vengeful Hindoos? Now that we rule one-fourth of the human race, having colonial dependencies in every region of the globe, may not an overgrown and unwieldy empire present the weakness of too long a line of defence, offering a choice of vulnerable points for the attack of an enemy ? Might not a conjunction of powerful navies disable our singly invincible fleet, leaving our shores at the mercy of invading forces? Cannot disaffection in priest-deluded Ireland be fostered into danger by an insidious foe? Again, as our mechanical genius has made our island the workshop and warehouse of the world, the very livelihood of our population is dependent on a free traffic of the seas; is it a hopeful sign, therefore, to find the maritime strength of our rivals and detractors increasing? Besides, our great cotton industry is yet flourishing upon the slavery which is threatening the existence of the United States, our prosperity being thus largely built upon an unrighteous and rotten foundation.

But if there are indications of a coming storm upon all the nations, there are also intimations of the happy era which is to follow, when, under a new, and as yet unperceived reorganization of the world's inhabitants in their social and political relations, "the saints" will "take the kingdom," and (as Daniel describes it) "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and

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obey them." Swift transit across lands and seas, instantaneous communication between peoples on opposite sides of this mighty globe, and the opening up of every remote recess into which travellers can explore, present means of publication of the Gospel unlimited in resource and rapidity; while the startling evangelical revivals in our own and other lands, are harbingers of that full outpouring of the Spirit which will consummate the renovation of the whole human family. And to show the possibility of "a nation being born in a day," we have in the Scripture annals one grand and wonderful example; for, two thousand seven hundred years ago, the "great city of three days' journey" repented at the solitary crying of Jonah, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."(")

A time is coming when the preaching and diffusion of the Word of Life will be accompanied by the descent of the Spirit comparable to a universal Pentecost; transforming all the kindreds of the earth in a series of vast revivals. Satan will no longer be the reigning deity of this planet, with its six hundred out of nine hundred millions of inhabitants, who have never heard of Christianity; and "the mystery of God" being finished, the Church will no longer consist of a despised and persecuted few, or the scheme of Christ's redemption seem a failure. There will be a long duration of general holiness and joy, in which men's toil shall be lightened, their lives lengthened, and an exhibition be made of our

(p) And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor

beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.-Jonah iii. 4-10.

world as in all things regenerated, restored from its fall, and become a meet recompense for its Redeemer's suffering.

This glorious millennial age is to be succeeded by a short relapse into the power of Satan; then will come the last day, the dissolution of the present face of nature, and the arraigning of the risen dead with the translated saints before the awful tribunal which shall consigu them to the eternal abodes of blessedness or woe.

Such is a brief outline of the plan of Providence which we trace in the annals of the historian, and decipher in the scrolls.

of prophecy. The Fates of pagan mythology, weaving the web of destiny, were but the ignorant conception and embodiment of a truth: God does weave the varying pattern of the ages, as well as the minor figures of individual lives, according as it pleases Him, and in execution of a previously traced design. And for the information and comfort of His people, He has favoured them (as we shall see) in the books of the Hebrew seers, and the writings of the evangelists and apostles, with a prewritten history and chronology of these events to the end of time.

THE prophet Daniel, said to have been of the royal house of David, was a lad in Judea when Nineveh was destroyed, in accordance with the predictions of Nahum ; and Nebuchadnezzar having invaded Judea shortly after that great event, and twentytwo years before the destruction of Jerusalem, namely in the year 606 B.C., (according to the common chronology,) Daniel was carried with other captives to Babylon. Though under twenty years of age, he was one of the Hebrew youths "of the king's seed, and of the princes; in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace," selected to be taught the learning of the Chaldeans. God "brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs;" and Daniel and his companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fearing to defile themselves with the king's meat, (the flesh of animals offered as victims to the idol gods,) and with the king's wine, (poured as libations in the

(q) Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God.-Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. -Ezekiel xiv. 14, 20.

Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the

same worship,) miraculously throve for three years upon pulse and water, more than others who partook of the royal dainties. "As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams." He soon became distinguished in the Babylonian court, as well as among his own people, for great wisdom and exalted piety. God himself bears testimony, by the mouth of Ezekiel, to his attainments and excellence ;(1) and, favoured by the fullest Divine communications respecting the course of Providence to the end of time, he is addressed by a holy angel as "Daniel, a man greatly beloved."(") Like the virtuous Joseph who, interpreting the dreams wherewith God visited the sleep of Pharaoh, was made ruler of Egypt, the devout Daniel, expounding the visions of Nebuchadnezzar, became governor of the province of Babylon, chief of the wise men, and "sat in the gate of the king; " afterwards holding high offices of trust and power under the Medo-Persian monarchy. The earlier part of the Book

midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee.-Ezekiel xxviii. 2, 3.

(r) And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words th it I speak unto thee, and stand upright for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.-Daniel x. 11.

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of Daniel (that is, from the fourth verse of the second chapter to the end of the seventh chapter), like a portion of the Book of Ezra, was written in the Chaldee language; referring mainly to the Babylonian empire, and therefore probably penned for the use of the monarchs and their subjects. While the poetic portions are not comparable to the compositions of other prophets for elegance or glowing magnificence of thought and diction, the very plainness of the style enhances the value of the circumstantial description of future events and distant periods. After his first appearance as a revealer of secrets, expounding the celebrated image-dream of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel had four separate visions, all relating to historical transactions then far in the future; he also solved the mystery of the warning vision of the king's madness for a specified time, and declared the dread significance of the mystic signs on the wall of Belshazzar's banquet hall. The third in order of the prophet's visions we shall take first, as applicable to the purpose of the present chapter.

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In the same year that had witnessed the fall of the Babylonian kingdom, and the succession of Darius the Mede, and probably also a very short time before the miraculous preservation of Daniel in the den of lions, the prophet, understanding by the Book of Jeremiah that God would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem, gave himself to prayer and fasting in sackcloth and ashes-humbling himself before God on behalf of his nation, and entreating for the promised restoration. "And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.—And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people

The question of the authenticity and date of Daniel's Book is not considered. We assume the truth of the Book;

an

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Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God; yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision."-Daniel ix. 3, 20-23. This angel was not merely appearance, but a person, described by Daniel as "the man Gabriel;" a ministering spirit assuming the form of a man in order to be visible to the prophet. May we add a remark here on one of the confounding mysteries of the spiritual world? It is stated as a matter of fact that the angel, at the command which came forth from the Divine majesty, travelled swiftly on this errand; and whether Gabriel had been already present in some distant region of the earth, or commenced his flight from his place among the shining ranks of heaven-a locality that may be either the central sun of the universe, or some creation which is not a globular world at all, and lying far beyond our astronomy-the journey (it is implied) occupied the hours of Daniel's supplication; giving us an idea of actual distance traversed by rapid flight. Whence it seems to follow that angelic beings must be personally present in the places where their influence is operating.

The communication so conveyed from God is one of the keys to the peculiar prophetic notation; in which, we believe,

and the Book itself states the year in which each vision occurred to the prophet.

days are to be reckoned as years. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy."-Daniel ix. 24. Seventy weeks were "determined," or more properly "divided," upon the Jewish people, between the issuing of a decree for the restoration of Jerusalem and the era of the Messiah; when the last great sacrifice should be offered for sin, when "the righteousness, or righteous one, of ages," the long-waited-for person, should be brought in, and the office of the prophets should cease ;(s) while the expression, "to anoint the most Holy," or "the holy of holies," may refer to the baptism of Christ, or perhaps to His coming to His holy temple, the phrase being nowhere else applied to a person.

Daniel does not say that SO many years shall elapse, but that there shall be "seventy sevens" (heptads or hepdomads), which our translators have rendered "weeks" and whether the unit of each seven be a day, week, month, or year, is not stated. The precise length of time indicated by this enigmatic formula could only be ascertained by the event; and accordingly the fulfilment of the prediction in the coming of Christ, 490 years after the close of the Babylonish captivity, did

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prove that the " sevens were of so many years. But the Jews were accustomed to compute periods in this manner; so that one of the Rabbins who lived about fifty years before Christ, felt himself warranted by this prophecy in asserting that the advent of Messiah could not be deferred longer than fifty years. With the Jews every seventh month was a sabbatical month, just as the seventh day of the week was the sabbatical day; and every seventh year was the sabbatical year. A whole week was also denominated a sabbath h;' seven "sabbaths," or weeks of years, being reckoned to the fiftieth or jubilee year.(') So that weeks of years-that is, weeks in which the days stood for years-were well understood by the Hebrews to whom the prophecies were primarily addressed; and it was quite natural for the Book of the Chronicles to say that, during the seventy years' captivity, the desolated land kept "her sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years," that is, ten sabbaths or weeks of years. (") We have other enigmatical statements of time beside weeks of years. Daniel, describing the sequence of empires throughout the whole course of time, commencing in his own day, indicates the term during which the saints are to be given into the hand of a very great and wicked ruling power, by the expression "until a time and times and the dividing of time."(") Another passage declares the period which shall elapse before the end of a long series

(s) For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.-Matthew xi. 13.

(t) And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that

which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.-Leviticus xxv. 8-11.

(u) And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabhaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.-2 Chronicles xxxvi. 20, 21.

(v) And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.— Daniel vii. 25.