Is there much of gratuitous assumption, or of unwarrantable speculation in picturing the present position of mankind in some such manner as the following?—During a long course of ages a controversy, managed with various success, has been carried on here and there in the world, on the great questions of immortality, and of the liability of man to future punishment, as the transgressor of the divine law; and concerning the terms of reconciliation. Hitherto, there has stood, on the affirmative, or religious side of this controversy, only a small and scattered party; while on the other side, there has remained, with more or less of active hostility, the great majority of mankind, who have chosen to pursue the interests of the present life, as if no doctrine of immortality had been credibly announced; and who have dared the future displeasure of the Most High; and have ventured the loss of endless happiness; and have spurned the conditions of pardon. But it is imagined that now, events of a new order are to bring this momentous controversy to a final crisis. Yet before the moment of awful decision comes on, and while all minds remain in the listlessness of the ancient apathy, and while the winds of high commotion lie hushed in the caverns of divine restraint—in this season of portentous tranquillity, those writings, upon the authority of which the issue is to turn, are put into every hand; and although the hands that receive them, seem now to hold the book with a careless grasp, ere long an alarm shall be sounded through all nations; and all shall be roused from their spiritual sleep, and shall awake to feel that the interests of an endless life are in suspense: then shall it appear for what purpose the Bible has first been delivered to every people! These views, it is granted, are in part conjectural, and yet, who that entertains a belief of the providential guidance of the Christian church, can suppose that the most remarkable course of events that has hitherto ever marked the history of the Scriptures, is not charged with the accomplishment of some unusual revolution? and what revolution less than the installment of the inspired volume in the throne of universal authority, can be thought of, as the probable result of the work that is now carrying forwards? If the prejudices of the sceptical spirit, which, in some degree, blind even the most devout, were removed, every eye, accustomed to penetrate futurity, would see, in the recent diffusion of the Sacred Writings, an indubitable sign of their approaching triumph over all forms of impiety and false religion.