3. It is to overlook the fact that the Bible method of revealing God's secret purposes is not by direct statement, but by suggestion and implication, so that only those who have ears to hear shall hear. We do not believe that the Andover teachers have solved this mystery. In refusing to find their “hope toward God" in His promise to raise the dead, both the just and the unjust, they miss the key to this dark problem, and so make room for the charge that their hope is a perplexing and disturbing speculation. But they certainly are right in finding warrant for some hope in this matter in the large and gracious promises with which the Bible abounds. To say that God has not spoken a "single word " to justify this hope, when the whole scheme of revelation is based upon a promise to bring blessing to all the families of the earth through a chosen seed, is to show a deplorable blindness to the grand and salient features of His Word. If the horizon in our vision is closed in by a line of hills which seem to meet the sky, it would be childish in us to assert that there are no hills beyond those we see. When we get on to the summits of God's Word, we soon discover that our old range of vision was far too narrow. God has given a definite revelation about the issues of this present life, and has warned men of the fearful hazard they incur of losing it. He has told them how they may save it. All our Saviour's words about hell relate to this impending danger of losing one's soul. But they are all bounded by the hope of another life to be restored out of death and hell. The present blindness of the Church upon this subject is due to her mistaking the meaning and purpose of resurrection. When a man learns what resurrection means in God's economy, instead of failing to find a "single word" about the future of the heathen, he finds the Bible full of it. His understanding is opened to understand the Scriptures. And while he learns to discriminate between this hope for them of a resurrection, and universal salvation, he does find abundant warrant for the belief that God will find ways, beyond death, of making good His promise that "all generations shall call Him blessed." In God's arithmetic the dead are as truly a part of the "all" as the living.

PLAIN WORDS.-The Rev. J. G. Merrill writes to the Christian Union in relation to the Andover matter as follows:

"In case it is found that any one of our theological institutions fetters any of its teachers to a system which a bright, honest, devout and thorough scholar cannot accept,-and provided no other than a verbatim et literatim acceptance is honest, or in accord with the spirit of the founders, were the property involved worth untold millions, the church cannot afford to hold it a single hour. The same is true of our missionary organizations. If the 'nerve of missions' depends for its vitality upon the retention of theories which, held by the missionaries first sent out, are rejected in every intelligent pulpit in America, it is high time for our denomination to cry out with Paul, 'Who shall deliver me from this body of death?'"'

REVISION.-A brother in the Presbyterian ministry writes: "Your little bark is now well launched, and so long as it is afloat our church may be defended from the reproach of not inaugurating, or at least tolerating, some definite movement looking toward the revision of the Standards."

We infer from the above that this brother derives comfort and strength from the fact that the Presbyterian Church has thus far tolerated the discussion we have raised, and the movement we have made. We believe that there are many others, of both ministers and laymen, who view with satisfaction our effort, and who are more content to remain and to work in the church because of it. We stated in the first number of this magazine that one motive in undertaking it was a desire to do an emancipating work for our brethren who felt that their spiritual liberty was abridged, and their honesty before God and man compromised, by an enforced subscription to formulas about God's final dealings with men which could not find place in our system if it were being constructed now, and yet for the rectification of which there is provision in the system itself. We rejoice greatly if even the toleration of our effort is bringing relief to the consciences of any of such brethren. It makes the disadvantages and reproach which we are compelled to suffer because of it easier to bear. And yet brethren who are secretly con vinced of the righteousness of this movement ought to know that it is too great for any one man to carry on alone, and that, both on their own account, and for the good of the Church, for which Christ gave Himself, they ought to range themselves on its side.

A NEW CATECHISM.-The same correspondent encloses to us a revised Catechism, favorably noticed in the N. Y. Evangelist some

two years ago, and prepared by an Elder of the North Presbyterian Church of Geneva, N. Y., which adopted it for use in its Sabbathschool. This catechism is a virtual revision of the Shorter Catechism, to which it is greatly inferior in logical completeness. Its evident aim is to discard, as offensive, some of the hard statements of the old doctrinal system. Our correspondent refers to it, not as approving the way in which the work is done, but as "an indication of the drift toward revision. It embodies in some degree at least the need that is felt of doctrinal instruction for the young of our church that shall harmonize with the Presbyterian faith of to-day." All we have to say is that, if this work ought to be done, it had far better be done by the church at large, acting through her appointed agencies, than in this desultory and unsatisfactory way.

