TUESDAY EVENING ADDRESSES.

Our Hope.

MR. J. HERBERT TRITTON.

AVING read 1 Thess. iv., said: Our subject to-night

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is the Second Advent, the Hope of the Church. Is it not with a feeling of the deepest solemnity, and with hearts hushed before the Lord, that we draw nigh to the considera tion of so great and glorious a subject; nay, rather, I would say so great and glorious a Saviour? We would, in His presence, take off the very shoes from our feet and stand all silent while we listen for His voice.

The hope of the Church: truly, throughout all ages, the Church has looked for the coming of its Lord. We speak not now of the different sections of the Church, for some in their creeds have forgotten, and some have kept it alive only for a brief period of the year; but we would speak now of that which composes the Church, the individual members of the body of Christ.

We claim to be members of that Church: is this blessed hope our hope? It is a test question for every one of us. There are those happy saints of God to whom, if they wake in the night, at midnight, or cockcrow, or in the morning, the first thought that flashes into their soul with returning consciousness is this: "The Lord has not yet come." Have we attained to such a habit of waiting for Him as that? Have we reached such a realization of the hope of the Church as that? Many doubtless have.

But we would to-night have a knowledge, a deeper and faller knowledge of the sweetness of that meditation which dwells much on the coming of the Lord. What, then, should be our attitude? It is told of the North American Indians that when they would hear from a great distance the coming of friend or foe they bow their ears low to the ground. Should not we, dear brethren, bow low before the Lord that we may hear His footfall it may be at the very gate?

May He, the wheels of whose chariot sometimes seem to tarry so long, take away from our heart anything like impatience that we are called to wait! As that dear saint of God, Rutherford, said, two hundred and fifty years ago, "The Lord is losing no time; He will come in fulness of time it is for us to wait, working and watching." May the Lord, indeed, reveal Himself as the coming One to every heart in this hall to-night, for His name's sake!

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The Hope of the Church.

Br REV. CLARMONT SKRINE, M.A.

HE Hope of the Church-these words seem to have often a very vague meaning attached to them as they come to many of our minds. We have all the beautiful texts of Scripture in reference to this subject before us; and yet sometimes we do not compare them together, collate them, place them side by side, and put them in proper order, and confess with one another as we ought-comparing spiritual things with spiritual, and so after all we often get only a very vague idea of what the Hope of the Church really is.

For instance, when we read in Heb. ii. that Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God-how seldom do we connect with this passage the twenty-first chapter of Revelation; how seldom do we seem to see that Abraham looked for that very same city? How often, too, do we forget in connection with this vision in Rev. xxi., that it is not only the hope of the Redeemed Church of Israel, but also of the Redeemed Church of the Gentilesboth have the same hope. Then when we read the prayers of Paul in Eph. 1-13, where he prays that they may know what is the hope of his calling-what is the hope of his calling? How seldom, perhaps, do we connect it with Phil. iii., where the apostle speaks of the change of this vile body to be fashioned in the likeness of His glorious body, and yet there seems to be that connection.

Indeed, we shrink sometimes from the subject of our thoughts to-night altogether-from many causes we seem to dread touching it-there are so many divergencies of thought, so many differences of opinion in connection with it, and yet,

dear friends, why should we hesitate? Do not we remember that the apostle Paul himself said we know in part, we prophesy in part, end may we not also be content each one of us with a part of knowledge; may we not take up this subject prayerfully and earnestly, conferring together, and so get more light upon it, yet being content with what little light we do get.

I am sure many keep from the subject because they think it is unpractical, because it takes their thoughts away from the present time and present subjects, the growth of holiness, the present enjoyment of the Lord and such things. Now we have the answer to these objections in 1st and 2nd Epistles to the Thessalonians. Did this Hope make the Thessalonian Church indifferent to the cause of Christianity? Did it make them neglect the subject of personal holiness? Was it not quite the reverse? How the Apostle rejoiced over them as he heard of their work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope. How the Word of God sounded out from thein as they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven. And how the apostle prayed the Lord would sanctify them wholly, and that they, spirit, soul and body, might be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ It seems such a very practical truth as the Apostle Paul brings it before the Thessalonian Church of the living God.

