ndissoluble
concord and concourse, when we shall ever be with the Lord, and 'clasp
inseparable hands with joy and bliss in over-measure for ever.' The
coming of the Master does not appear here with emphasis on its judicial
aspect. It is rather intended to bring hope to the mourners, and the
certainty that bands broken here may be re-knit in holier fashion
hereafter. But the judicial aspect is not, as it could not be, left out,
and the Apostle further tells us that 'that day cometh as a thief in the
night.' That is a quotation of the Master's own words, which we find in
the Gospels; and so again a confirmation, so far as it goes, from an
independent witness, of the Gospel story. And then he goes on, in
terrible language, to speak of 'sudden destruction, as of travail upon a
woman with child; and they shall not escape.'

These, then, are the points of this witness's testimony as to the
returning Lord--a personal coming, a reunion of all believers in Him, in
order to eternal felicity and mutual gladness, and the destruction that
shall fall by His coming upon those who turn away from Him.

What a revelation that would be to men who had known what it was to
grope in the darkness of heathendom, and to have new light upon the
future!

I remember once walking in the long galleries of the Vatican, on the one
side of which there are Christian inscriptions from the catacombs, and
on the other heathen inscriptions from the tombs. One side is all dreamy
and hopeless; one long sigh echoing along the line of white
marbles--'Vale! vale! in aeternum vale!' (Farewell, farewell, for ever
farewell.) On the other side--'In Christo, in pace, in spe.' (In Christ,
in peace, in hope.) That is the witness that we have to lay to our
hearts. And so death becomes a passage, and we let go the dear hands,
believing that we shall clasp them again.

My brother! this witness is to a gospel that is the gospel for
Manchester as well as for Thessalonica. You and I want just the same as
these old heathens there wanted. We, too, need the divine Christ, the
dying Christ, the risen Christ, the ascended Christ, the returning
Christ. And I beseech you to take Him for _your_ Christ, in all the
fulness of His offices, the manifoldness of His power, and the sweetness
of His love, so that of you it may be said, as this Apostle says about
these Thessalonians, 'Ye received it not as the word of man, but, as it
is in truth, as the word of God.'

II. THESSAL