nced the change, and have, as
it were, been raised from the grave to new life, have personal
experience of His power and faithfulness so sure and sweet that
henceforward they cannot doubt Him nor forget His grace.

III. As to the bearing of the vision on the doctrine of the resurrection
little need be said. It does not necessarily presuppose the people's
acquaintance with that doctrine, for it would be quite conceivable that
the vision had revealed to the prophet the thought of a resurrection,
which had not been in his beliefs before. The vision is so entirely
figurative, that it cannot be employed as evidence that the idea of the
resurrection of the dead was part of the Jewish beliefs at this date. It
does, however, seem most natural to suppose that the exiles were
familiar with the idea, though the vision cannot be taken as a
revelation of a literal resurrection of dead men. For clear expectations
of such a resurrection we must turn to such scriptures as Daniel xii. 2,
13.

THE RIVER OF LIFE

Waters issued out from under the threshold of the house ... EZEKIEL
xlvii. 1.

Unlike most great cities, Jerusalem was not situated on a great river.
True, the inconsiderable waters of Siloam--'which flow softly' because
they were so inconsiderable--rose from a crevice in the Temple rock, and
beneath that rock stretched the valley of the Kedron, dry and bleached
in the summer, and a rainy torrent during the rainy seasons; but that
was all. So, many of the prophets, who looked forward to the better
times to come, laid their finger upon that one defect, and prophesied
that it should be cured. Thus we read in a psalm: 'There is a river,
the divisions whereof make glad the City of our God.' Faith saw what
sense saw not. Again, Isaiah says: 'There'--that is to say, in the new
Jerusalem--'the glorious Lord shall be unto us a place of broad rivers
and streams.' And so, this prophet casts his anticipations of the
abundant outpouring of blessing that shall come when God in very deed
dwells among men, into this figure of a river pouring out from beneath
the Temple-door, and spreading life and fertility wherever its waters
come. I need not remind you how our Lord Himself uses the same figure,
and modifies it, by saying that whosoever believeth on Him, 'out of him
shall flow rivers of living waters'; or how, in the very last words of
the Apocalyptic seer, we hear again the music of the ripples of the
great stream, 'the river