Of that the patriarchs were persuaded when they "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Heb. 11: 13.) To that the twelve tribes under the law, instantly serving God day and night, hoped to come. (Acts 26: 7.) For that the great Apostle of the Gentiles counted all his sacrifices and sufferings as nothing, and ever pressed, through stripes, and prisons, and losses, and privations, as the mark and prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3: 4–14.) And, in all the ages, this is the grand birthhour for which the Church ever cries to God, and agonizes and strives. It is the goal of all her being. It is the pole-star of her hope, and faith, and labors. It is the opening of the consummation for which her inmost nature ever yearns. And the effort to bring her sous to that birth, is the travail and anxiety here portrayed.

For this present we are in heaviness and tribulation. Heaven is not in this world. Our inheritance is beyond, and only the resurrection can bring us to the full fruition of it. In the day of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, and His saints come to that for which they look, and long, and cry out, in all these years of waiting. Think, then, what a time that will be when once the object of all these prayers, sufferings, and endeavors has at last been reached! What, indeed, is all the glorious light, and victory, and royalty, and joy of faith and hope we now possess, compared with

the fulness of joy which shall come with that glad consummation!

But we may not now anticipate. The subsequent portions of this book tell the blessed story. Till we come to them, we defer what more is to be said. We have seen enough to suffice us for the present. We have seen that God has a Church on earth. We have seen its features and characteristics as pictured by Himself. And blessed above all is the fact that it exists for us. It is, and lives, and agonizes thus, that we may be members of it and be nurtured and disciplined in it for the glories of immortal regency. And all this cheering light concerning it is given to draw us into it, here to steady and improve us in faith and duty, that we may be God's sons and daughters, and share the destiny of its children. God grant that none of us may fail of the transcendent honors!

The Church—the Church—the holy Church—
The Saviour's spotless Bride!
Who doth not love her queenly form

Above all earth beside!

Be mine through life to live in her;
And, when the Lord shall call,
To die in her, the Spouse of Christ,
The Mother of us all.

LECTURE TWENTY-SEVENTH.

THE GREAT RED DRAGON-HIS TAIL THAT DRAWS ALONG AND CASTS DOWN THE STARS OF THE HEAVEN-HIS HEADS AND HORNS-HIS COLOR-HIS GREATNESS-HIS ATTITUDE AND BEARING TOWARD THE CHURCH OF GOD.

REV. 12: 3, 4. (Revised Text.) And there was seen another sign in the heaven, and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems. And his tail draweth along the third of the stars of the heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stands before the woman which is about to bring forth, that when she has brought forth he may devour her child.

PARALLEL with the history of the Church in

this world, there runs another, of very great moment, and closely related to it. It is the history of a mighty antagonizing power with which the Church has ever to contend, and which is ever set to hinder her progress and destroy her hopes. Nor is it possible to have a complete view of the one without some corresponding account of the other. Hence, in connection with the apparition of the woman clothed with the sun, "there was seen another sign in the heaven," which is described to us in the text. It is "another sign”opetov, and therefore to be interpreted after the same manner as the preceding.

The image presented is that of “a dragon”. -a sort of being better known to heraldry, fable, and

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fanciful art, than to natural history. In the book of Job (chap. 41) there is a description of some semi-marine animal, clad in a panoply of hard scales, "esteeming iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood, counting darts as stubble, and laughing at the shaking of a spear," setting at defiance all the power and courage of mau. It is there called Leviathan, but the same, or some corresponding serpentine creature, is elsewhere identified as "the dragon." (See Is. 27:1, and 74:13, 14.) Some think it the crocodile, others the whale, and others perhaps one of those gigantic reptiles whose re-. mains are occasionally dug up out of the earth. Evidently we are to conceive of it as some terrible serpentine creature, inhabiting the estuaries of rivers, or the marshes and margins of the sea, clawed, and armed at every point, and delighting to attack, terrify, and devour. When Jeremiah would set forth the terrible voracity and oppression of Babylon, he assigned to it the characteristics of this beast, saying, "he hath swallowed me up like a dragon." (Jer. 51:34.) Hence, it was given place on the escutcheon of Egypt, and adopted as one of the military ensigns of imperial Rome. The legions of the latter bore it aloft, with the winds whistling through its wide-open throat, causing it to hiss as if in a rage, while its tail dangled or floated in various folds to the breeze.

But while the picture here is in general that of a dragon, it is one altogether peculiar, and different from common dragons. It is "a great dragon,"

one in size and bulk vastly in excess of the ordi nary idea, and with every dragon-feature hugely magnified. It is also of a peculiar color, "red"— яʊppòs, fiery, or red as fire. It has "seven heads." Dragons ordinarily were assigned but one head; but this is possessed of seven, and each head has on it a diadem or crown-"upon his heads seven diadems." He is armed also with "ten horns." And he has a most extraordinary "tail," which "draweth along the third of the stars of the heaven.” The image is most formidable and terrific. And the attitude is equally threatening and terrible. The monster confronts the Woman as a great and malignant destroyer, in determined readiness to devour her child the moment it is born.

What, then, are we to understand by this Dragon? Who is he? What is thus meant to be brought to our view?

Fortunately on this point we can speak with entire confidence and certainty. The answer is given, in the ninth verse, by the inspired writer himself. We there read that "the great dragon" is none other than "the old serpent, that is called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth [or misleadeth] the whole world." Whatever men's theories of the

Apocalypse may be, they cannot go back of this statement. It is one of those divinely settled points by which the whole interpretation must accord, in order to be true. The Dragon, then, is not Egypt as such, nor Babylon, nor the Roman Empire, nor anything but what John here tells us it is, namely, the Devil, even Satan. So the early interpreters