ruler; and yet there seemed to be some power beyond the grasp of his intellect, which something within him recognised, and which might create and rule a kingdom after a fashion which till then had never even crossed his dreams. But to him the mystery remained insoluble. He wrote a title to which his instinct gave a reality that his intellect denied, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS.” And here in this passage we have the Lord’s own declaration of the constitution and aims of His kingdom; the kingdom which, from that hour, has been the ruling element in the history of this world, and, as we learn from the Apocalypse, of all the worlds of the great universe of God. And men persistently misread it as they misread Him, and employ His words as they employed His works, to frustrate the purpose for which He entered into the world. Let us see how the misunderstanding of these words arose. “My kingdom is not of this world:” literally “not from,” originally “out of” this world. A clear understanding of the full force of this will give us the clue to the interpretation of our Lord’s words. There is an old sense of the preposition “of,” which closely corresponds with the full sense of the word employed in the Greek, expressing “out of,” “springing from.” But “of,” like other words and other things, in the course of time has got weakened by the wear and tear of life; and the sense “belonging to,” “connected with,” is its natural suggestion to modern ears; whereby the sense of our Lord’s words has been grievously weakened too. Did the Lord mean to say, “My kingdom has nothing to do with the institutions and arrangements of the worldly life of men: you need not fear any rivalry, delegate of Caesar; My kingdom is in a quite different sphere, and will keep there, without touching yours: it only has to do with men as spiritual beings, with a view to their final destiny in the eternal state: keep to your secular province, and we shall never cross or clash: the two spheres are quite separate, and nothing but mischief can come of their commerce: I leave you to rule; leave Me to teach, unfettered by conditions; for I aim at no influence on earth, My one object is to persuade men to live a life separate from this world, as much detached as possible from its interests and pursuits, that they may enter into My heavenly kingdom when death releases them, and where the sphere will be all My own”? Was this His meaning? or did He mean to say, “My kingdom is not out of this world; it comes down into this world from on high: this world is, like man, made of the dust of the earth, ‘of the earth, earthy,’ except some spirit breathe into it from the higher world—then it lives: My kingdom comes to the kingdoms of this world, the interests, aims, pursuits, and common life of men, like this breath of Divine inspiration: without it they all languish and must perish; with it they live: it is a descent of heavenly