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B.C. 582, corresponding with "the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon." (Jeremiah xxv. 1.) Under Nebuchadnezzar the house of Judah lost their national power and went into captivity, and B.C. 582 +2,450 =A.D. 1868—to say the least, a very remarkable coincidence. And now, what in the spring of 1865 are the signs of "the times?" How long has not the budding of the fig-tree emblematized the present condition of the Jews? What has become their condition under the Gentile nations among whom they have been scattered, and who once oppressed them? What bearing has the doctrine of nationalities, maintained by the most powerful monarchs on the continent of Europe, upon the apparent destiny of the Jews? What repairs, what new buildings, what railroads have been projected and begun around Jerusalem? What progress has the Universal Israelitish Alliance, formed at Paris, A.D. 1860, to promote the return of the Jews to Palestine, been making? The first time, or 360 years of the punishment of Israel, has long passed away; the second time of 2,520 years is nearly at its absolute close; and the third and last brief time of 1,260 literal days, or three and a half years, is close at hand. Surely the kingdom is about ere long to return to Jerusalem; the kingdom of Jesus Christ at Jerusalem is at hand to come. And very soon now will it be said in truth and reality to Israel, "Thy God reigneth." "Arise, shine, for thy light is come: and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." And let all the people of Israel say Amen! Even as every enlightened Christian cannot but say, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen."

BORROWED LIGHT.

THE various systems of heathenism have had their apologists in modern times, and in European society. Voltaire, Gibbon, Priestly, and others have represented these systems as either innocent superstitions or useful means of civil government and social order. It has been eloquently said, in reply to all these, by the late Robert Hall, "Though the system of paganism is justly condemned by reason and Scripture, yet it assumed as true several principles of the first importance to the preservation of public manners, such as a persuasion of invisible power, of the folly of incurring the Divine vengeance for the attainment of any present advantage and the Divine approbation of virtue, so that, strictly speaking, it was the mixture of truth in it which gave it all its utility."

Let us trace this principle in "the mixture of truth" which obtained in other systems during the patriarchal dispensation of revealed religion. The Chaldean is the most ancient of these systems, the parent of them all. It is the most exact copy of the state of religious estrangement which prevailed in leading men to attempt the erection of the Tower of Babel. From the testimony of Diodorus it appears that they believed in a supreme God exercising a providential care over the world; they also believed in a trinity of emanations, gods, demons, and heroes, showing at

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that early age that the doctrine of a trinity in unity had existed in the views of patriarchal piety, and was not wholly lost in the traditions of Epicurus says, "It cannot be disputed that all nations, in all ages, believed in the existence of divine beings." Herodotus and Strabo inform us that the Persians worshipped one God as supreme, but as emanating from Him two other gods, or light and darkness; that these two other gods contested for ascendancy, but the supreme Deity acted as mediator, and that by His intervention the triumph would ultimately rest with the good principle. Here, strangely mixed with fable, are the first principles of revealed religion:-The unity of God in trinity, the existence of Satan, a tempter and destroyer, the necessity and prevailing power of a mediator, and an ultimate reign of goodness. The Egyptian philosophy laid it down as the first of all truths that there was one supreme God. The doctrine of a trinity entered the Grecian school from the East, the preceptor of Pythagoras affirmed God to be "God, matter, and duration," and that these are eternal. Mr. Howitt, in his "History of Priestcraft," ingeniously traces this doctrine to nearly the age of Noah, and then disingenuously accounts for it by the number of Noah's sons. principle of one God, and yet of a trinity in the manifestation of that one God, is traceable through all the forms of Paganism. The birth of a Messiah was a common hope through the East. Jerome, an early father of the Church, tells us that Budda, the great Hindoo impostor, gave out that he was that Messiah, and that he was taken from a virgin's side, showing that the impression was what Isaiah prophesied. The wise men of the East looked for the immediate approach of the Messiah when He actually appeared, and sought the infant Jesus, guided by the star of Bethlehem. In the present state of religion among the Chinese we find traditionary proof of the doctrine of a mediator. The Emperor is the high priest of the system, and he, on stated occasions, interposes between the Deity and the people; through him all the access is supposed to be made. The doctrine of a sacrificial atonement is shown by the sacrifices of all nations traced back to the earliest ages. Long before an idol image was known in the East, the Persians offered sacrifices to the sun. Socrates, one of the wisest Grecians, died offering a cock to the god Esculapius. The necessity of repentance and prayer is equally a doctrine of all the Pagan systems, and most of the philosophic systems of Greece. The accounts given by our missionaries of the prayers and penances of the nations of India agree with those given by Pliny many centuries past. The doctrines of the soul's immortality and of future rewards and punishments were believed by the Egyptians, as we learn on the testimony of Herodotus; by the Druids, on the testimony of Laertius; by Plato, as is set forth in his own writings, in terms sometimes perspicuous and beautiful. These doctrines were interwoven in the brilliant eloquence of Cicero, and sung in the graceful numbers of Vigil, while the absurdities. in which these tenets were clothed received an interesting perpetuity in the classic satire of Lucian. It is impossible to know anything of the writings of the philosophers from Pythagoras to Cicero, and not perceive that the heathen of Greece and Italy clung with more or less distinctness to the hope that the soul is immortal, and that there is a world of happiness beyond the grave. That the doctrine of a final judgment and general conflagration, as prophesied by Enoch and by Noah, was a doctrine of the

