These several items yet to be fulfilled strengthen belief in the reality of the prophecy, for the reason that if the prophecy had originated in fraud, had it been written after the events it pretended to predict had taken place, the pseudo-prophet and his associates would not have dared in any respect to have ventured into the domain of the future. They would have clung exclusively to the past. But standing as we do now midway between what has been fulfilled of the prophecy and what is yet to come, we are made to feel the reality of the prophecy; and so much of it as the wheels of time have brought due having been fulfilled, gives ample assurance that the remainder will come to pass to the very letter. If it shall be asked of what use is this prophecy about war, earthquakes, bloodshed, famine and general distress of mankind--what makes it worthy of inspiration--knowledge worthy of God to reveal and a prophet to proclaim--let it be answered that its value consists in this, that it is a warning to mankind, it cries repentance to the wicked, and gives all who will avail themselves of it an opportunity to make God their friend, escape the calamities predicted, and have the privilege of uniting with God's Saints who, in the closing sentence in the prophecy, are admonished to stand in holy places unmoved until the day of the Lord comes; and they are assured it will come quickly. The evidence of prophecy is, in part, before the reader, all I design to introduce in this book; [25] and now I ask him to review it; considering first the importance attached to the peculiar power of prophecy as evidence of divine inspiration--how it is within itself a sort of miracle, as men understand miracles, and has ever been regarded as an evidence of the possession of a power peculiar to God and those whom he commissions. Second, remember how definitely proven is the fact that these prophecies preceded the events they fore ell. Third, that they so minutely describe the future events they predict that by no means can they be resolved into a fortunate conjecture of an uninspired mind. Fourth, that they treat of things that from their nature are of importance to man to know and therefore are worthy of inspiration. Fifth, that their remarkable fulfillment has been by agencies outside of the prophet himself.