The Face of the Deep (on Revelation); Poems

So brief a life, and then an endless grief

Or endless joy: So brief a life, then ruin or relief.

Of Time needs dwelling on?

It is, it was, It is done,

Yet saints are singing in a happy hope

Forecasting pleasure, Bright eyes of faith enlarging all their scope.

Saints love beyond Time's measure: Where love is, there is bliss

That will not pass; "Where love is,

O Lord Jesus, Who knowest them that are Thine; when Thou rewardest Thy servants the prophets, remember, I beseech Thee, for good those who have taught me, rebuked me, counselled me, guided me; and in that day show them mercy.

When Thou rewardest the saints, remember, I beseech Thee, for good those who have surrounded me with holy influences, borne with me, forgiven me, sacrificed themselves for me, loved me; and in that day show them mercy.

When Thou rewardest the great that fear Thy Name, re member, I beseech Thee, for good those who have been my patterns of any virtue or grace, of repentance, acknowledgment of offences, begging of pardon, obedience, patience, persever ance; and in that day show them mercy.

When Thou rewardest the small that fear Thy Name, remember, I beseech Thee, for good, ignorant disciples, halting followers, weak cross-bearers, the kueelers on feeble knees, the faint believers who faint not utterly; and in that day show them mercy.

Nor forget any, nor forget me; but in that day show us mercy. Amen.

I think of the saints I have known, and lift up mine eyes

To the far-away home of beautiful Paradise,

Where the song of saints gives voice to an undividing sea

On whose plain their feet stand firm while they keep their jubilee.

As the sound of waters their voice, as the sound of thunderings,

\Vhile they all at once rejoice, while all sing and while each one sings;

Where more saints flock in, and more, and yet more, and again yet more,

And not one turns back to depart thro' the open entrance door.

O sights of our lovely earth, O sound of our earthly sea,

Speak to me of Paradise, of all blessed saints to me;

Or keep silence touching them, and speak to my heart alone

Of the Saint of saints, the King of kings, the Lamb on the Throne.

" And that Thou... shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth" — or according to a marginal reading: — "which corrupt the earth ": — corrupting, that worst method of de stroying; and which sooner or later draws down a righteous retributive destruction penal and purgative, as was foreshown in the days of -Noah: "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God siid unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled wi'h violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

And even as Noah kept himself unsuUied by the antedi luvian corruption; so by Divine assistance must and can each living soul now in these dangerous days by sanctity of innocence or sanctity of penitence escape the corruption that is in the world through lust, though it dwell all alone without son or daughter, and as holy Job speaking of himself com plained: " My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God."

" Whosoever will be saved " must so do: I who would be saved must so do. To which end certain Bible texts admonish me.

The Incarnate Truth H:mself has given this Counsel of Prudence: " Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" — and this Instruction of Righteousness: "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit."

And holy men of old moved by the Holy Ghost have taught us: —

Eye servants are men pleasers: " It came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers."

Misbelief breeds misdoing: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."

Inward defilement exudes: " They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily."

Hold fast integrity: " A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring."

Mercy rejoices against judgment: " Ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My Name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings."

Make a covenant with the eyes: " Corrupt in her inordinate love."

Boast not thyself as if thou hadst not received it: " Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness."

There is an evil diligence: " They rose early, and corrupted all their doings."

Take heed what ye hear: " Evil communications corrupt good manners."

Beware of false teachers: " Many, which corrupt the word of God."

Believe not every spirit: " Lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

What we sow we reap: " He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption."

The time past may suffice us: " Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts."

Curb the tongue: " Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth."

Be not wise above that which is written: " Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth."

Walk not in the counsel of the ungodly: " These also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith."

Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness: " Your riches are corrupted."

The folly of presumption: " These... speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption."

The besottedness of folly: " What they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves."

" They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters." " O my soul, come riot thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united."

19. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

" I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."

From this opening of the celestial Temple (whatever of higher and deeper it may signify) I venture to infer a promise of future insight: so that what I know not now I may, by following on, attain to know hereafter. And because the Ark of the Testament symbolizes the Divine Son's sacred Humanity, I trust that even as now Christ is the central Mystery revealed to man on probation, so the crowning Mystery revealed to man made perfect will still be Christ: Christ in Whom dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily; the Son Who reveals to whomsoever He will the Father; the Son Whom to have seen is to have seen the Father; the Incarnate Son in Whom the Spirit dwelleth not by measure.

O Lord God Almighty, Who out of Thy treasure bringest things new and old for man's instruction, let nature become to us a parable of grace. By Thy lightnings enlighten us and consume us not, by Thy thunders awe us without terror, sit we loose to that earth which may quake and must depart, shelter Thou us in a peaceable habitation when it shall hail coming down on the forest, and this world shall be low in a low place. Let voices of the past persuade us to repentance and faith, of the present to amendment and hope, of the revealed future to holiness and charity; yea, let all voices persuade us to charity. Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Grant us grace to hear though both our ears tingle; and to obey, though taking our life in our hand. For His sake, Whose merit exceeds our demerit, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Tempest and terror below: but Christ the Almighty above.

Tho' the depth of the deep overflow, tho' fire run along on the ground, Tho' all billows and flames make a noise, — and where is an Ark for the

Tho' sorrows rejoice against joys, and death and destruction abound: Yet Jesus abolisheth death, and Jesus Who loves us we love;

His dead are renewed with a breath, His lost are the sought and the found. Thy wanderers call and recall, Thy dead men lift out of the ground:

O Jesus, Who lovest us all, stoop low from Thy Glory above: Where sin hath abounded make grace to abound and to superabound, Till we gaze on Thee face unto Face, and respond to Thee love unto Love.

1. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

The Preacher, the son of David, King in Jerusalem, has left on record: " I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it; and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." Thus the past which v,Te know, presages the future which we know not.

And Greater than that King and Wiser than that Preacher, our Lord Himself said to His disciples: " Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord. Then said He unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an house holder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." Now as every Christian " is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven," he cannot be destitute of a treasure whence to bring forth somewhat; new it may be, old it cannot but be.

Of this Apocalypse the occult unfulfilled signification will be new; the letter is old. Old, not merely because these eighteen hundred years it has warned us to flee from the wrath to come; but also because each figure appeals to our experi ence, even when it stands for some object unprecedented or surpassing.

A rose might preach beauty and a lily purity to a receptive mind, although the ear had not yet heard tell of the Rose of Sharon and Lily of the Valleys.

" A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." — Whatever else may here be hidden, there stands revealed that " great wonder," weakness made strong and shame swallowed up in celestial glory. For thus the figure is set before our eyes.

Through Eve's lapse, weakness and shame devolved on woman as her characteristics, in a manner special to herself and unlike the corresponding heritage of man.

And as instinctively we personify the sun and moon as he and she, I trust there is no harm in my considering that her sun-clothing indicates how in that heaven where St. John in vision beheld her, she will be made equal with men and angels; arrayed in all human virtues, and decked with all communi cable Divine graces: whilst the moon under her feet portends that her sometime infirmity of purpose and changeableness of mood have, by preventing, assisting, final grace, become immu table; she has done all and stands; from the lowest place she has gone up higher. As love of his Lord enabled St. Peter to tread the sea, so love of the same Lord sets weak woman im movable on the waves of this troublesome world, triumphantly erect, despite her own frailty, made not "like unto a wheel," amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life.

