out of the north cometh cold. Lucifer, type of the man of sin (Isaiah xiv. 13), is said to sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. In Jeremiah i. 14, iv. 6, vi. 1, evil is prophesied to come from the north; see also Jeremiah xlvii. 2; 1. 3. Gog and his hosts are said to come from the north (Ezekiel xxxviii. 3-6. In Daniel xi. 44, bad tidings out of the north are alluded to; and in Zephaniah ii. 13, Zechariah vi. 6, Isaiah xiv. 31, xli. 25, Ezekiel xxvii. 7, Joel ii. 20, and other passages, trials and tribulations are spoken of as coming from the north.

The south, on the other hand, is ever spoken of as the reverse of this, it involves and insures promises of love, mercy, and fruitfulness. In Habakkuk iii. 3, God is said to come from Teman, which is in the south, when His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. It is the time of the second advent, when every knee shall bow to him, and every tongue confess him. When the Jews are restored to their land, many will come from the north, that is antithetically to the south, Jeremiah iii. 12, 18, and many other passages. They are to inhabit the cities of the the south see Obadiah xix. 20, Jeremiah xxxii. 44, Psalms lxxviii. 26, Luke xii. 45, Acts xxvii. 13, &c.

It may therefore be inferred that north and south are bane and antidote: if the north wind intimates trials and persecutions, the south produces peace and security. The chilly power of the north is powerless against the more genial and cheering influences of the south; nor have the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life sown in the heart, and instigated to man by the Prince of the power of the air, any power over him who has fled to the cross of Jesus, and accepted at His hand the precious and inestimable gift of eternal life.

The Septuagint renders the phrase "blow upon my garden" by "blow through my garden," an expression of greater force, so that in the Lord's garden no grief or sorrow can abide, but all the spices flow out together in gladness, fruitfulness, and abundance. It may be said that as the north wind shakes the trees and causes them to bud, so the south wind which follows causes them to bear fruit, and thus we see that persecution or troubles are ever followed by a larger portion of grace.

I am disposed, from the fact of Scripture ever denoting the north as the source whence evil arises, from which

quarter the chosen race returns, and from whence the holy remnant are to suffer bitter trials and sufferings, that the phrase, "Awake, O north wind," alludes to the Antichristian persecution, and we may imagine, from the sudden and energetic call of the bride, taken in connection with the first verse of the following chapter, that confident in the strength, power and love of her Lord, she apostrophises the enemy in the significant words, "Come, O north wind;" come, do thy worse; execute the judgments which thy Maker has ordained. He created thee to be an instrument in His hand to punish the guilty, and to show forth his glory; as He did in the case of Pharaoh who persecuted the holy remnant then, as thou art permitted to do now; fulfil thy course; accomplish thy destiny, consummate in thy own person the accumulative sins of ages, for in very deed for this cause did God raise thee up, that in thee He might show forth His power, and that His name might be declared throughout the land (Exodus, ix, 16; Romans, ix, 17), yet remember proud man "For these things God will bring thee into judgment" (Ecclesiastes, xi, 9), for thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit, they that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

The south wind is also apostrophised, typifying the Lamb of God. He comes with dyed garments from Bozrah, glorious in his appearel, travelling in the greatness of his strength, the day of vengeance is in his heart, and the year of his redeemed is come, the holy remnant, the Jewish bride, has long been supplicating that the promised bridegroom would rend the heavens and come down, and with sobs and tears of love and repentance is saying continually, wilt thou refrain thyself, O Lord; wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore? He hears the cry. He comes, the day of His redeemed is come, his reward is with him, and his work before him. Antichrist and his host fall back at His presence (compare John xviii, 6, with 2nd Thessalonians, ii, 8). They, together with Satan, are cast into the lake of fire, and the Lamb, responding to the bride's call of coming into his garden and eating his pleasant fruit, says, "I am come into my garden

my sister, my spouse, I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honey comb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat O friends: drink yea, drink abundantly, O beloved."

O, blessed time! Season of millennial bliss; when the garden of the Lord (the earth), redeemed from its primeval curse, shall, under the rule of the blessed Saviour, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, be once more, though in a far higher degree, the abode of perennial bliss, free from every stain of sin, and filled with happy beings washed in the blood of the Lamb.

HABAKKUK, I, 5-9.

"They are terrible and dreadful; their judgments and their dignity shall proceed of themselves," &c.

The prophet would seem here to refer to the Chaldeans mentioned in the preceding verse; but the wording of the original precludes this. The Scriptures render it "Phoberos kai epiphanees estin," which are in the singular number and masculine gender, and do not refer to the nation of the previous verse, but to an individual leader of the nation the subsequent verses treat on, which is Antichrist, the wilful king, the wicked one, for by these names and many others is he represented in Scripture. The correct translation would then seem to be, "He is terrible and dreadful; his judgment and exaltation shall proceed of himself," and it follows that in the next and subsequent verses, where the Authorised Version adopts the plural the singular should be applied, so instead of "their horses," "their horsemen," it should be his horses, his horsemen, &c. In the 5th verse the prophet calls the attention of the people to the awful calamities which should befal them by the admonitory words "Behold ye;" and in the following verse again he repeats the warning in the words "For, lo." This two-fold admonition, or doubling of expression, is common in the prophecies, and adds much to their solemnity and importance, and is employed to impress upon the wicked and apostate the awful judgments God is about to visit them with, and at the same time, if possible, to arouse the con

sciences of his countrymen by timely humiliation and repentance to flee from the coming wrath.

The 5th verse is quoted by Paul (Acts, xiii, 41), when charging the unbelieving Jews of Antioch with rejecting the offer of mercy through the blood of Christ. Behold ye despisers, and wonder and perish, for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe though a man declare it unto you. And so it was in both instances. The Jews in the days of Habakkuk disregarded his admonitions as they did in the days of Paul: and thus will it ever be. Witnesses are chosen out of the world to proclaim the truth, and to foretell, as in the days of Noah, the certain wrath of a just God on all who despise and neglect Him, but to no purpose! Eyes have they, but they see not; ears have they, but they hear not; nor will they be roused from their sloth and rebellion by anything man speaking by the spirit of God can preach to them. Knowing the love of God to all mankind, that he willeth not the death of a sinner but that he should come to repentance and live, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? one is constrained to say, "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughters of my people.'

To revert to the passage under review, it relates in its primary application to the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, against Judea; and the fact of his not being named throughout the whole prophecy is a very striking proof, if such be needed, that in all prophecies there exists a primary as well as an eventual development, which only meets its full dimensions at the last day, or the day of the Lord, a term employed almost invariably in Holy Writ to denote the outpourings of God's wrath on a sinful and rebellious world. See Genesis, vi, 5-7; Jude, 14, 15.

The culminating tendency of the prophecy under notice is the manifestation of the man of sin, the "oppressor" of the Psalms, the "cockatrice" of the serpent's root, and various other nomenclatures too numerous to be mentioned here. As Nebuchadnezzar will he come, and probably from Babylon itself, to wreak out God's vengeance on a disobedient and gainsaying race; and as God raised up Nimrod of the family of Ham to be a scourge to Asshur of the children of Shem, the true believers in those days; and

as He raised up Phaorah, a new king that knew not Joseph, to be a scourge to the Israelites, the believers of those days; and as God raised up Saul to be a Scourge to the believer in his day, and Jeroboam to draw away the followers of God to worship idols in his day, and Menasseh by his sins to drive into captivity the believers of his day, so will Christ raise up an individual in the last day, who in his own person concentrating every perfection of beauty, wisdom, power, and wickedness, will draw away all who have not lain hold of Christ and been washed in his blood. And this incarnation of evil is the subject of Habakkuk's prophecy. Oh, let not people deceive themselves, and scout the idea of such a being, for as sure as the Scriptures are true, and worthy to be received as the revelation of God to man, so surely will such a man as here described—an angel of light-energised by Satanic wile and influence, appear upon the stage of the prophetic world, and will draw away all those who have not received Christ in their hearts. There exists not in all the word of God a more distinct declaration than this. Let not men imagine that this is some system, such as that of the Roman or Greek Church, or any other kind of professed or nominal Christianity. It is no such thing. These churches are false and pernicious; ritualism and rationalism are equally so; so are all creeds, however orthodox and respectable, that have not Jesus and Him only as the sole object of love, worship, and adoration. If any man love not the Lord, let him be anathema! And so he will, for, mark the antithesis THE LORD COMETH.

In verse 8 we are told that his horses are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than the ravening wolves. With regard to the first simile we are taught in Hosea, xiii. 7, that the leopard is most wary; "As a leopard by the way will I observe them." In Daniel viii, 25, we are told that through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper; in Revelations, xiii, 1, 2, we learn that the leopard is typical of the wild beast, the man of sin; in Jeremiah, v, 6, we are told that a leopard shall watch over the cities of Judea, to kill and tear in pieces the inhabitants on account of their transgressions and backslidings; again in chapter xiii, 23, we learn in figurative language that sin cannot long be disguised; "The leopard cannot hide his spots, nor can an evil-minded man his wicked ways." Let the latter endea