But you will ask, "What right have you to stand up and say anything
so surprising?" My friends, the world is full of surprising things,
and this age above all ages. It was not sixty years ago, that a
nobleman was laughed at in the House of Lords for saying that he
believed that we should one day see ships go by steam; and now there
are steamers on every sea and ocean in the world. Who expected
twenty years ago to see the whole face of England covered with these
wonderful railroads? Who expected on the 22nd of February last year,
that, within a single month, half the nations of Europe, which looked
so quiet and secure, would be shaken from top to bottom with
revolution and bloodshed--kings and princes vanishing one after the
other like a dream--poor men sitting for a day as rulers of kingdoms,
and then hurled down again to make room for other rulers as
unexpected as themselves? Can anyone consider the last fifty years?--
can anyone consider that one last year, 1848, and then not feel that
we do live in a most strange and awful time? a time for which nothing
is too surprising--a time in which we all ought to be prepared, from
the least to the greatest, to see the greatest horrors and the
greatest blessings come suddenly upon us, like a thief in the night?
So much for Christ's coming being too wonderful a thing to happen
just now. Still you are right to ask: "What do you mean by Christ's
being our King? what do you mean by His coming to us? What reason
have you for supposing that He is coming NOW, rather than at any
other time? And if He be coming, what are we to do? What is there
we ought to repent of? what is there we ought to amend?"

Well, my friends--it is just these very questions which I hope and
trust God will help me to answer to you, in my next few sermons--I am
perfectly convinced that we must get them answered and act upon them
speedily. I am perfectly convinced that if we go on as most of us