from their isolation, and visiting and ministering to the wants of the poor and needy; and men are beginning, for the first time, to recognize the fact that the Queen has a sister in the humblest cellar, and the greatest prince in our land has a brother in the poorest laborer. This beautiful, and deep, and growing sense of brotherhood, is an earnest and foretaste of that day when the poor shall cease from the land, and all shall be rich, unspeakably rich, because unspeakably great. The 65th and 67th psalms are psalms for the last days; and what so delights one in singing these beautiful psalms is, the feeling that we are joining with the Jew, and that, while single, our joy is incomplete unless it be echoed from the voice and reflected from the countenance of that Jew. In these psalms one of the features of the last days is thus described "The earth shall yield her increase." What are the discussions that agitate rival and contending political parties, whose opinions and names I neither comprehend nor care to decide upon? Whether it is possible to cultivate the earth more successfully, whether it is capable of producing more— the ancient prophecies of God are the modern problems of mankind. All these things are, under the control of God, leading to one great result "the morning cometh." The first rays indicate the rise of the millennial sun.

Each year on which we enter, let me also add, is a stage in that great procession. 1849 passed away, dark with shadows and terrible disasters: 1850 has come, and unveiled a new Papal conspiracy; we hope that in 1851 the tops of Lebanon may be sprinkled with the first rays of the approaching sun, and the streams of Jordan reflect his first beams. Whether it shall be so or not, this we know, that the great chronological epochs which relate to the Jews are being crowded together and concentrated in every day that now passes. It is the opinion of many that we are entering

remarkable years. I read a statement in a paper which reflects the opinions and the sentiments of mankind, describ ing a subject in which I take no personal interest, viz. the preponderance of money in the Bank of England, which the Times said will make future years of wonders and miracles. It is, perhaps, like Balaam's unconscious prophecy. The unconscious prophecies of the world are often its truest ones. It is not, however, for us to prophesy, but soberly to study the Word of God. And if we are the children of God-if we are Christians indeed when the morning cometh, how welcome will it be! and if we shall not be spared through the days of one year to enter upon those of another, it will be but anticipating the promise and giving us the morning rays sooner than the rest of mankind. Come what may, if our hearts are in the right place. - if our footing be on the Rock of ages, to us there cometh, and will come soon, a blessed, bright, and glorious morning.

I have occupied so much space in delineating the morning the bright side of the picture, that I have left myself too little, in the present chapter, for describing the night that cometh also, and the more practical duties that follow from it.

CHAPTER II.

THE MORNING COMETH, AND ALSO THE NIGHT.

"Know well, my soul, God's hand controls

Whate'er thou fearest ;

Round Him in calmest music rolls

Whate'er thou hearest.

"And that cloud itself, which now before thee

Lies dark in view,

Shall, with beams of light from the inner glory,
Be stricken through."

"The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come." -ISAIAH Xxxi. 11, 12.

In my former examination of the passage at the head of this chapter, I stated that Dumah is only another name for the land of Edom, or Idumea,—that the word burden is an expression used by the prophets, when they mean that they have a heavy or calamitous message to deliver, which weighs upon their hearts like lead, till they unfold and make it known. It is, therefore, the prophetic preface to predictions of judgment. I explained, also, the position that is here assumed: :- First, it might be applied to the time of the Babylonish captivity, and with reference to the restoration of Judah after it. But it appears from the language employed in parallel passages, to which I have turned the attention of my reader at great length, that Edom is used simply as the type or foreshadow of the world, as Babylon

is used repeatedly, and in the Apocalypse especially, as the foreshadow or actual name of the great apostasy. I therefore suppose that the hour at which the question is asked, is the hour that passes. The person who asks the question, calling out of Mount Seir - Seir being the capital of Idumea, or the mountain on which the chief city was builtseems to be some proud, and haughty, and worldly individual, indifferent to religion, and having neither studied it nor feeling disposed to do so; who asks the watchman in scorn, "What of the night?" This watchman, as I have explained, is supposed to be some solitary sympathizer with the ruin, and hoper in the restoration of Israel. He is looking for a day when that down-trodden people shall be restored - when the exile of so many hundred years shall be ended, and they shall return to the land of their fathers, and inherit it in all its glory and renovated beauty and fertility. This watchman, looking for the restoration of the house of Israel, hears a scorner from some great capital say: "Watchman, what of the night?" "You have been long looking for the prosperity of the Jew; it is long in coming; may it not be a delusion? May you not be altogether mistaken in expecting such a thing? And may we not be justified in still treading down the Jew, exacting from him all we can,-applying to him all the threats of the Bible, and taking to ourselves all the promises of the Bible?" To this inquiry the watchman answers "The morning cometh, and also the night." I have explained what that morning is by parallel passages, and proved that while it may be applied, amongst other things, to the coming prosperity of the Church, it does mean, primarily, the morning of the restoration of Israel, and their conversion to the Saviour.

But he adds: "And also the night cometh." On this clause I have not made any remarks in the last chapter;

in this, therefore, I will endeavor to illustrate what is meant by the expression-"The night also cometh ;" and then I will proceed to consider the remainder of the verse"If ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come." Now, if we apply "night" to signify calamity to Edom, or Idumea, to which it primarily refers, we shall find that a night did come, and did overtake the whole land of Idumea; and that the most awful predictions embodied in the ancient prophets have been literally and strictly fulfilled in the history of that land. For instance, we are told by the prophet Jeremiah (chapter xlix. 7), "Concerning Edom". i. e. Idumea, or Dumah "thus saith the Lord of hosts: Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished? Flee ye; turn back, dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I will visit him. If grape-gatherers come to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? If thieves by night, they will destroy till they have enough. But I have made Esau bare; I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is spoiled, and his brethren and his neighbors, and he is not." And then he proceeds: "Thus saith the Lord, Behold, they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup, have assuredly drunken; and art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished? Thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink of it. For I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes." Then, at verse 15: "I will make thee small among the heathen, and despised among men. Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thy heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill:" for Petra, the capital of Edom, was built on the solid rock, and