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unity of God, His providence over all, the necessity of prophecy, the advantage of a sacred book, were good in its tenets, but all were borrowed from revelation. It is agreed that Mahomet had the assistance of Warraker, the kinsman of his wife, who had been conversant with the Jews and Christians, and through these means something of Judaism and of Christianity were mixed up with the imposture.

And will our modern infidels affirm that they are not indebted to revelation, that the influence of Christianity around them has no effect upon their systems? Where was the social principle so exemplified as in the Jewish theocracy or in the Christian Church? The great principle of the new moral world of the Socialists, is that each is to make others happy. Who has heard the 13th chapter 1st Corinthians, and will not there find the charity by which all is peace? Who has read the beautiful lesson, "Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye also unto them," and not felt this is the basis of all that is truly social-here is the love and unity of the Church of Christ?

Finally, let us study and value God's most holy word; it is supremely excellent; it is unfailing and secure; it may be treasured in the heart and it will not forsake us; it will sustain us through the storms and troubles of life; it cheers us with the prospect of a "blessed hope," and it assures us that "the word of the Lord endureth for ever."

THE HEAVENLY CITY.

BY REV. R. A. PURDON, M.A.

ONE writer has said in a recent letter, that the heavenly city is the "bride," or the bride is the city; and others have fallen into similar mistakes in endeavouring to spiritualize what God intends to be literal. Spiritualizing has all but destroyed the Church. It has reduced the Bible to a heap of riddles and equivocations-equivocations which we should deem highly dishonourable if adopted by men, and yet which we do not hesitate to attribute to the God who "cannot lie." All infidels, down to the "Essays and Reviews," have taken advantage of this error-which should rather be called a heresy-and have explained away all the leading truths of Scripture by taking them in a non-natural sense. For what is all "spiritualizing" but taking the word of God in a non-natural sense?

It is an unnatural sense, indeed, in which the heavenly city is taken if we interpret it to mean anything but a literal city. It is "the city having foundations whose builder and maker is God." It is the place of " many mansions," which the Lord has gone to prepare for His disciples. A heaven without a CITY Would be monstrous to the last degree! An earthly empire without a capital would not be more absurdly deficient. We pretend to believe in the resurrection of the body, and some persons venture even to preach of it on Easter-day, but it is clear that we do not heartily acquiesce in the doctrine. We do not really believe in a resurrection so long as we deny the literality of the heavenly city. Can we conceive a human body without a

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PLACE? Can we conceive millions of embodied saints without any locality but the blue sky or the clouds? A body must be somewhere; even a disembodied spirit must be somewhere, and it is but a poor prospect which we hold out to the saints if we tell them they are to spend eternity sitting on a cloud. But what is the use of a city? Cannot the saints be happy without living in a city? We ask in return, What is the use of a body? Cannot God make us happy without a body? Certainly He can; yet since He has promised us a resurrection body, we are bound to believe that such a body is essential to our happiness. And if God give a body He will assuredly give that body a place to dwell in, and not only some place but a suitable one. The glory of the city is proportioned to the glory of the resurrection body. A disembodied saint is happy, but a saint in his resurrection body is far happier; for if not, God would never have spoken of a resurrection. An embodied saint would be happy with Christ anywhere, but he would be still happier, or at least more glorious, in a habitation suited to his glorified body. The body and the habitation would be suited to each other. It is not for necessity, but for honour, that God hath "prepared for them a city." It would be a poor thing indeed to measure the divine plans by the sordid economy of man. No ornament, no glory, nothing but what is absolutely necessary! Is that the rule in heaven? Is the Creator bound by the laws of modern utilitarians-laws which disgust even educated men, and would be looked upon with horror in heaven? In a word, as we KNOW that the resurrection body is not for necessity, but for glory, so we may BE SURE that a habitation will be chosen for that new body, not by the rule of necessity, but by the rule of unlimited munificence. "God is not ashamed to be called their God, FOR He hath prepared for them a city." "FOR He hath prepared." He is not ashamed BECAUSE He has built a city of which He need not be ashamed. This is the apostle's argument, and it clearly proves that the city must be a real thing, for surely the preparation of an unreal dream would be no reason at all for saying "God is not ashamed to be called their God." He is not "ashamed," because the splendour of the city is worthy of them and worthy of Himself. We may, therefore, be assured that the heavenly city is as real a thing as the resurrection body for which it is designed -only, not for necessity, but for honour. "A building of God--a house not made with hands-eternal in the heavens." Such is the description of the new body itself, and such the description of those " many mansions" which the Lord is preparing for the Church. "I go to prepare a place for you," said our Lord; and even this may be taken literally. That preparation may be still going on; the building of the city may proceed like the building of the Temple, as a gradual work without the sound of axe or hammer, with the noiseless progress of Omnipotence. The city may grow up like a young plant, year by year, and yet exhibit, when completed, all the architectural beauty of the polished corners of the Temple.

