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Ezra then refers to many cases of effectual intercession of the saints in the Old Testament, and asks why should it not be so after the judgment? He is told that this world is not a final and fixed state, but the world to come is. In this world, therefore, they have effectually interceded for sinners. But the day of doom is the end of this state and the beginning of immortality. Then shall no man be able to save him who is destroyed, nor to overcome him who hath gotten the victory.

EZRA'S FINAL REPLY.

The final reply of Ezra is as remarkable as anything that has preceded. I answered them and said: "THIS IS MY FIRST AND LAST SAYING, THAT IT HAD BEEN BETTER NOT TO GIVE THE EARTH UNTO ADAM; OR ELSE, WHEN IT WAS GIVEN HIM, TO HAVE RESTRAINED HIM FROM SINNING." The import of this is plain. No system, blank non-existence of rational beings in this world, would be better than such a system as is based on the fall of Adam. It deserves notice, also, that this is after he has heard the defense ascribed to God—i. e., that men are intelligent beings and know their duty, and cannot justify themselves for their crimes. Ezra goes beneath all this, and calls in question the rectitude of the system itself which could terminate in such results. Nothing can be bolder than his reply.

EZRA'S SECOND LAMENT.

After this he bursts out into a loud and moving second lament over the inevitable results of the system, as seen in the certain sinfulness and ruin of the vast mass of mankind:

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"O thou, Adam, what hast thou done? For though it was thou that sinned, thou art not fallen alone, but we all

who come of thee. For what profit is it to us if there be promised us an immortal life, whereas we have done the works that bring death? That there is promised to us an everlasting hope, whereas we, being most wicked, are hopeless of it? And that there are laid up for us dwellings of health and safety, whereas we have forfeited them by wicked lives? And that the glory of the Most High defends such as have led a holy life, whereas we have walked in the most wicked ways of all? And that thou should be shewed a paradise whose fruit endureth forever, wherein is security and health, since we shall not enter into it? And that the faces of those who have abstained from sin should shine above the stars, but our faces snall be blacker than darkness? For while we lived and committed iniquity we considered not that we should begin to suffer for it after death."

GOD'S REPLY.

The reply to this in the name of God is based on a repeated assertion of the free agency, responsibility, and disobedience, of man:

"Then answered he me and said, This is the condition of the battle which man who is born upon the earth shall fight; that if he be overcome, he shall suffer as thou hast said; but if he gain the victory, he shall receive the reward as I say. For this is the life whereof Moses spoke unto the people while he lived, saying, Choose life, that thou mayst live. Nevertheless, they believed not him, nor yet the prophets after him; no, nor me, who have spoken unto them, that there should not be so much sorrow for their destruction as joy over those who are persuaded to salvation."

SPIRIT OF THE BOOK.

The book then proceeds to consider at great length the

SPIRIT OF THE BOOK.

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signs of the times and future developments, in which we cannot follow it.

In form it defends, by the authority of God, the doctrine of future eternal punishment, as based on the fall of Adam. On the other hand, the moral influence of Ezra's protest against it is very great, and is met by no adequate reply.

What the author actually meant is not clear. The book is an enigma; yet it has generally been accepted as a defense of the doctrine. One thing is sure-it goes down to the very depths of human thought and feeling on this great theme. In every age the doctrine of the fall in Adam has been felt to add a new horror to the doctrine of endless punishment, and to make the system utterly indefensible.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CONTEMPORARIES OF CHRIST.

CHRIST is the great central luminary of history. We rejoice in proportion as we are able to see all events in his light. As to future retribution, as we have seen, there had been great mental activity before his day, and various and decided opinions had been formed and widely promulgated. Let us now endeavor to conceive who they were with whom our Saviour would come in contact, and what forms of belief he would encounter.

JEWISH CENTRES.

The Jews of his age had three main centres of population and development-Babylon, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. The Jews of Babylon, as we have seen, were more exposed to Persian and Oriental influences. Those of Alexandria were more under the influence of Greek philosophy. Those of Palestine were more conservative of the original and unaltered institutions of Moses. And yet, at the great yearly festivals at Jerusalem, leading Jews from all these centres were assembled from year to year, and Christ must have met them there. He may have met even Philo in this way. John also tells us that on a certain occasion some Greeks proselytes, no doubt came to worship at the feast of the Passover, and desired to see Jesus-John xii. 20. Probably this was not a rare event. In these great gath

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erings there would be scribes, or expounders of the law (called sometimes lawyers), as well as priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees. Probably he met also Essenes, though of them nothing is said in the New Testament. Besides these, he would meet with Roman magistrates and soldiers, and finally, and more than all, he would come in contact with the common people. And in these great convocations there would be those who had read whatever works had been written or published on the great theme of retribution-works called by us apocryphal or apocalyptic. What forms of belief, then, did he meet?

TESTIMONY OF THE EVANGELISTS.

Looking at the Evangelists, we at once discover one great fact. Christ stood in the midst of a very great, keenly-contested, and wide-spread controversy. On one side were the Sadducees, denying future life and all its retributions, as entirely unknown to the law of Moses. On the other side stood the Pharisees, teaching with emphasis the resurrection, and a future life and its retributions. In this great controversy he sided with the Pharisees. So much we gather clearly from the Evangelists. But what, in their view, were these retributions? On this point the New Testament gives us no definite information whatever. It is not even expressly said that the Pharisees taught that the rewards of the good would be eternal life, though it may be reasonably supposed that they did. Much less does it inform us whether, with Philo, they held to the annihilation of the wicked, or, with the book of Enoch, to their endless punishment. Nor is it intimated that they held to the doctrine of universal restoration. Indeed, it is not probable that, as Jews, full of conceit of their own peculiar prerogatives, they even adopted an idea so enlarged and lib