and is nine times as large as India; whilst the number of its various races put together is only two-thirds of the population of Hindustan. Again, when Christ was born in Bethlehem, the area of the whole of the Roman Empire was not larger than the area of India and Burmah, and the population was about 125,000,000. From a very interesting book, A Century of Christian Progress, by the Rev. James Johnston,* we learn that, according to an official census of China, taken A.D. 2, the population of China was 59,000,000. We shall, therefore, not be far wrong if we estimate the whole population of the world at more than 300,000,000.

Comparing this with the statements of Gibbon and of Bishop Lightfoot (paper, S.P.G.), we are enabled to draw up the following charts:

That is, while in the year 300 A.D. Christians were as one to sixty non-Christians, in 1900 they were as one in three and a half; and while non-Christians have multiplied four-fold, Christians have multiplied seventy-fold.

Distinguishing now among Christians, we find :—

It will be seen that there is no ground whatever for the statement made in booklets, which have had a very large circulation, that "the heathen world is increasing faster than the Christian world." The authors take no account of family increase. Had they consulted members of the Statistical Society of London, they would have learned that whilst the non-Christian population of the world increased by 200,000,000 in the nineteenth century, the Christian population increased 250,000,000; the number of living converts from non-Christian faiths in

A.D. 1900 being 4,000,000, a number in the century four times greater than the whole number of Christians in A.D. 100.

Let us now turn to the question of ruling power. The habitable area of the earth is nearly 50,000,000 square miles. At the birth of our Lord, and for 300 years after, the whole world was under non-Christian government. When Constantine professed himself to have become a Christian, 2,000,000 square miles passed under Christian government. Speaking roughly, this remained so for twelve centuries. Then Christian rule suddenly expanded. The comparative relation of Christian and non-Christian political power will be seen at a glance, the figures representing square miles:

The number of subject people under the non-Christian and Christian rule respectively is as follows for the years 1800 and 1900:

Whether, therefore, we consider population or ruling power, we see the marvellous growth of the " Kingdom of God.”

These statistics are very surprising from two points of view :

1. We are apt to imagine that Christianity has always prevailed throughout Europe, whereas, as a matter of fact, the early Church was confined in Europe to the countries bordering the Mediterranean. North of the Danube and east of the Rhine was the home of barbarians and savages, and the greatest part of Europe was in heathen darkness for many centuries. Illustrious missionaries, animated by a zeal as devoted and as heroic as is exhibited by any of the messengers of the Gospel in recent years, plunged into vast forests and preached to hidden tribes. Many of these missionaries went forth from the British Isles, and not a few met a martyr's death. It is not generally known that at the opening of the thirteenth

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century the people of Prussia still worshipped snakes and lizards. Maclear (Christian Missions in the Middle Ages, p. 339) states that "three gods in particular were held in veneration, the god of thunder, the god of corn and fruits, and the god of infernal regions"; "every town or village had a temple." Infanticide, polygamy, and the burning of widows on the death of their husbands, and human sacrifices, gave rise to "European crusades," and Christianity was forced on unwilling peoples. Till the year 1336 not a ray of light had penetrated the darkness of Lithuania. Nevertheless, great missionary efforts had been attempted in every century. (See Archbp. Trench, Mediaval Church History, and Neander.)

2. The statistics given above are very wonderful from another point of view. They show that the previous preparatory history of the world led to a marvellous result, marking out the nineteenth century as an "appointed time." We note that there has occurred a sudden and extraordinary increase in the population. Whilst non-Christians increased on an average 5 per cent. in a hundred years for eighteen centuries; in the nineteenth, owing to the security of life and property under British government, the population of India far more than doubled, so that taking the whole world, the increase was 25 per cent. instead of 5 per cent. Christians, again, who had previously increased on an average fifty per cent. in a hundred years, in the nineteenth century increased 150 per cent.

In passing I notice that in consequence of the systematized missionary work, newly commenced by the Protestant Societies at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the number of their converts now living is over 4,000,000. To effect this languages have been learned, grammars made, Bibles and other books translated, schools provided, new industries introduced, new roads, and even railways constructed, commerce established and character elevated. The Romanist results in the century, omitting the number of the descendants of previous Indian and Chinese Christians, was at least 2,000,000.

