17 — Doctrine of the Millennium

Chapter 17 PRACTICAL DEDUCTIONS FROM THE DOCTRINE OF THE MILLENNIUM.

We have reserved a separate chapter from some practical deductions of the Scriptural doctrine of the Millennium, because we could not, without embarrassment, crowd our thoughts within a narrower compass. The first remark which suggests itself in reviewing this cheering subject relates to the importance of having our minds deeply imbued with the fact that brighter days are yet to dawn upon this lost world. There is no fact more delightful, in relation to the future history of man, than that the Redeemer is to reign in millennial glory on the earth. This is humanity’s hope. Come what will beside, this one thing we know, the Millennium will come. Be the darkness ever so great that precedes it, and the convulsions ever so many and severe, and the conflicts ever so agitating; the pure light of heaven will yet dawn without a cloud, revolutions and war shall be no more, and there shall be " abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." Human wickedness may be greatly prevalent, and wicked men and nations possess great power; but not more certainly is there a God in heaven, than "the righteous shall inherit the earth," and that " for yet a little while and the wicked shall not be, yea thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." The government of God needs this great revealed fact in order to dissipate the clouds and darkness that surround his throne. We are not without evidence in the dispensations of his providence that he now superintends the affairs of men; but the day is coming when his hand will be more conspicuous, and his gracious designs be more fully comprehended. When the Apostle John in the Apocalypse beheld the woman that " sat upon the scarlet colored Beast" upon whose forehead " a name was written Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth," and saw her " drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus;" he makes this emphatic observation: "And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration." Good men in every age have stood surprised and in amazement at scenes and events so full of successful wickedness that they have been tempted to feel, that "the Lord seeth not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth." It is true that Eternity will clear up these inscrutable things; but what symmetry and beauty does it give to the system of revealed truth that these clouds are even now dispersed by the light of prophecy, and that we have the perfect assurance that during the thousand years when the Spirit of God will be poured from on high, the wickedness and the miseries of the past shall be forgotten in scenes which earth and heaven behold with transport! Does not the church of God also need this great revealed fact in order to remind her of her high destiny? It is not easy for us to conceive what Christianity is destined to accomplish. We have often spoken of it as God’s greatest work, and as embodying the highest interests of his kingdom. Yet its progress has been so interrupted and slow, that even now after the lapse of eighteen centuries, they are but the orient dawnings of the Sun of righteousness that have risen on the earth in which we dwell. A thoughtless and giddy world may flatter themselves that the church of God has no higher destination than this; that these are the extent of her victories, and that here her horizon terminates. But though the moments seem to linger and the lapse of time is slow; the Christian’s eye is fixed on these last days as the great triumphs of truth and holiness.

There is some obscurity in the details of this predicted advancement of Christ’s kingdom; but there is so much that is luminous in the results, that faith and hope live in the brightness of the anticipation. There is nothing visionary in the most generous expectations of all that is desirable and delightful in those days when Christianity shall fulfil its office among men, and accomplish the end for which she was sent from heaven. When the ancient church was an exile in Babylon, she hung her harp upon the willows; she wept sore in the night, and her tears were on her cheeks. They are days of exile which remain for a little while for the church of God that is now on the earth. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction. The ways of Zion do mourn because few come to her solemn feasts; all that pass by clap their hands at her; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem. But these days of her mourning shall shortly be ended. Blessings, rich and pure as the heavens from which they descend, shall mark her progress as she returns and comes to her promised glory with singing. There is ripe fruit to be gathered from the seed that is now being scattered, and health and salvation from the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. They are the most glorious revelations of the future, which God has made known. We chide ourselves that we do not give them that place in our thoughts and affections which their inimitable richness and beauty demand, and are constrained to look upon this deficiency as indicating a low state of piety in our own hearts. When the Christian ministry, and the Christian church become deeply imbued with these great truths, it will become such a ministry and such a church as the world has not seen since the days of the apostles.

We cannot help feeling that there is a value and sacredness in this doctrine of the Millennium which we may well contemplate on our bended knees. It is heavenward in all its tendencies and influence. There is no remorse in such anticipations; nor do I know that there is even any temptation to extravagance and sin. Victor Hugo once said " that the law which rules the world is not, cannot be different from the law of God." The man in whose creed this thought is most intimately in woven, in whose heart it is most deeply embedded, and whose deportment is most under its control, other things being equal, will be the holiest, the most useful, and the happiest man. The man who uttered this sublime truth we all know is not a man who is living for the Millennium. This single anticipation, intelligently cherished in the bosoms of princes and statesmen, diffused throughout the various social organizations, and disseminated over the earth, would be like a new power from the armory of heaven by which the world would be subjugated to the kingdom of Christ. " He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth." What a powerful truth is this to take hold of the human intellect, to inspire human genius, and to consecrate human piety! Dwell upon it; teach it; instill it into the infant mind. Let the pulpit bear witness to it; carry it to the halls of legislation; let literature and the arts, and commerce honor it. Let it go forth to the world as man’s inheritance, as heaven’s harbinger of good-will to the race. A second remark suggested by these views of the Millennium is, that no other agencies are necessary in order to secure this glorious consummation than those which the church of God already enjoys. Just before the Saviour ascended to his heavenly throne, he gave the commission to his apostles, " Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the world." These are the promised agencies by which men are to be converted in every age of time. The truths of the gospel and the presence of Christ these, and these alone, are adequate to the introduction and perfection of millennial glory. His gospel, with all its sacred institutions and influences imparted to all classes of men and all nations, and his presence in the kingdoms of providence and grace are pledged to accomplish this great work. The truth of God and his Spirit are the influences which have penetrated the mass of human society, and by which so large portions of it have become already transformed. And what is true of the past will be true of the future. Of the brightest days of the Millennium nothing more can be said than was affirmed on the day of Pentecost, that " Jesus, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear."

We have heard much of the law of progress and that, in the natural course of human events, the world is growing better. We, too, are believers in the law of progress; but it is not nature’s progress; it is not the progress of the human intellect or the human heart; it is not the progress of human legislation or the science of human government, uncontrolled by the gospel of Jesus Christ. All history shows that without Christianity all the tendencies of our nature are evil. We look with concern upon the dreams of those modern philanthropists who expect to see the world transformed in its moral character by agencies which acknowledge neither the truth nor the power of the ascended Saviour. All other agencies are powerless. There is no law of progress except this. Men who have conceived this idea of the necessary and resistless progress in human affairs, have caught this impression from those bright periods in man’s history in which his moral advancement has emphatically indicated the development of the divine purposes of mercy toward our race. They overlook the thought that these purposes have been carried into effect by a power that is superhuman. The Bible is as truly suited to one age as another. No matter how rapid, and how far advanced the progress; the Bible will ever be foremost in the race of improvement. The same is true of the Spirit of God. Shut out God’s truth from the minds of men; exclude the renovating power of his Spirit, and the direction of his almighty providence; and the character of our race will become not stationary only, but retrograde. Our confidence is weakened in the wisdom of men with every passing year. We look with suspicion upon all those arrangements and alliances by which they hope to renovate the world, irrespective of the truth and power of God. It is something better which we are hoping for, and to a more simple agency and a higher power that we look. If our world is made better, the work is to be done by Christianity. If the Millennium ever arrive, the work will be done not by science, nor by human legislation, but by Christianity; Christianity will prepare the way for it by its patient collision with every system of error in church and in state, in individual man and in aggregate society. Christianity will introduce and perpetuate it by the power of its living and reigning Prince. It will be the sword of his Spirit cutting its way through the very heart of the nations, and multiplying its triumphs till the predicted consummation shall come. In these two things, the truth of Christ and his Spirit, are comprised all those moral influences which act effectively upon the minds of men. The strength of all permanent reform lies thus in the power of Christianity. That peculiar and excitable state of the public mind which gives rise to spasmodic efforts to restrain and subdue the vices of men, is not what the condition of our world calls for. We honor those associations whose object is the suppression of human wickedness; but if we look into the Scriptures we shall find that even those moral virtues which adorn the character of good men are " the fruit of the Spirit." God is wiser than man, and better knows access to the human heart. What the world requires is the conservative influence of God’s truth, enlightening the public conscience, imparting a strong sense of rectitude, deep impressions of human dependence and responsibility, and confidence in God. The destitute and wretched condition of the masses and their reckless vices will find no permanent relief except in the truth and Spirit of the Great Healer. It is the dream of idiocy to look for any permanent melioration of individual or social wrong except from the influence of Christianity. It is no marvel that the truth of God is studiously protected from the inspection of the people, where the policy of Princes is to keep them in bondage. Rome fears nothing so much as the unembarrassed dissemination of God’s truth. Recent as well as ancient facts in her history proclaim alike her shame and her weakness. This crusade of the Papal hierarchy against the Bible is the most emphatic exposition of its " universal declaration of war against freedom." If these fair lands in which we ourselves dwell, ever prove themselves recreant to the high and inestimable trust committed to them by their sainted Fathers, it will be by their national departure from Christianity. Nothing but this in the wide universe can hold us together, and induce us to hold fast that we have, that no man take our crown. Social and political convulsions may be directed by the wisdom of statesmen, or be held in check for a while by the strong arm of military power; but there must be another remedy for local jealousies and fermenting discontent; and that remedy is the " righteousness which exalteth a nation." Christian principles lie at the foundation of all order, government and godliness. That nation will bear the most honored part in introducing the Millennium which most fears God and keeps his commandments. Give the world the gospel and the presence of its divine Author, and the Millennium is begun.

We remark therefore again; the view which has been presented of the Millennium urges the friends of God of every name to vigorous and combined efforts for the introduction of that promised day of their Redeemers glory. The agencies by which it is to be brought about are put into their hands for the purpose of being employed, nor can they throw off these solemn obligations of duty, of love to Christ and love to this lost world to employ them diligently. The Millennium will not come while good men are asleep. It is then that the enemy sows tares. Nor will it come so long as they are employed exclusively in their secular occupations, and living to themselves. We know not the power they may exert in preparing the way for their divine Lord. Men who have the gospel may send it everywhere, at home and abroad. They may send it with that mighty agency, the presence of its divine Author, whenever they are so intent on securing it as to give him no rest until " he make Jerusalem a name and a praise in the earth." The prediction was once uttered, " It shall come to pass that there shall come people and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go unto another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts; I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. What a sight will this be, when, not individuals only, but churches; and not churches only, but nations; and not nations only, but many people and strong nations, nations pre-eminent in power, nations distinguished for wealth and literature, renowned in civilization, in arts and in arms, in solemn and delightful concert, go to " pray before the Lord!"

Such a scene we have never witnessed; in the present disjointed and jarring state of Christendom, the time seems far distant when the sun will shine upon such a scene as this. The importance given to party shibboleths, and the intolerance with which they are sustained — the mutual jealousies and apprehensions which find their way even into the more evangelical churches — the suspicions which are fostered against institutions that are based upon the broad basis of a common Christianity — the isolated and almost monastic training and habits of the Christian ministry, and the reluctance of private Christians to co-operate in those religious and spiritual services which so greatly advance the kingdom of their Master — the zeal and extravagance of good men in pushing some favorite measure of ultra reform, to the neglect of the divinely instituted methods by God’s truth and Spirit — the diminution in numbers and spirituality of men devoted to the sacred office — the thirst for novelty in the pulpit to the neglect of the solid and substantial truths of the gospel — the neglect of religion by the young, and the growing indifference to this neglect on the part of the old — the all-absorbing influence of the world, and the melancholy control which its social splendor exercises over men and women professing godliness — the unwonted apathy of the church of God in this and other lands, unmindful of mercies and unmindful of judgments — all these indicate that the spirit of fervent prayer, and the stimulus to united effort for the glorious presence of the Son of Man are greatly wanting in the age in which we live.

These things must, and will be repented of and reformed, before the coming of that predicted day. There must be another spirit in ministers and in churches, before Zion becomes a light to the nations, and salvation to the ends of the earth. It will not be amid such a state of things that the standard is set up to which the outcasts of Israel shall be gathered, and the dispersed of Judah shall assemble. Were the men and the means which have, for the last twenty years, been so unsuccessfully employed in promoting objects which the preaching of the gospel more effectually promotes, there would have been fewer divisions in the church and in the state, and the spirit with which they are imbued would have been less rancorous. The church of Christ is, by the organization of her great Head, one church and her interests are one. She is not an isolated community; her dwelling-place is among men. She may not maintain the position of indifference and prayerlessness; nor a selfish and iron-hearted policy; nor inactivity of any kind in the midst of so much ignorance, superstition, idolatry, impiety and crime. The great end of her existence is the instruction and conversion of the world. She is a Missionary Community, and from her very nature and laws, a community for the promotion of every good work. So far as religious objects are concerned, she is herself the great voluntary society of the earth, under a high and heaven-born organization. Her principles are principles of peace, of temperance, of purity, and of all that is lovely and of good report. If she would but be true to her principles, she forms the best organization for the accomplishment of all those great and important events which her exalted Saviour lives to accomplish. Her ministers, her officers, her members are by their covenanted allegiance to their celestial Leader, as well as by their own mutual engagements, pledged to seek nothing so earnestly as the universal triumph of his kingdom. It is no marvel that her light wanes, her energy becomes feeble, and her glory obscured, when she loses sight of the great end for which she was called by his truth, washed in his blood, and sanctified by his Spirit. She needs a more self-denying heart, and one that is more sensitive to the endearments of redeeming love. She needs a conscience exercised for the Millennium and one that speaks in higher tones of authority and decision. There is no lack of encouragement in this high source; nor is there any higher, or more hallowed impulse, than that it is the glory of her ascended and reigning Saviour which that illustrious day will secure. Never was there a period of the world in which his glory ought to incite to nobler thoughts and deeds, or in which her hopes ought to be higher or more regaled. Our next observation relates to the signs of the times and the indications they furnish of the approach of this latter day of glory. The history of the past is a most instructive history. As we look back on 1800 years, we see that Christianity, though not without severe conflicts, and some seasons of deep depression, has been making rapid advances. Within less than a century after the death of its Founder, one of its strongest holds was in the capital of the Roman Empire; in the fourth century, it was the established religion of the Empire itself It was diffused through all its provinces, was embraced by barbarous and invading nations, was subsequently handed down to the nations of modern Europe, and is now the professed religion of the most civilized and enlightened parts of the world. In all this progress, this one fact has been delightfully demonstrated, — that Christianity consults the best interests of men, not for eternity only, but also for time. Just in the proportion in which it has had free course, have the temporal blessings of the Millennium stood abreast with its progress. Civil and religious liberty have trodden in her footsteps; literature and science have been her adornment; and if the Lord of heaven and earth has not always given Christian nations that physical power which has been exercised by some that are anti-christian, he has given them a moral influence in the world which is more powerful. He has also given them physical power. To say nothing of our own land, we have but to look at the Christian and Protestant nations of Europe, in order to perceive the authority which they have exerted, and still exert in the world. What land holds so commanding a position among the nations as the little island of Great Britain, spreading her dominions as she does, over one hundred and fifty millions of the human family, swaying her sceptre beyond the utmost boundaries of the Roman Empire, and embracing a territory on which the sun never ceases to shine? Her language is spoken in the East and in the West, and her institutions have taken root in a soil occupied by one sixth part of the human race. While the foundations of the principal European states have been shaken by political convulsions, her social fabric has stood firm; God has made her the great bulwark of Protestant Christianity; and notwithstanding all her faults, she now lives to bless the world. Compare her condition at the present hour, with her condition at the beginning of the fifteenth century; and how marvellous the change! Read the third chapter in the first volume of the " History of England" by Thomas Burlington Macaulay, and you will see a change, as almost by magic, and one to which the history of the Old World furnishes no parallel. Read the slight sketch indeed which is presented by the same elegant and forcible historian in his first chapter, and you will see when and how it was that the light began to break on that once dark land. Nor are we so much surprised as gratified to hear this author say, " Unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this checkered narrative will be to excite thankfulness in all religious minds and hope in the breast of all patriots; for the history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in the imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or despondent view of the present."

