The assumption so often made that the end of the world is immediately to follow the overthrow of Gog and Magog, is by no means certain, nor even at all probable. It does

those nations. There is no room to doubt that Meshech and Tubal lie near the south-eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, or between that and the Caspian lake; see Rosenm. Bib. Geog. I. p. 240. Ges. Lex. in verba. The country of Magog must have been somewhere in this vicinity, and most probably it lay northward among the Caucasian mountains. So the whole current of ancient writers seems to have decided. Jerome (on Ezek. 38: 2) says, that "Magog means the Scythian nations, fierce and innumerable, who live beyond the Caucasus and the lake Maeotis, and near the Caspian Sea, and spread out onward even to India." In the same manner Theodoret speaks; and also Asseman, Biblioth. Orient. III. Pars. II. 16, 17, 20. The Arabian books are full of appeals to Gog and Magog; as may be seen in Klaproth's Asiat. Magazine, I. p. 138 seq., where a large selection of passages is exhibited. Mohammed has more than once named Gog and Magog in the Coran. In Sura XVIII. 94, he alludes to Alexander the Great as building a high wall of brass and iron, between the mountain-passes of the north, in order to keep Gog and Magog from making excursions into the more southern regions. Toward the end of the world, this wall, as he represents it, will be broken down, and Gog and Magog will rush through, and lay waste the regions of the South. They, with other infidels, will then all be turned into Gehenna, and the end of the world will come. Another allusion to this same

tradition, may be found in Sura XXI. 95 seq.

In accordance with this, a Syrian Jacobite Christian, about the same period in which Mohammed lived, wrote a poem in Syriac hexameters, which has been published in G. Knös' Syriac Chrestomathy, A. D. 1807. This remarkable production also assigns to Alexander the building of an iron wall or gates between the northern [Caucasian] mountain-pass, in order to keep out Gog and Magog from more southern Asia. Near the close of the world the gates are to be opened, and Gog and Magog, with countless hosts, will overrun and destroy all the southern countries.

Facts illustrating the traditions developed by these ancient writers, may easily be stated. Russia took possession of the region between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, about A. D. 1772. S. G.

not follow from the fact, that John immediately proceeds, in his prophecy, to give an account of the general judgment. All that follows from this is, that it was to John's purpose to touch next upon this, having shown the complete and final triumph of Christianity over all enemies. The usage of the prophets in respect to junctions of such a nature, in their descriptions, can hardly fail to be noticed by every observing eye. For example; in Is. II., the

Emelin, a man of scientific acquirements, was soon sent out to explore the newly acquired territory. In his book of travels, published in A. D. 1774, he mentions, that he found a high wall, with towers at short distances, and much of them in a state of entire preservation, running from Derbend, the head quarters of the Russians on the Caspian Sea, toward the Euxine Sea, and extending, according to the universal tradition of the inhabitants of that region, entirely to the Euxine Sea. All agreed in calling this the wall of Gog and Magog.

In addition to this it should be stated, that the celebrated English traveller, R. Kerr Porter, visited Derbend in 1819, where the same story was told him respecting the wall in question; but accident prevented his going to see it; Travels II. p. 520.

The reader who wishes to pursue the further investigation of this curious subject, may consult Rosenm. Bib. Geog. I. p. 244. Ritter's Erdkunde, Th. 11. p. 834 seq. Bayer, De Muro Caucaseo, Opusc. p. 94. Reinegg, Beschreibung des Caucasus, I. p. 120. See also Rosenm. Comm, in Ezek. 38: 2.

Thus it appears, that those "Asiatic Scythians," Gog and Magog, were a people well known in ancient times, and greatly dreaded. We cannot suppose that either Ezekiel or John meant their names to be literally interpreted; but so much we must suppose, viz., that both prophets used these appellations as familiar designations of a numerous and savage people. It is the work of destruction which they rush forth to accomplish-the destruction of the people of God. But they are speedily arrested, and meet with a fearful doom. So will it doubtless be with the last and powerful enemies of the church, from whatever quarter they may come. "When the enemy shall rush in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against them."

prophet joins the coming of the Messiah, with the severe punishment of the oppressive and luxurious Jews of that time. He goes sill further, and even apparently links the one with the other by the phrase in that day. Again he describes, in most graphic language, the punishment of his contemporaries, chap. vII. vIII., and then unites with this description one of the most prominent Messianic passages in the Old Testament, viz., that in chap. IX., "To us a Child is born, a Son is given, etc." In chap. x. he gives a copious account of the invasion of the king of Assyria, and of his overthrow; and then he immediately subjoins a glowing description of the Messianic and Millennial day, chap. XI. Here only the particle (and), xai in Rev. 20:11, stands between the two descriptions, without an intimation of any interval. With the overthrow of Idumea, in chap. XXXIV., he unites a glowing description of the Messianic day, chap. xxxv. In the last twenty-six chapters of this prophet, the constant transitions from deliverance out of the Babylonish exile to the deliverance wrought by the Messiah, cannot escape any but the most inattentive reader.

Thus it is in the evangelical prophet. Have any others followed in the same path? They have. The book of Daniel unites with the end of the four great monarchies, viz., the Babylonish, the Medo-Persian, that of Alexander the Great, and that of his immediate Successors, the coming of the Messiah, yea the coming of the Millennium. So in chap. II. vii. and ix. In other prophets the same thing is equally common, in cases of Messianic prophecy.

Well has it been said, by an acute and learned interpreter of our times, that the prophets are like those, who, placed on an eminence, have a widely extended view of a distant country. But that country is one of hills and mountains, not an extended plain. Of course they can

see only the tops of eminences, and have no means of judging how extensive are the valleys or table-lands between. They do not undertake, therefore, to calculate distances. In speaking of these things, they turn the attention of their readers only to what they have seen themselves, i. e. the prominent parts of the landscape.

So with John and other prophets. Great events—the prominences of history-are seen and described, but (for the most part at least) not the intervals of time between. In the case before us, the description of the general judgment comes after the description of the fall of Gog and Magog, because the writer, having now brought the church to a state of universal triumph and security, hastens to complete his work by pointing out the glorious rewards that will ensue, and the everlasting blessedness of the church triumphant.

My belief therefore is, that the setting sun of our world will be in unclouded glory. "Its hoary head," to borrow from a sacred writer, "will indeed be a crown of glory." My principal reasons for this are, that the promises made to the church and to its Redeemer; the benevolence of the Godhead, and the triumph of mercy over the malignity and craft of Satan; and also the analogy of all God's purposes and doings, in which there is always an advance toward the highest good-all unite in seeming to require such an interval of rest and peace and prosperity to his church. How long this will be, how many will become sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, I do not pretend to know. But so much we may believe, viz., that "the Seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head ;" and therefore that the number of the redeemed, from our fallen race, will at last immeasurably exceed that of the lost.

What a consoling hope, in such a world of sin and misery as this! Few indeed, thus far, can with any probability

be numbered among the children of God. Every year is sending its thirty millions to his tribunal, and has long been executing the same tremendous task. But is it to be always so? The thousand years of triumph to the church we have seen not to be strictly universal. Numbers as the sand of the sea are still in the regions of Gog and Magog. And shall one thousand years only, of the reign of Christianity thus limited, be allowed for the Redeemer's triumph, and more than six thousand for Satan's? Forbid it, all that is benevolent in the Godhead! Forbid it, dying love of Jesus! Forbid it, all the precious promises which the words of everlasting truth present, engraved in characters of light, and elevating the hopes of dying man to a heaven of unfading glory, filled with countless beings made in the image of their God and Saviour!

But while I do most earnestly hope, and cannot but believe, that the close of the world's existence will be a period of great prosperity and glory to the church, I cannot in any degree harmonize with those views respecting this period, which apply to it the descriptions in Rev. XXI. XXII., and the corresponding portions of the Old Testament prophets. The new heaven and the new earth, in Rev. 20: 1, is plainly not the old heaven and old earth refitted and repaired. "The first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and there is no more sea," Rev. 21: 1. Peter says, also, that "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements burning shall be dissolved, and the earth and the works therein shall be burned up, xaτanańσεтαι, shall be utterly consumed," 2 Pet. 3: 10. The general judgment, preceded by the universal resurrection of the dead, Rev. 20: 11-15, is evidently, in the view of the sacred writers, the end of the probation-state of the human race. So Paul; who also informs us, that then the mediatorial office itself will be given up, so that the work of re