IMAGE EVAS.UATSON TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^.r. 1.0 I.I 2.5 IIS M 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 •^ 6" ► ^P 'M *a *^ >■ '/,. -> > ^ 'c-W &: Y "^ °m PhoiDgraphic Sciences Corporation 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 «716) 872-4503 .^^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Inrtitute for Historical Microreproductions / Snstitut Canadian de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Not>38/Notes tachniques at bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduccion, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. □ Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur D D D Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagee Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurie et/ou pellicul^e Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque □ Coloured maps/ Cartes g^ographiques en couleur j — ] Coloured ink (i.e other than blue or black)/ I I Encre de couleur (i.e. autre c^ue bleue ou noire) □ D Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Relie avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion !e long de la marge intdrieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6t6 filmdes. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meiileur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibiiographique, qui peuvent modifier una image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mdthcde normaie de filmage sont indiqu6s ci-dessous. □ Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur D D D n Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes Pages restored and/or laminated/ Pages restaur6es et/ou pellicul6es Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages d6color6es, tachetdes ou piqu^es Pages detached/ Pages d^tach^es Showthrough/ ' Transparence Quality of print varies/ Qualite in^gale de I'impression D D □ Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du materiel supplementaire Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Pages wholly Oi partialiy obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totaiement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 filmdes d nouveau de facon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. □ Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl^mentaires; This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X i J 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: National Library of Canada L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grdce d la g6n6rosit6 de: Bibliothdque rationale du Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Les images suivantes ont 6t6 rcproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettet6 de l'exemplaire filrn^, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustratbd impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — »^ (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimde sont filmds en commengant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — »• signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film^s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir de Tangle sup4rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les dia^rammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 4 5 6 / Talks g:*2 Times, BY Rev. JOSEPH WILD, M.A., D.D., PASTOR OF iSond ^ttttt Congregational (KImwI), TOKONTO, AI'THOK OF " The Ten Lost Tribes, and 1882,'' and of '• Hoiv and m,tn thr World will End,'' and of " Manasaeh and the United Staten," and of " The Future of Judah and Israel," dtc. * TORONTO : Selbt & Company, 33 and 35 Scott Street, 1886. TORONTO Printed by Imrie & Graham, 26 and 28 Colborne St. 5 X CONTEMTS. Bkhwon. Aches of La.\i>, III. Folks thvt Won't „. SoMKi.onv. IV. Thb Fouu Pkopukciks OK Eavx-r " "' " ',] V. Thk .xo.. K.KO.0. ... Dv..u„xb; ... .„, Ou.kok ' ^^^i" Vr. '«144I" .. " " " ••74 VII. "6601" . " ^'^ VIII. The TuANsrr OB' VE.N-TT8 ^^*^ IX. T„EMx..c.E.s 0. A.ncHa.x;..;;HE H.o„ Rock ''' Image of Massachusetts U S X- T„. M.. WHO Co,.. »o/8«.P,"^o' w,,.; tj.„ OP IT, XI. TuE Rainbow, .. ,/' '* " *' ^^^ XII. London Destkoyed and JerusaJu . k " *' ^^^ XIII. Ll«KU.VUSM J-^^B^I-BM A SKALOnx, .. 202 XIV. AG.a.twxt„ouxa'stock,* .. " ''' XV. MouLin- Bread AND AN Ovnr " '* '^ ^^'^ XVI. A ToMH«TONE Inscription ' *' " " "'"^''"^ XVII. Doa-LAPPEus, ' ^«I XVIII. How TO Get Rich, ' " " ^^^ •• •' .. .. 821 PREFACE. This book is composed of a number of my Sunday evening sermons, which I have preached in Bond Street Congregational Church. This church is large, beautiful and commodious. I have been the pastor for about six years, and at each of these services the church has been filled with upwards of three thousand people, year in and year out, wet or shine. Besides, the sermons have been printed weekly in the Parkdale News. The public ask for the sermons in book form ; this volume, with others that will follow, will meet that request. My other books have had a rapid and extensive sale through numerous editions, in Canada, United States, Britain, Australia, and have circula-ted in many other countries. This volume and the others to follow I hope will meet with the same favor. I have never paid one cent myself to advertise any of them — they have sold on their own merit or some- thing else. Anyway, they have sold, and been read, and I have been made glad by letters from promi- nent persons in all these countries. VI PKEIACE. Tlio reader may know, or not know, that I am a thorough believer in the Anglo- Israel theory. I believe, as it is written in First Kings, twelfth cliapter, that the Hebrew people were divided into two peoples, governments and nations. The one people was called the House of Judah ; it was composed of the Tribes of Judah, Levi and Benjamin. The other tribes, spoken of as ten, made up the House of Israel. About the year 7'25 13. C, the House of Isracd was carried captive into Assyria, as wo read in Second Kings, seventeenth chapter. They have never returned from that captivity. This House of Israel, in its literal capacity, has a fine part to play in the civilization and evangelization of the world. Many prophecies, both temporal and spiritual, apply to them and none else. Now, this House of Israel, or the so-called Ten Lost Tribes, I find in an organized state in Great Britain. The one exempted tribe, that had to be separate and become a distinct people, was Manas- seh. This people or tribe I find organized in the United States. (See Genesis xlviii, 19, and read Isaiah xlix, 20.) The House of Judah was carried captive to Baby- lon about 590 B.C. They remained seventy years M PREFACE. Vll and then returned to Palestine, as we read in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. They remained there till the year of our Lord 70, and then they were dispersed by the Romans, and so remala scattered unto this day. To this House prophecies both tem- poral and spiritual apply. These two Houses and peoples the reader should not confound or make one. This has been the error of many historians, and is the one great vitiating factor in Adventists and others who try to interpret prophecies. If a person be ignorant of these two peoples, then the Bible, especially the prophetic par^, cannot be read intelligently. I am very glad to know that light is dawning on the pulpit and press on this subject. Thousands of ministers and millions of laymen now understand. We have already a great library of literature on the Subject, of books, pamphlets, magazines and papers. God speed the cause and increase the light. I sin- cerely hope this book will help on the good work. I kindly ask the reader to remember that the language of the book is sermonic. There is a great difference between writing and speaking directly to a people. The sermons have been reported as I have vfH PREFACE. delivered them, and I have made no corrections. My prayer and desire is that the reader and author may be blessed of Heaven. We are living in stirring times. Great things are in store, and probably not very far off, for these two Houses. They are to be one people and nation again, as we read in scores of passages in the Bible. F4zekiel, thirty -seventh chapter, twenty-second verse, says : " And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all, and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two king- doms any more at all." The good Lord hasten the day. JOSEPH WILD. Toronto, June 23rd, 1886. ►ns. My bor mav ings are hese two I nation le Bible, id verse, the land shall be lore two wo king- sten the ^ILD. :■» m 1 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. SERMON I. A GIFT OF ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO MILLION ACREB OF LAND. TEXT. — ''And the Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot wan separated from him : Lift up thine eyoB now and look over the place wlere thou art, northwaid, southward, eastward and westward, lur all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever." — Genesis xiii, 14.15. If England had no Ireland, and the world no Pales- tine, the history of both would be very materially changed. Though many countries invite our atten- tion, and command the interest of men in general and nations, none can compare with Palestine in that respect. You must often have thought how limited and barren the Bible would bo if naught was said of this land of Canaan, and of th'^ Jews and Israelites. Especially would this be true of what we call the Old Testament. We will all agree that this country has had a very peculiar history, and also that prophecy and the human instincts of this ago are interested in the future glory and condition of this wonderful land. Its history is not yet complete. It is a reserve theatre in the future, in which God will yet enact through his 2 DE. WILD'S SERMONS. people great and marvelloas deeds. We must re- member it is God's own land. True, all lands belong dnto Him ; still, this land He claims in a pre-empted sense. The simple fact is, God has reserved to Him- self one hundred and ninety-two million acres of land, out of the thirty-two thousand six hundred and forty million that compose the land surface of the earth. Having thus pre-empted this 300,000 square miles. He has forever forbid it to be Bold ! This you will see if j'ou read in Leviticus xxv, 6 : *' The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is Mine, and ye are strangers an sojourners with Me." Fur use in God's appoin^jied way, this land was given unto Abraham and his seed for ever. Am I to beliGve that, namely : that this land was really given unto Abraham and his seed forever! I am so to believe. For several times the covenant or bargain is restated and referred to in this sacred word. The gift I take to be a bona fide one, an actual one, a literal one. The articles of the covenant, as you may read for yourself, made their uninterrupted posses- sion of the same conditional. Had the seed of Abra- ham proved faithful, they could have kept that land even unto this day. They, however, as we know, broke their part of the covenant, and because of their infidelity, they were by degrees exported, and scattered among the other nations of the earth. Ten parts of Abraham's seed after their exportation were to become lost to themselves and to the rest of tbe world for hundreds of years. That these ten tribes DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 8 i ': are lost I think no one can doubt. All along the whole line of controversy, this fact is admitted. I and others, v^ho are trying our very best to identify them, are a proof of that, and our opponents, by their vigorous protests against such an effort, prove the same fact. They declare most emphatically that the lost tribes are neither found or identii&ed as yet. Well, be it so, all agree that they have been lost, as aforetold by the mouth of the prophets, and if they will not take our theory, v/e must all agree that they are lost up to this present time. If the Saxon race are not those tribes, it follows that aome other race or people are, or else they are not in existence at all. One of these three statements must be true. The other two tribes, viz., Judah and Levi, known in history as the Jews, and in the Bible as the House of Judah, have never been lost. Many of the pro- phecies concerning them render it necessary that they should always and for ever be known to man- kind The prophecies that had to be fulfilled on their behalf never could have been fulfilled if they had not always been known. They were not to be divorced from the Mosaic Law until after they had been restored to Palestine. Have the Jews ever been divorced? Do they not keep the Mosaic Law to-night ? Did not the prophet say that they should, until after their return to their own land ? But of Israel, the ten tribes, it is said that they had a bill of divorce- ment given them. Do we practise the Jewish cere- monies? We do not; because Israel had to be 4 DIL WlLirS SERMONS. divorced, as the prophet said, from these ceremonies and from this law. Our sympathies and honor prompt ub to wish that the Jews had been lost, like as the ten tribes, — then, indeed, judging humanly, they would have been saved much unjust persecution and much suffering. Our honoi would have been purer and brighter, and our heritage more noble, had not the Christian Church, so-called, so shamefully stained her hands with innocent blood, and so unmercifully maltreated the brethren of our Lord, according to the flesh. As a blood-hound can scent by trail its victim, so can an honest instinct follow the exiled sons and daughters down through the centuries. The hypocrisy and vengeance, labelled with truth and meekness, that wielded the sword of persecution against these wandering children of Abraham, is something terrible to think of! Sad, sad indeed, is the wail and the woe, the agony and the blood, that one can hear and see in and on the page of history — all of which but seals and echoes prophecy. Let him that heareth understand, " God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," — nor can a nan of intelligence to-day be an infidel and believe i the existence of the Jew — consistently, *' Away with him, it is not fit that he should live," was said of our blessed Lord, and while the gentle Pilate shrank from shedding innocent blood, the fc'ihers of these persecuted children offered up a prayer, saying, *' His blood be upon us and upon m bR. WILD'S SERMONS, our children." History in this case testifies in a most solemn manner that God is a hearer and an answerer of prayer. You cannot turn and read the history of these wandering exiles through the centuries and nations, without seeing how faith- fully that prayer has been answered by High Hea- ven. Why should the Jew have been subjected to such strange persecutions, and the limitations of indivi- dual and governmental liberty against all other people ? Why should he have been so much covered with blood ? They prayed that this might be so, and it has been so. My brethren in the pulpit in all other sects, and in this denomination, are not slow, nor are they unwilling to take up as an example of fulfilled prophecy the people they call the Jews, nor is there a man in Toronto but will admit that the prophecies referring to the Jews have been fulfilled. There is a pride in the pulpits all around the earth, in Christian churches, to cite the Jew, as an example of fulfilled prophecy. But when I, or any other man, dare to say that the prophecies concerning these other ten tribes have also been fulfilled, they look amazed ; they say hard things ; they hardly know what to call me and others. They call it folly. Is it folly to expect that prophecies predicted on two tribes of Abraham should be fulfilled and not expect that the prophecies that refer to Israel, or the ten tribes also ? The only consistency for any minister, or any layman, who objects to this theory of the ten r DR. WILD'S SERMONS. lost tribes is — he must give up the theory of the Jews to be consistent, because no one can see any other excuse. There is no reason why a man should talk about two tribes of Abraham having been on the line of ful- filled prophecy, and then, when you turn to ten tribes deny it all through — as if ten were not as important as two. If it had been the other way, I could have allowed for that kind oi reasoning. That is, if I were the advocate of prophecy that referred to only two tribes, and they to ten, I might say I was weak, but as I have got the ten, and there are three times the prophecies belonging to Israel that belong to Judah, why should I remove ten, cut off three-fourths of the prophecy, and say, " Two-tenths and one-fourth may be true, but the remainder is false " ? We can easily see, as I have said, if we will study history, how strangely Providence kept His word with this people and seed of Abraham. We should remember that the backslidings of Israel and the stubborness of Judah, and their subsequent exportation from the land of Palestine, did not make the covenant of God with Abraham and his seed entirely void, it simply de- layed the measure as at first contemplated. The absence of the Hebrew people for some four hundred years, in their slavery sojourn in Egypt, did not de- stroy the covenant or vitiate their title to return to their land, did it ? Nor does their present absence make void the same title. Hence, God has in reserve one hundred and ninety -two million acres of land, that DR. WILD'S SEBMONS. He has given to Abraham and his seed forever, to be a special heritage. At the appointed time God will place in possession of Israel (England) this land, and England will open it up for the settlement of the Jews. Towards this central idea all history, all strife, all diploma y, is now tending. The tide of events that is setting in this way alarms Kussia, gives distrust to Turkey, neutralizes France, streng- thens Prussia, makes Austria careful, Italy suspi- cious, Spain indifferent, the United States hopeful, and England confused and divided. Back fling your mind some three thousand years, return to the times of Israel. Look with the seer, prophesy with the prophets, and listen with the people to the messages of God — for these men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Look at this book, what a marvellous record it is ! Is there any book like it on the face of the earth ? Is there a book can compare to it, in its influence among the best nations of the world? Then look at the land that this book is so closely identified with. What a peculiar country it is — this Palestine ! How it in- terests us I God had provided that they should let that land rest that it might recuperate every seven years, and have a Sabbath of its own. But when they forsook their God, they became so avaricious they would not allow the land to rest every seventh year, and so they were expelled from the land. God said, "I will take the land from you, and it shall rest, and long enjoy its Sabbaths." Now, has it been enjoying r 8 DR. WlUrs SPJRMONS. its Sabbaths ? What a desolate country it is, in com- parison to what it once was ! When you want to point to a man anything of evidence, in the divine order of things, say bookf and say Palestine ^ and you have two things that agree. Then the people, espe- cially our Jewish brethren, what a marvellous career they have had, what a wonderful monument in the midst of the civilized nations of to-day ! Ring it oat, ring it out, the Book, the Land, and the People are a Trinity of evidence, and make the infidelity and in- credulity of this age incomprehensible ! If you come, my friends, to look at tliese propkfi- cies carefully, you will see that many events that they fortell have been fulfilled, and that many are now fulfilling around you, and you will see the gathering elements that portend the fulfillment of others that are near at hand. Some of the eveuts they fortell are now being realized, the battle of mystery is close upon us, and the victory and ihe glory are now near in their fulfillment. Remember that the eye and the hand of God are on the world, permitting and restraining the evil there, and insti- tuting and controlling the good. Plan and design, in harmony with time, permeate all things, heavenly purposes run through human agencies, and they are fast ripening to a wondrous completion. As Chris- tianS; we ought to be able to discern the signs of the times, since God has given us them so minutely, and in many cases so very definitely forecast the same. From this present condition of things may we not I)li. WILirs SERMONS, d realize the time of the'fulfillment of some of these prophecies ? Will I quote to you the Sacred Word, and show you that God will never give up, in His providence, until He hath accomplished that which He contemplates ? Jeremiah xxx, 24 : ** The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until He hath done it, and until he hath performed the intents of His heart, in the latter days ye shall consider it.'* We are considering it to-night, my friends. What are the intents of the Divine Word, what are His pur- poses ? Jeremiah xxxiii, 14 : ** Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that 1 will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel, and to the house of Judah." What good thing? What has he promised, what may we expect ? That He will restore them both again, to this land. Take Jeremiah xxxi, 28 : "And it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict." Now, no man denies that, no man will object to that kind of prophecy, or to say that it has not been fulfilled, but will you read on — "and to build and to plant, saith the Lord of Hosts." He is going to build and to plant. Will He do that ? He will, for He says as sure as He broke them down He will build them up, and I believe both. Every one believes one, but there are very few people like to believe the other. For confirmation, now, if you please, toke a few of the special facts and events that have occurred, that 10 DR. WILD'S SEtiMONS. I called your attention to, more than two years ago, in this pulpit. Events that occured for 1882. They had to be fulfilled in that year. Have they been ful- filled ? You take for instance Egypt. How natur- ally, yet mysteriously and unexpectedly, Egypt went under the control of Britain; and the man whose word may be said to be as good as his bond has had to break it. " We are only in Egypt," he said, *' to settle this matter, and then we shall leave it.** God would not let him leave it. That man berated that crownless king, Benjamin Disraeli, for calling to his help the East India soldiers, but he called them him- self, to help him, in the war in Egypt, to show that the vast empire is one. And God made the very man do it that we would of all other men believe would not do it, for he had declared that he would not. And now, see — they still sent out a note to all the nations, declaring that that was still their idea, that it was still their intention to withdraw from Egypt. That astute statesman. Lord Dufferin, you have read his last letter, have you not? "Only two things, my lord/' he said, " are possible. If we withdraw from Egypt, the same confusion and uncer- tainty of things that we came to rectify will come back ; we either have to withdraw, and permit our work to be undone, or we rmist remain and take charge of Egypt,*' Why, we told Gladstone so here, before he knew, in this pulpit. If he had read the Bond Street sermons, he would have knowi* better. When the congress sat in Constantinople, did we not tell i>R. WtLD'S SKtlMONS. 11 you that they could not touch that thing ? Did not we tell you that the French could not lift a hand in it ? Why, we are dumbfounded ! We knew nothing of it, the papers knew nothing of it, the politicians knew nothing of it. God has had His way, and has performed the intention of His heart, in spite of Eng- land and EuBsia. He has indeed done so. When a man can see these things, so contrary to the general expectation and intent of every one, and then have people say there is no God, why it sends a chill through one, to think that we could be so positively hardened in our heart as to see these things fulfilling and fulfilled around us, and then turn around and say there is no God ! If that be true, who then is bringing to pass these things, for there is not a nation had an idea in that direction ? There is a tide that rushes on these men against their will ; what tide is it ? It is the tide of the Lord's intent, that he will perform the purpose of His heart. And so He hath performed, and will do so, my friends. Strange to say, they struck off a medal in England to com- memorate this victory, that it might be treasured up in the museums for all time. It was cast on the very day that the note was sent out, as the prophet Daniel had told them it would be. Daniel must have been in league with these fellows, or else these fellows must have been in league with him. Or some one must have over-ruled events different to what men paid. It is a strange thing that the document of capitulation is on the very day that I and others had 12 l>n. WILirs SERMONS. forseen it would be. You are obliged to say that we are either very shrewd, or have got our information somewhere. If you ask me where I got my informa- tion, I will honestly tell you, from God's own Word. There is no other book, no record on God's earth that could have given you the first clue, no, nor no other man had it, except he had it from the Word of God. The United States, as you will easily perceive, are a part of Israel, and hence must follow in the wake of Israel. It was a strange thing that the United States deferred adopting a seal for eight years after she became a country, that she lived without a seal to sign her documents for eight years, an unknown event in connection with any other nation or people in the whole career of the world ! And why ? Be- cause God wanted her to celebrate 18B2. Yes, they are Israel, and when I first called the attention of the country to their shield, and to the images and figures on both sides thereof, and showed they were Hebrewic and Israelitish, and had a plate engraved and had them sent abroad, they were astonished. Now their Government realizes it. The lamented General Garfield acknowledged the same, that it was a mystery that was beyond what we usually call co- incidence. And what is their great seal? If you please, according to Heraldic language, I will give it to you. It was adopted on June 20th, 1782, and now they have struck off a medal celebrating it, one hun- dred years after, which was for June 20th, 1882. DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 13 This is tho description, according to Heraldic language. Arms. — Paleway of thirteen pieces, argent and gules, a chief azure. The escutcheon on the breast of the American bald eagle, displayed proper, holding in his dexter talon an olive branch and in his sinis- ter a bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper, and in his beak a scroll inscribed with the motto, '* E Pluribus Unum." For the crest, over the head of the eagle, which appears above the head of the escutcheon, a glory, or breaking through a cloud proper, and surrounding thirteen stars, forming a constellation, argent, on an azure field. Reverse. — A pyramid unfinished. In the zenith an eye in a triangle, surrounded with a glory proper, over the eye these words, "Annuit cceptis," on the base of the pyramid the numerical letters, mdcoclxxvi, and underneath the following motto, "Novua ordo seclorum.'* Eemember that Manasseh was a thirteenth tribe. They could not organize until they had thirteen colonies to symbolize that tribe. The very motto they have taken, " Annuit cceptis," has thirteen letters, and two form a dipthong, " oe,** to show that the two are together, so that the very motto on the seal, and the whole devising of it, refers to their ori- gin. " Annuit coeptis," of course, means " He hath favored our undertaking," and ** Novus ordo seclo- , anew rum," *i A new order of generations ," i,e. 14 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. departure. And now I can show you something : Here is a medal they have struck off ; their Government have kindly sent me one, and these medals will re- main when I am dead and gone, to celebrate 1882, that they may know they are Israel. Have they struck something that would not be known ? Not at all. As I wrote to Charles Latimer, the enginneer at Cleveland, years ago, the United States will have to celebrate that year. She will have to have a medal that will be put in the museums, side by side with England's. And now, you infidels, look at this medal here. Why was it not cast before ? V/hy did not they wait until 1883 ? Are you going to go around and say, " That is a nice lot of accidents "? You are not arguing that way — j^ou are not going to allow me to have a thing an accident. You say, "Prove it, doctor.** Now, you prove this. We see these things fulfilled, nor are they ful- filled contrary to our expectations. Was it not foretold that that vast organization, the Eom- ish Church, would lose its temporal power in 1882 ? And did it not do so ? And this had to be done against the will and wish of every one. The Italian Government pledged his Holiness the Pope that ho should have the Vatican as his own territory, and that it should never be invaded by the civil law ; but last year it was so invaded ; a man sued one of his Holiness' priests, and the court brought him to time, f^nd the Vatican was brought into subjection to thQ '^i DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 15 law of the land ; then disappeared the last vestige of temporal power from Rome, as the prophet had fore- told, and that, too, under a broken contract ! The Government broke faith with the Pope, in order to fulfil the word of.the prophet ! God will have His way, my friends, and there are a hundred of these things occurring around us, and we may see them if we desire. Truly, the world is moving on, and God will re- store Palestine, and its people to it. Jeremiah xxx : *' For lo, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will bring again the captivity of My people, Israel and Judah, saith the Lord, and I will cause them to re- turn to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it." Do you believe that ? Or do you think that it is nonsense ? When they have returned to this land they are to be one nation and have one king, and, as Ezekiel says in chapter xxxvii : " And they shall no more be two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more." They are this very night divided ; if so, then, thoy have not been returned. Now, surely, no one will say that what is here foretold has yet come to pass, nor dare there a man in Toronto, nor in Port Hope, say to the contrary. You do not understand that reference to Port Hope, some of you. They are trying to upset this theory there, in a pulpit, but it is the merest child's play ! It is well enough to call me names, and say that I am not learned, that I know belter than they do ; but that does not amount to 16 Dli. WILD'S SEliMONS, anything. H re are the simple statements of God, and these facts of history, and I will repeat to-night, there is not an honest man anywhere who dare say that thjse things have been fulfilled. And if Judah and Isiael are to be restored, Israel must be found ; and you can talk as you like, if we have not found her, then she is hid, and yet she will be taken back ; God will find her. He says He will send fishermen and they will fish them out of their hiding-places, and hunters who shall hunt them out from their re- treats. So hide away, you - Israelites, when God wpnts you He will find you out. Thus do we see how Providence is naturally ful- filling His word. Did he not give this promise to Abra- ham ? Has He not reserved that land strangely ? Has it not been a land that could only be leased, and not until now has the first effort been made to sell any part of that land. Why could you buy land in England, Canada, the United States, anywhere, and get a title in fee simple, and not do the same in Palestine? We know Mr. Oliphant wanted to engage with the Sultan to buy a large portion for his col- onization scheme, but it turns out that he declares he can only lease it. Why cannot you sell it ? You can- not sell God's land. He has pre-empted it, as our Government does in the North- West. He has one hundred and ninety-two million square acres, a grand piece for colonization, my friends, and it will be colon- ized too, whether you or I go into it or not. Its boun- daries are defined in Scripture, from the rivers of DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 17 of God, o-night, are say f Judah found ; it found n back ; jhermen {-places, blieir re- en God Eilly ful- toAbra- angely ? 3ed, and to sell land in 3re, and amo in engage his col- lares he bu can- , as our has one a grand e colon- s boun- vers of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. It would make about three hundred thousand square miles, as I have said, or nearly three times the size of Great Britain and Ireland. If you require a detailed arrangement of this land — for it has all been surveyed off better than our North-West Territories. Have you ever read the survey of it ? It is surveyed off, every foot of it, and if you want to read the sur- vey, read the last eight chapters of the book of Ezekiel. If these people are not to go back, those last eight chapters were written foi nothing. For he will show you there, how, in thirteen longitudinal strips, each tribe has a provision of land, and a pro- vision is also made for the temple, and for the portion of the princes. What would be the use of these last eight chapters if this thing is never to take place ? Now, I call your attention to these simple facts as passing events that they may confirm your faith in God's Word, and stop the moutb of infidels, and show you there is an over-ruling Providence, whose hand the nation cannot stay, and He will, as surely as He hath said it, perform the intent of His heart. Let us then yield loving obedience to Him, trusting Him that all will come right in His own good time. Amen, SERMON n. THE RETURN OF THE JEWS TO PALESTINE. TEXT.— " Therefore, behold the days come, saith the Lord, when they shall say no more. The Lord liveth which brought up the Children of Israel out of the the land of Egypt ; but, the Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seed of the House of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries w dither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land." — Jer. xxiii^ 7, 8, You will find by reading the Prophet Isaiah, xi, 11, a beautiful reference to the same event spoken of by the Prophet Jeremiah, referring to a time when Jehovah shall set His hand a second time to recover the people of Israel from the countries in which He had icattered them, — and by this term, " a second time," we are to understand that this people has once been delivered. In the sacred page, as well as in history, we have ample evidence of such a deliver- ance, and when you come to think of it, it is pre- sented to us to-day by evidence, namely, iu the Pass- over, which the Jews keep, and in the Lord's Supper, which the JChristian Churches celebrate, foi: no man can understand the Lord's Supper without a refer- ence to the Passover ; and so we are carried through that sacred cermony back to the deliverance of the ^i^hty host of the Hebrews fron^ th^ bondage and ■'-'I DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 19 saith the eth which I of Egypt ; ed the seed d from all ill dwell in saiah, xi, spoken of ime when recover vhich He a second eople has IS well as a deliver- it is pre- the Pass- s Supper, tx no man t a refer- i through ce of the dage and slavery of Egypt. I suppose we will all agree that that was the first deliverance. Siucj that time there has been no great or general deliverance of the Jew, so far as returning to his own land is concerned ; we all believe that they are scattered, and yet God, through the mouth of His prophet, does declare that He will set his hand a second time for their recovery, and, in the words of our text — as they now say and repeat at their Passover service, ** The Lord liveth, which brought us up out of the land of Egypt " — He says that they shall no more say, " The Lord liveth which brought us up out of the land of Egypt," but in its place, **The Lord liveth which brought His people Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither He had scattered them." You will also notice that in connection with this deliverance — if you have carefully read the Prophets — that in connection with this deliverance there is always an ensign, or sign, or flag, or some token that will be thrown out to the breeze, in the sight of the whole world, and it is around this ensign or flag that the people will rally, and it is by this they will be led. This is in keeping with His ancient method of leading them out of Egypt, the first time, with a pil- lar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And so again, in this second deliverance, there is to be a sign, an ensign, that shall be raised, and all the nations shall see it, and this ensign shall guide and direct the host to their future home. We are all, I suppose, persuaded that the times are 20 DR. WILUS SERMONS. indicative of mighty changes ; there is a strange spirit of unrest abroad, there is a strange spirit of ex- pectation in the hearts of men, and of the best people of this earth. There is'a wonderful power and even- ness in the method and system and openness with which men come forward in these days and deny Pro- vidence, an over-ruling God, and the very authenti- city and inspiration of this Sacred Word ; but, again, over against this boldness is the grander, far grander effort — and successful one, so far — of means made use of to confirm and sustain the teachings of these Scriptures. Have you ^thought of the great effort that is being made by many to disprove the Bible, and of the equally gigantic effort there is being made at this day to resist this disproval ? A sort of gladia- torial contest is being waged along the whole line of Christian theology and Christian evidence, just as you have it in many other departments. In honestv and dishonesty, for instance, what a warfare there is going on ! How men are trying to secure to themselves their goods, their money, their papers, to find some place where they can lock them up for the night, and sleep safely and contentedly, free from fear of the burglar taking them away ; and the genius and invention of man has been called into play to invent safes, and so construct them that they shall debar the robber from entering in, and along this line of contest what changes have taken place. How simple the first safes, in comparison to the pre- sent ones. Just as they made a new safe with a pe- Dli. WILD'S SERMONS. 21 1 strange irit of ex- eat people and even- ness with deny Pro- authenti- ut, again, r grander Eins made s of these :eat effort he Bible, nng made of gladia- >le line of 3, just as what a trying to ley, their ock them itentedly, vay ; and ailed into that they nd along en place. ) the pre- ith a pe- culiar lock, the ingenuity of the burglar became equal to unlocking it. Then they made a lock more com- plex — he still became equal to that. Then they have to change as they fini fche method of destruction to bb different, and they try to resist his drill, his chisel uud his powder, but he succeeds. They finally try to get a metal that he cannot drill, franklinite, a sort of alloy metal, but yet, withal, the contest goes on, and there is no safe at present made that will en- tirely exclude the burglar, if he can only get the time to manipulate it. Now, is it not strange that between honesty and dishonesty there should be such a contest ? — the one seems to grow equal in strength with the other. And if you go to naval construction and warfare, you will find just this same contest between the cannon and the ship. As we increased the power of our cannon, we had necessarily to increase our power of resis- tance, changing from the old broadside wooden men- of-war to the iron-plated ones. Then they got can- non that would go through the iron plates, then they made the iron plates a little thicker ; then, as the cannon became larger and projectiles more powerful, they began to make iron and steel plates that should be stronger and more tenacious, so as to resist the best shell and shot. For a time the ship is master, but by and by some genius invents a cannon or ball that will go through the sides of the seven-inch plate, and now, see where they are up to ! Twenty-three inches thick of iron, the boards are, now. Imagine a boat 22 DR. WILD'S SEimONS. with twenty- three inches tliick of iron plates on its side, whicli is the last that is being constructed, and just imagine the last cannon charged with two thousand live hundred pounds of powder, and sending a ball the shape of a pear and on the small end steel, like a top-point, and this going at a speed that shall send it seven miles off ! "What a blow if it should strike at a mile distance ! They have not found out yet whether this cannon will go through the sides of this plated vessel or not, if so, why the war will continue on. It is a contest, you see, and just as we see this con- test going on in the world, so we have a contest be- tween those who desire to disprove the Bible and those anxious to confirm it. They find one discrep- ancy, we immediately choke up the hole and stop all entry there ; they find another weakness in some part of our evidence, we immediately set to work and con- firm and strengthen it ; and thus the struggle goes on, and will go on, but we know the victory will fin- ally be with the Word of the living God. Of all the countries where this war has waged most fiercely, that is, where material has been most freely supplied to both parties, Egypt stands pre-eminent. In that land we have the battle ground for past cen- turies. One thing after another has come to light, that seemed to disprove the Bible, and then again there is something to confirm it. Now, we find Egypt to be our best resort ; we have the best material in the world in this land of Egypt to prove this Bible. Bince Egypt became, as it were, under English con* i)H. WILD'S SEllMONS. 23 n its Bide, and just thousand 3g a ball ie\, like a lall send lid strike out yet 38 of this itinue on. this con- ntest be- ible and discrep- [ stop all ome part and con- gle goes will fin- ged most st freely aminent. ast cen- to light, in again d Egypt terial in s Bible, ish con* trol, how readily the lovers of the Bible have set to work to gain and got greater confirmation of the sacred teachings of the Word. Not yet had Egypt been under English control a single year, only about six months, when a society wl s formed to be called the " English Egyptian Exploration Society." And, young ladies, let me tell you it was formed by a young lady too, whose name is Miss Edwards. This young lady undertook to form so vast a society, and seems to have been successful — Miss A. B. Edwards. I do not know that she is in any way related to the editor of the Critic y though I believe his name is Edwards, at any rate that is her name. She got in her hands to help her Mr, Poole, this famous scientific man of the British Museum, and she enlisted also the services of other noted men, especially one Englishman, Sir Erasmus Wilson, who has been willing to find the money, and last January they went into Egypt. They knew that the land of Goschen is in the east part of what is known as the Delta of Egypt, and here they could begin to explore a number of mounds called " Tel's " in Egypt, which always means a hill or sort of mound, and they located one. The charge of the engineering corps is given into the hands of Mr. N. Naville, who is a good Egyptologist and an able prac- tical man, and the society also engages the services of M. Maspero, Director of Archaeology for Egypt. Now, this society has been at work, and what are the results of this in this land ? We find they se- lected a site called^"Tel-el-MaBkhutah.'* A mound, so 24 DR. WJLD'S SKJiMONS. S/ff called, Wtas selected for their work, tliu ruins of a city somewhere near the banks of the Fresh Water Canal and a few miles from Ismalia. Six weeks gave them a reward for digging in this mound, and they found the site of a famous city in history, a site we have not been able to locate, a site we wanted to find in order to get confirmation of some of the sayings of the Books of Moses. What city did they find buried there ? They found the famous city of Pithom. This Pithom, you will remember, is referred to in Exodus as being constructed by the Israelites under taskmasters (Exodus, i, 11.) Now, no one has been able to find that city, and constructed as it was to be a sort of granary to preserve the quantities of grain that they would store in the times of their vast in- crease, they naturally expected there would be pecu- liar houses for the storage of the grain. What did they find ? These very large structures, with walls ten feet thick, two and three stories high, with no doors, but massive beams, with trap-doors and slides from one room to another for grain to go through, buried for hundreds of years ; there grain houses that the Israelites were compelled to build under Pharaoh come to light to-day to confirm the position and prove the truth of the writer M(j«es. Now, is not that worth while for that Exploration Society ? If they should never benefit mankind more than they have already done, they will have still wrought a noble work. They found the walls of this DH. WILD'IS i^EHMOSS. 25 .ins of a ill Water DC'ks gave md they L site we id to find I sayings ley found you will LS being kmasters 3en able to be a of grain vast in- be pecu- ^hat did tb walls wiih no d slides hrougb, houses under position oration d more 7e still of this city to bo massive (twenty feet in thickness) because in time of such famines, with an abundance of grain stored within the city, the people would naturally try and assault it. They are determined next, now knowing the ancient site of the old city of Zoan, to begin and attack that mound in a very short time, and we shall hear, I believe, good results from it. Another thing that has come to light confirming the testimony of Moses. Just now there is deposit- ed in the British Museum, within the past few weeks, a number of peculiar leather strips (fifteen leather strips or sheepskin strips) about six or seven inches long and about three and a half broad. These lea- ther strips look glossy, old, hoary, and no writing could be discerned by the iiatural eye upon them, or even by magnifying glasses. They photographed them, and by putting spirits of wine upon them mo- . mentarily, there comes to light certain writing, which they are photographing as fast as they can. Now, the oldest manuscript that we have of the Book of Moses only goes back to the year A.D. 900, and those leather strips go sixteen hundred years further back, making it twenty-five hundred years from to-night since they were written, if they are genuine. They are at work trying to deci- pher them. Dr. Ginsburg, the great archaeologist, is at work, and the Right Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone has given $2,500 to his credit to help this man in his laborious study, and others are liberally contributing. Now, these skins were brought to England a few 26 DR. WILD'S SEIiiMONS. weeks ago by an old bookseller from Jerusalem by the name of Shepira, and what do you think he asks for them? The simple sum of $5,000,000; that is what he asks for these fifteen (?) pieces of leather, and the writing; is only on one side ; but the grand feature about them is this, that, so far as they have read, they beautifully confirm the writings of Moses, There are some deviations ai d slight variations, but so far, I say, as they have been able to decipher, they are copies of what is written in the Book of Deuter- onomy. Now, if these are genuine, I ask what will we say if we are inclined to disbelieve the Sacred Word? Are not these things a fine confirmation of the same ? And this gentleman, Shepira, declares that they are genuine ; that he purchased them from some Moabite, and that is the region from which came the famous Moabite stone ; and one thing in favor of their genu- ineness is that the characters upon these leather strips are the same, or similar to the characters that were upon the Moabite stone. He declares that he purchased them from a famous Moabite or Arab, and gives this gracious reference to show how they t5ame into his possession. This Arab, he says, would rob his mother-in-law for a few dollars. Now, a man that would do that would be thought in the East to be a very hardened, indeed the worst kind of a thief. In Canada or the United States, I suppose, it would make no great difference if one did rob his mother-in- law, and I suppose, instead of doing it for a few dol- mi. WILD'S SFJtMONS. 27 em by the I asks for ; that is f leather, he grand ih«y have )f Moses, kions, but iher, they f Deuter- I we say )rd? Are e same ? they are Moabite, famous ir genu- leather )ers that that be rab, and By name )uld rob a man East to a thief, t would 'ther-in- few dol- lars, some would give a few dollars to have it done ; but that is the strange recommendation that he gave to the British Museum, or English Government, as to their correctness, and how this man could steal them, for they are so valuable ; why, he says, he would rob, this man would, his own mother-in-law ! All this serves to confirm the Bible, and that Bible teaches us three things, history, prophecy, and religion. The history and the prophecy and the religion, we find, are interlaced, one very largely depending for proof upon another, and each has a cen- tral person. That of history has Adam and his race ; that of prophecy, Abraham and his literal race ; that of religion, has Jesus and His believers. These three parts have and a>e being wonderfully tested, but as the wind and storm are said to test the sturdy oak, and shake it to and fro, and loosen its very roots, but by that very means give it new life, new grip and a stronger force and hold on earth, so this testing and contesting of the Word of God has given us a firmer grasp, better hold, and greater strength to prove the same. When you go, my dear friends, to the Laud of Palestine, you naturally find a wonderful country. What a history it has had ! What a peculiar condi- tion that country is in now, and has been for hun- dreds of years! What strange expectations are entertained by the different nations and religious communities respecting the Land of Palestine. No less than five colonies are there now, two from tho nil 28 Dli. WlLUti SEllMoSii. United States, who are expecting the Lord Jesus to come and have gone to meet Him when lie shall do- Bcond on Mount Olivet, and they seem quite hopeful. We see how this expectation is influencing the masses of people and gathering them together in the Land of Palestine. It is a remarkable land, a land that we might bring forward on that great question of the Sabbath. Do you want to see a Sabbath ? A Sabbath that is long, a Sabbath that is broad, a Sabbath that io deep, a Sabbath that is visible ? The Land of Palestine has been keeping its Sabbaths as appointed by God for hundreds of years. He told the Hebrew people when they went in, that if they would let the land keep its Sabbaths, i.e., every seventh year to rest. He would give them a large increase in the sixth year, so that they should loose nothing, but they became so greedy, so avaricious, that they ploughed and sowed and tilled during the >^' venth year, and God punished them and gave the h\ad its Sabbaths as foretold — this you wili find in Leviticus xxvi : " Then shall the land enjoy its Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye shall be in your enemies' land, even then shall the land rest and enjoy her Sabbaths." There are some Sabbaths in that land ; it has been enjoying them these hundreds of years. You can break the Sabbath in Toronto, but there is not a man on God's earth can break the S^ibbath that desolate land has been keeping these hundreds of years — neither Turks, nor Eussians, nor English, nor any other country, could DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 29 Jesus to jhall do- hopeful. I masses le Land ht bring th. Do is long, deep, a ine has God for le when keep its 3 would so that ame so I sowed unishcd elold — lall the esolate, 3n shall re some g them labbath earth /S been ks, nor , could I break the Sabbath of that land. Desolate and dreary and lonely, and without inhabitants, it stands there a testimony to the living God, and you that are infidel inclined, go out and go there, and walk through the desolate places and lonely places, and ask why that land, the fertile spot of earth once, the central portion of God's great creation, should bo so abandoned and so lonely, and you will have no answer in science, philosophy nor national politics ; the only answer you can get is, God appointed it so. Well, now, is it not marvellous that this land has borne such a testimony ? It is a wonderful land also in this respect, that it is the only one strongly and earnestly coveted by the several great nations of the earth. Bussia would give herself to possess Pales- tine. France would abandon her Paris to-day to possess Palestine. It was the glorious ambition of old Bonaparte to get Palestine. Germany would be glad of Palestine ; Italy is jealous of Palestine ; England watches guardedly and carefully Palestine. What are they watching this bit of land for, what is there about it ? Why centre their covetous disposi- tion for increased territory upon this barren piece of country ? Because there is such a history connected with it, and great expectations in respect of it. When you look again, that the land is desolate, and the people who lie says should leave it to keep its Sab- baths there, while they should be scattered among the nations of the earth. Is there such a people t>kat they should never become nationalized, never DR. WILD'S SERMONS, become a nation ? Is there a people in this world, besides the Gipsies, I mean, who are of one race, who have no king, and no country, and no government of their own, and who are intelligent enough, and wealthy enough, and numerous enough, and am- bitious enough to have all these, but yet cannot get them — is there such a people ? Yes, my Jewish brethren. I shook hands with one to-night, coming to church, and asked him to come, and he said he would, and that I was not to be hard upon him. I never am hard on them ; they are Israelites, our brethren, though of Judah. I ask any sensible man in tlii'? congregation, or woman either, how comes there to be a land so vacant and empty, keeping its Sabbaths, and a people in this world — the only people of that number who have never been able to have any king, government or country of their own — the Jews. Now, when you put the two things together, you see they fit each other, do they not ? One is a testimony for the other. I do not wish to be offensive, but it is a sort of cue, or Chinese pig-tail, in Providence. When the Tartars had conquered the Chinese, to make them know that they were forever subject to them, and to distinguish the real Chinese from the conquering Tartar, they forced the old Chinese to shave his head, all but the cue in the centre, and lo this day he wears his cue, a memorial and badge of submission to the Tartars, and when you see that Chinaman with his long cue, you Imow what it means in history. Why, you say, My DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 81 is world, race, who nment of igli, and and am- mnot get y Jewish t, coming B said he him. I lites, our Ration, or BO vacant people in who have Qment or n you put ich other, ler. I do of cue, or Tartars :now that istinguish rtar, they 1 but the his cue, Tartars, long cue, u say, My dear sir, how did you come to adopt such a strange custom ? It is a badge of our submission, sir. And why are you, my Jewish brethren, in this land, and cannot be citizens without a special law ? Why are you in any land ? Why are you homeless and wand- ering 7 You are a cue among the peoples, as much an evidence as this cue of the Chinese, of his submis- sion. You are as positive an evidence of God's pro- vidence as that is, and a man has just as much sense in denying the cue of this Chinese and its origin, as ho would have in denying the existence, and the pecu- liar providence in the existence, of the Jew in their present form ; and so we see how marvellously these things are going on around us, r.nd evidences are multiplying. They are looked upon as interlopers. He says, ** When ye shall be in your enemies' coun- try," and yet He promises them finally a deliverance. They are looked upon as intruders. What is the matter with thorn in Russia ; why are the Germans so hateful to the Jews now ? How is it that the whole of Europe is rising up in rebellion against them ? Why are they being proscribed in nearly every land, being persecuted and hunted, like the par- tridge upon the mountains, and an injustice that should cause humanity to blush being enacted against this people ? But the thing goes on ; their whole history is writ- ten in blood, and shames the intellect of every cen- tury, and puts to greater shame the religion of every day. How came the people to think that it is right 32 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, to murder, to burn, to roast, to slaughter, to expel these people from their land, and how come they to be doing it just now ? You have little idea, be- cause you are not studying on that line ; you have little idea of the persucution that this people are un- dergoing in Hungary ; you have little idea of the savage cruelty that they have been subjected to in Eoumania; you have little idea of the jeopcrd* Z* at their lives are in in all those European cities and countries. But what is the matter with them ? Are they not good citizens ? As good as you and I. Are they not good-looking ? As good-looking as you and I. Are they not intelligent ? As intelligent as you and I. Poor ? Not by any means. Then, what is the matter with them ? The matter is that men who are not Christians, who do not believe in the Bible, go and carry it out and fulfil it — literally carry it out and fulfil it ! It is a strange thing that we see them in this light ; it is a remarkable thing, too, how tha/: one event after another is occurring to bring about the very position that is necessary. Now, when they are to be gathered to their own land, who is going to pui them there ? How are they to be restored to the land of Palestine? You will easily remember that the French and Eno;lish Governments were great allies and cronies for many and many a year. Seven years ago I could foresee that, if this line of Providence was to be carried out, tlie French and English Governments would have to alienate gradually and become scparate^V until finally DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 83 ', to expel le they to idea, be- you have lie are un- lea of the cted to in jtrfJ* /"at cities and em ? Are id I. Are LS you and mt as you a, what is ,t men who the Bible, arry it out see them how that :ing about their own How are no ? You d Endisli for mauv uld foresee ari'ied out, Id have to r.til finally , t: m they should become enemies, and Franco and Eng- land will fight again yet, and so the Berlin Congress was the first wedge driven in, and then comes the occupation of Egypt, offensive to France. France seeks, in the northern part of Africa, to make a coun- terpoise by stealing from the colored people; then comes the Madagascar affair, to still further inflame these two nations ; then comes the idea of the chan- nel tunnel. What a small thing it seems ! But you cannot have a tunnel under the sea ; we won't be connected with you, the Englishmen say ; and though the money was subscribed for the cutting out of that tunnel, yet the committee that sat upon it have report- ed adversely, and so that tunnel cannot be built. Why ? Because it would seem to unite the two coun- tries. It is a little thing in one sense, yet it serves to confirm the saying of Providence, that this people is to be alone among the nations of the earth, as a lion in the forest. I could have told them that they could not build that tunnel tucugh they sub3.cribed ten thousand million dollars for it. Have they done the things that they would fairly and squarely say to the public in their banquets and in the Houses of Parliament ? Have they done them ? Not by any means. Even as good a man as Glad- stone is, he cannot do them ; he did not do them. He has had to belie himself in the whole conduct of the Egyptian embroglio ; that noble man had, because he planned contrary to God, and what can a man do^ whf^t can (v nation do, when it sets its puny 84 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. hand and arm to resist the Divine ? It can do nothing on that line. And then comes the Suez Canal. They wanted a second so as to accommodate the enormous traffic, and Gladstone again put his foot in it. He promised eight million pounds sterling. He knew not what he was doing. You cannot build one there, because there is another to be constructed, and if they got that, they would not construct the other, and so now we find them a little more alienated. The English have decided that thev won't have a second Suez Canal unless they can ave it all their own. What has been the result ? It prompts a meeting to be called of the leading merchants and noblemen in England, who assemble in Staff rd House, in London, with the Duke of Marlborough in the chair, and make plans to dig a canal through Palestine, from the Mediter- ranean to the Bed Sea, and forty thousand dollars have been laid down for the preliminary expenses of the survey. They will begin the survey from the Bay of Acre, and go by way of the Jordan Valley, through the Dead Sea, to the Gulf of Akaba, in the Bed Sea. Did you ever read in Ezekiel xlvii, 8, 10, where he tells of this very land and of the waters that went up first to the feet, then to the ankle, then to the knee, then to the thigh, then to the chin, till it became water one could swim in ? And this the Dead Sea, where no fish can live ; but the waters are to be healed, and fishermen shall hang their nets at Engedi, away up on the hillside. Well, if they make this canal, you 1 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 36 It can 3meB the 10 as to jladstone led eight kt he was le there is that, they 7 we find lish have lez Canal k has been lied of the land, who with the lake plans B Mediter- nd dollars xpenses of m the Bay y, through Red Sea. where he it went up the knee, same water 3ea, where lealed, and away up janal, you see, the valley of the Jordan being from twelve to sixteen hundred feet lower than the Mediterranean Sea, they will need no locks at all, and the water will simply fill up that valley, and the only fertile part of Palestine it will destroy is Jericho, and God cursed that long ago, in the time of Joshua, and said that the city should never be rebuilt again ; the waters will cover the very spot, and the only spot in Palestine you could not build a city on is that ; and you would not want it at the bottom of the sea or new canal. You see what men are doing, and yet they are fulfil- ling the very letter of Scripture, though they do not fancy, I suppose, they are so doing. But there is one thing, my dear friends, about that, and what is it ? They will never construct that canal ; the Lord will make that : Ho is going to bo the engineer in that work ; He is going to make an earthquake open a mouth from the Mediterranean to the Bed Sea. He has told you he will do that, end, as I said in preaching some time ago on Jerusalem being a sea- port town, he will do that, and it will become just what the Prophet Ezekiel has said, but is it not curious that man should ^mdertake to forestall Pro- vidence ? Just so they are trying to forestall Providence with respect to the land of Palestine. They are even try- ing to colonize the Jews there. They made arrange- ments with the Sultan of Turkey, and two colonies havo been sent. What is the result ? The one at Latakia was received kindly, but now the Sultan ITT" 86 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. withdraws his firman, and they must retire — the Jewish colonists must go out of Palestine ! What is the matter ? They are too soon. Russia cannot re- store the Jews, nor can Roumania. It has heen appointed who shall do it in Isaiah — a people swift as messengers, who send messages round the earth, that is the people : the English nation shall restore them. And where shall they send these colonies? Do you know where ? They have agreed to send them to Cyprus. Is it not a grand thing that that old crownless king, Disraeli, the Jew, got a home for his people before he went to the other world ? He got Cyprus, and now Cyprus is to be the home and refuge of the Jews. Who would have thought it ? But so it is, and they are leaving Palestine ; but you will see, when the time comes, however, that it will be all right. No one could have foreseen how God could liberate the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, but did he not do so ? And when the time comes, the Jews and the Israelites — which is the British Govern- ment — will put their heads together, and as Pales- tine has no inhabitants, and the Jews have no coun- try, and as no country wants them as subjects excepting Britain, why, then, the two will agree, and it will be as the Prophet Hosea says in his first chap- ter: ** Then shall the children of Israel and the children of Judah be gathered together and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel." The English will put them in the land quietly, and will 23«. WILD'S SERMONS. 37 tire — the What is ,nnot re- las been pie swift tie earth, I restore colonies ? end them that old le for his He got ,nd refuge ? But so you will will be all jrod could of Egypt, jomes, the ti Govern- as Pales- no coun- subjects Lgree, and first chap- and the i appoint up out of )el." The and will protect them when they go there ; and so you live in Toronto, my Jewish friends, as long as you can ; do not be in a hurry in going there. When the Lord appoints the time you will go. I know many of you say you won't — the Jews say they won't, many of them. Shall I quote you an old quotation I see given in a book here, but it is one of mine, made some time ago from the Hebrew Observer, one of the best Hebrew journalo ? " Now, I know you could go out to-mor- row among the Jews there, and they would say they would never return, but they will return when the time comes The cities along the coast will be revived and rebuilt ; old times will come back on a scale greater and more magnificent; across the level districts the steam-car will run in the place of the caravan ; Syria will be a place of trade pre-eminently, for who are pre-eminently the traders of the earth ? . . . England is especially inter- ested in promoting such a restoration. Russia covets Syria, and desires to have a Greek patriarch estab- lished at Jerusalem It would be a blow to England if any of her great rivals get hold of Syria." And so he goes on to say in this article that that land is destined for the Jew, and that England must be the medium of their restoration. I could quote you from that astute diplomatist. Lord Duf ferin, in his speech before the Empire Club, that man who did us such good service — and that is why he ia Bo smart now, for any man that can be Governor* ■1 1 d8 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. ill 1 1 III General of the Dominion of Canada can rule the world, for if he can keep in with both political parties, 3'ou may send him to St. Petersburg, or to Pekin, and he will be a success. And in his speech, which is one of the grandest ever delivered, he says (though I do not suppose he had any idea or reference to the gathering of the Jews, or what Israel is) : *' I believe the time is too late for England to seek to disinherit herself of that noble destiny with which I firmly believe she has been entrusted of Providence. The same hidden hand which planted the tree of consti- tutional liberty within her borders, and which has called upon her to become the mother of parliaments, has sent forth her children to possess the waste places of the earth. That her design has been to turn such to a paradise of plenty, those present can best testify. I believe that, great as have been the changes in our own day, our children are destined to see still more glorious accomplishments." And now the great sta- tistician of modern times, a gentleman of sound judg- ment, Mr. Axon — that -is the gentleman, you will remember, I quoted from last Sunday night — declares **that before the present century shall have closed, the English nation will number one hundred million human beings, and of these, in all probability, many millions v^ill be found in Canada. That is what this statesman says. And are not all these things agreeable to Provi- dence ? Man is the mouthpiece of the Infinite God, and so we see that, when the time comes, these deso- 7 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 89 late places will be filled. In the last revolution or rebellion in Paris, Rothschild ^id to have special protection, and it is stated now ui.it in the next rising in Paris, the first place to be demolished will be the Rothschild residence, and I believe it will be so. And these men, with their capital, will want to get to some retreat on this earth where they will be safe with their possessions. The Rothschilds, and the Montefiares, and the Montagus, the Raphaels, the Mocattas, and so on, with their massive wealth, will want some place where their lives and wealth will be secured. It will be Palestine, and when once these families of renown and influence settle in Palestin , minor Jews will soon follow, and that will be the result, as sure as I stand here to-night. So, then, my dear friends, I just call your atten- tion to these things, as I frequently say to you, to show you how true God has been on the line of pro- phecy, and how fully the world is urging itself on, in this great arena, in shape, form and figure. I could have marked it out from the prophets — I can mark it out for ten years from to-night as surely as I could outline myself ; I have done so for ten years past, and not one iota of the line has been marred, and this is the very work of the living God. And so he will assuredly bring it to pass that they shall no more say, The Lord God liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt ; but, the Lord God liveth which brought the children of Israe/ out of the north country, and out of all countries 40 Dli, WILD'S SEIUMONS. whithersoever Ho had scattered them. I believe it. Thank God for the multiplying evidence to confirm His word, and make more peaceable our own experi- ence. Let us possess our- eouU iu patience. God rulgs in tbe Heavens I ' slieve it. confirm experi- 9. God SERMON III. FOLKS THAT WON't BE SOMEBODY. TEXT. — " And ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- bood, an holy nation, a peculiar people." — 1 Peter ii, 9, In beginning a sermon from these words, it is reason- able for us to ask, What people, what race, or what nation is Peter speaking of in our text ? I am very glad that he has given us the answer himself in the first verse of the Epistle. He there states that it is to certain scattered strangers, ** Eklektois parepide- mois diasporas,'* which means ** Elect sojourners who are dispersed." We may ask, again, where they were dispersed to, and agreeable to our desire, the answer is- given by this same writer, in the first chapter, that they were scattered throughout Pontos, Galacia, Cappa- docia, Asia and Bithynia. These two points, then, are settled by the Apostle himself. The Apostle James, you will remember, dedicates hie epistle to the twelve tribes that are scattered abroad. Nine of these twelve tribes had been scattered for some eight hun- dred years at the time of our Saviour. Only three of these tribes remained in Palestine; they were Judah, Levi, and Benjamin. Of course there, doubt- less, would be individuals of all the tribes living there. But speaking of the people in a tribal form, this statement is absolutely true, that nine tribes were absent, and three only remained in the Land of wr 1 1 rv 42 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. ! Palestine. So you will find an easy interpretation to the words of our Saviour when He gave the first commission to the twelve Disciples, commanding them, *' Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." This passage would be a hard passage to interpret for some of my spiritualizing friends, who do not believe in a literal Israel, and in the fact that the tribes are lost. How comes our Saviour to send His Disciples to ^ peo- ple that were not lost, that were not in existenc The Jews of the Saviour's day understood who these dis- persed sojourners were. Our blessed Lord said nnto them on one occasion, " Ye shall seek Me, but ye shall not find Me, and where I am thither ye cannot come." Then the Jews said among themselves, " Whither will He go that we shall not find Him ; will He go unto the dispersed among the GentilesT' These scriptural quotations I could supplement with scores from the Church fathers, and I have given you many of these references before, from Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus, Ptolemy, Pliny, Raw- lingson, Arnold and others, but I will content myself to-night with one single quotation on this point, from history, to show you that historians knew of the dis- persion of this people. I will quote from Josephus, the Jewish historian who flourished in the latter half of the first century. You will find, on page 91 of Whiston's translation of Josephus, the following : — ** Happy is this people upon whom God bestows Vl 4' nn. WILirS SERMONS. 43 pretatton the first manding /iles, and )t, but go " This jrpret for believe in ) are lost. 3 to ' peo- ic '^he these dis- said nnto 3, but ye ye cannot emselves, ind Him ; itilesr ipplement id I have ore, from iny, Raw- ?nt myself oint, from of the dis- Josephus, latter half age 91 of owing : — >d bestows poesession of innumerable good things, and graiilj them His own providence to be their assistant and guide, so that there is not any nation among man- kind but you will be esteemed superior to them in virtue, and in the earnest prosecution of the beet rules of life and of such as are pure from weakness, and will leave these rules to your excellent children, and this out of the regard that God bears to you, and the provision of such things for you as may render you happier than any other people under the sun. You shall retain the land to which He has sent you, and it shall ever be under the command of your children, and both all the earth as well as the sea shall be filled with your glory, and you shall be sufficiently numerous to supply the world in general and every region in particular with inhabitants out of your own stock. However, oh, blessed army I wonder that ye are become so many from one father ; and truly the land of Canaan can now hold you, as being yet com- paratively few ; but know ye that the whole world is prepared to be your habitation for ever. The multi- tude of your posterity shall live as well in the islands, as on the continents, and that more in number than are the stars in heaven." From this quotation I think you will be convinced that Josephus believed in a literal Israel. He was quite prophetic, was he not ? He seems as if he were a prophet to have foretold the position of the Anglo- Saxon race this very day, on this earth ; and now I have made this quotation to meet a certain objeciioa, iir 44 DR. WILD'S SEimONS. d for jl have been met on the street, and indeed, often find parties who say that cjrtain others declare to them that historians know nothing about the lost tribes. There is not a historian of any reputation but what knows about it, nor is there a man who has written on the races but has taken cognizance of it, but they do not know exactly that they are the ten tribes of Israel. As I have said, and frequently, in this pulpit, I have given you opinions from all these historians. I can give you passage after passage from the Scriptures. What do you want more to convince a man ? Bring me a passage from history, bring me a passage from this Word, to the contrary and there might be some force in the objection, but while history and the Scriptures, and providential events all coincide to prove this great fact, why should any man think to deny it ? The opponents who assail this '* identity theory," as it is called, do so in two ways, — I know, at least, they have done so in my own case. First, they attack me, as a rule, they berate me not a little, they speak lightly, as they suppose, of my intellectual attainments. They invariably strive to depreciate my ability ; they de- clare that I am not a scholar, that I do not know much. Well, the answer to that is simply, let the public judge ; in all such cases, it is not for us to be our own judges. Secondly, they spiritualize all these facts, a sort of vain subterfuge in which every man builds his own house, and just hides away, as it were, at his own pleasure ! No one can read these Scrip- ;* DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 45 ed, often jclare to the lost putation who has ice of it, the ten sntly, in ill these passage more to history, contrary lion, but vidential ict, why ponents illed, do ) done so a rule, jhtly, as They jry man i it were, e Scrip- tures, or read history in general, excepting they recognize this great covenant purpose of God. You will find, also, I think, what I have often found, one thing that I am more and more convinced about, and that is this, that some people's religion is altogether too heavenly and too little earthy, too much spiritual and too little physical, too much a matter of eter- nity and too little a matter of time ; they are more ethereal than material, and more ideal than real. I believe the harmonies of Heaven will harmonize with the sincere work and loving duties of earth. A man will be all ready for Heaven, and Heaven will be suitable to hira who does a noble "pan on earth. Let every Bible reader think o*er the words of the Lord, as J. emiah says, xxxi, 10: *'Hoar the word of the Lord, oh ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock." The word ** lost " has several shades of meaning which it is well for us to understand. When speak- ing of lost Israel, over against the time of the Saviour, wo do not mean that they were not known to the people, or not known to themselves at that time, but that they were lost from the Kingdom of Judah, they were lost from the Land of Palestine, lost from the Jewish religion, just as when the United States became a separate country, although we knew what they were, we called them a people lost to England ; but when you come this side of the third century, then they ^et lost to themselves, and lost to every one 46 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. I else, and that is according to prophecy that they were lost, losing even their own identity. And now the very efifort that is made to find them, and the very arguments that are used pro and con, are positive pro .fs that no one apparently is sure who they are. So the word " lost" has different shades of meaiing over against the several centuries it is just as Hosea had foretold. He said they would become a people as numerous as the stars of Heaven and the sands of the sea, and he declares it would be said unto them, "Ye are not My people," and then he says of this same people, " It shall be said unto you, ye are the sons of the living God"; i.e., for many a long age people would say, *' Ye are not the Israelites," and then tbey would turn round to this same people and say, " Ye are the sons of the living God." In this lost state, they would be represented very naturally as being dead, as when one is away and unknown, it ie something similar to his being dead, and BO this is very nicely put in the vision of dry bones, (Ezekiel xxxvii). Here they are represented as being dead, and the prophet puts these mournful words into their own mouth, and they are represented as saying, " Our bones are dried and our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts." And immediately he tells us that the Spirit of God did breathe ipon these bones, and breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Nor am I left in doubt as to who these dry bones stand for, for the answer is given by the Lord Himself to DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 47 at they d them, ind con, is sure iifferent inturics )y would Heaven rould be [ then he 3 you, ye long age es," and iple and ied very ray and ig dead, of dry resented Qournful resented )e is lost, ately he on these ived and ly. Nor s stand nself to Ezekiel : " Then said He unto me. Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel" Now, how any one else can say they are somebody else and something else, I am at a loss to understand. The Lord tells him who these bones represent, and they are to come to visibility, a great and exceeding strong army. Soon after this resurrection takes place, Israel will unite with Judah, and God promises to make them one nation in the land and upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king of them all, and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. Well, of course, these facts have not taken place yet — the Jews and Israelites are separ- ated ; we have not one king yet in Palestine, have we ? I was preaching to you last Sunday evening that there would be in due time. But it has not taken place yet. Their being cut off and scattered among the nations proved a blessing, after all; to the nations, for they carried with them a knowledge of the true God, they carried a higher form of civilization, they carried a better social economy than the world ever knew, outside of the Hebrew nation, and there is no nation to-day, in Asia or Europe, but what has been greatly benefitted by these people being scattered among tbem. They had Pagans all around them, and they gave the true idea of the living God, and carried the Gospel of the blessed Jesus, and so it was a great advantage to have these people scattored^ and we find 48 DR. WILD'S SEMMONS, that the Apostle very truly puts the two things in one verse in Eomans xi : *' For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of i;hem be but life from the dead ?" If the scattering of these tribes was of so great advan- tage to the world, my friends, what will it be when the world is ready to recognize them, and see them ? He says, giving it as a figure, it will be as one raised from the dead. What gratitude would you feel if you saw a loved one raised from the dead, great would be your joy ; so great will be the world's joy when it can clearly see the purposes of Providence. The blindness that has fallen to Israel the Saviour Him- self said was only until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in. I know of no writer — all writers of our Advent brethren, and writers on prophecy gener- ally, are very careful now to say that they believe the fullness of the Gentiles is setting in. Well, if that is so, our eyes ought to be opening. They are opening in Bond Street, and lots of other places. The full- ness of the Gentiles is setting in, and over against that comes light, and knowledge of our design and work. We certainly have a strange spectacle in this day, in that some people actually get vexed at you for making out that they are of this chosen generation. They do not wish to belong to this order of royal priesthood, they do not desire to be citizens of a holy nation, they actually grumble because God has elected them to be a peculiar people. Is it not DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 49 igs in one away of shall the ad r If it aclvan- be when ;ee them ? me raised feel if you 3at would joy when ice. The our Him- ) Gentiles writers of 3cy gener- )elieve the if that is opening The full- against sign and a )r this day, you for eneration. of royal 1 of a holy God has Is it not strange ? Generally people desire the very opposite. It may help them to know that the words *' peculiar people " rihiau a people chosen for a special work. "Laos eis j)eripo8iasin" a people chosen for a purpose. Thus God has chosen some people in this world for a special work and special purpose, and Peter, in referring to a special people in the text, tells us who these p'eople are. They are not Gentiles, Sanmri*- tans, or heathen — who are they else, then ? Who are they but the scattered sojourners among the Gentiles ? Generally speaking, people like to take honors unto themselves and be thought well of, to be accounted great and favored. I can best illustrate this little fact by a reference to an experience of a college chum I had, down in the New Englahd States, many years ago. He was put into a foundling hos- pital when he was a few days old— he knew not his parents. When fourteen years of age he was appren- ticed to a carpenter. One day, laboring in the hot sun, and feeling thirsty, seeing an el'derly lady go to a well and draw water, he went and asked her for a drink. £n drawing aside his shirt a little more than usual, to wipe the sweat from his breast, he laid bare a peculiar mark which this lady saw. She turned to him, '* Young man, I have not seen your left hand, but I can tell you a peculiarity about it." " Well, mother, what is it ?" ** Your little finger at the end is apparently cut off, and the nail grows out of the side." " It does ; you have known me before ?" ** Yes, indeed," she says, ** I have known you before." She 50 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, made enquiries as to where he was living, and invited him to come to see her, saying she could tell him something to his advantage. On his going to visit this old lady, she told him who he was. His mother was dead, aud his father was living in wealth, hut knew not of him, or of his being in existence. She introduced the two together, and when the father knew he was his child, he stopped him in his trade and sent him to the college, and I used to chum with him for a time. Now, would ik not have been strange if he had refused to be recognized ? — but not more so than those who refuse to be of Israel. This woman knew the spot, the mark that identified this young man ; and, as Moses says concerning his people and the heathen, *' Their spot is not the spot of the children of Israel "; and are there not spots on the children of Israel, and can we not see them and discern them ? And as this young man had his origin declared, and honors put upon him and wealth put upon him, so Israel may bo known, and so Israel will be honored when it is thus known that she is of a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people for a special work. God has chosen Israel, as Peter in the text states. And Moses says the Lord delighted in their fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day (Deut. x). This election is recognized all through the Scrip- tures. Israel was chosen to be God's executor, to Christianize and civilisse the \yhole world, and this is f DR. WILUS SERMONS. 51 [ invited kell him to visit I mother ilth, hut 36. She e father lis trade lum with I he had han those knew the lan; and, i heathen, '. Israel "; srael, and .nd as this onors put lel may be it is thus an holy God has ^nd Moses love them, j^ou above the Scrip- cecutor, to and this is n -M th^ir special work. And now, my friends, when we come to look at the world, how much Christianity would there have been in it, if this people had not taken hold of it ? Three-fourths of all the mission- aries, of all that are out in foreign lands, are sent out by the United States and Britain. I ask, what con- dition would this world have been in if it had not been that they were chosen for this special work, in order to spread the Gospel ; and herein is a great obligation resting upon them, and they ought to know it in order that they may discharge their duty carefully, for to have a special work like this to perform, and know nothing of it, is a serious matter. If you turn to Isaiah, Ixi, fie says : ** But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord, men shall call you the ministers of our God, ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves." Now, I would like to know who is living mostly on these Gentiles, but England. See the wealth there. See the mansions. And they have their money loaned out all over the world, and actually live on the Gentile funds, and revel in the wealth that they draw from the Gentile nations, as the prophet had foretold. This election key is of great value in unlocking the world's history, both past, present, and future, especially so with respect to Britain's place, work and power. I do not believe that any man can read British history, or the history of the world, unless he takes in this key ; it must otherwise be confusing to him. But in the Bible the purpose and design of each one, tkQ f 'Wn\r 52 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. course of Britain or the Israelites, the immigration, settlements, and so forth, are pointed out. And now see : They were first to go north, the prophet says, then the isles were to be settled, then to the west, then they were to settle on the seacoasts, and then in the waste places of the earth, and then they are to take the cities and seed of the Gentiles. Now, which way did the Saxons, the ten tribes, go ? They went north first, as all historians say, then they settled in the isles, then west here, to this continent, and then they began to settle on the coasts of Africa and other coasts, and then they began to inhabit the waste places, Australasia, etc., and then they began to take the cities and seed of the Gentiles, as they have done in India and other places ; and so they have gone about it exactly as the prophet had fore- told. Then they are the people. Hence Britain grows in spite of herself, and it seems difficult for the Al- mighty to get people to do as he wants them ; they seem very unwilling. I am sure there was nothing in the general opinion of things more unlikely than that England should have gone to war with Egypt, and yet God forces her to go, He forces her to accom- plish His purpose ; just as you read in the 11th Psalm: "He hath shewed His people the po-.er of His works that He may give them the heritage of the heathen." Some statesmen, it always appears to me, are very much like icebergs driven by an undercurrent against the wind and tide, and so I am amused when I see how DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 58 ligration, A.nd now let says, rest, then then in jy are to Wj which ley went y settled ontinent, of Africa labit the 3y began as they so they lad fore- lin grows the Al- m; they nothing :ely than Egypt, accom- the 11th po-.er of ,ge of the are very it against 1 see how $ statesmen plan and diplomatize and lay out their schemes, and then, like these great icebergs, God forces them in an opposite direction, and gives tan- gible evidence that there is a power above ruling over all. Take an estimate of the annexations of Britain for the past ten years ; you will be surprised. They annexed a group of islands off the east coast of Queens- land. Then they took Socotra, an island in the Indian Ocean, belonging to the Imamat of Muscat, but it makes no difference to them who owns these places ; if they want them, they will steal whenever they get a chance ; then a large portion of Afghanistan was stolen ; then they, very honorably, in one sense, pur- chased Delogoa Bay from the Portuguese, in south- eastern Africa, with three miles of inland shore. When the engineer went to survey it, he went thirty- seven miles inland ; when asked the reason, he said, ** It is not good land in the three miles, and we were to have it all good land." Bo he takes in thirty-seven miles, all around the bay, and they have it to this day, paying $3,000,000 for it ! Then they take sev- eral large strips of Africa, and last year comes Borneo ; half of this great island is annexed by Britain — twenty thousand square miles she stole at one grab, nearly as large as Ireland, you see ; and when you come to think of this continually going on, and ask, ** Who are these people that are allowed to do these things ?" you must conclude that they have a special mission of Providence, or it would not be permitted. And now, last but not least, comes one of Britain's iTr 54 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. children, and learning of the parent, does likewise. The Queensland Government — one of the Australian colonies — has just stolen a very large piece of coun- try. They have taken, as you know by the papers, one-half of the Island of New Guinea, and when you think of those two hundred and fifty thousand square miles just annexed, it is nearly twice as large as Great Britain, and much larger than France. Spain was the first to discover this island and the Dutch were the first to colonize it, and now one of the daughters of England, actually imitating her mother, goes and steals half the whole island and annexes it ! It is con- trary to the avowed policy of the present Government, but they will have to let it go, because God has chosen this people for a special work, and it has got to be done. If a man were in the woods, with the wind blowing hard, rattling the leaves and branches and bending the trees, and should say, " I wonder if the wind is blowing." ** Oh, yes, don't you hear it ?" " I wonder which direction it goes in." " Look at the trees, the way they are leaning." Now, there would be just as much sense, in my opinion, for a man to ask what is the mission of this people. You are reduced to two facts ; you must either admit that this Anglo-Saxon race are one hundred times smarter than other peo- ple, or that God is doing it, not they, and that they are no better than other people. I believe the last, that specially they are no better than other people, but that God is doing it. He has chosen them for this work, and is simply bringing it to pass, in spite DR. WILD'S SEILMOXS. 55 of the opposition of human governments, and is thus consolidating the world, and preparing it for the vast empire to which we called your attention last Sunday night. What do all those things necessarily fore- shadow ? We answer, imperial federation. This New Guinea annexation is a new step — for a colony to have a dependence — a dependence of a dependence, as it wore; but did not I point out to you some time ago that that would be the order of development ? Now, hero is the first act, and it will be repeated until finally Britain's Empire will become so large, and, as I point- ed out, when the earthquake shall have partially de- stroyed London, she will find it to her advantage to take as her chief city some central point. Jerusa- lem, central to the whole earth, will be that city. That will come to pass, and although men do not like to speak of imi)erial federation, that is what we shall come to. People see, of course, in one sense, the design of Britain, who do not ackiujwledgo tuat they are the tri])es of Israel. I will give you a quotation from a Welsh clergyman, taken from a speech that he de- livered iu Dublin some three weeks ago, the Very liev. the Dean of Bangor. This is the way mea speak ; they see the same facts that we do, but they will not acknowledge that these are the people. He says : ** Seme have fears that we, as a people, will be incapable of fulfilling the destiny to which God seems to have called us. What was the destiny of the British nation, Scotch, English Irish, Welati ? 5C Vlt. WlLirS SERMONS. It Boomed to him that God had Hpoken to them as clearly as He ever did to Israel, that Me had called them to a manifest destiny. The people of these countries were clearly called to colonize the earth, to people the solitude of silent continents, to rock the cradles of rising nations, and teach men how by true law they are to attain to true liberty. This was clearly their destiny, and in their own country they knew they were suffering from excessive population. He knew that in England and Wales every profession was too full. In the upper and middle classes men were complaining that they did not know what to do with their sons, and amongst the working classes men were saying that they must limit the output by re- stricting the hours of labc because there were too many of them for all men to make good wages. Now, what was the answer to all those things ? Surely it was the answer given to Lot when the country was found not large enough to contain both Lot and Abra- ham. They said, Let there ba no strife amongst us, let us separate from each other ; that is the answer, then, to the difficulties of the present day." Now, here is a man takes the same view that I do, and yet if you went and asked him, perhaps, "Are these the chosen people for this work?" ho would likely deny it. But we are the chosen people, we are the people that are to evangelize the world, and inaugurate liberty for all the world. God's pro- mises to the fathers are not void. These royal chil- dren have a great responsibility resting on them. They Dli, WILD'S SERMONS. 67 and their seed, Ho says, shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people ; all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. Now, if I wanted to conclude aught at all from the remarks I have made, I would conclude that the Scriptures have forecast the history of this world, and that all the great events that have taken place and are now tak- ing place and will take place are literally laid down in this Book, touching the line of Israel. Of course, I do not know whether I am of the literal flesh of Israel or not, but that does not signify, because I can bo adopted, as every man can be adopted if he will choose the cove- nant of God, as the prophet Isaiah says. It does not matter whether I be French, or even of Norwegian origin, for that matter ; all I have to do is to accept the will and pleasure of God, and then I become a partici- pant of these blessings. Why did he choose any one ? you ask in return. I ask how you can run a large con* corn without making some one responsible for it. Suppose you own a large factory and employ a num- ber of hands, you naturally make one foreman, and hold him responsible for the rest. Suppose the rest grumble, and say, " Oh, he despises us, he has made that man foreman,'* and raise a row. You must have some one responsible, and the greater the enterprise, the greater the necessity for having some person or persons responsible to execute your will. God has chosen this people simply to execute Ilis will, and He holds them to that, and we are obligated to do it ; 68 DR. WILD'S SEtiMONS. we are obliged to pay missionary money, and tight for the slave, and be taxed for their liberty^ because God has entailed it upon us, and we are obliged to be generous to others, if we are true to the purposes of Heaven. Of course, we may object and say it is a re- flection on others. It is no r<^flection at all. The recognition of Israel, if it were recognized this very day, would save millions of money and lives, destroy much affliction, and prevent much suffering. Can you not now see her work and how she is tempted ? I am glad that in England Bradlaugh has not got his seat, not that I desire to keep him from getting his rights, but I am glad that if they are Israel, in this sense, a chosen people, that they have not denied their God, neither for Bradlaugh nor any other man. If we are this royal priesthood, this holy nation, this peculiar people, we must never have legislators who do not believe in the God that we say has given us this work to do, no matter what our politics are ; a man has no right to seek to work and be a co-worker in this grea\v heavenly plan, who will not take the oath of allegiance to Him who has created him and called us to be His peculiar people, and I am glad f hat they rejected Bradlaugh on that account. SEEMON IV. THE FOUR PROPHECIES OF EGTPT. " The burden of Egypt." — Isaiah xix, 1. Egypt is at present the centre of national observa- tion. Individuals and nations are looking on the present war with more than an ordinary interest. Nearly everybody feels that the present struggle con- tains more than itseii, that somehow a general war is contained in this. It is felt that the gathered arma- ments of Europe hang like dark clouds pregnant with storm, on the shores of the Bosphorus and the steeps of the Caucasus, and that a struggle of universal war is imminent, to whose terrible convulsions the present war is but the prelude. And how have men learned to expect all this ? But a few months ago nothing seemed more unlikely than that England should take action on the Egyptian question apart from France, her ally for so many years. Nothing, I say, appeared more unlikely than that the peace-at-any-price Gladstone should be the first to let loose the dogs of war, to flash on the tele- graph wires the signal for bombardment and inva- sion. His Government was pledged to a peace policy. He had been borne into office on a ^idal wave of popu- lar enthuBiasm as the Minister of P^ace. And the 60 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. vital issue on which he had fought and overcome hi. rival and predecessor, Disraeli, was this of bringing Indian troops to turn the tide of European war. The politicians and newspaper men, even with all their sagacity, could have foreseen none of these things. But this is one of those wars that come within the prophetic horizon. Hence those who, in an earnest, prayerful and intelligent spirit, search into the pro- J)hetic teachings of that Book of books which is the Word of God are enabled to know all about events on which political and commercial prescience fails. You will notice the peculiar kind of data these indi- vidual references of the Bible furnish, the peculiar coincidences, even extending often to the minutest details, that make human history a comment written by God ; our hands upon the text of His Word, the prophecies of which kindly reveal His purposes, hold a key to what else might seem the confused and inex- tricable maze of passing events. To read history without seeking its interpretation in Scripture is like looking at a piece of embroidery on the wrong side ; you see a confused contexture of colored threads, but you look in vain for any settled design of pattern. But a right study of prophecy reconciles all, and links sacred and profane history together. Look at the Land, the Book and the People. The land of Egypt surpasses all other countries in some points of interest for the student of Scripture. It is of the most venerable antiquity, its majestic civiliza- tion stretches far beyond the dawn of history. Egypt DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 61 iome hii bringing ir. The all their bings. ^hin the earnest, the pro- fa is the vents on ils. lese indi- peculiar minutest t written ^ord, the ses, hold bnd inex- history e is like ig side ; ads, but pattern. ud links is the earliest civilized of all the countries of the world. It was in all probability the mother of Greek literature, and hence of all the Hterature, art, sculp- ture, music, architecture of all Europe. Oar own alphabet retains traces not yet wholly indistinct of its Egyptian origin, from the hieroglyphics or sacred language of the Egyptian priests, in wh^'ch, as you know, each letter represents some natural object. Our letter " s " in its serpentine shape and hissing sound represents not inaptly the serpent, a ** gam- ma " or ** gimel " still recalls the form of the camel, and the Egyptian history in its earliest phases is only made known to us by the Book, for the Egypt of which the Greek historian Herodotus tells us was distant from that of Joseph and Mosos by half a score of centuries. Egypt was not only an i dependent, but a conquer- ing power. HiiV armies over-ran Asia to the shores of the Euxine a. i Caspian Sea. Her fl.ets swept over the Indian ean to the mud-stained shallows of the Indus flood. On the Egyptians' monuments we may read the proud annals of those campaigns. We see the Egyptian Army, with its companies of archers shooting from the car like the Englishmen of old; we see their squadrons of light and heavy chariots of war which skillfully skirmished or heavily charged the dense masses of the foe ; we see their remarkable engines for besieging fortified towns, their scaling ladders; their movable towers, their shield-cov- ered rams. We see Pharaoh returning in trium^)h, 62 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, his car drawn by captive kings, and a long'procession of prisoners bearing the products of their respective lands. The nature and variety of those trophies suf- ficiently prove how wide and distant the Egyptian conquest must have been ; for among the animals that figure in the triumph are the brown bear, the baboon, the Indian elephant and the African giraflfe ! Among the prisoners are negroes of Soudan, in aprons of build' hides, or in wild beasts' skins. They carry ebony, ivory, and gold ; their chiefs are adorned with leopard skins and ostrich feathers, as they are at the present day. We see also men from some cold coun- try of the North, with blue eyes and yellow hair, wearing light dresses and long-fingered gloves, while others clothed like Indians are bearing beautiful vases, rich stuffs and strings of precious stones. When the kings came back from their campaigns, they built temples of the yellow and rose-tinted sand- stone, with obelisks of green granite and long avenues of sphinxes, to commemorate their victories and im- mortalize their names. They employed prisoners of war to erect their memorials of war ; it became the fashion to boast that a great structure had been raised without a single Egyptian being doomed to work. Such, as they appear in the Book, were the land and people of Eg3'pt. And what did Isaiah prophesy of Egypt, of the Land? "And the Egyptians will I give into the hand of a cruel lord, and a fierce king shall rule over them." A few years after Isaiah wrote this prophecy DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 68 y procession respective rophies suf- e Egyptian he animals Q bear, the can giraffe ! 1, in aprons They carry iorned with y are at the e cold coun- rellow hair, loves, while atiful vases, campaigns, iinted sand- >ng avenues ies and im- arisoners of became the been raised id to work, le land and ypt, of the 7e into the all rule over lis prophecy it began to be fulfilled. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, as soon as he got strong enotigh, made war on Egypt and conquered it ; ever since then it has been in the hands of a foreign ruler. The second of the four great prophecies relating to Egypt referred to the people. It is contained in Ezekiel xxix, 13, 17 : " Yet thus saith the Lord God : At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the nations whither they were scattered. And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their ha))itation, and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of kingdoms ; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations, for I will diminish them and they shall no more rule over nations." This is a prophecy delivered some six hundred years B. 0. It is precise and continuous. No man who is fair-minded in pursuit of truth can possibly mistake its scope. It explicitly declares that Egypt, which was so great, so eminently a chief among the civilizing powers of earth, should, to a certain extent, recovAr her position as a kingdom after a long humiliation, that, at the expiration of a term of years explicitly stated, her scattered people should be gathered, that they should be once more a king- dom, but that this kingdom should be a base one, that it should be the basest of kingdoms. You need to think of the Egyptians as they were, to see the force of this prophecy of Szekiel. Consider 64 DH. WILD'S SERMONS, tho position of the Egyptians as they originally were, first, in number ; second, in intellect. In number, the increase of the inhabitants of the land of Egypt was determined by their possession of a natural source of cheap food then as now unrival- led in the world. Their country is six hundred miles long, it is bounded by two ranges of naked limestone hills, which in some places approach and in others recede from each other, between which intervenes an average breadth of seven miles. On the north they expand into a triangular meadow plain, which reaches the Mediterranean coast. On the south the lime- stone ceases, granite hills enclose the river with walls, of rock, pent between these and leaping from a stair- way of precipice into the Egyptian Valley, the Nile rushes with a roar towards the sea. Through the greater part of the year it flows a clear, sweet water stream through the valley, but about this time in the autumn season a wondrous change takes place. The Nile grows swollen and swift, its waters turn first red as blood, then grew the feculence of vegetable matter they have carried on floods, and overflows its banks, it covers the subjacent land to the base of either hill range. The Nile Valley becomes a lake in which the towns built on artificially constructed mounds appear like islands. The periodical recurrence of tho Nile inundation was welcolmed by the Egyptians as the greatest blessing their gods could send. From town to town and village to village tliey held their harvest home, measuring the yield of the land by tho extent DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 65 of the water which spread over it the raanllo of its fertiHzing power. And in that fairest of earth's val- ley's, fattened by the accumulated richness of a soil far southward of its own, watered by a rainless inunda- tion, the Egyptian people were provided with a year's food crops in return for a few days' labor, and so ob- tained that leisure from bodily toil which is the first condition of the growth of population. With grawth of population and food supply came growth in intellect. To guage Solomon's wisdom, we are told of him that ** he was learned in all the wis- dom of the Egyptians." This wisdom was manifest, 1st, in government, 2hd, in agriculture, 3rd, in archi- tecture, 4th, in astronomy, 5th, in manufacturing, 6th, in wealth, 7th, in power, in the fact that the people of Egypt obtained the rule over the surround- ing nations. Tho Government of Egypt first among the nations of the earth asssumod a consolidated form. Traces of this process are evident in the allusion to Egyptian politics in the Book of Genesis. The land of Egypt, possessing a simple, undivided form, and fertilized by one great central river artery, appears destined by natu^'e to the rule of a single sovereign. Out of var- ious tribes and far in the dim twilight of history we see the traces of a primitive revolution. Menes, the Napoleon of Egypt, founded an empire by consolidating into one the various local tribes and rulers, in the name of the new-born sentiment of national unity. And by decrees the Government 66 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. assumes a consolidated form. Its constitution con- sists of the three separate estates, the King, the Army, the Priesthood. To the power of the King there was practically no limit. He was called Pha- raoh, a title which means the sun ; he was the supreme judge and law-giver, yet personally above all law ; he led the national army, and commanded it in war. Under him was a military caste of nobles who were regularly organized and strictly disciplined, and those were citizens as well as soldiers, for each man hold- ing the lowest position in the ranks as a private sol- dier received from the State twelve acres of choice land, which gave him a citizen's interest in the pre- servation of order and the welfare of the country. Equally powerful was the priestly caste. In their hands was the administration of law, the enforcement of morality, the power of public instruction, and the arts and sciences. So that, as I have said, when the sacred text desires to guage the wisdom of Moses himself, it simply sums up the matter by telling us that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyp- tians. The Egyptians were the first people to make great advances in agriculture. The fertilizing power of their river was at first, and in its natural condition, a singular source of partial irrigation, flooding one place and leaving another dry. But by an elaborate system of canals, locks and water-works, the Egyp- tians dispersed the Nile water over all their country. They taught themselves the true principles of hydrau- DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 67 lies. Thoy made the land yield to them her increase of golden grain to the utmost of its food-producing power. In architecture, also, the Egyptians were the first to build vast monuments, which shall endure to astonish their degenerate posterity, as products of art which have never been surpassed. In astronomy, too, they have been the teachers of mankind. In manufacturing, the need for foreign products and foreign food early led the teeming population of the Nile Valley to the invention of linen-making, to that of the paper made from the papyrus reed, which first made literature a possibility by providing Europe with a cheaper material than the expensive parch- ment. And with all these grew the nation's wealth. Foreign prisoners of war were employed on the great public worksj which were alike the pride of the Egyp- tian Government and people. The wealth of the upper class increased, the poverty of the working class was made easier to view. And with wealth, intelligence and political organization came foreign conquest. The Egyptian arms early vanquished the shepherd race of Arab conquerors who for a time had possessed the mastery of Egypt ; then they had sub- dued Syria, Ethiopia, and even had carried their vic- torious arms as far as the dusky tribes of the valleys of the Indian river. They had obtained power, ruling the surrounding nations. Look back tweuty-fivo hundred years and see how literally the prophecy has been fulfilled. The people b^ve become literally base, the basest among the I^'ll . 1 I 4 68 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. kingdoms. Take the testimony of Volney, the infi- del. In his "Ruins of Empires " he describes the deso- lation of desert solitudes where once peopled cities resounded with the busy hum of industrial life. Ho tells how beside the eternal Nile, where once the pro- pylsBa of vast temples extended with their forests of colossal columns, now the desert sands have almost buried the scanty remnants of past greatness. The next prophecy relating o the land you will find in the chapter from whence the text is taken, Isaiah xix, 5-7 : ** And the water shall fail from the sea, and the river shall bo wasted and dried up. And they shall turn the river? far away, and the brooks of de- fence shall be emptied and dried up. The reeds and flaqs shall wither. The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and everything sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven among and be no more." This prophecy was given some seven hundred years B.C., and it is confirmed by Ezekiel in the thirtieth chapter. He says : ** The sword shall come upon Egypt and great pain upon Ethiopia. When the slain shall fall in Egypt and they shall take away the multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down. Thus saith the Lord : They that uphold Egypt shall fall, and the pride of her power shall come down. And they shall be desolate in the midst of the coun- tries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. And they shall l^now that I am the Lord, when I have set a fire in Hill H Hi DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 69 tie infi- le deso- d cities fe. Ho the pro- rests of almost you will 8 taken, L the sea, \.nd they :s of de- eeds and ) brooks, sown by id be no :ed years thirtieth e upon hen the away the en down, •pt shall e down, he coun- fe in the ,ey shall a fire in Egypt, and when all ber helpers are destroyed. And I will make the rivers dry, and will sell the land into the hand of the wicked, and I will make the land waste and all that is therein by the hand of strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. Thus saith the Lord God : I will also destroy the idols. And T wild cause their images to cease out of Noph, and there shall be no more a prince in the land of Egypt, and I will put a fear in the land'of Egypt.*' Thus does Ezekiel declare that the land of Egypt shall be wasted and the cities desolate. Think of the cities of Egypt, numerous and great, which the Greek historian Heroditus, in the* 'Euterpe," or second book of his history, estimates at thirty thousand. The Desert of Sands has buried most of them, their very site is blotted out ! One city, the earliest capital built by the earliest Pharaoh, Memphis, is mentioned in the prophecy I have just read. This was on the west bank of the Nile, a few miles from the present Cairo. Think of its palace, of its vast and magnificent temples, espe- cially that of the Egyptian god Serapsis. Think of the wondrous images, of its labyrinth, of its pyra- mids. This city is called Noph by Ezekiel and Jere- miah. Of it Jeremiah says in the forty-sixth chapter and the nineteenth verse : *' thou daughter dwell- ing in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity, for Noph shall be waste and desolate without an inhabi- taut. Egypt is like a fair heifer, but destruction Cometh, it cometh out of the north ; also her hired II' 70 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. mon aro in the midst of her like fettered bullocks, for they also are turned back and are fled away together ; they did not stand, because the day of tlieir calamity was come upon them, and the time of their visita- tion." Think of what is left of this vast city, once so mighty in the pomp of its imperial pride, the metro- polis of earth's earliest monarchy, the centre ©f a multitudinous industrial life, twenty-one miles long by twelve miles broad, and walled with bulwarks impregnable to the military science of those days. Think of its vast temples of green granite, of its pyra- mids freshly built, and glittering like huge jewels in the sunlight. Now the palace is gone, the city is buried in the sea of sand, the labyrinth, the temples we seek in vain. Only the pyramids and ruins remain. The next subject of the great prophecies relating to Egypt is the river. About this you remember that Isaiah said : ** The waters shall fail from the sea, the river shall be wasted and dried up, and the brooks destroyed." The vast river Nile was the pride and strength of Egypt. It was utilized to the utmost in the source and stay of the national life and prosperity. " The river is my own," Egypt is represented as boasting in the hour of her self-confidence ; " I have made it for myself." From the lakes of Central Africa, fed by the incessant rainfall which takes place during ten months of the year, issues an overflowing torrent, DH. WILD'S SERMOXS. 71 which driven by that ocean of falling water, hurries northward through a terrible and torrid desert in ita course to the midland sea. From the Abyssinian highlands, where their peaks, towering to the clouds of Heaven, of Indian Ocean in their northward course, and the rain season has set in, issue two great rivers, thundering down their dried up beds and rushing into the Nile — the cause of the inundation which has in all ages made the Nile Valley the granary of the world. There used to be in Egypt several rivers, but there are not now. The Nile also emptied itself by several channels, usually estimated as seven, into the Medi- terranean sea. All but two of these arms or outlets have dried up. The sea, too, has retreated, leaving vast tracts of marsh country. At Bellamah one arm is dried up. It entered the ocean eighty miles from the present most western channel of the Nile. And fifty miles east of the eastern channel, at a place called Pelvstrum, another arm is dried up. From Alexandria to El Arish used to be, according to Hero- ditus and others, the richest spot of earth. But now it is barren and waste. The present English army is stayed in this marsh in this desolate region. The whole region is marshy and stagnant. Surely we can see that these prophecies have been fiulfilled ! Surely it is impossible for us to close our eyes to this confirmation of the Word of God in the carrying out so literally, with such undeniable exact- ness, the very words of prophecy with regard to this w !!' 1 IJ I ■I ^ li j! ililli 72 D/2. WILD'S SERMONS. great change from the past of the land of Egypt to what we know to be its present condition. The next prophecy with regard to Egypt is with respect to the government. It is found in Ezekiel xiii, 13 : ** Thus saith the Lord God : I will also destroy the rdols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph, and there shall no more be a prince of the land of Egypt." This prophecy of Ezekiel is confirmed by another prophecy to be found in Zecariah X, 11 : ** The sceptre of Egypi; shall depart away." Now, let us look if this has been so. History answers yes. Egypt has been deprived of her natural proj^rie- tors for thirty-three centuries, having been a prey successively to the Persians, Macedonians, Eomans, Greeks, Arabs, Georgios, and that branch of the Tartar race distinguished by the name of Turks or Ottomans. There have been dynasties of kings in Egypt, but they have always been foreigners and not native Egyptians. For instance, there were the kings known to history as the Ptolemies, who were of Macedonian origin, descended from the first Ptolemy, who was one of the favorite generals of Alexander the Great, among whom, on that monarch's death, the empire was partitioned. Take the long line of the Mamulukes. They were nothing else than Circassian slaves, employed as mercenary troops to uphold the Turkish power. One of them was selected, educated and trained for the post of ruler in Egypt. This rule was the rule of a slave, thus carrying out to the letter the jurisdiction ■ % DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 73 tliat Egypt should bo " a base kingdom." And so it was ruled by slaves for four hundred years. Their power was broken in 1811 — and who was installed in the vacant place of ruler ? Was it an Egyptian ? Not so, but Mahomet Ali, an Albani.in, who deceived the Mamulukes, and menaced them, and defied the Prince of the Sultan. Mahomet Ali would have ruled Egypt but for England. And so to the present Khedive, the grandson of Mahomet Ali Tewfik, is virtually a slave and of servile birth. Arabi Pasha is an Albanian, the Sultan a Turk ; neither is an Egyptian prince or ruler. You have now four powers contending for the rule of Egypt, namely, Albanians, Arabians, and Turks, and of them it is the manifest destiny of England to prevail She, single-handed, will obtain possession of Egypt, Her sway will work vast improvements in that very op- pressed country. She will Christianize the people. Thus the fifth prophecy a*out Egypt is now being fulfilled. The Egyptians are to come out of this war under England, to be a Christian nation, to be one with Israel. " And the Lord shall smite Egypt, and he shall guide and heal it, and they shall return even to the Lord, and He shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them." Israel, that is England, Assyria, and Egypt are to be partners, for we read : " In that (lay Israel shall be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, and a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my People, and Assyria the work of My Hand, and Israel My Inheritance," pi il ml ! PP'i if I mmml ii! I m SEBMON V. THE STONB KINGDOM AND DYNAMITE ; AND TED! ORANGE BILL. TEXT.—" And in the daya of ihese kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall ne 31- be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all th?3ic kingdomi-t, and it shall stand forever." — Daniel ii, 44. What we call history is a written record of past events. Prophecy is history written beforehand. A careful study of propheny will enable us to forecast the future and understand the present with tolerable certainty, just as the astronomer, by careful calcula- tion, can foretell the time of eclipse. The mariner upon the great deep is anxious to know his where- abouts. When the sky is o'ercast, and the storms rage, he uses the sounding lines, and loses no oppor- tunity of taking observations. At such a time he is more desirous of knowing his exact position than if all were calm ; he carefully studies the signs and beginnings of the storm, its force and direction, that he may the more successfully contend with and guide his vessel safely through the same. He has valuable aid in the sea charts, that mark out the currents and hidden reefE and other dangers. He makes himself ■^ ^ DR. WILDES SERMONS. 75 familiar with the Nautical Almanac, which is pub- lished several years ahead, forecasting the tides, and the latitude and longitude of the sun and moon and certain of the stars on any given day. Let us figur- ire, and fancy ourselves mariners upon the Sea of Time — let us study the signs of the times, that we may know our position, and how beet to conduct our- selves. We have a Chart, we have an Almanac, which is God's Holy Word, and to it we will appeal — its pages we will study. We will do as commanded by Isaiah in the eighth chapter : "To the Law and to the Testimony, if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them." King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. This dream he took to be of divine import. Daniel is called to be the interpreter of it. The king had seen a great me- tallic image, ** excellent," he says, " in brightness, and terrible in its form." It was a human figure of massive proportions, standing erect, with arms out- stretched, and of a mixed and strange composition. The head was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet part of iron and part of clay. While the king was gazing at this monstrous figure with intense interest, his attention is arrested by the appearance of a small stone. This stone was alone. There appeared no hands handling it or moving it. It was apparently cut out of the mountain near by, without hands. In this stone there app .ared to be a good deal of what is called the supernatural. At once the little stoue flf HMim : :l 76 DM. WILU^ SERMONS. began to assault the huge image, beginning the battle at its feet. The struggle seemed somewhat unequal, but the fight continues, and during the battle, strange to say, the stone actually grows ! The image begins to fall to pieces, the feet and thighs, and the breast and the head ; and victory rests at last with this stone. By the time the image is entirely destroyed, the stone has become a mountain ; even as Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, " Thou sawest that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon its feet which were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces ; then was the iron and the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces, together, and became like the chaff of a summer's threshing floor, and the winds carried them away, that no place was found for them ; and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth !" In this vision and interpretation we have a line of history laid bare so clearly, I think, that we need ndt err, unless wilfully so. The beginning is the time and the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, The image stands for four great earthly monarchies, as Daniel tells us. The time extends down through the centuries, even to this present hour, and on into some of the years to come ; for these monarchies are not yet wholly de- otroyed, and this stone kingdom does not yet f 'I jh: world. Of this fifth, this stone kingdom, thero if to be no end, no decay, no succession. Daniel say;^ 'i\i%i this kingdom shall not be loft to other people ; i, s. it shall never be succeeded. The peculiar features of DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 77 1 this stone kingdom make it interesting for us to ascer- tain what kingdom and what monarchy of this our day may we fitly select as standing for this stone kingdom. What people are meant, and what king- dom ? Though small at its beginning, it is a king- dom that is to grow and prosper, and to continue to the end of time. Guided by the Scripture, and by history, let us look for these four earthly monarchies. That we may the better accomplish our task, let us just stretch this huge figure on its back. Then its head of gold will rest in Babylon, its silver breast and arms will stretch out into Media and Persia, its belly of brass will take in Greece, and its legs and feet will include Eome. Thus, then, the golden head stood for Babylon, which is now represented in that vast empire called Bussia. The gold-headed kingdom will natur- ally be the last to be destroyed, for the liMe stone began its assault at the feet. Russia, therefore, has naturally a long, strong lease of life and prosperity, but finally she too will yield the contest and disappear berore this stone kingdom. The gold stands for worth and endurance, as the head is significant of suprem- acy ; so this kingdom must at this hour be the largest of the four, and the most likely to continue. Tho silver (next in value and endurance), of which the arms and breast were formed, stood for Persia. Centuries ago, Persia was a very great power in the .;/**h. At one time, it would seem as if she never would decay, or there ever could arise a rival to equal her, but the end came, and she has dwindled down to 78 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. the little kingdom and monarchy of the Persia of to-day. Her power is gone, she is consumptive, and will soon disappear as a separate kingdom ! The brass part stands well and properly for an- cient Greece, an empire once so gigantic and power- ful, a people so accomplished and learned, but who long ago have passed away in their majesty and in their strength — comparing their present condition with what is anciently recorded of them. Her time is ne:' y done, her work is nearly o'er, hence she will soon disappear ; the present little Kingdom of Greece is all that is left. Brass is in itself corrosive, and so the Greek Empire has practically eaten itself away. What a sublime lesson these old prophets teach us, and how their teachings correspond with history ! The iron and clay, of which were the legs and feet, stand foflhe old Roman Empire, which in its day wad so solid and grand, with its law and its order, with its soldiers and its statesmen ; this empire that stood upon two feet, Spain and France, as the protectors of it ; this empire that tried the hopeless experiment of thoroughly mixing iron and clay— that is, they tried to mix paganiHiii and Chi'istianity, as begun and inaugurated by Constantiiie ; this empire has tried to stand on two clay feet, and encompass the whole of man, body and spirit, and the whole world. Daniel said it was a brittle empire, and that the iron part would first pass away (which is the temporal rule part of that empire), and it has actually gone ; as I pointed out last Sunday evening, the last speck of iron DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 79 departed from the Roman Empire, as you know, bo that tbe clay alone is now left. In the dream which Daniel had, these four kingdoms of the metallic image are symbolized by four beasts. Babylon by a lion, which had eagles* wings, setting forth the strength and the swiftness of the same. Persia is symbolized by a bear, raised up on one side, holding in its mouth three ribs. Greece was typified by a leopard, which had four heads, and had on its back four wings of fowl. Rome by a nondescript beast, for among all the animal creation there could not be foynd one that would suitably represent it, but one was made com- bining in itself all that is fierce and all that is terrible. *' Its teeth were of iron and its claws of brass, and it was dreadful and terrible and strong." Let UH now look nt this stone kingdom. This fifth kingdom is as much a material and political one as the others, and stftncla for a kingdom, a country and a people ; and herein I divide with many writers who iiavo written on this question. I would like to know what authority a man has to write about four tem- poral kiUj'^doms, and havo a fifth one mentioned immediately, and then make that a spiritual king- dom. I would like an author to give me a reason why he can convert the fifth empire into a spiritual one, wholly, when the others are spoken of as mate- rial empires, with the stone contending with them and gaining supremacy finally. There is no reason; I have never seen it yet, in all the scores of books that I have read. It is an assumption, and some of you 80 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, will assume it to-night, though you could not give a reason the size of my little finger for it. If you find one, send it up here next Sunday night. It does not conre into existence — this kingdom — until the image is perfect, for it was while Nebuchad- nezzar was looking at the image that he beheld this stone cut out of the mountain ; he noticed its growth, and that this was not rapid, but gradual. Its work was apparently to destroy the huge image, and en- larf^e until it should fill the whole world, As these kingdoms become weaker and smaller, it is to become stronger and larger. What country, what people, what kingdom is represented by this stone kingdom ? The answer is as easy to find as it is to find the others, if we keep our minds free from prejudice and open to the truth. First, this kingdom was of divine origin, accord- ing to the interpretation of Daniel; second, it was small at first ; third, the more it fights the more it grows ; fourth, it breaks in pieces this image, beginning at the feet — it is, in fact, the sworn enemy of all the other four kingdoms ; fifth, it is to fill the world, and thus become a universal kingdom, a universal mon- archy. In this latter sense it will be a fit type of Christ's Kingdom. Just such a kingdom as this did God repeatedly promise to Abraham and his descend- ants. He swore to David that his throne should be as the sun in the heavens. He declared to David that his rule should finally be universal. He avowed to David that his seed should have rule upon some throne unto all generations, Well^ if this be so, it DIL WILrrS SERMONS, 81 would seem as if we might find tlie kingdom. I am under the impression, I am under the conviction that what we call the British Empire to-day stands for this fifth kitigdom. So small in its beginning, so mysterious as to its origin, that the best historian cannot tell us the time, nor who were actually the originators of it. It seems to come into existence in- visibly, and it has been a sort of unruly little pugna- cious chap among the other nations, ever and always pounding and fighting, and yet ever and arlways grow- ing. The more it fought the more it grew. It seems to have grown by fighting. About the four kingdoms symbolized in Nebuchad- nezzar's and Daniel's dreams, there is a very general agreement as to their identity among prophetic writers and students. The agreement, howevei, is by no means so uniform with respect to the identity of the fifth or stone kingdom, and this is very natural when one comes to think of the prosperity, of the universality and the pre-eminence that is predicted of this kingdom, for it is natural enough for every people to desire that their nation should be the final and supreme one. He would be lacking strangely in loyalty and love of his country who would not desire so much for it. Freeing myself from selfiah in- fluences, and from all or aught that would pervert my judgment this evening — as well as one can — I am still persuaded that if this stone kingdom is in exist- ence at all, then Great Britain is, of all the nations, the one most likely to sta>nd for the same. You must 82 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. I* I I remember, as I have befoio shown you, that in pro- phetic language and design Britain and the United States are always one ; that is important to keep in your mind, especially if you have Yankee blood in you to-night, lest you would think you were left outside. Do you ask for more confirmation ? I answer : Her present status, her growth, her constant aim, seeming to foreshadow naught else than universal rule and universal empire, and should she grow for the next fifty years as she has grown in the past, sho will encompasB ono-half of the world ! She has the territory, and that is a great factor of power. One- fourth of the whole land and three-fourths of the wide domain of the seas are already under her rule. She has the trategic points and strongholds of tl o earth already in her possession for defence and for conquest. She has a dominant race as her subjects — a race dominant in energy, a race dominant in principles, dominant in all their undertakings, the Saxons of his- tory, the Israelites of the Bible ! In number they are rapidly increasing, and under this rule one-third of the teeming millions of this earth already are ! Did you ever think of that ? One-third of all the popula- tion of this world is now within the embrace of this little stone kingdom ! She has the language best suited to be a universal medium, as even foreigners confess, the only lan- guage that is keeping pace with the growth of her own children. Not a language on the face of the earth but this but is dying out, while theiy death is the DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 88 life of this ! It has the best religion, that in spirit and design seeks to encompass tlno whole world, one whose messengers are abroad in all lands, one whose mission will not cease till all are saved to know the Lord, until the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. No other religion pretends to conquer the earth. Shr has the best Government, and having the best Gov- ernment, she is the model which other governments strive to imitate and follow. In her morality she is equal if not superior to any other. Commercially she is first. Politically her influence is dominant and supreme o'er all others. The Kingdom of God on earth cannot exist without a political form, without a social fabric, and without commerce. Do you suppose in the Millenium there will be no political economy ? Do you suppose there will be no social status or law ? Do you suppose there will be no business done in the Millenium ? Because, if then these things ardv they must be under a government, and that governbjent must be a human government, and therefore, even^ if the stone kingdom is literally a spiritual one, you can never think of r, spiritual kingdom in a earthly world with- out a material economy in which to envelope it, .md therefore we can reasonably expect and look in the Millenium for some throne, for some government ; for the world will not be governmentless then, it can- not be without a throne. It cannot be without laws to regulate it, and to guide the commerce of the peo- !MAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MTS) * m M w t<=>^ ^< ^. fA t 1.0 I.I 11.25 •^ 1^ 1112.2 " IAS illM 6" 1.8 U IIIIII.6 /. ^a V] V '^ y ¥ Photographic Sciences Corporation m 4^ ^1 iV ^v 3raent of the temple, and I will give you the true measurement of a perfect man ; or, con- versely, you give me the true measurement of a per- fect man, and I will give you the true measurement of the temple. " Ye are the temple of the living God " has more force in it than most people think. If you go back — I suppose Adam would be about as perfect a man as one could actually take for the pur- pose of illusti ation. Did you ever think, did it ever come into your mind, as to what you supposed he would weigh ? Did it ever come into your mind as to the stature, the height of Adam ? Of course he was some height, but if I set one you won't have it ; when I set these things, somehow the right is always Just a little off, this side or that. I do not believe with the Kabbis that he was three hundred feet high. That is a little too tall, but I beliave I can ascertain the exact height of Adam, in his primary state, in Scripture, as given to me, and I will then make this statement, that Adam was seven feet in height. You will made him six and a half, some of you, to-mor- row, and some put an inch or two on, to be a little above, but why should he be this height ? Because seven is the perfect number, and he corresponds to this symbolism in nature, and this seven is the gov- erning figure in this New Jerusalem, in Heaven, and on earth, and in man. Every Bible reader will have 104 DIL WlLiyS SERMONS, noticed bow often this number occurs in Scripture. It is the key-stone number, especially in tbe numeri- cal symbolism of this Holy Book ; this Hebrew slicba^ Greek hcpta, Latin sejHem, this number, I repeat, is the key-stone of the symbolism of the Scriptures. There is much wealth of knowledge hid away in the numbers of Scripture. The ancient cabalistic system is not known much. It is said that we have not over a dozen scholars on this continent, (I ques- tion if we have that number), who can get at the hid- den secrets and mysteries of these numbers, and yet every careful student will see that the Hebrew writers had a hidden meaning in the words they used, and even in the letters in constructing a word. Thit, is why men in the past, as well as in the present, have handled so unknowingly and unwisely Scripture num- bers, as presented by the several writers. I need but to refer to the various branches of my Advent brethren ; from the day of Christ until this day, they have stumbled over these figures. There has not bten a wise man among them. I mean to say by that, that tliere has not been a man who has hit the nail on the head. There has not as yet been a man who has been right in the interpretation of these figures or times of Scripture— as mentioned by Daniel, the one thousand two hundred and ninety days, and again, the one thousand three hundred and ninety days. Daniel in the twelfth chapter says, *' Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh unto the three thou- sand three hundred and five and thirty days." It »»*»» Dli. WILD'S SERMONS. 105 ^1^^^ i>> woiilfl be of some importance to know what the par- ticular blcBsing will bo when that period arrives ; but before I can know, I must be able to interpret the ligures as to what th / mean, as to when this one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days end. If I only knew exactly, I might then rejoice if I were anywhere near it. Passing by the other prophets, we see what havoc ignorance has played with the numerical symbolism of the Bible in its effect, and in its interpretation of the Book of Revelation. The seven ^^nirits, the seven churches, the seven voices, the seven thunders, the seven trumpets, the seven stars, the seven candle- sticks, the seven seals, the seven horns, the seven vials, the seven plagues, and the seven-headed beast. Now, we all know how men have striven to handle irliose numbers, and yet we are all cognizant of the fact that up to this day every man has failed. John in the eleventh chapter says that the Gentiles are to tread the Holy City under foot how long ? Forty and two months. Now, if I only knew the length of these forty-two months, and going to the beginning and absolute interpretation as to to the lengtii of these forty-two months, I could tell precisely when Jerusalem would pass out of the government of the Gentiles. In analyzing these numbers their primary idea should always be kept in view. For instance, take this number seven ; it means completion, then rest. Completion is the primary idea, the second one is rest, and the number itself iB|made up of primary num- f'n-f? wm NrW^ ■ 106 DR. niLD'S sFjmoxs. bers. Three is a trinity, and stands in numerical sym- bolism, as all agree, for the Creator. Three stands for the Creator in numerical symbolism. Again, I know of none who dispute that four stands for the crcatuie, the world, the universe. Now, put the two together, and you have seven, three and four, the Creator and the created, completion, for what is there more ? So that when a man presents a fact in its seventh form, he presents it in its most complete form, so that there is nothing outside the Creator and the created. You will find just this in everything as you find in the alphabet. We very free ly say " A B C," but why do we not say *' A B C D " ? Why do we not go on to *' D " ? There is no need of going on to " D." Why ? Because in the trinity of these three letters you have every geometrical fact that is found in the remaining twenty-three ; there is not a new curve or line mado in the remaining twenty-three letters. You have all the geometry that is contained in the twenty-six let- ters contained in the first three. Then you double up these three, and take three and four, and como down to the seventh letter, ** G," wfiich has all the geometry of the first three letters in it. There is not a curve or line in the whole twenty-six letters of the alphabet that is not found in the letter " G," the seventh letter, so that the letter ** G " is the sum total of the geometry of the alphabet. Do you sup- pose that the people did not know, when constructing geometrically our alphabet? Did they not under- DR, WILD'S SERMON . 107 stand tho force, the value of the number seven ? Most certainly they did ! Then you go further and look at this number one hundred and forty-four. It is referred to by the angel as being contained in man. It is the height of the wall ; and then he wishes to say to us that, though the wall is great and high, yet man is adjust- ed to it. Take man then to be seven feet, as the standard, and divide seven now, for instance, into twelve equal squares. I am going to be deliberate on this point. Divide seven into twelve equal squares, the first and last squares in their outlines to include man when he is seven feet high. You will find that the height and breadth are equal. The properly proportioned man with arms outstretched from finger- tip to finger-tip, takes in just the same length as he would in his height. The length and breadth are equal. If you then put him horizontally, and rest him on the tip of his finger, and stretch him out, the depth would be the same, so that man in length, breadth and height ^^ exactly equal, in a well pro- portioned man. And that is what the city is; in length, ftreadth and height it is equal ; more, each of these squares, you will be surprised to know, in- cludes some important division of the body. All that medical science dividea the body into, and can faithfully divide the body into, is twelve parts. Now, each of these twelve parts woul I stand for oni of these squares, so that a man is perfectly related to number, as you see ; first the foot, then the ankle, •'I . miii i {■■ \ 108 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. then the calf, and so on up, till you arrive at the head. Every square is over against an important division of the body. This scale has only recently been discovered by the artist Page; whether the ancients knew it or not we do not know. It is probable they did not. This scale the artists take to make man up; they make him in these proportions — on the rule of the Bible, tho New Jerusalem, in Heaven. And yet men were surprised when they found it out on earth, that that was the true standard of man, and yet the angel has told us it had been used long ago in the upper sanctuary. Now, I am sure no one will deny but that the Bible was before Page, and yet I have artists here — and every one knows that this proportion includes the dimensions, if you want to make a perfect man, so that the angel understood, I am sure, what he was saying. Again, suppose you make the opening of the ear the centre, and draw from it a line to the tip of the nose, and another to the top, you have an includ- ed angle of thirty degrees, the twelfth part of a circle ; you run around the head that way and you have twelve such angles ; and you cannot get it in any other division, take it as you like. Man is adjusted according to the highest mathematical science, in every limb and every part. Then, again, you will find that the different parts of the brain itself are so adjusted also. You will find seven parts of the brain above the line or equator, and five below. It is a strange idea, when you come to that mathematical DR. WILD'S SEMMONS. 109 measnroment, that Ezckiel, in laying ont Palestine for the millenial day, groups seven of the tribes above the Temple to the north and five below, or south, the exact form of my brain and yours. Now, you will go down street to-morrow, and say, ** That was rather curious, was it not ?'* A little singular. It was more than singular. God that made man wrote this Book, and knew all aboiit it, A man that can take in all these things as accidents has got a wonderful appe- tite in his faith. No, my friends, when you come at any point, and test the Bible by literary figures, by your slate, or with your pencil or instruments, man stands revealed as the creature of a loving God ; and there is not a number that I have mentioned but what every man here that has studied figures knows to be a fact, and I am sure no man could lay it down that it was simply an accident. If, as I have said, you lay the man down with his head to the north, you will see three angles north, three angles south, three angles east, and three angles west. The number five, of course, stands related to humanity very curiously, representing his senses, etc., and this five and seven taken together make up twelve. Let me just tell you, in a very short way, what each number stands for, up to twelve. I will do so deliberately; it will help you to understand the Bible. When you read of five, six, seven and eight in the Bible, you will always know, if you can only recollect what the meaning of the number is, you will know what he wt^nts to tell you ; but if you do not know w f i ! '' " ^' 110 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. what the meaning of the number is, you cannot get the meaning of the sacred writer. One stands for unity. Two for competency, and consequently you have t'^/o tables of the law, two wit- nesses always going to see an offending brother, two tebtimonies, two Testaments. Hence Christ is called the second person in the Godhead, the true witness of God ; you will have two witnesses who will pro- phesy in his name in ttie day of Antichrist. Three represents the idea of completeness, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Four stands for the world, as the four corners, four winds, etc. Five stands for htcmanity, having reference to the five senses, five fingers, etc. Six stands for labor. Six days shalt thou labor ; it is the labor number. Seven means perfection, rest, something finished. It is the rest number after six. Eight stands for ecil, as we read in Ecclesiastes, tenth chapter, what the preaclier says : " Give a portion to seven, and also to eight." The sacred writer means that we should help the good, the just, first, and if you have anything further to spare after that, then bestow your charity upon the sinner, the unconverted; in other words, as Paul says, **Do good unto all men," {i.e., unto eight), " and especially to them which are c*' the household of faith," {i.e., especially unto seven). AVhat could a man know about these numbers unless he liiiows the meaning of the number primarily ? Nii^E expresses limitation, bounds. This we have retained in our general experience ; leases are given for ninety-nine years, nine hundred and ninety -nine DH. il'ILD'S SERMONS, HI years, etc. The ancient Druids themselves made nine their sacred number. Ten teaches responsibility ; and 60 it comes to pass that we would have ten comand- ments, as these are the measure of our responsibility. Eleven answers to dcnger ; thus the eleventh hour men who stood in the market stood in danger of not being hired, and so a person spiritually in the eleventh hour is in danger of being lost. Twelve stands for organizatio7i ; thus there were united twelve tribes, twelve Apostles, twelve gates to the New Jerusalem, twelve zodiacal signs have ^e to divide the heavenly circle, twelve months complete the year, twelve jurymen in the law's most complete form of trial. This number and other numbers you find doubled ; twice twelve, twenty- four — twenty-four elders around the throne of God. Square the number and you get one hundred and forty-four. In trade we have also to acknowledge it. You used to have things put up in packages by the dozen, the twelve ; that was the retail form, the wholesale was the gross, one hun- dred and fourty-four. Now why did they not make it one hundred and forty-two or one hundred and tbirty-six ? What taught them to make it one hun- dred and forty-four '? It is a measure of man ; they have it themselves, and it was evolved out of themselves. And in our trade we should be leminded, when we do trade lawfully, of God ; and a man could not do trade intelligently if he did not know these numbers without being reminded of God and God's will at every point- 112 Dlt WILD'S SEIiMONS. In nature you have these numbers also. You take the mammalia, the order of beasts, the different fami- lies, the number of vertebrae in the neck is seven ; that is, seven joints in the neck, whether it be in tlie giraffe with its long neck, or the elephant with its short one ; they have only these seven joints, whether it be in the camel with its flexible joints, or in the great whale with its immovable joints — seven, only seven. Now, it is something to know, for if a man tells you that an animal belongs to the mammalia, you know at once how many bones it has got in its neck, never more or less. It is the sacred number running through the animal kingdom. In the vegetable kingdom you have these numbers. In the lowest form two, in the next three, in the highest five. The leaves come out opposite, then three, then five, and they always double up on that, two to four, four to eight, eight to sixteen. Number is in every plant that grows, so you see God himself understood number. You have the same in mechanism. It is well that the mechanic shall number the product of his own skill, so that if this is a package of screws, what number are they ? It is better for us to have uni- formity ; it is better for the wheels of waggons to be just the same distance apart. It is better that a screw should be always turned one way. A man might struggle a long time to find which way to un- loosen, if it were not for the rule that you are safe to unfasten if you turn towards yourself, and they put the fastening where pian is strongest. It is necessary ;e to put sary DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 113 to have this uniformity. We recognize it in nature, commerce, everything. I say because it is every- wliere, and we have adopted it ; it is in Scripture and in man. I never break the chain of numerical symbolism, and that is why I say that man is body, soul and spirit ; and there is not a man can prove the con- trary. Everything is against him in every sphere, trade, animal kingdom, everything that lives, figure after figure. I know you are Jgrumbling, but bring your figures next Sunday night, and cease grumbling until you have found them out ; that is the best way to do it. If man is only a dichotomous animal, only two- fold, he is not related to anything living in the animal world; he is an exception and on a lower scale of order than they are. So there are these facts for consideration. You will see that science also has its numbers, and curious facts come to us by these numbers. We have strange ideas and strange sayings based upon numbers. " It takes nine tailors to mike a man." Why not say it takes seven to make a man ? I know how it is said to have originated. A poor yet hand- some boy, travelling the streets of London, went into a tailor shop to beg, and there were nine tailors sew- ing, and they took pity on him, and pledged each one to make him a suit of clothes. They kept their pro- mise, and when in his new suit, he looked so much better that he soon got a good place, and in after years, when rolling in his carriage, he had emblazon- ed on the panel, " Nine tailors made me a man," I irrii: 114 DR. WILDES SERMONS, know how it is said to have originated, and yet there is the old Druidical idea that nine is complete, nine being their sacred number. Then we have " Nine points of the law." Why not seven ? What are the nine ? A good lot of money, a good deal of patience, a good cause, a good lawyer, a good counsel, a good witness, a good jury, a good judge, and good luck. These are the nine points of the law. And yet you see the old Druid idea, as it comes down, and you take our idea of thirteen, which skips beyond com- pletion ; &ni so if you have got thirteen you spoil the organization of the table, and the one leaves, owing to superstitious ideas that there is something wrong in being thirteenth. Where did we get the idea ? Judas Iscariot, being thirteenth at the table, went out and ))etrayed Jesus, and afterwards hanged himself, and so the fear is that if one make the thir- teenth, they may^ betray and hang themselves before the year has passed. So that in all these numbers we have strange ideas. You go to Job, and hear what the Lord says ; ''He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea, in seven there shall no evil overtake thee." Now, what would you know about that if you did not know about the num- bers ? Six means, work. He shall be with you in toil ; and seven rest, spiritual life, He will be witji you in spirit. God be praised that we know the spirit of the promise ! Then I come to Micah, in the tiftli chapter, speaking of a certain person who should oome to aid the people to deliver th^mselyes : ** And i here nine Nine )the snce, good luck. I you , you corn- spoil Baves, ^tiling )t the table, anged thir- before DR, WILD'S SERMONS, 116 this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land ; and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shep- herds and eigiit principal men." Why not five shep- herds and six principal men ? Because the state- ment means that both the religious and the other community shall unite to resist this invasion. So, again, if you want a perfect man, according to the standard that Peter lays down, you have in faith, first, virtue ; second, knowledge ; third, temperance ; fourth, patience ; fifth, godliness ; sixth, brotherly kindness ; seventh, charity. Why not eight ? Be- cause seven virtues make a perfect man, and the number must correspond with the idea. So that through the Scriptures we are taught how admirably God has adjusted us to this world, and we shall be adjusted, I believe, to the new earth and new heavens, for that New Jer-usalem that is above, and which the sacred writer says has yet to descend on this earth. So beyond this life, beyond this world in flames, beyond the resurrection morn, beyond the judgment day, we look with Peter over the flapaing heavens, the dissolving elements, and the fervent heat, for the new heavens and earth, in which shall dwell righteousness. Let it be ours to strive to be accounted worthy of admittance to that great city above May we all be citizens of the New Jerusalem above, in the new Heaven and earth. I will ask you to sing again, as we did the other night, two verses of " Shall we gather at the River ?'* P 1i « SERMON VIL "666!" TEXT. — " Here is wisdom, let him that hath nnderstanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred threo score and six." — Revela- tion xiiii 18, One of the notable characters yet to appear among men is that of Antichrist, He has a work and a time assigned him in the Scriptures of truth, as well as by the concurrent testimony of the Churches* expectation at large. By nearly all proph^ic students it is agreed that this strange and wonderful person is referred to in the words of our text. From the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, B.C. 170, to the late Napoleon Buonaparte, men, in unreasonable haste, have chosen out from the passing millions no less than thirty-five persons whom they thought to be Antichrist. This they have done because they have not had the wisdom nor the under- standing that is to characterize the interpretation of this text. What our Saviour said to the deputation of Sadducees who on one occasion waited upon him might have been safely said to many in the past, and to more in the present day : " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." The inspired DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 117 the iiom done ider- an of on of him ,and wing pired writers, Daniel and Paul and John, had pointed out the time and place and work and the peculiar char- acteristics of this person, and after all this precaution men have not had the wisdom nor understanding to save them from bein^^ deceived, and from being de- ceivers themselves. To understand the meaning of " 666 " we must know the Greek method of numbering. They had their numbers in certain letters of the alphabet. So had the Hebrews, and so have many nations in their language to-day. Our system is the Arabic system of notation, and is independent of alphabetic letters, although we often use letters in notation. I can say ** Eighteen hundred and eigh^-two " in figures ; I could also express the same thing by writing its value in letters, thus, " MDCCCLXXXII," for "M" stands for one thousand, ** D " for five hundred, " C " for one hundred, "L" fifty, **X" ten each time, and "I" one. In Greek the first nine letters were equal to our nine digits, i.e., to 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9 ; and out of the rest of the alphabet they got their tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. You see every name would therefore contain some number, and by adding up the value of the letters that would be contained in the name, you would get the sum total of the name. The letters in the name of Antichrist will, when added, make 666, whoever he happens to be, wherever he happens to live, or whatever his name happens to be. Take for instance the famous name ** Napoleon," which has been so wonderfully argued upon by Mr. Baxter and a M """'ill 118 DH. WILD'S SERMONS. others, proviag that he was this Antichrist, because in this word they could find the number 666. The word ** Apolyon " has two forms in Greek, " Apol- uon," the present participle of the verb " i^pollumi," that means to destroy ; the other form is " Apoleo," with its participle " Apoleon." Now Apoleon and Napoleon are radically the same word. The ** N " of the Napoleon is the Greek word " Nai " abbreviated, and means verily, or the very one. When the ** N " is added, as in Napoleon, it means, therefore, " the very Apoleon," or the very destroyer. The word, as used by John, is in what is called the inscriptive form, hence in the dative case. In the inscriptive form the word becomes " Napoleonti," so that we have now only to calculate the value of the letters contained in the word " Napoleonti." " N " 50, " A " 1, " P " 80, **0"70, "L"30, "E"6, *'0" 70, *' N " 50, "T" 800, " I " 10 ; total, 666. There is something curious in the fact that so many have selected from time to time one of the Napoleonic family as being Antichrist. Perhaps it will be well for me to give you the reason why this has been so frequently done, for I am ^'nclined myself to believe that when he comes into existence and we really un- derstand him and know him, he will be of the family of the Buonapartes, because the Buonapartes them- selves are of Jewish extract and really Jews. Shall I give now what I collected some time ago on this point ? I have said that the Buonaparte family are Jews. History shows that centuries ago they were Dli. WILD'S SERMONS. 119 l^ii I' IS a family of rulers and aspirants. David, the second Emperor of Trebizonde, was one of this family, and was in his time the lawful heu* of the throne of Con- stantinople. He was put to death by Mahomet the Second. His son, George Nicepbor Comnene, was one of the Protogeras of the Commune of Mania, in PeloponesuB. Ten of this family succeeded one the other, until in 1665, Constantine Comnene fled to Italy with several thousand of his followers. The Genoese Senate granted to him large tracts of land in Corsica. One of Constantine's sons afterwards settled in Florence, in Tuscany ; his name was Calo- meras, which, translated into Italian, becomes Buona- parte. Soon after that time the whole family adopted the name of Buon?parte. In 1783, the Genoese ceded Corsica to France, and thus came this family into the French Empire. "When Buonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French he assumed the title of ** Napoleon the First," to signify, as he himself stated, his Greek origin. If you search farther back into history you will find that this family were, as I have said, Greek Jews. Old Buonaparte, as well as Napoleon the Third, be- lieved they were of Jewish lineage. They looked for th'^ir fortune and destiny on the Jewish line. It was this belief that prompted them both to frequently call councils of the Jews, and take advice from them. That belief prompted them ever and always to look to Palestine as the chief goal of their pursuit. They both set themselves up as protectors of the Holy IP liiil til B" 1'20 DR. W'lLirs SEliMONS. " Our " Mes- Land, and each of them led France to battle in de- fence of the same. Of course it is difficult to make out as plain as one could desire that they are of Jew- ish extract ; still the family, by their very disposi- tion, are naturally qualified to furnish any number of Antichrists. The late Napoleon Buonaparte loved to have himself addressed by such titles as Saviour," " Eegenerator,'' " Elect of God," siah of the French Nation." He once gave a preacher who chanced to compare him to Christ a gold snuff- box for his wisdom. "When Buonaparto called the first council of the Jewish nation, in 1807, the first thing he imposed upon them was that in getting up to speak they should address him as " The Lord's Anointed Cyrus, the living image of Divinity." There is at the present time a sect in Switzerland who worshipped Napoleon Buonaparte, and they believe that he will yet rise from the dead and conquer the whole world. These and many similar facts have been the rea- sons why persons have settled upon this family as the one from which will finally come that singular and strange person, Antichrist. However, to be guarded against such impostors and such imposition, it is necessary that we have clear and sound views on the subject. If we have not we are likely to be imposed upon, and we therefore need to be grounded in sound doctrine as a good and safe thing. Insta- bility is insecurity : ignorance is positive danger. Epidemics and ooutagious diseases attack those first IJH. WILUS SKHMONS. 121 and morft wlio are in an unhealtliy condition bodily; so false doctrines and their teachers can lead those astray lirst and most who are not settled in some faith. But as a rule the Church jiff'cts to despise these special topics. But we all know that it is those special doctrines wliich have played ruin and liavoc in the Cliur di and rent it in twain several times. When such an elTect has been produced from neglect to teach people on these points, ministers in the pulpit lift up their hands in holy horror, and then begin to berate the persons who have gone astray. Had the pulpit been truly teaching these peculiar ways and methods of interpreting prophecy, our Advent brethren never could have led themselves nor any one else astray, as they have so frequently succeeded in doing. Nor can you put your finger of exception upon any one man or church who are not in danger. Unless they are posted upon these very theories, as I have said, they lay themselves open to be led astray by the lirst man who comes along and takes up the subject, for it is verily true that igiwr- ance is weakness and a positive defect. If persons would learn the order of prophetic events, they would not, I imagine, be so soon led astray. Order is said to be Heaven's first law, and mose certainly it is the method of providential pro- cedure. We have this order laid down in the Scrip- tures, and why any man could have expected in the past Jesus Christ to come I cannot conceive ; I am hi: M ipp %M^ f! 122 Dli. WILJy^ SEILWhSii. 'Jin I,: utterly at sea, utterly lost. The order of evints in the prophecies is as clearly laid down as my fingors are in a row. Why a man should jump to take his little finger when he has only got to his second I can- not understand ; and yet that is what they have been doing ! Nowhere in God's Word is it taught that Christ can or will come, with the Jews scattered, Israv.1 unrecognized, and Palestine in desolation. There is no such passage, and I have challenfred you time upon time on that very point. And more, Anti- christ himself, as you will naturally see, in his very appearance and work, the work tliat is assigned liim, needs a restoration of PalesLine before he can come. Ho appears in Palestine among the Jews, a ruler over the Jews. One of the acts for which he will be stig- matized the most is that he will set up an image in the Temple at Jerusalem. There is no Temple there now ; there has not been one for eighteen hundred years. WI v then should any man suppose that Anti- christ can ( e in existence ? He could not have ful- filled his mission if he had been. Any one can see that he is to be a prince or a ruler over the Jews in Palestine, and gradually insinuate himself into the confidence of the people ; and then, extending his power to other nations, he becomes absolute in his authority ; and then he changes from his simple faith as a Jew, and proclaims himself to be " Antichrist," not opposed to Christ, mind you, but Christ himself. " Anti," not ** ante," which means going before or against. The word simply means that he will set DH. WILirS SERMONS, 123 up his imago in tlio Temple, ami commaml that they worbhip him as God. Now, that Temple is not yet huilt ; the Jews are not yet all gathered together there — I believe we have a few of them yet in Toronto. Now, how can men go around and be led astray ? If they would only con- sider the order of events. The architectural draw- ings for that Temple are all ready ; they are given in the last eight chapters of Ezekiel : how that Temple is to be buiK., and when it is to be built, and after all that, when th« people are settled there, this Anti- christ is to make his appearance in their midst. Now, this is what I call observing the order of events. This is what I call not taking a man's little finger at a jump after one has got to the second. It is just the folly of many a young reader of novels ; they cannot wait to see how this or that tragedy turns out, they turn to the last few pages to know ; these peo- ple, in fcheir religious haste, skip a number of facts, and come to the last, and say, " Here it is." They tell you the truth about it in a very large degree, just as the other parties could tell you the truth about how the tragedy would end, but they do not know much of what intervenes, nor do they know the whole truth as to how it ends. Antichrist, as I have said, I believe will be a Jew. Our Saviour on one occasion, when talking to these Jews about their rejecting Him, (and you know He was a Jew Himself after the flesh, for He was of the Tribe of Judah), warned them in this manner against this very Aijtichiist : " I come It 124 DIL WlLD'b SEUMOiSS. in My Father's name, and ye received Me not ; /inother shall come in his own name, him ye will i«ceive." Now, that is a passage that is generally understood to be a reference by Christ to the Jewish origin of Artichrist, whoever he may be. Another thing we should keep in mind is to remem- ber three things in studying Antichrist. They are the sjnrit of Antichrist, the polity of Antichrist, and the person of Antichrist. These are widely separate in the ages ; hundreds of years intervene between the first and the last. Naturally the spirit of Antichrist must come into existence first. It was already iu existence before John the Divine died, and he pointed it out, and so Paul when writing to the Thessftlonians said : " For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.*' God is restraining, and will not allow the ofience to culminate until a certain time, when he will withdraw his resisting power ; then the polity will assume shape, and after that the person will soon be seen. As again said by that same writer, *' And now we know what withholdeth, that He might be revealed in His time." Do you know what with- holdeth ? God, as in the verse quoted, *' Now we know what withholdeth, that He might be revealed in His time." There is a time for him when he will appear, but it has not been yet. God, in His Provi- dence, will keep His hand upon the events and sup- press them until the time comes, and then He will withdraw His power, and Antichrist shall appear, as DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 125 Paul teaches ; if we would only keep in mind what I have quoted in that verse, " Now we know what with- holdeth," etc. In this verse you have three things — a withholding power, a person to be revealed, and a time for his appearance. All seems to be plainly written to my eyes. The spirit of Antichrist, as I have said, was already in existence in John's time : " For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh — this is a deceivev and Antichrist." That is the spirit he is talking about ; the spirit was already in exist- ence. The polity of Antichrist is just now maturing. If you could only get an idea of what that polity is, you woutd see how nicely the nations of Europe are shaping the oiselves for itg completion. This courting between Russia and Kome is very significant, because they have yet to unite, when Antichrist appears ; and though these two courts have been separated for a long time, they are now courting, and have just about concluded that they will marry. Is there anything singular in it? Is there anything singular in the alienation of the old time ally France from England ? No, sir ; they are all getting ready for the polity, and when the spirit is rampant and the polity is matured, the person will appear and step into it, as a person into a new suit of clothes. So you have this order of events — the spirit, polity and person. The person, of course, will be the last to appear. I have an illustration for that, which I con- "^ f^l fmm llil I 126 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. sider is a good one — one that is easily comprehended. You take the case of an uprising or rebellion. You go to the United States in their late war. Now, see, the spirit of that rebellion was manifested before Washington died, and in the very last speech that he made to the Congress, when bidding them good-by, he warned them against certain practices, against a certain spirit that he said was being Dan V ited amonjr them : ** I warn you to depart from it, lo let it alone, for if you nurse it, it will bring ruin on this country." Now, the spirit was there. That spirit kept being nursed for years, and finally they began to shape their policy, they began to meditate separation ; and as soon as the spirit had matured the polity, and the polity was all complete, and they had put it in shape by secession. State after State, they were not long in finding Antichrist Jefferson Davis, though he wa« the last to appear. You see you coald not get J v » ^.on Davis if you had not the spirit first, and !iL v iSe polity into which he stepped. He is the represc. la- tive, then. That is just so with the real Antichrist. The spirit has existed a long time, the polity is now forming, and we s'^all have to look out in a few years for the appearance of the person. He will appear suddenly, and it is difficult to say who he will be, as the actual identical person. Thus you have cycles in Providence as you have them in nature. God says he will withhold until a certain time. There are cycles in Providence that must as certainly be completed an the cycles in nature. DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 127 •) lit 'If You take onr chronological cycles — the golden number cycle, its figure is 2, they say ; the epoch cycle, its figure is 11, they say ; the solar cycle, the figures are 15 ; the dominical letter cycle, the letter is " A " ; the Roman interdiction cycle, the number is 10; the Julian cycle, or period, is 6,695 ; the Jewish cycle, or period, is 6,643 ; the Mahommedan is 1,300 ; and our cycle, the cycle of Christ, is 1882. Now, we have got these cycles in nature — we have got them and we recog- nize them. There is likewise a cycle iu Providence. We have cycles in the heavens ; there are certain work- ings and peculiar motions of the planetary system that go their round, jvUst as the fingers of a clock go around and come to their accustomed point. Tho grand cycle of which we form a part takes that great clock face twenty-five thousand five hundred and sixty eight years to come around before the fingers will be at twelve again (the precession of the eqainoxes). Now, that is a cycle I As I have said, n-c have cycles in nature and in history, and there is also a cycle in Providential re- demption. The cycle which we are in the midst of now is the cycle of redemption. It began the moment man fell in Eden, the moment be was lost. It was ushered in by silence for the space of half an hour. But this cycle also is to close ; there will be a time when this cycle will be completed. There will be a point reached when the angel shall make the following proclamation, ftnd swear by Him th^t liveth for ever and ever, wUq ft? III 12S DR. WILD'S SERMONS, created Heaven and the things that therein are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and the sea and the things which are therein, that there shall be time no longer; that cycle will cease someday, and then will come the end. Then cometh the end, when He si 1 all have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and all power, for He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet. That cycle is being completed, and it will be finished in due time, and a new one will be introduced, of which we can form but a faint conception. I have said that the re- demptiv« cycle was ushered in in silence ; it shall end with a hymn of triumph, joined in by every creature in the heavens and in the earth and in the sea. They shall join in this grand chorus, singing with a loud voice, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." So we are in the midst of these grand cycles, and these events will ma- ture in the order pointed out by Providence ; so that it is well for men to study these cycles, just as we are studying the cycles of the wind, the cycle of the mag- netic current, the various cycles of the various forces that are in nature, and we are able now to forecast the weather for to-morrow, and in many cases more than to-morrow, even for several days; and the day, no doubt, will come when we will understand the pro- per cycle, that we can forecast the weather for a year, just as well as we can forecast it for a day, because :■!!*.■; DR, WILD'S SERMONS, 129 all nature is in this cycle, and all nature is attuned to that Providence which is working out this great re- demptive scheme. And a grand scheme it is, my friends ! When we come to think now of these cycles, and we think of onrs, 1882 — which of these cyctes shall ho the best for the world, which shall survive ? What do I mean when I write *' 1882 "? I mean the truth of Christ. Do you dispute it ? Do you dispute the Jewish cycle, of the age of the world ? Do you dispute that it is what they say it is ? Do you dispute that it is 1,800 in the Mahommedan countries ? Do you dispute that it is 6,595 of the Julian period. Do you dispute that the solar cycle is 1,500 ? You would not dispute these things ; you do not dispute the cycle of the foundation of Rome — so many years from the building of the city. Now, how do men learn to dispute the grand redemp- tive cycle of Christ, 1882 ? If Rome was founded, Christ came ; if the Jewish cycle is true, Christ's cycle of 1882 is true also. If the solar cycle is true, this divine cycle of the Messiah is also true. And a man who disputes it is witnessing against himself every time he signs 1882, for he might just as well sign ** the Lord Jesus Christ." That is what it means. It is a strange thing for him to say, I am within the bounds of the Messiah's cycle, and yet I disbelieve it. There are some strange inconsistences in this world, my friends, but, happily for us, a majority of us do helieve that lie came, we do believe in His glorious resurrection, we do believe that, though Antichrist 180 DJl. WILD'S SERMONS. shall appear, the true Christ shall yet be triumphant in His victories over the devil, the world and the flesh. And so let us patiently wait the completion of this cycle. Astronomers look with a great degree of plea- sure at the little epicycles that sometimes close in the heavens ; and so I look forward to that grand occas- ion when that angel voice — for it is said he shall speak with a loud voice — shall proclaim that time is no more. I look forward joyfully to the period when He shall descend, as written by that blessed poet, Montgomery : " Throned in mid- air with clouds of glory spread, He'll sit in judgment on the quick and dead." He shall come, my friends, and time shall be no more, and we will cease to number our experience and progress by the years of Christ's redemptive cycle. How shall we number it in the new world ? I often wonder how we shall express our experience in the new Heaven and earth. We cannot use years, we shall not be able to use months; time in those simple divisions will be banished forever, and eternity will be our heritage ; but when we once get there, when God shall have completed His great redemptive cycle, and have become all-in-all, we shall know how to act, and how to conduct ourselves. The good Lord help ui?. Amen. ^^ lant in fleeh. of this t plea- in the occas- ) shall time is i when d poet, 11 be no )erience re cycle. I often in the lars, we fiimple y will be len God cle, and act, and lelp ua- SEKMON VIIL THE TRANSIT OF VENUS. TEXT.— "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firiuament sheweth His handiwork." — Psalm xix, 1. The Bible is a wonderful book, not only in age and in its influence upon civilization, but especially in the precision and accuracy with which it forecasts the great events of the nations and the salient 'facts of science. The Bible, though an old book, is not by any means, as yet, behind the times, neither scienti- fically, commercially nor morally. The Bible does not assume to be a scientific treatise, yet when it states facts, and refers to the laws and forces of na- ture, it does so in harmony with the settled conclu- sions of science in nature in all her departments. The positive fact is that the Bible has been, and probably is yet, a long way ahead of the sober and generally accepted conclusions of scientific men. I know of no fact of science but what can be found enunciated in part or in whole in the sacred Scriptures. Very like- ly some of you are ready to say that is because I do not know much. My answer is, if you know more, point out these discrepancies for the culture of society. DR. WILD'S SERMONS. Let me illustrate. Take, for instance, the shape and motion of this earth, and you will agree that these two points were not known or taught in any of the ancient writers,, or contained in any of the mythol- ogies of the ancient times, and that they have been ascertained in what we must call modern times. Scientists take credit to themselves for having found out these two points. Now, both of these facts are taught in the Bible. I will refer you to the thirty- eighth chapter of the Book of Job. With reference to the rotundity of th£ earth, he speaks of clouds being a garment and thick darkness as swaddling bands for it. May I ask any one the meaning of swaddling bands ? The answer will have to intply that which is wrapped around something. Then how could the earth be swaddled if it were not round ? The Egyptians, and other nations that were contemporary with the Hebrews, believed that the earth was one vast plain, nor is the rotundity of the earth taught by any of the ancient authors, or in any of the mytholo- gies of the ancient world. Alone is it taught in the Bible of our God ! In this same thirty-eighth chap- ter it is said : " Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days, and caused the day-&pringto know his place, that it might take hold of the end of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it ? It is turned as clay to the seal.'' Here, indeed, is the motion of the earth ; here it is stated that it turns toward the sun, like clay on the wheel of a potter to receive its impression, and in the East a better illustration, or a DIL WILD'S SERMONS. 133 more simple one, could not be given. It is one that coulcJ be easily comprehended by the simplest person, lie would know that the clay was turned around on the potter's wheel to receive its impression, and as that is done, so the earth turneth round toward the sun to be enlightened of the same. If you will analyze these sayings — the day-spring, for instance. He says, " caused the day-spring to know his place." When you set a springe to catch a beast or bird of prey, you expect it to go off at the right time, don't you ? And if it went off after the bait had been eaten, you would not consider it a gooi^ springe. It is the same when you set ^ )ur alarm clock, in order that it may go off at the time you in- tend to arise, and if it is a good one, and is set cor- rectly, I suppose it will. It knows the time, as it were, and the springe in the forest knows the time when to cHck off', just as the clock knows the time when to be- gin to make a noise. The day-spring knoweth its time, nor has it forgot to spring open the gates of morn, and let in the light to this our world. Has it ever mistaken, has the spring ever been fast, has it ever by any neglect been behind time ? Cannot we gather these simple illustrations, and see that science in its very aesence is contained in the Bible ? And then he says, " take hold of the ends of the earth,''* bold of the " polos *' of the earth ; the Hebrew is, "knowing the poles of the earth." And why would he take hold of the poles ? That he might shake the earth — and why ? That he might shake the wicked ii •; !■ _ 184 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. out of it. Did he ever do bo ? He did, at the time of the flood. Nearly all good scientists agree as to the cause of the flood. The axis of the earth heing a little askew from the plane of the earth's orbit, goes to show that it has been tilted out of its proper place ; and it is not an irreverent suggestion, nor is it un- scientific, that at the time of the flood, God took hold of the poles and tipped up the earth, as far as it is now askew from the plane of its orbit ; and what was shaken out ? The wicked. Just as Eliphaz, the Temanite, says, in the twenty-second chapter, " Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden, which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood ?" Turn, if you please, from the earth to the sky, and study the divine wonders there for a few moments, and on a clear starlight night, how enchanting and enticing the vaults of Heaven are ! You k>ok as night sets in for a star ; they come out, as it were, in clusters, here and there, until the whole heavens are studded. The mind cannot grasp the number of these heavenly bodies, and we can form but the faintest idea of their speed on their interwinding pathways in their respective orbits in the density of space. As- tronomers tell us they have discovered stars two thou- sand billion miles distant. This distance would give us a circumference of twelve thousand five hundred billion miles, and around this circumference must these stars move every sideral day, as they revolve on their axes, making a motion of one hundred and forty-five million DR. WILiys SERMONS. 135 miles in a clock tick ! Now, is there anr man who can grasp the immensity of those worlds, or can get the faintest idea of their speed, if these inferences are at all correct ? These stars going at that rate go one hundred thousand million times faster than a cannon ball when it goes forth from the cannon. Have you ever read Isaiah, fortieth chapter? ''Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their hosts by number ; He calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power not one faileth." Now, here you see the fact that you observe every night, that stars come out in clusters, in systems ; they do not come out one here, one yonder, one at this pUce and one at that, but in clusters, just as Isaiah says. And why do they not fail, these huge bodies? Because He is strong, it says, not one failethi Can any one grasp the idea of the strength it must take to revolve these huge worlds upon their axes ? Not the faintest idea can the most gigantic mind take in. Our text says, " The heavens declare the glory of God." The word glory here is " kabod-el,'* and it means permanence, the solidity and security of God. There is another word, " tiphereth-el^'" which means beauty, so that the word here used is to convey the* idea of permanence and security ; though these worlds are suspended in space, and go at such rapid rates, yet they are all secure in their orbits, and thus the glory of God is declared in the firmament of the 4 \\ m Wf ^1 I idG l>n. inijrs SKRMONS. heavens. And, my friends, can you conceive, as I have said, of the wisdom that ordained, and the power that could maintain these vast systems, and can any man look up at the vast mechanism and machinery of the heavens, and then turn and foolishly say, " There is no God "? We can look up even to-day, with that childlike simplicity of thought almost, — even after all that science has done, — and looking at the stars, say : •' Twmkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you a' Up above the world ho hip Like a diamond in tho sky 1" lie says God has named eacli one, too. We have a few of thes3 names that are given us, and you may rest assured that when the Almighty names He names accurately. It is the wonder of the scientific world to-day that the Hehrew names of birds and beasts and flowers are scientific ; this is one of the wonders. The best proof that Hebrew was the original language — the best proof you can submit to any intelligent mind that Hebrew was the language of Adam— is that the Hebrew names given to the beasts, birds and fishes, and things of nature, are so absolutely descriptive and correct. They are scientifically correct; and now, if tho Lord has named these stars, and the Psalmist says He knoweth them all by name, what a wonder it is ! We have catalogued about one hundred thousand of them, but there are tea thousand billions yet of which we know no nainos. The names that He has given us in the Book of Job are, " Ash," ** Cesil " VII, UlljyS SKUMONIS. 137 I' and "Cimab," which we translate "Arcturus," " Orion," " Ploiados." Have you over read in Paul, Ist Corinthians, fifteenth chapter, this siraple state- ment : " One star differeth from another in glory," i. «., in beauty ? Did you over look through a telescope at tlie stars ? To our eyes these stars look as if there were a certain sameness ; but there is not a star that is equal to an- other in color. Every star has a different combina- tion of color. They .i*e all colored like tho kalei- doscope that you would look into. When you look through the telescope at a star, they appear to have bands of colors, red, yellow, green, orange, and these mixed and intermingled, and so people now know. We did not know it until we got the large telescope, and yet here Paul says, " One star differeth from an- other in glory." How came Paul to know? Because God inspired this written Word, and every ptar is a proof of the same. And then again He says, in this Book of Job, '* Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ; canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons ? " Arcturus, the so- called Great Bear, which most of us early learn to discern in the sky, which always revolves around the North Pole, and is one of those constellations that never set in the North Hemisphere, as if it was tethered — ^just as you would drive a peg and tether a beast in a field — it is said «his Arcturus guides his sons, and it is the only constellation, out of the ten ii li I Hi 188 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. thousand that arc np there, that could be so spoken of. Now, what would a man think, if out of the ten thousand, he found one bound ? And the only one that is so bound, the Bible tells you about it. How did He happen to guess it ? I tell you every star is a pledge of this Book being inspired ; man cannot guess at such important points. Then " Mazzaroth," — you will see in your margin " the zodiac " — the great circle of the heavens divided into twelve compartments. In this chapter He refers to the sun as a bridegroom coming out of his cham- ber to run a race, as the sun stays a little bit in each of these signs. Now, did not they know about this zodiac ; did not they understand this division, and would not the whole stamp itself as one of the most sublime expositions of the same great fact? And then He presents Orion here. You will remem- ber He says, "Who can loose the bands of Orion?" Ho is represented as a giant. The constellation looks as if it were tied on every side, and hence God asks Job if he can loose the bands of Orion, of this constel- lation, by which it is held fast in its orbit. No. And then He comes to the Pleiades, the seven stars. Now, theL3 you will be familiar with ; this group of stars in the heavens most of us know. Is it not a strange fact that Prof. Madler, the great German astronomer, who died as recently as March, 1874, only, received gold medals from the several Governments of Europe? And what did he receive these medals for ? Because he wa3 reported to have discovered the central sun of DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 139 the universe. And what was this central sun that he discovered, for which he got these rewards ? He made it out to be the star "Alcyone," one of the prin- cipal stars in the group known as the Pleiades. " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?" But what is the Pleiades in the Hebrew, my friends ? It is " Cimah." And what is " Cimah " ? The axle on which something turns round, the axle of the universe. And the Governments gave him golden medals because he had found a " Cimah," an axle in the heavenS; which the Bible had known from the days of Job unto this time. Now, sir, what do you think of the Bible ? Do you think it is behitld time ? And still men can talk in their bhndness — or wilfulnesss, for one can hardly think they are blind enough to express the ideas they do — about the Bible being behind the times, or being opposed to any scientific thought or development. It is near Christmas, is it not ? Yes. Well, I will tell you what will be a good thing for me to do. I will give twenty-five dollars to the St. George's Society, a respectable society, to feed the poor, if any man in Toronto will give me a fact., known and settled upon by science, that is not in the Bible ; or more, if he will give me a fact that is opposed by the Bible, in any of the departments of nature. I shall have to give some- thing at Christmas, you know, and I would just as soon give it that way. It is easy for men to go through the world, talking carelessly, who make no special study of these sacred pages ; but when a man comes hii 140 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. down to read the sacred pages in the increased light of science, the Bible stands before him more and more the work and production of an infinite mind, for no man could ever have forecast the central sun as He has done, and given it its name, ** Cimah." God names the stars, as we have said, and therefore they are rightly named; and so one might go on. The Bible is ahead of man, just as nature is ahead of us, chemically aiad artistically, for who can mingle and mix colors better than they are mixed and min- gled in flowers ? Who can construct architecturally better than the beaver its house or the bird its nest ? One of the greatest questions that was ever put for the scientific world to solve was, " What kind of a structure must it be that shall give the most room with the least material and be the strongest ? " It was a problem for the universities for two hundred years. McLaughlin, the Scotch mathematician, by fluxionary calculation, finally hit upon it, and was lauded and praised for it. And what did it turn cut to be? Exactly the bee-cell. All the lines and proportions of the common bee-cell ; so while man architecturally was struggling how to get the strongest building, with most room and least material, tl e bee had been doing it from time immemorial. Oh, what a God-evidence there is in the birds and bees, in the stars of the sky ! I won- der, when men look at these things, and see how God could put mathematical skill into a common bee, that they go back and say, " I don't think man could be- gin at first and talk — do you think he could ? Don't DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 141 you think he had to begin as a kind of beast, and learn ? *' Why, that is nonsense, when you have seen how the Lord has put mathematical precision into a common bee, and in all birds and beasts, agree- able to their constitution and wants. The Bible al»o teaches the unity of the universe, and science now comes to find it out. The Bible has long ago taught it, but it has not long been found out. How did we ascertain the unity of the universe ? By law and material very largely, by the cosmical masses of iron, copper, tin, cobalt, mica, and other mineral substances, that have been hurled from other worlds, and come blazing down to this world of ours in what we call meteors ; and when we come to analyze them, we fii d they have these substances in them, and consequently in the world from which thuy came, just as well as we have, and that there is, therefore, a uniformity. And then that grandest, though latest, of inventions, the spectroscope, which I believe will almost enable us to look into the heavens. This peculiar piece of glass, which, if you let a star shine into it, and have the light reflected from it, whatever the constitution of that light, what- ever the materials of that world, they will make dif- ferent ])ar8 and stripes of color, each of its kind. Iron will make its kind, and if there is iron in the star shining from that prism, it will show it ; and so we can find out what the material of these stars is, whether iron, tin or copper, anything material that we ourselves have got. It is a little thing which you )• IS 142 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. might hold in your hand, and yet this simple inven- tion itself, or its results, proclaims what long ago the Bible had taught, the unity of this vast universe. Every new invention and discovery but makes the Bible more clear. I I And now we come to the transit of Venus last Wed- nesday, which was very generally observed throughout the whole world. Every civilized government took an active part in sending out expeditions to some portion of the earth ; our own beloved Canada this time shared in the great work, and for once in our lives we have to pay taxes towards this great work, and I do not begrudge it. I am only sorry that in the Province of Ontario we had not a better chance of observing it, to see how near we could have come, and see the perfec- tion of our men in this land, and the instruments they have ; but we are glad to know, as far as intelligence has come from the four corners of the earth, that the sky was clear in most places, and the result will be very profitable and decisive. Now, why do we want to look at this Venus, travelling across the face of the sun, eight hundred thousand miles in six hours ? We want to know how far the earth is from the sun, and this is the best method of finding it out, by forming a parallax, and so judging of the angles that are made. We can ascertain the base line on the earth ; we can know how far it is from this point to the Cape of Good Hope ; and if a man over there looks up at the tran- sit, his glance will cross our look, forming two angles DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 143 at the base, and so, knowing the length of the line on earth, we can calculate correctly the distance. The sun is a primary body in our system ; its mea- sures, therefore, are primary to us, and from the Bun's measurement we get what is called sideral dis- tances, i.e., the distance of certain stars. Therefore, an error in the first will necessarily lead to an error in the next. And now, to return to the advantage of these star measures. You live on the advantage every day. Your tea is cheaper because of that, do you know ? Your silks are cheaper because of that, do you know ? A thousand things that you use every day are reduced in price at least one-fifth, as we ap- proximate more correctly the distance from the earth to the sun. " How is it?" you say. The Maritime Almanac, made out by England, is made every four years ahead. It has to state where every star will be at an exact time, two, three years ahead from this ; and each sea-captain has to have a chronometer, so as to know the correct time. He is on the great deep, and wants to know where he is, in order to tack pro- perly, in order to set the point of the compass proper- ly to steer by. How shall he know ? He looks to the heavens and sees this star ; now he knows by calculation what time it is, where he is, for the star will be in that position at such and such a time. But if there is an error, it will lead to an error in his own calculations, and consequently in the motion of his vessel, and it will go zigzag instead of straight, and be will be longer on the way. It used to take -^--ti 144 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. n h li '1 f I m li twice as long to come from China as it does now, with the same vessel ; and we further reduce the time as we approximate better and more nearly to the true sideral distances and their relation to time. Then, you get yuur weights and measures, your yard-stick. When we get the proper distance from the sun we can make an absolute yard. Honest people now don't know whether they are stealing or giving. They know by the yard-sick they are using, but do they know it is a yard? You refer to the one at Ottawa, and that refers you to the one in England, but where does that refer you ? It is by these measures we could test it, by the polar diameter of the earth, which can only be certified of correctly if we have the absolute distance of the sun from the earth ; so you will see there is some profit in it. Commercially, of course, it is an advantage, and scientifically it is an advantage every way. The six hours last week were the most important that the world has known for a long time, and will be of greater profit, in a human sense, than any six hours we have had from the time of Adam to this. Not for one hundred and twenty- two years is a like sight again to be afforded to the inhabitants of earth, and so we are glad we have seen it. There are, of course, other ways of calculating the distance. First, that by gravitation, the action of the sun upon the moon ; and then by calculating the velocity of light. They say that light travels at the rate of oue hundred and eighty-five thousand two DR. WILUS SERMONS. 145 ig tlio of the Ig the lat the two hundred miles per second, and coming from the sun, takes four hundred and ninety-eight seconds to reach the earth, which wouki make the distance ninety- two millions two hundred and thirty thousand miles. Then there is another method, by the gravitation of the moon, as it affects the earth, by the filling out of its fullness ; and fourth, by the gravitation of falling bodies ; fifth, by the earth's action on comets ; and sixth, by the transit of Venus, which is allowed to be the best. If you go back to the days of Aristarchus, the astronomer of Alexandria, who flourished about two hundred and eighty years before Christ, you will find that he placed the earth's distance from the sun at five million miles ; Ptolemy comes after him and places the distance about the same, five million miles, and for fourteen hundred years the world was content to believe that the distance of the earth from the sun was five million miles. Then came Kepler and made it out to be fifty million miles ; after him Iliiygens made it ninety«nino million ; Cassine con- firmed Iluygens, making it about ninety million; and for some years it was believed to be ninety million. Then came the transit of 1876, observed by several nations; tliey made it out to be ninety-five million, and in the last transit of a few years ago, they con- cluded it was about ninety-two million miles. Now, my friends, you see what scientific men have been at, and yet God has given us the distance long ago in His monument, put up there so that no one can disturb it. It is there to-night, as plain as A J5 C. !Hf If tmf' 146 DB. WILD'S SERMONS. But men will not believe God on this point any more than they would that the earth turned round, as spoken of in the Bible. It is no wonder. There is many a man who will not do the best he can for him- self. There is many a man who will lead a drunken, vagabond life, when he might by industry and care, be & gentleman, and taka care of himself and family. But no, he prefers to go to Hell in rags and filth — and drunk ! You cannot get him to go to Heaven ; he will not go, for he is bound to go to Hell ; he will fight his way there, with bloodshot eyes, fists gripped, and revenge in every gesture. " I'm bound for Hell, sir, don't you dare to stop me ! *' You say, *' Come to church," but he will have nothing to do with it. So man will not take what is best for him. And yet God has verily made a provision for this purpose. If you will turn to Isaiah, nineteenth chapter, you will read, "In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof, to the Lord." This monument, the pjrramid, is called the Lord's. Hence, evidently, if it is to be the Lord's monument, the only monu- ment the Lord is ever said to have built in this world, it will be like Him, magnificent in its propor- tions, precise in its construction, and grand in design. And such it is. It is the largest monument on this earth, and it is the most precise, containing every scientific fact as found out to-day. He calls it an altar, because it is divinely patterned after the earth, {^nd the earth is God's altar ; on it Christ was to be DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 147 slain, and hence this monument is commensurately related to the earth. Just as I pointed out last Sun- day night that I am a microcosm of this world, t. e., bear a relative proportion to it, so this building is exactly in proportion to the earth. It js the earth scaled, in weight, measure, form — a little earth. And any fact about this world you can find out by studying it, just as you can find out by studying the model of some vast machine all about the machine itself ; it is a model world, and God put it there. He calls it his witness, His altar, pillar, memorial. What were pillars set up for but as memorials ? And they were used as treasure houses, they put their secret archives and valuables in them ; and so in this building God has hid wisdom for us. And then He says this altar shall be for a sign, it shall be in its pillar relation a witness. The manner of putting this the Orientals would readily understand. Did you ever read of the circumstances of Eeuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, seeing that the land on the east side of Jordan was good land, asked that they might be allowed to stay there, and Joshua consented, provided they would go and help the others to fight their way, which they did ? And when they got settled, and were going back to their own land, they said, " Let us build us a large altar," and they built it, and the men of Israel heard of it, and they sent one hundred of their best men, with the High Priest, to visit these tribes, and said, ** What is this ye have done iu building an altar unto God, and de- i, WW 148 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. Ui' nl'- li I parting from the law of your fathers ? Yo will bring judgmont upon us again." Now, tlioy had built a vast altar, but what did they build it for. Hear their reply: " Wherefore we said, let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offerings, not for sacrifice, but that it may be a witness between us and you and our children." Now, here was an altar on which they never intended to sacrifice. What was it for ? " That it may be a witness between you and us"; and God says He has an altar, not to sacrifice on, but to be a witness, and why ? The child- ren of Eeuben and the other tribes said that, in the event of their disputing the right of their children in future time to worship in Canaan, they would be able to say, " Behold the pattern of the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made for a witness to us." What was it patterned after ? After the altar at Shechem. It is, you see, an altar, but not an altar intended for sacrifice. This ** witness," then, doth depone and say, I give the distance from the earth to the sun. If you mul- tiply the height of the pyramid by ten nine times you get the distance from the earth to the sun. You got the ten and nine from the slanting face, as they went up nine feet, they sloped in ten. That is the slope from the pole to the highest point of the equator, facts that scientific men know. If you will multiply that, you will find that it comes within a few miles of nine- ty-two million ; and when this transit is done, and we have paid millions on millions, if they have worked Dlt. WlLirS SEIiMONS. 119 I correctly, you will find that it will be just what the pyramid has marked it. You have seen every step they have made, first below, then above ; and now, after their last measurement, they agreed that it was very near to ninety-two million miles, and they will end by coming right to what God has said. But we pre- fer to pay money, we prefer to have our own way and pay for it, and therefore we are willing to be taxed — taxation without representation, eh ? Won- derful ! If you take this distance of the earth from the sun, and twice the height of the pyramid 1, and divide by it, you will geb exactly the diameter of this earth, which they have just approximated, seven thou- sand eight hundred and ninety-nine miles. And yet there it was finished in stone ; but what do we care for its being finished in stone ? It is God's witness, His monument, His pillar. As Jeremiah says, in the thirty- second chapter : " The Great, the Miglity God, the Lord of Hosts is His name, great in counsel and majesty, which has set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt even unto this day." Ob, one could almost jump over the pulpit, to think of the evidence that is in the Bible, and the simple fact that people will not study it ! Jeremiah says : "He has set signs and wonders in the midst of the land of Egypt unto this day." Now, where are they ? Isaiah says : " There shall be an altar to the Lord to be His witness." Where is it ? What did He put it there for ? He put it there that it might be His wit- ness, that when we wanted a truth wo might get it !•■! I' ( ; Wi|:-.'"P! 160 Dti, WlLiys SERMONS. from it, and we could have had this truth of the earth's distance long ago from it ; and when we have done our best, just as we have come up on every point, we shall only be where the Bible would have put us long ago if we had only studied it as we ought. Yet, as I have said, people will not take these things. The English Government spent millions of pounds to find out the exact east, west, north and south. The United States spent seven years; they fixed upon Mount Agrementicus, in the State of Maine, and said, " We will put up a stone that in its four squares shall bo exactly east, west, north and south." They tried in three different ways — difference of zenith distance, by absolute zenith distance, and by transit in prime ver- tical, and after ill these ways they found that they were the four-hundredth part of a second askew. When the European Govf rnmeuts built Uranibourg Observatory, for the purpose that it might be due east and west, it was found to be several minutes askew ; and yet here is this witness of God, exactly east and west, north and south. But what do we care about it ? What do many people care about what God says or does ? The Lord strengthen our faith in His Word. Amen. SERMON IX. THE MIIUOLES OP ANTICHRIST, AND THE HIGH ROOK IMAOK OF MASSACHUSETTS, U. B. TEXT.— •• And be doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire to come down from Heaven on tho earth in the sight of men, and deceivoth them that dwell upon tho earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast." — Revelation xiii, 13, 14. For truth some remarkable errors have been tanght in the past, and in the name of Christianity tyranny has often wielded a cruel sceptre, torturing and punishing men and women in a most cruel and Satanic manner. Some of the blackest stains upon the page of history have been made by the so-called Church ; the most debasing crimes against poor humanity, and heartless inflictions, have been done in the name of the meek and lowly Jesus. We, in this advanced age, in this era of knowledge and liberty, can see that the Churches doing these things were not the Church or Churches of the living God. Neither were the rulers the com- missioned servants of Jesus, for, not having His spirit, they could not be His. Having corrupted themselves, their spot was not the spot of His children, but the spot of Satan. The cup they drank as a sacrament was not the cup of Christ, but the cup of in 152 DR. IVILL/S ;SEUMONS, devils. The past should teach us a lesson of caution, and should warn us against like dangers, excesses aud temptations ; eBpecially so when we are warned in the Scrii)ture of truth, which is given us of God to be our guide through life to immortality. It is hard to believe that Antichrist can do the work assigned hJ^Q. After his mission and work have been so precisely pointed out, it is Iwird to believe that he will be able to deceive them that dwell upon the earth, but, nevetherless, not only will he deceive his own direct follow^ers, but many outsiders also, for Daniel tells ue that some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end. The Prot- estant Churches, as a rule, are silent on many of the special topics of Revelation, and thus, from time to time, large nuribers have been — and are likely again to be — drawn away from their own Church, to swell the ranks of erratic organizations and follow mis- guided leaders. On the other hand, the Cj?,tholics, although many of them have been equally as igno- rant as the Protestants, are not as likely or as liable to be led astray, outside of their own Church, as Prot- C'tants. The priest has a power ^d stay them which Protestant ministers do not claim — or if they did claim, they would falsely so claim, for they have it not. Mormonism gets few, if any, recruits from the Catholics — they come mostly from the Protestants. And so with the various misguided Advent organiz- ations of the past ; there was no defection from the tgain iable Trot- vliich did vo it the ants, aniz- the DIL WILD'S SKllMONS. 153 ranks of the Catholic Church — the defections that occurred to these erratic organizations were members from Protestant Churches, invariably. How come Protestants to be so susc ptible of beii. j hurled from the foundation of their faith ? Because they are never taught a part of their faith from most pulpits. They know nothing about the character of Antichrist ; they might sit in a pew fifty years and never hear him mentioned ; and so, if he shall come and present his credentials, they would never know whether ho was the real person or not. You may wonder how Antichrist can work miracles and become so competent to deceive the people and to rule them. The fact is, if you will study the character of Anti- christ, and learn how he will qualify and train him- self for his own special work, and then study the natural training of the many Churches and sects of to-day, you will see that, while he will specially pre- pare himself for a deceiyer, the people are as truly preparing themselves to be deceived. And when he comes he will succeed, and if he came in Toronto, he would succeed with some of you in this church to- night ! It is not because the Scriptures have left us ignorant of so important a character, who shall assault society and, for a time, apparently shako it to its very foundations, (Isaiah xiv, 1--16; Daniel vii. and xi.). By means of the symbolism of the little horn, Paul, in 2nd Thessalonians, second chapter, first twelve verses, John in Bevelation, thirteenth chapter, have depicted his coming, have pointed out his chief char- 's ^'5 .1 f i ■ 1 f-f 154 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. acteristics, and have made known beforehand what he will claim and what he will do. In the Scripture he goes by the name of "Lucifer," "Man of Bin," ** Son of Perdition," " That Wicked One." Now, all these names are indicative of some special feature of his character. " Man of Sin " points out the inten- sity of his personal wickedness. From the Scriptures we learn that he will be chai*acterized by twenty pecu- liarities, twenty marks by which we may know this monster of human form. These we will just enumer- ate to you — a cunning seducer, a vile impostor, a bold blasphemer, a great tyrant, a wonderful organizer and diplomatist, — hence, he will readily make alli- ances with other kings and strengthen himself; a pretentious and hypocritical communist, dividing his land, money and treasures among the people ; he will be very ambitious and double-dealing, doing and being anything that he may gain his point ; he will be very self-willed ; he will be very boastful, speaking " great words "; he will be very cruel, not heeding the cry of suffering women ; he will be very sacreligious, sitting in the Temple of God and calling himself God — that Temple that is yet to be built when the Jews return to their own land ; he will be a scientific spiritualist, able to work mirac^os, even to bring lire down from the clouds ; he will be very powerful by means of his alliances, apparent generosity and scientific ability to deceive ; he will be a great liar, making treaties and breaking them whenever it suits him ; he will be very wicked, guilty of all manner of crime ; his reign, how- DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 155 ever, will be ehort as a king, for it ih only to last three and a half years ; before this he will have been a man of power and position, having the office of a simple governor, like the Lieutehant-Governor over the Province of Ontario ; he will be suddenly destroyed in the time of the fearful uprising of the people ; he will lie unbuiied in the streets of Jerusalem for a time, and then finally his remains will be burnt. These, and many other facts, inspiration furnishes us beforehand as to this most wonderful person. The alliance of Antichrist with the beast, which stands for the Jesuits, and with the dragon, which symbolizes and stands for China, may seem strange. You will lind difficulty, perhaps, in realizing just how these alliances will be brought about. I might just here sa that this word " beast " is used sometimes for Antichrist 'imself, and sometimes for what I would designate the Jesuits. I wish it to be understood L re that I have little to say against the Catholics of ou own country, who are, indeed, more enlightened reaiiy, and who are not, I trust, Jesuits. Leading Catholics, even priests, are as much opposed to the Jesuitical factor of their Church as ever I could be or dare to be. I ha.ve given you quotations as to that in a sermon once before. But while this alliance may seem impossible at first sight. Antichrist and scien- tific infidels will very soon find a rallying point, a coul- mon centre of agreement. It will be they who will oppose Christianity, and thus the two, like Herod and Pilate, will be made friends in a common assault pp ri } 1 t 156 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. upon the labors of the Church of the Living God. The Chinese, of course, seem very far from these two sections now, but you must remember that the Chi- nese as a nation, especially in their govermental form, are rapidly maturing; they are receiving the finer touches of civilization, and coming up to their place among the nations of the earth ; they are refining their system of worship and toning down the grosser parts of their idolatry ; while at the same time, the Catholics of Europe are going in the opposite direc- tion ; their saints are being increased, their images are being increased, their servility is being added to, they are becoming more servile every day that passes by. While the Chinese are refining and coming to civilization, these arc going from civilization, and they will easily meet and compromise, as John says. Now, one might think that a statement like that could not be true. When I was in Brooklyn one of my neighboring priests returned from a visit to Rome. He brought with him some rare bones of some Italian saints, and besides that, hejiad Paul's thigh-bone, and piecefs of the real cross, and part of three rusty nails that helped to nail our Saviour to the cross. Do you suppose that any one in Brooklyn that could believe those things would not be prepared to believe and be deceived by Antichrist ? You could not deny it for a moment. Any one that could believe that is just fit for Antichrist, or any other deceiver, to take hold of. Such balderdash, such nonsense, palmed off on people of good reasoning ! And yet, I hardly 'Hi DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 157 durst say that down there — I believe I did, though. But then common sense strikes itself back from such nonsense. What would you say then ? I would sim- ply say this, that when you see this state of mind and this disposition evinced, even in this enlightened land^ in this day of greater light, do you doubt the possi- bility of Antichrist coming, and by a series of sup- posed miracles leading people astray ? Mind you, the miracle that he is to perform — bringing fire down from Heaven — is to be performed in sight of the beast. It says that a deputation is to be sent by the Jesuits to observe this miracle and report, so that there will be no trouble about it. Whether the miracle is all right or not, I do not think will make much differ- ence ; the report will be all right, anyway. It will be like packing the polls — they will only send those there that will be persuaded before they go. Now, you want to read in John ; you will see that it is to be done in the sight of the beast — and why ? That the Jesuits may have a reason to lend their spiritual power to Antichrist, that he in turn may lend them his temporal power ; for the beast, the Jesuits, will not be able to get their people to side with Antichrist, unless they can prove that he is a sort of saint, and this he will have to do by working miracles, and so he will satisfy the deputation, no doubt, and the thing will be all arranged. In the Protestant Churches — I am going to be a little critical ; I am now and again, you know, but I trust so in all good nature- -in the Protestant Churches ^r i 4i 168 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, |i i there are quite a number who are cultivating and teaching the doctrine of miracles and special ideas of Heaven ; that reject spiritualism as taught by the so- called spisitualists, and yet they believe and teach spiritualism. Go, if you please, to some of their prominent camp-meetings, and you shall have com- plete satisfaction and proof of the statement now made. You,,will hear men and women talking about how God has in a very special and exceptional man- ner visited them. They will tell you stories of night visions, peculiar dreams, wonderful visions, and marvellous revelations to themselves ; they will further give you proof by an appeal to certain persons who have been healed under their hands. Now, this I have seen and heard, with my own eyes and ears, and you, too, many of you. These pious people, without kaowing it, are preparing the public mind to believe in the miracles of Antichrist. They are supplementing Revelation. These things being so, it follows that a large num- ber of the Christian Church are not competent judges, and will not be in a fit state of experience and train- ing to resist the miracles or pretended miracles of Antichrist ; for they are pretending to do them them- selves, already, and it will only be for the public to decide whether the miracles wrought at the camp- meeting are thoroughly as good as the miracles wrought at Jerusalem by Antichrist ; that will be the only point for any man to decide. By doctrine and practice they do the very same thing that the spirit- DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 159 aalists do, these people. And yet they cease not ever and always to berate the epiritualists. For my own part I prefer the conservative wing of the spiritualists proper to these camp- meeting mediums. In other words, I bad rather believe that those Protestants who have visions and revelations have them through departed spirits, than believe that God communicates Himself through them in such special And eccentric ways. I would rather lay the blame on some poor old grandfather or grandmother who had gone before, and came back to visit me, than I would lay it upon my Heavenly Father. To hear these people talk, you would believe that they were the special favorites of Heaven, that they are able to get favors that ordinary mortals like myself cannot secure. They are a sort of spiritual lobbyists who know all the hooks and crooks of Providential administration ; who, by prayer, laying on of hands, a few tears and a little groan- ing mixed in, can command healing power to flow into the paralyzed limbs of some unfortunate sufferer. In my judgment, it is about time that this new school of healing be put under law, like other medical practi- tioners, and subjected to the tests and rules. And now, my friends, for another point. Let us see how the spiritualists are preparing themselves — at least a portion of them. Many years ago I said the spiritualistic body would divide itself into two classes, two distinct parties. One would be conservative, and careful always to discuss and judge their revelation by the great revelatioi^ of God, while ^he other would i J II 1 I ii * H ■ - U. I im DR. WILD'S SERMONS. be extravagant and airy, despising the limitation of this good Look. And now I will give you a sample of this extravagance; and show you how their theories pre- pare the mind to take in the humbugging of Antichrist and the beast. Catholics and this wing of the spirit- ualists are not very far apart ; they have got an enormous faith capacity, which can take in all sorts of theories, works, images, visitations, revelations, etc. The Rev. J. Speer turned from Universalism to spiritualism some few years ago, and became quite prominent among the Boston spirituiilists. He gave out that he had received a communication from several spirits to make a large image in the shape of a man, and he succeeded in persuading a number of other spiritualists to join him in this famous enterprise. The image was at last made, costing a little over two thousand dollars, and the place selected for it was High Eock, at Lynn, in the State of Massachu- setts, U. S. The image was intended to be a mouth- piece for the spirits to communicate themselves through ; it was, indeed, to be animated by a series of souls that should visit it, at respectable times, when the spiritualists wanted utterances from the mouth of this image. At the time of its dedication great enthusiasm was manifested, even by persons of repu- tation and known intelligence, and of good position in society. The image was named by several names, among others : *' The New Motive Power," ** Great Spiritual Revelation of the Age," " Heaven's Last and Jiest Gift to Mun," " Physical Saviour," " Philoso- DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 161 pher's Stone," and other strange and high-sounding titles. The whole thing was a failure. Now, if in Boston a thing like that could be inaugu- rated and carried through, why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that Antichrist should succeed in deceiving the people in the Eastern world ? Boston, " The Hub of the Universe," that aristooratic place where civilized intellect is supposed to have its greatest geniuses and grandest touches, — and yet Boston makes a stone image for the convenience of dead spirits when they would speak ! When we re- member, dear friends, that millions this day, in this and in other Christian countries, not only of the spiritualistic class, are bowing down to wax dolls, old bones, rusty nails, rotten wood, fancy pictures, relics without end, — why, John the Baptist was not more surely the forerunner of Christ than these things and persons are forerunners of Antichrist. And as John prepared the people for Christ, I repeat that this con- duct is preparing the people for Antichrist ; and you can tell whether you are to be one of his, whether you are mad or not just now, whether you feel angry at what I say — that will tell you whether you would like to go with him when he comes. You would go first out of spite, and having gone, pride would keep you there. To return now to my Catholic friends. You will find they make great pretensions on certain points. Suppose a friend dies ; he is supposed to go into what is called Purgatory, a sort of " spirito-medico " col- ! iH If1*^-!l^ 162 DR. WILDES SERMONS. lege. This college is located equi-distant between earth and Hell and Heaven ; I Ruppose like the Isle of Man, which is equi-distant from England, Scotland and Ireland. Now, in this college souls are trained and doctored up, and made fit for use, to pass on to Heaven ; or, if incurable, they are sent to that hospi- tal^ for incurables called Hell. For a suitable sum of money the priests will undertake to get your friend special attention, and so have him restored and pass- ed on to Hoav ; sooner, I suppose, than he would otherwise be ; but just here I may ask, I suppose, how the priest knows that your friend ip in Purgatory, anyway, and how does he find out how the patient is progressing from time to time, and finally, by what means does he know when the patient has got to Heaven? Surely, to answer these three questions satisfactorily must imply a belief in some kind of spiritualism. They must have communication with these spirits some way, either directly through the Divine One, or through angerls or departed souls. To me their theory seems to imply this : Taking these things as they are, we are compelled to conclude that the priests believe in spiritualism of some kind ; abso- lutely so. Now, to confirm this, let me give you another quota- tion, which is taken from the Le Velerin, a famon= Catholic organ of Italy. It gives a description of the entrance of Pio Nono into Paradise. It says : " When Pio Nono entered into Paradise he at once obtained a iixown ixom the hand of the Immaculate Virgin, as a DR, WILD'S SERMONS, 168 i - rewaiJ for the crown lie bad bestowed upuii ber dur- ing his sojourn upon earth. St. Joseph, whom he had made a patron and protector of the Church, shook him heartily by the hand and thanked him. Then St. Peter gave out the key in which the hymn of welcome was to be sung, and the celestial choir chanted it, while Francis de Sales and Alphonso Lignori alternately recited in laudatory terms the deeds and achievements of his T ntificate, while fifty- two saints who owed their position to Pius IX. greet- ed him with harmonious choruses." If this be true, why then they had a glorious good time in Heaven when the old gentleman arrived, though he must have gone there poor, for he left thirty million dollars in the banks of the Jews and Protestants, for some reason or other. Another thing that strikes me as curious in this reception business is that St. Peter is made into a precentor. I am sure to be a precentor, after this, must be an honorablo calling. Whether St. Peter is lowered by being made a precentor, or the precentors of this day are raised and made more dignified, I will leave for you to iecide. Without meaning any disrespect towards this useful class of Church servants, I am certainly sorry that St. Peter had to come down to that. And, now, my friends, we can smile at these things hid these things are gospel in other Churches / Do you knew that ? Do you know that these things are gos- pel for which men and women would fight for to- inorroWy and will send me to Hell for saying it ? So I 1 nnHW 'IHV-' III 164 DR. WILDES SERMONS. there is something serioiip in it, there is something terrible in the air ; and yet when men read the Bible, and see that God forecasts that very condition of society, they stagger back and cry, " No man can ever succeed in deceiving the people as the Bible describes Antichrist will do." There is no question, friends, about his being competent. Tie can do it, unless there is a fhighty revolution to take place in manner and thought. Now, just take these three parties that I have just mentioned, if you will, Protestants, spiritual- ists and Catholics, and then ask yourself, what is the real difference between them ? To my mind, at the points referred to, there is little difference in doc- trine, and mucli less in practice. With the priest it is simply a matter of money and rule ; with the Pro- testant it is self-esteem and unreasonable pride ; with the spiritualist it is mere curiosity and deception, and each and all, you will see, are schoolmasters busy training themselves and the world for the coming of Antichrist. He will need minds just so tempered, and just so trained, in order that he may impose upon them by his sham miracles ; he will want society, as spiritualists say, en rapport with him, and they are getting themselves ready, every one of them. Then, again, my friends, there is another class of people preparing for it. Take the Jews, who have been so often deceived, and are to be once more de- ceived, according to the Sacred Word. How thorougli- ly are they preparing for the coming of Antichrist. They may have forgotten the several false Antichrists DIL mLD'S SEliMONS. 165 that have appeared among them. They may not remember that, in the second century, the famous Bar Cochebas, with his ten thousand thousand follow- ers, who in his last great struggle with the foe lost sixty thousand of his valiant defenders, claimed himself to be the Christ. Yet, when we come to know that these Jews at Sada Gorah, in Austria, as I pointed out to you some time ago, have been accu- mulating as much money as would buy all this coun- try, and are accumulating it by the million, and are waiting there for the coming of the King, and believe that He is yet to come, will it be a difficult matter, my dear friends, for Antichrist to appear and say, " Give me your money and your fidelity," and lead these Jews, who have been accumulating secretly for hun- dreds of years gold and silver and precious stfines, that they may give him power through his wealth ? No, my friends, they are thus getting ready for it. The great fault in all these sects, you will observe, is that they — the first three, I mean — all have sup- plementary revelations. They all claim to know more than the Bible ; they all claim to have superior knowledge to the Bible. Now, supplementary reve- lations I find in all cases to be dangerous, because they are made at once preferential. The Catholic writers prefer their own writers to the Bible. They tell you, as I quoted to you some months ago — a half- dozen of them who tell you that the tradition of tho Church is superior to the Bible. And these Protes- tants at the camp-meetings, they will tell you in a ::1 ! t m li'ii II ill 16(5 DB. WILD'S sEimoy^s. moment, if you begin to argue with them on the Bible, that the si^irit guides them, and that they have nothing to do with you or your Bible, and your ideas — they have got a special revelatioii of their own, and being special, they make it in every case prefer- ential ; and so the difficulty goes on. I would rather take the conservative part of the spiritualists who subject their revelations to God's Word. But when a man gets the mutterings of a spirit from another world, and the mutterings of that spirit are made superior to this Word, then I say he is wrong, as I say the Catholics are wrong in their traditional ideas, and the camp-meeting Protestants wrong in their special revelations ; and so the spiritualists are wroug. God will never contradict himself, and if ever there comes a revelation from a spirit^ it will be in harmony with this Sacred Word, if it comes from God ; and it comes from the devil, if at all, if it is not in harmony with this Sacred Book, tliore is no doubt as to what I am saying. There is no one here can say aught against it, although some of you will try. Just as I said, if Antichrist were to come to- morrow you would follow after his banner, many of . you, and rejoice. When we see these things, my c'ear friends, we should take warning. The reason that I avow that the way of Antichrist is being prepared is, that men have alread}^ begun to teach that the natural is supernatural, and they are fast learning to believe these things, and once you do that, you are in dan- DH. WILD'S SERMONS. ger. You become children of superstition to be bandied about by every unscrupulous muster. We are warned in Revelation neither to add to nor take from this Sacred Book. The curses therein mentioned be on him that d^eth it, be he Catholic, Protestant, spiritualist, or anybodyj Let God's Word be true, and you obey it, and then the warning given by our Saviour will be less applicable to you, and you will not be harmed. He did warn them. He did tell them, when He fore ;ast His time, when the great struggle brought on by Antichrist should be in existence. He said : '* For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning to this time, no, nor shall be, and except those days should be shortened, there should be no flesh saved; but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. Then, if any man say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, ])elieve it not, for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect, and behold I have told you before." These are the words of the Master, the Great Teacher of human kind. Let us partake of His spirit and be guided by His teachings. i k 1 i ■ .t i*^ . t '4' ^Ji t * .'-% J ', t I If*'' lis SERMON X. THE M*M WHO COULD NOT SLEEP, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. TEXT. — " Anr? that night could not the King sleep ; and ho commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the King." — EstUr vi, 1. The text presents us wl- a a sleepless king, in the an- cient city of Shushanj about twenty-four hundred years ago. At this time the summer capital of the then vast Persir t Empire, that stretched from India to Ethiopia, v/as divided into one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. This sleepleps man was on a bed of gold, resting upon a pavement of red, blue white and black marble, surrounded by fine wrought curtains in colors white, green and blue ; in a gorge- ous, splendid oriental palace, in the midst of a lovely garden, surrounded by armed troops day and night, with faithful private attendants ever willingly waiting at his side to do his bidding. With all this luxury, with all this security, with all this attendance, he rolls and tosses to and fro on his golden bed until the night is spent and the da}'- dawn is at hand, and he requires something to occupy his attention. Poor King, weak as other men ! In such a restless state he seeks re- lief. He commands one of his servants to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and read to Dli. WILV'S SERMONS. 169 him, — a sort of court diary in whicli they were accus- tomed to note the prominent events that occurred from time to time, — and it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the King's chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who had once upon a time plotted to go and take away the life of this king. On hearing this the King said, ** What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this ? " The answer was, " Nothing." In the festivities of the court the reward had been overlooked. To the careless reader and thinker all this may seem to be an accidental incident, but to the thought- ful man it will appear a providential design. To understand the providence crowded into this event one must study the history and the relations of four persons mentioned in this book of Esther — Ahasuerus, Ilaman, Mordecai and Esther. The Ahasuerus of this Book is the Xerxes of profane history, of whom we read bo much, especially in the Greek chroniclers. The meaning of his nama is " Lion-King," and a lion he certainly was in his strength, savageness and fierceness, both upon his subjects and upon surround- ing nations. There is no very great discrepancy be- tween profane and sacred historians regardin^^ this king. By both he is said to have been despotic, fickle and restless, as a monarch. He was extrava- gant in the use of his wealth, and as careless as he was extravagant of the lives, liberties and privileges of his subjects. Under his rule at this time were the captive Jews, who had been carried to that part of the i i i 1 1 m 1 .i -4 ■ II 170 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, country many years before, by Nebuchadnezzar, from their own fatherland, Palestine. Not only does profane history corroborate the facts recorded in the Book of Esther, but late findings and explorations do the same in a remarkable manner — facts that I. like to point to, because by means of them one can so honestly confirm the Bible, and so plainly confront men who want to deny the Bible by facts of their own kind, which, if they are read in history, they cannot deny for a moment. In 1850, Turkey and Persia had a dispute with respect to the boundary line, something, I imagine, like our Ottawa and On- tario Governments, at the present time. The matter was settled so far that arbitrators were appointed in England and in Russia ; and these were to go to the place and settle on the boundary line between Turkey and Persia. The Commissioners, in their work, when running a line, came upon some old ruins which attracted their attention ; they unearthed and explored the same, and they turned out to be the ruins of this famous city of Shushan. They found the tessellated floor, and the marble colonnades were still jtanding, and there were other evidences, not only ci a monu- mental kind, but in the cuneiform inscrip'«ions upon the palace walls, all corresponding witli the luxurious and extravagant description, as ,7:>^on ^n the Book of Esther. If you will turn now ci^nd thiik o! B^wnn. This Haman was the Chief, tho Premiii,-, ''^^r Head Man of this vast Empire under Ahasuerus. He was by de- .ilil Dii. WILD'S SERMONS. in scent an Amalakite, and naturally would entertain a hatred towards the Jews, for their fathers centuries before had contended one with the other, and it is remarkable how the father can descend through the son on the line of races with undying antagonism one toward another. Haman himself was haugJity, self- esteeming and overbearing. He had been exalted from a lowly position to this high place of honor, and thus being exalted, it was natural that all the inferior officers should do him obeisance when they passed him, and when he should go out or go into the gate. But the uniformity of this obedience was spoilt by one man, and this man was a Jew. For this he sought revenge, not upun Mordecai, the Jew that refused to bow down before him, but), agreeable to his station, sought to revenge himself upon the whole Jewish race in that vast Empire. To this end he laid a scheme before the monarch of this Empire, persuad- ing him that these Jews were a people inimical to his interests, dangerous to his person and life, and that it would be best secretly to appoint some day and order a massacre of the whole of this people, men, women and children. Knowing the King would lose the tribute from these people, he immediately offered to contribute $15,000,000 to make up the loss, should any be sustained owing to the destruction of the Jew- ish race. Under the persuasion of his Premier and this enormous bribe, the King sends forth an edict that on a given day the Persians shall sot to and slay every man, woman and child of Jewish extraction, i'S ' ^^^H|' '191 1 1 Tf^^^^^T!^ > ■m U ! ihI l.J 172 DR. WILD'S SEIiMONS. i 1} their reward to be that they might confiscate the property of this people. Surely it would have been a sad day had the edict never been somewhat over- turned. Mordecai was a Jew, one of those who had come with the captives from Palestine. He was an officer of the gate of this famous palace, and yet unwilling to do obeisance to this Persian Premier, because in bowing down to :dm in tiio Persian fashion, upon their face, it was like as the Jew did only when the High Priest went into the Holy ot Holies, and a Jew will not do that for any king or man on earth. Hence Mordecai refuses, and Haman, as I have said, seeks to revenge himself. Mordecai was the guardian, as well also as the uncle of Esther. He had been instrumental in introducing her into the grand female contest, when a queen had to be chosen for this strange monarch. Her beauty, grace and other fitness, i suppose, caused the King to make choice of her. So you will see how nearly related this Mordecai, this keeper of the gate, is to the Queen, Esther whose first name was Had- assah, which means " a myrtle," but was chan^' 1 into Esther, meaning * Venus," \/hich figuratively stands in the Persian for beauty and good fortune. She was an orphan, and, as I have already stated, her uncle took her in charge, to watch over her and train her in her father's faith. Haman's plot had well-nigh succeeded, so that the edict had already gone forth, and Mordecai had learned of it. He gives notice of it to the Queen, who DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 173 herself is a Jewish lady, and asks her to intervene, asks her to enter into the presence of this monarch, and sue for the lives of her people ; hut she is timid at first, she is afraid of her own life, and afraid that her haughty hushand will not yield to her request, until the following stern words were conveyed to her from Mordecai : " Then Mordecat commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyseK that thou shalt escape in the King's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest tliy peaje at tiiis time, tlien shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed, and who knoweth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?" The marvellous faith of the Jew, the integ- rity of this race — there is nothing to compare to them but the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic Ocei«n, which is a river whose bottom and banks are cold wnliBr, and that runs uphill all the way ; so this race is like a streiim among other races, and is always tiding up hill, and it rises higher and higher, and cannot be dammed up, stayed, or destroyed. A mar- vellous race in our presence ! God has often come to their rescue, or, humanly speaking, they would have been annihilated long, long ago. This message of Mordecai's gave Esther nerve, and her womanly sym- pathy and ingenuity were both aroused. So she enters into the presence of her lord, and asks not only her own life, but that of her brethren. She does it cunningly, as only a woman could do, by first ask- i *i 1 1 ^y |i £ Li ■! 174 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. ing this monarch to a feast which she had prepared ; even asking the enemy Haman to be one of the favored invited guests, and so we find that she accom- phshes her purpose. The King grants her petition, and sends forth another edict, to take effect before the one which had already gone out, before the one that had been sent out by Haman, that the Jews should have the right to slay, right and left, every man, woman and child they chose, and make a de- fence, and the army to be on their side ; so victory turned on the side of the Jews, and the doliveraice was wrought. But was it not marvellous ? You wiuit proof of things sometimes. Our Jew- ish brethren in this city keep the Feast of Purim every September, as it comes around. The word "Purim" is from the Persian word "pur," and means "lots" — because Haman, in order to have a lucky day, cast lots for a whole year before be would fix on a day when this massacre should take place ; hence the Feast of Purim. They were delivered from the consequences of these " lots," and they rejoiced ; and every time this season comes around, in Septem- ber, in the synagogue there, they read this Book of Esther, and when the name of Haman is sounded a noise is made and hisses, and when the name of Esther is sounded they cry, ** God be praised ! " A man sometimes wants a proof of things. Would you say that the Jews having continued this feast through all the centuries is not a proof of this Book, and is pot a proof of this fact ? It has never been omitted : i DU, WILD'S SERMONS, 175 a single year from that day unto this. It is based on that very fact, and keeps it in memory, as the Lord's Supper we partook of this morning keeps in memory the death and resurrection of a Christ. Men who want to deny the Bible must deny common sense; and a man might as well go in the city of London, and look at the monument of "^A ellington, and say, ** I declare there never was such a man," or he might go down to Washington, and look at Washington's monument, and say, " I declare there never was such a man," as deny the Bible. There is just as much sense in denying the Bible ; he has this monument — horo are the people that have lived through all these centuries, and celebrate this feaet at its appointed time. The whole story itself is a sublime illustration of a Providence, especially of a peculiar Providence toward this people, who ir their history have had some strange manifestations of heavenly interference in all their pilgrimage and career. God has stepped strangely aside from the uniform method of admin- istration, to shield and protect and open up a way for this people ; and as I have said before, I say again, any man that believes in a Jew is obliged, compelled, to believe in a Providence ; he cannot deny one with- out denying the other. Thus there is a Providence among men which moves them to thought, and arranges events that are trifling, so far as human conceptions are concerned. Look at this little event, this restless monarch. Is he restless simply on his own account ? By keeping that mai^ f # t j'W"^ 1 Ii ti \ 176 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. awake that nip;lit, God evidently intended that he should ask for something to relieve him, and it was doubtlesfl as much by Divine intention as it is by my intentioD I am here to-night, that they selected that passage of the chronicles that told of the deed of fidelity of Mordecai to this monarch, and that the King should ask of the reward, that Mordecai miglit be lifted up in favor, that deliverance might coiiiu through the sleeplessness of this despotic monarch. " God moves in a mysteriousjway His wonders to perform ; He plants His footsteps on the sea, And rides upon the storm." There are many strange incidents in the world that strike me as being providential . You take the World's Alliance, the religious alliance, and look at this vast organization, and then think how simple it was. In the year 1842, in the town of Birmingham, in England, the Rev. John Angel James, a Congregational minis- ter, was visited by a brother of another faith. Be- tween their Churches no great amity existed, but the loving heart of this man of lovely reputation, John Angel James, led him to say in parting, ** Let us pray, brother, that we may be one, as far as possible." After the man had gone, after he had shaken hands heartily with him, he says, " As a flash of lightning, the thought came into my mind, why not invite men of all denominations and get them together, and let us see each other's faces, and pray together that God's blessing may weld us more into oneness ?" Under 1. DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 177 it be t was •y my L that led of it the might como ,rch. •Id that Vorld'B is vast In the igland, minis- i. Be- but the John iLet us sible."' bands Ihtning, te men and let t God's Under this impulse, restless through the whole night, he determined, with the morning light, to send letters to different piirtics, and i- he did. lie sent forth these letters to invite them, and the first me< ting was held, you will remember, in Excfcer Hall, in London, June 1st, 1843. The second took i 'ace in Liver- pool, in 1815 ; the third in Iroemasaus' Hall, Lon- don, August, 1846, at which there were nine hundred and twenty-one delegates from all over Europe, as well as from America. How simple the beginning was ! Verily, there was a God who prompted the thoughts of that saintly minister. The last of these Alliai'oe Councils took place in New York, if you will remember, some years ago. At the one of 1846 they drew up a soi c of complimen- tary memorial to Her Majesty the Queen, as well, also, as one to the good Prince Albert, w ho was living at that time. It moved the good Prince to tears, and it is said he sent that night for a dissenting minister to come in and pray. To see them gathered from the different nations, in harmony, in that vast hall, and all concurring in sending a memorial of that kind to the sovereign of England ! He slept not, we are told, that night. Another monarch rolls and tosses to and fro; but before the morning light dawned, the thought came into his mind, could not the nations be inv^ited together, to contest peacefully in the arts and sciences, something on this scale ? And out of that came the first Worldfa Exhibition ; and the last one of which was the Centennial held in ili.. H IS' %% ^> IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 l.i Ui a.n ||IIIO 2.2 lifi 2> 1.8 11.25 U IIIIII.6 ^ /y ^ (?;^^ -(^ >"^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WES~ MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.f. UiSQ (716t 872-4503 178 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. Philadelphia. Thus we see how the Divine Mind prompts men to think, and thus their thoughts result in the embodiment of their ideas — and thus the World's Fair comes out of the Christian Alliance. Then came the thought to the good Scotchman, Dr. McCosh, the famous President of Princeton College, in New Jersey : '* Why could not," he thinks, " all the Presbyterians of the world, at least, be brought together in a great Pan-conference, in a general con- ference ?" Then, after that had been carried out, it led to a collection of all the Methodists, and hence came the (Ecumenical Council of Methodism, held in London a short time ago, and out of that has come the movement to unite the different Methodist bodies in this Province. In all things we can see a Divine Hand guiding and shaping the ends of men to the result of unity and greater peace. Some few years ago a gentleman wag reading for his evening lesson on board ship — a naval officor of the United States. I refer to the late Lieut. Maury, author of ** Physical Geography of the Sea," a grand good book. He was reading, as I have said, for hia night's lesson, the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, and coming to this verse, ** The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north ; it whirl- eth about continually, and returneth again according to his circuits," he tells us that for the first time it came into his mind that there was a law ruled the circuit of the winds ; just as he went a circuit, as com- manded by his Government, so the winds went at tlic klind esult tbe ince. I, Dr. Uege, ''all ought 1 con- out, it hence leld in 3 come bodieB ng and an wais a naval Lieut. e re saia, Isiastes, toward It whirl- jording time it lied the las com- it at the DR, WILD'S SERMONS, 179 bidding of the Lord. They went and performed their mission, and returned to the place assigned for them. It was a strange thought, he says ; if we could dis- cern that law, would it not be possible for us to undar- stand it ? and if we could once understand it, what an advantage it would be. Well, he made it known to the Government ; they invited several Governments to compare their logs together, and see where storms had been noticed, and what winds had been noticed at different places at different dates ; and after having done this, and having taken the mean of the whole calculations, they found it to be true that the winds did flow one part in one direction and another in another, and that storms have their circuits; and by that very means they have established a system that guides the sailor upon the great deep much more safely than ever before — shortening the journey around Cape Horn by four weeks, already ; because now a Captain, instead of going right in the face of a head- wind, sails through it, and strikes another current going the other way, and so is helped on, and thus greater security and wealth have been added to the nations of the earth. Out of that, also, have come the weather probabili- ties, which are just now in their infancy. Do you not see how God overrules these things ? I do not regard man as inventing ; I believe God puts the idea into men's minds just when it is wanted, and so God moves in His mysterious way upon a man's mind, that it may think, and its thoughts result to its profit j f , I I 180 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. and, no doubt, bad we stations upon tbe bigb seas as we bave on tbe mainland, we could foretell any storm. Tbe trouble is, we do not know wben a storm is brew- ing upon tbe sea, because we do not get word from tbere ; and tbat is tbe very point tbat is now occupy- ing attention, bow to build stations out in tbe ocean. If we bad knowledge as to wbat was going on five bun- dred miles out at sea we would never be disappointed in a storm, we \yould be able to forecast for a week just as safoly as We do now for a day. Tbe trouble is we only know balf, and often tbe otber balf tbat we do not know comes in to vitiate our calculations, based on tbe balf we do know, and upsets tbem sometimes. Tben, also, God in His providence raises up men for tbe times — Wyckliffe, Huss, Lutber, Knox, Wes- ley. I regard James Watts, tbe Scotcb engineer, as mucli divinely raised up as I do Jobn Wesley, and Wes- ley's reform would bave done but little for tbe world if tbey bad not bad tbe railway and greater speed for ves- sels going across tbe ocean. God knew tbat we sbould want railways and steam sbips to carry tbe Gospel and missionaries, tbat knowledge migbt run to and fro, and He sent us Watt before Wesley, and tbe two revolutionized tbe world. Take tbis instance in our own city, Prof. Brady, tbe great friend of tbe stammerer ; tbis man wbo bas cured so many stammering tongues, not only in tbis country, but tbrougbout otber countries. He told me, when I asked bim bow be happened upon the secret, be pointed out to me tbe passage in Isaiah that be DR, WILD'S SKliMONS. 181 18 as orm. )rew- from cupy- cean. ) hun- zted in lUst as is we we do based itimes. p men ,, Wes- leer, as d Wes- ivorld if for ves- should Gospel to and the two was reading when the thought came to him from God; and certainly it does seem as if it weie from God, the way he can put a man's tongue straight, and make him talk. Well, I suppose such a thing could be, because I believe God could teach men, and cause them to think in a certain direction. And so you take many of t hese organizations that arise, like Wesley's, designed to spread the Gospel through the masses of the people, when the Church could not or would not reach them, being too proud, too selfish, too worldly to take in these masses. I said in Eng- land twenty years ago — in 18()2 — when I saw the con- dition of the Methodist Church there, God will raise up another branch, which will start at the very low- est level, and level upwards again. I found the Methodists and all others too proud, and the masses were rejected from the Church, repelled by the finery of the Church, repelled by the castes that pride gives, even to religious persons ; and thus in the coal dis- tricts, and in the iron districts, there were thousands that entered no church at all, and I have waited. Comes forth now the Salvation Army, with its rugged efforts, its peculiar mannerism, but God is with that Army in the old land. God will never let people perish for lack of the Truth, while there are means within reach, and when churches become too proud, he will start another organization on another basis. He did not send angels to preach to you and I, but strikes you on a level with the seed of Abraham; and thus the common p tyj^gif- 182 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. working people, with their peculiar mannerisms, uncouth language and strange conduct, want a people to carry the Gospel to them just like they are^ and there was not a Church in England would do it, nor is there a Church in Canada. I do not suppose they will succeed in Canada so well, because we have not the class of people they have in England. Canadians have opportunites by schools and in other ways that they have not. There they will be a great success. In this fine church, with you all dressed in your Hilks and black cloth, are you willing to let in the p'^.?!' and the outcast? Would not your pride repel them should they come, even to Bond Street, though the love of Christ in the preacher's heart is large enough to take in the whole world. The churches in Toronto are too proud ; but I will say, if the very devil him&elf went through the streets as a mission- ary to save the outcast, God be with him ! Right hard of fellowship to any man or woman that will save souls from Hell ! We are too proud to do it, as a rule. Of course, we all have our own line. I strike a certain line, another minister strikes another ; but I do believe tbat the churches are too proud, too self- ish, and are not answering the end that God intended they should. And so I believe we can see the arm of the Lord in these things. I know scientific men may say, " Oh, well now, this is bringing the Lord to interfere with the natural course of events." The Lord does interfere with the natural course of events, when events will serve him. bR. WILD'S SERMONS. 183 Did you ever see a man bend a piece of iron to make it tit into any place ? " Yes," you say. Did you ever see the Lord bend the law of expansion that when water gets down to thirty-six degrees it begins to expand ? Everything else contracts as it gets colder, and ho does water down to that point ; but after that the very cold that contracted it now begins to expand it, so that it can float on the top of the rivers and lakes, and not sink to the bottom so that all would freoze up. He did not make that to pro- tect Africa, tliough He knew we would want it here in Canada. Yon say that is an exception. It is, and does it not minister to your good and my good ? Thus the Lord does interfere in these matters from time to time. And so we find, when the Tabernacle had to be constructed in the wilderness. He had already pro- vided by the gold and silver which the Egyptians had loaned with readiness of purpose to these people ; so that when asked to contribute, they had lots of it — they took off their rings and earrings. God knew they would want it for the Tabernacle, and he provided lots of it beforehand, making the Egyptians willing to contribute. There is a Providence in all these things, my dear friends, imitating, modifying, restraining and destroy- ing. Do you mean to say that there is no Providence in our individual or the church experience ? There is. " God speaketh, but man perceiveth it not ; in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep is fallen upon men, in slumber upon the bed, then He i{ : ^ IB 184 DIL WILD'S SERMONS. ■^i«i i openeth the ears of men and sealctli tlieir instruc- tion." He gives you many a good thought while you are asleep to make use of next day, and you thmk it comes to you naturally. I had a little experience while I was located at the town of Belleville, which I have told you, I think, hefore, in the prayer-meeting. I have no doubt many of you have had experience just of the same kind. It was a stormy, dark night, and I tried to go to bed. I said to my family, " I have a great notion to go down and see the Kingston boat come in." I did not expect any one, but the thought kept running in my mind, until finally I put on my coat and wandered down the street. I met tho people coming from the boat, which had landed. When I got down to the wharf, there was no one there, they had all gone, so I turned to go back. There are two streets in Belleville which come to a point — Front Street and Pinnacle Street. I took the nearest way, and walked up a little —I was turned back, I walked up the other, and found an aged lady, sheltering from the wind, sitting down, and an aged man, leaning against the fence — two old Scotch peo- ple. He asked me, " Is this Hamilton ? We were told on the boat i* were, and we bought our ticket for there." They had their little bundle with them. ** No," said I, ** it is not." (I saw now in a moment what I had been sent out for.) Said I, " Have you any friends here ?" " No friends and no money. We were going to our son, who is a blacksmith, in Ham- ilton," I saw in a moment what I had been sent out DM. WILD'S SERMONS. 185 for. It wao that very summer my father and mother had died, and this was my first chance to honor the dead. I said, '* Come on with me ; I have been sent for you." I took them to an hotel, and directed them to take care of them, raised money from my people next morning, and put them on the Grand Trunk for Hamilton. Afterwards I received a letter of thanks from their son, and have visited him several times, before he moved from Hamilton to Kansas ; and these two weary bodies rest in slumber at Hamilton now. Do you mean to tell me I would bo there and not be moved by Providence ? No, my friends, God can get at the heart and mind, and he does get at it, and He asks you, " Son, daughter, give Me thine heart." And He will talk to you to-night, and He will talk to you all the week, and He bids you be obedient and hear th^ gentle voice of Heaven, and accept His iuvi- t^ition The Lord bless you. Amen. "if; I r- !* i SERMON XI. THE RAINBOW. TEXT. — •• And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every hviug crea. ture that is with you, for perpetual generations. I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of ^ covenant between Me and the earth." — Genesis ix, 12^ 13. It is pleasant for the Christian student to learn and believe that the best and safest deductions and dis- coveries of science up to the present day do but lend further confirmation to the Holy Scriptures. In- creased knowledge has only resulted in increased harmony between the statements of Holy Writ and the discoveries of scientific men. Moses, in his mar- vellous description of the Creation, in the first chap- ter of Genesis, you will notice, specifies some fifteen distinct facts, different creative acts of the Divine One. The order he follows is the one that nature shows and that science has literally and fully con- firmed. This is somewhat wonderful, when you con- sider that the chances of variation were a billion to one ! The fifteen facts are as follows : — First, the earth in a chaotic state ; second, light is caused to appear ; third, a firmament, or expanse above ; fourth, dry land ; fifth, grasses ; sixth, herbs DIL WILD'S SKllMONS. 187 yielding seed ; soventh, fruit trees ; eighth, sun, moon and stars appear regularly from the earth, and are adopted for signs and for seasons ; ninth, sea ani- mals ;dtenth, fowls that fly in the air; eleventh, great monsters belonging to the waters ; twelfth, beasts of the earth ; thirteenth, domestic cattle ; fourteenth, domestic plants and herbage that grew in a garden, the Garden of Eden ; fifteenth, man. These are the fifteen facts that are stated by Moses. Now, let any one think of the possible permutations of the number fifteen, and he will find something to think over — one thousand billion ! So that if a man happens to put those fifteen things in their right order, he does so having the chance of one thousand billion other ways of doing it. And yet Moses has done it in the way that the natural world and science proves is the fact. So that a man that wants to dis- believe the Bible has one thousand billion more to believe than a man that believes it. Now, this is something for you to get through your head, and then talk about Christians having faith ; this is something for a man just to ponder over, and take his slate to- night and begin to reckon up, and ask how Moses came to put those things in the very order that science proclaims is the science of production — take it either by evolution, by devolution, or any of the recognized departments of science. A man would think he had a very poor chance in a lottery, if he had only one chance in a thousand billion, would not he ? On this principle of permutation, you know, many Ift li" k K , " r ' I {' t- 4: 11 ^ns 1 r f^li ml 1:1 188 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. thinga are constructed. For instance, our safe keys are constructed on this principle. A key similar to those manufactured by some firms, with fifteen bits in it, each of a different length — why, they* could make every key different if they made for ten tliou- sand years, for they could make a thousand billion before they would have to begin again. And so in science we make use of this power of permutation. If any one wants to see these fifteen facts of Moses con- sidered and proved scientifically, equal to the know- ledge of our present day, let nim get the last edition — just out — of Prof. Samuel Kinno* book, called ** Harmony of th.. Bible and Moses with Science and Geology." A grand work for soi.ie in Toronto to read — but they won't read it. They don't like to see their faith at such a discount ; they don't like to see themselves with such an enormous capacity for faith. I have said often, and I say again to-night, that a man who does not believe the Bible needs to have ten thousand times more faith than the man who does ! I present this one fact here, which is a mere matter of figures, in proof of this point I have said, and you can correct me next Sunday night if I am wrong. Moses describes also a flood in this Book of Gene- sis, and with respect to the nature, time and extent of this flood men judiciously differ, and hold various views. There are a few in the world who have a difficulty in believing the whole of it, and they ask proof, which, however, cannot be very easily submit- ted. May we not learn from the little events of our \ DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 189 own hifltory how difficult it is to collect nutliontic proofs of certain rumors or facts ? I do not know whether there is an author, or any one, who can tell me there were thirty killed in the Mackenzie liehel- lion, in 1837, or whether none were killed ; I am not sure if there is a man in Canada knows. I have read this week five. Some say many were killed. The American Encyclopedia says many were killed. A gentleman told me the other day that in a place called, I think, ** Gram's Wood," somewhere in the neighborhood, north, up Yonge Street, that the night Mackenzie fled he kept running up against bodies hung m trees, there were so many of them. This f^entleman tol I have said, Moses describes the Flood. He describes also the building of the Tower of Babel. Many denied that, but the ruins have been found, with the very name on the base, so they have had to admit that. He describes a country called Egypt. I think all will admit that he was correct in that. When you come to look for confirmation touching his own people, their slavery there, and the peculiar marks connected with their toil, you would be sur- prised. Moses declares that Pharaoh and his army were destroyed in the Red Sea, while following to avenge themselves or 'he Israelite host. Is it not also stated by Moses »,^at at a certain time this cruel, exacting Pharaoh caused these Israelitish people to make brick without straw ? Is it not a fact that two of those pyramids at Dashour are without straw in the bricks, and the only two so out of five hundred ? And they are the two built by Thothmes the Third, the Pharaoh of that time, and the ten thousand bricks of said pyramid there, each having this King's car- touche on, inow serve to prove the words of Moses. And the wall near the House of Joseph, (for he would have some of them attending on him), five miles be- low Cairo, that is built without straw in the brick ! Again, every monarch of this dynasty has a monu- ment reared unto him, in which the history and vic- tories of his reign are recorded, with the time and place of his death, with one solitary exception. Thothmes the Third has two monuments — each one b^reaks off without telling of his death. He is the MM DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 191 only monarch whose death is not recorded as on other monuments. It is not his eldest son, as in every other case, that succeeds him, but his second son. How is this, now ? Because, as Moses tells us, he was drowned in the Red Sea, and they did not want to record that defeat of their monarch. How comes the second son to be the successor here ? Because the firstborn was slain by the Avenging Angel, as he went through the land. How else would you come to have these strange exceptions ? To repeat again, a man who wants to disbelieve tlf<9 Bible has to disbelieve positive facts of history. I will appeal to these two pyramids, the wall near Cairo, the absence of the notice of the death, and the succession of the second son, as evidence. I declare here that these are posi- tive facts that none of you can deny, because I have them from scientific men, who care nothing for you or me or the Bible, but have simply faithfully record- ed the facts. Well, when Moses has told us so many things, my friends, and we are able to confirm many of them, why should we for a moment doubt the description he has given us of the Flood ? He has told us of the Hobrew nation. I think we know of the truth » f that ; he has told us of the rite of circumcision, of the Feast of the Passover, both of which are practised by our Jewish brethren in Toronto here. Why, then, I say, by what theory, by what rule, should I discount the description of the Flood, as given by Moses ? By no rule on earth ; on the very contrary, I am obliged to ^ l\ I' 192 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, believe it, if I am willing to receive the authenticated facts of history. When a man tells us truths that are so exceptional and so peculiar, and yet which have been fully proved — and there are others also that he tells us of, that we have not been able so fully to prove — we are still obliged to give him credit, and believe that if we only understood all about those other facts, they would be shown to be, as in the first case, positive truth. Scientists, of course, cajinot deny floods, floods that Ikave girt the whole earth. There is nothing new in the Noahic Flood — there have been larger floods than the Noahic Flood, sweeping the whole world, before that, as every geologist will admit, and why then do people object to the one that the Bible talks about ? Just because the Bible, through Moses, happens to mention one that occurred under Divine guidance, they say, *' I question that flood." Still, you cannot question universal floods as geological facts. I know of no one that would deny six epoch floods that have swept the world, destroying all animal and vegetable life, and God, after these destructions, replenished the earth with animal and vegetable life of a different kind each time. And yet you ask me. How, if He d stroyed animal and vegetable life at this Flood, 1 ow did they come into existence again ? How did they come into existence again the other times, that you believe in ? If you can swallow six times, won't you lot me swallow one ? If God swept the earth six times, and replenished it, could He not do it the once DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 193 mentioned in Scripture ? I reckon Ho could. It is not posaible, accordingly, for a scientific man to dis- pute the actual fact of the Flood ; he can only dispute as to its extent, time and nature. These are points he may criticise on, I admit, very freely. Then, again, if we want proof of this Flood, we can go back, and as we trace back we find history nar- rows to a point. History is broad over against us, but it narrows down, territory by territory, continent after continent, until it centres in Asia, until we get beyond the reach of history, when mankind were very few on the earth, and we come towards the beginning of men, the time when they were not numerous, four thousand years ago, as we are now. Yes, when we get to the beginning,we find it is about four thousand years from us. So that every man on the earth, by his very number, is a positive proof that there must have been a beginning somewhere at about the time of the Flood, or at some other point, and you can get it somewhere else, if you don't like that. We can go again to the animals, and see that their dispersion from a centre has at some time taken place, and hence the farther we get from that centre the fewer they are in number. In Europe you find about fifty-nine animals belonging to the forest that are not found in England, that had not power to cross the channel. You go over to Ireland and you find still less. Indeed, there were only about thirteen varieties managed to get on that island, after all the hundreds of years. It is not that St. Patrick destroyed the reptiles, there- !■ ■ 'n 194 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. fore ; for having been sent out from a centre, they never got there, the snakes, toads, etc. For what reason should you find in Europe about one hundred and thirty-seven different animals in the forest, and then crossing to England, find a diminution, and again to Ireland finding still fewer, if it is not that animals were at one time sent out from a centre ? It is the same with the vegetable world. Vegetables are more numerous in Asia than they are in Europe. And BO we have the wild beasts and the woods in pledge of a new beginning about four thousand years back. If you turn again to the peculiar con- dition of the earth, you will find that seed life is dispersed all over. You could go to the broad prairies of Illinois, and turn up the soil, and turn it all over, fifty feet, and expose it to the sun, and you will get new plants, and new seeds will de- velop. Who has planted these seeds ? Where do they come from ? You go down into Florida, and turn up that very shining sand, forty feet, and you will get new seeds that will grow. Of course they know them now, but when they first turned up they were new plants to the people there. Now, whence came these seeds ? They are antediluvian seeds, scattered by the waters of the Flood, and their life, long retained, is returned to earth with the returning light and warmth of the sun. Do you mean to tell me that the Lord put those seeds down there at the first ? I mean to say that the easiest inference, the most reasonable, is that at sometime when the earth was prolific with DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 195 vegetable life, the seeds have been scattered by some medium, and from the very localities they are found in, that medium is shown to be water. When was this dispersion, my friends ? It was when the Flood took place. So we see clearly how nature confirms all these things. God sa* 1 to Adam, "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying * Thou shalt not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth for thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field." What meaning are we to gather from such a curse as that ? Is it literally a fact that thorns and thistles come forth in the earth as a curse to man ? It is, and there are no thorns, thistles or weeds where man has never in- habited the earth. Now, sir, I will take Dr. McMil- lan's statement on that. He has examined the whole earth to prove that one point. There is a peculiarity about these seeds that you must notice. They will only appear on ground which, either for cultivation or some other purpose, has been disturbed by man. They are never found utterly wild in woods or hills or uncultivated wastes, far away from the haunts of man. They never grow on virgin soil, where human beings have never been. No weeds have grown in parts of the world where man has never been. In the Arctic and Antarctic regions and above certain limits Qn the mountains no trace of them has been found. 1 I ! 196 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. America, Australia, when first discovered, had no weeds. We never see the familiar weeds of the gar- den alone, never except in association with some other cultivated plant. Take the dandelion that illuminates the way with its miniature sun — you never see a dandelion growing where man has never trod. The chickweed and groundsel have no homes except in garden beds cul- tivated by man. The thistle belongs to the corn-field, the sheep-sorrel to the potato-plot, and the dock to the meadow. I say these are given as a curse, and if given as a curse, should be found nowhere else, so that whenever a man sees a thistle he has a proof of that, whenever a man sees a dandelion he has a proof of the curse of the living God. He never saw a dan- delion anywhere where man had never lived. You ask proofs of things — what are these ? What more do you want ? I think these are proof sufficient, and if I wanted to prove that to any man, I would just state that fact, and then ask him to explain other- wise how weeds come to accompany man, how they follow in his track, following the footsteps of man. Why do they not grow without man, if they fire nat- ural ? They are no more natural than your 3vil heart or mine ! They are natural only in the sense tliat tliey are the attendance of evil ; it is these peculiar proofs, indeed, that furnish superabundant testi- mony. When I think of the Flood, I think of the morning as beautiful and bright, with no apparent signs of DR. WILD'S SERMONS, 197 ,d no B gar- I other y -with rowing d and Is cul- l-field, ock to je, and jlse, so )roof of a proof a dan- . You t more nt, and d just other- w they man. re nat- 1 heart se that eculiar testi- lorning igns of the deluge that was to fall. I believe that when the people awoke, — although they had been warned that even that day the Flood was to come, — seeing the morning was fine, and disbelieving, no doubt, the words of Noah, they began to hold mirthful parties, eating and drinking and marrying and having a great feast, seeing no signs of a flood. A little to the west appears a cloud, it comes o'er the centre of that land and begins to drop a few showers, and a rainbow is made. It is a natural phenomenon, by refraction and reflection of the sun's rays through the dropping water — natural enough. It appeared that mornii.!g, and because it appeared that morning, when therv9 would be no signs of the deluge, of the Flood that was to overtake the earth, after the Flood was over, and the earth had been washed and cleansed by these waters, God took that sign, and said, " That shall be the sign of a covenant between thee and your genera- tions for ever." . If another morning should come, bright and cheerful and joyous as this, and another cloud arise some day, and the dripping rain, reflect- ing the rays of the sun, make another rainbow, the people might be afraid that the same consequence would follow. But no. It is a pledge that the world shall never again be drowned by water, that all flesh shall never again be destroyed. And so He took the rainbow as a sign, and is it not a beautiful thing ? — not that it was the first time it appeared, but He adopted it as a sign because it could be seen so easily, being above in the clear hea- f^^W 198 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. vens. And what could be better than that sign ? It is a bow, but it is in the concave form to us. It should have been the other way if it had been meant for an avenger. It is unstrung, is the bow. It tells us that the avenging God hast taken off the string and has turned the bow upside down, and the rundle, the point you shoot from, is farthest away from us. How beau- tiful a sign to say that He had been as a warrior, as an archer abroad through the waters, upon men. But now God says it shall be unstrung, it shall be wrong side up for you ; it shall stand over the earth, and its beauty shall be a pleasure to your eyes, and it shall always be to you a sign that I will no more drown the world. God be praised for the signs in the heavens, on the earth and in the air, beautiful evi- dences of His love and truth ! Science shows, I believe, that the world is now pre- paring for fire. I believe that is the direct conclusion of science, that the next grand form of destruction will be by fire, as the Scriptures say. Have you ever thought of the peculiar dispensations of Providence ? We are in the sixth now. Each one has adopted a sign, and each one has ended abruptly. This dis- pensation we are now in will end abruptly by the battle of Armageddon. Shall I just give you these dispensations ? The first dispensation we may justly call the Edenic, in which Adam and Eve flourished, and lived in the Garden of Eden in Paradise for a time. How long ? Forty- three years, before they sinned. How do you know ? Dft. WtLD'S SERMONS. 199 II w^ V,;»Sl i't m How do you know that it was not so, eh ? Have you ever thought of the impatience of people on that point ? They would have Adam created with the morning light, bring all the animals, beasts and birds, and pass them before nim in rapid succession, telling him to be in a hurry and ge* them all named. Towards the afternoon he becomes weary of the work and goes to sleep, and the rib is taken out, Eve made, and the Fall accomplished before the first day is well over. There are some people in such a hurry that they have them sin before the first day. They are not for leaving them a few years to rest in Eden. I believe the Scriptures and good sense warrant us in believing that this dispensation was of suitable length ; and I could prove it to you, but I have not the time to-night. You will have to take the state- ment that it was forty-three years. I know that a great many of you will feel harsh towards this state- ment. There are many as impatient in that sense as they are sometimes in damning, and many a man became impatient witti me when I was a younger preacher that I did not damn enough, and did not damn often enough. I see no reason to do dishonor to our first parents. God would not hurry things along in that way. They had, no doubt, a number of peaceful years in that happy enclosure, which ended by sin. To just make it up in short terms : This dispensation will end in 1957. Where are the other forty-three years for the completion of the two thousand ? They are made up of that time passed in L* "i i . 200 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. Hi''. iiiir ihm Innocence in Eden. The sign of the Edenic, or first dispensation, was a leaf of an evergreen, just as the masons have the acacia to symbolize immortality. The second dispensation was the antediluvian. It lasted ono thousand six hundred and fifty years, and it came to an end by a terrible flood. Its sign was lire, before the gate of the Garden of Eden. It went into the ark with Noah, and was manifest as the Shekinah in after years. That dispensation carao to an end by the Flood. The third dispensation was the Noahic, and lasted about one hundred and five years, and its seal or sign was the Eainbow. It cul- minated in the confusion of tongues and dispersion of the races at Babel. The fourth, or Patriarchal, some- times called the Abrahamic dispensation, lasted seven hundred and three years, and its seal was circum- cision. In it the family was the centre of justice and civilization, and it was a plain, honest-living age, ending with the bondage in Egypt. The fifth was the Mosaic. It lasted one thousand five hundred and forty-two years, and its sign or seal was blood. In this age civilization left the family and went into the tribe. It ended with the coming of Christ. The sixth dispensation is the Christian ; it is the age we are now in, and its sign or seal is Baptism. What will be the sign of the seventh ? Who can tell ? I sup- pose no one. I presume it will come as came the grand bailing sign to the Masonic fraternity. It will come naturally, be easily understood and adopted. Thus each dispensation has had its sign or seal. DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 201 And now, my dear friends, when we read in the Holy Scriptures of these great facts — physical facts, indeed — as the Flood and the rainbow, and the testi- mony given that this shall be a perpetual sign, may we, when we see the rainbow after this, ask of our- selves what a sign it is between ourselves and our God ? Does not the avenging God punish sin ? and if I am in my sins, that rainbow is a witness against me as I look at it, for God, who spared not the Ante- diluvians, will not, or may not, spare me, if I con- tinue in rebellion against Him. But if I am saved, and I look at it, whate'er the changes or variations may be, whate'er my hopes or fears, it is the pled^je of God that I shall be saved, as Noah and all his were saved in the ark. Amid the *' wreck of matter and the crash of worlds," dying or living, ye who are the Lord's are secure. The rainbow is a sign of His covenant. May we all make a covenant of saving grace with Him. Amen. *•■ V:. ' , t iri SERMON XII. LONDON DESTROYED AND JERUSALEM k SEAPORT. TEXT.— "At that time they shall oall Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord ; and all the nations shall he gathered ante it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem : neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart." — Jeremiaht Hi, 17, Jerusalem is a wonderful city. Its past history is full of interest — especially so to the Christian stu- dent. Its future history is also interesting, for, somehow, the public mind makes it an important ' centre in the present and coming agitation of the nations of the earth. It is a sort of pivotal point, around which cluster many quaint and curious expectations. All this is quite natural when we remember the prominent place that has been assign- ed to this ancient city in what is called the *' Good Book." The Jews were wont to say with respect to glorifying their own land : " Canaan is the glory of all lands, Jerusalem is the glory of Canaan, and the glory of Jerusalem is the Temple, and the glory of the Temple is the Shekinah." Londoners love London, New Yorkers praise New York, and Torontonians think well of Toronto, but no city Dlt. WtLUS SEliMONS. 20a loyalty can equal that which dwells in the heart of the Jews for Jerusalem. No class of citizens would be willing to risk as much as they have risked in the past in the name of a city. One of their own poets has voiced this sentiment for them in the following language : " If I forget thee, oh, Jerusalem ! let my right hand forget her cunning ; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy." Jerusalem is an old city, built about twenty- one hundred years before the birth of Christ. The founder of the city I believe to have been Melchize- dek. It was the same Melchizedek that superin- tended the building of the great pyramid in Egypt, which pyramid was designed to be a pillar monu- ment and witness unto the I^ord of Hosts, in the midst of the land of Egypt, as taught by the prophet Isaiah, in the nineteenth chapter. I am persuaded that Melchizedek is only the priestly name of the patriarch Shem, the son of Noah, who was born about one hundred years before the Flood, and lived over five hundred years this side of the Flood. His historical name is Job. He seems to have been specially kept alive for some special work, for he lived some thirty years after the patriarch Abraham was dead and buried. No man ever lived to be the father of so many children as he. The pyramid has in it a world of meaning of things this side the Flood ; and it is also, I believe, a grand historical treasure of knowledge of things and times before the Flood. 204 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, III i.^*. -, I Without doubt the Flood made many great changes on the face of the earth ; destroying^the civilization of that age, removing their landmarks, overthrowing their monuments, and changing the outlines and l)oundaries of the countries. Whether we take this Hood to have been universal, or we have it in our mind that it was only local, as some have, these things, the Book of Job tells ns, they wore over- thrown by a flood. It is very probable, and I know nothing to the con- trary, that the Garden of Eden remained up to the time of the Flood. After our first parents were driven out from Paradise, there were placed at the east cf the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. This gate of Paradise v/ould be a notable geographical point. It was called *' the pres- ence of God." Here, in fact, was the first altar that was ever raised for human worship or animal sacri- fice, and here Adam and his children assembled to pay their first homage unto the Lord by means of worship and sacrifice : so when Cain was sent forth from his home and his kindred, it is well for him to say, ** Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from Thy face shall I be hid." Now, the face of the Lord means some cen- tral point, and the face of the earth means a central point. This flaming sword was God's presence, as so called, and the phrase ** the face of the earth" means a prominent part of the earth. Guided by DR. WlTJyS SERMONS. 205 inspiration, and having lived before the Food, Job built the great pyramid on the self-same site as was before the gate of Eden's Garden ; that is, just where that gate stood is just where the great pyramid stands now, as a memorial of the same ; and so it comes to pass, to be a wonderment to the scientists of to-day, that they find this God-witness called the great pyra- mid to be in the very centre of the land surface of the earth — this side the Flood. If you wanted to drive a nail right in the centre of all the land in the world, you would drive it right down in the great pyramid. Independent of inspiration it would be a serious question to answer for some of you agnostics, and some of you who don't believe in this Bible, how the builders of this great pyramid knew at so early a day of such a centre, ere, according to history, America, Australia and other large portions of land were known. How came these people to know the exact centre of the earth ? I say it would be a diffi- cult thing to answer outside of divine inspiration. After locating this important point, Melchizedek was directed to locate another important point, name- ly, the centre of Paradise, and in doing this he had to select, I believe, the present site of what is called Jerusalem. In Paradise were two important points ; they were the site of the tree of life and the site of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The Temple, I believe, is on the site of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because in the Temple the people were taught right and wrong ; here suffering and mercy |. 41 1 \m 206 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, iiBi 'II ' met as they sacrificed the beast and received the pro- clamation of forgiveness from the high priest. Mount Moriah, where Isaac was offered in type of the com- ing true Messiah, was afterwards the place where Christ died. That is the very place where the tree of life stood ; so that we have in the Scripture, in this strange spot where Christ was crucified, the world's centre before the Flood. The pyramid stands on the world's centre this side of the Flood ; the Temple stands on the centre that was before the Flood. The first and second Adam are both on the same centre — one fell at that centre, and the other 'redeemed him at that centre. And so we understand Ezekiel, in the fifth chapter, fifth verse, when he says : " Thus saith the Lord, this is Jerusalem. I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her." He means to say that it has been set in the centre of the earth. So that it is in the centre of the earth, as the earth was before the great island of Atlantis was destroyed, before the Noahic Flood swept o'er its face and changed its surface form. We can get at the geography as it existed prior to that through inspiration, but by no science, by no means outside of the Bible, can a scientific man give us the first idea of any one of these things ; and that we have done without instruments, without surveying, that we get from the Bible ; and when we get scien- tific enough and understand all about this Bible, we ^ill understand everything that is es^enti^l to bQ 1 ... i : I i DB. WILD'S SERMONS. 207 11 ■' ' i , Hi understood. But the trouble is that we do not under- stand half of it yet, for we have not got sense enough, and we prate in our ignorance, and think the £ible is at fault when it is ourselves. Type and anti-type purpose and design have been, and always are in Providential dealing, in harmony. Things are con- nected, they are specially meant, and are not done at random. Scientists glory in design. Well and good, so do I, and so does Providence work with de- sign. Is it not a strange thing that the Greek Church in Jerusalem, under the great dome, has a circle marked out on the floor, and inside of that circle stands up a beautiful polished column, and they tell you that thai marks the very centre of the earth ? Now, how did they get the traditional idea ? And, then, if you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they will tell you it is built on the very centre of the earth ; if you go to the Mosque of Omar, they will tell you it is built on the very centre of the earth — and so you see that tradition agrees with jRlzekiel and with the Word. These things are a testimony agree- able with what I am teaching. When Melchizedek died his followers turned from the truth and became idolaters. He and they were Shemetic — I mean they were of the Abrahamic line. God afterwards chose another man from the same family. Those who were rejected became afterwards known as Philistines. They were all originally Syrians, and hence you will read in Amos, ninth chapter : " Oh, children of Israel, saith the Lord, ■•:f r > J 1 t{ 208 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. have I not brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir ?" Now, Caphtor is in Egypt, so that they were both brought up from Egypt. They both origi- nally came from Kir, in Syria. The first name of Jerusalem was Jebus, named, I suppose, after a clan or tribe of people who had located there, it being a very good site for self-defence. And they long main- tained their independence, and here the first republic that the world ever saw, and that lasted the longest, stood — stood even until David's time, before the Israehtes themselves could drive them out of their stronghold. If you go and consider the character of this Melchizedek, then you say : How could he go and take this city of the Jebusites and consecrate it ? How did he go into Egypt as a stranger, and close the thousands of temples there, for seventy years, as Herodotus and others tell us ? How could he go there and compel them to furnish him men in relays of twenty thousand at a time to help build that pyra- mid, and pay them nothing for it ? Who was this strange man that could do so much so easily ? In a word, the only man that answers to history and common sense is that it was Shem ; and there- ore he would be, as I have said — and it is true — he would be, of course, the father of one-third of the people living, and he would be uncle to everybody else. He had two brothers, Japhet and Ham, so that of all then living, he must be the father of one- third, and must of necessity be uncle to all the rest ; DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 209 ^rians b tliey origi- ,me of a, clan Bing a main- 5public jngest, re the »f their cter of he go ate it? d close ars, as he go relays Lt pyra- ras this history . there- ue— he of the jrybody !am, so of one- e rest ; and by this very title, and by this very principle, you see, he could be the priest, for he was the eldest, and the priesthood ran by fatherhood at that time ; ho would be the king, for he was the eldest ; he would be the mediator, the king of priests, for ho would be father of them all ; when the children disputed then they could apply to their old father. No wonder that this Melchizedek is taken as a type for Christ, and Christ comes after his order, according to his line. And so when he would go to Jerusalem these Jebusites would naturally obey him, and he changed the name of their city. He called it " Salem," which means " peace." And what is peace, I pray, and what is meant by Salem here ? It simply means, of course, the centre. Where have you peace ? At the centre. What part of the wheel is not in motion ? The centre. Where have you rest ? At the centre. And so he names it as the centre, the point of quietness of the world, before the Flood as well as after. Now, he called it, as I have said, a name suitable, as you see. Afterwards, when the city was built, under the rule of Solomon, it has an addition to its name, it is called '* Jenishalaini,** that is, Jerusalem. But what is this word " Jeru" ? It means " foundation," and " Salem " means " peace," i.e., " the city whose foundations are peace"; and so it was called, for the simple reason that David, though he desired to build the Temple, having been a man of war, God forbade him. But he did all that he could, and if every one in this church to- ^1 iP'^ 1 liiir! 210 DR, WILD'S SERMONS, night would do that, there would be a difference in Toronto next Sunday, would there not ? He could not do all that he wanted, but he did not stop doing anything on that account. So, of mine own goods, he says, I have provided so much money, so much gold, so much silver, so much wood, etc., for the building of the Temple. The tribes were at war, Israel had separated, but after a number of years he got them altogether, and peace brooded her wings o'er the land of Canaan. Then came his son, the inheritor of this united kingdom, the ruler of this peaceful people, and all is at peace, and during this peaceful time he begins to lay the foundations of the Temple, and it was built in a time of peace, and the name is to commemorate the peace that brooded o'er the land at that time — Jerusalem ! Solomon was named prophetically, anticipating that very thing. Solomon means peace. Now, when Judah and Israel are again united and have a descendant of David on the throne, and Jeru- salem again becomes the capital of this new people, it is again to receive a new name. In every case it has had its name changed, but is yet to have another change, and the next name is to be given it only when Judah and Israel are united again, and Jerusa- lem once more becomes the capital of God, the city of the world and of the Great King. " Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall ei^ecute judgment and justice iq DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 211 the earth ; in His day Jndah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the name where- by she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness " — Jehovah Tzsidkenu, (Jer. xxxiii, 16). He will be called the Eighteoas King, for He will rule under God, and for God, as the ancient kings were designed to do, and He will rule in the City of God — God's chosen Jerusalem. That is. He will be, as I have said, in the place of God. Notice if you please, "Judah shall be saved." Judah is not saved now, according to our idea, and will not be until that time. I mean we do not count the Jews among what we call the saved ; that is, we do not count them Christians in our sense. But He does not say that Israel is not saved. Will you mark the peculiar language ? " Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely." Now, "Dutchman," (see correspondence), you that no not understand the difference between a Jew and an Israelite, what would you do with a passage like that if you made both one ? Don't you see that the Jews are not saved, according to the Christian definition, and don't you see that if Britain is Israel, she is not dwell- ing safely at this present time in Palestine ? And both these things are true ; nor can any agnostic, nor any other man in Toronto, or outside, deny them. They cannot deny one of these facts I have given to-night, nor can they show how these people knew these great scientific points, except it be tht t God has written this Word, aud He who told them told us, 212 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, ** In those days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness." You see she is to havo a new name after the Jews are converted, not before. It will be called Jerusalem as long as they are unconverted. Unconverted Jews and Jerusalem will go hand in hand. When Ezekiel had done surveying off the Land of Palestine, when he had given the plan for the new Temple and the new city, he finished up his whole survey with these words : '* It was round about eighteen thousand measures, and the name of the city from that day shall be * the Lord is there,' " " the Lord is in thee." Do we not see, now, that three several times the name has been changed, and each time to indicate its history ? The next time it gets a new name it will be indicative also of its history, and a man might as well attempt to upset the world, or to upset Jerusalem, as to upset this simple argument ; as in the past the name has been indicative of the change, so it will be in the future. ' Jerusalem has been destroyed twenty-seven time it has to be destroyed once more to make the numer cal number complete, which is twenty-eight. Thi number will bring it into accord with what is calle the numerical symbolism of the prophets. Tb number is what ? Twenty-eight. Four is the sym- bol of the world, the four corners, and stands for the totality of the world ; seven is its completion, and {qut into seven equals twenty-eight, — that is, if you DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 218 take the world, with all its parts, and multiply it perfectly, by the perfect number, seven, you have twenty-eight. In other words, the small sun- circle, in science, is twenty-eight years, the large sun-circle is four hundred and forty-eight ; and this is a part, only a limited circle of Providence, the smaller sun- circle of the sun, Jesus Christ; and it is to be twenty- eight ere He again shall shine upon the earth with healing in His wings. So we can get an idea, by taking our pencil and slate, as to when this thing will take place, and can show from figures that are among the stars, as well as the prophets in words. The city will prosper and enlarge for some years to come, and then it will be destroyed by war. That battle is called, of course, as you are familiar with, the battle of Armageddon, or the battle of the Lord God Almighty. It will finally centre and rage in and around Jerusalem, and nature will join with the forces of earth — storm, hail, earthquake and flood — and they will rive the earth in twain in many parts, and so the city will be destroyed for the last time. In 1935, the last battle will be o'er in this world ; Pales- tine will be in England's hands, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely, and the name of that city shall be ** the Lord our righteousness." In the battle of Armageddon, as I have said, nature will unite with the forces of earth, for we are told several times that in that battle He will gather all the nations of the earth together, and then, also, you know, in several places the elements that are to unite 214 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. are mentioned. I will quote you one, if you please, from Zechariah, fourteenth chapter : " And the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof towards the east and towards the west, and there shall be a very great valley, and half of the moun- tain shall remove towards the north and half of it towards the south, and ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal ; yea, ye shall flee like as ye fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, King of Judah, .... and it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out 'Of Jerusalem, half of them towards the former sea, and half of them towards the hinder sea, in summer and winter shall it be, and the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem, and it shall be lifted up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin's gate unto the place of the first gate, and men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruc- tion, but Judah shall be safely inhabited." Now, the other destructions of Jerusalem have been foretold. Christ foretold, of course, the destruc- tion in the year 70, did He not ? It has taken place exactly as He foretold. Now, the words of the pro- phet fortell again its destruction and rebuilding. Now, do you mean to say that you can believe that which has transpired in the past and cannot believe this ? I believe all ; I believe God's Word is true, and when that city is rebuilt after this war, it is to con- tinue unto the end of time, m He says ; in conneo- DIL WILD'S SEllMOXS. 215 tion with this great earthquake the cities of the nations shall fall — as we learn also by John in Reve- lation, sixteenth chapter, on the pouring out of the seventh vial, which is the last vial. What are the evils it pours out ? Flood, and hail, and earthquake. In describing the earthquake, he says, ** Such as was not since men were on the earth.*' Well, then, it will be a large one, that is very certain, is it not ? What is this earthquake to do ? It will do what I have just quoted. It will make a grand change there, m^ that change will open up to the Mediter- ranean passage for the waters. Look at that gorge or valley, not equalled in the world. Imagine a sea nearly two thousand feet below the Mediterranean Sea, which the Dead Sea is. God tells you He will fill it up with water. He will cleave. He says, the Mount of Olives, and open a passage for the waters to ran, and it will be in winter and summer — it is not to be a temporary water course, but one to abide to the end of time ; hence, with this way opened up to the Mediterranean and to the Bed Sea, Jerusalem will be a seaport, and belonging to Britain, will need to be in the centre of the earth — she will be right in the centre. With the earthquake at that time, Syria, you see, will be split, as it were, and made into an island, and being an island with the river or sea run- ning through its centre. How grand it will be for that maritime power which will have in charge the peace of the whole earth ! You can easily understand how London shall be I: ,1: 1 1 ■ 1 > s. ^ mm 216 Dli. WILD'S SPnaioNS. destroyed in that great earthquake. The citius of the nations Hhall fall. Paris will he destroyed, New York will he destroyed, Berlin will bo destroyed, St. Petersburg will be destroyed. The Itondoners would not leave London excepting God destroyed it. For He intends that Jerusa- lem shall be the capital of His own people, and that is the way that He will shake them out of London, that is the way He will get them there, that is the way He will get them to leave. And having also destroyed the great centres of the other powers, none can object. There will be none to object. St. Peters- burg will not be there v ith its protests ; Paris will not be there for revolution. They will all be destroy- ed, as the Bible says ; the cities of the nations shall fall in connection with this great earthquake. When you come to look at Palestine, it is a curious excep- tion, with that strange gorge or valley ; it is plain that God has it ready, and is He not getting ready the forces ol mature ? Now, there is no place where such an earthquake could work, (jxcepting just there. The land is all ready, for it is only bound up at the two extremes, you see, and the earthquake will break throngh these. " The Dead Sea shall be filled with life, and men at Engedi shall hang their nets, and fisherman shall abound." You could not fish much in the Dead Sea now, but you can then, for it is to be restored to life. So you see the very conformation of the country anticipating the coming change. England at that DH. WILirs SERMONS. 217 time, Ireland, and the United States, and many otlier countries, will have an autonomy,, or separate government of their own. Ireland will then he free, free in this sense, that she will have a local govern- ment of her own. So I have said in my lirst volume some five years ago, and it is there written. Mr. Gladstone last summer gave the first ring-note of this statement. He says:** I do not know hut that it will he necessary for the ultimate peace of Ireland to grant her an autonomy, or local government." He says, ** I am not sure but that will be the result." It will be the result. We have told him lots of things before he did them, and we can tell him that. God has arranged for that, when the time comes. Being isolated from the other land by water, it will have a local government of its own, but it will be federated to Jerusalem, and so will England, and the United States, and all the world, for all the nations are to go to Jerusalem, and the law of the Lord is to go forth from Zion. It will destroy no individual gov- ernment, but there will have to be a government for the world, and that will be its centre. The measure- ment of the new city is given also in Jeremiah, thirty- first chapter, beginning at the twenty-eighth verse. The earthquake spoken of, which I have quoted, is a small affair in comparis3n to some which have occurred in this world, you may say, but the Word says it will be such as we have not seen ; that is, it will be equal to anything that has been in this world since man was put upon it. I ■ V 218 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. I In times past, Providence and the wants of men have been kindly aided, as it were, by the convul- sions of nature, and if it was only accidental, what was then accidental may occur again to assist us, and so there can be no great difficulty in crediting what id here foretold in the Prophets. That the earth- quake and any other peculiar condition of nature should be timed to meet some special conditions of change, or special purpose, is what we might natural- ly' expect ; in such an event there is nothing wonder- ful. Seismology, the science of earthquakes, is a study by no means devoid of interest. The earth- quake catalogue of the British Association takes in no fewer than six thousand earthquakes, that have hap- pened since 1600 before Christ and the year 1842. Has it not been foretold by the prophets that in these latter days there shall be signs in the heavens and on the earth ? Have we had the same peculiar condition of the stars before ? Never. Has there ever been a time when there have been so many mutterings and earth- quakes as during this past year? Has there ever been a time when we have had floods and suicides and other evils so rife, so often befalling man ? They will ac- cumulate ; tbey are the signs that God hangs up for you to see, to give you a heart to believe in His Word, and He will overthrow and overturn, and there will be signs preceding these coming events, and if we are wise we will see, and if we are good we will obey. This remarkable peninsula — that is what we call DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 219 Syria at the present time — will be so situated, you see, and exactly placed to enable those who possess Jerusalem to fulfil their high destiny as guardian of the peace of all nations, and become the centre of all lands, the praise and beauty of the whole earth. This land is, in fact, the central position for communica- tion, for commerce, and all other duties of civiliza- tion, combining in their operation all the lands of the earth, while the peculiar geographical conformation will be such that it will have an immense seaboard, and will thereby be fitted for vaster commercial and naval operations than have yet been seen, indeed, by any nation or people in the world. So God has pro- vided, you see, my friends, naturally for the time to come. The city itself, you see, that which is now, will be destroyed by the war, and the Mount of Olives will be separated, and the city will be built then on each side of this river, which will be a sea channel, and one-half is to be devoted to commerce, and the other is to be dedicated to holiness, and nothing that is unclean shall be allowed in that part. The Tem- ple will be there, according to Ezekiel, a mile square — as large in itself as Jerusalem ever has been, so far. The city will be ten miles square, sixty miles square reserved in the plan drawn out there for the priests and the Prince, that they may live without taxing the people — and then, of course, even Fenians could have no objection to a king who is keeping himself. And that is what He is going to do. The Lord makes 220 DIL Wltns SERMONS. provision, that He will not have to tax the people. He is to have Hip own j^rovision. The city will havo seven hundred and twenty square miles of a suburb, in which to raise its own supplies, and the Prince will have sixty by ten given unto Him for His own special purposes, and it says He shall take care of His children, and minister and watch over the people. I guess the main objection to kings and queens of this day is what we have to pay for them ; i \.] .; «rould only do it for nothing, I fancy most people would be sdltislied, except we might want to be king or queen ourselves — ambition might move us in that direction. Still, I imagine the great point to-day with most objectors is that they say it costs them something. The nations are gathering together. I would like if I could staiul here all night, and just touch upon England s posi- tion, upon France, upon Germany, upon Austria, upon Russia ; they are exactly where prop^ v wants them, just as if I had a dial here with ^ mgers. They are all pointing in the right directioi.* ; ^d, for the life of me, I cannot see how a man who i^retend; to believe the truth, especially a person who prides himself on being a scientific man, and sees such sci- entific points made by the prophets, how he can dis- believe that Book. It seems strange indeed to me. But the day will come when He will gather all nations together at Jerusalem, which He has chosen, and Jerusalem will be made the City of our God, the grand capital of the world, as it was designed to be ; and our Jewish brethren, who have just held t'leir DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 221 Passover, are there, wailing and moaning and pray- ing for that day to come, and the day will come ; and when the city is thus divided into two halves, iu the glorious or holy half, the prophet says, there the glories of the Lord will be ; in it is a place of broad rivers, on the streams thereof shall go no galley with oars, neither shall ships pass thereby. The city proper, as I have said, will be a number of miles to the north of the present city. You are aware that the Jews often visit the old wall of the Mosque of Omah, said to be part of the old wall of the Temple, and there throwing the dust of the ground on their heads, and burying themselves in it, you will bear something like low thunder, as men and wjmeu wail forth these words : " Ali bene, Ali bene ; bonebethka ; bekarob, bimheira, bimheira; beyamenu bekarob," and keep repeating them. But what do they mean ? Why, they mean to say, " Lord build. Lord build Thy house speedily, in haste, even in our day, build Thy house speedily." So might it be, for it will be in due time. May God help us to follow His stately step- pings, as obedient children. Amen. 'H' ;. i ■ ■!.■ f4. I H- •■i'i' • . ' SEBMON XIII. LIBERALISM. TEXT.—" Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good." -'Thessalonians v, 21. The Gospel implies a broad, liberal and compre- hensive system of philosophy, which is of divine origin. When it is reduced to practice it becomes a devel( ling power, and also a conservative power in the successive cycles of man's enlarging experience. Agreeable to the text, we are exhorted to prove all things. That is liberality ; the conservative part comes in, to hold fast that which is good. The Scriptures reveal to us the mind of God, seeking to teach the creature to recognize its Creator. Accept- ing our weakness, they point us to a love force that will enable us cheerfully to apply and steadily to per- form Heaven's will upon earth. The Gospel accepts man as a scholar, treats him as an immortal being, places him under instruction, rule and restraint. In its light life certainly has a noble work, an intelli- gent aim, and a sublime destiny. Here we have revealed to us what we must call true light, and life's true value and estimate. The immortality of man cannot, as a doctrine, fail to stamp with dignity man's ^ctionSf man'9 thou^hts^ and man's whole bein^. It )comes a DR. WILDES SERMONS. 223 presents to him a future that is all important, because of the continuity of our being and the endless and ever-varying capacity of the soul for good or evil. Our very being implies duty, and duty and Christian- ity are co-equal. The province of the Christian rela- tion is co-equal with the duties of man. Humanity's wide realm is the field of our operation. She recog- nizes not the geography which has been made for the convenience or the avarice of man when he constructs himself into a state, or nation, or empire ; she recog- nizes not the distinctions of caste which gold shall make among men, nor even the distinction which the advantage of learning shall give over the ignorant ; she recognizes not the difference of color, in the north or in the south — but wherever man is, there is a child of Heaven, a subject of redemption, and a creature of heavenly interest. The social, as well as the intellectual and the civil and religious relations of man, I think, have only so far been developed in their highest and most civilized forms under the influence and training and force of the Gospel. Wo cannot but prove this by a reference to the nations that have entertained the Gospel as a motive power in their government and in their gene- ral conduct. I need not refer to the United States, or to our own beloved land, as mounting up above every other land on God's earth ; and no citizen can deny but that the Gospel has been a factor and power for this progress, for this consolidation, for this unity ^hich we have attained. It is not the gift of ip^deU^ f! if Ia?!*' 224 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. ty, it is not the gift of free-thought, it is not the gift of aught but Christianity ; for they have had free- thought and infidelity in other countries, but they have never got the attendant blessings that follow in the train of Christianity. Christianity is not, my friends, an abstraction, but a positive force ; it is not a national idiosyncrasy, but a world-wide remedy for sin and uncleanliness ; it is not a rigid conformity to certain ritualistic systems, but it is a practical, test- ing, progressive and adaptive spirit in man — all-com- prehensive so far as time, all-inclusive so far as ter- ritory, all-inclusive so far as the lawful conditions of society go, for it is fully in harmony with man as a progressive creature. These designs of Providence, I think, are very freely and clearly indicated in the very construction and adaptation of the works of nature and the skillful and generous endowment of man. The one fits in as a field of operation, as a field of development for the other. We are called upon in the realm of nature and Providence to investigate and test, and by these methods of testing and proving we have arrived at what we call the present scientific attainments. H you could suppose a man like Adam placed in this vast world, it would take him a long while to ascertain the various kinds of minerals, and know the different kinds of soil, to understand the different kinds of vegetables, to know what would be poisonous and what would not. Surely it is by test and by proof that we know that this plant is poisonous while its DR. WILUS SERMONS. 225 he gift i free- it they How in ot, my t is not ledy for :mity to al, test- all-com- ■ as ter- itions of an as a iry freely bion and llful and in as a for the .f nature by these rived at lents. If id in this ,scertain different kinds of lous and ly proof 'bile its fruit is hiscious ; that we know that these leaves are medicinal in their quality, while their roots are ac- tually poisonous ; and surely we have only arrived at these clear distinctions in the realm of nature hy investigation, following the advice of the text, "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." In nature and experience grace offers us the very same advantage, and invites the very same methods of proof and investigation, and we have the same liberties with the doctrines of Scripture that we have with the forces and laws of nature. Whatever you can find out in this economy of religion you have a right so to find out, and none have a right to inter- fere. Some people, we must confess, are afraid of proving. They take simply that which has come down to them ; they are afraid of scientific men, lest they may find something in some rock, or discern something among the stars, or find something at the bottom of the sea, that will contradict the Bible. Throw to the wind your fears. God is the Maker of the sun, the air, the earth, and the Inspirer of His Word, and in Him is no darkness at all. It is a fear that you need not indulge in. Man may turn any rock up he likes, and he will turn naught up but what will confirm the sacred teachings of this Book. A man may read in this Book, and learn what he chooses, and he will find no law, no doctrine that will lead him to break the laws of nature. They chime as my fingers now, one with the other, and I venture to say in Toronto to-night that there is npt a mau in ■4 22« DR. WILD'S SERMONS. if I" t ill the city can show me a law in the Bible that opposes any of the laws of nature, or any of the lawful con- ditions and relations of man. If so, then, could any one object to the Bible ? None could object if they propeily understood. I imagine a man might ob- ject because he might not have as thorough a view of the teachings of the Bible as he had of the great facts of natuire — just as a man might have a better view of the Bible and a less knowledge of nature, and thus one might advance one theory against the other. And BO it has occurred in time past that ministers have been free to criticise the doctrines and laws of scien- tific men, and on the other hand, scientific men have taken equal freedom in criticising the Scriptures. But I know no scientific man, also thoroughly posted in the Scriptures, who has ever given us aught against them ; I am not aware of any one. In settling a new country you have three parties, I believe : the explorer, the one that goes and searches out, the one that tells us of its climate, its resources, its soil, adaptation to civilization and settlement ; in his trail follows the squatter, who takes up his home and begins in a rude way his method of settlement, and in the trail of the squatter follow the permanent settlers. These are the three parties that go to make up the settlement of the new country. You have the same in scientific circles. Yon have first independent investigators, who are constantly testing and proving new theories in the various departments of the scien- tific world, independent of religious thought, and a ?*$:*?*-■ DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 227 pposes il con- Id any if they jht ob- view of at facts view of id thus ar. And rs have )i Bcien- ,en have fiptures. y posted against arties, I searches ources, lent; in lis home iloment, manent to make lave the jpendent proving he scien- t, and a man has a right so to prove. When a man goes into his laboratory, he has no right to think about the Scriptures — how those two mixtures are going to come out ; put them together and let them come out what tbey want — they will come out all right. He has no right to have his thoughts or intentions thwarted in any way by any theory that he supposes is taught in the Bible. Leave him free. If a man is going to survey land, let him do it according to the true prin- ciples of surveying. Theology has nothing special to do with his surveying, except it be that it should en- force honesty upon him, in his report and in his labor. So, also, you have teachers i science, who teach us what has been found out by others ; and then, in the third place, we have those who apply science, who put in operation in factories, in common toil, that which has first been found out by patient investigators, and next taught the world by teachers, which they have now reduced to practical art. You have three parties in Christianity also. You have the theologian, who, like the explorer, is trying constantly to get unmoored. He does not like to get settled down in any particular doctrine ; he is always moving ahead, and if society chances to catch up to him, he moves on again. Then there are those who imitate him, the school-teachers, as it were — preach- ers who come to teach the theories, restless individuals who have no permanent theory, moving like the weather with the wants and general tendency of society. Then in Christianity there are those who if 4 6* 1 : ' "''i 1 i ' L'f ^n : i !**4>^ 1 f if 1 1 1 1 •4 J . '1 ' .r t' • 228 DR. WILUS SERMONS, practice these great doctrines ; tb6y are the real backbone of the Gospel, as the permanent settief is the real backbone of true civilization. If you will consider it, you will find, I think, that this statement is a correct one, namely, that man is a religious crea- ture. His religious needs have found embodiment in the great systems of antiquity — Hindooism, Bud- dhism, Confuciism, Parseeism, Platonism, and scores of mmor systems more trying and exacting, and more cruel and destructive to the normal conditions of man and society. I believe the Hebrew faith most cer- tainly was a grand advancement on every other sys- tem that had existed in the world prior to it or con- temporary with it. Whether you ]ook at the individual protection that is given in that economy, or the social laws that it enacts, or the morality that it teaches, or the commercial laws that it lays down for inter- course between man and man, there are not, in all these great religions, laws for the individual, for so- ciety, for the social relations of man, and for com- merce, equal to those of Moses ; they are the best, and if a man wants to do honest trade in the world he will do it by the laws of Moses ; that is, if he is living in that age, if he wants- to establish laws between persons, and in the social relations, he will take the advice of Moses. Woman will get her protection, man will get his lawful claims, the individual is bet- ter adjusted to the individual in the Mosaic economy than any other you read of. You can read Buddhism an^ Hindooism, and quote what you like ; you will bii WiiAys sEUMoTsis. ^'20 not find an equ J at any of these points to the Hebrew law. Christ's coming was another advance. It lifted man on a higher plane in all these relations, it made tliu individual of more value, it made life more secure, social ties it made stronger, it increased the morality of the world, and gave a fresh impetus and tone to commerce that has since given security and prosperi- ty to commerce. Christ was the very embodiment of all this looking for and groping after a God. You cannot suppose that man is not a religious creature ; be is so, and you will see how the woild, according to its religious ideas, impinges upon all these relations, individually, socially, commercially and morally. And so, if you come back to these great systems, you will find, in the first place, if a man did a wrong it was supposed to be an individual one, and so the individual was left to be the avenger. If he slew a brother of mine I would be expected to slay him if I could. The vendetta is the first law of the world — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth — but the Mosaic law brought this within the court, and began to adjust it, and pass judgment upon the individuals, which no other system had done up to that time. And if you look further, you will find that the next step was when the religious idea had become clearer in men's minds, for they always put their religion in all these relations. They began to make out that wrong done to an individual was not solely an indi- vidoal matter ; there was wrong done to society also !■ I I f: i hf0 286 M. mLt)'S SP.RMONS. m in murdering a man. And then society came in with its courts and said, '* In the name of society we punish you as an individual, and you, the brother of of the man who has been murdered, do not you do anything ; we will do it for you." That was a second step. Was it not higher up, and still safer ? But the law of Christianity is still higher. It is now turned Iback on the individual wrongdoer, and the greatest wrong done is by the individual to himself, who does the wrong ; and so we simply administer punishment in order that we may ^ect a change lor the better in the man — we try .^ake him good. We believe the prisoner does the greatest harm to himself, or any one, and the Gospel now goes back to the individual wrongdoer, and shows us how to teach him, to take him and give him those principles that will insure his future good conduct. That is what we must call success and protection. Man, as you are aware, cannot rise higher in the scale of civilization than his religious conceptions. Whether you look at man socially or individually, religion is a primary idea in its effect on all relations. It does not matter what is in his mind, you cannot get out of his nature what is in it unless you have religion in the heart. The Indians were here ; they had more gold than we have, for some of it has been taken, but what value was it to them ? They could not use it. They had lots of copper and iron, grand streams, winds for mills, forests with timbers, lakes with ^sh, and abundance of wealth in the soil and in / Dli. WILD'S SEltMONS. 281 the air. Why did they not build great cities, and become civilized ? They lacked the primary element, religion. That is an essential for all this kind of thing, and though all these things were around th«m, yet they were without religion ; and without religion I do not know that they have fully developed in any part of the world, for a man's conceptions religiously impinge upon his conceptions of duty, intellectually and in every other department. Man being a reli- gious creature, ar religion being a primary fact, it is always important that he should have clear concep- tions on this point ; for demoralization, theologically considered, is demoralization of the individual, to the social loss, morally and commercially. And yet, for want of this clear conception, we will find that men have gone to strange extremes. I can understand when religion loses its power over a people, and they begin to mike it up by supple- ments of ritualism, supplements of priestly authority, supplements of government interference with the con- science of men — I can easily see how men can re- bound. One extreme must beget another. When men were low intellectually, a few hundred years gone by — when their ideas of punishment and revenge were of the lowest order, and the vendetta was the law of the day, what idea would these people have of Hell ? Why, certainly, they would have the strong- est, roughest material idea that you can conceive of about punishment. Tlieir religious conceptions of duty between man and man were low, and bo it is f™ j ^ iP'Tn •232 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. very well for tho Universalist to come in and Bay, " There is no Hell." A man would rather be a Uni- versalist in such a state of society than a thorough orthodox theologian. I would rather believe in no Hell than believe in such a Hell. I would rather clear the skirts of our loving God from such fire and brimstone, and the sweltering, floating bodies and spirits of the departed, than I would credit Him with such a fact. One extreme begets another. Univer- s ilism is merely a rebound, and as a rebound — as we obtain clearer conceptions of what Hell really is — it will die. It is dying. You cannot prosper it as a society. It is a rebound. If the Church comes u^ to a point where it loses the spirit of its service, and turns to mere form, and becomes low, all form having lost the spirit, then you will have another rebound. The Quaker says, " I won't do anything; I will sit there the whole two hours, and never say a word. That is better than fussing, and fumbling with candles, and bowing and scraping and kneeling and rising, and doing all that ; there is more sense in sitting still." He is right, and I would rather be a Quaker in such an age. But when the Church comes to a proper conception of the duties and necessities of her position — that she should minister to man's different wants, that Christ should not be hid in the form, that the form should be no more than will lay hold of the mind and through the mind teach man, — then Quakerism is at an end. It will have to die out. What is the use of it, since DR. WILD'S S^mtONS. m id say, a XJni- oroiigli ! in no rather ire and ies and im with Univer- md — as really is per it as it loses rm, and ;hen you lays, "I iiole two ter than iring anil all that ; ght, and me. But on of the le should st should Id he no ough the end. It it, since some form is necessary ? Hence, though I love the Quakers better than any other body, they are destined to die. It was the absurd ritualism and excessive formality of the Church in those ages that gave birth to Quakerism. So we can see how various organizations can come into existence. Christianity, my dear friends, or Christians, are the true iconoclasts ; they are the ones that break down the idols. We are the people that destroy the gods of this earth, and bave only the one living and true God. What arc these men that talk about their freedom? What gods have they destroyed ? We only leave chem one God to attack. When we send our missionaries to the heathen they have got to attack and kill the gods as fast as they can, and thus Christianity has slain more gods than all the infidelity in the world. Wliat are you talking about ? We are on the same road with you, only you want to cut off the last we have left. Now we must have one God — and if our fathers had not taught you that you must have but one, you would have had fifty, instead of denying the existence of any. Do you suppose that we are so smart that we would not have been idolaters if some one had not been at the pains to teach us of the one living and true God ? No, sir, it is a fact that man's nature will degenerate to barbarism and to idolatry, if left alone outside the pale of Christianity ; and so the true Christian, the missionary, is the grandest iconoclast in the world. He goes forth proclaiming the one true God, and m i.WiiA iiH } [ iii '! . if '4. ij ^u M. ^/LD^5 SEttMONS. tries to sweep the multitudes of gods out of the cor- ners of the streets, out of the temples, out of the air, out of the mountains, and tries only to people all the hills and dales and vales with the presence of the Omnipotent God. Is not that better than many r There is a mistake somewhere. These parties say that we are favorable to gods. We are favorable to one true God. I have said — and it is a good ilUustration, too, so I will repeat it : Infidelity and the gout are two symp- toms of two diseases that only belong to very refined civilization. No man, unless he is able to live well, will ever be troubled with the gout. The poor, the careworn, the hard- wrought, never have the gout. There is not such a thing as infidelity known outside of Christian nations. It is the gout that these fellows have got. That is what it is. It is never known among the unchristianized nations, for as Paul said when speaking to the Athenians, " I perceive ye are most devout." They had too many gods. Infidelity has no substance ; it is nothing but a shadow, the shadow of Christianity. Infidelity is not known among the heathen — it is not one God only they have, but many. It is the gout of Christianity, and arises from a rich, good condition of society. It is man looking at the shadow of Christianity as it passes along, and they say that is it. Yet it is nothing, for the shadow of Christianity is nothing ; it is the ab- sence of something, I take it. And so what would I call myself ? An agnostic. ** I know nothing " ; Dtt. mLb'S SEkMOSS. 2d5 that is what I would say of myself if I had such a shadow as the ground of my belief, because a shadow is not a substance. Certainly not ; it is the absenc e of substance. But we must, nevertheless, always be ready to test: and how shall we test? As a mechanic tests a patent. You may construct it beautifully, and of valuable material. It may be very beautiful in its mechanism, but if it cannot be practically applied to do good, we do not want it. Whatever your theories are, you have a right to test them, and no one should offer opposition ; but we have this instruction, we must prove everything, try everything, and holdfast that which is good, I try my Catholic friends by that. You say that your religion is better than Protestant- ism. I look for the test in the morality of your people. Are the Catholics better than the Protestants ? I trow not. Then you have no right to talk about the superiority of your religion, no more than a man has to talk about our own, if it won't work. If you have two mowing machines, and you say this is very superior to that, and I put them in the same field, and one works equally with the other, I say nothing about it. The test to my religion and my Church, and your religion and your Church, must be by its power of doing good in society. Which does the most good to its members ? You say we Protestants have rascals and rogues among us. I ask, are there none else- where ? In the same way I test free-thought. What does i ' ! 5 >»i ^I'l s, i wmm ^36 t)ti. WILD'S SEliMoNS. it do for you? Are you a better husband, a better citizen ? I must test it there ; and that is whera I must test my religion, my Christianity. I must prove it, and if I find it is productive of more good in society than any other theory, I must hold on to it. No Church has a right to the dignity of supremacy, un- less on the ground of moral supremacy. That Church which does most good is the best in the sight of God, and should be the best in the sight of men, no matter what its creed is. The religion that produces the best moral effect is the religion for me to accept. I say to my free-thought brethren, what does you free- thought do ? What are you doing in Toronto more than the Christian Churches ? What are you doing in Canada ? What are you doing in any part of the world? Where is the superiority of your theory? Taking it for granted that all is, as you say, false, then every system would be right in a degree. If there is no eternity, then let us take that which is most advantageous, that which is most serviceable in this world. I am ready to take it on that ground. Do you build hospitals and asylums more than the others ? Do you take care of men more than the others ? Are you more charitable than we are ? Do you found institutions ? Where are your institutions ? You say Christianity is busily engaged about Heaven. Well, if it is busily engaged about Heaven, it is work- ing on earth as well, but are you ? You are not. I arraign free-thought on that ground to-night. It has few institutions on God's earth to its namej and never \ N DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 237 will have many. There is no motive power in it to make a man any better than common Christianity makes him. 1 do not arraign him individually for his freedom. He has as much right to that as a Chris- tian, and I would not offer him any opposition. 1 would not put the screws on him at all, but I do say that his theory, when brought to the test, does not afford equal protection with the poorest kind of Chris- tianity that I know of in the world. I take the poor- est kind of Christianity to compare with you. Are you commercially more honest than other men ? Are yon more intellectual ? Are you better husbands, bett. r wives, better children, better citizens ? What is the superiority of your theory ? "What is its effect upon society ? — for unless you can claim something super- ior we will not give up the old ship. Show us one that will sail better, smoother, swifter, safer, and we will go over to you ; but if you cannot show us any- thing superior, I guess we will stay where we are. Now, that it is a fair test. I prove all things, and hold fast to that which is good. Good practice sweeps away creeds, my friends, and we have had an illustra- tion of that during the past week in the death and burial of Father Stafford, the Catholic priest of Lind- pay. Can we not see in his case how practical charity sweeps away the individuality of creed, and commands the respect and affection of the whole land ? Here is a man whose charity has been sincere and pure, and, while he was a Catholic, yet was defined in the spirit of his practice, but held in obedient conservatism his t r 'tM -■' tf- t-iWi-W"! DR. WILD'S SERMONS. :i^ir] peculiar views, not trying? to enforce them upon another ; and wherever he could meet with us, on the temperance platform, in the schools, in any work of ameliorating the condition of his fellow-men, Father Stafford was equal to any Protestant that Canada has to-day. We did not think of him, could not think of him as a Catholic. Whenever I have shaken hands with the good Father, I never thought of him as a Catholic, I always thought of him as a Christian. His Christianity over-shadov/ed his Chatholicism and his creed, and that is what yours ought to do. You ought to be such good Christians that one would never ask whether you be Congregationalist, Methodist or Episcopalian. There is nothing like this testing of things, and we have the proof of it in the fact that both the Protestant and CatKolic community mourn for good Father Stafford to-day. There is not an Archbishop or Bishop in the country for whose loss I would mourn to-daji as I would for the loss of Father Stafford, not a man. They are all too exclusive in their ideas, not broad enough, not liberal enough. And so, my free-thought brethren, if you want us to take any notice of your theory, you must enforce i. jy a holier practice. When you become better by it y-ou can compel recognition from all men. Truth is the true basis for liberty. We are not at liberty to change for change sake ; we must have uniformity, and. we must not deviate from the Bible. There are some things that are primary. It does not do for the inathema,tician engaged on a problem to say, " I will DR. WILD*S SERMONS. 289 bend this straight line, and straighten this curve, to make this come out so.'* No, sir, you must go by rule. "Oh, be liberal," you say, "with your stu- dent.*' Hear the chemist say, " I don't want this to come out an acid ; I will put them together and make them come out sweet just to accommodate you." There is no accommodation at all. He is not liberal by varying from law. The mechanic that goes to put up a house must build in accordance with the laws of nature. You say, " Oh, I will make it different from anything else." That won't do ; you must be bound by some laws. People suppose they are liberal be- cause they deny certain things. There is no good in denying ; you will not be very liberal by denying what I have said to-night. You may tell a person who be- lieves in me very little, and in you a great deal, " Well, now, I don't believe what the Doctor says," and he will probably think with you ; if you tell one whose opinion is about the same of us both, you will come out about equal ; but if you tell one who be- lieves in me a good deal, and in you a very little, you will not gain much — you will probably gain nothing, and they v/ill pitch in back. That is all. There is nothing gained by mere de- nial. No, my friends, there are primary principles, and when we present the Gospel we do not present new principles. Theory is old as our Father Adam, as it were, sunlight is old, water is old, steam is old, electricity is old, but the mode of their application is new and e^ual to the age. So we present meu a^ !P 240 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. Rinners. We cannot depart from that. "We present the remedy which God has provided, Christ as a Saviour ; we present the fact that a holy life is the hest security for time, and for eternity, and we are not going to have that liberalism (?) that will say, " Fire has liberty ; the liberty of fire is to do as it likes." No; fire must burn. We cannot have a liberalism that divides itself from the true principles ;ind motives of all conduct. The Bible is a standard, and we must fix upon it and take it as it is ; and I am ready to say that there is not a doctrine in it that would harm the individual interests of man, or his social relations, or his relations as a merchant or citizen. And now, to my free-thought brethren : When I gave you that challenge I understood what I said ; I was preaching on Egypt, and on the prophecies con- cerning Egypt which have been fulfilled in the land, the river, among the people, and in the government. When I got through I said, " Friends, here are four facts covering centuries, if I have quoted correctly from history. I have done so ; if I have not, let any man contradict me, and I will read it here from this pulpit next Punday.'' Now, they waived that, and said, " No, we will challenge you on the whole Bible." Well, the whole Bible would tako me some time to get through, and would take them some time to got through, as I said in a letter ; but I will take that point of the government. The prophecy states, '* There shall b^ no more a prince in Egypt," i. e., a "1; DR, WILD'S SERMONS, 241 resent t as a is the we are lU say, as it have a inciples andard, i; and I Q it that , or his jhant or i ," i. e., a native Egyptian to sit on that throne. Two thoui^aiid three hundred years have gone hy, and I ask them to say if there ever has been such a prince on thn^ throne; if you can point out that there has been, I will read it from this pulpit. How could a man fore- cast like that ? I leave it for you to explain. I say it is divine ; that is the easiest way for me to get out of it, for only God could forecast like that. When 1 make statements, and quote from history or the Bible, and you think I am in error, then write and correct me ; do not swing off upon the whole world. When I argue about a field, do not say, ** I will argue upon the whole world ; what do you think of Africa and Australia?" I tell you there is no man in Toronto can deny these things that I have given on the pro- phetic line from time to time, and I will read it here, if you will give me one denial on any one of them ; but do not swing me off again upon the whole world, but keep always close to what I said, and I will be willing to read what you say, if you can deny it. I know history and you know it, and you know that there are nails driven in a sure place that you cannot pull out with all your teeth. Time is gone, and I must ask you to excuse me, dear friends. I bear no opposition to you in a spirit of charity. I wish you good. I am willing that all should know and test. I am willing to give you the right hand of fellowship in all that is laudable, but I still believe in that old liible and all its savin<^ doctrines and truths, i*i '-■'fli m ■^1- WfkU ; i SERMON XIV. A GRAFT WITHOUT A STOCK. TEXT.—" For if thou wert cut out of the oUve tcoe which is wild by Dature, and wert gratfed contrary to nature into a ^ood olive tree, how much more shall these, which he tbe natural hcauches, be graffed into tLkuir own olive tree ?"— lionmns xi, 24, It appears reasonable to my mind to infer that the Diyine Being had a definite purpose in the treatioii of this world, as well as all other worlds — a purpose, I suppose, that would be alike honorable to Himself as well as agreeable to the created. I like to look at this solid globe, and to note its law and its order, its beauty and its diversity. These, indeed, are very expressive of divine intent and purpose. It is, also, I think, fair to suppose that the Crieator took into consideration not only that which is natural, but that which might be called contingent — that which is liable to or may occur, that which we call probability ; and to this end He would not only make provision for that which is natural, but would also forecast and make provision for that which might be, for accidents that might occur, both in the order of nature as ^vell as in the organization of creatures, and also in the prder of His providence, DR. WILirS SERMONS. 248 ttco wlii* li ture into a [licli be tbe Q trc«?"- f that the le treation a purpose, bo Himself to look at J order, its , are very It is, also, : took into al, but tbat ich is liable bUity; anu •ovision for ^recast and )r accidents ure as well also in tU^ It is this kind of forethought, bo variously oxpresRod in nature, which students and philosophers so very much admire. You find it expressed in the mineral, as well as in the vegetable, and also in the animjil kingdoms. Here you see design and beneficial adap- tation meet each other to supply need, and answerin;,' a noble and generous end. The formation of miner- als, as well as their location, the juxtaposition of one that was necessary to the other, indicates this truth. It is a grand coincidence, if so we may call it, that coal and iron are generally found close by each other. The vegetables, we find, are suited to the climate, seasons and the peculiar nourishment that is needed in various places. And when we are enabled to dis- criminate, we see the hand of God, too, in the won- ders he has manifehted in the animal creation, not only with respect to their propagation, but with re- spect to those means and metliods which He has devised by which one creature shall protect itself, by which it shall be enabled to get its own supply of sustenanc . When you come to look at the vegetablo world, you see how necessary it was, ere man should exist on this earth, that these seeds — most of them — should be capable of planting themselves. So He put some within boxes that have springs on, and when the time comes the sprir^g opens and scatters them abroad; and then He ga'^e some downy wings, like the thistle, that the seed might float hither and thither in the air and plant itself. He protected some that are tender by thorns all around, and others ...'.'gi'Tr: trTf a4 isi^ 244 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. He placed in kernels of strong stones or pods, so that man and beast should crnsh them into the ground, and here they should ferment until the shells burst and the tree grew up. By this devising everywhere we see the design of Providence. When you come to look at the birds that come frowi the South to visit us in the spring, look how much like the forest newly dressed they are. Of course the under part of a bird always is in sympathy or harmony with the foliage or bark of the trees they like best. Whatever the kind of forest a bird is ac- customed to live in or dwell in for the season, the leaves and the color of that tree will be like the fea- tliers on the underside of the bird ; the beauty and variety ^^:11 be on the top, on the wings and back and head. And why so ? For this simple reason, that when we go gunning, and other animals that love to go out and desire to destroy these creatures, they can- not well discern the object ; they cannot well separate it from the foliage ; they are looking up, and it all looks alike. So God made this simple provision in the bird ; and this freshness of color changes as the autumn approaches until it comes, and they brown like the very leaves they are nestling among. Now, can any man look at all this and see no definite end in such an arrangement ? I think not. Surely the world is not the production of fate, nor swinging in space wildly. The method and construction evinced therein foreshadow law and a governing mind in operatioo. A man might see an engine burnished 8, BO that e ground, lells burst design of birds that 3ring, look y are. Of eyrapatby trees tbey bird is ac- leason, the ke tbe fea- beauty and 4 back and eason, that hat love to 8, they can- |ell separate and it all |)rovision in ges as the they brown ong. Now, definite end Surely the Iswinging in Ition evinced ig mind in ^e burnished DH. WilA/S SERMONS. 245 1 V. and complete, as it might stand upon the track, and, nover having seen one run, would look at the wheels, the driving rods, the piston, tho cylinders, boiler, go over the various departments, and would naturally infer, " That is made for operation." While it is resting there it is a thing of creation ; wlion it is in motion it is a thing operating ; and that is i'rovi- dence — Providence is a thing in motion. In reasoning of God in Providence, I think we should be careful not to draw the lino too tight, not to bind Him down invariably by one set of laws or by any one law, which we are very apt to do. God is very free in His resources, and is capable of meeting all contingencies. Creative energy is superhuman; He, better than a man or creature, can devise a means of delivery and a grand remedy for any evil that may occur. Every law, each production, is a limitation, yet it is not a limitation of the creative Mind. By the reverse of law, by the contraction of law, or by the suspension of law, or by the creation of a new law, God can get over all difficulties that may occur in nature. Divine designs are often attained by a diversity of methods and means, and so if one thing shall not fulfil His purpose, it is within His range to call into operation another set of things. H He shall choose one people to be His executive, through whom He designed His Gospel purposes should flow, and that they should answer the purpose of being His ambassadors and messengers to the rest of mankind, and that race of people shaU fail in that I W I.'< I i Hm Irl' H;- :. \ -\] '246 1)R. WILD'S SERMONS. end and stay the flow of Divine purpose, God can cut off that people and graft on another, and thus continue the flow of Gospel light, until His purpose shall be fully answered. You know that we have in surgery what we call plastic surgery — taking the blood from one man and infusing it ^nto this weak, dying subject here, or taking- the flesh from the arm of one man to supply ii deficiency in the arm or body of another, and we can take and, by this means, transfer the flesh from one bodj^ to another. This is plastic surgery, and of late years much has been learned in this department. Careful anatomists have wrought wonders. Diseases to which grafted persons are subject, after they have been exposed to certain agents, are also full of hints to the pathologist as well as to the physician. A knowledge of natural grafbing, too, seems to be essen- tial to the attainment of whit we may call our best varieties of fruits and flowers and the various seeds that are made serviceable to us now. We study natural graftings ; we understand it in some sense ; we see that there is a purpose gained by it ; so we understand, also, in a measure, plastic surgery, flesli- grafting. Have we any idea of spiritual grafting, of how God can cut off one limb or branch of a race and graft in another, and thus let His purposes flow on ? For we cannot stay the Divine, though we may* strive to do so ; the will of Heaven will always be clearly answered. Now, in the text you have three parties mentioned, mmmm t)IL WILD'S SERMONS. 217 and it is well for you to note these three partioa. You have three distiuct peoples called to your miRd, and yet commentators, as a rule, and the half of you here, would only see two, and when I show you the thi^ u you will go out of this church and say they are nc'^ three ! We want to see the three parties that are called to our mind's view in this text. The first :? the olive that was cut off the wild olive to be engrafted on the good olive. Now, who are we to understand by the wild olive ? Who are they ? The Gentiles — no dispute just on that point. I suppose that we will all agree that the wild olive that is cut off, and, con- trary to nature, is grafted on the good olive, moans the G jntiles. Does it not ? Yes. All right. Now, the next thing to consider is, who is meant by the good olive, into which this wild olive branch is to be graft- ed ? Who is the good olive ? That is the disputed point ; that is what you won't believe. The moment you believe it, two-thirds of this Bible will open up to you as clear as you see my hand before you to-night ; and because you do not see the three parties in this verse, you cannot read the Prophets nor the history of the Bible with any sense or meaning. Who is, then, the good olive ? There is a stock here, there is a trunk here, into which the graft of tlie Gentiles is grafted. It is not a graft without a stock, as theology has it. It means Israel. But who is Israel ? In this place and in this verse, the people of the Tribe of Benjamin, who were of the stock of Israel, as Paul tells you, being of the Tribe of BcJi- ■I 248 DR. niLV'S SEIIMOXS. jamin, of the stock of Israel. Now, it is this Israel you do not see. You graft the Gentile graft on to nothing, and there are not a dozen pulpits in this country but what are striving to do that impossible act, grafting on to nothing ! The third party called to your attention is the natural branches that were broken off, detached from this good olive at some time. These were broken off, he says, because of unbelief, and if they continue not in unbelief, they may yet again be grafted on. Now, who are the broken off branches ? The Jews, the people you call the Jews. Now, does not that kind of exposition stand clear before your mind ? Do I make a mis- take ? Do I do violence to anything in that verse, when I bring before you these three parties ? I per- ceive in my own mind that I do not ; and yet ignor- ance of these three facts has been, and still is, a prolific source of much argument, of forced and unreasonable interpretations of many portions of God's Word, as well as the mainspring in the forma- tion of several sects, some of which are dead, and some of which are in existence to-night. You take, for instance, the doctrine of election, and see how it has been argued about, perverted and mis- understood. They have taken the doctrine of elec- tion and applieci it to the individual where it never is applied to the individual in the Bible. Who are the elect ? Who are the elect in the Bible, what people, what nation ? A people has been elected — a nation has been elected. Are we told who they are? God mmmr 1)11. WILD'S SEliMONlS. 240 speaks of Israel as being His elect, His chosen, His nilieritance. Does He speak of any one else being so ? No, sir. He does not. Election bas reference to the special purpose of God in choosing tb • literal seed of Abraham for the special purpose of carrying on civilization and evangelizing the world. He had to choose some race, some people, and make them responsible for this grand work. Now, who did He choose ? He chose Israel, as He told us. Thus the whole doctrine of election reverts from the individual andfal's upon a people, a race, and we see that race, and see the intention of God in the so-called election. You go to the Morrisonian movement, in Scotland. When I was a younger man I read two or three vol- umes by the Rev. Mr. Morrison, and other books in answer to them. In later years I can see that the whole thing was a piece of folly, because they were arguing from this and the next chapter about election — indiviuual election and reprobation, — whereas it has no direct reference to individual salvation nor reprobation in that sense. It has reference to these I iree parties that are brought before us in the text. To understand this good olive, the stock of Israel, let us quote a little history, for I told you the other night that the Bible is easily divided into three great divisions — history, prophecy and religion. And do you suppose the historical part is as true as the reli- gious part ? I believe they are all equally true, and therefore I have the same liberty in making a quota- tion and believing the facts that arc historically stated Wl 8 I s ... I i, 250 dh. WILD'S sEimoNS. in the Bible as I have in other facts. The historic is the basis of the prophetic, and the prophetic is the basis of the rehgious. The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus, so says John in Revelation. Do you give any of His testimony ? How many pul- pits are testifying of Jesus through prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus ? Now, how many are tes- tifying of Jesus ? They will go through this city and say that Dr. Wild is not preaching the Gospel, but the testimony of Jesus in the spirit of prophecy. What is there sure in the Bible ? The sure part o^ the Bible is prophecy, says Peter. Bond Street is dealing with the sure part, anyway. They are like the men in the asylum ; when one goes in they say, ** You are the crazy one ; yes, I am not crazy, you are." So they say there is no Gospel preached on Sunday evening, while the fact is there is not in their own churches. They are not preaching it in a Bible sense, because they, are leaving out the historic and prophetic part ; naturally they are only taking up the other part, and that they cannot very well expound unless the natural part be thorougly understood. As I have given ex- ample in the simple illustration of the parties brought to our view in this text, I say, " Let us quote some history." It is difficult, sometimes, to bound races and coun- tries and governments ; sometimes it is easy. Sup- posing I should say that in the year 1776, on July 4th, a people declared their independence, and by that act separated themselves from the British Empire ? r>n. WILD'S sKtmoNs. S51 You say, " What people was that, sir ?" " The peoplu called now the United States." '' Is that so ?" '' Yes, sir." " Do you mean to say that they have separated from Britain, and that they have been a distinct people from that date ?" '' They have, sir." " Can you give proof ?" '' That I can, sir." " How would you prove it?" "By a reference to history and to the people, in continued existence." *' Weil," you say, "I sup- pose that is satisfactory." If I can prove to you from history, also, the separation of the Hebrew people into two distinct nations, at a certain time, answering a distinct purpose, each nation ; and that since that time when they separated, they have never been united, and are just as distinct to-night as the United States and Britain are, will you believe history when it is Bible history ? You will hardly know what to do when you go out to-night ; you won't want to believe it, and yet you will not be able to disbelieve it, I know. And so, if we will turn — let us look at the origin of the Hebrew people, coming down from Abraham. We see a people coming down from the loins of Abra- ham. Abraham is chosen as God's particular friend, and through the literal seed of Abraham God intends to accompli^ certain purposes. There are two kinds of seed of Abraham, which is a key- thought to the Scriptures. There iii the literal seed of Abraham, that has a special work to do in the settlement of the world, and then there is the spiritual seed. The literal seed comprises all who are literally descended *w- If I i •252 2)12. WlLirS SEmiONS. i . . from Abraham by the flesh, and the Bpiritual seed applies to all, and takes in all, who are saved by the covenant mercies of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, you will see the literal seed has a limitation ; the other takes in both the literal and the rest of mankind, for everbody, every language and every name and tongue and kindred, whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ, shall bo saved, and being of faith, he is of Abraham in that spiritual sense. You will remember that God threatened to divide Ihe Kingdom of Solomon because Sol mon in his latter years had forsaken the path in \\^ich he had promised to walk. His sins and offences against Heaven were such that God must recognize them, and punish them, and cut them short ; and so he goes unto Solomon, as you will find. (I wiP give you these quotations, so that you can turn to them — 1 Kings, xi, 11, 12, 13.) He goes unto Solomon, through the pro- phet, and makes the following statement: "I will surely rend the Kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servants ; notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it, for David, thy father's sake, but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son ; howbeit, I will not rend away all the Kingdom, but will give one tribe to thy son, for David, My servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, which I have chosen." That is the literal, word for word of an historical statement in the Bible. Have these facts been fulfilled — do you know the facts that 1 have read ? First, the Kingdom is to be rent in twain; second, the rended part is to given to a DR. WILirS SERMONS. 253 ' 1^ servant of Solomon's ; thir no purpose of what He intends it shall be ? Away with earthly ideas and earthly govern- ments. God rules in the heavens and among the inhal)itants of earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, " What doest thou ?" He shall break thom as a potter's vessel| until His divine purposes 260 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. shall shine out clear and bright as the stars of Hea- ven in the glory of a frosty night. Can we not see the signs of His providence as made manifest from time to time ? Can we not sue the development of His plans ? I was yesterday in the beautiful cemetery, Mount Pleasant, north of the city here, which seems to grow in charms as it develops, nearly every visit I pay. Each year tells in its favor. Us dells, its ravines, its little rivers, its lakes, its plots and its vaults are all standing out in order. Am I to be told that Mr. Englehart, the landscape engineer of that park, has no idea of what he is do- ing ? I was talking with him when I first took a look at the place, and he gave me an idea of the plan, the very first funeral that I went to, some three years ago. He was pointing out rough places, natural then, that have been brought into subjection since ; walks, lanes, flowers, shrubberies — it was all in his mind, and if you could see in his mind, you would see what it will be ten years from to-night. He has it in him ; it is all there ; and he is bringing this idea out in realism. And so God has His idea of this world, and the world is standing out like Mount Pleasant Cemetery to me, grander and fuller, and more perfect as each year rolls by, and God becomes more tangible by the very facts of Providence as they are revealed. Has God any special country ? As these governments of earth claim one, so He has a country — Palestine. It He claims out of all the countries of earth ; "the M. IVILiyS SERMONS, ^61 >f Hea- 8 made loe the in the hhe city jvelops, iS favor. ,kes, its 1 order, ndscape le is do- ik a look >lan, the ee years ral then, walks, s mind, lee "what in him ; I out in and the IJometery a8 each le by the id. Has irnments alestiue. h; *'the land is Mine," He says, ** and shall not be sold for- ever." Has He no capital — for England has London , Russia has St. Petersburg, France has Paris — has God no capital ? He has Jerusalem, and He will make it the <»"pital of this world, in spite of all the governments can do. Are we to suppose that God has no executive among the nations of the earth ? Has He no one in charge of the great work of evan- gelizing and civilizing the earth ? He has, and so we find the Saxon people, whom I take to be the descen- dants of these ten tribes, and they are fulfilling this purpose. Is there any good reserved for these broken-off branches, our Jewish brethren, of whom again I am glad to see some heia to-night ? What are we going to do with you people ? Tell us what will be done with you. If you continue not in your unbelief, you can be grafted in again, for you stood by faith, and by unbelief were ))roken off ; and if you can get faith again in our Lord Jesus Christ, you can be grafted in, and ye are indeed yet to be grafted into this stock of Israel. Now you know the stock of Israel, the wild olive, the Gentiles, and the broken- off branches, the Jews, you have not any one else living in this world, according to the summing up of the Scriptures. This do I say, that it is not wise for us to be grafting upon nothing, and therefore it is important to understand the stock upon which this wonderful graft is to be made. The Gentiles can be grafted on to the economy of Israel, and so cao our brethren the Jews, and so we can say, *' Come all the » * M 262 bR, WILD'S SERMOM,^. world, for the tree is a goodly one, and under its branches all may find shelter, life and peace. The Lord bless you. Amen. ■"■"-""1— tri'itii SERMON XV. MOULDY BREAD AND AN OATH. TEXT. — " This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses on tho day we came forth to go uuto you, and now behold, it is dry aud it is mouldy : and the moa took of their victuals, and asked not oounsul at the mouth of the Lord," — Joshua a;t, 12 '14. For forty years Moses bad been at the bead of the Hebrew people, as a human leader and commander- in-cbief. The vast bost of Israel was now about to enter into the Promised Land. At this juncture Moses is relieved of bis command, and though be was one hundred and twenty years old, tbe sacred writer Gays that bis eye was not dim, nor bis natural Torce abated. God invited bim up into Mount Nebo ; yea, to one of its prominent points, called Pisgab, and sbowed bim a large portion of the land of promise, namely, Canaan. Moses tben quietly and secretly disappears from time and earth, and no man knoweth of bis sepulchre, even unto this day. A singular statement, and, in a human sense, an improbable one, that so notable a man could be buried, or not buried, and tbe world know nothing more particular than is now stated here, and yet profane and sacred history confirm this simple statement, for if the body of Mo8e3 had been known, a people who carried t^e im^jmmtmmmmmtTMmmmima BH 264 DR. WILD'S SEliMONS, l)ones of one of their ancestors, Joseph, through all their wanderings for forty years, would not have been slow to have taken the bones of Moses from the land of the wilderness, the east of Jordan, and carried them over west of Jordan, into the land of promise. Joshua, the son of Nun, was appointed in his place, a man eminently qualified by intellectual endow- ments, by experience and by heavenly gifts. He led the vast host across the Jordan, and the people, see- ing his skill and generalship at this point, gave him their confidence and obedience ; for it is said, *' In that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they feared him as they feared Moses all the days of his life." Jericho was taken, and also the famous city of Ai. This alarmed the Canaanite kings of the hills and valleys and sea-coastd, and they combined together to resist the onward march oi* Joshua and his army. It is said that they gathered themselves together to fight Joshua and Israel with one accord. Though these kings had been divided by separate interests, and had often been at war one with another, yet now a common dangei, as a sig* nal, warns them to lay aside their natural jealousies and unite their forces against a common enemy. It is recorded in history that Lord Nelson was at variance with two of ^'-^ nrominent officers, but the night before thr hntUo "^f Trafalgar, calling them to his p^esen'r, aivr j-oii ting to the enemy's fleet, he said, '* GsbUer,^ ^n, yonder is our foe; let us be united on the morr.>w." i D22. WiLUS SEliMONS. ^65 gh all ebeen e land ithem J place, endow- He led le, see- ve him id, *' In bt of all OSes all id also naanite nd they arch oi athered lel with divided var one a sig- alousies enemy, on was officers., afalgar, to the is our And so we find that personal prejudice afid jeal- ousies can in certain circumstances be laid aside. We have a beautiful instance of that in the case of Pilate and Herod, who had been for some time at enmity one with another ; but as common enemies of Jesus Christ, in bantering this our Lord from court to court, Pilate and Herod were made friends that selfsame day. So Christians should learn lessons from these incidents, to forget their denominational jealousies, and where it is possible unite their forces for aggressive and successful work against the devil, the world, sin and ths flesh ; and I am glad to notice this incident of the past week, as well as continuing on through the coming week, the united forces of Methodists of our Province coming together, joining their resources in one grand body. Let us hope that it is but a harbinger, a forerunner of still greater and grander union, when the Churches shall present a more solid front, and be more competent, being less divided, to do successful work in Canada for God and for Christ. In the very heart of Canaan there wa^ even at this early day a little republic, made up of the union of four cities which are mentioned in this chapter, and the chief one of these cities was called Gibeon. Now, this city of Gibeon was situated on a rocky eminence, about six miles northwest from Jerusalem. It was the capital of the people called the Hivites. The city was at the head of the mountain pass of Bethoram, and this pass was right opposite to the one which led E r' I -— -^mL7 T3: ^66 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. unto the city of Ai. Naturally, you see, it would have been the very next -city on which Joshua would have come on leaving the city of Ai. Now, I imagine these republicans were not invited to join the confederation and councils of the kings, for kings are not very fond of republicans at any time ; so being left out of these councils, they united their own councils together, and sought by some device to give themselves pro- tection, prolong their existence, and receive favor. By a peculiar piece of strategy they are suocessful, and you may read at your leisure the details of the par- ticulars, for it is a peculiar event. Nothing like it in all line of history is recorded ! The sacred writer tells us that they did work wilily ; they got some old sacks in which to put their luggage, some old wino bottles, rent and bound up some old shoes and clouts to bind their weary, travel-worn feet, mime old gar- ments to indicate their long journey, tattered and torn, some old and mouldy breiid, to give the same idea, some old ricketty, bony, worn-out donkeys, still to convey the same ; and now, tbua rigged out, ima- gine those primitive republicans ! The first republicans we read of in the world come to visit this conquering chief of Jehovah, to sue for p«Me and protection at his hand. They are styled ambassadors. Ambassadors, indeed, they were ! They present their credentials, and what are their creden- tials ? They certainly are rather curious, but seem at least to have been effectual and successful. They relate to Joshua and the princes that are called together DB. mLD'S SliinMoNS, 267 in council, how they have heard of the mighty won- ders of the Israelitish host, away across the Jordan. They have not heard of his taking Jericho, they have not heard of him taking their neighboring cities, they have come from such a vast distance that things near by they know nothing of — cunning, indeed ! And had you ever a republican that was no*^^ cunning? British diplomacy is shrewd, but not so shrewd when it meets the Yankee Republic, and they get more money than they can tell what to do with in the Ala- bama treaty. It is a great overstretch on John Bull, a wonderful take-off, but republics are given to that, and are competent, because they unite the wisdom of the common mass to the attainment of their end, whereas diplomacy in monarchies is often limited to a few, who have become old, and fossilized, and fixed, and suppose they know all, but they do not often do so. And we read that Joshua, in the pres- Pttce of these ambassadors, called the congregation together for consultation, and the decision was favor- able to these Hivites, and they received the men by reason of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. And Joshua made peace with them, and made a league with them to let them live, and the princes of the congregation sware unto them. Now, remarkably, three days' journey carries the Israelite host into the very presence of this city of Gibeon, and now is revealed how they have been taken into a snare by these wonderful ambassadors. The priuceB find they have been deceived, but what I I t ! 265 Di?. tVlLD'S SEBMONS. shall they do in the presence of the city that they have been originally commanded to destroy, and yet that they have bound themselves by an oath not to destroy but to let the people live ? What shall be their course ? How shall they get out of their di- lemma ? I am glad they got out of it the way they did. Joshua and the princes, indeed, had taken counsel together, and though the people urged them to break their oath : " We cannot, we have sworn," they said ; " we have sworn to give life and protec- tion unto this people in the name of the Lord God of Israel." I am glad that there was one general and one people, one embryo nation, that did regard its oith as being as sacred as its very existence. And so they refused to break their oath. But where was the fault ? Not simply with these ambassadors ; there is little to be blamed on them. They bad a a right to seek to prolong their existence and preserve their republic. They had a right, in view of the general customs of war, to make use of this kind of strategic means ; there was no wrong on their part, nor are they blamed. But where was the wrong ? The wrong was that Joshua and the princes asked not counsel of God. In their very presence they had the peculiar instruments, the "urim " and the " thum- mim," that spoke the mind and will of God, right by them ; and yet they chose to exercise independently their own judgment, and to avoid going to consult God and ask Ells counsel in such a strange emer- ,t they md yet not to ball be beir di- ty they taken d them 3Worn," protec- : God of ral and gard its 3. And ere was ssadors ; y had a preserve of the kmd of ir part, wrong ? 8 asked ;hey had * thum- right by endently consult [e emer- DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 269 gency ; and God let human wisdom, for this once, take its own course, and see its own folly. It was a grand lesson that Israel learned that day, a lesson that the nations should successively have learned from Israel. The nation that seeks counsel from God is the nation to-day that will find its arm supreme, and its conquests secure. The validity and sacredness of an oath was also very finely established and maintained, which is indeed of very great worth. A man should keep his word if he lose by it, as tliis people found. Some men, you know, will join any kind of a wild-cat scheme, a wheat corner, a pork corner, any kind of a corner that promises large divi- dends to the investor. We had a curious instance of this last winter, of one of these chaps from Chicago, bandied around from town to town, and from court to court, in order that certain r^en in Canada, who had placed their funds in his hands for investment in a pork corner, might get some remuneration in return. He was in Toronto here ; w.e sent him to Peter- borough, they passed him to Belleville ; then Toronto, next Cobourg, and from Cobourg nowhere, for we never have known since where the man has gone. Well, now, it is a lack of sincerity in people, a lack of the valuation of an oath or of their word. If men get sirculars promising th3m large dividends, and get a few remittances, and are successful, do they come to Toronto and say, '* Have that man arrested; he has paid me twenty per cent., which is unlawful " *? Not Q, word from the most |)ious of them — not a wor4t if >i I I M ■M yi • 270 ]>1L WlLirS SERMONS, But when the crash comes and they lose, they raise a hue and cry that is false, that is wrong. There is a meanness in any man in Canada — and there are like- ly some of you liere — that did it, to keep quiet while you gain, but if you lose whine about it. Abide by your word if you die — abide by your word if you lose every cent you have got by it. Go to work and make some more, for it will be a good groundwork for you to begin to build up again on, will the honest report of the soundness of your character. I had a man call on me not many weeks ago, who came to this city to make certain purchases of goods for his store, and got rambling around in this famous city of Toronto, and got into some- other pla % I i m an Dli. WILD'S SKIIMONS. 27U ve the penny ntages Qerals. , And r. "As They are Canaanites, by their own history. Can you settle this people among Israel? IS ever ; till you proselyte them to be Israel, they will be pricks in the side and thorns in the eyes of the British Govern- ment. They have always been so, are so to-night, and will be so next Sunday night, and will be so till the people and Government of England do as God told them. You cannot ignore God. History is as plain as A B C, if men can only see it. But most govern- ments think that they can go on and persecute, slay, destroy, to suit their own vengeance and their own hate. They can do nothing of the kind. God remembers what governments are doing, and the great peualty to-day ; and what is it ? What has England paid in her quiet, in her security, in her money value, for something her fathers failed to do in the Land o2 Palestine ? And it would have been* better for these Philistines or Canaanites themselves, a thousand times better; nor can they settle the Irish difficulty till they settle it as God origin ally- directed. And now, my friends, when we come to see and understand things like these, we find that where this oath was taken and in a manner regarded and kept as sacred, the Israelites did not suffer from the people in question, the Gibeonites, as they did from some of the others. They reduced them to a sort of Temple service ; in fact, they became in time the chief and sweet singers in the Temple, and became men of wealth and rose in the service. And so it was better I s^i ' 280 DR, WILD'S SEliMONS, for both the Gibeonites and Israel that the latter in a measure kept the word of Jehovah. I tell you as in- dividuals, you cannot mock God. If you do wrong ia this world God will pay it back upon your own back. He will not leave everything till the Judgment Lay, and you have it even now in the existence of the wrongs, sorrows and sufferings that many of you are enduring to-night. As a people, nation and Govern- ment we should learn to deal uprightly, honestly, squarely, truly, if we seek to be a nation honored by God, and then we will come out all right. And yet, who cares for all this theology ? Governments will go on, and individuals will go on, although in the history of any Christian nation one can see the finger of God in these marked visitations. They are now present with us, and will be present until we are will- •ing to abide by the oath and will and pleasure of our Heavenly Father. May we then, my dear friends, as individuals, learn that our word should be sacred, that God has His eye upon the earth, learn to make our nation, our Province, our Dominion, our Empire, pledged to the truth, honorable in all its treaties, and manfully pledged to make sacred their word ! Amen. SERMON XVI. A TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTION. TEXT.- " Then he said, What title is that which I see? And tlie mcu of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel." — '-i Kings t xxiii, 17. The life and character of the Hebrew nation have a very intimate relation with Bible history, and also with the general course of civilization. Even at this day, in this and many other lands, a portion of this Hebrew people are at least wonderful witness and corroborative evidence of the sacred teachings of this Holy Book. A part of that nation, called the Jews, amid all their wanderings and changes and persecu- tion through the long, dark and weary centuries, though they have kept a peculiar faith, though in their countenances they have had evidences of their descent, yet for hundreds of years they have been but a race, not a nation ; but wanderers, and not organi- zed. But in spite of their suffering and homeless wandering, they have remained a distinct people of peculiar aim and wonderful tenacity, receiving and preserving unto themselves a vitality defiant of physio- logical and ethnological reasonings and teachings. '11^ m 282 Dn. WILD'S SERMONS. The land and the city in which their forefathers lived and roamed and dwelt has been for hundreds of years deserted and lonely, awaiting, indeed, the return of these scattered exiles from the north and the west, and all portions of the world whither they nave been driven. They, among the nations of the earth, have been a remarkable witness to the truth of God's teaching, and if you will go back a little over three thousand years ago, in your mind's memory, you will find the fount from vhich this race sprang — Abra- ham, a son of Tereth, a Nomadic chief, in the east, in the va t and fertile plains of Mesopotamia. He heard the commanding voice of Heaven saying unto him, " Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kin- dred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee." Here began the existence of this strange people. Here and then Providence took a new departure. The prime and leading idea seems to have been to restock the earth with a people who should be thoroughly instructed in divine things. Hence, to this end, he blessed them with great increase and gave them exceptional favors, not only in the location of the land where they were placed, but in those peculiar and divine gifts of favor and guidance that no other people can boast of as they can in their past history. Now, you will remember, if you are at all familiar with Bible history, that about the year 980 before Christ, this Hebrew nation or people became separated into two governments, having their respective kingSj bit. WILD'S sEimoxs. 28b and having their reRpective work and sphere in which they each moved. From this separated condition, you will remember, Rehoboam, when they first seced- ed, was desirous of bringing them back, or of trying, at least, to do so, by force of arms. Have you ever read how he was stayed in that effort ? First Kings, twelfth chapter : " Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not go up nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel ; return every man to his house, for this thing is from Me." And that you do not believe, one half of you. You don't believe that this people separated. You don't believe that God had any intention in thu separatr i of that nation or people Jnto two peculiar divisions, as the Bible records, and yet God assumes that it is a result that He has permitted, an-' as a result of permission, He accepts it to direct the issues thereof. Jeroboam, of course, was the first King of this new Kingdom. The old one they called the Kingdom of Judah ; the new one they called the Kingdom or House of Irsael. Naturally, after becoming their King, he would study the resources of the Kingdom- how to preserve its unity, how to compact the people together, as it were, and enable them to grow up a solid and strong nation. He would not ignore this fact — as many do to-daj^ — that religion is one of the xnost important factors in the growth, prosperity and permanence of a pfiople ; and so he set to work im- mediately to make the religion which he intended his people should have as attractive, as easy, as con- m DR. WILD'S SERMONS. venient as he possibly could — for it is recorded, "And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the Kingdom return to the House of David. If this people go up to do sacrifice in the House of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people ^jrn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam, King, of Judah." Whereupon the King took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, " It is too much for you to go unto Jerusalem; behold thy gods, Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt ; and he set or?e in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan,'* Th is to say, while he was making a new religion, he might as well make it as convenient and opportune as he possibly could. If a man is going to construct a religion, let him surround it with all the tinsel and show that will naturally draw human attention and human sympathies and interest. In this we learn that Jeroboam sinned, for in erect- ing a new religion God nowhere accepts this sequence. He does not say, "This thing is from Me," because they had departed from the faith of their fathers, and had now set up an idolatrous system. We might learn from this, also, that as Jeroboam set up these two golden calves to gtrengthen his Kingdom and preserve it, they were the very means that finally destroyed it ; and I question to-day if, in any status of intellect above that which is — if you divide intellect into, say, ten degrees — above that which is fou: , you cannot keep a nation together, unless you have the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Chinese, the Pagans ied, "And Kingdom pie go up [ernsalcm, ^gain unto )f Judah." made two too much ly gods, of Egypt; he put in Ling a new enient and ,n is going I it with all raw human srest. For in erect- 8 sequence, ecause they s, and had night learn these two nd preserve y destroyed of intellect ct into, say, you cannot the religion the Pagans DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 285 — that have no knowledge of the true God, and whose religion is accepted of God, because they worship ac- cording to the best light and judgment that they Jiave, and that is the best that any of us can do— have to a certain extent held together ; but if you take a people that are so enlightened as to have say six- tenths of this religious idea, or religious intelligence, then they must have the religion of Jesus Christ to preserve their nation. And is it not then a fine com- parison that the Scripture makes, when Christians or Christianity is compared to the salt of the earth ? Salt is preserving ; salt is antiseptic in its action and force; so Christianity and religion is a preserving power in that nation that accepts it. We also learn that this Jeroboam made himself high priest. Well, if a man is making a religion, he may as well make himself a good berth ; as long as a man undertakes to do these things that are human, we must expect that he will see to his own interest. But we are also told that he made some of the very lowest of the people priests. Well, that would be very natural, for he would want these rowdies to help him, and it does not always follow that in these offices of the land, and in these places of honor, that we get the very best men. We ought to and should do it, but a man will surround himself sometimes by those whc are not restrained by principle, because, being unscrupulous, they can go forth to hold men in subjection who have the lawful and legal right to be free. We find that at this time he established also a 286 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. feast, to compare with the great Feast of the Pass- over of the House of Judah ; and on this very festive day, in the height of their worship, when he himself is swinging his golden censer,, and the incense is ris- ing up from that heautiful altar, a stranger comes within this sacred chapel, as it is called by Amos, and he walks through its aisles, through its kneeling and worshipping people, and he stands in the front of this magnificent altar and this gorgeously arrayed high priest, and he begins to curse the altar, and pro- nounce condemnation upon it, and forecast its de- struction, and be gave as a sign that the solid stone of which it was constructed should rend, and the rent took place, and the high priest stretched forth his hand to smite the intruder, and it was smitten and dried up. He then sought, of course, the goodwill of this stranger, that he might pray for him to be re- stored. A man will curse a minister, and send for him when he is sick. There are strange peculiarities among men, indeed, and this is one of them. And what does he say, this strange man — for we know not who he is ? He seems to have but one mis- sion, this one little prophecy, and that he did not do as commanded, entirely ; who he is we know not, though his title is " the Man of God." Now, there are some peculiar things about the prophecy that he made, for at one point he said that the very bones of the priests officiating that day should be taken out of their graves, hundreds of years after, and burnt upon that very rent altar. And more, he actually went on DR, WILD'S SERMONS. 287 to describe the very person that should do it. If wo look at him, as I have said, in his journey and in his mission, we find that he was not faithful altogether. This mission, you will remember, was to go and' -to return, but not return by the way he went ; to accept no one's invitation to go into his house for dinner or tea, but to journey back to the place he had started from, and there refresh himself. Of course the King very generously invited him to take some refreshment, but he was very faithful in his idea of his mission, for his answer was : "So it was charged me by the Word of the Lord, saying. Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou earnest." But, poor man, though he resisted the King, he finally yielded to the lying insiuHation of a super- annuated minister or priest. I suppose he would more easily believe the lie of a minister than he would even the lie of a king. This priest that was super- annuated, we read, was told by his sons on returning from the service about the strange visitor. He start- ed off after him and found him resting under an oak tree. He inquires, " Art thou the man of God ? " "I am," is the reply. "Now," he says, "it was said unto me by an angel, return and be refreshed." But he answers again, " I may not return, for so it was said unto me that I should not return by the same way that I went, or eat bread or drink water in any man's house.** Still he yielded at last, and returns with this superannuated priest and takes refresh- ments. Being refreshed, he starts on his journey "EW 288 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. I ^ ' ! f I < !. '< J ;, 11) again. He has not reached that oak tree — I imagine it is while he is walking the double ground over again that he is slain ; a lion comes forth from the woods and slays him, but does not tear him in pieces. And so the intelligence comes back to the city, and the old priest begins to feel sorry and groan lor the con- sequence of his lies, as people who tell lies should groan and feel sorry and grieve for them ; and of course he can do nothing less than bury him, and he buries him in his own sepulchre, and he gives charge to his sons, saying, "When I am dead bury me in the same grave, lay my bones beside his bones." And why, now? The answer is this, "For the saying which he cried by the Word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and all the houses and high places which are in the city of Samaria shall surely come to pass." Now., he believed although he had told a lie ; and we have a very good right, I think, to infer that even people who are evil at some one point are not alto- gether bad ; that there is goodness in nearly every one, and there may be, and probably is, a little evil in all. What had the prophet of Judah said con- cerning the future ? Why, he had forecast that a child should be born, and he christened him hun- dreds of years before he was born. "He shall be named Josiah, and he shall come and take these bones and burn them upon the altar, and he shall pollute it" — for the Hebrew mind could not take an altar that had |)eon polluted with the bones of the dead ; it wpuld DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 2S9 magine r again ) woods I. And md the he con- should and of , and he 8 charge ^ me in 38." And 9 saying ainst the h places come to lie; and that even lot alto- Irly every little evil Isaid con- it that a lim hun- Ibe named [ones and lute it" — that had it would be ruined forever in their opinion. And while this grand iconoclast goes through the land — for the Israelites had been taken captive, and the Samaritans were weak and really had no king at that time, for the colony is owned by the Kingdom of Babylon — with a zeal that cannot be restrained bj' geographical boandaries, ho marched over into the territory of Ramaria, and begins to cut down their groves, destroy their altars, and purify the land of its idolatry ; and as he came to old Bethel, he actually did dig out the graves and take the very bones, and ordered them to be burnt upon the altar, and as the smoke is ascend- ing and this ruthless act is being consummated, when he thought they had done all that was necessary, he noticed an inscription upon one of the tombstones, and ho seems desirous of knowing whose it might be, and the answer is our text. Seeing this notice upon the stone, he enquired, "What title is that — (it W'^.s high up on the hillside) — that I see ?" And the men of the city told him : " It is the sepulchre of the man of God which came from Judah and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar at Bethel." What a remarkable fulfilment of a prophecy this must have been to that very people ! Three hundred and sixty years before this event had been foretold. They would not be ignorant ; you could not write that of this people ; that it would not have had some con- tradiction along the line of profane history if not true ; and I am not aware of oue contradiction of it, so wq ill !! h ii h M' 2U0 DB, WILirS SERMONS. have here a fine fulfilment of a prophecy. The pro- phecy, you will notice, is clear, exact and minute in its details. They certainly could not mistake the name, the person, the act, the place, or the time. Now, I think here is a prophecy among the numerous ones that the Scriptures give us to study, that we really cannot very well dispute; and if you want further confirmatory evidence on this point, you will fiind a heautiful description by Dean Stanley, in his hook on " Sinai and Palestine." That acute and very generous writer in noticing Bethel does not forget to look at the huge stones that lie on the hillside, and in making enquiries as to what these stones formed, they tell him that these stones formed a part of that great Egyptian altar that Jeroboam had built after the manner and architecture of one in Egypt. So the stones are there to-night; they have been there for hundreds of years — a simple monument and confir- mation of this Sacred Word. Now, when you come to think of prophecy being fulfilled, is it not very remarkable how many are ful- filling prophecy to-day ? How many prophecies are receiving their fulfilment at this very moment, and the parties that are fulfilling them do not seem to understand, nor do the populace, the people, take notice of these remarkable fulfilments. I think it has been my pleasure, as well as it is my duty, to call your attention to many of these which our own eyes can see, which our own ears can hear, and of which there is evidence which cannot be disputed. le pro- late in ,ke the ) time, oaerous hat we Q want ^ou will , in bis md very orget to ide, and formed, ; of that lilt after 1 So the ihere for confir- cy being are ful- jcies are ent, and seem to )le, take ik it has ly, to call )wn eyes lof which DR, WILD'S SEimONS. 201 It is recorded in Scripture, as you are aware, that the Houses of Israel and Judah, these two peoples, are to be united again, and that Judah is to be put back into the Land of Palestine. Many of us think that the time is not very far distant, because we see the marshalling of events ; we see they are concentrat- ing. We look at it as we look at a chess-board, and see the several movements, and anticipate what the next movement is going to be, and what the final game will be. Why, in England they have even begun to discuss the question as to who is to be the man who shall lead this host back to the Land of Palestine : they are actually trying to find him out, and some of them have actually fixed upon certain persons. Now, I have no hesitation in saying that there is always danger in being in haste in matters of dates and per- sons, with respect to prophecy. There are so many lessons of failure on that line in the past that I won- der that even Englishmen, or any one else, durst ven- ture to expose themselves without farther and more detailed evidence from the Sacred Scriptures. You may think that I am rash at times — never rash, I beg your pardon, because I dure not expose myself rashly, for fear of your criticism and unmerciful accusations, in case I should fall short at all. Now, I do not think the leader will be discerned until just at the time. It would have been very diffi- cult, indeed, for any man to discern, in the great conflict that was coming on in the United States — that people felt it, they knew it was coming — war, 292 DR. WILD'S SERMONS, and a great struggle, and they wanted a man — but there were very few people could have selected the man. Indeed, 1 question if there was one man in all the United States could have .selected the man to lead that people through that great crisis. The one that Providence chose I believe the nation and the intellect would have rejected, if they had been sent out to hunt for him — the noble and honest Abraham Lincoln, a man, of course, largely gifted with common sense, but by no means superior intellectually, or in any other sen e. And yet God chose Abraham Lincoln to be the Moses and the Joshua, to lead that great peoj)le through that grand struggle, and free the enslaved millions. And when the time comes for Judah to return, I believe the leader will appear, and we will accept him, and he will be appointed and selected by God. The inscriptions of the times, can you read them? Just as Josiah, looking up at that tomb- stone, enquired what it was, and the answer was, ** It is the man of God, who foretold this very thing that you have done.*' How remarkable the expression and the fact ! Can you read the signs of the times, as that man read the inscription? If you read care- fully you will see how things are fulfilling. There are some beautiful passages in the Scriptures with respect to this division of the House of Judah and Israel. You will remember that while Judah waf to be homeless, Israel was to be a settled people ; Judah bereft of her children, Israel blessed. Now, you want prophecy fulfilled, do you ? "Will you tell t)n. WILD'S SERMONS. 299 —but d the in all lead e that tellect ohunt oln, a Be, but J other 1 to be peoi)le aslaved idah to we will cted by 3U read t tomb- ?as, <( It ig that aion and |mes, as Ld care- [riptures Judah Idah waf people ; Now, lyou tell me why it is that the Jews do not number one more A. D. 1883 than they did A. D. 1 ? Will you tell mo why the Jews have not increased nor decreased in number during eighteen hundred years ? Because God had dibtinctly foretold that they should be in statu quo at that point until they returned to their own land. Certainly no one disputes their wander- ing and their nationaless appearance and character. But if you go to Israel, they are settled as the Saxon race, settled in their own land, settled in the United States, and they have had a government and national existence, and are they the same in number ? Did he not say that Israel should be prospered and blessed with an increase ? Are not the Saxon race the most prolific people on the face of the world ? Tou want a prophecy fulfilled, do you ? Any census of this world will show you one fulfilled. And again, if you look at the Jew and this people, you will find in Second Samuel, seventh chapter, this strange statement, made to David, who had finally become ruler over these two people; for they had been somewhat divided before thay separated in Reho- boam's time, and while David is ruler and King over both the House of Judah and the House of Israel, the prophet comes and makes this statement of things a long time to come. He says : *' Moreover, I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own." And so it was necessary that Iisrael should leave the Land of Palestine, which was never to be their home, " ~ 204 DR. WILD'S SEHMOXS. 'Jii for God bad found a place for lliem. Will you notice, my dear friends, if you look at it carefully, you will see it is not for Judah He found a place, for Palestine is already the place for Judah. Judah is not to be planted anywhere, but Israel is to have a place of its own, and go out no more ; and England is there, and you cannot root her out of that island, for God ap- pointed her that place, as he appointed the place of Manasseh in the United States. The one has a home outside of Palestine ; the other, the Jew, never has had and never can have a home except in the Land of Palestine. Now, are these not prophecies fulfilled ? And will you look now for a moment at the different nations ? Can you not see how they are changing on this chess-board ? Do you see the operations of France ? Do you see how she is coming into contact with China? And do you know that China and she are to be allies ? And that England and France, who are now allies and tryinj to mend matters, will get wider apart, and these two people who stand fronting one another with drawn swords are to be allies and will not fight ? Do you know China is to be on the same side with France, remarkable as it may appear to night, as we will show you further on ? And you look now at the efforts of France and Eng- land ; how they struggle to gain new territory ; how they are stealing from the weak and poor in Africa and the isles of the sea, and are trying to make out that they are justified in these acts. But how can Fiance colonize ? She cannot occupy any new land ' ^ DIL WILD'S SICIiMONS. 295 for she has not got an inhabitant to spare. She is not increasing a hundred of a surplus in a year. Now, any nation that goes out to colonize should have people of its own to send to take possession of the colony, and hold it that way, and that is the only way. Scientific men say that a nation cannot colo- nize permanently any other way. And France bas got no surplus. As I told you the other night, she has made a bid for children, removing taxes, and offering a premium even, for a family of six. She sees the deficiency at once, and yet God has laid His hand upon her that she cannot colonize, for it is not given her to colonize. And Israel is to have a place and to fill the whole earth, as it were, and the thou- sands and tens of thousands of surplus that flows and overflows from those little islands, where are they go- ing ? They are filling up the waste places of the earth. Do you wish to see prophecy fulfilled ? Is not that one ? Certainly it is. And then, again, my friends, will you look at the strange agitation caused by that simple little article, for it was not a very lengthy one, that was put in the North German Gazette ? That little article shook the stock market of Europe, did it no*^^ ? How it agitated it, did it not ? Bow it made stocks rattle like dice. It was a remarkable thing that one man, Bismarck, writing that little article (at least it is accredited to him) and taking France to task about this colonizing — is it not remarkable that it made such a movement ? It ruined many a man, did that little article; it set m l!f., ; ilf i i,ii 296 DB. WlLD'S SERMONS. (jvrry stock market agog, agitating them, and why? Why did not Bismarck take England to task, who stole more in one year than France these five years ? How is it he does not criticise England, but at once raises a protest against France, and says that the passions and grasping of France must be stayed, or the peace of Europe will be broken? Now, is it not a remarkable thing that another nation will look after France, while England has permission to steal all she can steal, and by that means finally steal the whole world, I presume ? It is strange that we can see these things in our very presence, as it were. The great gathering at Jerusalem, when Judah shall be returned — what is said of it ? "In those days the House of Judah shall walk with the House of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the liorth, to the land I have given for an inheritance unto their fathers." Who is to walk ? The House of Judah is to walk with the House of Israel. We are never to become Jews ; they are to become Christians, you see. Do you not see the precision of Scripture ? It is not that we are to walk with the Jews and be- come Jews, but that Judah is to walk witli the House of Israel. God knows what He says, but man has always seemed to be somewhat blinded. We can see the peculiar fitness of the expression; but you, many of you, would make no difference between the House of Judah and the House of Israel. You would think it made no difference whether Judah walked with Israel, or Israel walked with Judah. God knows ii t>R. WILD'S SEilMONS. ^97 why? :, who ears ? t once it the ed, or it not V after all she whole an see ih shall ays the Israel, of the ritance ouse of ^Ve are istians, [ipture ? ,nd be- House an has ican see |i, many House d think id with knows better, you see. And so the Jews are to be converted in time to Christianity. And then the very where- abouts — they are to come from the north, the soutli and the west, and all lands whither they have been driven. You see it is not Israel, for, as we read in the third chapter of Jeremiah, Israel will not return as a whole. She will not want Palestine except in the way appointed. He says, ** I will take you one of a city and two of a family, and bring you to Zion." He will not take all the Saxon people ; there will not bo room for them. Did not God know there would not be room hundreds of years ago ? Two thousand four hundred years ago He knew exactly the state of things, as they are now. That is, if the Saxons are the ten lost tribes they could not all go back, and so He promised David He would find them a place of their own. But we can go as representatives ; and so we will go as a sort of deputation ; and Judah is to go as a whole people. You will find, I believe, in " Tancred, or The New Crusade," written bj Disraeli, in 1835, that he has in that book the title ** Empress of India," and his own title he puts in the mouth of one of the characters. Now, is it not a strange thing that the Emir of Leba- non speaks about the '* Empress of India," and about *' Lord Beaconsfield," and they both came to pass thirty-two years after ? He himself got one title, and Her Majesty got the enlargement of the other. Now, that was simply in a novel, but hardly any one will dispute that. If we do not dispute when we see the :i'!Qi il •' !' M'i 29d r)R. WILD'S SERMONS, prescience of man so nicely fulfilled, as in this respect, why dispute the word of the prophets of our God ? If you come to see, my dear friends, as I think I see — and yet it is not possible to convey the impression without labored effort a^d constant repetition — when the great battle that is going to take place is fought, there will be thirteen parties on one side and four on the other. If you only knew who these thirteen were you would see at once how the nations are shifting around and getting into position. You would see, my friends, how France goes stealing in Africa, and before she went there I told you she would be success- ful. The English and German protest against her tak- ing Tripoli did not amount to a straw, for God had given it into her hand, and she took it. She was stealing at the right place, nor could Bismarck stop her. This circles ; or thirteen distinct nations are to be in readi- ness in a few years, and if in readiness, must come into some sort of shape, order and command before that time. They are : Gog, Magog, Rush, Meshech, Tubal, Persia, Ethiopia, Libia, Gomer, Togarmah, the Beast, the Dragon, and Antichrist. The Dragon stands for China, and this is why I say China will be on the same side with France ; and these t'.irteen will be led by Russia against the other four, which are England, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all her young lions. Now, both these numbers are divided up into three by John in Revelation — the called, the chosen and the faithful. The called stand, of course, for the Jews, the chosen for Israel, and the faithful (' ' J bll WILD'S SElmoNS. 299 aspect, od? ik I see ressiou —when f ought, four on Bn were ahifting see, my Ba, and success- her tak- ad "iven for the followers of our Lord Jesus Christ in this and any other nation. And the three opponents are the dragon, the heast and the false prophet, which tako in these thirteen and the infidel portion of every land, that will be found fighting against the Lord when that great day comes. If you can see at all the ful- filment of prophecy, you will have in that very sight what I am trying to give always — further con- firmation of the teachings of this Sacred Word. May God grant that we may so see, not only the fulfil- ment of prophecy in these things, but the fulfilment of prophecy in our own individual experience that may lead us unto God ! Amen I i% mr ■ai SERMON XVII. s ^m DOa-LAPPERS. TEXT. — " And the number of them that lapped, pntting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men ; but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water." — Judges vii, 6, The great valley or plain of Esdrelon runs through Central Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan. It is, I suppose, fifteen miles long, varying from one to about eight or ten miles in breadth. On the north side we have the hills of Gali- lee, and on the south the mountain ranges of Garmel and Samaria. Sheltered by the mountains, favored with refreshing dews, fanned by the breezes of the great sea, and blessed with a deep, rich soil, it was an inviting spot, one of nature's pet corners, coming nearest, in our imaginary conception, to a garden of Paradise of any place on earth. In time of harvest we can readily conceive that it would be a tempting portion to the lazy, wandering, nomadic tribes of the eastern deserts surrounding, such as the Midianites and Amalekites were. Under the presidency and rule of the Judges the Hebrew people had become idolatrous, and cowardly with it. They had for- saken God, and He, in consequence, had withdrawn mmmmmm DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 80] from them His special protection, guidance and favors. ,K Prior to the incident of our text, the land had had rest, the sacred writer tells us, for forty years. The people during that time apparently lived in plenty and in great security, but in their prosperity they lapsed once again into idolatries, for the sacred writer says they did evil in the sight of the Lord, so He abandoned them to their old enemies, the Midianites and the Amalekites. Certain things as well as na- tions are very strong when they are in h irmony with God and with Providence. There is nothing so easily managed, and that looks so pretty, as a railway engine when on the track ; there is nothing so lum- ber some, cumbersome and unmanageable as that engine when off the track. There is nothings© grand, so successful, as a nation in harmony with God and with Providence; there is nothing so ungenerous, so unsightly, as a nation worshipping creatures of their own handmakiug. These wandering and law- less nomads began to visit the land every year about harvest time, and stole from the people the fruit of their industry and labor. This, we can readily ima- gine, would in course of time be very discouraging, and would result in paralyzing the arm of labor, for the little they did produce they had to hide away, we are told, in caves and in dens, lest these thieves should rob them of it. This incensed the marauders so that they resolved to punish the Hebrews, and to destroy the land and the people. "With this intend, "5 iM II 1)02 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. one hundred and thirty-five thousand of an array, thoroughly equipped in Oriental style, enter into the Land of Palestine and pitch their tents, and make their headquarters in thia Valley of Esdrelon, which is the Greek form of the Hebrew word ** Jezereel." The oppression had become so general and painful that the Hebrews once more sought the God of their fathers, and once again we hear them crying to Heaven for help. God heard their cry, and He sent an angel messenger to notify them of His pleasure regarding their future conduct. This messenger appeared to a person who was thrashing a little of his grain in a hidden retreat, so that it might be un- known to these Midianites. His name was Gideon. This word means a tree-feller ; he was indeed a wood- chopper, a sort of Canadian, a man of willing purpose and strong. This I infer from the angel who stood by. Seeing him swing the flail, he said, ** Thou mighty man of valor." I suppose he caught the idea from the ease with which this wood- chopper would swing lightly and majestically the flail to thresh out the grain. He was poor, and, as he informed the angel, the least in stature of the family to which he belonged, but God chose him, and God's idea of a choice is generally correct, and very often different to tliat of man. Now, hero is a poor family, and the poorest of that poor family Heaven looks down in comi>assion upon, and chooses him to be the leader of a great, and grand, and successful revolution in that land at that time, DR, WILD'S SEUMONS. 803 After the preliminaries liad been gone through, and he had been thoroughly commissioned of Heaven to do the work, the first work assigned to him was one in his own household. Now, that would be the most tedious, A man would rather go out and tell any other person to be good, and talk to them about re- ligious matters, than talk to his own family. There is a timidity in some way arising from our affection, which is almost unaccountable. One would rather go out and preach in thunder tones to strangers than say a few words of simple devotion and correction to their beloved ones in their own house. So that the task was a test ; and what wa3 it ? Even this family had in their courtyard a god erected unto Baal. The command was given him to hew down the god ; for he who could fell trees could fell a wooden god, and his early calling would be of some advantage to him in his later mission and work. A man engaging in any early calling that is honest never loses the profit of that experience if he rises to a higher degree and station in his life. And so, in the night, unbeknown to father or friends, he selected from the servants ten men ; then he goes to work and destroys the god, pulls down the altar, and cuts down the sacred trees, as thoy supposed they were, and made a general wreck and destruction around. When the light dawned there was an alarm. Some marauders, perhaps, they suspected, or Midianites, perhaps. But old Joash, the father, began to make enquiry, and found it was the work of his own son. The citizens began to arise, Fir 304 DR. WILD'S SEEMONS. and come, and make enquiry, and learning that it was this Gideon that had done it, they were tempted to be rash and to punish him, but the old man had wisdom enough to say : " Let God Baal defend him- self, and if he is not equal to resisting this wood- chopper, he is not worth having as a protector against the Midianites and the thousand evils to which we are heir." Gideon now, feeling that his first work had been successful, wants a little strength, a little further evidence that he had been commissioned of God ; so he asks this evidence, and three kinds of evidence are given him. He provides a sacrifice of meat and bread, and it was put upon the rude rock where he was thrashing, and the messenger takes that rod — that *' Vrill," rod of the " Coming Man," that you find in that book, " The Coming Man," — and touches the offering, and fire consumes it. This was an evi- dence that his mission ^as of God. Not enough ; for they had just been shearing the sheep, and a piece of the wool lies hid here, and he asks that he could take that out, and let the dew fall all around, and wet the ground, but not wet the fleece. This is done ; but it is not yet enough, for it is hard work to satisfy a man in divine things, and so he says : ** Now let the fleece be wet and the ground dry," and it was so. He seem to be satisfied now, and so at once he begins his grand work. He takes a trumpet and goes through the land, and he gives the war signal. The people iicar it; they are aroused; and they go to the central DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 805 lat it Qpted 1 bad . him- "wood- gainst ich we 1 been furtber od; 80 Qce are at and aere be i rod — lat you toucbes an evi- gb ; for [piece of Id take wet tbe but it a man te fleece 30. He Igins bis Jtbrougb people central place appointed, until, when they are called over by name, they number thirty-two thousand men. Quite an army to do a valiant work, but not so many as the invading army that bad already settled in their land, for the enemy numbered one hundred and thirty-five thousand. Still, not daunted. But it is strange that the Almighty comes to Gideon and tells him that be has yet too many. Thirty-two thousand Christians against one hundred and thirty-five thousand heathen is too many. One Christian ought any time to whip ten heathen, and they never fail, when they meet fairly in battle, to do it. Christianity is force, it is vitality, it is wisdom, it is strength, it is courage, it is energy, it is victory. The righteous are as bold as a lion. And so God institutes certain tests by which the number may be lessened — providing two sieves, through which He intends to sift the people, and leave only the clear, pure, gritty ones — not *' Grits," but gritty ones. Hence He first commands that they shall be sifted by this proclamation which He had provided in tbe Hebrew economy, and a very good one. You will find it in Deuteronomy, twentieth chapter, eighth verse, " And the officers shall speak furtber unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and faint- hearted, let him go and return to his house, lest bis brethren's heart faint as well as bis heart." Now, this proclamation they had always to mal^e when an army was just about ready to go forth IW-' 30G DR. WILD'S SERMONS. unto battle. And bow many do you suppose fell tbrougb tbis sieve ? Twenty-two tbousand filtered tbrougb. Wonderful! Out of thirty- two tbousand tbere are twenty-two tbousand cowards. Let us bope tbat tbere arc not bo many of tbem now. Still, tbere are many of tbem, especially in a Cbristian sense, wbo cower before fasbian and tbe world, and worsbip tbeir own vain conceptions ; wbo dare not go tbrougb tbe streets of Toronto, and in tbe wealtby circles, and acknowledge tbat they are followers of tbe Lord Jesus Cbrist. Tbe test was applied, and yet that is not enough. You see tbe last clause, *' Lest bis bretbr^^n's heart faint as well as his." Diseases are contagious, but not more so than tbe various passions of the human mind. One coward im a regiment can produce dis- order and discouragement and confusion among tbe whole ; one heroic soul, wbo will lift up the banner of a retreating army, can, many a time, rally them again in superior strength and greater force. So that a coward is not only weak in himself, you see, but he has a terrible tendency to give tbat weakness unto others. Another sifting took place, and it is to be tbat when they are given tbe marching orders, and are going to go along by a stream, tbat they are all commanded to drink of the running brook, and this leader is to notice how they do this simple act. And we find that nine thousand seven hundred of them kneel carefully down and begin to drink the water with tbeir mouth j the other three hundred, with good 'm DIL WILD'S SERMONS. 