say at the end of his journey, "I have trusted in Thy mercy, my heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation;" "I will sing unto the Lord because He hath dealt bountifully with me."

ART. VI. THE NEW YEAR; AND ITS COMING
HARVEST.

ANOTHER new year greets us, and we usually return its salutation with gladness. Good wishes and friendly salutations are also exchanged by those who are spared to enter on another period of time. Many, alas! have small reasons for gladness, and often the grounds for the good wishes expressed are any but good. At such a time there is a sort of general gratitude for mercies past, and an indefinite hope that something will turn up with the new year to afford pleasure, or bring in a better state of things. Generally it is not so; things go on as before, and very few really make " a new start with the new year."

We ought to feel grateful that we are spared thus far, and are still surrounded with many mercies. There is one test which all may use, and which all should feel: "It is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not; they are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness." On New-year's morning it becomes us especially thus to testify. Happy are they who not only rejoice in the gifts, but who possess the Giver, and who can adopt the next verse : "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him." Only such are in possession of the elements of true happiness, and grasping this blessed fact, may look for a Happy New Year. In many minds the thought will arise, what will be the great events of this year which has just begun? No one can answer this question. No doubt, many things will take place which no one expected, and some events anticipated will not occur. The present is a period of rapid changes; and who can tell what a year may bring forth. When 1870 began, all seemed tolerably tranquil in Europe; few, if any, expected such a war storm as swept over devoted France, and robbed two nations of tens of thousands of sons, husbands, and fathers. And, even after the experiences of the latter half of that year, who thought of such judgments on Paris, or such desolating fires in America, not to refer to many other events at Rome and elsewhere.

And now, what of 1872 and its history? learn that.

We must want to

One thing we may be quite sure about--death
If the harvest should fail in some

will not cease its ravages.
places, death will still find field for its sharp sickle. If there
should be no vintage in some of the fertile valleys of Italy or
France, death will still gather ripe clusters there and every-
where, and will go on treading his terrible wine-press. The
population of our globe cannot be very correctly ascertained:
still, there is little doubt, but that the number lies somewhere
between one thousand and twelve hundred millions. The
exact number who will die on the earth, during 1872, God
only knows; but we shall not err much in concluding that
between thirty and forty millions of all ages will pass away
from time to eternity. How solemn is this fact! Every city,
town and village in all lands will yield some trophies to the
great conqueror. As soon as the moments of the new year
begin their course, death will begin his work. If this paper
should be read at noon on 1st January, it will be all but
certain that since the midnight peal ushered in the new year,
some forty thousand will have died. Talk of battles and
slaughter; do we really think of the slain on earth during
every twelve hours of our existence ?

What a solemn and steady march is this; what an awful procession to the great eternity! How do the vast columns of mortality pass on! on! on to the unseen world. We seem to hear them tramp, and to see them pass out of sight by hundreds every few minutes. Let each one bring the thought home. I may be one of that vast company marked for death this year; one of whom God hath said, "This year thou must die." Or should Mercy still say to Death, "Let it alone this year also," the year must soon come in which the mark will be found against my name, when I must pass away from the land of the living. Ah, when will it be? There is silence to that question. There is another of still greater interest and importance: How may I be always ready, so that, when my name is called out by the messenger Death, I may be able to say, with Abraham, "Here am I, Lord;" or with Simeon, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace?" To this question the answer is plain and full. Surely it is true wisdom to study and act upon the same. There is nothing in all God's works and ways so clearly revealed as how sinners may get safe to heaven. The ungodly can be justified; the rebellious pardoned; the lost saved; the unholy sanctified. God is ready to forgive, the grace of Jesus is exceeding abundant, and the Holy Spirit is almighty to renew. He who flies to the Cross

for refuge, who learns there that "God is love," and begins to love Him, who seeks to walk in the Spirit, who aims to live to the glory of God and the good of others, is ready for the summons whenever it may come.

Let us

How very different is death to various characters. suppose the case of a powerful king, who employs one special officer to arrest and convey to prison all those in his dominions whom he knows are his enemies, who have often been warned, but who still go on plotting treason. This officer is well known; his name is one of terror to the disloyal; a visit from him is to them of all things most terrible, and many live in daily dread of it.

This great king employs this same officer to bring those to his royal palace whom he had previously invited, and who have accepted the invitation. This fact is also well known, and the anticipation of such a visit is at times very pleasant, though, at other times, there are solemn feelings not unmixed with fears. These fears can only be scattered by an earnest study of the character of the things of the glory of his palace, and of his many gracious words and mighty acts.

God is such a sovereign; death is such an officer. Those disloyal ones who hate His holy laws, and despise His glorious clemency, who neglect the great salvation for the perishing vanities of time, may well dread a visit from death. They must see him as the king of terrors. His summons must be obeyed, and will take them at once away from all their pleasures and treasures to where joy is not; where sad remembrances ever dwell; where God's wrath ever abides; and where hope never

comes.

Believer in Jesus, you for whom to live is Christ, "death is yours." Yes, wondrous fact: "you do not belong to death, but death belongs to you." To die is gain; even to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. He who became dead, but who is now alive for evermore, says, "Fear not, I have the keys of Hades and the grave." "Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man keep My sayings, he shall never see death."