We may be certain that God does nothing that is superfluous. He gives a new body because a new body is necessary for perfect happiness; and where He gives a body He also provides for it a suitable habitation. Ezekiel describes the millennial Jerusalem on earth; St. John describes the millennial Jerusalem in the heavens. Ezekiel's prophecy relates

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only to Israel, and therefore it goes no further than the description of the land of Israel, and Jerusalem, and the Temple, during the millennial reign. But the book of Revelation refers to the Church and to the world at large, and not only describes the heavenly city as being the future residence of the Church, but also as being the future metropolis of the whole NEW EARTH. (See Rev. xxi. 1, 2, 3.) The heavenly Jerusalem will no doubt be suspended directly above the earthly Jerusalem. They will be like two parts of one and the same city, divided yet connected; divided by a stream of celestial light, yet connected together by the inflexible bar of divine power. The city will be in the heavens until the end of the millennium; but after the millennial reign it will descend and rest upon the globe as the central city of the new earth. (Rev. xxi.) How high above the earth none can tell, except so far as this, that we may be sure it will be quite distinct from the heaven of heavens, which is the immediate residence of God. The heavenly city is heaven, but it is not necessarily the heaven of heavens. It is the intermediate stage between the highest heavens-the residence of God-and the sin-stained earth, the residence of man. Nor can we suppose that the heavenly city will be the limit of the saints' movements. Far from it; they will be free of the UNIVERSE, and, as we believe, they will rule over the universe along with Christ. The heavenly city will only be the PALACE of the Great King and of His bride, the Church. It will be the council chamber of the skies, the capital city of the millennial empire, the source of all governmental acts and legal enactments. All government will proceed from the heavenly city, as from the capital of the empire, and all governmental enactments will be transmitted from thence to the Jerusalem below, and from the Jerusalem below to all the nations of the globe, for Isaiah tells us that all nations will be compelled to obey the Jews under the millennial reign.

It may be asked, how will the communication be kept up between the two Jerusalems, the one above and the one below? The answer to this we find so far back as the book of Genesis. JACOB'S LADDER is the answer. What Jacob saw in a dream by no means was intended as a symbol of the ordinary PROVIDENCE of God. We believe it to have

been intended to denote a special providence, the perpetual intercourse between heaven and earth during the millennial reign. "Jacob's ladder" was really a flight of steps more magnificent than architect has built. It reached from the field of Bethel to the heavens; it began its ascent from Jacob's pillow of stone, in the outskirts of Luz, and terminated at the footstool of the Great King. The dream of Jacób, we believe, will become a reality hereafter; a flight of steps, not for necessity, but for grandeur, will extend from the land of Israel to the heavenly city. We may believe that they will touch the earth at the very spot where, four thousand years before, the illustrious patriarch laid his head. The royal ascent will reach from the heavenly city to Bethel, and Jacob himself may descend in his glorified body to think over the wondrous scenes which have passed before mankind since first he laid his head on that lonely spot. The royal ascent of Solomon to the Temple was so superb that it took away the breath of the Queen of Sheba; when she saw it there " was no life in her." How much more astonishing will be the royal ascent of the Son of David

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from earth to heaven! We can only believe in it-we can neither describe nor imagine its magnificence. Along this grand ascent glorified saints will visit once more from heaven the scenes of their earthly life, or the holy city Jerusalem below.