If from Great Britain, we look to the Scandinavian nations of the North, comprising Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, we discover, if not equal, yet real indications of the same progress. What were the ancient Celts and Goths compared with the modern Danes but a nest of merciless and ferocious pirates who were distinguished by their hatred of the Christian name, and their terror to all Europe? What was Sweden in the days of Tacitus compared with Sweden after she was converted to Christianity at the close of the eleventh century; and more especially compared with what she was in the days of Luther, and under the reign of the religious, the humane, and yet the invincible Gustavus Adolphus; and with what she was in our own days, under Bernadotte. What was Norway the most interesting, but the least known of all the countries of ancient Scandinavia, that land of lake and mountain, and pagan necromancy, until the period when the followers of Luther gave them the Sabbath and the Bible.

If from these you pass to the more central nations of Europe, and look at ancient Germany, ignorant of arts and agriculture, with no cities and no villages; no temples, but groves and forests where they worshiped the sun, the fire, and the earth; or if you inspect her provinces after the conquest by Julius Caesar; or if you advert to her intellectual and religious character as they existed under the Papal See; and then compare them with what they have been since the great Reformation; you cannot but perceive that, notwithstanding the pernicious effect of her philosophy, falsely so called, the efforts of her reformers, and the learning of her universities have contributed largely to the growth of true religion in Protestant lands. Holland the home of Calvinism, and the asylum of the Puritans, was not long since the land where 50,000 perished on the scaffold for conscience’ sake under a single reign. Switzerland the birth-place of Zuinglius, Bullinger, and Beza, and from the bosom of whose placid lake the renowned Calvin sent forth a voice that now speaks in every well-instructed and well-organized church in the Christian world, was once at the feet of imperial Rome, and overrun and almost extirpated by hordes of barbarians. Prussia the land of Copernicus and the great Frederic, and whence Berlin, and Halle, and Bonn have diffused so much of the learning and intelligence of Europe, and which has been the honored asylum of the persecuted, and than which no country on the Continent is more distinguished for its schools, its toleration and its Christianity; as late as the 13th century was the dwelling of the Vandal, and later still one of the arenas of that fearful conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants, known as the " thirty years’ war." Hungary was once the hospitable region where reposed the innumerable hordes which overran the Roman Empire: it was the asylum of the Tartar; now, down-trodden as it is, it gives toleration and security to two millions of Protestants, and seventy-five thousand Jews. It is scarcely two centuries since Russia was known as an Empire; now she holds the balance of power in Europe; and though her religion is but one of the corrupted forms of Christianity, the Bible is recognized as its standard, and is accessible by the people. Of Austria France and the Roman States we can say nothing, but that they are not Pagan, and that the witnesses for Christianity which are there, are there to suffer; and it may be by their sufferings, by the word of their testimony, and by the blood of the Lamb, are to overcome.

