ley of Achor for a door of hope; and SHE shall sing THERE as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." (Hos. ii.)

Right here it is àpropos to refer to another promise, extended later on to the other kindom, Judah herself, and given, by the Lord through Isaiah, in Hezekiah's day. It is found in 2 Kings xix. 30, 31, and is as follows: "And the remnant [i.e., Heb. as per margin, “the escaping of the house of Judah that remaineth"] that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth A REMNANT, and they that escape [Heb. the escaping] out of Mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this."

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Unto the wise, who, having eyes, use them to see, and whose highest criticism" of the Holy Scriptures is an earnest, faithful study to interpret them aright (and not to analyze them out of sight !), this prophecy was fulfilled in a most wonderful and orderly way. It had already been shadowed, as a promise to David, when Nathan came to him (2 Sam. vii. 1–29), as God's messenger, and said: "Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more. Also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee a house. . . . I will set up thy seed [Solomon] after thee, and I will establish the THRONE of his kingdom forever.

. . If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him. . . But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul. Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David."

Now it is manifest from the circumstances attending this promise that the place appointed and promised where Israel was to be planted in latter days was elsewhere, and it is equally clear that David's seed was to go with the Royal Remnant, and take the throne and sceptre with them. It is likewise patent to us, in the light of written history, that they (Israel) did disappear, and that David's seed and throne and sceptre have for centuries been also so well hidden that most men have forgotten them, and this too to the discredit of our faith in Jehovah's promise, as ratified by a covenant of salt and by an oath !

Moreover it is certain that this remnant did ultimately go out of Jerusalem, and out of human memory, in the days of Jeremiah, who was explicitly commissioned "to build and to plant;" whose own disappearance is a MYSTERY, and who took with him the last children of David of whom we have any account in the Word of God!

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Since then the centuries have multiplied, and their fulness is well-nigh rounded. It is time to find these "hidden ones," and Jehovah is touching the eyes of all who enter on the search with FAITH.

Certainly here are explicit promises; certainly they were minutely fulfilled up to the point where Scripture drops their threads; certainly their history has since that time been treated as a mystery; certainly it is a fitting theme for faithful study; and certainly, if its prosecution is ever to be rewarded, it is in secular history, and in these latter days that we must work.

The "canon" of God's Word was closed with John's last words in Revelation, and when the "age of Prophecy" ended that of "Fulfilment" began. Its "canon" is the record of human history; and although

its writers are not inspired, we all believe that they are accurate enough to light our paths. Surely if the pages of modern investigation are admitted by disbelievers to be fit ground whereon to base their infidelity, they will be strong enough to back our faith, if it can be shown that when correctly read, and read "between the lines," and illustrated by living Anglo-Saxon facts, they supplement most wondrously the Word of God.

Let us now continue our studies more particularly with reference to "Israel," unto whom, in the wilderness, the Royal Remnant of Judah and David eventually found its way. In point of time Israel was lost about a century and a half before Jeremiah and his wards; the latter followed them. It is therefore primarily necessary to obtain a clear idea of Israel's prophetic status after its deportation. This once obtained, and Jeremiah's mission and subsequent similar disappearance being kept sharply in mind, the true import of these separated events-as chapters of the same general transaction, but purposely and so consummately disconnected as to have begotten our inattention—begins to dawn upon us, and the compass of Jehovah's Romance, its thrilling motif, and its ever-broadening horizon loom grandly into view.

Hosea and Amos were specially commissioned to the Ten Tribes, and the former, very explicitly in his eleventh chapter, declares that God's purpose was a kindly one, and that the deportation had an object, grand, remote, and not even yet fully comprehended by the Church. "How shall I give thee up, EPHRAIM? how shall I deliver thee, ISRAEL? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger. I will not return to destroy EPHRAIM; for I am God and not man:

the Holy One [of Israel] in the midst of thee." And again in the fourteenth chapter Hosea says of Lost Israel:

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"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto ISRAEL: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found."

In view of such promises as the foregoing, it is also manifest that this missing, i.e. unidentified, people must have been allowed to enjoy the privileges of Christianity, and perhaps been specially used for its peculiar spread, for which a long and painful training had so especially prepared them.

"At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus saith the Lord [JEHOVAH], The people which were left of the sword FOUND GRACE IN THE WILDERNESS. (Jer. xxxi. 2.)

"Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." (Jer. xxxi. 20.) Was it not unto "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" that the apostles were sent upon that chief of mercy's missions? And has that mission ended yet? Amos (ix.) tells us that the house of Isaac was not to be utterly destroyed by the captivity. "For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all

nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." And Jeremiah maintains that nevertheless, in spite of paradox, this scattered people still shall be a nation forever. "Thus

saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves roar; the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Lord: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord." (Jer. xxxi. 35-37.).

Finally, let us quote this pleasant promise unto the deported tribes:

"Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord; unto us is this land given in possession. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God: Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come." (Ezek. xi. 14–16.)

In his chapter on "The Anglo-Saxon and the World's Future," Josiah Strong, the author of "Our Country," after having surveyed the outlook, aside from any bearing upon the identity of our race with Israel, exclaims in glowing tribute, and in words which to us have no hope of fruition unless we be of Israel, as follows:

"What is the significance of such facts? These ten