of not a few among the living have been years of deep interest to individual man, and to every form of social organization. Events have taken place within a shorter period than half a century which some future historian will celebrate as among the brighter ages of time. It has been a period rich in results, and one that adorns the last dispensation of the divine government over this fallen world. That man must be an atheist who does not perceive that events have taken place in such sequence and dependencies as to baffle the councils of the wise, confound the wisdom of the prudent, and even take the most enlightened, the most expectant, and the most believing by surprise. They have been clustering and crowded upon one another so densely, as not only to give substance and continuity to the series, but to furnish striking proof of his supremacy, who "stretched abroad the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth that he might say unto Zion, thy God reigneth!" Some of us were born to behold the whole of this wonderful, splendid era. Not many such series of events as those which have occurred within the last half-century are necessary in order to fill the earth with the knowledge of God. The fifty years to come will indeed be a momentous period. The child that is now in its cradle will see greater things than ever prophets saw but in vision. Nor will they be long in coming; nor stand alone; nor

will their influence be isolated. They will be fitted to one another and to the crisis they produce; and when the crisis comes they will rush to their glorious issues. This agitation among the nations, and the sweeping judgments that are now passing over portions of the earth, so far from obscuring the prospect, are just the events which God and his people are looking for. It will be in vain for us to expect that the course of divine providence will be tranquil and unobserved; rather will it be broken by rocks and ruffled by storms. There will doubtless be seasons of desolating calamity. The stream will be swollen by the mountain torrent; and as it dashes on and mingles with the ocean, "the deep will utter his voice and lift up his hands on high." Yet is there no depression in these anticipations. Notwithstanding the damp and murky atmosphere with which we are sometimes enveloped, there is a feeling in it that revives us; a fragrance coming up from the blooming earth which is the precursor of the new-born year.

Favored, highly favored is that generation which is destined to occupy these coming years! We may not say that we have no latent wish to put back the shadow on the dial, and enter with younger men and youthful ardor upon this opening period of time. We are thankful for the past, and congratulate those to whom the future furnishes so cheering a prospect. The trump of jubilee is

even now sounding from the lands to which Christianity was transplanted, to lands where she was born. Its tidings come from yonder "sea-girt isle," and are echoed far and wide from these mountains of the West. Long may a wakeful providence throw its guardianship around these lands, and bid them "declare his glory among the Gentiles !"

And thou, my country! The burying-place of my fathers and my children, be not thou unmindful of thy birthright, nor profanely barter it for a mess of pottage! Hail, ye blood-bought churches! whether planted on the sea-beaten cliff, or the verdant plain! Hail, ye her consecrated ministers! her colleges, her schools of the prophets! her Christian statesmen! destined to fulfil such wondrous councils of love more wondrous! Hail, ye her increasing millions! who stand in full view of this coming age of millennial glory! And thou, this poor, lost, but redeemed earth, all hail! under whose opening heavens the Son of Man is to descend, proclaim his triumphs, and receive his

reward!

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS THE FINAL JUDGE.

Ir is not so much the object of the present chapter, to delineate the scenes of the Last Judgment, as to speak of the glory of Christ as the Final Judge. The present world is not the theatre of equitable rewards and punishments; nor can it be unless governed by a perpetual series of miracles. Either there is no administration of justice in the universe; or God is unjust; or there is a judgment to come. Law implies responsibility to the Lawgiver. It were more reasonable to deny moral government, than to deny that man is the creature of account. It was not necessary for the world to be furnished with a supernatural revelation for the purpose of revealing this truth; this truth itself is the ground-work of revelation. It is an ultimate fact. Men feel confident of it; the foundation of it is laid deep in the constitution of the human mind. They need a revelation from heaven not so much to assure them of their responsibility, as to define it; to inform them what is its

standard; and when, and where, and how they will be called to account, and what will be the final results.

For full information concerning a future judgment, therefore, we must go to the Bible. Here the light is strong and refulgent. Here we learn that "God hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness; that "we all shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ;" that "it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment;" and that "the small and great shall stand before God, and all be judged according to their works." It will be a day of deep interest to him who made and governs the world, as well as to its unnumbered inhabitants. The Scriptures speak of it as the "Great Day," and as the "Day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." It must be a great and glo rious day. But why will it be a day of such im portance to Jesus Christ, and what is there in the divine arrangements concerning it which will then render Him so ineffably glorious? The following thoughts may deserve some consideration, as a partial answer to this inquiry.

In the first place, the time when the final judg ment will take place, is determined with a view to his work as the acknowledged Redeemer. In the days of the apostles, there were those who taught that the "resurrection is past already," and others