planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all." (Jer. xxxi. 5, 12.)

"And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season: there shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land.” (Ezek. xxxiv. 25-27.) "I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen." (xxxvi. 29, 30.) "These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, withersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither; for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. . . . And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine." (xlviii. 8, 9, 12.)

"Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things. . . . And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. . . . And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the Name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and My people shall never be ashamed." (Joel ii. 21, 24, 26.) "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim." (iii. 18.)

"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up

out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." (Amos ix. 13-15.)

"And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel." (Hos. ii. 18, 21, 22.)

"For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things." (Zech. viii. 12.)

Paradise! Yes; our blessed Redeemer, who died between two thieves, will yet make the place of His feet glorious. (Isa. lx. 13.) His rest shall be glorious. (xi. 10.) He will be the glorious Lord (xxxiii. 21), in the glorious land (Dan. xi. 16); and His presence in the world that once refused Him a place on which to lay His head, will make the metropolis of His vast empire the joy of the whole earth. (Ps. xlviii. 2.) The garden of the first Adam must have been very beautiful, with its flowers, and fruit, and trees, and river; but there was a serpent in it; its area was limited; and the whole scene fades from view with the failure of the man to whom the fine estate was given; but the paradise of the second Adam, the perfect One, the Redeemer of the inheritance, the Conqueror of death and Satan, the Life Giver, the Magnifier of His Father's law and the Glorifier of His Father's name-who shall describe it? Beautiful, transcendently magnificent, beyond the richest dream of poetic imagination must it be! He and those who love Him must have a grand abode; for HE can be trusted-having been tried and found faithful; and they, redeemed and taught by Him, can be trusted too-ever blessed be His name for the fact ! He is worthy, and they, accepted in Him, shall share with Him the delights of the great Eden of the restitution, without a forbidden tree, a serpent, or the shadow of death. The paradise of the future will be as much superior, both in grandeur and extent, to that of the past, as is the nature of the second Adam to that of the first. For redemption includes the moral, the mental, and the material; and when men become loyal to the great King, the future habitable world (Heb. ii. 5, Greek) will be habitable in the strict sense of that word-a place of health, and happiness, without plague, or famine, or war, ferocious beast, or deadly reptile.

But the reader is no doubt thinking of the apparently insurmountable difficulty of the text upon which we are commenting. He will, of course, grant gratefully that, under the coming reign of the blessed Jesus, the fertility and beauty of the earth will make it in very deed a paradise,―a boundless garden of delights in which

holy men will find life a priceless boon, and worship the joy of existence; but, then, the answer to the penitent's request is," Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." The reader may take it for granted that in this, as in every other case, the establishment of a foregone conclusion is not our object, but the recognition and vindication of revealed truth. Now whatever the laws of language may require-and we are of course profoundly loyal to their requisitions, as they are the true friends of correct thought-it is obvious that if an undoubted FACT comes into collision with a grammatical LAW, the latter must yield. Perhaps it is not an infallible law, or perhaps it only holds good under certain circumstances; but at any rate, a well established fact cannot be set aside. Moreover, if the fact under notice be one of extreme importance, having its place at the very centre of a system of doctrines upon the truth of which the salvation of men depends, we must maintain it at all hazards, whatever may be the consequence to the offended law of grammar. Now, supposing that there is a paradise in heaven where Jesus now is, and assuming that he referred to that,-which we do not,the all important fact in this case is that he did not go there that day, but died and was buried: and on the morning of the third day--the glorious day of the resurrection-we have His own assurance: "I am not yet ascended to My Father." This is conclusive -is it not? No,' you say; for the meaning is that the soul or the spirit of the pardoned thief went with the soul or spirit of Jesus to heaven that very day.' But we distinctly refuse to listen to the dictum of orthodoxy in this matter, for the sufficient reason that it is utterly destitute of authority. Our Lord does not say Thy soul, or thy spirit, shall be with mine,' but "Thou shalt be with Me;" and no system of theology has any right to put words in our Lord's lips which He never uttered, or to give to the words He did utter a meaning which would make them perfectly unintelligible to the conscience smitten sinner that he was comforting. What could the dying Jewish robber know about the heaven to which modern creeds send "souls" at death? It is wildly absurd! Whatever becomes of the note of time--" to-day "the personal pronouns, "thou" and "me," must retain their integrity as representing living individuals, and not imaginary essences.

