give an average of from fifty to fifty-five years; and yet they sometimes tell us that we are starving in the great cities for want of oxygen. Considering the multiplied comforts and conveniences that the steam-engine has brought within the reach of all, it is but reasonable to suppose that the average of life will continue to lengthen; and famines and pestilences and wars, as they existed in the past, will be impossible in the future, as this mighty angel advances.
Our fourth proposition is, that this man had his loins girded with fine gold of Uphaz. Now what does the girding of the loins signify in the Scriptures. In Oriental countries all the people wore long, flowing robes, and when a man appeared with his robe girded about his loins, it was evidence that he was prepared to go on a journey, or that he was ready to run a race. And so the prophet Daniel says of the man that he saw, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz, an unmistakable evidence that he was ready for actionhe was ready to run.
The people of Nineveh prided themselves exceedingly in their jumping chariots, their pranc-
