temperance are forcibly depicted in the language of the people. The earnest writer of this clever little book ought to see that his labour is rewarded. Things Not Generally Known. London: Stock. THIS book is the "first series" of a collection of facts, notes, and information concerning much that is rare, quaint, curious, obscure, and little known in relation to biblical subjects. It is a treasure both for its facts and its illustrations Scripture. A bit of history, an extract from a traveller's note-book, or an anecdote, throws unexpected light upon an obscure passage, and brings it home to the mind. Such a book furnishes, as it were, a set of tools to the hands of the teacher, which he will find very useful. of The Four Gardens. A Solemn Imagery in Seven parts. London: Elliot Stock. THE four gardens" imaged" in this singular book are "the Garden of Eden, Garden of Gethsemane, Garden of Christ's burial and resurrection, and the Garden of the Paradise of God." The material part of the book, its paper and type, are of the finest quality; the printing is splendid; the manual labour of the author in collecting and arranging such a prodigious number of notes and references must have been something appalling; and the literary part, a blank verse epic, or "solemn imagery," of some 7,300 lines, shows the writer to be a devout and earnest man, whose heart is in his work, although the poetry is not likely to wreathe his brow with laurels. Nellie. By Lizzie Joyce Tomlin son. Marlborough and Co. A SMALL story for small people, pleasantly told. Edith Vivian's Experience of the World. By Mrs. Woodward. London: James Clarke and Co. MRS. WOODWARD has established a fine reputation for graceful and wise writing, and "Edith Vivian's Experience" will add to that reputation and place a fresh laurel on the fair writer's brow. The characters, the incidents, the reflections, and the design of this book are all worthy of Mrs. Woodward's previous literary labours; and we need not say more to those who know the tone of her mind. London Preachers. (First series.) Articles Descriptive and Critical. By T. Williams. London: Stock, SIXTEEN preachers, some of whom have died since these descriptive sketches were taken, are briefly described in this volume. The highest praise we can bestow upon Mr. Williams is to say that he is thoroughly honest in his pen and brities. He wants you to see the ink pictures of our clerical celemen just as they are, without any starch or official millinery, and by the aid of quick powers of perception and a neat way of saying what he thinks, he succeeds admirably. The congregations of Hall, Spurgeon, Cumming, Parker, Brown, and others, should purchase the little book that speaks about their pastors, and thus so reward the author for his trouble, that his "first series" may not be his last. "Sound in Charity;" or the Power and Beauty of Christian Love. By the Rev. Samuel Minton, M.A. London: Stock. THIS small volume contains five sermons on 1 Cor. xiii. We need not say that they are excellent in sentiment and clear and forcible in style. NOTICES. "A. D. V.”—Thanks for the lines, although we cannot use them. This is not the first time good poetry has been wasted by singing of "Death as an angel of light." He is not that, but the " King of terrors," the dreadful scourge of mankind, "the last enemy" to be destroyed. It is this that makes the promise of resurrection so precious. The destruction of death will be the crowning triumph of our Redeemer's work. Until that is done, His joy cannot be full. The Holy One that poured out His life for us will not be satisfied until death is no more. "F. R. S."-You may tell our friend the enemy, when next he sits in judgment upon us, that the RAINBOW teaches the true doctrine of everlasting punishment, but that it abhors and denies the false doctrine of everlasting torment. Its regard for the Divine Ruler is too profound to allow it to advocate that infamous libel. If our censor cannot understand the difference between the death punishment, whose result is "everlasting," and the horror of life in everlasting agony-which is not death at all-we are sorry for his intellect. "THETA."-The consciousness of our Saviour's love is the very joy of existence : "How sweet our daily comforts prove When they are seasoned with His love !" Ay, and how blessed our daily trials when He overrules them for our good! "A. B.”—One of the most precious statements that ever cheered us came from a clergyman of the established church the other day. His treasured words are: "You have delivered men from a frightful delusion, and taught them how to love God with all their heart." "J. W." asks, What were the greater works than those of Christ that his disciples were to do? (John xiv. 12.) We shall be pleased to receive replies to this interesting question. A LADY writes: "Your hands must be upheld. The RAINBOW has been a great blessing to me, and I wish it to be so to many others. It ought to have a much wider circulation than it has." "W." writes: "I thank you most sincerely for that grand and spiritstirring article on the first step in Jewish restoration. That paper has been to me a delightful study. "S. B." writes: "As a long subscriber to the RAINBOW, you will reasonably conclude that I have some interest in your writings, amongst others, for the advance of the truth. I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to you, and those who work with you, for many pleasant and profitable hours spent over its pages." "H. J. W." writes: "Depend upon it we shall find the widespreading delusion of Universalism much more difficult to combat than the errors of orthodoxy, which-thanks to you, especially-are fast dying out." "T. T. V." (South Australia) says: "We are thankful to know that the truth is demanding investigation, and that the doctrine of eternal woe is no longer subscribed to as a matter of course. Some intelligent members of the Wesleyan Church, some twenty miles distant, have withdrawn, and are now reading and circulating works on Life and Death. Dagon must fall." THE RAINBOW: 3 Magazine of Christian Literature, with Special Reference to the Revealed Future of the Church and the World. FEBRUARY, 1879. CHRIST UNDER OATH. MAILING to secure witnesses against Christ, and finding that He was nobly silent under the accusations brought against Him, Caiphas, the high priest, had recourse to the judicial adjuration: "I put thee on oath by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God." (Matt. xxvi. 