kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." "Lo, I am with you al way, even unto the end of the age.'' VII. A LIVmG SA v1oux PR01i1rs1NG Ll'Jl'E AT THE END oF ALL. "Be ••• and I will give thee a crown of life. • • • He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." There is underlying the word " hurt" the notion of injustice, and the phrase is equivalent to "The hand of injustice may strike once," but that is all. It shall be powerless then. "Neither can they die any more." The promise is, howevel', not merely negative; it is positive. "Life." And surely it must be, BB Ca.non Tristram suggests,1 something more than an accidental circumstance, that out of the seven cities whose Churches are addressed, only those two in which the Churches are nnrebuked, viz. Smyrna and Philadelphia, "have retained their importance, their population, and even their Churohes in comparative freedom through the trials and vicissitudes of centuries, to the present day;" not, however, without much tribulation. And as it is in the sphere of discipline, so in that of reward. Churches in this life; individuals also in the next; and those believers who have, like the Master, "endured the cross, despising the shame," shall in another state realize the promise, "Where I am there shall also my servant be." They shall have a crown-a crown of life, of glory, of righteousness. These shall be the crown, not merely its characteristics. Life, that lives on and is evermore to be. Glory, that shall be fadeless in its splendour. Righteousness, that shall be spotless in its perfection. The evolution of the spiritual man hBB infinite ages before it. This age cannot limit its being. This earth has no S<lOpe for its growth. As there is a life beyond the present life, so there is a death beyond the present death. He who is born twice can die only once, but he who is born only once will die twice. But if the first death were extinction, a second would be impossible; and if the :first death bad no notion of extinction in it, so neither may the second. Better, far better, a life of suffering in, with, and for Christ, than to have all possible luxury and no life in Christ I And, by the help of God, we may be "faithful;" and this is all that is required of us. We are but imperfect servants at the best, but we need not be unfaithful. Our position may not be one of ease, but we can be faithful. It is not said, " Well done, good and ,rich servant; " nor "Well done, good and suocesaful servant;" but" Well done, good and faithful servant." "Ahl" say some, "in such. stirring times, methinks it was easy to be faithful. Give me a chance of immortalizing myself by martyrdom, and then--" Ah! how easy it is for distance to throw a romantic glamour over even the sufferings of the past. If they who speak. like this had to lie 1lpOn a bed of spikes, it would be a severer test than they now deem it. But this is not likely to be required of us. "He that is. faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much." A daily fidelity in cross-bearing, in small vexations, in little trials, amid the glare and glitter of a deceptive world, and the incessant temptations to desert the etanda.rd,-tliis is what the Master asks for from us. "Be faithful unto death."
Ven. lZ-17.-Pergamo,: (lie lmpur, Oh'I.Wch. In studying thill letter to the Church at Pergamos, we will arrange our thoughts in two divisioDB. I. LET us BTODY TBE CHUBOB ITBELl!". We gather four things concerning it. L It ana is directly under (lie eye of <Jlwist, responsible to him. This is a feature common to all the Churches. But it is imperative on us ever to keep this fact in the foreground of our thinking about Church-life. 2. It was in a 11ery peculiar situation. Some three days• journey north of Smyrna, on the banks of the Caicus, in the province of M:ysia, was Pergamos situated.1 The ruins of it even now attest its greatness in ancient times, when it stood high on the roll of famous cities. It was the abode of royalty; it was the metropolis of heathen divinity. Our Lord looks at it as the place " where Satan's throne Is." Not all its palaces, temples, and towers, not all the prestige of ite worship, could hide ite iniquity from our Saviour's eye. When we are taught to look at the world's great cities in the light in which Jesus views them, while many are saying, "What a noble city I" we shall say, "Satan's throne is there." Not that the beauti- ful in art, and the oostly in material, and· the strong in structure, are not reckoned by Christ at their real value; but that where men worship these things for their own sake, 1 Bee Tristram.'a ' Golden Gmdlesticks.' p. 45 : Canon Tait's chapter on th& Epistle to ihe Churoh at Smyrna is specially suggestive and nJU1i,ble. • See Trench, Triatram, Tait, et aL DB, IL 1-29.) THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. 73