So it has come to pass that from one cause or another the subject has been neglected and lost sight of to a great extent, and the great command and promised blessing in Rev. 1-3 seems to have been forgotten entirely: "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things that are written therein." Now those des r brethren who with me had the privilege of standing upon the first platform of the first Conference which was held at Barnet, something like thirty years ago, could bear witness that we never gathered together on those occasions without somehow or other from the lips of every speaker the blessed Hope of the Church was mentioned. True, we were but few in number-there were but 120 at the first Conference, who met round the table of the Lord, coming from fourteen different denominations; but, as I said, the speakers always referred to our blessed Hope. I do thank God and take courage that our dear brother here and those who act with him have been prompted and guided to bring us together to confer on this glorious Hope of the Church of the living God

Now, in our thoughts this evening, we seek to have tle Holy Ghost as our guide. Just glance with me then at these first and second Epistles to the Thessalonians. Notice how in each chapter the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is referred to. Bear in mind that the Apostle had spent in Thessalonica just six short Sabbath days, and that during those few weeks when he visited that place, and led souls to Jesus, he was able in the very A B C of the Gospel to place the glorious doctrine of the second advent of tle Lord Jesus Christ. Then when Timothy came back to Paul at Corinth, it was to gladden his heart with the thought that they were waiting for the Lord form heaven, that this hope was the one great thought which filled their souls, and made them such gallant converts, such diligent and earnest workers, and such faithful servants of the Lord.

What was that hope? How plain it seemed to me as our Chairman read to us part of the fourth chapter of 1 Thessalonians, that what they expected, and what the apostle taught them to look for, was the coming of our Lord in person for the Church, to receive His people in the air, to take them to be with Him, and that this might be at any moment. Do you not think the apostle wrote advisedly, and under the teaching of the Holy Ghost, when he said that "we who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air"? Concerning this passage, I have never forgotten what our brother Rainsford once said in my chapel in Charlotte Street, when preaching on this subject; he said that the definite article should be left out in part of the verse. "We who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in clouds." Blessed thought! If the Lord comes this very night, a cloud rising from the Conference Hall at Mildmay, and from each town and village to which His people belong, and thus shall many clouds arise at the voice of the Archangel and at the trump of God, and pass up to meet the Lord in the air.

Was it not a fact, dear friends, that so strongly had this truth come to the Church at Thessalonica that they grieved and mourned for the dead? And as they followed some dear saint to the grave and laid the body there in hope of a glorious resurrection, they shed tears of sorrow because they thought that that loved one had lost the prospect of meeting the Lord in the air, they felt that there was some loss to that one who had been taken away before the personal return of the Lord. Well, when the apostle corrects that mistaken idea, how does he do it? Not by telling them that they had misunderstood him in reference to the immediate and sudden removal of the Church during the lifetime of the saints, but in this way he tells them that the dead in Christ shall rise firstthose for whom they mourned will have left their graves, before we who are alive and remain shall be caught upthey come up from their graves before we are transformed into the likeness and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then together shall we meet the Lord in the air.

Well, then, I maintain, and in this I think you will follow me, that with the apostle himself and with the Church at Thessalonica, there was the Hope of the removal of the Church during the lifetime of the saints. I know that we may look for, and should look for tribulation; and that whatever signs there may be of the Lord's coming, we are called upon to watch them, to notice them, and to take account of them. We are not to be led away from the thought that Romanism is a vital principle, and has to be grappled with prayerfully and vigilantly. We must observe that infidelity is on the increase, and there should be continual resistance on the part of the Church to the evil that is going on. We must take the word of prophecy. As the Apostle Peter tells us in his second Epistle, first chapter," We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts."

We are to look upon the Word as a light shining in a dark place, as a guiding light before us. As we follow it, that light seems more or less obscured and dark. We know there is to be trouble, we see the oncoming of the tribulation, but none of these I apprehend are intended to come in the way of the hope of the Church's translation; or to rise up before us as a series of events for which we are to look before we can expect the Lord to come. I take literally the Divine command in the last prayer the Master ever taught His Church-coming as it does at the close of the revealed Word, where He says: "Surely I come quickly," and we reply, 'Amen, Even so come Lord Jesus."

