I

THE WALL

"Having a wall great and high."

Rev. 21:12

Two visions of paradise are given us in the Scripture, one at the opening and the other at the close of the sacred record. History begins and ends with paradise. But there is a striking contrast between the Old Testament picture and the New. The paradise of Genesis is a garden; the paradise of Revelation is a city. Life grows from the simple to the complex. History is one long evolution, a continuous process of the unfolding, enlarging, enriching of the race. History begins with one man and one woman roaming in childlike innocence through the sweet fields of Eden; it closes with a multitude that no man can number gathered within the walls of a city the size and splendor of which as far surpass the glory of every capital besides as the heavens are high above the earth. That is the progress of the race. The first city was built by Cain, and ever since the city has been the haunt of vice and crime. "God made the country, and man made the town." But the city is also the home of the keenest intelligence, the noblest character, the most devoted service. It is at once the glory and the shame, the hope and the despair of the world. There man is found at his best and at his worst, there he rises to the loftiest heights, sinks to the lowest depths. There the ex

tremes of character and condition meet. The city with its rich, varied, intense, energetic life, its intimate fellowship, its boundless opportunities, its endless charms and pleasures, its interweaving of interests and relations, is the most imposing monument constructed by the genius and the power of man. Great cities are the heart and the brain of the world, and draw to themselves the young, the ardent, the ambitious from every side. Whether men seek wealth or fame or learning or pleasure or power, the city invites and allures with potent spell. With every step in the march of civilization the city assumes a place of increasing prominence and power.

The names borne by this new paradise are significant. It is the New Jerusalem, a city old yet new. The New Jerusalem is the heavenly pattern of the Kingdom of God on earth. As Moses was commanded to build the tabernacle according to the pattern shown him on the mount, this is the divine plan after which the Church must be fashioned. Man was made in the image of God; earth in the likeness of heaven. Sin has marred the image and the likeness, but they shall one day be restored. The New Jerusalem is the picture of the Church as it shall be when the work of grace is completed, and eternal glory is begun.

This is the divine plan after which God is slowly fashioning his Kingdom through the long process of the ages.

Why is the name of the old city given it? Is there anything in this city of God with its flashing splen

dors to remind us of the capital of David? Draw near and you will find much that is familiar. Upon the twelve gates are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve foundation stones of the wall of the city bear the names of the twelve apostles. Here is Thomas the doubter, and Peter the traitor, and others of whom we know nothing but the name. This is the material with which God builds the foundation of the wall of the eternal Kingdom. Enter the city and the great multitude is called after the twelve tribes of Israel. And the King whose glory is the light of the Celestial City, is the root and the offspring of David, the Lamb that was slain, betrayed, and condemned in old Jerusalem and crucified just outside the city gate. The Church, the Kingdom, in all ages is one. There is no break in the divine plan. The New Jerusalem succeeds the old, as David is followed by his greater Son. The New Testament springs out of the Old, the Christian inherits the privileges and advantages of the Jew. Yet the new dispensation is far greater than the old as the New Jerusalem is larger and more resplendent than the city of Israel's king. The old is the seed of the new, the new is the harvest of the old. This is Jerusalem, but Jerusalem transformed, glorified, with walls of jasper, gates of pearl, and streets of gold. It is no longer the capital of an earthly monarch, but of the King of kings; no longer the home of the Jew, but of the whole brotherhood of man. "The nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it."