Quakerism, and Methodism. Like the Reformation itself, these creations of the Divine Spirit sprang up in Britain, additional evidences of the superior people made by the coalition of Ephraim and Manasseh. Puritanism was to the English Church what Protestantism was to Popery. It vigorously rebuked priestcraft, and denied the "divine right" of wicked and oppressive monarchs. Quakerism advanced still further toward pure Christianity, and asserted the complete freedom of man to hold direct intercourse with God, to worship the Father in spirit and in reality, unhampered by men or forms. Methodism, without stopping to discuss principles, blew the trumpet of revival, and, with an aggressive energy never paralleled before, called men everywhere to hold communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. These three movements have been sanctified to the salvation of millions living and dead, and have prepared Israel to receive the truth in its perfection, to hear the voice of God in the voice of Elijah. "And now the Lord YAHVEH hath sent me and his Spirit." (Isa. xlviii. 16.)

ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS.

"IN the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight." (Hosea vi. 2.) The resurrection of Israel, commenced by the partial union of the Ephraim and Manasseh elements in Britain, could not be completed in such a limited territory. Hence God had reserved the magnificent western continent to perfect the work. Every incident in the discovery and colonization of the new world helped to fulfil the Divine purpose as foretold by the prophets of Israel. "Behold, the days come, saith YAHVEH, that it shall no more be said, YAHVEH liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt; but, YAHVEH liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north." (Jer. xvi. 14, 15.)

They were to be brought from the north country of Europe. into the wilderness. As Israel was made to pass from Egypt through the wilderness of Sinai to the land of promise, so their descendants were to pass from the north country through the

wilderness of America to the land of their fathers. And as Israel crossed the Red Sea to get into the typical wilderness, so their seed crossed the antitypical ocean to reach the antitypical wilderness. "Thus saith YAHVEH, The people left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when it went to find rest." (Jer. xxxi. 2.) How appropriate the comment of the English expositor, Blayney, that this is "to be understood of God's having actually set forward or begun to execute his design of causing the children of Israel to return to their own land"! "As I live, saith the Lord YAHVEH, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you; and I will bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, and bring you into THE WILDERNESS OF THE PEOPLES." (Ezek. xx. 33.) Thus was foreseen this American wilderness, with its many States, composed of the various branches of the Teutonic and Celtic races!

Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." (Hos. ii. 14.) God "allured" Israel into America through the outpouring of the Spirit in the sixteenth century. He did not allow the western continent to be discovered until the time came for the Protestant Reformation, which rendered Israel restless under the yoke of despotism in church and state, and awakened the intense desire for that grace" and "rest" which was to be "found" only "in the wilderness." The Puritan revival was the first great stimulant to emigration, and sent the "pilgrims" in A.D. 1620 to Plymouth Rock. They were "allured into the wilderness" by the hope of "freedom to worship God." "The Reformation, followed by collisions between English Dissenters and the Anglican Hierarchy, colonized New England; the Reformation, emancipating the Low Countries, led to settlements on the Hudson." (Bancroft's Col. Hist. of United States, ch. 15.)

The Quaker movement was the second great instrumentality to "allure" Israel. "The news spread abroad that William Penn, the Quaker, had opened an asylum to the good and the oppressed of every nation.' From England and Wales, froin Scotland and Ireland, and the Low Countries, emigrants crowded to the land of promise. On the banks of the Rhine it was whis

pered that the plans of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstiern were consummated; new companies were formed, under better auspices than those of the Swedes; and from the highlands above Worms, the humble people who had melted at the eloquence of Penn, the Quaker emissary, renounced their German homes for the protection of the Quaker king. There is nothing in the history of the human race like the confidence which the simple virtues and institutions of William Penn inspired. The progress of his province was more rapid than the progress of New England. In August, A.D. 1683, Philadelphia consisted of three or four little cottages, and two years afterwards the place contained about six hundred houses. In three years from its foundation, Philadelphia gained more than New York had done in half a century." (Bancroft's Col. Hist., ch. 16.) Thus the Quaker philanthropist saw the triumph of what he called "The Holy Experiment."