Now, the Thessalonians were under persecution, but they looked also for the oncoming evils which yet loom in the distance before us to-day; they were taught about Antichrist, about the lawless one who was to arise, and whom the Lord was to consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. They knew all about it; and they were told that the mystery of iniquity was already working. We know that the mystery referred to here has wrought for some twelve or thirteen centuries. Our brethren, who look so much and so carefully into the historical aspect of the prophetic word, have seen the rise and the progress of Popery, and in that I follow them. I see it all. Twelve centuries of Papal darkness, and then I seem to see Rome shorn of her earthly power, yet vital in her heart and enduring in her evil. Then I seem to see something worse, darker, and more dreadful still, just the one whom the Thessalonians saw when they were told to look for one "whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all powers and signs, and lying wonders." What was the apostle's way of dealing with them, as they looked at the dark and gloomy picture in the distance? What did he tell them? They feared, because it appeared so terrible. What was his counsel? He told them that there was another event which was to antedate that great apostasy, to antedate that manifestation of the Man of Sin, and that event was their gathering together unto our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Now let us glance for a moment at the book of the Apocalypse, the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will not touch on points regarding which we might differ. just ask you to connect together the first three and the nineteenth chapter, overlooking the other chapters from the fourth to the eighteenth, in which a series

of threefold visions bring under our notice the different events which are to usher in the manifestation of the glory of Christ. Passing over all these, and connecting the first and the nineteenth chapter, what do I see? Well, there at the outset the Lord tells us that when He comes down to the earth "every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him." I pass to the nineteenth chapter, and there He is fulfilling that very purpose, carrying out the very object spoken of in 2 Thess. ii., consuming with the breath of His mouth and destroying with the brightness of His coming that Lawless One, seizing upon the beast and the false prophet, and casting them into the lake of fire. Where do I see the Church? Following Him. I turn to 2 Thess. again, and I hear the apostle comforting the saints with this prospect: "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power: When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe."

Are not the saints and believers with the Lord at that moment forming part of that glory which comes down to the earth, when He shall destroy with the brightness of His coming all those opposed to Him? Yes, surely! But then there is a difficulty which some have felt in looking at this prospect of the Church of Christ as being removed before the great and final tribulation comes to its height-it is found in Matt. 24-31, where we read: "He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to another," and yet this follows the manifestation of Christ after the great tribulation. It comes in connection with these words: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from Heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn." The argument is that because that 31st verse, that gathering of the elect from the four corners of the earth, is stated to follow the manifestation of Christ, therefore we shall be found down in the midst of the tribulation, and mingled with the ungodly in the day when Christ shows Himself from Heaven. I would, however, humbly suggest, just for your careful and prayerful consideration and study, this thought-that the elect in this passage seem to mind to be the elect of Israel, the elect of the people who are to be restored to the Holy Land. I connect with that the 50th Psalm, which has been alluded to to-day, where I would also humbly submit, that my own mind has been changed with reference to the verse I am going to quote: "Gather My saints together unto Me, those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice." This may also refer to the glory of

Israel.

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Well, let that matter stand; here I think we can go together in saying that the Hope of the Church, whether it be out of the tribulation, or before the tribulation, whether in the midst of the tribulation or otherwise, the Hope of the Church is the immediate, the sudden and unexpected removal of the saints to meet the Lord, not on the earth but in the air-that we can put before the minds of the Church of God.

Now notice how different is this hope from the hope that we have in a happy death-bed-many are contented with that hope, they wish to die a happy death. To be absent from the body will always be to be present with the Lord; but do not you see the distinction between the two thoughts? If I die the Lord comes to me in spirit, as He says in John xiv.: "We will come and make My abode with you." If we die He visits us and cheers us with His presence, and sends His messengers to release your bright spirit, and carry that spirit into His presence above, while your body sleeps in the hope of a future resurrection. But if the Lord comes in my lifetime, then I go to Him, then He Himself comes for me and meets me on the way. It is not my soul released then, but my body transformed, and I meet my Lord in a

glorified state, and become like Himself. The distinction is very great and very important.

