"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years" (Malachi iii, 1-4). III.--THE COMING OF ELIJAH. to whom is given the peculiar mission of turning the heart {165} of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers. Malachi thus describes Elijah's mission: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their father's, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (Malachi iv, 5, 6). IV.--THE GATHERING OF THE SAINTS. The Scriptures are replete with passages in relation to this event, but I can here refer only to a few. When John the Revelator was about to foretell the downfall of Babylon, he says: "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye may not be partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double" (Rev. xviii, 4-6). The Psalmist bears this testimony: "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. _Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice_. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself" (Psalm i, 3-6). So Isaiah: "And it shall come to pass in the _last days_, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the _top of the mountains_, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it" (Isaiah ii, 2-4). "And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they will come with speed swiftly" (Isaiah v, 26, 27).