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Egyptians, is evident from the Times of Plato, and that the Celts held this opinion, the ancient writings of Ireland and Iceland prove. Even the belief of a divine revelation is proven by the pretensions to sacred books and oracles, prophets and prophetesses, throughout nearly all people.

That revelation is the source whence this amount of good in other systems is derived will be evident when we consider the influence which patriarchal religion had upon the eastern world. The antiquity of the Mosaic writings is unquestionable, and when it is considered that Moses was born only eight hundred years after the death of Noah, and not two hundred and fifty years after the death of Abraham, and that the duration of human life was then so great that an individual witnessed many generations, even were Moses not inspired, the great facts he relates must have been within his power for all the purposes of honest narrative. Traditionary evidences in other nations, of the Deluge, and Noah, and of the great facts and characters of the Mosaic history, are most ample. In all the eastern nations of antiquity recorded traditions of the Deluge occur, and in India and China modern researches have discovered similar traditionary remains. The name of Abraham was known amongst the ancient Chaldeans, Syrians, Persians, Egyptians, and Arabs, and generally through the East his name is revered, and sometimes worshipped. The Egyptians claimed Moses to be a priest of their religion, probably arising from the fact that his father-in-law, Jethro, was an Ethiopian priest, and the opinion is not without supporters that Egypt received most of its subsequent civilization and theology from Ethiopia. Certainly, Moses had, in his residence in Midian, an opportunity of giving his principles to that people through the house of Jethro, whose family was numerous, and whose condition, like that of others of whom we read, was a prince as well as a priest. It is not likely that the other children of Jethro would be wholly exempt from the influence of such a man, even granting that there had not previously existed any just views of God in the house of the Midianitish priest. During the long residence of the Israelites in Egypt, and in the events of the mighty miracles performed, it is not difficult to account for the influence of revelation there. From the life of Abraham we learn that he himself lived in Chaldea, Syria, and Egypt, and that he had several brothers; and that some piety prevailed in their families, we see in the history of Isaac's marriage, and in the history of Lot, Abraham's brother's son; and as the families lived far apart, the influence of the religion of the whole must have been extended. But at that period there were other families who acknowledged the true God, and who were of unquestionable piety.

Melchizedec, King of Salem, is called priest of the Most High God, his name implying King of Righteousness, and the name of his dominions implying peace, indicating that this partook of his influence. This man Abraham treated as a superior. Must not the characters of these contemporaneous persons, men of eminence, power, and wisdom (Abraham himself a conqueror of princes), have produced a mighty effect upon the nations of the East? Did Abraham receive the promise to plead it? Did he not also proclaim it? Did Lot escape from Sodom only for his family's safety? Did he not testify the history of the dread event from which he found deliverance? Was the column into which Lot's wife was

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turned only for her punishment, and not as a warning to those who might look upon it? Besides, Abraham was the father of many nations, and the principles of the patriarch flowed through all the East with his own descendants.

But there is another argument in addition to these to account for the influence of revelation upon the Eastern systems. Hitherto we have argued as if revelation was only transmitted orally. There are, we think, good grounds for believing that between the Deluge and the time of Moses there were several writings extant. Some allusion to this fact in the Pentateuch is of a very strong nature. That the book of Job existed in the time of Moses is more than probable from certain internal marks taken in connection with its very remote antiquity. Some eminent Bible scholars are of opinion that 120 years prior to the time of Abraham Job flourished and suffered in Idumea. If, then, there be strong presumption that there were writings extant prior to the time of Moses, even that this one book of inspiration, the book of Job, existed, together with such men as Noah, Job, Abraham, Melchizedec, Lot, Laban, and other characters, it would have been impossible but that the whole population of the world at the time of Moses, must have had such knowledge of revealed principles and inspired characters as left upon all their systems that portion of the truth which the records of far remote Eastern philosophy present.

