In a day when so much has been written on almost every Scripture subject it requires some apology for offering anything further; but as different trains of thought are more suited to one than another, they may serve as useful remembrancers, although there may be nothing particularly new about them. The writer of the following pages, being in the evening of life and much retired from its active duties by failing health, often endeavours to look through the lengthening shadows of the evening to the glory which shall be revealed, and delights to ponder over those passages of Holy Writ which form the basis of our faith in Christ.

The following pages make no attempt at scholarship. The author thankfully accepts and believes the revelation which God has given us in Holy Scripture, and has endeavoured to set forth a plain scriptural statement of the successive steps or development of that revelation, culminating in the Gospel of Christ.

When our Lord says of the final issue of His judgment, “These” (speaking of the wicked) “shall go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal,” I believe He perfectly understood the subject, and meant what He said. When Paul also, writing of himself and his fellow-Apostles, said “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men,” I believe he meant—they persuaded men “to flee from the wrath to come,” and take shelter in “the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. xiii. 20); according to the words, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God who hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I will recompense saith the Lord” (Heb. x. 30, 31; and 2 Thess. ii. 6–9).

I have been a fond reader of Holy Scripture from my youth, and have from time to time studied much that has been written in support of its genuineness and authenticity; but now in the retrospect of the past I find no evidence for the general truth of that Scripture at all to compare with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ—“If any man will do His (the Father’s) will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself” (John vii. 17).“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant” (Ps. xxv. 14). As it is all-important to know that the foundations are sure, and will stand in the day of trial, I have set down in these pages the train of thought which has proved most confirming to my own faith, and trust that some of those who love the Truth as it is in Jesus may find it helpful to themselves.

We live in eventful times. There is much abroad in the world to excite alarm. When Atheism and Infidelity are making strenuous efforts to extend their withering influence; when Roman Catholicism and a kindred ritualism are invading our country, there is abundant need to stick to the Law and the Testimony, lest the curtains of darkness should be again spread over it. But notwithstanding that the picture may be somewhat gloomy, it is by no means all on one side; by various instrumentalities the Gospel is being largely and successfully proclaimed, and the message of salvation through Christ alone is now carried to every class, and almost from house to house, in a manner never before witnessed; and the lowest haunts of vice and misery are at least opened to the town missionary, the Bible-woman, or the evangelist, where but recently the police could not venture single-handed; and many are the brands plucked from the burning, so that among these, as well as among the social circles above them, a rich and powerful wave of Gospel blessing is rolling over the land.

If I have fairly represented the teaching of the Bible, it is all that I could aspire to. The many “divers and strange doctrines” which in one or another way oppose the Gospel of Christ, must be swept away before the grand truths which the Bible sets forth, and which, when time is past and eternity remains, will for ever be a theme of praise and thanksgiving to the glorified beings who shall be accounted worthy to stand before the throne, and swell the anthem of “Glory and dominion to Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Rev. i. 5, 6).