MR CASS’S LECTURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2008, 31 July 1880, Page 3

MR CASS’S LECTURE.

JJULJUS vakju U LiQUIW-W“' To the Editor of the Globe, See, —Will you allow me, for the benefit of the public attending Mr Case’s lecture last «vening, to in some measure clear up a point around which considerable mist was thrown. This I do without siding with either party. _ I Tefer to the Greek word axon and the awnioe ■derived from it, over which two rev. gentlemen were nearly breaking a lance. 1 have -consulted all the lexicographers I can possibly get at, viz, Oalm©t» Oaasels, Kitto, Cruden, Gall, Ballinger, Parkhurst, Biddle and Scott, Gasenius, also Adam Clarke, Barr, Thomas and others, and they all concur in the idea that the words are not always to be understood as conveying the English idea of unending duration. 1 find also that the word occurs in the plural number in the Greek text an idea not poesiblo in the English “eternal, I find also that the word is often used in the sense of ending. All those passages which speak of the “end of the world” {awn) prove this: —thejword rendered “ world ” and “ever ” are precisely the same. This appears more clear when wo remember that passage in Hob. IX., 26, “ but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin.” And Paul in I. Cor. X., 11, says “ the ends of the world hath come upon them.” In modern translations the word is very correctly translated “ ages." It is very certain that the world did not come to an end eighteen hundred years ago in the sente generally tanght. 1 will now give you the definitions. The Eav. j. Gall.- Duration. Parkhurst: It [denotes duration or continuance of time, but with great variety. Liddlle and Scott : A space or period of time; a lifetime ; life; age ; generation; definite period, &c. Eov. E. Ballinger : The life that hastes away in breathing of our breath ; life as transitory ; life it its temporal form, then the space of human life. Greek Students’ Manual : Indeterminate as to duration. Gesenius : Time, the beginning or end of which is uncertain. It is always defined from the of the thing itself. When applied to man it signifies all the days of life. Adam Clarke : It is applied to time ; to eternity. At old age the Olam (aion) of man is terminated : —an accommodating word. I am, &0., A. MoKILLOP. Colombo road South, July Slat. The following letter appears in this morning’s issue of the “Press ” :