all the wisdom, strength, and science of man which makes me shudder as I gaze. It shows me, in one single sentence, that all the astrology, necromancy, oracles, dreams, and mantic revelations of the whole pagan world for six thousand years is nothing but imbecilities and lies. It proves to me, in one brief utterance, that all the religions, arts, sciences, philosophies, attainments, and powers of man, apart from God's inspired prophets and all-glorious Christ, are but emptiness and vanity as regards any true and adequate knowledge of the purposes and will of Jehovah or of the destinies of man. It demonstrates to me, in a few words of sad despair, that all the learned theorizings of this world's wouldbe wise, from Babylon's magicians down to the Hobbes, Herberts, and Voltaires of the last centuries and the materialistic skeptics and pantheists of our own day, are but rottenness, rubbish, and damning falsehood, in so far as they conflict with the revelations which the Almighty has given by His own anointed prophets. It is to the modest Daniels and to the humble Nazarenes, after all, that the proud world must come to learn the true God and to find out His mind and purposes. It is upon these that the self-glorifying wisdom of man must, after all, lean to save itself from being cut to pieces and blotted from the earth. And without these there is an impenetrable eclipse upon all the illuminating powers of our world, and nothing remains but despair and death even for the wisest and the best. I fear, my friends, that we do not half appreciate

the unspeakable treasure which God has given us in the Holy Scriptures. I fear that even our most considerate, pious, and devoted believers do not begin to comprehend the desolation which would swathe the world if it were not for what God's prophets and evangelists have testified and written for our learning. Have you ever thought what would be the result if these sacred testimonies were to be stricken out of being, with all that rests on them or has sprung from them? Have you ever considered what an utter obliteration of the highest intellectual and moral life of the race would attend such a calamity? Have you ever reflected how it would silence every preacher of righteousness and salvation, abolishing at once his office and his text, stop every work of mercy and philanthropy that would bind up the wounds of suffering humanity, and quench every fond hope of the recovery of our afflicted world, the restoration of our dead, or a home in heaven when this poor life is over? Ah me! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and no star remains to cheer the tossed mariner on this troubled sea-no chart by which to direct his uncertain way-no known haven or blessed shores for which to steer! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and the last appeal of the down-trodden and oppressed, the last check to the aggressions of power, the last bonds of restraint upon man's depravity, are gone, clean gone, giving carnival to every lust and freedom to every beastly passion, without corrective, without limit, and without end! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and light and comfort wilt away like

Jonah's smitten gourd, and leave man to drag out a hopeless orphanage while years continue, and then to gather himself up to die and perish like the brute! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and despair and wretchedness must settle on all hearts, as on the vanquished Chaldean sages under the decree of their inexorable king! Ay, did men but understand it, there is no possession on earth like the deliverances which God has given us by His holy prophets. Treasure, then, the sacred record of them. Bible is the Book of books.

"Within this ample volume lies
• The mystery of mysteries.
Happiest they of human race

To whom their God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch and force the way;
And better had they ne'er been born
That read to doubt, or read to scorn."

The

LECTURE THIRD.

THE SUCCESSION OF KINGDOMS; OR, THE FOUR GREAT SOVEREIGNTIES.

WE

Daniel 2:36-46

E have seen that the great Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, dreamed a dream. It was one of the most original and significant dreams ever presented to the contemplation of man. It exceedingly impressed and startled the king to whom it was vouchsafed. But though deeply affected by it, when he attempted to recall it, its features proved so obscured to his recollection that he could not tell what it was. Satisfied that it was something very extraordinary, and that something divine was in it, he appealed to the ministers of religion and to the most famous adepts in science and divinity-the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers and Chaldeans-to recover it for him and to give him the proper interpretation of it. But none of them were of any avail to him. And though he put them under pain of being hewn to pieces and their houses reduced to ruins if they did not tell him what it was and what it meant, they were obliged to confess that all their science and powers were totally incompetent to do for him what he required. Infuriated at their failure in a matter so entirely within the province of their professions, he gave forth the

decree that they should all be slain and their houses destroyed. And so sweeping was the edict that it also involved Daniel and his three friends.

When notice of this bloody decree had come to Daniel, he wondered that the king should be so summary in his action without further inquiry. He and his friends, though involved in the sentence, had not been at all consulted, and why should they be put to death for the false professions and incompetency of others? Daniel had a considerable liking for Nebuchadnezzar, because he was a really great man, and because his thinking was in general correct and just; but here was a case of manifest wrong, at least so far as he and Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah were concerned. Hence his surprise. Hence also he went in to the king-to whom he seems to have had ready access-modestly expostulating against the premature execution of the decree, and pledging himself to make known to the king all that he desired. It was a very bold thing for Daniel to do, for as yet he was in total blankness as to what the king had dreamed or as to what was the meaning of the vision. He himself seems to have been no little shaken when he came to realize what he had taken upon himself. It had about it the air of the greatest presumption, which it would be very wrong to imitate except under corresponding circumstances. It reminds us of young David going out to fight the great Goliath of Gath, from whom all the mighty warriors in the army of Saul shrank away. But in both these instances we recognize a divine impulse quite above the reasonings