SPIRITS IN PRISON.-Some one has sent us a copy of the Friend's Review, of Feb. 3, calling our attention to the leading article, which bears the above title. In it the editor disclaims, and apologizes for, an explanation of the above passage which the writer of its series of articles upon the international lessons had given in a previous number of that paper. The explanation was the only one that has the merit of catholicity and clearness. We recently heard a clergyman of this city speak of this passage as one of the most difficult in the Bible. He labored to make his congregation believe that its meaning is very obscure, insomuch that whole volumes had been written in the endeavor to elucidate its meaning. Now the passage is not at all difficult. The words are plain enough, and the sense is simple. The difficulty is not in the passage itself. It is wholly in the endeavor to make it fit in to a theory which it does not at all suit, and to compel the words to convey a meaning which is not upon their face, and which they were never intended to convey. The editor of the Friend's Review has made up his mind that the Bible teaches that the eternal destiny of every human soul is fixed at death. Therefore he cannot admit his correspondent's interpretation, which merely affirms that the passage means what it says, because "a tremendous consequence would follow." Hence he contends for that forced and unnatural interpretation that the "spirits in prison" were the flesh and blood men of Noah's day

to whom he preached, and who are thus described as in bondage to sin. And yet the passage states plainly,

1. That it was Christ who had been "put to death in the flesh but quickened in spirit" (the word is without an article in Greek), who preached.

2. Those to whom the preaching came were, at the time of it, "spirits in prison."

3. They were the imprisoned spirits of a generation of men who had lived before the flood, and who were aforetime disobedient.

But

Of course this plain sense of the passage is fatal to the theory that the destiny of these men was irrevocably fixed at death. if our theories are not large enough to take in so plain an instruction from God's Word, so much the worse for the theories. If God says a thing, we can well afford to let Him take care of the "tremendous consequence." Our plain duty is to believe it, and to adjust our theories thereto.

At one point, however, we are persuaded that the ancient and catholic view of this passage has erred. And that is, in failing to give the proper significance to the expression "quickened in spirit." The Scripture use of this term is such as to compel the belief that our Lord did this preaching, not during the three days of his subjection to death, but after His resurrection. It was not until then that he was quickened. Hence the probable intent of His preaching was to proclaim His triumph over death. The word is not ευαγγελίζω, the usual word for gospel preaching, but κερυσσω, to herald. Such an announcement would be indeed glad tidings to these captives, because it conveyed the hope of their ultimate deliverance through resurrection. But it could not have been such a gospel as is now preached to living men. These 'spirits" must first be raised from the dead, before they could be open to the promises and prizes set before us in the gospel. The crown of eternal life in glorified manhood can only be won by men in human nature. And disembodied ghosts are not men. Resurrection might open before them the door to this salvation, but it would not be itself salvation.

GRIM THEOLOGY.—We quote on a previous page from a valuable work on "God's Revelations of Himself to Men," by the Rev.

S. J. Andrews. The same author on page 367 writes, "How far a false spiritualism has gone in casting dishonor on the material creation, may be seen by some extracts from Edward's 'History of Redemption,' in regard to the future of the earth. 'Then,' after their resurrection, 'the saints shall take their everlasting leave of this earth, Thus Christ's church shall forever leave this accursed world, to go unto the highest heavens, the paradise of God. When they are gone this world shall be set on fire, and be turned into a great furnace wherein all the enemies of Christ and His Church shall be tormented forever and ever. The miserable company of the wicked being left behind to have their sentences executed upon them here, then this whole lower world shall be set on fire. This world which used to be the place

of Satan's kingdom, shall now be the place of his complete punishment, and perfect and everlasting torment.'-Thus the earth, Christ's birth-place, and redeemed by Him, instead of being made new, is turned into the hell of the damned."

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

An intelligent Christian of Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, from one of whose articles in the Rainbow we give in this No. an extract, sends us his subscription, with the following. "Allow me to thank you for your WORDS OF RECONCILIATION. That I can do heartily without being committed to all that you teach. It may be all true, but I never feel satisfied to commit myself to any matters of that kind until I have time to look all around them and view their bearings. I admire the frankness and courage which you combine with reverence in dealing with God's Word. It is so refreshing to me to receive anything from a man who has the courage of his convictions in dealing with sacred things, and especially when he does not forget that they are sacred. Your principle no doubt is the true one-first of all a minister of Christ.' When ministers generally realize this, they will create a revolution. With you, I see that a ransom has been paid for every man, and that every man must be told of it. That is possible only in post-resurrection times. While every man must be told of the glad tidings, it does not follow that every man will receive them; and therefore I rejoice to see that your position is not that of the Universalist. I sympathize with you in desire for Christian Unity, but I am not sure that it will be realized during the present age. That marvell