Pastor Russell, of Allegheny, Pa., preached twice here today to large and intelligent congregations. His afternoon discourse which we report was delivered at the large Grand opera house, which was crowded. He seemed to take the entire Bible as his text. He said:

The scriptures uniformly assert a personal Satan or adversary of God and righteousness, but nowhere do they intimate that he is beyond the power and control of the Almighty nor that his dominion is to be everlasting; but quite to the contrary. It is not the Bible, but human tradition, however, which declares that he, with hordes of subordinate fireproof demons, is continually busied with the tormenting of deceased members of the human family thousands of millions of them in some unknown place "beyond the bounds of time and space." That is human tradition, received not from Jesus and the apostles nor from the Jewish prophets, but from the heathen, of whom the apostle tells us that the gods whom they worship are devils. (1 Cor. 10:20.) And no wonder also that the apostle designates such doctrines as "doctrines of demons" (1 Tim. 4:1) undoubtedly Satan and his associated fallen spirits (those angels which kept not their first estate) but who for disobedience were cast down and are "reserved in chains of darkness" until a coming time of judgment. (Jude 6.) [HGL343]

The scriptures refer to Satan as having been created an angel of a very high order, a "covering cherub." He is styled Lucifer, the name signifying one who is a bright shining light, a "morning star" amongst other angels. He is referred to as developing an ambitious pride, which finally led to outward rebellion against God.

The time evidently that this pride began to develop was when Satan beheld our first parents in Eden, and perceived that in them God had created a new thing an intelligent pair in his own likeness, possessed with the powers of procreation for the multiplying of their own species. Ambition led Lucifer into disloyalty, he determined to capture if possible the first human

pair, and thus to gain control of the entire human race of men which should be born to them. He has succeeded marvelously, and, as the apostle says, "The world lieth in the wicked one."

This is one of the names given to Satan by our Lord, and the more we come to know about the affairs of this world the more we can realize the appropriateness of the name. For although unseen by men, and unrecognized by the majority, his power is everywhere manifested. We may reasonably believe, however, that Satan did not expect that the penalty of death would be executed against humanity. He knew, of course, of the death of the lower animals, but evidently assumed that man, created in God's image as are the angels, like them would be free from death. The execution of God's sentence, "Dying thou shalt die," against Adam and his race was quite probably a surprise to Satan, tarnishing his victory. Nevertheless, himself cut off from divine fellowship by his course, Satan continued to deal with humanity, to bring them further under his control; and his policy succeeded in proportion as mankind became more and more weak and degenerated through the fall.

Thus it will be noted that man did indeed, according to the scriptures, fall into the hands of Satan not in some far off unknown place after death, but in the earth prior to his death.

Let none suppose, however, that Satan is the "prince of this world" by any recognition of the Almighty God. Quite to the contrary, everywhere in the scriptures Satan's kingdom is denounced as a rebellious one, and everywhere do they present the thought that in due time Satan and his empire will be overthrown by Messiah.

The scriptures do not intimate that any others of the heavenly hosts deflected from their obedience to God at the same time with Satan; but no doubt the apparent success of his rebellion and the fact that no condign punishment was visited upon him may have emboldened others to taste of disobedience. The apostle clearly tells us of the time and circumstances connected with the fall of the angels from divine favor, since which time they are called in the scriptures demons, the word being improperly translated "devils" in our common version.

Outcasts from God and His favor, these disobedient spirit beings had evidently gone from bad to worse so as to fully merit the title given them of "demons." Their chief pleasure and business would seem to be in connection with humanity seeking always the ultimate degradation of the latter and to their estrangement from the Lord, His Word and His Spirit. Through witches and wizards in the past, and today through "mediums" clair-audient

voices deceive humanity by personating their dead friends, and sometimes by personating the holy angels and the Lord himself that they might lead their minds away from truth and righteousness unto sin.

We well remember that in our Lord's day these demons infested many members of the human family, and that our Lord Himself and had His apostles made a speciality of casting out devils. These were addressed as persons and answered as intelligent beings, and those who accept parts of the divine record should hesitate before rejecting these. Those who have made insanity a study, we think, generally agree that it may arise from two causes: (1) From some pressure upon the brain, or some organic disturbance, or, (2) from obsession from the fact that the human being has come under the control of one or more of these evil spirits who run riot with his reasoning faculties. According to the estimates more than one-half of all the insane are suffering from obsession the same malady exactly that our Lord and the apostles cured by casting out the demons.

We are aware that our Lord's words to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan," are made the basis for the denial that there is any personal devil or subordinate demons. Our reply is that although any man may become an adversary of God (a Satan), the scriptures everywhere speak of the prime mover in evil as the "devil," the "Satan." Mark how the apostle tells us, "Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour whom resist, steadfast in the faith." (1 Pet. 5:8) Mark how our Lord declared of Satan, "I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven" doubtless referring to Satan's original deflection. (Luke 10:18) Mark again his words respecting Satan, "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth." (John 8:44)

Ah, yes; he was a murderer the murderer of Adam and Eve and their entire family, now estimated at twenty thousand millions. He is the great murderer, the first murderer. He murdered our first parents by deceiving them, and thus inducing them to be disobedient to their Creator, which brought them under the sentence of death. Hence for now 6,000 years the penalty, "Dying thou shalt die," has been inflicted upon Adam and upon the entire human family and associated with that penalty have been various of its concomitants of pain, sorrow, sighing, crying, all included in and swallowed up by the word, dying. This is bad enough, but thank God it is not as bad as Satan would have us believe in order to turn our hearts perpetually from the Lord it is not as bad as the "doctrine of devils" would imply not as bad as eternal torment, which all the creeds of Christendom erroneously teach to be the penalty of original sin. We know well the lie, the

misrepresentation by which Satan secured this original power over our race and became their murderer: God had said that disobedience would bring death'Satan had contradicted [HGL344] the Almighty, declaring, "Thou shalt not surely die." (Gen. 3:4)

Upon this murderer's falsehood Satan has built nearly all the various errors which has injured our race. For instance: (1) The erroneous theory that the dead are now either in purgatory or hell, except a handful taken to heaven; (2) by this theory the Bible teaching of a resurrection of the dead is made void and meaningless; (3) by this doctrine the work of Christ is rendered null and valueless, for if it were true that death took all the human family either to heaven or to hell according to their merits, before Christ came, before Christ died, as well as since, then, indeed Christ died in vain, for nothing has been accomplished by his death since it is claimed that the whole procedure continues the same.

Before examining the scriptural proofs of the overthrow of Satan and the glorious blessings to result to mankind under the reign of Christ, let us briefly glance at God's reason for permitting matters to go as they have gone for the past 6,000 years. Why did He not destroy Satan and the fallen angels long ago? Why was Adam permitted to come under the influence of the great Deceiver? or why were not Adam and Eve as well as Satan destroyed and a new race begun?

These are reasonable questions, and the Bible gives us the key to their solution, showing that all created in the image and likeness of God are designed to have the liberty of the sons of God liberty of conscience, liberty of heart and will, and that God seeks such only to worship Him and to enjoy His blessings eternally as worship Him in spirit and in truth. To create angels and men free moral agents signified their liberty to sin through disobedience to the Divine law if they chose. And in humanity God has given an illustration not only of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and its injurious effects, but also an illustration of the various features of His character justice, wisdom, love and power as these could not have been revealed to angels or to man without the permission of evil without the permission of the exercise of sin-and-death conditions. The apostle tells us that sin and death began to reign in Adam's day, and he explains the cause therefor, saying, "By one man's disobedience, sin entered into the world and death as the result of sin, and thus death passed upon all men because all have sinned." (Rom. 5:12.) Our Lord Jesus contradicts the evolution theory most emphatically in his statement, "The Son of man came to seek and recover that which was lost." Luke 19:10.

Those who will look at the subject from the Bible standpoint will see that its every teaching is in accord with its teaching of Adam's perfection and his fall. The penalizing of Adam's sin with the death penalty presupposes that the original sinner possessed intelligence of a high order, which would properly qualify him for a trial at the bar of God for either life or death eternal, and the death sentence corroborates the declaration of the scriptures that Adam was disobedient in his trial. Thus the phenomena of death and mental, moral and physical impairment are all accounted for by the scriptures through this doctrine of sin and its penalty. Every person and every theory which in any sense or degree either repudiates or ignores this scriptural teaching, that all men are sinners and that their dying condition is the result or penalty of sin, are surely, therefore, in error.