Then hold fast the precious sayings of Jesus. Hold them fast, and they will cheer you along life's gloomiest paths, and make death's dark passage lightsome. "The grass must

wither, and the flower must fade, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." Time must pass on-yea, time must come to an end; but if God's truth is your heart's treasure and triumph, you are possessed of unsearchable riches-of eternal blessedness.

Toward you, Jesus, this New-year's morning, stretches out

His once pierced hands, and owns you as His brother, His sister, Over you He bends and pronounces His in"Blessed are they who hear the Word of

and His mother. finite benediction, God and keep it."

Notes on Scripture.

The Rebuked Nations.

Isa. ii.; Mic. iii., iv.

As diversity of views seems to exist in the exposition of these texts, I beg leave to present the following as their apparent expository sense: "The word that Isaiah, the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem" (Isa. ii. 1).

"Therefore shall Zion for your sakes (idolatrous apostasy) be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem become heaps, and the mountain of the house (the Lord's house, Isa. ii. 2) as the high places (idol altars) of the forest (or groves)" (Mic. iii. 12). "But in the last days (at the time of the fulness of the Gentiles) it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills (shall be the royal capital of the millennial earth), and all nations shall flow unto it" (Mic. iv.; Isa. ii. 2).

Correlate texts. "It shall come to pass in that day, the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the Islands of the Sea (America, &c.) And He shall set up an ensign for the (Gentile) nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth" (Isa. xi. 11).

"And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair (Jerusalem) the waste cities, the desolations of many generations" (Isa. lxi. 4). "And they shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree (1000 years), are the days of My people, &c." (Isa. lxv. 21). "At that time they shall call (rebuilt) Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall be gathered (or flow, as in Isa. ii.) unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart" (Jer. iii. 17).

The foregoing quotations, with much besides, are prophetic descriptions of Christ's millennial reign as the King of all the earth, “that shall reign in righteousness with princes ruling in judgment" (Isa. xxxii. 1; Zech. xiv. 9), which will be confirmed by the following exposition.

The old covenant of Sinai (Ex. xix.) was based on mutual stipulations, i.e., Israel's promise of obedience and God's promise of privileges

and protection. Israel quickly violated their stipulation. So their promised Canaan-their temporal rest-was held under conditional tenure, which they also violated, and were in consequence ejected from their promised rest.

But the new covenant (Jer. xxxi. 31) recited in Heb. viii. 9-15, ratified by the blood of Christ, is not based or affirmed of mutual stipulations, ie., its inception and verification did not and does not depend on man's or the Church's conforming obedience. It is a covenant of grace, and not of works, as was that of Sinai. The ground of its application to the Church in our dispensation is the ratification of the promise to Abraham, that in his seed, Christ, should the nations of the earth be blessed. Thus Israel and the Gentiles-their church and times-are under the new covenant of grace and its promises, which for their verification depend not on any requirement of obedience or pre-performance of stipulations. So all these prophecies and gracious promises as to the latter days, in the texts, are and will be in their fulfilment the process of new covenant verification. The new covenant franchises were affirmed as accruing in their benefits to the houses of Judah and Israel (Jer. xxxi. 31), the Gentiles participating during their "times" in all its benefits by God's grace in Christ, by their wild olive ingrafting as in Rom. xi. 17-24; Eph. 2. Now, as some (the churches generally, and many adventists) assume, if yet unbelieving Israel, so divinely preserved, are, for their unbelief and disobedience, in lapsed relation to the new covenant, latter day promises as to their restoration, &c., then on the same ground we may affirm that the Church is also in lapsed relation to millennial promises on account of its Papal apostasy, and prevailing unbelief as to His personal premillennial advent, coming kingdom, and its glory. Thus not only detracting from the glorious grace motive of the new covenant, but also impugning the Divine veracity, though it may be in the unconsciousness induced by our traditional inheritance of "wrest and misdivision of the word, its prophecies and promises." (2 Tim. ii. 15.)

INCIDENTAL EXPOSITORY SUGGESTIONS.

1. Man's apparent impossible extremities are God's possible opportunities; and this we may say has been the rule of His dispensational manifestations. Abraham was called out of the thickening darkness. Israel was delivered from the extreme of endurance from under their

powerful oppressor. And man never could have conceived the possibility of his redemption through the expiatory sufferings and death of Christ. Considering God's almighty power in all diversity of resort, the promised restoration of Israel may be no more impossible or improbable to God, than the American civil war and abolition of slavery were to man, one year before their occurrence. Apparent human impossibilities suggest the time and fitness for God's " overturning" interposition-"in such an hour as ye think not."

66

2. It must be an expository blunder to make the rebuked warring nations of Isa. ii., Mic. iv., consist of the risen saints, as done by some. The overcomers," subjects of the first resurrection, perform judicial reigning functions, and are not the subjects of "rebuking" rule. The Christian nations, and the churches even, with their warring, "evil resisting" spirit and education, their superior warring munitions, are as much the subject of rebuke for this cause, as the weaker heathen nations, who are thus defiantly outdone by the Christians.