CHRIST’S COMING LITERAL. - PART 2

It may be well to glance at some of the other passages in the New Testament which mention the coming of our Lord. There are thirty-two Greek verbs which are rendered in our English version by the word come., but there are only four nouns that are rendered by the word coming. The first of these (apokalupsis) is defined in Bagster’s Greek Lexicon as meaning, “A disclosure, revelation, manifestation, appearance,” and is used in the following places in connection with our Lord’s second advent; “Waiting for the coming [the revelation, or manifestation] of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Cor. i: 7); “When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed [literally, in the revelation of the Lord Jesus] from heaven with his mighty angels,” (2 Thess. i: 7); “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried by fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,” (1 Pet. i: 7); “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. i: 13).

The second Greek noun (isodos) is found only five times in the New Testament, and in four of these it is rendered by the word entering in, or entrance. In one passage it is translated coming., where we read, “When John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” (Acts xiii: 24).

The third Greek noun (elusis) is used but once when Stephen said in his defense, “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.” (Acts vii: 52).

The fourth Greek noun (parousia) is found twenty-four times in the New Testament, and in the following places it is connected directly with the second advent of Christ: “What shall be the sign of thy coming? (Matt, xxiv: 3); “As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of- the Son of Man be,” (Matt, xxiv: 27); “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be,” (Matt, xxiv: 37); “And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be,” (Matt, xxiv: 39); “Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Cor. xv: 23); “What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?” (1 Thess. ii: 19); “To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints,” (1 Thess. iii: 13); “We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [precede] them which are asleep,” (1 Thess. iv: 15); “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Thess. v: 23); “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,” (2 Thess. ii: 1); “Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming” (2 Thess. ii: 8); “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord,” (James v: 7); “For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” (James v: 8); “We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (2 Pet. i: 16); “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying. Where is the promise of his coming (1 Pet. iii: 4); “Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God,” (2 Pet. iii: 12); “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming” (1 John ii: 28).

The other passages in which the word parousia is found are as follows: “I am glad of the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus,” (i Cor. xvi: 17); “Nevertheless, God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus; and not by his coming only, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you,” (2 Cor. vii: 6, 7); “For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak,” (2 Cor. x: 10); “That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again,” (Phil, i: 26); “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,” (Phil, ii; 12); “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders,” (2 Thess. ii: 9).

The reader now has before him every passage in the New Testament where the word coming is used in allusion to the future return of our Lord, and he can judge for himself whether it is to be taken in its plain, obvious, literal and personal meaning. By comparing it with the same word used in other passages in a different connection, it is evident that it can not be understood except in a literal sense without a gross perversion of the Sacred Scriptures. When the Saviour, or the Holy Ghost by the Apostles, speaks of His return they always speak of it as a revelation, an appearing, a coming; and the last word when applied to men, invariably denotes, as already shown, their personal presence. If there is a Greek word whose precise sense is established by competent authority beyond room for question, it is the word parousia which is defined in the Lexicons to mean “presence, a coming, arrival, advent,” and nothing else. When, therefore, we read of the future parousia of our Lord, it is shameful trifling with the word of God, for those who profess to be its expounders to tell us that it means nothing in particular, or something as unlike the presence, the coming, the arrival, the advent of Christ, as night is unlike day.

As the result of this long continued trifling, it has come to pass that when a large majority of Christians hear or read Scripture texts that speak of the coming of Christ, no definite idea is conveyed to their minds, and no suitable impression is produced on their hearts. If the various journals of the country should announce that a foreign Prince was coming to America, and then the recognized expounders of these journals should declare that nothing more was meant than the destruction of some city in the Western continent, or the visitation of cholera, the necessary effect would be that those who had confidence in the expounders would cease to expect his arrival, and they would also cease to expect any trustworthy information from public prints which they had been taught to believe said one thing while they meant another thing entirely different.

When our Lord was on earth He often employed such language as the following: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets,” (Matt, ix: 13); “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace but a sword,” (Matt, x: 34); “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not,” (John v: 43); “For judgment I am come into this world,” (John ix: 39); “I am come that they might have life,” (John x: 10); “I am come a light unto the world,” (John xii; 46); “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father,” (John xvi: 28). No one can doubt that the coming here is literal and personal. Of course it is meant in such passages that He Himself, and not something else, had come into the world, and that He Himself, and not something else, would leave the world, and go to the Father.

Then speaking of the Holy Ghost, He says, “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,” (John xv: 26); “it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. . . . Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come,” (John xvi: 7-13). Here too it will be admitted that the coming of the Spirit is literal and personal, and so it was at once understood by the disciples.

