in the aggregate history of missions, been spent for good works. Not because there are not many earnest Christians, but because the preponderance of the world dwarfs them into insignificance. The American Constitution does not recognise God, because it is made for human society at large, and such recognition would interfere with the human rights of the majority, who ignore God! Governments, at the head of society, show, by the nature of their vast expenditures, the worldly principle that leavens it. As is the spirit, so are the effects. The fountain cannot rise above its source. The love of God is not in our present human society; and who, but such as are possessed of the Laodicean infatuation, can expect to reap figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns? Hence it is that we see thousands of millions spent every year for warlike purposes. Hence it is that it is so easy to raise millions for railroad enterprises, public buildings, and similar purposes; whilst expenditures for the moral elevation of the race are not considered to fall within the legitimate sphere of government! And as for God's Gospel, it is, to most, a mere abstraction. Men suffer it, as they permit other things; and they consider it a mark of liberality if private associations are allowed to devote themselves to it as much as they please.

As for the secret societies, their name is legion. How numerous are the brotherhoods ! How easy to persuade men to join them! How powerful are those combinations becoming that blindly aim to remedy the sufferings of the labouring classes! They do not know that what earth needs, and must have, it is a Divine King; and that One is offered, and will, though rejected, soon take the throne; and that nothing else than a God-man for ruler will suffice. He alone can successfully grapple with earth's protean evils. In default of this knowledge and trust the result will be terrific; for it is written: "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled; this shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow" (Isa. 1. 11).

Are these things abating? Has it not become a proverb that we live in an age of intense activity?

Even in the churches things are culminating. The Pope has been proclaimed infallible. Yet of good deeds, too, we see striking instances. For, notwithstanding the worldliness and deadness of Protestants, what noble actions do we see ! What specimens of splendid generosity! What illustrious stewardships! Some rich men understand their true position. Isaac Rich makes himself friends with the mammon of unrighteous

ness.

What a noble body of devoted missionaries, men and

women, have gone forth to the ends of the earth, preaching for a witness—a self-evident illustration that the end is at hand. In Burmah a harvest of souls is gathered. Madagascar teems with martyrs. The Chinese nation is supplied with New Testaments. From the most degraded of all savages, the aborigines of Australia, there is gathering out a remnant according to the election of grace. The Roman Catholic countries of Southern Europe are opened to Gospel preaching; yea, even Rome itself.

The very ends of the earth, too, are being laid open to view. The problem of the Nile-a greater riddle than that of the Sphinx-is solved. The supposed barren interior of Africa teems with multitudes. Polar expeditions multiply, and will, no doubt, shortly reach their goal. The bottom of the sea is explored. The waters are replenished with fish, through human ingenuity. We expect these things, or similar things, as a matter of course, in the current news of the day.

The subject is very copious; our article has extended to a greater length than we intended when we began; and yet many points remain.

We have reserved to the last the most important point of all. We refer to the culminating of the prophetic foretokens; to the intensifying of those signs of the times pointed out to us by the Holy Spirit as signifying the end of the age. For, this was the question of the four listeners on the Mount of Olives: not only, "When shall these things be?"-the throwing down of the stones of the gorgeous temple-but also, "What the sign of Thy parousia, and of the closing of the age?" Had commentators, believing in verbal inspiration, carefully distinguished these three particulars, successive in regular order of place and time, Matt. xxiv. would not have been such a locus vexatus. The parousia is before the end of the age.

Now these signs have been intensifying before the eyes of mankind, and especially during the last few years, since such an interest has been awakened in prophetic studies on the part of a few scattered throughout Christendom. If it were said to us : "Your serial is now in its tenth year; have your expectations of the nearing close of the age not been disappointed?" our reply would be: "Look around you."

There is a gradual evolution of the Divine purposes. Our Lord has carefully pointed out that notwithstanding the occurrence of these signs, the end is not yet (Matt. xxiv. 6; Mark xiii. 7; Luke xxi. 9). The end is not immediately, forthwith. The end is not suddenly, hastily. The end is not at once. (This is the signification of the word ev0ews, Luke xxi. 9, rendered in our version " by and by "). The plain meaning is

that there will be a succession of events, and that the judgments will intensify. First, the destruction of the temple: then at the end of the dispensation (as gathered from the harmony of Scripture), first the parousia and finally the epiphany. So in the judgment scenes of the Revelation, the trumpets in horrors exceed the seals, and the vials the trumpets; for in the vials, in the seven last plagues contained in them, is filled up the wrath of God.

Now we ask any candid man whether, during the last ten years, the predicted signs have not been intensifying from year to year? Is it not so that all but the blind must have seen them, and all but the deaf heard them? Why, the universal opinion among men, good and bad, in the church and in the world, is, that we are close upon a grand crisis. The world expects the result to be human perfection; the postmillennial church the universal prevalence of righteousness through present instrumentalities or providences when specially blessed or overruled from above; the premillennial few the prior revelation of that Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, the Lawless One. As to the imminence of a great crisis, there is agreement.

