There is no doubt but hundreds of learned men have, since the time that Jesus is said to have left this world, consumed the “midnight oil” in their researches to discover the time of the second advent, but to no purpose. To no purpose, did I say? I mistook. In the case of Miller, it was to a most unfortunate purpose. Thousands of his followers have been in a state of partial insanity; many have been absolutely deranged; some have committed suicide; others sold their lands, abandoned their occupations, neglected their wives and children, and will never regain their former happy homes. Can we suppose that the all-wise Ruler of the Universe would promulgate prophecies so uncertain with respect to their fulfilment, and so disastrous in the effects arising from their uncertainty? I repeat, that prophecy, to answer any good purpose, should be fulfilled in the lifetime of the persons to whom it is addressed; otherwise, the uncertainty attending it renders it worse than useless. If Daniel had been divinely inspired to foretell any thing relating to Christ, common sense suggests that it would have reference to his first appearance on earth. Instead of this being the burden of his prophecy, he makes no allusion to his first coming, but, according to Christian expositors, his dreams and visions refer to the _second_ coming of Christ, and the final judgment. Father Miller’s bubble having burst, his sincere but deluded followers are in a state of extreme wretchedness; all of them injured either in mind or circumstances, and most of them in both. Many of them will doubtless reject religion altogether. So much, then, for depending on divine inspiration. The power to perform miracles is included in the idea of divine inspiration, and implies the possession of a power superior to all human power. The exhibition of a power by an individual, superior to what the united exertions of a whole nation could perform, ought to be credited to the exhibiter as a power _received from on high_,—a conclusion drawn by Christian commentators, and also by Jesus himself, with respect to his recorded miracles; for, he says—“_If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they would not have had sin; but now_ [they having seen his miracles, and yet rejected him] _their sin remaineth._” Miracles are uncertain evidences of divine inspiration. What an ignorant man might deem to be a miracle, a man of intelligence and education might know to be the result of combined natural causes. What in one age has been currently believed to have been the effect of supernatural agency, a succeeding and more enlightened age has known as the result of certain operations of nature. Nothing can justly be regarded as a miracle unless it be, past all dispute, beyond human power to perform. To suppose that the Deity makes use of means to promote the improvement of his creatures, which are calculated to mislead them, is to impeach his wisdom and goodness.