Article October 20, 1917 Issue

Prophecy

LIEUT. COL. ROBERT E. KEY

In a wonderful passage Jeremiah the prophet foretells the building of a great city, so strongly built, so well fortified, that it shall not be "thrown down any more for ever." Before this city of perfection and permanence had appeared, there had been another on the site of it, a temporal and material city which had soon been overthrown. There, to mortal sense, lying in every direction, were the ruins of great buildings. Outside the crumbling walls were the sepulchers of the dead, while heaps of ashes marked the spot where fires had been kindled.

Surely a habitation of the dead is here depicted, dreary and desolate; and yet how strange it is that there are mortals who still seem content to wander in just such a ruined and dust strewn wilderness, deeming it the work of divine providence and accepting the whole appalling picture as if it were the design of a loving Father. Has it ever seemed to such as these that the real city may still be intact, as Jeremiah predicted that it would be, and that it is strong, eternal, and spiritual?

This truly is the "city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;" that city where nothing shall enter that "defileth, ... or maketh a lie," and wherein man may live and move and be abundantly satisfied. Ezekiel saw this vision of reconstruction in the valley of the dry bones, for he says: "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones . . . And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest." There seems something helpless and pathetic in this reply of the prophet, almost implying an unwilling submission to an evil thing. It is as if Ezekiel would say: But why, O Lord, are they thus? Why are they dead and dry and useless? without hope or life or love?

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