foreseen, long before foretold. It is, indeed, worthy of remark that in the case of the founders of false religions, such as Buddha or Confucius or Mahomet, never had the world been led to expect them before they came; whereas, in the case of Christianity, expectations had been raised from the very first; not only during the 1500 years which I before specified, but during the still longer period which had preceded, even from the fall of our first parents, there had been no time without expectation, no time without the hope of mercy and of restoration to God's favour, through the Saviour that was to come. It is true we have need to open our eyes in order that we may behold this far-reaching retrospect. We have need to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest its full and varied import. We have need to trace and ponder well the cumulative and consistent character of the evidence it affords.

And for those of us more especially whom God has called, as preachers of the Gospel, to point out and exhibit this retrospect to the contemplation of others, is it not necessary that we should possess something of the qualities of the men who showed before of the coming of the Just One,' if we are to show it after; and still more, if we are to prophesy

of His second coming with due effect? Yes, certainly it will become us to endeavour to imitate their integrity, their fidelity, their zeal, their fortitude. It will become us boldly to rebuke, as they did, all sin and wickedness-all indignities that are offered to the name of God and to the honour of His majesty. It will become us, upon the ground of all this prophetical evidence, to challenge faith and obedience to God only; and to say, as they did, to the idols of the Gentiles-yes, and to the false philosophers who would be as idols, as gods, unto themselves-Declare us things for to come. Show us the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods." It will become us, as it became them, to take the word of God simply as he has given it; neither to pretend to more, nor to rest in less, of the knowledge of His will than it has pleased Him to reveal; to rejoice to see where he has given us light, and to be content to become as the blind where He has made darkness His secret place, His pavilion round about Him with dark water and thick clouds to cover Him' (Ps. xviii. 11). The Prophets, as I have said, were unable oftentimes to interpret their own prophecies.

Isaiah xli. 22, 23. See also ibid. xlii. 8, 9; xliii. 9; xliv. 7,

8; xlv. 11, 21; xlvi. 8, 10; xlviii. 3-7.

It is Daniel, the 'greatly beloved,' who confesses, 'I heard, but I understood not.' Neither is it in us fully to unfold the mysteries which we preach. It is sufficient that we know what our office is, and that we do what it requires. It does not require us, as they were required (Jerem. i. 10), to foretell the destinies of nations-to throw down or to build up at home or abroad; but it concentrates our mission upon one kingdom, the kingdom of the Gospel, to be preached unto all nations; it confines our prophecy to one event, the returning of Christ to judgment. It bids us, as it were, to run before the chariot of our Heavenly Prince, as yet unseen, having our loins girt; that ye also, my brethren, may 'gird up the loins of your mind;' may be sober, and hope to the end for the grace '--the crowning grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation—that is, the re-appearing of Jesus Christ' (1 Pet. i. 13). It requires us to proclaim that we do not follow cunningly devised fables' (2 Pet. i. 16) when we remind you of the past, and foretell you of the future coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And meanwhile it authorises us to assure you that neither fate nor man are masters of the worldand still less is the world the master of itself-but that the providence of God, though it now moves

among the nations without a herald to proclaim its march, yet is still wakeful as in times past, still ordereth all things both in heaven and earth.' And when scoffers ask-as they did among the Jews of old, before Christ came- Where is the promise of His coming?' we too would answer, as was answered by the writer of this Epistle to the Hebrews, borrowing the words of the prophet Habakkuk to their fathers: Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.'

, 1

God grant, of His great mercy, that, when He does come, we, my brethren, may be prepared to meet Him!—that, at the coming of the bridegroom, we may not be as the foolish virgins, with our lamps going out; that, at the return of our Lord to reckon with us, we may not be as the unprofitable servant, with our talent unoccupied; that, when the King shall come in to see the guests, we may not be as the man who had not on a wedding garment! God grant that the day which He graciously designs to be unto us, through the merits of our Redeemer, the beginning of a better life, of endless and unspeakable joy, may not be made, through our own impenitence, the beginning of a deadlier death, of unending and unutterable woe!

1 Hebr. x. 37; Hab. ii. 3. See also Isaiah xlvi. 13; 2 Pet. iii. 4.

Witness of S. John the Baptist.

He must increase, but I must decrease.-John iii. 30.

Of all the admirable qualities in the character of John the Baptist, there was none more conspicuous, none more noble, none more valuable as a lesson for ourselves, than the loyalty of his devotion towards Jesus, who, coming after him, was to be preferred before him. This quality appears more particularly in every instance where he has occasion to speak of himself, as he does in the text, in comparison with the reputed Son of Joseph and Mary. His own position had suddenly become a most remarkable and commanding one. The sensation he had created as a new teacher, and the influence he had gained, had been unparalleled, probably, among the Jews since the days of his great prototype Elijah, more than nine hundred years before. This we may infer from the testimony of the Jewish historian Josephus, no less