wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power." The term of this captivity has indeed not been confided to any man, and is solely known to God, whose knowledge is unsearchable.

Our opinion, that our restoration depends on repentance, is founded on the following passage from Deut. xxx. 1 to 6:-"And it shall come to pass when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and shall call to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee; and thou shalt turn unto the Lord thy God and shalt obey His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children with all thine heart and with all thy soul: that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity and have compassion on thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee; and the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed; and thou shalt possess it, and He will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed," etc.

On our own will, then, depends our repentance, and consequently also the abbreviation of the period of our captivity.

From the verse in Leviticus xxvi. 38, " And ye shall be lost among the gentiles, and the land of your enemies shall consume you," it must not be inferred that an irrevocable loss or a total perdition is meant. The Hebrew word expressive of loss, "Abad," alludes to the

temporary state of despair,—a state in which a man is unable to escape the impending danger, though relief and deliverance may be his portion at some future day. Hence Isaiah xxvii. 13, "And the lost ones in Assyria and those exiled in the land of Egypt shall come," etc.

If "Abad" (to lose or be lost) were to be taken in the sense of complete perdition or cessation of existence, it could not have been said in Leviticus xxvi. 44, “And even this, when they shall be in the land of their enemies, I shall not reject them nor abhor them so as to consume them and to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God." See also Isaiah lxvi. 22, "For as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain." Jeremiah xxx. 11, "For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee; though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, I will not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished."

The warning pronounced in Leviticus xxvi. 38, "And the land of your enemies shall consume you," has, unfortunately been fulfilled in a grievous measure; many of our brethren have sealed with their blood their fidelity to the faith of their fathers, undergoing the penalties described in Psalm xliv. 22, "For thy sake we are slain all the day long, we are considered like sheep for the slaughter."

The argument, that the length of our present captivity is a proof of our total rejection from the special favour of the Almighty has no reasonable foundation whatever. The designs of the Almighty take their regular and unerring course through hundreds and thousands of years. They are most wisely conceived, although their working and ultimate completion escape our perception, or extend

beyond our terrestrial existence. Besides this, their own history elucidates the truth of the saying uttered by the psalmist (Psalm cx), "A thousand years are in Thine eyes, only like yesterday which is past." The world had existed more than two thousand years before the Almighty revealed Himself, and chose "a nation from the midst of a nation, with trials, and signs, and miracles, and warfare, and a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and awfully great doings."

Finally, we would remind those who taunt us with an everlasting abandonment, because of the restoration not having as yet been granted to us, that the salvation through Jesus, which forms their religious boasting, and which, according to their doctrines, saved the souls of the pious patriarchs from the dominion of Satan, did not come to pass till about four thousand years after the creation of man, why should they then object to our waiting for the time of favour when the appointed period of our restoration shall arrive?

CHAPTER VIII.

WE were once questioned by a Christian, how we could expect to be reinstated in the inheritance of our several tribes, seeing that we are totally unaware of which tribe we are descended, and being so completely mixed up with each other as not to possess any means of tracing our pedigree?

To this we replied:

The tribes led into captivity by Salmonassar, king of Assyria, were not destroyed, but merely transported from one country to another. Judah, the principal tribe, and Benjamin, remained alone in Palestine. Many of the exiles of the ten tribes who returned

settled among the tribe of Judah, who, continuing in the land of their fathers, gave the name of Judah (in Latin Judæus hence the curtailed name Jew, formerly spelt Jue) to the whole remnant of Israel.

Thus we find in the book of Esther, that Mordecai, though descended from Benjamin, was called, like all the other exiles of Persia, a Jehudi (i. e., a Judæan, or Jew). The descendants of the priests and the Levites have to this day retained the knowledge of their origin. Those who are ignorant of their origin will, at the time of our restoration, be endowed by Divine aid, with the necessary knowledge of their descent. For the prophet Elijah will come before "the great and awful day,” and he will turn the heart of the children to their fathers'!

WE SHALL NOW PROCEED TO THE EXPLANATION OF SUCH BIBLICAL PASSAGES AS ARE ASSUMED BY CHRISTIANS TO BEAR REFERENCE TO CERTAIN POINTS OF THEIR FAITH.

CHAPTER IX.

GENESIS i. 1, “In the beginning Elohim [God] created the heaven and the earth." Elohim, ending in a plural form as though it meant Gods, has been interpreted by Christians as an evidence of the plurality in the Deity, consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are denominated Trinity. Our view of the term Elohim is as follows:

Those who are conversant with the Hebrew language are aware that Elohim relates not merely to the Supreme Being, but also to angels and human authorities. Manoah, the father of Samson (mentioned in Judges xiii. 22), after he found that he had perceived "an angel of the Lord," said, "We shall surely die, for

we have seen Elohim." In reference to human authorities, we read in Exodus xii. 9, "Before the Elohim [judges] the cause of the two men shall be brought, and he, whom the Elohim [judges] shall declare guilty, shall pay twofold unto his neighbour." Having thus shewn that the word Elohim bears various interpretations, it is perfectly out of question to refer it in the first verse of Genesis, to a plurality of persons in the Deity, of which assumption no corroboration whatever is given in our Revelation.

We should like to understand how the name of Elohim, given by God to Moses, Exodus vii. 1, in the words, "Behold I have made thee an Elohim to Pharaoh," can be allowed by Christian expounders to allude to a plurality of persons, and represent in a mortal creature a visible Trinity?

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Suppose, for argument's sake, Elohim does allude to a plurality of persons, how could the occurrence of Eloha (the singular form of Elohim) be justified? Thus we find in Deut. xxxii. 15, " And he forsook the Eloha [God] who made him,” and Psalm 1. 22, “ Ye who forget Eloha [God]." Again, how can the advocates of the existence of a Trinity account for the alternate employment of Elohim and Eloha? See Isaiah xliv. 6, “And besides me there is no Elohim"; and, in ver. 8, we read, "Is there an Eloha besides me?" If the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity depend on the term "Elohim,” the word "Eloha" most decidedly disproves it, since it renders the allusion to a plurality perfectly unnecessary.

The real object in the plural form in Elohim is to represent authority and power. The genius of the Hebrew language admits this particularity not merely in Elohim, but in words of profane signification. Thus is used Adonim (lords) instead of Adon (lord). For instance, Isaiah xix. 4, "In the hand of a hard Adonim