Now then, let us notice how curiously often the Bible view of things is backed up the latest modern views. The common idea of the present day is that the Bible view of great subjects is more and more being discredited. But it is nothing of the kind, og we see in this case. Modern astronomers have come to the same conclusion as Peter. that the world as we know it, will come to an end. As a race, we have not, as we are apt to think, unlimited time to work out the destiny God has appointed for us. Opportunities for the laying hold of eternal life will not be eternally renewed In some way, there ig a shutting of the door. There are, it seems, two kinds of ending, that this world can look -forward to with the best grace it can; a hot one and a cold one. To be burnt to death or to be frozen to death is a cheerless choice to give a world pulsating with life, as is ours. The hot ending will be due to a possible collision with another sun, or with one of the dead suns, that, it is alarming to learn, are floating through space. These are like unlighted coral islands, a danger to our navigation of space.
Bickerton says. that a collision like this would generate a heat that we cannot imagine; and I can well believe it. Then, indeed, Peter would turn out to be right, and "the elements would melt with fervent heat."
Then there is the cold ending of the fitful dream of life on our planet. All our heat, on which life depends, comes from the sun. The most amazing thing in nature is the maintenance of the heat of the sun. How quickly heat radiates from a glowing hot body great conceptions, the Hebrew pro-' we all know. See how quickly a actually "earnestly desires the day a been made of coal and pure oxygen it would have gone stone cold in 3,000 years, yet it seems to have lasted millions, and is still some 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is enough to go on with but will not last for ever. I believe the accepted theory of the heat of the sun is that of the great German, the late Professor Helmholtz. Heat is generated by matter in any form both in contract. ing and in expanding. He calculate ed that if the sun contracts only 186 feet a year, it will last from 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 years. Btill, that is not for ever. The limit of the possibility of contracting further will come: the matter of the sun, that is to say, will be too close. ly packed for it to contract any more, and then the radiant mass will part with all its heat, and sun and earth and planets and all dwelling on them will be frozen and death will reign, and the deep pathos of John's description of Rome. will be' true of our planet, And the voice of harpers and flute-players and minstrels and trumpeters shall be heard not at all in thee; and no craftsmen, of whatever craft, shall be found any more of all in thee; and the voice of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom' and the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee." The earth and them that dwell] therein," as Peter says, "'shall be burnt up," or frozen up. Science and Revelation agree most curiously.
ANCIENT AND MODERN, What impression does this prospect make on men} Let us take two men, one a modern map, thoroughly up-to-date, a ''modern thinker," as such are called,. and the other an ancient men. The modern thinker ig Mr. Bertrand Russell, who has a name in China as a great prophet. According to Dean Inge, Mr. Russell is thrown into angry despair at the thought of it. He is quoted as saying, that "all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system."" He says "All these things are so nearly certain, that no philosophy that rejects them can hope to. stand." He seems to believe that a God who has made a world like this to come to such an end must be evil, and cannot be worshipped. It is a conclusion of despair, misery and unredeemed pessimism.
Now for the ancient man, and how he feels at the prospect, which has thrown his philosophic success sor into fits of despair, or rather into a permanent ocean of despair. This ancient man is Peter. You will notice the difference between the feelings of these two men. Peter is hopeful and cheerful. He
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.