but in harmony with other scriptures it must mean that from the time the punishment of the wicked begins it continues without interruption unto, or until the age of ages is reached.

"We are now living in time, which is measured duration as contrasted with eternity, which is not only unmeasured but unmeasurable duration. Similarly the Sabbath is sometimes spoken of as the day of days,' that is as being preeminent among days; so eternity is here described as the age of ages. Writing of the present time and its influence upon our future existence, the poet uses very similar language, thus:

"We are living, we are dwelling,
In a grand and awful time;
In an age on ages telling;
To be living is sublime.'

"The end of the heavens and the earth which are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men,' marks the end of probationary and retributive ages and the beginning of eternity-unending duration --described by the prophet as ages of ages. From that point forward, there shall be no more curse, or as Dr. Clarke says, on Rev. 22:3, no more a cursed person.' Then shall be fulfilled that which the beloved John saw and heard in beatific vision: Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.'

"The Creator will have a clean universe."

capital city, Petra, whose dwellings were hewn in the cliffs of a rocky defile, was lost to the world for centuries. Its palaces were given over to owls, serpents, and dragons. But its ruins have been discovered in recent years, and have been explored, minutely written up, and every corner searched for hidden treasure.

If our text shall be considered in the light of the great reality of which Iduema was the type, the day described by Peter as "the day of the Lord; . . . in the which.. the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10), the result is the same. The earth will not, to all eternity continue as a mass of molten, seething flame, in which the wicked will be tormented throughout eternal ages. No, the punishment will cease, and the fires will be quenched, for Peter promises that after the fires in which the wicked are "utterly burned" have done their work, "we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth." Vs. 13.

Hence we find that in both type and antitype, as given in Isaiah 34, the "forever and ever" there used is limited in its duration. There are numerous other instances where the term is so used.

Jonah, in the account of his sojourn in the stomach of the great fish, says, "I went down to the bottom of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me forever." Jonah 2:6. In this instance "forever" means three days.

In ancient Israel there were servants who in reality were slaves. But at the end of seven years they were to go free. Yet family ties and other considerations sometimes caused them to prefer to remain in servitude. In such case "his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." Ex. 21:6. Here forever would end at his death.

In I Sam. 1:22 the child Samuel was given by his mother to abide in the service of the earthly sanctuary "forever." In verse eleven this period is stated to be "all the days of his life." Here forever would end at the death of Samuel.

The preceding comments on Rev. 14:11, apply equally to Rev. 20:10, which reads, "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever."

The Rich Man and Lazarus.

In this parable, recorded in Luke 16:19-31, our Lord rebukes in a most pointed manner the sin of covetousness. This sin seems to have been especially characteristic of these to whom the parable was addressed. This is indicated by verse 14: "The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard these things, and they derided him."

Therefore, addressing himself directly to these same Pharisees, our Lord made some very plain statements touching the divine law and its requirements; and then proceeded to enforce by the parable what He had said.

The Pharisees seem to have been possessed of the same idea in regard to wealth that Job's friends had, namely, that riches were an indication of divine favor, while poverty and misfortune indicated the displeasure of God.

ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.

By an argumentum ad hominem, that is by an argument which appeals to the judgment of the one addressed, because made from his standpoint, the Saviour emphasized His rebuke of the sin of covetousness, and taught his hearers that riches are not a passport to eternal happiness.

During their long centuries of contact with the heathen in Egypt and in Babylon, and also within their own borders, the Jewish people had lost lively faith in some of the fundamentals of their own religion, and had imbibed to a corresponding extent the doctrines of paganism.

One of these fundamental points of faith that had become dimmed was the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. In the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel we find them reproved upon this very point. The Sadducees, a sect of the Jews, openly denied the resurrection. As this doctrine was lost sight of and even denied, pagan superstitions were substituted in its stead.