It is a fact of deep interest in the divine government also, that no one nation now on the earth is so powerful as to dictate and give laws to all other nations. It was not always thus. The Chaldean, the Medo-Persian, and the Macedonian Emperors successively ruled the earth. The Roman Empire, still subsisting in its ten broken kingdoms, once gave law to the world; but when that empire fell, it was the last anti-christian power that should sway the nations, and that was to be superseded by the " stone cut out of the mountain without hands." Nor is the circumstance to be overlooked, that Infidelity has received a blow from which it will scarcely be resuscitated. The great question between believers and unbelievers in the Christian revelation has been so thoroughly discussed, and the evidence in its favor is so cumulative, that no intelligent infidel has for a long series of years ventured to array himself against the authenticity and inspiration of the Sacred Writings. Where infidelity has not retired from the field, it has sought a refuge in scholastic philosophy, or betaken itself to some corrupted form of the Christian faith. The well-known arena of its temporary triumph has been so fearfully scathed by the divine judgments, that its noisy pretensions have been silenced, and the nations look upon it with horror. It always has been, and ever will be the natural result of minds that are at enmity with God; but so long as the scenes of the French Revolution are fresh in the remembrance of men, it will not again form the great feature of national character. Romanism may in the last resort do it homage, because it has no Bible to fall back upon when its own resources fail. False religions in different lands may do it homage, because without the gospel, it is their only asylum in their overthrow. Islam will not honor it; rather will it honor the Christianity which itself honors the " One God." Despots will not honor it, because without some religion, they are insecure upon their thrones. Nor will the people honor it, because it gives them blood to drink, and only blood. The rapid progress which Christianity has made in the world during the last half-century is also among the brighter signs of the times. Wonderful as the fact may appear, the Bible is now scattered through the earth in one hundred and seventy-five languages. Great Britain alone maintains in successful operation fourteen Societies for Foreign Missions; Germany seven; the United States fourteen; Holland one; Switzerland one; France one; Sweden two; Norway one; British America one; while there are in the Christian world not less than twelve flourishing associations for evangelizing the Jews. Large missionary stations, with all the appliances of schools, Bibles and religious tracts are now formed in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the inland seas, and the great islands of the Southern Ocean. Some of these stations occupy some of the most important positions on the face of the globe, where Christianity has entered in earnest into the contest with millions, and hundreds of millions; and where such have been its successes and triumphs that it is " difficult to furnish reapers even for the ripened harvest." In some of these fields of labor the in-gathering has been of the most encouraging kind, and equal to the ingathering of the churches in Christian lands. It is a melancholy truth indeed, that false religions in every form still exist, and that they embrace in their gigantic arms the great mass of the human family; but they are agitated by internal convulsions, and are already beginning to be conscious of their own weakness. It is a remarkable fact, that the gospel has access to them all; that among tens of thousands of them it is doing its work; while some among them have not only publicly cast their idols to the moles and the bats, but have enrolled themselves with the great brotherhood of Christian nations, and have become fellow-laborers with them in carrying the gospel to other lands.

There are also some facts of a different kind not to be overlooked in this rapid survey. The authoritative tendency of former ages in controlling the opinions of men has been for centuries, and still is one of the great barriers to the progress of the world toward the days of millennial glory. That great birthright of every man, the right of private judgment in matters of religion, was long in being recognized and understood. The systems, and claims, and organizations of priest-craft, and parliamentary and legislative enactments which had for centuries held the human mind in their iron grasp, are not systems "on which consumption feeds," nor which die a natural death, or of old age. The longer they live unassailed the more inveterate they become, and the stronger their dominion. Their death-knell was indeed sounded when Christ uttered the words, " If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed." It was a deadly wound that was given them by Luther, and Calvin, and Knox. The great statesmen of the English commonwealth contended with them; they were successfully assailed by Milton and Locke; Oliver Cromwell wielded against them his ponderous sword; Sir Harry Vane invaded them in the British parliament, and nobly breasted himself against them in the infant colony at Plymouth. But never was the triumph actually and extensively exemplified over them as it has been realized in this land. The influence of the American Republic in giving substance and permanency to the rights of conscience has been a silent, but powerful influence. It has not been by the intervention of her cabinet, or her arms. Her moral influence is her power, and her example is not only now felt and acknowledged by transatlantic states, but will eventually become the law of Christendom. It is no small advance in the state of the world toward better days, that so many men have been found, like Chalmers, and Candlish, and Guthrie and Cunningham in Scotland, and Vinet in the Swiss Cantons, and Eobert Hall and Baptist Noel in England, who have felt so deep an interest in establishing the intellectual and religious rights of men upon their true and proper basis, and in giving Jesus Christ the sole supremacy in his own house. The great cause of civil liberty too has been making gradual advances during the last fifty years. Napoleon Bonaparte, with all his destructive ambition, taught the nations a lesson which they cannot easily unlearn. The despotisms of Europe and even of Asia are not what they once were. Who does not see that the policy of Great Britain has become a more liberal policy; and that in all these gradual modifications, she has less of favor to the privileged classes, and a more benevolent view to the great body of the people? The unexpected and untoward events which have recently taken place in Europe, and which would seem to indicate an alliance that is fatal both to religious and civil liberty may not throw so dark a shadow upon the future. It may be that the nations of Europe are not prepared for freedom, either by the strength of their religious principles or moral virtues. Some things they have learned, which they will hardly fail to lay up for future use. They have seen the unstable and faithless character of their own governments. They have seen the superior strength of the people whenever they came in actual collision with despotic power. They have seen that despots are conscious of their own weakness, because they have been forced to take refuge in foreign aid; and thus experience has taught them salutary lessons both in relation to themselves and those who rule over them. Whether the more immediate results of these ominous overturnings be for weal or for woe, we have this to satisfy us, that God is on the throne, and that the darkest events are but evolutions of that complex arrangement which he himself is directing for the restoration of fallen man by the redemption of his Son. " Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." The most unnoticed flower and the smallest dew-drop occupy the place assigned to them by his unerring wisdom. The falling of a sparrow and the crushing of a worm under the foot of man as truly form a part of his all-comprehensive purposes, as the extinction of an empire, or the overthrow of the world by the flood. " He worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." " The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, and let the earth rejoice!"

