you had told a person thirty years ago that people could talk by lightning, he would have smiled at you, and set you down as an enthusiast or a foolish and ignorant fanatic. And yet, what is the fact? That this mysterious whispering wire, as it has been called, is covering the bottom of the ocean, spreading over Europe, Asia, and America; penetrating even that centre of obscurantism, the dominions of the pope himself: and at this moment Paris, Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin, can carry on a fireside correspondence with London. And the day is, perhaps, not far distant when New York and Calcutta shall be able to talk with London as one talks with his friend on the opposite corner of the chimney. There is something in this that so transcends the expectations of the past, and so completely responds to the prediction of the prophet, that I think no man can be warranted in passing it by who ventures to illustrate this text. "Many

shall run to and fro." messengers; land, and

The lightnings are become man's sea, and mountains, are no longer obstructions to man; space and time are very much annihilated now-a-days; the sea is practically dried up; distant capitals are neighbors; and great continents are bound together into a sisterhood of knowledge, one day to be a sisterhood of sympathy and of love. And families scattered over the whole world not only communicate with each other now in days by steam, but in seconds and minutes by lightning. The action of the cabinets of Europe is controlled, modified, directed, by lightning also, that is shot from one to the other; and reveals the wish or the will of the one to the understanding of the other. Now is it any forced construction of the facts of history when

I say they are the fulfilment of the prediction in this passage" Many shall run to and fro?" So rapidly is this increasing that if you open that wonderful disclosure of man's wants, a morning newspaper; that wonderful disclosure of temptations to launch out into expense, or speculation, or charity; you will find summer tours advertised for Egypt and Palestine; friendly visits are spoken of to New York and Philadelphia; excursions are talked of to Athens, Constantinople, and Rome. Why, to have talked of such things thirty years ago, as to be done in the time in which they are now advertised to be quietly achieved, would have laid you open to the imputation of the extremest and veriest folly. So that in all these respects this nineteenth century is characterized by an extent and an intensity of running to and fro unprecedented in any other century of the world. Besides, by a singular reaction, the very knowledge that is to be increased, of which I shall speak presently, is the cause in some degree of the running to and fro; and the running to and fro is the cause of the increase of the knowledge. What was the railway once? A thought in a student's mind. What was the electric telegraph?. A thought in the mind of an American. What was the ocean steamer? A thought in the mind of James Watt. Thoughts have thus been launched into facts; and what were at first the dreams of students have become the actions and the profits of the commercial world. What an encouragement to study! I do not believe any knowledge is worthless; all knowledge, all study, is worthy of our attention. A cause of all this running to and fro may be that man is restless; and that is quite true. Ever since man left Paradise, he has

wandered about seeking a home; he lost his home there; and he never since has got rid of the impression that he is not at home. To satisfy that yearning after a home he has recourse to all sorts of experiments. The very words of this prophecy, "Many shall run to and fro" may be translated, "Many shall run for refuge," "Many shall run to and fro, and seek earnestly or eagerly for shelter;" the word will bear that. "And knowledge shall be increased." There are two Hebrew verbs, and it has been a question not about the interpretation, but which is the true reading; the one verb differs from the other only in a letter; the one ends with the letter B and the other ends with the letter H. Well, it has been disputed which is the correct reading; if it be the one reading, then it means, "Knowledge shall be multiplied, increased, or augmented;" and if it be the other, then it would be, "Knowledge shall be flashed like the lightning flame;" and if this latter, it would be a striking prediction, meeting with a most brilliant fulfilment in the age in which we live. This leads me, therefore, to the second division of my subject, that "Knowledge shall be increased." Look around you anywhere, and at any department of knowledge, and see if this be not fulfilled. Take for instance geology. It has laid bare what has been called the stony page; it has shown upon the stratified rocks of the earth the foot-prints of God. We find that five successive times God has interposed in the exercise of his creative power; we find a dynasty of creatures destroyed; we find masses of rock laid over them, once sand and now solidified, we find above that rock, without any connection with the previous race, deep down below, a new race introduced,

and fitted to the new temperature, created at its perfection, and plainly by the hand of God. Well, now, it is interesting that geology should discover what the Bible on the highest authority has said; not to confirm the Bible, but to be to those that deny the Bible a presumptive proof that the Bible is true; that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." And very remarkable too, geology, once thought by some to be hostile to revelation, has in its maturity been shown to be in perfect harmony with revelation; so much so that though Moses was not inspired to teach science, yet wherever Moses touches on the confines of science, you find that he either knew the geology of 1859, or he was inspired by God. He did not know the former, but we are perfectly satisfied that he spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. Take again astronomy. It has risen on soaring wings, and with its eye inspected, and in its balance it has weighed the stars; it has calculated with an accuracy that is unimpeachable their distances. We can upset the whole theology of the Hindoo by predicting an eclipse; the very hour and the very minute when it will occur; the Hindoo stupidly believing it to be an interposition of one of his great deities. We can now show that those stars in the sky, that the poor ignorant peasant believes to be merely the gas-lamps on the ceiling of his bright home, are orbs grander, vaster, more magnificent than our own; and teeming with populations that probably never fell, and retain all their first and primal innocency. And we can show to demonstration that the remotest of these stars, stars for instance that Herschel has recently shown, have just been able to send the missionary beam that comes

from them to this world. Stars have been discovered that have been sending light at a speed so tremendous that that light only takes eight minutes to come from the sun; yet such is the distance of these orbs that rays have just infringed upon the eye of Herschel which have been travelling for millions of years from the source from which they set out. What a remarkable fact is that. And yet these most distant stars are what? The mere thin sentinels of that vast host that is spread out like shining dust upon the plains of infinitude;

For ever singing as they shine,

The hand that made us is divine.'

Again, what knowledge, for instance, of lands referred to in the Bible has been recently brought out! Ninevah has responded-shall I call it ?-to the magic touch of Layard; and has lately come up from the grave in which God says in Nahum he would bury it; it has come up from its grave; and in the British Museum it tells us at this moment, "Thy word, O God, is truth!" Babylon has been explored; and the minutest prediction of Isaiah has been proved to have its exact fulfilment. Jerusalem, long a mere picture in the pages of visitors who could not embody it, has been by that wondrous discovery of the day, which makes knowledge more palpable-photography— been set fully before us here. It has been made a photograph; so that you can see the very stones the old Rabbis kissed; you can see the very dust on which they trod; the Dead Sea, the springs, the Jordan, the mountains of Lebanon, all portrayed by the sunbeams with a faithfulness so exact that it is almost as good as if you exactly beheld them on the spot. And again, Egypt, that land of his