St. John whilst still a sojourner in this world heard the message, "Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth."

On the point of ascending to heaven Christ had answered His Apostles: "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power."

It is therefore open to conjecture that whilst St. John was satisfied of the advancing Woes he foresaw not the exact moment of their arrival. He may thus have shared the suspense which is our own habitual lot.

Perhaps it may comfort some to think that St. John had a share in the common trial: much more would it comfort us all to undergo it in his spirit. And wherefore not? The disciple whom Jesus loved was not loved to our exclusion.

Our Lord declared: "The things concerning Me have an end." And Christ-like souls can by grace even give thanks because the things concerning themselves likewise have an end, so keenly do they desire to depart and be with Him Whom their soul loveth.

But I woful sinner fear the end which endeth not. In my fear to whom shall I go, save to Him Who hath the words of eternal life? "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? . . . And I said, It is mine own infirmity."

Lord Jesus, Who waitest to be gracious, be gracious to us who tremble, to us who mourn, to us all who many ways offend, to us who are ready to perish. Thou canst not be otherwise than gracious: render us susceptible of Thy grace. Amen.

How weighty must be the three coming woes, since the four preceding seem by comparison not to be called woes. An Angel, himself insusceptible of woe, celebrates those three. Apparently the first four catastrophes are wrought by agencies of inanimate nature. The three woes connect themselves with active wickedness; therefore are they essentially and preeminently Woes. "Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end."

Terror of punishment should not swallow up horror of sin. God's act is good; mine evil: shall I recoil from the good rather than from the evil? This were in its degree to choose the evil and refuse the good.

O Lord God Who hast created all things in order and proportion, and requirest us likewise to have a perfect and just weight and measure; grant us grace to judge righteous judgment, and evermore to place our whole trust in Thee. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER IX.

1. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

THE Revised Version has: "I saw a star from heaven fallen unto the earth,"-not seeming necessarily to imply that St. John witnessed its downfall; but perhaps that he discerned the star, that (so to say) it only then came to light, being already fallen.

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If such a suggestion may be entertained, then the office assigned to this fallen star may possibly brand it as being one of the rulers of the darkness of this world; once superhuman, but now of its own free choice a subhuman wandering star to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" Whatever the star be, one thing is evident: its function is assigned to it; it is not an independent agent, still less an independent potentate. If it be a malevolent power rejoicing in iniquity, yet has it no power at all except under constraint or by sufferance; any more than the sea can overpass its decreed place, or behemoth evade the sword of Him that made him.

A fallen star, not otherwise an outcast star; a self-made outcast. Whoso turns his back on heaven may propose to stop short at earth: but next below yawns the pit. The outcasts of the final day who depart into outer darkness will all be self-made outcasts.

Oh fallen star! a darkened light,

A glory hurtled from its car,
Self-blasted from the holy height :

Oh fallen star!

Fallen beyond earth's utmost bar,
Beyond return, beyond far sight
Of outmost glimmering nebular:

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Now blackness, which once walked in white;
Now death, whose life once glowed afar ;
Oh son of dawn that loved the night,
Oh fallen star!

Self-conceit blinds, self-will destroys; self-oblation consecrates, self-sacrifice saves for once our Master taught His disciples: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it."

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The bottomless pit preaches a sermon. It has a lid: which keep shut, and the pit's bottomlessness remains neutral. But lift the lid, and none can calculate the volume of deathly outcome from a fathomless abyss, or the depth of a fall into it. If God permits the lid of evil to be lifted as a test or as a punishment, the key remains in His hand to secure that lid again when He will. But if I lift any lid of evil, I have no power to shut off the dire escape from myself or from others: death and defilement I may let loose, but I cannot recapture. Solomon gives us a sample of such deeds and their consequences: "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water" followed by a precept: "therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with," the precept in spirit though not in the letter being applicable to all "touching of pitch."

2. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace ; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

By the voice of His prophet Isaiah God Almighty declares concerning one class of offenders: "These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that burneth all the day" :-thus constituting smoke a figure of provocation. And touching two formidable wicked persons He graciously enjoins: "Fear not, neither be faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands."

Whence as regards the Woe suminoned by the fifth trumpetblast and ushered in by smoke, I yet venture to surmise a possibility of rescue for sinners of every grade, except, alas, for the obstinately impenitent.

And this, seeing that the very elect are during their mortal life sinners: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse

us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."

"My soul fainteth for Thy salvation: but I hope in Thy word. Mine eyes fail for Thy word, saying, When wilt Thou comfort me? For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget Thy statutes. How many are the days of Thy servant? when wilt Thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?" Smoke even from the pit will not slay that soul which because it is parched gasps as a thirsty land unto God; and which in the smoke endures as God's own bottle storing penitential tears. Shrivelled and unsightly it may become to man's eye, "but the Lord looketh on the heart." That smoke offends God Himself, which offends him who is as the apple of the eye.

Yet does the infernal smoke go up as a beacon ominous to the impenitent. Such a smoke of sweeping destruction Abraham descried when "he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Such a smoke Isaiah employs figuratively: "For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire."

Holy Writ saith: "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." And by God's grace he can, while life lasts, in whatever smoke fly upward.

When "the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit " earth seems once more subjected to a plague of darkness which may be felt. Who shall say but that the faithful once again had light in their dwellings?

Who knows? God knows: and what He knows

3. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

A defined and limited scourge, a scourge under control and as appears further on for a limited period. Once more, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen. 4. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

Locusts venomous as scorpions, and devastating not vegetation but humankind; and amongst men discriminating between the holy and the unholy. Tormenting moreover without slaying, and this no longer than during a prefixed term. "For the creature that serveth Thee, Who art the Maker, increaseth his strength against the unrighteous for their punishment, and abateth his strength for the benefit of such as put their trust in Thee."

Yet even this extremity of wrathful displeasure seems by possibility to leave open a loophole of hope: it seems haply to fall within the bounds of that Divine Longsuffering which invites and urges to repentance. For the unsealed are, as it appears, not yet expelled from among the sealed: the wheat and the tares are still growing together until the harvest. While there is life there is hope, according to the timehonoured proverb.

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God hath spoken: "Behold, all souls are mine. . . . The soul that sinneth, it shall die The wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all My statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he had committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him ; in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?"