great authority." (Rev. xiii. 2.) Such will be the end of the boasted liberty of human thought. Just in proportion as men throw off from themselves the restraint of God and of His truth, they become abject servants and slaves of Satan. Whilst imagining themselves to be free, they blindly seek after, serve, and worship, whatever Satan proposes to them.

PROGRESS MADE IN TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. The progress that has been made during the last twenty-five years (from 1848 to 1873) in bringing into closer association with each other most of the countries of the Roman world, and in separating (either legislatively or completely) from the Roman kingdoms countries that do not fall within the Roman boundary, has been very marked. The Crimean War in 1854-5 brought the eastern part of the Roman world into a much closer association than before with the western Roman nations; and the union then formed does not seem likely to be even temporarily interrupted. Community of interest, especially in a day like the present, is a bond of wondrous tenacity and strength. The Crimean War, too, recovered the greater part of Bessarabia (for Bessarabia belongs to the Roman world) from the grasp of Russia.

yet the latter triumphs. The supremacy of ecclesiastical power must finally give way to the sceptre of the secular monarch. The struggle may be prolonged and prove most disastrous in its consequences, but THE ISSUE IS NOT DOUBTtful.

There has been, it is true, one most important event that has seemed to stay or turn back the tide of progress, as respects the territorial development of the Ten Kingdoms. The Franco-German War, instead of giving back to France those portions of Roman territory which Prussia had formerly annexed (viz., Rhenish Prussia, west of the Rhine), ended, in 1871, in giving more to Prussia, so that Prussia's position on the west bank of the Rhine, instead of being weakened, has been materially strengthened. This may seem to be a retrograde movement; and in one respect it is: but, in another and more important point of view, it is not. The Franco-German War will be found in result to have accelerated rather than retarded the expected development.

For many years past, France (though, in some cases, as in her war with Austria, her plans have been marvellously overruled) has been the great obstructor to the development of the Ten Kingdoms. Hungary, the centre of which does not fall within France and the Papacy have been confederates in the Roman boundary, has been legislatively separated obstruction. France had for her darling object prefrom Austria, and further changes are imminent eminence among the nations of Europe. Despising there, as well as in all those non-Roman countries equality, she coveted leadership. Professedly the which Austria has vainly endeavoured to fuse into patroness of liberty, she was, nevertheless, quite political identity with herself. The seemingly in-willing to keep on the neck of other countries (such as dissoluble bond which kept Austria in close political association with Prussia and the other non-Roman states of northern Germany, was severed so suddenly and unexpectedly as to electrify Europe. The work of centuries was destroyed in a moment. Yet men needed not to have so marvelled. It was a necessary event; for the Roman nations, being appointed to be the centre of the world's greatness during the closing period of its evil history, must move in a separate circle, and have a peculiar history of their own.

Ireland (which is non-Roman) feverishly restless and, by England, victimised to priestcraft, is yearly weakening the ties by which she has been linked to England. Italy, which, twenty years ago, seemed more distant than ever from attaining the objects of her long-cherished hopes (the acquisition of Rome as her capital) has at last succeeded. Rome is hers, and constitutional or democratic monarchy is established both in Italy and Austria. Austria, once the great pillar of the Papacy, and the enemy and tramplerdown of Italy, has changed her course, and become Italy's friend. The temporal sovereignty of the Papacy over the City of, Rome ceased in 1870: and although the canon law is still throughout Western Europe, struggling with the civil law for supremacy,

Rome and Spain) the most cruel and oppressive yokes, if her own pre-eminence was aided thereby. Accordingly, France schemed for a Latin League, of which she was to be the head, and which was in Western Europe to extirpate "the clay," and to return to "the iron " alone. What was "Cæsarism" but this? Imperialism was to sustain Ecclesiasticism, and before this two-fold power the modern " clay-iron" governmental theories were to perish.

Accordingly, Italy and other neighbouring States were kept down by France, and their native energies crippled. Italy was to be terrified by threats, and Spain debased and enfeebled by priestcraft. Even the development of the East was by France impeded unless the development accorded with her desires. If Egypt advanced, it must be under the tutelage of France, and Tunis was to be a French appanage. A plot, formed by the Imperial Government in France and the Papal Government in Rome, against the liberties of Western Europe and against Protestantism, was doubtless, as evidence goes to show, THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF THE WAR WITH PRUSSIA. Soldiers supplied by France and legions of priests supplied and controlled from Rome, were to inaugurate and sustain the new regime.

It was a dark and deadly plot, but God mercifully interposed and frustrated it. God fought against France, and in one moment dashed to the ground her atrocious schemes. Instantly the secular power of the Papacy fell; Italy, for the first time, became really free, and the iron hand of France was removed (in all probability, finally) from her and from other nations. The establishment of the freedom of Italy, the confirmation of the severance between Austria and Northern Germany, the fall of the temporal power of the Papacy, the determination evinced in Italy and elsewhere to secure the supremacy of the civil over the canon law, are, as respects the progress of the Ten Kingdoms, events of far greater moment than the temporary annexation to Germany of a few provinces of France. It may be that France may not regain her lost territory until the development of the Ten Kingdoms in federal union; or they may be regained previously, either by convention or by the sword. The present monarch of Prussia and Germany fears and honours God, and God has prospered him; but his subjects, previously leavened with infidelity and radicalism, have, since their contact with France, received much added moral poison, which is pregnant with calamitous results.

THE FUTURE OF GERMANY.

save an empty title which, at a comparatively recent period, our monarchs were wise enough to resign.

We must not forget that God has not ceased to be the Governor of the universe. Although, for the most part, He hides the operations of His hand, and often permits men to pursue their godless schemes successfully, and allows them to defy His power and to spurn His wisdom and love, yet He, nevertheless, does sometimes intervene to check the course of triumphant evil, to award punishment where punishment is due, and thus to make it manifest, by some marked and terribly startling intervention of His hand, that He only is supreme, and that He is a God by whom actions are weighed."

THE DARING INFIDELITY OF FRANCE. Is there any nation upon the earth which, since the period of the Reformation, has more daringly outraged and defied God than France? Inconstant in other things, she has been constant in her rejection of God. At the time of the Reformation she was favoured with much Protestant light. Many a herald of mercy was sent to her, and Calvin, one of the chief pillars of the Reformation, was raised up from amongst her own people. The history of France differs from that of Spain as to this. Spain was not to the same extent favoured with light. Spain never had a Calvin. But the trumpet of truth was loudly sounded in the ears of France, and marked results followed-results that gave to France prolonged opportunities of judging between light and darkness, God and Baal. Deliberately she rejected the omnipotent God, and chose Baal.

.

The horizon of Germany is not devoid of clouds of dark and threatening aspect. The storm may be comparatively distant; but if it come, it will probably come with a violence and fury as yet unparalleled. (See Heine's "Anticipations Respecting the Future of Germany.") An explosion there would strike Europe more terribly than any that has occurred in France; Was there ever a night in the annals of Christendom for there is a strength and vigour and manhood in more marked with malignant, demoniacal atrocity, Germany that the childishness and fickleness and than the night of the twenty-fourth of August, quickly cowed spirit of France knows not. But it is 1572? That was one of the answers of France to the sufficient to say that the moral changes that are in mercy of God in sending her that light which, on progress through the late victories of Prussia, are of the night of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, she infinitely greater moment than the temporary loss quenched in blood. Another answer was given by of provinces by France. It should be remembered, her when she revoked the Edict of Nantes, by which too, that territorial changes are not, like moral protection had been granted to Protestantism, and so changes, necessarily slow. They may be accomplished drove it from her borders. That deed, though less in a day. England once possessed far more of ostensibly atrocious than the slaughter of the night France than Prussia now holds; and she held it, of St. Bartholomew, brought sufferings no less deadly apparently, on a far more secure tenure: for in result on many a fugitive martyr who refused to Normandy and other circumstances had brought exchange the Bible for tradition. So Truth was England into relations to France far closer than trampled down, and Priestcraft enthroned. Germany has ever held. Yet, in a moment, the It reigned in France until the great Revolution of energy of a fanatical peasant-girl (Joan D'Arc, of 1789, when outraged human nature, disgusted by its Orleans) scattered the armies of England, and restored whole provinces to France, and took from England well-nigh every token of her dominion there,

*[Soon after the death of King Henry V. of England, and while Henry VI. a minor was reigning, between 1420 and 1430, Joan D'Arc, at the head of the French armies, drove the English out of Orleans, Rheims, and nearly all France.-EDITOR.]

falsehoods, sickened by its moral depravity, and terrified by its cruelties, made, at the end of the last century, a spasmodic effort, and suddenly burst the hateful and intolerable yoke. The licentiousness which had reigned in the Tuileries, and the savage cruelties of which the Bastille was the exponent

(both being the results of a priest-directed despotism) Rome hated Protestantism, and Rome was again received just retribution, and fell before an outbreak potent in France, and on Rome the enfeebled of revolutionary fury, the like to which civilised Government of France leaned. Before the military Europe had never before beheld. Blood compen- strength of France, aided by the well-trained priestly sated for blood shackles were struck off, and hosts that had been located in Germany, it was liberty was gained. But it was not holy liberty; it hoped that Prussia, and with her western Protes was not liberty that sought to be directed by truth. tantism, would fall. But God had other thoughts. It was the liberty of unsanctified, unregenerate The blow which France intended for others was hearts, that, wearied and disgusted with sacerdotal caused to fall upon herself, and Protestantism— fictions, had steeled themselves into infidelity and unworthy, worldly, slumbering Protestantism, though believed nothing. The wit and sarcasm of Voltaire, for her sins she well deserved to be smitten to the seeing that it amused and promised liberty of thought dust-received unmerited protection from the long and action, were far more grateful than the mumbled suffering mercy of God. It is a lesson given from falsehoods of the priest that had so long enthralled Heaven. Has France yet learned from it? them; and they cared not to distinguish between