In line with this we find the scriptural doctrine of a ransom that as sin and its penalty started in father Adam's disobedience and was inherited by all of his posterity, so God's provision for the future resurrection of Adam and his race made provision for their redemption. Thus the apostle states the matter, "As by a man (Adam) came death, by a man (Christ) also comes the resurrection of the dead; for as all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive" - "every man in his own order." (1 Cor. 15:21-23). If, as the evolutionists tell us, man is "falling upward" wherein was the justice of the divine sentence against him? Why should God speak of him as a sinner, a transgressor? Is it sinful to evolute upward? Surely not! Why should man be spoken of as under the curse or penalty for sin, since self-development is not sin? Why should it be written that justice demands a ransom price before Adam and his race could be released from the death sentence and be granted an opportunity for eternal life? Why did the law given through Moses symbolize sin-offerings and divine propitiation through day of atonement sacrifices, etc., and the high priest's services, if there was no fall, no sin, and no need of a redemption and sin-offering and a reconciliation to God? Why should the new testament continue the same story of the necessity for the death of Jesus as the redemption price, that by his stripes we might be healed, that through the sacrifice of his life the world might be granted a resurrection to life in due time?

Why is the doctrine of the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead put so prominently before us in the Bible if there was no fall into sin and death, no need of a redemption, and no need that at his second coming the sins of the world shall be blotted out, and the world of mankind uplifted out of sin-and-death conditions back to full perfection of human nature and all that was lost in Adam? There can be no answer to these questions before an honest mind. The matter is a simple one; we must either reject the Bible doctrine of man's creation in perfection, his fall into sin and its penalty death, his redemption by the precious blood of Jesus and his recovery by and by from sin and death and restoration to full perfection during the Millennial age at the hands of the great Redeemer, or, on the contrary, we must repudiate in toto all the theories of human evolution as being absolutely, unqualifiedly, untrue, "let God be true though it prove man a liar." Rom. 3:4

The pity is that very few Christian people are aware that restitution is the scriptural teaching respecting the future hope of the world. I am sure that few if any of this audience ever heard a pulpit discourse from our text. In fact experience proves that remarkably few ministers or laymen know that there is such a statement in the scriptures that God through the inspired apostle declares: Times, years, of restitution are just before us to begin at the second coming of our Lord, and, as our context declares, are to be [HGL345] seasons of refreshing, of blessing, of uplifting to the world of mankind. Yea, notice that in our text the apostle declares that all the holy prophets since the world began have foretold these coming times of restitution and blessing. Strange that for so long we have overlooked the real teachings of God's word, the real hope set before the world. The hope before the church is a heavenly one, the prospect of a change from an earthly nature and conditions and surroundings to the heavenly, to be accomplished in the first or chief resurrection. The blessing promised to the world is not a change to another nature, but a restitution of the present human nature to its original perfection in connection with this earth, its future home or paradise.

Restitution, as all are aware, signifies the restoring or putting back to a previous condition. There is a reason why this scriptural doctrine of restitution, spoken by the apostles and all the holy prophets since the world began, has been overlooked by theologians in general. For the same reason the doctrines of the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead have lost their power in the faith of Christendom. The reason is that false doctrines were added very early to, and engrafted upon, the faith once delivered to the saints. These traditions of the ancients have largely made the word of God of none effect in the minds of the people, have rendered many of the statements of the scriptures unintelligible, and have prepared the masses of Christendom to believe a lie the lie that is now being made so prominent, that death is not death, that there was no fall, that there was no redemption from a fall, and that there will be no restitution.

This false doctrine is based upon the human theory that a man cannot die that the soul cannot die. It is in complete opposition to the scriptural declaration, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," the "wages of sin is death," "God is able to destroy both soul and body." The theory that man when he dies is not dead but more alive than ever renders meaningless the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead, and also the doctrine of the second coming of Christ for the purpose of resurrecting the dead and granting them blessed opportunities during "the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began." This false doctrine that man is alive when he is dead is the basis for all the horrible teachings respecting purgatory, respecting the doctrine of prayers to the saints, supposed to be alive in heaven, when according to the scriptures, they are dead and waiting for the second coming of our Lord and the resurrection of the dead.

Let us go back to the Bible and common sense, let us believe the record which God has given us of Adam's original creation in his likeness, of his fall into sin, of the share that we all as his race have in his imperfections and unworthiness; and then let us hope in the redemption accomplished through his power now the high calling of salvation to the church, and during the Millennial age the blessing of the world by restoration, restitution processes, which shall bring them back to all that was lost, plus valuable lessons in knowledge which will be to their eternal advantage. Let us see further God's reasonable provision that any who once really see and understand and appreciate the divine plan if they sin willfully, deliberately, will become subjects of the second death utter destruction, from which there will be no redemption, no recovery by resurrection or otherwise.