Eve's temptation and fall suggest the suitableness and safety of much (though by no means of all) ignorance, and the wholesomeness of studying what is open without prying into what is secret. We have no reason to doubt that the forbidden fruit was genuinely " pleasant to the eyes ": as such she might innocently have gazed upon it with delight, and for that delight might profitably have returned thanks to the Author and Giver of all good. Not till she became wise in her own conceit, dis regarding the plain obvious meaning of words, and theorizing on her own responsibility as to physical and intellectual results, did she bring sin and death into the world. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was as it were a standing prophet ever reiterating the contingent sentence, Thou shall surely die. This sentence, plain and unmistakable, she con nived at explaining away, and being deceived, was undone.

Eve exhibits one extreme of feminine character, the Blessed Virgin the opposite extreme. Eve parleyed with a devil: holy Mary " was troubled " at the salutation of an Angel. Eve sought knowledge: Mary instruction. Eve aimed at self-in dulgence: Mary at self-oblation. Eve, by disbelief and dis obedience, brought sin to the birth: Mary, by faith and submission, Righteousness.

And yet, even as at the foot of the Cross, St. Mary Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, stood beside the " lily among thorns," the Mother of sorrows: so (I humbly hope and trust) amongst all saints of all time will stand before the Throne, Eve the beloved first Mother of us all. Who that has loved and revered her own immediate dear mother, will not echo the hope?

Again and eminently, the heavenly figure under consider ation presents an image of the Church: " the King hath brought me into His chambers."

"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? " All glorious she is within by the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and effluent glory envelopes her as with the sun for a garment. The moon, set below, may never again eclipse the sun; yet inasmuch as the perfect life had to be developed out of the imperfect, the unchangeable out of the changeable, therefore the moon abides underlying that consummated glory. Twelve stars compose her crown, a twelvefold splendour. I have seen the Twelve Apostles suggested as the interpretation of this symbol; and well may it direct our thoughts to their glorious company, the illumination of their doctrine, the shining light of their example. Perhaps there will be no harm in an additional gloss. The eternal state of the Church Triumphant is expressed by her sun-vesture; the moon beneath her feet memorializes her temporal probation while militant in this world; the twelve stars may — may they not? for earth's day is as night when compared with heaven's day — may remind us of those twelve hours in the day during which she was bound to walk and work in accordance with our Lord's own words and practice. Thus her probation issues in glory, a glory all the more glorious because of that probation. " Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates." Or if stars seem too incongruous an emblem of any daylight hours; I call to mind both that there shall be no night there, and that certain benefactors have for their allotted dignity to shine as the stars for ever and ever: whereby stars take rank in the everlasting day.

Or rather, what real connection is there between stars and night more than between stars and day? Earth's shadows ap proach them not in their high places; nor so far as we can trace, affect them in any way, or do aught in their regard beyond reveal ing them to mortal ken. Our perception varies, not their lustre.

2. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered-

Wending my way amid inscrutable mysteries, the words of each verse suggest at least detached matter for thought.

"he" was born in divers places and apparently of different parentages. Which comes to pass concerning Christ: Who being formed in each elect soul of whatever kindred, nation, people, tongue, locality, is thus " born " wheresoever such happy souls are born; holy Church being their mother. " Her foundations are upon the holy hills: the Lord loveth the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Very excellent things are spoken of thee: thou city of God. I will think upon Rahab and Babylon: with them that know me. Behold ye the Philistines also: and they of Tyre, with the Morians; lo, there was he born. And of Sion it shall be reported that he was born in her: and the Most High shall stablish her." Thus out of Egypt again and again God vouchsafes to call His Son. Thus may Philistia a thousand times be glad of Him. Is any spot excluded? Nay: "The Lord shall rehearse it when He writeth up the people: that He was born there."

Cries and travail pangs: — no marvel then that not without effort, suffering, fear, sometimes agony, missionaries do and must do their work of travailing for souls. But they shall remember no more the anguish for joy of the birth: " In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance."

Eve, the representative woman, received as part of her sentence "desire": the assigned object of her desire being such that satisfaction must depend not on herself but on one stronger than she, who might grant or might deny. Many women attain their heart's desire: many attain it not. Yet are these latter no losers if they exchange desire for aspiration, the corruptible for the incorruptible: " Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married." " The desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband." " Give me children, or else I die," was a foolish speech: the childless who make themselves nurs ing mothers of Christ's little ones are true mothers in Israel.

O Lord, when Thou didst call me, didst Thou know My heart disheartened thro' and thro', Still hankering after Egypt full in view,

But, Lord, when Thou didst choose me, didst Thou know How marred I was and withered too, Nor rose for sweetness nor for virtue rue, Timid and rash, hasty and slow? — " Yea, I knew." —

My new, my old; Good Lord, arise and do If loving Thou hast known me so. — "Yea, I knew." —

3. And there appeared another wonder in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

A wonder: and not least a wonder because beheld "in heaven." The monster has seven heads, which perhaps may be viewed as indicating pseudo-self-completeness and assump tion of independence; ten horns, pseudo-strength; seven crowns, pseudo-supremacy. For these seven crowns appear (see Revised Version) to be correctly translated " seven diadems"; and to be consequently not wreaths of victory but insignia of dominion. Power therefore the dragon wields, yet only under sufferance and until it be reclaimed from him: victory is not his, nor shall be. He is that " swift " to whom the race is not, that " strong " to whom is not the battle.

Even his "red" colour may possibly express a pseudosanctity: for of the Stronger than he we read: " Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel? " Thus would Satan himself be transformed into much more than an angel of light.

And at the present day when so open-mouthed an antagonism has set in against Christ and Revelation; and when so many "devout and honourable" persons (if following the Inspired text I dare call them so) are arrayed against the truth as it is in Jesus; and when signal virtues of philanthropy, with selfspending and alacrity in being spent, take the field like Goliath the Giant in defiance of the armies of the Living God; I think the pseudo-Christ-like aspect of error becomes prominently urged upon our gravest consideration: especially as of necessity we know not how close upon us may already be the actual personal Antichrist in whom human wickedness appears to culminate; that Antichrist v*ho will, it seems, be a foul human agent and copy of the old original Evil one. Let us pause a moment to face this last great adversary, who not as our open enemy but as one of ourselves, will do us this dishonour.

Some then presage in the Antichrist a pseudo- or mock- Christ. And that his adherents will be not rebels merely, but eminently dupes, St. Paul by Inspiration intimates; when touch ing the Second Advent and the awful period preceding it, he writes: " Let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.... And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of His coming; even he, whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perishing; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them a working error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

I have here quoted the Revised Version in preference to the Authorized because, whilst in my ignorance of Greek I can only take either text upon trust, I note some difference between the two renderings. The words " bring to nought by the mani festation of His coming," seem pointedly to express how the simple revelation of truth must supersede and abolish error: whereas "destroy with the brightness of His coming " (Author ized Version), may suggest a physical destruction as by fire from heaven. Again: " all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perishing," is perhaps more easy to be understood, than " all deceivablencss of unrighteousness in them that perish " (Authorized Version); and by suggesting that the perishing persons in question entertain no idea of their death-struck condition, the phrase recalls those piteous words of Hosea concerning Ephraim: " Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not."

4. And Ms tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

" Yea, the stars are not pure in His sight." " How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.... They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills."

Temptation, whatever guise it assumes, remains essentially and unalterably base: not even the head, but the tail of the dragon drew and cast down those stars. Temptation, however urgent, remains powerless to compel: the stars were "drawn," not swept along, their free will being seduced, not overborne. At least, they preach to ourselves by such a parable; to ourselves who are free to stand or to fall.

" He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.... Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee.... The dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him."

As to this dragon, he appears to be that " murderer from the beginning," whom our Lord thus characterized plainly to His hearers. As he was, so he is; and his lusts he will do so lar as in him lies.

Yet is God Almighty able to break the heads of the dragons in the waters. Meanwhile, what is the mind of the saints? " Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from Thy way; though Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death."

A travailing woman and a new-born babe: truly these might have seemed souls destitute of help. But even concerning doomed Edom, the word of prophecy saith: " Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in Me." Not fathoming the profound significa tion, let me be thankful for the encouragement of a homely mercy. If my song cannot be of " mercy and judgment," it can at least be " of mercy... unto Thee, O Lord, will 1 sing. O let me have understanding: in the way of godliness."

And the grass bowed when airs of heaven would pass, Lifting itself again when it had bowed. That grass spake comfort; weak it was and low.

Yet strong enough and high enough to bend In homage at a message from the sky: As the grass did and prospered, so will I: Tho' knowing little, doing what I know;

Gracious Lord Jesus, regard Thy creation for good: men, to befriend them; women, to protect them; babes, to nurture them; sufferers, to ease them; tremblers, to reassure them; wanderers, to reclaim them; the sick, to heal them; sinners, to convert them; saints, to perfect them; the dying, to receive them; the dead, to keep them. Yea, our compassionate Saviour: Who of Thine own free Will and for our sakes didst become an Infant of days, wast born of a woman, didst grow up to perfect Manhood, wert pleased to share human sufferings, to face fear, to seek the lost, to heal the sick, to forgive sinners, to lead saints, to open Paradise to the dying, and there Thyself to receive the dead. Amen. Elijah said: " Thou hast asked a hard thing." But the Lord hath said: " Is anything too hard for the Lord? "

5. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to His Throne.

Recalling these words of the second Psalm: " I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel ": — an appalling prediction; but behold as it were a city of refuge! — " Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."

ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. Yea, Lord, that we may please Thee and abide with Thee for ever. Amen.

6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath

a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

This period of "a thousand two hundred and threescore days," being coextensive with that already assigned for the prophesying of the two Witnesses, suggests (by no means proves) that the two periods are in fact identical, and the two groups of events not successive but simultaneous.

If so, and regarding the Woman as a figure of the Church, she and her champions compose an awful harmony. She flees out of heaven to her refuge in a wilderness: they (comparing as before Zechariah iv., especially ver. 14, with the relevant text) appear to emerge from the Lord's immediate Presence to put on sackcloth and bear witness. She is divinely provided for during the days of seclusion; they abide impregnable until their testimony is completed. Meanwhile her Child, her Represent ative, the Man she has gotten from the Lord, hath heaven for throne and earth for footstool.

So great a King and Child appears to be a figure of Christ, if he be not Christ Himself.

Lord Jesus, Accessible, Gracious, Winning, Merciful; purge our eyes to discern Thee wheresoever as the morning spread upon the mountains Thou showest Thyself unto us. And if sometimes we think to recognize Thee where not so much as Thy shadow passeth by, pardon our error, instruct our ignorance. Nevertheless, because whoso goeth up into heaven, or down into hell, or on wings of the morning betaketh himself to the uttermost parts of the sea, leaveth Thee not but still encountereth Thee; grant us ever to be as Jacob when he became aware that God was close at hand, ever as St. Mary Magdalene in the garden when lo! the Unknown was Thyself. Amen.

We are expressly certified that during the thousand two hundred and threescore days the Woman was to be fed. But the " forty and two months " of Gentile supremacy slightly exceed that period. So also does the time allotted to the two Witnesses, if the " three days and an half" of their exposure be added to the term of their mission. Thus supposing all three periods to be simultaneous (and whether computed literally or by some figurative scale, their relative proportion amongst themselves continues apparently unaffected), a brief space remains unaccounted for as concerns the Woman; which brief space is not apparently furnished with food; reminding us of the words of Gabriel the Archangel to Daniel the Prophet:

" And in the midst of the week " — a half week being equivalent to three days and a half — " He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate."

In this cessation of the sacrifice and oblation devout insight has, I believe, apprehended a>cessation of the Blessed Sacra ment of Christ's Body and Blood: if so, a withdrawal of that very Bread of Life and Cup of Blessing which are the Church's daily Food and Drink.

Whilst It abides in our midst God grant us grace to partake of It to life eternal. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

" That they should feed her there." — We are not informed who " they " are. Angels ministered to Our Lord in the wilder ness of His temptation, an Angel in the Garden of His Agony. Wilderness and Garden appear as one lot in the same fair ground in Isaiah's lovely words of promise: " The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly."

Or if this fallen world's wilderness never rejoice, nor its desert ever blossom, yet wherever holy Church abides she her self is "a garden inclosed"; where even one holy soul sojourns there blooms a " lily among thorns."

Any wilderness whither God sends His beloved is sure to turn out a place of safety and of food convenient, if not of Mowers. And were it possible for the whole Church or for one single soul to take up its abode in Heaven against the Divine Will, Heaven itself would be found thenceforward a stronghold not of peace, but of unrest. There is no peace outside " the peace of God."

7. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels

fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8. And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent

called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with Mm.

Whatever other and subsequent meaning may attach to this revelation, thought reverts instinctively to that occult primitive sin before which sin was not; that primaeval rebellion which, though long ago trodden down, has not yet been stamped out.

What of disorder cannot sin achieve, if it can turn heaven itself into a battlefield?

" Michael " — which signifies, Who is like God? a name of self-oblation, of self-obliteration. Wherefore all holy intelli gences on earth, and haply all holy intelligences in heaven, may discern latent in that old name the new name of one " Who is like God," inasmuch as he glorified not himself.

0 Lord All Holy Almighty, let our definition be that we are members of Christ, and our praise be not of men but of Thee, and our memorial be names written in heaven. For His sake \Vhose Name is as ointment poured forth, Jesus. Amen.

1 speak only so far as my own present powers of apprehension are concerned: — the mystery inherent in evil is its existence; not, assuming that existence, its punishment.

Absolute darkness engulfs me when I attempt to realize the origin of evil. Yet even in that darkness which may be felt and which I feel, one point I dare not hesitate to hold fast and assert: evil had its origin in the free choice of a free will. Without free will there can be neither virtue nor vice; without free choice neither offence nor merit.

The authoritative voice of Holy Church expounding Holy Scripture certifies evil to be positive, not merely negative. If ever I tend to question this, let me look within and consider envy, perhaps at first sight the most irretrievably dead of the seven deadly sins: its sepulchre is incapable of being whited; it pretends not to be so much as the travestie of any virtue. Envy, surely, is positive evil.

From gratuitous envy, as of the serpent who without gain to himself robbed mankind of innocence: deliver us, O Lord.

From reckless envy, as when to ruin man he aggravated his own doom: deliver us, O Lord.

From far-reaching envy, as when he defaced a perfection distinct from that he had forfeited: deliver us, O Lord.

Yet as the root is answerable for the shoot, not the shoot for the root; not envy but pride, the deadly root of the other six must I suppose stand first in the hideous array. Pride is that one of the seven which might subsist in a being absolutely solitary, a being constituting (so to say) its own universe. The other six with however evil an eye yet do look out of self, and have regard or disregard to something that is not self: pride, self-centred, fears not God neither regards man.

One can conceive some sort of affinity between anger and zeal, lust and love, gluttony and appreciation of blessings, avarice and prudence, sloth and contentment; even between pride and self-respect; but for envy there seems no possible next of kin except a devil.

" Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." If this text may be construed as conveying a double lesson: the obvious admonition which deters from particular sin on pain of consequent disaster; and the distinct statement that pride it is which entails destruction, and an haughty spirit it is which precedes a fall; then is light thrown on the sin and downfall of angels.

" Michael and his angels," who excel in strength, overcame not the dragon and his angels but by dint of battle.

The strong against the strong, spirit against spirit, then: the weak against the strong, flesh and blood against spirit, now. Nevertheless weakness indomitable, flesh and blood invulner able, when they come " to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Alleluiah! Amen!

If not with hope of life, Bleed on beneath the rod; Begin with fear of death: Weep on until thou see;

Str'.ve the tremendous lifelong strife Turn fear and hope to love of God Breath after breath. Who loveth thee.

Be love thy watch and ward; Be love thy starting-point, thy goal, And thy reward.

As to the fall of the rebel angels, our very paucity of.know ledge certifies us that there is no need for our knowing much. Unless this passage of the Apocalypse throws light upon it, its direct history is, I suppose, not on record. Yet one or two passages of the elder prophecies fulminated against human rebels, seem further to wake a mysterious chord out of incal culable remoteness. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." — "Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the work-

inanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.... I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy bright ness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities... therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more."

Whilst studying the devil I must take heed that my study become not devilish by reason of sympathy. As to gaze down a precipice seems to fascinate the gazer towards a shattering fall; so is it spiritually perilous to gaze on excessive wickedness, lest its immeasurable scale should fascinate us as if it were colossal without being monstrous. A quotation from my sister's Shadow of Dante speaks to the point: —

" Some there are who, gazing upon Dante's Hell mainly with their own eyes, are startled by the grotesque element traceable throughout the Cantica as a whole, and shocked at the even ludicrous tone of not a few of its parts. Others seek rather to gaze on Dante's Hell with Dante's eyes; these discern in that grotesqueness a realized horror, in that Indicrousness a sovereign contempt of evil.... They remember that the Divine Eternal Wisdom Himself, the Very and Infallible Truth, has, not once nor twice, characterized impiety and sin as Folly; and they feel in the depths of the nature wherewith He has •created them that whatever else Folly may be and is, it is none the less essentially monstrous and ridiculous.... A sense of the utter degradation, loathsomeness, despicableness of the soul which by deadly sin besots Reason and enslaves Free Will passes from the Poet's mind into theirs; while the ghastly definiteness and adaptation of the punishments enables them to touch with their finger the awful possibility and actuality of the Second Death, and thus for themselves as for others to dread it more really, to deprecate it more intensely. Dante's Lucifer

does appear ' less than Archangel ruined/ immeasurably less; for he appears Seraph wilfully fallen. No illusive splendour is here to dazzle eye and mind into sympathy with rebellious pride; no vagueness to shroud in mist things fearful or things abominable. Dante's Devils are hateful and hated, Dante's reprobates loathsome and loathed, despicable and despised, or at best miserable and commiserated.... Dante is guiltless of seducing any soul of man towards making or calling Evil his Good."

" Which deceiveth the whole world " — not, thank God, the whole Church. And already it behoves us to walk warily if we would not be of the deceived: " It is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time — "; and to lay to heart our dear Lord's own words of prophetic warning: " Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."

"When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and

nnderstandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth

away that which was sown in his heart."

" My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil."

" A man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil."

" Legion: because many devils were entered into him."

"Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.'1"

"The devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot,

"Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the

Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?" " O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to

" Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices."

"Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed

" Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."

" Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron." " Some are already turned aside after Satan." "Him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil." „ " Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith."

"He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning.... In this... are manifest... the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteous ness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother."

" He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." — Yet is not humankind given over for a prey unto their teeth. For He Who is not ashamed to call us brethren, saith: " Behold I and the children which God hath given Me." And "hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?"

O Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, save us. O Lamb of God, slain for us men and for our salvation, save us. Thou without blemish and without spot, save us. Thou the only and all-sufficient Sacrifice, save us. O Lamb of God, the Avenger of our blood, save us.

10. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night.

11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Iamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

12. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

If I may still ponder the text as bearing any reference to that fall of certain angels whereby they remade themselves as devils; by preference exchanging glory for shame, righteousness for guilt, life for spiritual death; their experience as here set forth teaches me (as heretofore I was taught) how absolute is the repulsion between good as good and evil as evil. Ex clude all possibility of repentance, and sympathy between the twain is annihilated. So long as in any depth of degradation repentance can rear its ladder, that ladder reaching heaven may become a very pleasure-ground of celestial spirits jubilant over each penitent, ministering to each imperfect perfectible soyl. But if once " that which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered," the recoil becomes mutual and final. No sweet apparent analogies of this present temporal world must mislead me: in the eternal world to come, the world of the Right Hand and the Left, we read nothing of intermediate neutral ground, but only of a great gulf; nothing of twilight, but only of outer darkness or else of a city where is no night; nothing of mixed characters. Perhaps the pit is revealed to us as bottomless, that we may flee from it as from a place of boundless, endless, unarrestable downfall.

More awful than the triumph burst of Heaven over the expulsion of evil, is that word of Incarnate Love when Judas went out "and it was night.... Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." Whoso loveth God will also trust Him. Whoso loveth God will not so dwell on the impending retribution as to remain cold towards the accomplishment of salvation, indifferent to the perfecting of strength, reluctant that God's Kingdom should come, unwilling to behold the day of Christ's power. " Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the beauties of holiness."

Nevertheless " O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me. "What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and Him self hath done it."

"The accuser of our brethren... which accused them before our God day and night." — As when Satan accused Job: perhaps also as when in the vision concerning Joshua the High Priest, Satan "resisted" before the Angel of the Lord. On a third occasion the Presence Chamber is as it were opened to us; but then we hear no accusing voice; the life at stake is the life of Ahab whose sins are his crying accusation.

A reprobate spirit accuses the brethren. Sometimes also a saint accuses sinners; for as to certain misbelievers our Blessed Lord declared: " There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust."

Thus while Satan maliciously accuses the saints, those very saints cannot but righteously arraign sinners. If not by word or by writing, yet by their lives and deaths they testify against the ungodly. The mere proverb, What man has done man may do, condemns defaulters: let us not use it lightly lest it condemn ourselves. And no more than an outer accuser can we avoid that inner tribunal before which even the Gentiles are set by St. Paul when he writes: " Their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another."

"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be recon ciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."

Day and night the Accuser makes no pause, Day and night protest the Righteous Laws, Good and Evil witness to man's flaws: Man the culprit, man's the ruined cause, Man midway to death's devouring jaws And the worm that gnaws.

Day and night our Jesu makes no pause, Pleads His own fulfilment of all laws, Veils with His Perfections mortal flaws, Clears the culprit, pleads the desperate cause, Plucks the dead from death's devouring jaws And the worm that gnaws.

If from this passage we may think of elect Angels as in any sense overcoming " by the blood of the Lamb," it reminds us that the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world. Not that we should entertain carnal thoughts on so sacred a mystery; our thoughts should ever be moulded and spiritualized by the Inspired Word: " Nor yet that He should offer Himself often... for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

Their not having loved " their lives unto the death " must convey a far different meaning from what the same phrase would import if used of mortal men; but the true death being that spiritual death which to man is the second death, this latter in the case of angels may be glanced at. Thus " Michael and his angels " may, like Queen Esther, though after a loftier fashion, have taken their life in their hand; even whilst by any apparent peril they braved, they entrenched themselves impregnably within the Divine safeguard. For hazard of life or of aught else in God's quarrel, can at the very utmost and for any creature amount to no more than a surface risk: " He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."

Meanwhile, however skill may fail me to work out such a problem in matters celestial, in matters terrestrial the lesson is obvious. All must, I must, overcome Satan and his crew " by the Blood of the Lamb "; by faith in His Atonement, and by fast hold of His Strength ever accessible to us in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood: also, according to our several vocations, by the word of our testimony; by never denying but constantly upholding His eternal Verity; and finally by not loving life beyond His blessed Will for us either to live or to die.

Whatever period may be in question, " Woe " is denounced to earth and sea. Yet the declared reason of this woe includes an element of encouragement. For the devil's wrath is great "because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."

Courage! For aught we know courage may shorten the short time: as when David " hasted, and ran " to meet the Philistine.

" Launch out into the deep," Christ spake of old To Peter: and he launched into the deep; Strengthened should tempest wake which lay asleep, Strengthened to suffer heat or suffer cold. Thus, in Christ's Prescience: patient to behold A fall, a rise, a scaling Heaven's high steep; Prescience of Love which deigned to overleap The mire of human errors manifold. Lord, Lover of Thy Peter, and of him Beloved with craving of a humbled heart

"Which eighteen hundred years have satisfied; Hath he his throne among Thy Seraphim "Who love? or sits he on a throne apart,

13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.

Did I not fear to offend by bringing a railing accusation, I would say that Satan is a fool: he adds sin to sin, heaps up wrath against the day of wrath, — a cowardly fool: he uses his strength to persecute the weak, — an incorrigible fool: punish ment exasperates him. " Though ihou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolish ness depart from him."

14. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. Or as in the Revised Version "... the two wings of the great eagle." Whatever further sense may attach to the words, they pointedly convey to us a figure of the succour and safe guard of God; inasmuch as they recall a passage of the Son^ of Moses: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, bearelh them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him." Thus in her wilderness " the daughter of Jerusalem'' may shake her head at her persecutor and sing her song: " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.... Who redeemeth thy life from destruction j Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's": — for " They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

Salvation is of grace: wings are given to the Woman. The soul must co-operate with grace: the Woman herself has to fly with the wings.

" From the face of the serpent ": — he keeping his malicious abominable eye still upon her. As when of old " the enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them," and perished by reason of his boast. Or as when ages earlier the serpent himself eyed Eve, and she, alas! fled not.

15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood

after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.

16. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. For unless "the faithful city become an harlot" her end shall not be with a flood. " Thou stretchest out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them."

The serpent cast that flood " out of his mouth." From such a source can scarcely issue less than rank poison: for consider our Lord's words as to what may proceed out of even a man's mouth: " Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, forni cations, thefts, false witness, blasphemies."

So that, at least, for an immediate practical purpose, this pursuing " flood " may, I trust, be viewed as a flood of tempta tions; and in particular of such temptations as are best coped with by flight. Joseph found safety in flight, before the searching and strengthening iron had entered into his soul.

No\v because " righteousness is immortal " and the memorial of virtue immortal, this august Woman, if we may regard her as a figure of Mother Church, is immortal and blessed. Yet even thus there remains a mortal side to the members whomake up her immortal personality; and since " the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood," we are re minded that the flood of besetting temptation can be finally arrested and annulled only in the grave. " There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest." " For he that is dead is freed from sin."

A holy grave is the true bed of heartsease. And already the flowers appear on the earth although the winter is not yet past.

To rest in hope until we see Thy Face; To rest thro' toil unruffled and unstirred, Lord, grant us grace.

This burden and this heat wear on apace: Night comes, when sweeter than night's singing bird Will swell the silence of our ended race.

And cannot hear, songs of the silent place Where rest remains! Lord, slake our hope deferred, Lord, grant us grace.

17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

This word has a distinct bearing upon all future time until the end. Whoever keeps the commandments and accepts and champions the faith, must expect and will one way or other experience not peace alone, but peace and a sword.

At this point, ignorance of prophecy need not deprive the simplest student of a life and death lesson.

"The testimony of Jesus Christ." — By this I hope I may understand two things: —

That testimony which each Christian bears to Christ by conformity of life and death to his dear Master's Life and Death,—

That testimony which Jesus Christ bears to each Christian by endowing him with gifts superhuman and Divine graces, so that no Christian can be accounted for on a merely natural theory.

Great saints by spiritual lustre outshine the visible lustre of Moses. But every Christian is in his or her degree Veronica (true Image) of Christ. A flower we name veronica springs up here and there without will or culture of man, lowly and lovely; its small blossom is celestial blue, its leaf and seed-vessel show something cf a heart shape.

" The remnant of her seed."— Is there not a forlorn sound of weakness in the words? yet with an undertone of triumph. If these beleaguered persons are only a remnant, a great concourse of the same family may be looked for elsewhere: in Paradise.

O my God, to Whom have gone home so many souls beloved on earth and in heaven, and of my own beloved, I humbly trust not a few: grant grace to us who are the present remnant to live as they lived and die as they died. And so grant grace to remnant after remnant through all generations for ever, until it please Thee to make an end in righteousness. So may we awake and sing out of our dust, or exult when in a moment our change comes, and give Thee thanks world with out end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen, Amen.

1. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

In the Revised Version the opening clause of this chapter forms on the contrary the final clause of Chapter xii., and reads thus: " And he stood upon the sand of the sea "; thus appar ently referring not to St. John but to the dragon. Whence it ensues that at this point I remain dubious between a saint and a reprobate; and by a sort of illustration the warning of the Parable of the Tares is brought home to me: " Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them."

My God Who art Love, so purge our hearts by love that we may hate implicitly any who hate Thee, and love explicitly all to whom Thou givest or wilt give grace to love Thee; yea, all whom Thou lovest. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This "beast" seems in some sense a development of evil beyond the original dragon. Both have seven heads and ten horns; but the diadems of the dragon were seven, encircling his heads; those of the beast ten, surmounting his doubly salient horns. Moreover of this beast only do we read that he had " upon his heads the name of blasphemy "; or as in the Revised Version: "and upon his heads names of blasphemy." And as we shall find him (ver. 2) under the patronage of the dragon, we are thus reminded of our Lord's denunciation of the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees: " Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."

The beast is base: he rises out of that sea whose troubled waters cast up mire and dirt. " He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment." Whilst we fear, it befits us also to loathe and despise him. Never let us forget that the sea hath said concerning Wisdom: "It is not with me."

2. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

This Apocalyptic beast combines in its one aspect features of three distinct and successive beasts of Daniel's vision: "Behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold an other beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things."

Daniel's vision has been expounded as concerning the successive empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece; personified respectively as lion, bear, leopard. The fourth yet more mysteriously appalling beast stands over to what was then and may still be the future. St. John's vision may haply already concern ourselves, or at any rate will concern others like us. Its lesson is for all and is for me.

Whatever this Apocalyptic beast may prove in fulness of time, it exhibits some likeness to that world, flesh, devil, which are my daily antagonists; of which I must daily, hourly, momentarily beware.

The world is like a leopard. Beautiful but spotted; soft, graceful, sportive, yet a devourer, a destroyer. " A leopard shall watch over their cities." Nor can the leopard change his spots. " Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the Will of God abideth for ever."

The flesh is like a bear. Its hug is deadly. " How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." The bear treads with his whole foot upon the earth, and his gross aspect is prominently of the earth earthy.

The devil is like a lion: as a roaring lion he walketh about seeking whom he may devour. He is as a lion's whelp lurking in secret places. " Rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions."

World, flesh, devil, comprise all sources and varieties of my temptations. Repelling these three wherever found, I shall not fail to repel them even if in my own mortal day they ap pear concentrated into one ghastly head, one obscene monster.

On the other hand: if I succumb to them separately, how shall I cope with them should they rise up against me as one?

But that word the world is frequently used to denote a great portion of the human race. How little must I love the world? How much may I love it? — Love it to the fulness of thy heart's desire, so thou love it with self-sacrifice; for thus to love it is after the Mind of God, the Pattern of Christ: " God so loved the world, that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whoso ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved."

All other laws have pre-supposed a taint: Love is the law from kindled saint to saint,

Love is the motive of all tilings that move Harmonious by free will without constraint: Love learns and teaches: love shall man acquaint

The stream as love: for what but love should flow From fountain Love? not bitter from the sweet! I ignorant, have I laid claim to know?

This world is not my orchard for fruit or my garden for flowers. It is however my only field whence to raise a harvest.

What is the world? Wherein resides its harmfulness, snare, pollution? Left to itself it is neither harmful, ensnaring, nor polluting. It becomes all this as the passive agent, passive vehicle if I may so call it, of the devil, man's outside tempter, and of the flesh, man's inside tempter. There is no inherent evil in cedar and vermilion, horses and chariots, purple and fine linen; nay, nor in sumptuous fare, in down, silk, apes, ivory, or peacocks. St. Peter himself objects not to hair, gold, apparel, but to women's misuse of them. An alabaster box of precious ointment becomes good or bad simply according to the use it is put to. Through envy of the devil death came into the world, and man hath sought out many inventions; but the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them when made and finished were beheld to be " very good."

Lord Jesus, everywhere and always inspire us to refuse the evil and to choose the good; and I beseech Thee, give us grace never to judge our neighbour rashly, whilst one by one we ourselves endeavour to learn and perform Thy Will.

Christ exchanged heaven for earth to enable man to exchange earth for heaven. Hast Thou done that for me, and will I not do this for Thee?

" The dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority " — constituting him, so to say, diabolical viceroy. The flesh is even now such a viceroy, having the woild for a throne, while the devil keeps out of sight ruling by deputy. — Or the world is a stage, the flesh an actor, the devil prompter and scene-shifter.

3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

Again we are reminded that any and not only the final Anti christ may appear as a pseudo-Christ. This death-wound so healed that a sort of life survives, seems a hideous mockery of the All-Holy Death and Resurrection. " Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird."

"All the world wondered after the beast." — What go they out for to see? If a reed, a broken reed, "the staff of this bruised reed... on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it." If a man clothed in soft raiment, a courtier of the prince of this world; like prince, like courtier. If a prophet, less than a prophet, a lying prophet.

" A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof? "

It is a time-long and world-wide curiosity, time-long at least so far as we know the tendencies of fallen human nature, this which wonders after the monstrous and the inexplicable.

I must beware lest my own curiosity be morbid, perverse, unbridled. To-day the monstrous may be simply abnormal, to-morrow it may be " the mystery of iniquity." To-day the inexplicable may be a secret of nature, to-morrow a secret of hell. O my soul, come not thou into such a secret! " All darkness shall be hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him; it shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle. The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him."

Likewise I must beware lest my study of holy subjects degenerate into curious investigation instead of pious exercise. Lest I wonder after my risen Saviour instead of adoring Him. Which God for His gracious sake forbid!

4. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

Once more a point of distorted, degraded resemblance. "Who is like unto the beast?" as it were the "Michael" of besotted blasphemy.

" And they worshipped...." — This impious worship seems to be worship without any reference to goodness. World and devil worship paid by flesh: curiosity and comparative weak ness worshipping unexplained power. " Who is able to make war with him?" In a like spirit spoke Goliath when "he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together."

"Who is able...?" "Yea, if God will, things which are not are able to bring to nought things which are. Loving fear befits the creature "toward the Creator: craven fear befits

not the creature toward the creature. Ponder Isaiah's Divine message: " I, even I, am He that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared con tinually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?" Ponder Daniel's prophecy interpreted touching Antiochus Epiphanes, that Antichrist of the elder dispensation: "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the trans gressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand."

5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

Turning for a moment from the ultra-human element in these appalling revelations, I consider the parallel case of a human "excessive sinner": his primary gifts, like all gifts, are from God. His mouth might speak truly great things, even the Divine praises. With his power he might like Jacob prevail to work wonders by prayer. His prefixed period he might so use as to extend it into the long life for ever and ever. To deny this would be to deny his free will, and so his accountability. To admit it shows me that every degree of sin is a step in that direction where this one of whom we now are reading occupies an advanced station.

" Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" Nevertheless "on the morrow" he took the first step.

O Lord Jesus, Who knowest the number of our sins that they are more in number than the hairs of our head, give us grace henceforward to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

"Forty and two months." — The former period, the same suggestion. If the periods be successive, how long-drawn is the agony: if simultaneous, how do the "fat bulls of Basan " close in on every side!

6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His Name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

St. Paul writes: " That man of sin... the son of per dition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."

If a deep-seated difference may be traced between these closely-parallel passages, St. John perhaps speaks of an intel lectual, spiritual antagonism, St. Paul of a self-worshipping atheism.

He who blasphemes God does to his own destruction recog nize Him. He who assumes the position of God supersedes Him, — were that possible.

God Almighty has deigned to reveal Himself to man's adoration as Three in One. So the blasphemy may be regarded as both one and threefold; against God in His own Person and Nature; against Him in that sacred Name which Christ the Head shares with His members; against Him in that tabernacle which is the Church indwelt by the Holy Spirit; against Him in that Communion of Saints whereby already elect souls, whether in the body or out of the body, sit with Christ in heavenly places, and have their conversation in heaven.

Devils are not atheists: we are emphatically certified that they believe and tremble. During our Lord's earthly ministry, devils even proclaimed Him in the audience of men.

Atheism appears to be a possibility confined to a lower nature. A body seems to be that which is capable of blocking up spirit into unmitigated materialism. " No man hath seen God at any time ": that flesh and blood which cannot inherit the kingdom of God may, if it will, deny His existence.

Satan, a master of his weapons, brings out of his counterfeit treasure things new and old: his own blasphemy, along with worldly deceits and carnal obstructions.

Alas! for many wise after the flesh, many mighty, many noble; for many an one who is confident of being a guide of the blind, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes! " He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?"

Words are chaff: obedience is grain. I must beware of " polished corners " which form no part of the sole Temple; of fair-seeming superstructures which are not founded upon the one only Rock; of spiritualism which is not spirituality; of philanthropy divorced from dogma; of socialism in lieu of Christian brotherhood; of indifferentism to truth simulating charity; of charity degraded into an investment. I will mistrust any newfangled name for an old-established Biblical virtue: if such modern designations mean old familiar virtues, I love these best under their old familiar hallowed names; if the new word means less or more, well may I say, " The old is better."

7. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

War is no one-sided matter. Because the beast makes war, therefore the saints on their side are waging corresponding war. The whole world is at war, the whole Church at war; the battle is set in array army against army.

The foregone foretold conclusion — " It was given unto him... to overcome them," — makes no difference as to the duty involved; indeed, it enforces the duty. If the saints strove rot they could not be overcome; and the Divine decree, in scrutable and ever venerable, purports that they shall be over come. And inasmuch as they suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are they: whilst they die, yet by that very sentence of death, as by every other word proceeding out of the mouth of •God, they live. They have resisted unto blood striving against sin, and dear shall their blood be in His sight.

Slain in their high places: — fallen on rest "Where the eternal peace lights up their faces,

From all tribes, all families, all races, Gathered home together; east or west Sending home its tale of gifts and graces.

Twine, oh twine, heaven's amaranth for their crest, Raise their praise while home their triumph paces;

By a heavenly paradox those whom the beast overcomes are those over whom he has no power. They over whom he has power are such as make an agreement with him by a present, and come out to him; and truly it shall be until one come and take them away, but not to any desirable land, "even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land c f darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, with out any order, and where the light is as darkness." For: "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be un punished."

A fire unextinguishecl, a worm's indestructible swarm; Where no hope shall ever be more, and love shall be never,

Where the form of all things is fnshionless, void of all form j Where from death that severeth all, the soul cannot sever

8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Mm, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.

In the Book of Life: or not in the Book of Life. Once more, no neutral book, no neutral ground: no names " written in water," as one death-stricken man predicted of himself, presumably with reference to earthly fame.

" Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not pass away." Such are our Lord's own words when He prophesied concerning His Second Advent, and the end of the world.

Centuries earlier King David uses the word generation in a broadly comprehensive sense where he says: " God is in the generation of the righteous " — " This is the generation of them that seek Him."

If we may reverently understand our Lord also as speaking •not exclusively of any one generation, but of the entire human race under its temporal conditions, — even as the wise Preacher in man's very transitoriness seems to feel a sort of continuity: " One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever" — then perhaps we may equally read verses of another Psalm, with an additional and widened signification: "Let Satan stand at his right hand.... Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out."

Thus understood, "this generation" would indicate man throughout time; " the generation following " man throughout eternity. (Let us note that the prayer or decree imports the extinction, not the condemnation, of the posterity.) The names recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life are those of the Famous Men who shall have praise of God; the names not there recorded are blotted out into blackness of darkness.

" That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with Him that is mightier than he."

It is the Book of Life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, of the Lamb slain for us, in which our names, yours, mine, will or will not be found written. If we love ourselves so little as to be ready to slight our chance, do we love Him Who loved us unto death so little as to be ready to slight Him?

Loving to the end, look down, behold and see: Turn Thine Eyes of pity, turn, not on us Thy frown,

Mark our chariots how we drive them heavily; Mark the foe upon our track blasting, thundering clown,

Set as a Cloudy Pillar against them Thy frown, Thy Face of Light toward us gracious utterly;

Help granting, hope granting, until Thou grant a crown, O Lamb of God, slain for man, slain for me.

9. If any man have an ear, let him hear.

Have interest, attention, flagged? " Awake, thou that sleepest." If we be not less than men, let us hear.

O Lord God, Who knowest that every warning, opportunity, gift, grace, magnified! Thy Goodness and augmenteth our responsibility; suffer us not to impoverish ourselves by the overflow of Thy bounty. Nothing have we except of Thy bestowal. Along with Thy call supply our response, with Thy talent our increase, with Thy Love our love. So shall it be well with us all the days of our life in the Presence of Jesus Christ our Intercessor. Amen.

10. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth. with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

The Revised Version in its margin defines the Greek text of this verse as "somewhat uncertain." The first clause in that Version runs: " If any man is for captivity, into captivity he goeth" — but as an alternative marginal rendering restores it to (apparently) nearly the same sense as that adopted by the Authorized Version, I betake myself simply to the latter, leaving all complications to competent students.

Behold the Triumph of Evil sweeping by! Wickedness laurelled and in purple, righteousness despoiled and in fetters.

Nevertheless, "The Lord hath made all things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."

That triumph is itself the omen of ruin. For who is he that shall go into captivity? he that leadeth into captivity. Who is he that must be killed with the sword? he that killeth with the sword.

Not, alas! that all Satan's captives have promise of freedom: the captive whose will consents to bondage is so far a lawful captive, and incapable of enfranchisement. St. Paul reads an awful lesson to both men and women whose lot is cast in the perilous times of the last days: " For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, dis obedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affec tion, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.... For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.... These also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men."

"He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword." Whether we restrict our thoughts to the proposition that sword-takers shall perish by stroke of sword, or reflect further that they who have recourse to the sword shall perish.along with the weapon of their vain reliance, our Lord's own precious words to St. Peter emphasize, if they do not forestall, this revelation: "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

Christ at His Ascension led captivity captive. Thence forward voluntary captivity was constituted rebellion, so that not even towards God is the Christian spirit to be a spirit of bondage.

Man must indeed be enamoured of rebellion! Proclaim the law of liberty, and he hugs his chains: proclaim the blessed ness of freewill obedience, and he breaks this band asunder.

Chains for freemen: — " My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck — •" St. Paul said, "For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain —;" "The love of Christ constraineth us."

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who in our stead wast bound on the night of Thy most holy Passion; be love of Thee our yoke, wisdom from Thee our rule, hope in Thee the limit of our desire.

"Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." — O Gracious God, Whose longsuffering beareth with the unthank ful and the evil, make us like-minded with Thee: so shall we wax intolerant of no sins except our own. Far be it from us suddenly to curse our brother's habitation: in our prayers and blessings let all our brethren have a share. So may we inter cede one for another, and do good one to another; and edify ing one another upbuild ourselves in faith and patience. For the sake of Jesus Christ our Intercessor with Thee. Amen.

"Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." Let the " it " in question be my allotment, my field, my garden: " I said, I will water my best garden, and will water abundantly my garden bed." Thorns should stir up my faith to look on Him Whom all men pierced, Whom I pierced, wearing the Crown of Thorns and the Purple Robe. Thistles should exercise me in patience; it will tax patience to weed out what can be extirpated, it will strain patience to put up with the remainder. And lo! the lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground: faith is cheaply bought by many a thorn-wound, and patience by many a thistle-prick.

Hope's patience till the long-drawn shadows flee, Love's patience unresentful of all scathe. Verily we need patience breath by breath;

While hope toils yoked in fear's copartnery, And love goes softly on the way to death. How gracious and how perfecting a grace

Must patience be on which those others wait: Faith with suspended rapture in her face,

Hope pale and careful hand in hand with fear, Love — ah, good love, who would not antedate

11. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

Once more a suggestion that Antichrist may wear the mask of a pseudo-Christ: " he had two horns like a lamb."

Our Lord Himself, in His Sermon on the Mount, forewarned -His hearers of such a Satanic device: " Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth riot forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

Having this clue we are inexcusable if we use it not. Even at once we need it; for this is already a day of " false prophets," of evil veneered with good, of hollow heights. If by help of grace we make due use of our clue to-day, to-morrow it will not fail us, though the danger be intensified, the crisis final.

