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Let us

glad to see you, and you have spoken wiser than you are 'ware. Vinegar, say you? Suppose we construe a line of Juvenal together. Here it is, in the tenth Satire, over which you used to bite your nails The poet is speaking of Carthaginian Hannibal, and of the means he used, cunning fellow, to soften the obstinate Alps. first read the line: Diducit scopulos, et montem rumpit aceto. now for the construing (Sugar-candy begins to construe); 'Diducit, he deduced' (Sugar-candy turns pale, he becomes red; he looks incontinently at the ceiling; finally, he rushes out of the room; in search, probably, of his Latin dictionary).

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Good;

For the benefit, meanwhile, of my English readers, I will venture to ask a few plain questions. What acid condiments do they use to invigorate the digestive apparatus, and to increase its vital action? What is that which they employ to give flavour to the salad, and without which the crude vegetables could scarcely be eaten? How would they combat what the physicians call the secondary symptoms' of narcotic poisons? And what is it, finally, which serves the poor man as a refrigerant, and even (when properly diluted) as a grateful drink, in certain cases of fever? Vinegar, my friends, has its uses in this world, as well as sugar-candy; though I doubt if I have enough of it to bring intoxicated editors to their senses, or even to hush the feverish applause of a religious meeting. For, incredulous as you look, I am no vinegar merchant, but a poor Christian, with some of the milk of human kindness left in him still. But some extensive dealer in the sour beverage may yet arise, who shall both cheapen it and remember to mix with it, in the proportion which the law allows, sulphuric acid. Have a care, my friends; sulphuric acid, recollect! one part of it to every thousand, freely allowed by law!

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I resume my pen to copy the following paragraph, purporting to be an extract from a speech lately delivered; but I will not vouch for its authenticity:-'He had been asked to translate a heathen poet, but his preferences lay with the prophets and apostles [cheers]. This was an age of progress. The penny postage, the electric telegraph, the Crystal Palace, the rapid locomotive, had left Juvenal far behind; and he wondered the booksellers continued to print him [cheers]; we were living in the nineteenth century [great cheering], in the very heart of it [increased cheering]; dukes and cabinet ministers took the chair at our public anniversaries; and "I esteem myself happy, Sir," continued the speaker, turning gracefully to the chair, "to see you in the place of honour to-day." The chairman [an old friend-Mr. Jones Smith—it appears] acknowledged the compliment with a bow. The speaker resumed: It might be known to that meeting, that an obscure scribbler had dared to arraign at his paltry bar the collective wisdom of the age. Was this to be endured? Was it to be endured, that the innocent and inspiriting customs of such an assembly as that, an assembly so enlightened, so influential, so- -The remainder of the sentence (says the report) was drowned in VEHEMENT APPLAUSE.'

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Antichrist and the Last Time.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF DR. AUG. NEANDER.

It is the last time, and as ye have heard that Antichrist cometh, so now there are many Antichrists; by this we know that it is the last time.' 1 John ii. 18.

THE observant Christian in every age may learn from the apostle not to interpret particular events as though they were detached, but as parts of one great whole; to ask what place the present has in relation to the whole history of the kingdom of God, and then to form his conclusions as to each separate part. We should never pass by any appearances lightly or without attention, but try to mark the finger of God-the leadings of divine wisdom-in all, and thus direct our own course of life, and regulate our influence upon our age. In every sign of the times we should hear the voice of God, whether it call to repentance, exhort to prudence and watchfulness, or encourage to confidence; and the word of God will never fail to supply us with directions by which to interpret them.

The apostle calls the age in which his epistle was written the last time, meaning by it the Christian era. It is possible that he gives it this designation because it forms the terminating point, the completion of all the earlier revelations of God; all of which were in their nature temporary, leading to that one event which was the centre and corner-stone of the kingdom of God-the coming of Jesus as the Redeemer of man. From that time everything bears some relation to the progress of that new element, which entered through Christ into the history of man, and is to leaven the whole, until its design is accomplished. All the rest of human history, though a section, is in itself a connected whole, extending from that event to the final consummation-the last sifting and perfecting of the kingdom of God on earth-which will be brought about by the personal return of Christ. In this respect, therefore, without regard to its length, it may be called the last time' in the history of the development of the kingdom of God.

