snatching away of Rachel's children into the expatriation of the Babylonish captivity.

Finally, "He shall be called a Nazarene" is not a quotation at all, but an ingenious adaptation. The thing Matthew did here was this. He put an historic statement in the future tense that he might read into it a wealth of past prophecy. None of Israel's seers had foretold that Jesus would become a resident or citizen of Nazareth. But they had declared that Jehovah's anointed one would be despised. They had also said that he would be called Netzer, a branch, or germ, or sprout; and the root portion of the name Nazareth was Netzer or Natzer. With this fact and one or both of these prophecies in his mind Matthew read their sense into the word, and declared that the prophets had said "He shall be called a Nazarene," a despised one and, at the same time, the one germ or sprout of our race's coming greatness. But, as I have stated, no prophet had ever predicted that Jesus would reside in the town of Nazareth, which is the fact Matthew was recording.

In getting at the meaning of the scriptures, as of all other writings, the one question which must never be lost sight of is-What did the writer have in mind when he penned his words? and not— What application can I make of them?-or— What sense can I read into them? In the pages which follow I shall strive to keep this fact always in view, and when dealing with such phrases as

"the coming of the Son of Man," "the close of the age" and "the last days," shall seek first of all to discover what the great teachers who used them tried to convey to the minds of their hearers and readers by their means.

I shall also keep in view another fact, namely, that a progress in revelation is as evident on the pages of the books of the Bible, as the corresponding progress in knowledge and ideas is in the general literature of the world. Men's thoughts of God were kept widening. In some cases this was as true of the individual teacher as it was of the generations that succeeded each other. Paul on the subject of the resurrection of the dead, and the corresponding change which he believed would take place in the living, until it finally transformed nature itself, is a striking example of this. To properly interpret the Bible therefore, on any theme, it is necessary not only to collate the passages which deal with that point, but also to arrange them in the order in which they were written, beginning with the earliest.

"He has made an end of Death, and has brought Life and Immortality to light by that Good News, of which I was myself appointed a Herald and Apostle" (2nd Tim. 1:10, 11) is a word Paul wrote of his Lord in the last letter that ever came from his pen probably. But who can hope to say what lengths and breadths and depths and heights these words had for Paul himself unless he will study every earlier word of his upon the subject,

beginning with the first, which is contained in 1 Thess. 4:13-5:3, and was written perhaps fourteen years or more previously. It is all too easy to twist the scriptures to one's own undoing as a reasonable being. Indeed it would be well for us if every time we take the Bible into our hands, we would very devoutly say to ourselves "Here there is need for discernment" (Rev. 13:10).

II

GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS AND MAN'S SIN

It is too late a year of our Lord in which to entertain the suggestion that there may be some defect in the divine righteousness. No one, however, need shrink from the idea that there may be something defective in his own notions concerning that righteousness. It may even be desirable that most of us should assume that there is.

More than thirty years ago a preacher so young that he was still looking forward to his ordination dealt with a phase of our subject in these words:

"Some scientists have taken the ground that man can originate living organisms. They have said, Get the right kinds of matter together in the right proportions, then subject them to the necessary conditions and operations, and living creatures will result. More than once the experiment has been tried. More than once, too, men have claimed success-only to own to failure afterwards, however. We are not yet able to turn dead matter into living. We cannot manipulate life, any more than we can weigh it with our scales or comprehend it.

"But imagine, now, that it is possible for men versed in science to make living creatures out of dead

matter. Suppose Mr. Huxley able to do this. Suppose him able to create beings of many sorts, and that it is in his power to produce two creatures. a male and a female, from whom would spring a numerous race. Suppose also that Mr. Huxley has the power of seeing all down the future, and of knowing all this race would do and all that would happen to it from the beginning to the end of its existence. Suppose, too, that he sees that if he should create this first pair, it would remain happy for only a brief time, and then fall into the deepest suffering and degradation, carrying with it all the generations of its offspring from the first to the last.

"Suppose, now, that with all this in his knowledge, and without devising any means of alleviating the suffering, or of counteracting the evil he foresees, Mr. Huxley should create that first pair, making them so that they might possibly avoid the wrong-doing and wretchedness, but knowing absolutely that they would not avoid it; what would we think of Mr. Huxley for doing it? We would say that it might have been allowable for him to have created the first pair, but that foreseeing the consequences, as he did, it was both unfair and cruel for him to create them so that they would give birth to an offspring like their fallen selves. Every theologian would condemn him, and Arminian and Calvanist alike would brand him wretch.

"But does not this supposed creation of Mr. Huxley bear an exact analogy to what God's creation of man would have been apart from redemption?

"Let us look more closely into this matter. We say God created Adam and Eve able to stand, yet free to