'Alleged ignorance is not admitted as a justifying plea if thou save not another's life; how should it justify thee if thou save not thine own soul? " If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works? "

But my reader (if I have one) may object: By treating figure after figure as Antichrist, you practically deny the one revealed final individual personal Antichrist.

I earnestly trust I have not done so; if any sentence of mine implies such error, I retract and repudiate that sentence. The whole subject is beyond me; the prophecies leave me in anxious ignorance. But St. John himself has declared that already in his own day many Antichrists were in the world; if it was so then, presumably it has gone on so ever since, and will so continue to the end. All serpents are serpents, however there may be one great sea-serpent most of all to be feared and fled. (This is merely for illustration; not alleged as a fact of natural history.)

The dragon fell from heaven, the first beast emerged from the sea. This second beast, as " coming up out of the earth," feems more akin to humankind; perhaps we are thus certified that here at last comes the literal "man of sin." Something he exhibits of lamb, something of dragon: but the lamb is on his outside, the dragon is deep-seated within.

If these two beasts are to emerge from sea and earth — and to come out thence in any sense, they must needs first be there: perhaps already they lurk there potentially and in em bryo—let me not cling too fondly to the earth and sea I love. " Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted...."

Earth is a race-course, not a goal. Instead of mansions she pitches tents. Her nearest approach to a permanent abode is the grave. "And My people shall dwell in a peaceable habit ation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places; when it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place."

For how sweet and how young will they be When they pierce thro' the mould. Balm, woodbine, and heliotrope,

12. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

" Before him " is varied in the Revised Version to " in his sight " • so that the two monsters appear thus to be acting and reacting in presence of each other, and for a while if not to the very end to be thenceforward simultaneous.

One appears to act as vicegerent of the other, being appar ently the same as "the false prophet" mentioned afterwards (ch. xvi. 13). Thus he claims not worship for himself, but for that other.

"Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before Him: but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God."

13. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, The false prophet, as it were the Ellas of falsehood.

If reverently I may think so, the witness of fire from heaven, true and venerable under the Jewish dispensation, seems to be withdrawn or actually to be reversed as regards the Christian Church.

Of old Elias invoked and was answered by fire from heaven. This the convened prophets of Baal having clamoured for in vain, they were cut off in their impotence. But when St. James and St. John, sons of Zebedee, quoted and would have copied the example of Elias, our Lord "turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of."

And now the same St. John beholds fire brought from heaven by a liar to endorse a lie.

Venomous and deadly beyond all others as may be this last false prophet, yet has he from time to time been foreshadowed by evil predecessors more or less like him. Former generations of the elect have had to contend with such, and by Divine grace have won the victory. In proportion to man's peril is God's succour. The law and the history of the elder Church constitute a treasury of wisdom amassed for the Church of the latter days: —

" If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet,. or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His voice, and ye shall serve Him, and cleave unto Him."

'• Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets.... For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in My house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord. Where fore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the dark ness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the Lord."

" Hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you... for they prophesy a lie unto you."

" There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls."

"The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.... The prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and hatred in the house of his God."

" If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people."

" Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall' rot divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God."

" It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land."

Our neighbours' gifts invite us to hope: our own to fear. Graces are the safest gifts to rejoice in: yet even as to graces joy has a dangerous side. It might seem safe for the humble to rejoice over his humility; but then the humble soul, dis cerning defect where others observe excellence, is of all men slow to exult over his own gifts.

To value our neighbours' gifts in such a manner as to sympathize with their misuse, is so far to share in the misuse though not at all in the gifts. It is to go halves not even in a bubble investment, but simply in an impending bankruptcy.

14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

The beast evinces no relish for shame; his wound by a sword and in the head appears in the sight of men honourable.

The Crucifix is the Image made to our dearest Lord. There heaven and earth behold His Likeness Almighty in weakness, All-glorious in shame; red in His apparel but not because of woven garments; Very Life while tasting death for every man.

As said a Saint of old: Shall I wear a crown of roses, while Thou didst wear a Crown of Thorns?

" 'Tis like frnil man to love to walk on high, But to be lowly is to be like God."

"And deceiveth them...," — Wherein consists the deceit? Not, apparently, in the actuality of the miracles, but in the inference drawn from them.

A warning to sift both witness borne and witness bearer. Truth may be wrested to endorse a lie.

I must mistrust the impulse which answers, "Charity begins at home," to an appeal; " Prudence is the better part of valour," to an alarum of conscience; " Least said, soonest mended," when duty urges to speech; "A penny saved is a penny got," when brotherly kindness demands my "two pence " and marks me fumbling for a mite, when I might cast in much. At the very least I must mistrust such impulses.

History repeats itself, is a familiar adage, and true doubtless in a measure: yet it repeats itself with a difference. So in one sense the leaves of an oak are similar; in another, no two may be alike: its twigs tally, yet the midsummer-shoot stands out distinct.

Isaiah centuries ago exposed to his fellow-countrymen the stupidity no less than the guilt of their idolatries: "They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed. Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed.... The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms.... The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.... He planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image.... He falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.... And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? "

The image thus described seems by its unhelpfulness, inertia, senselessness, lifelessness, an embodiment of St. Paul's phrase: " We know that an idol is nothing in the world."

15. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

This outcome of idolatry seems to go beyond all that pre ceded it. This image speaks, originates, to all appearance wills. It invades that prerogative of Almighty God which even an unsanctified King of Israel ascribed to Him alone when " he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive?"

The Prophet Habakkuk having proclaimed the futility of ordinary idolatry, goes on to fulminate "Woe" against a virulent form of it: " What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols? Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it."

Setting this prophecy over against St. John's vision, the thought arises that in neither case may there be genuine life of any sort; so that not even dead-life can become inherent in the image of the beast: such life perhaps there will be as a devil-possessed oracle might have exhibited, a life as execrable as that ascribed by superstition to the doubly dead vampire.

Is this then, is this hideous spectacle of obscene death the legitimate end of will worship, beauty worship, intellect worship, humanity worship, creature worship whatsoever? The slow sifting process carried on age after age, revelation after revela tion, experience after experience, seems gradually to bring more and more to light by separation two and only two possibilities: God, and that which is united to God; not-God, even all which is divorced from God.

Hitherto our Fatherly Creator has not made a full end or suffered His whole displeasure to arise. If so He please, ever such an "ass" may still wax mighty to forbid the madness of the most acute towering headlong prophet. Therefore the least or last to whom He has given a tongue must not dare answer, I cannot, or, I will not, should He deign to put a word in such a mouth.

16. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor,

free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

The Revised Version restricts the mark as twofold: "... the mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his name."

" He causeth all... " — all who by saving their lives have lost them. Meanwhile the genuinely alive are those slain whose silence utters a song emphasizing the words of holy Job: "Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears." "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him."

As to the others, all distinctions are levelled to the dead level of present evil and approaching ruin. The evil is present, because to choose being present with them they choose evil t the ruin approaches, because bound up in that evil they have chosen death.

" Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him. For he knoweth not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be? There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.... Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."

Since at the day of final reckoning insignificance will not screen the small, or importance exempt the great, or gold ransom the rich, or penury excuse the poor, or liberty furnish an escape to the free, or chains exonerate the bond, all these will clearly count as nothing then; not as chaff on the wind, not as dust in the balance.

"To receive a mark" — To receive is voluntary: "They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy."

"... In their right hand, or in their foreheads." — The right hand suggests active, practical life; \.\\Q forehead studious, intellectual. Every career may be consecrated or desecrated, every gift used or abused.