"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea." "And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory." "And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest." (Psa. lxxxvi, 9; Isa. ii, 2, 4; xxiv, 21-23; Jer. iv, 2; Hab. ii, 14; Heb. viii, 11.) Also this paragraph from Rev. xx, 1-7: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison." It is not best to be too dogmatic as to the precise meaning of this passage. Opinions of learned and good men differ widely as to its import in detail, but are in harmony as to its general significance. Satan is to be subdued, righteousness is to reign, Jesus is to be set upon the throne of his glory, the dead shall be raised, and for a period the earth is to present a scene of wondrous interest and glory. Dean Alford says: "That the Lord will come in person to this our earth; his risen elect will reign here with him, and judge; during that blessed reign the power

of evil will be bound. At the end of the millennial period Satan is loose, and the nations of the earth are deceived by him. This," he concludes, "is my firm persuasion." Something like this is the firm persuasion of nearly all people who have not come to view the subject from a rationalistic point of view. That famous and scholarly commentator, Dr. J. P. Lange, says that "the prophecy of the thousand years of Christ's reign on earth is, in and for itself, a true pearl of Christian truth and knowledge." In 1764 John Wesley wrote to Mr. Hartley, saying: "Your book on the Millennium and the Mystic Writers was lately put into my hands. I can not but thank you for your strong and seasonable confirmation of that comfortable doctrine; of which I can not entertain the least doubt as long as I believe the Bible."

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.

The intermediate state is that state in which the soul exists between the death of the body and the resurrection state.

The intermediate state is not the same to the righteous and wicked, but as different as their characters.

The intermediate state of the righteous is called "paradise" (Luke xxiii, 43), or "Abraham's bosom" (Luke xvi, 22), either of which signifies a happy condition, even heaven itself (2 Cor. xii, 2-4; Rev. ii, 7).

The intermediate state of the wicked is described as one of conscious suffering as the consequence of guilt. (Luke xvi, 22-28.)

At death the soul enters immediately upon its appropriate intermediate state, and continues in that state until the resurrection morn. (Luke xvi, 22; xxiii, 43; Rev. xiv, 13.)

We must distinguish here between state and place, as many able scholars doubt whether as a place the intermediate condition is any thing short of heaven or hell.

Some believe that the abode of disembodied spirits may be very near us. In proof they point to incidents concerning those who almost die, but return to life, and then relate how the occupants of the room were all seen, but no power remained to move the lips or articulate in speech.

If it be asked, says Dr. Martensen, the cultured Danish theologian, "where those who are fallen asleep find themselves after death, nothing certainly is more preposterous than the idea that they are separated from us by an outward infinity, that they find themselves

No barrier of sense sepa

in some other material world, etc. rates them from us, for the sphere in which they find themselves differs, toto genere, from the material sphere of time and space. . . . The tendency or direction of the soul in death is not outward, but inward, a going into self, a going back, not a going forth; and instead of the modern notion that the soul wings its way to the stars, which is sometimes understood literally, as if the soul were borne to some other actual world, the idea is far more correct that it draws itself back into the innermost and mystical chambers of existence which underlie the outward."

He says again: "They live a deep spiritual life, for the kingdom of the dead is a kingdom of subjectivity, a kingdom of calm thought and self-fathoming, a kingdom of remembrance in the full sense of the word; in such a sense, I mean, that the soul now enters into the very inmost recesses, resorts to that which is the very foundation of lifethe true substratum and source of all existence.

As long as

man is in this present world he is in a kingdom of externals wherein he can escape from self-contemplation and self-knowledge by the distractions of time, the noise and tumult of the world; but at death he enters upon a kingdom the opposite of all this. The veil which this world of sense, with its varied and incessantly moving manifoldness, spreads with soothing and softening influence over the stern reality of life, and which man finds ready to his hand to hide what he does not wish to see, this veil is torn asunder from before him in death, and his soul finds itself in a kingdom of pure realities. The manifold voices of this worldly life, which during the earthly life sounded together with the voices of eternity, grow dumb, and the holy Voice now sounds alone, no longer deadened by the tumult of the world; and hence the realm of the dead becomes a realm of judgment."

All this is speculation chiefly, though if we remember to distinguish between state and place, such speculation will do no harm. Of this we are sure, the righteous dead are with Christ and are happy, whether near this earth or millions of miles removed from it.