Did time permit it would afford us great pleasure to go through the various prophecies and point out wherein all the holy prophets have spoken of the coming times of restitution. Moses the prophet distinctly set forth that in due time God would send a greater one than himself, "A prophet like unto me," the Messiah, and that through him blessings more abundant would come blessings of relief and uplift and succor, forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God. Peter quotes this in the words just following our text, and indicates that the fulfillment of it will be in the times of restitution, the times of refreshing and rejuvenation which God has proclaimed through all the prophets. Then, says the apostle, under those favorable conditions, "it shall come to pass that the soul that will not obey that prophet, shall be utterly destroyed from amongst the people." (Acts 3:23) God Himself prophesied of these coming blessings of restitution, declaring to Abraham, unconditionally, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." As the curse was death, the blessing of the Lord will be the reversal of the death and dying, namely, restitution to life.

But doubtless all in this audience would be impressed more by the words of Jesus himself than by all the testimony of all the prophets. Hearken, therefore, to the great teacher, the great prophet, telling of restitution. He spake through his subsequent mouthpieces, the apostles, to tell us through our text of the coming restitution times, and to tell us through the Apostle Paul that the whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain together waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God when their groaning and travailing in pain shall cease, and when they by the grace of God, by acceptance of His favors of the kingdom, shall regain the liberty of the sons of God freedom from sin and death restoration to divine favor. Not only so, but in His own dark utterances, with His own lips, He corroborated the testimony of the angels who announced His birth and was declared that it meant "good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people."

Our Lord told that He came to "seek and to save that which was lost;" He told how as the good shepherd He was giving His life for the sheep, and as a result He would lead all of His true sheep, both of the present flock and of another flock yet to be called, to the fold. He told how He came "not to destroy men's lives but to save them;" He pointed to His second coming as the time when He would reward the servants of this gospel age, the church and that then He would set up his kingdom and give his faithful servants, the church, dominion over the world for its blessing and uplifting. He told how that time of blessing and uplift would not only be for the then living people, but also that all in their graves should hear His voice and should come forth, and that those who would hear in the sense of obey should live ultimately be freed entirely from all the sin-and-death conditions of the present. [HGL346]

So prone are we to think of God as less merciful and less generous than ourselves instead of more so, that we are inclined to limit the gracious promises of His word and to suppose that they are merely for the saints of this gospel age. On the contrary, while the exceeding great and precious promises are for these saints, there are other promises to the world in general which shall be theirs after the saints shall be glorified with their Lord. Whoever will read carefully and prayerfully and intelligently Rom. 11:25-32 will find distinctly stated the great blessings that are to come to natural Israel at the second coming of Christ; and after the church shall be glorified, that natural Israel "shall obtain mercy through your mercy" through the mercy of glorified spiritual Israel during restitution times.

But notice particularly a nation of the past, admittedly a very sinful nation, and see what our Lord declares to be their future prospects. He testified that all of the Sodomites were destroyed, saying, "Fire came down from heaven and destroyed them all." But He tells that in the day of judgment, the great Millennial day of His kingdom, when the whole world shall have a judgment or trial of eternal life, the Sodomites will not be forgotten. More than that, it will be "more tolerable" for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for you of Chorazin and Bethsaida, who have had larger opportunities and privileges and have failed to profit thereby. But why should it be more tolerable for the Sodomites than for some others? Were they not wicked sinners? Our Lord testifies that they were sinful men. There is no excuse made for their iniquity, but he also testifies, saying, "If the mighty works that have been done in you had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." Thus we see why it will be more tolerable for them in the Millennial day than for some who were more highly favored and who therefore sinned against greater light. Matt. 10:15.

Turn now to Eze. 16:22, 48-63. Hear what the Lord has said through this prophet respecting Sodom in the times of restitution in the day of judgment in the Millennial day under the reign of our Lord's kingdom for the blessing and uplifting and trying and testing of the whole world for life or death everlasting. The prophet declares the sin of the Sodomites, and his words agree with our Lord's testimony that the Israelites were more blameworthy; and then he tells that in due time he will restore the Sodomites and restore the Israelites, not for the merit or worthiness of either of them, but because of his own gracious plan and arrangements to give to all under the Millennial reign of Christ the fullest opportunity for knowledge and obedience and return to all that was lost and to life everlasting.

