of his own denomination and of the Christian Church at large. That gravé responsibilities belong to such a position must be obvious, and that the Union has become a great and growing power-its increase having gone on unchecked since the chief part in its management devolved on Dr. Smith— cannot be doubted. But there are few, perhaps, who will estimate at all adequately the energy, the tact, the patience, the fertility of invention, the fortitude, the acquaintance with religious movements and parties, which such a position demands. He was a man "who had understanding of the time to know what Israel ought to do." We believe it will be allowed that his influential administration of the affairs of the denomination was inflexible in nothing but principle. This consideration apart, he knew both when and how to yield. There was no tenacity in regard to plans or schemes, merely because they were his own; and in the delicate task of giving prominence to brethren who were qualified to represent or to guide the general opinion, it seemed as if private partialities and friendships were entirely set aside.

It may, perhaps, be allowable to add, that Dr. Smith was one of the most genial of companions-that he was marked by equal consideration for the aged and sympathy with the young-while there belonged to him the still higher praise of gladdening his own home by a presence worthy of the father and the Christian. Nor was that home the less cheerful because its owner was instrumental, in the discharge of his official duties, in diffusing gladness over the hearts of many of his less favoured brethren.

Who will say that such a life is without its lessons? Who will fail to trace in it the Divine goodness—the bounties of Providence being signally crowned with the richer bestowment of grace? Who will not rejoice if the important interests intrusted to this "good and faithful servant" are not permitted to suffer greatly by his removal? S. MCALL.

THE BLESSED DEAD BEFORE THE FIRST AND AFTER THE SECOND ADVENT OF CHRIST.

WE have already considered the state of the dead, of the blessed dead especially, between Death and the Resurrection.* Our exposition of Holy Scripture brought us to these conclusions-that they are not asleep, but conscious and active, and that they are with Christ, in the Paradise where He dwells. Whether they are clothed in any species of material form or not is not revealed in Scripture, nor can any definite inference be drawn from the difficulty which we now feel in imagining how pure spirit may commune with pure spirit. So far as character is concerned, and blessedness proportioned to capacity, the language of the Book of Revelation may be applied equally to the state of the blessed before and after the Resur rection : "He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They

*See Christian Witness for March, 1870.

shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them to living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

But questions of some interest now arise: What difference may there be between the state of the blessed as it is now and as it was before the Incarnation of the Son of God? Then, What difference is there between the state of the blessed as it is now and as it will be after the Resurrection and the final Judgment?

As to the first of these questions. What difference, if any, may be discovered between the state of the dead before and after the coming of Christ? The question is not, what difference is there between the views of the godly on earth, before and after the coming of Christ, concerning the future state? Speakers and writers often transfer to the future state itself the ideas and feelings which are supposed to have been entertained respecting it on earth. These were in general dark and gloomy. The words of Hezekiah are often quoted in proof or illustration of this: "I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave (i.e., of Sheol or Hades, the invisible state): I am deprived of the residue of my years. The grave (Hades) cannot praise thee: they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day." (Isaiah xxxviii. 10-19.) That Hezekiah shrank from the great darkness before him, is very evident. That his sentiments, as he lay on that bed of sickness, were not of faith but of sense, is very evident. But that he really believed that no "praise" could be rendered to God in Hades, and that none but "the living" on earth could render praise or any other active service to God, cannot be inferred from his words. His words must be taken rather as the utterance of a despondent soul than as the expression of a distinct belief. But even if they were taken as a literal expression of his belief, they would prove nothing as to the real facts of the future state, for we have no reason to suppose that he spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost.

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Return, O For in death

We find expressions in the Psalms of David almost as despondent as those of Hezekiah, but there are other expressions which show within what limits they must be understood. David says, for example: Lord, deliver my soul: oh! save me for thy mercies' sake. there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave (Sheol or Hades) who shall give thee thanks?" But that such language is not to be taken absolutely as if the Psalmist anticipated an entire cessation of thought and energy in the invisible world, is manifest from not a few passages and from the general spirit of the Psalms. "Deliver me from the wicked which have their portion in this life . . . As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." (Psalm xvii. 13—15.) Such language as the following cannot possibly be restricted to this life: “I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy

wings. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows: thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. Thou wilt prolong the King's life and his years as many generations. He shall abide before God for ever." (Psalm lxi. 4-7.)

That saints, under the old economy, should generally surround the invisible world with gloom, need not surprise us. Do not saints, even now, often do the same? With their greater light and higher privileges, do they not sometimes bemoan themselves in the prospect of death, as if the life they are about to lose were everything to them? Their imagination rests on the grave and its darkness. Sun, and moon, and stars, they shall see no more. Friends and kindred will be lost to them. All the pleasant things of life will be blotted out-and the future is a blank. It may be very unworthy, very unbelieving, on the part of Christians, to think or feel or speak thus, but they do. You will find not a little poetry written by men bearing, at least, the Christian name, as despondent and melancholic, as if the Sun of Righteousness had shed no ray of light either on the present or on the future.