I learn from the Rev. James Johnston, that the population of Europe from A.D. 1 to A.D. 1800, was almost stationary, viz.: about 170 millions.* That population suddenly began to multiply, owing to the shifting of political power, within the

* Mr. Rouse doubts the correctness of this statement on the ground of the vast tracts of forest, especially in Germany, which were cleared for habitation in the latter part of that period.-Ed.

continent, the vast progress of science and machinery, the immense increase of progress and other causes; by the end of the nineteenth century the population of Europe had become about 360 millions, thus supplying a very large proportion of the numbers of the present Kingdom of God.

On the other hand, when speaking of this marvellous growth of the kingdom, we must not omit to bear in mind the virulent and extraordinary opposition of the powers of evil, such as the heresies of Christians, the fearful sacrifice of Christian life in the terrible persecutions under Roman emperors and Roman popes. Nor must we fail to bear in mind the inexplicable outburst of Mahommedan fury in the seventh and thirteenth centuries, the extermination of Christianity in North Africa, and its almost entire suppression in Spain and Asia Minor. At about the same time torrents of armed ruffians from the East overwhelmed the churches founded by the Nestorians in Central Asia. Cruel slaughter of Christians in Persia added vast numbers of men, women, and children to the noble army of martyrs.

Further, whenever conversions in large numbers took place, there invariably followed a reaction and a revival of Paganism ; compulsory imposition of the Christian religion gave occasion to the mingling of heathen ideas and practices with the teaching of the new faith: heresies sprang up from the fallen soil of the human heart. The time and prayerful energy of the Church was rightly and necessarily occupied in defining Christian doctrine, and drawing up "articles" of true religion and creeds and "confessions" of faith. Notwithstanding all this, the onward roll of the Kingdom has never been really staid. Defeated in one scene of its triumphs, it has planted the Cross in other lands, and has proved ultimately to be the conquering religion.

With these facts before our minds, let us ask, What explanation does the Bible afford us? In Ephesians iii, 11, and i, 8, we read of the "eternal purpose" carried out "in all wisdom and prudence." The first of these expressions indicates that the overthrow of every opposing power, the destruction of "the works of the wicked one," and the establishment of a universal empire of truth and righteousness, is the Eternal Purpose of "the living God." The second expression used by the inspired Apostle discloses to us that the growth of the Kingdom of God is in His hands, and managed from first to last" with wisdom and prudence." St. Paul learned this from the Old Testament. The passages are too numerous to quote.

For example, let us turn to the prophet Isaiah. As we read the wonderful words, we feel that they rest on the four points of our proposition. In liii, "the pleasure of the Lord," ie., the Eternal Purpose, is carried out by "the servant of the Lord"; of whom we read in ch. xlix, that He concurred in the Purpose and the Plan. In ch. xl, we have notes of Preparation. Nor is this less evident in the earlier chapters of the Book. Turn to ch. iv, 2: "In that day"-a fixed day-"shall the sprout of Jehovah be for ornament and glory, and the fruit of the earth for majesty and beauty." He who was to be the "sprout of Jehovah," was also to be the "fruit of the earth." On this Dr. Kay quotes Delitzsch: "He was the grain of wheat, which redeeming love sowed in the earth on Good Friday; which began to break through the earth and grow towards heaven on Easter Sunday, whose golden blade ascended heavenward on Ascension Day, whose myriad-fold ear bent down to the earth on the day of Pentecost, and poured out the grains, from which the Holy Church was not only born, but still continues to be born." Here are Purpose, Plan and fixed Times. We have not the space to refer to the numerous instances given by Isaiah in which Purpose, Plan, Preparation, and fixed Epochs are evident, controlling what by some is called secular history. But it is important to notice that Isaiah speaks of this great truth, not as revealed first to him, or in his times, but as long known in all previous ages. For God sends a message to Sennacheriba heathen in a heathen land—“Hast thou not heard long ago that I have done it? hast thou not heard from ancient times that I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass."

Turning to the New Testament, our Lord's great prayer of intercession (St. John xvii) establishes the fact that Purpose, Plan, Preparation, and fixed Epochs characterise the growth of the Kingdom of God. "Before the foundation of the world" a "glory" was "given" to the Son, to which the "glory" of which he was a partaker with the Father was antecedent. This given glory involved "power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him." This glory He now gives to the Apostles, and He prays that "they may be one, as we are one." This is not the oneness of which He spoke when He said, "I and My Father are one." That was an essential oneness in which His disciples could have no share. This is the oneness of purpose, aim, intention, in which they could share. He received this glorious commission. He was God's "elect," "to do all His pleasure." He now entrusts that glorious commission to chosen Apostles, in