THE SOUL IS CONSCIOUS IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.

The Bible teaches most abundantly and plainly that the soul is perfectly conscious of its bliss or woe during the state which immediately follows the death of the body.

So St. Paul must have believed, for he says: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." To live is to serve and enjoy the Savior

a state inexpressibly better than unconscious sleep; yet to die is gain-the state after death is still more blessed.

Again, Paul had a desire "to depart and be with Christ," which is, says he, "far better." Here mark three things:

1. The state next beyond death is not only gain compared with this, but great gain; not only better, but far better.

2. He enters upon it immediately after death. For him to depart is to be with Christ. The question upon which his mind is in a strait lies between spending the next ten years, say, of his existence, in the flesh, laboring for the Church, or spending it with Christ in that state which is for him far better. And his decision ultimately is the noble one-that which is more needful for the Church, though less blissful for himself.

3. Paul desires to depart. Now he could not have desired unconsciousness, or annihilation, either temporary or perpetual, unless he felt his existence to be a curse, which is not supposable.

In another passage (2 Cor. v, 1-9) Paul shows:

1. That he expected, at the dissolution of his body, to receive a building of God, a house not made with hands a state perfectly unlike that of unconscious sleep.

2. That mortality would then be succeeded by a more glorious life-in his language, "be swallowed up of life."

3. He characterizes the present state by being at home in the body and absent from the Lord; and the state next ensuing, by being ab sent from the body and present with the Lord. There is no room here for an interval of time between leaving the body and being present with Christ in glory.

Yet another passage may be cited in proof that Paul believed in the soul's conscious existence immediately subsequent to death. In Hebrews xii, 1-23, he represents departed patriarchs and prophets as "a great cloud of witnesses" around the Christian's pathway, plainly implying on their part conscious and interested observation.

Moreover, he represents the ancient Jew as having before him Mount Sinai with its awful thunderings, voices, and earthquakes, but the modern Jewish convert as having before him Mount Zion, countless angels, God the Judge, and, quite to the purpose of our argument, "the spirits of just men made perfect;" that is, perfect in the bliss of heaven, exalted to the consummation of blessedness, as the same language means when spoken of Christ. (Heb. ii, 10.) In the same sense, too, they have before them Jesus the mediator of the new coveNow, will it be claimed that of these several objects which are

nant.

all before the Christian Jew as motives for a holy life, God, angels and Jesus are living, but the spirits of just men are dead, in the sleep of utter unconsciousness? This were indeed to attach great honor and influence to nonentities-to exalt them to a rank with angels, with God the Father and the Son!

The reader will scarcely need to be reminded of Christ's promise to the penitent thief: "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Is paradise a state of unconscious sleep? Is Christ in such a state? Does the phrase "this day" mean any thing but immediately after death? I am aware that some punctuate the passage so as to make it read: "I say unto you this day, thou shall be with me in paradise;" but such punctuation is unauthorized in the original Greek, and it robs the passage of all significance. It was not necessary for Christ to tell the thief that he was talking to him that day, and our Lord was never guilty of a waste of words. The word rendered "this day" does indeed come before the words " with me thou shalt be in paradise,” and for this plain reason: Christ meant to give emphasis to the idea that his prayer was to be answered immediately. It is common in Greek to place the emphatic words first in order.

Further proof that the intermediate state is one of conscious existence is furnished most amply in Luke xvi, 19-31; the case of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man died and was buried; next and immediately he was in hell lifting up his eyes, being in torments, far from being unconscious; and to show beyond all doubt that this is immediately after death and not beyond the resurrection, we are told that his five brethren are at this very time alive on the earth, and still on probation, having Moses and the prophets yet in their hands. The dead could, but may not go to them, from hell, to warn them not to go there. The beggar, too, died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Christ said: "Now he is comforted;" which could not have been had his condition been otherwise than conscious.

We pass to the Apocalypse, and listen to the revelator's report of what he saw in heaven. First, "I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God. . . . And they cried: How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" They are told that they should rest yet a little season until their fellow-servants and their brethren, who should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. (Rev. vi, 9–11.) They are in heaven; but the scenes of earthly life are moving on below; they must wait for God's righteous judgments, until others, then living saints, should meet a martyr's death and take a martyr's