THE KING’S BUSINESS 273 marked by sympathy and insight, he referred to the place ^in Dr. Bonar s teaching of the Second Coming of our Lord. Dr. Nicoll said: “I close with a word on one great theme of Dr. Bonar’s ministry, of which, as it would seem, we hear little now. He was absorbed from first to last in the faith and hope of the Second Advent. Whenever we °Pen the New Testament we find it thrilling to the heat and joy of that manifesta tion and coming of the Lord when we shall see Him as He is. Edward Irving, with all his errors, did one thing. He revived for his generation the Parousia as the definite hope of the Church which witnesses to the Lord’s death till He come. Dr. Nansen has recently told us what science has to say about the end of the world. He tells us that the end will take place after millions of years, when the sun has been cooled. Life will then have to cope with greater and greater difficulties of existence until it finally will become gradually less and less favorable for the complicated and highly developed animals, whilst the simple low organisms will probably be those that will live longest until even they disappear. But the faith of the Church is that Christ, who once offered Himself in our nature as the; full, per fect, and sufficient sacrifice, satisfaction, and oblation for the sins of the whole world will come again. The Christ who comes will be the Christ who departed, and His coming will be in like manner as the disciples saw Him go, visible, corporeal, local. We, according to His promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. I venture to think it a great weakness of our teaching that so little is said about the blessed hope and appearing of our great God and Saviour. Meanwhile, if He returns not in our lifetime, we know that we are dying people all of us, that there are before us death, judgment and eternity. So let us offer the prayer:
“A- few more years shall roll, A few more seasons come, And we shall be with those that rest, Asleep within the tomb. Then, O my Lord, prepare My soul for that great day; O wash me in Thy precious blood, And take my sins away!”
In a recent issue of the Literary Digest is a very sug- gestive article entitled, “A New Kingdom of Israel,’ which naturally raises the question, Will a Jewish Kingdom be set up in Palestine as a result of the present war? It reads:
Will Jews Return to Palestine as War Sequel?
“The re-establishment of the ancient glories of Zion, as a result of the present war, is very much more than a possibility. The change in the status of Egypt renders it desirable to England that Palestine be in thé hands of some Power whose interests should not clash with those of its Egyptian neighbor. This is made very clear from an editorial in one of the Arabic papers of Cairo, A l Watam, which thinks: ‘From geographical considerations Palestine is to Egypt what Albania is to Italy or the Netherlands to Great Britain. Current events have proved that Egypt can be one day or another threatened from that quarter. Therefore it is absolutely indispensable for Great Britain that this country should become a neutral State, or be annexed. But the objection to a British occupation of Palestine is that if the province opens a door on Egypt it also holds the relation to this country of an exit, and the presence of a British garrison in Palestine would keep the inhabitants of Syria awake. So it is better to solve the problem by neutrality.’
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