has promised, and man vainly expects he can himself create. In chemistry and in the moral arrangements of the world, the disintegration of existing combinations is always preparatory to new and frequently more beautiful revelations of the glory of the Maker, and the beauty of the things He has made. Chaos grew into genesis six thousand years ago. The fall will issue in the regeneration and restoration of all things. Designedly or undesignedly, we are breaking up the present, in order to make way for the construction of the future; and the speed, and energy, and universal consent with which we enter on the work, is one of the signs that the new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness is at our doors, and that presentiments, which are prophecies, are within us. The solemn prophecy of Ezekiel seems the very type and spirit of the age :-"I will overturn, overturn, overturn; and it shall be no more, until He shall come whose right it is." "Thus saith the Lord, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with my glory, saith the Lord of hosts."

Another sign of the close of this dispensation is one that is exciting disputes and suggesting

difficulties among many-the expectation of supernatural, or rather infra-natural manifestations of the wicked one. I cannot shut my eyes to the predictions of Scripture as to the character of the last days. Feats above the level of the human are ascribed to the Antichrist -assumed and exercised by the Church of Rome-and in intenser degree, and with yet more appalling emphasis, will in all probability be displayed, before Rome sinks into the fiery gulf, and Antichrist is destroyed by the brightness of the Redeemer's advent. Let us hear such predictions as these: (2 Thess. ii. 9)— "Whose coming is after (or according to) the working (or energy) of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders." The phrase, "lying wonders," does not here mean lying miracles, but miracles that profess to prove what is a lie. Now, the Church of Rome is at the present moment radiating miracles she calls so in all directions. Many of them, as given by Dr. Newman, are exceedingly absurd, and proofs of the Oratorian's wonderful credulity; but I am not sure that the priests of the Church of Rome have not done supernatural, or rather infra-natural deeds, above the reach of human power, by the inspiration and the aid of the wicked one. I remember one day,—I think I related the circumstance

I

once before, in a Lecture in Exeter hall,-sitting in my study, when the servant came in, and said, "A strange-looking gentleman wants to see you." The gentleman was ushered in. The moment he appeared, I scanned him from top to toe, with all a Scotchman's penetration and watchfulness. As I looked at him, I saw that he had a hat, which he politely took off, so broad that it would have been an admirable parasol in sunshine, and a splendid umbrella in a heavy shower. I noticed that he had a cloak all over him, reaching down nearly to his very ankles, with a large cross, and a heart pierced by a dagger on his left breast, and written round it, "Passio Jesu Christi Domini." looked at his feet, but instead of seeing those very vulgar and secular things called boots or shoes, I noticed that he had no stockings and no shoes, but, instead, a sole of leather below each foot, each string coming between each toe, and all tied round his ankles; and the knot or bow, I think you call it, was so exquisitely tied, that, if he were not a monk, I should have said "a lady must have tied that, for no man's fingers could have done it." Though I had not seen him except once in my life before, in a railway carriage, I knew him at once, and said, "I believe I have the honour of addressing the Hon. and Rev. George

Spencer?" (brother of the Earl Spencer.) He said, "That was my name; but my name now is Father Ignatius, the Passionist." I said, "I am very glad to see you." He said he had called upon Lord John Russell, and Dr. Hook, and Mr. Villiers, I think, and many others; and, knowing I had a deep interest in the Roman Catholic question, he had come to me to make a grand proposition, which he had submitted to others. I said, "Let me hear it." He said, "It is this; that you cease to preach any more against Popery on your side, and that we cease to preach any more against Protestantism on our side, and begin to pray for unity." I said to him, "Well, that seems very beautiful; but how can two walk together except they be agreed? I am preparing a Lecture for next Tuesday evening, the very title of which is, 'The Pope the Man of Sin:' now, how can you and I pull together?" I said, "Father Ignatius, I tell you what we can do. You can meet me at Exeter Hall an hour before the time; you shall explain for half-an-hour your plan; I will explain in half-an-hour my difficulties; then I will give you a quarter of an hour's correction of my blunders; and you can then listen to my Lecture." He said "he would be happy to come and avail himself of the opportunity," but refused to listen to my

Lecture. He objected to controversy altogether. I said, "Will you let a clergyman of the Church of England begin with that beautiful collect, O God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,' and the Lord's prayer?" He said, "No, certainly not; it is contrary to our convictions as Catholics to pray with those that are heretics: therefore we cannot pray together." "Well, Father," I said, after an hour's conversation, "sometimes I am struck with the conviction that there is something in your Church above the level of the human. I see such devotedness in your priests-(and who can deny it?)-I see such sacrifices made by some-(and it is right that we should concede it) -I see in yourself, for instance, such sequestration to what I believe to be an awful and a miserable superstition-I see in you such untiring earnestness, that I sometimes begin to think, Father Ignatius, that your Church has something supernatural or infra-natural about it." He paused, and, looking me in the face, said with great solemnity, "Dr. Cumming, if the Church of Rome be not the only Church of the living God, she is the master-piece of the devil; she can be nothing between." I said to him, "You will pardon me, but I solemnly believe your Church belongs to the second alter