THE TIMES to see how successfully, and more extensively than in any other age since the days of the apostles, the faithful followers of Christ are now endeavouring to carry out their noble work and labour of love, in humble obedience and dependence on the Divine favour, to the utmost boundaries of the earth.

Another SIGN OF THE TIMES may be seen in the wonderful inventions, discoveries, and increase of science in all its branches, which are so marked a feature of the present day.

The words of the Hebrew prophet are frequently quoted in support of this allegation. "Thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." But it is doubtful whether the words will quite bear the interpretation put on them, of railway travelling, and the inventions of the present day. The Hebrew word for "shall run to and fro" literally means to "spread out like water," referring possibly to the extension of missionary operations and commerce; while the "increase of knowledge" may refer in the primary sense to the knowledge of the true God, as conveyed by the Gospel; and in a secondary sense to science in general. And certainly the application of steam as a locomotive power, both by land and sea, possibly to be superseded before the end of this century by electricity, the discoveries and inventions of the telegram," the telephone, the phonograph, the microphone, the megaphone, the storage of daylight, the telegraphic writing machine, &c., &c., all show the wonderful advance in science in our own time, of which our ancestors had not the faintest conception.

6 Daniel xii. 4.

7 The telephone appears to have been introduced into England about six years ago (1876-1882). It is certain, however, that it was foreseen before that date. The author purchased a work some years ago, printed in London in 1871, entitled "Anno Domino 2071, translated from the Dutch original, by D. Alex. Bikkers," in which there is account of the telephone, as employed in conveying the notes of a celebrated cantatrice from America to the future Londinia, as it is supposed it will be two centuries hence! The telephone is therein stated to have been invented by a person of the name of Reis in the year 1861.

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CHAPTER XII.

RATIONALISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

OF all the SIGNS OF THE TIMES which seem to be the most important to watch, and to do what may lie in our power to counteract, is the prevalence of false doctrines which are promulgated with such assiduity in the present day by those who either oppose or ignore, or who have such mistaken notions about that Book of books, which alone contains infallible truth.

The development of these various false doctrines, which are so marked a feature of the present age, and which may be all included under the apostolic term," the spirit of error," appears to be defined more particularly by St. John in the Apocalypse, where he says "I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of daimons (dapovíwv) working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."

Acknowledging the very grave difficulty in attempting to define these "three unclean spirits like frogs," which are represented in the Apocalypse as a SIGN OF THE TIMES for the present day, in the varied antagonists of Christ and His Gospel, the author may be permitted to quote the testimony of a muchvalued friend, an elderly clergyman of the Church of England, and formerly a fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, who has favoured me with an exegesis of the above passage in the Apocalypse of St. John. He writes to me as follows:

"In order to recognize the offspring of the spirits that proceed from three distinct parents, it is necessary that we should clearly ascertain what the three parents are. They are three 'beasts,' mentioned already in the

Revelation. The first is the great red dragon' of the 12th chapter, or PAGAN ROME, i.e., heathenism. The second is, emphatically, 'The blasphemous beast' of the 13th chapter, or the PAPACY. The third is the 'two-horned beast,' mentioned in the latter part of the 13th chapter, forcing the world to worship, not himself, but the great beast before him, an adjutantgeneral to the Papacy, or the Court of the Inquisition, worked by the two orders of monks instituted for the purpose, the Dominicans and Franciscans, identical with THE FALSE PROPHET, as he is afterwards called (ch. xix. 20), the latter being identified with the two-horned beast by his position, office, and work; the JESUITS, who succeeded the Dominicans and Franciscans in the working of the Inquisition, having then received the name of the FALSE PROPHET. When the Jesuits were restored by the Pope at the Papal jubilee in 1825, they were designated, not as an order, but as public educators of the people, or teachers, or prophets, or false prophets,' as the Bible calls them. They entered Protestant pulpits in Germany, and introduced RATIONALISM into German schools and German universities, to undermine the inspiration and authority of Scripture, when they could not exclude it. Rationalism is the spawn of the Jesuits. The three unclean spirits,' therefore, are the offspring of these three parents, or the spirits of these three parent beasts.

