“‘Mr. Urban,—Reading over chapter eleven, verse two, of Revelation, a thought came to me that I had hit upon the meaning of it which I desire you’ll publish in one of your future magazines. The verse runs thus: “But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not, for it is given to the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.”
“‘Now, according to the Scriptural way of putting a day for a year, if we multiply forty-two months by thirty (the number of days contained in a Jewish month,) we have the time the Turks will reign over the Jews’ country, and the city of Jerusalem—viz., 1,260; which, if we add to the year of our Lord 636, when Jerusalem was taken by the Turks, we have the year of our Lord 1896, near or about which time the Jews will be reinstated in their own country and city, Jerusalem, again, which will be about 137 years hence; and that the Turks are the Gentiles mentioned in the above-quoted chapter and verse appears from their having that country and city in possession about 1,123 years, and will continue to possess it till the Omnipotent God, in His own time, bringeth this prophecy to its full period.’
“This letter is signed ‘M. Forster,’ and is dated from ‘Bessborough, October 24th, 1759.’ I have very little sympathy with those of our brethren who are ever venting in speech and in print the exact dates (as they declare) of the coming events surrounding the return of our Lord, but I do believe (in spite of the somewhat hazy chronology at our command) that the regarding of approximate times is perfectly permissible, and the letter I have read you has some value when, taking dates, etc., approximately, we remember that this letter was written nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, and that 1896 was memorable for a distinct movement towards the Holy Land.
“So, I say, ‘the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. To myself and to every Christian here, I would say, ‘May God help us to quicken all our hearts, and purify all our lives, that we may not be ashamed at His coming.’
“And to any who are here (if such there be) who are not converted, may God help you to seek His face, that you may not be ‘left,’ when He shall suddenly, silently snatch away His Church out of this godless generation. ‘Left!’
“Think of what that will mean, unsaved friend, if you are here to-day. Left! Left behind! When the Spirit of God will have been taken out of the earth. When Satan will dwell on the earth—for, with the coming of Christ into the air, Satan, ‘the prince of the power of the air,’ will have to descend.
“Christ and Satan can never live in the same realm. Oh, God, save anyone here from being left—left behind, to come upon the unspeakable judgments which will follow the taking out of the world of the Church!
“Some husband, whose head was laid on his bed,
Throbbing with mad excess,
Awakes from that dream by the lightning gleam,