There is the vision of the abyss, where lost souls, the souls that will not be redeemed, are said to writhe in intolerable anguish; the smoke of whose torment ascendeth for ever, and blots the brightness of the universe through eternity. Eternal sin, eternal suffering, eternal moaning of souls in anguish, eternal blackness of darkness and horror of death! And the merciful Christ looking down upon it all; the Redeemer who wept over the first touch of the agony, and shed His blood in unutterable pain and shame that it might be spared! To a Father's eye, one must think, that cloud which buries the moaning and the writhing of the children, would poison the very bliss of heaven. And yet what fiat can hinder it, while a soul lives that refuses to be reconciled to God?

It is a vision of horror which makes men shudder, and from which in these days, when the benigner aspects and conditions of power are in the ascendant, there is desperate struggle to escape. Some formulate the theory of the annihilation of the hopelessly impenitent, and hold, that after they have suffered awhile the awful penalty of their transgression, a merciful stroke will dash their sin and their moaning out of the living universe for ever. It seems to me a miserable extrication from a tremendous difficulty. It makes life on a fearful scale an abortive experiment; it robs suffering of its holiest ministries; it degrades our nature from its essential dignity; it makes light of the mystery of the Incarnation; it

presents God as a vindictive tormenter of souls, and it runs counter to what seem to be the deepest and most far-reaching passages of the Divine word.

Others formulate a theory of universal Redemption; through struggles, anguish and terror, all will be drawn to the Father, all will be brought home at last. In this direction lie, I freely confess, all my beliefs and sympathies, but I can see no way to formulate the theory. It seems to me to deny the inalienable power and prerogative of freedom; nor can I construct a harmony of passages to support it from the word of God. What force of Divine love may be brought to bear before the experiment of freedom has final issue, I know not. What power may lie yet in anguish, to break down the rebel will, and to lay the bruised and humbled captive of mercy at the Saviour's feet, no mortal can explore. But I seem to see the gleam of a. great hope in the distance. I cannot understand it; I cannot reconcile this and that, and make complete my little theory of the ways of the unsearchable and eternal God. There lies a meaning in these glorious words deeper than I can fathom, and for which there is no room that I can see in any of our theologies: "By Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; through Him, whether the things on the earth, or the things in the heavens."-Col. i. 20. "Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather up in one all things in the Christ, the things in the

heavens, and the things on the earth, in Him."-Eph. i., 9. 10. And in that yet profounder and more prophetic word of Incarnate God-the vision which He saw on high as He entered the cloud of the last agony, and which nerved Him to endure-with which I gladly close the words which I have endeavoured to speak on the destiny of man : AND I, IF I BE

LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH, WILL DRAW ALL MEN UNTO ME."

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