LECTURE IX. LOOK UP AND LIFT UP YOUR HEADS. The future is full of sunshine. Behind its dark clouds are rays of glory. These rays break out of their hidingplaces and shine unobstructed over all. "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."—LUKE xxi. 28. THE things that are to come to pass we read of in the chapters of ancient prophecy; the lessons that the prediction and prospect of these things should teach us, I will now endeavour to impress. Our logic draws very often wrong conclusions. God states what will be, and we exclaim, in terror, How dreadful! Jesus, who predicts what will be in his sermon on the Mount, prescribes: "Look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." We are sure, therefore, that our logic must be wrong; the inferences of Him who spake as never man spake, who lived as never man lived, who died as never man died, and who reasoned as never philosopher reasoned, must be always and everywhere perfectly right. Then Christians who believe these things, hold, that the storm that sweeps the earth, and dismantles it of all its beauty-that the hurricane which loosens stars from their orbits and scatters them as the leaves of a fig-tree are swept by the autumnal gale from its branches, can no more scathe them, than if, during the height of the hurricane, they were safe within the walls and under the sunshine of that Paradise which is one day to overtake the world and crown it with a glory with which it never commenced. The worst of the storms predicted by the prophet are to a Christian but the biting winds of March, very unpleasant; the descending showers of April, very frequent; but both, nevertheless, the tokens of the approaching everlasting summer. They are at their worst the loud, but not equivocal accents that already begin to be heard "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh." By a chemistry the most remarkable, a Christian draws sunshine from the bosom of the darkest cloud, refreshment from the hard rock, and bright hopes from dark prospects; and where the world hangs its head, and droops, and desponds, and despairs, and begs that it may not hear of these things any more, the Christian listens to the storm, and feels like the man within the well-roofed and the well-built house, perfect security-he looks up to the everlasting hills, from whence cometh his aid-he lifts up his head, for the judgments that sweep the earth are but the harbingers of that morning that is soon to break upon it. It is after his prediction of similar judgments that our Lord introduces these cheering words. Let us carefully note what precedes the words of encouragement. Jesus tells us, among other things that shall take place, "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations." That word "distress is a most expressive one; it is the translation of a Greek word that denotes "compression:" it denotes inability to act or to discover an exit from complications and difficulties. It is that state of things in which nations, to use a common phrase, will be at their wits' end. In one we shall find the exhaustion of its exchequer; in another rising turbulence and disloyalty; in another fears of an invasion that may be real, they know not whence, they know not why, and they know not how; in another resistance to all internal arrangements; in all, cabinet, congress, parliament, divan, feeling, in lesser or greater intensity, the fulfilment of the prediction, "distress of nations." sharpness in which it was ever developed in Eden itself. And shall we be sorry for this? Should you like to believe that those you loved on earth, whose souls are now in heaven, shall be united soul and body at the last great day, and you not know them? That footfall that was music on your threshold; that voice, the tones of which are amidst your most familiar and imperishable reminiscences; that countenance, that like sunshine made the very door open at its approach—all that shall be reproduced in all its distinctness and clearness; and we shall know even as we are known. When the restitution of all things shall take place, man's mental and moral nature will be also restored. Man gives evidence of great genius still: it is no light or feeble mental power that can launch the ocean steamer, construct the iron rail, produce monuments of genius like Milton's "Paradise Lost," or like the dramas of Shakspeare. These are evidences that incidentally among mankind there are discovered traces of a genius, and intellect, vaster, far vaster than we find on the ordinary level of life. Man's moral nature is fearfully depraved and degenerated. It would be altogether absurd to say that every man is so depraved that there is nothing good in him; there is nothing meritorious in him, but there are many traits of excellence lingering still. We shall find merchants on the Royal Exchange whose word is sure as an oath; men in commerce whose promise is as reliable as law; mothers that will die for their children; parents that will spend and be spent in maintaining their home; thousands of lingering traits of a moral glory that has, indeed, become greatly deteriorated, but enough to tell us what a grand being man once was, and to be earnests and foretastes of that grand creation which man shall be again. When all things are restored, the heart shall be regenerated, the intellect illuminated; the horizon of the one and the sympathies of the other vastly expanded; all made new-no sickness, no sorrow, no night of evil, no night of error, no night of death; but all restored to a beauty, a harmony, a peace, a happiness, unprecedented in the past, unparalleled in the present; such as eye hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, and heart hath barely conceived. Here then are the features of the times of refreshment; here is the restitution of all things. We are told that this is all to be done, through Christ, who is preached unto us; preached unto us as the Redeemer; preached unto us as the Restorer; preached unto us as having paid the price, and exhausted the penalty; and given us to hope and to be assured that He who came to our world its Redeemer on a cross, will return to our world its Restorer, wearing many crowns. 66 'Through the harsh voices of our day A low, sweet prelude finds its way: Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear "That song of love, now low and far, I need not re We pray that this day may come. mind you who is the way to it, by whose blood it is purchased, on whose promises it is founded. Are you believers in his name? Are you washed in the efficacy of his precious blood? Are you looking for the least crumb of bread and the brightest crown of glory through his mediation and his merits only? And do you find your hearts changed by the same Spirit, your natures sanctified by his grace, and yourselves like his Bride, looking for the return of Him who has promised to come and reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth? LECTURE IX. LOOK UP AND LIFT UP YOUR HEADS. The future is full of sunshine. Behind its dark clouds are rays of glory. These rays break out of their hidingplaces and shine unobstructed over all. "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."-LUKE xxi. 28. THE things that are to come to pass we read of in the chapters of ancient prophecy; the lessons that the prediction and prospect of these things should teach us, I will now endeavour to impress. Our logic draws very often wrong conclusions. God states what will be, and , we exclaim, in terror, How dreadful! Jesus, who predicts what will be in his sermon on the Mount, prescribes: "Look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." We are sure, therefore, that our logic must be wrong; the inferences of Him who spake as never man spake, who lived as never man lived, who died as never man died, and who reasoned as never philosopher reasoned, must be always and everywhere perfectly right. Then Christians who believe these things, hold, that the storm that sweeps the earth, and dismantles it of all its beauty-that the hurricane which loosens stars from their orbits and scatters them as the leaves of a fig-tree are swept by the autumnal gale from its branches, can no more scathe them, than if, during the height of the hurricane, they were safe within the walls and under the sunshine of that Paradise which |