tion, iv. 10, who themselves occupy thrones (not "seats," as our English version)" round about the throne" of God Himself (Revelation, iv. 4). "With Christ." These souls reign with Christ because they partake of His exaltation. This is Christ's promise to every follower of His, who, in this life, endureth unto the end: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne" (Revelation, iii. 21). In the visions of the thrones and their occupants, in chapters iv. 4, v. 9, xxiv. 4, we see the fulfilment of this promise. The occupants of the thrones are "the souls of the beheaded saints," who "reign with Christ," because the throne, which their thrones surround, is the joint throne of His Father and Himself. "And judgment was given them." The exercise of judgment is a prerogative of kingly dignity. Partaking of Christ's enthronement, the souls of the beheaded also partake, in a way not described in the New Testament, of Christ's judgments. To the fact of this participation, these words of St. John, in his Book of Revelation, positively testify: "God hath avenged your judgment on her (xviii. 20). 99 St. Paul teaches the same truth. "The world shall be judged by you" (I. Cor. vi. 2). "We shall judge angels" (vi. 3). We must not deny this judicial office of disembodied souls, because we cannot understand the wonderful announcement. There are other judgments besides the "eternal judgment" (Hebrews, vi. 3). Our Lord, while in this life, exercised judgment. "For judgment I am come into this world" (John, ix. 39). The judgment, then, of Revelation, xx. 4, is not necessarily the judgment of the last day. Since it is not, we are not to assign this gift of judgment to Christ's final tribunal, but leave it where He has placed it,—in the abode of happy souls. We have already seen two conclusive reasons why the time mentioned in verse 4 is indefinite. These are the two reasons: The phrase, "a thousand years," is indefinite, and ew, until, denotes an indefinite period. But there is still a third reason why the time in verse 4 is indefinite. The time is here destitute of express limitation. We have already seen, in verse 2, that the thousand years are, in themselves, an indefinite period. We also saw, in verse 3, that this indefinite period may have a definite end. But here mark,-this definite end must be designated by St. John before we are allowed to admit its existence. Its existence we are not at liberty to assume, and then pronounce it a fact. We will now apply these justifiable distinctions to the expression, the thousand years. In verse 3, a definite end is by St. John given to the thousand years; since, at their expiration, the bound Satan is loosed for a brief season, verse 7. But when St. John, in verse 4, says the souls of the beheaded reigned with Christ the thousand years, the revelator assigns no limitation whatever to the indefinite period. But because St. John expresses no limitation, there is no limitation. The indefinite period remains in its indefiniteness. In other words, St. John, in verse 4, represents the thousand years as without end. When we examine St. John's description of "the rest of the dead," verse 5, we shall find still another reason for believing that the reign of the disembodied saints will continue so long as they remained disembodied. (To be continued.) GOULBURN ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CATHEDRAL SYSTEM. London: Rivingtons. 1870. ESSAYS ON CATHEDRALS. London: John Murray. 1872. Hodges. London: John THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. Essays on Questions of the Day. Essay IV. Cathedral Reform. London: Masters. REVUE DES DEUX MONDES, December 15, 1865. La Cité Episcopale. Par Alphonse Esquiros. Paris: Plon. ANNUAL ADDRESS of the Bishop of New York. vention. 1872. Journal of Diocesan Con SERMON at the Consecration of Grace Cathedral, Davenport, Iowa. By the Bishop of Minnesota. 1873. SERMON at the Opening of the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Wisconsin. By the Rt. Rev. W. E. Armitage, D.D. TWELVE ADDRESSES. By the Bishop of Lincoln. 1873. THE London: Rivingtons. HE history of the Anglican Church and of her American daughter, for the last twenty years, presents some curious contrasts. On one side of the Atlantic we have seen the gradual dawning and development of the cathedral idea; while on the other we have seen a gradual inpatience of the cathedral reality. It has been, in England, a period of almost destructive criticism; while, in America, it has been an era of enthusiastic inauguration. On one side of the water, the cry has been, "Cathedrals and the cathedral system are alike failures. The venerable building of the nineteenth century is an anachronism, and its staff of more or less studious, but inert, clergy an offensive incongruity." In the late Church Congress at Leeds, the Dean of Durham relates that he has been the recipient of a pamphlet entitled "What is the Use of Deans?" and, in an admirable paper on "Suggested Improvements in