"At the period of the great European Revolution of A.D. 1688, the twelve oldest States of our Union contained not very many beyond two hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom New England contained seventy-five thousand; New York, not less than twenty thousand; New Jersey, half as many; Pennsylvania and Delaware, perhaps twelve thousand; Maryland, twenty-five thousand; Virginia, fifty thousand, or more; and the two Carolinas, which then included the soil of Georgia, probably not less than eight thousand souls. Nothing came from Europe but a free people. THE PEOPLE, separating itself from all other elements of previous civilization; THE PEOPLE alone broke away from European influence, and in the New World laid the foundations of our republic. The people alone were present in power. Like Moses, THEY HAD ESCAPED FROM EGYPTIAN BONDAGE TO THE WILDERNESS, THAT GOD MIGHT THERE GIVE THEM THE PAT

TERN OF THE TABERNACLE.

"The colonists were neither skeptics nor sensualists, but Christians. The Christian system cradled our freedom. And they were not only Christians, they were—even in Maryland by a vast majority, elsewhere almost unanimously-Protestants.” (Bancroft, ch. 18.)

The historian, in treating the events in the latter part of the eighteenth century, shows how the "alluring" Spirit continued to

call Israel. “For more than two centuries the plebeian Protestant sects had sent up the cry to heaven for freedom to worship God. To the panting for this freedom half the American States owed their existence, and all but one or two their increase in free population. The immense majority of the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies were Protestant dissenters." (Bancroft's Hist. of U.S., vol. ix. p. 272.) And thus also was fulfilled the word of YAHVEH: "Turn, O backsliding children, saith YAHVEH; for I am married to you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion, and I will give you pastors according to my heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." (Jer. iii. 14, 15.) The latter words refer to the great educational facilities through which this American people have been elevated above the nations of the earth, and fitted to appreciate the Elijah message.

"I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord YAHVEH.” (Ezek. xx. 35, 36.) This pleading began in 1861, when YAHVEH brought the nation into judgment for the heinous sin of African slavery. In the promise made to our father Abraham, God said, "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. xii. 2, 3.) Moreover, YAHVEH made a covenant with Abraham (Gen. xvii.), in which he solemnly bound himself to fulfil the promise; and this covenant was confirmed with an oath. (Gen. xxii. 16.) In the covenant, God promised Abraham that he should be the "father of many nations." This covenant was to be fulfilled, not in all of his children, but was to be the birthright blessing (see pages 59-63) of certain selected ones, as Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim. The ten tribes of Israel being incorporated into the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and Manasseh having been united with Ephraim, first in Britain, and finally in this American wilderness, so that the rod of Joseph is in the hand of Ephraim, the American nation becomes the fulfilment of the promise, "I will make of thee a great nation.” And likewise of the word of YAHVEн by the prophet, "I will

make her that was cast far off a strong nation." (Micah iv. 7.) And as we are also many States, we are the fulfilment of the word, "Thou shalt be father of many nations." Our national motto, E pluribus unum,—From many, one, or, Many in one,—agrees at once with the promise to Abraham of "many nations," and of "a great nation."

God designed this nation to "be a blessing." "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." The peculiar circumstances attending the colonization of our country, and its subsequent history down to the formation of the National Union in A.D. 1787, all attest the faithfulness of YAHVEH to this word. Our American forefathers thought, spoke, and acted not only for themselves and their children, but for "all families of the earth." James Otis, the early prophet of the American Revolution for Independence, was led to exclaim, "The world is at the eve of the highest scene of power and grandeur that has ever yet been displayed to the view of mankind. Human nature must and will be rescued from the general slavery that has so long triumphed over the species." (Bancroft's Hist. of U.S., vol. v.) Said John Adams, "I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth." (Ibid.)

This great thought was embodied by the representatives of the confederated colonies in their Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "The heart of Jefferson in writing the Declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind and all coming generations, without any exception whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident. As it was put forth in the name of the ascendent people of that time, it was sure to make the circuit of the world." (Bancroft, vol. viii.) "The men who resolutely placed their sign-manual to that immortal paper, drew their inspiration not from the classic but polluted