to that which the powers of darkness are effecting where Popery has dominated, other influences are within her borders, is one of the most appalling penetrating. Austria and Italy are examples. In spectacles that the history of mankind has yet pre- England, where Protestantism once ruled, Popery, sented. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth availing itself of the aid of that truthless Latitucentury was a work of God, as sure and certain as dinarianism which is seeking to introduce equality any which He has ever wrought on earth, in behalf of creeds, has strengthened itself both within and of His truth and people. Consequently they who without the Anglican Establishment; and so the avowedly set themselves against it must be adversaries dominancy of Protestantism in England falls. At of God. They set themselves against God to trample present, a patch-work garment is being prepared. down and to hinder the effects of the greatest work Ultimately, indeed, when the time shall come for which in these latter days His Spirit has wrought. Antichrist to be revealed in the full power of his Men may learn the solemn truth too late; but the unfettered, despotic sway, the hell-woven web will last great day will show that they who have, either become altogether black. There will be strict unity through indifferentism and ignorance, or through then-unity in atheistic blasphemy. But the transworldliness or antipathy to the truth, helped ingressors are not "come to the full." At present, casting down the distinctive truths of Protestantism, have set themselves against the work of the Holy Ghost. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God;" a fearful thing to meet that "fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries."

the web that Satan is intending to weave is one of divers colours. The throne of Latitudinarianism is established upon the principles and policy of expediency and compromise. Before it Ecclesiasticism will (perhaps at no very distant period) be made to cease from its vauntings, and will become content to occupy only a niche in the Pantheon of TruthlessThe true servants of Christ only will refuse to join in the unholy concord. Mordecai-like, they will refuse to bow; but they will have to seal their testimony with their blood.

PRICE ONE PENNY,

WEEKLY,

16 pages, large quarto. THE CHRISTIAN HERALD

AND

SIGNS OF OUR TIMES.

Edited by the Rev. M. Baxter, Clergyman of the Church of England. A Weekly Journal of Religious News and Exponent of the Prophetic Scriptures. Circulates over 240,000 copies every week. It gives every week a PORTRAIT and Memoir of some eminent person, and other pictures. It also contains every week a SERMON Sermon or Exposition by Rev. C. H. SPURGEON. It has likewise ably

A UNIFORM SACERDOTALISM IMPOSSIBLE. No one form of sacerdotal religiousness, whetherness. Jewish, Roman, Greek, Anglican, or Mahommedan, will ever succeed in raising itself into universal dominancy. The days of such humiliation are past. The governmental plans to be adopted now must be such as will subserve the interests and commend themselves to the awakened intelligence of the wide world. Do the counsellors of the Vatican dream that they would succeed (even if Protestantism were extinguished) in forcing into the narrow circle of their "infallible" Popish rule the rising intelligence of Egypt and Greece, European and Asiatic Turkey, and Northern Africa, not to speak of Russia, India, China, and Japan, and of scattered but influential Israel? The drag-net of the coming Antichrist, that is to enclose this multitude of peoples, must be somewhat larger than any that ecclesiastic Rome ever has handled. An hour is drawing nigh when Antichrist, a more terrible personage than Mahomet, will appear, and Rome and Athens, Egypt and Assyria, Antioch and Jerusalem, will, with England FORTY COMING WONDERS. and the West, enter his mighty "drag-net," and be for a time the servants of his glory. Before him the whole Roman world (waσa ʼn oikovμevn) will bow down and worship for three and a half years. (See Revelation xiii.) It will be the result of the judicial infliction of God on former iniquities.

THE TRIUMPH OF LATITUDINARIANISM. Herod must become latitudinarian, or he must cease to reign. Accordingly, in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Tunis, where Mahommedanism has hitherto been in the ascendant, we are beginning to see its exclusiveness resigned. So also in countries

by the Rev. Dr. TALMAGE, the eminent American Preacher, and a
written Stories, Articles, Social and Religious Sketches, Narratives,
Anecdotes, and Brief Biographies, and a Serial Story of thrilling
interest. Also, Prophetic Articles by Clergymen and others on the

PRESENT CRISIS and the Second Advent of Christ. It can be
Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. Sent, post-free, for lid.
had through any Bookseller in town or country, from the Office, 2,
Also, in Sevenpenny Monthly Parts, in neat cover.

BY THE EDITOR.

With 50 Illustrations. Price 28. 600 Pages. Brief, a London weekly paper, says of it: "After a careful examination of this work, we cannot resist the conclusion that much of its contents is worthy the consideration of those persons who feel a special interest in the more fearful sections of the Holy Scriptures. Some arguments adduced are most ingeniously based on known historic facts, and the passages relative to the future of the Napoleonic family are decidedly startling. It contains much that may profitably engage the attention of thoughtful readers. There are no less than fifty illustrations, which will probably prove the great attraction to many."

THE GREAT CRISIS AT HAND. description of the Coming Great Events of Prophecy.-BY REV. M. 1d. 32 pp.. with Map and Diagrams. Contains a compendious BAXTER.

EXPECTATIONS OF

BY REV. T. J. MALYON.

II. THE FIRST RESURRECTION.

The Dawning of the Light-The Imperfect Faith of the Disciples-Modern Confusion Respecting the Doctrine-"The Resurrection of the Just"-" The Children of the Resurrection "-When Will it Take Place ?"-The "Times of Refreshing "-The General Resurrection.