some of these predictions. Is there no distress of nations? no perplexity? are there no pestilences ravaging the earth? no wars and rumours of wars? It may be replied, that these have often heretofore been, and that we see only what our fathers have seen. I know that the human mind is prone to raise into undue importance what is present; but I cannot help thinking that, in this quarter of the world, the seat of the Roman Empire, to which so many of the prophecies are confined, there never, under all circumstances, were such revolutions, so strange, so bloody, so disastrous, as in our times. The thrones of kings have unexpectedly crumbled; dynasties have been changed; men have risen into

command and sovereignty with a suddenness hardly compatible with the probabiliNever, perhaps, were

ties of a romance.

there so many monarchs in exile: never were there fiercer wars: never were the foundations of society so loosened.

Again, is not now the gospel preached, and Christianity, in some measure, planted throughout all the world? Till within a comparatively very few years, the church slept an ill-omened sleep; she took no thought for the millions that were perishing for lack of knowledge: now, faithful men, from almost every Christian nation, are traversing the globe. They have proclaimed the Saviour under the burning suns of India; they have preached the

gospel amid the snows of Labrador; they have prevailed upon the islanders of the far-off sea to cast their idols" to the moles and to the bats." Yet a little while, and the blood-stained banner of the cross shall be fanned by every gale, and wave over every nation. "This gospel shall be preached in all the world for a witness; and then shall the end come." And with respect to the Jews, it is true that they are still as dry bones in the open valley, they are not yet come together, "bone to his bone," yet it may be admitted that there is “a noise, and behold a shaking." A little while ago and it might have been said of Israel," this is Zion whom no man seeketh after:" now, the affections of Christians are awakening

towards that afflicted people, there is among themselves a growing spirit of inquiry, and even some few Jews are preaching to their brethren the salvation of a crucified Redeemer. As yet it is the day of small things, but still a sign of the times; the cloud, peradventure, little as a man's hand, just rising from the sea, which yet prognosticates, and that ere long, a great and gracious rain. And who can look at the aspect of the Mohammedan powers, and not discern the exact accomplishment of the prophecy? The vial is poured on the Euphrates, and its waters are drying up, precisely, drying up. The conqueror's hand has been stayed from inflicting violent destruction and the resources of the Turkish

empire have gradually decayed: one province after another has parted from her, and that once mighty nation, so terrible to Christendom, seems dissolving by intestine weakness. What purpose God may intend to accomplish in its final fall, it is not for us at present to speak with any certainty: it is enough that the evident fact, that the bulwarks of Islamism are crumbling under their own weight, is a remarkable sign of the times.

Further, are there no divisions, no heresies, no strange assumptions and monstrous doctrines within the pale of the visible church? The Romish apostacy still lingers on, and even seems collecting itself for one great struggle, preparatory, may it not be,