some of the finest and gentlest minds that ever came from the hands of the Creator. The compilers of our catechisms who have made this falsehood one of the ingredients in their “milk for babes," have much to answer for, and the preachers and teachers who perpetuate it are simply, without knowing it, making our heavenly Father the terror and scourge of the universe !

Mothers help us to diffuse God's pure, loving, exquisitely beautiful truth, unadulterated with pagan and popish cruelties! We are doing what we can- and, thanks to our blessed Lord, not without rich fruit— to drive the withering abomination from the Christian Church; but it is obvious that our hope must be in the young. If the next generation is to look back with amazement on the fact that the word of truth was so amazingly misunderstood, we must teach the children the great Gospel revelation of immortality only in CHRIST. Those precious ones who are now playing and prattling around the mother-the beautiful blossoms which God has sent to sweeten home-must be educated in the atmo sphere of divine tenderness. O how blessed it is to tell those we love that "God is love!" How delightful to speak these most gracious words in the listening ears of childhood:-" God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." To perish means to die, to go out of existence, to cease to be. To have everlasting life means -O wonderful thought !-to have union with the beloved Son of God, close as the branch to the stem-the same vitality animating boththe eternal life thus possessed by the believer, child or man, being not at all a natural, but a purely supernatural thing; not an inherited possession, but a glorious "gift of God." Let young hearts, through the teaching of ministering mothers, feel that Jesus loves them; and let them grow up, not in a region of terror, but in one of peace, and joy, and hope!

THE BEREAN CASKET.

I. "I have greatly pleased and encouraged me.

N the 'Berean Casket' there are many points cleared up which
There are many left

which, if taken up, would no doubt please and interest still further, if you were but reminded of them. Does not John iii. 13, which says that no man hath ascended up to heaven,' directly contradict 2 Kings ii. 11, and Hebrew xi. 5?-HEYWORTH SCHOFIELD."

No. The Lord is speaking of the heaven where he was "with God" in the beginning; but the narrative in Kings refers to the visible heavens into which the prophet was seen ascending in a whirlwind. We have not been informed where Elijah and Enoch are; but it is certain that

he who only hath immortality dwells in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see. (1 Tim. vi. 16.)

II. "How do you reconcile the parable of the rich man and Lazarus with the idea of the soul's non-immortality, or the annihilation of the wicked?-AN ANXIOUS INQUIrer."

As there is no contradiction, there is no need of reconciliation. That which you admit to be a "parable" cannot be accepted literally: and to accept this parable as a description of literal facts is obviously impossible. Insurmountable difficulties and absurdities immediately face any man that makes the attempt. Men dead and buried neither see nor speak. In it there is not a word about "souls." Its "hell" is Hades. And the assumption that it is a narrative of fact is purely out of the question. As well may you assume that Jotham's trees (Judges ix.) held a political discussion about the election of a king. Whatever this mysterious speech in Luke xvi. was intended by the Lord to suggest to his hearers-a question which we can answer, but are not asked to answer at present-we go not to it, but to hundreds of plain literal Scriptures to learn what is revealed respecting immortality and destruction. Never forget the good rule to interpret the obscure by the plain; for there are no contradictions in God's precious word.

III. "I read the RAINBOW with great interest, and the 'Berean Casket has helped to clear up some perplexities in my mind. Will you kindly tell me how, if the soul is unconscious between death and resurrection, Paul could say, 'absent from the body, present with the Lord;' and again, he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better?' Jesus, too, told the thief on the cross, 'To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise.' And in Luke xx. 38, our Lord, speaking of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as dead, says God of the dead but of the living, for all live unto him.' seem to intimate that when death takes place, the soul is conscious of greater happiness in the presence of Christ himself. Excuse my troubling you, but I have a sincere desire to be rightly informed on the subject.H. J. R."

God is not a These passages

The sincerity of our correspondent's desire to be rightly informed, which we fully believe, cannot exceed the sincerity of our desire to help our fellow Christians, so far as we possibly can, rightly to understand our Father's word. There are questions, easily put, which no man can answer at present, questions in the presence of which to stand uncovered and silent is the best proof of wisdom. Far be it from us to meddle with matters which are too high for us; but if we can help "H. J. R.," or any one else, instead of thinking it a trouble, we shall esteem it as one of the many precious-very precious-privileges with which, in his marvellous grace, the Lord has favoured us.

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1. "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." These words, taken alone, do certainly suggest an immediate transition from death to heaven, notwithstanding the remarkable absence of either "soul" or spirit" from the context. But they cannot be taken alone, without an entire misapprehension of the apostle's argument. He did not desire to be unclothed (2 Cor. v.), but clothed upon, that mortality might be swal lowed up of life, which, according to his own teaching in many places, cannot take place until the resurrection of the saints at the Saviour's advent. His eye was on the judgment seat of Christ (ver 10). And he says, "We are still confident, and well content rather to go from our home in the body, and to come to our home with the Lord." But when shall we come to our home with the Lord? Let Paul himself answer. Again and again he speaks of departed believers as "asleep," but, he says, "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not go before them that are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are living and remain, shall be caught up together with them, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." This is Paul's blessed thought of "coming to his home with the Lord." Until the resurrection, he expected no crown, no glory, no reward. But it was his joy to know that, awake or asleep, he was the Lord's; that his life was hid with Christ in God; and that when Christ, his life, appeared, he should appear with him in glory.

