ed hosts, if you are satisfied with anything short of the conquest
of a world. The question therefore is, have we any fair prospect of, and
guarantee for, universal glory?

The text itself affords ground of hope that in the Scriptures we shall
find all we desire. An intimation is given that the prophets themselves
not only predicted it, but by their diligent search, apprehended and
believed it. And let us not suppose that our faith in a happy world
rests on a few dark or obscure expressions thinly scattered over the
Bible, and requiring more than ordinary penetration to find them at all.
Science by gigantic strides seems almost to have reached its perfection.
We are told that by its light the philosopher can, from a single bone put
into his hands, discover the existence of a "great wingless bird" of
another hemisphere, and can construct "its skeleton so exactly, that when
all the bones" arrive in this country "the correspondence between them
and their conjectural portraits" is complete; that the astronomer is able
by his calculations to tell the existence of a planet, which observation
proves to be strictly true. But wonderful as is all this, we are not
reduced to any such necessity with regard to the future of the gospel.
We have not to take a few dark sayings, or enigmatical expressions, or
hieroglyphic inscriptions, and as we best may spell out the universal
spread of truth. As with the light of a sunbeam, or with "the point of a
diamond," is it revealed. He that runs may read. Abraham saw it: "And
in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Jacob saw
it: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between
his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the
people be." David saw it: "Ask of Me, and I will give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy
possession." Isaiah saw it: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young
lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." Oh
what a state of security and peace!

"Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all they gather themselves
together, they come to thee; thy sons shall come from far, and thy
daughters shall be nursed at thy side." Let the Church no more hang down
her head with grief. Look up, and see what is approaching. "All they
gather themselves together, they come t