Now what are the general signs pointed out by our Lord? They are wars, and rumours of wars; earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and fearful sights; the preaching of the gospel for a witness; the waxing cold of the love of many. He also mentions other particular signs, referring to specific periods; but of them we will not now speak.

When was there ever before in the history of the world, such a multiplication of these things? And, looking at them as a whole though a particular class may have been, at some specified time, wanting-have they not been increasing and deepening in a steady ratio? It must be remembered that what we have seen is but a foretaste of what is coming. "Europe is a volcano." And not Europe alone, but modern society, Christian, Pagan, Mohammedan, yea, the whole world. Rumours of wars? Look at the Alabama claims, Pestilence? Look at the cholera, the plague, the small-pox. Famines? Look at Persia. Earthquakes? Look round the world. Fearful sights? Look at Chicago and Peshtigo, at the floods and storms, at the phenomena in the skies.

Already now, the signs of the times, and the demonstration from them, are ample. And if we are right, let our readers remember that these things will continue to intensify more and more.

Should there be a temporary lull in 1872-which is not likely let not our readers be off their guard. We know not in what watch the Master will call. He may call in all succes

sively at evening, at midnight, at cockcrowing, and in the morning first to His eagle saints, at evening; then to the Wise Virgin saints, at midnight; then to the Tribulation saints, at cockcrowing; then to the Harvest saints on that blessed morning when the eyes of all of us shall behold the King in His beauty; when those who awake shall be satisfied with His likeness, beholding His face in righteousness; when they shall find in His presence fulness of joy, and at His right hand pleasures for evermore.

Brethren, we see the day approaching! As a snare shall it come on all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth. But it need not take us unawares. It is to guard against this very thing that we are warned. (Luke xxi. 34). Therefore, let us not be off our guard. Let us be ready. Let us WATCH!

ART. VI. ICHABOD! O IMMANUEL!

THE places in the Scripture where these two opposite words occur are very striking and worthy of the closest attention. One of them is found in a mournful history (see 1 Sam. iv.), and the other in a glorious prophecy (see Isa. viii.) More than three hundred years intervened between these two utterances. Let us glance at both in connection with the persons and period to which they originally belong, and then endeavour to apply them to ourselves and our own times.

The later years of Eli's administration were full of evil. The flagrant sins of the sons of this high priest encouraged the doers of iniquity, and their transgression overspread the land. Shiloh, once the centre of blessing, became a fountain of abomination. God's heavy curse hung over the place, and the priesthood; and soon desolation came upon both, so that Eli's house became a "by-word," and Shiloh a "hissing."

The solemn prophecy recorded in 1 Sam. ii. 33, 34, was fulfilled in all its terrible minuteness, and when the crushing tidings of the death of his two sons was brought to Eli, another and to him a still more afflictive event was announced, which was, that the ark of God was carried away in triumph into the temple of Dagon, and the victory of the uncircumcised seemed complete. The erring Eli was crushed by these sad tidings; he too passed away on that disastrous and mournful day.

There was another person "whose heart trembled for the ark of God." When the wife of the wretched Phinehas heard of the death of her husband and of her father-in-law, and that the ark of God was taken, "her pains came upon her." Her

sympathising neighbours tried to cheer her with the announcement that usually is a joyous one, "Fear not, for thou hast borne a son." But her grief was too great for earthly solace: She answered not, neither did she regard it." But ere the new born infant was left motherless amidst these scenes of woe, the dying parent gave it a name descriptive of her chief sorrow, and commemorative of Israel's greatest loss: "She named the child ICHABOD, saying, The glory is departed from Israel because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of God is taken." The margin has affixed to the word "Ichabod"-" where is the glory?" or, "there is no glory!"

:

This was, indeed, a true testimony. The Psalmist, referring back to this event, says that God greatly abhorred Israel, so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men ; and delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemies' hand (Ps. lxxviii. 59–61). But the Philistines could not retain what they had taken, and God in mercy restored the symbol of His presence, and in answer to the prayers of the godly, re-established His sanctuary among them.

Samuel was God's instrument of blessing to Israel; and David was honoured to bring God's ark in triumph to Mount Zion (see 2 Sam. vi., Ps. lxviii.) No doubt, David was greatly indebted to that honoured man Samuel, with whom, he for a time resided in the days of his early discipline and of training for his high destiny (1 Sam. xix. 18).

Then came the glad and golden time of the first years of Solomon, when the temple for which David had made preparation was erected, consecrated, and filled with the glory of Jehovah (2 Kings viii. 10, 11). But before the builder of that grand temple had passed away, distant echoes of the dying words of the widow of Phinehas were heard, and intimations were given that the glory would depart from Jerusalem even as it had from Shiloh. Solomon built idol shrines near to God's temple; and He who will never brook a rival, who had "done as He said" to David, must needs fulfil His threatening so plainly laid before Solomon (1 Kings ix. 1-4).

But Jehovah was very long-suffering, and for many years "preserved a lamp in Jerusalem for His servant David's sake." Ages rolled away, many of them laden with crime and chastisement, before God wrote "ICHABOD" on the temple of Solomon. During those ages, a few godly kings reigned, and some faithful priests ministered, while many prophets were