ISRAEL. 
35 
The Jew will be restored, but it is as the human frame will be restored; he will return 
from the moral grave, with a nature fitted for a new and higher course of existence. 
“ The kingdom will come.” In what form it will come, enthusiasm alone would attempt 
to define. But if there is truth in Scripture, or meaning in language, that coming shall 
fill the whole capacity of the human mind for magnificence and power, for loveliness and 
joy. The dominion of Christianity shall act in a general elevation of our nature; offering 
to our original thirst of knowledge, science the most boundless and sublime ; to our love 
of distinction, eminence before which all the prizes of human fame are dust and air; and 
to our sense of religion, an enlargement of faculties, a vividness of views, and an exhaust¬ 
less succession of discoveries, wholly beyond the contemplations of this world. Then shall 
we see even as we are seen, and know even as we are known. Then “ our light afflictions, 
which are but for a moment, shall work for us an exceeding weight of glory.” 1 It is in 
this general, but most expressive language, that we are to trace the nature of the 
“manifestation of the sons of God.” 2 We shall know, we shall love, we shall adore; and 
all with increased intensity and magnitude of mind; the mysteries which have perplexed us 
in the world shall be solved; we shall see the use of the obscurities, the obstacles, and the 
sufferings of the Church, in leading to that high consummation, in which “ righteousness 
and peace shall kiss each other,” justice and mercy shall be reconciled. Then the great 
circle of Providence shall be complete; and the Majesty of God, investing itself with new 
grandeur from the triumph over evil, shall receive the homage of all intellectual existence, 
and answer it with new emanations of glory. 
“And his Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the 
Everlasting Father, the PRINCE OF PEACE.” 3 
1 2 Cor. iv. 17. 2 Komans, viii. 19. 3 Isaiah, ix. 6. 
Note. —The dates in this Introduction are taken chiefly from the volume of Jahn ; the latest, and 
apparently the most accurate, work on the general chronology of the Jewish nation. 
*** Dr. Croly desires to mention, that the paragraph, in the description of 
the Convent of St. Catherine at Sinai, panegyrising the monks, 
and beginning with the words, “ It is difficult to conceive a deeper 
devotion than that which prompts those brethren,” &c., had been 
inserted in the original volume of the Illustrations without his know 
ledge, and is totally opposed to his opinions. 