Let you and I look at the Church in its present condition What is its state? Oh, how separated! how divided and. mingled with that which is evil. How many of us out of fellowship with one another, and sometimes it may be out of fellowship with our Lord. But when He cones again, and when the Church is gathered round His glorious Person, then all the members are one, and the Lord is manifested to them all. We then shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him. Is not that a much more blessed condition than the separated state of the Church now? Do not you pray for Hiscoming because you realise that it is the only remedy for all our divisions, and all that is distracting and disturbing the communion of the Church of God? While the Lord is absent I am part of the creation which is groaning and travailing in pain, even we ourselves "which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our body." And we read, "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope." But when He comes, when the manifestation of the Church takes place, then "the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Is not that a glorious prospect that all the groaning creation waits for the manifestation which is the Hope of the Church, and that your manifestation and mine with the Master in the glory will be followed by such blessed results for the whole creation of God.

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The Believer's Hope.

BY REV. CANON FAUSSET.

AN is a creature of hope; it is as natural for him to hope as it is to breathe:

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

Man never loses it, but always clings to hope. It is a profound remark of Pascal that man's very discontent shows man's inherent loyalty; none but a dethroned king sighs because he is not in possession of a throne.

The Holy Scriptures and the Lord Jesus Christ meet this want, this deep-seated, inherent feeling of man's having a void which God alone can fill. Holy Scripture tells us of a Saviour now, and yet of a Saviour who is to come again the second time without sin unto salvation.

Grace is glory in the bud, and glory is grace fully developed. You will, most of you, know the work which has been blest to so many souls, "Grace and Truth," by the late Dr. Mackay, of Hull The first time I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Mackay was when I for the first time stood on this platform, and in my hearing he made this remark, "When first the truth of the Lord Jesus' second coming, and the glory that is to be revealed in connection with His pre-millennial advent dawned upon my soul, it was to me like a second conversion;" and this filled him with the labour of love and the patient waiting of hope. There is one on this platform to-night whom I heard many years ago at York, and he then said that, as faith is the substantiation of things not seen, so hope is the patient waiting in the dark and in the cold for the ful filment of the promises. Our attitude should be to pray that God's Holy Spirit may lead us to the promises, and that we may lay fast hold of them; for these promises of God are sure and steadfast; and holding the promises we may enter within the veil, where Jesus, our great High Priest and forerunner, has already entered.

A lady having found peace to her soul through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ summed up in four words, on a postcard sent to a friend, her new-born happiness:

of each one of us.

"Safe, Happy, Thankful, Waiting." This is an admirable summary of what is the experience Safe in Christ, as sure as His word, the word of Him who cannot lie, can make it-venturing all on the promises of God, we have as the result safety, happiness, and thankfulness. Then, as in the case of the Thessalonian Charch, we turn from worldly idols to serve the living and

true God, and wait for His Son from heaven-His Son Jesus Christ, whom He had raised from the dead, and who delivers us from the wrath to come.

I will call your attention to the striking fact which comes out in God's Holy Word, that every successive step in the manifestation and working of our Lord and Master, both in the past, the present, the future, has a corresponding counterpart in the experience of every believer. Did the Lord Jesus die on the cross at Calvary? Then know that every believer has also died-crucified with Christ unto the world and the world unto us. Did Jesus rise again? Believers, too, are made partakers of His resurrection life-we have the power of the resurrection, and it is an exceeding great power which God wrought in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead.

But there is more, something still more glorious-for when Christ, "who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory" (Gal. iii. 4); we shall be manifested with Him in glory. Our manifestation and His

manifestation shall be simultaneous.

Let me call your attention also to the fact of the striking connection that exists in Holy Writ between Christ's sonship and His resurrection. You remember Paul, when preaching at Antioch, in Pisidia, quoted the second Psalm, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee," as having been fulfilled, not at the time when Jesus was born into this world; though angels said He was the Son of God, it was not at the time of His baptism, though a voice from the Father said, "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am wel pleased;" it was not at the transfiguration, though there, too, God again testified that this was His Beloved Son. But the quotation from the Psalms is connected with the resurrection from the dead. The apostle says that promise in the second Psalm is fulfilled in that He raised Jesus from the dead.

Similarly we find a remarkable connection between our Lord's resurrection and His sonship brought out in Rom. i. 4, where He is a Son according to the flesh, but "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." So again is the expression used in the beginning of the book of Revelation, where He is "the first begotten from the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth; these two are connected, the raising from the dead and being the Prince of the kings of the earth.

Now, as it was in the case of the Master, so is it with the disciple, the sonship and the resurrection go hand in hand. You will find that our Lord, in Luke xx. 35-36, rebuked the Sadducees who denied the resurrection, and as He describes the glory of resurrection life: "But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."

Here again comes out that remarkable connection between sonship and the resurrection.

In passing, may I observe that this alone shows that the resurrection of the Son is of God, and is distinct from the resurrection of the world. The first is something specially to be obtained and sought for, but the resurrection of the lost is not spoken of as something to be obtained. The resurrection of believers is something obtained for Christ's sake, and by fidelity to Him in the power of the Spirit. His people shall be counted worthy to obtain it.

Mr. Skrine has already quoted Rom.viii., where we read of the earnest expectation of the creature standing on the tiptoe of expectation, eager, earnest, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Here again in the 23rd verse," We groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." The adoption of sonship: We are already sons the sons of God, as we read in Gal. iii. 26, " For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

We are sons, but our sonship is hidden, therefore the world knoweth us not, even as they knew Him not; we are not known as distinct externally from the sons of men-there is nothing to mark us out-as with Him. "He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him.". Yet he was truly the Son of God, as really then as now; but His Sonship was not manifested, and therefore the world refused to recognise His claim.

And so it is with God's believing children; it is our function to know what is expressed in Psa. lxxxiii. God's believing people are God's hidden ones, but they are not to remain so. The blessed time is coming when all glorified in Him the hidden glory of their sonship shall burst forth, and it will blaze out in the presence of Him who is the Sun of Righteousness. This again appears in 1 John iii. 1, 2. The Apostle speaks of our marvellous privilege; indeed, it is something startling to think of if we realise its grandeur: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

What manner of love, what aching love, has been bestowed on us in title and in reality. We are sons, but not yet manifested, and not to be manifested at death. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but when He shall be manifested, then shall we be like Him."

Now this is our Hope of glory; this is the Hope of the Church; the Hope of the Lord's coming, to develop Grace into Glory; they are inseparably connected. We seek not so much what God gives as God Himself. As He said to Abraham, "Fear not Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." So Jesus is the eternal portion of His people. Therefore, the joys of Heaven are not so very much dilated upon in Holy Writ as the great central fact that Christ is there, and that His people will be one with Him throughout all eternity.

There is a generation and a degeneration. Allusion has been made to the tendency of the sons of men to go back and degenerate by many of the speakers in this hall, and the signs have been observed and mentioned this day: Signs of growing apostasy from the Light which has come into the world, but which men rejected because they loved darkness rather than the light. We can already discern that one predicted sign of the gloomy dark age of apostasy, and therefore also a sign of the blessed bright coming of Jesus; for out of all the darkness and gloom shall burst forth the rising Day Star, and then the full glory of the Sun of Righteousness.

In Rev. xvi. three frog-like spirits or demons come out of the mouth of the dragon, and the beast, and the false prophet. What is the evil spirit out of the mouth of the dragon? Satan's first lie " ye shall not die," was a contradiction of the Word of God which said, "Ye shall surely die." Satan persuaded men to believe his lie that they would not die—and already this characteristic of the age is beginning to manifest itself in the dislike to hear anything about hell or the eternity of the punishment of disbelief, indeed all the great verities and fundamental truths of God's eternal Word; heaven and earth shall pass away, but the Word of God shall never pass away.

Then, what is the evil spirit out of the mouth of the beast? All prophecy points to the spirit of impatience of authority, the spirit of independence of law, of autonomy, of self-rule, of self-will, independence of God, and assuredly these characteristics are apparent amongst us to-day, and point to the evil spirit from the mouth of the lawless beast. Lawlessness was in mystery during the mediæval times. Compare 1 Tim. iv. with 2 Tim. iii. In 1 Tim. iv. it is called in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits;" and it goes on, "Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving." This is the characteristic of medieval timesBabylon, the apostate woman. But in 2 Tim. iii. "the latter times" becomes "the last days:" "in the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves." Selfishness is allied to the lawlessness of these last days-self-indulgence, luxury, reckless disregard of the rights of other men, seeking only self-gratification.

Finally, the frog-like spirit out of the mouth of the false prophet. If any of you desire to read a work which unfolds something about that, I recommend you to read Mr. Pember's "Earth's Earliest Ages." There you see the evil spirit beginning to perform these miracles, these lying miracles, these demonaical miracles, characteristic of the last days. The Master says that they shall perform miracles and deceive,

if it were possible, the very elect, and Paul in 2 Thess. ii. says: "Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved."

Just as the world is beginning to throw off all allegiance to the Church, there is beginning to be shown a new power, a spiritual power, to supersede the Church, and no longer will evil be a mystery. It shall be hung up to view. There is to be an external manifestation. What has been hidden heretofore shall be revealed-energised by Satan himself all lawlessness shall appear. Blessed be God, it is only for a short time.

But we must be very careful now to have nothing to do with this. I have myself had correspondence with people in London, strangers to me on this subject. I cannot tell you how this is being tampered with by persons, even those who would shrink from anything calculated to be going on forbidden ground. But it was just this that cost Saul his throne; for he lost his throne not merely through disobedience, but because he was guilty of the sin of necromancy, and that necromancy is strictly forbidden by God.

Well, blessed be His name, our citizenship is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus coming as a Saviour; for that is the true translation, "Coming as the Saviour." But has He not come already? Oh, yes, but the salvation is not completed; it is not consummated, the title has been bought, and the price has been paid. We have salvation in one sense, but in another sense we are waiting for the full manifestation, when our body shall be raised, the body of humiliation raised and made like His glorious Body. When Archbishop Whately was on his death-bed, someone said to him these words: "He shall change our vile body." "No," he exclaimed, "not our 'vile body,' the body of our humiliation, but there is nothing vile that God has made."

How very little suffices to affect this body. We have missed our honoured friend, Mr. Black wood, who used to give such a tone to our meetings at Mildmay, and we miss Mr. Rainsford. Surely, indeed, we must say we are in a body of humiliation, but, blessed be God, we are looking for a body of glory; looking for the blessed land where the inhabitants say not, "I am sick," and where they are free from all iniquity. We have good reason to be looking for the Lord's speedy coming, when our loved ones are being taken away, and when the Lord comes, death shall have no more power, Even now many a dying believer has been enabled to gain a glorious victory over death, and its power and sting has been taken away. Only last year I visited a dear young woman on her death-bed, and when she was asked if she was resting on Jesus, she replied, in homely phrase, "I put my little hand in His mighty hand, and He leads me where He wills. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Dear friends, when He comes, there is no valley of the shadow of death, but, instead, there is perpetual sunshine. There are no rumours, even of these evils that we now suffer from, in the disunion amongst the brethren. In John xvii. we read, in the last sublime intercession of the Master, He connects the union of believers with the Father and Himself with the glory manifested, so that when the glory is manifested then there shall be union among the brethren. He prays, "That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us." And, again, "And the glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them: that they may be one, even as We are one."

Then as regards knowledge, how vastly shall our powers be increased. Perhaps some brother sees not eye to eye with us on subjects connected with the Second Advent. Well, as good John Bennett says, Gol washes our hearts in the blood of Jesus here. He will wash our brains in the world to come. Now we see darkly as in a glass, then shall we see face to face. Now we know in part, then shall we know as we are known.

"Then shall we see and hear and know,
What mortals cannot learn below,
Then shall our powers find sweet employ
In Christ's eternal world of joy."

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(For Continuation of Conference Addresses, see Supplement.)