it is evident that one legitimate interpretation of this prophecy was the same entertained by the Jews, that God would send the old prophet in person, for it expressly states, "Elijah the prophet." But it so happened that another man altogether, John the Baptist, coming "in the spirit and power of Elias," is said by Christ to be "the Elias which was for to come."

Fourth. A perfect coincidence of character, circumstances, and events with any given prophecy, is perfect fulfilment. This is so plain and patent that we cannot deny it without denying the very proof of the Messiahship of the Son of God. When John sent his disciples to Christ to inquire, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ?" "Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, and the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and preached unto them." John will have sense whomsoever these coincidences are found, he is the Messiah.

the poor have the gospel As much as if he had said,

enough to know that in

With these principles to guide us, we proceed to the investigation of our subject.

The United States of America, our great country, is foretold in the Holy Scriptures.

We are fully apprised that the novelty and sublimity of our subject, upon its bare announcement, will awaken the incredulity of some, and enlist the opposition of others. To all such we politely bespeak the courtesy of a candid hearing. We are not concerned that you receive or reject the truth of this theory, but we are concerned that you carefully examine the testimony upon which it rests. Do you believe the Holy Scriptures? Then hear me

for my cause."

But that you may understand that we do not attempt to prove what is unreasonable and absurd, we propose the following question :

Is it at all probable that our great country, with its teeming magnificence, now the fear and glory of all lands, would have been overlooked by prophecy? How comes it to pass that smaller countries, and lesser kingdoms, retired hamlets, solitary islands, and seaport towns; that Edom, Moab, Egypt, and Syria; that Tarshish, Tyre, and Sidon, with the rest, are particularly programmed upon the inspired page, and our land the only portion of God's terrafirma that is proscribed a place in the book-that prophetic book that professes to map the world till

the end of time? Has the inspired penman no account, no place for a nation that is at this very moment telling more upon the intellectual and moral destiny of the world than any other under heaven? Do you believe it? And yet you must believe it if our theory is a fable.

The possibility of the truthfulness of our subject is certainly deeply interesting; the probability of the fact is startling; but the clear and unanswerable demonstration of that truth is actually sublime.

The predictions of the Bible touching the nations, down to the destruction of the Jewish capital, are indeed but a literal history of Egypt, Moab, Syria, Edom, and Judea. Here all is plain and self-evident, as time has witnessed the fulfilment. But from that memorable event, the downfall of Jerusalem, on to a certain chronological period, called by Daniel "the time of the end," all is obscurity. No interpretation breaks the seal of its wonders. Clouds curtain the heavens; and the symbols that glow in the vision of God's holy prophets are alike mysterious to them and to the wondering seraphim.

To Daniel, the prince of the prophets, this great truth seemed first to have been announced. When the prophet had the stupendous visions covering

that symbolic period, he exclaimed: "I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these wonders?

Go thy way, Daniel; for the words

And he said,

are closed up

This positive

and sealed till the time of the end." declaration of Jehovah was thrice repeated to the prophet. But Gabriel gives him to understand personally thus much: These wonders will not occur in your day, Daniel; you will rest with your fathers long before the scal shall be broken; nevertheless, you will arise in the resurrection of the just ; therefore, go thy way, and be comforted with the blessed hope. Such we suppose to be the meaning of the angel, when, closing his sublime mission to the prophet, he said, "But go thou thy way till the end be for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot in the end of the days."

That the time of the end was a certain chronological length, and not the end of the world, is very certain, for things are said of the time of the end not at all consistent with the scriptural account of the day of judgment. In the time of the end "many should run to and fro, and knowledge be increased;" then "the wise should understand, but none of the wicked should understand." Whereas, in the final day, we suppose the wise and the wicked will both un

derstand. These expressions evidently characterize that period called the time of the end, as an age of great locomotion, intelligence, and enterprise. And the words "wise" and "wicked," being generic terms, and nouns of multitude, doubtless refer to nations. The friends of civil and religious liberty shall understand, but subjects of absolutism, and the dupes of despotism, shall not understand.

As the visions of Daniel, that covered the lapse of ages to the time of the end, were sealed and closed up, it is conclusive that the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, Jeremiah and John, embracing the same subjects and measuring the same period, are interdicted also. This is a legitimate and necessary deduction.

Now, is it not very surprising that eminent men, deeply pious and profoundly learned, have never discovered the "seal" of the Divine interdiction placed upon these visions? The impenetrable mystery, by Divine authority, hangs before their eyes, while the vague and unsatisfactory explanations of the most gifted commentators confirm the truth of the Divine prohibition. The truth is, there is not one writer in the long learned catalogue of commentators on the prophecies, down to our present theory, but has attempted to explain the meaning