he insists upon it that there is only one world; but it has S. seems to think, its ideal and its so-called real side. former belong the angels of the Church as angels.

On this general subject Dr. Nevin was perfectly in th both as a matter of faith and theoretic conviction. We one passage, a most emphatic and forcible one, from a mu of similar import, from the article on "The Spiritual W MERCERSBURG REVIEW, October, 1876. It is based Paul's words, Eph. vi.: 10-13. "Be strong in the Lord For we wrestle.... against principalities, etc." After s that the possibilities of the Christian life can hold only in stant living union and communication with the superna world, and that it is not enough to acknowledge its exis theoretically, for its powers are touching us all the tim proceeds as follows:

"The conception of any such comprehension of our life in the general spiritual order of the universe can be no be than foolishness, we know, for the reigning materialistic th ing of the present time. But it is in truth the only rati view of the world's existence. Philosophy, no less than gion, postulates the idea that the entire creation of God is thought in the power of which all things are held together a single system from alpha to omega, from origin to end; all modern science is serving continually more and more confirm this view, by showing that all things everywhere lo to all things, and that everything everywhere is and can what it is only through its relations to other things univ

fact taught in Revelation, that God employs the Ministry of Angels in the p gress of His Kingdom on earth, he says: "In this case the Naturzusammenha is rigidly maintained, and there is no introduction of a deus ex machina. F the angelic world stands in definite organic connection with our earthly wor within the Gesammt organismus of the Cosmos, and the higher potency whi enters into the earthly nature is by no means an intervening foreign agenc And this certainly is not a view peculiar to my individual self; for who eve (and who these days does not ?) believes in a plarality of worlds, will find him self compelled, whatever other opinions he may hold, to think of these man worlds as taken up into unity with each other by an organic connection."

sally. So it is in the world of nature; so it is in the spiritual world, and so it must be also in the union of these two worlds one with the other. It is to be considered a settled maxim now-a mere truism, indeed, for all true thinkers-that there is no such thing as insulated existence anywhere; such an inconnexum must at once perish, sink into nonentity.

"It is no weakness of mind, therefore, to think of the spiritual world as a vast nexus of affection and thought (like the waves of the sea, endlessly various, and yet multitudinously one), viewed either as heaven or as hell. Without doing so, indeed, no man can believe really in any such world at all. It will be for him simply an abstraction, a notion, a phantom. And so again it is no weakness of mind, in acknowledging the existence of the spiritual world (thus concretely apprehended), to think of our present human life, even here in the body, as holding in real contact and communication-organic inward correlation, we may say-with the universal life of that world (angelic and diabolic), in such sort that our entire destiny for weal or woe shall be found to hang upon it, as it is made to do in the teaching of God's Word here under consideration. It is no weakness of mind, we say, to think of the subject before us in this way. The weakness lies altogether on the other side, with those who refuse the thought of any such organic connection between the life of men in the body and the life of spirits in the other world.”

Mr. Smith has been evidently helped by the breaking of one of the seals. For an important achievement of science, which is rapidly becoming common property of the mind-life of the world, has been seized by the life of revelation, and is being hallowed by it by being taken up into its own benign and celestial purpose and scope. But we fear that he deceives himself in supposing that he is now in a position to do what must be accepted by the Church as, to all intents and purposes, satisfactory and full apocalyptic work.

His general view of the functions, progress and ultimate success of Christianity is well illustrated by the following pas

sage (pp. 36-381: There is, then, no reason for approp the term 'angel' or that of 'star' to the pastor alone is every reason for applying both terms to all whose Ch light is specially distinguishable from that of the mass ciples. So interpreted, what a perfect constellation—naj constellations and galaxies of spiritual stars-blaze up from out this splend vision! As innumerable as th which God pointed when He desired to strengthen the fa Abram in his future seed. Thus we may point, in con tion of our conviction that Gel means to light up the with the knowledge of the gospel. Only to look at these of every magnitule and every variety of color and of be is to gather hope and assurance regarding the grand resu their shining. Think how many more of them there are there used to be, and how much more brightly they sh The old stars will shine on with undimmed brilliancy: Ori and Jerome, and Chrysostom, and Augustine, and Luther, Calvin, and the rest of the worthies whom time fails to tell Lot one star has fallen, nor one beam been quenched. T think of those which have been added in our own generati whose lustre appears greater, in some respects, than that former servants of God. When, before, was there ever a s like Spurgeon, with his great church and preachers' colle and power to reach the world through the press? Think Moody, the man who went to England for ten thousand sou and got them as seals of his ministry! Think of the church and schools which he has been the means of establishing! there an influence upon earth more royally wide than his? we stop here with the mention of particular persons, it is onl because the number of persons who might be mentioned, o account of their wide-spread religious influence, is so great a to seem innumerable. How many stars there are! And shal the Church that possesses them, and is destined to possess them in ever-increasing numbers, despair of ever fully illuminating the dark places of the world? On the contrary, the Church must continually increase in confidence that this

mighty undertaking is to be thoroughly accomplished, as it beholds with joy the very agents by which the work is to be done."

Whatever Mr. Smith's deficiencies may be, he evidently possesses one requisite which all Christian readers will agree is essential for a proper exposition of The Revelation. He is a man of faith. At the opening of the chapter on "Heaven the Source of Light," he indulges in the following: "And now farewell to fear, farewell to earth! Upward and onward be our course under the guidance of our celestial Pilot, until our eyes behold the city of God, the central metropolis of the universe! For where else should we go?" The requirement which Ebrard makes seems to be met. On p. 15 he tells us that no mere scientific investigation can penetrate into the significance of this book; it can be done only in the spirit of Christian faith. But Ebrard significantly adds that "here, if anywhere, the Spirit of the Lord Himself must be the interpreter." Bengel's words deserve to be quoted: "In a proper explanation of the Holy, and especially of the prophetical, Scriptures all depends mainly (hauptsächlich) on the heavenly gift of grace (himmelische Gnaden-gabe), and at the same time also a service is rendered by a knowledge of language, history, und der gleichen." The following from Bengel on Rev. 1: 1, we are sure, the thoughtful reader will be glad to see: "He makes a great mistake who enters upon such investigations. and has not duly cared for his own soul and its salvation, for the result will be more harm than good both for himself and others. Each interpreter should first set his own house in order; then he will be at home in the whole kingdom of God, and be able to look about him in the heavenly economy as a child in its father's house. So God teaches us in His Word. But he must also accommodate himself to God's way of teaching (Lehrart); he must not allow himself to be instructed, according to his own predilection, by the narrow prescripts of his own (it may be very good) piety or other people's example, but by what that most ancient, but ever new Word of God

brings with itself, as we have it in the entire volume which stands written, and by what, according to the Scri has and shall hereafter come to pass."

Dr. Nevin does not take so rosy a view of the present of the world's enlightenment as does our author. He i aware that the amount of illumination is unparalleled i tory. Only he thinks that much of the fire producing it that which is kindled from the altar of the Lord. Many apocalyptic predictions regarding the "last times" find sinister fulfillment in the present status of the Church's The childlike spirit of faith is not as ingenuous as in fo days. Nor is that Gnaden-gabe, necessary for proper dringen into the deeper sense of God's Word, so abund Not so much importance is attached to heavenly gifts, con direct from the Lord of life, as to native talent, acquired and intellectual acquisitions. The doctor thinks that the olaitans of the Seven Epistles are not all dead yet.

"The old Gnostic heresy has come to prevail in these lat days in a new form, but to a more fearful extent. Spiri resolved into the notion of matter attenuated into sheer ni ity. This abstract spiritualism meets us from all sides, in guises and shapes. It is hard, indeed, for mere science to av falling into such an error; there is that danger for it in its ve constitution. And hence it is that even the STUDY OF DIVI. TRUTH itself in this way-theological science, as we call itjust as liable to lose itself in the Gnostic rationalism here d scribed as any other science. Perhaps, indeed, more so; a cording to that word, 'THOU HAST HID THESE THINGS FRO THE WISE AND PRUDENT, AND HAST REVEALED THEM UNT BABES.' And it is easy to see, then, how from school and pul pit, sanctuary and synod, the general mind of the Church may come to be impregnated with the same spiritualistic disease."

In another passage he gives us his conception of the Spirit of faith, of the Gnaden-gabe and of the sense in which "our course is to be upward and onward until, under the guidance of our celestial Pilot, our eyes behold the city of God."