aithful souls who had never seen Hun. It told of the universality of
His Atonement. It told of victory, far beyond this life. It told that
Christ, who came to seek and save men's souls on earth, had continued
that work in the world of the dead while His body lay in the grave.
That He passed into the unseen world as a saviour and conqueror. That
His banner was unfurled there and His cross set up there in the world
of the departed. That the souls of all the ancient world who had never
known Him, and WHO WERE CAPABLE OF TURNING TO HIM (_i. e._, who in
their earthly probation, in spite of all their ignorance and sin, had
not irrevocably turned away from God and good), might turn to Him and
live. That the spirits of the old-world saints and prophets had
welcomed Him with rejoicing. That even men of much lower place had yet
found mercy. That even such men as those who had perished in the flood
in God's great judgment, BUT HAD NOT HARDENED THEMSELVES AGAINST HIS
RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LOVE, were not shut out from hope. In the "many
mansions" was a place even for such as they. To the teachers of the
early Church, I repeat, it was one of the most triumphant notes in
their gospel--the wideness of Christ's Atonement.

Section 4

That is what we mean, then, by the descent into Hades. Does it not
give a vivid reality to that world that we think of so vaguely? Think
of it. Was there ever before or since such a scene, such a preaching,
such a preacher, such a congregation? Could the wildest flights of
imagination go further? Yet it is all sober fact. Try to picture it
for yourselves for a moment. The Lord hanging on the cross, with His
heart full of pain for that humanity that He was redeeming; and yet
surely full of triumph, too, and glad anticipation. He was going to
show Himself to the poor souls who in the dark old world days had loved
God and Right. He had finished the work that was given Him to do. He
was leaving His Church with that blessed gospel of salvation to preach
through the centuries to all souls on earth. But what of the souls who
had gone out of earth from the beginning of the world without knowing
Him? The Church replies, through her Bible and through her Creed and
through her early teachers, that the Lord was not forgetting them. He
was about to go forth in a few moments, "quickened in His spirit," to
bring His glad gospel to the waiting souls. That was the first great
missionary work of the Ch