I can tell
you what meaning it would have borne to the men of old time.
Remember, for the last twenty years, England, and all foreign
nations, either tempting her, or following her, have blasphemed[20]
the name of God deliberately and openly; and have done iniquity by
proclamation, every man doing as much injustice to his brother as
it is in his power to do. Of states in such moral gloom every seer
of old predicted the physical gloom, saying, "The light shall be
darkened in the heavens thereof, and the stars shall withdraw their
shining." All Greek, all Christian, all Jewish prophecy insists on
the same truth through a thousand myths; but of all the chief, to
former thought, was the fable of the Jewish warrior and prophet,
for whom the sun hasted not to go down, with which I leave you to
compare at leisure the physical result of your own wars and
prophecies, as declared by your own elect journal not fourteen days
ago,--that the Empire of England, on which formerly the sun never
set, has become one on which he never rises.

What is best to be done, do you ask me? The answer is plain.
Whether you can affect the signs of the sky or not, you _can_ the
signs of the times. Whether you can bring the _sun_ back or not,
you can assuredly bring back your own cheerfulness, and your own
honesty. You may not be able to say to the winds, "Peace; be
still," but you can cease from the insolence of your own lips, and
the troubling of your own passions. And all _that_ it would be
extremely well to do, even though the day _were_ coming when the
sun should be as darkness, and the moon as blood. But, the paths of
rectitude and piety once regained, who shall say that the promise
of old time would not be found to hold for us also?--"Bring ye all
the tithes into my storehouse, and prove me now herewith, saith the
Lord God, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour
you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive
it."

LECTURE II.

_March 11th, 1884._

It was impossible for me, this spring, to prepare, as I wished to
have done, two lectures for the London Institution: but finding its
members more interested in the subject chosen than I had
anticipated, I enlarged my lecture at its second reading by some
explanations and parentheses, partly represented, and partly
farther developed, in the following notes; which led me on,
however, as I arranged them, into branches