Then again, that generation that lived in the closing days of David and in the early days of Solomon exhibit the same. They had been numbering each other to the sword, in the wood of Ephraim, but the sword is turned into a ploughshare now. The days of Solomon were, typically or in spirit, millennial days, and sweet and surprising virtue attends them. Instead of going forth again to the field of battle, they sit, every man with his neighbour, under the vine and under the fig-tree. "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry." Are not these _moral_ transfigurations? And how blessed they are! Pass but the border. Leave man’s day for the Lord’s day. Breathe the air of the Mount of God--and all this moral renovation, with its countless springs and streams of social felicity, shall be tasted, ever fresh and ever pure. ’Tis but a little while and all this shall be. The _same_ brethren, who may now be a trial to one another, like our Job and his friends, shall then heighten and enlarge each other’s joy. And in the earthly places, "Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim." Pride and selfishness shall have ceased to depreciate, as they do now, with all their companion lusts and wickednesses, the pleasures of the heart. This patriarchal story, on which we have now been meditating, more ancient than, and as illustrious as, any of these inspired records, gives us a like sample of millennial days. Job and his three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, are the same Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the same _persons_. And they are no longer contending, but united brethren. They have ascended the mount at the end; and there lies all the difference. And barren indeed our hearts must be of every gracious affection, and dead to all godly emotions, if we hail not such a prospect. He who by His blood did long ago break down all partition walls, and who is now, by His Spirit, giving believers common access to the Father, will by-and-by, with His own hand, join the stick of Ephraim and the stick of Judah, and make them one there. Ezekiel xxxvii. 16. His Israel on the earth shall see "eye to eye," for the light and the joy of Zion’s salvation shall be passed, with holy speed, from the messengers on the mountains to the watchmen of the city, and from them to the people, and from the people to the nations (Isaiah lii. 7-9)--and, among the heavenly people, the children of the resurrection, like Job and his friends, "that which is in part shall be done away, and that which is perfect shall come." THE CANTICLES. "Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee."