for the rule of three, which any schoolboy can work. I doubt not, that a hundred in this house are ready to answer, 2520. Nebuchadnezzar, then, must have been quite an old man when restored to his reason; for, according to the mode of computation in the Lectures, he was banished from his throne 2520 years!

Thus do you see the entire fallacy of this reckoning. Nebuchadnezzar was banished seven years, so that a time means a year, two times two years, half a time half a year. Time, times and a half, then, are three and a half years. And yet here the author of the Lectures gets his 1260 years, with which he figures so largely about the Papal church. There is another point to be considered. The 1260 years which we have seen our author has not been able to make out; which he has failed of making out in all his calculations, he says, denotes the time of the continuance of the Papal power; and this power, we are told, was destroyed in 1798.

case?

I wish now to inquire, whether such was the Was the Roman church then destroyed? Has the Pope now no power or diminion? If not, it would look as though our author might have had some show of reason for applying things as he has. Let us turn to history. I will quote from a Protestant, one who will unite in saying all the hard things imaginable against the Catholic church; in calling it a beast, with as many heads and horns as its worst enemy could desire to give it. "He keeps," says the writer, "his court in great state at the palace of the Vatican, and is attended by seventy cardinals, as his privy counsellors, in imitation of the seventy disciples of our

Lord. The Pope's authority in other kingdoms is merely spiritual, but in Italy he is a spiritual sovereign; Louis the Seventeenth, and the allies, having, in 1814, restored him to his throne, and to those temporalities of which he was deprived by Bonaparte and the French_revolution. On resuming his government, Pope Pius the Seventh soon restored the order of the Jesuits and the Inquisition; so that the Roman Catholic religion is now reinstated in its ancient splendor and authority." Thus we see the Papal beast still lives, with all his heads and horns; and the Pope sits a temporal sovereign upon his throne, with all the majesty and dignity of a king! Does not Mr. Miller know this? Why then does he say the Papal beast was destroyed in 1798? Do you reply, his calculations required this? Then, I ask, what confidence shall we place in calculations which go against fact? Can our author presume so much upon the credulity of the people, as to suppose they will believe his assertions and calculations, rather than the unerring voice of history? So we must conclude, since he arrays his assertions and calculations against history, and persists in declaring that he is right!! Was there ever such presumption?

My strength will not allow me to pursue this investigation any further this evening; and perhaps it is better that I should not, even if I could, in justice to my health. It is difficult to retain so many calculations in the mind; and if I close now, you will be more likely to remember what I have proved.

In my next I shall pursue the investigation of our author's calculations, and take up some of the

leading applications he has made of the divine predictions.

Before closing I wish to throw out a single suggestion. If this theory is correct, why do none of the ministers, who take its author by the hand, and receive him into their pulpits, become convinced? I have not heard of one among them all. They are willing to give him countenance, to have him do all he can to create excitements, and. frighten people into their churches: but when asked whether they believe the theory, they reply, "We don't know; it may be true; it is best to be prepared." Thus they sanction it, just as far as they can without committing themselves. They would not, on any consideration, avow themselves believers, they know it is not true,-they know that not the least reliance can be placed on the calculations that they are built upon assumed premises-that they are contradictory that they do not embrace the periods of time supposed.

Now, I ask, if such measures are requisite to the success of Christianity? Must we resort to artificial terrors to keep it up? Must we take the course pursued by ignorant and superstitious mothers, who tell their children of ghosts and devils to make them do right? For one I am willing to confess, that, if Christianity cannot be supported without a resort to such measures, it is not worth possessing. I say in regard to this, as in regard to politics and everything else, that success by intrigue or unfairness, is worse than failure.

But Christianity requires no such measures. It is these, that have retarded its progress and brought it into contempt. It is these, that have destroyed

the confidence of so many in the truth and value of its instructions. Christianity is a consistent system, a reasonable system, a perfect system; and, when disconnected with the errors of man, it is the power of God unto salvation.

The abettors of this wild and absurd theory, this fanatical humbug, will lament the day when they stood up and virtually gave it their sanction. When they shall see those, now deceived by it, scoffing at religion, and mocking its teachers, then will they begin to feel the greatness of their error, and the wickedness of acting upon the principle, that the end sanctifies the means.

LECTURE IV.

MR. MILLER'S APPLICATIONS OF THE PROPHECIES EXAMINED AND REFUTED.

"Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised and prospered. Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spoke, how long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Dan. viii. 11 - 14.

IN my last Lecture I examined some of the principal calculations founded on the prophecy of Daniel, by which the attempt has been made to prove, that the world will be destroyed in 1843. In doing this I considered first, the idea, that 2300 days signifies so many years, and showed, that there was no evidence of this. Thus I proved, that we had no one prediction reaching forward to 1843.

In the second place, I inquired, if, by adding different predictions together, we could make out 2300 years, and found, that we fell short of this to the amount of 30 years. I showed, too, that