the signals – most striking and impressive – that He is at our doors who was the light that lightens the Gentiles. – Dr. Cumming instanced other signs of the coming change, and expressed his belief that England was destined to perform an important part. He spoke of the “great war” predicted in the XIX chapter of the Apocalypse, and asked if it were a right supposition that the last vial was poured out in 1848, whether the wars of the last 12 years – greater and more numerous than in any previous half century – did not entirely answer to the prophecy. And still every nation was making ready for war, although no one knew for what war. But whenever it came it would be most terrific. The lecturer concluded by exhorting his audience to the simple truths of the Bible, and to be proof against other delusions that might come to “deceive the very elect.”
The Second Lecture
The Rev. W. N. Tilson-Marsh, as chairman, remarked that the fulfilment of prophecy gathered importance as the years drew on to the time of the end. He would ask the audience to direct their attention to the prophecies of Daniel, because of the perspicuity which marked them and which rendered them more intelligible than the prophetic portions of the book of Revelations. In Daniel there was spread out a sort of map from that time till the second coming of our Lord. In one portion of the book he had spoken of four Gentile Kingdoms which were to sway the peoples, and he had marked out these in the primary kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, who was the head with the Babylonian empire. Then followed the mixed or inferior Mede and Persian empire, upon which was raised the Grecian empire, after which succeeded the Roman empire. The four great powers were to span the interval between the extremes of the period granted to the seer of old to foreknow and the period of the coming of the kingdom of God. Whenever the last of these four great powers terminated we might be sure that we were approximating the coming of our Lord, and when we saw the Church of Rome gradually losing her power, it was known the time could not be very far distant. Supposing it should be in our own day (we ought not to fix dates with certainty), he would ask whether it would not be better to receive it, rather than be overcome in confusion at the last moment, and to be on our watch towers; especially remembering that our Lord’s words were “Ye know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh.”
Dr. Cumming commenced his second lecture by referring to some points in his first address, remarking that it was one thing to assume to be a prophet, and another to try to find out what was meant in prophecy. In treating more directly upon the subject of prophecy, the reverend doctor instanced the fulfilment of some striking predictions in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. The distress and perplexity of nations -
