children, to appease the wrath of God, to save the earth from a final curse; and, as we read in the Gospel, "restore all things (Matt. xvii. 11).

At his voice, accompanied by prodigies hitherto unseen, like those dry bones mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel, which at the call of the man of God shake, come together, place themselves each in their joints, unite by the sinews, and recover their flesh, and form on a sudden a powerful army-as soon as the prophet Elias shall have pronounced on the wreck of that people, scattered over the earth, like dry bones, those life-giving words, "Dry bones! hear the word of the Lord," they will be seen to leap, seek each other, try to join themselves; and, at the first breath of the Almighty, rise up and form an army, not of soldiers, but of evangelists and apostles, full of the Spirit of God-depositaries of his doctrine, zealous defenders of his name and glory (Ezek. xxxvii. 4).

How instantaneous the change! They who behold it can scarce believe the fact, and are overwhelmed at the splendour and greatness of the prodigy. "Ten Gentiles, of every tongue and nation, taking hold of a Jew by the skirt of his robe, shall say, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you" (Zech. xii. 6).

These disciples are insufficient for the ardour which actuates these new masters; they pant for other worlds and other people, they scale mountains, cross seas, and go in quest of isles till then unknown: the prophet, who describes their march and victories, cannot keep pace with their rapidity. "The people who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death "-people whom long enmity had separated from their brethren; people whom ancient and later errors had excluded from the pale of the church, and subjected to an eternal anathema-enlightened, softened, reclaimed, emerge from their darkness, forget their enmities, detest their errors, and, united by the same faith, in the same fold, under the same shepherds, constitute but one people; and the whole earth but one temple, in which the true and only God will be served and worshipped (Zech. viii. 13; xii. 6; xiv. 8-26; Wisd. iii. 8-9).

What will the unbelievers then say, when they see a God faithful in his promises and magnificent in his gifts? What they will hereafter say, in their despair and to their confusion, the same must we say to them now, and to ourselves also, to ward off their insults and encourage our hopes.

Now, they jeer at a small number, to which they think we are reduced; then, believers will be multiplied as the sands of the Now, they reproach us with immoralities, by which we resemble them; then, righteousness, as a flood which has broken down all obstacles, "will cover the earth." No more hatred,

sea.

no more avarice, no more envy: all mankind will have but one heart-all the world but one God: and from the depth of past humiliation, the church, lifting her triumphant head, will sing a ceaseless hymn of thanksgiving to the Author of so many blessings (Psal. lxxi.; Tob. xiii. 20).

66

Happy," says the renowned Bossuet, "happy the eyes which shall behold the East and West uniting for the prosperity of the church!" Joyful days! which I shall not witness; but they are foretold, and will arrive: and, as St. Peter rejoiced at learning by a mysterious vision the call of the Gentiles (Acts xi. 18), so I rejoice at reading in the prophets, and viewing in the future, the conversion and re-establishment of the Jews.

O ye wretched remains of that people, dragged in the dust and trampled under the feet of the nations, I am not an accomplice in the unjust contempt with which ye are laden. I adore the hand of the Almighty, which has weighed heavy on you for seventeen centuries; but I always hope in his mercy. I consider the rank of which you are stripped, and that to which you are destined; I see in you the remains of Abraham's children according to the flesh-the fathers of Abraham's children according to the Spirit, who spring from you; and, astonished at such transcendent privileges, I join with the church in daily prayer to God, that he would deign to perform his mercies-call you to Him, and, by your return, fulfil his promises, silence our enemies, ensure the repose, the glory, and the stability of the church.

But if my heart be glad in the expectation of so great a blessing, it is dejected at the sight of the various troubles which must precede it. This welcome change must be effected by a painful crisis. The new people must be raised on the wreck of those cut off. I see trials-combats" a howling wilderness”— perhaps a sea of blood-a fiery deluge, menacing a polluted earth-the arm of God lifted up against the guilty Gentiles. I tremble; and, like the prophet Jonas, when he announced distressing truths to a great nation, am ready to fly, and leave to a more faithful and more courageous minister the yet unfinished portion of my task.

However, the fear of evils is not their cause; and if turning away our eyes to more pleasing objects were sufficient security against them, nothing more easy, for you and us, than to comfort and protect you at once. But woe to the false prophet who should announce peace, when there is no peace! Woe to yourselves, if you wish to hear none but "smooth things!" The only way to avert evils, and screen you from dangers, is to foresee them with religious awe: the true method of applying timely remedies, is to ascertain the extent of the ills.

Let us, therefore, inquire what threats the Sacred Books contain, and by what effects they have been followed: what causes have produced, what signs have accompanied, the chastisements of other people: and if, after this examination, we find ourselves actually or prospectively in similar circumstances, let us tremble. It were idle not to fear; and especially not to apply the only remedies which, if seasonably used, might heal or pre

serve us.

I pass over the threats which we read in the ancient prophecies against the Jews and Gentiles-though St. Paul warns us, that what has been said or written for them, was for us also-and proceed to those inspired men who, being nearer to our days, must have prophesied with a view to us and our posterity.

I open the book of the Revelations made to St. John-that book which all interpreters consider as a compendium of the Bible, and a faithful picture of past, present, and future events in the kingdom of God upon earth. In this Divine book, then, to promote our instruction, we should study the conduct of God towards his church. Happy he who reads it; happy he who understands it; but happier he who shall profit by its lessons! (Apoc. i. 3.) There, under the most striking and diversified symbols-seven vials, seven seals, seven trumpets-the Holy Spirit exhibits the seven ages of the church, from its birth to the end of the world; and, after a brilliant survey of its victories, its losses, the leading features of its history, down to our timesso that an attentive eye cannot misunderstand them-he stops short, and by an interval of a few moments rouses our attention, and prepares us for the tragic scene which is about to follow (Apoc. vi. viii. ix. x. xvi. passim.)

Six trumpets have already sounded-the seventh and last gives the signal-a formidable voice proclaims, "There shall be time no longer, there shall be time no longer!" An avenging Angel, one foot touching the earth, the other the sea; his hands, his eyes, and voice, lifted up towards heaven; disturbs all nature, and overthrows the elements (Apoc. x. 1-6). The sun grows dark; the moon is turned to blood; the heavens roll, are folded up, and disappear; men, panic-struck, fly into caverns, among rocks, and cry to the mountains, "Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb" (vi. 12).

Behold, then, that terrible day—a day of tribulation and anguish-which the Apostle St. John and the Prophets announce, and which in sorrow of heart I see afar off as a storm, advancing, ready to burst over our heads. Dreadful day! which, however, is not the last, the end and consummation of all things, but a day not less alarming to the guilty, when the Son of God, weary of the crimes of the Gentiles, will come, "in his glorious

majesty," to purify the earth, to renew the heavens, to establish his kingdom, and, by amazing prodigies, to signalize his justice and his mercy together. He then wills (the Apostle goes on to say), He wills, in the heat of his wrath, that the four angels, whom he had placed at the four corners of the earth as instruments of his vengeance, stay their hand (Apoc. vii. 19, & seq.); that two peaceful witnesses, setting out hence, run to place themselves between his people and him, to effect a permanent reconciliation (Mal. iv. 5); that each of the twelve tribes, twelve thousand children of Israel, marked in their foreheads with a sacred sign, escape the general curse; that an innumerable concourse in their train, of every tongue and nation, introduced into the new Jerusalem, worship Him in that temple of which, many ages before, the prophet Ezekiel had described the pattern. (Ezek. xl. et seq.) But ere these marvellous mercies be accomplished, how many examples of his vengeance will have occurred? The nations who have known and deserted Him, must expiate, at one or different periods, by secret or solemn judgment, the crime of their revolt and ingratitude.

The perfidious Jews have first undergone the penal decree. The isles, said the prophet Isaiah-that is, the ungrateful Gentiles-will soon have their turn (Isa. xxiii. 59). The day is at hand, said the same prophet, when God, as a thresher, shall winnow the nations with a fan; and small is the number of those who will stand the trial. Joel, Baruch, Hosea, all the prophets, under different imagery, foretell the same scourge. St. John, the herald of the Messiah, had announced that the hatchet was at the foot of the tree ready to strike: St. John, the beloved disciple of the Saviour, sees a two-edged sword coming out of the mouth of the Son of God to exterminate the guilty nations the threat of the former has taken effect against the Jews; that of the latter will as certainly be fulfilled on the Gentiles. "He who hath ears to hear, let him hear;" and if, after listening to the Apostle St. John, any doubt remain in his mind, St. Paul will tell him, plainly and forcibly, that all mankind has been included in unbelief. The unbelief of the Jews made way for the call of the Gentiles; the unbelief of the Gentiles will make way for the recall of the Jews. Beware, then, O Gentile; for if God spared not the natural branches, tremble lest he spare thee still less.

If you can hear this solemn warning without emotion, there is nothing in the Holy Scriptures that can alarm you I have nothing more to do than quit this pulpit; and as to yourselves, I would advise you to leave this temple, from which you will soon depart only more guilty and more hardened.

From the time of St. John and St. Paul, the disciples, either through ignorance or indocility, might entertain doubt as to the

effects of these threats, and put off to a very distant and uncertain period the most unpalatable parts of them: but now, looking around and above us, we observe so many large churches like branches torn from the trunk on which they had flourished, and the number of those that remain so diminished, that, if the arm of God should fall heavy on any one of them, we must be in imminent peril. Who shall not dread the import of this oracle, Beware, O Gentile!

Again: ifthis chastisement produced only spiritual calamitiesan eclipse of faith, a coldness of charity, the loss of the blessings of another life-there is but too much cause to suspect that a misfortune, so terrible to the eye of faith, if viewed in a carnal manner, would not appear to you so formidable as it really is. But the case is not thus; no, the case is not thus: witness those scattered nations, who, perhaps, thought as many of you do, and who, victims of a double calamity, warn you by their example to fear the denunciations by which they have been crushed.

Doubtless, among them were souls sordid enough to take contentedly the loss of spiritual goods; and who, to preserve or acquire the honours and riches of earth, would, without hesitation, have sacrificed the interests of heaven. Among the Jews, for instance, the Sadducees would have given up Moses, the law, and the prophets; the Pharisees would have relinquished their prayers, their superstitious practices, their affected demeanour, their phylacteries: the former, if they might retain their wealth, and their pre-eminence in the temple; the others, if they might always be considered as teachers of the people, and men above. the common cast.

In the churches of Africa, in those of the East, and of the North, there were persons unconcerned, sensual, slaves of covetousness and ambition; who would have invited the enemy of the faith; who would have opened to him the gates of the temple, delivered up the altars, the ministers, the mysteries, the very riches of the temple; provided that by so doing they might ingratiate themselves with a new master, and obtain a large share in the spoil of the people and the sanctuary.

But when iniquity had reached its height, and the overflowing cup of wrath began to diffuse itself, the city and the temple, the law and the sacrifices, those who offered and those who slew the victims, were alike confounded and involved in a common ruin.

In Africa, a horde of barbarians inundates the churches with their errors, and covers those vast lands with traces of their ferocity.

In the East, Mohammed establishes his absurd doctrines on the fall of the Christian name, and his empire on the wreck of the powers which he has subdued.