"by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began," that "he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things." Christ himself, when about to leave the world, said to his disciples, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go,"-or, as some with good reason think the words ought to be rendered,-"as surely as I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." So also said the angels who attended upon him at his ascension:-"Ye men of Galilee, . . . this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." He is the Bridegroom whom these virgins went out to meet, and the expectation of whose coming was the spring of all they did. It was this that drew them forth from the common world to their position of waiting. It was this that constituted the potent centre of all their thoughts, and the great joy and consolation of their hearts.

The Church is now half widowed. She is in a state of semi-bereavement, by reason of the personal absence of her Lord. She is not without many precious gifts and tokens of his affection for and great interest in her. She knows that he lives, and that he has graven her upon the palms of his hands. And sometimes, in the strength of vigorous faith, she realizes in some measure the blessedness for which she hopes. But, with all, there is a sense of pri

be relieved only by his

vation upon her which can personal presence with her. These are the days of fasting, in which the Bridegroom is taken away; the days of lamentation and weeping while the world rejoices; the times of sorrow, which shall be turned to joy only when are fulfilled the words, "Yet a little while, and ye shall see me." From the time that Christ was taken up, the Church has been in the discomfort and suspense of the virgins waiting in darkness. The betrothed feels it to be a dreary blank in which her Lord is away. No present glory of the Church, nor comforts of the Spirit, nor millennium of triumph and peace, can compensate for the sense of bereavement that is upon her, until Christ himself comes. It is with that coming that every thing for which she hopes is connected. It is with. that coming that all her future glory is wrapped up. It is upon that coming that the fulfilment of all the great promises that have been given her depends. It is only at that coming that she is to be invested with her high prerogatives as the Queen of the King of kings and Lord of lords."

And so, wherever the Church has been most herself—that is, in her purest periods and in her best members there has always been an earnest longing and waiting for the speedy coming again of Jesus, and a constant recurrence to it as her great hope, on which every thing in Christianity is staked. When the Thessalonian converts were turned from their idols, it was, on the one hand, "to serve the living God," and, on the other, "to wait for his Son from

heaven." (1 Thess. i. 9, 10.) Paul speaks of it as a matter of great credit to the Corinthians that they "came behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. i. 7.) When "that disciple whom Jesus loved," so favored in spiritual grace and heavenly revelations, heard it announced to him amid the rocks of Patmos, "Surely I come quickly," the deep and earnest prayer sprang living from his rejoicing heart, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." "Our desires pant after the end of this age, the passing away of the world at the great day of God," says Tertullian. "Holy Lord, dost thou call that a little while' in which I shall not see thee? Oh, this 'little' is a long little!" exclaims St. Bernard. "If I were but sure that the trumpet should sound, and the dead should rise, and the Lord appear before the period of my age, it would be the joyfullest tidings to me in the world," says Richard Baxter. And in the daily prayer which Christ himself has prescribed for all his followers he has inserted a petition which puts every one on the anxious look-out for his return, and in which he would have his people ever beseeching him that that great event may not be delayed. "Thy kingdom come," is a prayer which shall not be answered till the King himself comes.

Somewhere in the writings of Joanna Baillie there is a picture of a maiden whose lover had gone to the Holy Land and was reported to be slain. With steadfast hopes that he would again return, she kindled a beacon-fire on the shore of the island where

she dwelt, to guide the vessel which love imagined would restore him to her arms. And by that watchfire she took her stand each night, looking out across the dusky Mediterranean with sad and tremulous expectation of him on whom her heart was set. It was meant only as poetry; but it may also be taken as a significant parable. That maiden is the Church. That lover is Jesus. That Holy Land is heaven. That report that he is dead is the teaching of unbelief and cold-hearted skepticism. That watchfire is the flame of love and "blessed hope," fed by the midnight ministrations of waiting faithfulness. That scene beyond is the misty future. The darkness, the bleak rocks, and the rolling waters are nature's discouragements to a steadfast faith. And there, age after age, through all the night of her affliction, stands the noble maiden by her lovelit fire, bending forward to hail His coming who has pledged himself to make her his happy Bride!

And she shall not be disappointed. That Bridegroom shall come. He has promised to come. God has said that he will come. Angels have given assurance that he will come. The Holy Ghost, in the hearts of prophets and apostles, has signified that he will come. There is nothing that can prevent him from coming. Every thing demands that he should come. And some of these nights, while the world. is wrapped in slumbers and men are laughing at the maiden watching on the shore, a form shall rise over the surging waves, as once on Galilee, and bring to her loving heart a thrill of joy which shall more

than repay for all her long watching and anxieties. It is written in the text that

"The Bridegroom came."

He had tarried long; but he came. The virgins had been often disappointed in looking for him; but he came. They had become so wearied out and dulled in their expectations of his coming as to be asleep when his advent occurred; but he came. Some had been so drowsy and improvident as to be quite unprepared for him; but he came. The promise was fulfilled. The expectation was realized. The long-deferred event arrived. Nothing on his part failed. Nor shall it be different with reference to that Savior to which all this refers. He shall come. Even while men scoff, and say, "Where is the promise of his coming?" his chariot-wheels are moving, and his advent draweth near.

Let us glance, then, at some of the surroundings and the intent of this great event, which render it a matter of so much interest and desire on the part of the Church. It is the custom of many to contemplate it only in the light of something terrible, and to connect with it subjects of alarm and horror, which indispose even good people to hear of it at all. Most of the poetry and pulpit-rhetoric on the subject is specially open to this objection. Some connect with it the utter destruction of the earth, and even of the whole material universe. But I have no idea that God will ever unmake his own creations,