This is a wretched world, and the reason is 1 not difficult to find-sin, disobedience to God, with its attendant corruption ending in death, has turned this world, which should have been an Eden of delight, into a scene of wretchedness and woe. And yet for these six thousand years the world has been preserved from absolute ruin and chaos. Why did not God destroy the entire human family in the flood ? Why did He not overthrow the whole world at the time of Sodom's doom ? Why, above all, when His beloved Son was rejected and crucified, did He not smite finally the whole guilty race of Adam ? His infinite patience, mercy and love are the answer. His purposes of grace and blessing, for those who would hear His voice of mercy, were not to be thwarted by Satan's plots and man's sin. So, with each signal act of sparing mercy, He continued to work-in the family of Noah-in the nation of Israel-and now, through believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, throughout the world.

Daring all this time He has had fruit in souls brought to know and to trust in Him. These have in turn become "the salt of the earth," by their lives and testimony, may we say, justifying the forbearance of God, and preserving the earth from complete self-destruction by the awful power of evil. Thus from Seth to Noah there was this testimony. From Abraham onward there has been the same. Yet God is manifestly the One who has wrought; for He has begun a fresh work when, for instance, some time after the flood there seems to have been no testimony until the call of Abraham.
So it is after all His work, and the glory will be all His.

But does not this fact of a preservative element in the earth emphasize the responsibility of those who take the place of being God's witnesses ? "If the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned ? " It is this feebleness of testimony to the truth which marks the approaching Laodicean state of the professing Church; it is an indication of the near coming of the Lord Jesus to remove His own to heaven, and leaving the world for judgment. Then let those who know the Lord see that the salt of divine grace and truth is not wanting in their lives and testimony. For this, as for all else, the grace of our Lord Jesus is alone sufficient. S. R.