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WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE?

OR

SIGNS OF THE LAST TIMES.

OR

SIGNS OF THE LAST TIMES.

BY

THE REV. JOHN CUMMING, D.D., F.R.S.E.,

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"Can ye not discern the signs of the times?"-MATT. xvi. S.

LONDON:

JAMES NISBET & CO., 21, BERNERS STREET.

1868.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

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PREFACE.

THE events of the times thicken as we read. One follows another with continuous and accelerated speed. The greater event of to-day displaces that of yesterday, to be itself lost in the more stupendous phenomenon of tomorrow. Let any dispassionate reader recall and review the events of the last two years; catastrophes by sea and land, earthquakes, tempests and storms destructive of life and property, as if the air, the ocean, and the earth were disturbed and convulsed by a sense of nearing change, -financial convulsions that have created extensive misery and universal distrust-political changes, regarded by many as initial revolutions-organized insurrections— pestilences smiting the cattle on the hills, and the owners by their firesides—wars on a gigantic scale, and preparations for rumoured wars more gigantic still-and then let him say if our lot is not cast in a "time of trouble," and amid the signs of "that tribulation, that great one."

He

These, however, and other phenomena are enumerated by our Lord as presignificant of the approach of the "time of the end;" and he requires us to study them, lest they overtake us unprepared and unawares. gives us this graphic and awful prophecy of the last times, "There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon earth distress of nations with

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