Many may say, I have no _head_ for prophecy. Perhaps not, but you have a _heart_ for Christ? Surely if you love Christ, you will love his appearing, though you may have no capacity for prophetic investigation. An affectionate wife may not have a head to enter into her husband's affairs; but she has a heart for her husband's return. She might not be able to understand his ledger and day-book; but she knows his footstep and recognizes his voice. The most unlettered saint, if only he has affection for the person of the Lord Jesus, can entertain the most intense desire to see him; and this is the Church's hope. The apostle could say to the Thessalonians, "Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to _wait for his Son from heaven_." (1 Thess. i. 9, 10.) Now, evidently, those Thessalonian saints could, at the moment of their conversion, have known little, if any thing, of prophecy, or the special subject thereof; and yet they were, at that very moment, put into the full possession and power of the specific hope of the Church,--even the coming of the Son. Thus is it throughout the entire New Testament. There, no doubt, we have prophecy,--there, too, we have God's moral government; but, at the same time, numberless passages might be adduced in proof of the fact that the common hope of Christians in apostolic times--the simple, unimpeded, and unencumbered hope--was, THE RETURN OF THE BRIDEGROOM. May the Holy Ghost revive "that blessed hope" in the Church,--may he gather in the number of the elect, and "make ready a people prepared for the Lord!" CHAPTER XIX.