During all this time the Gentiles have possessed the land of Canaan, and trodden under foot the holy city where their forefathers worshipped the Lord. Now, in this long captivity, the Jews have never lost sight of the promises respecting their return. Their eyes have watched and failed with longing for the day, when they might possess again that blessed inheritance bequeathed to their forefathers; when they might again rear their city and temple, and re-establish their priesthood, and worship as in days of old. Indeed they have made several attempts to return, but were always frustrated in all their attempts; for it was an unalterable decree, that Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. On the subject of this long dispersion, Moses and the Prophets have written very plainly; indeed, Moses even mentioned the particulars of their eating their children secretly in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith their enemies should besiege them in all their gates. Whoever will read the twenty-eighth of Deuteronomy, will read the history of what has befallen the Jews, foretold by Moses with all the clearness that characterizes the history of past events, and all this thousands of years before its accomplishment. Our next is found in Acts xxi, 10, 11, where a Prophet named Agabus took Paul's girdle and bound his own hands and feet, and said: "Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." The fulfilment of this prediction is too well known to need any description. We therefore proceed to notice a prophecy of Paul, recorded in 2 Tim. iv, 3, 4: "For the time will come, when they will not endure sound doctrine, but, after their own lusts, shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." This prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter; for it applies to every religious teacher who has arisen from that day unto the present, except those commissioned by direct _revelation_ and _inspired_ by the _Holy Ghost_. But, to convince the reader of its full accomplishment, we need only point to the numberless priests of the day who preach for hire, and divine for money, and who receive their authority from their fellow man; and as to the fables to which they are turned, we need only to mention the spiritualizings and private interpretations which salute our ears from almost every religious press and pulpit.