the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[146] branches that had been broken off should be grafted in again, he does not agree in the expectation which many have expressed, and which is perhaps the most general opinion, that the Jewish people will be again established in their own land, where the temple is to be rebuilt and the ceremonial law restored. He thinks it more probable, that, when the Jews shall have professed themselves believers in the Messiahship of Jesus, the result will be that the middle wall of partition will indeed be for ever broken down, and that all peculiarities of character and institutions, as well as of privileges, will be utterly done away; as there will then be no longer any occasion for the continuance of that standing evidence of the truth of the Christian system which we now derive from the permanent existence of the Jews as a distinct and peculiar people. This may be so; but perhaps, amidst the opposite speculations and conjectures of those who, on the strength of their own interpretations of prophecy, attempt to lift up the dread veil of futurity, the conclusion of the cool unprejudiced thinker will be, that it is better to leave questions of this sort where we found them; and if there be in scripture predictions yet unaccomplished of events still to take place in the history of this world, to wait till time shall at length have disclosed the mystery. The prophecies were not intended to make us prophets.

For a series of years, at this period of Mr. Lardner's life, very few events are recorded by his biographer. His disposition did not incline him to take any active part in public life, and his infirmity of deafness, though it might not altogether