lasting joy to all his true people. All Christendom was animated with "the blessed hope" of "the glorious appearing of the great God, even our Savior Jesus Christ." It was this that sustained them amid persecution, banishment, and poverty, and that made them welcome even the blood and fires of martyrdom itself. But, as age after age rolled away without bringing the expected Lord, interest in the subject began to flag, and Christians began to lose their original ardor with reference to it. Mosheim tells us that the philosophy of the third century proved very detrimental to it, introducing, as it did, ways of contemplating it to which the apostles and their associates were entire strangers. This celebrated historian assures us that the opinion of Christ's speedy coming to reign on the earth was, in the second century, "diffused over a great part of Christendom; that the most eminent doctors afvored it; and that no controversy with them was moved by those who [may have] thought otherwise." He quotes Tertullian as speaking of it as "the common doctrine of the Church." Then, at least, the whole body of Christians were at one upon this subject. "Down to the times of Origen," says he, "all the teachers who were so disposed openly professed and taught it. But Origen assailed it fiercely, for it was repugnant to his philosophy; and by the system of biblical interpretation which he discovered he gave a different turn to those texts of Scripture on which the patrons of this doctrine most relied. The consequence was that it lost its influence with most

'But a

Christians." The virgins began to nod. little past the middle of this [third] century," he tells us, "Nepos, an Egyptian bishop, endeavored to revive it and give it currency, by an appropriate treatise, which he called a Confutation of the Allegorists. This book was admired by many in the district of Arsinoë, and was thought to confirm the visible reign of Christ on earth by the most solid arguments. Hence great commotions arose in that part of Egypt, and many congregations gladly resumed their expectation of the future millennium.” Christendom again lifted up its head, opened its eyes, and began to listen for the coming of its Lord. "But these commotions were quieted by Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, a pupil of Origen. He held a discussion with one Coracion and his followers, in which, by his admonitions, arguments, and exhortations, he induced them to give up the opinion they had derived from the treatise of Nepos."* And the virgins dozed again. Presently up rose Methodius, the pious Bishop of Tyre, and put forth his Feast of the Ten Virgins, and then the earnest Apollinaris, the Bishop of Laodicea, in two Books against Dionysius, and then the eloquent Lactantius, in his Institutes of Divinity,—each in his turn endeavoring to awaken the Church to its ancient hopes and interest in the return of its Lord; but the drowsy virgins barely opened their eyes at their calls, and dozed again in still deeper slumbers. And thus, with now

* See Mosheim's Historical Commentaries, ii. 244-250.

and then a half-dreamy spell of wakefulness here and there, the Church has been slumbering and sleeping with respect to this subject from the times of Origen until now. And even at this present there is a drowsiness upon Christendom which makes the great mass of it think we are but dreaming and talking deliriously when we seriously propound the doctrine that the Son of God may peradventure come in our day! The Bridegroom tarries, and the virgins nod and sleep.

But, although the virgins thus slumbered and slept while the Bridegroom delayed, he does not come upon them without some effective pre-intimation of it at the time. Though their drowsiness deserved badly, yet such is the compassion of Christ for his people that he is very lenient towards their infirmities, and sends an awakening cry before him to arouse the sleepers into readiness. His desire is to have as

many prepared as possible.

Hence

“At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him."

And the

Christ's second coming, like his first, is everywhere represented as occurring in the night. literal darkness in which he is to be revealed is but the type of a spiritual and moral darkness which will then be found enveloping the world and even the Church. It is in this midnight that the cry goes forth, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh !"

What is meant by this cry, expositors have not en agreed. Some think that it is altogether a ystery, which shall not be understood until it shall

have been made. "The shout of the archangel and the trump of God," with which Paul says the Lord will come, has been referred to as the thing intended. This may be; but, as marriage-processions of the sort presupposed in this parable were always attended with trumpeting, shouting, and singing, it would seem as if Paul's language had been borrowed from this place, and hence would be subject to a like parabolic interpretation. For my own part, I take this midnight cry as embracing numerous particulars. The Scriptures point us to many "signs" which are to attend and immediately precede the Savior's coming; and it is the united voice of all these that I take to be the cry to which he here refers. Dr. Henderson relates that one night, while in the East, he was stunned by the noise of a procession, led on by a band of musicians playing on tambourines and cymbals, which, on inquiry, he learned consisted of a Jewish bridegroom accompanied by his young friends. And it is not without some such corresponding clamor and heralding that Christ's coming is to be preceded and attended.

The first and most literal will be "the cry of the word," or such a literal proclaiming of the fact of Christ's nearness, as deduced from the prophecies, as shall create considerable stir upon the subject. We are assured in the book of Daniel (xii. 4) that, as the end approaches, "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge [of these mysteries] shall be increased;" or, as Luther renders it, "many shall come over it and find great understanding,"—that is, of these

matters, and thus contribute to awaken the drowsy attention of men to them. John also tells us that, in the time of the sounding of the last trumpet, he saw an angel flying in mid-heaven, crying, "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come." (Rev. xiv. 6, 7.) This has been taken to indicate that ministers of the gospel-and a large and conspicuous body of them-will at that time understand the true position of affairs, and announce, as with a trumpet-voice, the speedy coming of Christ to establish his throne on the earth, to raise and glorify the dead saints, to judge and reward his living elect, and to destroy his incorrigible enemies.

And along with these may also be special messengers, sent for the particular purpose of notifying men that the Lord is at hand, the same as John the Baptist at the first advent. There are sundry very important predictions respecting the coming of Elijah to prepare the way before the Lord, which do not seem as yet to have been fulfilled, and which lead many to believe, as the fathers did, that that great prophet is again to appear in the world,―at any rate, among the Jews,-to warn, advise of, and make things ready for the coming of "that great and terrible day of the Lord."*

* In Malachi iv. 5 we have this promise:-" Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." In Matt. xvii. 11, Christ himself says, "Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things." It has been the general opinion of the Church hitherto that these predictions remain to be fulfilled in literal reality. That there is a sense in