"All nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts." § "For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." ¶ * Zech. xii. 10. † Zeph. iii. 14, 15. ‡ Zeph. iii.20 § Mal. iii. 12. ¶ Amos ix. 9, 15. "And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore." * "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it." † "He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit." ‡ * Ezek. xxxvii. 28. † Jer. iii. 17. ‡ Isa. xxvii. 6. St. Paul, himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews, looked with faith and hope on this deed, and thus subscribed himself as a witness: "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." § Yes, the time is coming, and now may be near, when it shall be said, "Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her"; ¶ when the gathering of her people shall be "as life from the dead." ║ § Rom. xi. 25-27. ¶ Isa. lxvi. 10. ║ Rom. xi. 15. Christian brethren, is this nothing to us? Shall we be cold and indifferent, nor strive to hasten the time of Israel's restoration by our prayers, and by such efforts as God may enable us to make? Oh! "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee." The word of the Lord to Israel still standeth firm, "blessed is he that blesseth thee!" [Illustration] [Illustration] XXXI. Jehoiakim's Knife. IF the shadow of a curse could ever be said to lie on the inanimate instrument employed by man to work his evil will, surely it lies upon this, the first, as far as we know, ever used in the attempt to destroy a portion of God's holy Word.