a striking illustration that these pretensions do not become obsolete with the lapse of years. You have heard me speak of the assumed liberality of the pontiff that now occupies the Papal throne; you have heard, too, our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen declare that the pretensions of the pope to have dominion over the subjects of England to have been exploded long ago, and were the absurdities of a bygone and effete superstition. Now there is a newspaper published in London, which is the organ of the Roman Catholic body, called the Tablet, written with much talent, and containing much information on the Roman Catholic controversy: the Tablet writes upon this very point; and urges the fact, that the Romish priests in this country are "the subjects of the pope," and that he "commands," not exhorts them.

Now nothing can be more plain than this, that the popes of Rome have not abjured the pretensions of the past, nor repented of the absolute sovereignty that they assumed over the subjects of the queens and kings and princes of the earth. Whatever men may think, the wild beast from the abyss, and the great corporation of which he is the head, change not. That system remains the same, amid the light of the nineteenth century, that it was when Hildebrand made Europe echo his thunders, and prostrate kings bow their necks upon the earth. Rome may array herself in the drapery of outward meekness, wreathe her face with smiles, and deck her brow with the crown of toleration, but she still holds fast the principles, and will carry those principles into practice when she has the power, that made the soil of Europe red with the blood of saints, and its winds to be the vehicles of the lamentations of saints and the moans of the martyrs of Jesus. And I believe that one of the most complete pathways for the return of Romanism into this country, is the belief which plausible priests and Jesuits endeavour to impress upon you, that Rome, like wine long kept, has improved itself in quality, in flavour, and in all respects: but when a Roman Catholic priest tells you so, he himself secretly laughs at your credulity in believing him; for if Rome has changed, her infallibility is gone. She must have been fallible if she erred. She may err again. Before such an admission she would fall. If what was infallibly true in the fifteenth century has become infallibly false in the nineteenth,

Rome has changed, she is not the church which she pretends to be her right arm is from that moment paralyzed, and the deference of the nations will be utterly withdrawn from her: but she claims to be the same to-day that she was a thousand years ago: she cannot be improved, she must be destroyed: she is not to be converted, she is to be destroyed; God's people are to leave her, but the great fabric is to be overwhelmed by the brightness of the Redeemer's coming.

And now, my dear friends, having noticed thus the judgments of the fifth vial, as poured out upon the seat of the beast, and having seen, in the course of these five vials, the frightful effects of infidelity, when rampant, the one day, and of Papal superstition, when dominant, the next, let us learn the great lesson, that pure and scriptural religion alone is the life-blood of England,the palladium of her people, her only element of safety amid the wreck of nations. In pleading this day for your aid to our schools,* if I be asked, what, under God, will save us from the contamination of the blasphemies of the skeptic, or from the contagion of the superstitions of the Papist? I say, Bible education. If you ask me, what will replenish old England with sons worthy of their sires, and make those sons stand erect beside the ashes of their fathers, and pronounce them, with thanksgiving to God, blessed? it will be Bible education. If you ask me, what will save our country from the scourge of war-what will prevent it from becoming the victim of intoxication and licentiousnesswhat will save it from being exhausted by civil feuds, or torn up by the shattering artillery of war? my answer is, Bible education. If you ask me, what will save us from that infidelity that revels in its license without control, and from that superstition that exercises a despotism over soul and body? if you ask me, what will save us from those wild and sensual opinions that rise, like miasma, from the fens and marshes of popular ignorance, or what will protect us from those deadly passions that breed like reptiles beneath a scorching sun? my answer is, Christian edu

Schools are now built adjoining the church in Crown Court, capable of holding five or six hundred children, at an expense of nearly £3000, for which the author earnestly asks aid.