6

1st. "The spirit out of the mouth of the dragon is the spirit of heathenism, or the spirit of INFIDELITY. 2nd. The spirit out of the mouth of the beast is the spirit of POPERY, or Romanism and Ritualism. 3rd. The spirit out of the mouth of the false prophet is the spirit of the false teaching of the JESUITS, calling black white and white black, or Rationalism and Neology. They are quite distinct, while they combine and co-operate. They are distinguished by their adding to the Bible, or taking away from it, or rejecting it altogether. The second spirit, or Romanism and Ritualism, adds to the Bible. The third spirit, or Rationalism, takes away from the Bible. The first spirit, or infidelity, rejects the Bible altogether. I feel persuaded that the three' unclean spirits' are INFIDELITY, ROMANISM, and RATIONALISM. You find these everywhere, wherever you go." 8

If this be not an exact definition of the "three unclean spirits," as seen in the Apocalyptic vision, it is, probably, as near an approach to it as any which the Church of Christ has yet seen. The late revered Edward Bickersteth, for want of some more distinctive designation, called the third unclean

8 Some are inclined to understand by the "three unclean spirits "—1st. The spirit of infidelity. 2nd. The spirit of priestcraft, not confined to the Church of Rome exclusively. 3rd. The spirit of Mohammedanism, referring the Apocalyptic term of "false prophet" to Mohammed, as the great enemy of the Christian religion,

spirit LAWLESSNESS. But this spirit, like the other two, is something positive, and not a mere negation; besides, lawlessness is not the characteristic of one of the spirits only, but of all the three; being seen in the Communism of the French infidels, Socialism of the Germans, the Nihilism of the Russians. In the Papacy the Spirit of God has specially marked the head of that corrupt Church as emphatically the predicted “lawless one (ỏ àvoμos); while the Romanizing party in the Church of England at the present time have displayed the spirit of lawlessness in a more extreme form than has ever been witnessed amongst professing members of the Church of Christ. Nor can we shut our eyes to the action of Bishop Colenso and his Rationalistic allies as developing the spirit of lawlessness in another direction.

دو

The most recent phase of the Rationalistic school is seen in Professor Robertson Smith, of the Free Kirk of Scotland-his vain attempt to make the Pentateuch a forgery, after the manner of Bishop Colenso and his destructive infidel allies. It is not necessary to enter into any details of Professor Smith's criticisms, whose pretensions have been ably exposed by Mr. Cave, in a valuable article in the October number (1880) of the British and Foreign Evangelical Review. It will be sufficient to note that Mr. Smith's objections to the truth of Scripture are only the echo of what has been said a hundred times by German professors, from Astruc or Eichorn downwards. Mr. Smith's theory is, that the only part of the Pentateuch written by Moses are the Ten Commandments; while Exodus xx.-xxiii. was written about eight centuries later, before the time of Isaiah; while the book of Deuteronomy was written about a century later still. If such "nonsense," as we must consider it, can satisfy the infidel critics of the present day, it is satisfactory to feel that it has not in the slightest degree affected the Christian Church, or shaken the faith of a single human being worthy the name of Christian. All argument, all discoveries in the science of archæology, tend to confirm the belief of the Jewish and Christian Churches during the last 3500 years, that the first five books of the Bible were written

by the great law-giver of the Jewish people; and the recently deciphered monuments of Egypt help to prove that it was so in a very remarkable manner. The solemn words of warning, which our Divine Master delivered to the unbelieving Jews 18 centuries ago, are equally required for unbelieving Christians in the present day :

"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke xvi. 31).

Accepting the interpretation given above of "INFIDELITY," "ROMANISM," and "RATIONALISM," as fulfilling the predicted prophecy respecting the three unclean spirits, which appear increasingly powerful at the present time; and bearing in mind that it is not so much the thing itself as it is the spirit of each with which we have to do, let us proceed to consider some of the marks belonging to each of these "spirits" in the present day.

INFIDELITY appears to the world under a very different guise from what it did ninety years ago, at the commencement of the French Revolution. Then Christendom witnessed a scene which can never be forgotten as long as the history of the world lasts. On the 7th of November, 1792, M. Gobet, Archbishop of Paris, appeared before the National Assembly of France, accompanied by some of his clergy, and then and there, in the most formal manner, abjured the Christian Faith, declaring that "no other national religion was now required save that of liberty, equality, and morality." Three days later a band of laymen appeared at the bar of the Assembly, and declared that "God did not exist, and that the worship of Reason was to be substituted in his stead.” A veiled female, Madame Maillard of the opera, arrayed in blue drapery, was brought into the Assembly, when Chaumette, taking her by the hand, exclaimed, "Mortals, cease to tremble before the powerless thunders of a God whom your fears have created. Henceforth acknowledge no divinity but Reason. If you must have idols, sacrifice only to such as this." THE GODDESS OF REASON, after having been embraced by the President, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted amidst an immense crowd to the cathedral of Notre Dame, where she