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been read to them, are again in a most fearful manner rearing the standard of Infidelity, and men of every rank are unblushingly avowing their total denial of the Bible as the word of God. In France, particularly, to such an extent is this feeling said to prevail, that an imputation of having taken a part in any religious observance, or of believing in Christianity, would be shrunk from as if it were a moral degradation. The blasphemies of Atheism, as they so awfully appeared at the breaking out of the French Revolution, are giving fearful indications that they only wait the opportunity to exhibit anew the same revolting and diabolical scenes of ferocity as those which characterized the days of Robespierre. Even in our own country, to a more fearful extent than many are at all aware of, is this fatal poison, in unison with other causes, working the ruin of the country; and increasing in strength, in virulence, and in influence, beyond all former example. Thus are the Apostle's words fulfilling: "This also know, that in the LAST DAYS perilous times shall come: for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God!"

A SECOND sign of the times, is the renewed efforts of Popery to shut out the light of truth from the world, and to propagate its antiChristian abominations. And this is likewise remarkably and lamentably exemplified in this country, and forms one of the features of the last days. For it is said in Rev. ix. 20, 21, after giving the particulars of the Turkish woe, that "the rest of the men, which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood; which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts." In other words, throughout the Latin Empire, the men who were not politically killed by the plagues of the first two woes do not repent of their worship of idols, nor desist from their great wickedness they maintain their idolatry, with all its abominations, during the whole of the Turkish trumpet, and until it finally ceases; about which time this spiritual or symbolical Babylon shall then fall, before a still more tremendous power, and more impious principle, than that of either the Saracens or Turks. And And up to the time that this final and overwhelming judgment comes upon them, it is here fully intimated that they will not repent of their deeds; that

they will still worship their idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk, even up to the conclusion of this trumpet. And as neither Jews nor Mohammedans are idolaters, it must follow that the Papists, the corrupt parts of the Christian church, are meant; and that it will be upon the Papal nations especially that the third woe-trumpet will principally fall.

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A THIRD sign of the times" is the wasting away, or consumption, of the Ottoman Empire. Contrary to the Lord's usual plan in the overthrow or ruin of nations, Turkey is not destined to be destroyed by conquest. It is to be "DRIED UP," evaporated, wasted away. Hence, during the last fifteen or twenty years, we have seen province after province gradually separating itself, either by rebellion or otherwise; successive defeats weakening her internal strength; fire, pestilence, and disaffection, depopulating her capital and her largest cities; her navy destroyed without an object; a rebel army almost at the very gates of Constantinople; and the once proud empire of the terrible Mahomets, Bazajets, and Solymans, existing in such perfect imbecility as to be reduced to seek the protection of other nations!

Neither the inclination nor the means have, for many years, been wanting in its ambitious neighbours, particularly Russia, to seize upon

it, like an eagle on its prey. The prize has been exceedingly tempting; and so much was it on the heart of the Empress Catharine, and so sure did she appear of effecting her purpose, that she named her second grandson, the late Grand-duke Constantine, after its capital. But the Lord, as if to mock human purposes, and to shew that He would take his own plan and accomplish His decrees, did not permit this prince, in the regular order of primogeniture, even to ascend the throne of his own ancestors. Contrary to all modern precedent, he was, by a most singular arrangement, set aside, and a younger brother, the present Emperor Nicholas, mounted the imperial throne-a man perhaps destined, in the all-wise counsels of Jehovah, to act, as "king of the North," a distinguished and most awful part in the coming tragedy of nations.

A remarkable attestation of the visible fulfilment of prophecy, in regard to this withering and drying-up of Turkey, has lately been given by one who cannot be suspected of any wish to exhibit the accomplishment of the word of God. On the 8th of January last a speech was made in that assembly of infidels, the French Chamber of Deputies, by M. de Lamartin, in which he used the following expressions :

"I wish that Turkey may not perish: that an extensive empire may not be trampled down

to nothing, or driven into the deserts of Asia. But what is the state of the case? Plains without ploughs, seas without vessels, rivers without bridges, lands without possessors, villages built with mud and clay, a capital of wood, ruins of desolation on all sides, are what constitute the Ottoman empire. In the midst of this ruin and desolation which they have made, and make daily, some thousands of the Turks in each province-all concentrated in the towns, drowsy, discouraged, never working, living miserably upon the spoils of Christian and laborious races-constitute the inhabitants and masters of the empire; and that empire is alone worth the whole of Europe. Its sky is finer, its earth more fertile, its ports more extensive and more safe, its productions more precious and more varied, than those of any other country: it contains 60,000 square leagues. You see by this rapid sketch, that the Ottoman empire is no empire at all; that it is a mishapen agglomeration of different races, without cohesion between them, without mutual interests, without a language, without laws, without religion, and without unity or stability of power. You see that the breath of life which animated itreligious fanaticism-is extinct; you see that its fatal and blind administration has devoured the very race of conquerors, and that TURKEY IS PERISHING FOR WANT OF TURKS!"

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