put for history; as when Spenser, in his Faery Queene, in order to give vivacity to his narrative, puts in the form of prediction descriptions of events in English history, and so takes occasion to make complimentary allusions to Queen Elizabeth. Let it be proved that the prophecy has gone before the event.

Secondly, the event claimed to have been foretold must be such as is wholly remote from human view. If it is such an occurrence as is deducible from probability or experience, the utterance beforehand might have been either a sagacious anticipation or a fortunate guess; but it could be no expression of a supernatural influence. Seneca foretold, that at some future time the mariner, urging his ship into unknown seas, would be the discoverer of new territories. This anticipation of Seneca's has been paraded as a prophecy of the discovery of America by Columbus. But the anticipation was uncircumstantial, and wholly indefinite. Neither America nor Columbus is identified. It was only a vivid picture of mere probability, suggested by ships and oceans and adventurous sailors. The Roman poet made another guess that was not so fortunate, that the people of Hindostan should occupy Armenia, and the region of the Rhine be colonized by Persians. Dr. Erasmus Darwin, a poet of the eighteenth century, and also a man of science, wrote:

"Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car."

But the subsequent realization of those triumphs of steam is not such an event as was at all remote from a scientific prevision. And Lord Bacon, in his description of the "House of Solomon," in the "New Atlantis," anticipated, with remarkable discernment, many of the prodigies of intellectual and social advancement that, since his time, have distinguished our civilization. He did but infer,

however, from his improved method of studying nature, what the world would be, when, as he said, his philosophy should have enlarged the bounds of human empire.

Anticipations that spring out of a collection of the probabilities of present conditions are radically different from a foresight of things to which no sign in the present is pointing, and betwixt the foretelling and the occurring of which there may be the distance of many years, sometimes of even ages. The prescience of an experienced politician or statesman is of no deeper principle than is that of the skilful chess-player. Moreover, the anticipative calculations of probability do about as often miss as hit the mark. The proverbial weather-prophet may be taken perhaps as an adequate type of all who would cast a horoscope of even the near future. And, as regards a remote period, deductions from present causes cannot be carried so far forward, because new causes spring up that are as yet unknown. To foretell events that are far removed from human view-far removed as well in probability as in time, this is what no human observation and skill can do; but this is just what is essential to a genuine supernatural prediction.

Thirdly, in the language of the prediction, there must be no ambiguity. When Croesus consulted the oracle at Delphi about his intended war with the Persians, he was told that he should destroy a great empire. This he naturally interpreted of his overcoming the Persians, although the language admitted of the meaning that the Persians should overcome him. In either case, his war should destroy a great empire. He made the war, and was ruined. A genuine prediction must not be ambiguous. More or less of obscurity, indeed, may attach to the exact meaning of a prophecy before its fulfilment, but it must not be susceptible of two interpretations. Its meaning, whatever that may be, must be definite.

Fourthly, the genuine prophet must utter his prediction as being expressly from God. For if God reveal to one a certain item of foreknowledge for the very purpose of inspiring him to announce it, God would certainly mean to have it announced as coming from Himself; since, if not so announced, it could only be regarded as the man's own vague conjecture, and could have, therefore, no weight with his contemporaries. Nor could a future generation regard the fulfilment of a prediction that had not been announced in the name of God, if perchance it should be fulfilled, otherwise than as having happened as a chance of one in many billions. Hence, we cannot conceive of a really inspired prophet as not professing to speak by the authority of the Omniscient.

Fifthly, there must be at the proper time a clear and palpable fulfilment of the prediction. This principle completes the criteria of genuine prophecy.

These five canons of prophetic identity, when concurrent in application to a given utterance, furnish an absolute demonstration of the supernaturalism of that utterance. If the prediction preceded the event, if the event is such as was remote from human view, if the prediction was unambiguous, if it was uttered in the name of God, then the realization of it in the event is the crowning of it as a genuine prophecy, and the glory of that crown is God's miraculous inspiration of the prophet.

We now proceed to apply these principles in a few instances of Bible prophecy.

That the prophets did speak in the name of God, I need not waste time in showing. Just open the Bible, and he that runs may read.

As regards the other four canons, we must test their applicability by an induction of particulars.

First, let us take for the examination certain predictions concerning Nineveh, Babylon, Egypt, and the Four Em

pires. The prophets in question are Nahum, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

What are some of the things claiming to have been foretold of those cities and kingdoms?

That the great cities of Nineveh and Babylon should be captured. That each of the two cities should be taken when in a condition of revelry and intoxication. That the rivers on which the cities respectively stood (Nineveh on the Tigris, Babylon on the Euphrates) should be instrumental in their being captured. That the two rivers should perform their parts in opposite ways-the Tigris by an inundation, the Euphrates by drying up. That the cities should ultimately pass under an exterminating desolation, and become receptacles of wild beasts (see the prophets Nahum, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah).

That Egypt should become a base kingdom-the basest of kingdoms. That God would so diminish it that it should no more rule over nations and never more have a

prince of its own. That while Nineveh and Babylon should be depopulated, Egypt, still retaining its popula tion, should be degraded and made helpless (Ezekiel xxix. 13-15).

That the Babylonian Empire, during whose time of splendor the prophet Daniel claims to have made his predictions, should come to an end. That it should be succeeded by the Medo-Persian, the latter by the Grecian, and this by the Roman. That, with the fourth-the Roman-the succession of universal empires should cease. That each of the Four Empires should have its leading characteristics, each one being differentiated in character from all the others. That not only the Babylonian, whose salient features were before the eyes of Daniel, was delineated as to the quality of its power and the constitution of its government, but equally distinctively the other three, all the three as yet unborn, all unlike one another,

though all should be universal empires; the Roman, the last link of the Imperial succession, being described by the prophet as the most terrible of all, and the transcendent bruiser of the nations (Daniel ii. and vii.).

You will have noticed in all these alleged predictions how distinct and definite they are. How utterly free from ambiguity. How impossible to give to any one of the statements two interpretations. Indeed, these alleged predictions read like very history.

Now, supposing for the moment that these alleged predictions were published as long before the events as they claim to have been, and that the events have been realized as predicted, were the events themselves such as, in the nature of the case, are remote from human view? Was it possible for mind of man to have foreseen them? How circumstantial are the statements. How minutely detailed. How vividly depicted. What contingencies of human action are involved. How different the destinies of the different peoples. How many unknown causes, causes variant one from another, yet strangely falling into their places, would have to arise in the future, when the prophets themselves who uttered the predictions had long passed away, to bring about exactly these events and circumstances. Is human prevision equal to an achievement like this? The question is its own answer. What man, however gifted and experienced, could foresee, the foresight turning out to be true, that within 200 years from now the river Thames should inundate the city of London, and the Delaware River should dry up at Philadelphia, and that, in consequence, each of the two cities should be taken by an enemy? Or, that the United States Government should come to an end, and be succeeded by a government of another people, and this by a third people, and the third by a fourth people, either naming or characteristically describing each people, and then that the fourth