The Afghan country comes now into great importance because it is on the highway of the march of Israelitish civilisation and progress. England wants it; and I predict she shall get it. Russia wants it, and at present seems to have the upper hand; but Russia or England, or the world, can avail nothing against the purposes of Jehovah. The gates are promised to Israel, therefore she will get them. The English have already an army of 35,000 men in the Peshawur Valley. Russia is gathering a force, and ere long the two countries will be brought face to face. The end of the whole muddle will be that England will take charge of Afghan. Thirty-three years ago Disraeli wrote his novel called “Tancred.” In this novel he makes the Queen of England the Empress of India, and one of her favourite officers is made Earl Beaconsfield; so far fancy has become fact. But in that same novel the future of the present strife has been set forth. It has been very finely put by the London _Spectator_:— “There is a story going about, founded, we believe, on good authority, that when some one quoted ‘Tancred,’ two or three months ago, in Lord Beaconsfield’s presence, the Prime Minister remarked: ‘Ah! I perceive you have been reading “Tancred.” That is a work to which I refer more and more every year—not for amusement, but for instruction.’ And if anyone will take the trouble just now to refresh his memory of ‘Tancred,’ he will see how much Lord Beaconsfield has borrowed from it in relation to his policy. Turn, for instance, to this passage: ‘If I were an Arab in race as well as in religion,’ said Tancred, ‘I would not pass my life in schemes to govern mere mountain tribes.’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ said the Emir, springing from his divan, and flinging the tube of his nargileh to the other end of the tent, ‘the game is in our own hands if we have energy. There is a combination which would entirely change the whole face of the world and bring back empire to the East. Though you are not the brother to the Queen of the English, you are, nevertheless, a great English prince, and the Queen will listen to what you say, especially if you talk to her as you talk to me, and say such fine things in such a beautiful voice. Nobody ever opened my mind like you. You will magnetise the Queen as you have magnetised me. Go back to England and arrange this. You see, gloss over it as they may, one thing is clear, it is finished with England . . . Let the Queen of the English collect a great fleet, let her stow away all her treasure, bullion, plate, and precious arms; be accompanied by all her court and chief people, and transfer the seat of her empire from London to Delhi. There she will find an immense empire ready-made, a first-rate army, and a large revenue. In the meantime I will arrange with Mehemet Ali. He shall have Bagdad and Mesopotamia, and pour the Bedouin cavalry into Persia. I will take care of Syria and Asia Minor. The only way to manage the Afghans is