promise, I do firmly believe it, and I have no doubt that an Amen will come out of it, and it will be an Amen." ^
2. Thus the Book of Kevelation calls the Church to fix her eyes more intently upon her true hope. For what is that hope ? Is it not the hope of the revelation of her Lord in the glory that belongs to Him? No hope springs so eternal in the Christian breast. It was that of the early Church, as she believed that He whom she had loved while He was on earth would return to perfect the happiness of His redeemed. It ought not less to be our hope now. "Watching for it, waiting for it, being patient unto it, groaning without it, looking for it, hasting unto it, loving it — these are the phrases which Scripture uses concerning the day of God." And surely it may well use them; for what in comparison with the prospect of such a day is every other antici- pation of the future ?
^ In a letter to Lady Kinloch he wrote : " The return of the Lord Jesus, and our being glorified together with Him (if so be that we suffer with Him), this true and lively hope seems to me like a star, which is not seen in the garish light of prosperity and a smooth course, but only in the stillness of sorrow, or at least of a chastened, crucified condition. I think this is one reason why the Church lost this hope, after the first ages of martyrdom, and why now-a-days it so often degenerates into a mere sentimental speculation, — a pious Zeitvertreib." ^
^ Writing to his sister Mrs. Julius Hare, he says : " The words of the Apostle, 'Looking for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,' have seemed to me the only words that gave me any glimpse into the future state, or into the use which we are to make of it, in urging ourselves and others to fight. I think the Millenarians are altogether right, and have done an infinite service to the Church, in fixing our minds upon these words, and so turning them away from the expectations of mere personal felicity apart from the establishment of Christ's kingdom ; from the notion of Heaven which makes us indifferent to the future condition of the earth. I think they have done good also, in urging the hope of Christ's coming, as a duty upon the Church, and in denouncing the want of it as a sin." ^
^ The whole Bible was to him bright with the promise of the
^ Lutlier, Commentary on the Lord's Prayer. * G. Carlyle, A Memoir of Adolph Sajjhir, 216. 3 Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, ii. 243.
REVELATION i. 7 29
Lord's Eeturn, and this expectation gave joy and hopefulness to his whole life. Sorrow and bereavement made him think of the glorious time when " death shall have become resurrection " ; pain and suffering reminded him of the " new heavens and the new earth " yet to come. " Are you content," he writes to a friend, "with the Lord's gracious letter to you when you might rather be wearying for Himself ? I know that ' this same Jesus ' is as precious to you as to any of us, but when will you be ' a man of Galilee, gazing up into heaven ' ? " To another friend he writes : " Are you loving Christ's appearing and His kingdom ? If not, He hath somewhat against thee." ..." Some Christians make a great mistake. They think that because Christ said it was expedient that He should go away, therefore it is expedient that He should stay away ! He went away to present His finished work to the Father, but He must come back again."
" I find the thought of Christ's Coming," he said, " very help- ful in keeping me awake. Those who are waiting for His appear- ing will get a special blessing. Perhaps they will get nearer His Person. I sometimes hope it will be so, and that He will beckon me nearer to Him if I am waiting for Him ; just as at a meeting, you often see one beckoned to come up to the platform nearer the speakers."
At a meeting in Philadelphia in 1881, to bid him farewell, the chairman — the late George Stewart — closed his address by saying that " the Lord, the Eighteous Judge, would give to His dear servant a crown of righteousness at the great day." He sat down, and on rising to reply. Dr. Bonar said, " ' And not to me only, but to all them also that love his appearing ' " ^
* Eemmiscences of Andrew A. Bonar, 148.
The Lord's Day.
Literature.
Aitken (J.), The Ahidiri^ Law^ 75.
Brindley (K B.), The Darkness where God is, 151.
Burder (H. F.), Sermons^ 408.
CoUyer (R.), The Joy of Youth, 53.
Dean (J. T.), Visions and Revelations, 1.
Fuller (M.), The Lord's Day, 327.
Henson (H. H.), Christ and the Nation, 210.
Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 1.
Knight (G. H.), Abiding Help for Changing Days, 147.
Lees (H. C), The Sunshine of the Good News, 47.
Liddon (H. P.), Easter in St. PauVs, 275.