cation. The good and the pious of past ages have left us noble heritages; we are bound to perpetuate them. We have received from our fathers an open Bible, we have been taught to read, to understand, and to rejoice in its truth; let us resolve, that when we lie down, as we must lie down, upon the last bed, and when our children shall gather around us to bid us a last farewell, to be able to tell them, If we have not increased the blessings of your ancient heritage, we have not impaired them-if we have not added to your religious freedom, we have not crushed it—if we have done nothing to make you nobler, holier, happier, we have done nothing to make you worse. Let us resolve, by the grace of God, that wherever the pall of Papal superstition shall spread— wheresoever the waters of the Tiber shall roll their pestiferous torrent-wheresoever the torch of Christian freedom, and of manly patriotism, and of true faith, shall expire, it shall not be in that land that was watered by the blood of saints-in the bosom of which the ashes of our Cranmers, and Latimers, and Knoxes, and Wilberforces, and others, still repose. If any one in this assembly shall be found so faithless as to betray the sacred trust, or so callous as to refuse to perpetuate it, the hearts of those sainted men will surely become quick in their graves, and beat beneath the sod with indignation-or rise to protest against the sacrilege as dishonourable to God, and discreditable to us all. If we desire others to see our land the most beautiful of the isles of the sea, happy, holy, religious, with its establishments for charity, its asylums for the aged, its hospitals for the sick, its shores on which slavery cannot forge its chains, and on which freedom, an exile from the earth, can find a footing and a home-if we wish to perpetuate a land where Sabbath light shall not be dimmed with the smoke of the factory, and the chime of whose Sabbath bells shall not be mingled with the discord of the railway whistle-if we wish to see it remain a land in which we can lie down and not fear, under the overshadowing wings of public sentiment, and public purity, and public justice-let us give the generation of outcast children, of whom there are literally many thousands around the site of the schools, now rising around their sires, the blessings of a Christian, a Bible education.

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LECTURE XX.

THE SIXTH VIAL.

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

"And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

"For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."-Revelation xvi. 12–14.

THE great river Euphrates, as I have already shown, denotes the Turkish or Mohammedan power. Like a stream that had overflowed its banks, the Turko-Mohammedan nations had overspread vast portions of the earth, and impressed their principles completely over a great part of Christendom. "From the Chinese frontier," says Gibbon, "he stretched his jurisdiction west and south as far as the neighbourhood of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, the spicy groves of Arabia Felix, an extent of dominion which surpasses the Asiatic reign of Cyrus and the caliphs."

The evaporation of this Euphrates was fixed by Daniel, chap. viii. 15-25.

Bicheno, in A. D. 1797, fixed the commencement of the 2300 years at the year B. c. 480, and predicted the commencement of its decline to be 1819. Mr. Elliott calculates that 1849 will finish the Turkish power, and break up and scatter all its national cohesion. On the same data he determines Daniel's prophecy, xii. 11, "And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be 1290 days. Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1335 days."

The first portion of the 1335 days expired at the French Revolution, A. D. 1793; the second expired at the beginning of the decline of the Turko-Mohammedan power-or drying up of the Euphrates, A. D. 1820. The last portion will expire A. D. 1865, at which, or soon after, will be the advent of Christ, and the first resurrection, and beginning of the Millennium.

It has been disputed whether "kings of the east" really describes the Jews. The original an' avaroдwv does not necessarily mean that they shall be in the east at their conversion as a nation; but that they are originally from the east, or of eastern origin.

At the same time it is not unimportant to add, that there is an express prediction of their progress westward, and from the regions in the east, at the time of their call in Isaiah, xi. 14, "But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west, they shall spoil them of the east together."

"The drying up of the Euphrates" began about 1820. In that very year, accordingly, the revolt of Ali Pacha took place. In 1822 the Greek provinces rose as by an irresistible impulse, and warred successfully against their Moslem oppressors. Russia next entered into conflict with Turkey, and exhausted her resources and crippled her energies. The Janissaries were next broken up the peculiarities of Mohammedanism have disappeared one after another-and even in 1834, so far had this drying up or progressive wasting of the Ottoman empire proceeded, that M. Delamartine, in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris, unconsciously illustrated the truth and fulfilment of the Apocalyptic vision, when he said, "The Ottoman empire is no empire at all; it is a misshapen agglomeration of different races without cohesion between them-with mingled interests-without a languagewithout laws-without religion-without unity or stability of power. You see that the breath of life which animated itnamely, religious fanaticism-is extinct. You see that its fatal and blinded administration has devoured the race of conquerors, and that Turkey is perishing for want of Turks.

"How far the angel's vial has taken effect," says the author of the "Kings of the East," "and in what manner it has performed its commissioned work, will be best seen by taking a retrospective glance at Turkey, and by comparing her state