preparation; like
the water or the gas, which suddenly enter a thousand city houses to
refresh and illuminate them, but which are the results of years of
labour in digging trenches, laying pipes, and erecting reservoirs,
during all which time no streams of water or of gas were ever present
to the senses.

[Footnote A: It is only within twenty-five years that _preaching_ has
become common in all their synagogues, while, during the same period,
ten periodicals have been started by the Jews, in different parts of
the world, in defence of Judaism, in some form or other.]

[Footnote B: In a conversation which we had with Neander in 1848,
(immediately before the continental revolutions,) he said, "I believe
we are entering a period of unprecedented warfare, which will issue in
the increased glory and purity of the Church. The light and darkness
will every year be more and more separated; the one becoming more
bright the other more densely dark."]

But we know from the testimony of God's Word, strengthened by the
experience of past ages, how certain victory is in the end, however
long and apparently doubtful the campaign may be between His kingdom
and every form of evil. The day has been when "the Church" was "in the
wilderness," and when within that Church four men only held fast their
confidence in God, believed His word, and exhorted that Church to take
possession of the land of promise, saying, "Rebel not ye against
the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land: their defence is
departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not." And how
was that missionary sermon received? "All the congregation bade stone
them with stones!" And had they done so, the world's only true lights
were extinguished and lost in universal unbelief and heathenism. It
was in such desperate circumstances as these that the Lord himself
came to the rescue of the world, and it was then these marvellous
words of promise were littered, "As truly as I live my glory will fill
the earth!" The day has been, too, when "the Church" met in an upper
room with shut doors, for fear of the Jews; but it was even then that
its Lord said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth: go
ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: and, lo, I am with you
alway, even to the end of the world." Never more can the glory of God
appear to the eyes of the weakest faith to be so dim,