But how is it that the New Jerusalem is called the "Bride, the Lamb's wife?" How can it be a city and a bride at the same time? This is easily explained. A bride is essentially a UNIT. To speak of a bride made up of two persons would be absurd; but the Church, the Lamb's wife, is made up of millions of persons. How is this incongruity to be got over? How can you exhibit a multitude of persons and then say that they all put together make up ONE bride, though a bride must be a unit? The difficulty is overcome by simply adopting the Oriental custom observed at marriages. The Eastern brides were covered by a long veil which reached to their feet, and completely concealed both their face and figure. Those veils were often made of cloth of gold or silver. The spectators, consequently, when the bride was pointed out to them, could see in reality nothing but a veil, a veil of gold or silver tissue. They were told that what they saw was the bride; and this was perfectly true, but they only saw the bride through the medium of the veil, and not directly in herself. This applies exactly to the case of the heavenly city and the Bride. The golden city is the GOLDEN VEIL thrown over the Bride; it covers her from head to foot. You look at the Bride and you see not herself directly, but you see her through the medium of the veil. You see the envelope, but you do not see what it contains. Thus the millions of persons who make up the Bride are exhibited to the eye as one individual person, because they are all of them contained under the golden veil of the imperial city. The golden veil gives UNITY to the multitude. For this reason it is that the city is called the BRIDE, while in reality it is a CITY all the time, and only serves as a golden veil to cover and conceal the Bride, the wife of the Lamb. And all this I say is in complete accordance with the marriage customs of the age and of the place.

THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE.

I REMEMBER many years ago reading a series of Select Memoirs, whose pictures of the persons commemorated were of such a character as at one moment to fire my mind with a desire for emulation, and at another, in view of their extraordinary virtues, to depress it with the consciousness of hopeless impotence. It was at that period of life when the young mind, trained amidst religious influences, usually begins to cherish aspirations after some honourable position in society, and when ignorance of human nature leads to an entire misapprehension of things as they are in this world of ours. It would be uncandid to say that I received no advantage from this course of reading; for I certainly did acquire a mental stimulus in the right direction; but, on the other hand, subsequent personal experience taught me to qualify my ideas of man at his best estate, and, correspondingly, to exalt the doctrine of divine grace. Indeed,

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in a word, so difficult is it to be a good biographer that he who succeeds in this department of literature, generally obtains a niche in the temple of fame almost equal to that of his hero; and deservedly so, for the art of successful embalming has been known only to very few of the human race. So difficult is it to form a correct opinion respecting men who have figured in the world's history, in consequence of the party bias of biographers, and other influences, that notwithstanding, nay, even because of, the number of memoirs, one is at a loss what conclusion to reach respecting them. Take, just by way of example and illustration, three men who did exploits in their day, an American, an Englishman and a FrenchmanWashington, Cromwell, and Napoleon,-and form if you can a thoroughly correct estimate of either of them. Your religious and political opinions will shape your conclusion, notwithstanding your efforts to the contrary. Reasoning from the same data one man has found Washington a patriot; another, a rebel: one man has found Cromwell a saint; another, a hypocrite and one man has found Napoleon the basest; and another, the greatest of the sons of men.

But on opening the Bible and pursuing its biographical notices, what a change do we experience! It is like flying from a dark street to the open air of the country, or escaping from a labyrinth to the verdant campaign. Among the thousands of persons of both sexes, and of all conditions in life-from the emperor to the slave, from the saint to the felon, and from the man rolling in superfluous wealth to the beggar on the dunghill-who are named in Scripture, some are merely mentioned for genealogical purposes, or to give completeness to the historical painting; some are just touched by the pencil of the artist so as to bring out the leading points in their character, from which we may with general accuracy infer the rest, and fill up the outline; some are sketched at considerable length, their virtues and their vices being told with equal honesty and exactness, no effort being made either to laud the one or to conceal the other; whilst the influence of the rest is seen pervading the book from Adam in Paradise, to John in Patmos, over the enormous period of more than four thousand years. Biblical history thus becomes a scene of perpetual life and activity; not a dull and uninteresting record, but a theatre of ardent human passions and volitions, of likes and dislikes, of love and hatred, of ungovernable wrath and magnanimous forbearance, of deep plots and deeper counterplots, of admirable disinterestedness and disgusting selfishness, of bacchanalian riot and hallowed song, of horrible cruelties and melting compassion, of revolting murders and deeds of beautiful humanity, of deep treachery and heroic patriotism, of maddened suicide and all-enduring patience, of agonies of remorse and hymns of gratitude, and of fitness for destruction, and meetness for heaven. All this springs from the stern truthfulness of these biographers. They did not undertake to fill their gallery of portraits only with the greatest and holiest of the sons of men, nor to elect at pleasure whom they might, exalting their virtues and concealing their failings, far less to make a new race of imaginary beings to be held up to the admiration of all posterity. No; they describe men as they were, giving each his appropriate place in the record; and they related facts as they occurred, giving each its destined position in the marvellous book which was designed to teach men by example, as well as by precept, down to the close of the ages. We are, consequently, convinced whilst reading these memorials, that the men named as doing so and so were real flesh and blood like