tyranny and despotism, that in this aspect it was sanctioned by the inspired prophets of the age, that its undoubted evils were partly compensated by a freer expansion of religious life, and finally that even the prophets did not expect it to be healed before the millennium. From the idea of the reunited nation Ezekiel returns easily to the promise of the Davidic king and the blessings of the Messianic dispensation. The one people implies one shepherd, and also one land, and one spirit to walk in Jehovah’s judgments and to observe His statutes to do them. The various elements which enter into the conception of national salvation are thus gathered up and combined in one picture of the people’s everlasting felicity. And the whole is crowned by the promise of Jehovah’s presence with the people, sanctifying and protecting them from His sanctuary. This final condition of things is permanent and eternal. The sources of internal dispeace are removed by the washing away of Israel’s iniquities, and the impossibility of any disturbance from without is illustrated by the onslaught of the heathen nations described in the following chapters. Chapter XXIII. The Conversion Of Israel. In an early chapter of this volume(167) we had occasion to notice some theological principles which appear to have guided the prophet’s thinking from the first. It was evident even then that these principles pointed towards a definite theory of the conversion of Israel and the process by which it was to be effected. In subsequent prophecies we have seen how constantly Ezekiel’s thoughts revert to this theme, as now one aspect of it and then another is disclosed to him. We have also glanced at one passage(168) which seemed to be a connected statement of the divine procedure as bearing on the restoration of Israel. But we have now reached a stage in the exposition where all this lies behind us. In the chapters that remain to be considered the regeneration of the people is assumed to have taken place; their religion and their morality are regarded as established on a stable and permanent basis, and all that has to be done is to describe the institutions by which the benefits of salvation may be conserved and handed down from age to age of the Messianic dispensation. The present is therefore a fitting opportunity for an attempt to describe Ezekiel’s doctrine of conversion as a whole. It is all the more desirable that the attempt should be made because the national salvation is the central interest of the whole book; and if we can understand the prophet’s teaching on this subject, we shall have the key to his whole system of theology.