yC-NRLF B 3 ^SQ- MMQ 1 V/iV^ ^^H^^''^^ vrs 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