2. His "desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Whatever the expression so rendered may mean, it must be consistent with the apostle's great doctrine that the simultaneous glorification of the entire Church, the body of Christ, would take place at the coming of the Lord. And in reference to his departure he writes to Timothy, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which "—I shall immediately receive? No, but-" the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me.only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." What, then, does he mean by the words, "But I am in a strait betwixt the two, having my desire for departing, and being with Christ: for it is very far better ?" We must conclude, from Paul's own writings, that he perfectly ignored the intermediate time of sleep, which to him would be no time at all, and fixed his mind upon the glorious resurrection at the return of his Lord. σε Το depart," says Henry Constable, "means doubtless to die, and to be with Christ means doubtless the glorified state at resurrection. They are spoken of here as closely connected, as in fact synchronal, from that

doctrine of the sleep of the intermediate state which Paul so often taught. To depart from life and die would be, he knew, to be followed at once by the trumpet calling him to arise and be with his Lord; for time would, in the actual interval, however long, between dying and rising, be annihilated for him who slept."

8. Luke xx. 38. The patriarchs were dead, but God says he is "the God of the living;" therefore there must be a resurrection. This was the point to be proved, and the Lord proved it thus.

4. The dying thief. See "The Penitent Thief," in last month's RAINBOW.

IV. "In Psalm civ. 5, it is written, Who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed for ever;' in Psalm cxix. 90, Thy faithfulness is unto all generations; thou hast established the earth, and it abideth,' or, margin, standeth; and in Eccl. i. 1, The earth abideth. for ever.' But in 2 Peter iii. 10, we have these words, But the day of the Lord shall 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.' I shall be very grateful if you can solve this great difficulty.-A BIBLE READER."

That the continuance and immobility of the earth, as the fixed scene and centre of Messiah's everlasting dominion, are taught in Scripture, is not to be questioned by any man who reverently accepts the word as meaning what it says; nor does the statement of Peter militate against that doctrine, although at first sight it seems to do so. For what are the facts? The apostle foreseeing, by the Spirit, the scoffers of the last days, with their mocking question, "Where is the promise of his coming?" rebukes them for their willing ignorance-a sin of most serious character and refers to the flood thus: "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby-by which water-the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” Here is the key put into our hands by the apostle himself. The works of the wicked, with the wicked themselves, were engulfed in the waters of judgment; but in due time the earth-that is to say, those parts of it which God meant to be inhabited-emerged from its tremendous baptism, and "stood out of the water," purified and beautified for the service of men. Now mark the apostolic parallel: "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." As there was a judgment by water, so there will be a judgment by fire. The Lord Jesus is to be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those that know not God, and that

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obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thess. i. 7, 8). Now, may it not be here intimated that the purifying process will issue in a wonderfully beautified earth? But does not verse 10 pointedly say that the earth will be burned up? It does, according to the reading and punctuation of our version; but even in that case Peter looks forward to a new earth "—which, to harmonise with those scriptures which affirm perpetuity—can be none other than this earth purified. But, let us quote the words of a remarkably clear thinker:* "Perhaps it may be well to observe here, that 2 Peter iii. 10, which seems to indicate the complete consumption of the earth by fire, only requires to be differently punctuated, in order to render it harmonious with what has been now advanced; and the well-known rule of a neuter plural taking after it a verb singular, requires this emendation. Accordingly the verse should be thus read: The day of the Lord shall 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 burnt up.' By this reading, it is manifest that the 'burning up,' in question, is predicated, not of the earth itself, though it indeed will undergo a fermenting heat, but of the works that are therein -the monuments of man's perverted ingenuity." And, led us add that, according to the learned Tischendorf, the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS., instead of "burnt up," read, "shall be discovered." Tregelles, who has spent a lifetime in examining the most ancient manuscripts known to exist, also gives "discovered." No! there is no fear of contradiction among God's scribes! We have but to compare them diligently, and we shall be amply rewarded.

THE SEALED FIRST FRUITS OF ISRAEL.

(REV. vii. 1-8.)

N entering upon the consideration of this chapter, the author cannot

New Testament in general, if unassociated in his mind with the accompanying comments which prevail in the Christian Church. For example, if the four Gospels were thus entertained by him, there can be little doubt but that his attention would be at once arrested by their contents; for, therein he would see, in striking accordance with Old Testament prophecy, the procedure of Messiah, as a minister of the circumcision, addressing himself to Jewish hopes; and in no wise contravening, but rather encouraging the expectation of the kingdom, and the "first dominion"t among the nations, as the portion of the daughters of Zion.

* Rev. James Kelly, M.A.

†See Micah iv. 8.