63.) answer in this case was indispensable, for the law required it (Lev. v. 1); and Jesus obeyed the law, though He knew that violent lawlessness awaited Him. The grand avowal, with its accompanying prophecy, has stirred and thrilled many a heart since then: "Thou hast said; nevertheless, I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Then, in affected horror, the high priest rent his clothes, saying, "He hath spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy; what think ye? They answered, He is guilty of death." To attempt an analysis of the state of mind of the Jewish priest and his brethren on the bench is quite unnecessary. The thing has been done with profitless frequency. The envy, jealousy, and hatred with which the officials of the Temple regarded the great Teacher, need no minute tracing at this hour of the day. They meant murder, and succeeded. God meant life through the death of the Holy One, and He, too, has succeeded, blessed be His name! The object of this paper is to remind those who are exposed to the charge of heresy for teaching that the Second Advent of Christ takes place before the world is subdued, that for this very doctrine He was condemned to die. To suffer reproach for that which He affirmed under oath is no great hardship, and is not by any means likely to cause regret by and by. Caiphas and his official associates, when they heard the reply of Jesus, must have instantly thought of the vision of their illustrious prophet Daniel. In fact, they could not avoid it for if the holy prisoner at their bar did not actually say "Daniel spoke of Me," His words are substantially the same as those used by by the prophet: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." (Dan. vii. 13, 14.) He was the Christ, the Son of God, and the destined head of universal and enduring dominion. He said all this,-His prophet predictated it five centuries before,-He said it in the highest Jewish court, before the highest Jewish official, and under the sanction of a solemn oath, appealing to the living God for its truth! And God soon after sanctioned the appeal by raising Him from the dead. "He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." (Rom. i. 4.) But His resurrection is the seal of His royalty as well as of His filial relation to the Father, not to speak here of the precious inner circle of doctrine, respecting justification and the gift of eternal life which it demonstrates. The latter is not the subject of remark at present, but the universal royalty claimed by Jesus of Nazareth as he stood, a forsaken and seemingly helpless man, before the court of Caiaphas. This is the way that Paul understood the related doctrines of resurrection and regal authority: "And the times of this ignorance God overlooked; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead." (Acts xvii. 30, 31.) So Peter, on the wonderful day of Pentecost :"Brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins He would set one upon his throne: he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that He was not left in the grave, neither did His flesh see corruption." (Acts ii. 29-31.) No one who has not made the matter a special study would think of the supreme place which this regal power of Jesus occupies in the Bible, and of the frequency with which it is mentioned. It is so interwoven with the arrangements of redemption, that it cannot be separated from it without destroying its consistency and divine meaning. You must not look for the full blessing of the High Priest without recognising the anointed King. The Lamb that was slain must be fully acknowledged as also the heir of the tribe of Judah who has the sole right to break the seals from the title deeds of the inheritance, and thus to prove His exclusive claim to the throne. But this separation between the offering of the sacrifice for sin, and the wielding of the sceptre of righteousness in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of His glory, is constantly made. It is not an exaggeration to say that out of a hundred preachers, ninety-nine dwell habitually on the cross, "the agony and bloody sweat," for one that delights to expatiate on the glories of the throne and the mighty blessings that will flow from it to all the nations of the earth. The cross is the divinely appointed meeting-place between. the sinner and the Saviour, but the man who thus receives the reconciliation and becomes an adopted child of God's redeemed family ought not to remain there all the days of his Christian life. He never can forget the place of acceptance, but acceptance being a ratified fact, he must henceforth be about the King's business. It is this extremely partial teaching of what God has testified concerning His Son that accounts for the feebleness of many Christians. They lisp the A B C of the faith, but do not comprehend the soul-strengthening fact that their Lord is Alpha and Omega. All the letters of the alphabet of redemption,-to carry on the metaphor for a single sentence more,- and all the words which those letters can form, are employed in relation to the Son of Man and Son of God. The cross and the crown, the office of a servant and the throne of the King of kings, the Man of sorrows and the glorified Messiah, the abhorred of the nation and the adored of the universe, are all predicated of this glorious Person, one of whose names-how appropriate !-is "Wonderful." Language is glorified when its powers are taxed to describe Him; but as language cannot do it, let Him see the unspoken emotions of the heart that loves Him, and longs for His appearing. His appearing? Under oath He declared that He would return. We were about to say promised it; but whether an assurance of some future event is a promise of gladness, or a threatening of terror, depends, of course, upon the state of the individual hearing it. How the President of the Sanhedrim felt we need not inquire. It is sufficiently clear from his eager haste to compass the death of the Speaker; but we have in the prophetic Scriptures vivid illustrations of the different effects on different minds of the actual coming of the Lord. Some will say with exulting joy: "Lo, this is our God! We have waited for Him, and He will save us; This is the Lord, we have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation." (Isa. xxv. 9.) Others will cry with overwhelming terror: "Mountains and rocks! fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to Isa. xlix. 7. † Rom. xiv. 9, 11; Phil. ii. 9-11. |