LECTURE XXXIV.

THE RETURN TO REIGN.

The scene of the future glory opens up to the eyes of the inspired seer, and, dazzled and delighted by the splendour, he exclaims:

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth." -ISAIAH lii. 7.

THE exclamation is worthy of the scene. It will be no common glory; no ordinary apocalypse. It nears us daily. It cannot arrive too soon. Redemption is the thirst of man, and of the souls beneath the altar, believing and hoping and waiting outside. We shall reign with Him; "He shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth; he shall come and shine before his ancients gloriously. What then will take place? We see through a glass darkly; many things relating to that glorious reign we cannot explain. But there are certain grand results that will follow from his reign that it is impossible to overlook. Let us inquire. Nothing in the world of to-day-a remark made in various shapes and forms—is as it was when this world was originally made. Neither sickness, nor disease, nor loss, nor bereavement, nor sorrow, were included in the inventory of created things on which God pronounced and wrote this grand inscription: "All is very good." No man can believe that anything upon the earth or in ourselves

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retains the perfection or the glory in which it was, in which God meant it to be; but to which it will be restored when Christ-Redeemer, King, Creator-returns on earth to reign. Dark shadows mingle with and dim the sunniest scenes; winter encloses the dead summer in its mantle of snow as in a shroud. The loveliest and the fairest things are in this economy the fleetest. The wail of sorrow, a melancholy minor wail, rises from all nature, as if it were, what Paul describes it in agony, groaning and travailing to be delivered. All the sounds of nature, the bleating of sheep, the chimes of the waves, the noise of the winds, the rustling of trees, the hum of bees, the song of birds, are all on the minor key. What does that imply? The original key has been altered by sin. But the day comes when that melancholy minor shall be transposed into a grand and glorious major; and one vast anthem peal will ascend from a ransomed and redeemed world, like the noise of a great multitude and the voice of many waters, saying Hallelujah; Jesus Christ, the Lord God omnipotent, reigneth.' Deserts, where all is bleak, and lands, where all is barren, swamps, in which there is no life, and burning sands in which grows no flower, deface that orb which God pronounced good. Thousands of hearts are daily crushed and chilled by sorrow, and, what is worse than sorrow, sin; bearing burdens they can neither endure nor throw off; numbers in sunless lairs, in the agony of forlorn hope, tasting every day the bitterness of death, and no sound of joy ringing in their hearts, and no sunshine from this world or that other breaking on the shore of their dreary and their desolate souls. Surely these things never were meant to be; surely God, good, infinitely good, did not make these things. Did we believe that the earth as it is and our social condition as we feel it were the original creation of Deity, we should be tempted to believe God to be a revengeful tyrant, not the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I have told you before that there is no evidence in man that man was designed to die; but the evidence is irresistible in the human economy that a moral

sentence, not a material organism, necessitates death. I had a conversation with a most eminent physiologist, perhaps the most distinguished of his age, who does not believe as I believe. The result of that conversation was briefly this. I said, "Will you, sir, be kind enough to tell me why man dies?" His answer was, "It is a fact; that is all." I said, "But is it a fact that we can neither solve, nor explain, nor comprehend?" He said, "I cannot say`; it is a fact." I said, "Why is it that up to 45 a man seems to grow in strength, or at least to retain his strength and vigour, and then after that he seems to droop and decline?" His answer was very happy, but it was only scientific. "Up to 45 the balance is in our favour; after 45 the balance is against us." I said, "Is that all you can state to explain that strange fact, that most horrible fact?" for death is a horrible, a monstrous and abnormal thing, from which all our instincts recoil and shudder, and which you can never face except as a foe that Christ has overcome, or as a friend that Christ has commissioned to take you home. I said to him, "Can it not be explained?" He said, "I cannot explain it." Then I said, "I will put it in this way: suppose a man were made perfectly transparent; suppose an angel from a far-distant world, to which the tidings of our sorrow had never risen, were to come down to this orb, and see this living mechanism working in all its exquisite relations, so fearfully, so beautifully, so wonderfully made, and suppose I were to put the question to that stranger from a distant orb, Do you think that machine will stop?" The answer which the physiologist gave me was, "He would answer, No; because the provision for the repair of what is wasted, supposing no accident, is so perfect, that the inference would be, the machine must go on for ever." Then I asked, "Why does it stop?" "The balance," he repeated, "is against us after 45, suppose there is no direct disease; though it is true that disease always sets in, in consequence of the balance failing?" "Well," I said, "you cannot explain it on your principles; but on mine I can. 'The wages of sin is death; in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.'

Science cannot explain it; religion undertakes to explain it. Science admits that death does not spring from a physical cause; the Bible shows it springs from a moral one; and that moral one solves the mystery, and explains the phenomenon of death." But, blessed hope! when Christ returns to reign, this nature which thus suffers, shall be replaced in its original orbit, and clothed with more than its Eden glory. The sunny streaks that now struggle with the shadows shall at that day gain the supremacy; and from the east to the west, from the pine forests of the north to the palm groves of the east, the earth shall be glorious. Creation suffers in hope: out of its darkest patches forelights of deliverance struggle into day; streams of joy, like rivers broke loose from their icy chains in spring, shall rush along its long-dried channels making sweet music evermore. When Christ returns and reigns, sin shall be extirpated from every soul and eliminated from every portion of our physical economy. We have at present a faint idea, just because we are accustomed to it, of the depth of the shadow which sin has projected over this world of ours, or of the fever it has created, or the unrest and disquiet, and paralysis, which it has stricken into all living material things. But at that day sin shall be extirpated; the understanding shall regain its pristine brilliancy; the heart its long-lost love; conscience shall again be the realm of right and wrong; and into nature's most secret and sequestered nooks shall be poured all the sunshine of heaven; and along its longdeserted channels shall roll the streams of that river that makes glad the city of our God; and on the cold heart of humanity shall be rekindled as on an altar that fire of love, and light, and joy which never shall be turned to ashes. Soul and body shall be restored, and the days of both, like the hours on the sun-dial, shall be measured by sunshine. When Christ comes, the last enemy that he shall put under his feet -for the apostle says, "he shall reign till all things are put under his feetDeath is spoken of to the end as an enemy. loves his enemy; and that is an enemy we are not called

is death. Nobody

LECTURE XXXIV.

THE RETURN TO REIGN.

The scene of the future glory opens up to the eyes of the inspired seer, and, dazzled and delighted by the splendour, he exclaims :

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.” -ISAIAH lii. 7.

THE exclamation is worthy of the scene. It will be no common glory; no ordinary apocalypse. It nears us daily. It cannot arrive too soon. Redemption is the thirst of man, and of the souls beneath the altar, believing and hoping and waiting outside. We shall reign with Him; "He shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth; he shall come and shine before his ancients gloriously. What then will take place? We see through a glass darkly; many things relating to that glorious reign we cannot explain. But there are certain grand results that will follow from his reign that it is impossible to overlook. Let us inquire. Nothing in the world of to-day-a remark made in various shapes and forms-is as it was when this world was originally made. Neither sickness, nor disease, nor loss, nor bereavement, nor sorrow, were included in the inventory of created things on which God pronounced and wrote this grand inscription: "All is very good." No man can believe that anything upon the earth or in ourselves