Great and rapid has been the advancement of Christianity from the day of Pentecost to the present hour. It may not be observable in a single century, but in the progress of centuries it is strongly marked. This, as we have already seen, is the true character of the Millennium. It is the progress of Christianity to its culminating point; retaining still all the characteristics of the New Dispensation and triumphant in the earth. The records of the future will, no doubt, in many respects, still be like the records of the past. There was a variegated and misty prospect to the eye of the first preachers of the Christian faith. Like a beautiful landscape that rests upon a deep background, Christianity then loomed from the hazy atmosphere of forty centuries. The age that preceded it was the iron age of the world; an age of exclusiveness and bigotry, of bondage and suffering, of wars, famine, and pestilence; an age fitted to the character of the nations that successively occupied it. Nor can we say much more than it looms now, if not from the same hazy atmosphere, and the same deep background, from a foreground that is still overcast, and from dark recesses where are seen gloomy and subterranean caverns, and many a rugged mountain and fallen tower. We have, it is true, traveled far beyond the dark ages: the day breaks upon us, but it is not a cloudless sky; " the morning cometh and also the night." Whether the prophetic symbol of the drying up of the river Euphrates denotes the exhaustion and overthrow of the Turkish empire, or the downfall of the nationalized hierarchies of Papal Europe, is not essential to our object. One thing is obvious, the struggle has commenced in which down trodden nations have taken the field. And it is equally obvious that there is no relenting on the part of their oppressors. This confederacy of the anti-christian and despotic powers, of which the present generation is the witness, may indicate that the time is not far distant when the great battle for religious principle and human destiny is to be fought; and when blood shall flow even to the horses’ bridles; and when the prediction shall be fulfilled, "Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness." This marshaling of the hosts of false religions is but the heaving of the tempest, the collecting of the materials for some mighty eruption. The promises of God to his church are but threatenings to her enemies: "he will give men for her and people for her life." It is not for us to fore-sketch the steps of divine providence; but is it not obvious that the way is preparing for a change in the affairs of men; that the ground which was laid in the planting of Christianity, is becoming broader from year to year; and that in its ascent to brighter climes the superstructure will defy the storm? Our next remark relates to the prospects and the duty of the American people in the present interesting period of the world. While with others, we feel that as a nation we are verging towards a most important crisis, we confess ourselves to be among those who have more hopes than fears. It is but a little more than two short centuries and these States were the abodes of pagan and savage men. Yet was it the purpose of Him who giveth this earth to whomsoever he will, to reclaim this vast and rich territory from the desolations of past ages; to put it under a Christian culture, and make it the theater of his millennial glory. In the fulfillment of this design, it has been well said, and often repeated, that he " sifted three nations that he might sow the American wilderness with the finest of the wheat." We have no spirit of glorying in the Anglo-Saxon race, but would rather invite all to adore the wisdom and goodness of God in bringing to these shores that combination of races which forms the excellence of the American character. The English and the Scottish Puritans, the generous Hollanders, the Protestant Irish, and the noble Huguenots of France constitute the elements of our national greatness. Never has the world seen four nobler races of men; races whose combined intelligence, piety and thrift were so remarkably fitted by divine providence to convert these western forests into a great and growing empire. The design of heaven in thus laying the foundations of this government, was a far-reaching and benevolent design, and we still regard it as of bright augury.

There have been interpositions of Providence also, in all our history, which show that the eye of God has been upon this land for good, and not for evil. The issue of the bitter conflict with the mother country, the master-spirits which directed it, and the wisdom, courage, and indomitable perseverance of that most useful and most illustrious man of the age, who was raised up as its honored chieftain, were indications that it was the purpose of God to make this land his peculiar care. What had this land now been, had this revolution been in the hands of wicked men!

Many a time since that period also, has the wing of an almighty providence sheltered us; in days of peril, the God of our fathers has not forsaken their posterity; while amid those very crises in which we stood upon the brink of civil war, his voice has more than once been heard stilling the tumult of the people.

It is a fact of deep interest, too, that the American people have never been a persecuting people. They seem, from this single circumstance, to be secure against those judgments which are threatened against the nations who shall drink blood because they have shed the blood of the saints. The Jews, persecuted everywhere else, have never been persecuted in this land; nor can the threatenings against those who have trodden down the Hebrew race, ever fall upon us, either as an ecclesiastical, or political community. It is a beautiful feature in our history, that the God of nations has taken this land out from the limits of that great persecuting power, the old Roman empire, and constituted it the asylum for the persecuted of all lands.

