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The Purposes of the Incarnation. toward the east and waited for the morning; waited as the Lord would have her wait—not star-gazing, and almanac ex amining, but with loins girt for service, and lamps burning; waited as she served. If the whole Christian church were so waiting, she would cast off her worldliness and infidelity, and all other things which hinder her march to conquest. MEANING OF THE SECOND ADVENT. This text does more than affirm the fact of the second ad vent. In a somewhat remarkable way, it declares the meaning thereof, “Christ . . . shall appear a second time, apart from sin" To rightly understand this, we must look upon it as putting the second advent into contrast with the first. That is what the writer most evidently means, for the context de clares that He was manifested in the consummation of the ages to bear sins. He now says that “Christ . . . shall appear a second time apart from sin.” All the things of the first ad vent were necessary to the second; but all the things of the second will be different from the things of the first. By His first advent sin was revealed. His own cross was the place where all the deep hatred of the human heart ex pressed itself most diabolically in view of heaven and earth and hell. There was also revelation of darkness as contrary to light. “Men loved the darkness rather than the light,” was the su preme wail of the heart of Jesus. His presence in the world was, moreover, revelation of spir itual death as contrary to life. In the perpetual attempt of men to materialize His work, the attempt of His own disciples as well as of all the rest, and their absolute failure to appre ciate the spiritual teaching He gave, we see what spiritual death really is. . In His first advent He not only revealed sin, but bore it. In the words, “Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many,” the reference is not merely to the final move-
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