our contemplation the effect that will have been produced fifty, and an hundred years hence !

And will there not be new, and again new contrivances and multiplied sources and expedients, for the gratification of the sensual propensities and the increase of unholy enjoyments? By their more extensive gratification, those propensities will grow stronger, until depravity shall have reached its utmost degree. As an instance, observe now the increased and daily increasing thirst for the vain and corrupting reading to which we have adverted. The multitude evince an infatuation for the intellectual intoxication and moral poison. They lavish their money for it without parsimony. Time and health are wasted, heedlessly, in the eager and protracted perusals of it. As other instances: see places for eating and drinking, thronged with the devotees of the pleasures they afford. What increase of travel, in the excursions and resorts for pleasures and amusement, across lakes and oceans, up and down rivers, along coasts, through canals, and by rail-roads. With the multitudes thronging to the watering places, is health the object? With the hundreds it may be, but with the thousands and the ten thousands, pleasure and dissipation are the ends.

With those facilities and those propensities for sensual indulgence, what will be the result? What but the almost entire, and the deep, demoralization of the world?-an abandoned, reckless generation. Plunging into the deep and wide sea of carnal indulgencies, furnished and made attainable by the circumstances of

which we have spoken, they will become besotted, hardened and desperate in iniquity. In the face of rebuke and warnings, and in high-handed opposition to the light which the revived and reformed Church will exhibit, they will persist in their wicked courses, till God will give them over to a reprobate mind, to do as they list, with perhaps little remorse or shame. They may be refined to an exterior polish in manners, while, as whited sepulchres, they will be full of rottenness within-calm and affable outwardly, while the fires of hell rage within-complacent and kind when pleased, but fierce and merciless as demons when offended, their politeness and generosity having no power to control their ferocity when excited. Then will it be most strikingly manifest, that only the spirit and precepts of the Gospel, or holiness of heart, can completely refine the character and control the life to gentleness and true benevolence. Then the impotence of mere civilization and outward refinement of manners to restrain violence and outrage, will be most fully demonstrated. Indeed, it is but too manifest now. How is it, even now, in communities and countries accounted civilized, enlightened and refined ? What is manifest of character in Spain, Portugal, Italy? Filled with violence and assassinations, have those countries been. And what picture was that so recently exhibited in the polished French nation ?—All let loose upon each other, slaughtering and destroying each other with the ferocity of wolves and cruelty of devils. Say not, it is because the

night of Popery has long brooded over those lands, making their light darkness and civilization a savage desert. Look to our own land, America!-the States populated by descendants of the Anglo-Saxons-sons of the Pilgrim Puritans-children of literature and promoters of improvements. Mobs, murders, and numberless vices prevail to a degree that fills the contemplative heart with dismay.

From all these reasons and demonstrations, we may see what the world is hastening to, especially those parts of it which have long enjoyed the Gospel, and hardened themselves against its influence and perverted its blessings. They seem prepared to take the lead in all atrocities.

There is hardly a possibility of error, in supposing, that soon, and preceding the establishment of the kingdom of the Messiah, a scene of depravity and iniquity will be witnessed on earth, which will be without example-that vice will deluge the world-that the most fearful and prevalent crimes will be every where perpetrated. The globe will be one theatre of violenee, as if it were filled with fiends, raging with all the passions of the pit; crime will commingle with crime, and "blood touch blood," The Scriptures and the signs of the times indicate this state of things as now nearly approaching, in a manner that can hardly be misunderstood.

Considering the day in which this shall bethe extraordinary light under which wickedness at that time will be practiced,-and judging from comparisons, are we not warranted in the con

clusion, that the depravity and violence of the inhabitants of the earth will be greater than before the flood? The old world was so bad that it must needs be overflowed by water-the existing one will become so corrupt, that it will have to be devoured by fire.

CHAPTER VII.

EXTREME CONTRAST OF THE WICKED AND THE

RIGHTEOUS IN THE LAST DAYS.

ONE portion of mankind becoming eminently virtuous and pious, and the other remaining unholy and becoming enormously vile, a terrible collision must take place between them. The ungodly, hardening themselves the more, plunging yet deeper and deeper in excess of wickedness, while reform is going on before their eyes, the bright and living example of the righteous shining upon them, and their reproofs sounding continually in their ears, they will be excited to opposition and violent enmity against their reprovers. Nothing so excites the venom in the breasts of unsanctified men, determined to persist in their evil, as to be reproved for it by those whose righteous life adds its resistless sanction to their rebuking testimony. So it was between the corrupt Jewish leaders and the Savior, when he was on earth. He plainly and pointedly told them of their wickedness, while he could unan

swerably reply to their cavils or hardened accusations, "which of you convicteth me of sin ?" They knew in their hearts his blamelessness and holiness, and the truth of his representations and rebukes of their iniquities; and this it was that caused his reproofs to cut them to the heart.They contemned and slandered him, opposed his influence with all their might, and thirsted for his life. And thus it ever has been.

In the time to come-the last days-there. will be the blameless Righteous, the "meek of the earth," true followers of that same blameless, harmless and holy Leader, who was persecuted before them. As he rebuked the wicked of his time, so will they rebuke those of their day. And the malice of the unsanctified heart will be aroused, and will rage with unprecedented fury. To love and practice sin as the ungodly of that day will, and to be reproved for it as they then will be, by the unremitted testimony of those so pure and holy as will be the righteous of those times, will be tormenting indeed. It will be as living coals of fire poured into their bosoms. It will be intolerable they will not peacefully endure it. They will be exasperated to fury, and seek the extermination of their reprovers from the earth.

Will not the great contest of the latter day, so much spoken of in prophecy, arise from this cause and in this manner? Then will there be at once on earth, the well-marked kingdom of the Son of God (in his Gospel administration,) and the kingdom of Satan, the subjects of each arrayed under their respective banners, true to their respective