"At the end it shall speak, and not lie."-HAB. ii. 3. "Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs SEVENTH EDITION ENLARGED. VOL. I. EDINBURGH : WILLIAM WHYTE & CO., BOOKSELLERS TO THE QUEEN DOWAGER. LONGMAN AND CO., J. DUNCAN, WHITTAKER AND CO., SIMPKIN AND MDCCCXLII. PREFACE ΤΟ THE FIRST EDITION. A PREFACE, as has often been said, should be short. And, in presenting these pages to the public, the author knows not how they could be prefaced more briefly than in the answer which he gave to a friend who asked him to tell in three words, what is the object of the treatise, or what it is designed to show,viz. WHERE WE ARE, or on what point of prophetic history we stand. It is only necessary to add, in regard to the execution of so serious a task, that from the consequent manifold imperfections, he would be ashamed to acknowledge and unable to justify the haste with which, throughout the far greater part, the essay has been written, were it not that, while the signs of the times are such that they may speedily pass into their significancy, a word in season, however weak, may be worth the hearing, even as the timely sound of the tocsin or the trumpet may be more effective of safety to a host, than the boom of the cannon a few moments later, when the enemy has surprised and surrounded a sleeping camp. The great danger is, lest it should give "an uncertain sound;" and of that he has sought, as he would caution the reader, to beware. The question is one of time, not of talent; and of plain truth, not of ingenious invention, far less of presumptuous speculation. And if the time be come, that the judgments of God are manifest, all that needs to be said, is-Come and see. |