But whatever might have been the influence of revealed religion upon the nations in the time of Moses, from that period the Israelites formed a history too important not greatly to modify the opinions of other nations.

It is impossible, whatever the state of society may have been, but that the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Syria, and the career of astounding victories which established their settlement, must have excited the fears and the inquiries of all the neighbouring nations, and sent the terrible name of the Jehovah of the Jews to the utmost bounds of civilization. Is it too much of conjecture to suppose that the end God had in view by bringing them through such a route, and establishing them by such a signal mode, was this very thing rather than their correction and encouragement, the judgment of the nations, or the typical effect for future ages of His Church? After their settlement in Canaan their history discloses many important facts which show their influence upon the world. With Egypt they formed frequent alliances against the Assyrian power, so that in the necessities of war their armies blended. But even in peace there was converse with Egypt. Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh, and married his daughter. During that period the intercourse of Israel also with the neighbouring Phoenicians was the closest, especially connected with the building of the Temple, and through them, ultimately, to some extent, Hebrew opinion must have reached every naval people. The captivity made the Chaldean empire acquainted with the Jews and some of the greatest prophets, and the best of men honoured the name of Israel through that period. The proclamation of Nebuchadnezzar in favour of the God of the Jews, the fame of Daniel, the escape of Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego in the furnace, would spread the truths of Israelitish doctrine far and wide. Many of the Jews remained in Chaldea after the conquest of Cyrus, and thus gave some permanency to the influence of their principles in that portion of the East. The proclamations

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and favours of Cyrus would make them an object of inquiry to the Persians and Medes; and thus every event contributed to keep up the attention of the nations to this mysterious people. Daniel was contemporaneous with many of the Grecian philosophers, Thales, Solon, Therecydes, Pythagoras; and some of these certainly visited Egypt, Babylon, and other Eastern countries, and thus imbibed those notions of truth which we have seen pervaded many of the Grecian schools, and which, by Pythagoras and Plato the most especially, were received and propagated. Many of the early Christians in their writings maintain that Pythagoras in his Oriental journey must have had frequent opportunities of conversing with the Jewish prophets. In the time of Alexander the founding of Alexandria gave a fresh occasion for Jewish knowledge to form a partial resting-place in Egypt, and of being disseminated in Egypt through Alexandria to the congregated crowds from so many nations, and especially to Greece, by the translation into the Greek tongue, two hundred and eighty years before Christ, of the Old Testament Scriptures. Clemens Alexandrinus, an early Christian father, affirms, on the authority of Aristobulus, an Alexandrian Jew, that there existed a Greek version of the Pentateuch prior to the translation of the seventy, from which the Greek philosophers knew the doctrines of Moses. He calls Plato "the philosopher of the Hebrews," whose doctrines concerning God, and virtue, and a future state, in a great measure agree with those of the Scriptures. Eusebius, in his 'Preparatio Evangelica,' quotes largely from Plato's dialogues 'to show how nearly his opinions approached, and even his language approaches, to the opinions and language of the Bible." Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in the fifth century, delivered several ingenious opinions as to the source of Plato's knowledge, and unhesitatingly ascribes it to Jewish intercourse. Josephus, born soon after our Lord's crucifixion, a cautious, acute, and learned Jew, who obtained the favour of the Romans who lived at Alexandria, and had, therefore, the most favourable opportunity of knowing at once the Eastern, Jewish, and Grecian theology, declares, with unlimited boldness, that from the writings and divine knowledge of the Jews all real wisdom had been disseminated in the earth. Nor need we be surprised that the influence of Eastern opinion of any kind should have obtained in Greece: Pythagoras was a Persian; Orpheus, a Thracian; and Thales, a Phoenician, of the country the most contiguous to Palestine. From Greece the Romans had principally their knowledge of theological truth, and all the Grecian schools were established in Italy.

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At length the Saviour of men appeared; the promised branch sprang up and blossomed and bore fruit, and shed its fragrance afar, that the nations might inhale new life; the gloom of the Cross, the glory of Olivet had passed away, but the testimony of both was borne throughout the Roman world, and whosoever believed in Jesus became new creatures. As, according to the Psalmist, the stars spoke the glory of God from the heavens, and His power and Godhead were known wherever their voices were heard, so the stars of the Gospel arose upon the nations and uttered their voice: "It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."

Since the introduction of Christianity, false systems have arisen from the professedly Christian Church; such, of course, possess whatever good they have from the source from which they parted. One system arose, however, teaching that there are one God and one prophet. The