nding. If the augury referred to the duration of the
political constitution then instituted, every school-boy knows that half
a dozen revolutions falsified the prediction. If, however, it be alleged
that it referred to the ultimate fate of the city of Rome, that it
should cease to exist after twelve centuries, it is self-evidently
false; for now, after the lapse of twenty-six centuries, Rome is larger,
its people more numerous, and its territory wider than it was for
centuries after Romulus saw the twelve vultures. Thus God "frustrateth
the tokens of the liars." Yet men who have read Roman history, and
whose business it is to read their Bibles, continue to cite Vettius
Valens as a prophet, and to compare his false auguries with the
predictions of the Scriptures of truth!

This is only one of a number of such secular predictions confidently
cited by the learned Dean as having been as minute and specific as those
of Scripture, and undeniably fulfilled. But a scholar of his own church
has examined his references and alleged facts, and the result is, that
not a single instance remains of the fulfillment of any definite
prediction given by the original writers; and where the transcriber and
the Dean have helped them out to a more definite prediction, it has
proved a false prophecy, as in the case of Sterling's and Spence's
prediction of the year of the disruption of the Union of the United
States. Dr. Pusey summarizes this discussion in his work on Daniel (p.
637), from which we extract and condense the following paragraphs on
this subject:

"Dean Stanley produces a certain number of alleged predictions in
secular history, as counterparts of the predictions of _the political
events_ of their own, and the surrounding nations," in the Hebrew
prophets, _i. e._ (in religious language), "of God's judgments upon both
for their sins against himself and their fellow-men." He says, "Every
one knows instances, both in ancient and modern times, of predictions
which have been uttered, and fulfilled, in regard to events of this
kind. Sometimes such predictions have been the results of political
foresight. Many instances will occur to students of history. Even within
our own memory the great catastrophe of the disruption of the United
States of America _was foretold, even with the exact date, several years
beforehand_. Sometimes there has been an anticipation of some future
epoch in the pregnant sayings of eminent philosophers and poets;