forty, in the prime of life, without disease, and if he could be laid open, and an angel were to see him, not knowing the history of humanity, he would infer from the anatomy, that a machine so exquisitely made, the arrangements for waste and supply so perfect, must go on for ever, and ever, and ever; and if you ask the philosopher why this man dies and grows old, he cannot tell there is no reason upon earth why you or I should grow old. It is a mysterious poison that has crept into our economy, and generated disease and death. Let sin be expunged, remove the moral disease incubating in the heart of man, and he will be restored to a state of holiness, happiness and health again.

you;

Many hold that Christ comes at the death of a Christian. I do not think so; he does not then come to me, I go to him. He sends for me, not comes to me, and, therefore, to say that Christ comes at death, is a misconstruing of the texts foretelling his coming. The Scriptures represent that when Christ comes, instead of finding a millennial earth, filled with happiness, and peace, and joy, he shall find disorganisation, wickedness, and guilt. Does not this teach us that instead of the millennium preceding Christ's advent, men will be busily engaged, some in things sinful, and others in what is innocent in itself, but absorbing in its influences? Many things are sinful only in excess. The love of money, for instance, is a legitimate passion in its subordinate place. We cannot do

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without money; we cannot do without clothes, and food, and therefore not without money; when we love it in its place we do right, but when it becomes the commanding passion it is most destructive. So you may love the bright flowers, and beautiful landscape, this is all perfectly legitimate; the sin consists in the abuse, or in making the love of the object the commanding passion. I believe that the excessive love of what is lawful ruins more souls than the forbidden love of what is sinful. We have in the Scriptures a parable which divides those who reject the Gospel of Christ into three classes: one said "I have bought a yoke of oxen, and must needs go to prove them." Now there was no sin in buying the oxen, but the sin was in loving them so much, that the invitation of Christ was rejected. In the other case also, there was no sin in marrying, but in paying so much attention to the home, the wife, and the fireside, that no time could be sacrificed to obey Christ's gracious invitation. So also in the last day, it will not be so much that men will be engaged in wickedness, as immersed in the inordinate love of things lawful. Just before Christ's coming we may expect that Satan will go forth with intense activity. Everything that is evil will become charged with double intensity. Is not everything already becoming more and more earnest? Popery is intensely active; Puseyism is just the old fox-hunting, sporting clergyman becoming earnest. Look at infidelity, how it is exerting itself! Look at our

divisions, how sad! Nevertheless, I believe there is at this moment in the church of Christ universal, more healthy, real evangelical religion than there ever has been since the days of the Reformation. In the Church of England, with all its division, there is a body of devout, spiritual-minded men, that have no precedent in any other church. I rejoice that it is so. I think everything is becoming earnest and real; and as the coming of Christ nears, all men will be in earnest, either in God's or the devil's service. As the time is short, so Satan knows it. He is aware that he has but few years in which to exercise his power in this world, and he will strive the more to obtain a foot-hold in a globe that is escaping from his clutches; and if he cannot secure the position he covets, he will try to victimize and make captives of all that he can. Look at the political world. What is the state of Europe at the present time? It is one surging volcano. Look at China, seething in revolution. See France, trembling for its imperial destinies. Look at Russia- already come, probably the ancient Magog, into Europe, and to fight his last battle in the midst of Palestine before the end comes. Look at Turkey - prophecy pointing to this time as the probable period when the Euphrates is to be dried up. Look at Rome, which at this very moment would not contain the Pope ten minutes, if it were not for the 6,000 French soldiers there: a third of the population of Rome are Protestants religiously, if they dare avow it; and

another third are radicals and revolutionists, ready to upset the present state of things if they could. And this is the model city! the modern Rome; that ought to present a magnificent spectacle of unity and peace: where the Pope, its sovereign, would not be secure ten minutes, if the 6,000 French bayonets were to be withdrawn. The Thirty-nine Articles are surely as good as these to keep a nation in its place any day. The cities of the nations are also predicted to fall. Now I believe that as "the great city" was the politico-ecclesiastical institution of the Church of Rome, the cities of the nations are our established churches. I do not say I wish them to fall; I have no sympathy with those who try to subvert them; for I believe, in my conscience, a national church to be a great ordinance of God, and that it is duty to maintain and support it; but too plainly the Church of England, as an ecclesiastical institution, trembles on the very verge of its disorganization. The Church of Scotland suffered a great expenditure of its strength in 1843, when a number of excellent men supposed it their duty to secede from it; both churches are at this moment weakened considerably, and I believe, as civil and endowed institutions, they will be wickedly but hopelessly broken up. All churches are about to be equally dissolved; Methodism is fast breaking up; Independency is to be shattered; and the Baptists will not be spared. This great disorganization of existing institutions is the disintegration of the component elements, in

order to form a new and glorious combination-a church where there shall be no more division, where there shall be neither Churchmen nor Dissenters, but Christ and Christian shall be all in all.

I have thus shown, first, that Christ's advent is the prominent hope of the Church of God; secondly, that his advent is a personal one; and, thirdly, that the millennial day succeeds, and does not precede, the advent of Christ, just as the light follows the sun, and does not precede it; and, lastly, I have shown from the signs of the times, that this advent is near at hand, and that it becomes all to make ready for the coming of our blessed Lord. Let us now look more earnestly for the appearing of the Son of God, and cease to quarrel. When our Lord comes, there will instantly take place a resurrection of the dead in Christ. I am going to state what some will not agree with. I hold that when Christ comes at the commencement of the millennium, all believers that have died in Christ-from Adam down to the babe that perished yesterday from its mother's bosom — the dead in Christ will instantly rise. All believers then living will instantly be gathered together with them—and both the dead in Christ who rise from the earth, and the living in Christ who do not die, but are changed, shall be caught up in the air, and shall there remain until the earth has undergone the last fiery baptism, just as the family of Noah was kept in the ark. The rest of the dead will not rise until the thousand years are finished. The resurrection