course, they were enabled to bring it home to the hearts of the people in the Jewish synagogues, with such convincing proof that they were constrained to believe the supposed impostor whom they had crucified was the Messiah. But had they once dreamed of rendering a spiritualizing or uncertain application, like the teachers of the present day, all would have been uncertainty and doubt, and demonstration would have vanished from the earth.

Having taken a view of the Old Testament Prophets, concerning prophecy and its fulfilment, and having shown clearly that nothing but a literal fulfilment was intended, the objector may inquire whether the same mode will apply to the predictions contained in the New Testament. We will therefore bring a few important instances of prophecy, and its fulfilment, from the New Testament; after which we shall be prepared to enter the vast field which is still future. One of the most remarkable prophecies in sacred writ is recorded by Luke, chap, xxi, 20-24: "And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto; for these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days; for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people; and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." This prophecy involves the fate of Jerusalem and the temple, and the whole Jewish nation, for at least eighteen hundred years. About the year seventy, the Roman army compassed Jerusalem. The disciples remembered the warning which had been given them by their Lord and Master forty years before, and fled to the mountains. The city of Jerusalem was taken, after a long and tedious siege, in which the Jews suffered the extreme of famine, pestilence and the sword; filling houses with the dead, for want of a place to bury them, while women ate their own children, for want of all things. In this struggle there perished, in Judea, near one million and a half of Jews, besides those taken captive. Their country was laid waste, their city burned, their temple destroyed, and the miserable remnant dispersed abroad into all the nations of the earth; in which situation they have continued ever since, being driven from one nation to another, often falsely accused of the worst of crimes, for which they have been banished and their goods confiscated. Indeed, they have been mostly accounted as outlaws among the various nations; the soles of their feet have found no rest, and they have been a hiss and a byword; and people have said, "These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of his land."

During all this time the Gentiles have possessed the land of Canaan, and trodden under foot the holy city where their forefathers worshipped the Lord. Now, in this long captivity, the Jews have never lost sight of the promises respecting their return. Their eyes have watched and failed with longing for the day, when they might possess again that blessed inheritance bequeathed to their forefathers; when they might again rear their city and temple, and re-establish their priesthood, and worship as in days of old. Indeed they have made several attempts to return, but were always frustrated in all their attempts; for it was an unalterable decree, that Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. On the subject of this long dispersion, Moses and the Prophets have written very plainly; indeed, Moses even mentioned the particulars of their eating their children secretly in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith their enemies should besiege them in all their gates. Whoever will read the twenty-eighth of Deuteronomy, will read the history of what has befallen the Jews, foretold by Moses with all the clearness that characterizes the history of past events, and all this thousands of years before its accomplishment.

Our next is found in Acts xxi, 10, 11, where a Prophet named Agabus took Paul's girdle and bound his own hands and feet, and said: "Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." The fulfilment of this prediction is too well known to need any description. We therefore proceed to notice a prophecy of Paul, recorded in 2 Tim. iv, 3, 4: "For the time will come, when they will not endure sound doctrine, but, after their own lusts, shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." This prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter; for it applies to every religious teacher who has arisen from that day unto the present, except those commissioned by direct revelation and inspired by the Holy Ghost. But, to convince the reader of its full accomplishment, we need only point to the numberless priests of the day who preach for hire, and divine for money, and who receive their authority from their fellow man; and as to the fables to which they are turned, we need only to mention the spiritualizings and private interpretations which salute our ears from almost every religious press and pulpit.

But there is another prophecy of Paul well worth our attention, as illustrative of the times in which we live; it is found in the first five verses of the third chapter of 2 Timothy: "This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." From the last verse of this quotation we learn to our astonishment that this sum of awful wickedness applies to professors of religion ONLY; that is, this would be the character of the (so called) Christian part of the community in the last days. Do not startle, kind reader; we do not make the application without proof positive to the point, for, remember, non-professors have no form of godliness, but those ungodly characters spoken of were to have a form of godliness, denying the power thereof. But, if you doubt Paul's testimony on the subject, look around you, examine for yourselves. "By their fruits ye shall know them." My heart is pained while I write. Alas, has it come to this; has the Spirit of Truth removed the veil of obscurity from the last days, only to present us with the vision of a fallen people; an apostate church, full of all manner of abominations, and even despising those who are good; while they themselves have nothing left but the form of godliness, denying the power of God; that is, setting aside the direct inspiration and supernatural gifts of the Spirit, which ever characterize the Church of Christ? Was it for this only that the Holy Spirit opened to the view of holy men the events of unborn time, enabling them to gaze upon the opening glories of the latter days? O ye Prophets and Apostles, ye holy men of old, what have you done if you stop here; if your prophetic vision only extended down the stream of time to the present year? Alas! you have filled our minds with sorrow and despair: the Jews you have left wandering in sorrow and darkness, far from all their hearts hold most dear on earth; their land a desolation, their city and temple in ruins, and they, without the knowledge of the true Messiah. The Gentiles, after