horribly polluted by violence and outrage. The sanguinary story of the “forty and six years” when that structure was building, is truly a lesson full of melancholy warning! and when at last CHRIST came to the holy mount, He found there a temple, well nigh built in blood and served by murderers; and yet He began to “purge it,” and said of it, MY HOUSE! “MY HOUSE shall be called the house of Prayer!” But do we say this to justify aught in the present condition of the Church Catholic? GOD forbid! for though we trust it is not so deeply fallen as was the Jewish Church, “our enemies themselves being judges,” yet we would not hide from ourselves our real state. But we bring forward these words of our LORD, and the reflections that have thus arisen out of them, in order to induce men to look calmly and fairly at the Evidence for our Christian Ministry, not hastily prejudging the question, in consequence of apparent moral and spiritual difficulties, (of which they may be making a wrong estimate and use,) but simply postponing, for a while, the objections which may be raised, and separately and honestly looking at the proof and certainty of the FACT of APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. Should it be asked, Why we attach such importance to an institution, which, even if real, seems to have accomplished so little? we reply, That we pretend not to be able to estimate the workings or the results of GOD’S plans. It is enough for us that they _are_ GOD’S. And all we desire is, to ascertain the fact. But we have something further, on which our faith may repose. There are prophecies concerning GOD’S Church, (and perhaps our text is one,) which seem as yet to have had but little fulfilment. Haply that is to be done to the Church at the second Advent, which the purging of the temple, at the first Advent, only prefigured. It appears but little likely that that brief significative act of CHRIST, from which nothing seemed to follow, was the whole fulfilment of the illustrious prophecy of Malachi concerning the LORD’S “Coming suddenly to His Temple” to purify it. It requires no proof that _we_ need such purifying. Is the main impression now formed of the Christian temple—that it is a “house of Prayer?” It is written, “From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, My name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered in My name, and a pure Offering.” {45} Hath this been yet accomplished? That which is written shall surely come to pass:—and on this our faith relies. And though there be no signs of a present fulfilment—though we may be told that “thieves and robbers” have made lawless entrance, and that very little betokens a Divine presence—a consecrated Priesthood or a “pure Offering” among us, our faith is unmoved. A cleansing must come:—for “it is written, MY house SHALL BE called the house of PRAYER.”