to mock Jehovah; whose declared purpose from the beginning has been to rule the earth by man. Ere long his dark device will too awfully prevail. He will succeed in maturing Antichrist as his vicegerent, his truest image and representative, impregnated with his own God-hating spirit, and eager to execute, to the uttermost, his God-defying designs. All the world shall wonder after him. All nations shall receive his mark on their foreheads and on their hands, in scornful mimicry of the saints who have their Father's name written in their foreheads. But just when his triumph seems consummated and his representative is seated on the throne, with his myriad retinue of evil, shall the world's true king appear; and, casting the usurper, with all his hosts, into that dwelling of fire, out of which they have striven so desperately to keep themselves, shall take the kingdom, and with his holy ones, reign in peace over a delivered earth wherein dwelleth righte

ousness.

But up to the moment when Christ appears, Satan in the person of Antichrist prevails and prospers. The whole period of Christ's absence from the earth is marked by the presence and prevalence of that adversary who is seeking to imitate and supplant him. Age after age the apostasy ripens and spreads abroad its branches, offering

false shelter to the inhabitants of earth, in mockery of the plant of renown, under whose shadow the nations are yet to rejoice. But in a moment the axe is lifted up against the tree; it is cut down and cast into the fire. It is not doomed to wither slowly down, leaf by leaf, till branch and stem are gone. Its end is swift destruction by the stroke of the husbandman, while it is yet in its greenness and prime.

And then what a change to this weary earth which has so long been groaning! What deliverance and joy! Christ upon the throne; Antichrist in the abyss; and Satan bound in chains! The saints exalted and glorified, the wicked trodden down and put to shame! The curse removed, Paradise restored, Israel gathered, the Gentiles converted, creation blessed, and Jehovah, in the person of Immanuel, taking up his everlasting abode with the children of men.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SIGNS.

THE NIGHT COMETH! Nor does it seem far off. It never appeared so nigh. The shadows are lengthening out, and falling with ominous gloom upon the valleys of earth. The dimness of twilight is beginning to make itself felt. It is settling down drearily upon our cities, and on our solitudes; upon the towers of our strength, and the palaces of our pomp: nor can the noisy rush of eager multitudes, hurrying to and fro for gain or pleasure, wholly stifle the utterance of fear and awe. Men cannot help foreboding evil, for who can tell them what may be in the womb of darkness? The night-birds are already on the wing, flitting around us, and reminding us of the descending night.

Yet it is written also, "The day is at hand!" The night, though dark, is brief, and is soon succeeded by a glorious day. But still of that day the night is the forerunner.

And this world's

night is surely near. Else, why so many indications of closing day?

But has it not been always thus? Have not other ages as well as the present been equally crowded with signs of trouble? Have not certain men always loved to be prophets of evil, and to interpret gloomily the events of their day? Is there not among many a morbid and unhealthy love of the dark and the ominous ?

Be it so. It will not, however, be denied that the time must come when the crisis will arrive; and before its arrival, will give notice of its near approach, by casting its shadows before. If such a crisis remains yet to be realized, then some age or other must be its precursor,-must lie next the precipice, and see with its own eyes the gulf below. It is right, no doubt, that we should be cautious, not mis-dating events nor mis-calculating times, nor mis-judging signs; but it is far safer to take swift alarm at what seem like tokens of evil, even though the alarm should prove false, than with incredulous, it may be derisive, scepticism, to reject every sign, and refuse to be forewarned. It is bad, certainly, to be taking needless alarm; but it is incredibly worse to deny that we ought to take alarm at all, as if the day of the Lord would never really come, but was a

mere empty name, hung over us for terror, age

after age, as a check upon the world and a

stimulus to the Church. If, then, that day be a certainty-a reality, who will affirm that, when about to arrive, it will not foreshow itself? Surely a dislike to give heed to the forebodings of judgment, must arise from a dislike to entertain even the thought of that crisis. We will not see in the events of the day, premonitory shocks of the last earthquake, because we would fain discredit or postpone that day of calamity and terror. This is not wisdom. Neither is it magnanimity. It is folly, it is littleness of soul. It is a reckless resolution to blind ourselves to the evil as long as possible, and then to brave it, as best we may, when it does burst upon us. there may be the secret thought beneath, "What if it should never come at all? What if we have coloured the future with the gloom of our own fancies ? What if the world is destined to pass through no such hurricane? What if we are to flow gently on into a fairer region, and a holier era, as winter dissolves itself softly into spring, or as spring expands itself into the brilliance of summer? At least the evil will not come in our day; we need not, then, vainly distract and alarm ourselves before the time."

Or,

But how have we discovered that the Lord will