if resurrection, which is essentially a lifting out of death and hell, had no other meaning for the sinner than as a way of casting him back into ́a deeper hell for the double torment of both body and soul. Is this all the grace there is in God's provision that as in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive; but every man in his own order?"

We agree therefore with Dr. Taylor in holding that no possibl future probation can provide the sinner a way of escape from the just punishment of his sins It is inevitable. "There is not a single word in all the Scriptures that there will be probation after judgment-not one." He must lose his present life. His soul even may, perhaps must, be destroyed with his body in hell. But how about a second gift of embodied life at the resurrection? Will tha bring no possibilities of good? If so, why is it bestowed?

A FREAK OF CRITICISM.-A critic who makes use of the columns of a public journal to speak of another man's teaching, ought to take some pains to represent it aright. The Rev. Luther Dodd, of Fort Dodge, Iowa, in a recent communication to the Presbyterian Journal of Sept. 22d upon the topic of Conditional Immortality,' speaks of "Mr Baker's doctrine" in a way that would lead us to suppose he had never read anything that we have written. He is writing to disprove the notion that the wicked do not consciously exist and suffer after death, and after their consignment to hell. This notion we have repudiated a score of times in this magazine; and we have appealed to the same Scriptures that Mr. Dodd uses the parable of Dives and Lazarus and other passages-to show the falsity of this opinion. And yet he assumes that we have taught the very opposite. We have indeed expressed sympathy with the conclusion to which such thoughtful writers as Prof. Drummond, Prof. Harris and Prebendary Row, point in their recent works, that no life alienated from the life of God can be as eternal as His own. But this is a very different conclusion from the gross view this critic combats that such an existence is ended at death. It is enough to make one despair of Christians ever being able to arrive at a common understanding of what God's Word teaches, to read such undiscriminating criticism as this.

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

In reference to the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field's letter to R. M. Ingersoll, published in the North American Review and in the New York Evangelist, a correspondent sends us the following :

"I have just read Dr. Field's letter to Ingersoll, and while it is for the most part able and forceful, it looks as though the writer himself felt the weakness of the part devoted to the consideration of the Immortality of the Soul' and 'Future Retribution.' But what is strange, he has nothing at all to say of resurrection, but finds all the conditions of retribution' in the state of the disembodied spirit, with the moral sense quickened as never before, i.e., in the remorseful memories of the life of sin. With the more Scriptural and rational view maintained in your pages, Dr. Field might have knocked away every prop from Ingersoll's infidelity. I should be glad to see such a review as you would write, and to have Ingersoll see it, too."

We have from time to time sent copies of this magazine to missionaries in foreign lands whose names have fallen under our notice. No other class of laborers in the Lord's harvest stand more in need of the enlightening and stimulating truths to which it has borne witness. The theory upon which Foreign Missions have been conducted,―that all the heathen of past and present generations are doomed to endless misery, has waxed old and is ready to vanish away. The Future Probationists are meanwhile feeling in the dark after a truer view of God's purposes towards mankind, if haply they may find it. Strange to say both of these schools seem blind to the light which the doctrine of an universal resurrection sheds upon this great question. In nothing has the adversary obscured the truth as to God's great plan more than in the matter of this "hope toward God." Even the Andover Review can publish long dissertations upon this topic in which there is not a single allusion to "the resurrection of the unjust," and its bearing upon the problem to which it furnishes the only key. Any one who reads the account of Paul's missionary addresses, and his subsequent letters to his converts, will see that he did not go to the Gentiles under any such awful burden as our modern missionaries have been sent. And he will see that the purpose of God in gathering a chosen seed out of all kindreds and tongues was not simply that these few might be saved, but that, in ages to come, they might take part with Christ in extending His triumph over even the regions of the dead. This gospel of the resurrection brought not only its special hope to those who embraced it, but contained within it a hope for their kindred among the dead, for whom they were now called to take the firstborn's place of sacrifice and service. It is not until this larger view of the purpose of God in visit

ing the Gentiles "to take out of them a people for His name (Acts xv., 14), is grasped, that the church at home, or Foreign Missionaries abroad, can fairly understand the nature of their work, or the full meaning of that gospel with which they are put in trust.

We

For these reasons we have been at some pains to send copies of this magazine to preachers of the gospel in foreign lands. give below an appeal just received from one of this class. MONASTIR, MACEDONIA,

EUROPEAN TURKEY.

Beloved Brother in Christ the Hope of Glory: With greeting and Christian salutation I come to you to thank you for the kindness and love of sending to me "THE WORDS OF RECONCILIATION " in this far off land of Macedonia, from where the ancient cry came, and it comes in greater force to-day: "Come over into Macedonia and help us."

I am a man of Macedonia, born and converted to God in the same land, and expect once more to be born in this, my native land, at the coming of Jesus, when this mortal shall put on immortality and when we shall be like Him-with glorified bodies like unto His-and then we shall never die nor mourn. Then we can be immortal; but not till then. I bless God for this hope, for it is good, living, sure, steadfast, blessed and it makes us not ashamed, but makes us to triumph over difficulties and fight the good fight of faith bravely till he comes. I praise God for the light and truth given to me, and that he raised me to proclaim the same truth again in this forsaken land of Macedonia. I say forsaken for none took care from America or England to bring us the light of heaven, while my people are standing in the dark and are crying" Where is the good way of light and life that we may walk in it."

Nevertheless that we have not laborers, still God loves Macedonia, and He will raise laborers who will proclaim the truth in mighty power, Let His will be done, not ours. We will wait till he gives us the desire of our hearts. At present. I am the only one who dared to preach the truth once delivered to the saints and I passed through a great many trials and sufferings till I got a little flock; this little one is my joy and comfort-for this little flock since I started my mission, my flesh had no rest, but I had trouble on every side; and in such a time the Lord with His comforting power was on every side to help me and strengthen me to go on bravely and preach the truth, and 1 found His grace was sufficient for me in every time of trouble, and the throne of Grace nearer, where I could have communion and fellowship with Him who is above all, in all, and for all.

I started my mission without any support from any society; but faith in God and trust daily for our living in Him, and my work has been to do His will in all things, to please him in all