God declares, by the same prophet, that he has seen the wickedness of the wicked, and the oppression of the poor and upright, until he rises up to "_do his work, his strange work_, and bring to pass his act, his strange act." He warns men against making a mock of this strange and marvellous work, lest their "bands be made strong," for he has "_decreed a consumption upon the whole earth_." This is what John also says;--"The hour of His judgment" is measurably simultaneous with the proclamation of the gospel. Habakkuk, the prophet, told men to wait for this same vision of American prophets, written on tables (tabular plates), which would be a long time before it made its appearance; but it would "surely come," because God had promised these seers that a remnant of their seed, on that continent, should be saved. No pen can describe the joy and exultation that they must have felt in obtaining such a promise, or the bliss now experienced by them in the fulfilment of it. But for the fulfilment of this promise, none of them or their righteous contemporaries would ever have been made perfect. Oh! how great the goodness and mercy of God to every nation, without respect of persons! How great, too, the indebtedness of this generation to Almighty God for that most precious "_stone_" of prophetic records, that reveals at once the history of the American continent--a continent of otherwise unfathomable antiquities and wonders--a land that embowels the bones of a numerous and mighty race of people, with all their implements of husbandry and of art! Where, also, are the ruins of splendid cities, the former glory of which might surpass even gigantic London! Within that stone, too, was written with a pen of iron, as infallibly as the marks on Belshazzar's palace, the future destiny of the American people.