"The argumentum ad hominem is addressed to the peculiar circumstances, character, avowed opinions, or past conduct of the individual, and therefore has reference to him only, and does not bear directly and absolutely on the real question as the argumentum ad rem does. It appears, then (to speak rather more technically), that in the argumentum ad hominem the conclusion which actually is established, is not the absolute and general one in question, but relative and particular, viz., not that such and such is the fact,' but that this man is bound to admit it, in conformity to his principles of reasoning, or in consistency with his own conduct, situation, etc. Such a conclusion it is often both allowable and necessary to establish, in order to silence those whose weaknesses and prejudices would not allow them to assign to it its due weight. It is thus that our Lord on many occasions silences the cavils of the Jews."-Elements of Logic, by Archbishop Whately, pp. 170, 171.

One of the pagan superstitions received from the Egyptians by the Jews some time prior to the seventy years' captivity, was the idea of a nether, or under world, in the bowels of the earth, to which place, they fancied, the souls of the departed went at death. There, according to Egyptian theology, in a dark hall, sat the dreadful god, Ma-t, or the Two Truths, to judge all the dead. Observe that this judgment was held in a dark hall. We shall meet this feature of this pagan nether world again.

The Persians believed in a purifying fire that would consume all dross; and the Babylonians and other pagans had still other ideas of the abode of the dead. Referring to the Persian idea, the International Cyclopedia, art. "Purgatory," says, "From the Persians it passed with modifications to the Jews, and from them to the more cultivated Christians." And the two superstitions, Egyptian and Persian, survive to-day in the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory.

This pagan conception of hades, or the place of the dead, as modified by the Jews, is described by the noted historian Josephus, who notes particularly that it is a place of darkness.

Josephus, writing merely as a historian, says :

"Hades is a place in the world not regularly finished, a subterraneous region wherein the light of this world does not shine; from which circumstance, that in this region the light does not shine, it cannot be but there must be in it perpetual darkness. This region is allotted as a place of custody for souls. . . . There is one descent into this region... The just are guided to the right hand, and are led with hymns sung by the angels appointed over that place unto a region of light, in which the just have dwelt from the beginning of the world. . . . This place we call the Bosom of Abraham.

...

"But as to the unjust, they are dragged by force to the left hand by the angels allotted for punishment, no longer going with a good will, but as prisoners driven by violence. Now, those angels that are set over these souls, drag them into the neighborhood of hell itself; who, when they are hard by it, continually hear the noise of it, and do not stand clear of the hot vapor itself; . . and not only so, but where they see the place of the fathers and of the just, even hereby are they punished; for a chaos deep and large is fixed between them; insomuch that a just man that hath compassion upon them cannot be admitted, nor can one that is unjust, if he were bold enough to attempt it, pass over it."

The reader will have no difficulty in tracing the connection between this Jewish picture of hades and the Egyptian and Persian superstitions of the under world. It is evident therefore from whence our Lord drew the materials for this parable. He enforced the teaching which they had treated with derision, not by appealing to conditions as He knew them to exist, but to the condition of the dead as the Pharisees understood it. Thus by an argumentum ad hominem He at once stripped those men of their self-righteousness, and brought them face to face with the very terrors which they themselves believed the future to hold for the poor and despised of earth.

And then in conclusion, in response to the request which for that purpose He Himself had attributed to the rich man, namely, that Lazarus might be sent to warn his five brethren, our Lord refers His hearers to Moses and the prophets.

But had they believed Moses and the prophets, instead of accepting even a modification of heathen mythology, they would have been free both from the danger of hell fire and from such crude and fanciful notions of the abode and condition of the dead. Moses and the prophets taught no such theories concerning the condition and place of the dead. The idea is utterly unreconcilable with any consistent view that may be taken of the nature of man and of his condition in death.

All agree that the entire material part of man goes at death into the grave and remains there until the resurrection. Even from the standpoint of those who believe that at death a conscious entity called the soul leaves the body, it is an unthinkable thing that such a soul could be relieved of thirst by a drop of water received upon the tip of the finger of another such soul.

Instead of teaching any such contradictory and inconsistent idea of the state and place of the dead as that described by Josephus and in

the parable, our Saviour merely used this crude pagan conception of
the nether world as a means of rebuking both the covetousness of the
Pharisees and their neglect of the writings of Moses and the prophets,
which should have been to them the source of all appeal, the court of
last resort, the infallible instructor in
doctrine.

It is generally agreed that Moses wrote the book of Job. But however that may be, that book is universally regarded by believers in the Bible as the work of inspiration. It was unquestionably written not later than the time of Solomon, and before the paganism of Egypt and Babylon had corrupted the minds and manners of the Israelites as at a later period.

Job's friends argued that the afflictions that had come upon him were an evidence of God's displeasure against him for his wickedness. They said, "The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment." "Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, he shall not save that which he desired. The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of His wrath." Job 20:5, 20, 28.

In the following chapter Job replies to this, and shows that sometimes the wicked prosper, that in death all are alike, and that the judgment of the wicked is in another world. He says:

PARABLES NOT PROOF.

The text regarding the rich man and Lazarus is without question a parable. A parable is not given to teach a doctrine, but to illustrate a truth. Upon this point we quote from Dr. Clarke :

"Let it be remembered that by the consent of all (except the basely interested), no metaphor is ever to be produced in proof of a doctrine. In the things that concern our eternal salvation, we need the most pointed and express evidence on which to establish the faith of our souls."-Note on Matt. 5: 26.

The following rule regarding parables is laid down by Trench in his treatise on that subject:

"The parables may not be made first sources of doctrine. Doctrines otherwise and already grounded, may be illustrated, or indeed further confirmed by them, but it is not allowable to constitute doctrine first by their aid. They may be the outer ornamental fringe, but not the main texture of the proof, For from the literal to the figurative, from the clearer to the more obscure, has ever been recognized as the law of Scripture interpretation. This rule, however, has been often forgotten; and controversialists, looking round for arguments with which to sustain some weak position, one for which they can find no other support in Scripture, often invent for themselves supports in these."

"Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes." "One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow. Another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure. They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them." ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens, that the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath." "Yet shall he be brought to the grave and shall remain in the tomb." Job 21: 7, 8, 23-26, 29, 30.

Have

This is certainly plain enough. The import of these texts most unquestionably is that punishment for sin does not come to men in this life, neither in the state of death, but that they shall be brought forth from the grave to receive for the deeds done in the body.

But lest there be in any mind a lingering doubt upon this subject, let us read the words of our Saviour upon this very point:

"The hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John 5:28, 29.

The Bible knows nothing of a place of detention where conscious souls await their final reward. The patriarch Job says, "If I wait, the grave is mine house." Job 17:13. And with this agree numerous scriptures. Indeed, in the Bible, the dead are always spoken of as being in their graves; and all future life is made dependent upon a resurrection from the grave. "Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and will cause you to come up out of your graves. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves." Eze. 37:12, 13.

The New Testament is equally explicit. "If the dead rise not," says the apostle Paul, "then is not Christ raised and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." And then, as though to emphasize the thought, the apostle adds: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” 15:16-19.

I Cor.

But there was in the apostle's mind no shadow of doubt upon this subject, for immediately he exclaims: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming." I Cor. 15:20, 23.

And from rock-ribbed Patmos there come to us as a pæan of victory the words: "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne." Rev. 1:18; 3:21.

The glad day draws on apace. "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly." And let every believing heart gladly respond, "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

Hell and the Grave.

The following brief but comprehensive treatment of this subject is from the tract, "Scripture References."

"The word Hell in the New Testament is translated from three words, each of them having a different meaning. These words are hades, gehenna, and tartaro-o. Hades' means the grave, or state of the dead; 'gehenna,' the place of future punishment, or lake of fire; and 'tartarus,' the abode or condition of the fallen angels. As these three words, which have different meanings, are all translated by the word hell, which now has only one meaning, and so gives the general reader a wrong idea, we will give the remarks of some good critics, and every instance in which these words occur.

"I. HADES. This never means the place of punishment. Its primary meaning is, 'An unseen place, the grave, pit, region of the dead,' etc. See Grove's 'Greek and English Dictionary.' Dr. Clarke says of hades, 'The word hell, used in common translation, conveys now an improper meaning of the original word; because hell is only used to signify the place of the damned. But the word hell comes from the Anglo Saxon helan, TO COVER.' And Dr. Campbell also says that hell 'at first denoted what was secret, or concealed.