Keystone and Arch.--Christ is the keystone of an arch, and that arch is, or is in, the house of Israel; a circlet of gold upon the forearm of Omnipotence, a setting of satellite gems, from the midst of which the supreme jewel, the Signet of Salvation, sends forth its lustre. Overruling Providence.--Under Jesus Christ, the Savior, the great house of which he is the spiritual head also has a mission of salvation. And, strangely enough, the children of Israel have accomplished that mission, not only when obedient to God, but while disobedient and suffering the consequent calamities that came upon them. A notable instance of the power of overruling Providence, bringing order out of chaos, light out of darkness, success and victory from seeming failure and defeat. Calamity and Compensation.--The compensations of calamity--a theme treated philosophically by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in one of his noblest essays--are apparent in some of the mightiest events of human history. For instance, to Adam it was said: "The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." He ate, and death came into the world; a terrible calamity, but not without its compensation; for the fall of man proved to be the means of peopling the earth, according to a divine plan, ordained before the creation of the world. Christ's martyrdom, the preordained means of man's salvation, was an overwhelming calamity to his terror-stricken disciples, who were disconsolate until they looked upon it in its true light, acknowledging God's hand in the awful tragedy. Even so, Israel's dispersion, that dire calamity under which the chosen people have suffered for ages, and from which they are just beginning to emerge, has been overruled for good, and made the means of fulfiling the Lord's purpose and promise in the blessing of all nations. Moses Predicts the Dispersion.--Prophecies of this calamity were made as early as the time of Moses, fifteen hundred years before the coming of the Savior. The twelve tribes, the most notable of whom were Judah and Joseph--the latter represented in Ephraim and Manasseh--had been in Egypt for several centuries when Moses led them out of bondage and brought them to the borders of Canaan, the land which the Lord had given to their forefathers when he promised to make of them "a great nation." The leader of Israel told his people, who were about to possess themselves of the land of Canaan, that so long as they served Jehovah and kept his commandments, they should be prospered and remain an independent nation; but if they forsook Jehovah and served other gods, He would scatter them among all people, from one end of the earth even unto the other.--(Deut. 28:64.)