It is certain, however, that when the apostles called their age the last time, they used this term with a more limited meaning, thinking that the signs indicated the coming of the last time of all, the dissolution of all earthly things, and the return of the Lord. They could neither calculate nor foresee the length of time which would elapse before that event; and if in this respect their expectation was at fault, there is in that nothing startling or at all at variance with the promise, that the Holy Ghost should lead them into all the truth which Christ had taught, and enable them to understand it. Although

* Der erste Brief Johannis. Praktisch erläutert, durch Dr. Aug. Neander. Berlin, 1851.

Christ had promised them that this Spirit should also show them things to come,' this is certainly not to be understood without restriction, but only so far as was requisite, that they might enter fully into the meaning of the truth which Christ had taught them in reference to the kingdom of God. Prophetical certainty with regard to the whole future course of that kingdom is certainly not intended. And, therefore, if they imagined that the last time,' which, in its fullest extent, embraces all time subsequent to the coming of Christ, was of shorter duration, and that the period of final consummation was close at hand, an error in the calculation of time is perfectly consistent with this measure of illumination by the Holy Spirit. It was not needful for the exercise of their divine vocation of teaching that they should be able to calculate time in this way with accuracy and certainty; indeed, Christ has said that it is hidden from the angels, and the Son of Man himself, when the last period will arrive; the heavenly Father has reserved it for his own decree. And we may easily see that it could not be otherwise. The coming of that period is prepared by the whole course of history, in connexion with the linking together of all free volitions, and on this it depends. Ability, therefore, to fix this period supposes a foresight of all the divine regulations in the history of the world to that time; regulations which consist in the guidance of free beings without restricting the freedom of their will. And this only such a foreknowledge as springs from divine Omniscience can possibly perceive. This accords, too, with the answer given by Christ to his disciples, when they asked him, before his ascension, when his kingdom would fully appear in this world? It is not for you to know the time or the hour, which the Father has reserved in his own power.' (Acts i. 7.) Here Christ himself gives them to understand that it did not belong to the vocation of his disciples to be able, in this way, to calculate times; and thus. the boundary line between the divine and the human in their consciousness, was marked by him, showing what they were to see by the light of the Holy Spirit, and to what extent they would be left to themselves.

Their longing anticipated the reappearing of their Lord, the coming of his kingdom in glory, and they felt as the traveller who, on his return, sees his home in the distance; the eye takes in at a glance the objects from which he is separated, but cannot trace the windings of the road; and as, with eager eye, he looks across the space which lies between, the distant object seems close at hand, and only after hastening towards it, does he discover how great a space divides him from his longed-for home. It was with such feelings as these that the prophets looked forward to the coming of the Messiah; and with the same, the apostles expected the return of their Lord. The traveller in time, equally with the traveller in space, overlooks what intervenes, and fancies that he sees at hand the objects of his expectation and desire. As Christianity, therefore, was made known as the way from the earthly to the heavenly, it naturally happened that when the look was directed only to the heavenly, the earthly appeared as something fading,

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and that which formed but the point of transition was regarded as quickly to pass away. Christ did indeed, in his parables relating to the kingdom of God-as, for example, when comparing it with leavenindicate a slow, gradual development from within; but the meaning of these words, as of much which Christ said, could only be understood in its full extent after the course of history had furnished the interpretation. Not till then could it be seen that, what to the first Christians seemed only capable of accomplishment by another personal intervention of Christ himself, was to be brought about by the gradual diffusion of Christianity as the leaven of all the races of men, with whose wide extension no man could possibly be acquainted then.

