THE RAINBOW: A Magazine of Christian Literature, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE REVEALED FUTURE OF THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. CONTENTS OF VOL. XVII. PAGE I Magazine of Christian Literature, with Special Reference to the Revealed Future of the Church and the World. JANUARY, 1880. IT THE PRIVILEGE OF LIVING IN THIS AGE. T is of course clear enough that no one has the power of election respecting the time, place, and circumstances of his birth; and it is equally obvious to common sense that there is no merit in being born in the purple, and no dishonour in being swaddled in rags. There are palaces for princes, and piles of "Union " bricks for paupers; but the Royal Highness and the Vulgar Lowness know nothing of the difference when they respectively utter the first feeble cry of life; and the heirs of broad acres and those of brooms for street-sweeping are equally helpless things in infancy. But all this does not prevent a reader of history from comparing epochs, and mentally giving his preference to one age over the others as that in which he could have chosen to live and act, had choice been possible. There stand out occasionally in the world's history great deeds which are the landmarks of time; and great men appear at intervals as if specially chosen for some peculiar work which was the necessity, and forms the historical peculiarity, of the time. The issues of those historic epochs, which it is wholly unnecessary to name here, affect society, nations, and churches to this hour. The lights and shadows of the past are with us yet, and will so continue until an event occur whose unspeakable, overwhelming, and world-wide importance will secure universal attention, and dwarf all historic epochs into insignificance, except so far as it shall be found that they were its providential heralds. That many of them will be so found, is certain; for though the story of man is rough and entangled, frequently presenting passages so weird and awful as to suggest to the superficial observer the absence of controlling wisdom and overruling power, yet we know, in the words of Daniel to the king of Babylon, that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever Ho will." Events which, viewed by themselves, seem in every way unfitted to minister to any beneficent purpose, will be found part B |