We put these facts together, and we carry them as a torch-light into the labyrinths of the present and the future. We have taken a glance at the Old World; and while the events we have hinted at were taking place there, what is it that was in progress in the New? Why " a little one was becoming a thousand, and a small one a strong nation:" so that now these Christian States are not only planted in the very midst of Papal superstition, and there carrying the liberties and institutions of Protestant Christianity, but spreading themselves out on mountains of gold, and almost within hailing distance of the whole Oriental World. The character of our increased population has indeed greatly changed; but with all its heterogeneous elements, it is thrown into the same alembic, and its noxious gases are passing off. That great medium of Christian thought, the most potent engine of reform now in the known world, the English language is gradually reducing these thirty millions to a uniform character. For the first time since the foundation of the Hebrew Commonwealth, the problem is being solved on a large scale, whether it is practicable and safe to elevate the great mass of the population. As the world is constituted, it was a hazardous experiment; but it is one that was called for by the spirit of the Bible, by the intellectual, moral, and immortal nature of man, and by those unequivocal indications of Divine providence which planted this vine in the wilderness " wholly a right seed." Give the people religion and it is always safe to elevate them. European statesmen did indeed regard the experiment with apprehension; Rome regarded it with inveterate hate; but the founders of this great human charity believed that it was the work of God, and could not be overthrown. And what is the consequence? It is that the land in which we dwell, which has been the scorn of older nations, the jest of the men in power, and the ribaldry of their scholars, has become the pride of all lands, teaching them lessons of liberty and law, gradually supplanting their commerce and manufactures, claiming their respect for its talent and literature, welcoming their surplus population by millions, and co-operating with the virtuous and good of all lands in evangelizing the race. Our fields are cultivated, our public works are wrought, our manufactures and our families are served by European operatives, while their children are taught in our schools, and themselves are insensibly imbibing our principles. We have given to their starving population the bread of our granaries; while, strange to say, up to the present hour, in their spiritual destitution they do not hesitate to make their appeal to these western churches for the bread of life. But this is not all. It is a remarkable fact in the history of this land, that while trouble and perplexity for a long series of years have been the portion of the older nations, pure and undefiled religion has taken deep root in the minds and habits of the American people. We do not mean by this remark, to commend the piety of this land above that of other lands; nor is it made from the spirit of self-complacency, and self-glorying. We could write a chapter upon the defects of the American character, which would be sufficiently humbling to gratify even the unreasonable hostility to our institutions which exists on the other side of the water. But we may not overlook the purposes of Divine providence toward us, nor be slow of heart to recognize the munificence of his grace. I refer to the fact, that amid the agitations of Europe, churches were being formed in this land, and springing up on every side, plenteously watered by the dew of heaven. Just at the time when our fathers, educated and disciplined as they had been by trials and by truth from their very landing on Plymouth rock for the liberties they subsequently enjoyed, were preparing the way for the struggle which issued in our national independence; God was preparing us for the place we were destined to occupy among the nations, by those spiritual influences which form so luminous an era in our colonial history. And when this young Republic had taken that place, and had survived the corrupting influences of war, and the experiment was being upon a large scale, whether the church of God could prosper independently of state-patronage; the Spirit of God was again poured out upon us, and the land was visited with successive and long-continued refreshings from the presence of the Lord. Nor is it too much to say, that these wonders of a wonder working God commenced a new order of things among the American people. Although unobserved by statesmen, they gave sacredness and permanency to our institutions; elevated and sanctified our colleges; raised up an effective Christian ministry; gave prominence to the American church, and moved other lands. There are no periods of our history so bright as those which have been thus distinguished. They were days of vengeance to God’s enemies; but they were years of recompense for the controversies of Zion. Blood was flowing in torrents in Europe and the West Indies; kings were tottering on their thrones; cabinets were perplexed by divided and stormy councils; but the branch of peace was waving over the church of God in the New World. Nor, much as we have reason to lament subsequent seasons of spiritual drought and declension, have these seasons of mercy come to an end. Up to the present hour, "Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord of hosts: though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel." This series of revivals has never been so interrupted as to leave a chasm; nor have the heavens over our head ever been so much like brass; but that from the top of Carmel some little cloud of mercy might be seen arising out of the sea like a man’s hand. We have other grounds of hope, but these are the strong pillars of our confidence. In regard to our duty as a nation, there can be no difference of opinion, unless it be as to the means and measures by which the great ends of our national existence should be pursued. It is needless to urge the necessity of sound religious principle, and thorough morality to the preservation of our institutions, and the continued favor of the God of nations upon our land. Nor is it necessary to say, that it is essential to our prosperity that he should give us upright and Christian rulers, and men who are more sensitive to the weighty responsibilities of office, than to its emoluments, or honors. We wave remark even upon these important topics, because we have often given utterance to these views. Nor have we time now to say more upon other topics, than that we live in an age of great excitement, and greater excitability; nor are there any principles which can so fitly govern us as those of a conservative policy. We may be the opposer’s of infidelity and all false religions, without the spirit either of persecution, or of bigotry. "We may be the enemies of tyranny, both civil and ecclesiastical, without active intervention in the authority of tyrants. We may be the friends of law, without aiming to make human laws do the work of the gospel, or endeavoring to introduce the Millennium by human legislation. We may combine in the promotion of every charity, without allowing human combinations to take the place of the church of God, or to neutralize her influence. We may be the friends of freedom, without interfering with the constitutional rights of our neighbors. We may be looking out for the Millennium, and fervently praying for the downfall of the kingdom of darkness, and the general effusion of the Holy Spirit, without expecting to see the Son of Man reign on a temporal throne in Jerusalem, or specifying the date of his advent. And "last, but not least," we may be the friends of the heathen without overlooking the spiritual wants of our own land. This land of the West is the first and great charge of the American people. To perform the part allotted to her in preparing the way for the coming of the Son of Man, she must remain a Christian land; and to remain a Christian laud, she must make rapid and effective aggressions upon the empire of darkness within her own borders. She must have ministers of the gospel, and they must be supported. She must have churches, and congregations to occupy them. She must have Christian families and Christian schools, or the people will perish for lack of knowledge. It is not possible for us to give these plain thoughts too great prominence. The field which God has obviously allotted to the American churches is this broad land. Already on the shores of our own Pacific Ocean the providence of God is planting colonies from the oriental, pagan nations, to learn the value of our institutions and our religion, and to go back the missionaries of the cross, or send back the glad tidings of the great salvation. Would we operate on all nations; we have them in our own land and at our own doors. If we would most effectively promote the cause of Christ, and the salvation of our fellow-men, and hasten the millennial glory of our Divine Master, this land is the proper sphere for our greatest exertions.

