With these facts in one’s mind, read those difficult passages in Romans, and all will be plain. Take, for instance, Romans xi. 17: “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree.” Here it is manifest that we have three parties mentioned. The branches broken off mean Judah and Levi, the wild olive stands for the Gentiles, the people in among whom they were grafted, or root of whose fatness they were partakers, mean the Israelites. The hope of Jewish restoration is nicely set forth in verse 24: “For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree.” Again, the wild olive stands for the Gentiles, the good olive tree for Israel, the branches broken off, but which may be grafted in again, for the Jews. Thus to this theory of interpretation the whole Bible responds easily and reasonably. With this kind of interpretation one need not twist and distort the sacred Word in order to understand it. I trust the day is near when men will expound the sacred Scriptures by the rules of common sense. The calamity that happened to the nine Tribes of Israel in been carried captive has been turned into good by our heavenly Father—into good for them and all the world. “Therefore the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day” (2 Kings xvii. 23). Keeping back the Tribe of Benjamin is a marvel of goodness. And with Paul we may exclaim: “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness.” If Israel had been able to contribute so much of Christianity to the world, and evolve in her imperfect state such an equitable form of government, what will her contribution be when gathered, restored, and once again put into a theocratic relation to God? “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” This people who have been scattered among the Gentiles God is collecting out from among them for His own glorious purpose and work. Thus scattered they have been a mystery—a mystery among the Gentiles. Paul to the Colossians says: “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory.”