their cabinets the restoration of the Jews. There are books recently written, which urge on the nations to help them to their own land. The Jews in London are collecting money in order to purchase Palestine at this moment: the Jews in America have collected enormous sums to build the temple again in Jerusalem. All these things are signs of the times, and indications of the approaching change.

When the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, this restoration takes place. What are those times? As soon as the last believer has been gathered from the mass of the nations of the earth, and added to the company of the church of the redeemed, the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled. As soon as the Gospel has been preached, not to convert all nations, but as a witness to all nations, and the inhabitants around the Pole have been brought within its sound, then the time of the end is at hand. As soon as Mahometanism expires, the Crescent wanes, and the mosque of the Moslem resounds with the praises of the God of Abraham, the times of the Gentiles will have come to a close. As soon as the great Antichrist shall be overthrown, and Babylon shall sink like a millstone in the mighty deep, the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled. And then the dry bones on a thousand hills the bones of scattered Israel-shall be clothed with flesh, and become an army of living men. "If," says the Apostle in his Epistle to the Romans, "the fall of the Jews be the riches of the

world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness!" When the Gentile nations shall see a whole people begin their march from the east and from the west, in more majestic exodus than that of their forefathers from Egypt to Palestine, then will come to pass what the apostle predicts-that the Gentiles, seeing the stupendous spectacle, startled by its splendour and magnificence, will recognise the truth they have repudiated, and nations be born in a day. "And," says the Apostle, "we would not have you ignorant, brethren, that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes." When restored to their land, Zachariah tells us in his 12th chapter, "they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced"-Christ manifested to them"and they shall mourn." The prophecy of Zachariah implies that they shall be in their own land when they shall thus repent. "The land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart, the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart"-implying that they are settled in cities and sections of their own Palestine, enjoying political power and government in the midst of it;

and that then and there Christ shall be revealed to them-the Gospel accepted by them-and where once they shouted, "Crucify him!" they shall shout "Hosanna!" till the echoes of their songs reverberate from west to east, and from earth to heaven, and the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the God of Israel.

The Jew is now a reluctant witness to the truth of the New Testament. Their long resistance of its claims is one of its credentials. But one day, probably very soon, they will appear its glad advocates. The only thing wanting to complete the Jew's testimony to the inspiration of evangelists and apostles is his conversion. When that earnestly prayed-for era comes, the grandest sign of the times will startle the world, as of the striking of one of the great epochal hours of time.

V.

NOAH, HIS AGE AND OURS.

WE enter here on one of the great parallelisms of time. The coincidences we discover between the age of Noah and the nineteenth century are significant signs. They are proofs of the earth's old age, and yet foretokens of its predicted youth. Our Lord says, "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.” Luke xvii. 26-29.

History, whether sacred or profane, seems always to repeat itself. One great era in the world appears, when narrowly examined, to be simply the reflection of another; and a deed done in the day that now is, to be the echo of a deed done hundreds or thousands of years ago. Time seems to move in circles, history constantly to repeat itself, and so far to illustrate the maxim of the wise man, "There is nothing new under the sun." When we examine

great and startling epochs in the history of the world, we find points of contact, analogies, and coincidences most suggestive. The deluge, the destruction of Jerusalem, the end of this age, all seem to have coincident points, running, like sea and land, into each other.

The age of Noah is a prefiguration of the age that now is, the last great epoch of this world's life. History is never obsolete. He that knows best the history of the past, humanly speaking, will be the truest prophet of the character of the future. Some one made the remark in scorn, "History is an old almanack:" he stated a great truth, though he did not intend it. How does the almanack of this year differ from the almanack of the last? The dates differ slightly, but the acts are the same, the tides the same, the same rising and setting of the sun, summer and winter, spring and autumn. History is an old almanack; it is the same great drama, only with different actors, and slight changes in the parts that they play. If you take the events of the last two thousand years, and compare them with the events of the four thousand that preceded, you will be struck by the number of beautiful and interesting coincidences. The study of Genesis is a preparation for the study of the Apocalypse. Acquaintance with Leviticus is a ground-work for acquaintance with the Gospel according to St. John. The history of humanity in the desert is a type and prefiguration of humanity in the age in which our lot is now cast.