sign began to fail of being accomplished by the increased
wickedness of the post-diluvians, then God called Abram, and through
Abraham and his seed designed that this purpose should flow on and be
fulfilled. Through this Abrahamic channel flow all the purposes of a
Divine Providence in this world. Through his seed all the nations of the
earth are to be blessed. The children of Abraham are the appointed and
Divinely authorised agents of God. Through them, as primary, he has, and
is, and will evangelise the world. Abraham stands to the generations of
earth as the Gulf-stream to Europe and the isles of the sea. This
Gulf-stream is our largest river; being the longest, broadest, and
deepest. Its bottom and banks are cold water. Compressed by the straits
of Florida, it rushes forth to warm and replenish the earth and isles of
the sea. So the forces of a Divine Providence compressed in Abraham go
forth to bless mankind. The Gulf-stream is water in water, and Abraham's
seed are men among men. Providence is at once clear and intelligible,
and history is at once plain, reasonable, and harmonious, when
interpreted in harmony with the Abrahamic covenant. The scattering and
returning of Israel and Judah to Palestine, and the intervening history,
from the time of dispersion to the Return, is clear as noon-day. Their
location, oppression, prosperity, and victories, have long been foretold
by prophets inspired of God.

Through all the changes in nature God has a design. He prepared the
world for Adam and his seed, and He did so by some wonderful upheaving
and overturning; this scientists will admit. This world, in its present
shape and condition, indicates fierce and protracted struggles. The
outlines of strange and sublime revolutions are imprinted on her
rock-ribbed bosom. Look at her cloud-capped mountains, her snow-crowned
peaks, her wild and rocky wastes, her barren plains and sandy deserts,
her fruitful hills and luxuriant valleys, her mighty oceans and swelling
seas, her inland lakes and rolling rivers; these tell us of a time long
ago--of the time when the Mighty One went forth to work a work, to build
a house and make a home for His creature, man. And as it was necessary
in the preparatory stage to tune nature to the coming man, so all along
through the history of the centuries we find nature holding a subordinate
relation to man. The world is not run on one principle and man on
another, but both are permeat