and beautiful surface torn, broken, and riven into fearful chasms. Splendid cities, thronged with a gay and active population, and adorned with works of art and elegance, and vast regions, that once gave their varied and rich productions to men, and boundless forests, inhaling the noon-tide heat, and sending forth from their deeply-shaded recesses a cool, invigorating air in return, were all gone; and where these once stood, mighty seas now rolled their restless billows. Turbid rivers were seen swelling and rushing onward through valleys which the flood had scooped out. Mountains were piled on mountains, over whose rugged cliffs torrents were leaping and plunging headlong, from precipice to precipice, in the wild uproar of a thousand cataracts.

What must have been the dread and apprehension of Noah as he beheld this scene of destruction, and how horrorstruck he must have been whenever he saw the clouds gathering in the heavens, and heard the thunders of the coming storm! He could feel nothing less than an excruciating dread of another deluge.

Such would have been the life of terror that he and his posterity would have spent upon earth-trembling with alarm at every cloud that appeared in the heavens.

But God mercifully relieved Noah and his posterity from such fears, by assuring him that the earth should be no more destroyed by a flood. This assurance was given in the form of a covenant, and the rainbow was the token connected with this covenant.

We read the covenant in the tenth chapter of Genesis. The purpose of the covenant and the bow are stated thus: And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said,

This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for succeeding generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a

token of a covenant between me and the earth.-(11, 12, 13 verses.)

This bow was the visible sign on which Noah was to rest his trust and confidence in the covenant promise that the earth should no more be destroyed by a flood. Would it, then, have answered the purpose of such a token if Noah had ever seen it before? If this gorgeous arch had ever spanned the antediluvian heavens, would it have been any more than tantalizing his fears to direct his attention to that, and tell him to rest his confidence upon that bow, that there would be no more flood upon the earth? His answer would have been, "I saw that bow in the former sky, but, nevertheless, "the earth was destroyed by a flood."

If Noah had ever seen a rainbow, or anybody else had ever seen one before the flood, it would have been utterly useless to offer him that as a relief from his dread of another flood. It was just because no such thing had ever been seen or heard of in the antediluvian sky, that it was selected by God as the token which should free the mind of Noah and his posterity from all apprehension of a recurrence of the deluge.

The rainbow is the effect of rain. It is nothing supernatural ; but as it was to Noah something entirely new upon the face of nature, its effect upon his mind was the same as if it had been supernatural.

The use which God was pleased to make of the rainbow when one was first produced, is a conclusive argument in support of the opinion that rain, as we are now familiar with it, was not known in the antediluvian age. And if rain was unknown then, and is very common now, how is this difference in the two climates to be accounted for upon any other principle than a change in the position of the earth? A mist or copious dews supplied the place of rain before the flood, when all things in nature were harmonious, under the order and arrangement which God had pronounced to be very good.

This brings us back to the point from which we started in this digression. We see that sin has defaced the whole world-swept off the population of the old world, and thrown the earth out of its place, thereby introducing diseases and a thousand physical evils which did not belong to this earth in its primeval state.

But in the great physical regeneration referred to by our Savior, and the restitution of all things, as St. Peter styles it, speaking of the same event, all those evils are to be remedied, and the present heavens and earth are to remolded aud renovated, and converted into the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness only.

THE MILLENNIUM.

The banishment of Satanic influence from the earth will bring about a new state of things never known before since the fall of man. In a moral sense, this itself would constitute a new heavens and a new earth. Old things will then be done away, and all things will become new.

This introduces the thousand years' reign of Christ, and is usually denominated the kingdom of God, by Christ and his apostles. It is that state our Savior referred to in the prayer which he taught his disciples, and through them, the whole church-Thy kingdom come-thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Whenever the Christian utters the Lord's prayer, he prays for the coming of the Millennium-for the thousand years' reign of Christ-for the appearing of the kingdom of God!

What do we understand by a kingdom, but where the rule and authority of the king are submitted to and obeyed? But this is not the case in the present gospel economy. By far the greater part of the world, even in Christendom, is opposed to the authority and law of God, and totally disregard his word. We cannot, with propriety, call the present state of Christianity the kingdom of God. But there are

many Christians, perhaps the great majority of them, who never look beyond the present gospel economy for the kingdom of God; supposing that the meaning of Christ went no further than the gospel dispensation, although he tells us plainly that the gospel is the announcement of this kingdom. It calls to all the world and proclaims the coming of this kingdom-it is called the gospel of the kingdom. Therefore, we are to look beyond the gospel for the kingdom of God.

But I need not have quoted these Scriptures in support of this position; one declaration of our Savior is fully sufficient to establish it—My kingdom is not of this world. Now whether we understand this world to mean the present mundane system, or the Christian dispensation, in either case the words of our Savior are of equal force. My kingdom is not of this world; and men will understand when they pray-Thy kingdom come, that they are praying for that which is yet to come, a higher and more glorious state of the divine government, than any that has ever appeared before. I will repeat what I have said before, that the Millennium, or thousand years' reign of Christ with his saints, is this kingdom of God.

The question which divides the church is, whether this reign of Christ will be by his Spirit, or by his personal presence. This question will be discussed in the further progress of the subject. It is time now to hear the prophet where he announces the introduction of the kingdom. This will be seen in the first clause of the fourth verse of the chapter.

4. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.

Of whom does the prophet speak when he says, they sat upon them? that is, upon the thrones. Undoubtedly he is referring to those he saw and described in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth verses of the preceding chapter the armies in heaven, following Christ, their Lord. This great retinue represents the triumph of the gospel, and the binding and imprisonment of Satan is the result of this triumph.

Following these events, and in its proper order, the prophet now shows us, in that part of the fourth verse quoted, the opening of the millennium state-the kingdom of God. The terms, thrones and judgment, employed by the prophet, are not to be taken in the restricted sense known to us. They are used figuratively, to convey the idea of powers, dominions and governments; such, probably, as St. Paul referred to when speaking of what he saw and heard in the third heavens. He says to this effect: It hath not entered into the heart of man, nor hath his eye seen or his ear heard, the things which are appointed for man in that kingdom. The glory and dominion of that state are beyond the highest conception of the human mind, and can only be known by divine revelation, as they were made known to St. Paul.

We will now look at some of the many passages of Scripture which refer to this kingdom. Passing by what the rest of the Jewish prophets have said about it, I shall only present the vivid picture of it as given by that most extraordinary man, Daniel.

Daniel occupies, amongst his compeers in the Mosaic economy, the same position which St. John in the Apocalypse occupies amongst his brethren, the Apostles of the Christian Church.

In the explanation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Daniel sketched with wonderful precision the prominent features of all the great kingdoms that would rise, or that then existed in the earth, down to the dismemberment of the Roman Empire; and he speaks of the kingdoms that would arise out of the ruins of that vast monarchy, and says: In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces, and consume all other kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. He is more particular in his description of this kingdom in the seventh chapter. I shall quote only the twenty-seventh verse of that chapter, as being sufficient for my present purpose: And the kingdom and do