It is related that two rabbis on pilgrimage were once approaching Jerusalem, when they observed a fox running along the Hill of Zion. On seeing this, one of the rabbis, Joshua, wept, while the other, Rabbi Eliezer, laughed. " Wherefore dost thou laugh? " Rabbi Joshua demanded indignantly. " Nay, wherefore dost thou weep?" said Eliezer. " I weep," answered Rabbi Joshua, " because I see what is written in the Lamentations of our prophet Jeremiah fulfilled:' Because of the Mount Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.' " "And therefore do I laugh," said Rabbi Eliezer; " for, when I see with mine own eyes that God hath fulfilled His threatenings to the very letter, I have thereby a pledge that not one of His promises shall fail; for He is more ready to show mercy than to execute judgment."

And is it not for this very reason, Christian reader, that our souls rejoice even in days such as these in which we live? For while we feel with others the pressure of things, it is all to us a most certain indication that our deliverance draweth very near. These very times are foretold us in God's faithful Word ; they are there minutely described, as in 2 Tim. 3:1-5 and other similar passages. And while we cannot help but mourn the fact that men refuse to believe the precious truth of the gospel, and so shall bring upon themselves " swift destruction," it is to us an evidence of the nearness of our hope.

The conditions under which the world to-day groans, are to faith a confirmation of the sure word of prophecy and an assurance to us that the hour of our being "caught up " is not far distant. " We see the day approaching " in these very conditions that cause alarm to sober men, and to those that are otherwise, cursing and bitterness.

Israel too, like the Rabbis Joshua and Eliezer, may see in the present state of Jerusalem and the Jews not only a fulfilment of the prophesied wrath that was to "come upon them to the uttermost," but also, in this very fulfilment, a certain pledge of the glory that is promised, which glory, like the wrath, shall be accomplished, and that shortly, we believe. Let our hearts take courage, then; for though, like Rabbi Joshua, we may weep for the desolations, we may likewise, with Rabbi Eliezer, rejoice for the certainty that the word of promise shall be accomplished. -C. Knapp