Christ, in his last discourses, mentioned several signs which were to precede and announce his reappearing. But these signs were not sufficient alone to determine accurately that epoch; for as the same law pervades the whole progress of the kingdom of God on earth, so the grand periods in that progress resemble each other-the same law being there repeated each time in a higher degree. Later periods are not only prepared, but prefigured by those which go before them. And thus the last personal coming of Christ to establish his kingdom is preceded by many great epochs in the progress of that kingdom, each manifesting his coming in spirit, if not in person; indicating a new great spiritual appearance of Christ in the life of men-a new coming of the kingdom of God with power-and these epochs constitute great divisions in the history of the Church. Now the signs which are to announce the last personal coming of Christ are also prefigured by those which announce and prepare each of these spiritual advents in history; as all the great epochs consequent upon a new coming of Christ point to that last personal coming; serve, that is, both to prefigure and prepare that last decisive epoch. And thus the same law is constantly repeating itself, each time with greater power and completeness, before it is fulfilled for the last time. From this we may understand the way in which Christ himself, in his last discourses, so mixed together the signs of his first mighty spiritual coming in the judgments of the corrupt theocracy (the destruction of Jerusalem), and in the breaking forth of his kingdom from the limits and privacy in which it had worked till then, and the signs of his last coming to jugdment and for the consummation of the kingdom of God, that it is at times difficult to tell to which the different signs are to be referred. And we can, therefore, easily imagine, that at each of these great epochs, and especially in the apostolic age, signs, which were to be often repeated, were generally thought to announce that epoch which in the strictest sense is called " the last time.'

There is one law in the progress of the kingdom of God, which we find alluded to in the last discourses of Christ; and to this John refers in the words quoted above, and Paul in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (ii. 4); namely, that the kingdom of Christ is developed by an increasingly severe contest with the kingdom of evil, and that new manifestations of the latter always precede new and more glorious manifestations of the former, the mode of the one being determined by

that of the other. The evil, by a gradual growth, arrives at its height, and then the kingdom of Christ appears in conflict with it; and by a new, powerful coming of Christ, the kingdom of evil is at last vanquished again. And in all these great decisive epochs, which result from such a conflict, we find prefigured that greatest struggle of all, which is to precede the last coming of Christ. This gives us an encouraging prospect, whilst it urges to watchfulness whenever we see evil increasing. This law, which we draw from the word of God, teaches us what we have to expect in the future, and how in the present we may see the preparation of all that is to come. And seeing, as he did, the occurrence of these events in the contests which took place at the end of the apostolic era, and which paved the way for the subsequent progress of the gospel, the apostle might easily think that he recognised in them the signs of the last time. He justly applied the law which Christ himself had shown him in reference to the contest between the two kingdoms; though, for the reasons assigned, he might not know that those signs would be frequently repeated before they announced the last epoch of all.

John takes it for granted, that those whom he addresses had already heard that in the last time there would arise one whom he calls the Antichrist. He might assume this as known, partly from the instruction given by himself to the Churches, and partly from that which they had received from the apostle Paul. The Churches had, no doubt, frequently been told of the dangers of the last time and its important signs, in order that they might await with all watchfulness the conflicts which were before them. But the apostle speaks of many Antichrists; and the question arises, Does he intend by that to convey the idea that Antichrist is not a single person, but a company manifesting opposition to Christ, so that under the name of Antichrist there is simply something personified and treated as one which is in reality distributed amongst several individuals? This were by no means a correct inference; but the many individuals whom he sees manifesting, in their opposition to Christ, the Antichristian principle, appear to him as messengers-forerunners of the One in whom that principle will reach its highest point, and who will therefore appear as its express representative, the incarnate Antichristian principle. In this respect, also, we find the same law constant, that in evil as well as good there are individuals who form the centre and appear as the express representatives of contending principles, and in whom that which is distributed amongst many others is gathered up in its completeness and grandeur. Isolated operations of good and evil serve, on the one hand, to prepare that which afterwards reaches its height in one individual, whilst, on the other, such individuals disseminate the principles which they represent. And in this way John, when he saw several individuals arise as instruments of Antichristianity, saw in them a sign that the appearance of that great personality, in whom the Antichristian principle would reach its height, was near at hand.

We have only now to inquire what we are to understand by Antichristianity and Antichrist. Are we to include all opponents of

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