an eclipse is not prophecy, for it depends on fixed laws. The suggestions of sagacity are not prophecy, for they are not fixed and certain; they give no dates, no names, no details.

Second. It must be demonstrated that the prediction was before the event. Every man has a right to require that this shall be put beyond suspicion.

Third. The prediction must be fairly applicable to the event. It should not refer to one of many things to which it might be adjusted with equal ease, but to one thing, and so definite that it can not be adjusted to another, except as that other may be an unfolding of it. The prediction of the destruction of Babylon must be of Babylon, and so expressed that it shall describe that city in its future ruin, and not Tyre, Nineveh, Petra, Jerusalem, Rome.

Fourth. The language should be such that it will be unmistakable. Whether words or symbols are used, they must be such that by fair, not by forced interpretation, the prediction is applicable to the event. The enemies of revelation have a right to demand this; its friends are bound to show that it is so.

But there are some things of equal clearness which are not to be demanded, and which are essential to a just view of the subject, but which are not as likely to be conceded as these would be. It is important that we have a clear understanding with the enemies of revelation in regard to them also.

First. In order to prophecy it is not necessary that there should be an exact and minute specification of names, dates, and circumstances. The reasons of this are obvious : (a) If there were such an exact specifica

tion it would be possible to defeat the prophecy. (6) An event can be designated with sufficient certainty with. out such an exact specification of names, dates, and cir. cumstances. (c) A predicted event, that seems obscure before the event occurs, may become clear when the event is accomplished. Such may be the clearness of the event, so entirely may it tally with the prediction, so plain may become the statements in the prophecy that seemed to be obscure, and so perfectly may the facts in the event harmonize apparently contradictory statements in the prophecy, that, while it would not have been easy or possible, perhaps, to have made a statement in detail beforehand of what would be, there can be no doubt of what was intended in the prophecy. Thus, for illustration, in the prophecies respecting the Messiah, there seemed to be two classes of predictions that were wholly irreconcilable, and that led to wholly different expectations of what he would be. One class described him as a man in humble life ; a man of sorrows; a man rejected, despised, put to death, buried. The other class described him as the descendant of David; as one who would occupy his throne; as a prince and a conqueror; as triumphant; as reigning ; as setting up a perpetual kingdom; as going forth to the conquest of the world; as triumphing over all his foes; as successful and glorious in his work. One class of the prophecies described him as one who had all the susceptibilities of a man, and who was subject to all the infirmities of a man; the other class described him as the "mighty God," and the “Father of the everlasting age" (Isa., ix., 6). The Jews naturally, in carrying out their ideas of national pride and glory, selected the latter view, and anticipated in their Messiah an illustrious prince and conqueror - one who in his reign would surpass even the magnificent reigns of David and Solomon. They were never able when he appeared, nor are they to this day, to blend the two descriptions in one person.

The Christian sees no difficulty in the subject, for he finds, he thinks, all these things united in him who," being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil., ii., 6–8).

What is here stated may exist to some extent under any circumstances, and in the plainest descriptions, from the nature of the human mind, and from the necessity of the case.

A description of a person that we have not seen, or an event that we have not witnessed, may be very obscure before the

person

is seen or the event occurs, but plain enough, and so plain that the correspondence can not be mistaken, when the person is seen or the event occurs. Who ever obtained any correct idea of Niagara Falls by a description? Who, say to the most polished Greek and Roman mind, could have conveyed by mere description any idea of a printing-press, of a locomotive engine, of the magnetic telegraph ? Who could convey to one born blind an idea of the prismatic colors, or to the deaf an idea of the sounds of the great organ at Harlaem ?

As I suppose all students do, I had formed an idea of Rome from the descriptions which I had read in my early years. I had grown up with the idea until it became as definite in my own mind as the lanes, and roads, and fields, and streams of the quiet country-place where I was born. I could have drawn out a map

of it, and could have located the Tiber, and the Vatican, and the Forum, and the Coliseum. When, some years ago, I was actually there, I had two Romes in my eye

-the Rome of my youth and of all my life, and the Rome of the reality, and nothing scarcely could have been more unlike than the two. Yet the Rome of the reality, in fact, corresponded with all the descriptions that I had read; all those accounts were blended and combined in it; and the Rome of my youthful imagination gradually gave way to the reality, so that I can recall it no more. So the anticipations of the Messiah grew up among the Hebrews. A distinct conception of him, apparently as drawn by the prophets, was formed in the national mind. When the reality appeared, he was, therefore, not recognized as the Messiah, and was rejected. To the present day that Messiah of the youth of the Hebrew people—the Messiah of the imagination-is before the unconverted Hebrew mind. Το the converted Jew—to Saul of Tarsus—that imaginary Messiah passed away, and the Messiah of the reality became fixed in the mind, blending all the ancient descriptions in harmony. Paul, I think, refers to this illusion and this reality when he says of himself,“ Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more” (2 Cor., V., 16).

Second. In presenting the argument from prophecy, we may lay out of view the fact that many of the prophecies are yet difficult and obscure. Undoubtedly that may be so, and it is to be admitted that it is so. certain extent, for the reason already stated, all prophecies must be in a measure obscure until they are fulfilled, and, as there may be many which are not yet fulfilled, it is not to be denied that they may be obscure. But this fact does not affect those that are clear-clear either in the terms in which they are expressed, or made clear by the fact that they are fulfilled. They stand on their own basis, and are to be interpreted as if there were no

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other prophecies, whether real or obscure, true or false. Moreover, the fact that they are now obscure does not make it certain that they will always be so, or that even they may not, at some future time, have a place among those predictions so clearly fulfilled as to show that they had their origin in God.

It may be remarked, also, that what is now affirmed respecting prophecy is also true of the facts respecting science, or of knowledge of any kind. Many of the real truths of science are to us, as yet, very obscure, very dim and shadowy. They seem to be enveloped in a mist which we can not penetrate. They are not defined, even in their outlines, fully and clearly. There are many doubts, even in the best cultivated minds, in regard to them. The age of the world, for instance, is one such point. No one has been able to determine it by measuring the duration of the various periods which geology reveals as having succeeded each other, in the formation of rocks, and soils, and seas, since the creation, or since the matter of the earth was brought into being. Indeed, no approximation has been made to this, nor has any one ventured even to conjecture how long this has been.* But the obscurity on this point in no wise affects the clearness and the certainty of the facts which geology has disclosed in regard to the changes of the earth. The evidence of each one of these rests entirely on its own basis, quite independent of the inquiry about the times which have elapsed since those great changes commenced. Time, too, and farther inquiry may throw light on the questions which are still obscure, and they