The assurance is that as sin abounded through Adam unto condemnation and death, so through Christ, in due time, eternal life shall come to as many as will receive it under the Lord's conditions. Six thousand years have been permitted for the development of the race to fill the earth, all except our first parents being born in sin, shapen in iniquity. (Psa. 51:5.) As these all were condemned in one man, God's provision is that the death of the man Christ Jesus is a sufficient ransom for the race, and this ransom price having been paid the first work of salvation has been the gathering from the world of the Lord's little flock, the royal priesthood, the household of faith, the Levites. This is as far as the work has yet progressed; soon this election or selection of the little flock will be completed, and they as the bride, the Lamb's wife, will be glorified with their Lord, and as His kingdom associates will with Him be engaged during the Millennial age, a thousand years, in the great work of blessing and uplifting from sin and death conditions every member of the human family who may desire to return to God and be abundantly pardoned.

It is asked why they do not return now. The scriptures answer that the world in general is both blind and deaf to the Lord's message; they are enemies through wicked works, they are deceived by Satan's misrepresentation of the divine character, they know little reason why they should love God or seek to walk in His way; and, besides, they have learned to love the ways of sin and death and must be helped out of their deplorable condition.

For the assistance of mankind the Millennial kingdom is provided, in which Christ and the glorified church shall have and exercise all power autocratic power first, so as to bring every creature and everything to a recognition of the King and His dominion, as it is written, unto Him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God. Those who are rebelliously inclined shall be chastened with stripes, that they may learn the way of the Lord and learn to appreciate righteousness; while those who do obey the divine law of that time will be blessed with restitution.

And as for the remainder as for those who repudiate and reject and refuse under full light and knowledge, the scriptures declare that they shall be destroyed with an everlasting destruction the second death.

Satan's influence seems to be limited by the light of truth, the knowledge of the divine plan. Hence those who are his special objects of attack are such as are awake rather than intellectually asleep; especially those who being awake are actively engaged in lifting up the light, the truth, to the people. Looking back we see how Satan especially worked against Christ and the apostles as Jesus said to St. Peter, "Satan hath desire to have you that he might sift you as wheat." (Luke 22:31.) And again our Lord writes, "The devil shall cast some of you into prison," (Rev. 2:10); and we may reasonably understand that he had much to do with the stirring up of the animosity and prejudice of the scribes and Pharisees and doctors of the law against the teachings of Jesus and his followers, resulting in their death. So also it has been throughout this gospel age; Satan has actively opposed the light and the children of the light, and assisted and encouraged and co-operated with the darkness and those under its influences.

What we are now noting is that Satan operated to the blinding and deluding of mankind and to the corruption of many of the followers of the Lord always to their injury and to the perversion of truth, and in opposition to the Word of the Lord. His change of tactics in connection with the reformation movement is also worthy of notice. When [HGL347] the Lord's spirit stirred up some of his followers for a defense of His Word, and Satan found it impossible to longer continue the gross darkness, he sided in with the reformers in some measure, not, however, with a view to producing a real reform, but to turn aside the reformation work. Luther, the reformer, was still under some of the delusions of his past education; he still believed that the dead were alive. His rebellion was against corruption in the system rather than against the system itself; he objected that money could not pur-chase the release of a soul from purgatory, through the saying of mass or otherwise. He still believed that Christ's kingdom had come and was somehow represented in the church; he looked to see how and where Christ's kingdom was in the world, and concluded that those governments which accepted the teachings of the reformation must be God's kingdoms. And thus it came about that while the king of France and king of England and king of Germany and others had erstwhile looked to the pope as the source of their authority, and under his authority claimed to be kingdoms of God, by and by those princes who accepted the reformers looked to them for authorization that the people might still recognize their rulers as of divine appointment.

Thus Protestant England and Protestant Germany continue to stamp upon their coins as before, that their monarchs ruled by the grace of God accepting the grace and their authorization as changed from papacy to the reformers. For instance, when Great Britain was under papal control one of her kings was called to Rome to give an account of violation of some of the pope's rules; and it is a matter of history that for three days he walked barefoot in the snow and slush around the Vatican doing penance, and at the conclusion was permitted to come into the pope's presence upon his knees, in claimed fulfillment of Psalm 2, "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings. . . . Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and ye perish in the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." The pope subsequently placed the crown upon the king's head with his feet as indicating how much beneath the pope, how much a vassal was the king.

But after the reformation, it was Henry the Eighth who disregarded the pope's authority and called upon the Protestant bishops of the Church of England to acknowledge his kingship as of divine appointment.