But we also find Him saying, “Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. . . . Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh. . . . Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. . . . But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him,” (Matt, xxiv: 42-50). There are many such expressions as these scattered throughout His discourses, and can any one doubt for a moment that He referred to His future literal and personal advent, just as He did when speaking of the first literal and personal advent, and of the literal and personal coming of the Holy Spirit? At all events He uses precisely the same language, and His disciples must have understood Him in precisely the same sense. If He had meant by His coming the destruction of Jerusalem, or the coming of the Holy Ghost, or the death of believers, it would have been very easy to say so; and to suppose that He spoke of His first coming literally, and of the coming of the Spirit literally, and then in the use of the very same words, without indicating any change in His meaning, that He spoke of His second coming figuratively, only intending by it that armies would fight, or persons die after His departure, is simply to make utter confusion of the testimonies of God’s word.

But besides making confusion of the Scriptures, if such a principle of interpretation should be applied to any other doctrine, it would certainly be fatal to the truth, and it may be, ruinous to the soul. If those who oppose the doctrine of our Lord’s pre-millennial advent have a right to say that when He spoke of His coming again He meant the destruction of Jerusalem, the Universalist with as much reason may insist that when He spoke of His coming to judgment He meant nothing more than the destruction of Jerusalem. If the Post-millenarian has a right to say that His distinct and repeated announcement of His future advent is only a figurative mode of predicting the manifested power of the Spirit in converting the world, the Unitarian with no less propriety may claim that His distinct and repeated announcement of His equality and oneness with the Father is only a figurative way of stating that He was a good man. If the plain promise, so often given in simple unadorned language, that He will come back to the earth, is fulfilled in our death, our mouths are shut against the daring impiety of the Rationalist when he subjects the Sacred Scriptures to the standard of human reason, or rather, of human caprice. If the coming of Christ ever means the destruction of Jerusalem, or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or the death of a Christian, or any other event but His literal, personal return from the right hand of the Father, it is impossible to know what God has revealed, and His blessed book becomes a mere jumble of ambiguous utterances giving no certain sound upon the subjects that most deeply concern our welfare.

Let us, however, look at a passage which is nearly always brought forward to prove that His coming must have a figurative as well as a literal meaning. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree: when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled,” (Matt, xxiv: 29-33).

It seems to be taken for granted by many that the last verse, declaring, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled,” furnishes conclusive evidence of the fact that Christ really came at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. But, in the first place, these brethren do not observe that it was not at or during the destruction of Jerusalem, but “immediately after the tribulation of those days” Christ is to come, and it will puzzle them to fix upon any event after the capture of the city by Titus which will correspond with what they conceive to be the strong imagery of the text.

In the second place, they do not stagger at the absurdity and irreverence of making a heathen officer the type of our blessed Lord, and a heathen army the type of the heavenly angels; and even if they can suppose that the darkening of the 5un, and the withdrawing of the light of the moon, and the falling of the stars, and the shaking of the powers of the heavens, mean nothing more than a violent commotion among the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the Jews, they do not undertake to tell us how it was all the tribes of the earth mourned, nor how it was the Son of Man was seen coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, nor how it was He sent His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, nor how it was they gathered together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, at the seige and overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus and his troops.

In the third place, just before uttering this remarkable language our Lord said, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” It will scarcely be asserted that the gospel of the kingdom was preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, previous to the capture of Jerusalem by Titus which occurred less than forty years after the crucifixion of the Saviour. But passing this by, He goes on to say, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand,) then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: . . . for there shall be great tribulation, such

as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” Turning then to Daniel we read, “At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. . . . And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days,” (Dan. xii: 1-12).

Without undertaking at present an exposition of this passage, it is obvious that neither our Lord nor Daniel could refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, for it is not true that at that time the prophet’s people, the Jews, were delivered but destroyed; nor is it true that many which slept in the dust of the earth awoke, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt, nor was it true that it was “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time “a great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be for, as Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, referring to the enormous exaggerations of Josephus, well says, “the assertion that three millions were collected at the Passover; that a million of people perished in the seige; that 100,000 escaped, &c., are so childish, that it is surprising any one could ever have repeated them.” The article in the Dictionary, written by the distinguished James Ferguson, clearly shows that the entire force of Titus did not consist altogether of more than thirty thousand men, and that there could not have been more than sixty thousand persons in Jerusalem during the seige and sack of the city by the Roman army. It was no such time of trouble and tribulation, therefore, as that mentioned by Daniel and the Saviour, for it has often been equalled or excelled in the character and extent of its horrors.

