Socialism has shown itself powerful only to destroy (the word for "power" in Acts, i. 8, is dynamis—but the dynamite there is not atheistic force).

At the beginning of the first of the above quoted passages, Mr. Lecky has passed from a strain of in effect disparagement of the catholic doctrines of Christianity, regarding the divine-human person and redeeming work of Christ, in favor of the Christian practice he proceeds to eulogize. The historical fact is-as was anticipated by Christ and his apostles (John xv. 3; xx. 31; Matt. xvi. 16-19)—that the practice has been the fruit of the doctrines vitally apprehended. Slavery was destroyed, not by a viewy sentimental humanitarianism, but by the apprehended fact of redemption through the atoning sacrifice of God incarnate. So of the whole great work of new creation in the primitive time, and all that is characteristic in the philanthropic life of recent Christendom. As a matter of historical fact, it all has been, and is, in substance and heart, a fruit of belief in incarnation and redemption. Movements which appear to have a different origin may be found on close inspection to be only eddies of that great stream, satellites of that sun (Gen. iii. 15. xii. 3).

1 See in Shakespeare, the theology of the Crusades, of the heroic new life in the Middle Ages.

ARTICLE III.

RESURRECTION AND FINAL JUDGMENT.

BY THE REV. EDMUND B. FAIRFIEld, d. d., lLL. D., LYONS, FRANCE.

[Continued from Vol. xlviii. p. 103.]

"SANCTIFY them through thy truth; thy word is truth." Nothing but the truth is of real worth to any man. And in respect to all questions of eschatology the Bible is the only ultimate authority as to what the truth is.

we all agree.

Thus far

Those who dissent from the views presented in my first paper, hold as follows:

I. 1. That dying saints do not go at once to heaven, but to a place which is called in the Hebrew of the Old Testament "Sheol," in the Greek of the New Testament "Hades;" and that they will only reach heaven at some point of time yet in the future.

2. That that point of time is spoken of as "the end of the world;" and that the Bible teaches that this world is to be literally destroyed or burned up. Especially do they hold that the Second Epistle of Peter declares that to be the fact.

3. That Paul teaches in 1 Cor. xv. 51 that some Christians will die, and others will not; namely, those who are on the earth when the end comes.

4. That Christ's resurrection was a type of ours, and that our natural bodies are to be raised and changed at the end of the world.

5. That the term "last day" and other similar forms

of speech refer to this end of all things which is yet in the future.

6. That the Bible teaches that David is not yet in heaven (or was not at the first Pentecost after Christ's ascension), and by logical inference others of God's redeemed are not yet there.

It is my full conviction that all these are mistakes: whether or not this will be made to appear, the reader must decide. If it were possible, I would be glad to have him suspend his verdict till I am through with my argument.

In committing my first paper to the type, I knew full well that many points demanded further elucidation; but lack of space forbade. I am happy to have the opportunity now to present what I consider to be the Bible teaching on these other points, involved in this discussion.

In opening a second paper, I may be pardoned, in view of references which have been made to the first, for a few words personal.

I. I am a spiritualist in the Bible sense; but not at all a believer in what is called "modern spiritualism."

2. Whether or not anything I have written is in harmony with Swedenborgianism, in any manner or degree, I do not know: if it is, I can only say, that it is not because I have borrowed it from Swedenborg, or any of his disciples. So far as I know, I have never read a page from any of their writings; certainly I have never heard a sermon or lecture from any Swedenborgian. Nor have I been taught my present views by any man. My chief books for study have been the original Scriptures with plenty of dictionaries, grammars, and concordances of all sorts.

3. I accept the Second Epistle of Peter as a part of the sacred canon, and find it thoroughly in harmony with the views hitherto presented, as I will show presently.

4. As to the question whether this view or that is "orthodox" or not, it is not worth while to bandy epithets or

waste words. It has been both wisely and wittily said, that, "orthodoxy is our doxy, and heterodoxy is other people's doxy," and aside from that definition, I know of but one ultimate standard by which all beliefs on these subjects are to be tried; and that is, THE BIBLE. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to these, it is because there is no light in them."

To this simple standard I submit all the questions before us. My only inquiry is, what the word of God, properly interpreted, teaches. We come, first, to the question as to

THE MEANING OF SHEOL, OR HADES.

Does this mean the abode of departed spirits-good as well as bad-between death and the final judgment? Is Paradise, or "Abraham's Bosom," a portion of what is included under Sheol in the Old Testament, and Hades in the New? The two questions are in substance one, and perhaps the most fundamental in the whole investigation; for if the affirmative cannot be fully maintained, and, above all, if the negative can be proven to be true, the citadel which I have assailed is in ruins.

There are those who hold that the soul sleeps in utter unconsciousness between the death of the body and its ultimate resurrection at the end of the world: that none of the dead, save Enoch and Elijah, know anything, feel anything, enjoy anything, or suffer anything; neither will they, until some future day shall bring them up again from their As I have before said, these pages are not written graves. to disprove such views. We all alike reject them as unscriptural and unspiritual.

Others who do not agree with me that resurrection and judgment come at death, and heaven and hell at once thereafter, hold to the doctrine of an intermediate abode for both the righteous and the wicked between death and a still future resurrection; that those occupying this abode are dis

embodied spirits-having consciousness, intelligence, and a high degree of happiness on the one hand, and misery on the other; and that this place is known in the Hebrew Scriptures as Sheol, in the Greek Scriptures as Hades.

It is to this question that we now come. And, in view of its importance, it is not too much to ask the reader's candid, and considerate, and even patient attention. I bring the question at once before the Supreme Court of actual usage; for this is not only the highest court of final appeal from all the dictionaries and commentaries, but it is a court of original as well as appellate jurisdiction in all such cases. First in order comes the Old Testament, in which the word Sheol is found sixty-five times. In the Authorized Version it is thirty-one times translated "grave," thirty-one times "hell," three times "pit." In the Revised Version. it is fifteen times translated "grave," sixteen times "hell," five times "pit," and twenty-nine times is not translated, but the word Sheol is transferred.

I quote first the passages in which both versions agree in translating it "the grave":

Gen. xxxvii. 35, "I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning;" xlii. 38; xliv. 29, "Then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave;" xliv. 31, "Thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father to the grave."

I Sam. ii. 6, "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up."

1 Kings ii. 6, " Go, therefore, according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace;" ver. 9, "His hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood."

Ps. cxli. 7, "Our bones are scattered at the mouth of the grave."

In Prov. xxx. 16 both versions translate "the grave" as one of several things mentioned which are never satisfied. Eccl. ix. 10, "There is no work, nor device, nor wisdom, nor knowledge in the grave whither thou goest."

Cant. viii. 7, "Jealousy is cruel as the grave."

Isa. xxxviii. 10, "I said, In the noontide of my days I shall go to the gates of the grave; ver. 18, "The grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee."