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LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, i8g4. 
 Accessions No. ;^^2.S^^ . Class No. 
 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES; 
 
 OB, 
 
 Im^ttt, last, nttJj inkxt 
 
 BY 
 
 THE KEY. JOHlSr CUMMmG, D.D. F.R.S.E., 
 
 ADTHOE OP LECTUEE8 Oli THE APOCALYPSE, lURACUS, DANIH, PAEABLES, ETC. 
 
 "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, 
 and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations 
 With perplexity." 
 
 '^ Of THB 
 
 UHIVSRSITYl 
 
 PHILADELPHfi 
 LIN'DSAY AND BLAKISTOK. 
 
 1855. - 
 
^\' 
 
 A 
 
 n 
 
 r)i€l. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The first half of this little work was the expan- 
 sion of two Lectures originally delivered before 
 young men in Exeter Hall and in Freemasons' 
 Hall. The writer had no idea of the enlarged work 
 receiving any extensive circulation; but, to his 
 great surprise, it has reached a sale of nearly twelve 
 thousand, and is still very much in demand. He 
 has thought it would prove useful, and at least 
 interesting to many, if he added several Lectures 
 on Scripture references to the future, bearing more 
 or less directly on the same interesting topic. He 
 does not expect that every Christian will agree with 
 him in every detail, or indeed see the importance, 
 and, as he humbly thinks, the duty of studying 
 prophecy, as a light shining in a dark place, to 
 which we do well to take heed. But he has a right 
 to expect that spiritual minds, agreeing with him 
 in the great truths of our common Christianity, 
 and desirous of seeing men's souls solemnized by 
 a deep sense of the crisis in which we live, and 
 
 (iii) 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 awakened to an appreciation of its responsibilities, 
 should lay aside all " bitterness and wrath and evil 
 speaking;" and while in print or otherwise point- 
 ing out defects, that they should do so in that meek 
 spirit which disarms infidel opposition, and gives 
 lustre and emphasis to Christian character. "What 
 the Holy Spirit has inspired in his word, it cannot 
 be unbecoming in us to study and labour to eluci- 
 date. The Author does not think he has dogma- 
 tized or dictated in a self-sufficient spirit — at least, 
 he never meant to do so. On vital evangelical 
 truths he trusts he gives no uncertain sound ; on 
 unfulfilled prophecy he has tried, successfully he 
 hopes, to speak and write as becomes one who is 
 not a prophet, but a student of all prophecy inspired 
 by the Holy Spirit, and therefore part of the rule 
 of faith, and worthy of our prayerful study. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 I. — Thb Signs of thb Times ^ 13 
 
 II. — Ths Moslem, and his End 75 
 
 III. — The Chbistian, and his Hope 114 
 
 IV. — The Jew, his Buin and Kestobation 139 
 
 V.—NoAH, HIS Age and ours 157 
 
 VI.— Signs, Celestial and Terkesteial 177 
 
 VII.— The Desieb op all Nations 197 
 
 VIII.— The Final Destiny 220 
 
 IX.— It is Done 243 
 
 X.— Thb Lobd Reigneth 262 
 
 w 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES, 
 
 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 On all sides it seems to be felt that ours is no 
 ordinary age. It is universally owned that we live 
 in times of infinite importance. Scene succeeds 
 scene, change follows on change, and event thun- 
 ders on event, with startling and portentous rapid- 
 ity. Have these things a meaning ? Is the age 
 suggestive or significant ? Are its facts and phe 
 nomena mere dumb and dead incidents, that rise 
 like air-bubbles on the waves of time, and are re- 
 solved into the great element again without a mis- 
 sion or a meaning ? Or, are they full of eloquent 
 significance — pregnant lessons — successive acts in 
 the great drama of time, fixing the epochs of the 
 world ? In short, are they " Signs of the Times ?" 
 There is no doubt that they are. The daily jour- 
 nals are witnesses on every side. Analogy dictates 
 the inference that our age is significant ; Scripture 
 settles it. Ancient prophecies are every day trans- 
 2 ^ (1-^) 
 
14 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 lated into' modern facts. The year 1854 reflects 
 on every page the scenes sketched and foresha- 
 dowed upwards of 2000 years ago. God has inva- 
 riably given signs and warnings in His word of 
 every great and startling epoch of his past provi- 
 dential government ; nay more, he has given pre- 
 cise dates, and definite numbers, and exact cycles. 
 ]^ow, what God has done premonitory of great 
 events that have passed from prophecy into his- 
 tory, surely he has not wholly withheld in refer- 
 ence to those yet more stupendous ones that are 
 predicted soon to come to pass. In the case of 
 Noah, 120 years were definitely fixed as the period 
 at the end of which the windows of heaven should 
 pour down, and the fountains of the great deep 
 should be broken up. This prophecy was the 
 exact measure of the time. The duration of the 
 captivity in Egypt was foretold to Abraham 430 
 years before, and published by Moses ; and so ex- 
 actly was the prophetic epoch fulfilled, that, in the 
 language of the sacred historian, " At the end of 
 430 years, the selfsame day, it came to pass that 
 all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land 
 of Egypt." Jeremiah is told that 70 years shall 
 be the duration of the captivity in Babylon ; and 
 in Daniel we read that 40 years afterwards he 
 ascertained from this passage the date of the exodus 
 of the Jews from Babylon. The first advent of 
 our blessed Lord was the subject of almost specific 
 chronology. Long before it occurred Daniel said, 
 " After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 15 
 
 cut off, but not for himself;" and his prophecy of 
 the advent of the Messiah, and the specific period 
 at which he should come, made so deep an impres- 
 sion upon the wide world, that not only the Bap- 
 tist, Anna, and Simeon, believers in the word of 
 God, and prayerful and patient expectants of its . 
 fulfilment, but, according to Tacitus and Yirgil, the 
 very heathen of that day, to a very wide extent, 
 looked for an illustrious and sovereign personage 
 then to appear on the earth. We may surely, 
 therefore, expect, that the crowning act at the end 
 of this dispensation, so frequently referred to, will 
 not be left without premonitory signs and w^arning 
 dates, unequivocal and emphatic. If signs and 
 dates preceded the cross, surely signs and dates, 
 scarcely less startling and splendid, may be expected 
 to be given as preceding the glory. Jesus, indeed, 
 says, " Of that day knoweth no man." I believe 
 this refers especially to the generation and the time 
 when that statement was made, and w^as then, the 
 exact and literal fact. But, however ignorant that 
 generation might be of precise and minute dates, 
 he gives in that very chapter signs by which we 
 may know when the things predicted are just at 
 hand. The day and hour, — that is, the very 
 instant, — none of us are likely to know; the 
 significant and deepening foretokens of its approach 
 Jesus has commanded us to learn, and pronounced 
 their ignorance criminal who do not study, and 
 thus ascertain, the times. The budding of the fig- 
 tree is given by Jesus as one sign. The Jewish 
 
16 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 race, set fortli by the fig-tree, blasted at his first 
 advent, shall begin to burst into blossom, and 
 verdure, and beauty, as a premonitory signal of 
 the near approach of his second. " Wilt thou at 
 this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" was one 
 of the earliest questions asked; and the answer 
 then given just before the day of Pentecost was, 
 "It is not for you to know the times and the 
 seasons, which the Father hath put into his own 
 power." Evidently present duties, responsibilities, 
 and privileges were to be their first and chief con- 
 cern. But in the Epistle to the Thessalonians it 
 is obvious, that since the day of Pentecost greater 
 light must have been shed upon the epochs of pro- 
 phetic chronology ; for it is said, " Of the times 
 and the seasons ye have no need that I write unto 
 jou, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of 
 the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." Thus 
 the ignorance of yesterday is inexcusable to-day. 
 The Lord rebuked the Jews of his day for estimat- 
 ing the character of to-morrow from the physical 
 phenomena of to-day ; whilst from the moral and 
 significant signs that were showered down in all 
 directions upon them, they refused to form any 
 just induction of the nature and nearness of the 
 approaching future. 
 
 Let us glance briefly at some of the prominent 
 and well-known dates, by way of introduction, as 
 an approximate evidence of our place in the world. 
 There is one great date in prophecy, repeated in 
 different formulas, but in all substantially the 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 17 
 
 same. "We read of " time, times, and half a time;'* 
 or, 360 years, twice 360 years, and half of 360 
 years — making, when added up, 1260 years. We 
 find the same date in another formula ; as forty- 
 two months, equal to 1260 prophetic days, or 1260 
 literal years. We find it again called 1260 days — 
 L e, prophetic days — or equal to 1260 literal years. 
 These prophetic days represent each of them a 
 year ; just as in a plan or a map an inch, or quarter 
 of an inch, is made to represent a mile. We have 
 distinct authority for this. In Numbers xiv. 34, — 
 "After the number of the days in which ye 
 searched the land, even forty days, each day for a 
 year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty 
 years." In Ezekiel iv. 6, — " Thou shalt bear the 
 iniquity of the house of Judah forty days ; I have 
 appointed thee each day for a year." Thus pro- 
 phecy contains its own plan — the measure of its 
 own scale. 
 
 Now, this period of 1260 years, thus alluded to 
 in Scripture, is employed in every instance to 
 denote the duration of a great apostasy that should 
 overcast all the horizon of the West, and last 
 throughout a period called in one place 1260 years; 
 in another, forty-two months ; in another, " time, 
 times, and half a time." You will see that this is 
 referred to in the following passages: — In Daniel 
 vii. 25: "He shall speak great swelHng words 
 against the Most High, and shall wear out the 
 saints of the Most High, and think to change 
 times and laws: and they" [that is, the saints of 
 
18 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 the Most High] " shall be given into his hand until 
 a time and times and the dividing of time," — or 
 1260 years. Again, in Rev. xi. 3 : "I will give 
 power unto my two witnesses," [true Christians,] 
 " and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred 
 and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth" — that is, 
 depressed — i. e. 1260 years. The "witnesses in 
 sackcloth" of St. John's Apocalypse, are the "saints 
 worn out," or persecuted by the same apostasy, re- 
 ferred to in Daniel, which is said to last 1260 years. 
 I do not pause to identify this persecuting power 
 with the Romish apostasy. This is almost uni- 
 versally accepted. The brands predicted in the 
 prophecy are so fully developed by the Papacy, that 
 dispute is barely possible. Indeed, the trouble to 
 which mediaeval monks and modern tractarians are 
 put in getting rid of the almost universal interpre- 
 tation is something wonderful. 
 
 Having seen the duration of this apostasy, let 
 us try to take a step farther, — When did it begin ? 
 It is of no use to know the end of its life, unless 
 we can ascertain the date of its birth. "We find 
 that the Emperor Justinian gave the Pope, in the 
 year 532," not only spiritual jurisdiction, but civil 
 powder ; in other words, constituted the great papal 
 organization a politico-ecclesiastical power, and 
 armed it with authority to enforce by the sword its 
 rescripts, its laws, and its pretended obligations. I 
 therefore date the commencement of the papal 
 power, as fully organized, from the year 532 ; and 
 if so, 1260 years added to that would bring us 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 19 
 
 down to 1792, wlien history steps in to attest pro- 
 phecy, and successive judgments begin to fall upon 
 the Western Apostasy. Great convulsions then 
 took place in every portion of Antichrist's domin- 
 ions ; all forces — infidel, political, and Christian — 
 played against it ; God's people began to emerge 
 from the midst of it ; and that part of the pro- 
 phecy which still continues, came into its initial 
 active operation, — " He shall consume it w^ith the 
 spirit of his mouth," — while it is waiting to be 
 utterly " destroyed by the brightness of his coming." 
 From that era to this, the papal nations of Europe 
 have been scourged, and Romanism wasted down 
 to a shell, till it is rather a galvanized than a living 
 thing. In France, it is a mere political tool ; its 
 hold on the great mass of the people is gone. In 
 Italy, the higher priesthood is infidel. In Ireland, 
 it is in its death-struggle. In England, its boasts, 
 its glare and pretension, are signs of its exhaustion, 
 not vitality. Just as the first wasting influences 
 fell on the apostasy, the angel of the everlasting 
 Gospel — that is, its various Missionary and Bible 
 Societies, or, "the witnesses" — emerged from bond- 
 age, and were fully organized, with two previous 
 exceptions, betw^een 1793 and 1806. 
 
 I pass, in the next place, to another chronologi- 
 cal date. The prophet Daniel specifies — and this 
 relates to a subject which is now occupying men's 
 attention in relation to the East — 2300 years as the 
 duration of the Mahometan power. The beginning 
 of the 2300 years is dated by the most accomplished 
 
20 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and learned scholars in prophecy at about the year 
 430 before the birth of Christ, or the era of the 
 noon-tide glory of the Persian empire, and the 
 splendid progress of Xerxes, the era of its culmi- 
 nating and meridian grandeur. From that date 
 Daniel looks along the centuries to the epoch of 
 its initial decay, and predicts that 2300 years from 
 that date its decadence would begin. This lands 
 us in the year a.d. 1820, when what is called in the 
 Apocalypse the drying up of the river Euphrates, 
 or the decaying or wasting away of the Mahometan 
 power, should begin to take place.* ISTow, if this 
 calculation be correct, we should expect that in the 
 year 1820, or thereabout, the Mahometan power 
 did begin to waste and wane. What are the facts ? 
 In the year 1820, the "Annual Eegister" states, 
 " The Ottoman empire had reached its meridian 
 strength, free from all foreign invasion, and in 
 possession of perfect peace." What takes place 
 soon after this ? In the summer of that very year 
 Ali Pacha revolted against the Sultan. In the 
 autumn of 1820 the Greek insurrection broke out. 
 Soon after, I^orthern Greece, the isles of the Egean 
 Sea, and the Danubian provinces, all revolted from 
 the Turkish empire. In the Morea, the Greeks 
 destroyed an army of 30,000 Turks. In 1827, the 
 combined fleets of Britain, France, and Russia 
 destroyed the Turco-Egyptian fleets at the battle of 
 
 * I noticed that at the May meetings in 1854, noblemen and 
 gentlemen, not professedly students of prophecy, referred to 
 the Euphrates as the symbol of the Turkish power. 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 21 
 
 Kavarino. In the year 1828, Russia crossed the 
 Balkan, entered Adrianople, and Constantinople 
 was saved by the interposition of the Western 
 ambassadors. Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia 
 are at this moment held by the Russians. The 
 Turkish province of Algiers is now a French 
 colony. Turkey suicidally extinguished the Jani- 
 zaries, her best troops. During the same period 
 earthquakes, plagues, and pestilences have almost 
 depopulated Bagdad, Mecca, and Medina. And 
 the Rev. Mr. "Walsh, the British Consul at Constan- 
 tinople, writing in 1831, says, "Within the last 
 twenty years, Constantinople lost more than half 
 its population. Two conflagrations happened 
 while I was at -Constantinople, and destroyed 
 15,000 houses. The silent operation of the plague 
 is continually active. It is no exaggeration to say, 
 that within the period mentioned, 300,000 have 
 been prematurely swept away in this one city of 
 Europe, by causes not operating in any other capi- 
 tal whatever." See how exact is the fulfilment of 
 prophecy. These points I will state at greater 
 length in my second Lecture. 
 
 The special prediction under the Sixth Vial is 
 the drying up of the river Euphrates ; that is, a 
 progressive evaporation of Mahometanism, begin- 
 ning in 1820,. and expected by every student of 
 prophecy to end in a very short time indeed. It 
 is, you will observe, to die out: it is not to be 
 struck down. It is the evaporation of a stream, 
 not the destruction of a citadel at a blow. But 
 
22 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 while tliis power wastes and withers, it does not 
 follow^ that the Russian Eagle is to have the 
 Mosque of St. Sophia for his ejrie. The Turks 
 may not cease to be, when they cease to be 
 Mahometans. They may become Christians. The 
 9,000,000 of Eastern Christians that are under the 
 Crescent, and subject to all its insults, its oppres- 
 sion, and its tyranny, may rise up a glorious nation 
 — a mighty dynasty — a nobler obstruction to 
 Russian ambition than the decrepit and dying 
 Turkish empire, which Western nations vainly try- 
 to keep up. 
 
 Turkey, just at the period predicted in prophecy, 
 began to die out, as we have already seen. The 
 evidence of this is recent testimony respecting her. 
 Lamartine, in one of those sagacious aphorisms by 
 w^hich his eloquence is distinguished, says, "Turkey 
 dies for want of Turks." This gradual decay of 
 the Turkish empire identifies the period in which 
 we now are with what is called in the Apocalypse 
 the Sixth Vial. Mr. Habershon, in his excellent 
 work upon the subject, calculated, in 1830, that the 
 Turkish empire w^ould cease to exist soon after 
 1849. He was not very far wrong. Its end is at 
 hand. Every day I expect to hear of its stream 
 dried up, of the Crescent waning, and of Turkey 
 as a nation that was — not a nation mighty, and 
 longer able to maintain itself. Plague, famine, 
 ' pestilence, profligacy, are fast drying up her 
 empire ; her exchequer is now all but bankrupt ; 
 her momentary success against Russia is no earn- 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 23 
 
 est of her ultimate security. Britain and France, 
 like clouds, may spread over the Euphrates, and 
 try to prevent the evaporation of its waters ; but 
 all in vain. The ruthless Czar has his stern mis- 
 sion, and we our duty under all circumstances. 
 The echoes of victory by the fleets of the ambitious 
 Autocrat, and the cruel destruction of the Turkish, 
 are now resounding through Europe. This gradual 
 decay of the Crescent, after the period predicted 
 under the Sixth Vial, which commenced in 1820, 
 when the great river Euphrates began to be dried 
 up, is assuredly taking place. Its final destruction 
 may be looked for every day, as it has been since 
 1850; and now Russia, like a gigantic vulture 
 poised in mid-heaven on outstretched wings, waits 
 for the moment to descend and to destroy. Peace 
 or war equally exhausts Turkey. Help her (and it 
 is duty to aid the oppressed), and you may soften 
 her fall, but you will not avert her decay. The 
 time for blotting out Mahometan Turkey from the 
 map is at our doors. The " sure word of pro- 
 phecy" is stronger than the combined fleets of 
 England and France, should they try, what they 
 do not, to prevent the waning of the Crescent. 
 We watch at this moment for the issue; and I 
 confess, while I dread and deprecate, and justify 
 every effort to obstruct the cruel ascendency of 
 the Russian, I long to see the expiring throes of 
 an empire that has long oppressed the free and 
 crushed the good; to hear the last boom of 
 Mahometan cannon; and to see the wide-spread 
 
24 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 lands around Constantinople, so beautiful and so 
 fertile, emerge from the deluge of Mahometan 
 superstition, and not Russia, but protestant Chris- 
 tianity ascendant as the result, and thereby the 
 way prepared for the march of the kings of the 
 East to their beloved Palestine, the land of their 
 fathers, their destiny, and their race. 
 
 Having seen that in all probability we must now 
 be near that epoch, let me notice, in the next place, 
 that as soon as the Crescent wanes, and the great 
 river Euphrates, the recognised symbol of the 
 Turkish power, evaporates, we may expect to see a 
 preparation for the return of the kings of the East ; 
 that is, an awakening take place among the Jews, 
 previous to their emerging from the lands of their 
 captivity, and their moving homewards to Jerusa- 
 lem, — an exodus more majestic than that from 
 Egypt, — to take possession of the countrj^ that is 
 theirs, though kept from them by the kings, and 
 rulers, and princes of the earth. Here every sign 
 is most striking. In all directions the Jews are 
 awakening to a sense of nationality. They have 
 newspapers — I read one of them every week — 
 conducted with great talent and power — schools — 
 power — influence. They begin to stand out as they 
 never did before. They were always insulated, but 
 it was rather as broken and fragmental units ; now 
 they begin to be insulated in their nationality, or 
 as a nation, and to consolidate their power and 
 make ready for their mission. I may state, from 
 their own newspaper, that they are organising 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 25 
 
 plans for repossessing Palestine. Many of them 
 have gone out as farmers and agriculturists ; and 
 in this Jewish newspaper I read the reports of the 
 agriculturist Jews in Palestine, addressed to their 
 brethren at home, just as you might read the ac- 
 count of the spies of old, when they told the 
 children of the desert of the riches and the glories 
 of the promised land. In America, funds are at 
 this moment being raised, and near a million dol- 
 lars secured, for building the Temple of Jerusalem ; 
 the dry bones in ten thousand valleys give tokens 
 of returning life; the springs of Palestine have 
 suddenly become full of fresh and refreshing water ; 
 every branch of the fig-tree buds ; and more Jews 
 have been converted, according to Tholuck, during 
 the last eighteen years, than during the previous 
 eighteen hundred; and there are more Jews at 
 this moment in Jerusalem than there have been 
 during the last seventeen centuries. A deeper in- 
 terest, too, is now felt in the spiritual welfare of 
 the Jews than ever was felt before ; and the various 
 societies for their conversion, not fifty years old, 
 have been blessed with great and growing success, 
 and are now the most prosperous of any. In the 
 case of the Church of England I believe it is so, 
 and in the Jewish mission of the Church of Scot- 
 land I know that it is the fact. 
 
 And what is one of the great political questions 
 of the day ? Whether the Jews shall be admitted 
 to legislative as well as municipal power. Whether 
 8 
 
26 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 it be a duty to admit them, or the reverse, this is 
 not the place to examine ; but their seeking and 
 our discussing it is a sign of the times, a proof of 
 their national development, a symptom of their 
 disquiet, a forelight of future results. I know the 
 meaning of this. It is the Jew, a weary, w^ander- 
 ing exile, seeking a rest for the sole of his foot ; 
 and when he has obtained a political place in the 
 Constitution of England, as probably he will, he 
 will still find that he has no rest, and his heart will 
 yearn still, till his feet shall tread the consecrated 
 streets in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and 
 the world's grey fathers, walked, and worshipped 
 our God and their God. And it is very singular, 
 I may observe, that the quarrel between Russia 
 and Turkey took its origin about things in Jerusa- 
 lem, — about shrines and altars, — about the sacred 
 shrines where stupid monks, that have crucified 
 afresh a living Christ, are fighting and quarrelling 
 about the tomb of a dead Christ. The Jew feels 
 lie is not at home. He seeks a seat in the House 
 of Commons, as ISToah's dove sought a rest before 
 the waters were dried up. His rest is in Palestine. 
 In the "Hebrew Observer," a newspaper con- 
 ducted by Jews, and very hostile to Christianity, I 
 found, a few weeks ago, a poem in which a Jew 
 apparently applies to Mahometanism and to his 
 own race the very phrases employed in our Apo- 
 calypse, and forms the same inferences respecting 
 the speedy restoration of the Jews which I have 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 27 
 
 been endeavouriDg to gather, on ground he refuses 
 to tread.* 
 
 "REDEMPTION DRAWETII NIGH. 
 
 " Lift up your heads, ye pilgrim bands — 
 
 Hark ! hear ye not the cry 
 Which sweeps across the desert sands, — 
 His voice, who heaven and earth commands ? 
 
 Redemption draweth nigh 1 
 
 " Lift up your heads ! The Crescent wanes 
 In yonder Eastern sky ; 
 Beneath whose beam Oppression reigns, — 
 Beneath whose beam Pollution stains : 
 Redemption draweth nigh ! 
 
 " Lift up your heads I Euphrates' stream 
 Is spent, — its course is dry, — 
 The Prophet's vision is no dream, — 
 His burden is no idle theme : 
 Redemption draweth nigh I 
 
 " Lift up your heads, ye Eastern Kings I 
 
 Ask ye the reason why ? 
 
 Who bore you erst on eagles' wings. 
 
 You to your land in triumph brings : 
 
 Redemption draweth nigh 1 
 
 " Lift up your heads ! The nations quake. 
 Who raised their horn on high ; — 
 See how their ancient pillars shake. 
 While from a dream their monarchs wake ! 
 Redemption draweth nigh ! 
 
 * I have reason to believe, from subsequent and recent in- 
 formation, that these lines, though accepted by the Jewish 
 newspaper, have a Gentile origin. 
 
28 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 " Lift up your heads ! The Moslem's fane 
 
 No more provokes a sigh ; 
 Lo ! Israel's Lion shakes his mane 
 I see Him stalk athwart the plain : 
 
 Redemption draweth nigh ! 
 
 " Lift up your heads ! for Canaan's soil 
 Is yours. Ye shall not buy. 
 Long has it yielded, as a spoil, 
 Its corn, its wine, its fruit, its oil : 
 Redemption draweth nigh ! 
 
 " Lift up your heads ! Your temple dome 
 
 Shall once more kiss the sky ! 
 Jerusalem shall be your home. 
 From which her sons no more shall roam : 
 
 Redemption draweth nigh ! 
 
 " Lift up your heads ! Lift up your voice ! 
 Ye heralds, quickly fly ! 
 Bid Israel's exiled tribes rejoice ; 
 Israel, the people of His choice ; 
 Redemption draweth nigh ! '* 
 
 As if to indicate the effects of Russian ascend- 
 ency in the East, and the probable way in which 
 the Jews will be driven from their homes and to- 
 ward their own land, we find in the "Hebrew 
 Observer" the following eloquent article : — 
 
 " It seems to be the fate of Jews and Judaism, 
 voluntarily or reluctantly, to be involved in every 
 great question agitating the civilized world. Whe- 
 ther they boldly place themselves in the foreground, 
 — brave danger, and plunge into the midst of peril ; 
 or hide themselves in the most secret recess, and 
 sedulously avoid every contingency which could 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 29 
 
 compromise their safety, it is all the same ; they 
 cannot escape their fate. They are to stand pro- 
 minent before the world; the eyes and attention 
 of mankind are never to be withdrawn from them. 
 Thus has destiny willed it, and the will of destiny 
 must be fulfilled. A most striking exemplification 
 of this is afibrdcd by the Eastern question. 
 
 " That little spot on the map of the globe, called 
 Palestine, had, after having changed masters as 
 often as conquering hordes devastated Asia, at last 
 passed into the hands of the Turks. The Osmanlis 
 were at that time at the zenith of their power. 
 Three quarters of the globe trembled at the din of 
 their arms, whilst the semi-savages on the Scythian 
 steppes had but succeeded in shaking off the yoke 
 of the Tartars. Little was it then thought that 
 within a few generations after the tables would be 
 turned, that the despised power of the Muscovites 
 would presume to dictate laws to the successors of 
 the superb Soliman. Such, however, was the will 
 of destiny. And what was the indirect cause of 
 the warlike preparations now taking place in the 
 West of Europe, and the shedding of blood equally 
 staining the fertile plains on the Danube, and the 
 bleak mountains of the Black Sea ? Does the Czar 
 profess a war of conquest ? Is it tliat he wishes to 
 transfer the seat of his government from the un- 
 wholesome marshes on the Keva to the salubrious 
 tracts on the Golden Horn ? l^o, not a single vil- 
 lage, thus has he solemnly declared, will he sever 
 from the dominions of the Porte. The indirect 
 3* 
 
80 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 cause of war proceeded from the land once inha- 
 bited by Israel, — from the land given to him as an 
 inheritance for ever, and which is now trodden 
 down by Gentiles. The land usurped by Maho- 
 metan, Greek, and Papist, like ill-gotten property 
 in general, becomes to its holder a curse instead 
 of blessing. Papist and Greek disputed rights 
 which belonged to neither, therefore the anger of 
 Him who had declared, " To thee and to thy seed 
 I give this land for ever," was kindled. The dis- 
 pute first became a source of humiliation to the 
 Papist; subsequently one of great vexation, and 
 possibly of great disaster to the Greek : and now 
 a spark has gone forth from Palestine, which 
 threatens to set the world on fire. Thus has re- 
 luctant Judaism been dragged on the foreground. 
 But the Jews as a body, too, are deeply involved 
 in the Eastern question. 
 
 " The two principal seats of Judaism since time 
 immemorial, were on the Pyrenean peninsula and 
 the plains of Sarmatia. The suicidal policy of 
 Ferdinand the Catholic drove the majority of his 
 Jewish subjects from the West to the East, where 
 that shelter was afforded them by the Crescent, 
 which the Cross denied them. The Turkish domi- 
 nions became an asylum of the fugitives from Spain 
 and Portugal. In Turkey myriads of them settled, 
 multiplied, and took root. Again, the largest por- 
 tion of what formed formerly the kingdom of 
 Poland, which, together with the maritime pro- 
 vinces on the Baltic, contained the most numerous 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 31 
 
 Jewish population in the world, fell into the hand 
 of Russia. 
 
 "And now the two monarchs in whose domi- 
 nions the greatest part of the Jewish settlements 
 find themselves, are at war ; and should the King 
 of the !N'orth prevail against the King of the South, 
 then the mass of the Jews would be at the feet of 
 the Czar ; and what mercy would it have to expect 
 when the butcher from the north draweth nigh ? 
 The treatment experienced by the Eussian Jews at 
 the hand of the Scythian Gog Magog, is an earnest 
 and foretaste of that which would be the melan- 
 choly lot of those now enjoying the protection of 
 the mild Abdul Medjid, should they have the mis- 
 fortune of falling into his power. Nicholas rules 
 his Jewish subjects with an iron rod. Mercy, upon 
 the very admission of his admirers, is not an ele- 
 ment of his character ; and the Jews are guilty of 
 a most heinous oftence, — of an enormity of the 
 blackest dye, — of a crime most unpardonable in a 
 country the population of which looks up to its 
 monarch as to a God ; pays him Divine honours, 
 and considers his decisions as infallible — the Jews 
 of Russia are guilty of dissent from the opinions 
 and the innermost convictions of the Czar. The 
 Jews of Russia dare to differ from their monarch 
 on points of rehgion, and to hold in abhorrence 
 the idolatrous worship of a people that bow down 
 before images, and in mockery of the Bible, though 
 professing to believe in it, transgress its most sacred, 
 injunctions. This dissent, and nothing else, thus 
 
32 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 we declare aloud and empliatically before the 
 world, is the crime of the Jews in the eyes of the 
 Emperor." 
 
 So Jews flee from Eussia, and find rest in Pales- 
 tine. 
 
 "It is true that this is not the pretext under 
 which they are oppressed, — crushed, — ground 
 down, and trampled under foot. It is true that 
 this is not the plea which is set up in justification 
 of the Pharaonic cruelties daily inflicted upon 
 them, and under which thousands of families are 
 driven away from their native homes, where the 
 ashes of their ancestors repose, where the houses 
 of worship are reared in which they and their fore- 
 fathers used to pray, where they drew the first 
 breath of ]ife, where the child, the youth, the man 
 and woman, found a play-ground, a scene for sport, 
 and a peaceful dwelling, and to which they are 
 attached by the most hallowed associations and 
 most endearing ties, in order to drag on a miser- 
 able existence in some strange and dreary place, 
 where they are totally unknown, in most cases 
 hateful intruders, and utterly deprived of the 
 means of obtaining a livelihood. I^^icholas may 
 disclaim Asiatic barbarism, may pride himself 
 upon the semblance of civilization, difl^used over 
 the surface of Eussian society; but, surely, the 
 wholesale transportation of masses of the popula- 
 tion is nothing less than the worst characteristic 
 of that semi-civilization, which unites the vices 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 33 
 
 both of refinement and barbarism. The wholesale 
 transportation of masses of the population is a feat 
 performed by such unstable powers as those of 
 Assyria and Babylonia. The insane IN'ebuchadnezzar 
 might be guilty of such an enormity as carrying 
 away the population of a whole country, but the 
 sagacious J^apoleon never resorted to an expedient 
 which can only be adopted by an individual who 
 laughs to scorn the most sacred rights of man, who 
 is utterly indifterent to the appalling misery and 
 agonising horrors inflicted at his behest. It is true, 
 this is not the charge brought against the Jews in 
 justification of the gross violation, on the part of 
 the Emperor, of the most sensitive feelings, and of 
 the most sacred and warmest aftections, which the 
 Creator implanted in the human breast. . . . 
 
 " But, alas ! we argue amidst a constitutional 
 people, wont to discuss and base its laws upon his- 
 torical and rational foundations. We have no hope 
 whatever that our voice will reach the Muscovite 
 despot, or that our arguments will produce any 
 impression upon his self-will. We write to give 
 vent to our feelings ; we write to place the most 
 melancholy position of our unfortunate brethren 
 in its proper light ; and lastly, we write to show 
 how deeply interested we, as Jews, are in the 
 'struggle now agitating the East, and that if as 
 Englishmen it be our duty to assist in carrying out 
 the line of policy now pursued by the Western 
 Powers — as Jews we should strain every nerve to 
 prevent Eussia from extending her influence still 
 
34 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 wider, and from thus preparing for our Eastern 
 brethren the same trammels which now chain 
 those whom an inscrutable Providence has placed 
 under the yoke of the despot in the J^orth." 
 
 During the action of the Sixth Vial, while the 
 stream of the Euphrates evaporates, and the Jews 
 are rising and beginning to seek the land of their 
 fathers, three unclean spirits, like frogs, go out of 
 the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of 
 the beast, and out of the mouth of the false pro- 
 phet — spirits of devils, working miracles. All of 
 them go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of 
 the whole world, to gather them together to the 
 battle of Armageddon, the great day of Almighty 
 God. I may observe that these spirits have gone 
 forth since the year 1820, when the Mahometan 
 power began to wane, to deceive the nations. 
 "What are these unclean spirits ? We understand 
 their nature from their origin. The first is from 
 the dragon — the Infidel spirit, which is now com- 
 monly called Secularism. The second is from the 
 wild beast of the abyss, which (I need not explain 
 to you) is evidently Eomanism. The third, from 
 the false prophet, that looks like a lamb, but speaks 
 like a dragon, is the spirit of Priesthood, called, 
 rudely, Puseyism, and, courteously, Tractarianism. 
 I appeal to every reader, if the last ten years do 
 not afibrd irresistible evidence of the action of 
 these unclean spirits. 
 
 In Germany, in France, and even in England 
 and America, and in every part of the globe, the 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 35 
 
 Infidel spirit, in various disguises, is actively at 
 work. I do not pause to adduce the evidence. 
 Much of the revolutionary spirit in Italy and in 
 Austria is really infidel. It is a reaction from the 
 revolting superstition and despotism by which they 
 were crushed. The Eomish spirit, again, so justly 
 represented by the unclean frog, has been croak- 
 ing over the length and breadth of our country, 
 and, indeed, over Christendom, making proselytes 
 in every rank, swelling its battalions only for its 
 more terrific overthrow, and finishing its triumphs 
 by the marvellous blunder of 1850, when it snatched 
 at a gem in the diadem of England's crown, and 
 lost its best footing ; and the Pope dreamed, in his 
 folly, that the Eomish pulse at a well-known 
 western bishop's wrist was the beat in the heart of 
 Old England. The third unclean spirit is clearly 
 shown by Mr. Elliot to be what I have called Trac- 
 tarianism, or the recent Anglican assumption of 
 priestly power. This is in many quarters the pre- 
 dominant spirit of the age. And what is its cha- 
 racter ? It is Popery, minus Pio Nino. It has all 
 the apostasy, without the honesty of them that 
 subscribe to the Canoi^ of Trent. The minister 
 is merged in the priest — the glory of the Master in 
 the pretensions of the messenger — personal worth 
 in official claims — the glory in the altar — and men's 
 souls are bowed down by ceremony, instead of 
 their hearts being captivated by love. In the Kew 
 Testament, ministers of the Go^el are called am- 
 bassadors. In this system they are priests. If a 
 
86 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 rnan be an ambassador, he cannot, by the very 
 necessity of the thing, be a priest. A priest is one 
 who carries my cause to God, and deals for me 
 with God ; an ambassador is one that brings God's 
 mind to me, and deals with me from God. If, 
 therefore, a minister be a priest, he cannot be an 
 ambassador ; if he be an ambassador, he cannot 
 be a priest. Let Dr. Pusey take which horn of the 
 dilemma he pleases ; impaled on one or the other 
 he must be, and there he must remain miserably 
 perched, until he fully renounces or fully accepts 
 his error.* 
 
 l!Tow, these unclean spirits, whose names and 
 nature I have briefly touched upon, are at this 
 moment inspiring the kings and princes and rulers 
 of the earth, secular and ecclesiastical, having 
 emerged under the Sixth Vial, but continuing 
 under the seventh. Eussia, driven on from the 
 East — Turkey, roused against her will — the Czar 
 and the Sultan in mortal conflict — France and 
 England, in spite of skilful diplomacy, precipitating 
 the conflict they dread and cannot avert — Austria 
 and Prussia standing by, vainly attempting neu- 
 trality — are the shadows of coming events, the 
 tokens of a terrible inspiration. 'New dispositions 
 may stave ofi' or arrest for a day ; but the urging 
 force of the stream is too strong, and the venomous 
 
 * In a recent leading article of the Times, it was stated that 
 Dr. Gumming regards the Bishop of Oxford as " the son of per- 
 dition." I hold the Pope to be the wearer of this brand, and 
 the Tractarians to have "the mark" of Antichrist, 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 37 
 
 spirits that impel it too active and powerful, to be 
 permanently and eftectually repressed. Their in- 
 fluence is extended to, and in action under, the 
 last — called, in the Apocalypse, the Seventh Vial. 
 These unclean spirits come out under the sixth ; 
 they do not retire under it, however, but continue 
 their action during the seventh ; and it is during 
 their action, under the pouring out of the seventh 
 vial, that the last and greatest struggle takes place. 
 Look across the sea, and behold what is now the 
 condition of Europe. The nations are heaving to 
 their centres — infidel, democratical, and priestly 
 elements fermenting and generating, in the subter- 
 ranean depths of society, those terrific elements 
 which are destined to explode and shatter thrones, 
 rend shrines, and overturn altars. 
 
 After the rise of the angel of the everlasting 
 Gospel, which occurred at the end of the French 
 Eevolution, and was embodied in the various Bible 
 and Missionary Societies that then arose in bnlliant 
 and beneficent succession, another angel is seen to 
 spread his pinion, and to proclaim war against the 
 errors of Babylon. This was fulfilled in the various 
 Protestant societies, and especially in that earnest 
 and universal protest that still sounds from thou- 
 sands of pulpits and platforms throughout the 
 land. These shall grow louder as Babylon grows 
 feebler, and finally mingle with her knell.* 
 
 * I look on the Society for Irish Church Missions, and the 
 Protestant Reformation Society's Special Mission to Romanists 
 in England, as the two Societies having the most pressing and 
 peculiar claims on the age. 
 
 4 
 
38 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 I now proceed to infer the x^l^ce we occupy in 
 the current of the years, by comparing ancient 
 predictions of future scenes and events, with present 
 and obvious facts. It is during the closing days 
 of this dispensation that a remarkable prophecy in 
 Daniel comes to be fulfilled. By the evidences of 
 the fulfilment of this prophecy we shall be able to 
 ascertain our position : " Many shall run to and 
 fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Could I 
 give a more succinct and impressive description of 
 the age in which we live ? During the last seven- 
 teen years there has been more speedy, frequent, 
 and extended travelling, than during the seventeen 
 hundred years before. The stationary habits of 
 former generations have been utterly broken. The 
 numbers that move on the iron rail have baffled 
 all anticipation ; an enormous net- work of iron has 
 overspread east, west, north, and south, by which 
 five hundred people at a time are taken from capi- 
 tal to capital, with all the speed, accuracy, and pre- 
 cision of a weaver's shuttle. The gold discoveries 
 in Australia and California, the mere surface of 
 which we have only yet touched, have covered the 
 ocean with gigantic steamers, till the surface of the 
 sea is as populous as the surface of the land. The 
 antipodes are now reached from London as soon 
 as the Hebrides "used to be ; and, as in the instance 
 of Panama, continents are severed and intersected, 
 in order to remove obstructions and impediments 
 to the advancing march of men. Apart from the 
 impetus given to travelling, the prodigious influx 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 39 
 
 of gold (and I am told that only the other day a 
 million arrived in this great capital) no longer 
 makes the Apocalyptic statement a poetical extra- 
 vagance, but the literal possibility of the day: 
 "And the streets of the city were pure gold." 
 And whilst there shall be this travelling to and fro, 
 it is added, "Knowledge shall be increased." In 
 all directions this is taking place. , Everybody is 
 seen prying into every department of nature, art, 
 antiquities, history, and science. An insatiable 
 curiosity has seized every mind — a thirst for infor- 
 mation has come upon every rank. Long-buried 
 secrets are stepping forth from their hiding-places, 
 at the bidding of men who refuse to be disap- 
 pointed. Nineveh has arisen from the dead, to tell 
 mankind what the Bible has been telling cease- 
 lessly, " Holy men of old spake as they were moved 
 by the Holy Ghost." The Polar realms are ex- 
 plored; the secrets of the iceberg and the tenantry 
 of the frozen zone arc brought to light ; and the 
 attempt of a thousand years — in pursuit of which 
 the gallant Franklin and countless brave seamen 
 have perished — the North-west Passage, has at 
 length been achieved; and the North Pole will 
 probably be as clearly revealed in a few years as 
 the Equator is now. Medical science has attained 
 wondrous progress since Jesus, who consecrated it 
 by his example, lived and healed, and suffered and 
 died. Those formidable epidemics, the offspring 
 of our sin as much as the judgment of God, are 
 more thoroughly understood ; and I do not see why 
 
40 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the pestilence which we call typhus, or the other 
 pestilence we call fever, or the other we call 
 cholera, or the last and worst endemic, rather than 
 epidemic, we call consumption, may not, by God's 
 blessing, be as much mitigated as a recent pesti- 
 lence, more destructive than any of them, known 
 by the name of small-pox. "We see in all these 
 things predicted progress in knowledge. And that 
 wonderful anaesthetic agent, chloroform, which is a 
 very recent discovery, has mitigated the primal 
 curse pronounced on one half the human family, 
 and rendered the terrible operation of the surgeon's 
 knife scarcely perceptible to the subject of it. 
 
 During the last days, it is stated, as another fact 
 and feature, that " the gospel of the kingdom shall 
 be preached among all nations for a witness." 
 ISTow, is not this a distinguishing sign of the age ? 
 China, the impregnable fortress of inveterate su- 
 perstition, has lifted up its everlasting gates, and 
 partly without and partly with our teaching, the 
 truths of the King of Glory have entered, and the 
 glorious sound of the Gospel may be now heard 
 reverberating in the streets of Pekin; and our 
 country, true to its responsibility, is pouring Bibles 
 and missionaries into it. The proposal of the ex- 
 cellent Mr. James, of Birmingham, to send a mil- 
 lion Chinese Testaments into China, has been 
 taken up, and more than the expense is now pro- 
 vided. In all probability, a half million of Old 
 Testaments will be added. The tribes that cluster 
 around the North Pole, whose home is the region 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 41 
 
 of pei'petual snow, have been sought out for bo 
 
 many years apparently to gratify curiosity, but 
 
 really to complete the fullilment of the prophecy : 
 
 " This gospel shall be preached as a witness among 
 
 all nations." The Moslem, the Hindoo, and the 
 
 Chinaman, are emerging into the everlasting light. 
 
 In every tongue on earth the Gospel has its music 
 
 and its glad echo. In every latitude and longitude 
 
 the cross is revealed, obstructing walls are falling ; 
 
 and where Christianity may not be accepted as a 
 
 remedy, it is everywhere heajrd as a witness, and 
 
 is, therefore, according to the words of our Lord, 
 
 a precursor of the end. 
 
 Another symptom of the close of this age is now 
 
 patent, the great boasting of the Romish Babylon. 
 
 Never did the Church of Rome boast louder than 
 
 she does now. She saith in her heart, "I sit a 
 
 queen, and am no widow." This is dotage, not 
 
 power. Her last day shall be her proudest, her 
 
 dying resistance will be the greatest. She will go 
 
 down, as sure as there is truth in prophecy ; but 
 
 like a ship at sea, every sail set, and her prophecies 
 
 of supremacy lifted up loudest and most impudent 
 
 to the end. She has crushed every attempt within 
 
 to rectify her errore and reform her corruptions ; 
 
 she has persecuted .with the sword and fagot every 
 
 exertion from without to awaken her to a sense of 
 
 apostasy ; her pride has grown with her years ; her 
 
 pretensions are, in the year 1854, louder than in 
 
 the palmy days of Hildebrand himself. But her 
 
 imperial splendour shall be her funeral pall ; her 
 4 * 
 
42 SIG^NS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 present glory shall soon only light her to her 
 grave. 
 
 At this ver}^ period, immediately before the de- 
 struction of the Crescent in the East and of the 
 Tiara in the West, we read in Old and New Testa- 
 ment prophecy, there will be a general war over 
 the length and breadth of Europe; the unclean 
 spirits preparing the kings of the earth for the 
 great battle, or rather war, as the Scripture calls 
 it, of God Almighty. Many and terrible are the 
 signs of the fulfilment. The revolutionary fires 
 that are smouldering under every throne will one 
 day burst out ; and every capital in Europe shall 
 blaze, every village become a camp, and every 
 country a battle-field. Assembled kings shall de- 
 bate their very existence in the high places of the 
 earth, and kingdom dash against kingdom, like 
 stars broken loose from their orbits; and rulers 
 fall from their high places, like leaves or unripe 
 fruit from the fig-tree, when shaken by fierce winds. 
 Every acre of Europe is covered at this hour with 
 strange and ominous shadows, which coming events 
 cast before. Auguries of looming evils have found 
 access to cabinets and councils ; and statesmen at 
 their wits' end look pale and perplexed, while their 
 hearts tremble for fear of the things that are coming 
 on the earth. 1848 was a great sea-wave, rising 
 and reaching far up the shores of Europe, and then 
 receding, but only to gather fresh volume, and to 
 come up again augmented in mass, and with ac- 
 cumulated speed, to burst over the lowliest hearth- 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 43 
 
 stone and the loftiest roof-tree, convulsing all 
 things, wasting many, yet sweeping away the cor- 
 rupting drift-weed of centuries, and destined, we 
 believe, in the purposes of God, to baptize rather 
 than ovenvhelra and bury the earth. 
 
 Another remarkable sign of the times, and, in 
 its place, significant of our impression of the near- 
 ness of the end of the age, is the intensity that is 
 concentrated in almost every sphere and depart- 
 ment of life. The object may be great, or the 
 pursuit may he in itself worthless ; but everywhere 
 you perceive that energy, and vigour, and great 
 force are in it. Let it be the manufacture of a pin, 
 or the enlightenment of a soul, — let it be the ser- 
 vice of a master behind ^he counter, or of our gra- 
 cious Queen in the cabinet, — there is condensed in 
 it evident, and palpable, and untiring energy. For 
 evil or for good, the age of apathy is gone. Men 
 are in earnest in all they do ; they are doing what 
 they undertake with all their might. All seem to 
 feel as if the time for their mission were pretenia- 
 turally short, and the force they have extremely 
 inadequate, and the night of time, or the night of 
 death, too near to allow of respite from their toils, 
 or a relaxation of their energies. 
 
 What is Tractarianism but old High Churchism 
 in earnest? Ignorant of vital and evangelical 
 truth, it is occupied about robes, and candles, and 
 genuflexions, and crosses, and phylacteries. Better 
 however earnest anything than dead everything. 
 
44 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 We pray that their earnestness may "be directed by 
 the Spirit of God to objects worthy of it! 
 
 This intensity is a prophetic instinct, a sign of 
 the times, an omen of the retiring snn and the 
 ' gathering darkness, the termination of the groans 
 of humanity, the travail of nature, and the wind- 
 ing up of a drama of which angels have been for 
 six thousand years the spectators, and men the 
 solemn actors. If this be a sign of the times, and 
 the character of the men of this world, let us 
 Christians excel, not fall behind them. "Work 
 while it is called To-day." " Whatsoever thy hand 
 findeth to do, do it with thy might." The warning 
 cry is ringing loud and clear from every quarter 
 of the compass — " The Bmlegroom cometh !" Are 
 our lamps burning? Are our loins girt? Are our 
 hands in the shop, in the counting-house, the se- 
 nate, but our hearts, and our hopes, and our trea- 
 sure in heaven, where Christ is, and from whence 
 w^e look for the Lord ? 
 
 Another very pregnant and remarkable sign of 
 the times, and peculiarly suggestive, is the disinte- 
 gration and disorganization of all things.' Where 
 reformation is refused, revolution begins. Whether 
 there be or be not the hope of improvement, there 
 is all but a universal determination to have change. 
 Age is no defence; past services to generations 
 gathered to their rest is no apology. Some who 
 were in former days the strenuous champions of 
 things that be, have now become the earnest advo- 
 cates of new creations. Some may be factious, 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 45 
 
 others restless, but all seem to be unanimous in 
 their desire to alter the existing economy. This is 
 a feature of the day — a sign of the times. And 
 what means it? It is the disorganization of the 
 old, that is ready to pass away, preparatory to the 
 emergence from beneath the horizon of a new and 
 more glorious order of things, which God has pro- 
 mised, and man vainly expects he can himself 
 create. In chemistry and in the moral arrange- 
 ments of the world, the disintegration of existing 
 combinations is always preparatory to new and 
 frequently more beautiful revelations of the glory 
 of the Maker, and the beauty of the things He has 
 made. Chaos grew into genesis six thousand years 
 ago. The fall will issue in the regeneration and 
 restoration of all things. Designedly or undesign- 
 edly, we are breaking up the present, in order to 
 make way for the construction of the future ; and 
 the speed, and energy, and universal consent with 
 which we enter on the work, is one of the signs 
 that the new heaven and new earth wherein dwell- 
 eth righteousness is at our doors, and that pre- 
 sentiments, which are prophecies, are within us. 
 The solemn prophecy of Ezekiel seems the veiy 
 type and sj>irit of the age : — " I will overturn, over- 
 turn, overturn ; and it shall be no more, until He 
 shall come whose right it is." " Thus saith the 
 Lord, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake 
 the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the 
 dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the 
 Desire of all nations shall come ; and I will fill 
 
46 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 this house T^dth my glory, saith the Lord of 
 hosts." 
 
 Another sign of the close of this dispensation is 
 one that is exciting disputes and suggesting diffi- 
 culties among many — the expectation of superna- 
 tural, or rather infra-natural manifestations of the 
 wicked one. I cannot shut my eyes to the predic- 
 tions of Scripture as to the character of the last 
 days. Feats above the level of the human are 
 ascribed to the Antichrist — assumed and exercised 
 by the Church of Rome — and in intenser degree, 
 and with yet more appalling emphasis, will in all 
 probability be displayed, before Eome sinks into 
 the fiery gulf, and Antichrist is destroyed by the 
 brightness of the Eedeemer's advent. Let us hear 
 such predictions as these : (2 Thess. ii. 9) — " "Whose 
 coming is after (or according to) the working (or 
 energy) of Satan, with all power, and signs, and 
 lying wonders." The phrase, "lying wonders," 
 does not here mean lying miracles, but miracles 
 that profess to prove what is a lie. !N"ow, the 
 Church of Rome is at the present moment radiating 
 miracles she calls so in all directions. Many of 
 them, as given by Dr. Newman, are exceedingly 
 absurd, and proofs of the Oratorian's wonderful 
 credulity ; but I am not sure that the priests of the 
 Church of Rome have not done supernatural, or 
 rather infra-natural deeds, above the reach of 
 "human power, by the inspiration and the aid of 
 the wicked one. I remember one day, — and I re- 
 lated the circumstance once before, in a Lecture in 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 47 
 
 Exeter hall, — sitting in my study, when the servant 
 came in, and said, " A strange-looking gentleman 
 wants to see you." The gentleman was ushered 
 in. The moment he appeared, I scanned him from 
 top to toe, with all a Scotchman's penetration and 
 watchfulness. As I looked at him, I saw that he 
 had a hat, which he politely took off, so broad that 
 it would have been an admirable parasol in sun- 
 shine, and a splendid umbrella in a heavy shower. 
 I noticed that he had a dingy cloak all over him, 
 reaching down nearly to his very ankles, with a 
 large cross, and a heart pierced by a dagger on his 
 left breast, and written round it, '' Passio Jesu 
 Christi Domini.'' I looked at his feet, but instead 
 of seeing those very vulgar and secular things 
 called boots or shoes, I noticed that he had no 
 stockings and no shoes, and, instead, a sole of 
 leather below each foot, each string coming be- 
 tween each toe, and all tied round his ankles ; and 
 the knot or bow, I think you call it, was so exqui- 
 sitely tied, that, if he were not a monk, I should 
 have said a lady must have tied it, for no man's 
 iingers could have done it. Though I had seen 
 him only once in my life before, in a railway car- 
 riage, I knew him at once, and said, " I believe I 
 have the honour of addressing the Hon. and Rev. 
 George Spencer?" (brother of the Earl Spencer.) 
 He said, " That was my name ; but my name now 
 is Father Ignatius, the Passionist." I said, " I am 
 very glad to see you." He said he had called upon 
 Lord John Russell, and Dr. Hook, and ^r. Villi^rs, 
 
48 SIGJs^S OF THE TIMES. 
 
 I tliink, and many others ; and, knowing I had a 
 deep interest in the Roman Catholic question, he 
 had come to me to make a grand proposition, 
 which he had submitted to others. I said, "Let 
 me hear it." He answered, ''It is this; that you 
 cease to preach any more against Popery on your 
 side, and that we cease to preach anymore against 
 Protestantism on our side, and begin to pray for 
 unity." I said to him, ""Well, that seems very 
 beautiful ; but how can two walk together except 
 they be agreed ? I am preparing a Lecture for 
 next Tuesday evening, the very title of which is, 
 ' The Pope the Man of Sin : ' now, how can you 
 and I pull together?" I said, " Father Ignatius, I 
 tell you what we can do. You can meet me at 
 Exeter Hall an hour before the time; you shall 
 explain for half-an-hour your plan ; I will explain 
 in half-an-hour my difficulties ; then I will give 
 you a quarter of an hour's correction of my blun- 
 ders ; and you can then listen to my Lecture." He 
 said " he would be happy to come and avail him- 
 self of the opportunity," but refused to listen to 
 my Lecture. He objected to controversy altoge- 
 ther. I said, " Will you let a clergyman of the 
 Church of England begin with that beautiful col- 
 lect, ' God, to whom all hearts are open, all 
 desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,' 
 and the Lord's prayer?" He said, "I^o, certainly 
 not ; it is contrary to our convictions as Catholics 
 to pray with those that are heretics : therefore we 
 cannot pray together." "Well, Father," I said, 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 49 
 
 after an hour's convei'sation, "sometimes I am 
 struck with the conviction that there is somethin<r 
 in your Church ahove the level of the human. I 
 see such devotedness in your priests — (and who 
 can deny it ?) — I see such sacrifices made by some 
 — (and it is right that we should concede it) — I see 
 in yourself, for instance, such sequestration to what 
 I believe to be an awful and a miserable supersti- 
 tion — I see in you such untiring earnestness, that 
 I sometimes begin to think. Father Ignatius, that 
 your Church has something supernatural or infra- 
 natural about it." He paused, and, looking me in 
 the face, said with great solemnity, "Dr. Cumming, 
 if the Church of Rome be not the only Church of 
 the living God, she is the master-piece of the devil ; 
 she can be nothing between." I said to him, " You 
 will pardon me, but I solemnly believe your Church 
 belongs to the second alternative you mentioned." 
 He said, " It is what I expected ; it is what I sup- 
 posed; and, therefore, it does not at all surprise 
 me." And we parted. I gave him a little book — 
 a very small book — called, " Christ receiving Sin- 
 ners." "Now," I said, "Father Ignatius, we may 
 never meet again in this world ; will you read this 
 book? It has no eloquence; but it is a simple 
 statement of the way of a sinner's acceptance with 
 God, as I believe it to be true." He said, " I will 
 take your book, but I won't promise to read it." 
 "Well, then," I said, "if you won't read it, I will 
 take the book back; I can find plenty that will 
 read it." "Well," he said, "you have been so 
 5 
 
60 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 courteous and kind, and have received me in such 
 a pleasant manner, that for once I will promise to 
 read the book." I entered his name on its title- 
 page as a gift from me ; and I have prayed — and 
 prayer is the noblest controversial weapon we can 
 employ — that it may please the Holy Spirit to 
 bless it to that misguided, simple man, too simple 
 to be the tool of the Vatican, so that he may come 
 out of his prison-house, and testify, amid such a 
 dense mass of listening immortals as that which 
 meets in Exeter Hall, the glorious Gospel of God, 
 in contrast with the soul-destroying superstitions 
 and corruptions of Rome. I do not dwell upon 
 this ; I quote it merely to show that my conviction 
 of the supernatural character of the Church of 
 Rome is not peculiar to me. If Satan inspires the 
 Papacy, he will enable it to do signs and wonders. 
 
 Some think that already Satan is manifesting 
 supernatural agency, and doing feats that cor- 
 respond to those predicted to occur in the last days 
 of our dispensation. We must be on our guard 
 against the secularism which excludes the super- 
 natural altogether, and the superstition which sees 
 supernatural feats everywhere. 
 
 Professor IsTewman represents the one class, 
 Dr. Newman the other. But caution is not incre- 
 dulity, and credulity is not Christianity. 
 
 Some excellent men allege that table-turning and 
 table-speaking is a sign of the times, a proof of the 
 presence of Satan and of the occurrence of infra- 
 natural miracles. Now, I think I am competent 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 51 
 
 to speak on this subject ; it is not an impertinent 
 pretence to say so. I cannot agree with some, who 
 denounce its claims to be supernatural as primd 
 facie false, because impossible ; nor can I agree 
 with those who have arrived at the conclusion that 
 it is a manifestation of Satanic power, or direct 
 communication with disembodied spirits, or in any 
 sense a superhuman thing. I was asked to go and 
 visit two of the most able and effective performers 
 upon tables in the house of a dear and valued 
 friend, a member of my congregation. I watched, 
 suspiciously, the whole from beginning to end. it 
 is important, however, to discriminate two things 
 confounded. There is table-moving, which is one 
 thing; there is table-speaking, or disembodied 
 spirits speaking through tables (as it is alleged), 
 which is a totally different thing. The one may 
 be a scientific phenomenon ; the other I shall try 
 to describe as I think it deserves. It may seem 
 presumptuous to say, even with deepest deference, 
 that I am satisfied that Faraday in his letter does 
 not explain the phenomenon. This may be my 
 error, but it is my impression. Whether it be by 
 electricity, or galvanism, or mesmerism, or any 
 other yet undetected motive and subtle element, it 
 is a fact, that the fingers of a lady laid lightly on a 
 heavy table, made it, in my presence, spin round, 
 lift its legs, stamp the floor, and throw itself into 
 most extraordinary and unbecoming convulsions. 
 Table-turning, however, is an amusement for 
 children. Table-talking is not so. The one is 
 
52 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 child's-play, the other is either downright nonsense 
 or worse. It is important that we should under- 
 stand, if possible, what pretends to be above 
 human; for while expecting miracles, and signs 
 supernatural, or rather infra-natural, in the last 
 days, we must be on our guard against imposture, 
 and prepare to decide what are, and w^hat are not 
 so. My friends asserted in their drawing-room, not 
 only that this new motive power was true (which 
 may or may not be), but that there was something 
 above and beyond table-moving in it, or the super- 
 natural. It may be electricity, it may be galvanism, 
 it may be neither ; or it may be some other natural 
 influence which we do not, at present, know of; or 
 it may be what Faraday suggests. I am aware 
 there are difiiculties in supposing the existence in 
 human fingers of an undetected power, for how 
 does it happen that when people sit down to dine, 
 and lay their fingers on the table, it does not begin 
 to dance? But it is a fact that I saw a table, 
 touched lightly by the fingers of a lady, whose 
 muscular powers, I am sure, were not very formi- 
 dable, rise, leap, and move from side to side in the 
 most extraordinaiy manner. Faraday I think does 
 not, and I cannot explain this. But it is not there- 
 fore supernatural. My two friends, however, said 
 that it w^as supernatural. They set the table in 
 motion, and then asked me to put questions to the 
 supposed spirit, which had just taken possession of 
 the table. I said, " JSTo, I decline to do so ; I am 
 here simply as a spectator, and have reasons for 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 63 
 
 declining, which I need not state. I am hero 
 simply as an inquirer : you begin, and I will look 
 on." The question was asked, " Do you know the 
 Rev. Mr. Reeve?" The table gave three gentle 
 taps, which means in the table vernacular, "Yes." 
 "Do you know the Rev. Mr. Fisk?" The table 
 gave three gentle raps, in precisely the same 
 manner. After asking two or three questions 
 about various persons, present or absent, and re- 
 ceiving similar polite and courteous replies, my 
 friends asked the supposed spirit, " Do you know 
 Dr. Gumming?" The table positively forgot all 
 the respect due to a lady's drawing-room, and 
 threw itself into a state of convulsive kicking, 
 which made me anxious, not about my creed, but 
 about the table's safety. My friends then asked 
 how many shillings were in my pocket. It guessed 
 eleven, and there were only five. They then asked 
 how many sovereigns I had. It guessed ^ve, and 
 I had only one. It was then asked, "Will you 
 answer Dr. Gumming at all ?" The answer, accord- 
 ing to their interpretation, was "Ko," in the most 
 decided manner. "Why not?" An alphabet was 
 then laid on the table, and, certainly, the proceed- 
 ing was very curious. We began: A, the table 
 stood still ; B, it gave three taps. That was set 
 down as the first letter of the answer. We then 
 began again: A, the table was silent; B, still 
 silent. We went on till we came to E, then there 
 were three taps. This was proceeded with till the 
 words were made out, — "Because he laughs." 
 5* 
 
64 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 When I heard this, I submitted that my laughing 
 and incredulity ought to be a reason for convincing 
 me, and not lea\^ng me a sceptic. But the table, 
 or if not the table its manipulator, seemed to dis- 
 like me excessively. I confess I saw much that 
 was curious ; a great deal ingeniously done ; but I 
 have also seen very remarkable things in the feats 
 of tumblers in the streets of London, in the tricks 
 of card-shufflers in a room, and in the conversa- 
 ziones of ventriloquists in a chimney-nook. But 
 I have seen nothing necessarily supernatural about 
 it ; and mark, if there be a doubt that a thing is a 
 miracle, it is no miracle. In the days of our Lord 
 there was no doubt expressed by bitter enemies 
 that what he did was miraculous ; the puzzle was, 
 "Is it from the devil below, or is it from God 
 above?" But table-talking is so equivocal, that 
 the parties present witnessing the so-called mira- 
 culous responses, are puzzled to determine v^hether 
 it be supernatural, or only very clever and talented. 
 Now, in the last days, I look not for equivocal 
 feats and dubious miracles, but for terrible startling 
 manifestations of superhuman power, which shall 
 deceive, if possible, the very elect. 
 
 But a w^ord more on this subject. I have read 
 on one side the pamphlets of the Kev. Mr. Close 
 and the Rev. D. "Wilson, who have written very 
 ably and admirably ; though I do not agree with 
 either as to the grounds of their decision, yet I 
 agree with their conclusions. I have read every 
 pamphlet I could find on the other side, from that 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 55 
 
 of Mr. Dibdin, one of the best and most pious men 
 in London, to those of Mr. Godfrey, Mr. Gillson, 
 and others who have written in favour of their 
 views; and in reading those various interesting 
 works, I noticed that each inquirer of the table got 
 all his answers very much in the direction of his 
 own wishes and predilections. Let us mark well 
 that fact. For instance: according to the Rev. 
 E,. W. Dibdin, demons enter into the table and tell 
 lies, and declare that the worship of the Virgin 
 Mary is right ; that is, they are Jesuits, or Popish 
 demons. According to Mr. Godfrey, it is the spirits 
 of departed sinners that emerge from hell and con- 
 firm every doctrine of the Bible ; that is, Protest- 
 ant spirits. According to Owen, the infidel and 
 Socialist, Voltaire, and Diderot, and D'Alembert, 
 and Paine, all come down from eternal happiness, 
 and tell him how perfectly happy they are, and 
 have been, and expect to be ! According to the 
 Rev. Mr. Gillson, spirits speak against Popery; 
 while, according to Mr. Dibdin, they praise it, as 
 if they had been the priests of Dr. Wiseman. Now, 
 I cannot believe that an evil spirit would speak the 
 truth, or attest the inspiration of the Bible ; for if 
 a kingdom be divided against itself, how can it 
 stand ? I cannot, in the next place, believe that 
 an evil spirit would be so stupid a blunderer as to 
 preach the worship of the Virgin Mary to so sound 
 and pious a Protestant as Mr. Dibdin. And I can 
 never believe that godly, pious, and evangelical 
 ministers, are the media by whom devils come from 
 
66 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 hell, to tell lies or truths to mankind. Nor can I 
 believe that "Alfred Brown," the name given by 
 one spirit, could describe his torment, as recorded 
 in the book of Mr. Godfrey ; or that any other lost 
 spirit ever can be, or is, suffered to come up to this 
 world and tell the transactions of its awful prison- 
 house, as long as I read the petition of the rich 
 man and the decisive answer that was given him. 
 " I pray thee, father, that thou wouldest send Laza- 
 rus unto my father's house, for I have five brethren, 
 that he may testify unto them, lest they also come 
 into this place of torment. And Abraham said 
 unto him. They have Moses and the prophets : if 
 they hear not them, neither would they be per- 
 suaded though one rose from the dead." Now 
 mark you, if the Old Testament alone was suffi- 
 cient eighteen hundred years ago to render un- 
 necessary and impossible an apparition from the 
 dead to attest its truth, the Old and New Testament 
 together are, a fortiori, more than sufficient to 
 render unnecessary, unexpected, impossible, un- 
 true, an apparition of a spirit from the realms of 
 the lost for the same object and mission. I expect 
 supernatural deeds before this dispensation closes ; 
 but table-talking is not such proof of the manifes- 
 tation of Satan as we are to look for. Besides, 
 Satan has higher game to fly at ; he is at present 
 too busy in spreading German Rationalism, Trac- 
 tarianism. Popery, Mormonism, and various kinds 
 of moral evil, to have any disposable force and 
 time to spare for such bungling manifestation as 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 57 
 
 table-talking. I admit that there is much in it as 
 a physical phenomenon that is curious, much that I 
 cannot explain ; but I protest against the conclu- 
 sion that, because I cannot explain a phenomenon, 
 I am bound to attribute it to supernatural and 
 miraculous agency. The only trace of the serpent's 
 presence, if such it be at all, that I can discover in 
 the matter, is, I confess, to me a very sad one. It 
 is this : that the absurd excitement it has produced 
 should make lunatics in America — that the mon- 
 strous thing should be organized into a church, as 
 they call it, in Philadelphia — that a clergyman 
 should advertise a Lecture on the theoJogy of 
 table-talk in the metropolis of the world ; and that 
 Christian ministers, of undoubted piety and talent, 
 purity of life, and clearness of mind, should waste 
 their influence and weaken their power, by publish- 
 ing mediaeval fancies, monkish nonsense, profane 
 and anile fables. 
 
 Signs are predicted in the firmament, and these, 
 too, are also multiplying. Every day's newspaper 
 contains new and stinking letters descriptive of 
 astral phenomena, alike unexpected and remark- 
 able. For the last three or four years we have 
 heard of new planets, unexpected comets, brilliant 
 auroras, lunar rainbows, and yet more brilliant 
 and remarkable meteoric appearances. I am not 
 superstitious, but I am not sceptical. I cannot 
 help remembering that "signs and sights in the 
 heavens" are the phenomena of the last days, and 
 precede the appearance of the sign of the Son of Man. 
 
58 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Then, in the next place, the Seventh Vial, the 
 last apocalyptic symbol of the judgments of God 
 on earth, will be poured into the air. We read : 
 "And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the 
 air ; and there came a great voice out of the temple 
 of heaven, from the throne, saying. It is done. 
 And there were voices, and thunders, and light- 
 nings ; and there was a great earthquake, such as 
 was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty 
 an earthquake, and so great. And the great city 
 was divided into three parts, and the cities of the 
 nations fell : and great Babylon came in remem- 
 brance before God, to give unto her the cup of 
 the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And 
 every island fled away, and the mountains were 
 not found. And there fell upon men a great hail 
 out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a 
 talent. 'Now mark, this seventh vial was filled 
 with the last plague; the word "plague" comes 
 from the Greek -TrXT^^Tj, a stroke, and means pesti- 
 lence and calamit}^ of every sort. This last vial 
 being poured into the air denotes the universality 
 of its influence, whatever that influence may be. 
 It will reach the loftiest throne ; it will descend to 
 the hovels of the poorest cotter, and make itself so 
 felt that its sprinklings will be unmistakeable as 
 the last terrible baptism of our world. InTow, all 
 these vials have a literal as well as a moral signifi- 
 cance. The prophecy of a " star from the East," 
 denoted figuratively the Messiah ; but when Jesus 
 was born, a literal star appeared. So this vial has 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 59 
 
 its physical and its moral meaning. This vial let fall 
 its first sprinklings, I believe, in 1848 ; and its in- 
 fluence still spreads. From that day to tliis it has 
 been on the fruits of the earth ; from the vines of 
 France, Spain, and Madeira, to the potato of Ireland 
 — a universal and destructive blight. Where is its 
 birth-place ? Medical men tell you, in the air. In vain 
 chemists analyse it ; in vain microscopes are applied ; 
 in vain is it assigned to a peculiarity of soil, season, 
 climate, insects. The only ultimate explanation is 
 the apocalyptic taint, the contents of the angel's vial 
 vitiating the air, the source of life and nutriment, 
 with its terrible and poisonous miasma. The physi- 
 cal proof of the action of the seventh vial is thus com- 
 plete. But its eftects are not confined to vegetable 
 life. Cholera, a new and devastating pestilence ex- 
 isting like other diseases since the fall, but first seen 
 here in 1832, as a premonition, came down upon Eng- 
 land in 1849 ; and ere it ceased, I recollect — for I was 
 in the midst of it — three thousand per week were 
 gathered to their graves. No theory explains this; 
 no medical skill has penetrated its secret. Poverty, 
 filth, bad drainage, crowded hovels, long hours in 
 un ventilated shops, do not create it ; but they draw 
 it down as iron conductors draw down the light- 
 ning ; and then they nurse, and feed, and strengthen 
 it, till it goes forth from the hovels of the poor to 
 the halls of the great, conquering and to conquer, 
 with terrible and disastrous success. It is a taint 
 in the air, a poison of universal presence. It is 
 diluted at present, and has been diluted since 
 
60 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 1849, but it is not spent ; it has come back 
 with concentrated force in 1853 ; and I expect 
 — and the expectation suggests prayer, as the 
 pious man says; and sanitary movement, as the 
 worldly man also rightly says — while I earnestly 
 pray my expectation may be proved erroneous — 
 that it will make 1854 one of the most deadly and 
 fatal periods in the roll of the years of our country, 
 written with weeping, and lamentation, and woe. 
 I look at cholera less as the gift of God — more as 
 a retribution for the sins and misdoings of man- 
 kind. We should learn to see God in the sunshine 
 as well as in the cloud. After cholera has struck 
 down twenty or thirty in St. Giles's, it acquires 
 strength, and visits Belgrave-square ; and we are 
 grateful to God that it is so. It serves to teach the 
 rich occupants, that the sun would shine as brightly 
 on their mansions, if the shadows did not fall on 
 such hovels near them — no class of society must 
 insulate itself, or it must suffer. That poor ragged 
 child in St. Giles's, mother, is thy child. That 
 poor widow, in misery, wretchedness and hunger, 
 lady of rank and title, is thy sister. Do you say, 
 Am I my sister's keeper? Am I my brother's 
 keeper? Cain's curse will be branded on your 
 brow, and Cain's doom and wretchedness wall 
 necessarily be yours. Medical men state, that 
 during the last five or six years disease is less 
 tractable than formerly, and that trivial ailments 
 are more apt to end in fatal diseases. Earth by 
 its sufferings thus responds to the word of God. 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 61 
 
 Facts of universal occurrence, phenomena startling 
 the wide world, seem to assure us that this vial has 
 been poured into the air, and that we are near the 
 winding up of the age. 
 
 There was to be under this vial a great earth- 
 quake. I believe this, if of literal import, is yet 
 to come ; but that part of the Lord's prophecy of 
 earthquakes in divers places has been literally ful- 
 filled.* In England and on the Continent there 
 have been several premonitory convulsions; and 
 in distant countries whole cities have been engulfed 
 during the year that is passed, and thousands of 
 their inhabitants buried in the bowels of the earth ; 
 as. if to show that the expansive gaseous forces are 
 mustering their elements and giving instances of 
 their force preparatory to the tremendous shock 
 which rends the earth, upheaves capitals, and with 
 a voice which shall sound in the depths of men's 
 hearts, as if the hour of doom were approaching, 
 proclaim an epochal hour. Every day I expect to 
 hear the rending of the earth's crust, and the out- 
 burst of its subterranean, long pent-up elements, 
 and with this a moral convulsion — for such an 
 earthquake means in prophecy — that will shake 
 society to its centre. It is absurd in wiseacres to 
 answer, this is impossible. It is predicted. It is 
 certain. All you can fairly question or dispute is 
 the time, not the fact. If you will look at the 
 daily papers of 1848, and read the descriptions 
 
 * While this is passing through the press, The Times calls 
 attention to a terrible earthquake in Calabria. 
 6 
 
62 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 they gave of the French Eevolution that broke out 
 in that year, the first throe of the earthquake as a 
 moral convulsion, you ^vill find that they commonly 
 employ the word " earthquake," — " that unprece- 
 dented earthquake;" and, singularly enough, the 
 language of the Apocalypse (it may be, never read 
 by those who wrote these accounts) is their favour- 
 ite figure: "that great earthquake, such as was 
 not since men were upon the earth." Believers in 
 prophecy, and those who laugh at all revelation, 
 are equally expectant of new and startling occur- 
 rences. One heave of this predicted convulsion 
 has thrown down the walls of China, and revealed 
 the sublime spectacle of some hundred millions of 
 people emerging into the grey dawn of everlasting 
 light. 
 
 Under this Seventh Vial, also, there is to be a 
 great fall of hailstones, which seems to indicate an 
 invasion from the north. The leading great hail- 
 stone is, in all probability, the Czar or Autocrat of 
 all the Eussias. That gigantic empire seems, from 
 the slight and incidental reference to it in prophecy, 
 destined to send down into the w^est and south of 
 Europe, especially the Papal States, an overwhelm- 
 ing deluge of savage barbarians, as God's judgment 
 on the guilty nations of Europe, leaving what was 
 a paradise before, as a desert and wilderness of de- 
 solation behind. These awful events are gathering 
 in the distant horizon. The stormy East will soon 
 startle the quiet West, and the treasures of hail 
 accumulating for years shall sweep society itseU' 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 63 
 
 before its desolating van. Russia is destined to 
 play a mighty, and in all probability a terrible, yet 
 not the less guilty part, in the last act of the world's 
 drama ; there are prophecies in Ezekiel pointedly 
 referring to this portentous empire, to which I beg 
 the reader's attention. 
 
 I dare not say, however, that every sign of the 
 age is sorrowful and sad. I see tokens beautiful 
 and big with promise; I can see strivings that 
 indicate man's hopes and expectancy of a bright- 
 ening day. The roll of prophecy is not all covered 
 with lamentation, and weeping, and woe. I see, 
 in the multiplied attempts to elevate the physical, 
 moral, and social condition of mankind, results 
 created by the conscious or unconscious anticipa- 
 tion of the age to come. What a beautiful type 
 of the coming brotherhood of mankind is such an 
 association as that of the " Young Men's Christian 
 Association," having no basis but the Bible, no 
 element but love, no password but Christ ! What 
 is the great temperance movement — prosecuted 
 with an energy that never fails, losing daily its first 
 rashness, yet nothing of its first zeal — but a pro- 
 phetic efiTort to induce men soberly to weigh their 
 responsibilities, and watch with calmness the rush 
 of events as they sweep by, and so make ready for 
 the coming of the Lord ? What is the great social 
 Sanitary movement but an evidence of man's con- 
 viction that this house of ours will one day be, 
 what we would rejoice to see it now, swept and 
 garnished, and prepared for the presence of the 
 
64 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Bride awaiting the advent of the Bridegroom? 
 What is the recent extending love and study of 
 Music, becoming every day as common as the 
 study of reading and writing, but the tuning of the 
 instruments preparatory to the anthem peal, "Hal- 
 lelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth?'* 
 What are those rapidly accumulating discoveries 
 — science shortening distances, annihilating time, 
 compressing nations into parishes, continents into 
 neighbours, and oceans into lakes — but man's aspi- 
 ration after the dominion which he held and lost 
 in Paradise — prophecies of success not to be gained 
 by him, but given according to the purposes and 
 promises of God ? With all this there is a restless- 
 ness abroad that one cannot mistake. There is a 
 universal sense of dissatisfaction — a pervading con- 
 sciousness that there is much wrong that needs to 
 be put right — a dim recollection of departed per- 
 fection we have lost — a strong anticipation of the 
 restoration of all things. How restless is man in 
 every department ! In Politics, to-day it is Des- 
 potism, to-morrow it is Democracy; one year a 
 Republic, another year an Autocracy ; but no more 
 national happiness in the last than in the first. To- 
 day, Whigs are in the ascendant; the next day, 
 Tories are on the crest of the wave ; next day, a 
 coalition of both — some say, with the excellences 
 of both ; others, with the excellences of neither. 
 Yet all this is dealing with the symptoms, without 
 touching the inner seat of the fever of humanity. 
 In the Church, during one decade of years we 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 65 
 
 hear of nothing but the blessings of a Church 
 Establishment, of endowment, of royal and aristo- 
 cratic patronage ; in another, it is the Voluntary 
 system, popular election, the freedom of the Clergy, 
 and the independence of the Church. One day. 
 Ecclesiastical Synods are announced as hot-beds 
 of agitation ; another day. Convocations are im- 
 plored and advocated, as the only salvation of the 
 Church. Yet, if men had common sense, they 
 would see that it is not new machinery that we 
 want, but a new spirit to inspire the old machinery 
 that we have. 
 
 If you look at Medicine, one day hydropathy 
 carries all before it as an irresistible wave; the 
 next day homoeopathy, with its infinitesimal doses, 
 cures all diseases ; then mesmerism displaces both, 
 and everybody rushes to be mesmerised : allopathy 
 returns again, and continues till some new crotchet 
 takes its place. It is not a new theory that is 
 wanted, but the restoration of man's health, which 
 is promised when the world shall close as the world 
 began, in Paradise. 
 
 Turn to the Commercial world. In one year 
 thousands are embarking their capital in railroads 
 too Quixotic ever to be achieved; in the next, 
 copper and lead mines are the grand attraction ; 
 on 'Change something else; while at present the 
 gold in California and Australia absorbs all at- 
 tention. 
 
 Man feels there is something wrong ; he is con- 
 scious of inward fever: like the troubled sea, he 
 6* 
 
66 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 feels he cannot rest. ISTever was humanity so much 
 at sea as at this moment. It nevertheless is a 
 preparation for a new and sure denoitement ; it [q 
 Is"aturc's unconscious cry, "Come, Lord Jesus!" 
 There comes, at times, a calm at sea, which sailors 
 call breeding weather, at the end of which there 
 rushes upon the ship an irresistible typhoon. The 
 calm since 1848 is drawling to its close. The fierce 
 hurricane, nursed in silence and in secrecy, begins 
 to howl and whistle amid the national shrouds; 
 and the straining and pitching of the ship tells 
 surely its force is on her. Make all tight; stand 
 every man at his post ; lift every man his heart to 
 the great sea Lord and land Lord of heaven and 
 earth ; and w^hen the waves shall rise and threaten 
 like wild beasts on every side, and the fierce wind 
 shall come down upon us like an avalanche from 
 the mountain tops, we will not be afraid : One is 
 in the ark whom the winds and the waves obey ; 
 not one of the redeemed crew shall perish. The 
 frenzied elements shall dash against the true Church 
 as the terror-stricken rain flings itself in a winter 
 night against the window-panes, imploring shelter 
 rather than inflicting damage. 
 
 Under the Seventh Vial, great Babylon, you 
 may remember, comes into remembrance before 
 God. That is, he selects her for her final judg- 
 ments. She is now at the beginning of her sorrows. 
 The apparent triumphs and ostentatious boasts of 
 Rome cannot conceal the fulfilment of the pro- 
 phecy. She is withering down to her very roots 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. ^ 
 
 in every part of the earth; her real vigour and 
 vitality are gone ; she is more and more recognised 
 as a detected imposture, and kept up as a piece of 
 the pageantry of Europe, not as a power that makes 
 nations stand in awe, or kings dread its opposition. 
 In one country she is plundered; in another re- 
 sisted ; in another used as a tool ; and detested and 
 despised in all. Her greatest attempts at domina- 
 tion have ended in her very worst defeats. The 
 spirit that was in her when Innocent III. was pope 
 still animates her, hut the people she has to deal 
 with belong to another age ; and there is a book in 
 their hands that casts its glory upon her features, 
 and reveals the awful image of the wicked one. 
 Her strength is in secret ; the throne of her power 
 is not episcopal or cardinalatial, but the confes- 
 sional. The moment she rises from being a secret 
 underminer to take the place of an open assailant, 
 she parts with half her strength ; she is shorn of 
 the hair in which her strength lies ; and she will 
 soon have to grind at the mill, a miserable and 
 wretched drudge. This fatal mistake she has lately 
 made in Holland, England, and Southern Germany. 
 Her present politics are the sign of her dotage, the 
 evening twilight of her day. " Quern Deus vult 
 perdere prius dementat.'' She has been drinking 
 of the cup of God's indignation bitterly since 1848 ; 
 and she will drink of it more bitterly in the years 
 to come. We may be chastened as a nation for 
 our tampering with her ; but our country, I gather 
 
68 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 from prophecy, is, I think, safe for mighty purposes 
 and for noble ends. 
 
 " Thou, too, sail on ! ship of state, 
 Sail on ! England, strong and great. 
 Humanity, with all its fears, 
 And all its hopes of future years. 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 
 We know what Master laid thy keel ; 
 What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel ; 
 Who made each mast, and sail, and rope ; 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat ; 
 In what a forge, and what a heat, 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 
 Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
 'Tis of the waves, not of the rock ; 
 'Tis but the flapping of the sail. 
 And not a rent made by the gale. 
 In spite of rock and tempests' roar. 
 In spite of false lights on the shore. 
 Sail on ! nor fear to breast the sea ; 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ; 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears, 
 Are all with thee, are all with thee \" 
 
 Just before the Church of Rome perishes in a 
 conflagration of righteous wrath, — on the eve of 
 her doom, we read in Rev. xviii. a voice sounds 
 from heaven Hke a beautiful strain, " Come out of 
 her, my people, that ye partake not of her sins, and 
 receive not of her plagues." Whenever, in the 
 great Apocalyptic drama, a voice comes from 
 above, there are heard at the era of its fulfilment 
 the responding echoes from beneath. There is 
 invariably a fact on earth announcing the fulfilment 
 
SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 69 
 
 of the word from heaven. This voice, " Come out 
 of her, my people," has been heard in the com- 
 munes of France, and among the green valleys of 
 Languedoc, and increasing thousands of French- 
 men are responding in their own beautiful tongue, 
 "Lord, we come, we come." The summons has 
 been heard around the palace of the Grand Duke, 
 and in the picture-galleries of Florence ; and innu- 
 merable Madiais, in the face of cruel laws and im- 
 prisonment, and bondage and death, are answering 
 with right joyous hearts, "We come, we come." 
 Under the shadow of St. Peter's and near the In- 
 quisition, where free thought is crime, and a word 
 of truth or an act of charity an evidence of it, — 
 above the silent catacombs of the ancient dead, 
 and in the hearing of the sacerdotal hierarch who 
 sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he 
 were God, the heavenly summons breaks like sweet 
 music from Italian skies, " Come out of her, my 
 people ;" and neither the thunder of the Vatican 
 nor the anathema of its tyrant can repress the an- 
 swering accents of increasing multitudes, "Blessed 
 Jesus, we come, we come !" In England never 
 was the Roman Catholic mind so accessible as it is 
 at this moment. Vast numbers, from the premier 
 Duke of England and Lord Beaumont down to the 
 lowest inhabitant of St. Giles's, are emerging from 
 Babylon under a new and blessed attraction. In 
 *the green fields of Old Ireland the joyous sound 
 rings loud and clear, reverberating from spire to 
 spire, " Come out of her, my people ;" and tens of 
 
70 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 thousands of that fine, but oppressed and injured 
 race, are bursting their chains in every direction, 
 casting their images and idols to the moles and the 
 bats, lifting up their heads under the irrepressible 
 belief that their redemption draweth nigh, and 
 shouting, not saying, till Eome trembles as she 
 hears it, '^Lord Jesus, we come, we come !" 
 
 "We are led from all signs to. infer that the meet- 
 ing-place of all the lines of God's providential 
 work on earth is very near. Paganism is breaking 
 up all over the East. Mahometanism is in its death 
 struggle, in vain attempting to avert, its waning. 
 Popery is artificially propped up, and preparing to 
 take its exodus to eternal night. The Ganges, the 
 Euphrates, and the Tiber, are all gleaming with 
 dawning glories of a nearing day. The Jordan, 
 too, is not still ; it heaves with the hopes and ex- 
 pectations of Judah, Life from the dead is reach- 
 ing the hearts of buried nations, and they rise in 
 rapid succession to their feet ; they only wait for 
 the order, "Unloose, and let go free." We stand 
 on the margin of two ages; we hear the dying 
 moan of one, and catch from afar the awakening 
 anthem of the other. While all that is holy, bene- 
 ficent, and true, is starting to its feet, all that is 
 infidel, superstitious, and evil, under the prince of 
 the power of the air, is mustering to battle. Satan 
 puts forth gigantic energies — fraud, sophistry, 
 cruelty, oppression ! The imprisonment of the 
 Madiai, and Miss Cunninghame, and others, is 
 proof of what he would do if he could. The deadly 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 71 
 
 and mischievous errors he sows, like tares in a 
 field, are proofs of his attempts to poison what he 
 cannot persecute, to disturb what he is unable to 
 destroy. The allies of Pio Nono and of Voltaire 
 will yet coalesce against Christianity, in order to 
 keep back a swelling tide of light and love, which 
 sweeps them from an earth they have too long 
 polluted by their presence. 
 
 In the midst of this let me add, the Church and 
 the people of God are safe ; they are enclosed in 
 everlasting arms; the shield of Omnipotence is 
 over them. They may pass through a sharp night, 
 but it will be a short one. Oh, what a solemn 
 position do we occupy if my conclusions be right ! 
 The shadows of 1854 fall back into one eternity 
 and forward into another. "We stand on an isth- 
 mus washed by the waves of time and wasted by 
 the waters of eternity. The terrible silence of the 
 age is the suspensive pause, when nations hold 
 their breath before the shock comes. The sure and 
 glorious termination alone reconciles us to its pres- 
 sure. Into a holy, and happy, and blessed land the 
 surf of the troubled present rolls ; and our weary 
 hearts will leap to that land as a babe leaps to its 
 mother's bosom. 
 
 Are we among the saints of God ? It is time to 
 lay aside our ecclesiastical and sectarian quarrels. 
 The very ground on which we stand will soon be 
 calcined by the last fire, and the miserable Shibbo- 
 leths which distract Christendom disappear in 
 smoke. All society is rending into two great divi- 
 
72 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 sions. By and by there will be no Jesuits, no 
 Ultramontanes, no Franciscans, no Tractarians, 
 but out-and-out Papists. By and by there will be no 
 Churchmen, no Dissenters, but out-and-out Chris- 
 tians. All society is splitting into two great antago- 
 nistic masses : every man is taking his place ; and 
 those whom we call, in courtesy, Tractarians — who 
 profess to hold the via media^ neither going with 
 us nor with the opposite side — will find themselves 
 like men between two advancing armies, over- 
 whelmed by the fire of both. I say, society is 
 splitting into two great masses. To which do we 
 belong ? To Christ — that is, the Church of the 
 living God ; or to Antichrist — that is, the great 
 Apostasy? Oh, let us not quarrel about lesser 
 things ! There is love enough on Calvary to lift 
 the earth to heaven ; there is light enough at Pen- 
 tecost to irradiate the wide world ; there is warmth 
 enough on the hearthstone of our Father's house 
 to make every heart glow with ecstasy and thank- 
 fulness! Let us rather quench than kindle the 
 fires of passion. Let us pray that the temperature 
 of our Christian life may be so raised, that we 
 shall neither see nor feel the petty scintillations of 
 angry quarrels. 
 
 " Between us all let oceans roll ; 
 Yet still, from either beach 
 The voice of blood shall reach, 
 More audible than speech — 
 * We are one V^ 
 
 It is very remarkable that all the great times and 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 73 
 
 dates of prophecy meet and mingle about the year 
 1864. I do not say that that year will be the close 
 of this worJd. I do not prophesy ; I do not fore- 
 tell the future ; I only forth tell what God has said ; 
 but I do feel, that if 1864 be not the close of the 
 age that now is, and the commencement of a better 
 one, it will be a time unprecedented since the 
 beginning — portentous, startling, and terrible to 
 the enemies of God; but glorious,nioly, and full 
 of joyous scenes to the people of God. 
 
 Clinton proves that the seventh millenary of the 
 world begins in 1863. The Jews of ancient and 
 modern times all look to the beginning of the 
 seven thousand years for their Sabbatismos, or millen- 
 nial rest. Is the end of the age so near ? — 
 
 " The groans of nature in this nether world, 
 Which heaven has heard for ages, have an end 
 Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung ; 
 The time of rest, the promised sabbath comes. 
 Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh 
 Fulfiird their tardy and disastrous course 
 Over a sinful world ; and what remains 
 Of this tempestuous state of human things 
 Is merely as the working of a sea 
 Before a calm that rocks itself to rest." 
 
 Thus all fingers point to this rapidly approaching 
 crisis. All things indicate that the moment that 
 we occupy is charged with intense and inexhaust- 
 ible issues. IN'ever was man so responsible ! 
 Never, in the prospect of what is coming on the 
 earth, was man's position so solemn I But evil 
 shall not gain the day. Truth and love will 
 
74 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 emerge from every conflict, beautiful, and clothed 
 with victory. The days of Infidelity and Popery 
 are numbered. The waters of evil must soon ebb 
 from the earth they have soiled. The approaching 
 genesis will surpass in beauty and in glory the old. 
 The Church of Christ will lay aside her soiled gar- 
 ments, her ashen raiment, and put on her bridal 
 dress, her coronation robes ; and the nations will 
 look up to her in admiration, earnest as the waves 
 of the ocean rise up to the bright full moon en- 
 throned above them. The sunrise of approaching 
 day will strike the earth, and awaken its long 
 Bilent hymns, and clothe creation's barest branches 
 with amaranthine blossoms. Poor IlTature, that 
 has so long moaned like a stricken creature to its 
 God from its solitary lair, shall cease her groans 
 and travail and expectancy; for God will wipe 
 away her tears, and on her fair and beautiful and 
 holy brow, crowned and kingdomed, other orbs in 
 the sky, her handmaidens, will gaze in ecstasy and 
 thankfulness and praise. " And God shall wipe 
 away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be 
 no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying ; neither 
 shall there be any more pain. And there shall be 
 no night there. For these sayings are faithful and 
 true." 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 75 
 
 n. 
 
 THE MOSLEM AND HIS END. 
 
 In introducing to the reader the Moslem and his 
 fate, I do not pretend to prophesy, hut simply to 
 set forth what seems, on grounds of the very highest 
 probability, to be the meaning of prophecy inspired 
 by God, and written for our instruction. I do not 
 attempt to foretell; all I presume is, to forth tell 
 what is already predicted in the sacred volume. I 
 am a humble interpreter of what God has written, 
 not a prophet of what God will do. I speak to 
 reasonable men ; I ask attention, not submission. 
 
 The application of Scripture to the events of the 
 day demands the utmost carefulness. We must 
 take care to avoid that presumption, which sees 
 the fulfilment of prophecy in things in no just re- 
 spect the echoes of ancient predictions ; and equally 
 also that incredulity, or rather scepticism, which 
 regards the word of God as in no degree applicable 
 to the affaire of men. I believe history is a con- 
 tinuous fulfilment of prophecy ; its facts the marks 
 of Providence translating the written into the 
 actual — ancient texts into modern annals. God 
 inspired the prophet. He rules in the affairs of 
 men, when all past utterances shall be seen embo- 
 died in present facts, and all history point back- 
 
76 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ward to its outline, laid down in Scripture long 
 before its materials were found. Gibbon the sceptic, 
 and Hume the atheist, and Alison the Christian, 
 and Macaulay, and innumerable others, will ap- 
 pear, reluctantly or the reverse, the most emphatic 
 witnesses to God in his w^ord and in his world. 
 Every day this result approaches us; more and 
 more does Scripture shine forth in deepening lustre 
 and beauty. 
 
 At the same time, it is important to remark, 
 that, on the great truths of Christianity, all true 
 Christians of every persuasion are at one ; on the 
 interpretation of prophecy, it is fair to state, they 
 conscientiously differ. Yet, in this field there is a 
 deepening agreement among most. Differ from 
 me or any other Christian as such, on that which 
 is vital and essential, and you so far denude your- 
 selves of the claims of Christians ; but should the 
 reader differ from me on the interpretation of pro- 
 phecy, and what appears to me most probable, I 
 hope, in the spirit of brotherly love and of Christian 
 charity, we shall forgive our differences in things 
 confessedly difficult, and sometimes obscure, be- 
 cause of our harmony in magnificent and glorious 
 things, which are so plain that a wayfaring man 
 may not err therein. 
 
 The subject I propose to examine here is Turkey 
 and Mahometanism, or the Moslem and his end. 
 The subject is, in the present crisis of Europe, 
 fraught with the intensest interest. It absorbs 
 many thoughts : all eyes are directed to the sun- 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 77 
 
 rising. Every newspaper reflects on the West the 
 startling lights that are breaking forth in the East. 
 Every clay's post is anxiously expected. The Cres- 
 cent is occupying the thoughts, the hopes, the 
 sympathies, and even provoking the sorrows and 
 the griefs of the best, the most civilized and Chris- 
 tian of the human family. The Koran has played 
 so startling a part in the great drama of the past, 
 that we naturally and anxiously inquire what place 
 it is to occupy in the looming prospects of the 
 future. I am here, not to guess or to calculate 
 politically, but to interpret, as I may be able, in- 
 spired prophecy. 
 
 The two great prophecies to which I would direct 
 attention, are contained in the Book of Daniel, 
 and in the Book of Revelation. These writings 
 of Daniel and St. John are as descriptive of things 
 future, as Genesis and Exodus of things past. 
 They are given to be read, and why not to be un- 
 derstood ? 
 
 The first one is in the eighth chapter of the Book 
 of Daniel, where we read the interpretation of what 
 the seer saw. It says, — "The ram which thou 
 sawest having two horns are the kings of Media 
 and Persia: and the rough goat is the king of 
 Grecia: and the great horn that is between his 
 eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, 
 whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall 
 stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. 
 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the 
 transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce 
 7* 
 
78 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 countenance, and understanding dark sentences, 
 •shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, 
 but not by his own power : and he shall destroy 
 wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and 
 shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And 
 through his policy also he shall cause craft to pros- 
 per in his hand ; and he shall magnify himself in 
 his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he 
 shall also stand up against the Prince of princes ; 
 but he shall be broken without hand." (Dan. viii. 
 20-25.) 
 
 I do not waste your time by establishing and 
 identifying every symbol in the passage. I assume 
 that the identification of Bishop iJ^ewton, of Elliot 
 and Mede, and many other distinguished interpre- 
 ters of prophecy, is correct. Indeed, I have no 
 doubt of it. First, the ram is represented and 
 proved by them to be the Persian power. The two 
 horns are two dynastic branches, or the Median 
 and Persian kingdoms, shooting from one head, 
 or grafted into the one great national power. For 
 fifty or sixty years, — that is, from the accession of 
 Cyrus to the Greek expedition under Xerxes, — no 
 national powder, westward, northward, or south- 
 ward, was able to stand before it. This is the 
 literal history of the progress, the triumphs, and 
 successes of the Medo-Persian kingdom. The goat 
 that appears in the fifth verse, as Macedonian coins 
 still testify, was the Macedonian power. The 
 notable horn — the remarkable or illustrious horn 
 between the eyes — has been identified successfully 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 79 
 
 as Alexander the Great, who, in the language of 
 verses 6 and 7, rushed against the ram, broke his 
 horns, or destroyed the Persian kingdom, added 
 the empire to his own, and so swelled his imperial 
 supremacy to the highest possible pitch, and be- 
 came politically " notable." 
 
 This great or notable horn broke down in its 
 meridian : that is, Alexander the Great died in his 
 prime, and in the midst of his victories, a melan- 
 choly proof that victory is vanity. The four horns 
 that succeeded on the division of the empire, were 
 the four Macedonian kingdoms, formed under the 
 four generals of Alexander, after the battle of Issus. 
 These are the outlines of the passage I have read, 
 nistorical facts thus fill up prophetic outlines. 
 
 The subject that specially concerns me in this 
 investigation is the rise, locality and date, of what 
 is here called "the little horn," described by the 
 prophet in the most graphic terms. It was, I con- 
 ceive, the representative of the Turkish and Maho- 
 metan power. First, it springs out of one of the 
 four Macedonian kingdoms at its close. Secondly, 
 the character of its chief is, "a king of fierce 
 countenance, disclosing dark sentences," or a mili- 
 tary prophet propagating strange or portentous 
 revelations. Thirdly, his success, that he should 
 wax exceeding great to'Vvards the south, the east, 
 and the glory, or Jerusalem, used here in all like- 
 lihood to represent the professing Christian Church. 
 Fourthly, the effects of his progress shall be, that 
 he shall cast truth to the ground, cause craft to 
 
80 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 
 
 prosper, take away the daily sacrifice, and cast 
 down the place of Jehovah's sanctuary, that is, 
 depress Christendom. Fifthly, he shall stamp upon 
 the mighty ones, or secular powers ; and the reason 
 of his judging them or visiting them in his wrath 
 is their apostasy, or the standing up against " the , 
 Prince of princes," that is, the Lord Jesus Christ; 
 and at the end of 2300 years, according to the 
 prophecy of this book, the sanctuary shall begin 
 to be cleansed, or, in the language of the sixteenth 
 chapter of the Apocalypse, the Euphratean flood, 
 as I shall show you by and by, will begin to retire, 
 or to evaporate and cease. 
 
 Having thus briefly given the outline of the pro- 
 phetical record, let me now identify its features by 
 stating the historical fulfilment of it, as attested in 
 the annals of Asia and Europe. The Turkish 
 power arose east of the Oxus, in Chorassan, a ter- 
 ritory of the Cyro-Macedonian horn or kingdom. 
 At that time a Turkman tribe revolted against the 
 Sultan of Ghizni, elected Toghrul Beg for its chief, 
 and asserted for itself the dignity, the position, and 
 the prestige of a ruling power, though compara- 
 tively then a " a little one." Toghrul was invited 
 by the caliph at Bagdad to help him against Persia. 
 The Turkman chief obeyed the request, and in the 
 language of the prophec5^, advanced southward. 
 Toghrul was next raised to the dignity of chief 
 general of Islam ; afterwards he married the 
 caliph's daughter, and so became the powerful and 
 fanatical missionary of Mahometanism through 
 
AND HIS END. 81 
 
 eastern lands, and Greek Christendom; and not 
 onlj Judea, but Asiatic Christendom, was gradually 
 subdued by him. Gibbon, the best commentator 
 upon past prophecy, as a daily newspaper is the 
 best commentator upon existing and fulfilling pro- 
 phecy, thus describes the victorious progress of this 
 Turkman chief, in words almost the very echoes 
 of Daniel's prophecy: — "From the Chinese frontier 
 in the east, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction 
 to the west and south, as far as the neighbourhood 
 of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, and 
 the spicy groves of Arabia Felix ;" or, in the lan- 
 guage of prophecy, of which Gibbon was the un- 
 conscious expounder, he " waxed exceeding great 
 toward the east, and toward the south, and toward 
 the glory." Daniel says, he w^axed great to the host 
 of heaven, cast the stars down and stamped upon 
 them ; and the daily sacrifice was taken away, and 
 the place of the Lord's sanctuary was cast down. 
 Gibbon thus describes the Turkish progress : — 
 ** By the choice of the Sultan, Nice was preferred 
 for his palace, and the divinity of Christ was denied 
 and derided in the same temple in which it had 
 been first pronounced by the first synod of Chris- 
 tendom. On the hard conditions of tribute and 
 servitude, the Greek -Christians might enjoy the 
 exercise of their religion; but their most holy 
 temples were profaned, and their priests and bishops 
 were insulted." The idolatry and apostasy of its 
 professors having come to the full, in the language 
 of Daniel, they were thus punished by the scourge, 
 
82 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 sent forth in the providence of God to chasten the 
 apostate and the guilty nations of Christendom. 
 The "dark sentences" of Daniel are thus trans- 
 lated by Gibbon, though unconscious that Daniel 
 had so written : — " The Koran is full of endless, 
 incoherent rhapsody and fable, sometimes crawling 
 in the dust, at other times lost in the clouds." The 
 fierce countenance of this predicted king, which is 
 the picture of Daniel, is described by Gibbon, w^hen 
 he uses the expressien in his magnificent History, 
 " He was fierce as a Turk." " The Turks breathed 
 still all the fierceness of the desert." The fierce- 
 ness of the Turk became at last a proverbial ex- 
 pression throughout Christendom. The angel in 
 the prophecy asks how long this absolute eastern 
 domination shall last, and the answer given, as I 
 have stated, is 2300 years. The first question is, 
 "What is the date of the commencement of that 
 epoch? It cannot be previous to the year 536 
 before Christ, because then the two-horned king- 
 dom was in existence. It cannot be after the defeat 
 of Xerxes in the year 480 before Christ, for then 
 the chief glory of the Persian empire w^as gone ; 
 but in 480 before Christ, immediately previous to 
 the last catastrophe of the Persian empire, Xerxes 
 made his triumphant march into Macedon and 
 Greece, and thus the tide of its glory was at its 
 full, just before its ebbing. Dating, therefore, the 
 2300 years at that period, the Crescent, if the date 
 be correct, should begin to wane in A. d. 1820 ; the 
 Euphratean flood should then begin to evaporate, 
 
83 
 
 and Turkey not be extinguished at a blow, but 
 decline and die of gradual decrepitude, exhaustion, 
 and decay. By and by I will show you how lite- 
 rally this has been fulfilled. 
 
 Having seen the picture of Daniel, let me show 
 you, for the sake of giving the full history, another 
 portrait, by an equally inspired penman, namely 
 St. John, in the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse. 
 He says : " The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a 
 star fall from heaven unto the earth : and to him 
 was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he 
 opened the bottomless pit ; and there arose a smoke 
 out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace ; and 
 the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the 
 smoke of the pit. And there came out of the 
 smoke locusts upon the earth : and unto them was 
 given power, as the scorpions of the earth have 
 power. And it was commanded them that they 
 should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any 
 green thing, neither any tree ; but only those men 
 which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. 
 And to them it was given that they should not kill 
 them, but that they should be tormented Rye 
 months: and their torment was as the torment of 
 a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those 
 days shall men seek death, and shall not find it ; 
 and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from 
 them. And the shapes of the locusts were like 
 unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their 
 heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their 
 faces were as the faces of men. And they had 
 
84 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as 
 the teeth of Hons. And they had breastplates, as 
 it were breastplates of iron ; and the sound of their 
 wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses 
 running to battle. And they had tails like unto 
 scorpions, and there were stings in their tails : and 
 their power was to hurt men ^ve months. And 
 they had a king over them, which is the angel of 
 the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew 
 tongue is Abaddon." That is one class. Then, 
 secondly, he describes another: "And the sixth 
 angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four 
 horns of the golden altar which is before God, 
 saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet. 
 Loose the four angels which are bound in the great 
 river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, 
 which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a 
 month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. 
 And the number of the army of the horsemen were 
 two hundred thousand thousand : and I heard the 
 number of them. And thus I saw the horses in 
 the vision, and them that sat on them, having 
 breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: 
 and the heads of the horses were as the heads of 
 lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and 
 smoke and brimstone. By these three was the 
 third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the 
 smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of 
 their mouths. For their power is in their mouth, 
 and in their tails: for their tails were like unto 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 85 
 
 serpents, and had heads, and with them they do 
 hurt."— Rev. ix. 1—19. 
 
 Now, first of all, in the chapter I have read 
 we have the originator, or chief inventor or letter- 
 loose of that smoke which darkened, soon after 
 that date, the whole eastern part of Christendom. 
 Secondly, we have the Saracen propagandists of 
 Mahometan delusion, who carried their propagan- 
 dism up to a point hmited in this chapter by the 
 express declaration of the inspired penman, and 
 confirmed, as we shall see, by facts. We have next 
 the Turks, who took up the propagandism of Ma- 
 hometanism at Bagdad on the Euphrates, where 
 the Saracens paused, and carried it onwards 
 through the length and breadth of Asia and of 
 Europe, till the victorious Crescent stood over the 
 ruins of the mistress of the East, the noble and 
 beautiful Constantinople. 
 
 Let us, then, see how exactly all this has been 
 fulfilled in history. First, we have the great chief 
 or originator of the system likened unto a fallen 
 star. Both Bishop Newton and Mr. Elliot, and 
 the best commentators on prophecy, admit that 
 this refers to Mahomet ; and the proof of it is not 
 a conjecture, but the perfect parallelism between 
 it and the man's biography and the historic records 
 of modern Europe. A firmamental star denotes a 
 ruler, secular or ecclesiastical ; a fallen firmamental 
 star, a ruler degraded, degenerate, or deposed. 
 Mahomet was of the royal house of Koreish, the 
 governors of Caaba, who had its key as represen- 
 8 
 
86 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 tative of paganism. At tlie death of his father, 
 Mahomet was left a destitute orphan ; he fell from 
 dignity to the earth ; he had royal lineage, ancient, 
 but now lost, greatness, and was reduced in the 
 providence of God to the lowest level. He was a 
 star once resplendent in the firmament; in the 
 meridian of rule he fell, and sunk, in the language 
 of Gibbon, to become the humble servant of a 
 humble and a poor widow. In other words, he 
 lost the key of the Caaba, and the dignities of its 
 tenure, originally entrusted to his family in former 
 days, and he became the menial servant of a poor 
 widow, for whom he transacted business in the 
 markets and in the chief places of merchandise in 
 Damascus. Three miles from Mecca there was a 
 cave (Heira), into which Mahomet, as the menial 
 servant of this widow, was in the habit of retiring ; 
 and, in the language of Gibbon, in that cave "he 
 held communion with the spirit of fraud and fana- 
 ticism," and from the pit, of which this cave was 
 the meet type, he ultimately emerged, professing 
 to be the great missionary of God, the chief reci- 
 pient and proclaimer of his will throughout the 
 length and breadth of Asia and of Eastern Europe. 
 The chief persons in Mecca, the moment that he 
 publicly assumed the dignity of an apostle, de- 
 nounced him as a pretender, and he was expelled 
 from the city ; and that expulsion of Mahomet from 
 ' the city is the date of Mahometan chronology, or 
 the period called the Hegira, from which they date 
 
AND HIS END. 87 
 
 their years, as we do from the ChristiaQ era, or 
 birth of our Redeemer, 
 
 "After an exile of seven years," says Gibbon, 
 " the fugitive was enthroned, the prince and pro- 
 phet of his native country ; the injustice of Mecca 
 transformed the citizen of Ileira into the prince, 
 the preacher, and the leader of the armies of his 
 country." 
 
 In the passage I have read, it is said a key w^as 
 given him. The accuracy of Apocalyptic symbols 
 is most remarkable. In the Koran it is said, Ma- 
 homet received the key of God. The Koran says, 
 " With the key did not God give him the title and 
 power of a porter to open the gates of a paradise ?'* 
 And a form of renunciation of a Mahometan in the 
 Greek Church is still preserved, in which these 
 words occur : " I anathematize the teaching of Ma- 
 homet, who, they say, has the key of paradise." 
 And on the central stone of the arch of the court 
 of justice of the Alhambra there is at this moment 
 in alto-relievo a large key, as the great symbol of 
 the Mahometan jurisdiction ; so much so that the 
 key spoken of iu this chapter as given to the fallen 
 ruler, is to a Mahometan very much what the cross 
 is to a Christian. And thus Mahomet, having lost 
 the key of the pagan Caaba, which his forefathers 
 had, — that is, having lost princely authority and 
 jurisdiction there, — emerged from the abyss, hav- 
 ing held communion, as Gibbon says, with the 
 spirit of fraud and fanaticism, imbued with a spirit 
 of fiery propagandism, and let loose over the length 
 
88 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and breadth of Asia that smoke which darkens 
 mighty masses of the Eastern nations unto this 
 day. 
 
 Having seen the first originator, let me look at 
 the first propagandist missionaries of that smoke 
 which he let loose from the abyss. The Saracens 
 were the first, the Turks w^ere the next. I may just 
 remark, that the former call themselves Saracens. 
 The Arabs profess to be the descendants of Sara ; 
 hence they call themselves Saracens, because they 
 are ashamed to admit that they are Ishmaelites, or 
 the descendants of Hagar. They ought properly 
 to be called Hagarenes, as the descendants of Ha- 
 gar ; but professing to be the descendants of Sara, 
 the princess, they call themselves, as a term of 
 dignity and honour, Saracens. The first propa- 
 gandists of this delusion were the Saracens; and 
 they and their progress are depicted in symbolic 
 language, according to prophetic usage, which I 
 think can be identified with them and their history. 
 The locusts, a very composite and clearly symbolic 
 creature, described in verses 3, 7, and 10 of the 
 ninth chapter of the Apocalypse, are the represen- 
 tatives of these missionaries. 
 
 Let us see the force of this by examining what 
 the symbol denotes. A fig-tree is a symbol of 
 Judea ; a crocodile, of Egypt ; a willow, of Baby- 
 lon ; a wild ass, of Ishmael ; and a ship, of Tyre. 
 But what is the locust a symbol of? It is a com- 
 posite one, and must denote a being composite, 
 and not a natural, literal, living animal. It must 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 89 
 
 denote some great moral feature embodied in those 
 whom it represents. JN'ow, the locust, first, appears 
 in swarms, an idea almost inseparably connected 
 with it. Secondly, its horse-like aspect denotes 
 that the invading swarms should in some shape be 
 associated with, or mainly consist of, cavalry. 
 Thirdly, the lion-likeness denotes resistless fero- 
 city. And, lastly, the scorpion-sting expresses the 
 torment they should inflict and leave behind them. 
 The birth-place of these locust propagandists must 
 be the East ; we read in Exodus, " the east-wind 
 brought locusts" into Egj'pt Volney says, " The 
 locusts come from the deserts of Arabia;" and 
 Arhe, the Hebrew for an Arab, is almost the same 
 as arha^ the Hebrew for a locust. Hence, as in 
 Judges vi. 5, " they come as arba, or locusts.'* The 
 scorpion, in the next place, is always traced in 
 Scripture to Arabia. Moses says, " the wilderness, 
 where fiery serpents and scorpions are." The 
 horse, I need not say, is popularly an Arab symbol. 
 Arabia is his home. AVe read of the Arab steed, 
 as the model of a horse. The whole zoology of 
 the symbol is strictly Arab. But superadded to 
 the symbol is this remarkable fact, that they had 
 the faces of men, the long hair of women, crowns 
 on their heads, and breastplates of iron ; or, trans- 
 lated into literal language, the courage of men, 
 the effeminacy of women, invulnerability and 
 triumph in battle. These were not, I observe, the 
 Goths, because the Goths had not the faces of 
 men ; they shaved off the moustache, and were 
 8* 
 
90 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 charged by Eastern nations with having effeminate 
 faces. They were not, in the next place, the Greeks 
 and Komans ; for long hair, another part of the 
 symbol, was an abomination to them. Pliny spe- 
 cifies the Arabs as wearing the moustache on the 
 upper lip, as having the long hair like women, and 
 having turbans like crowns ; and in the Antar, a 
 celebrated Arabic poem, it is said God has be- 
 stowed upon Arabs four heavenly gifts — 
 
 *' Turbans for diadems, tents for walls, 
 Swords for entrenchments, and poems for laws." 
 
 The Koran specifies the breastplate of the Arab as 
 the gift of God. The locust is the national emblem 
 of the Ishmaelite, or Arab ; and it is related by 
 Turkish writers, that a swarm of locusts alighted 
 on Mahomet's head, and on each of their \i'ings 
 was written, ""We are the army of God." We 
 thus identify completely the symbol with the Sara- 
 cens, or the Arab Mahometans. 
 
 Now, soon after the rise of the Mahometan 
 smoke from the pit, we read that " the Saracens 
 embraced the new and startling imposture, and, 
 imbued intensely with its fanaticism, they rushed 
 in overwhelming crowds into the eastern parts of 
 Christendom." Hallam says, " The religion of 
 Mahomet is essentially military. The people of 
 Arabia found in the law of their prophet, not a 
 licence, but a command to desolate the world." 
 Like locusts they descended in swarms into Europe, 
 with all the ferocity of lions, with all the fleetness 
 of steeds, indulging in sensual licence upon earth, 
 
AND HIS END. 91 
 
 and expecting as their reward sensual enjoyments 
 in paradise. 
 
 Having thus identified the symbol with the 
 Saracens, let us now turn to history, and read, as 
 its comment upon the inspired page, the history 
 and deeds of the Saracens. In the year 629 the 
 Saracens first emerged from the desert ; in a.d. 636 
 they burst forth, like an impetuous torrent; 
 Damascus and Jerusalem fell successively before 
 them ; and that very year, the year 636, a mosque 
 was raised on the site of the illustrious temple 
 of the Jew, and the cry of the muezzin wafted by 
 that air which had once sounded \Ndth the Psalms 
 of David, and echoed with hosannas to David's 
 greater Son. In ten years, from 634 to 644, the 
 Mahometans reduced 3,600 cities, destroyed 4,000 
 churches, and built 1,400 mosques ; and the illustra- 
 tion of the scorpion-sting is in these words — "Ye 
 Christian dogs, ye know your choice ; the Koran, 
 the tribute, or the cimeter." And those that were 
 spared, they tormented with the scorpion-sting of 
 the lawless tyranny which they exercised. 
 
 But the progress of these Saracens, you see in 
 the sacred page, had two limits : first, they were 
 not to hurt any that had the seal of God upon 
 their foreheads ; and, secondly, they were not to 
 hurt the green grass, or any green thing. l!^ow, 
 both of these are remarkably fulfilled. The first 
 was fulfilled in this fact : at the time that they went 
 forth, according to the language of Gibbon, "the 
 Christians of the seventh century had relapsed into 
 
92 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the semblance of Paganism ; their public and 
 private prayers were addressed to images and 
 relics that disgraced the temples of the heathen : 
 and the throne of the Almighty was darkened by 
 a cloud of martyrs, saints and angels, the objects 
 of popular veneration." These idolatrous Chris- 
 tians, who were not sealed of God, were the objects 
 of the punishment of the locust propagandists, 
 commissioned not to hurt the secret and hidden 
 saints of the Most High, but to visit with retribu- 
 tive and penal judgments those who had turned 
 the Christian fane into an idol temple, and wreathed 
 around the brow of a creature the glories that were 
 the exclusive prerogatives of God himself. And 
 secondly^ they were not to hurt any green thing. 
 How remarkable it is, these are almost the very 
 words of the commission given to the Saracens : 
 "Destroy no palm-trees nor fields of corn; cut 
 down no fruit-trees nor green things." The Goths 
 turned every garden into a desert ; the Saracens 
 sacredly preserved them. 
 
 And lastly, they had a king over them. The 
 Goths and Vandals adopted the religion of the 
 <30untry they conquered ; the Saracens carried their 
 religion with them, and their subjection to 
 Mahomet, their prince and prophet, was part and 
 parcel of their most solemn duty. Their mission 
 was not to annihilate the apostate Christians of the 
 East, but to torment them ; and the time of their 
 tormenting them was limited to one hundred and 
 fifty years. Every time that the Saracens tried to 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 93 
 
 go beyond their limit they were checked and 
 repressed. Twice they were foiled in their attempts 
 at Constantinople. They invaded France ; and if 
 they had succeeded in subjugating that illustrious 
 land, Europe at this moment had probably been 
 Mahometan. " Charles Martel the Hammer," 
 the historian says, "beat them back; and Europe 
 owes the existence of its liberties and its religion 
 to his heroic efforts." But as soon as they had 
 finished their commission, we find they immediately 
 paused. Ilallam says, — " Their conquests are less 
 perplexing than the cessation of them." Gibbon 
 says, — " The calm historian must study to explain 
 by what means Church and state were saved from 
 impending desolation." The true reason was the 
 prophetic record. The period of their action — 
 that is, of their inflicting torment on apostate 
 Christendom — was limited to one hundred and 
 fifty years. Mark how true this is. In 612 
 Mahomet first proclaimed his mission. "Who," 
 he said, "will be my Grand Vizier?" The answer 
 given by his chief follower was, — " 0, prophet ! I 
 am the man. Whoever rises against thee, I will 
 dash out his teeth, tear out his locks and his eyes, 
 and rip him up." In 755 the dynasty of the 
 Ommiades was supplanted in the caliphate by the 
 Abassides ; and thus they were rent into antago- 
 nistic powers. In 762 another capital, Medina al 
 Salem, further east, was selected, and there the 
 locust settled. Now hear what the historian says. 
 "The colossus," says Sismondi, "that had be- 
 
94 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 stridden the whole south was now broken; and 
 this revolt did more for the deliverance of Europe 
 from the Moslem than the battle of Poictiers." 
 And Gibbon says, — " War was now no longer the 
 passion of the Saracens. The luxury of the caliphs 
 relaxed their nerves, and terminated the progress 
 of the Arabian empire." N^ow, see how chronolo- 
 gically exact this was. In 612 was the commence- 
 ment of the mission of Mahomet ; 762 was the 
 cessation of their progress and their conquest. 
 Deduct 612 from 762, and you have 150 years, 
 called in the Apocalypse 150 prophetic days — the 
 precise period during which their action, progress, 
 and success were to continue. 
 
 We have thus seen, what is called in the Apoca- 
 lypse, the first, or the Saracenic woe. Let us turn 
 to the Turkish, or the second woe, as it is therein 
 called. Heretofore Western Christendom had been 
 the chief sufibrer from the Saracen ; Eastern Chris- 
 tendom was no less guilty than the West; and 
 hence on the very spot — and this will explain why 
 we identify Turkey and Mahometanism with the 
 Euphrates — on which the Saracens had settled 
 down, namely, Bagdad on the Euphrates, the 
 angels of retribution were again let loose, and the 
 Turks marched forth under Toghrul Beg, their 
 constituted head, to promote the secular power and 
 religious domination of Islam, and to devastate 
 Eastern Christendom, as the Saracens before them 
 had devastated Asia and the West. Alp Arslan, 
 the valiant lion, crossed the Euphrates, — the com- 
 
AND HIS END. 95 
 
 mencement of Turkish propagandism, — in 1063, 
 at the head of immense Turkish cavalry; and 
 hegan a career of resistless conquests over the 
 whole of Eastern Christendom, till he fell by the 
 knife of the assassin. Malek Shah succeeded, and 
 spread his victories, in the words of Gibbon, "from 
 the spicy groves of Arabia Felix to Constantino- 
 ple." The Crusaders averted for a season the 
 downfall of the imperial city, but in so doing they 
 consolidated the forces of the Ottoman ; and at the 
 end of the fourteenth centur}% the Turks crossed 
 the Danube ; and Gibbon says, " For the first time 
 during a thousand years, Constantinople was sur- 
 rounded both on the Asiatic and the European 
 sides." The Apocalypse calls them, "the number 
 of the armies of horsemen." Let us recollect, the 
 Western warriors were chiefly infantry — the East- 
 ern warriors were chiefly cavalr}\ Gibbon says, 
 "The myriads of Turkish horse overspread the 
 Greek empire ;" and Peter the Hermit, and patri- 
 arch of Jerusalem, wrote to their brethren in the 
 "West in these words: "We call for help; the 
 forces of the Turks are fierce, and more numerous 
 than the Saracens ; they have in anticipation de- 
 voured the whole world." 
 
 Thus, the closer we read, the clearer we see the 
 accuracy of the Apocalyptic symbols as we pro- 
 ceed. It is said that " out of their mouths came 
 smoke and brimstone and fire." At this very time, 
 and primarily at the siege of Constantinople, gun- 
 powder and cannon were used, at least on a vast 
 
96 ' SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 scale, and a park of artillery plant od with its de- 
 vastating thunders against Constantinople ; and it 
 is in the very chapter in which Gibbon describes 
 the fall of the mistress of the East, that he alludes 
 to the mighty effects of the recent and mysterious 
 mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal. " Canst 
 thou cast a cannon," said the Sultan Mahomet to 
 the founder, " large enough to batter down the 
 walls of Constantinople?" The cannon were 
 founded at Adrianople ; and soon the battlements 
 and fortifications that had stood the shock of a 
 thousand years, fell before the Ottoman cannon. 
 Gibbon says, "Double walls were reduced by the 
 cannon ; the Turks rushed in at the breaches ; 
 Constantinople w^as subdued ; her empire was sub- 
 verted, her religion trampled in the dust, by the 
 Moslem conqueror;" — or, in the words of the 
 inspired penman, by these three, the fire, the 
 smoke, (or the carbon), and the sulphur, which 
 issued out of their mouths, w^as the third part of 
 Christendom made desolate. 
 
 Then it is added, as if still further to identify 
 them : " Their power," their i^ovdla, that is, their 
 jurisdiction, "is in their tails." What a strange 
 expression is this ! A crown is a mark of a king, 
 a diadem of an emperor, a sword of a military 
 prefect; but a horse's tail, what can that be a 
 mark of? Kotice again the accuracy of Apocalyp- 
 tic symbols. In one of the great battles of the 
 Turks, the commander lost the standard of his 
 army; he immediately dismounted, cut off his 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 97 
 
 horse's tail, hoisted it on a pole, and made that the 
 rallying standard of the Turks. And what is the 
 fact to this day ? A pasha of two, or a pasha of 
 three horse tails, is now the description of Turkish 
 dignitaries and rulers; and under the shelter of 
 these, in past days, they have, not "hurt," as we 
 render it, hut "done injustice." So accurately do 
 we identify the words of prophecy with the chap- 
 ters of history ! Kow, mark again : " Just as we 
 had specified exactly the time, — 150 years, — during 
 which the Saracens were to punish apostate Chris- 
 tendom, we have now the period fixed during 
 which the Turks are to punish the same, though 
 more Eastern, apostate Christendom. The time is 
 appointed — a day, a month, a year, and an hour. 
 Now, prophetically viewed, — for prophecy is just 
 like the map of a country, upon the scale of an 
 eighth of an inch for a mile, — you have here a day 
 for a year, as you may easily see by referring to 
 various parts of Scripture. A month, 30 years ; a 
 year, 365J years; an hour, 15J days. Add all 
 these together, and they amount to 396 years, 106 
 days. Now, let us see how exactly this prophecy 
 was fulfilled in fact. The Turks started on their 
 mission from Bagdad on the Euphrates, on Jan. 
 18th, 1057. On May 29th, 1453, their last exploit 
 was consummated, when Constantinople fell. De- 
 duct Jan. 18th, 1057, from May 29th, 1453, and 
 you have the prophecy chronologically proved by 
 fact, or as is proclaimed in the prophecy of the 
 Apocalypse, the duration, 396 years, 106 days, 
 9 
 
98 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Having seen the successes achieved by the Sara- 
 cens, and next by the Turks; having seen how 
 history sustains and bears out the words of pro- 
 phecy, I observe that the waves of the Euphratean 
 flood, that overflowed its banks, and spread from 
 the spicy groves of Arabia to Constantinople, are 
 now retreating to their shores, or rather, dryiug up 
 in their channels, and since 1820 the flood has 
 evaporated day by day; and as the Euphratean 
 flood retreats from the lands it has covered as by a 
 deluge, and evaporates in the sunshine, or rolls to 
 its ancient channel, thousands of true Christians, 
 Armenians and Greeks, not, as their fathers have 
 been, the worst specimens of a corrupt Christianity, 
 but by the instrumentality of missionaries regene- 
 rated, illumined, and sanctified, begin to raise their 
 heads, and to aspire after that glorious supremacy 
 when Christ shall be King over all the earth. 
 Constantinople may be Christian ; yet it may not, 
 and it must not be Eussian. St. Sophia need not 
 be under the auspices of the Czar, nor the patri- 
 arch of Constantinople made a subject of the patri- 
 arch of St. Petersburg; and yet the decay of 
 Mahometanism is as plainly proclaimed in this 
 sacred volume as any one fact that can happen in 
 history. During the sixth vial, which began about 
 1820, the Euphrates is to be dried up, to make way 
 for the kings of the East. It would take too much 
 space if I were to quote all the proofs of this dry- 
 ing up ever since 1820, when the prophecy tells us 
 it was to bedn. The 2800 years of Daniel, I have 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 99 
 
 alread}^ said, were to end in 1820. At that period, 
 then, Mahometanism was to begin to give way. 
 !N"ow, just read the facts of the case. One in- 
 terpreter, who wrote upwards of two hundred 
 years ago, accepted the symbol of the " drying up 
 of the Euphrates," as predicted under the sixth 
 Apocalyptic vial, as the gradual exhaustion of the 
 Mahometan power; and almost every prophetic 
 student since that time has furnished stronger, and 
 to my mind, absolutely conclusive proofs of the 
 accuracy of this interpretation. 
 
 Another eminent interpreter stated, at least a 
 hundred years ago, that about 1820 the Turkish 
 power would begin its course of wasting and decay. 
 That year, viz, 1820, is universally accepted by 
 prophetic students as the beginning of the " drying 
 up of the Euphrates," or decadence of Mahometan- 
 ism primarily in Europe, and progressively over all 
 Asia. 
 
 It was in 1820 that Ali Pasha, of Yanina, pro- 
 claimed his independence, and hastened on the 
 Greek insurrection. The Suhot Greeks raised the 
 standard of revolt in ]S"ovember of the same year 
 against the Sultan. In April 1821 the Moreote 
 Greeks broke out in insurrection. Il^orthern 
 Greece, the Isles of the -^gean Sea, and the 
 Danubian provinces revolted. In the Morea the 
 Greeks destroyed an army of 30,000 Turks in 
 1823. By sea the Greeks beat the Turkish and 
 Egyptian fleets in September 1824. In 1827, when 
 the Greeks seemed for a season to give way, the 
 
100 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 combined fleets of England, France, and Kussia 
 destroyed the Turco-Egyptian fleets at the battle 
 of N"avarino, saved Greece, and struck a blow 
 against Turkey from which the Ottoman empire 
 has never recovered. In 1828, Russia feeling 
 insulted, declared war, crossed the Balkan, entered 
 Adiianople, and Constantinople was saved only by 
 the interposition of the "Western ambassadors. 
 But by this last step, the exhaustion of Turkey, or 
 " drying up of the Euphrates," was very greatly 
 increased. Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were 
 all practically detached from Turkey, and in the 
 same year the Turkish i^rovince of Algiers became 
 a French colony. As if the fanaticism of Turkey, 
 which used to be its strength, had degenerated into 
 folly and infatuation, she massacred the Janizaries, 
 her right arm, and found this reform was her ruin. 
 Afterwards came the rebellion of Mehemet Ali, 
 the Pasha of Egypt; and such was his progress, 
 that if the "Western powers had not again inter- 
 posed, Turkey had been annihilated. From 1821 
 to 1831, earthquakes, plague, and pestilence almost 
 depopulated Bagdad, Mecca, and Medina. The 
 Eev. Mr. Walsh, the British Chaplain at Constan- 
 tinople, writing in 1831, says, as I have already 
 quoted, " Within the last twenty years Constanti- 
 nople has lost more than half its population. Two 
 conflagrations happened while I was in Constanti- 
 nople, and destroyed 15,000 houses. The silent 
 operation of the plague is continually active, 
 though not always alarming. It will be no exagge- 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 101 
 
 mtion to say, that within the period mentioned, 
 from 300,000 to 400,000 have been prematurely 
 swept away in this one city of Europe, by causes 
 which were not operating in any other, — conflagra- 
 tion, pestilence, and civil commotion." I give 
 these historic facts to show that what the earliest 
 students of prophecy were led to infer, respecting 
 the gradual exhaustion of the Ottoman power, and 
 the date of the beginning of its decline, has been 
 exactly fulfilled. 
 
 So striking are the prophetic dates relating to 
 the exhaustion of the Ottoman empire, that one 
 interpreter of prophecy in 1840 fixed the period of 
 its end at 1849, as the earliest date; and almost 
 every student of prophecy, of any 'note or name, 
 Mr. Elliot, Dr. Keith, Mr. Bickersteth, and Mr. Birks, 
 were unanimous in regarding its utter overthrow 
 as just at our doors, before the present invasion of 
 Kussia. I do not say that our views of unfulfilled 
 prophecy are to regulate cabinets ; but it is interest- 
 ing to us calmly yet patiently to look on the present 
 complications in the East as the irresistible har- 
 bingers of the speedy extinction of error ; and we 
 almost regret that our great nation should be 
 dragged into war as if to avert what we regard as 
 a foregone conclusion prophetically viewed, and a 
 consummation, which, on other grounds, we would 
 hasten rather than delay. But we do not war to 
 maintain the Crescent, but to beat back from us 
 and ours a powerful despotism. Students of pro- 
 phecy are neither fatalists nor prophets, but 
 
102 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 investigators of those glimpses of the future whicli 
 the Author of the Bible has been pleased to reveal.' 
 
 The same prophetic record that thus indicates 
 the near downfall of Mahometanism, informs us 
 that this downfall is to make way for the march 
 of "kings from the sun-rising." "Whether this 
 refers to the Jews, as I believe, or to the emergence 
 of the ancient Oriental Churches, is matter of dis- 
 pute. But this is plain, that the Christians of the 
 East will gain in all respects by the waning of the 
 Crescent, and prove a better obstruction to Russia's 
 ambition than the Turks. 
 
 Now, it seems clear from the words of Daniel's 
 prophecy, that the great Mahometan delusion, — 
 for such, as Christians, we must regard it, — and its 
 head and strength, the Ottoman dynasty, will not 
 be struck down by a blow, as Russia expects, but 
 must, if prophecy be true, gradually and progres- 
 sively expire. It dies out ; its waters are literally 
 evaporated; it expires of age, decre]3itude, and 
 decay. I do not believe, from prophecy, that the 
 Russian eagle will be allowed to tear it to pieces, 
 or to have the Sultan's palace for its eyrie. I do 
 not believe that it will be suffered to disappear, till 
 the last pulse beats feebly in the Mahometan heart ; 
 but whether there is peace or w^ar, Turkey is equally 
 exhausted. If Russia persists in her infatuated 
 ambition, Turkey, as a Mahometan power, will be 
 destroyed ; if Russia is compelled, before the bayo- 
 nets of Europe, to retire to the Kremlin, the Turkish 
 exchequer will be exhausted ; and, in either case, 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 103 
 
 the prophecy of ite expiry will be fulfilled. It will 
 "be broken without hand." The waters of the 
 great Euphrates will gradually evaporate. Our 
 country at this moment, in taking the part of the 
 Ottoman empire, seems to me fulfilling a solemn 
 and a sacred duty. Treaty, promise, compact, and 
 the everlasting duty of the strong to sympathise 
 with the weak and the oppressed, vindicate the 
 conduct of our country. Nations have duties and 
 responsibilities, just as individuals have. This pro- 
 tection does not imply that we approve of Maho- 
 metanism, or that we wish prosperity to the Cres- 
 cent, or that we have forgotten the barbarities of 
 the Saracen, and the fearful tragedies inflicted upon 
 Europe by the Turk ; but, let our worst of enemies 
 be injured and insulted, it is the duty of a Christian 
 to interpose and protect him. Suppose our worthy 
 ecclesiastical "ruler," Dr. Wiseman, were insulted 
 in the streets of London by a mob, I should feel it 
 my duty to interpose and protect him. Because he 
 dislikes me, and I dislike his principles, I will not 
 forget that I am a man, and whatever is human 
 commands my sympathies, — still less, that I am a 
 Christian, bound to sympathise with suffering as 
 such, and heap coals of fire upon the head of those 
 that are opposed to me. 
 
 And, in the next place, it is most remarkable, 
 that if we turn to the prophet Ezekiel, — and for 
 one moment I will do so, — w^e shall find that while 
 Tiussia is unconsciously hastening the end predicted 
 in prophecy, every act of her conduct is reprobated 
 
104 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and condemned. In the "Hebrew Observer,'* 
 written by unconverted Jews, there is a leading 
 article, of the date of February 10, 1854, most 
 ably written, called the " Eastern Question ;" which 
 states that Russia is the Meshech and the Tubal, 
 or the Eoss, Moscow, and Tobolsk mentioned in 
 the Old Testament; and these Jews say, that if 
 the Eussian Autocrat should sweep away Turkey, 
 their existence as Jews in Turkey is gone. Under 
 the Crescent, they say, they have had freedom, — 
 under the Autocrat they have had cruelty, tyranny, 
 and murder ; and, if he should get the upper hand, 
 they must leave the realms of the East. And then 
 what will be the case? From the sun-rising, as 
 predicted in prophecy, the Jews will march home- 
 ward, or flee, like doves to their windows, and find 
 no rest for the soles of their feet till they arrive. in 
 Palestine — theirs by everlasting right, and the de- 
 cree that cannot be abolished. "Now, in Ezekiel, 
 chap, xxxviii., we have this remarkable prophecy, 
 — so remarkable that it seems to me to refer to 
 these days: "Son of man, set thy face against 
 Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Me- 
 shech and Tubal, and prophesy against him," — 
 (How like the names Moscow and Tobolsk!) — 
 " and say. Thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, I am 
 against thee, Gog, the chief prince of Meshech 
 and Tubal : and I will turn thee back, and put 
 hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, 
 and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of 
 them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 105 
 
 company with bucklers and shields, all of them 
 handling swords : Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with 
 them ; all of them with shield and helmet : Gomer, 
 and all his bands ; the house of Togarmah of the 
 north quarters, and all his bands : and many people 
 with thee. Be thou prepared, and prepare for thy- 
 self, thou, and all thy company that are assembled 
 unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them." — (How 
 like what is taking place!) — "After many days 
 thou shalt be visited : in the latter years thou shalt 
 come into the land that is brought back from the 
 sword, and is gathered out of many people, against 
 the mountains of Israel, which have been always 
 waste : but it is brought forth out of the nations, 
 and they shall dwell safely all of them. Thou shalt 
 ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a 
 cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, 
 and many people with thee. Thus saith the Lord 
 God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same 
 time shall things come into thy mind, and thou 
 shalt think an evil thought" — (suppose this ad- 
 dressed to the Autocrat:) — "and thou shalt say, I 
 will go up to the land of unwalled villages ; I will 
 go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all 
 of them dwelling without walls, and having neither 
 bars nor gates, to take a spoil, and to take a prey ; 
 to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that 
 are now inhabited, and upon the people that are 
 gathered out of the nations, which have gotten 
 cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the 
 land. Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of 
 
106 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall 
 say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil ? hast 
 thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to 
 carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and 
 goods, to take a great spoil? Therefore, son of 
 man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the 
 Lord God ; In that day when my people of Israel 
 dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it ? And thou 
 shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, 
 thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding 
 upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army : 
 and thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, 
 as a cloud to cover the land ; it shall be in the latter 
 days, and I will bring thee against my land, that 
 the heathen may know me, when I shall be sancti- 
 fied in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. Thus saith 
 the Lord God ; Art thou he of whom I have spoken 
 in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, 
 which prophesied in those days many years that I 
 would bring thee against them? And it shall 
 come to pass at the same time when Gog shall 
 come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord 
 God, that my fury shall come up in my face ; for 
 in my jealousy, and in the fire of my wrath have 
 I spoken. Surely in that day there shall be a great 
 shaking in the land of Israel." 
 
 If this, then, relate — and it relates to the last 
 days — to Gog, and Magog, and Tubal, as the re- 
 presentative names of Russia and its chief cities, 
 then we see that whilst he fulfils, as the axe in the 
 hand of the Almighty, prophecies that relate to 
 
AND HIS END. 107 
 
 the future, he is not thereby exempt from punish- 
 ment, or free from guilt, because he himself is a 
 free agent, though used in the hands of Him who 
 has the command, and the control, and the govern- 
 ment of all. Our views of prophecy are not to 
 modify our duties. The Czar may fulfil prophecies, 
 and yet be most guilty. It is not our business to 
 fulfil prophecies, but to obey precepts. Because, 
 for instance, it is predicted, "A Jew shall be a 
 scoff, a by-word, and a scorn," some men think 
 they cannot do a more Christian act than spit upon 
 a Jew, extract his teeth, maltreat him, and call him 
 by bad names. Leave God to fulfil the prophecies 
 He has inspired ; you fulfil the duties He has laid 
 down — justice, mercy, sympathy, and love. 
 
 It is most interesting to see the great panorama 
 of the future sketched in its minutest details on the 
 sacred page, and to witness autocrats from their 
 thrones, and armies from their barracks, rushing, 
 in the nineteenth century, to fill up the outline that 
 God has chalked out upwards of two thousand 
 years ago. I know it will be said, Turkey is 
 dying; it will soon be defunct; why should wo 
 care for it ? I answer, — If a man were dying of 
 consumption, we should not think of knocking him 
 on the head and killing him outright ; on the con- 
 trary, we should try to get him the w^armest blan- 
 kets and the most nourishing food, and shelter him 
 from the winds and the biting frost and the storms, 
 and protract his life to the latest period. And be- 
 cause Turkey is feeble, because it is dying of a 
 
108 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 consumption that is obvious and inevitable, that is 
 no reason why the Autocrat should strike it down, 
 and why nations that are Christian should stand 
 by and sufler the tyrant to inflict the blow. 
 
 It is singular enough that the Turks themselves 
 are almost universally persuaded that the hour of 
 their doom has struck. At this moment the dead 
 that die in the European part of the city are car- 
 ried across the Bosphorus and buried on the Asia- 
 tic side, where they think they will rest in peace. 
 They have also a tradition amongst themselves, 
 that 1854 ends the dynasty of the Turk in Europe; 
 and JSTapoleon Bonaparte in St. Helena, forty years 
 ago, with tliat extraordinary sagacit}- with which 
 that great man's mind was characterised, said: ^'In 
 the natural course of things, in a few years Turkey 
 must fall to Russia. The greatest part of her popu- 
 lation are Greeks, who, you may say, are Russians. 
 The Powers it would injure — and w^ho could oppose 
 it'? — are England, France, Prussia, and Austria. 
 Now, as to Austria, it will be very easy for Russia 
 to engage her assistance by giving her Servia, and 
 other provinces bordering upon the Austrian domi- 
 nions, reaching near to Constantinople. The only 
 hypothesis that France and England may ever be 
 allied with sincerity will bo in order to prevent this. 
 But even this alliance will not avail. France, 
 England, and Prussia united, cannot prevent it. 
 Russia and Austria can at any time effect it. 
 Once mistress of Constantinople, Russia gets all 
 the commerce of the Mediterranean, becomes a 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 109 
 
 great naval Power, and God knows what may 
 happen. She quarrels with you, inarches off to 
 India an army of 70,000 good soldiers, which to 
 Russia is nothing, and 100,000 canaille, Cossacks 
 and others, and England loses India. Above all 
 the other powers, Russia is the most to be feared, 
 especially by you. Her soldiers are braver than 
 the Austrians, and she has the means of raising as 
 many as she pleases. In bravery, the French and 
 English soldiers are the only ones to be compared 
 to them. All this I foresaw. I see into futurity 
 further than others, and I wanted to establish a 
 barrier against those barbarians by re-establishing 
 the kingdom of Poland, and putting Poniatowski 
 at the head of it as king : but your imbeciles of 
 ministers would not consent. A hundred yeara 
 hence I shall be praised, and Europe, especially 
 England, , will lament that I did not succeed. 
 "When they see the finest countries in Europe 
 overrun, and a prey to those northern barbarians, 
 they will say, ^IN'apoleon was right.'" Now, at 
 this moment the Greek and Armenian Christians 
 are, many of them, being translated from darkness 
 into light, and from the kingdom of Satan into that 
 of God's dear Son. At present many of the Greek 
 and Armenian Christians, as a body, are much less 
 truthful, much more depraved, than even the worst 
 of the Turks ; but is it impossible to suppose that 
 these degraded Christians shall be the subjects of a 
 new and a noble resurrection ? — that the Crescent 
 shall not wane till it disappears before the Cross,— 
 10 
 
110 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 that the moon of Islam shall not set, till it is 
 merged in the rising splendour of the Sun of 
 righteousness ? and a nation Christian to its core 
 take the place of the Mahometans, and form a 
 stronsrer barrier to Eiissian ambition and Russian 
 domination than a dying, exhausted, and decrepit 
 empire ? But is the Mahometan himself impervious 
 to light ? The predicted decay of Mahometanism 
 as a power may be the prophecy of her resurrection 
 as a Christian dynasty. Everybody knows that 
 Turkey of 1854 is not the same as Turkey in the 
 days of Napoleon Bonaparte. The paddle-wheel 
 now disturbs the silence of the Dardanelles ; the 
 scream of the railway whistle echoes from the walls 
 of St. Sophia ; the printing-press is busy in Con- 
 stantinople; our newspapers are read by the Turks; 
 a spirit of reform is sweeping the Divan that will 
 end in a grand reformation ; and, mainly through 
 the instrumentality of American missionaries, the 
 Turks begin to discover that the Christian faith is 
 not that degraded and brutish superstition which 
 has hitherto been embodied in the miserable speci- 
 mens that have dwelt in the midst of them ; and 
 the ancient savage law, which made it death for a 
 man who had become a Mussulman and was once 
 a Christian to revert to his Christianity again, is 
 now abolished ; and so late as 1846 the Armenian 
 patriarch, according to usage, sent in the names of 
 thirteen Protestants to the Sultan, praying that, 
 according to custom, at his bidding, they might be 
 banished from the land. The Sultan replied, that 
 
AND HIS END. Ill 
 
 " henceforth no subject of his should suffer for his 
 religious opinions." The greatest persecutors in 
 Turkey for the last hundred years have not always 
 been the Mahometans, but, I say it with shame, 
 the professed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 have been too often intolerant ; and at this moment 
 the greatest advocates of liberty are the Sultan and 
 his Grand Vizier, not perhaps from principle, bu 
 policy; and, a thousand times sooner, as far as 
 secular and personal freedom is concerned, let me 
 fall into the hands of the Sultan and his Grand 
 Vizier, than into the hands of Pio Nono and his 
 Grand Vizier in Golden Square. 
 
 The prophetic decay of the Turk, as the bulwark 
 of Islam, does not necessarily mean the extinction 
 of the Turk, but the exchange of his errors for 
 everlasting and glorious truth. !N'ot the destruc- 
 tion of the man, but the departure of his supersti- 
 tion, may be the fulfilment of the prophecy. This 
 is the existing course of things in the East. Chris- 
 tianity is not a religion of annihilation, but of 
 amelioration, elevation, improvement; and when 
 the present dark and tainted streams of the 
 Euphrates, that have so long overflowed the fair 
 lands of Eastern Christendom, shall have retired, 
 or rolled back to their ancient channels, or rather 
 evaporated beneath the beams of the unsetting 
 sun, the lands from which those floods have ebbed 
 away shall be covered with the knowledge of the 
 Lord, as the waters of the ocean cover the channels 
 of the great deep ; and that river whose streams 
 
112 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 make glad the city of our God shall roll where the 
 Euphrates had rolled its tide before ; and 
 
 " With anthems of devotion, 
 
 Ships from the isles shall meet, 
 And pour the wealth of ocean 
 In tribute at His feet. 
 
 " For Christ shall have dominion 
 O'er river, sea, and shore ; 
 Far as the eagle's pinion, 
 Or dove's light vring can soar." 
 
 What is called the "Eastern question" may be 
 lulled for a little, but only to be resuscitated with 
 more terrible results. The source of its protracted 
 agitation lies in the moral condition of the East. 
 The age, also, in which we live has for its awful 
 and its ominous motto — " Overturn, overturn, 
 overturn." This is the partial destiny of the good; 
 we trust it is the doom of all that is unholy and 
 evil. What comes from God is sustained by him. 
 What is evil is weak. The Crescent is doomed to 
 wane ; the Tiara trembles on the head of him that 
 wears it ; and superstition, in all its aspects, will 
 soon flee before the approach of an unsetting sun : 
 and while statesmen in their official capacity, and 
 nations in their national capacity, are doing their 
 duty to the oppressed, and trying to stay the 
 oppressor, let us as Christians do ours, by extend- 
 ing missions, circulating God's word, urging on- 
 ward into every land that blessed kingdom which 
 conquers by truth, not arms — reigns by love, not 
 force — and is " not meat nor drink, but righteous- 
 ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
 
THE MOSLEM, AND HIS END. 113 
 
 I grieve that our brave and heroic troops should 
 be sent to bleed and fall on distant shores ; I grieve 
 over the existence of war ; but I believe that the 
 war now provoked by the ambition of the Kussian 
 Autocrat, and accepted by our country, is a war, 
 not only of policy, but of justice, of truthfulness, 
 of mercy. The guilt rests on Russia. I pity the 
 infatuated Autocrat ; may his punishment be signal, 
 or his repentance speedy ! May his ambition meet 
 with reward ! May he learn in the Kremlin that 
 justice and truth and mercy are stronger than 
 Cossacks, and more enduring than armed bat- 
 talions ; and whilst our intrepid soldiers on the 
 land, and our brave sailors on the Baltic and the 
 Black Sea, inspired by a sense of the justice of 
 their cause, are battling not only for mercy to the 
 oppressed, but for protection to our dear native 
 land, — whilst they, like Joshua, are warring in the 
 plains below, let us, like Moses, lift up our hearts 
 and hands, and pray that He " to whom the shields 
 of the earth belong," would uphold and bless the 
 banners of the right. 
 
 We have no sympathy with the Koran, no desire 
 to uphold the Mosque, no wish to see the Osmanli 
 strike deeper, or extend wider his withering foot- 
 print. But we have no less dread of autocratic 
 tyranny, and of the lust of power. Acquiescence 
 in this matter would be connivance. It would not 
 avert ultimate war. We pray that the Prince of 
 Peace may soon spread his love and law over all 
 the earth. 
 10* 
 
114 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 m. 
 
 AND HIS HOPE. 
 
 I EXPECT that some, especially those who have 
 not studied the subject, will dissent from the 
 conclusions which I have carefully, prayerfully, 
 and humbly gathered from God's most holy word ; 
 but when I present the views or deductions that 
 seem right, I hope I shall state them with sim- 
 plicity, with all absence of dogmatism, and with 
 humble submission to the authority of the Holy 
 Spirit, speaking in his own word, which will at 
 least commend the spirit in which I speak, if it do 
 not make good the conclusions to which I have 
 arrived. On truths indispensably essential to vital 
 religion we may speak with explicit and unqualified 
 confidence, but on unfulfilled prophecy we must 
 speak humbly, deferentially, often doubtingly, 
 treading with tenderness and caution, bearing in 
 mind distinctly and plainly the great and blessed 
 truths on which we do agree, and taking heed to 
 them as unto stars shining in a dark night, until 
 the Sun of Righteousness arises with perfect heal- 
 ing under his wings. 
 
 The personal coming of our blessed Lord in 
 glory, the hope of the Christian, does appear to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 115 
 
 me as no less clearly revealed in God's lioly word 
 than was the personal advent of the Saviour, to 
 be sacrificed for the sins of all. All Christians be- 
 lieve that Christ will come again ; but some think 
 that he will come previous to the millennial glory ; 
 others, that he will come at the close of the millen- 
 nial glory. It rests with each investigator of God's 
 holy word to decide whether that advent shall be 
 pre-millennial or post-millennial, and what shall 
 be the accompaniments of that glorious day when 
 he shall come again a second time without sin unto 
 salvation. 
 
 Let me briefly bring before your notice a few of 
 the texts that allude to the second coming of our 
 Lord, and you will at oncesee how frequently the 
 subject is introduced in prophecy. Acts iii. 19, — 
 "When the times of refreshing shall come from 
 the presence of the Lord ; and he shall send Jesus 
 Christ, which before was preached unto you : whom 
 the heaven must receive until the times of restitu- 
 tion of all things, which God hath spoken by the 
 mouth of all his holy prophets since the world be- 
 gan." Matt. xxiv. 30, — " And they shall see the 
 Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with 
 power and great glory." Matt. xxv. 31, — "When 
 the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the 
 holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the 
 throne of his glory ; and before him shall be ga- 
 thered all nations : and he shall separate them one 
 from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep 
 from the goats." 2 Thess. i. 7,—" The Lord Jesus 
 
116 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty an- 
 gels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them 
 that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ." Acts i. 11, — "This 
 same Jesus, which is taken up from you into hea- 
 ven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen 
 him go into heaven." Luke xii. 40, — " The Son 
 of man cometh in an hour when ye think not." 
 Again, — " The day of the Lord cometh as a thief 
 in the night." Again, Matt. xxiv. 27, — "For as 
 the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth 
 even unto the west ; so shall also the coming of the 
 Son of Man be." 1 Thess. iv. 16,-- "The Lord 
 shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
 voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : 
 and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we 
 which are alive and remain shall be caught up to- 
 gether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord 
 in the air : and so shall we be ever with the Lord." 
 And again, in Dan. vii. 14, — " There was given 
 him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that 
 all people, and nations, and languages should serve 
 him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion, 
 which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that 
 which shall not be destroyed." Let me call your 
 attention also to Titus ii. 14, — " Looking for that 
 blessed hope, and the appearing of the great God 
 and our Saviour Jesus Christ." This passage is 
 wrongly translated ; for the great God our Father 
 is never said to appear a second time ; it is, literally 
 rendered, "That blessed hope, that glorious per- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 117 
 
 sonal appearance of Jesus Christ, our great God 
 and Saviour ;" where our Redeemer is called the 
 great God and Saviour. When he comes a second 
 time, then "we shall see him as he is;" we shall 
 reign with him in heaven, we shall dwell with him 
 in glory. The attitude of the Church in the pre- 
 sent dispensation is that of the bride looking for 
 the bridegroom, and nothing will satisfy the bride 
 but the bridegroom ; nothing will comfort the wait- 
 ing widow but the presence of the everlasting hus- 
 band. The great high priest of the Jewish nation 
 was a perfect type of Christ. What was his office 
 at their great and solemn feast? lie offered up 
 sacrifice, and then went into the Holy of Holies to 
 make intercession for the people, and then he came 
 forth from the Holy of Holies and blessed the peo- 
 ple. iNow, our great High Priest exactly corresponds 
 to theirs. He has offered up a perfect sacrifixje once 
 for all without the camp, and is now in the Holy 
 of Holies, in heaven itself, where he makes inter- 
 cession for us. But what was the attitude of the 
 Jewish people when the high priest w^as in the Holy 
 of Holies ? They were waiting for him to come 
 forth to bless them. What is to be our attitude 
 while our great High Priest, having offered up the 
 sacrifice, is in the true holy place? Unlike the 
 Roman Catholic, we should not continue to offer 
 the sacrifice, but we should now be waiting on the 
 tiptoe of expectation for our great High Priest to 
 come forth to bless us from the Holy of Holies. It 
 is alike the Christian's duty and privilege to look 
 
118 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 forward for tlie coming of our Lord and Saviour 
 JesLis Christ. We wait for him. 
 
 It does appear evident that no millennial state 
 will precede our Lord's personal advent. I know 
 that some excellent Christians differ from me on 
 this, therefore you will pardon me if I try to state 
 distinctly what the word of God indicates respect- 
 ing this point. If we turn to the thirteenth chap- 
 ter of Matthew, we shall find an important expla- 
 nation at the twenty-first verse. The kingdom of 
 heaven is likened unto a man sowing good seed in 
 a field ; and while he slept, the enemy went in and 
 sowed tares : and when the seed sprang up, the 
 tares and the wheat came up together. What did 
 the Lord of the harvest do ? Did he send men 
 forth with as the reapers to separate them ? "No ; he 
 said, " Let both grow together until the harvest ; 
 and then I will say to the reapers, Gather first the 
 tares, and then bind them in bundles and burn 
 them ; but gather the w^heat into my barn." It is 
 so in the present dispensation ; the good and bad 
 grow up together, and are not separated until the 
 end ; and as the tares were gathered and burned in 
 the fire, so shall it be at the end of this dispensa- 
 tion, for the Son of Man shall come and cast out 
 the unbelievers into a furnace of fire, "where shall 
 be wailing and gnashing of teeth," and gather the 
 good into heavenly habitations. The whole Chris- 
 tian economy is a composite one. The visible 
 church is not all pure w^heat, but a mixture of tares 
 and wheat, and it appears it will continue to be so 
 
119 
 
 tijl Christ himself comes at the end of this dispen- 
 sation. It is quite plain that there will be no such 
 thing as a perfect visible church till the Lord 
 comes. It will continue a mixture of good and 
 bad until the end. I regard, in fact, the very 
 existence of a visible church very much as I do a 
 provisional committee. We used to hear in railway 
 times of provisional committees. These were simply 
 committees appointed to act until the true or com- 
 petent committee should be appointed. The whole 
 visible church is at this moment purely provisional ; 
 but when that which is perfect is come, that which 
 is provisional shall be done away. Meantime the 
 church is made up of tares and wheat, and this 
 mixture ^vill continue throughout this dispensation, 
 till there arrive that perfect state after the advent, 
 in which there will be neither flaw, nor sin, nor 
 defect, but all God's people shall be presented a 
 glorious church, without spot or blemish or any 
 such thing. This takes place at the advent of 
 Christ: but those who hold that the millennium 
 must come first, must conclude that the tares will 
 be separated from the wheat a thousand years 
 before Christ comes. According to the text I have 
 read, they will not be separated until Christ him- 
 self comes, and therefore the perfect church is not 
 prior, but subsequent to Christ's advent, and there- 
 fore Christ's advent is pre-millennial and not post- 
 millennial. In the second chapter of the second of 
 Thessalonians we read, — " Let no man deceive you 
 by any means ; for that day shall not come, except 
 
120 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 there come" (as I shall translate it) "the apostasy, 
 and that Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of perdi- 
 tion ; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all 
 that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that 
 he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing 
 himself that he is God. For the mystery of ini- 
 quity doth already work ; only he who now letteth 
 will let, until he be taken out of the way. And 
 then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the 
 Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, 
 and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 
 even him whose coming is after the working of 
 Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, 
 and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in 
 them that perish ; because they have not received 
 the love of the truth, that they might be saved." 
 "We are told in this chapter that the great apostasy 
 commenced in the Apostle's days, and that it would 
 continue till Christ shall come again. According 
 to those who hold that the millennium precedes 
 Christ's advent, Popery is to be destroyed by the 
 preaching of the Gospel; but according to the 
 Apostle Paul, Popery is to be wasted progressively 
 by the preaching of the Gospel, but to be uprooted 
 and destroyed finally at and by Christ's advent — 
 indicating that it will be co-existent w^ith this dis- 
 pensation. I cannot conceive any one passage of 
 Scripture more fatal to the theory that the millen- 
 nium precedes Christ's advent than this prediction 
 of the great apostasy. It begins in the days of the 
 Apostle, stretches forward to the millennial glory, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 121 
 
 and is to be destroyed, not by the preaching of the 
 Gospel, but only by the personal advent and glo- 
 rious appearing of the Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ. In another passage, in the first chapter of 
 the Acts, we read, that when the disciples were 
 assembled together, they asked the Lord, saying, 
 "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the 
 kingdom to Israel?" Every Jew looked then for 
 a temporal Messiah, and every Jew still expects 
 Messiah to come in temporal glory. But what 
 answer did our Lord make to the inquiry ? Not, 
 Your expectation is wrong ; but, " It is not for you 
 to know the times or the seasons, which the Father 
 hath put in his own power." I believe so far with 
 the Jew, that Christ will come in his everlasting 
 glory. The Jew, however, has passed over the first 
 advent, and sees the promise of the second only. 
 When the Apostles said, "Wilt thou at this time 
 restore again the kingdom to Israel?" our Lord 
 did not answer that they must not look for such a 
 thing. lie said, " It is not for you to know the 
 times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in 
 his own power :" intimating that God would restore 
 the kingdom to Israel, and that the only point then 
 hid from them was the time and the season that he 
 would select ; and the two men in white apparel, 
 that spake to them from heaven, said, — "Ye men 
 of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? 
 this same Jesus, which is taken up frpm you into 
 heaven, shall so come in like manner as je have 
 aeen him go into heaven," — an4 surely th}s naust 
 11 
 
122 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 be his personal advent. They saw him ascend from 
 amongst them, and a cloud receive him into glory; 
 and we shall see him again return in a cloud, and 
 descend upon the earth in the same cloud, sur- 
 rounded by the same glory. In the nineteenth 
 chapter of Matthew, the promise made specially to 
 the Apostles indicates the same truth, when our 
 Lord says — " Yerily I say unto you. That ye which 
 have followed me, when the Son of Man shall sit 
 in the throne of his glory, in the regeneration, ye 
 also" (that is, ye who have followed me now) 
 " shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
 tribes of Israel." The Greek here is ^v ttj -n-aXiy/g- 
 vsria, or the age thus delineated. " And I heard a 
 great voice out of heaven, saying. Behold, the 
 tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell 
 with them, and they shall be his people, and God 
 himself shall be with them, and be their God, and 
 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and 
 there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
 crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for 
 the former things are passed away." ;N"ow this 
 promise made to the Apostles of sitting upon 
 thrones in the regeneration or restoration of all 
 things, is evidently connected with the fulfilment 
 of the promise in the twenty-first chapter of Reve- 
 lation, where Christ is described as descending 
 from heaven to his redeemed and ransomed people. 
 In Daniel it is thus described — ''I saw in the night 
 visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came 
 with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient 
 
THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 123 
 
 of Days, and they 'brought him near before him. 
 And there was given him dominion, and glory, 
 and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and lan- 
 guages should serve him." 
 
 The second coming of Christ is also referred to 
 in such texts as these — " Behold, he cometh with 
 clouds, and every eye shall see him." He shall 
 come as the lightning shineth from the east to the 
 west." According to the theory that the millen- 
 nium precedes Christ's advent, it ought to be, " as 
 the light shineth from the east to the west;" but it 
 is not the growing light, but, " the lightning flash," 
 instant — unexpected. So shall it be with the com- 
 ing of the Son of Man. In the prophet Zechariah, 
 sixth chapter, we read — " Behold the man whose 
 name is The Branch ; and he shall grow up out 
 of his place, and he shall build the temple of the 
 Lord : even he shall build the temple of the Lord, 
 and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule 
 upon his throne : and he shall be a priest upon his 
 throne : and the counsel of peace shall be upon 
 them both." And again, in the fourteenth chapter 
 of Zechariah, at the ninth verse — "And the Lord 
 shall be King over all the earth : in that day there 
 shall be one Lord, and his name one." So also — 
 " The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with 
 a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with 
 the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall 
 rise first : then we which are alive and remain shall 
 be caught up together in the clouds, to meet the 
 Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever be with the 
 
124 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Lord." But, some say, th'ese predictions of the 
 advent of Christ may be legitimately construed as 
 ■ purely spiritual. I would ask of those that think 
 so. Is there a promise in the whole Bible that Christ 
 will come personally? If you insist upon these 
 prophecies being figurative only, or spiritual, and 
 not literal, then there is not a text in the whole 
 word of God that will satisfy you that Christ will 
 personally come at all. Consequently, the texts I 
 have read do not denote a sphitual, but a personal 
 advent. The spiritual Christ is come. The spi- 
 ritual Christ was present when John said — " Come, 
 Lord Jesus ;" the spiritual Christ was present when 
 the Apostles said he would come, for his own pro- 
 mise is — "Wherever two or three are gathered to- 
 gether in my name, there am I in the midst of 
 them." And another promise is — " Lo, I am with 
 you always, even to the end of the world." Christ 
 is spiritually present with his Church from the com- 
 mencement of this dispensation, and, therefore, the 
 promises and prayers and expectations which relate 
 to his coming, not yet realized, must refer to his 
 personal, not to the spiritual advent, which is already 
 felt and experienced by us. 
 
 According to the theor}^ that the millennium 
 precedes Christ's advent, there is to be 1000 years 
 of perfect joy, unstained and unclouded sunshine, 
 and then at the end of the 1000 years Christ is to 
 come; but, according to the Apostle, our Lord is 
 to find the wheat mingled with the tares when he 
 cemes. He is to find the great apostasy stretching 
 
AND UIS HOPE. 125 
 
 over the earth ; he is to punish the wicked whom 
 he then finds ou the earth with everlasting punish- 
 ment. 
 
 To show still further what takes place when 
 Christ comes, we are told by St Peter, that " the 
 day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,'* 
 Some w^ill say w^e fix dates, but I deny that we do 
 so any more than Scripture does. Those that hold 
 the post-millennial advent, fix dates ; for when 500 
 years are passed of the 1000, they may say, in 500 
 years more Christ will come ; and when 975 years 
 will be elapsed, they will be able to say, in 25 years 
 Christ will come. It is the post-millennial advo- 
 cates who fix dates. I think, in the matter of dates, 
 we can only have some incidental glimpses of the 
 approaching glory, scattered as early sunbeams on 
 the mountain tops, to make God's people gird up 
 their loins for their Lord's glorious appearing, and 
 to make them ready for his coming. St. Peter 
 says — "All things shall pass away with a great 
 noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat." And what then are believers to look for ? 
 "We, then, according to his promise, look for a 
 new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." I gather from this passage, that 
 the instant Christ comes to this w^ orld — and that 
 coming is not far distant — the earth will melt with 
 fervent heat, and the elements shall pass away, 
 and be at once converted into a new heaven and a 
 new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. There 
 is nothing improbable in this combustion and trans- 
 11* 
 
126 SIGIs^S OF THE TIMES. 
 
 formation. The most accomplished geologists have 
 now come to the conclusion, that the globe on 
 which we live is merely a hard crust, and that the 
 interior of this globe is one rolling ocean of liquid 
 fire ; and that the volcanoes are the occasional 
 safety valves that let out the superabundant pres- 
 sure in the interior, and prevent a premature ex- 
 plosion. God has only to let loose the imprisoned 
 fire, and the whole earth will become calcined by 
 heat, and a new heaven and a new earth will take 
 its place. I mention this only to show that there 
 is nothing improbable in it. 
 
 Laplace, and other great asti^onomers, have 
 watched worlds above, that have successively 
 appeared in a state of combustion. Astronomers 
 have seen stars begin first to burn with red heat, 
 then reduced to a white heat, and they have 
 watched until they have been calcined, and have 
 entirely disappeared ; the phenomena of burning 
 worlds have been detected by the telescope before 
 now, and, therefore, we have analogies to strengthen 
 (if any strengthening be required) the prediction 
 of the Apostle, that the earth will be burned up, 
 and a new heaven and a new earth succeed. I do 
 not believe that this earth will be annihilated. This 
 globe was beautiful and fair when it came from the 
 plastic hands of the Creator some 6000 years ago ; 
 and God has only to expunge that which mars and 
 disfigures it, — namely, sin, — to make it again the 
 same fair and beautiful globe, till its very deserts 
 rejoice and blossom as the rose. I could take you 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 127 
 
 to the Highlands of Scotland, and to glens so 
 beautiful, where, if I could be assured that no sin 
 and no tears should come, I could consent to live 
 for ever. I do not see why God should give up 
 this earth as a hopeless thing. There is no reason 
 for its being destroyed. Let sin be expunged, and 
 it will close as it commenced, in Paradise and Eden, 
 when all was blessedness and joy. This earth is, 
 in all likelihood, to undergo the same process that 
 our bodies undergo. Every body becomes a lifeless , 
 form ; it must be laid in the grave, the worm must 
 be its brother, and corruption must be its sister ; 
 but out of its disintegrated elements God will con- 
 struct, not another body, but the same identical 
 body without an atom of sin, or disease, or decay. 
 So it will be with this world. God will not destroy 
 it and substitute another in its place. He will re- 
 baptize it with fire, and pass over it a new genesis, 
 and that which is now groaning with the burden 
 of sin, like a mother weeping at the sufferings of 
 her offspring, will rise regenerated under the rays 
 of the " Sun of Eighteousness with healing in his 
 wdngs." I was never made to die, we were never 
 made to have grey hairs, or pain in the heart, or 
 disease in the frame. Sin w^as introduced into the 
 world, and death by sin. God made us at first 
 holy, perfect, and happy, and till sin be removed, 
 and not till then, can man be holy, beautiful, and 
 happy again. If you take a man in full health, 
 (though scarcely possible, for the instant a babe is 
 born, that instant it begins to die,) at thirty or 
 
128 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 forty, ill the prime of life, without disease, and if 
 he could be laid open, and an angel were to see 
 him, not knowing the history of humanity, he 
 would infer from the anatomy, that a machine so 
 exquisitely made, the arrangements for waste and 
 supply so perfect, must go on for ever, and ever, , 
 and ever ; and if you ask the philosopher why this 
 man dies and grows old, he cannot tell you ; there 
 is no reason upon earth why you or I should grow 
 old. It is a mysterious poison that has crept into 
 our economy, and generated disease and death. 
 Let sin be expunged, remove the moral disease 
 incubating in the heart of man, and he will be 
 restored to a state of holiness, happiness and bealth 
 again. 
 
 Many hold that Christ comes at the death of a 
 Christian. I do not think so ; he does not then 
 come to me, I go to him. He sends for me, not 
 comes to me, and, therefore, to say that Christ 
 comes at death, is a misconstruing of the texts 
 foretelling his coming. The Scriptures represent 
 that when Christ comes, instead of finding a mil- 
 lennial earth, filled with happiness, and peace, and 
 joy, he shall find disorganisation, wickedness, and 
 guilt. Does not this teach us that instead of the 
 millennium preceding Christ's advent, men will be 
 busily engaged, some in things sinful, and others 
 in what is innocent in itself but absorbing in its 
 influences ? Many things are sinful only in excess. 
 The love of money, for instance, is a legitimate 
 passion in its subordinate place. We cannot do 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 129 
 
 without money ; we cannot do without clothes, and 
 food, and therefore not without money ; when we 
 love it in its place we do right, but when it becomes 
 the commanding passion it is most destructive. So 
 you may love the bright flowers, and beautiful land- 
 scape, this is all perfectly legitimate ; the sin con- 
 sists in the abuse, or in making the love of the 
 object the commanding passion. I believe that the 
 excessive love of what is lawful ruins more souls 
 than the forbidden love of what is sinful. We 
 have in the Scriptures a parable which divides 
 those who reject the Gospel of Christ into three 
 classes : one said — " I have bought a yoke of oxen, 
 and must needs go to prove them." Now there 
 was no sin in buying the oxen, but the sin was in 
 loving them so much, that the invitation of Christ 
 was rejected. In the other case also, there was no 
 sin in marrying, but in paying so much attention 
 to the home, the w^ife, and the fireside, that no time 
 could be sacrificed to obey Christ's gracious invita- 
 tion. So also in the last day, it will not be so 
 much that men will be engaged in wickedness, as 
 immersed in the inordinate love of things lawful. 
 Just before Christ's coming we may expect that 
 Satan will go forth with intense activity. Every- 
 thing that is evil will become charged with double 
 intensity. Is not everything already becoming 
 more and more earnest? Popery is intensely 
 active; Puseyism is just the old fox-hunting, 
 sporting clergyman becoming earnest. Look at 
 infidelity, how it is exerting itself! Look at our 
 
130 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 divisions, how sad ! ]N"evertlieless, I believe there 
 is at this moment in the church of Christ universal, 
 more healthy, real evangelical religion than there 
 ever has been since the days of the Reformation. 
 In the Church of England, with all its division, 
 there is a body of devout, spiritual-minded men, 
 that have no precedent in any other church. I 
 rejoice that it is so. I think everything is becoming 
 earnest and real; and as the coming of Christ 
 nears, all men will be in earnest, either in God's 
 or the devil's service. As the time is short, so 
 Satan knows it. He is aware that he has but few 
 years in which to exercise his power in this world, 
 and he will strive the more to obtain a foot-hold in 
 a globe that is escaping from his clutches ; and if 
 he cannot secure the position he covets, he will try 
 to victimize and make captives of all that he can. 
 Look at the political world. What is the state of 
 Europe at the present time ? It is one surging 
 volcano. Look at China, seething in revolution. 
 See France, trembling for its imperial destinies. 
 Look at Russia — already come, probably the 
 ancient Magog, into Europe, and to fight his last 
 battle in the midst of Palestine before the end 
 comes. Look at Turkey — prophecy pointing to 
 this time as the probable period when the Euphra- 
 tes is to be dried up. Look at Rome, which at this 
 very moment would not contain the Pope ten 
 minutes, if it were not for the 6,000 French sol- 
 diers there : a third of the population of Rome are 
 Protestants religiously, if they dare avow it ; and 
 
TnE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 131 
 
 another third are radicals and revolutionists, ready 
 to npset the present state of things if they could. 
 And this is the model city! the modern Eome; 
 that ought to present a magnificent spectacle of 
 unity and peace: where the Pope, its sovereign, 
 would not be secure ten minutes, if the 6,000 
 French bayonets were to be withdrawn. The 
 Thirty-nine Articles are surely as good as these to 
 keep a nation in its place any day. The cities of 
 the nations are also predicted to fall. Now I believe 
 that as "the great city" was the politico-ecclesias- 
 tical institution of the Church of Eome, the cities 
 of the nations are our established churches. I do 
 not say I wush them to fall ; I have no sympathy 
 with those who try to subvert them ; for I believe, 
 in my conscience, a national church to be a great 
 ordinance of God, and that it is duty to maintain 
 and support it ; but too plainly the Church of Eng- 
 land, as an ecclesiastical institution, trembles on 
 the very verge of its disorganization. The Church 
 of Scotland suffered a great expenditure of its 
 strength in 1843, when a number of excellent men 
 supposed it their duty to secede from it; both 
 churches are at this moment weakened consider- 
 ably, and I believe, as civil and endowed institu- 
 tions, they will be wickedly but hopelessly broken 
 up. All churches are about to be equally dissolved ; 
 Methodism is fast breaking up ; Independency is to 
 be shattered ; and the Baptists will not be spared. 
 This great disorganization of existing institutions 
 is the disintegration of the component elements, in 
 
132 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 order to form a new and glorious combination — a 
 church where there shall be no more division, where 
 there shall be neither Churchmen nor Dissenters, 
 but Christ and Christian shall be all in all. 
 
 I have thus showm, first, that Christ's advent is 
 the prominent hope of the Church of God ; secondly, 
 that his advent is a personal one ; and, thirdly, that 
 the millennial day succeeds, and does not precede, 
 the advent of Christ, just as the light follows the 
 sun, and does not precede it ; and, lastlj^, I have 
 shown from the signs of the times, that this advent 
 is near at hand, and that it becomes all to make 
 ready for the coming of our blessed Lord. Let us 
 now look more earnestly for the appearing of the 
 Son of God, and cease to quarrel. When our 
 Lord comes, there will instantly take place a resur- 
 rection of the dead in Christ. I am going to state 
 what some will not agree with. I hold that when 
 Christ comes at the commencement of the millen- 
 nium, all believers that have died in Christ — from 
 Adam down to the b^be that perished yesterday 
 from its mother's bosom — the dead in Christ will 
 instantly rise. All believers then living will 
 instantly be gathered together with them — and 
 both the dead in Christ who rise from the earth, 
 and the living in Christ who do not die, but are 
 changed, shall be caught up in the air, and shall 
 there remain until the earth has undergone the last 
 fiery baptism, just as the family of E'oah w^as kept 
 in the ark. The rest of the dead will not rise until 
 the thousand years are finished. The resurrection 
 
THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 133 
 
 of the dead in Christ, that is, of all true believers, 
 takes place at the commencement of the millen- 
 nium ; and if so, by this one fact it is established, 
 that Christ's advent is pre-millennial, and not post- 
 millennial. We read in the 20th chapter of the 
 Revelation, — '^And 1 saw an angel come down 
 from heaven, havi»g the key of the bottomless pit 
 and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold 
 of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, 
 and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and 
 cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, 
 and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive 
 the nations no more, till the thousand years should 
 be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little 
 season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon 
 them, and judgment was given unto them : and I 
 saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the 
 witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and 
 which had not worshipped the beast, neither his 
 image, neither had received his mark upon their 
 foreheads, or on their hands ; and they lived and 
 reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the 
 rest of the dead lived not again until a thousand 
 years were finished." Some hold that the first 
 resurrection that takes place at the commencement 
 of the millennium is a spiritual or figurative resur- 
 rection, and not a personal one. Both Mr. Barnes 
 and Mr. Brown hold this view, and quote prophecy 
 in support of it, as, for instance, the 37th chapter 
 of Ezekiel, where we read, — " Therefore prophesy 
 and say. unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: 
 12 
 
184 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Behold, my people, I will open your graves, and 
 cause you to come up out of your graves, and 
 bring you into the land of Israel." In the same 
 manner there is a similar prophecy in Hosea, where 
 the resurrection is spoken of, at the 6th chapter 
 and the 2d verse, where we read, — " After two days 
 will he revive us : in the third day he will raise us 
 up, and we shall live in his sight." 'Now, Mr. 
 Barnes rests upon this as a proof that the rising of 
 the dead spoken of in the 20th chapter of the Eeve- 
 lation is used in a figurative sense. My answer to 
 him would be this : — The death and resurrection 
 spoken of in the prophecies quoted, are expressly 
 stated to be figurative. In Ezekiel the death is 
 figurative, and therefore the resurrection is so ; but 
 the death in the Apocalypse is literal, and there- 
 fore the resurrection is so also. For if the death 
 be literal, as it undoubtedly is, then the resurrection 
 must be literal also. But again, it is said that the 
 rest of the dead live not until the thousand years are 
 finished. This is universally conceded to be literal, 
 but the first resurrection is part of it ; therefore 
 these resurrections must be both literal. Our Lord 
 when he speaks of the seven candlesticks adds 
 their meaning, " The seven candlesticks which 
 thou seest are, i. e. represent, the seven churches." 
 So this is, i. e. explains, the first resurrection. 
 Throughout the New Testament we read of two 
 resurrections. In Luke xiv. 14 we read, — "For 
 thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of 
 the just." Again, in Luke xx. 35, — "But they 
 
135 
 
 which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that 
 world, and the resurrection from the dead," or, as 
 it ought to have been translated, that we should be 
 counted worthy of obtaining that, i, e. pre-eminent 
 resurrection from among the dead. St. Paul says, 
 — " K by any means I might attain to the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead," or, as it should read, "from 
 among the dead." There can be no doubt that 
 there are two resurrections spoken of, and that the 
 resurrection of the saints is the first and previous 
 to the millennium, and the resurrection that is last 
 is after the millennium. In Eomans viii. we have 
 a beautiful illustrative passage, — "For we know 
 that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in 
 pain together until now, waiting the redemption 
 of the body" as its restoration. The Apostle 
 speaks of nature groaning and travailing in pain, 
 waiting till she brings forth that new and beautiful 
 heaven, — "the new heaven and the new earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness." "We have no 
 idea now, I may remark, of the stores of beauty 
 and magnificence treasured up in the bosom of 
 this earth. You would hardly believe that the 
 different varieties of roses are merely the old 
 hedge rose subjected to artistic cultivation ; and 
 if man can bring forth by his skill such magnificent 
 objects from nature, how beautiful will nature's 
 roses and blossoms be when the repressing curse 
 under which all nature is groaning and travailing 
 shall be removed! 
 When Christ comes, then shall be realized the 
 
136 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 prophecy of the woman's seed as the destroyer of 
 the serpent. Christ came into the world not to 
 destroy the works of God, hut to destroy the works 
 of the devil, as it is so beautifully expressed in one 
 of the Collects in the Prayer-Book : "0 God, 
 whose blessed Son was manifested that he might 
 destroy the works of the devil, and make us the 
 sons of God, and heirs of eternal life ; Grant us, 
 we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may 
 purify ourselves, even as he is pure ; that when he 
 shair appear again with power and great glory, we 
 may be made like unto him in his eternal and glo- 
 rious kingdom ; where with thee, Father, and 
 thee, Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth, ever 
 one God, world without end. Amen." "When 
 Christ comes Satan's head shall be finally bruised, 
 and he shall no longer trample or triumph over 
 this world. The triumphs of Messiah shall be fully 
 realized, when he shall present to his Father a glo- 
 rious and complete church, without spot or blemish 
 or any such thing. His promises with regard to 
 his own peculiar people, the Jews, shall then be 
 accomplished, for they shall be restored to their 
 owii land. "When Christ comes we shall meet all 
 that fell asleep in Christ, all that believe with us 
 in him as our Prophet, Priest, and King. We shall 
 be raised, and you, dear reader, shall know me, 
 and I shall know you, more distinctly than we now 
 recognise each other. It will be the general assem- 
 bly of the church of the First-born, sitting down 
 with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, know- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN, AND HIS HOPE. 137 
 
 ing each other even as they also are known. We 
 who have lost dear relatives shall have them re- 
 stored to us, and all painful disruptions shall he 
 healed ; and we who have wept here on earth shall 
 rejoice in joining with our friends in singing the 
 praises of the Lamb for ever and ever. When 
 Christ comes, this earth, which is now an island 
 struck off from the continent of glory, shall be re- 
 stored to its proper place from which it was origi- 
 nally broken, and God shall be with men, and 
 dwell with us, and we shall dwell with him for 
 ever. Then there shall be *'no more tears, nor 
 sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
 pain." There shall be no more death, no night, 
 no mistakes, no heart-burnings, no griefs to feel, 
 nor fears to beat away. There will then and there 
 begin the lasting reign of perfect holiness, and 
 therefore of perfect happiness; w^e shall see no 
 more of the presence or the power of corruption ; 
 we shall rise no more clothed with corruptible flesh 
 and blood, but endued with bodies incorruptible, 
 immortal, and radiant with glory ; and then shall 
 be brought to pass the saying, " Death is swallowed 
 up in victory." 
 
 Bat for a full and joyous view of all the future 
 glory, we must refer to those magnificent sketches, 
 the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of Re- 
 velation. There we find the sure prophecy of the 
 removal of all that disturbs, and the introduction 
 of all that glorifies. The sorrows and the imper- 
 fections of the present are there seen retiring like 
 12* 
 
138 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 clouds, and the full sunshine of everlasting day 
 pouring down upon a restored and regenerated 
 earth. All old things are passed away, and all 
 things are become new. The sorrows of the past 
 are merged in the enjoyments of an everlasting 
 present. Recollections of scenes and events once 
 painful, will sei've to augment the joys, and heighten 
 the bliss of an experience that accumulates in peace, 
 and joy, and brilliancy for ever. The Christian has 
 a noble destiny before him, and a blessed hope 
 within him ; his is a goodly heritage ; his is a hope 
 that maketh not ashamed. The future, in its rela- 
 tion to the present, will be absolute contrast, not 
 comparison. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, its 
 deep things. * 
 
 ** No sickness there ; 
 No weary wasting of the frame away ; 
 No fearful shrinking from the midnight air ; 
 No dread of summer's bright and fervid ray. 
 
 *' Care has no home 
 "Within that realm of ceaseless praise and song ; 
 Its tossing billows break and melt in foam, 
 Far from the mansions of the spirit throng. 
 
 " No wither'd flower, 
 Or blasted bud, celestial gardens know ; 
 No scorching blast, or fierce descending shower, 
 Scatters destruction like a ruthless foe. 
 
 ** No hidden grief. 
 No wild and cheerless vision of despair, 
 No vain petitions for a swift relief. 
 No tearful eyes, no broken hearts are there." 
 
HIS RUIN AND RESTORATION. 139 
 
 IV. 
 
 HIS RUIN AND RESTORATION. 
 
 The prophecies in the Gospels relating to the 
 Jews are signs in every century of this dispensa- 
 tion. But the hopes that hegin to bud from every 
 branch of this withered fig-tree are indications of 
 its returning vitality, and of our arrival at the eve 
 of a new dispensation. We have said something 
 about the recent movement among the Jews in the 
 first Lecture. Let us retrace their ruin, so soon to 
 end in their restoration. Jesus said, eighteen hun- 
 dred years ago, " And they shall fall by the edge 
 of the sword, and shall be led away captive into 
 all nations : and Jerusalem shall be trodden down 
 of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be 
 fulfilled." Luke xxi. 24. 
 
 There is here stated the prophecy of the utter 
 dispersion, degradation, and protracted suffering 
 of the Jew, in all the nations and countries of the 
 earth. There is also predicted no less clearly what 
 has been actually fulfilled, — the entire desolation 
 of their illustrious capital, the overthrow of their 
 holy temple, and so fur the removal of that central 
 column, the glory and rallying-place of the Jew, 
 to which, with unfaltering fidelity, he still looks 
 from every land, and along every age of the world. 
 
140 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Let US study the prediction of tlie utter downfall 
 of the illustrious capital, its sacred temple, and all 
 the glory of that place that was once the joy of the 
 whole earth. The destruction of Jerusalem took 
 place, as predicted in the sacred page, and recorded 
 in the annals of the Jewish historian, eighteen 
 hundred years ago. Titus, the Eoman general, 
 pitched his camp amid the ruins of the temple, on 
 the very spot where the mercy-seat and the ark, 
 and the glory and the cherubim were, in the year 
 of our Lord 70 ; and of all the worshippers that 
 were wont to congregate under the roof of that 
 magnificent fane, Josephus states that there were 
 left on its site, in his days, a handful of old and 
 venerable rabbis, whg wept, and prayed, and kissed 
 the very stones and ruins of their loved and now 
 lost temple. In the year of our Lord 138, by order 
 of the Roman emperor Adrian, there was set up, 
 in order to insult the Jews, a marble hog, the un- 
 clean animal always thought by the Gentiles most 
 obnoxious to the Jews ; and in order efiectually to 
 disperse the Jews, as if he undertook to fulfil the 
 prophecy, and leave them not the least discernible 
 trace of the site of their city, he ordered it to be 
 again ploughed up, and another city to be built 
 upon its ruins called by another name. For a great 
 many years the very name Jerusalem was not ap- 
 plied to the town that stood upon the ruins of the 
 ancient city and royal home of David. It is even 
 doubtful at this moment if the walls and houses in 
 Jerusalem contain, in a single instance, a solitary 
 
THE JEW, HIS RUIN ANt) RESTORATION. 141 
 
 fragrment of the ancient walls and houses of Salem. 
 The only remains that we can trace, as probably a 
 part of its ancient gloi-y, are the deep foundations 
 of a temple, near where a Christian sanctuary is 
 built, consisting of huge stones of enormous di- 
 mensions buried in the debris; the corners of which 
 are literally worn and wasted by the lips of the 
 rabbis, that come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and 
 still kiss the stones of their ancient temple. In 
 their deepest degradation " her people take plea- 
 sure in her stones ; her very dust to them is dear." 
 The mosque of Omar was subsequently erected by 
 the Mahometans, on what they supposed the site 
 of the ancient temple : and during the Crusades, 
 when the nations that denied a living Christ rushed 
 to rescue the tomb of a dead Christ, the streets of 
 Jerusalem were literally deluged with blood ; and 
 since that day the hoofs of the Arab's steed, the 
 Mameluke cavalry, and the bare feet of the Greek 
 and Roman monk have continued to tread the 
 streets of Jerusalem, and to desecrate the dust of 
 Abraham and Sarah beneath the oaks of Mamre ; 
 and the bones of Joseph resting in the hopes of a 
 sure and a certain resurrection. And whilst all 
 these insults have been inflicted on Jerusalem for a 
 very long course of years, the Jew has not been 
 suffered to live in it : in his own city the Jew is 
 now literally the stranger. All religions — Greek, 
 Roman, and Mahometan — have united for eighteen 
 hundred years in keeping the Jew out of Jerusa- 
 lem, as predicted in the prophets ; and the Jews at 
 
142 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 this day present the spectacle of a people without 
 a home — a nation without a country. It has only 
 been during the last thirty years (and here is the 
 budding of the fig-tree) that any number of Jews 
 have been allowed to live in Jerusalem, and to be- 
 gin to find homes and raise houses in the midst of 
 it, and to walk again the streets consecrated by the 
 feet of illustrious pilgrims, and to breathe the air 
 that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the world's grey 
 fathers breathed many thousand years before. 
 
 lS[ot only has their capital been thus destroyed, 
 but in every country to which the Jew has been 
 driven, he continues a sufferer. In Switzerland, 
 the land of freedom, and of mountain and of glen, 
 the Jew has drunk the bitter cup of sorrow. In 
 Russia he is treated as a serf; and when the auto- 
 crat wants to augment his army, or to indulge his 
 taste, it is the wretched but rich Jews that must 
 pay the price and bear the penalty of it. In Spain 
 he is hunted like a wild beast. In Italy, and chiefly 
 in Eome, he is driven into a horrid den called the 
 ghetto : the only respite that he enjoyed was when 
 the Eoman republic was in force ; and naturally he 
 longs and waits for that day when the ecclesiastical 
 despotism that now crushes him shall be broken 
 into fragments, and Israel shall again be free, and 
 Christians have liberty to worship God, with none 
 to make them afraid. The Jew reads the 28th 
 chapter of Deuteronomy in his synagogues, and 
 feels too keenly that every curse predicted against 
 
THE JEW, HIS RUIN AND RESTORATION. 143 
 
 him in that chapter has been literally executed. 
 No sign is so eloquent as the Jew on our streets. 
 
 I turn from the capital and its inhabitants to the 
 countiy itself— to Palestine. What is its state now ? 
 Once it was a land that overflowed with milk and 
 with honey ; its gardens rising in successive tiers 
 into every zone and climate. On the mountain 
 ranges of Lebanon grew the fruits of every coun- 
 try, and of every latitude of the globe. It was 
 once the most fertile and prolific of all lands, as it 
 is still the most beautifully situated. But since the 
 fall of Jerusalem what has been its state ? The 
 earthquake has its home in Palestine ; the very sea 
 — the Mediterranean — ebbs from its shores, as if it 
 felt weary with touching them. Its cities are become 
 tombs; its population is drying up; the Arab plun- 
 derer roams in every valley ; its once beautiful trees 
 and tiers of gardens have been washed by the rains 
 till the bare rock is all that remains; the eagle 
 screams amid its solitary recesses, and the owl 
 hoots in its wild and desolate parts. Palestine is 
 at this moment an illustration and specimen of a 
 land that God Almighty has cursed, a desert 
 attesting the truth of God's word, yet pregnant 
 with a glorious Eden. Chateaubriand, the cele- 
 brated French traveller, and not at all disposed 
 towards the view that we take of the destiny of the 
 Jews and the hopes of Jerusalem, thus speaks of 
 it: — 
 
 " This portion of the country is so shockingly 
 barren, that it does not even possess the semblance 
 
144 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of a bit of moss. One can only discover here and 
 there some tufts of thorny plants, as pale as the 
 soil that produced them, and covered with dust, 
 like the trees on the sides of our highways during 
 summer. The mountains present the same appear- 
 ance, clothed in wdiite dust, without a shade, with- 
 out a tree, destitute of herbage, and not even pos- 
 sessing a scrap of moss. If I should live a thou- 
 sand years I never can forget that desert (where 
 Jerusalem first appeared), and which seemed still 
 inspired with the majesty of Jehovah, and the 
 frightful terrors of death. The country, which up 
 to this moment had still preserved something like 
 verdure, now became barren. The sides of the 
 mountains expanded, and assumed a more sterile 
 and sublime appearance. Soon after all vegetation 
 disappeared, not a blade of grass could be discerned. 
 The amphitheatre of mountains was then tinted as 
 with a red and burning colour. We travelled 
 laboriously for an hour amid these mournful 
 regions, to attain the summit of a hill at a distance 
 before us. Arriving here, we rode for another hour 
 upon an elevated and naked plain, sown as it were 
 with rounded masses of stone. Suddenly, at the 
 extremity of this plain, I perceived a line of gothic 
 walls flanked wdth square towers, enclosing appa- 
 rently the roofs of some buildings. At the foot of 
 these w^alls appeared a camp of Turkish cavalry in 
 all their oriental pomp. The guide exclaimed, 
 * Behold the holy city ! Behold Jerusalem !' We 
 perceived Jerusalem through an opening in the 
 
THE JEW, HIS RUIN AND RESTORATION. 145 
 
 mountains. I did not at first know what it was, as 
 I believed it to be only a mass of shattered rocks. 
 The sudden apparition of this city of desolations in 
 the midst of such wasted solitudes had something 
 about it altogether fearful. She was there indeed, 
 the queen of the desert. When a traveller enters 
 into Judea, a great lassitude rises upon the spirits. 
 But when in passing from one solitude to another, 
 and space stretches in limitless expanse around, by 
 degrees this weight on his mind is removed, and a 
 sacred awe is felt, which, far from depressing the 
 soul, gives a fortitude to, and elevates the powers 
 of the mind. The most extraordinary forms of 
 objects declare it to be on all sides a country which 
 has groaned under miracles. The burning sun, the 
 fierce eagle, the barren fig-tree, all the poetry and 
 all the painting of the Scripture are here. Every 
 local name retains within it some mystery, every 
 cavern speaks of futuritj^, each rocky height rever- 
 berates the accents of some prophecy. God him- 
 self has spoken within its borders. The wasted 
 rivers, the cloven rocks, the yawning tombs attest 
 the prodigy. The desert seems still stricken dumb 
 with terror, and as if it had not yet dared to break 
 that silence which was felt when the voice of the 
 Eternal had been heard. Those who come as 
 strange Jews to live in Jerusalem live but a short 
 time. And those who are in Palestine are so poor 
 as to be obliged every year to send a begging mis- 
 sion for alms, amongst their brethren in Egypt and 
 Barbary. The surrounding country is frightful, 
 13 
 
146 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 On every side are naked mountains, of rounded 
 summits or terminating in broad plains; whilst 
 many of them, at greater distances, assume the 
 appearance of ruined castles or mosques. These 
 mountains are not so wedged together as not to 
 present intervals through which the spectator 
 beholds other scenes ; but by these openings you 
 only can discover plains covered with rocks like 
 those which are immediately in front." 
 
 He thus describes the valley of Sodom: "The 
 valley contained within these two chains of moun- 
 tains looks, in its soil, like the bottom of a sea, 
 from which the water had for a length of time re- 
 ceded, made up of long reaches of salt, an expanse 
 of dried mud, and shifting beds, furrowed as it 
 were by the waves. Here and there wretched 
 shrubs grow with difficulty in a soil deprived of 
 vitality; their leaves are enervated with the salt 
 which has nourished them, and their bark has the 
 smell and taste of smoke. Instead of villages, the 
 ruins of a few towers are perceived. Through the 
 body of the valley a discoloured river flows, and 
 moves slowly and with painful regret towards that 
 pestiferous lake in w^hich it is utterly lost. Its 
 course is alone distinguished, in the midst of the 
 sand, by the reeds and willows which grow on its 
 margin ; whilst the Arab conceals himself amongst 
 these reeds to attack the traveller and plunder the 
 pilgrim. Such is the river Jordan ! And this 
 lake is the Dead Sea. It appears to sparkle ; but 
 the guilty towns concealed in its bosom have 
 
147 
 
 poisoned its waters. The solitary depths afford a 
 home to scarcely any living creature, — no vessel 
 (until lately) has ever floated on its waves ; its 
 banks are without birds, without trees; have no 
 green herbage; and its water, painfully bitter to 
 the taste, is so heavy that the most violent winds 
 are scarcely able to produce any agitation on its 
 surface. A crust of salt covers the sand of the 
 valley, and looks like a field of snow, from whence 
 spring some few disjointed shrubs. Places held 
 sacred by both Jew and Mahometan, are now the 
 resort of wild beasts and robbere. Fear attends 
 the traveller, and he marches through them in 
 haste and trepidation, with his fire-arms loaded, and 
 his life in his hand." 
 
 Such is Chateaubriand's description of Palestine 
 as it now is. We ask, if the words of the traveller 
 thus acquainted personally with Jerusalem be not 
 the very echo of the prophecy pronounced by our 
 Lord eighteen hundred years ago ? Jiiterally, the 
 house of the Jew has been left unto him desolate ; 
 literally, one stone does not stand upon another of his 
 illustrious Temple ; and literally, that land which* 
 Moses beheld from Mount Pisgah, and which was 
 admired as the beauty and the joy of the earth, the 
 garden of the world, is now such as it has been 
 described by the traveller whose words I have read 
 — a bleak desert, the haunt of the robber, the home 
 of the Arab and the Ishmaelite, whose hand is 
 against every man. It has one feature only that 
 redeems its awful desolation. It is covered with 
 
148 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 prophetic indications of an approaching glory, when 
 Jerasalem shall again be the world's metropolis, 
 and Palestine once more a land overflowing with 
 milk and wdth honey. 
 
 Whilst Jerusalem is Ihus laid low, and trodden 
 by the hoof of the Mameluke and the naked foot 
 of the monk, it is however reserved for a day of 
 restoration spoken of contemporaneous with the 
 fulness of the times of the Gentiles. It shall be 
 trodden under foot, but not for ever, — "until the 
 times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." 
 
 In the prophecy of IMicah, at the 12th verse of 
 the 3d chapter, there is first narrated the desolation 
 of Jerusalem : " Therefore shall Zion for your sake 
 be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become 
 heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high 
 places of the forest." Then notice what follows in 
 the next verse, — or the 1st verse of the 4th chapter: 
 " But.in the last days it-^hall come to pass, that the 
 mountain"— what mountain? the mountain of 
 Jerusalem — "of the house of the Lord shall be 
 established in the top of the mountains, and it 
 shall be exalted above the hills ; and people shall 
 flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and 
 say. Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the 
 Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob : and 
 he wull teach us of his ways, and we will walk in 
 his paths : for the law shall go forth of Zion, and 
 the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." And when 
 shall this be ? It shall be when " Christ shall judge 
 among many people, and rebuke strong nations 
 
149 
 
 afar off: and they shall heat their swords into 
 ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks : 
 nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, 
 neither shall they learn war any more. But the}^ 
 shall sit every man under his vine and under his 
 fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid : for the 
 mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it." Here 
 we find a clear and irresistible prediction of the 
 restoration of Jerusalem as the queen of capitals, the 
 glory and the beauty of the whole earth ; and we, 
 who now treat the Jew with scorn, use his name 
 as a by-word to point a tale, or give interest to a 
 play, shall then be so exalted by the moral magnifi- 
 cence of his restoration, that we shall go from afar 
 up to Jerusalem, to worship and hear the praise of 
 Him who there was crucified, but then glorified 
 there as our God, by Jew and Gentile, the God of 
 Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, 
 
 Zechariak, in his 8th chapter, says, " Thus saith 
 the Lord of hosts ; I was jealous for Zion with great 
 jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury. 
 Thus saith the Lord ; I am returned unto Zion, and 
 will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem : and Jerusa- 
 lem shall be called a city of truth ; and the moun- 
 tain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain. Thus 
 saith the Lord of hosts ; There shall yet old men 
 and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, 
 and every man with his staff in his hand for very 
 age. And the streets of the city shall be full of 
 boys and girls playing in the streets thereof. Thus 
 saith the Lord of hosts ; K it be marvellous in the 
 13* 
 
150 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. ■ 
 
 eyes of the remnant of this people in these da^'s, 
 should it also be marvellous in mine eyes ? saith 
 the Lord of hosts. Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; 
 Behold, I will save my people from the east coun- 
 try, and from the west country ; and I will bring 
 them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusa- 
 lem : and they shall be my people, and I will be 
 their God, in truth and in righteousness." These 
 words were written by Zechariah, not during the 
 captivity in Babylon, when one might possibly say 
 that the restoration to their own country w^as some- 
 thing like a portion of the fulfilment of it. This 
 w^as predicted by Zechariah after the restoration, 
 and in relation to a future and an unfulfilled resto- 
 ration, when the Jew^ shall be carried on the 
 shoulders of the Gentiles, — our locomotives shall 
 carry them, and our money shall be expended in 
 doing it. I have this hope of our native land, that 
 England, or, as I must now, as my countrymen 
 correct me, say Britain, shall play the most illus- 
 trious part in the restoration of the eTews to their 
 own land, and in establishing them in the country 
 where their fathers dwelt before them. 
 
 The Jews therefore will go to Jerusalem before 
 their conversion, build their temple, revive the 
 sacrifices of Levi ; and in the midst of all, their 
 minds will be enlightened, and their hearts will 
 be converted to the Lord. 
 
 The time when this shall take place is called 
 "when the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled." 
 As preparatory to this, we may expect, as an inci- 
 
THE JEW, HIS RUIN AND RESTORATION. 151 
 
 pient sign of the approaching restoration, what is 
 called the budding of the fig-tree. We have seen 
 that it has been during the last thirty years only 
 that the Jew has been suffered to live within the 
 walls of the city of his fathers. This is a move- 
 ment in the direction of their fulness. Amon^ the 
 Jews themselves there is now a movement, and an 
 impulse unpredecented in depth, intensity, and 
 spread. " They," says Zechariah, "shall remember 
 me in far countries; and they shall live with their 
 children and turn again." Then he represents 
 them very strikingly : " They shall call upon me, 
 and I will hear them; and I will say, It is my 
 people. ' ' How exquisitely beautiful is that ! * ' They 
 shall call upon me ;" and as if I had just discovered 
 them that had been buried amid the nations of the 
 earth, I will instantly, when I hear their cry, look 
 down upon the petitioners, and I will exclaim, in a 
 burst of joy, " This is my people." The Jews at 
 this moment are less immersed in Kabbinism than 
 they ever were. The liabbinism of the Jew is the 
 Popery of the Christian ; but their ablest minds 
 are becoming detached from it more and more : a 
 spirit of inquiry grows among them, as their news- 
 papers indicate, such as has never been before. 
 Their hearts at this moment are beating more 
 intensely towards Jerusalem ; and their desire for 
 political power in this country is only indicative of 
 '* their thirst for power and political supremacy, where 
 it is their everlasting right. And should they ob- 
 tain that power amid the nations of the Gentiles 
 
152 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 
 
 which they desire, it will only stimulate their ap- 
 petite for their true nationality and restoration to 
 Palestine, and citizenship in Jerusalem. Hence 
 Isaiah says, " They shall come from the four cor- 
 ners of the earth;" and again, " They shall flee on 
 the shoulders of the Philistines towards the west," 
 as if large companies of Jews were in the east. 
 " They shall come from the land of Sin" — that is, 
 the land of China. It is not impossible that the 
 Ten Tribes may be scattered amid the Chinese at 
 this moment ; and, contemporaneous with the dry- 
 ing up of the Euphrates in the East, and. the dis- 
 organization of the Chinese empire, that vast and 
 hitherto impenetrable territoiy, may be the break- 
 ing up of the nations of the earth, in order that 
 the imprisoned captives of Israel may begin their 
 homeward march from the Danube, and from the 
 borders of the Euphrates, and from every land, 
 east and west, encouraged and borne by us to their 
 native home, where, in their own sweet sunshine, 
 and upon their own consecrated hills, they shall 
 worship the Prince, the Messiah. 
 
 There is clearly predicted, in ancient prophecies, 
 a movement amid the nations of the earth prepa- 
 ratory to this. " Since thou," says God, in Isaiah, 
 xliii., speaking to the Jews, " wast precious in my 
 sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved 
 thee : therefore will I give men for thee, and people 
 for thy life. Fear not : for I am with thee : I will 
 bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from 
 the west ; I will say to the north, Give up ; and to 
 
c^ 
 
 THE JEW, HIS RUIN AND RESTORATION. 153 
 
 the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from 
 far, and my daughters from the ends of the 
 earth." 
 
 These words are quoted on missionary platforms, 
 as if they meant the conversion of the Gentiles. 
 Very often the Jews get most unfair treatment on 
 Gentile platforms. We take all that is good from 
 every prophecy, and say, " This is ours ;" and all 
 the calamity we hand over to the Jew, and we say, 
 " That is yours." We eat the sweet kernel ; we 
 throw to the. miserable Jew the shells and husks. 
 But if you read Isaiah, not after the headings given 
 by our translators, you will see that its most bril- 
 liant predictions relate primarily to the Jews, though 
 our glory is always associated with their restoration 
 and approaching grandeur. So again in Isaiah Ix. 
 — " Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships 
 of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their 
 silver and their gold with them, unto the name of 
 the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, 
 because he hath glorified thee. And the sons of 
 strangei-s shall build up thy walls:" — what walls? 
 the walls of Jerusalem — "and their kings shall 
 minister unto thee : for in my wrath I smote thee, 
 but in my favour have I had mercy on thee. 
 Therefore thy gates shall be open continually ; they 
 shall not be shut day nor night; that men may 
 bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that 
 their kings may be brought." We may expect 
 that the nations of the earth will begin, on the eve 
 of that movement among the Jews, to discuss in 
 
154 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 their cabinets the restoration of the Jews. There 
 are books recently written, which urge on the 
 nations to help them to their own land. The Jews 
 in London are collecting money in order to pur- 
 chase Palestine at this moment: the Jews in 
 America have collected enormous sums to build 
 the temple again in Jerusalem. All these things 
 are signs of the times, and indications of the 
 approaching change. 
 
 When the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, 
 this restoration takes place. What are those times? 
 As soon as the last believer has been gathered from 
 the mass of the nations of the earth, and added to 
 the company of the church of the redeemed, the 
 times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled. As soon as 
 the Gospel has been preached, not to convert all 
 nations, but as a witness to all nations, and the 
 inhabitants around the Pole have been brought 
 within its sound, then the time of the end is at 
 hand. As soon as Mahometanism expires, the 
 Crescent wanes, and the mosque of the Moslem 
 resounds with the praises of the God of Abraham, 
 the times of the Gentiles will have come to a close. 
 As soon as the great Antichrist shall be over- 
 thrown, and Babylon shall sink like a millstone in 
 the mighty deep, the times of the Gentiles will be 
 fulfilled. And then the dry bones on a thousand 
 hills — the bones of scattered Israel — shall be 
 clothed with flesh, and become an araiy of living 
 men. "If," says the Apostle in his Epistle to the 
 Eomans, " the fall of the Jews be the riches of the 
 
THE JEW, HIS RUIN AND RESTORATION. 155 
 
 world, and the diminishing of them the riches of 
 - the Gentiles, how much more their fulness!" 
 "When the Gentile nations shall see a whole people 
 begin their march from the east and from the west, 
 in more majestic exodus than that of their fore- 
 fathers from Egypt to Palestine, then will come 
 to pass what the apostle predicts — that the Gen- 
 tiles, seeing the stupendous spectacle, startled by 
 its splendour and magnificence, will recognise the 
 truth they have repudiated, and nations be born 
 in a day. " And," says the Apostle, " we would 
 not have you ignorant, brethren, that blindness in 
 part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of 
 the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall 
 be saved. As concerning the gospel, they are 
 enemies for your sakes ; but as touching the elec- 
 tion, they are beloved for the fatViers* sakes." 
 When restored to their land, Zachariah tells us in 
 his 12th chapter, " they shall look upon Ilim whom 
 they have pierced" — Christ manifested to them — 
 " and they shall mourn." The prophecy of Zacha- 
 riah implies that they shall be in their own land 
 when they shall thus repent. "The land shall 
 mourn, every family apart ; the family of the house 
 of David apart, and their wives apart ; the family 
 of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart, 
 the family of the house of Levi apart, and their 
 wives apart" — implying that they are settled in 
 cities and sections of their own Palestine, enjoying 
 political power and government in the midst of it ; 
 
156 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and that tlien and there Christ shall be revealed 
 to them — the Gospel accepted by them — and 
 where once they shouted, "Crucify him!" they 
 shall shout "Ilosanna!" till the echoes of their 
 songs reverberate from west to east, and from earth 
 to heaven, and the whole earth shall be filled with 
 the glory of the God of Israel. 
 
 The Jew is now a reluctant witness to the truth 
 of the 'New Testament. Their long resistance of 
 its claims is one of its credentials. But one day, 
 probably very soon, they will appear its glad advo- 
 cates. The only thing wanting to complete the 
 Jew's testimony to the inspiration of evangelists 
 and apostles is his conversion . "When that earnestly 
 prayed-for era comes, the grandest sign of the 
 times will startle the world, as of the striking of 
 one of the great epochal hours of time. 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 157 
 
 We enter here on one of the great parallelisms 
 of time. The coincidences we discover between 
 the age of Noah and the nineteenth century are 
 significant signs. They are proofs of the earth's 
 old age, and yet foretokens of its predicted youth. 
 Our Lord says, " As it was in the days of Noe, so 
 shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 
 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they 
 were given in marriage, until the day that Noe 
 entered into the ark, and the flood came, and de- 
 stroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the 
 days of Lot ; they did eat, they drank, they bought, 
 they sold, they planted, they builded ; but the same 
 day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and 
 brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all." 
 Luke xvii. 26-29. 
 
 History, whether sacred or profane, seems always 
 to repeat itself. One great era in the world appears, 
 when narrowly examined, to be simply the reflec- 
 tion of another ; and a deed done in the day that 
 now is, to be the echo of a deed done hundreds or 
 thousands of years ago. Time seems to move in 
 circles, history constantly to repeat itself, and so 
 
 is nothing new under the sun." When we examine 
 14 
 
158 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 great and startling epochs in the history of the 
 world, we find points of contact, analogies, and 
 coincidences most suggestive. The deluge, the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, the end of this age, all 
 seem to have coincident points, running, like sea 
 and land, into each other. 
 
 The age of E"oah is a prefiguration of the age 
 that now is, — the last great epoch of this world's 
 life. History is never obsolete. He that knows 
 best the history of the past, humanly speaking, will 
 be the truest prophet of the character of the future. 
 Some one made the remark in scorn, " History is 
 an old almanack:" he stated a great truth, though 
 he did not intend it. How does the almanack of 
 this year difier from the almanack of the last ? The 
 dates differ slightly, but the acts are the same, the 
 tides the same, the same rising and setting of the 
 sun, summer and winter, spring and autumn. 
 History is an old almanack ; it is the same great 
 drama, only with different actors, and slight changes 
 in the parts that they play. If you take the events 
 of the last two thousand years, and compare them 
 with the events of the four thousand that preceded, 
 you will be struck by the number of beautiful and 
 interesting coincidences. The study of Genesis is 
 a preparation for the study of the Apocalypse. 
 Acquaintance with Leviticus is a ground-work for 
 acquaintance with the Gospel according to St. 
 John. The history of humanity in the desert is a 
 type and prefiguration of humanity in the age in 
 which our lot is now cast. 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 159 
 
 Human nature, as far as disconnected with the 
 Gospel, and uninfluenced by its elements, is the 
 same in the days of l!^apoleon that it was in the 
 days of Noah. The nineteenth century from 
 creation, and the nineteenth century from redemp- 
 tion, in which we live, are very much fac-similes 
 the one of the other ; and where the difference is 
 visible, that difference is the result of the touch of 
 transforming grace, not the inherent attainment or 
 development of original excellence in human na- 
 ture. 
 
 Jesus, in his assertion of parallelism, recognises 
 Genesis as Scripture. It is worth while to notice 
 these points : because, admit the New Testament 
 to be divine, and you cannot escape the conclusion 
 that the Old is equally so ; because the writers and 
 speakers in the New quote the sentiments of the 
 writers of the Old. Jesus quotes Genesis as true 
 history. You are aware the Rationalists in Ger- 
 many — called Rationalists, as they think them- 
 selves, from excess of reason, just as lucus, from 
 lux^ light, is the Latin for a grove, from its non 
 lucendo, from its having no light ; so these men are 
 called Rationalists, because they have no reason — 
 say that the tower of Babel, and Abraham leaving 
 TJr of the Chaldees, and the flood, are myths — that 
 is, fables. They say it was not a real history, but 
 a fable, just as the parable of the Prodigal Son, or 
 the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. But 
 here our blessed Lord refers to Noah as a real per- 
 son, to the flood as a fact, to the characteristics of 
 
160 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 that generation as types and prefigurations of the 
 characteristics of ours ; and in all respects he at- 
 tests the authenticity of Genesis, the reality of its 
 history ; and that if Rationalists proclaim it to be 
 a myth, the Way, the Truth, and the Life has an- 
 ticipated them, by pronouncing it sacred and in- 
 structive history. 
 
 The prophecy, however, that we are now to con- 
 sider is, that men shall be at the close of this age 
 just as they were at the close of the antediluvian 
 age. But what was the character of the people at 
 the time of the flood ? and by finding the sketch 
 of them, as given by the inspired pencil, we shall 
 be able to ascertain what shall be the character of 
 those who shall live immediately before our Lord's 
 coming. The condition and character of the world 
 in the days of Noah are thus described : — " And it 
 came to pass, that the sons of God saw the daugh- 
 ters of men that they were fair ; and they took 
 them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord 
 said. My spirit shall not always strive with man, 
 for that he also is flesh. There w^ere giants in the 
 earth in those days. And God saw that the wick- 
 edness of man was great in the earth, and that 
 every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
 only evil continually. And it repented the Lord 
 that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved 
 him at his heart. The earth also was corrupt be- 
 fore God, and the earth was filled with violence. 
 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it 
 was corrupt ; for all flesh had corrupted his way 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 161 
 
 upon the earth." Here is the portrait ; not drawn 
 by an inaccurate pen, but by the faithful historian, 
 who was inspired by the Spirit of God to sketch it 
 truly, and to set down nothing that was false. We 
 may expect, then, that the next generation will be 
 something like a reflection of this first. We are 
 told that in the days of Koah the heart of man was 
 deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. 
 And is th§ natural heart improved now? There 
 is no evidence that it is. Sins as grievous, crimes 
 as flagrant, emanate from the unsanctified and un- 
 regenerate heart now as ever emanated from it in 
 the days of I^oah. We may be more civilized than 
 they were in Xoah's days, but not more sanctified : 
 we may have more science, but we may not have 
 more grace. If God's Word speaks intelligibly it 
 speaks pointedly, that out of the heart proceed all 
 evil thoughts, appetites and desires, until that heart 
 IS sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God. It is a great 
 mistake to think that education without religion 
 makes man's heart one whit holier. We do not 
 fear education in science ; we only contend that it 
 is not sufiicient to make man holy, or to make him 
 happy hereafter. In fact, education without reli- 
 gion does man so far good — that it tends to civilize 
 him ; but it does not one whit sanctify him : it 
 needs the element of religion to accomplish that ; 
 and because we say mere secular education is not 
 sufiicient, we do not say it is not in itself good ; 
 however, all it can do is to improve man as an in- 
 habitant of this world ; it cannot fit man for being 
 14* 
 
162 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 an inhabitant of a higher. If I cany filings of steel 
 from a muddy street to a beautiful walk, or to a 
 lovely garden, I make an improvement in their 
 condition ; but if I take a magnet and apply it to 
 them, I give them another motion altogether, and 
 lift them not horizontally, but vertically from the 
 earth. Secular education lifts man from degrada- 
 tion unto social civilization ; but it is only a change 
 of locality on the earth ; it is a horizontal change ; 
 but grace touches him with its magnetic attraction, 
 and draws him, not from one part of the earth to 
 another ; but from the earth to heaven, from grace 
 to glory, closer and nearer to God. 
 
 The heart of man is not one whit changed in its 
 inherent nature from what it was in the days of 
 IsToah and immediately before the flood. David 
 said it was the same in his days that it was in those 
 of E'oah ; and faithful history records the crimes 
 that have found their origin in the heart, and 
 stained the annals of the fairest realms of Europe. 
 
 It is also written, that in the days of ^Noah the 
 earth was filled with violence, that is, war, conflict, 
 revolt, dispute. And are we very much wiser now? 
 It was predicted by the great advocates, not of 
 peace, but of the Peace Society, some years ago, 
 that now war had become an obsolete thing, that 
 all our shot should at once be made into rails, that 
 our cannon should be turned into locomotives, our 
 muskets sold as old iron, and our ships as fire-wood, 
 and in fact, that a mere pretence of a guard was 
 all that we wanted on the shores of England, and 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 163 
 
 that Europe had learned enough of war up to 1814 
 to shrink from it for ever. Had these men recol- 
 lected that as it was in the days of IS'oah, so shall 
 it be when the Son of man cometh, they would 
 have paused before they prophesied so badly. 
 "What better testimony can we have to what man 
 is capable of, than that the very people who shed 
 torrents of blood, and committed the awful deeds 
 of 1793, did things, if possible, more awful in 
 1848 ? And at this present moment all Europe is 
 one vast volcano, waiting for the match to be ap- 
 plied to explode into a thousand fragments. What 
 is now taking place upon the Danube, whether it 
 be the fanatic Sultan or the ambitious Czar that is 
 to blame, is evidence that all Europe, notwithstand- 
 ing the benevolent and dutiful attempts of states- 
 men to avert it, is plunging more and more into 
 one vast and devastating war. We are just upon 
 the verge of the utter waning of the Crescent. 
 And while that Crescent wanes, the old Eastern 
 churches that are now under the Mahometan power 
 are becoming more enlightened, more desirous of 
 God's Word, more willing to listen to faithful 
 preaching by the missionaries of the Cross ; and a 
 people, enlightened by the Bible, are ready to take 
 the place of a people degraded by the Koran, pre- 
 paratory to that moment when the Jews, the kings 
 from the sun-rising, shall move homeward to their 
 own land, repossess it, and look for him in glory 
 who will come and reveal himself as the Messiah, 
 and they shall mourn every tribe apart, and be in 
 
164 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 bitterness as one is in bitterness for bis own first- 
 born. 
 
 ITotwithstanding all propbecies of peace, the na- 
 tions are at this moment as ready for war as ever. 
 This seems very strange ; it only sbows that men 
 are not yet tired of war, and that until the Prince 
 of Peace shall sway his sceptre over a transformed 
 world, there may be "Peace, peace" — the calm, 
 the quiet — ^but not the permanent peace that keeps 
 the heart and mind continually. 
 
 In the days of ]^oah, not only was the earth 
 filled with violence, so that we may expect the 
 same violence to be exhibited again ; but out of all 
 that vast population there were only eight persons 
 that obeyed God's word, that worshipped the true 
 God, and honoured him. Far be it from me to 
 pronounce where to pray is duty ; but is it not fact, 
 at this moment, that if j^ou take Christendom at 
 large, you cannot say that the majority are Chris- 
 tians ; you cannot say that the majority of the pro- 
 fessing Church are true, spiritually-minded Chris- 
 tians ? It is still true that " broad is the way that 
 leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go 
 in thereat;" and "narrow is the way that leadeth 
 to life, and few there be that find it." As " it was 
 in the days of l^oah" — that the overwhelming 
 majority were opposed to the truth, and enamoured 
 of a lie — so previous to Christ's second advent in 
 the bursting cloud that reveals the lightning in its 
 splendour, and ushers in the Lord of glory, the 
 
NOAH, niS AGE AND OURS. 165 
 
 great multitude will be without God, and without 
 Christ, and without hope in the world. 
 
 Another feature of the men in the days of IN'oah 
 was their intense worldliness. They were eating, 
 drinking, marrying wives, and giving in marriage. 
 Kow there was no sin in any of these. It was not 
 sinful, but dutiful to eat and drink, if they did so 
 in moderation ; it was lawful to marry then, as it 
 is lawful and dutiful to marry now, ever remember- 
 ing the grand modifying law that gives it all its 
 consistency and its beauty : " Let them that marry 
 be as though they married not ; and they that weep 
 as though they wept not ; and they that rejoice as 
 though they rejoiced not ; and they that use the 
 world as not abusing it, knowing that the fashion 
 of it speedily passeth away." What was the sin 
 of the antediluvians in eating, drinking, marrying, 
 and giving in marriage ? It was the excessive love 
 of the lawful which corrupted them, as truly a^ 
 their constant indulgence in the sinful. Never for- 
 get the danger we are in in loving to excess what 
 is lawful, as well as in practising that which is for- 
 bidden ; and there is probably more peril in the 
 excessive love of the lawful than there is in the 
 forbidden practice of the sinful. More men lose 
 their souls by being absorbed in practices that are 
 in themselves unexceptionable, than in practices that 
 are positively sinful and forbidden. The world 
 then was their temple; indulgence of the appetites 
 was their delight; the gratification of the flesh was 
 their enjoyment. They were the slaves of appetite, 
 
166 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the servants of the world. This world was their 
 all ; they made the most of it — " Eat, drink, and 
 be merry, for to-morrow we die." But on the 
 supposition that there is a world beyond it, where 
 the deeds of the present have their echo in the 
 retributions of the future, their conduct was dis- 
 obedient in the extreme. Now it will be so at the 
 end of this dispensation. Men will eat and drink, 
 and marry and give in marriage, and they will 
 think nothing of the future. "While it is their 
 privilege and their duty to trade, they will not 
 simply be in the world — where God has placed 
 them — but they will be of the world, where Chris- 
 tians ought not to be. And the reason of this was, 
 that they were in those days atheists, or they lived 
 without God. 'Now an atheist we shrink from in 
 horror, and very j ustly. I cannot conceive a rational 
 being with one ounce of common sense to come to 
 the conclusion that there is not a God who made 
 and governs this present world. The thing seems 
 so absurd, that the man who could arrive at such 
 a conclusion seems only fit to be the inmate of a 
 lunatic asylum. The Psalmist's statement, " men 
 that say, No God," does not mean that in David's 
 days they were so foolish, as to conclude logically, 
 " no God." If it were written, not in the Hebrew, 
 but in Greek, it would have been in the optative 
 mood. ''The fool hath said in his heart," not 
 "There is no God;" but, "2 wish thej-e was no 
 God." He cannot avoid the logical conclusion 
 that there is a God ; but he wishes that he could 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 167 
 
 continue in his sins, and feel that there were no 
 God to see him or to call him to account. The 
 spirit of atheism may be where there is a perfect 
 horror of the idea of an atheist. The man who 
 explains every phenomenon without God, who sees 
 nature's laws, but cannot see beyond them nature's 
 Lawgiver, who accounts for every occurrence, pros- 
 perous or adverse, painful or pleasant, retribution 
 or blessing, without God, may theoretically be no 
 atheist, but practically he is so. He is an atheist 
 who looks on everything, and thinks of everything 
 practically on the hypothesis that there is no God. 
 He enters on to-morrow's duties not feeling, " If 
 the Lord will, or if the Lord will not ;" he goes to 
 to-morrow's business calculating upon all he can 
 do, and all he will do, not recognising the possibly 
 disturbing element, there is a God : such a man is 
 not theoretically an atheist, but practically he is 
 one. He is, as the Apostle describes him, " without 
 God." For "atheist" does not mean a person 
 opposed to God, but a person without God. An 
 antitheist is one opposed to God. Yoltaire was an 
 antitheist, that is, one who deliberately and avow- 
 edly opposed and hated God; who swore in his 
 blasphemy that he would dethrone him ; w^hose 
 letters closed with the execration that he would 
 erase Christ's name from the earth. He was not 
 an atheist, but an antitheist — one full of conscious 
 enmity to God, opposed to him, and determined, 
 at all hazards, and whatever might be the issue, to 
 resist him. But many that profess to be Christians, 
 
168 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 in their practical life, are without God, by omitthig 
 him and his will and sovereignty in their calcula- 
 tions. At the same time we must be very careful 
 not to see God in judgments only, but in mercies 
 and blessings also. Many persons are atheists 
 when mercies are showered upon them, and recog- 
 nise God only when judgments overtake them. I 
 see God in sunshine, if possible, more emphatically 
 than in cloud. I see him in the golden harvest in 
 its plentiful abundance, more clearly than I see 
 him in the waves and waters of misfortune. I 
 w^ould wish more to see God in prosperity, and more 
 to see myself, and my sins, and my unworthiness 
 in adversity. But man's tendency is to see God 
 when trouble comes, forgetting that his sin alone 
 is to blame ; and to see himself when prosperity 
 comes, and to praise his own ingenuity and clever- 
 ness. It is the Christian's joy to see God in all 
 that is beneficent, and beautiful, and happy ; and 
 to see his own sins, and wickedness, and guilt in 
 the evils and the judgments that occasionally over- 
 take him. 
 
 The associations of the antediluvians were all 
 essentially depraved. " The sons of God married 
 the daughters of men," an expression which de- 
 notes that the pious mingled with the depraved, 
 without discrimination and without distinction. 
 The Apostle lays down what is duty always — that 
 they that marry are to marry in the Lord. The 
 antediluvians thought that that was good enough 
 for the trancendentalist, but not for practical and 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 169 
 
 every day life. And many think now, that it may 
 be very beautiful for a higher dispensation, but 
 that we must take other, and more sublunary, even 
 mercenary elements into our estimate now. And 
 again, "whether we eat or drink, we are to do all 
 to the glory of God," is the Christian maxim, but 
 that was not the maxim then. It was thought 
 good enough for monks, and nuns, and hermits, 
 but not for the business men of this world. Chris- 
 tianity ought to be the cement of every association. 
 Exhaust it from a nation, and it will fall to pieces ; 
 let marriage be separated from Christianity as its 
 basis, and what will it be ? Just what it has been 
 among the Socialists — a bargain, a piece of con- 
 venience, and to be broken as soon as the one 
 party is dissatisfied with the other; and held as 
 ceasing to be seen in heaven, it soon comes to be 
 broken upon earth. 
 
 There was in the antediluvian w^orld total disbe- 
 lief of the testimony of Noah as to the coming 
 judgments that should burst upon the earth. When 
 Noah predicted, yet a hundred and twenty days the 
 flood should come, how did they receive it ? Just 
 as men will receive those who prophesy the coming 
 of Christ at the close of this dispensation. " Know- 
 ing this first," says Peter, confirmatory of the pas- 
 sage we are now commenting upon, "that there 
 shall come in the last days scoiBTers, walking after 
 Iheir own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise 
 of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all 
 things continue as they were from the beginning 
 15 
 
170 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 of the creation. For this they willingly are igno- 
 rant of, that by the word of God the heavens were 
 of old, and the earth standing out of the water and 
 in the water: whereby the world that then was, 
 being overflowed with w^ater, perished: but the 
 heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same 
 w^ord are kept in store, reserved unto lire against 
 the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 
 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, 
 that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, 
 and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not 
 slack concerning his promise, as some men count 
 slackness: but is long-suffering to us-ward, not 
 willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will 
 come as a thief in the night; in the which the 
 heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also 
 and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 
 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, 
 what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy 
 conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting 
 unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the 
 heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the 
 elements shall melt with fei'vent heat ? N'everthe- 
 less we, according to his promise, look for new 
 heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
 eousness." 
 
 Those that lived in the days of I^oah despised 
 !N"oah's prophecy of a coming flood. Their con- 
 clusion was, There is not water enough in the 
 
171 
 
 basin of the ocean to rise to the great height to 
 which it will be requisite it should rise in order to 
 destroy the world. But just as scientific men had 
 decided that Noah's prophecy was the mere crotchet 
 of an old man who had lost his mind, the fountains 
 of the great deep burst, the windows of heaven 
 were opened, and the earth that then was perished. 
 To argue, therefore, that the laws of nature prevent 
 the fulfilment of God's word, is to assert that the 
 law is greater than the Lawgiver, and the thing 
 created greater than the Creator himself. Those 
 who perished in that great and awful judgment 
 had an ofler of escape. The old and venerable 
 preacher of righteousness stood upon the steps of 
 the ark he had built by the prescriptions of his 
 God, and told them that every one that would be- 
 lieve God's testimony by his lips, and come into 
 that ark, should be saved from the deluge that 
 would soon sweep the earth and depopulate it. 
 They were, in the language of Scripture, disobe- 
 dient then, and their souls are in the prison of hell 
 now. "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it 
 be also in the days of the Son of man." When 
 you are told of the awful baptism, not of flood, but 
 of fire, and when you are invited to escape, not by 
 the ark of a temporal deliverance, but by Christ, 
 the Great Deliverer, many thousands will despise 
 the prophecy, deride the prophet, and turn aside, 
 one to his farm and another to his merchandise, 
 and care for none of these things. Nevertheless it 
 shall be true, as stated by an Apostle in the Epistle 
 
172 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 to the Thessalonians, where he tells us, that " Christ 
 shall be revealed from heaven, taking vengeance 
 in flaming fire on them that know not God, and 
 that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ : 
 who shall be punished with everlasting destruction 
 from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory 
 of his power ; when he shall come to be glorified 
 in his saints, and to be admired in all them that 
 believe." 
 
 "We have it recorded in the antediluvian days 
 that the Spirit ceased to strive with man any more. 
 When the Holy Spirit ceases to bless the preaching 
 of the Gospel, it fails to have effect. "When he 
 ceases to imprint upon the heart the truths that 
 are addressed to the ear, all preaching and all 
 hearing is vain. And just before the close — before 
 the lightning cloud shall come, in which Christ 
 shall be seen as in heaven with power and great 
 glory, God's Holy Spirit will cease to strive ; the 
 day of grace will be finished, the day of judgment 
 will have begun — cut it down, it only cumbers the 
 ground that is now to be blessed and sanctified 
 with His presence, and become the bright dwell- 
 ing-place of all that believe for ever and ever. To 
 show that we have not exaggerated in the least, I 
 will read the summary of all that shall be in the 
 last days from 2 Timothy iii. : " This know also, 
 that in the last days perilous times shall come. For 
 men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, 
 boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to pa- 
 rents, unthankful, unholy, without natural aftec- 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 173 
 
 tion, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, 
 fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, 
 heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than 
 lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but 
 denying the power thereof." 8uch is the picture 
 that will be a sign of the times in the days pre- 
 ceding the coming of the Son of man. 
 
 Christianity is not to be a progressive develop- 
 ment from what it is now to its millennial glory. 
 The idea of many excellent Christians — excellent 
 in all that constitutes the vitality of the truth, but 
 I think deceived and mistaken in this — is that by 
 the aid of missions, by the distribution of the Bible, 
 by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit of God, this 
 present dispensation shall have its piety so deepened 
 that the Millennium shall be its coronal, a Millen- 
 nium the product of elements that are now in 
 action ; and not a new age and a new dispensation 
 altogether. Now, if I understand the Bible, it says 
 that the last days of this dispensation shall be worse 
 than the first — that when the Son of man cometh 
 shall he find faith upon the earth? — that as it was 
 in the days of !N'oah, just before the judgment of 
 water came, so shall it be in our days just before 
 the judgment of fire comes ; men Uving without 
 God, marrying and giving in marriage, eating, 
 drinking, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure 
 more than lovers of God. Judging from the Bible, 
 the Millennium belongs to a distinct dispensation. 
 I do not believe that it is the complement of the ' 
 present age, but the commencement of a new one. 
 15* 
 
174" SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 This dispensation is the dispensation of the Spirit, 
 where the Holy Spirit is electing a people out of 
 this world to be a chosen generation, a royal priest 
 hood, a peculiar people : the next dispensation is 
 when Christ — the King, the true Shechinah, the 
 glory of God — shall personally be revealed, shall 
 personally reign, and all shall be righteous, none 
 depraved, the lion lie down with the lamb, and 
 there shall be no more tears, nor death, nor weep- 
 ing, nor sorrow, nor crying: the Millennium, the 
 beautiful morning dawn of the everlasting heaven 
 that spreads over all the universe, and earth under- 
 go a re-Genesis, just as the body undergoes a resur- 
 rection, and be the heaven of God's people, more 
 beautiful than Paradise, the first home of man, 
 when he came from the hands of his Creator. 
 
 "We look, therefore, for matters to get worse as 
 the end approaches. And whilst there are more 
 of the people of God than there have been, and 
 more in our own land than in any land upon earth, 
 yet the vast majority of Christendom answers too 
 terribly to the portrait given by the Apostle. Many 
 Christians feel it difficult to entertain the idea that 
 this world is to be the abode of the saints in the 
 future age. But why should you suppose we are to 
 live in some etherialized atmosphere, intangible, 
 and invisible ? Adam and Eve held communion 
 with God in Eden, and is it impossible that we 
 shall be made so pure, morally so perfect, and the 
 earth, our dwelling-place, so cleansed of every im- 
 pure element, that it shall be the loveliest orb in 
 
NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS. 175 
 
 the universe, because the prodigal one restored to 
 its Creator's presence, to its Father's bosom ; while 
 all the sister orbs of creation sing for joy, "Let us 
 rejoice, for this our sister orb was lost, and is now 
 found; was dead, and is now made alive." 
 
 But if we are — and I believe we are now — rapidly 
 approaching the close of this dispensation, our first 
 inquiry is. Are we Christians? — are our hearts 
 changed ? — are we sprinkled with atoning blood ? 
 In other words, is religion anything to us, and are 
 we anything to it ? The religion of this book is 
 not something within its boards, to be read when 
 we open it, and to be forgotten when we put our 
 Bible in our library. But, if I understand it, the 
 religion of this book is to go into every nook and 
 corner of the human heart, to penetrate every by- 
 way of private life, every broad-way of public life, 
 
 — to regenerate men, influence and make them 
 wiser, happier, holier, and more like God. Has it 
 done so ? What better are you for the fact that 
 this book was written ? "Would you be just as you 
 are now, if you had never heard that Christ was 
 crucified ? Would you have been just at this mo- 
 ment as you are and have been, if there were no 
 such thing as religion in the world ? You may 
 estimate the influence religion has had upon you, 
 and the connexion you have had with it, by this : 
 
 — How much has it done for you ? What has it 
 made me that I could not have been made without 
 it ? What hopes has it kindled in my heart that I 
 could not have without it ? What blessed prospects 
 
176 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 has it opened up ? How far has it lifted my heart 
 above the world, and taught me while in the world 
 not to be of it ? If this book, this religion, this 
 Christ crucified, be your trust, your hope, your 
 peace, the anchor of your soul, sure and steadfast, 
 then, whether Christ takes you to him, or he comes 
 to you, " Blessed are ye, enter into the joy of your 
 Lord," will be the glad and welcome summons 
 given to your souls. 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 177 
 
 VI. 
 
 Our blessed Redeemer, as the prophet of the 
 Church, foretells the signs and sights and pheno- 
 mena of the twilight of this dispensation with the 
 same precision with which an astronomer tells the 
 transit of a planet, or the hour and depth of an 
 eclipse, — "Immediately after the tribulation of 
 those days shall the sun be darkened, and the 
 moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall 
 fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens 
 shall be shaken : and then shall appear the sign of 
 the Son of man in heaven : and then shall all the 
 tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the 
 Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with 
 power and great glory. And he shall send his 
 angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they 
 shall gather together his elect from the four winds, 
 from one end of heaven to the other." Matt. xxiv. 
 29—31. 
 
 The advent of Jesus is not to be a secret known 
 by the few, but a fact, or rather, a phenomenon 
 that shall be witnessed by the wide world itself. 
 As the lightning shines without the canopy, light- 
 ing it up with all its brilliancy and splendour, so 
 the Son of man shall come with sach majestic 
 
178 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 tokens of his approacli, that every eye, not the eye 
 only of his own, shall see him. After having de- 
 scribed the tribulation of the days he has mentioned, 
 namely, the downfall of Jerusalem, with probably 
 some allusive references to the end of this dispen- 
 sation, he proceeds to answer the second question 
 of his disciples, — " What shall be the sign of thy 
 coming," or personal appearance, and " of the end 
 of the world," or the Gentile dispensation ? The 
 answer to that question is contained in the sequel 
 of the chapter. 
 
 He says, " Immediately after the tribulation of 
 those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon 
 shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from 
 heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be 
 shaken." All prophecy leads us to expect, before 
 the close of the present dispensation, unprecedented 
 tribulation, — national, social, ecclesiastical, politi- 
 cal, universal. You cannot open a single prophecy 
 in the Old Testament Scripture that relates to the 
 end of the world, without finding passages parallel 
 to that which we have quoted, and expressive of 
 the same approaching catastrophes. For instance, 
 we are told, in Jeremiah xxx. 7, " That day is great, 
 so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's 
 trouble ; but he shall be saved out of it." Again, 
 we read in Daniel xii. 1, 2, "And at that time shall 
 Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth 
 for the children of thy people : and there shall be a 
 time of trouble, such as never was since there was 
 a nation even to that same time : and at that time 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 1T9 
 
 thy people," that is, the Jews, "shall be delivered, 
 every one that shall be found written in the book. 
 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the 
 earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and 
 some to shame and everlasting contempt." And 
 if we refer to the parallel Gospel, we shall find the 
 same facts given with other touches that identify 
 the period more closely with the time of the end. 
 Our Lord says there, Luke xxi. 24, "The Jews 
 shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led 
 away captive into all nations" — that is their condi- 
 tion now : " and Jerusalem shall be trodden down 
 of the Gentiles." How long? "Until the times 
 of the Gentiles be fulfilled." What times? The 
 times, time, and half a time, — the period assigned 
 them. And then he adds, " There shall be signs 
 in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars ; and 
 upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity ; 
 the sea" — the crowds, the people — "and the waves 
 roaring ; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for 
 looking after those things which are coming on 
 the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be 
 shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man 
 coming in a cloud with great power and glory." 
 We might quote other passages, which establish 
 the same point, that prior to the end of this dispen- 
 sation all the elements of evil shall ferment, all the 
 powers and principalities of Satan shall coalesce. 
 His last grand stroke for a world shall be struck ; 
 his last desperate eflbrt, linked with all that is evil, 
 shall be made to retain a foothold on a world of 
 
180 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 which he is the usurper, but from which we know 
 he shall be cast out unto everlasting chains, where 
 there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. 
 
 But amongst the special signs that are to precede 
 the immediate advent of our Lord, it is said that 
 "the snn shall be darkened, and the moon shall 
 not give her light, and the stars shall fail," as it 
 might be rendered. This shall take place literally, 
 as well as significantly ; for wherever there is a 
 prediction in ancient prophecy, or in the Apoca- 
 lypse, we have first the literal, and next we have 
 the moral eflfect of that prophecy. For instance, 
 in the prediction of what w^as to take place after 
 the pouring out of the seventh vial, you will find 
 physical language used, having a corresponding 
 physical fulfilment, and with a moral fulfilment 
 also. In Eev. xvi. 17, "And the seventh angel 
 poured out his vial into the air:" I have before said 
 that I believe that commenced in the year 1848. 
 He was to pour his vial of judgment into the air ; 
 that is, not upon a particular nation, but upon the 
 whole air, i. e. all. " And there came a great voice 
 out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, say- 
 ing. It is done." Then what took place ? "There 
 were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and 
 there was a great earthquake." This denotes hte- 
 rally an earthquake, but it denotes also a moral 
 convulsion amongst the people. ITow, what took 
 place in the year 1848 ? The whole of Europe was 
 shattered to its very foundations. The newspapers 
 of the day all spoke of that unpredecented earth- 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 181 
 
 quake, which reached and revolutionized the 
 kingdoms of Europe, in comparison of which all 
 previous ones were as nothing. " And the great 
 city was divided into three parts." Every vial 
 takes a time for its fulfihneut ; and, therefore, wo 
 expect the tripartite division of Europe, geographi- 
 cal, or political, or ecclesiastical, soon to take place. 
 ISTationality is a new cry, a new idea. Nations are 
 all asking for their national rights ; and the whole 
 city is preparing to divide into what is probably its 
 destined tripailite division, as predicted in the word 
 of God. "And great Babylon came in remem- 
 brance before God." The Church of Rome just 
 began to be visited in that year, and the judgment 
 still sits on it. True, she seems recovering ; but it 
 is with a presentiment of her coming ruin, making 
 her last desperate, but unsuccessful eifort, to subju- 
 gate the world to her sway, to have another Hilde- 
 brand in the Vatican, and to have the kings of the 
 earth kneeling at his feet for absolution. But she 
 will not obtain it. There is no more risk of her 
 obtaining power over the earth again, than of the 
 middle ages returning to Europe. But, all these 
 things began to take place in 1848, and they will 
 be developed more and more intensely. In 1848 
 we had the physical air, as well as the moral atmo- 
 sphere, tainted. Cholera then broke out, and 
 yellow fever has been ravaging other parts of the 
 world ; and medical men will tell you that diseases 
 that used to be entirely treated after certain laws 
 cannot now be treated after the same laws, that 
 16 
 
182 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 something seems to have occurred that has altered 
 in several respects the sanitary condition of things. 
 "We have our laws morally or politically affected 
 also. 
 
 The sun, it is said, shall be darkened. Why 
 should not that be literal ? When our Lord was 
 crucified a preternatural darkness took place. The 
 sun was created long before this world was created, 
 but its office as a hght-bearer began on the fourth 
 day. Now, God has only to remove the light 
 which the sun radiates, and all is darkness. He 
 has only to suspend the function that the sun fulfils 
 to the earth, and then there will be obscuration. 
 ISTo doubt, therefore, this will be literally fulfilled, — 
 the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give 
 her light, — -just prior to that splendour that flashes 
 on the world, and lights it up with unearthly and 
 celestial brightness, there will be an obscuration 
 and darkness like that which took place at the 
 Crucifixion, which will give the people of God 
 w^arning that the earth wanes to its cl'ose, and that 
 a new dispensation is about to begin. On this 
 subject I may refer you further to the following 
 passages of Scripture. " The stars of heaven and 
 the constellations thereof shall not give their light ; 
 the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and 
 the moon shall not cause her light to shine," Isa. 
 xiii. 10. Again, " The moon shall be confounded, 
 and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall 
 reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before 
 his ancients gloriously," Isa. xxiv. 28. Again, "I 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 183 
 
 will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof 
 dark ; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the 
 moon shall not give her light," Ezek. xxxii. 7. 
 Again ; " I will shake all nations, and the desire 
 of all nations shall come ; and I will fill this house 
 with glory, saith the Lord of hosts," Ilaggai ii. 7. 
 But accepting it in its moral as well as in its 
 material significance, we can see how it will be 
 fulfilled in that sense also. The sun is the constant 
 symbol of the Saviour, the light of the sun is the 
 truth of the gospel; the moon that reflects the 
 sun's light upon the earth, and is a servant to the 
 sun, is the representative in Scripture of the Church. 
 I need not refer to passages to prove that stars are 
 the ministers of the Church. Christ holds the 
 seven stars in his right hand. All three are used 
 figuratively by Joseph, where he saw the sun, the 
 moon, and the stars, that is, persons in rank and 
 authority, bow down to him, and do him homage. 
 If this be the meaning of the text, we may expect 
 that the ligCt of the sun, that is, Christianity, will 
 be darkened ; that there will grow up on all sides 
 portentous and frightful heresies. In one part of 
 America these are at this moment rank and rife 
 enough; and I need not tell you what is taking 
 place in the Church of England at this moment, 
 -where the light of the sun, that is, Christianity, is 
 [undergoing, from some who are in it, but not of it, 
 a fearful eclipse ; and instead of the light brighten- 
 ing towards the Millennial morn, nearly two hun- 
 dred of her ministers have receded into mediaeval 
 
184- SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 darkness, and perhaps if two thousand more were 
 to go to the same place they w^ould not be acting 
 against their own feelings and convictions, and 
 would oblige the rest. What have we here, then ? 
 An obscuration of faith in some of the most pro- 
 minent preachers of the gospel. 
 
 Then, the moon was not to give her light, that 
 is, churches w^ould lose the distinctness of their 
 character, the purity of their doctrines, the holiness 
 of their relationship, and become unfaithful. Whe- 
 ther the obscuration that has begun, and to which 
 I have alluded, may go further, I cannot say ; but 
 this we do know, "that in the latter times some," 
 — and that means a great number, — " shall depart 
 from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and 
 doctrines of 5a<fAov/wv," that is, separate spirits; 
 "speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their con- 
 science seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry, 
 and commanding to abstain from meats, which God 
 hath created to be received with thanksgiving." 
 1 Tim. iv. 1—3. 
 
 The stars were not to give their light. I have 
 already shown in the obscuration of some, that 
 these stars have ceased to be reflectors of the pure 
 light of the sun, and are radiating darkness, not 
 light^ upon the world. 
 
 Then the powers of heaven are to be shaken. 
 These, I believe, denote angels. They are not sun, 
 nor moon, nor stars. Ai Swaiisis are the w^ords. 
 Angels have a deep interest in the progress of 
 Christianity ; and when they see the last obscura- 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 185 
 
 tion of the liglit, the sun, moon, and stars changed 
 from their original functions, they will be moved, 
 and make ready to go forth and separate the tares 
 from the wheat, and gather the elect of God into 
 their everlasting home. 
 
 It is added, that when Christ comes "all the 
 tribes of the earth shall mourn." Here, no doubt, 
 is the Jewish people. The language is so peculiar, 
 that I think it cannot be applied to the Gentiles. 
 It is the usual Greek word applied to the Jews, 
 irndat a\ (pv\ai, Now, if we refer to ancient prophecy, 
 we shall see how distinctly this is alluded to. For 
 instance, in Zechariah xii. 9 — 10, "And it shall 
 come to ^ass in that day that I will seek to destroy 
 all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And 
 I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and 
 of supplication ; and they shall look upon me," 
 that is, Christ, " whom they have pierced, and they 
 shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only 
 son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that 
 is in bitterness for his first-born." We have an 
 allusion to the very same thing in Revelations i. 7, 
 where we read, " Behold, he cometh with clouds ; 
 and every eye shall see him, and they also which 
 pierced him," that is, the Jews : " and all kindreds 
 of the earth {ir adai a\ (pvXal) shall wail," or mourn, 
 "because of him." But that wailing or mourning 
 of the Jewish people is not a mourning of despair, 
 but of genuine repentance. The Holy Spirit shall 
 be poured out upon them all. They shall see 
 16* 
 
186 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Christ, whom their fathers crucified, and shall 
 mourn over the sins of their nation, and grieve 
 over their own unfaithfulness to duty, to Christ, 
 and to his gospel ; and through his blood shall be 
 pardoned, absolved, and sanctified, and become 
 the metropolitan people among the nations of the 
 earth. 
 
 " And then shall appear the sign of the Son of 
 Man in heaven." It has puzzled many to decide 
 what is the meaning of this. Alford, a sober and 
 competent critic, thinks it will be a picture of the 
 Cross of Christ emblazoned upon the concave of 
 the skies with unearthly brilliancy and splendour ; 
 that the nations shall see it, and some shall blas- 
 pheme while others shall rejoice in it. He seems 
 to have come to this conclusion from the fact that 
 Con Stan tine, the Roman emperor, when the Roman 
 empire was dissolved, and the Christian dispensa- 
 tion took its place, saw in the mid skies a brilliant 
 Cross, and read the words '£v <rouVw v/xa, " In this 
 conquer." Eusebius says that it was not a dream 
 or fancy, but a real vision. Well, Alford, guided 
 by this historical fact, thinks that " the sign of the 
 Son of man" will be what all Christendom has re- 
 cognised as the peculiar sign of Christianity — 
 glorying in the Cross — Christ and him crucified — 
 that this Cross shall appear in the skies revealed 
 in unearthly splendour, and shall strike the first 
 deep presentiment into the hearts of men, that the 
 Lord of glory, to whom it belongs, is just at our 
 doors. 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 187 
 
 Others seem to think that it will be a brilliant 
 meteor, something like that which guided the magi 
 to the manger, which is called in our translation 
 " a star," but which was not a literal orb, but some 
 peculiar meteoric splendour, some celestial pheno- 
 menon, unprecedented, and not entered in the 
 charts of ancient astronomy, so peculiar and striking 
 as to be significant in their minds that One was 
 born who was to be King of the Jews. 
 
 Others again think that by " the sign of the Son 
 of man" is meant the advent of Elijah. I have 
 not the least doubt that Elijah the prophet will 
 literally come, and herald in Christ's second advent, 
 just as John the Baptist literally came and heralded 
 in Christ's first advent. To some this may seem 
 strange, but I can come to no other conclusion, if 
 it be believed that the writers of the sacred volume 
 meant what they said. And if Elijah comes, his 
 voice sounding in the streets of Europe, the mys- 
 terious appearance of one who comes from the 
 realms of glory, clothed w^th its beauty, and spot- 
 less as its holiest tenantry, warning the nations in 
 a voice such as was never heard before, and with 
 an eloquence such as men never uttered before, 
 will be a phenomenon so startling and striking, 
 that God's people will hail him as the precursor of 
 the advent of Jesus, while the world will probably 
 treat him as Herod treated John the Baptist — 
 listen to him for a moment, and then turn round, 
 and attempt to destroy him. At all events, we 
 gather that there will be some great sign that is to 
 
188 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 precede the advent of Him wlio is King of kings 
 and Lord of lords. 
 
 But some will say, we cannot accept this pro- 
 phecy of Christ's return, which is clearly pre- 
 jMillennial, or personal. May it not be spiritual ? 
 I answer, spiritually he has come already. "Where » 
 two or three are gathered together in my E'ame, 
 there am I in the midst of them." If we meet in 
 Christ's name, Christ is in the midst of us. We 
 have not to look forward to his advent in that 
 sense, for in that sense he is here. Again; this 
 must denote an advent different from that spiritual 
 presence that is understood to be in all churches. 
 He says, " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, 
 baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
 the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to 
 observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
 end of the world." And yet, he says, in another 
 part, that he will come again, and receive us to 
 himself. 
 
 In the second place; it is not his providential 
 advent. Christ is in every fact in history, in every 
 incident of the world, reigning, ruling, ordering 
 all things to the glory of his name, and to the good 
 of his people. 
 
 . It has also a character and a concomitant so 
 peculiar, that it cannot refer to his coming to de- 
 stroy Jerusalem. Can it be said that on his advent 
 to subvert that illustrious capital, the Jews looked 
 upon Him whom they had pierced and mourned ? 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 189 
 
 They rather blasphemed the holy name by which 
 they were called. Can it be said that when 
 Jesus came to destroy Jerusalem, he gathered 
 his elect from the four winds of heaven ? Can it 
 be said that he came to destroy Jerusalem in the 
 splendour of the lightning, in the cloud, with 
 power and great glory ? K you will so torture 
 language as to apply these verses to that provi- 
 dential advent, you must not blame the Eoman 
 Catholic if he find in Scripture transubstantiation, 
 purgatory, and the Avorship of the Virgin Mary. 
 We should take the Bible literally, wherever its 
 literal interpretation is not inconsistent with its 
 own previous explanations ; and until we can see 
 a better than the literal interpretation, we must 
 accept it as the mind of the Spirit of God. For 
 instance, it was said by an ancient prophet, that 
 Jesus should come sitting upon an ass, and a colt, 
 the foal of an ass. An ancient interpreter of one 
 class would say, *'We cannot suppose that the 
 Messiah will come literally so ; we must understand 
 it to mean that he will come in veiy lowly circum- 
 stances." But he literally came sitting upon an 
 ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass ; and he quotes 
 the prophecy as literally and verbatim fulfilled in 
 his case. We therefore understand that this pro- 
 phecy will be literally fulfilled, and justly think 
 that to apply it to the destruction of Jerusalem is 
 to apply phraseology where it is not carried out by 
 actual facts. 
 
 Some excellent Christians think that it refers to 
 
190 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Christ's coming at each individual's death. But 
 when a Christian dies, does Jesus come hke hght- 
 ning from one end of heaven to the other ? When 
 a Christian dies, can it he said that Jesus comes 
 from heaven with power and with great glory ? 
 Does the trumpet then sound ? Do the dead then 
 rise ? Do all the tribes of the earth then mourn ? 
 It cannot he said so. It must therefore refer to a 
 coming or an advent subsequent to this, and such 
 as is described in other passages of Scripture, where 
 Jesus is said to come the second time to them that 
 look for him without a sin-offering unto salvation. 
 
 The Apostles themselves thought that Christ was 
 then about to restore the kingdom to Jerusalem, 
 and they said (Acts i. 6), ""Wilt thou at this time 
 restore again the kingdom to Israel?" But what 
 was his answer? "It is not for you to know the 
 times or the seasons." He assumes that the king- 
 dom will be restored ; he does not condemn their 
 idea that the kingdom will be restored ; but only, 
 " It is not for you to know the times or the seasons." 
 And again, when they stood looking steadfastly to- 
 ward heaven, as Christ ascended in the cloud visibly 
 before them, " two men stood by them in white ap- 
 parel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand 
 ye gazing up into heaven ? this same Jesus, which is 
 taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like 
 manner as ye have seen him go into heaven;" that 
 is, in the cloud with power and with great glory. 
 
 We have therefore in all these passages a refe- 
 rence to Christ's second or personal advent ; and 
 therefore I believe, with Job, " that my Kedeemer 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 191 
 
 liveth, and that I shall stand at the latter day upon 
 the earth : and though after my skin worms des- 
 troy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God ; 
 whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall 
 behold, and not another." What a glorious hope ! 
 What a blessed thought, that we are not forsaken 
 oi-phans, that our world is not a cast-off orb, but 
 that Jesus has engraven it upon the palms of his 
 hands, that his name shall be engraven upon it, 
 that it shall reflect his image, and that a world 
 that began with Paradise shall end with a better, a 
 brighter, and a more glorious one than that with 
 which it dawned ! 
 
 But it is added, " He shall send his angels with 
 a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather 
 together his elect from the four winds, from one 
 end of heaven." Let us here recollect the parable 
 in which it is said, " the harvest is the end of the 
 world, and the reapers are the angels." But what 
 do the angels do ? They first gather the wheat into 
 barns, and then they cast the tares into the fire. 
 So here, Christ sends forth his angels, and they shall 
 gather his elect from the four winds of heaven. 
 
 Are we amongst the elect ? Shall we be num- 
 bered with the wheat ? Shall we be gathered into 
 Christ's barns ? Are we prepared to enter into that 
 rest that remaineth for the people of God ? Who 
 are the elect? It is not difficult to know. The 
 doctrine of election itself is a mystery, but the elect 
 themselves are not undistinguishable, even in the 
 midst of this obscure but perplexing dispensation. 
 They are those who have been chosen of Christ. 
 
192 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 The word "elect" means chosen — they that are 
 chosen of Christ. Such unquestionahly there are. 
 " Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the 
 world, that ye should be hol}^" "Elect according 
 to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through 
 sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, aftd 
 sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. 
 i, 2.) I have not the least doubt that the doctrine 
 of election is true. But what is that doctrine? 
 That God saves me, not because of anything in me, 
 or of anything done by me, but because of the 
 riches of his grace, and the sovereignty of his 
 Almighty love. But there are some Christians 
 who deny that there is any such doctrine; but, 
 singular enough, while they deny the name, they 
 admit the reality. Take the lowest Arminian, who 
 is a true Christian, and ask him, "Do you mean to 
 say that the first movement towards heaven is on 
 my part?" he will answer, "N"o, no; God must first 
 draw before we follow ; God must first speak before 
 we answer." Well, grant me that, and I will not 
 quarrel about the name election, since we agree 
 about the reality ; for if I am chosen irrespective 
 of anything in me, it matters not whether that 
 choice was made ten minutes ago, or thousands of 
 years ago. It is not a question of time, but a ques- 
 tion of grace ; and if you admit that all grace in 
 the heart of the believer is not an original thing, 
 but a response to a first movement on God's part, 
 you grant the substance even when you deny the 
 name of the doctrine of election. But if you ask, 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 193 
 
 Who are they who are elect? They who have 
 chosen Christ to be their Saviour. Make sure that 
 you have chosen Christ, and never trouble your- 
 selves about the question, whether he has chosen 
 you. Do not try to peer into God's hidden book, 
 which no man can penetrate, but read God's re- 
 vealed book, and compare your character w^ith it, 
 for things revealed are fdr us and our children. If 
 you love Christ, that proves that he loves you ; for 
 what is his own word, " We love him, because he 
 first loved us." If I want to know whether I am 
 elect, I do not begin at heaven and trace downward 
 to my heart, but I begin at my heart and trace 
 upward to heaven. I do not try to hook the ladder 
 to the top of the monument first, but I put the base 
 on the ground, and then place the top of the ladder 
 against the top of the monument. High predesti- 
 narians first try to prove that they are elect, and 
 then they infer that they may live as they like; 
 whereas, the proper way is to see whether we live 
 the life of the saints of God, and then infer that 
 our name is written in the Lamb's book of life, in 
 which are the names of all that believe. 
 
 Those who are elect and are chosen of Christ, 
 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, rest upon his 
 sacrifice for the pardon of sin, are clothed with 
 his righteousness as their only title of heaven, and 
 approach a communion-table and the judgment-seat 
 trusting only in this, that "He who knew no sin 
 was made sin for them, that they might be mftde 
 the righteousness of God in him,' 
 17 
 
194 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 The elect are the regenerate. Every man who 
 is born again is elect. If yonr tastes have been 
 altered, if you now love what once you hated, if 
 you like the Bible much better than a novel or ro- 
 mance, if you like the house of God vastly more 
 than the playhouse, if you prefer the things that 
 belong to your peace more than the idle topics and 
 political squabbles of the day, you give evidence 
 that you are a child of God. It is not alleged that 
 you should take no interest in the things of time, 
 but that if you be the elect, the things of eternity 
 will occupy a larger space in your hearts. 
 
 The elect are the sons of God. "Ye have 
 received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, 
 Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness 
 with our spirit that we are the children of God ; 
 and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint- 
 heirs with Christ." Election is the root, sonship 
 and service are the blossoms and fruit that grow 
 upon it. 
 
 Let us see here the safety of the people of God. 
 Let the sun be darkened in his orbit, let the moon 
 become pale, let the stars fall from their sockets, 
 let all nature be covered with a funeral pal], let the 
 first throes of nature's desolation be felt, let the 
 footstep of the approaching Judge be echoing at 
 our doors — nothing shall separate us from the love 
 of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord ; for he will 
 gather his elect, however concealed, obscured, 
 hidden, or suftering, from the four winds of heaven. 
 
 Behold the true unity of the Church of Christ — 
 
CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL. 195 
 
 Christ ill the midst of them. Those who are now 
 ecclesiastically, mechanically, materially divided, 
 will then be drawn to Christ, and constitute toge- 
 ther the bride meeting the Bridegroom, the long- 
 waiting widow seeing her Husband return from the 
 skies, " and so be for ever with the Lord." When 
 we hear urged against Protestantism that it is des- 
 titute of unity, we should recollect that there is no 
 such thing as perfect unity in the Church, just as 
 there is no such thing as perfect holiness in the in- 
 dividual Christian's heart. The Apostle tells us, 
 that as long as there is a ministry there will not be 
 unity ; for what does he say in Eph. iv. 11 — 13 ? 
 "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; 
 and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and 
 teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, for the 
 work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body 
 of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the 
 faith," — implying that the existence of a ministry 
 is to produce an ultimate unity, but that as long as 
 that ministry exists, that is, as long as this dispen- 
 sation lasts, perfect unity will not be. 
 
 Kotice also the catholicity of the Church of 
 Christ. It is selected from every tribe, and kin- 
 dred, and tongue. The broken fragments are now 
 its composition, but then they shall be all combined 
 and consolidated for ever. 
 
 Let us see the true visibility of the Church of 
 Christ. All creation groans and travails in pain, 
 waiting — for what ? The manifestation of the sons 
 of God ; that is, the visibility of the Church. The 
 
196 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 Churcli of Rome says she has visihility, catholicity, 
 unity, antiquity. In all these things she pretends 
 to have what the Millennial church only shall have. 
 She claims noble prerogatives, that are only to be 
 actual when Christ comes, and gathers from the 
 four winds all them that are his. 
 
 Are we among the elect ? Are w^e believers in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ ? If we be Christians, whe- 
 ther he takes us to himself, or comes to us, it will 
 be equally well. But the great question of the day 
 should be, "Am I a Christian ?" It is easy to be 
 so. There is nothing to prevent our being so. 
 Christ invites us to become so. He merely bids us 
 lay aside the bondage and the service of sin, and 
 Satan, and the world ; and decide for the service 
 and the acceptance of him whose service is perfect 
 freedom, and communion with whom is the high- 
 est happiness that human nature is susceptible of 
 here below — a happiness that, like the opening 
 spring, will melt into the perfect happiness of the 
 everlasting summer, the first rays of which begin 
 to sprinkle the distant hills, intimating already 
 that the sun, long below^ the horizon, is about to 
 ascend to his meridian throne, and send down his 
 midday splendour upon a world ever holy and ever 
 happy. 
 
THE DESIRE OP ALL NATIONS. 197 
 
 vn. 
 
 THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 
 
 The feeling in the heart of Christendom, ex- 
 pressed by "the Desire of all nations," is signifi- 
 cant of the end in proportion to its intensity and 
 depth. Let us analyze it as a past thirst partly 
 satisfied, and as a present longing that can be met 
 only when He who awakens and fills it shall come, 
 the Hope of the Church, the Heir of the world, 
 " For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Yet once, it is 
 a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and 
 the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ; and I will 
 shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations 
 shall come : and I will fill this house with glory, 
 saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and 
 the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The 
 glory of this latter house shall be greater than the 
 former, saith the Lord of hosts : and in this place 
 will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.*' (Hag- 
 gai ii. 6 — 9.) 
 
 It is very remarkable, as well as refi-eshing to a 
 Christian mind, to go back along the current of 
 history, and to read those ancient prophecies which 
 relate to the person, the coming, and advent in 
 glorj', of the Son of God. The angel said to the 
 woman, "Come and seethe place" — that is, the 
 17* 
 
198 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 grave — " where the Lord lay." "We may go hack 
 to those ancient pfophecies in the same spirit, and 
 according to that invitation, see where Christ in 
 ancient times was revealed to the Fathers. And 
 we cannot open a single prophet without seeing 
 God's mercy constantly promising, God's faithful- 
 ness constantly fulfilling. "We have, in the glad 
 tidings of great joy to all people, the fulfilment of 
 a thousand promises, that sparkle like stars in the 
 firmament in every page of God's holy Word; 
 from the dim and distant one, " The woman's seed 
 shall bruise the serpent's head," to the nearer one, 
 of the greatest magnitude and lustre, "To us a 
 child is horn, to us a son is given ; the government 
 shall he upon his shoulders; his name shall be 
 called Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, 
 the Prince of peace, the Father of the age to come" 
 — or "the everlasting Father." The Jews plainly 
 enough expected the Messiah ; their whole hearts 
 and hopes were set and centred upon him. " Tell 
 ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh 
 unto thee. It shall be said in that day, " Lo, this 
 is our God ; we have waited for him, and he will 
 save ns." "Your father Abraham," says Jesus, 
 " rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was 
 glad." Therefore the birth of Christ was the great 
 hope of Israel. Every Jewish father looked forward 
 to it; every Jewish mother joyfully expected it; the 
 whole nation of Israel had their hearts, their .afi*ec- 
 tions, and their hopes, centred there ; and as their 
 bondage became more bitter, and their enslavement 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 199 
 
 to the Roman emperor more complete, their hearts 
 longed the more for the mighty Deliverer, of whom 
 they should be able to sing, in songs of adoring 
 gratitude, " This is our God ; we have waited for 
 him, and he will save us." In the second chapter 
 of Haggai, w^e are told that God's people were in a 
 state of very great distress and depression of mind ; 
 and then, as on every similar occasion, God com- 
 forted them with the hope of a Messiah to come. 
 It is most remarkable, in reading God's dealings 
 v/ith his ancient people, how on every occasion the 
 comfort that he gives them is not temporal, but 
 eternal deliverance — not some elevation in this 
 world, but the hope of a Saviour, who should be 
 Christ the Lord. We can see throughout the 
 whole of these promises that Jesus was constantly 
 preached to God's people as their comfort, and the 
 very hope of him as sufficient to compensate for 
 all their sorrow, their affliction, and their trials. 
 He was spoken of as the Saviour, Christ the Lord, 
 as " the Desire of all nations." In what shape can 
 Christ be called "the Desire of all nations?" We 
 answer, all nations felt in their hearts wants, long- 
 ings, and losses, which nothing but the presence 
 of the Lord of glory could thoroughly and com- 
 pletely remove. It cannot be said that the nations 
 knew that Christ would come, who should remove 
 their wants, and gratify their aspirations and their 
 hopes ; but all the nations of heathendom felt in 
 themselves — and their best and most gifted spirits 
 felt it most — a want, a loss, a sense of ruin, that 
 
200 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 needed reparation; and losses that needed to be 
 removed, and hunger that this world's bread could 
 not satisfy, and thirst that this V7orld's fountains 
 could not remove : and they earnestly desired one 
 who would allay these longings, unconscious that 
 the burden of a thousand Jewish prophecies was 
 the only Being who could possibly meet their 
 wants and satisfy their desires. These yearnings, 
 and hopes, and expectations of all the Gentile na- 
 tions, wandered amongst them, airy, undefined, 
 like shadowy spectres — knocking at every door for 
 satisfaction, drinking from every fountain, if per- 
 adventure they might be removed ; and only did 
 they find their resting-place when He came whom 
 they knew not, but who was ever promised and 
 pledged as the only Being that could satisfy all 
 their longings, and remove all their anxieties. In 
 this state of mind the heathen drew upon imagina- 
 tion in order to meet the demands of their hearts ; 
 they deprived the mine of its marble, they spoiled 
 the forest of its oak, they exhausted the resources 
 of genius, they traversed the wide world in search 
 of what could satisfy their idea of excellence, per- 
 fection, and happiness, and endeavoured by their 
 own strength to remove that thirst which was to 
 be. removed only by him who was " the Desire of 
 all nations." They longed for a Saviour they 
 never heard of; they desired the advent of a satis- 
 faction, the tidings of whose approach they did not 
 know. The unconscious prophecy of heathendom 
 has been the subject of much writing; and the 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 201 
 
 unconscious aspiration of heathendom after Christ, 
 "the Desire of all nations," is very much a corre- 
 sponding companion to it. 
 
 But let us look at individual feelings, wants, and 
 desires, and see how Christ meets them ; and how 
 far the Gentile nations, that knew not, and that 
 now know not Christ, have those feelings. 
 
 First, Christ was " the Desire of all nations," as 
 a Eedeemer from sin. The Greeks and Romans 
 had not those enlightened apprehensions of the 
 nature, the misery, and the issues of moral trans- 
 gression, that we have ; but the very worst and the 
 most degraded had a lingering conviction that 
 some great moral blight had passed into the 
 human soul — had defaced all its ancient beauty, 
 glory, and perfection — had introduced into the 
 world itself all its disturbance, mutilation, and dis- 
 tress ; and they felt themselves the victims of sin 
 — they recognised its domination as the secret of 
 their ills. Every school in ancient Greece had its 
 prescriptions for its removal — every philosopher 
 some great system which, if accepted, he thought 
 would act upon the world like a charm, or be to 
 the world a complete relief; but there was a sense 
 among all the heathen that moral transgression 
 was in some way the root of all their physical, their 
 intellectual, their social, and their national distress; 
 and that, unless the evil in man's heart could be 
 'eradicated, the sufferings in man's condition never 
 could be laid. They did not know that Christ 
 should come, a Redeemer from sin ; but this was 
 
202 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 what they blindly desired, and he is exactly what 
 meets that desire ; for in him we have remission 
 through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. 
 And it shows the profound philosophy, if I might 
 use the word, of this blessed Gospel, that Christ 
 came into the world not to ameliorate, as the first 
 thing, man's outward state, but to expel from 
 man's heart the secret of the fever that convulses 
 and disturbs him continually ; and, by the removal 
 of the source of the evil, to ameliorate gradually, 
 and ultimately altogether, the e\nls that oppress 
 him. The evils that afflict society are not like 
 drift-wood or loose stones lying upon its surface, 
 which you may sweep away with a strong arm and 
 with tolerable diligence ; but like the roots of a 
 primeval forest — the gnarled roots of ancient oaks 
 — that have struck deep into the heart, or inter- 
 twined with the very feelings, affections, appetites, 
 and passions of the sOul : so much so that none but 
 He that made man can be the Physician that can 
 cure man. And, blessed be God, just when our 
 need was the sorest and our ruin the most intole- 
 rable, " God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, 
 made under the law, to redeem them that were 
 under the law; that we might (no more be the 
 slaves of sin, but) receive the adoption of sons." 
 Thus, we have in Christ Jesus, as the Redeemer 
 from sin, a response to the inmost, the deepest 
 desire, Of fallen humanity. 
 
 Christ, as the Redeemer from death, is the 
 "Desire of all nations;" he meets that which 
 
TUE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 203 
 
 is the desire of all nations. The soberest man in 
 the ancient heathen world had a deep and a very 
 stroncr conviction that death is not the normal state 
 of man ; that it is something introduced since the 
 creation of man ; and that he was not originally 
 made to die : and hence, amid all the traditions of 
 heathendom that have floated down the stream of 
 time, there was kept constantly afloat, never sub- 
 merged, the beautiful recollection that once there 
 was a golden age when there was no death ; and still 
 the strong and ineradicable hope that man would 
 cleave to with his last gasp, that there should be a 
 golden age again, when sickness, and sorrow, and 
 death should for ever flee away. Even in heathen 
 times man would not accept the grave as his only 
 and his ultimate home; he could not believe it 
 possible that this exquisite mechanism of ours, 
 when dissolved in dust, was to be the end of us. 
 Cicero — who stood upon the loftiest pinnacle, and 
 seems with Socrates and Plato to have caught from 
 afar, it may be refracted and reflected, the first 
 beams of the Son of Righteousness — owned, "I 
 cannot demonstrate logically the immortality of 
 the soul ; but such is my conviction that it is true, 
 that though I cannot prove it, I will never let it 
 go, but hold it fast as I believe it is true." When 
 he said so, he only expressed what we all well 
 know, that there are instincts in our hearts truer 
 than logic — that there are conclusions that spring 
 from the depths of man's soul far juster than 
 mathematics can prove — and that God has left in 
 
204 SIGNS OF THE TIMES, 
 
 US these lingering lights, these inextinguishable 
 recollections of our pristine glory, tlfat are ' to us, 
 in the depths of our ruin, prophecies that the glory 
 will return again. So the heathen felt that death 
 could not be the end of them. They could not see 
 a light in the valley of the shadow of death ; they 
 could not see the other end of the long, dark, and 
 dreary tunnel ; but they believed, nevertheless, that 
 there was an end to it ; and whether they believed 
 it from the instincts of their nature, or from some 
 of the unspent echoes that still reverberated through 
 the dark and dreary wastes of the world of God's 
 first truth proclaimed in Paradise, we know not ; 
 but they held fast this — that death was unnatural, 
 that man was not meant to die. They believed 
 the matter would yet be put right ; and that at all 
 events, if the body must be resolved into its parent 
 dust, that the soul would escape from the body as 
 lightning parts from the cloud, and not rest till it 
 was in joy in the presence of God. N'ow, what 
 they guessed, and: hoped, and yearned, and longed 
 for, as their deepest, their universal desire, we 
 know : " Unto you is born the Prince of Life ; he 
 that believe th on me hath life ; I am the resurrec- 
 tion and the life." "All that are in their graves 
 shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall 
 come forth ; they that have done good fo the resur- 
 rection of everlasting life." 
 
 Christ is "the Desire of all nations," inasmuch 
 as he is the Restorer of the world. I mentioned 
 that the heathen longed for the restoration of all 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 205 
 
 things. They believed that the golden age would 
 again return. They did not know how it was to 
 return, or by what power it was to be brought back 
 again; but still they would not give up hope. 
 When nations cease to hope, they wither down to 
 their very roots ; and if humanity had ever ceased 
 to hope for something better than it had, it would 
 have committed universal suicide. But there seem 
 to have been left in man's will hopes that could 
 not, and that would not, be extinguished ; and both 
 Jew and Gentile in ancient times, and the most 
 savage heathen in modern times, have a recollection 
 that the world was once in a better state, and a 
 strong ineradicable belief, that the world will be 
 restored to a better state still. And, very singular, 
 the names given to the earth by both Greeks and 
 Komaus, both either commemorate its being once 
 pure, or are prophecies or promises that it will be 
 pure again. For instance, the Greeks called the 
 world cosmos. The meaning of the word cosmos, 
 from which comes our word " cosmetic," is what 
 is beautiful or perfect. And the Romans, as if the 
 same idea had overspread all heathendom, called 
 the world mundus, which means that which is 
 clean, pure, perfect, undefiled. In either case, two 
 names so singular — the one not borrowed from the 
 other, one not the translation of the other — words 
 which sprung into human speech as the embodi- 
 ment of human anticipations — were to heathendom 
 the only shreds of a Gospel that they had, the pro- 
 phecy that the earth should again be cosmos — 
 18 
 
206 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 
 
 beautiful ; again be mundus — ^pure ; and all things 
 restored to their pristine lovehness, glory, and per- 
 fection. The Apostle tells us, in words that we 
 know to be true, that their hope in this matter was 
 right. " The whole creation," says the Apostle, 
 "groaneth and travaileth together in pain until 
 now ;" what intensity of expression ! But it does 
 so ; " waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemp- 
 tion of the body." The Apostle represents the 
 earth as a stricken creature, mourning and com- 
 plaining to its God ; and longing, and hoping, and 
 praying, that one day it may be delivered from its 
 burden, purified of its pollution, disinfected of its 
 poison, and made again the earth, the happy 
 mother of a happy family, reigning and rejoicing 
 upon it. And the Apostle tells us it will be so ; 
 that all things wait for this, when the earth will be 
 restored, all creation's deserts rejoice and blossom 
 as the rose ; when its most desecrated spots will be 
 consecrated, its most barren spots fertilised, and 
 the Paradise that shall end the world be more 
 glorious, beautiful, and fair, than the Paradise with 
 which the w^orld began. 
 
 JSTow the poor heathen, like the Christian, (only 
 in less measure,) longed for a better world, as the 
 sailor for his haven, the traveller for his home, the 
 exile for his countiy, humanity for its restoration, 
 its paradise, and its peace. Christ is that Eestorer. 
 His words are, "Behold, I make all things new." 
 And in the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters 
 of Kevelation, you have the prediction that all 
 
THE DESIRE OP ALL NATIONS. 207 
 
 things will be made new, and that what the hea- 
 then hoped for, Christians know, believe, and are 
 assured, will come to pass. 
 
 Christ is the Light of all nations, inasmuch as he 
 is now — and professed to be, when he came into 
 our world — the great Revealer of God. Far as 
 human nature had gone from God, it never yet 
 gave up God altogether. Those lingering tradi 
 tions that existed in the minds of the heathen, and 
 exist still, are in their way remarkable and indirect 
 proofs of the original truth from which they come. 
 Whenever you see a bad sovereign made of brass 
 and gilt, it is the proof that there is a good sove- 
 reign : the imitation is always the evidence of an 
 original. So all these lingering truths, recollections, 
 dim presentiments, cherished promises, that sur- 
 vived and found expression in the language of the 
 heathen, are evidences of grand original truths, of 
 which they were the distorted refractions. Hea- 
 thendom, in its greatest aberration from God, never 
 forgot him or renounced him altogether. "No na- 
 tion, even the most degraded, has been found in 
 which there has not been some impression of a God ; 
 although it is quite possible that man may be so 
 brutalized, that the animal shall comparatively be 
 the grave of the intellectual and the moral. As we 
 know not what a height of glory and magnificence 
 man may be lifted to, we know not what a depth of 
 degradation he may also sink to. The very fact that 
 he is capable of such elevation and such degrada- 
 tion, is a proof of the greatness of man as he was 
 
208 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 
 
 originally made, and of the possibility, not to say 
 more, of his restoration to a nobler and a better 
 state. If we go to the most cultivated heathen 
 nations, we find their sense of God, their desire to 
 know God ; their longing to get a glimpse of his 
 glory as he passed by was so intense, that when 
 God would not come to them, they tried by their 
 own might and wisdom to realize a likeness of God 
 upon earth. Take the remains of the Greek chisel 
 — what magnificent remains ! And what gave 
 them their magnificence ? Why is it that the 
 human form has been carved with a beauty, a 
 symmetry, a magnificence, far beyond the original, 
 and to imitate which is the aspiration of our most 
 gifted statuaries still ? "What made it so ? It was 
 the lingering idea of a God, which they tried to 
 embody in the yielding and obedient marble, that 
 has made their remains so magnificent and beauti- 
 ful. Their statuary was just their theology ; it was 
 their attempt to make visible Him of whom they 
 had some dim and distant recollection : it was the 
 inspiration of this idea that made their artistic 
 works so beautiful and so striking. And at last, 
 when they had exhausted all the resources of their 
 great genius, and produced those remains that are 
 the admiration of the most cultivated minds, in 
 their despair they built an altar to " the unknown 
 God," by which they confessed that man by search- 
 ing could not find out the Almighty. He might 
 draw out the secrets of the earth below, he might 
 discover all the glories of the firmament above, he 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 209 
 
 might demonstrate the most intricate mathematical 
 problems and theorems; but man could not dis- 
 cover God. We need a revelation from God to us. 
 We never can make the discovery from ourselves 
 that will land us in the knowledge of God. This 
 which the heathen so earnestly desired is accom- 
 plished. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh — the 
 virgin-born is Emmanuel, God with us. He has 
 come down from heaven to earth, so near to us, so 
 close to us, that we can see him, comprehend him, 
 and as truly hold communion with him, as if he 
 were our friend, our companion, and our brother ; 
 and yet he remains so holy, bears so visibly the 
 trace of divinity, that whilst he is so near, and so 
 close, and so familiar, we can yet see in him the 
 brightness of the Father's glor}^ and the express 
 image of his person. We have therefore, in Jesus, 
 God manifest in the flesh ; and heathendom, in the 
 reception of him, the gratification of its deepest, its 
 most anxious and cherished desire. But, you say, 
 we do not now see Christ, we are not now in con- 
 tact with him ; and to speak of God being manifest 
 in the flesh, to us who cannot see him, is not cor- 
 rect. We answer, we can form as correct an esti- 
 mate of a person by the acts he has done, or 
 spoken, and written, and left behind him, as we 
 could if he were actually present in the midst of 
 us. Take, for instance, the great poet of the Eng- 
 lish language, Shakspeare : I believe that, by read- 
 ing his writings, you can form a more just and 
 accurate idea of Shakspeare than you could have 
 18* 
 
210 SIGNS or THE TIMES. 
 
 done if yoa liad been his companion, and gone 
 with him into all the scenes of dissipation and fri- 
 vohty into which that great and gifted genius so 
 frequently plunged. The proper idea of a person 
 is not derived from his bodily presence, but from 
 the reflection of his mind, his character, his con- 
 duct, and all the truths he has left behind him. 
 See the Apostles : when Christ was in the midst 
 of them — when they saw him bodily present in the 
 midst of them — how dim, how obscure, how very 
 erroneous, were their comprehension and their ap- 
 prehension of him ; but after he asqended in the 
 cloud, and left them, these very disciples that had 
 so poor an idea of him that they would not follow 
 him, when he was alive upon the earth, to Pilate's 
 judgment-seat, after he was gone had so just an 
 apprehension of his glory, that they followed an 
 unseen Christ to martyrdom, to death, to shame, 
 and suffering. The Publicans that sat with him 
 at the table, the fishermen that followed him at his 
 bidding, never understood Christ till he was taken 
 from them. Then his whole life became a trans- 
 figuration ; every latent feature shone out with un- 
 earthly and undying lustre ; they saw what a great 
 Being had been in the midst of them, and under- 
 stood what great sin they perpetrated who crucified, 
 not a man, but the Lord of glory ; and what shame 
 belonged to them who had seen, and understood, 
 and comprehended so little of him who had been 
 so near them. A character with whom you are 
 familiar seems to you, as long as he is with you, 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 211 
 
 very commonplace, very insignificant; but when 
 some friend that you love is lifted away by the sea 
 to a distant land, then traits appear in his character 
 when absent which you never saw when he was 
 present ; beauties and excellences come up in me- 
 mory which you never detected when you gazed 
 upon his countenance ; and you discover that you 
 have a deeper and a clearer idea of your absent 
 friend in consequence of his absence than you ever 
 had when he was personally present in the midst 
 of you. So is it with our blessed Lord. He is now 
 absent ; but he has left on the sands of time foot- 
 prints so legible and clear — he has bequeathed in 
 this precious legacy, the Bible, such an autograph 
 and portrait of himself — we have received by in- 
 spired amanuenses such traits, sketches, sentiments, 
 thoughts, lessons, miracles of beneficence, and feats 
 of power — that we have a more clear apprehension 
 of Christ Jesus as God manifest in the flesh, than 
 ever the apostles had when they were with him, or 
 they that saw him in the flesh, and listened to the 
 wonderful words that proceeded out of his mouth. 
 And this deepening desire, this growing apprecia- 
 tion of his excellence, is all preparatory to that day 
 when he will come again, no more the Man of sor- 
 rows, obscured by the cloud, but the Son of God, 
 in the clouds of heaven, with power and great 
 glory. And we shall then find that the loftiest 
 apprehensions we cherished of his excellence 
 came infinitely short of the grand and lastmg 
 reality. 
 
212 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Christ is the Desire of nations as the perfect 
 Man. It is one of the most wonderful thoughts 
 in the Bible, that we have an instance of the possi- 
 bility of the absolute perfection of this nature of 
 ours. Christ is as precious to me as the reveal er 
 of what man may be made, as the revealer of what 
 God is to man. What a sublime thought, that 
 these limbs of ours can express divinity ! "What a 
 sublime thought it is, that this fallen shrine of our 
 humanity may be rebuilt, reconsecrated, and be 
 the very mirror of Deity itself! What a thought, 
 that Deity has looked through our eyes, has listened 
 through our ears, has walked along our streets, and 
 spoken our speech, and sympathized with all our 
 sufferings, and presented a heart that gives a re- 
 sounding echo to all our griefs and our woes ! 
 What was the greatest wish of the heathen, in 
 addition to those already explained? It was to 
 see the perfect man. Every school in Greece has 
 its heau ideal of a perfect man. The Epicureans 
 thought that the perfect man was he that gratified 
 his appetites, and lived just as he liked. The 
 Stoics thought that the perfect man was he who 
 neither wept nor laughed, neither rejoiced nor 
 sorrowed, but, in proportion as he approached the 
 granite, the nearer he approached perfection. But 
 we have in Christ Jesus the perfect Man ; not the 
 granite man of the Stoics — for Jesus "rejoiced in 
 spirit;" Jesus wept, and sympathized with human 
 joys and human sorrows — nor yet the man of the 
 Epicureans, to whom this world, and the gratifica- 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 213 
 
 tion of the lusts of the flesh, was all ; but one who, 
 in the world, was not of it — one who presents a 
 character so perfect that even the most violent 
 opponents of Christianity have not dared to touch 
 it ; and Rousseau, the sceptic, has given the most 
 beautiful portrait of him whom he denied to be 
 the only Saviour of the world. In this respect 
 Christ answers and meets the desire of all nations. 
 
 He meets the desire of all nations in that he is 
 the perfect Sacrifice. Jew and Gentile were con- 
 stantly offering up sacrifices ; and I do not know 
 a more impressive proof of the universal conscious- 
 ness of man that some great curse had intervened 
 between God and mankind, than the fact that in 
 every nation that we know, sacrifices — and sacri- 
 fices approaching in value to the greatness of the 
 sin that had been perpetrated — were universally 
 practised; and among the ancients even human 
 sacrifices were oflered, in the hope that human sins 
 might be forgiven. The sacrificial rites of Levi, 
 which sceptics complain of as so cumbersome, and 
 unwortny of God, are simplicity itself when com- 
 pared with the cumbersome and shocking rites of 
 the polished Greeks and the civilized Romans ; and 
 all these sacrifices, which existed in every laud, 
 were nature seeking after the grand sacrifice — was 
 humanity, conscious of a disruption, seeking resto- 
 ration again — was nature, feeling after our Father, 
 if peradventure it might find him. 
 
 But whilst we have spoken of this text as illus- 
 trated in the first advent of Christ — and rightly so 
 
214 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 — it is impossible to conclude that the prediction is 
 exhausted by the Saviour's advent and birth m 
 Bethlehem. The language has no adequate fulfil- 
 ment in the past, and must in a great extent await 
 the future. For instance, " I will shake all nations." 
 ^' I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, 
 and the dry land ; and I will shake all nations, and 
 the Desire of all nations shall come." Christ so far 
 their desire I have shown him to be ; but there is 
 a desire even in the hearts of God's people that is 
 not yet met ; when Christ comes the second time 
 without sin unto salvation, that desire will be met. 
 The language employed by the prophet evidently 
 indicates the close of this dispensation ; for he says, 
 in another verse : " I will overthrow the throne of 
 kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of king- 
 doms of the heathen ; and I will overthrow the 
 chariots, and those that ride in them ; and the 
 horses and their riders shall come down, every one 
 by the sw^ord of his brother." Now, it cannot be 
 said that when Christ was born there was any 
 shaking of the heavens and the earth. The Temple 
 of Janus was shut ; universal peace predominated 
 from the rising of the sun to the going dow^n of 
 the same. It cannot be said that when Christ was 
 born the kingdoms of the heathen w^ere over- 
 thrown ; for we read that Judea had been over- 
 thrown, but the kingdoms of the heathen remained 
 still. It was the Jews that suffered, not the 
 heathen, at the destruction of Jerusalem ; and 
 therefore I think that the commentary of those 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 215 
 
 who suppose that this shaking of the heavens and 
 the earth, this destruction of the heathen, was all 
 accomplished hy the dissolution of the Jewish 
 polity and the destruction of Jerusalem, really 
 does not explain the text : it seems to intimate a 
 futurity in which all these things will come to pass. 
 But the hest proof of it is not the conjecture of a 
 commentator, but the opinion of an inspired writer. 
 For what does the Apostle say, in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews ? He tell us : " whose voice" — speak- 
 ing of the giving of the Law — " whose voice then 
 shook the earth" — that is, at the giving of the Law 
 — " but now he hath promised, saying. Yet once 
 more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 
 And this word. Yet once more, signifieth the 
 removing of those things that are shaken, as of 
 things that are made, that those things which can- 
 not be shaken may remain." The Apostle Paul, 
 sixty years after the birth of Christ, quotes this 
 very text as not then fulfilled ; and shows that that 
 shaking or convulsion has to come in the lapse of 
 the years that were before him, which should fulfil 
 the prophecy of Haggai: "I will shake not the 
 earth only, but the heavens, and the sea, and the 
 dry land." And this shaking is explained by 
 Peter, when he says that all these things shall be 
 dissolved — that "the day of the Lord will come as 
 a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall 
 pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and 
 the works that are therein, shall be burned up. 
 
216 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dis- 
 solved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in 
 all holy conversation and godliness ; looking for 
 and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, 
 wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, 
 and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 
 N^evertheless we, according to his promise, look for 
 new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." That is the removal of the old 
 earth and the old heavens as of the things that are 
 shaken, in order that the new earth and the new 
 heaven, as of things that cannot be shaken, may 
 remain. If, then, the text is not yet fulfilled — if 
 the Desire of all nations came to bear the cross, in 
 order that the earth may be renovated — we are 
 warranted from this and other texts to entertain 
 the opinion that the Desire still of all the people 
 of God will come, not to bear the cross, but to 
 wear the crown, that the earth may at length be 
 restored, and all things be made new. That 
 Christ's second advent is still the desire of the 
 Christian, is obvious from this — that no sooner had 
 ne left the world than his people began to pray, 
 what has been continued as their prayer still, 
 " Come, Lord Jesus;" and the promise was given 
 to that people, "Unto 3'ou that look for him, he 
 will come as ye have prayed, the second time, with- 
 out sin, unto salvation. ^N'ow, the reason why we 
 should wish for Christ's second advent as the real 
 fulfilment of all is, that when he comes there will 
 be times of refreshing, as says the Apostle, from 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 217 
 
 the presence of the Lord. K we desire this refresh- 
 ment to the weary, this rest for the exile, we should 
 long and pray for that advent of Him who is the 
 desire of both and the satisfaction of all. We 
 read, also, that when Christ comes there will be 
 the times of the restitution of all things. Every- 
 thing that sin has stained will be put right ; every 
 tie that death has snapped will be restored; the 
 grave shall yield up its deposit. Death shall let go 
 his prisoners ; all that we lost in Paradise shall be 
 regained when Christ comes; there shall be no 
 more tears, nor crying, nor sin, nor grief, nor 
 sorrow; but all former things will have passed 
 away, all things will have become new. Therefore, 
 to every believer, Christ's second advent is the 
 deepest desire and the yearning of his heart. 
 
 He comes the second time without sin unto sal- 
 vation, our desire — our deepening desire. We pray 
 for his coming because all that now shades his 
 glory, grieves his people, or oppresses mankind, 
 will then utterly pass away. The Crescent in the 
 East will have waned and disappeared with the 
 things that have been shaken ; the tiara, that 
 inflicts its tyranny in the West, will be utterly 
 broken and put away, and mingled with the things 
 that have been, no more to be restored again. 
 Humanity, oppressed by the tyranny of the one, 
 slain and depressed by the superstition of the other, 
 will be emancipated ; and there will be no more 
 error to mislead, no more oppression to grind 
 down; but a free, a holy, and a happy people, 
 19 
 
218 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 rejoicing under the sovereignty and sway of a 
 loving and affectionate God. 
 
 When Christ conies, the Sabhath of the earth 
 will then come. "There remaineth," says the 
 Apostle, "a Sabbath-keeping" — or, as we very 
 properly translate it, "a rest for the people of 
 God." Earth will rest from its groans, humanity 
 will rest from its toils ; all things will bask in the 
 glory and sunshine of an everlasting Sabbath ; and 
 all that has been injured in the weary work-day of 
 the world's history, will be refreshed, restored, and 
 made glorious, in its last and its everlasting Sab- 
 bath. All disputes among us will be put an end 
 to ; every denomination of true Christians w^ill 
 then discover that each was but a side chapel in 
 the same grand cathedral, worshipping under the 
 same roof, resting on the same floor, chanting the 
 same divine hymn, only in different dialects of the 
 same mother tongue ; and that, instead of quarrel- 
 ling as they now do, they ought to have forgiven 
 the smaller points in which they differed, for the 
 sake of the magnificent and glorious one on which 
 they were at one. 
 
 If all this is to take place — if all earth is to be 
 restored, if humanity is to be reconstituted, recon- 
 secrated, and made happy — if there is to be an 
 everlasting Sabbath — peace, joy, and righteousness 
 overspreading the whole earth — then, surely, that 
 day should be our earnest and prayerful desire ; its 
 advent should be our joyous hope. His promise 
 remains waiting for the hour when prophecy shall 
 
THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 219 
 
 be history, and prediction shall be fact. " I will 
 shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the 
 dry land :" and as sure as you expect him, so sure 
 the Desire of all nations will come, and the uni- 
 verse shall be filled with his glory ; and there is no 
 temple therein, but the Lord God Almighty and 
 the Lamb are the temple of it. 
 
 The nearer the day of his advent comes, the 
 deeper the desire of nations for it will grow. 
 Christians will pray more earnestly for his coming. 
 Weary humanity will thirst more intensely for a 
 cessation of its griefs, its cares, its fears, its woes 
 and travail. And when longer delay would issue 
 in despair, the sign of the Son of man coming in 
 the clouds of heaven will end all signs and sacra- 
 ments, and introduce the glory that endures for 
 ever. 
 
220 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 vin. 
 
 THE PINAL DESTINY. 
 
 The people, the creation, the Church of Christ, 
 has a noble destiny. It is expressed in these words : 
 " In that day shall there be upon the bells of the 
 horses, Holiness unto the Lord ; and the pots in the 
 Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the 
 altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah 
 shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts ; and all 
 they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, 
 and seethe therein : and in that day there shall be 
 no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord 
 of hosts." Zech. xivf20, 21. 
 
 In the 30th verse of the 39th chapter of Exodus 
 it is stated, that on the plate of the holy crown of 
 pure gold, which was to be worn around the brow 
 of the high priest of Israel, there should be the 
 engraving as of a signet — "Holiness to the Lord." 
 
 Now, says the prophet Zechariah, an age comes 
 when every one shall be as holy as the high priest 
 was ; and everything shall be as holy as that mitre 
 was ; and over all the length and breadth of God's 
 created universe, like a beautiful illuminated scroll, 
 shall be written and seen, as well as actually em- 
 bodied, "Holiness to the Lord." That this is not 
 a present, but a future scene, is obvious from the 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 221 
 
 words of the prophet. He does not say it has been 
 in the past; but, "In that day" — that is, some 
 future day — " there shall be upon the bells of the 
 horses" — that is, the very humblest and lowest 
 parts of his covering and furniture — and upon all 
 the pots and vessels in every house and sanctuary 
 this sublime designation, "Holiness to the Lord." 
 
 When is this to be ? The prophet says it shall 
 be "in that day." Let us try to find out when and 
 what that day shall be, by noticing the continuity 
 of this prophecy with what is said in a previous 
 chapter. In the 9th chapter of Zechariah, at the 
 9th verse, we read the prophecy of the coming of 
 Christ, his humiliation, suffering, and sorrow. 
 "Rejoice greatl}-, O daughter of Zion : behold, thy 
 King Cometh unto thee: he is just, and having sal- 
 vation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a 
 colt the foal of an ass." This was literally fulfilled 
 when he came to sufler. The next is, " And I will 
 cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse 
 from Jeinisalem, and the battle-bow shall be cut 
 off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen; 
 and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, 
 and from the river even to the ends of the earth. 
 As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I 
 have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein 
 is no water." So in the 11th chapter, at the 12th 
 verse : " And I said unto them. If ye think good, 
 give me my price : and if not, forbear. So they 
 weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver." The 
 reference is obvious. So in the 13th chapter, at 
 
222 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the 6tli verse : " And one shall say unto him, "What 
 are these wounds in thine hands ? Then he shall 
 answer, Those with which I was wounded in the 
 house of my friends. Awake, O sword, against 
 my shepherd, and against the man that is my 
 fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shep- 
 herd, and the sheep shall be scattered." These are 
 descriptions of the first event. The second event 
 that follows is the dispersion of the Jews, recorded 
 at great length in the 11th chapter of this prophecy, 
 at the 6th verse : "I will no more pity the inhabi- 
 tants of the land" — that is, Palestine — "saith. the 
 Lord : but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into 
 his neighbour's hand, and into the hand of his 
 king : and they shall smite the land, and out of 
 their hand I will not deliver them. And I will 
 feed the fiock of slaughter, even you, poor of 
 the flock. And I took unto me two staves ; the 
 one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands : 
 and I fed the flock" — a symbolical allusion. In 
 the 16th verse, there is the prophecy of the raising 
 up of a shepherd, of a leader. The whole of the 
 llth chapter evidently predicts the dispersion of 
 the Jews. The 12th chapter describes the restora- 
 tion of the Jews, which is given at very great 
 length and with very great fdness and beauty. 
 "I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling." "In 
 that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem ; and he that is feeble among them at 
 that day shall be as David, and the house of David 
 shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before 
 
 .4\ 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 223 
 
 them. And it shall come to pass in that daj', that 
 I will seek to destroy all the nations that come 
 against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the 
 house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jeru- 
 salem, the spirit of grace and of supplications ; and 
 they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, 
 and they shall mourn for him, and shall be in bitter- 
 ness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first- 
 born. In that day there shall be a great mourning 
 in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon 
 in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall 
 mourn, every family apart ; the family of the house 
 of David apart, and their wives apart ; the family 
 of the house of E'athan apart, and their wives 
 apart." 
 
 These expressions, as we have already seen, 
 denote that they are to be settled in their own 
 land, when they shall look upon him whom they 
 have pierced, and mourn — restored in an uncon- 
 verted state — that they will attempt to build a 
 temple for their worship. I have seen a prospectus, 
 as mentioned before, of a Jewish society, for build- 
 ing that very temple. They are to be restored to 
 their own land — the approaching downfall of 
 Turkey preparing the way for them ; each tribe is 
 to mourn apart, showing that each is to be located 
 in its own district. In the 14th chapter we learn 
 that the last great conflict is to be fought in Pales- 
 tine itself. These words, no doubt, will be literally 
 fulfilled : " Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, 
 and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. 
 
224 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to 
 battle ; and the city shall be taken, and the houses 
 rifled ; and half of the city shall go forth into cap- 
 tivity, and the residue of the people shall not be 
 cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go 
 forth" — that is, the Lord Jesus — " and fight against 
 those nations, as when he fought in the day of 
 battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon 
 the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on 
 the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in 
 the midst thereof toward the east and toward the 
 west, and there shall be a very great valley ; and 
 half of the mountain shall remove toward the 
 north, and half of it toward 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 before the earth- 
 quake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah : and 
 the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints 
 with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 that the light shall not be clear, nor dark : but it 
 shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, 
 not day, nor night : but it shall come to pass, that 
 at evening time it shall be light." Here we have 
 the description of the last great battle, which is 
 called in the Apocalypse the great conflict of Ar- 
 mageddon ; in which, (according to Ezekiel,) Gog, 
 and Magog, and Meshech, and Tubal — language 
 singularly apposite to Eussia- — shall come up 
 against God's people, and seek to destroy Jerusa- 
 lem, and to put an end to the fulfilment of a thou 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 225 
 
 sand brilliant promises scattered throughout the 
 pages of inspiration. It may be said, " You can- 
 not take these passages literally." The most minute 
 predictions, however, relating to Christ's first ad- 
 vent were most literally fulfilled. We read, in the 
 22d Psalm, that " they parted my raiment, and for 
 my vesture they cast lots." A mere philosopher 
 reading that would say, " We cannot suppose that 
 such a trifling thing will be literally fulfilled ;" and 
 yet we know that it was fulfilled to the very letter. 
 So again, "Thy king cometh riding upon an ass." 
 You would say, " That no doubt means that he will 
 come in very great humility ;" but it was literally 
 fulfilled. And if these minute predictions respect- 
 ing the minutest details of Christ's first advent were 
 literally fulfilled, why should w^e suppose that the 
 minute predictions respecting his second advent 
 will not be as minutely fulfilled also ? As I under- 
 stand strictly and literally the predictions that have 
 been strictly and literally fulfilled in the past, so I 
 understand that God will literally gather all nations 
 to Palestine. Everything is turning that way. 
 What is the cause of the storm that has burst on 
 the East, which statesmen have been mustering all 
 their skill and ingenuity to conduct away? A 
 quarrel about Palestine — about shrines and sacred 
 places. At this moment that land is becoming the 
 source of disquiet and conflict in the most powerful 
 cabinets of the east and west of Europe. More 
 recently the sufierings of the Jews in Jerusalem 
 are exciting the sympathies of Christendom. May 
 
226 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 not these events be the budding of the branch? 
 ''I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to 
 battle ;" but whether before or after the Jews are 
 restored, I feel it difficult to decide. And the Lord 
 shall be against these nations, by those that he 
 .brings forward ; or it may be, by hail, by plague, 
 ^by storm, by earthquake. "And his foot shall 
 stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives." Is 
 it unreasonable to conclude that he will as literally 
 stand upon that mount as he stood upon Mount 
 Calvary ? If there be a better explanation, let us 
 accept it. It does seem contradictory that we 
 should take those prophecies literally that he has 
 literally fulfilled, but the remaining prophecies not 
 yet fulfilled figuratively and symbolically ; at least, 
 it does not seem consistent. 
 
 We have, therefore, in this 14th chapter, the 
 gathering of all nations against Jerusalem; and 
 we read, at the close of the chapter, of their utter 
 destruction. In the 3d verse it is said, " The Lord 
 shall go forth and fight against those nations." 
 The 12th verse describes what shall befall them : 
 /'And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord 
 will smite all the people that have fought against 
 Jerusalem; their flesh shall consume away while 
 they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall 
 consume away in their holes, and their tongue 
 shall consume aw^ay in their mouth. And it shall 
 come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from 
 the Lord shall be among them ; and they shall lay 
 hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 227 
 
 his hand shall rise up against the hand of his 
 neighbour. And Judah also shall fight at Jeru- 
 salem ; and the wealth of all the heathen around 
 about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, 
 and apparel, in great abundance. And so shall be 
 the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, 
 and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be 
 in these tents, as this plague. And it shall come 
 to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations 
 which came against Jerusalem shall even go up 
 from year to year to worship the King, the Lord 
 of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." 
 Then we read, in the 9th verse : " And the Lord 
 shall be king over all the earth : in that day there 
 shall be one Lord, and his name one. All the land 
 shall be turned as a plain from Geba to llimmon 
 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, unto the corner-gate, 
 and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's 
 wine-presses. And men shall dwell in it, and there 
 shall be no more utter destruction ; but Jerusalem 
 shall be safely inhabited." 
 
 Now then, says the prophet, "In that day" — 
 when all this shall be accomplished, Jerusalem re- 
 built, Palestine restored, the glory of the Lord, 
 like ,the shechinah of old, taking up its abode ^ in 
 the midst of it, — " In that day shall there be upon 
 the bells of the horses. Holiness unto the Lord ; 
 and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the 
 bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusa- 
 
228 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 lem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord 
 of hosts." At that day which closes all the afflic- 
 tions of time, and begins the dawn and morning 
 of everlasting noon ; when Christ shall come again, 
 and shine before his ancients gloriously, and reign 
 a Prince and a King in the midst of his people for 
 ever and for ever — the commencement of the thou- 
 sand years described in the Apocalypse — holiness 
 to the Lord shall be upon everything in the height, 
 everything in the depth, upon every heart, and 
 hand, and forehead : and the whole earth shall be 
 a holy and a beautiful offering to the Lord that 
 made and redeemed it. " Holiness to the Lord," 
 means properly and strictl}^, " sequestration," 
 "separation," "division." It was stated before 
 that the Hebrew word Kadosh means not only 
 "holy," but also the very reverse, or "unholy." 
 Its literal meaning is a thing devoted : if devoted 
 to wickedness, it is still Kadosh; if devoted to 
 goodness, it is still Kadosh. It is used like the 
 Latin word saeer, which means sacred, and also 
 wicked. The auri sacra fames does not mean "the 
 holy thirst of gold," but "the accursed thirst of 
 gold." The word in its original means simply 
 dedication, division, separation, sequestration. 
 Everything in that day — from the meanest article 
 of furniture up to the cherubim that are beside the 
 throne — shall be " Holiness to the Lord ;" it means, 
 that whatever be the excellence, the beauty, or the 
 gifts of any creature, these shall no longer be 
 squandered in the gratification of evil desires ; but 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 229 
 
 shall all be consecrated, dedicated, and devoted, to 
 the service of the Lord God of hosts. These words 
 will then be no longer a duty to be done, but a fact 
 actually accomplished : "Whatever you do, whether 
 you even eat or drink, do all to the glory of God." 
 Every person in that day — the day that I have 
 endeavoured to ^x and to determine — shall feel all 
 the sacredness of a priest, all the responsibility of a 
 scrv^ant, all the dignity of a king unto our God 
 and his Christ. The lowliest things shall set forth 
 his praise ; the loftiest things shall reflect his glory ; 
 all that is little and all that is great shall be equally 
 devoted, dedicated and separated, or be holiness to 
 the Lord. 
 
 In order to illustrate this thought, we have only 
 to look at what is the distinctive excellency of a 
 thing, to see and anticipate the excellency that will 
 be devoted and consecrated to God. 
 
 The whole Church of Christ shall then be " Holi- 
 ness to the Lord." At present the visible Church 
 is made up of tares and wheat ; and every attempt 
 that man has made to separate them has ended 
 rather in multiplying than diminishing the tares 
 and injuring the w^heat. We are not to expect till 
 "that day" a pure, and perfect, and spotless 
 Church. But we are told that the Redeemer will 
 present the Church to himself a holy Church — 
 without spot, or wrinkle, or blemish, or any such 
 thing. That is, the Church — now stained with a 
 thousand sins, pervaded by imperfections of every 
 sort — shall then be disinfected of all its evil, puri^ 
 20 / 
 
. 230 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 
 
 fied of all its dross, and presented to the Lord a 
 holy Church — without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle, 
 or any such thing — " H(jliness to the Lord." Then 
 the bride shall be clothed in her coronation robes, 
 having made herself ready ; then the new Jerusa- 
 lem — no longer hidden in the distant skies, but 
 revealed as the manifestation of the sons of God — 
 shall come down from heaven bright like the sun, 
 fair like the moon, tprrible as an army with 
 banners. Then the mystical hundred and forty- 
 four thousand described in the Apocalypse shall be 
 complete; all God's sons reclaimed, all God's 
 people gathered home ; and there shall be no 
 more signs, because there is the substance; no 
 more sacraments, because what is signified is 
 revealed ; no more prayer, for all shall be praise. 
 And when angels witness the august offering, the 
 holy spectacle, the redeemed Church, with the in- 
 scription on every brow, and the feeling in every 
 heart, " Holiness to the Lord," they will ask, "Who 
 are these, and whence came they ? They are not 
 natives ; they are immigrants, they are colonists ; 
 they come from another country; they were not 
 born here." "Lo, these are they that have washed 
 their robes, and made them white in the blood of 
 the Lamb : therefore are they here present, there- 
 fore are they introduced here, and they serve him 
 now day and night, without ceasing." The whole 
 Church shall be " Holiness to the Lord." 
 
 When that day arrives, every place and portion 
 of the earth shall be "Holiness to the Lord." It 
 
 is 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 231 
 
 has now its profane places, its bleak places, its 
 desert places ; but in that day, according to pro- 
 phecy, its very deserts shall rejoice, its wilderness 
 shall blossom even as the rose. There shall be no 
 profane spot, no distinction between what is sacred 
 and what is secular ; the last fire shall have purified 
 by its baptism the earth in which we live, its every 
 mountain shall be holy as Mount Sion, blessed as 
 Mount Gerizim, beautiful and radiant with light as 
 Mount Tabor ; all nature shall be the temple and 
 the cathedral of God ; every place shall be a sanc- 
 tuary ; every sound shall be a choral psalm ; every 
 audience a congregation ; every crowd a Church ; 
 and thus the whole of space shall be inlaid with 
 God, and all IS'ature, retuned, restored, regene- 
 rated, shall have inscribed upon her brow what 
 the high priest had upon his mitre — " Holiness to 
 the Lord." 
 
 When that day comes, every service shall also be 
 "Holiness to the Lord." Man's labour shall be 
 like Adam's in Paradise, refreshment and joy : our 
 life shall be a ceaseless liturgy ; our labour shall 
 be a holy offering ; our conversation instinct with 
 the purest and the noblest thoughts ; the present 
 shall be all peace, the future shall bo bright as 
 hope, the review of the past shall only give us 
 thankfulness, and the anticipation of the future 
 shall only give us joy. In that day, when all 
 things are reinstated and restored — in the millen- 
 nial era — there may be all that we have now, but 
 disinfected, purified, ennobled, invested with a 
 
232 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 grandeur and a magnificence of which we have no 
 conception now. The sower may still sow, but in 
 sure hope ; the reaper may still reap, but in ecstacy 
 and in joy. We must not etherealize the future ; 
 we are to have bodies, though resurrection bodies ; 
 we are to live upon this orb, though a re-baptized 
 and regenerated orb ; we shall be men as we are 
 now; and much, perhaps, that science discloses, 
 that genius strikes out, that we regard as our privi- 
 leges, our blessings, the elements of our greatness, 
 may, being purified and consecrated, and having 
 stamped upon them, "Holiness to the Lord," con- 
 tinue in the beautiful age that is to come ; that 
 day when the Lord shall reign on Mount Zion, and 
 shine before his ancients gloriously. 
 
 In that day, every house and dwelling shall no 
 more be common and profane, but " Holiness to 
 the Lord." The head of the house shall be the 
 high priest to offer up the prayers and the praises 
 of the group that is around him. Wherever smoke 
 ascends, or a heart beats, or a family congregates, 
 shall be "Holiness to the Lord." Daily bread 
 shall be eaten like sacramental bread; the table 
 of God's providence shall be holy as the table of 
 the Lord : the Church shall be in the house, and 
 the house shall be in the Church ; and the humblest 
 furniture within shall be holy as the ark, beautiful 
 as the cherubim and the glory that was between ; 
 for on the very " bells of the horses," and humblest 
 furniture of the humblest household, shall be in- 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 233 
 
 scribed, what shall be struck into its very nature— 
 "Holiness to the Lord.'* 
 
 In that day, every day shall be a Sabbath. At 
 present we have week-days and Sabbath-days ; but 
 then devotion shall be a ceaseless feeling, praise 
 shall be a daily song ; there will be no local temple, 
 there will be no statedly recurring Sabbaths. The 
 Sabbath is not abolished in the age to come any 
 more than it was when the Jewish passed into the 
 Christian ; but on the contrary, is expanded, made 
 more beautiful, and, if possible, more holy; for 
 there remaineth for the people of God what we 
 have translated "a rest," but what Paul calls a 
 (fa^^aTKfiLos, that is, a "Sabbath-keeping for the 
 people of God." The whole age to come is Sab- 
 bath; the whole Millennium is a thousand years 
 of Sabbath. The Jewish Sabbath passed into the 
 Christian, purified and enlarged ; and the Christian 
 Sabbath shall pass into the Millennium, and be the 
 ceaseless 'Sabbath, or rest that remains for the 
 people of God. 
 
 In that day, every one of the brute creation then 
 living shall be " Holiness to the Lord." They were 
 so originally ; God made every creature, from the 
 emmet to the eagle — from the insect in the sun- 
 beam to the elephant and the leviathan — and 
 having made them, he pronounced them "very 
 good." It is true, disorder, discord, and evil have 
 been introduced; but these were not originally. 
 Man, creation's lord, fell, and all nature felt the 
 shock; man — the representative of all — sinned, 
 20* y 
 
2M SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and all he represented and headed fell with him, 
 and felt the consequences. But in that day, when 
 all things shall be restored, the fierce passions of 
 the beasts of the forest shall be quenched : " the 
 lion," in the language of prophecy, *' shall eat 
 straw like the ox, and a little child" — as if to show 
 the gentleness of the lion's nature — " shall lead 
 them." All this is not figurative, but literal. "Why 
 should we conclude it is not literal when prophe- 
 cies more minute have been literally fulfilled ? We 
 cannot conceive that in Paradise the lion preyed 
 upon the lamb, or that the wild beast tore in pieces 
 the creatures that came within his reach. I know 
 how difiicult it is to meet the objection that the 
 sceptic adduces, that the lion is made clearly by his 
 physical organization carnivorous, just as the ox is 
 by his physical organization clearly graminivorous ; 
 but no doubt the proper way to look at it is, that 
 God created them prospectively. How long Adam 
 stood — whether six days, or six months, or six 
 years — ^we do not know ; but this we may conclude, 
 that God made things prospectively. God knew 
 Adam was not to stand, and Adam's fall was but 
 a step in a grand stage — while Adam had all the 
 guilt, and God none of the responsibility. That 
 was the cause of that grand fact that Christ should 
 sufier, and enter into glory. Contemplating this — 
 the great and momentous event — God made the 
 creatures (and we can only suppose this, for we 
 have no evidence to educe) prospectively, with 
 reference to how they should live, and where they 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 235 
 
 should live, when thej should fall with Adam, and 
 come under the evil and accursed influence of sin 
 and death, and all their woe. But surely no man 
 in his senses can suppose that God made one beast 
 to devour another, and that it was part and parcel 
 of the original economy. Nobody will surely con- 
 clude that a God of infinite beneficence, who could 
 have arranged otherwise, has made one creature 
 stronger to prey upon the flesh of the other. There 
 are traits in the New Testament that point out a 
 contrary conclusion ; and reason — not reason out- 
 side of Scripture, but supported and sustained by 
 Scripture — must come to the conclusion that all 
 was made in harmony, in peace, in concord, with 
 man and with each other ; and only when sin, the 
 rending element, was introduced, did creation fly 
 into pieces, and every creature feel its heart instinct 
 with evil passions, appetites, and desires. 
 
 But, above all, do we believe that in that day 
 shall man be restored again to his original supre- 
 macy? In that day man shall be like the high 
 priest — "Holiness to the Lord;" and surely the 
 restoration of Adam involves the restoration of all 
 his dependencies. Creation fell with him ; creation 
 shall be restored with him. Nature suflfered the 
 shock of his sin ; why should not nature participate 
 in the glories of his restoration ? If the head is 
 lifted into the sunshine, why should not all around 
 and within its reach participate of the same bless- 
 ing also ? I regard man as the master of the rest 
 of creation ; and that he will be reinstated in a 
 
236 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 richer Paradise tliau that from which he was 
 expelled, and shall be surrounded with a happier 
 and a more beautiful family of animated beings 
 than that which went to war with him when he 
 broke out in war with and rebellion against God ; 
 and that he shall once more be the priest of nature, 
 to lift up her ceaseless praises ; the King of nature, 
 to govern all ; his intellect no more liable to error, 
 his heart no more the seat of passions ; no tears to 
 channel his cheeks, no pains to oppress his heart, 
 no signs or symptoms of decay, or anything to in- 
 dicate that he is not restored to that perfect conse- 
 cration which he possessed in Paradise — " Holiness 
 to the Lord." 
 
 And this earth itself shall be completely restored. 
 At the Fall this earth was like an island struck off 
 by a sudden blow ; or rather like a gigantic land- 
 slip from the continent of heaven ; it set out under 
 another attraction, and if God did not restrain it, 
 it would plunge into everlasting darkness, and 
 misery, and woe. But in that day this prodigal 
 orb of ours shall return once more to her Father's 
 house, and shall again appear in the beautiful sis- 
 terhood of stars, and orbs, and systems that never 
 fell ; and reflect in richer lustre, and celebrate in 
 grander songs, the praises of him that made it, and 
 the mercies of him that redeemed it by his blood, 
 and has engraved upon it, as the brightest jewel in 
 his diadem, "Holiness to the Lord." Satan shall 
 be cast out of it ; he has a footing on it, and his 
 footing on it is the secret of much of its uneasiness 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 237 
 
 and its disquiet. Satan is the prince of the power 
 of the air ; a usurper that is permitted to be here, 
 but who has no right nor proper jurisdiction here ; 
 the great disturber of the world, the great democrat 
 and anarchist of mankind, the spirit that worketh 
 in the children of disobedience, but doomed to be 
 cast out. 
 
 And sin shall also be cast out of this world. Sin 
 explains all its uneasiness : it is in nature precisely 
 what fever is in the Ijuman body. All our trials — 
 all our griefs, our sorrows, our discords — are the 
 progeny and oflfepring of sin. Its trail, like the 
 foul trail of the old serpent, may be traced upon 
 the fairest flowers and loveliest landscapes — corro- 
 ding, vexing, irritating, disturbing. Plague, pesti- 
 lence, famine, battle, war, are the footsteps of sin 
 — the influences it leaves behind it, the crops it 
 sows broadcast while it passes through the world ; 
 but it shall have passed to its doom, when this world 
 shall be " Holiness to the Lord." And disease and 
 death shall be cast out, because sin has been pre- 
 viously cast out. Disease is not natural ; death is 
 not natural ; pain is not natural. We fancy these 
 things are natural ; but they are most unnatural. 
 Man was never made to weep, let the poet say 
 what he please : man was never meant to die ; he 
 was made holy ; he was therefore immortal ; and 
 if sin had not scathed him, death had never touched 
 him. But when sin is cast out, and the conse- 
 crating footfall of Jesus is heard in dewy morn and 
 peaceful eve, disease will disappear, death will dis- 
 
238 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 appear, tears will disappear. There shall be no 
 more sorrow, nor crying, nor weeping ; for all the 
 former things have passed away. Grey hairs are, 
 no doubt, picturesque ; and poets may so represent 
 them, but it is the picturesqueness, notwithstanding, 
 of death. The autumn tints are very beautiful, and 
 poets may sing them ; but they are the evidences 
 of approaching decay. Nature tries to gild what 
 sin has left as the evidence of its presence, but it is 
 in vain. No decay, no death, no disease, was meant 
 to be originally ; and they are now because sin has 
 entered, and death by sin. Everywhere there is 
 the evidence of this. One almost wonders that a 
 human being can deny the Fall. I cannot see 
 wisdom — I cannot see common sense — in any other 
 conclusion, than that the picture in Genesis is the 
 portrait of actual fact. There is not a home that 
 has not its shadow ; there is not a heart that has 
 not its hidden griefs ; there is not a frame — the 
 healthiest on earth — that is not penetrated by 
 many a pang. 
 
 " There is no flock, however tended, 
 But one dead lamb is there ; 
 There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 
 But hath one vacant chair. 
 
 " The air is full of farewells of the dying, 
 And mournings for the dead ; 
 The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 
 Will not be comforted." 
 
 .\ 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 239 
 
 And what does this prove but that sin hath en- 
 tered, and death by sin ? In that day, when holi- 
 ness shall be stamped upon all created things — and 
 the whole of this world, with its moral, its social, 
 its physical, its animate and inanimate life, shall 
 have engraved upon it, "Holiness to the Lord" — 
 Paradise shall return in richer beauty than the Pa- 
 radise that Adam lost. The trees of every forest, 
 like harp-strings swept by the wind, shall chant 
 God's praise, as " Holiness to the Lord ;" the rivers 
 as they roll sparkling to the sea, and the waves of 
 the ocean as they beat upon a thousand shores, 
 shall sing, "Holiness to the Lord ;" the flowers of 
 every place, and of every season of the year, shall 
 exhale their fragrance as their best tribute, " Holi- 
 ness to the Lord :" the desert and the wilderness 
 shall lay aside their sorrowful apparel, and put on 
 more than the glory of Eden, holiness to him that 
 reconsecrates them again : the springs of earth shall 
 leap up and welcome the light of that better Sun. 
 Language shall no more be the vehicle of false- 
 hood, but of truth ; music shall no more be a play- 
 thing, but the solemn and grand expression of 
 God's praise ; poetry shall no more gild a lie, but 
 be devoted to God's glory ; and all that man is, and 
 all that is around man, and all that man knows, 
 shall receive its consecration, "Holiness to the 
 Lord." 
 
 Let us look forward with joyous hope, with holy 
 and exulting expectancy, to a day when all wrongs 
 shall be righted; when the lost and severed shall 
 
240 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 meet again, and creation be restored to more than 
 its first beauty; and man, who has wept, and 
 mourned, and suffered, and died for six thoasand 
 years, shall suffer, and mourn, and die no more. 
 
 Are we individually now — not yet in fact, but in 
 destiny — " Holiness to the Lord ?" Is it our desire 
 to be set apart to him, and for him, and fox his 
 glory? Do we attach any meaning to the text, 
 "Whether ye eat, or drink, do all to the glory" — 
 that is, receive all as engraven with " Holiness to 
 the Lord?" What is your name? "Christian." 
 And what is meant by "Christian?" A conse- 
 crated person. It is not the minister that is set 
 apart only ; it is the people also. When you are 
 baptized as children, you are outwardly set apart, 
 but no more ; but when the Holy Spirit regenerates 
 your heart, you are inwardly set apart with "Holi- 
 ness to the Lord." Do you then seek first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness — not only, 
 but chiefly ? Religion is not the only thing ; trade, 
 profession, are also duties ; and what we ask men 
 to do is, not to make religion, worship, the Bible, 
 the only things ; but to make them the dominant, 
 the leading, the governing things. We do not ask 
 you to cease to be men, in order to become Chris- 
 tians ; but to be Christian men, and to feel that 
 your destiny, as it ought to be your aspiration in 
 the present, is "Holiness to the Lord." 
 
 But you cannot consecrate yourselves. The 
 high priest could not consecrate himself; he needed 
 to be consecrated by the mysterious and inimitable 
 
THE FINAL DESTINY. 241 
 
 oil, that it was death for any man to make, or even 
 to try to imitate ; you need to be consecrated by 
 an unction from the Holy One. The Holy Spirit 
 is the Anointer, the Consecrator of the people of 
 God : he engraves the signet of the heart with the 
 inscription, "Holiness to the Lord." Justified by 
 Christ, we may be consecrated by his Holy Spirit. 
 Purchased by Christ's blood, we are to be set apart 
 by Christ's Spirit. The blood of Christ is on the 
 believer, that he may be redeemed from the curse ; 
 the unction of the Spirit is in the believer, that he 
 may be " Holiness to the Lord ;" Christ's righteous- 
 ness your title before the Lord; holiness to the 
 Lord your consecration for his service, and to his 
 praise and glory. 
 
 Are we thus justified ? are we thus consecrated? 
 Let us seek to aspire to this. Let us pray that we 
 may rise to a right apprehension of our grandeur, 
 not by nature, but by grace ; and of our destiny in 
 that day, the first beams of which begin to sprinkle 
 the distant east, giving token of its speedy approach, 
 when the very bells of the horses, and the humblest 
 vessels in the humblest household, shall be " Holi- 
 ness to the Lord." 
 
 One song employs all nations, and all cry, 
 Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us ! 
 The dwellers in the vales, and on the rocks, 
 Shout to each other ; and the mountain-tops 
 From distant mountains catch the flying joy, 
 Till nation after nation taught the strain, 
 Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round. 
 Behold the measure of the promise fillM ; 
 21 / 
 
242 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 See Salem built, the city of our God ! 
 Bright as the sun, the sacred city shines : 
 All kingdoms and all princes of the earth 
 Flock to that light ; the glory of all lands 
 Flows into her — unbounded is her joy — 
 Praises in all her gates — upon her walls, 
 And on her streets, and in her spacious courts, 
 Is heard Salvation. Eastern Java there 
 Kneels with the native of the furthest West, 
 And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand 
 - And worships. From every clime they come 
 To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy, 
 Zion ! an assembly such as earth 
 Saw never — such as heaven stoops down to see» 
 
 h 
 
IT IS DONE. 243 
 
 IX. 
 
 IT IS DONE. 
 
 The words of the Son of God, "It is done," 
 pronounced toward the close of the Apocalyptic 
 drama, seem to be the echoes of words uttered on 
 the cross. "It is finished," closed the sacrifice; 
 "It is done," winds up its magnificent results. 
 What was then finished in the shape of purchase, 
 shall on the arrival of this era be historically per- 
 fected and confirmed. The words, clearly retro- 
 spective in their bearing, will prove to the listening 
 universe that every promise and prophecy enun- 
 ciated by God in his holy Word will then and there 
 be completed and fulfilled. 
 
 When Jesus said upon the cross, " It is finished," 
 ho implied that all that related to his agony, as a 
 fact, had been then consummated ; when Jesus says 
 on his throne of glory, "It is done," or, "It is 
 finished," it will show that all that relates to his 
 glory then and there has come to pass. The first 
 was uttered from the lips of the Man of sorrows ; 
 the last will be enunciated by Him on whose head 
 are many crowns, who is Lord of lords, and King 
 of kings. As sure as he drank the bitter cup, and 
 finished the curse, and made an end of sin, and 
 brought in everlasting righteousness, so sure shall 
 
244 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 he wear many crowns, sway the sceptre of a 
 universal majesty, reign in each heart, and rule 
 from sea to sea, and from the river to the utmost 
 ends of the earth. 
 
 Let us notice very briefly, not much in detail, 
 some of those great truths that shall be translated 
 into facts when Christ comes the second time, with- 
 out sin unto salvation, to receive a kingdom, and 
 to reign for ever. First, then, the promise pro- 
 claimed in Paradise will then and there be perfected 
 in all respects — "The woman's seed shall bruise 
 the serpent's head." These words are not yet fully 
 accomplished. Satan fell like lightning from the 
 heavens, ere Christ left the earth ; but Satan still, 
 however shackled and limited in his aggression, 
 walks the world, its untiring foe, and goeth about 
 like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 
 Satan is crippled, but he is not yet crushed. His 
 power is broken, but the remnant of his sceptre is 
 still mighty upon earth. But when Christ shall 
 come again, this Angel coming down from heaven 
 shall lay hold upon Satan, that " old serpent," and 
 bind him in chains for a thousand years ; and after 
 the respite that he has — or, if I may use the words, 
 enjoys, for sin is his only enjoyment, and to injure 
 is the only happiness he knows — after the thousand 
 years shall have run their course, and h.e shall have 
 again gathered them that dwell in the four parts 
 of the earth, to assail the people and the saints of 
 the Most High, he will be cast into the lake of fire, 
 which is the second death, and be there with the 
 
IT IS DONE. 245 
 
 beast tormented for ever and ever. Then the 
 promises, which had their birth and began to be 
 fulfilled at the cross, shall be seen fully actualised 
 beside the throne in the Millennial glory ; and that 
 promise which sounded so musical amid the wrecks 
 of Paradise — an earnest of which was given on the 
 cross by the lips of Ilim who was the subject of 
 the promise — shall be seen in all its perfection and 
 complete accomplishment, when Satan shall be 
 banished from the earth he has desecrated so long, 
 and man shall be delivered from the aggressions of 
 that "old serpent," that foul fiend, whose trail and 
 poison are traceable in the sins and crimes that 
 have stained the annals and disfigured the history 
 of mankind. "It shall be done," was the ancient 
 promise ; "It is done," will be answered in endless 
 and responsive reverberations. 
 
 The promise made to Abraham so often, and in 
 such varied and expressive terms, will also be ful- 
 filled. God said to Abraham, after he had shown 
 him his readiness to ofier up Isaac : " In blessing I 
 will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply 
 thy seed, as the stars of the heaven, and as the 
 sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed 
 shall possess the gate of his enemies ; and in thy 
 seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; 
 because thou hast obeyed my voice." Abraham 
 waits and looks in heaven for the fulfilment of that 
 promise. It is not yet actual; there is only an 
 earnest and a foretaste of it. Abraham still looks 
 from his starry throne for the city that hath founda- 
 21-^ 
 
246 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 tions; he still anticipates the true Canaan, the 
 promised rest — in this very orh — that remains for 
 the people of God; and though perfectly happy, 
 he feels that his happiness will not have reached its 
 culminating greatness until the dead dust that 
 sleeps in the cave of Mamre shall he reknit to the 
 soul that worships with the cheruhim heside the 
 throne ; and he shall see literally a great multitude 
 that no man can numher, praising God and the 
 Lamh, and at last he told by Him who is faithful 
 and true, " Ahraham, here is the promise unspent 
 in the lapse of six thousand years, now fulfilled in 
 all nations blessed in Christ ; thy seed multiplied 
 like the stars in the firmament above thee, and like 
 the sands on the sea shore beneath thy feet." How 
 faithful is God ! Are not all his promises yea and 
 amen in Christ Jesus ? 
 
 The precious promise made to the Messiah will 
 then be fulfilled by the everlasting Father. " He 
 shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be 
 satisfied," will also be fulfilled. All that he now 
 sees is a handful, though that handful be an 
 earnest. A mere minute minority of the popula- 
 tion of the earth profess Christianity externally, 
 and a still smaller section of the outward profess- 
 ing Church feel Christianity experimentally. It 
 cannot, therefore, be said that Christ has yet seen 
 all the fruits of his sore agony and painful travail. 
 He has seen enough to satisfy that the whole will be ; 
 the first-fruits already wave before him, but the full 
 harvest alone will satisfy him. Jesus will not have 
 
IT IS DONE. 247 
 
 found the full purchase of his travail, nor will he 
 have seen the whole fruits of " his agony and bloody 
 sweat," until his Church be complete in character and 
 in number, and Christ have the pre-eminence over 
 all the earth, and all be blessed in him, and all shall 
 call him blessed. Calvary will have its complement 
 on Mount Zion — the sorrows of the cross will be 
 more than compensated by the glories of that 
 crown. Jesus shall then see that he died not in 
 vain — that not a handful, but a mighty multitude, 
 are the product of his sorrows, and the purchase 
 of his blood. It was for this — the joy set before 
 him, and soon to be his possession — that he 
 endured the cross, despising the shame. 
 
 When Christ shall say, " It is done," it seems to 
 be implied that all the promises made to the Church 
 of Christ, as to her future glory and perfection, will 
 then be fulfilled. We cannot read Isaiah without 
 noticing predictions respecting the Church of the 
 future, so brilliant that no admissible approxima- 
 tion to them ever seems to have taken place since 
 first they were uttered. We are constrained to 
 admit that those bright promises relate to a 
 coming era — that the world to come will be the 
 theatre of their development — that that bright 
 scene delineated so vividly and so often — is the 
 time when the Church shall arise and shine, and 
 put on her beautiful garments, and her righteous- 
 ness break forth like brightness, and her salvation 
 like a lamp that burneth; and she shall be pre- 
 sented to Christ, no longer a weeping and sorrow- 
 
248 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 stricken follower, but a glorious Churcli — without 
 wrinkle, or blemish, or any such thing — a bride 
 ready in her bridal and coronation robes, glorious 
 and spotless, bright as the sun, fair as the moon, 
 and majestic as an army with banners. The Church, 
 the bride, shall be complete in her character, com- 
 plete in her constituent numbers — a perfect Church, 
 the bride of the great Bridegroom. . 
 
 At that day the Jews will be restored, and rein- 
 stated in their lost privileges. It is impossible to 
 read Isaiah without seeing that while many of the 
 prophecies — and those by no means obscure ones — 
 describe the future glory of the Gentile Church, 
 the very choicest and most brilliant of them all are 
 descriptive of the future glory of the Jewish Church. 
 The Jews had the pre-eminence at first, and we 
 gather from all ancient prophecies that they will 
 have the pre-eminence again. The dry bones, 
 scattered over all the valleys of the earth (exceed- 
 ing many and exceeding dry), the types and sym- 
 bols of the children of Israel, shall hear the sound 
 of the resurrection trumpet, and shall come, bone 
 to bone, and sinew to sinew, and shall be clothed 
 with resurrection flesh; and rise up, a glorious 
 army, a mighty host, singing and shouting in undy- 
 ing strains, " Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed 
 is he that cometh in the name of the Lord !" And 
 of that very Jewish Church it is said : " The sons 
 also of them that afflicted thee shall come bendine; 
 unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall 
 bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet : and 
 
 • -^ 
 
IT IS DONE. 240 
 
 they sliall call thee the city of the Lord, the Zion 
 of the Holy One of Israel." We gather, from all 
 these predictions, that the Jews will occupy a very 
 prominent place in the age to come. The words 
 in the Hebrew, called " the world to come," ought 
 to be translated, "the dispensation to come;" in 
 which they that have snftered so long — most de- 
 servedly suffered — will be more than compensated ; 
 so that they may sing now, with an emphasis with 
 which the Gentile cannot say it, " Our present suf- 
 ferings are not worthy to be compared with the 
 glory that shall be revealed." 
 
 At that day, the promises of the new heaven and 
 the new earth, as these are enunciated in the Epis- 
 tle of Peter, shall be all realized. " The day oi 
 the Lord will come," he says, "as a thief in the 
 night ; in the which the heavens shall pass away 
 with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 
 with fervent heat ; the earth also, and the works 
 that are therein, shall be burned up. Seeing, then, 
 that all these things shall be dissolved, what man- 
 ner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversa- 
 tion and godliness ; looking for and hasting unto 
 the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, 
 being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, 
 according to his promise, look for new heavens and 
 a new earth." What promise is this ? That pro- 
 mise which Peter recognised, which is still unspent, 
 but which Peter believed to be reserved for the 
 future, is contained in the 65th chapter of Isaiah, 
 
250 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 at the ITtli verse, where we have the promise given 
 in full, graphic, eloquent, and expressive terms: 
 "For behold, I create new heavens and a new 
 earth ; and the former shall not be remembered, 
 nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice 
 for ever in that which I create ; for, behold, I create 
 Jerusalem" — in that new heaven and new earth — 
 "a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will 
 rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people ; and the 
 voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, 
 nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more 
 thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath 
 not filled his days : for the child shall die an hun- 
 dred years old ; but the sinner, being an hundred 
 years old, shall be accursed." Whether that relates 
 to the Millennial state, prior to this continuity of it, 
 which is to last for ever, it is difficult to say ; or 
 whether it is to be translated figuratively, meaning 
 that in this future state there shall be no death at 
 all. Some have supposed that in the Millennial 
 state, the first thousand years of it, there will be 
 deaths. I cannot see how this is possible among 
 the people of God : they are in their resurrection 
 bodies. If death takes place, it must be among 
 those who are spoken of as at the four corners of 
 the globe, unconverted and unsanctified, called Gog 
 and Magog, who rise up at the end, in rebellion 
 against the saints and the people of the Most High. 
 But I incline to take the language as figurative in 
 this part : " They shall build houses, and inhabit 
 them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the 
 
IT IS DONE. 251 
 
 fruit of them. They shall not build, and another 
 inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat." It 
 is said, in the 24th verse : " Before they call, I will 
 answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will 
 hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, 
 and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and 
 dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not 
 hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the 
 Lord." Nobody can assert that this has been ful- 
 filled. ITo era that has occurred from the day when 
 Isaiah uttered this — that is, 700 years before the 
 death of Christ to the present moment — can be said 
 with any propriety to have been even an approxima- 
 tion to this glowing prophecy — no such era has 
 ever yet taken place ; and we are sure it had not 
 taken place before Peter's days, for he says, " We, 
 according to his promise" — the promise we have 
 just seen — "look for a new heaven and a new 
 earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." That pro- 
 mise, therefore, relates to a future in which every- 
 thing shall be actually fulfilled. That there are 
 difficulties connected with every view of unfulfilled 
 prophecy it is perfectly reasonable to suppose ; so 
 there are in every other interpretation. The ques- 
 tion is, in which view is the greatest amount of 
 difficulty ? On the side of those who believe the 
 Millennium is to be a mere improvement and ex- 
 pansion of the existing age, to be followed by the 
 last judgment, it does look as if the difficulties were 
 insurmountable ; on the side of those who believe 
 iJbat the advent of Christ is to be pre-Millennial, 
 / 
 
252 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 there are difficulties, no doubt, but these are few 
 in comparison with those that cling to the other 
 view. If all the future were as luminous as the 
 present, man would cease to be responsible; but 
 we can see only gleams and glimpses of the future 
 by the light that God has given, and we must not 
 expect to penetrate futurity — even where God has 
 revealed it — and find a transparency and clearness 
 that are the attributes of the present only. But is 
 it impossible to conclude that the lion will eat straw 
 like the ox ? — that literally the lamb and the lion 
 shall feed together, and dust be the serpent's meat? 
 These animals, at present in an abnormal and un- 
 natural state, were not meant to be voracious and 
 to devour in their original condition. True, the 
 physiologist and the naturalist will appeal to their 
 internal visceral structure, and to the organization 
 of their teeth, and will assert that they were made 
 to live upon other animals. God made them clearly 
 in anticipation of what afterward took place ; for 
 we cannot suppose that a Being who saw what 
 would be, would fail to make pre-arrangements for 
 the new and unnatural phasis that was to come 
 upon the earth. It is not at all probable that after 
 the Fall the lion ceased to have graminivorous 
 teeth, or exchanged them for carnivorous : we have 
 no evidence of such a transformation. The lion 
 was made with his carnivorous teeth before the 
 Fall, but in anticipation of a new state of things. 
 The Fall did not come upon God unexpectedly; 
 he knew and embraced it as a fact, in all his pre- 
 
IT IS DONE. 253 
 
 arrangements and economy for the future ; and so 
 this animal organization was made and instituted 
 by God specially to provide for what would be, but 
 still for a state of which God himself was not the 
 Author, and for which he is not responsible. Pa- 
 radise was nature — the present earth is not. 
 
 "It is done." The new heavens will take the 
 place of the old : the new earth will emerge from 
 its flood of flame — beautiful, pure, and holy: the 
 desert will rejoice, and blossom as the rose: the 
 creation shall be the consecrated floor of a sublime 
 temple : and this very orb itself shall be the high 
 altar, amid the orbs of the universe, where God's 
 glory shall be seen in far richer splendour than ever 
 shone between the cherubim; and man's true 
 greatness shall be realized, as it was when man 
 was made in the image of God in Paradise — holy, 
 and without spot, and without sin. 
 
 "It is done." The first resurrection from the 
 dead will take place. At the commencement of 
 the Millennial state, the dead in Christ rise first. 
 This is the prophecy of every prophet ; it was the 
 expectation of apostles, evangelists, and saints ; it 
 was the prayer of Paul. "If by any means I may 
 attain unto that resurrection, that one from among 
 the dead." And when Christ shall say, "It is 
 done," then the saints shall be raised ; the dust of 
 every silei^t iirn shall be quickened, the remains 
 that are scattered through the depths of the restless 
 and the unfathomed sea — the dust that lies beneath 
 the green hillock, and in marble mausolea, and 
 
 . ^ 22 '/ 
 
254 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Tinder raonmnents of brass — all, in the height and 
 in the depth, in the land and in the sea — shall hear 
 the voice of earth's great Creator and Redeemer, 
 and come forth, and particle to particle rejoin each 
 other, and clothe anew, beautiful, perfect, and holy, 
 that soul that mourned over its imperfections on 
 earth, but now rejoices in its recovered glory, and 
 is holy and satisfied for ever. 
 
 At that era, the prophecy in the 15th chapter of 
 1st Corinthians will be fulfilled. Many persons 
 quote that prophecy of the resurrection as if it were 
 already fulfilled. "We read in the 54th verse, " So 
 when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup- 
 tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortal- 
 ity, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is 
 written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O 
 death, where is thy sting ? grave, where is thy 
 victory?" Now, that is not yet fulfilled. When 
 the believer dies, he may sing that song as an anti- 
 cipatory anthem, bat not as a result actually done; 
 for this triumphant song shall be sung only at that 
 hour when, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead 
 shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be 
 changed : " then shall be brought to pass the say- 
 ing that is written. Death is swallowed up in vic- 
 tory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, 
 where is thy victory?" In other words, death 
 shall be cast with hell into the lake of fire. There 
 shall be no more dying. Our triumph over the 
 grave shall be imequivocal ; our victory over death 
 shall be entire ; then we may begin our song of 
 
IT IS DONE. 255 
 
 triumph and defiance, "O death, where is thy 
 sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" All 
 graves are closed; the palm waves where the 
 cypress grew; death is destroyed; all things are 
 become new. 
 
 Then shall be fulfilled all the benedictions con- 
 tained in the Gospel according to St. Matthew. 
 "Blessed are the pure in heart;" that is their 
 present joy, but their full reward is, " they shall 
 see God." Blessed are tbey that mourn;" that 
 is, there is a blessing in their tears, notwithstand- 
 ing their tears, more than a compensation for their 
 sufiering ; but in the future it is, " for they shall 
 be comforted." "Blessed are the meek;" their 
 meekness may be trodden down on earth, but there 
 is a blessing even here in developing such a 
 character, and "they shall inherit the earth.** 
 These blessings are realized now ; but the promises 
 attached to the blessings will only be reaped when 
 Christ shall pronounce, from the throne from which 
 he makes all things new, "It is done." "Blessed 
 and holy is he that hath part in this resurrection." 
 " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
 dom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world." 
 
 The whole earth will then be covered with his 
 glory. Psalm Ixxii., now written in the Bible, will 
 then be visible and audible upon the length and 
 breadth of God's created world. " All shall bless 
 him, and all shall be blessed in him. Blessed be 
 the Lord, the God of Israel, who only doeth 
 
256' SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious 
 name for ever ; and let the whole earth be filled 
 with his glory." That is the petition and the pro- 
 phecy of David. When Christ shall say, " It is 
 done," the last verse will be felt true: '"The 
 prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are fulfilled." 
 The prayers of the literal David are closed, and 
 the praises of the children of the true David are 
 begun. David says. My prayers shall only cease to 
 be offered up when the whole earth shall be filled 
 with Christ's glory. Christ will say, "It is done ;" 
 then, in the Millennial state, the prayers of David, 
 the son of Jesse, are ended. Now, the heathen are 
 not yet Christ's actual inheritance ; now, the utter- 
 most parts of the earth are not his literal posses- 
 sion ; then, they shall strictly and literally be so. 
 Every thought in man's mind shall be light, every 
 affection of man's heart shall be purity, every pulse 
 in man's heart shall be music, every nerve in man's 
 nature shall thrill with joy ; the whole sky shall 
 glow with ceaseless sunshine, and the whole earth 
 be covered with the glory of Him whose glory 
 makes pale the brightness of the sun, and dim the 
 light of the moon, who is the Temple of the uni- 
 verse, wherein is no need of the sun nor of the 
 moon ; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
 are the light thereof. 
 
 Then, also, when Christ shall say, " It is done,'* 
 
 "shall be fulfilled Christ's prayer, which never yet 
 
 has been fulfilled : " Neither pray I for these alone, 
 
 but for all that shall believe in me through their 
 
IT IS DONE. * 257 
 
 preaching, that they all may be one, even as I am ' 
 in thee, and thou in me, that the world may know 
 that thou hast sent me." That prophecy will not 
 be fulfilled till Christ says, "It is done." Then 
 the Church of Christ shall be Catholic, not Romish ; 
 then she will have unity, not uniformity ; then she 
 will have apostolic truth in her creed, and apostolic 
 holiness in her characte-; there will not be a 
 single section, nor a single di\asion or disunion in 
 the Kew Jerusalem — the bride, the Lamb's wife, 
 the company that constitute the Church and the 
 people of God. 
 
 Then heaven and earth shall be reunited. Earth 
 is a fragment broken off from the continent of 
 eternity by sin. Severed from that great continent, 
 it has remained — except by a bridge, a pathway, 
 like Jacob's ladder, that unites them, and along 
 which we can travel. But as long as the pathway 
 is — as long as a Mediator exists, discharging 
 mediatorial functions — so long there is separation; 
 but when this new state shall come, the earth, the 
 broken-off island, shall be reknit to the great con- 
 tinent of heaven, and constitute together one great 
 realm, bearing the traces of its past history, because 
 the trophies of Christ's triumph, but yet part and 
 parcel of the great realm and continent of glory, 
 of light, of life. 
 
 We shall see the explanation and the solution of 
 
 all the difficulties that perplex us. Many things 
 
 we now read in the Bible, many providential 
 
 occurrences befall us, that we cannot now explain. 
 
 22* 
 
258 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Why is tliat one so smitten ? Why is some other 
 so great a sufferer? Here is a bereavement shrouded 
 in mystery. I cannot see why death entered and 
 crossed my threshold, and crossed it more than 
 once. I cannot see why losses, affliction, sorrow, 
 suffering, have all been poured into my cup. It is 
 inexplicable now. I can bear it, but I cannot ex- 
 plain it. When Christ shall say, "It is done," then 
 those things that we know not now, we shall know 
 hereafter ; and you will feel, w^hat now you hope, 
 that the sorest trial was as necessary for your salva- 
 tion as that Christ should die upon the cross, and 
 redeem you by his blood ; that not an incident or 
 accident that has befallen you could have been left 
 out, without a link being taken from the chain 
 that lifts you from the footstool, and places you 
 beside the throne. There will be then a solution 
 of difficulties we cannot now explain — of perplexi- 
 ties we cannot now unravel — of experiences we 
 cannot now fathom, and in the light in which 
 Christ is we shall see and understand all things 
 clearly ; and we shall thank God that He refused 
 many a prayer we offered, as we shall praise Him 
 that He answered many an unworthy petition He 
 himself inspired ; and we shall marvel in the light 
 that reveals all, and the splendour that solves all, 
 and hesitate to decide whether God showed us 
 greater mercy in not answering, or in answering, 
 many a prayer that we presented to Him. We 
 shall praise God in louder tones, and with more 
 joyous hearts, for w^hat He did hot give, though 
 
IT IS DONE. 259 
 
 we asked it, than for what He did give in answer 
 to our earnest petitions. 
 
 In that blessed state we shall meet, and recog- 
 nise, and spend a joyful eternity with those we 
 were severed from on earth. It is impossible to 
 believe that those images of the departed dead 
 that are treasured up in memory, as in a picture- 
 gallery, are to be expunged, and their memories 
 cease for ever. Yes, they will be expunged, they 
 will be forgotten ; but it will be the images dis- 
 solving in the presence of the originals ; it will be 
 recollection fading before the actual presence of 
 those we need no more to recollect, because we see 
 them face to face. Then links wanting in domestic 
 chains will be restored — those that are not lost, but 
 gone before, will meet us — "and death-divided 
 friends," in the language of the beautiful para- 
 phrase, " at last shall meet to part no more." We 
 cannot suppose that we shall meet in heaven and 
 not know each other: this seems impossible. 
 There are — to use a strange word, but the only 
 word that is applicable in every man's mind, as in 
 every man's body — certain idiosyncrasies which 
 constitute his personal identity. Let us refer to 
 the most intimate friends that we have. We could 
 suppose them unclothed, their bodies lying in the 
 tomb, and their spirits only holding communion 
 with us — yet we should know them. There is a 
 tone of thought, a peculiarity of mental structure 
 — idiosyncrasies of soul, and spirit, and heart in 
 
 u- 
 
260 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 each — that together constitute his identity so truly, 
 that I could recognise him, not hy his outward 
 form, which is only the visible development, but 
 by his inner, moral nature, which really and truly 
 constitutes the man. So that even in heaven the 
 disembodied spirits that are before the throne 
 recognise each other; and far happier meetings 
 than ever were permitted on earth take place there. 
 But that recognition will be more perfect when 
 the mortal shall put on immortality, and this cor- 
 ruptible shall put on incorruptibility; and the 
 features that so gladdened us by their smile below, 
 will be seen in a purer, holier, and happier realm ; 
 and friend recount to friend, as the Israelites did 
 w^hen they met together, all the way that God led 
 them for so many years : and how they were led 
 through the desert, and kept the faith, and now 
 wear, as the evidence and the proof of it, a crown 
 of glory that fadeth not away. 
 
 "When Christ shall cry, " It is done," God will 
 be glorified as He never was before. "Now God 
 is glorified by the cross really, but not to the same 
 extent in which He will be glorified when Christ 
 shall wear the crown. To glorify God is not to 
 add anything to God, but simply to let Him be 
 known. A finite being is glorified by having 
 something added to him, but an infinite Being is 
 glorified just by being revealed. The clearest 
 apocalypse of Deity is the greatest glory to Deity. 
 God is now seen in the cross, in the Scriptures, iu 
 
 ^ 
 
IT IS DONE. 2^^ 
 
 the experience of saints ; but then He will be seen 
 by the greatest number, surrounded with the 
 greatest glory ; and the song that rose from angel 
 lips, and has been uttered with stammering tongues 
 for eighteen hundred years, shall then be lifted up 
 by a mighty multitude, as the sound of many 
 waters and of mighty thunders : " Glory to God 
 in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards 
 men." "It is done." "I am Alpha and Omega. 
 Behold I make all things new." 
 
 ^ 
 
262 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 THE LORD REIGNETH. 
 
 What a blessed thought is embosomed in the 
 Psalmist's words! One can see that the world 
 would soon be reduced to chaos if any one swayed 
 the sceptre except Him who is the Lord of heaven 
 and of earth, the God, the Maker, and the Gover- 
 nor of all. Suppose these words, " The Lord 
 reigneth," were translated into modern speech; 
 suppose we read, or rather that we heard from 
 heaven, ringing as a divine communication that 
 we could not but believe, " The Autocrat of all the 
 Russias reigneth." Europe would be an aceldama, 
 earth a desert, despotism would be supreme, and 
 abject physical and moral slavery would be the 
 portion of the largest part of the earth. Or, sup- 
 pose the words were, " The Sultan reigneth." We 
 might have a little more civil freedom, but we 
 should have no more religious comfort. The Cres- 
 cent would supplant the Cross, the Koran would 
 take the place of that pure and beautiful document 
 the Bible; and the cimeter or the tribute would 
 be the alternatives presented by the mufti, and ex- 
 tortion, oppression, or subjection, would be the 
 portion of all the inhabitants of Asia and of Europe 
 together. Or suppose that the words were, " The 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 263 
 
 Pope reignetb — Pio Kono reigneth." Would this 
 be any comfort? If I had the choice, I would 
 rather it was the Sultan than the Pope; I had 
 almost rather be a Mahometan than a Romanist; 
 for bad as the Mahometans are, there is no idolatry 
 among them : they worship one God ; even Maho- 
 met is not their God, he is only their prophet ; and 
 the singular and the peculiar character of the mis- 
 sion of [Mahomet w^as, when it first burst upon 
 Europe and upon Asia, to punish the idolatrous 
 nations of Christendom, and to save the world 
 from the universal curse of idolatry. But if Pio 
 'Nono reigned — alas, alas! w^e should have the 
 Crucifix, but not the Cross; we should have the 
 priest to make an atonement instead of the ambas- 
 sador of God to proclaim it already made; our 
 nobles would be cardinals in red, our Bible 
 would be clasped, our Prayer-book would be the 
 missal ; and our Queen — when Pio INTono felt it his 
 interest or his passion to attempt it — like a previous 
 possessor of a throne, would be paying Peter-pence 
 for her sovereignty ; or, like the German Emperor, 
 standing in the trenches around Rome, doing pe- 
 nance, and seeking from a man absolution from 
 her transgressions. Or suppose that the laws of a 
 material philosophy reigned ; matters would not be 
 mended. We should not know what to expect, we 
 should not be able to interpret the least, or the 
 most perplexing, or the plainest phenomena; all 
 would be committed to blind chance, all would be 
 under the laws of an unbending and an iron des- 
 
264 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 potism ; prayer would be useless, hope would be 
 impossible ; we could only sit down like the ancient 
 stoic, and conclude it was a virtue not to feel, and 
 seek in suicide a refuge from the calamities and the 
 cares of life. 
 
 But what a blessed thought ! It is not the Au- 
 tocrat, nor the Sultan, nor Pio Kono, nor iron and 
 hard and unbending law ; but it is, " The Lord, our 
 Father, reigneth; our covenant God reigneth;" 
 therefore what He does w^ill be in mercy, what He 
 decides will be in wisdom. The mightiest things 
 shall praise Him, the least things shall honour Him, 
 and all things shall obey his will, and promote his 
 glory, and execute the great and beneficent ends 
 which He contemplates in the government and 
 arrangement of the world. 
 
 It is interesting to notice a contrast in two 
 Psalms. In the 97th Psalm it is, *' The Lord 
 reigneth, let the earth — the land, Palestine, the 
 place of his own people — rejoice." But in the 99th 
 Psalm a different deduction is made from the same 
 premise; "The Lord reigneth; let the people" 
 {goim) — the nations, the heathen — "tremble." 
 "The Lord reigneth," is to his own people the 
 richest comfort; "The Lord reigneth," is to the 
 enemies of God the greatest calamity. " The Lord 
 reigneth" is to his own people the greatest comfort, 
 because it teaches them there is no chance. What 
 kind of a sceptre would that be which had subjects 
 that could resist it ? What a governor of the world 
 would he be who was dependent on the fixity or 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 265 
 
 fugitive changes of things for the accomplishment 
 of his purposes? The least incident that befalls 
 the obscurest saint in the deepest underground 
 cellar of London is as much the mission, and as 
 completely beneath the control of God, as is the 
 flight of the soaring angel that is about his throne, 
 or the mission of an apostle or an evangelist to 
 preach the gospel to all mankind. That blow that 
 swept away the property your industry had amassed 
 was from Him : that chasm which the loss of the 
 near and dear has left irremediable behind was 
 from Him. A Father's hand inflicts the severest 
 blow ; paternal love is in every suffering. You are 
 not to argue, "I suffer, therefore God hates me;" 
 but " God is my Father, therefore all that he does 
 co-operates for good, works together beneficently 
 to me, and for glor}% honour, and praise to his 
 name." I know not a truth more precious in the 
 Psalms than this, " The Lord reigneth." How de- 
 lightful to look abroad upon the world, to listen to 
 the preparations at Plymouth, and Portsmouth, 
 and Devonport; to hear the moving and arranging, 
 and gathering together of vast armies, and to know 
 that God's eyes see all — that those great men that 
 are moving them are all carrying out what he de- 
 signs, and that not one can take a step on earth 
 that had not first its decision in heaven ! " The 
 Lord reigneth." There is no chance, there is no 
 accident. 
 
 Let the man whose biography has been the 
 barest, whose life Ij^s had th^ fewest eddies and 
 
 k. • 
 
266 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the least startling incidents, look back, and he will 
 see that upon the turning of a corner depended the 
 complexion of a lifetime — that upon an accidental 
 meeting, or an accidental occasion, with an unex- 
 pected person, depended all he now is, much he now 
 feels, and more he now hopes for. It was the turning 
 of a straw that brought one into contact with that 
 truth which has made him a new man — it was an 
 incidental conversation in a railway carriage, in a 
 steamboat, in an omnibus, or some news-room, that 
 brought another where was heard the Gospel, that will 
 add one to the choirs of the blessed, and give a home 
 of happiness and joy beyond the stars. If you can 
 prove to me that God does not reign in little things, 
 I will prove to you, with demonstration irrefraga- 
 ble, that there is no God at all. I say, if God does 
 not reign and rule in the least incident that hap- 
 pens to a believer, God does not reign and rule at 
 all. Whilst I use means wherever means are sug- 
 gested by what is part of Christianity, common 
 sense — while I employ every effort to promote my 
 health, and every means within my power to per- 
 petuate my life, and avoid every peril that would 
 in the least degree endanger it — yet I am just as 
 sure as I am of my own existence, that I am im- 
 mortal till I have finished the work that God has 
 given me to do. There is not a soldier upon 
 eastern plains that has not a mission ; and as soon 
 only as his sword has executed God's behest, he 
 will be removed from the field of conflict below, 
 if a Christian, to the realms of everlasting repose 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 26T 
 
 above. It may be thought a vulgar aphorism, but 
 it is a most just one — "Every bullet has its billet;'* 
 and it is neither the Autocrat, nor the Sultan, nor 
 chance, that writes the name upon the bullet ; it 
 is our Father who is in heaven: for "the Lord 
 reigneth." The Lord reigns in the Baltic, he reigns 
 in the Euxine, amid showers of balls, amid the roar 
 of cannon ; and there is not an accidental ball that 
 accidentally hits a single soldier ; there is not an 
 accidental stroke that accidentally overtakes a 
 single sailor ; all is settled, all is adjusted, before 
 the years of time began to roll. What a comfort 
 is this ! When the soldier goes forth into the field 
 he may carry with him this absolute assurance, 
 " My days were numbered long ago, and if I am 
 to finish them here it must be so ; if not, I am in 
 the care and in the providential keeping of my 
 Father, who reigneth." Yet this is not fa{;alism. 
 The fatalism of the Moslem folds its hands, gathers 
 round it its mantle, sits down, and says, "It is 
 God's decree; we are to do nothing." But the 
 trust of the Christian has recourse to every energy, 
 and efibrt, and reasonable means, and employs for 
 defence what God in his providence puts within his 
 power ; and the soldier that believes that his life is 
 in God's keeping is not the less heroic on the field, 
 or the less composed in the hour of battle and of 
 conflict. Carry with you, then, into the chambers 
 of the sick, feel beside the pillows of the dying, 
 enjoy in the vigils of the long and the weary night, 
 carry into all your trials, remember in all your 
 
268 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 tribulations, "The Lord reignetli;" that there ia 
 no chance, no accident ; that all is right, and all 
 must resolve itself into the gi'eatest glory to Him 
 that reigns, and into the greatest good of the sub- 
 jects that obey. 
 
 God has been ruling and reigning ever since the 
 world had a being. Merle D'Aubigne has made 
 the remark — a remark which I tried several years 
 ago to illustrate, — " God is in history ; and all his- 
 tory has its unity, because God is in it." Eead 
 Macaulay, or Alison, or D'Aubigne — ever recol- 
 lecting at the commencement and the close of 
 every chapter, " The Lord reigneth" — and you will 
 see that where they are faithful, they are simply 
 witnesses to the grand and the blessed fact. 
 
 Let us review some instances. In one of the 
 Gospels it is stated, " A decree went out from Cae- 
 sar Aijgustus, that the whole world should be 
 taxed." That was an ordinary political decree; 
 every one, as the effect of it, we are told in Luke 
 ii., went to his own city to be taxed. We can see 
 nothing in that decree at first glance — nothing 
 seemed more ordinary. But when we come to 
 compare the fact that Caesar commanded with a 
 prophecy that God had written, we find Caesar's 
 decree, accomplishing Caesar's end, was really sub- 
 serving God's great purpose, and that it was by 
 this decree of the hea-then ruler that Mary and 
 Joseph went to their own city, and that the ancient 
 prophecy was fulfilled, " Thou Bethlehem Ephra- 
 tah, though thou be little among the thousands of 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 269 
 
 Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me 
 that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth 
 have been from of old, from everlasting." 
 
 At the day of Pentecost, nothing was more acci- 
 dental apparently to the world than that there 
 should be a vast assemblage of Jews at Jerusalem. 
 On that very occasion the Holy Spirit was poured 
 out, and they that came to make market learned 
 what Christ had done ; the merchants from the 
 ends of the earth went back from the scene bear- 
 ing merchandise more precious than gold and 
 pearls ; and the result of that Pentecostal effusion 
 in the midst of the vast congress that had come 
 together upon mere matters of business, was, that 
 the Gospel was carried forth from Jerusalem to 
 the ends of the earth ; and nations that had never 
 heard it before, heard and received, and welcomed 
 the joyful sound. 
 
 On a subsequent occasion the apostle Paul was 
 so persecuted by the Scribes and the Pharisees, that 
 he was seized as a criminal, cast as a prisoner into 
 a gaol ; his life was threatened ; in sheer despair 
 he appealed from the inveterate fury of the priests 
 to Caesar, who swayed the imperial sceptre ; and 
 they were constrained, contrary to their will, to 
 send Paul on a long, a weary, and a wintry voyage, 
 to the great metropolis of the world. 
 
 Kow, at first blush nothing could be more acci- 
 dental. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Scribes 
 did not wish to send him to Rome : it seemed, too, 
 when he left Judea, that he abandoned the congre- 
 23* ,i 
 
270 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 gation where his ministry had been blessed, to go 
 to a h<3athen one, where he had no reason to 
 expect a blessing at all. But what was the result? 
 Paul preached at Rome, first in his own hired 
 house, to a few reckless Roman soldiers ; but by- 
 and-by, the shopmen on the streets, the tradesmen 
 in the Forum, the orators in the courts — even they 
 of Caesar's palace, the high officers of state — came 
 into contact with this eloquent but obscure and 
 detested Christian Jew; and the result of that 
 appeal from the persecution of the Scribe to the 
 protection of Csesar was, that the Gospel spread 
 through every part of the metropolis of the world, 
 and hundreds of thousands heard of Christ who 
 never could have heard of him under any other 
 circumstances. The efifect and influence of this 
 opportunity lay here: — a truth made known at 
 Rome could never stop there. Rome at that day 
 was the whispering-gallery of the wide world ; a 
 new light there radiated to Ultima Thule, and to 
 the most distant parts of the globe ; a new doctrine 
 promulgated in the capital was sure to be heard of 
 over all the provinces. Accordingly, we find from 
 history that the actual result was, that this acci- 
 dental persecution of Paul by the Jews, this acci- 
 dental appeal to Csesar for protection, this acci- 
 dental escape from shipwreck, this accidental 
 appearance in the midst of Rome, was the means 
 of kindling a light that was not soon extinguished, 
 and of circulating that Gospel which otherwise had 
 been restricted to very narrow and puny limits. 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 271 
 
 What raust be the inference from this? The 
 Pharisee hated, the Apostle appealed, the winds 
 wafted the ship ; but the Lord reigned, and regu- 
 lated, and ordered all. 
 
 Soon after this, a poor, obscure, and miserable 
 man, descended of a broken-down family, reduced 
 to beggary, came into public notice in Rome. His 
 name is recorded in history as Constant! ne, tlie 
 first Christian emperor. In one of his battles he 
 saw, either in imagination or in reality, a cross of 
 unearthly splendour blazing in the firmament ; and 
 he read on the cross, where the two pieces of wood 
 were fastened together, iv ro^rw v/xa — " In this over- 
 come," or, "In this gain the victory." He em- 
 braced Christianity from this wonderful apocalypse 
 — he proclaimed what formerly he persecuted — he 
 forced it on his soldiers, a course that we cannot 
 approve, but which was nevertheless followed by 
 many practical and remarkable results ; for the 
 cross of Christ, the very synonyme of all that was 
 detested, was emblazoned on the imperial Laba- 
 rum ; and the name of Jesus, no more the detested 
 Nazarite, came to be the glory of princes and the 
 light of the palaces of the greatest empire of the 
 earth. 
 
 Soon after this we find a thousand years of dense 
 and deplorable darkness lighted on broad Europe ; 
 and all the nations of the earth, notwithstanding 
 ^ the light that had burst from Palestine, were in- 
 volved in a darkness so deep that it could almost 
 be felt ; and the only and the incidental lights in 
 
272 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the midst of it were the few and far between con- 
 vents, that learning oftener than piety had con- 
 structed, to be the last retreats of the literature and 
 the science of the world. The Church of Rome will 
 say, " Then you make the admission that mediaeval 
 convents were the retreats of mediaeval learning." 
 I make the admission ; but the fact that they were 
 the retreats of learning is a proof that learning 
 must have been previously persecuted. Why need 
 a retreat, if she had not an oppressor ? And who 
 were the great persecutors of learning ? Just the 
 Popes of Rome ; and for a person to put out the 
 sun, if he had the power, and in the darkness that 
 follows light a few gas-lamps, and then coolly tell 
 us that we are indebted to him for the only light 
 we have, is only an ingenious way of disguising 
 and concealing the first great crime that was per- 
 petrated. For the same Rome that kindled the 
 few lights in the convents had previously put 
 out the Sun of Righteousness shining from the 
 firmament upon the world. During this black 
 night, so dark and so disastrous that it seemed as 
 if God did not reign, we shall yet find, in the midst 
 of the darkness permitted as a penalty, lights 
 breaking out, still revealing the truth, " The Lord 
 reigneth." In the course of that dark era, the 
 Mahometan brought into Europe lights that the 
 Romanist, to his deep shame, almost, if not 
 altogether, had quenched. Constantinople fell — 
 the Greek literati in that capital were scattered 
 throughout Europe — Greek learning came to be 
 
 ...A 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 273 
 
 studied — the Romish Church had almost lost the 
 knowledge of the Greek language ; and some of 
 its most distinguished literati said, in the Univer- 
 sities of Europe, that every man that would learn 
 Hebrew would become a Jew, and that every man 
 that learned Greek was sure to become a Greek 
 schismatic; obstructing the very knowledge that 
 brought men to the very fountain of light and life 
 — God's holy work. But these Greek literati 
 brought their own stores with them into Europe : 
 by-and-by, printing was discovered — then the 
 mariner's compass — by-and-by, the feudal system, 
 with its iron and yet petty tyranny, was broken 
 up. And all these things were not human acci- 
 dents, or merely secular things: the mariner*8 
 compass is a sacred thing — printing is a sacred 
 thing ; and we are as much indebted to God for 
 printing and for the mariner's compass as we are 
 for the Word of God itself I c^not admit that 
 80 much man is to have the glory of, and that so 
 much God is to have the glory of These are 
 sacred, and not profane things. They may be per- 
 verted by a profane hand to evil, but they may also 
 be consecrated by the blessing of God to the 
 accomplishment of the highest good. And the re- 
 sult of all this was, that light streamed from Con- 
 stantinople to Rome ; the benighted nations of the 
 earth emerged into a new and unexpected twilight; 
 and, in the course of a few years more, Erasmus, 
 with his satire — Melancthon, the accomplished 
 scholar, and the friend and assistant of Luther — 
 
274 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and ultimately Martin Luther himself — helped to 
 scatter, by God's blessing, the darkness that en- 
 veloped the earth, and to strike out that light which 
 has shone in deepening glory for the three centuries 
 that have passed away. If we study the biography 
 of Luther, that most remarkable man, we shall 
 find that God reigns in the biography of indi- 
 viduals as well as in the annals and chapters of the 
 history of mankind. He w^as one day begging 
 bread upon the street: he heard an awakened 
 Protestant denounce the corruptions of the Papacy ; 
 that first called his mind to the subject. Another 
 day he was reduced to starvation ; he was singing 
 upon the streets of one of the cities of Germany 
 for a morsel of bread. The pious and affectionate 
 wife of Conrad Cotta gave poor Luther accidentally, 
 as the world would say, a meal. She was so pleased 
 with the open, frank, and amiable boy, that she 
 took him to her house, became his patroness, put 
 him to a good school. That was not chance ; there 
 was God there just as anywhere else; and if 
 Luther had not heard that man denouncing Roman- 
 ism — if Conrad Cotta's wife had not given that 
 poor starved and begging lad a meal — in all proba- 
 bility the whole current of European history had 
 been reversed. In the library of the College where 
 he was placed, he discovered for the first time a 
 complete Bible; and opening that blessed book, 
 he detected in it a portrait of himself by nature, 
 and a portrait of what he might be made by 
 grace. His whole mind is startled — his heart 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 275 
 
 is stirred to its very depths; he feels himself — 
 what grace always strikes deepest when it teaches 
 — a poor, miserable, and guilty sinner. In his 
 great distress, he flies to Staupitz, the vicar-general 
 of the convent : he tells him, " Oh ! I have learned 
 that I am a poor, miserable sinner ; I find that I 
 never can be justified by deeds of law ; I cannot 
 see how I can possibly ever get to heaven. Oh," 
 he said, " I am such a poor, such a guilty, such a 
 miserable sinner!" And Staupitz said, "Luther, 
 it is well that you feel so ; it is for sinners that there 
 is a Saviour. If you be only a make-believe 
 sinner, then there is nothing but a make-believe 
 Saviour for you ; but if you be indeed a poor, 
 miserable sinner, to save such sinners as you the 
 Lord Jesus Christ came into the world." And 
 Luther got peace from that vicar-general — peace 
 in Christ and through the blood of the Cross ; and 
 went forth on his majestic mission, translated the 
 Scriptures into the tongue of his fatherland, 
 preached in every street and city in Germany, 
 awakened dead nations, feared not the voice of 
 clay, awoke that light which shines in our own land, 
 startled the sleeping echoes of a thousand years ; 
 and the Vatican and the Inquisition have not ceased 
 till now to re-echo the last accents that Martin 
 Luther wakened first upon the streets of Witten- 
 berg. Was not that proof that the Lord reigns ? 
 Is there not evidence there of God overruling 
 and governing all to his glory, and to the good of 
 his people? ^- 
 
276 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ISTot very many years after that, au effort was 
 made to crush the religion and to extinguish the 
 light that Luther had kindled. Philip the Second 
 (personated in his servant the Duke of Alva) waged 
 the wars, the fierce and exterminating wars, in the 
 Low Country. These were efforts to exterminate 
 Protestant Christianity: but by the overruling 
 providence of Him that reigned in Holland, and 
 saw and watched the efforts of his foes, these were 
 overruled to the establishment of Protestantism in 
 Holland ; and at this moment Holland is one of 
 the most Protestant nations of the world; and 
 when the Pope, the other year, attempted to favour 
 Holland with the same presence with which he 
 honoured us, in 1850, the Dutch rose as one man, 
 backed and sustained by their most eminent states- 
 men, repelled the insolent aggression with a magna- 
 nimity and national force which we even might 
 have imitated with advantage. 
 
 Soon after this the same cruel and sanguinary 
 prince resolved to extinguish that land (our own), 
 rising every day to be the reflector of the truth 
 over all the ends of the earth. We find that he 
 arranged for the destruction of England — under 
 the behind-the-scene teaching of the Popes and the 
 Jesuits of Pome — a powerful and, as he thought, 
 irresistible Armada, armed with all sorts of engines 
 of torture, in order to extinguish the light of Pro- 
 testantism in England, and crush for ever the here- 
 tics by which that land was stained. And in order 
 that the enterprise might have success, the Pope 
 
 A 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 277 
 
 that day most piously blessed it ; and in order to 
 facilitate the action of the invading force of super- 
 stition, he deposed Queen Elizabeth from her 
 throne, released her subjects from their allegiance, 
 and taught them and told them that they might 
 murder her — not murder, for that was not his 
 phrase — but that they might kill her ; and instead 
 of subjects rising against their Queen, it would 
 only be holy people doing God and his Church 
 holy and efficient service. All seemed to be hope- 
 less as far as human sagacity could foresee; but 
 Philip the Second, and the Pope, and their myrmi- 
 dons, forgot the text, " The Lord reigneth." The 
 Armada, we are told, after being shattered by tem- 
 pests, and losing its admiral, approached our shores 
 in the shape of a magnificent crescent, extending, 
 from end to end, over a space of about seven miles. 
 Our ships were few, but our hearts were brave; 
 our cause, like our present one, was holy, righteous, 
 and just. And what was the result? Not one 
 shattered wreck of that formidable Armada re- 
 turned to its own shores to tell the story of its 
 disaster; not a timber of it was left afloat; and 
 Queen Elizabeth, in a spirit worthy of the Protes- 
 tant Queen of a Protestant realm, had medallions 
 or medals struck that day by her own royal order ; 
 and upon those medals were written the words, 
 JDeus flavit et dissipantur, "God breathed upon 
 them and they are scattered to the winds of hea- 
 ven;" giving God the glory, acknowledging that 
 24 
 
'278 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 victory was not by might nor by power. "The 
 Lord reigneth." 
 
 Now in all these instances — and they might be 
 multiplied, from the history of our country, down 
 to the present moment — we must see how true it 
 is, " The Lord reigneth." And so we might come 
 down to more recent years: what endless proofs 
 of his presence, what tokens of his love, what a 
 ceaseless comment has been the history of our na- 
 tion for the last hundred years, illuminating with 
 irresistible splendour the simple but sublime apho- 
 rism of the Psalmist, ** The Lord reigneth !" And 
 if we were to turn now from home to foreign lands, 
 and notice the progress of the Gospel abroad, we 
 should see how there, ever since 1793 — when the 
 angel of the everlasting Gospel emerged from the 
 chaos of the French Revolution, and the various 
 missionary societies started on their beneficent fields 
 — there has been proof in every part of the globe 
 that the Lord is reigning. For a long time India 
 was inaccessible to the truth; and some of the 
 ancient potentates of that land believed that if the 
 Gospel were admitted into Hindostan, our supre- 
 macy and sovereignty in India would be shattered. 
 But the result by this time — under the presidency 
 of Lord Dalhousie, an elder of the Church of Scot- 
 land, and one of the most Christian and devoted 
 Governors that India ever had — is that Christian- 
 ity, as it is spread among the Hindoos, instead of 
 detaching them from our sovereignty and our scep- 
 tre, only attaches them to our fatherland the more. 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 279 
 
 And we have found that ever since the permission 
 was given to missionaries of the Gospel to visit 
 that land, the Gospel has sometimes slowly, but 
 always steadily, made progress from the Ganges to 
 its utmost bounds. The excellent and pious Dr. 
 Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, writing home a short 
 time ago, says : " A few years since everything wa^ 
 jungle ; now everything is teeming irrthis district 
 with Christian civilization." And if we refer to 
 China, what an evidence there of the presence of 
 God ! In one moment the impregnable walls have 
 fallen ; in a day a nation has started to its feet. 
 Do not believe some of the newspapers upon that 
 subject. I am told by the most competent autho- 
 rity, that the Jesuits are trying to blacken the in- 
 fant and imperfect Christianity of those that are 
 denounced at present as the rebels, but who are 
 likely soon to constitute the reigning dynasty of 
 China. I ana informed by those that have the 
 means of knowing well, that through some myste- 
 rious teaching, in all probability, the first breath 
 r>f the last Pentecostal eftusion of the Spirit, not 
 hundreds, not thousands, not hundreds of thou- 
 sands, but probably millions, have come at once to 
 know that Christ is the only Saviour, that the !N'ew 
 Testament is the book of God ; and to insist upon, 
 and practise, and develop, a morality so pure that 
 it shames the Papal, and even some sections of the 
 Protestant nations of the world. And again, if we 
 look at other parts of the globe, we shall see the 
 same blessed results. There is hope at last for all 
 
280 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 but hopeless Africa. That country has been thought 
 to be utterly impregnable to Christian effort. Our 
 steamers have navigated its streams, and their 
 crews have died in succession ; the malaria or 
 miasma on the banks of the great rivers, seemed 
 to tell us that foreigners or Europeans never can 
 penetrate into Africa, and promote the Gospel on 
 anything like a great and a rapid scale. But sin- 
 gular enough, what seemed a curse, and what had 
 become the shame and disgrace of a powerful re- 
 public in the West — I mean the slave trade — is 
 being overruled, by the mysterious arrangements 
 of Him who reigns, for the evangelization of that 
 land which seemed to be all but hopeless, and to 
 defy every effort that we made to reach it. By 
 means of Christian missionaries, the slaves in 
 America are becoming Christians ; and the most 
 hard-hearted slave-holders of the South cannot, 
 and the most enlightened do not, prevent faithful 
 missionaries and ministers preaching to the slaves 
 the glad tidings of eternal life. These slaves, Afri- 
 cans in their origin, never forgetting their home, 
 are seized at intervals with an irresistible instinct 
 to go to the land of their fathers. A number of 
 them have gone to Liberia ; vast numbers of them 
 are returning every year; and it is found that they 
 are carrying with them the glorious Gospel ; and 
 in a climate where their constitution feels perfectly 
 at home they are becoming the successful preach- 
 ers of that Gospel which we have not been 
 honoured to carry into the midst of their dark, 
 
 ) 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 281 
 
 and barbarous, and benighted land. Can we doubt 
 that the Lord reigns, when out of evil he thus 
 educes good ? Can we doubt that the Lord reigns, 
 when he is thus opening up a free course for the 
 circulation of his Word and the spread of his glo- 
 rious Gospel by means and instrumentalities as 
 striking as they are unpredecented in history 
 before. 
 
 In Turkey in Europe there are at this moment 
 about three millions of Mahometans, and there are 
 nine millions of professing Christians — I wish I 
 could say more — but professing Christians. Any- 
 body can see that such a state of things as that 
 cannot very long continue. We find now that in 
 Turkey the Armenian Christians — an ancient 
 Church that traces its descent to Ararat, and that 
 holds Ararat to be its great rallying centre to this 
 day — have, by the instrumentality of missionaries, 
 been brought to a vast extent, and in great num- 
 bers, to the knowledge of the everlasting Gospel. 
 These American missionaries, writing home to 
 their country, state that numbers of the Armenian 
 bishops and priests, having access to the Bible, are 
 becoming acquainted with the word of God : and 
 in Turkey at this moment they are the chief agri- 
 culturists and merchants, and have the greatest 
 influence in the land ; and amongst them there is 
 a growing spirit of inquiry. An American mis- 
 sionary^, writing home to America, states, that a 
 few years ago, " Very few of the Armenian Chris- 
 tians would venture to call upon me ; I could hardly 
 
 24* 
 
 f 
 
282 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 hold a prayer-meeting amongst them without ter- 
 ror ; but now they are gathered into churches, be- 
 coming fond of the truth, and I can hold prayer- 
 meetings in the midst of them without the least 
 inconvenience, persecution, or opposition." And 
 so widely had the Gospel spread among these Ar- 
 menian Christians, that the Patriarch, as if he had 
 imbibed the spirit of the Pope, resolved to crush 
 them, and besought the Sultan to interpose, and 
 banish from the land those who, he said, were 
 troubling the quiet and the repose of the Christian 
 Churches. But the Sultan — with a liberality that 
 does him infinite credit, and that contrasts splen- 
 didly with the bigotry and persecution of Pio Nono 
 — told the Patriarch that no man, whatever was 
 his creed, should sufler persecution for any creed 
 under his sceptre : a sentiment that indicates what 
 a change the paddle-wheel, the steamboat and the 
 railway, and the locomotive and the printing-press, 
 have operated already in Turkey. 
 
 There was scarcely a Protestant chapel in all 
 Turkey in 1832; in 1854, there are between fifty 
 and sixty places of Protestant worship. Turkey, 
 we have seen, is in the very last gasp. One writes, 
 only a very few years ago : " Turkey is in the ago- 
 nies of dissolution, and will very soon be a corpse. 
 There is no law, no safety, no security for property, 
 in this unhappy country. Plague, pestilence, and 
 famine, are rapidly depopulating it. It needs no 
 prophecy to satisfy me that Mahometanism is now 
 falling into ruins, and must very soon cease." 
 
 Of 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 283 
 
 A Christian's oath, by a decision in the present 
 year, is now received as an Osmanli's ; at this mo- 
 ment, the Sheik-ul-Islam — their Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, as you might call him — is deposed ; 
 the endowments of the mosques are confiscated ; 
 Mahometanism is giving up every peculiarity it had 
 left, and thus proves that we are arrived at the 
 sixth vial, when the great river Euphrates is dried 
 up, and when the nations of the earth, from the 
 East and the West, assemble together to wage the 
 great and last conflict of God Almighty — that ter- 
 rible conflict, the outlines of which we need not 
 now trace. All those incidents that are startling 
 the East, and reflected from the West, are proofs 
 to them that run while they read, that " the Lord 
 reigneth ;" all these are proofs that he has not left 
 this orb to orphanage, that he has not forsaken his 
 church, nor forgotten the world that he made ; but 
 that, though we think all is confusion, all is really 
 working together for good to them that love God, 
 and are the called according to his gracious pur- 
 pose. K a person were to look at the machinery 
 of a steamer — one wheel goes in one direction, 
 another in the opposite; one piston moves one 
 way, and the other piston moves the opposite — his 
 inference would be, if he were an ignorant person, 
 " This machinery can accomplish nothing ; it is all 
 at cross purposes." But if he will look at the 
 vessel of which it forms a part, he will find she is 
 proceeding on her course at the rate of ten or 
 twelve miles an hour across the pathless ocean; 
 
^d4' SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 and what seemed to him conflict, confusion, and 
 chaos, is only evidence of the nobler and the com- 
 pleter order. 
 
 The same blessed truth is strikingly shown 
 among God's ancient people: throughout all the 
 world they are giving token that the breath of 
 heaven is passing on the dry bones, and that they 
 are very soon likely to be a great and a royal 
 nation. They will first be restored to their land, 
 that next in their land they will be made acquainted 
 with the glorious Gospel. And it is so interesting 
 to read the incidents that are turning up every day 
 affecting that people, that one cannot but see the 
 overruling hand of God in what is now taking 
 place. At this very moment I learned from a 
 friend — I will not say that I know it to be true — 
 that there is a treaty with the Sultan, either pro- 
 posed by him, or offered by a Jew whose name is 
 synonymous with all the wealth at the disposal of 
 the Cabinets of the world, that he will lend him a 
 very large sum to carry on the war with Russia, 
 on condition that he will give the Jews Palestine 
 as a pledge to hold while that loan continues. 
 "What is this but man, under the presidency of 
 God, already beginning to expedite the fulfilment 
 of the prophecies of Scripture? Every Jew's 
 heart beats to Jerusalem ; even the most wretched 
 and degraded " old-clothes " dealer on the streets 
 will tell you, in his calmest moments, " If I forget 
 thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its 
 cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
 
 A 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 285 
 
 mouth ;" and the last desire of the dying Jew is 
 to be buried in Jerusalem ; and the poorest pilgrims 
 of that race are wending their way, in increasing 
 and deepening currents, that they may die with the 
 last beams of the sun of Palestine playing upon 
 their closing eyes. And looking at Jerusalem at 
 this moment, there are more Jews than there have 
 been for the last seventeen hundred years in it ; at 
 this moment, too, there is an awakening among 
 the Jews, through the instrumentality of the Jew- 
 ish Mission, instituted by the Church of England, 
 where there is a bishop, hated by the Papists, but 
 heartily welcomed by the inquiring Jew ; and in 
 that capital, illustrious by a thousand historic 
 recollections, many a Jew is now looking upon 
 Him whom his fathers crucified, and is mourning 
 — nay, not mourning, but rejoicing — in the faith 
 and the hopes of the glorious Gospel. 
 
 The Jewish question, we have seen, is at this 
 moment almost the question of the age. It agitates 
 every Cabinet, it perplexes every government. 
 And why? I can understand how statesmen 
 should be plagued with the application of Roman- 
 ists, because they constitute a large and a powerful 
 section of the community. But why should any 
 Government perplex or tease itself about the admis- 
 sion of a handful of Jews, that disturb nobody ? 
 They are not regicides, they are not rebels ; if you 
 do not admit them to power, they will not trouble 
 you. Why is it, then, that the statesmen of the 
 nation are perplexed at this moment with the Jew- 
 
 
286 SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 ish question ? The answer is, it is the first token of 
 their approaching resurrection; it is the Jew's 
 struggle in his heart, seeking a rest and a repose 
 for the soles of his feet ; but, like the dove that 
 Noah sent forth from the ark, he will find, neither 
 in parliament, nor congress, nor divan, a rest ; and 
 as soon as he has secured the place that he aimed 
 at, he will only thirst the more for Jerusalem, and 
 find his rest where his God has promised it shall 
 be found — where the wings of the cherubim were 
 once spread, and the glory once burned upon the 
 altar, and the land once teemed with miracles, and 
 all things attested the presence of the Lord, the 
 God of hosts. 
 
 Can w^e then fail to see in this also another 
 proof of the truth of the statement, " The Lord 
 reigneth?" And very remarkable it is, the things 
 that men design to do, God overrules to accomplish 
 what man never meant to do. The alchymists 
 toiled to discover the philosopher's stone ; that was 
 their object; but they were the means of making 
 some of the most precious discoveries that have 
 enriched civilization. Columbus crossed the ocean 
 to find out a new route to the Indies; but his 
 crossing the ocean for his own purpose was over- 
 ruled to discover the great western continent, 
 likely to be one of the greatest bulwarks of free- 
 dom, and of Protestant Christianity. Luther first 
 rose to oppose the sale of indulgences, which he 
 regarded as a gross abuse ; but as he penetrated 
 deeper, he found he must not only lop ofl:* branches, 
 
 !?>/ 
 
THE LORD REIGNETH. 287 
 
 but root out the whole system. ISTations think they 
 are accomplishing their own ends : they are really 
 fulfilling the prophecies of God. The Autocrat 
 thinks, in the course he is now pursuing, that he 
 is about to add to the splendour of his crown, the 
 increase and extent of his dominion, and get new 
 additions to his powerful and his mighty empire ; 
 but in reality he is just going to do what the poor- 
 est Irish labourers are doing in the streets of 
 London — making a high-road for God's great 
 purposes to drive onwards to their accomplishment. 
 He thinks, poor man, that he is the mighty mover 
 of a world ; he is but the humble street-paver in 
 the hands qf Him that reigns and rules over all the 
 earth. And not the least of the purposes he is 
 now getting ready to accomplish, though he knows 
 it not, is to open a road for the Jews to march from 
 their distant quarters in a more glorious exodus 
 than that which came forth from Egypt ; and not 
 to pause in their eastern march until they are 
 settled, all their tribeu, in their own pleasant 
 country, where the Lord shall return again unto 
 Mount Zion, and the God of Jacob shine again 
 before his ancients gloriously. 
 
 Thus man plans, God purposes ; thus all things 
 prove the statement we have tried to illustrate, 
 not sought to prove, "The Lord reigneth." Let 
 Christians trust, and not be afraid. Do not be 
 alarmed when a leaf falls, as if the world were go- 
 ing to ruin. " Be still, and know that I am God." 
 Christians, who have relatives exposed to peril, 
 
288 SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 
 
 trust and be not afraid. Your husband, your 
 brother, your dear relatives, are safe upon the 
 battle fields of the East as you are in your own 
 home ; for God is in the East as, well as the distant 
 "West. Christians, be not afraid that God's pur- 
 poses will fail. All things aid them, all things fulfil 
 them ; and what we now admit as an article of our 
 Creed, with stammering lips, we shall one day cele- 
 brate as a joyous note in our everlasting song: 
 "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice. Tho 
 Lord reigneth, let the nations tremble." 
 
 THE BND. 
 
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LINDSAY Bl BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
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 Pablish the following Series of Books, which have received the approbation of all 
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 AN ILLUSTRATED LIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER, 
 
 THE GREAT GERMAN REFORMER. With a Sketch of the Reformation in Germany. 
 Edited, with an Introduction, by the Rev. Theophiius Stork, D.D., late Pastor of St. 
 Mark's Luthern Church, Philadelphia. Beautifully Illustrated by sixteen designs, printed 
 on fine paper. A handsome octavo yolume. 
 
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 The world owes much to Luther, and the Reformation of which he was the prominent leader, and 
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 petuating the influence of the principles of religious liberty for which he and the other Reformers 
 contended, than the circulation of a boolt in which the mental processes by which he arrived at his 
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 every dwelling, and we hope its circulation may be as wide as its merits are deserving.— £t;an(;s/jcai 
 Magazine. 
 
 THE LIFE OF PHILIP MELANCHTHON, 
 
 THE FRIEND AND COMPANION OF LUTHER, According to hia Inner and Outer Life. 
 Translated from the German of Charles Frederick Ledderhose, by the Rev. Q. F. Keotel, 
 Pastor of the Trinity Lutheran Church, Lancaster, Pa. With a Portrait of Melanchthon. 
 In one Volume, 12mo. Price $1 00. 
 
 THE PARABLES OF FRED'K ADOLPHUS KRUMMACHER. 
 
 From the seventh German edition. Elegantly Illustrated by Twenty-six Original Designs, 
 beautifully printed on fine paper. A handsome demy octavo volume. 
 
 Blegantly bound in cloth, gilt backs, - - - Price $1 7.9 
 full gilt sides, backs and edges, 2 50 
 
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 The simple and Christian parables of Krummacher, chiefly the productions of his younger years, 
 have acquired a wide popularity, and have long aflTorded a fund on which our periodicals have freely 
 drawn. In their collected form they have passed through various editions in Germany, but we doubt 
 whether any of them have been so tasteful and beautiful in all their appliances as the one before us. 
 The typography is very chaste, and the illustrations neat and appropriate. — Presbyterian. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S DAILY DELIGHT. 
 
 A SACRED GARLAND, CULLED FROM ENGLISH AND AMERICAN POETS. Beauti- 
 fully Illustrated by Eight Engravings on Steel. 
 
 In one volume, demy, octavo, clotH, gilt backs, - Price $1 50 
 
 full gilt sides, backs and edges, ^25 
 
 In this attractive volume we find much to please the eye ; but the most valuati'e recommendation 
 of the w(irk is found ii. the lessons of piety, virtue, morality, and mercy, which are throwu fogethwi 
 ia Uut many-«oio!it«d gurJand of poetic flowers.— i(j»»»oopai if^coriia. 
 
LINDSAY &. BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 PROCTOR'S HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 
 
 With 154 Illustrations. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES, 
 
 THEIR RISE, PROGRESS, AND RESULTS. By Major Proctor, tt tho 
 Royal Military Academy. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER I. The First Crusade.— Causes of the Crnsades — Preaching oi the 
 First Crusade — Peter the Hermit — Tho Crusade undertaken by the Peop'e — 
 The Crusade undertaken by the Kings and Nobles — The First Crusaders at 
 Constantinople — The Siege of Nice — Defeat of the Turks — Seizure of Edessa — 
 Siege and Capture of Antioch by the Crusaders — Defence of Antioch by the 
 Crusaders — Siege and Capture of Jerusalem by tho Crusaders. 
 
 CHAPTER II. Thr Second Crusade.— State of the Latin Kingdom— Origin 
 of the Orders of Religious Chivalry — Fall of Edessa — Preaching of the Second 
 Crusade — Louis VII. and Conrad III. in Palestine. 
 
 CHAPTER III. The Third Crusade.— The Rise of Saladin— Battle of Tibe- 
 rias, and Fall of Jerusalem — The Germans undertake the Crusade — Richard 
 Coeur de Lion in Palestine. ' 
 
 CHAPTER rv. The Fourth Crusade.— The French, Germans, and Italians 
 unite in the Crusade — Affairs of the Eastern Empire — Expedition against Con- 
 Btantinople — Second Siege of Constantinople. 
 
 CHAPTER V. The Last Four Crusades. — History of the Latin Empu-« of 
 tho Eastr-The Fifth Crusade— The Sixth Crusade— The Seventh Crusade- -The 
 Eighth Crusade. 
 
 CHAPTER VL— Consequences op the Crusades. 
 
 At the present time, rrhen a misunderstanding concerning the Holy Places at 
 Jerusalem has given rise to a war involving four of the great Powers of Europe, 
 the mind naturally reverts to the period when nearly all the military powers of 
 Europe made a descent on Palestine for the recovery of them from the possession 
 of the infidels. It would seem that the interest in these places is still alive ; and 
 the history of the Holy Wars in Palestine during a considerable portion of the 
 Middle Ages, maybe supposed to form an attractive theme for the general reader. 
 
 Under this impression Major Proctor's excellent "History of the Crusades" has 
 been carefully revised, some additions made, a series of illustrative engravings, 
 executed by first-rate artists, introduced, and the edition is now respectfully sub- 
 mitted to the public. 
 
 The editor, in the performance of his duty, has been struck with the masterly, 
 clear, and lucid method in which the author has executed the work — a work of 
 considerable difficulty, when we consider the long period and the multiplicity of 
 important events embraced in the history; nor has the editor been less impressed 
 with the vigorous style, and the happy power of giving vividness, colour, and 
 thrilling interest to the events which he narrates, so conspicuous in Major Proc- 
 tor's history. No other historian of the Crusades has succeeded in comprising so 
 complete and entertaining a narrative in so reasonable a compass. 
 
 A Handsome Octavo Volume, bound in Cloth, with appropriate Designs, $2 25 
 rantly gilt, 3 00 
 
LINDSAY 8u BLAKISTON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 THE SEPULCHRES OF OUR DEPARTED. 
 
 BY THE REV. F. R. ANSPAOH, A.M. 
 
 " As flowers wbich night, when day is o'er, perfume, 
 Breathes the sweet memory from a good man's tomb." 
 
 Sir E. L. Bulvoer. 
 Third Edition. In one Vol., 12mo. Price $1. Cloth, gilt. $1 50. 
 
 I his is a volum* to comfort and to cheer ; to render the grave familiar, and to derive from its co» 
 temptation the most encouraging hopes. A fine tone pervades the volume, and it abounds in just sen 
 timents ornately expressed. We should be glad to see that general seriousness of feeling which woul j 
 make such a volume popular.— PresMerw/i. 
 
 All Christians who are looking forward to the bliss of heaven, by passing through the tomb, will be 
 strengthened and comforted by glancing over the lessons here inculcated as addressed to the pilgrim 
 in search of that better conntXY. —Christian Chrontcle. 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 A Beautiful Presentation Volume. By the Rev. Theophilus Stork, D. D., 
 
 Pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 12mo., Cloth, 75 Cents ; in full gilt, $1 00. 
 
 " How oft, heart-sick and sore, 
 I've wished I were once mora 
 
 A little child."— ilfra. Southep. 
 The general contents, the devotional and lovely spirit that pervades it, the flowmg, lucid, and rich 
 diction, the sound sentiments, the encouragements to parents to bring up their children in the fear of 
 the Lord, the abounding consolations for those who in God's providence have been called to yield up 
 their little ones to Him who gave them, these and other characteristics, render this book one of the 
 most interesting and valuable of the kind that has for a long time been presented to the public — 
 Lutheran Observer. 
 
 STRUGGLES FOR LIFE, An Autobiography. 
 In One Vol., 12mo. Price $1 00. 
 
 What Sunny and Shady Side are, as descriptive of American Pastoral Life, this delightful volume ia 
 as descriptive of the Life of an English pastor. It describes, in a most felicitous style, his labours, 
 trials, sorrows, pleasures, and joys. But, perhaps, its chief value consiste in the vivid views it gives 
 of human nature as illustrated in the leading characteristics of English society, manners, and custom*. 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. 
 
 The only complete edition ; collected and prepared by him just prior to his death. 
 
 With a Portrait. One Volume, octavo. 
 Price, in Library style, $2 00 ; Cloth, full gilt, $3 00 ; Turkey Morocco, $4 00. 
 
 The poetry of the Sheffield bard has an established reputation among serious readers of everv class 
 The spirit of the humble Christian and the pure Philanthropist, breathes through it all; and few will 
 rise from the perusal of Mr. Montgomery's poems without feeling the elevating power of his chsusto 
 and beautiful li-iies. We are glad to see such a favourite poet in such graceful allire. The typo 
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 coBtains, and reflects great credit or 'ha publishers.— ^c'ctrrae-^ 
 
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