Thus the error was kept alive by the wiles of the adversary, the delusion was held over the minds of the people, and the reformation was measurably turned aside God permitting this the while because his due time for the establishment of His kingdom was not yet. Thus we have it today that all the great governments of Europe, armed to the teeth against one another and between whom wars have waged for centuries, all claim to be kingdoms of God, their coins declaring that their monarchs rule the people as divine representatives. But the whole matter, dear friends, is a delusion of the adversary, the great deceiver. These kingdoms are not the kingdoms referred to by our Lord and the Apostle, and especially mentioned in our Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." On the contrary they are, as the scriptures declare, "kingdoms of this world," and all under the direction and superintendence of the "prince of the power of the air," the "prince of this world."

Christian people in general have gotten this erroneous idea that God's kingdom is already set up, and hence are not looking for the kingdom of God's dear Son, the kingdom of glory foretold in the scriptures. In harmony with their erroneous thought, they are seeking to convert the world, failing to realize the utter impossibility of this that there are twice as many heathen as there were a century ago notwithstanding the great missionary efforts put forth. But even if the heathens were all converted to as civilized a condition as prevails throughout Christendom, how far this would be from the glorious condition which the Lord has referred to in his prayer. Surely God's will is not done on earth as it is in heaven in any place, and hence if the heathen were as good as the best state in the world they would all need converting over again to bring them into proper accord with the Lord.

The ultimate overthrow of Satan was vaguely prophesied at the time of the expulsion of our first parents from Eden, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent." This message was repeated with growing clearness for 4,000 years, the prophets telling of the glorious blessings that would follow the establishment of Messiah's kingdom upon the ruins of present institutions, and how then the knowledge and glory of the Lord would fill the whole earth and all the families of the earth would be blessed. Through Daniel prophetic pictures representing the history of the world were given, and Messiah's kingdom was distinctly shown to be that which would ultimately prevent under the whole heavens, a dominion that should not pass away and that would be given to the holy people, a dominion of righteousness. (Dan. 7:27.)

Our Lord fully enunciated these same teachings, quoted from these various prophecies, and told of the coming time when by virtue of his death for man's sins He would establish His kingdom with power and great glory to release the world from the bondage of Satan and sin and death and to grant resurrection to all, the grand and glorious conditions that have been lost through Satan's murderous work in Eden. The cross of Christ, His death as our redemption price, is the very center of this plan, the calling of the church during this gospel age to be joint heirs with Him in His kingdom is the intermediary feature, and the Kingdom itself to be established at His second coming is to be the grand outcome. It is to be the Sun of Righteousness with healing in its beams that will bless the world, and probably enough the declaration is made that amongst the first things of the new order will be the binding of Satan for a thousand years that he shall deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are finished.

So far from the Lord's Millennial kingdom being produced by the conversion of the world by human agency which we see to be impossible, the scriptures declare that it will be introduced by a great time of trouble, such as was not since there was a nation'no, nor ever shall be. This time of trouble will, according to God's Word, result in the [HGL348] overthrow of all present institutions, which are all more or less blended with pride, ambition and selfishness and sin, inculcated by the prince of this world and the methods which he has favored, which trouble will be an awful experience upon the world, and our Lord suggests that were it not for the elect, there would be no flesh saved the social, political, financial, religious elements would destroy each other in anarchy. It will be short, sharp and decisive, for "a short work will the Lord make upon the earth." (Rom. 9:28)

We believe, dear friends, that this time of trouble and anarchy is very near at hand, but we are interested more in the glorious outcome than in the trouble itself. We can lift up our heads and rejoice at the evidence that the kingdom is very near at hand notwithstanding the trouble by which it will be introduced, knowing that the driving of the plowshare of trouble through the hearts of mankind according to the promise of the Lord's Word will eventuate in a blessing for them, the great blessing, the inauguration of the kingdom which God has provided for the uplift and refreshing and restitution of all who will come into harmony with him. The Lord represents this in some of His parables as the binding of the strong man, Satan, and represents himself at His coming as being the stronger one who will make him captive, and who represents His second coming as being secretly, quietly, as a thief in the night, unknown to the world, not comprehended by any except those whose eyes of understanding have been opened. Let us then who are hoping to be sharers in this kingdom be more and more sanctified by the gracious Word of God, and more and more encouraged as we come to a knowledge of what is the real character of God. O, come and let us worship and bow down, let us call upon the name of our God, for His mercy endureth forever.