To those who are looking for the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, this volume will exhibit indications of the advancement of the world towards the state in which he shall find it at his coming. The diffusion in the east of European notions and practices; the desire on the part of the rulers to possess themselves of the advantages of western intellect and skill; and on the side of the governed, the conviction of the comparative security and comfort of English domination; the vastly increased intercourse between those nations and the west, and the proposals for still further accelerating and facilitating that intercourse: all these things mark the rapid tendency, of which we have so many other signs, towards the production of one common mind throughout the human race, to issue in that combination for a common resistance of God, which, as of old, when the people were one, and had all one language, and it seemed that nothing could be restrained from them which they had imagined to do,--shall cause the Lord to come down and confound their purpose. Already has this unity of views and aims, with marvellous rapidity, prevailed in the European and American world; the press, the steam-engine by land and water, the multiplication of societies and unions, portend an advancement in it, to which nothing can set limits but the intervention of God: and now it appears that the mountain-fixedness of Asiatic prejudice and institution shall suddenly be dissolved, and absorbed into the general vortex. And to those who may have suspected, that the prospect of the return of Jesus of Nazareth to our earth for vengeance and expurgation of evil first, and then for occupation of rule, _under_ the face of the whole heaven, is but a speculative subject for curious minds, this little book presents matter of reflection. By circumstances of such urgent personal concernment, as those in which Mr. Groves and his departed wife have been placed, the merely speculative part of religion is put to flight. But we shall find them in the midst of confusion, and bereavement, and horror, clinging to this one hope for themselves and for the world, that the Lord cometh to reign, wherefore the earth shall be glad; deriving from this hope a delight in God, in the midst of all that seems adverse to such a sentiment, which, if it be not a proof of practical power in a doctrine, what is practical?