It is manifest that they both allude to a trouble and tribulation yet future, of which frequent mention is made in the ancient prophecies, as we see, for example, in the prophecy by Zechariah, who says, “Behold the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations [not Rome alone, but all nations] against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. [Was this true when Jerusalem was taken by Titus?] Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee,” [or with Him]. (Zech. xiv; 1-5).

This was the scene which our Lord had in view as His eye swept on to the great tribulation at the close of the present age, and since nothing like this has ever yet taken place, it is not, therefore, the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus of which He speaks in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, but of another time of trouble far more terrible. Consequently, the supposition that His coming occurred then is a total mistake having its origin in an entirely false exposition.

In the fourth place, admitting for the sake of argument that He had reference to the capture of the city by the Romans, those who infer from His language, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled,” that His coming in the clouds of heaven must have been within less than forty years after the prediction was uttered, might readily inform themselves by consulting Webster, Worcester, or any other English dictionary at hand, that the word “generation” means not only “the people of the same age or period,” but “a family; a race; a stock; breed.” How, then, do they know that our Lord did not mean, this Jewish family, this Hebrew race shall not pass away before all these things are fulfilled?

In the fifth place if they are familiar with the language in which the New Testament was originally written, they would learn by consulting a Greek Concordance, that the same word which is translated “generation” in Matt, xxiv: 34, is rendered “times” in Acts xiv: 16; “time” in Acts xv: 21; “ages” in Ephesians iii: 5, 21; and “nation” in Phil, ii: 15. It might as well, therefore, be rendered “time,” “age,” or “nation” when our Lord says, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” The word “generation” is certainly employed in this wider sense when our Saviour speaks of the unclean spirit going out of a man, and at last returning with seven others spirits more wicked than the first. “Even so,” He adds, “shall it be also unto this wicked generation,” (Matt, xii: 45); where the moral condition of the people is evidently the thought in His mind, and not a mere period of time.

In the sixth place, if the word “generation” must be taken in its narrow and limited meaning as embraced within the period of an ordinary life, still our Lord may refer to the generation that shall be on the earth at the time of His second advent, to show that the great tribulation will not last long, but that its terrors will be succeeded by His coming for the deliverance of His people and the gathering together of His elect, all within the space of a few brief years.

In the seventh place, in an able paper on Eschatology, which appeared some years since, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, it was conclusively shown, by numerous quotations, that the word translated “fulfilled” was often employed to express the fact that an event only began to be fulfilled without denoting its completion; so that if we are compelled to retain the usual sense of the word “generation,” our Saviour may only have intended to say, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things [the predicted desolations of Israel, terminating with His second coming, ] begin to be fulfilled.”

Thus there are various ways of viewing this well known passage, any one of which is far more satisfactory than the unutterable absurdity of supposing that at or after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the sun was darkened, and the moon did not give her light, and the stars fell from heaven, and the powers of the heavens were shaken, and all the tribes of the earth mourned, and the Son of Man was seen coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and the angels were sent forth with a great sound of a trumpet, and the elect were gathered from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

The truth is that in no sense did Christ come at the destruction of Jerusalem, but that event was a faint and shadowy type of a far more terrific woe which will cast its deep gloom over the close of the present dispensation. In no sense did Christ come in the descent of the Holy Spirit, but the gift of the Spirit was consequent, and depended upon, the departure of Christ, and the personal presence of the one is the positive proof of the personal absence of the other. In no sense does Christ come at the death of the believer, but in the few instances in which death is mentioned in the New Testament it is carefully distinguished from the coming of Him “who hath abolished death,” [2 Tim. i: 10], “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,” (Heb. ii: 14, 15). In no sense has Christ ever come since a cloud received Him out of the sight of His disciples at Bethany, except that in His divine nature He is necessarily everywhere present, and is pleased to manifest the tokens of that presence where two or three are met together in His name, and to be with His followers alway, even to the end of the age. It is true that He is with them by His Spirit at death, but in this sense He is also with them all the time from the moment of their regeneration by faith in His name, so that when they die it can not be said that He comes to them; for, instead of coming to them, they depart to be in His presence, which is far better than to be here.

An old Scotch minister said, that in visiting his congregation, he found three great evils: a misunderstanding of Scripture; a misapplication of Scripture; and a dislocation of Scripture. Those who refer the testimony of Scripture concerning the second coming of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem, or to the office of the Spirit, or to the death of the believer, or to any other event whatever save the literal, personal return of Lord, are under the control of all these evils combined. They divest a most important doctrine of all meaning and power, and it has come to pass that a truth held forth on almost every page of God’s word scarcely exerts the slightest practical influence over the hearts and lives of the great body of professing Christians, because it is supposed to mean anything or nothing according to the fancies of each particular preacher or reader.

But it may be asked whether, according to this principle of literal interpretation, we are not forced to believe that the Saviour and His Apostles spoke of His coming as possible even in the days of the first disciples, and whether these first disciples did not look for Him before they fell asleep? Undoubtedly they did: and it is this fact which throws a flood of light upon the blessed hope before us in its bearing upon the daily walk of the believer. The attentive and candid student of the Scriptures can not avoid the conviction that from the time our Lord was taken up from the midst of His friends, they waited and watched for His appearing again, and when they went down Into the grave, they left their believing and longing expectation as a precious legacy to those coming after them. The Thessalonians, for example, are described as those who had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come,” (1 Thess. i: 9, 10). This can not possibly mean that they waited for the destruction of Jerusalem, for they had, in their distant home, no interest in that event; nor can it mean that they waited for the Holy Ghost, for He had already come; nor can it mean that they waited for death, for death had not been raised from the dead, and it had not delivered them from the wrath to come; but it means precisely what it says, that these first Christians waited for Jesus to come from heaven.

He had said to His disciples, when speaking of His second advent, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only,” (Matt, xxiv: 36). In the Gospel according to Mark, where the Saviour is specially presented in the character of a servant, predicted by the prophets, it is said, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father,” (Mark xiii: 32); concerning which Dr. Alexander, in his Commentary, remarks, “That such a declaration should be made at all, is wonderful enough, but scarcely credible on any supposition, or in any sense, if made in reference to the date of the destruction of Jerusalem.” After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples asked of Him, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel.?” He did not intimate in His reply that they were mistaken in expecting at any time the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, but “He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power,” (Acts i: 7).

Thus the Father has guarded most carefully against the possibility of our knowing the precise time of our Lord’s return, and this for a manifest reason. He wishes it to be the radiant object of Christian hope, because while it engages our constant attention, it will separate us from entangling alliances with the world, and uphold us amid its conflicts, and keep us in close and endeared communion with Himself. If the slightest hint had been given to the early disciples that the Saviour would not return for centuries, we can hardly imagine how disastrous would have been the effect upon their zeal in proclaiming the glad tidings of the gospel, and their patience amid sore persecutions, and their holy contempt of earthly honors and pleasures. Hence it was not revealed even to the Apostles when He will come again, but they were themselves taught, and instructed to teach others, to look for Him continually. It is needless to say that the blessed Lord practiced no deception upon them, for they were not told that He would come in their day; but as the Church in all ages constitutes the one body and bride of Christ, it is the proper attitude of the bride to be always waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom.

We are not surprised, therefore, to find it written, “Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry,” (Heb. x; 36), and “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” (James v: 8). Three times, in the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, Jesus says, “Behold, I come quickly;” “And, behold, I come quickly;” “Surely, I come quickly.” What God’s views of “a little while” and “quickly” may be, when we know “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” (2 Pet. iii: 8), is not the question; but although the time of our Lord’s coming was not revealed to the Apostles, the fact of His coming was so communicated to them, and by them to us, that the becoming posture of the believing soul in each succeeding generation of the Church is to look for the advent of Christ as possible every hour, as not improbable any hour.

“Surely I come quickly” were the very last words which fell from His lips; but, alas, what vast multitudes of His disciples have ceased to expect Him, and perhaps, it is not uncharitable to add, have ceased to desire Him! If a dear friend whose absence has left “an aching void” in the heart should write to inform us that He would come again to satisfy our longing with his presence, but omit to state in his letter when he would return, we would look for him day after day, and week after week, and month after month with unflagging desire until his arrival. In like manner, when we hear the sweet promise, “Surely I come quickly,” if we are what and where we ought to be, the eager response will go forth from our lips, “Even so, come. Lord Jesus;” for if true Christians, “our conversation [or citizenship] Is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself,” (Phil, iii: 20, 21).

“Hark! the cry, “Behold, He cometh!”
     Hark! the cry, “The Bridegroom’s near!”
These are accents falling sweetly
     On the ransomed sinner’s ear.

“Many disbelieve the tidings,
     Or in anger turn away;
’Tis foretold there shall be scoffers.
     Rising in the latter day.

“But He’ll come, the Lord from heaven,
     Not to suffer or to die;
But to take His waiting people
     To their glorious rest on high.

“Happy they who stand expecting
     Christ, the Saviour, to appear:
Sad for those who do not love Him;
     Those who do not wish Him here.”