Creation" all the processes of History were envisaged; the whole vast plan was conceived: the difficulties were faced; and the success assured. It often escapes our notice that only as we read the last two chapters of the Bible do we see the Beginning of the Real Plan. Up to then all has been preparation, mysterious, disappointing, heartrending, maybe; but then, and only then, as we gaze up on the beauties of the New Earth and the New Kingdom, and are entranced by the glory of the New Heaven, and shudder at the eternal smoke of Hell: then and only then will the Love and the Wisdom and the Power of the Almighty break upon our enraptured souls and inspire the songs of the Redeemed.

God has, however, behind this succession of Ages in the history of His dealings with mankind one single overmastering purpose, to prove to men that there is no possible way whereby they can be happy except by a determination to love God and each other. In every age God has allowed a different method of government, only to show that selfishness, and so disobedience, has brought each successive attempt to chaos and misery. In the first pre-Adamic Ages Lucifer sought his own glory and pleasure, and brought both angels and men to ruin by so doing. The sin of Adam and Eve in disobeying God and seeking their own pleasure and advancement ended in the violence of Noah's earth where everyone fought to have his own way. The silence of God after the tremendous lesson of the Flood yet ended in the defiance and misery of the great Eastern Empires from Nimrod to Pharaoh, in which the luxury of the Rulers meant the wretchedness of the ruled. The setting up of an ideal kingdom in Palestine with wise laws and true worship ended with the apostasy of the favoured Jews into ways worse than those of the surrounding heathen (2 Chronicles 36). The entry into the world of the Son of God with His revelation of perfect Love, Wisdom