very discourse, ending with the very same saying about the eagles. The sense here seems to be that no report of the Messiah's reign should delude us. He is not in the desert, nor in secret places, in His visible form as man, but His Body is wherever the Holy Eucharist is celebrated, and there are the Eagles, the faithful ones, gathered together.

Doth the eagle mount up at thy command?
And make her nest on high?

She dwelleth and abideth on the rock :

Upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place.

From thence she seeketh the prey,

And her eyes behold afar off.

Her young ones also suck up blood;

And where the slain are, there is she.-(JOB Xxxix.)

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things,

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's?—(Psalm ciii.)

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings as eagles ;

They shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk,

and not faint.-(ISAIAH xl).

And thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. —(EZEK. xxxix. 17.)

Here then are the Eagles called to the Memorial Sacrifice, which is the Presence of their Lord, until that coming for which they shall not need to look, since like lightning all shall see it at once!

LESSON VI.

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

TUESDAY, A.D. 30.—LUKE xxi. 24—36.

Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig-tree, and all the

trees;

When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.

So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled.

Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

COMMENT.--Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles "till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." For there is hope for Israel, as we shall see when we pass on to St. Paul's Epistle. But thence our Lord passes on to His own actual return. In St. Matthew the words are,“ Immediately after the tribulation of those days." It may be that we should take the word immediate, as no doubt we shall do in the days of Eternity, as St. Peter says, in view of this very difficulty (2 Peter iii.) :

:

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

It also may be understood as meaning that the verses before in St. Matthew (xxiv. 23-26), are meant to cover the whole period of the Christian Church, whose temptation all that time would be (as it has been) to follow false Christs and false teachers, and to neglect the One Sacrifice, which should gather the Eagles together.

Then evil times begin, and gather more and more darkness. Joel

had foretold them before (11—30—31), and St. John beheld in his vision how it shall be (Rev. vi.):—

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains ;

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

Some astronomers tell us that these are the very appearances that we should see if, as some expect, our planet is to end by being drawn into the sun and burnt with his fiery heat. Other more figurative meanings there are, in the sense in which St. Peter applied the prophecy of Joel on the day of Pentecost, but the main meaning is that dread sights and sounds shall be in the world, and that evil times shall come, when wickedness shall abound, the love of many shall fail, and there shall be special trials which the Elect themselves shall scarce be able to endure; while even in the midst of their worst sufferings, they shall have patience, consolation, and hope, for every dread token is to them a sign that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and that at the very worst moment, He will appear in power and glory.

As the buds foretell the summer, so the terror and misery that befall the world are the tokens of the Second Advent of our Lord, and therefore this is an Advent Gospel, warning us to watch and pray as the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Each generation when troubles have arisen, has thought they were the last and worst, but St. John has shown that many successive waves were to sweep over the Church before the last and most terrible of all. And here the words of our Lord, "this generation shall not pass away" have a double meaning. First that Jerusalem should fall in the time of the actually existing generation. Secondly that the human kind under the Gospel dispensation should live on to the end of the

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world. All shall rest on His Word, the unchanging promise that is stronger than the skies or the earth (Psalm cii.) :—

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth:
And the heavens are the work of thy hands.

They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure:

Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment;

As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed;

But thou art the same,

And thy years shall have no end.

The children of thy servants shall continue,

And their seed shall be established before thee.

So that we endure unto the end, we shall be saved.

"O ye, that in these latter days
The citadel defend,

Perchance for you the Saviour said,
I'm with you to the end.

Stand, therefore, girt about with faith,
Your burning lamps in hand;
And standing, listen for your Lord,
And till his coming, stand."

LESSON VII.

WATCHING.

TUESDAY, A.D. 30.-MATT. xxiv. 36-51.

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Watch, therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?

Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.

Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth his coming;

And shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;

The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,

And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

COMMENT.-Well knowing how people would try to foretell the time of His coming again, our Lord warns them how impossible it is. Every now and then there has been such a calculation—notably in the year 1000, when all works of husbandry were suspended, and a great famine was caused-and over and over again have there been calculations based on the numbers given by Daniel and St. John. But all of these have turned out to be wrong, and we perceive that the state of mind our Lord thought best for His Church is one of uncertainty, not knowing whether He may not come in our own time, any time, by day or by night, and not losing faith because the time is long. In St. Mark, the words about the uncertainty are still stronger (Mark xiii. 32—37) :—

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

Take ye heed, watch and pray for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.

Watch ye, therefore for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning : Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.

And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.

We must understand the words that the Son knoweth not the time, to mean that in the Human Nature He had taken on Himself He knew not the time, and as Head and Lord of the Church, He knew not the day and hour. It is a great mystery, but it is plainly