The general gloom which the ancients associated with the invisible world, and even the gloom of the spirits of the godly in relation to it, is no evidence that the state of the dead, before the coming of Christ, was itself in any wise dark and gloomy, or other than consciously active and blessed. There is one remarkable expression of our Lord's which throws some light upon it. In his argument with the Sadducees, he said, “As touching the resurrection of the dead (an expression in which he evidently included the whole future of the dead), have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," "for," as his words are reported by Luke, "all live unto him." (Matt. xxii. 31, 32; Luke xx. 38.) "All live unto God." Though dead to us, they are not dead to Him. Their earthly death has separated them from us, but not from Him; yea, rather, it has brought them nearer to Him. This is plainly the meaning, a meaning which does not allow us to think of the spirits of the saints of the old world as sleeping out a dull existence in a state of torpid repose, or as being wandering shades in gloomy regions of perpetual twilight. When God said to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," he intimated, our Lord himself being the interpreter, that those patriarchs were still alive, though not on earth; that God was the object of their trust and worship now as He had been while they were in the body; and that they actively served and enjoyed Him now as they had done before. Nothing short of a continued conscious existence in the presence of God, in the world where God is specially revealed, an existence dedicated to the service of God and rendered blessed by the favour of God, can be inferred from our Lord's interpretation of the words of God to Moses out of the burning bush.

Was there, then, no change in the condition of the old saints when Christ

the

As

returned to heaven from His earthly work? We think there must have been; but it was purely moral or spiritual. We see no proof or sign of what may be called a substantial change of condition, or of a translation from a less favoured to a more favoured region in the dominions of the Heavenly Father. But the completion of the great sacrifice, by the virtue of which myriads were saved by anticipation, and the revelation of its completion to the hosts of the redeemed, must have produced a wondrous effect on their minds and hearts. Even the prophets of old, who prophesied of grace that was to be manifested in due time, inquired and searched diligently what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. We are not led to believe that their search ended in a perfect understanding of these sufferings and that glory. Nor have we reason to suppose that when they entered heaven their searching was at an end or lost in perfect knowledge. Even after the accomplishment of the great things which prophets foretold, we read of "angels desiring to look into" these things. To angelic spirits they were still the subjects of adoring and wondering inquiry; and they could be no less to the spirits of just men made perfect. From Adam to Christ the heaven of the redeemed, though pure and blessed, was a heaven of expectancy. the redeemed now in heaven are expectants of that final day of the world when their bodies shall be raised from the grave and fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, so the redeemed in heaven before the first coming of Christ were expectants of that great day when the Son of God should go forth to that holy war, so briefly and obscurely indicated in the words which God addressed to the tempter in Eden: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Many of them had carried to heaven the knowledge of other promises and prophecies, which had been a light and a joy to them in the darkness of the world. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God." "He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. . . . Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." All this was the study of saints on earth, and in the light of heaven they still studied the wondrous theme. The future of the Incarnation and the Cross was to them what the future of the Resurrection and the Judgment is now to the spirits around the throne, an object of faith and expectancy,

...

and when that object was realised by the actual coming, and dying, and rising again, and return to glory of Immanuel, the Saviour, the change in the mental experiences of the saved must have been little short of a revolution.

When the Son of God departed to fulfil His mission on earth, " a multitude of the heavenly host" followed Him and celebrated His advent in the joyous and significant words: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men." Whether in that multitude there were any perfected human spirits or not, the song which was sung over the plains of Bethlehem was no secret in heaven, and its echoes must have thrilled multitudes of human hearts which had been waiting in their glory for thousands of years for this great day, the greatest in the world's history. Somewhat later, two illustrious human deputies were sent down for a brief space to commune with their Lord while He was working out the great redemption. Their visit to the world could have been no secret in heaven, nor could the subject of their conversation on the Mount, "the decease which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem." When that decease came, although it was a real decease, a real death, as such in some sense a defeat, it was more a victory than a defeat. It was only as the bruising of the heel of Christ, whereas it was the bruising of the head of Satan. Even in dying, Jesus spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in His cross. (Col. ii. 15.) When He returned to His glory in heaven it was "leading captivity captive." Satan, and sin, and death, which had been vanquished on the cross, were now led in triumph, bound, as it were, in fetters, to His conquering chariot wheels: and no earthly capital was ever stirred by the triumphal entry of a victorious commander as heaven was by the entry of the Son of God and Son of Man on His return from the scene of His great victory on earth. The mystery of God, the study of ages, was now unveiled.

The darkness, which of necessity had covered much of the work of redemption from the eyes of both angels and men even in heaven, was now past, and the true light shone brightly upon them. "Glory to God in the highest" was still the appropriate song, but it was sung with an intelligence and fulness of meaning never attained before. And beneath the flood of light and joy thrown on the redeemed by the return of Christ from the sacrifice of the Cross, still wearing, and for ever to wear, the nature of the redeemed, it would not be too much to say that a new heaven dawned on the saints of the ages that were passed. This is the heaven which saints now enjoy-heaven as it will be till the Resurrection and the Judgment Day.

It will be seen, then, that the only difference we can trace between the state of the blessed as it is now, between Death and the Resurrection, and the state of the blessed as it was before the coming of Christ, is spiritual and moral. We can find no authority for the idea of a change of locality, as if a new and higher region had taken the place of the one hitherto