&c., and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect," &c.

This is a manifest description of the Great Day of Judgment: and the prophecy goes on to add: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." When we thus find a prediction to break down suddenly in the middle, we have the well-known mark of its earlier part being written after the event: and it becomes unreasonable to doubt that the detailed annunciations of this 24th chapter of Matthew, were first composed _very soon after_ the war of Titus, and never came from the lips of Jesus at all.

Next: we have the prophecies of the Apocalypse.
Not one of these can be interpreted certainly of any human affairs, except one in the 17th chapter, which the writer himself has explained to apply to the emperors of Rome: and that is proved false by the event .-- Farther, we have Paul's prophecies concerning the apostacy of the Christian Church.

These are very striking, as they indicate his deep insight into the moral tendencies of the community in which he moved.