will transcend these poor tenements of clay. The love liest scenes today are only feeble tokens, earnests of the glory that is to be. I know that the New Jerusalem will be a city, but there will be more to the age to come than the New Jerusalem. The whole universe will be under the reign of Christ and we will be able to move from star to star. We spent billions to get to the moon but then we shall travel at will without any of the clumsy paraphernalia now required by astronauts. I expect to return to a redeemed earth. I long not only for new heavens but also for a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. It will be covered with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Why should it be thought a strange thing that God will restore that peaceable kingdom wrecked by Satan when he entered Eden? That will be the Golden Age men now try to reach by science and technological know-how. That will be the Great Society the politicians plan in vain. Man cannot create the new earth because he himself is part of the wreckage and must be renewed. Sin has gotten him into more trouble than science can get him out of. And since all other troubles spring from sin, we only mop the floor these days, unable to turn off the faucet. The Scriptural pictures of a redeemed Paradise are not mere poetic imagery. The restitution of all things includes the earth. Christians have a right to expect to walk its woods and climb its mountains and meditate beside its still waters when all the poisons and plagues and pests that bedevil us now have disappeared. I am not interested in splitting hairs over the details of the future life but the Scrip tures do encourage me to believe that I SHALL RE TURN to earth where now creation groans and tra vails, longing for a better day. Such a prospect is shared by many saints and scholars. I arose early some days ago to read Thomas Chalmers, Alexander Whyte and Griffith Thomas on this subject and all agreed that we have in Romans 8:18-23 the Christian philosophy as to the place of nature in God’s redemptive program. What a differ ent picture from what evolution offers! The poets and philosophers have sung and surmised about birds and brooks and blossoms and butterflies but always with a note of frustration for all the beauty of sunsets and the melody of birds and the glories of the land scape must fade and die. Spring and summer give way to winter. Youth yields to age. I used to feel this sadness in the woods but these words from Paul have cured me. Unlike the Saviour, he was a city man and said little about the outdoors, but in this passage he does more to thrill my soul than do all the poets. He tells us that creation groans, that we groan and that the Spirit groans but one day groans will give way to glory. The best is yet to be. Both earth and I have better days ahead. Earth awaits its restoration and I my resurrection. There will be infinitely more to enjoy and boundless capacity to enjoy it. I shall return! KB OCTOBER, 1970
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