departing, ever waxing more confident, until at last some prophet, of keener vision than the rest, catches on the peaks of distant hills the foregleam of the dawn, beholds the vision of the light, not of moon or stars, but of the sun, and announces to a world sick with longing for the day, that “the light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” It is to the future the Bible looks. From its first page to the last it preaches the glad gospel of _hope_. The old Eden which has been lost is a prophecy of the better Eden to be gained. The “golden age” of the Bible is before, not behind. Paganism could only look back wistfully to the past and sigh for the reign of Saturn, when the earth had peace and plenty and joy—those glad days which had been, but could return no more. But the Bible teaches us to look forward. Our good time is still to come. Our golden age is still in the womb of the future. We are still looking for that glorious “last for which the first was made.” It is of the golden age to which the Christian looks forward that this second petition speaks. “Thy Kingdom come” is a prayer for the good time coming, a prayer for the golden age, a prayer for the better Eden. For the earth’s golden age will come when God is King. I say the _earth’s_ golden age advisedly. Let me emphasise it—_the earth’s_ golden age! For many have misinterpreted the reference of this petition. Tertullian, the old Latin father, would have made this petition the third, not the second. He would have read the prayer thus, “Hallowed be Thy name, Thy will be done, Thy Kingdom come,” because he thought this prayer for God’s kingdom referred to the end of the world and the second advent. But when Jesus teaches us to pray that God’s kingdom may come, He means that we are to pray that God may reign _here_ upon the earth, that men _here_ may acknowledge Him as King, that life _here_ may be regulated by His commands. This is not a prayer that we may be taken out of earth into heaven, but it is a prayer that heaven may come down to earth, so that earth itself may become heavenly. It is a prayer for the “new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” It is a prayer for the world’s golden age—a golden age which shall come when there is established here on earth that kingdom of God which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Have you noticed how in most men’s minds the idea of a “golden age” is associated with the name of some king? The Israelites associated it with the name of David; the Germans associated it with the name of Frederick Barbarossa; for us British folk a special halo of romance gathers round the time of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. And as a matter of fact, the world’s good time is inseparably connected with the coming of a King and the establishment of a kingdom. But the kingdom is no earthly royalty, and the King is no David or Barbarossa or Arthur come back to life again. The kingdom is the kingdom