dates of prophecy meet and mingle about the year 1864. I do not say that that year will be the close of this world. I do not prophesy; I do not foretell the future; I only forth tell what God has said; but I do feel, that if 1864 be not the close of the age that now is, and the commencement of a better one, it will be a time unprecedented since the beginning - portentous, startling, and terrible to the enemies of God; but glorious,' holy, and full of joyous scenes to the people of God.

Clinton proves that the seventh millenary of the world begins in 1863. The Jews of ancient and modern times all look to the beginning of the seven thousand years for their Sabbatismos, or millennial rest. Is the end of the age so near?

"The groans of nature in this nether world,
Which heaven has heard for ages, have an end
Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung;
The time of rest, the promised sabbath comes.
Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh
Fulfill'd their tardy and disastrous course
Over a sinful world; and what remains
Of this tempestuous state of human things
Is merely as the working of a sea

Before a calm that rocks itself to rest."

Thus all fingers point to this rapidly approaching crisis. All things indicate that the moment that we occupy is charged with intense and inexhaustible issues. Never was man so responsible! Never, in the prospect of what is coming on the earth, was man's position so solemn! But evil shall not gain the day. Truth and love will

emerge from every conflict, beautiful, and clothed with victory. The days of Infidelity and Popery are numbered. The waters of evil must soon ebb from the earth they have soiled. The approaching genesis will surpass in beauty and in glory the old. The Church of Christ will lay aside her soiled garments, her ashen raiment, and put on her bridal dress, her coronation robes; and the nations will look up to her in admiration, earnest as the waves of the ocean rise up to the bright full moon enthroned above them. The sunrise of approaching day will strike the earth, and awaken its long silent hymns, and clothe creation's barest branches with amaranthine blossoms. Poor Nature, that has so long moaned like a stricken creature to its God from its solitary lair, shall cease her groans and travail and expectancy; for God will wipe away her tears, and on her fair and beautiful and holy brow, crowned and kingdomed, other orbs in the sky, her handmaidens, will gaze in ecstasy and thankfulness and praise. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain. And there shall be no night there. For these sayings are faithful and true."

II.

THE MOSLEM AND HIS END.

IN introducing to the reader the Moslem and his fate, I do not pretend to prophesy, but simply to set forth what seems, on grounds of the very highest probability, to be the meaning of prophecy inspired by God, and written for our instruction. I do not attempt to foretell; all I presume is, to forth tell what is already predicted in the sacred volume. I am a humble interpreter of what God has written, not a prophet of what God will do. I speak to reasonable men; I ask attention, not submission.

The application of Scripture to the events of the day demands the utmost carefulness. We must take care to avoid that presumption, which sees the fulfilment of prophecy in things in no just respect the echoes of ancient predictions; and equally also that incredulity, or rather scepticism, which regards the word of God as in no degree applicable to the affairs of men. I believe history is a continuous fulfilment of prophecy; its facts the marks of Providence translating the written into the actual ancient texts into modern annals. God inspired the prophet. He rules in the affairs of men, when all past utterances shall be seen embodied in present facts, and all history point back

ward to its outline, laid down in Scripture long before its materials were found. Gibbon the sceptic, and Hume the atheist, and Alison the Christian, and Macaulay, and innumerable others, will appear, reluctantly or the reverse, the most emphatic witnesses to God in his word and in his world. Every day this result approaches us; more and more does Scripture shine forth in deepening lustre and beauty.

At the same time, it is important to remark, that, on the great truths of Christianity, all true Christians of every persuasion are at one; on the interpretation of prophecy, it is fair to state, they conscientiously differ. Yet, in this field there is a deepening agreement among most. Differ from me or any other Christian as such, on that which is vital and essential, and you so far denude yourselves of the claims of Christians; but should the reader differ from me on the interpretation of prophecy, and what appears to me most probable, I hope, in the spirit of brotherly love and of Christian charity, we shall forgive our differences in things confessedly difficult, and sometimes obscure, because of our harmony in magnificent and glorious things, which are so plain that a wayfaring man may not err therein.

The subject I propose to examine here is Turkey and Mahometanism, or the Moslem and his end. The subject is, in the present crisis of Europe, fraught with the intensest interest. It absorbs many thoughts: all eyes are directed to the sun

rising. Every newspaper reflects on the West the startling lights that are breaking forth in the East. Every day's post is anxiously expected. The Crescent is occupying the thoughts, the hopes, the sympathies, and even provoking the sorrows and the griefs of the best, the most civilized and Christian of the human family. The Koran has played so startling a part in the great drama of the past, that we naturally and anxiously inquire what place it is to occupy in the looming prospects of the future. I am here, not to guess or to calculate politically, but to interpret, as I may be able, inspired prophecy.

The two great prophecies to which I would direct attention, are contained in the Book of Daniel, and in the Book of Revelation. These writings of Daniel and St. John are as descriptive of things future, as Genesis and Exodus of things past. They are given to be read, and why not to be understood?

The first one is in the eighth chapter of the Book of Daniel, where we read the interpretation of what the seer saw. It says, "The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia and the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce