And the time of the dead to be judged,

And to give their reward to thy servants the prophets,
And to thy saints, and to those fearing thy name,

The small and the great;

And to destroy those destroying the earth."

3. A Great Voice in Heaven

"Now is come the salvation, and the power,

And the kingdom of our God, and the rule of his Christ:
Because the accuser of our brethren was overthrown,

Who accuseth them before our God day and night.

And they themselves conquered him

Through the blood of the Lamb, and through their testimony;

And they loved not their life even unto death,

Therefore rejoice, O heaven, and ye that dwell in them.

Woe for the earth and the sea:

Because the devil is gone down unto you,

Having great wrath, showing that he has but a short time."

In this anthem we have the center and summit of all the great Apocalypse, namely, the enthronement of the eternal King. The trumpet of the seventh angel had just sounded. The following silence is broken by a mighty outburst of great voices in heaven, "The kingdom is become." Then the twelve and twelve elders representing the old and new church of the covenant fall prone upon their faces while they give formal thanks. After which follow the four great signs of conflict and of conquest: the woman, the dragon, the Son, and the victory. Whereupon the soul of a great voice in heaven assures the redeemed that they, too, shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb and through their own martyrdom.

FIFTH ANTHEM.-REV. 15. 2-4. GREAT AND MARVELOUS ARE THY WORKS

Song of Moses and of the Lamb

"Great and marvelous are thy works,

O Lord God, the Allpowerful;

Righteous and true are thy ways,
Thou King of the nations.

Who shall not fear, O Lord,

And glorify thy name? for thou alone art holy;

For all the nations shall come and worship before thee;

For thy righteous acts have been made manifest."

With this song of Moses and the Lamb belongs the song without words referred to at the beginning of the preceding chapter and led by the Saviour himself with a voice "as the voice of many waters," and taken up by the one hundred and forty-four thousand "as the voice of harpers, harping with their harps." Here again mention is made of that ineffable praise which only sinners saved can bring. Thus, also, in this anthem it is the same redeemed host assembled by the glassy sea mingled with fire, whither they have come victorious "from the beast and from his image and from the number of his name."

SIXTH ANTHEM.-REV. 19. 1-7. THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS
1. Full Chorus of the Heavenly Hosts

"Hallelujah ;

The Salvation, and the glory, and the power,
Belong to our God:

For true and righteous are his judgments;

For he hath judged the great harlot,

Her that corrupted the earth with her pollution,
And he hath avenged the blood of his servant
At her hands. Hallelujah."

2. Response of the Elders and Living Creatures
"Amen; Hallelujah."

3. A Voice from the Throne

"Hallelujah!

"Give praise to our God,
All ye his servants,

Ye that fear him,

The small and the great."

4. A Great Multitude

For Jehovah our God, the Allpowerful, reigneth.

Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad,

And let us give the glory unto him:

For the marriage of the Lamb has come,

And his wife hath made herself ready.

And it was given unto her to clothe herself

In fine linen, bright and pure:

For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints."

This is the well-nigh frenzied outburst of souls but just escaped from the flames of the pit and the thralldom of the harlot of hell. With a great voice a great multitude in heaven break out in splendid unison as they lean above the battlements of bliss, "Hallelujah," and a second time they say, "Hallelujah." Then the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fall down in adoration saying, "Amen, Hallelujah." Again the great throng bursts forth "as the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thunders, 'Hallelujah.'" The spell of a double intoxication has here fallen upon the trembling host and finds mingled utterance. On the one hand horror and loathing of the scarlet woman and on the other rejoicing beyond bounds at the presence and bright array of the heavenly bride.

SEVENTH ANTHEM.-21. 3-7; 22. 12.

BEHOLD GOD'S TABERNACLE IS WITH

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1. A Voice Out of the Throne

"Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,

And he shall tabernacle with them,

And they shall be his peoples,

And God himself shall be with them,

And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes;

And death shall be no more;

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying,

Nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away."

2. Response from Jehovah

"Behold, I make all things new.
These words are faithful and true.

They are already fulfilled.

I am the Alpha and the Omega,

The beginning and the end.

I will give to him that is athirst

Freely of the fountain of the water of life.
He that overcometh shall inherit these things;
And I will be his God and he shall be my son.

3. Chant of Invitation by the Spirit and the Bride

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And he that heareth, let him say, Come.
And he that is athirst, let him come:

He that will, let him freely take the water of life."

4. The Attestation of Jehovah and John's Amen

"Yea: I am coming quickly.

Amen: come, Lord Jesus."

At last the drama is complete. Heaven descends to earth, Jehovah dwells with men. The bridegroom claims his bride, let joy be unconfined, let the wedding feast be spread, let the viands flow freely, and all that hear, and all that thirst, and all that will, come freely and partake.

This is the order of the action: First, a great voice out of the throne proclaims the new creation and Paradise redeemed with God again in the garden with his children. Second, Jehovah himself speaks as at the beginning and offers freely of the tree and stream of life and sonship to him who overcomes. Then follows a prose-poem picture of the Lamb's wife as a bride, as a city, and as an Oriental garden. Finally the word of Jehovah, the Allruler, silences all voices and brings a quick end to the entire Apocalypse with a renewal of the beatitude upon such as wash their robes and thus enter in by the gates into the city. The wooing chant of the brooding spirit and the inviting bride, "Come," "Come," and the farreaching "Yea" of the returning bridegroom and “Amen” of the revelator himself bring us to the benediction, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the saints. Amen."

ARCHEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL RESEARCH

THE SUMERIANS

THE term "Sumerian" is the name now usually given by Assyriologists to a prehistoric people, supposed to have preceded the Semites in ancient Babylonia; we say supposed, for to this day, there is not a concensus of opinion that there ever was either a Sumerian people or Sumerian language. Though a very large majority of those entitled to speak upon this difficult question believe that Babylonia was settled by an industrious, peaceful, and highly civilized people ages upon ages before a Semite set foot upon that fertile country, yet, there are not a few of equal learning, who follow in the footsteps of the great Halévy and stubbornly reject the theory of a pre-Semitic occupation of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.

Mr. E. J. Banks, who superintended the recent excavations at Bismya, shares the view held by the majority of Assyriologists, as may be gathered from the following words from his pen. He says: "The earliest Mesopotamian ruins far beneath cities which flourished six thousand years ago, indicate that thousands of years before that remote age the Sumerians began to evolve a civilization which has never been surpassed or hardly equaled by any other nation." Thus Mr. Banks has doubt neither regarding the existence of a Sumerian people, nor the superiority of their civilization.

Here we might remark that till comparatively recent times there was a widespread tradition among Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans that Babylonia was first settled by the descendants of Shem, the reputed father of the Semitic people, and that from this center the ancestors of the Assyrians, Syrians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, and other minor tribes, forced by inadequacy of sustenance, emigrated in all directions, taking with them everywhere in more or less pure form, the elements of an advanced civilization and the foundations of a spiritual religion. In other words, the Semites and not the Sumerians were the people to which we are indebted for the best in our civilization and religion. Halévy and his disciples cut the discussion short, by denying the existence of Accadians or Sumerians. This view is also held among others, by Professor McCurdy, of Toronto, and Professor Price, of the Chicago University. These two are ardent adherents of Halévy's school. Professor McCurdy states his position at great length in his History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. Notwithstanding his splendid learning and the weighty arguments produced by him in support of his deductions it must be confessed that he is fighting a losing game, if we are to judge from the number of those opposed to him. While true that from very ancient times there was a Semitic civilization in Babylonia, and that it is next to impossible to point with certainty to a period when any other civilization exclusively prevailed, yet it is equally true that recent excavations

have brought to light facts which seem to indicate that the Semites were at one time intruders and invaders, and that they settled there only after having subdued their more peaceful predecessors.

Halévy with great force has emphasized the fact that in all Semitic inscriptions, whether early or late, there is not a syllable referring to a people which they subdued before becoming the possessors and masters of the land. This is, indeed, remarkable, for Babylonia and Assyria inscriptions abound in references to later wars with other nations and great victories over the same. Why, then, this sphinxlike silence regarding their victories over and subjugation of the Sumerians? Those who aver that a Sumerian civilization preceded the occupation of Babylonia by the Semites claim that the latter were indebted to the former not only for their script, but also for many of their laws and institutions, and for even their religious ideas. "The Semites," says Mr. Bank, "adopted the civilization of the Sumerians, accepted their polytheistic worship, repaired the temples which they had destroyed, learned to sing the old Sumerian hymns, and responsive psalms, and offered sacrifices to the various local gods, though retaining their own Semitic language."

While saying that the Semitic inscriptions do not make the least acknowledgment of their indebtedness to the Sumerians or any other race for any of these things, it is, however, true that both the kings of Babylonia and Assyria constantly speak of "Sumer and Akkad." The phrase, however, is rarely, if ever, used by itself, but as an additional title by some ruler or king. For instance, Ur-Gur styles himself king of Ur and king of Sumer and Akkad. So also Dungi and many other Babylonian rulers. It is also a fact worth mentioning that Sumer and Akkad are never mentioned alone as independent powers, but always in connection with some other city or land. From this it has been inferred, correctly or incorrectly, that the phrase is political rather than geographical in its nature, and that Sumer and Akkad had, at no time in the world's history, an independent existence.

But a word regarding the terms. The Akkad of the inscriptions is doubtless the same as the Accad of Gen. 10. 10, where we read that the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. Assyriologists are generally agreed that Akkad and Accad are different spellings of the same word, and may be the same as Agade, the capital of Sargon, the first historical ruler of Babylonia. The name "Sumer" or "Shumer" is nowhere found in the Bible, at least in that form, but Assyriologists of the Hommel school regard it as a dialectic variation of the scriptural "Shinar." The oldest form of the word was Ki-Ingi; then, we have Imgur, or Imgir, hence Ki-Imgir, from which we have Shimir, or Shumir, which, in turn, was early changed into Shingar-Shinar. This etymological feat is regarded with suspicion by Halévy, Jensen, and others, who suggest other derivations equally obscure.

Those who regard Akkad and Sumer as geographical designations locate the former in the southern part of Mesopotamia and Sumer directly south of it. In other words, Akkad was north Babylonia, and Sumer, southern Babylonia. But granting that Sumer and Shinar are synonymous