Cathedrals," he concludes with an appeal for active coöperation in such improvements, on the ground that nothing less than prompt action will save the cathedral system from "parliamentary attacks." In a word, the tone of English criticism is either hostile or apologetic; while, at the same time, in our own land, we are assured that the cathedral is an ecclesiastical,-nay, a religious necessity. Antagonistic as such opinions seem to be, they spring, in reality, from the same root. During the past thirty years, the Church of England has witnessed a marvellous revival of spiritual life. The stir of awakened vigor has been felt through every remotest member of the whole body; and thus the criticism of the cathedral system, as it exists in England to-day, is at once natural and intelligible. On the one hand, it is urged, "here are stately edifices, not always opened; and, when opened, rarely filled. Attached to them are numerous clergy, very few of whom are resident in the cathedral city, and almost all of whom are pluralists. This body of clergy consumes large revenues, and does very little strictly ministerial work. True, they cultivate learning and polite letters, and write books, and translate Greek plays; but over against them are clamoring the tens of thousands of spiritually destitute and untaught people,-men, women, and, saddest of all, children, with whom Christian England to-day is teeming. What," it is somewhat impatiently demanded, "is the cathedral system doing for the rescue of the degraded classes, the diminution of pauperism, the evangelization of the masses?" And the answer must needs be, not much, anywhere; and, in more than one cathedral city, almost nothing at all. Is it any wonder, then, that some people are impatient of mossgrown ruins, which, however venerable and interesting historically, seem only to block up the onward march of the Church, and to waste its substance in a sort of devotional dilettanteism? What are wanted, are agencies which shall not only centralize power, but distribute it; which shall not merely gather learning and numbers, but shall send them forth again to do some effective and appreciable work. And so, in America, what has deepened dissatisfaction with cathedrals in England, has called them into being. The same sense of urgent work to be done, the same need of organized and aggressive activities to accomplish it, the same want of a diocesan centre of life, a centre which shall not be so much conservative as aggressive and distributive, has led, in the United States, to the rapid multiplication of cathedrals. That this is so, we need only look at the cathedrals already in existence, to see. Accustomed, as many of us are, to regard the cathedral as an elegant and luxurious appendage of a wealthy and venerable ecclesiasticism, the first thing that strikes us, on looking at the cathedrals which have already been reared, is that they are in no single instance to be found in centres of wealth and culture, where the Church is strong, either in means or in numbers. On the contrary, the vast majority of them are to be found in communities where the foundations of the Church have barely been laid,-where her ideas are, to the vast majority, religious novelties, and where neither wealth nor numbers are in any sense available. A glance at the following list, which we take from a recent sermon of the Bishop of Wisconsin, preached on the occasion of opening an edifice purchased from a Congregational society in Milwaukee, and designed by the Bishop to be ultimately incorporated as a Diocesan Cathedral, will demonstrate this: The dioceses in which a cathedral, or something answering, in its design and purpose, to a cathedral, are to be found, are Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Florida, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Maine, Albany, Western New York, Central Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Now, with a single exception, none of these are among the older or wealthier dioceses of our Church. On the contrary, but yesterday some of them were not dioceses at all, but unorganized missionary jurisdictions, hardly explored, and equally bare, so far as Church work was concerned, of men and means. Nay, even to-day, at least ten out of the thirteen dioceses which the Bishop of Wisconsin enumerates, are missionary dioceses, in such a sense, at any rate, that our Church in them is not strong enough to dispense with constant and .considerable contributions of both men and money from without. How came the cathedral to be organized in such dioceses, unless the men who have been called to the administration of their affairs, found such an agency indispensable to the prosecution of their diocesan work? To this it may be answered, as, indeed, in some quarters it has been answered, that the existence of the cathedral in many of our newer dioceses, proves only that slavish devotion to Anglican patterns from which neither American bishops nor presbyters have been |