believers. Enoch is the representative of the first dispensation, Elijah of the second, and as the representative of the third dispensation we have the Saviour himself, who is entered into the heavens for us, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. We are not to wait for the great white-throne judgment, but the glorified Church is sit on the throne with Christ, and help to judge the world. Now, some of you think this is a new and strange doctrine, and that they who preach it are speckled birds; but let me tell you that most of the spiritual men in the pulpits of Great Britain are firm in this faith. Spurgeon preaches it. I have heard Newman Hall say that he knew no reason why Christ might not come before he got through with his sermon. But in certain wealthy and fashionable Churches, where they have the form of godliness but deny the power thereof-just the state of things which Paul declares shall be in the last days-this doctrine is not preached or believed. They don't want sinners to cry out in their meeting, "What must I do to be saved?" They want intellectual preachers, who will cultivate their taste; brilliant preachers, who will please their imagination; but they don't want the preaching that has in it the power of the Holy Ghost. We live in the day of shams in religion. The Church is cold and formal; may God wake us up! And I know of no better way to do it than to set the Church to looking for the return of our Lord. Some people say, “O, you will discourage the young converts if you preach that doctrine." Well, my friends, that hasn't been my experience. I have felt like working three times as hard ever since I came to understand that my Lord was coming back again. I look on this world as and a wrecked vessel. God has given me a life-boat, and said to me, "Moody, save all you can.” God will come in judgment and burn up this world, but the children of God don't belong to this world; they are in it, but not of it, like a ship in the water. This world is getting darker and darker; its ruin is coming nearer and nearer; if you have any friends on this wreck unsaved you had better lose no time in getting them off. But some one will say, "Do you, then, make the grace of God a failure?" No; grace is not a failure, but man is. The antediluvian world was a failure; the Jewish world was a failure; man has been a failure every-where, when he has had his own way been left to himself. Christ will save his Church, but he will save them finally by taking them out of the world. Now, don't take my word for it; look this doctrine up in your Bibles, and, if you find it there, bow down to it and receive it as the word of God. Take Matthew xxiv, 50: "The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Take 2 Peter iii, 3, 5: "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Go out on the streets of Chicago and ask men about the return of our Lord, and that is just what they would say: "Ah, yes, the Lord delayeth his coming!" "Behold, I come quickly," said Christ to John, and the last prayer in the Bible is, "Even so, come Lord Jesus." Were the early Christians disappointed then? No; no man is disappointed who obeys the voice of God. The world waited for the first coming of the Lord-waited for four thousand years, and then he came. He was here only thirty-three years, and then he went away; but he left us a promise that he would come again; and as the world watched and waited for his first coming and did not watch. in vain, so now to them who wait for his appearing shall he appear a second time unto salvation. Now let the question go round, "Am I ready to meet the Lord if he comes to-night?" "Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." In the third verse of the fourteenth chapter of John Christ tells his disciples: "And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again, and receive you unto myself." I like that text. What we want, and what the Church wants, is to be looking for Christ's coming again. We are nowhere told in the word of God to be looking for death, but we are told to be watching for the coming of the Son of man. Some people think we are to look for the restoration of the Jews, and the millennium, before the second coming of Christ, but the Bible don't say so. There is no command in the Bible for looking after the coming of the Jews, or the millennium, but we are commanded to watch, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh," and it is perfectly safe to do what the word of God commands us to do. If the Church, instead of looking for the Jews to be restored were only watching and waiting for the Lord to return, as he says he will, there would be a great deal more life and power among its members. There is another thought I want to call your attention to, and that is, Christ will bring all our friends with him ⚫ when he comes. All who have died in the Lord are to be with him when he comes in the clouds of heaven. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." Rev. xx, 6. "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection." Verse 5. That looks as if the Church were to have a thousand years with Christ before the final judgment, when Satan shall be cast out, and there shall be new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Now I want to give you some texts to study at home: When we eat the Lord's supper, we show forth his death until he come. I Cor. xi, 26. We are using our talents, until he come. Luke xix, 13. We are fighting the good fight of faith, until he come. 1 Tim. vi, 12-14. We are enduring tribulation, until he come. 2 Thess. i, 7. We wait for the crown of righteousness, until he come. 2 Tim. iv, 8. We wait for the crown of glory, until he come. I Peter V, 4 We wait for re-union with departed friends, until he come. I Thess. iv, 13-18. We wait for Satan to be bound, until he come. Rev. XX, 3. "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" PART IV. MR. MOODY'S CO-WORKERS. "BISHOP" MOODY. (NY one who ever saw Brother Moody, during his early life in Chicago, sitting in that abandoned saloon-shanty on the North Side, holding a small colored boy on his lap, and trying, by the light of one tallow candle, to teach the little fellow the parable of the Prodigal Son-the teacher himself having to stop now and then to spell out the long words, and being obliged to skip some of them altogether-would have been surprised to learn that this man was one day to become a bishop! "Bishop" Moody! Not over a diocese, organized in the usual form of the Episcopal Church, nor yet a general superintendent, after the manner of the Methodists; but a bishop of Christian workers, with a company of the leading evangelists, both from England and America, preaching and teaching and singing under his direction; for whose services he receives applications, and whom he assigns to fields of labor with a wisdom thought by many to be inspired of God, and an authority undisputed by man. More than this, Mr. Moody is, to some extent, personally responsible for the support of these evangelists, whom, by the direction of the Lord and the exercise of a consummate judgment, he has called to his assistance. To some of these persons he has paid a regular salary; others have shared with him in the gifts of the people; and |