We may not extend these remarks. Yet before we bring the subject to a conclusion, we may not suppress this last observation, that as the creatures of God we are under great obligations to him for the period of the world in which we have been permitted to live. The years within the remembrance of not a few among the living have been years of deep interest to individual man, and to every form of social organization. Events have taken place within a shorter period than half a century which some future historian will celebrate as among the brighter ages of time. It has been a period rich in results, and one that adorns the last dispensation of the divine government over this fallen world. That man must be an atheist who does not perceive that events have taken place in such sequence and dependencies as to baffle the councils of the wise, confound the wisdom of the prudent, and even take the most enlightened, the most expectant, and the most believing by surprise. They have been clustering and crowded upon one another so densely, as not only to give substance and continuity to the series, but to furnish striking proof of his supremacy, who "stretched abroad the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth that he might say unto Zion, thy God reigneth!" Some of us were born to behold the whole of this wonderful, splendid era. Not many such series of events as those which have occurred within the last half-century are necessary in order to fill the earth with the knowledge of God. The fifty years to come will indeed be a momentous period. The child that is now in its cradle will see greater things than ever prophets saw but in vision. Nor will they be long in coming; nor stand alone; nor will their influence be isolated. They will be fitted to one another and to the crisis they produce; and when the crisis comes they will rush to their glorious issues. This agitation among the nations, and the sweeping judgments that are now passing over portions of the earth, so far from obscuring the prospect, are just the events which God and his people are looking for. It will be in vain for us to expect that the course of divine providence will be tranquil and unobserved; rather will it be broken by rocks and ruffled by storms. There will doubtless be seasons of desolating calamity. The stream will be swollen by the mountain torrent; and as it dashes on and mingles with the ocean, " the deep will utter his voice and lift up his hands on high." Yet is there no depression in these anticipations. Notwithstanding the damp and murky atmosphere with which we are sometimes enveloped, there is a feeling in it that revives us; a fragrance coming up from the blooming earth which is the precursor of the new-born year. Favored, highly favored is that generation which is destined to occupy these coming years! We may not say that we have no latent wish to put back the shadow on the dial, and enter with younger men and youthful ardor upon this opening period of time. We are thankful for the past, and congratulate those to whom the future furnishes so cheering a prospect. The trump of jubilee is even now sounding from the lands to which Christianity was transplanted, to lands where she was born. Its tidings come from yonder "sea-girt isle," and are echoed far and wide from these mountains of the West. Long may a wakeful providence throw its guardianship around these lands, and bid them " declare his glory among the Gentiles!" And thou, my country! The burying-place of my fathers and my children, be not thou unmindful of thy birthright, nor profanely barter it for a mess of pottage! Hail, ye blood-bought churches! whether planted on the sea-beaten cliff, or the verdant plain! Hail, ye her consecrated ministers! her colleges, her schools of the prophets! her Christian statesmen! destined to fulfil such wondrous councils of love more wondrous! Hail, ye her increasing millions! who stand in full view of this coming age of millennial glory! And thou, this poor, lost, but redeemed earth, all hail! under whose opening heavens the Son of Man is to descend, proclaim his triumphs, and receive his reward!