But further, there is, in fact, no law of language to forbid the removal of the comma from the place it occupies in the authorised version. Punctuation is a useful device, but it has no divine authority, and like other things of merely human origin, it must

It is an instructive fact that in the Greek the article is prefixed-" the paradise," thus showing that it was a locality, or condition of things, regarding which definite ideas were entertained, as they must have been by those who were familiar with the splendid prophecies we have quoted.

"The Lord gives the dying robber a present assurance, instead of a future remembrance,- Verily, I say unto thee to-day-the future fulfilment being required by the absence of ört."-Bullinger, Critical Lexicon.

be carefully watched lest it mislead, as it often has misled, in matters of great doctrinal importance. The received reading is, "Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise;" thus teaching that the Lord and His new disciple should meet in paradise that very day; but this teaching cannot be accepted, for the conclusive reason that it is not in harmony with fact. Let us read the verse thus: "Verily I say unto thee this day,* Thou shalt be with Me in the paradise." This change of position for the comma throws a new, and we are perfectly satisfied the true, light upon the promise. Moreover, when we notice that in the original σήμερον onμepov to-day, or this day-is emphatic, we are confirmed in the conviction that the thought which lately occurred to us as the key to the interpretation of this passage is correct, namely, the circumstances in which the King of Israel was that day found. He was nailed to a cross, nationally rejected, His claims derided, His friends in despair, and His enemies exulting in the fancy that they had got rid of Him for ever. It required hardly a moment's reflection to perceive all this. The dying malefactor saw it all, and yet -sublimest act of faith on record!-his parched lips uttered the prayer, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.' To the eye of sense everything, absolutely everything was against the possibility of Jesus ever coming to a kingdom. It seemed irrational to entertain the thought for a second; yet this man's marvellous faith triumphs. Promptly and graciously the Lord rewarded it: 66 Verily I say unto thee THIS DAY, Thou shalt be with Me in the Paradise." Which amounts to this: Neither the cross, nor the shame, nor the desertion of My disciples, nor the malice of My murderers, can prevent My coming to the kingdom, and as thou hast acknowledged Me here and now, I THIS DAY promise that thou shalt be honoured and happy then. On the cross, the Lord Jesus claimed the kingdom; and, whoever else may be absent from the bliss when He returns to reign, the poor penitent who died by His side is sure to be there.

ED.

**The above article, under the heading of "The Kingdom Claimed on the Cross," appeared in the RAINBOW five years ago. We are sure that our constant readers will readily excuse its re-appearance when we tell them that we have had many recent inquiries by new readers respecting the thief and paradise.

The possible objection that "this day" seems a needless addition to "I say," will vanish if the circumstances be taken into account. Moreover, though it may not be common among Englishmen, it is an idiom with which the Hebrews were familiar. Ex. gr.-" Sell me this day thy birthright." Swear to me this day." "I testify against you this day.' "I command thee this thing to-day.' "I have set before thee this day life and good." "I am yet alive with you this day." 66 Ye are witnesses this day.' "I have made known to thee this day.' "Even to-day do I declare." If the reader chooses to examine for himself, he will find a multitude of similar expressions.

SOME ANCIENT PREDICTIONS AND MODERN

UTTERANCES.

ANCIENT PREDICTIONS.

THE THE reader's attention is called to the following extracts from the 48th and 49th chapters of Genesis.

More than 3500 years ago one told Joseph, Thy father is sick; and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And Jacob strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed, and said to Joseph And now thy two sons are mine, as Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine. Bring them I pray thee unto me, and I will bless them. Now the eyes of Jacob were dim for age, and they were brought near, and he kissed them, and embraced them. And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel's. left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's right hand. And Israel stretched his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger; and his left hand upon Manasseh's head (necessarily crossing his arms to do this), for Manasseh was the firstborn, and said:

“God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, The God which fed me all my life long until this day,

The angel which redeemed me from all evil,

Bless the lads;

And let my name be named on them,

And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;

And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."

This displeased Joseph, and he requested his father to take his right hand off the younger son's head, and place it on Mana sseh's head, he being the first born. But his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it.

“He also shall become a people,

And he also shall be great:

But truly his younger brother shall be greater than he,

And his seed shall become a multitude [margin, fulness] of nations. And he blessed them that day, saying,

In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh."

Jacob afterwards had all his sons gathered together, to tell them that which should befall them in the last days. Concerning Ephraim and Manasseh he predicts as follows :