807 36 fell iltered (usand s hope , there sense, •orship lirough 68, and i Jesus mough. *8 heart )U8, but human ice dis- ong the banner [y them So that but he iss unto is to be irs, and are all ,nd this it. And if them e water ith good stiff backbones, yet pliable withal, as they walked on scooped up the water with their hands and lapped it like a dog — they lost no time. And then, when the three hundred had exhibited themselves by this little act, God tells this great general, " With these three hundred will I liberate the land and free you as a people ; send the rest home." They lapped, it is said, as a dog lappeth. It is a simple thing which separated them from the rest ; still it indicated a specific quality, which ran back to ths man to indi- cate character, and a character that had features in it that would be exceedingly suitable for a swift onslaught upon a great enemy. You will notice now the arrangement of these three hundred men, for it is marvellous, the strategem which this general resorts to at this time. He knows how the opposing army is resting ; he knows its loca- tion exactly, and now he divides off his men into three wings, one hundred in each wing. He puts into each man's left hand a flambeau, a number of splints — I have seen them in the east — of resinous wood, tied together and kindled, and they just burn without a flame, till they burn to the bottom, unless you agitate them. He gives them one of these oriental pitchers each, and they put the flambeaux up in the pitchers, and so carry them in their hands, with the pitcher on the top, for they put one stick in the centre a little above the rest that would naturally hold the pitcher up from the other splints. Also he gave eftch man ^ §word aftd a trum|)et m his right 808 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 9 hand. He deploys his men around on three sides, one hundred on the right side, one hundred in the rear, one hundred on the left, leaving no road for these Midianites to escape. In the middle watch of the night, hetween two and three o'clock in the morn- ing, when they would naturally be sleeping soundest, when all is quiet in this beautiful valley of Esdrelon. these throe hundred heroes steal silently to theii places, and the command had been given : '' As I do, so do ye like unto me ; follow my example." "When they had thus got around on three sides of the slumbering host, suddenly the trumpets are blown as a signal, one hundred on the right, one hundred in the rear, one hundred on the left ! It would awaken with strange astonishment and con- sternation those slumbering intruders, for who could bear to be awakened so suddenly, and who could have composure and sense and judgment with such an awakening, with their eyes not yet accustomed to the light, not seeing for the moment where their enemy were, and hearing the blast of the trumpet, as it were, all around them? Then Gideon's band smashed their pitchers, and taking these flambeaux whirled them around in the air at arm's length, thus kindling the flame, and making a wheel of tire ! Standing as they would, and requiring room, allowing three yards for eacih person, we have three hundred yards foi each wing, nine hundred feet of fire or flame on the right and left, and in the rear. Why, they would think they were being consumed by fire^ and through M. WILD'S S1i:RM0MS. . 60ft Bides, n the id for tch of morn- mdest, IreloP ' I theii 8 I do, ides of 3tfl are [lit, one left ! It id con- .0 could Id have uch an i to the enemy it were, imashed whirled indling ding as e yards rds foi le on tlie would through this flame, as they can agitato tlicse flambeaux in the air, they would not be able to see if there was a man on the other side or not. Naturally they would infer that they wore surrounded by a large host. The noise confuses and the lights terrify them ; they rush from that dazzling light, and in the deeper darkness they fall one upon the other, and become their own slayers in their eagerness to deliver themselves. Steady these three hundred stayed until their foes had done their savage, brutal, ignorant work, one with another, and when they thought they had les- sened the number sufficiently that they might venture to follow them, they followed on; and then came back these nine thousand seven hundred and helped them in the pursuit, for men like to come in at the close of a grand victory, men like to take hold when there is no danger; and so they came and were of some service, and followed on until they completely routed the enemy from the land. Now, the great lesson that this text and the inci- dents connected with it teach us are, I think, first, that God desires to be recognized in all governments, in all legislation, and that if we will so recognize Him and trust Him, He will not fail to be our defence. Do you know, I believe to-night, if Britain was to abandon every soldier and implicitly trust on God, there is not a nation could touch her? I iJfiieve in God, I believe He is living, I believe He is ruling, I believe He knows what we are doing, I believe He favors the right, I believe He honors our faith, and < ' I m bti. WILD'S sEiatoKii. lionors our trust as far as wo venture to give it to Him as individuals and as nations ; and we find this very finely illustrated in the career of the Hebrew nation. Whenever they did forget Him, they, indeed, had to increase their number (?). You have repeated examples of this fault. Once even ihe royal David forgot where the source of the nation's strength did lie, and I'e commanded his officers to take the census and number the people ; First Chronicles, twenty-first chapter, " And Sfitan stood up against Israel to pro- voke David to number Israel." Now, this was sin in tie sight of God, and the old general, Joab, knew it, and he was not a very good man either ; but bad men know good things sometimes, and can give us exhor- t ition and tell us what to do, if they do not do it themselves. They can easily correct me when I swear, and say, "That was very wrong in the preacher, and I do not believe in him." Do you believe in yourself when you swear / How come you to iake a prerogative that I have no right to take ? God help you and keep your lips pure and graceful, and never blaspheme the name of God again while you live, unless you are willing to hear every one belching out these oaths all through the land. Remember you have no royalty of Heaven, and no more privilege here in Toronto than I have. If you have a right to swear as you go down street, I have just the same right that you have. Never correct any one except you are competent to correct. And so we see, as I said, that Job knew the wrong in this, DIL niLfyS SKllMONS. 811 )it to id tluB [ebrew ndeed, peated David ;th did census ty- first to pro- 3 sin in cnew it, ad men J exhor- Dt do it when 1 in the Do you )me you take ? ;raceful, ti while ory one land, and no If you I have correct it. And in this, e for David wanted to find out the human rosources, the human strength; how many fighting men he had got; and God punished him for it, for they were not to rely upon the human arm for their doliverano • and protection, they were to trust in the living God. A second lesson I think we may learn from this is that God wants volunteers. One volunteer, they say, is worth five pressed men. Well, thoy are worth more anyway, and is it not rcmarlvahle that lie takes this method to find out the best kind of volunteers — men willing to go and risk their lives voluntarily ? A volunteer is a strong man in comparison to a man who is pressed and comes from compulsion. Cheerful- ness in a work is oil to the limbs, strength to every act and thought of the heart and mind. We all know, in the common duties of life, how much more easily we can do them if we do tliem cheerfully and take hold with zeal. God wants volunteers, and hence is it not a remarkable thing, as I have often pointed out to you, that if the Saxons are Israel and the United States Manasseh, they must constitute their armies by voluntary measures ? Do they ? They are the only two nations that do so. Is that a sign of their identification ? It is, sir. How is it that England never presses ? How is it that the United States never presses ? She did so at the time of the rebellion, and she missed her way in it, as she saw immediately, and she paid for it by bounty-jumpers in every direction. There would never have been a bounty-jumper in the whole land if they had stuck to 3121 DU. WILD'S SERMONS. the volunteer system, and they would have got enough to have done the work as effectually and successfully as pressing did. Now, yon see, England is Israel, and therefore can- not press you into her armies. The United States are a part of Israel, and therefore you cannot press soldiers into her army. Nor do they need, as I have often pointed out, they do not want anything like the number of the rest. As these three hundred are to the one hundred and thirty-five thousand, so is the little army of one hundred and thirty-fouj thousand of England to the millions of Europe. Yes ; there are between five and six millions in those armies, yet they durst not set a foot on that little island to- day. They have only twecty-five thousand in the United States, and she could sweep the whole of this contment to Terra del Fuego, and wipe out the whc'-j of the States to the far south. Now, how can these people live unmolested, I say ? Do you see what it is to belong to Israel ? It saves your money, for you would have to be paying for ten soldiers, otherwise, where you now only pay for one. You living within the borders of Israel, pay liberally and support every benevolent cause you choose, for if you had not that privilege to-day, you would be made to pay it out for soldiers. Would not you? It is astonishing how mean people are when they get a chance, though, and are left to themselves. They ought to be very willing to give money to good cunses, if only for this reason, that when they get old they may not be made '1 bn, iviLb's sermon:^. 8la to pay to keep others to fight. Thus they are Israel, having God's special protection and provision, and thus you will find that they both want volunteers. Another lesson is that God wants experts in Ilis work. By this we mean those that are ready, active, adapted to take an emergency by the hand, as it were, and handle it well, men who will lose no time, for time is precious at certain points in any struggle or contest, and the timely application of a little strength is worth the giant-like application of greater strength out of time. To be timely with a thing is very nice — expert. Now, some people are in a sense expert, but are not timely. I have heard them tell of a bar- ber (a man that shaves, I mean,) who was very sober, had a terribly long visage and solemn countenance ; yet people, of course, had to be shaved. He was always desirous of knowing their souls' welfare, and the spiritual interest of each person who came in to be shaved. An elderly gentleman one night went in and sat down on the chair and settled himself com- fortably. The barber was sharpening his razor, and waiting an opportunity to ask him about his soul's welfare, and so he zealously set to work after he had got it done. Rushing up, as he was impulsive, he cried, as he brandished the razor, '* Are you prepared to meet your God ? " The man jumped up from the chair and ran from the house, afraid he was going to have his throat cut. You can smile at that, you see, but it was not timely. Better to have shaved the man| and got him washed and been ;.aid, and then '■•>«B< >-o' m DR. WILD'S SERMOMS. ask liim about his sours interest; that would have been more timely. So God wants expert men, men who know the time, men who can come up to time, and do their work. He wants these experts in the Church as well as in every other department, and we are lacking of them to-day ; we are lacking of that efficiency of business quality and business energy. Do ''^u display as men, in Bond Street and other chur^ht., cje same vitality, the same ability and skill as to its interests that you do in your business ? You ought to. It is wanted in the pulpit, just as in the pew ; there are not enough dog-lappers in the pulpit, and I sui)pose some of you will say I am not one, in return. But the pul- pit wants men now who do not stop and linger in the paths of old and hoary methods of interpretation ; it wants men who can xoop up the water while they run by the agnostic, and talk to him as * runs, and when he meets an infidel, who denies h: 'ud, pitch battle with him in argument and from hit oly way of living ; it wants ^he pulpit to be up to the times ; it wants sifting all through the country. We want it in our social and in our prayer-meet- ings. Are we directing and doing them in time ? I am happily exempt as to my own prayer-meeting here, for I think it is a model one in many respects, but I have the experience in years gone by of these men who would bow down and pray and pray, and you would never know when they had done. They wore the welcome out in their prayer, because they btl. iriLD'S SERMONS. 315 Were so lengthy, and if you had been there a dozen times you would learn the prayer by rote, as I often have, from beginning to end, and if they had not been there any night I could have prayed it for them, I knew it so well. All that kind of thing wants wip- ing out. A man wants to kneel down and open his mouth, and pray for what we want now and what the needs of the people are. Pray abundantly, and kind- ly, and earnestly, and remember when the oppor- tunity is good. Oh, this droning, draggling, moaning ! No wonder prayer-meetings are poorly attended. They say they are hard meetings in Toronto. I have heard many ministers say it is a wonder — I suppose that is the point, if they do not so exactly express it — that we have such good meetings, such a large attendance at Bond Street. They would hardly think my preaching would produce that. I am a dog- lapper in that sense, that I want the thing to go on earnestly, to go on quickly, to go on zealously, cour- ageously, and men to get to know the time, not only to begin, but whpn to end. And so we find we want men of this stamp in the State — men who are fearless, and shall take up a principle and abide by it. If ever a Provincial or Dominion Government promise aught to the people, stand or fall by it, and if you fall by a principle, the people will call you to office again ere you die, if you live many years. But we are tempted, we are pre- varicating, we are not to be trusted-i-not yet — as statesmen in this respect. Do we not also want such M hh. WiWs SEiiMoMS. men in all the callings ? Do you want firemen wliO shall be like the men who bowed down to drink ? When the gong rings or the fire signal is given, who will turn around and say, *' Well, I guess that*s a fire somewhere ; where is the corner of Bond Street and Wilton Avenue, anyway ? " Why, they are out, sir; they have studied all the field, they know where it is, and up they come, plunging along the street, and we think they drive like Jehu, too hard some- times, and so we clear the track and let them go. These are dog-lappers, and they are right. We do not want slow men there. Time is precious ; get tiiere as soon as you can, and do your work, and the sooner you get there the less you will have to do and the better you can do it. And so we find in all the departments. If we look at national history we see men want it. That grand struggle for the world's liberty and vitality, Trafalgar ; do you suppose that when Nelson followed the French fleet as he did, till be tempted them to fight at last, do you suppose they were slow men ? No, sir ; they were quick men and courageous, who went to work when the opportunity was given. It is said that if Stone- wall Jackson had lived 'the issue of the late war in the United States would have been very doubtful, and I am of that opinion myself, from what works I have read. What a terror this man was with his few hun- dred soldier^ ; here to-night, away yonder in the morn- ing. He was the Gideon, the terror, as some of you DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 817 will remember who were in the Northern army ; no one could tell where he would turn up next, with his Stonewall heroes, carrying confusion. Time upon time did he so turn up unexpectedly, putting the enemy to flight. It did not take many, you see, but needs the few to be good. It is also said that if Wil- liam Lyon Mackenzie had come into Toronto at the time appointed, when with his followers up Yonge Street, he would have taken Toronto ; but he began to dilly-dally, converse and mature his plans over again, and so the Government was ready for him when he was ready to come in. No, my friends, in every society we want these men of keen insight and quick action, and courageous. None of those were forced and unwilling who marched at the command of Gen- eral Wolesley to take Tel-el- Keber. No ; they were dog-lappers, every one of them, who silently marched through the sand in the night-time, and when the morning came, rushed victoriously upon a routed foe. These are such as we want in the Church, in the State, in every department, men alive and in earnest, to do their work quickly in the name of God. Might, right and faith are a trinity, a three-fold cord not easily broken ; when you get these three together, you have an energy in a man that is wonder- ful. It is not might simply alone, but might joined with right, and faith in them both, give strength to any man. It takes but a small policeman, physically, to hold a strong breaker of the,law in Tor9ntQ. | §(^\y 318 DR. WILUS SERMONS. one at the corner of Jarvis and King Streets the other tlay, one of our thinnest policemen holding him by the collar, as he swore and tore, and struck out in every direction, and I was saying, "Hold on, hold on to him/' and he did hold on like a British bull-dog, and never let go. And I said, ** That is right." Now, measured physically, it seemed to me that the fellow he had hold of could have turned and tripped him head over heels. No, sir, you can't. A very poor runner can catch a thief. Why, sir, there is power in the right, there is life in the right. When a thief is running, his legs Iremble, while the man pursuing, who believes in the right, gets speed added to his heels and can go. Wrong is weak and right is strong ; and so if we can get these three — might, right and faith —joined to- gether it adds largely to a man's powers. In olden times might was largely of a physical quality ; it is now changing from the physical to the intellec- tual. In those days, indeed, might used to be ac- counted right. No longer so, however, in civilized nations. Then, my dear friends, when you get these three united together, you have unity, and you have all the courage that j^ou can naturally put into one man. The Chinese took a squad of Englishmen once. They took their flag from them, and laid it down in the mud of the fort on the ground. At the point of the bayonet they said, ** You trample on your flag." Not one of the thirteen coi^ld be forced tg trample qix their i:-^i;ijL«^f jiiL«fi»'it,itt. ;i jif^'it . ■r . Dll, WILDES SERMONS, 319 it three 1.11 the man. They u the |)f the Not tUeiy country's flag, but they were bayonetted to death there. These are the men not only for human works, but for God, Christ and right. For that which is just and true, stand* like men, and die if need be. If you want to be a Christian to-night, be it, if all the other men in Toronto are not. If you want to be a true follower of Christ, be so, whoever shall stigmatize and despise you. Be heroes, march under His banner manfully, and let none deter you. We read also of another little incident : When Bonaparte took some prisoners, among them was a little English drummer boy, and he brought him to his tent, and questioned him touching his army and his skill, and he asked him to sound the different calls, the marching call, the morning call, the advance, and so going through them all. *' Now, my lad," says he, ** sound the retreat." "We haven't got that, " he says. No, sir, he should not have it, and the Christian should not have a re- treat. Sound the call, sound it in the morning, 30und it at midday, sound it at night, but never, never sound the retreat to the devil, the world and its fashions and follies. Be true as steel to your faith and professions, and thus be true followers of Him, and imitators of these noble men in this land, and not only, dear friends, will you find it is your pleasure, I trust, but your interest also. Do you know that this Valley of Jezereel ia to be selected for the great battle of Armageddon? Do you know that where this battle took place, whe^e 820 DR. WILUS SERMONS. three hundred, faced one hundred and thirty-five thousand, about the same ratio again will stand face to face in a coming day, as foretold by the prophets and by them described? Ah, what a strruggle it will be, for it will be the world's great- est battle, the battle of God Almighty, as He calls it Himself ! Even heavenly artillery is to come to the help of the minority at that time, for there is to be thundering and lightning, and an earthquake, and a great hailstorm ; the lightning is to mingle with the flash of the rifle, and the thunder with the roar of the Krupp cannon, hail is to descend and mingle with the shell shot forth from the Arm strong, and these blending in terrible confusion. Well may it be called the day of sorrow and of a great war ! Have you ever read in the thirty-eighth chapter of Job, where God comes to question Job, and asks him thirty questions ? I would like you to read these thirty questions, you who are scientific, and when you have read them, I would like you to send up the answers to this pulpit. How many could you answer now, even, and then putting yourself back some three thousand five hundred years, how many could you answer then ? There are thirty questions asked there. We have not all the answers yet ; we have answers to only about three-fourths of them. Among them, as part of one, he asks: *' Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow, or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against ^he day of battle and o{ war/' DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 821 Now, here, my dear friends, God fortells a storm some three thousand five hundred years before it is to take place. That is weather probability ; is it not ? They do not know as much as that up in the observatory. But if any man can fortell a day, I suppose God can fortell three thousand five hundred years. I am amazed at men who profess to believe in God, and yet limit Him so terribly. When asked about that fortelling three thousand five hundred years to come, " hardly that," they would say. How long would you give Him, how far, what is the measure of your God's prescience, how much do you suppose He does know, a^ yway ? Define it, my friend. Now, God could fortell that, and so He tells us, not only in Job, one of the first books, but in the last book. John's Eevelation, sixteenth chapter, referring to this very same storm, he says : " And there fell upon men a great hail from Heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent, and men blas- phemed God because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great." It will be ready at the time with the hailstones, as He has said. Now, my dear friends, let us be willing, courageous, expert and persevering. Let us blow the trumpet of the Lord. Let us be ever on the right side. Let us reveal the light of the Gospel by breaking the pitcher. Let us take up the ory, " The sword of the I^oyd and His covenant," Let each one of you try to ,,i.y.^ili.aiu-X^J. 322 DIL WILD'S SERMONS, find out to which ol these three classes he helongs — whether you are cowards, whether you are Blow and somewhat careless in divine things, or whether you are aglow and all on fire, and all earnest, going through life making the best of your time and oppor- tunities within your reach. God help you that you m ly be among the noble three hundredi in time and eternity. Amen, .4 .•''>* SERMON XVIII. now TO GET RICH. TEXT. — "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is that withholdetb more than in meet, but it tendetb to poverty." — Proverbs xi, 24. The Bible has considerable to say about riches. It speaks of honest and dishonest methods of getting them, and of a good and bad use of them ; of tiio advantage and disadvantage there is to the person in possessing them. Life is a wonderful commentary on many portions of the Sacred Word, illustrating and confirming the same with a definiteness and clearness that no man can deny. It is wonderful how much you can read in the daily experience and obser- vation of life that goes to prove the Bible as it is recorded. You will have noticed in your reading of novels and works of fiction, that those are the most fascinating and instructive that are the truest to real life ; a fiction of fact is a fiction of power, aid also of added interest. It is for this reason that the writers of this kind of literature are moat enjoyed, because they are best understood, in their own country, for they draw their illustrations from the customs and characteristics of the nation and people. Now, to read Charles Pickena, with profit, ^nd with an^tliing 324 VR. WILDES SERMONS like the real interest that one ought to read him, we would always want to know something of the English nation, something of the English people that inhahit those isles, something of the bold and varied expres- sion of their passions, the power and folly of fashion, the influence and stereotyped form of custom in Church and State, the wonderful diversity in the con- dition and in the attainments of the masses, espe- cially the remarkable grouping together of all that is rare and curious and refined and stupid in the great city of London. Then one will understand the various characters that that au • draws; otherwise one will not. One cannot well ^o by one of those old Jew stores in some parts of London, and take a peep in and see the various articles for sale, without being reminded of Dickens' ** Old Curiosity Shop." You would at once see the force of his illustrations the moment your eye fell upon such a store . A store of that kind very likely is not on the whole of this continent. A few weeks ago I saw a whole verse of the Bible illustrated and expounded in a literal manner. I was visiting at a farm-house, and while just walking around the yard I saw a young lad churning. There had evidently been some dispute between himself and another boy who stood by resting. I supposa they were churning in turns. However, the dispute waxed warmer, until this bigger boy went up to the lad who was churning, and, with his fingers like a pair of pinchers, caught him by the nose and gave it DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 826 a twist. The lad stopped charning, for bis nose was bleeding. I said to myself, — not wisliing to take any part, but I could easily see to myself how it had illns- strated Scripture, — *' Truly the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood, so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife," (Proverbs xxx, 33). Now, I had these three things illustrated just in a few minutes, right there. The fact is, common life is a daily com- mentarv on the Bible, and I am astonished that any one thiuks that it is not true who has got his eyes and ears open. You cannot read such positive illus- trations in any commentary that is written as you can in the daily experience of men and women in the societies in which you live. Nearly every man or woman is busy confirming the holy part, or coming near the condemnation of this Sacred Book. How painfully true is the following saying of Paul, when writing to Timothy : *' But they that will be rich fall into temptations and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruc- tion and perdition, for the love of money is the root of all evil." He means to say that the love with which we love money is the root of all evil. It is not that the money — as some would infer — is the source of evil, but the love which we give, as selfish creatures, to something we can handle and see is a love that ia taken from the Divine One, that of right belongs to Him. It is simply idolatry, and therefore is the root of all disbelief and all sin. He says '' (hey that vnU \ 326 DH. WILirS SERMONS. be," those that make up their minds by hook or crook to be rich. Do they not by that very decision expose themselves, as he says, to many temptations ? And what fatal examples we have of men and women who have yielded to these temptations. They are mourn- ing now in the various jails, and even in the asylums, bereft of their reason, because at some point where an opportunity offered, as they thought, of suddenly growing rich through one little act of dishonesty, through the mere scratching of their names, perhaps, or some little act as trivial. They have been banish- ed from society, and imprisoned. And is it not equally true that they fall into various snares ? How easily they are caught ! If an institution is floated, and there is a promise of a large dividend, of money being rapidly made, a fortune coming ready-made to the hand, how easily are the people inveigled into the scheme, and get caught in the snare and stripped of their little earnings ! Every three years, it is said — one of the leading brokers in New York told me, when questioning him on that point, ** About every three years. Doctor," said he, ** we sweep in the little fish." I was amazed when in the office of one of these brokers, for I had several of them belonging to my church, looking over a list they kept of their patrons, which is intended to be kept secret, how many were upon the book from Canada, sending in their fifty, a hundred, or two hundred dollars, to be invested. It is all right for a year or two, and then these heavy men, such as Jay Gould, Sage and others, DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 827 come in and sweep them all away. And who is caught that way ? Those who have made up their minds that they will be rich. They fall suddenly into these snares, and into foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men. There is no wrong in trying honestly to be rich. Success here is a merit. We have all a right to enjoy our reasonable earnings, and by the spending of these, if possible, to contribute to our own comfort and pleasure ; but minding to do so in such a way as while we are contributing to our owe pleasure and comfort, we shall also aid others to these very same comforts. I mean a man should spend his money prudently and wisely, so that it shall contribute to the general inter- ests of society. I have no hesitation in saying that it is better for me to carry out my idiosyncrasy, and when I shall have lots of money, to spend it on farming and employing men, rather than sitting idly at a big hotel and snoring away half of the time. I think it is better for me prudently to spend my money, and get my pleasure, while others are receiving the profit of the same, while I am spending it. I believe it is the bounden duty of every man and woman on earth to try and aid others. Then those who are actually rich, this is the charge to them: ** Charge them that are rich in the world that they be not high-minded, but trust in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy, that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to commutiicate, laying 328 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. up in store for themselves a good foundation against the tiine to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life." This he says in Second Timothy, sixth chapter. Now, there are two things here they are not t ) do. They are not to be high-minded. Now, we aU know that riches have a tendency to puff up the mind, to alienate others, and make them proud and vain even to their most intimate associates, if they have not been equally as successful. It is a thing to watch against, if we are rich, that it does not make us high-minded. Especially do I lament it in churches. It is a great pity, I believe, in this city, and one of the rankest evils, and one of the things interfering with the masses attending chui-ch, that the wealthy seek to adorn themselves in such a way on the Sabbath Day. Diamonds in the ears, jewels on the breast, rings on the fingers, gold studs in the shirt, and every one robed in silks and satins. Now, my dear friends, the house of God and the Sab- bath Day is not the time for wealth* to make a display. You cannot get calico to rub against silk. The result is not complimentary to the calico woman. You may do as you like, but this is a great evil, and it is time that our ladies and our gentlemen, who assume to be such, and are such, by their means, should cease to be so destructive in their example in keeping away the mass of working people from our churches. If you wish to make a display, do it at your house. Make a party, and you have the perfect liberty to do so there ; but on the Sabbath Day when DR, WILD'S SERMONS. •829 you meet in God's house to acknowledge Him as the Maker of all, dress plainly. It will do you good ; it will help others to come in, They will feel more at home. You may think that the people can come into this church and sit by you. They cannot do anything of the kind. It is the evil of the day, and the way to fill our churches is for you to come down, and dress more moderately. You may dress costly if you wish, but dress plainly, and do not dress so "loudly," as they say. You need not express your wealth by your clothing. We will know you are wealthy, as a rule. We can read in ** Bradstreet's ' ' — is it V — and see what you get, and what you are rated at. And so you will find that those ladies who have the ability to subject themselves to this moral rule are a power in the land. It is said that the wife of England's Premier, Gladstone, is the woman of most influence, saving the Queen, in England. And they tell me, if I were to see her dressed, that I would admire her, and yet everything is simple and plain about her. And the poor people and middle- class people will flock about that lady wherever she travels. She does not repel them by excessive dress, but its very plainness draws them to her, and she is a woman, by that means, of kindly judgment, and is exercising a salutary influence upon the women of England. And so you ladies in this church, and in this city, and in Canada, should do — I advise you to do the same. You are not to be high-minded in your conduct. You should have a dignity seasoned with kindness. 330 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. The other point is, that they are not to trust in tlieir riches, because, you will remember, that society will condone riches. Now, I do not think that wealth can excuse you from taking a part in your church duties, and from taking your pp't in society. Wealth will enable a man, even in this city, to do a great many things and yet hold up his head, which, if a poorer man does, he is frowned upon by every one. Yet wealth should have no such influence in our presence. It should be rated as a thing accord- ing to its value ; we should learn, also, by all means, if we have any trust in it, not to lean upon it alone, for wealth can take wings and fly away, and if our trust is removed, where are we but in despair ? I believe it is the duty of those who have it, while they are permitted by Providence, to freely enjoy it, but not by any means to imagine that because of their wealth, or because they are wealthy, they are there- fore relieved of their religious duties. It is no matter whether you are worth a million of dollars or not, you have a right to come to the prayer-meeting, or God ought to take away your wealth from you. You sit and loll in your parlors, and in your easy chairs, and I can go around and see you, and have no wonder that you felt easy there and could not get out to prayer- meeting ; but your rich parlors and comfortable furniture by no means relieve you of the duty of being at the church, and at the prayer-meeting, or in active services for God and humanity wherever the world needs you. T)R. WILD'S SERMONS, 831 in But when people get wealthy they think they are excluded and exempt from the common duties whicli should be theirs more fully to fulfil, because they have the time and the means that other people, who labor from seven in the morning till six at night, have not. To whom much is given of them shall much be expected. It is, indeed, a great expectation. You can look at our prayer-meeting, and where are you, wealthy one ? Where are you ? You say you arc busy. Are you so busy that you cannot give us as much time as a common man ? God help you. God will stop you in your burjness some day, and give you plenty of time. And the world will run on all the same when you and I are dead and gone. Ma- chinery will rattle and start at the same time, the sun will rise, the rains fall, the winds blow, the tides heave, and the crowd run to and fro as ever, while you lie trembling and sick in your room. Do you suppose that the world is run by you. It is not. And then, there are eight things in that quotation that I made that he tells them to do. First, they are to trust in the living God ; and what better trust could a man have ? What better could a man have for his stay and consolation than a trust in the living God? They who stay themselves upon the Lord shall be established, it is said. And in the second place, they are to enjoy their wealth. He gives us all things richly, to be enjoyed. We do not want the rich to be stinted. We do not want you to have poor food, live poorly, and 382 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. dress in homespun. Not at all. We want you to enjoy all that God has given you, with due prudence, and in common sense. The Scriptures teach you that God is willing that you should have that, and any man of common sense must be liberal enough to allow it. And so we are to enjoy all that He has given us by our own industry. In the third place, we are to do good, because we have such opportunities. Wealth is a power, and wealth is influence ; and a word from us, recognition from us, and a little act from us, goes further than it would coming from the poor, and hence we should make use of all these attributes of influence and power to do good. Thus we are to expend wisely our means and influence. In the fourth place, we are to be rich in good works. Rich in good works. Who else can be ? We have the means, the opportunity. We can enter into enter- prises, we can do a thousand things that men cannot, and that women cannot, who are restrained in their means. Do good, then, my friends, and so be rich in good works. In the fifth place, willing to distribute. He means by that that we are to have and cultivate the disposi- tion that we will be willing to take part in any enter- prise that offers good to mankind. Do not let your wealth burden you that when there is an enterprise started in the city, and they invite you to it, you say, " Oh, I cannot go, they are after money there." Be v DR, WILD'S SERMONS, 883 ready, always keep your mind in trim, according to your means, and contribute a little, and do not harden your heart, and begin gradually to alienate yourself from society, so that you are never seen in any of these enterprises, but be generous and charitable, and always keep your mind and heart in good trim, and if there is anything offers that you approve of, give. Do not be afraid of your money, but be willing always to take the opportunity when presented to do your part as you are able. In the sixth place, we are to be willing to com- municate, he says — i.e., to be willing to give our influence and counsel, and not be afraid of what it may cost. In the seventh place, we are to lay up in store in Heaven a good foundation. Ah, you cannot have a better foundation anywhere to lay up riches than in the better land and life ! We have all read of the man on one of the steamers from California, when the men were told to swim for their lives, who bound his belt of gold around him, against the advice of the captain, and it sank him. And so men can bind their wealth around them at this day, and they are sinking — sinking away from society, from the social circle, from the Church ; their wealth is carrying them down, actually to the grave. Now, it should not so be ; it should be a buoy to lift them up, and give them prominence, because of its giving them position and influence, and we should try by this means to lav up store in Ueaven, f^ :i .y 384 DR, WILD'S SERMONS. And in the eighth place, to lay hold on eternal life, because by wealth we lay hold of life, you know. Life in the theatre, life in the concert, life in society, — life ! We hunt it, we get it. If we have means we can enter into these great social circles of concen- trated life. Now, while you can do that, and there is no objection to that, so long as you do it innocently, God asks you at the same time to try and lay hold on eternal life. Try and get within the great circle of Heaven that will never break up ; try and get among the host of the ransomed ones ; try and find that life that shall know no death — that shall never cease. These eight items surely are of interest to all. These embody the philosophy of our text, because they are all in the line of scattering that we may increase. If we withhold more than is meet, it will tend to poverty. And, do you know, I have lived long enough to see that illustrated time after time. Do you know, I have lived oftentimes long enough over a church to mark out the men God would take it from, and have seen it done, and I believe God can do it, and I believe He does it, too, where there is an intelligent man. If they were ignorant it would be different ; but where they are simply unwilling — un- willing, though wealthy — to take their part, God takes it away from them — they say by an accident. All things are in the bands of God, and I believe if we do not recognize God, He will not always recog- nize us with prosperity. If we do not lecognize that He helpeth us, and giveth us the strength by which we DR. WILDES SERMONS, 835 accumulate our wealth, do you suppose that God will smile upon you for ever? He will curse you or curse your children. It too often falls upon the poor children. Look at the change of estates in this Canada, will you ? Go to the old settlements and mark the hardy pioneers, the toiling fathers and mothers, working and working to accumulate their honest wealth, and yet they have been afraid of the Church — afraid of its demands not found there, and what has been the result ? They have left their accumulations to their children, and the children have had no moral bias, no in§Lience of the dead and gone ; God could not stay His hand, as in the case of Solomon, for David, bis father's sake, and so He has permitted those accidents that have brought so many sorrows in their train. I believe you can lay up wealth for a child in this way, by doing your duty unto God. May I tell you a little incident of my boyhood days? One night, in the old homestead, my parents were consulting about the dedication of our little Metho- dist church. My father sat with us around the old fireplace in the wall. All were there, and they were talking about what the demands would be on the coming Sunday anniversary, and they were very great, for the improvements that had been made upon the church. He was trying to levy the amount that we had to give, so that we would all have something to give, and 1 remember that eldest sister of mine, who, I believe, is in He >ven, had laid by some money for 9, new dress. ** F kther/' said she, *' let us give a I 336 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 9 little more, and I will sacrifice for the present, and we can give the boys a little more to give.*' And I can remember what my eldest brother said, who is now living, and who will read what I am now saying, and therefore I simply make the statement ; and I remem- ber the answer of my father was, " I want to lay up wealth this way for you when I am dead and gone." God bless him; I believe he has done so, and I believe it falls upon me ; I believe it falls upon all the family. I believe God remembers the sacrifice of these poor old people — not poor in one sense, pe|^aps, but poor as regards being able to do much. I believe God remembers it, and I had rather a thou- sand times that it should be so, than that they should have laid it up in mere money. God gives it to me as I go. There is, then, a way, my friends, of scattering as we increase. Do you know that getting and keeping are equal, and that we must continually advance if we wish to keep even what we have got ? Be wise and pru- dent in this getting, or you cannot be rich. It is the same with learning, if you do not try to get more, you forget what you have got. Take the young lady who is so splendid on the piano when her lover comes, who can so nimbly fling her fingers over the keys and play such a charming tune, and ten years after, when she is married and settled, you say, ** Play us a nice tune, do," and the answer is, " Oh, I have forgotten all about it." Now, it is a pity she should have for- gotten such an accomplishment, but certainly they I> DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 887 do, they lose because they do not try to get more ; they lose even that which they have got. It is the same in religious experience. If a man does not try to get more» be will lose the little he has. And so it is in many things, if a person does not wisely and prudently handle what he has got, and try and put it out so that it shall be profitable to all society as well himself, he will lose even what he has. Hence the Scripture injunction is, " Be diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." That is the way to get rich, " Be diligent in business, fer- vent in spirit, serving the Lord." You cannot wipe out that last part. " Diligent in business, sir ? " ** I am ; why, that I am, that's for me." Aye, but there is another part in that verse, sir, " Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." How are you on that ? How do you measure up on that ? If you do not come under the text now, you are guilty before God, and God will thwart you in some of your schemes, and take the money out of your hand. Do not think that I am exaggerating, I am speaking simply from experience. I have seen it time after time, and will live to see it here in Toronto. I have seen it, I repeat. Can you rob God, and He not know ? " Ye have robbed Me," as He sai I to the people, when writing in Malachi, ** by keeping back that which belonged unto Me." You cannot rob God without His knowledge. And hence, while we must be diligent in business, we must also be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, 338 DR. WILD'S SERMONS. I take man to be a citizen, and if he wishes to bo a citizen and in society, it is his bounden duty to sustain all the relations of the citizen. It is hia duty to pay taxes ? Certainly. " Oh yes," you say ; and so he pays his taxes, for he gets in return the facilities, comforts, securities of a city. And you think it is necessary that this combination should take place for the individual good ? I do. When I was paying my taxes the other day, I was walking down Jarvis Street with an elderly gentleman. I had not very much to pay, enough though to be pleased with, and he was telling me what he had to pay. " That is a large amount, is it not ? " he said to me. " It is terrible what the taxes are coming to. How would you like that, Doctor ? " ** I would like it well ei.v agh," I said. I would like to pay about ten thousand dollars of taxes. I wish I could pay ten thousand rather than pay about thirty-five dollars, as I was paying, because it would imply that I had got the property somewhere. Now, it is no bad thing to pay heavy taxes, and I would just like to be the man to pay the biggest taxes in Toronto ; and then, if God kept me in the same disposition as I am now, I would make the biggest subscription next Sunday night. Might change though, can't say. I take Christianity to be a factor in society, just as a government is. I do not know that any country can have the advantages of civilization without hav- ing religion as one of them. It is one of the powers pf Bociet;^ that give it its law, force, morality, tone^ J^n. niLirs skiimons. 88!l wealth and security. No man in Toronto has a riglit to take the advantap;o of that Christianity, the benefit that it confers, unless he in return contributes toward its support. It is no matter whether he is an agnostic or any other kind of man, or whatever his views are, so long as he lives in Christian society and enjoys the advantages that Christianity confers Hpon that society, he has a right as an honorable man to respond and contribute to religious institutions. He should, because he is receiving the advantage in lower taxes and increased security. He would be deprived of both of them if it were not for religion, and therefore he is profited by religion, and ought to be honorable enough to make a return. Now, Christianity benefits society, and in olden times they recognized this, and tithed the people, and by force of law took from them what was necessary for «he support of the Church, and Englishmen rose in rebellion against the practice. I can remember when it used to be a grand struggle — ^the fight against the tithing system annually. When the election of the wardens came around it was a grand high day in the parish. They got free ; and the moment some of them were free they never paid that money to any one else. The whole drift of the thing was, they wanted to rob God ; and it would be a good thing to-day if the nian who will not contribute where he is receiving an advantage should have the law come down on him and make him pay. Our 340 DR. WILD'S SEIlMOm. Catholic fi lends are right on that point. In Quebec they tithe; and in Manitoba, where the Catholic settles, he has to be tithed, and the priest can go in and t ike every seventh sheaf out of his field, and has a right so to do. You Protestants, you other men, have a right to pay, and the law ought to make you pay, ^r you ought to live somewhere else, and set up a country of your own, and live without the influences of religion. I mean to say that religion contributes to the wealth a d commerce of this country — that is what mcsn say — and it is a saving to every man and woman in it. If a man will receive the profit of it, he is honorably bound to contribute something toward its sustenance. Of course, no one loses by it. It is very much like the ancient story, which, perhaps, you have read of. A man left to three heirs seventeen oxen, with the direction that they should be divided as follows : One-half to the first son, one-third to the second son, and one-ninth to the third son, and he added at the close of the will that none of the oxen were to be slain. The executors found that they could not carry out the will. One-half of seventeen, of course, would be eight and one-half, and an ox would be required to be slain; one-third would, of course, be five and two- thirds ; and one-ninth, one and eight - ninths. So they referred it to the Sultan, as it was generally concluded that the man muat have known that the thing could be done or he would never have added that clause to his will. A proolamation was DR. JVILirS SERMONS. 841 made for the purpose of having the question solved, and a day appointed when all were to come up to the court-yard of the palace. The three heirr r present, the seventeen oxen tied in a row, ai: I t'-. learned ones came from all parts of the land with «,uoir solu- tions, but could not work the problem satisfactorily. When all had made the attempt and faileJ, there was seen standing by a countryman. He raises his band unto the Sultan, who gives him permission to speak. **Ican distribute them without slaying any," h3 cries, ** but first permit me to leave the court-yard." Permission again being given, he goes out, and shortly returns with the ox upon which he had rid- den into the city. *' Allow me to tie this one with the others, that will make them eighteen. One-half of eighteen is nine, take these," he says to the eldest son ; " one-third of eighteen is six, here is your por- tion," to the second ; ** and one-ninth of eighteen is two, take these," to the third. *' Nine and six are fifteen, and two make the seventeen." So he gave each their own, and getting on his own ox, rode away. Now, you will have to guess a little to see where that comes in. I give it to you simply as an illus- tration, to show that when a man gives unto God it is just like that man putting his ox there. He loses nothing by it himself, and gives to others more than he otherwise could. You see this man took his own ox away with him and gave the heirs more. And just so, I believe, it is with the great problem of sus* 34^ Dli, WILirS SERMONS. taining Cliurch institutions and benevolent enter- prises. If a man sustains them he loses nothing by the noble effort. Earning and spending are not equal but in very few, and the way to be rich is to keep one's expendi- ture a little this side of their income. That is always safe, or course, when you begin to accumulate you hardly know when you have got enough. There is lu) standard for wealth. It varies with different countries and different individuals. I never saw a man who had enough. They are not as good as the old squaw who, when chided about taking too much whiskey, said that ** a little too much was just right." ** Ah," she said, " a little too much is just about right." She wanted a little too much, and she was all right — satisfied. You cannot get a man like that as to money ; give him a little too much and he will want more. He is always clamoring for more than he has. While some devote their attention to earning, some are better as to spending. I am at fault there myself. I can always earn money, but never know how to spend it. Some people have a wonderful tact at getting but no manner of sense about spending, while some have a poor tact at getting but a wonder- ful tact at spending not only their own but any other money they can get hold of. They are spenders. Money is a means to an end, and we should always use this means to further the interests of Booiety and our own salvation, our interests and the DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 848 interests of our children. I believe, as I have formerly said, that if any man withholds that which is meet, it will tend to poverty, not only in himself, but in his children ; and that is the reason that so many children unfortunately lose all they have got, because their fathers and mothers robbed God in accumulat- ing. In the old country they establish the law of entail as a defence against this sudden loss ; but where men are free this law will come into operation, that those that scatter will increase, and those that withhold more than is meet will tend to poverty. And now, if you come to look at the men of the time, men who are in a measure their own executors, who are the men whom we honor above all names in Toronto ? The Hon. W. McMaster is one. You may like him or dislike him, but his name will stand in that memorial Baptist College when you and I are dead and gone, and will be revered and loved more and more as every generation passes. He has done a noble work, and he has done it while he is living. He has walked through the halls himself. He has seen the building himself. He has not left it for other men to do for him after he was gone. And there are scores of men in Toronto who could do like- wise, if they would, in aiding good and noble enter- prises. I think it would be a thousand times better if they would so do ; not that a man should impov- erish himself and give all he has, but as I have said, after he has an abundance for himself and family, he should begin to expend. Who is the man who aU X 844 DB. WILD'S SERMONS. over the country is spoken of as the prince of mer- chants ? John Macdonald. Invariably I find they say that. And why is he the merchant ^ince ? He is a man who has, and who can deal out his money freely in society and in benevolent enterprises ; his name is found in every subscription book for every benevolent purpose in Canada, with money. That man cannot sink. God will buoy him up. The people will trust him as long as he is generous. Who had the greatest funeral I have seen in Toronto, or ever saw, of real sympathy ? James Michie. And why did people rally around him, following his remains to the grave ? Because he had been his own executor in part, and had distributed his wealth to his Church, to the college, and other benevolent institutions. I tell you the society of to-day is not blind, but is alive to the man who does his duty, and as a steward before God, handles the wealth that is put in his hand generously and wisely. There are three kinds of rich people. Two I do not like to see, and the other I am always glad to see. I do not like to see the rich-poor man. Did you eve/ , see one ? It is worse when it happens to be a rich- poor woman. There is something terrible in the bearing, in the whole conduct. Then I do not like to see a poor-rich man, a man who cannot clothe himself, cannot get a good roast round of beef, can- not eat chicken, cannot lodge himself comfortably, cannot feed himself properly, nor clothe himself, poor, rich man* Lots of money, but miserly keeps it } DR. WILD'S SERMONS. 345 terrible sight, is it not ? Then there is the rich man. I like to see a rich man or woman— no objection to being one myself, not the slightest. The Scripture says : *' There is that maketh himself rich and yet hath nothing, and there is that maketh himself poor and yet hath great riches," and that is very true, indeed. And now, my dear friends, what is it for you and I to do, with respect to the coming Sabbath ? For you see this, that you take up the collection next Sunday before I preach, and so I want to get at you before- hand to-night. Not to force one cent out of your pocket, though, but simply as your minister to point out to you plainly before God, what is your duty, according to your ability, every one of you, just aa the Scripture has got it. It says : " He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, but he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully "; and the motto I give you for next Sabbath is this : ** Every man according as he has purposed in his heart, so let hira give, not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver." Keep cheerful next Sabbath ; judge between yourselves, and give what your are able to ; that do cheerfully, and God will bless you and bless the means. May He bless all, and bring us to Heaven at last. Amen.