run to and fro ' ( a Hebrew expression for observing and thinking upon the time ), ' and knowledge ' ( regarding that time ) ' shall be increased .' Daniel 12:4 . Besides this , our Lord does not intend to say by this , that the approach of the time shall not be known , but that the exact ' day and hour knoweth no man .' Enough , He does say , shall be known by the signs of the times , to induce us to prepare for His coming , as Noah prepared the ark ." --Wolff , Researches and Missionary Labours , pages 404 , 405 .
Concerning the popular system of interpreting , or misinterpreting , the Scriptures , Wolff wrote : " The greater part of the Christian church have swerved from the plain sense of Scripture , and have turned to the phantomizing system of the Buddhists , who believe that the future happiness of mankind will consist in moving about in the air , and suppose that when they are reading Jews they must understand Gentiles ; and when they read Jerusalem , they must understand the church ; and if it is said earth , it means sky ; and for coming of the Lord they must understand the progress of the missionary societies ; and going up to the mountain of the Lord ' s house , signifies a grand class meeting of Methodists ." --Journal of the Rev . Joseph Wolff , page 96 .
During the twenty-four years from 1821 to 1845 , Wolff traveled extensively : in Africa , visiting Egypt and Abyssinia ; in Asia , traversing Palestine , Syria , Persia , Bokhara , and India . He also visited the United States , on the journey thither preaching on the island of Saint Helena . He arrived in New York in August , 1837 ; and , after speaking in that city , he preached in Philadelphia and Baltimore , and finally proceeded to Washington . Here , he says , " on a motion brought forward by the ex-President , John Quincy Adams , in one of the houses of Congress , the House unanimously granted to me the use of the Congress Hall for a lecture , which I delivered on a Saturday , honoured with the presence of all the members of Congress , and also of the bishop of Virginia , and of the clergy and citizens of Washington . The same honour was granted to me by the members of the government of New Jersey and Pennsylvania , in whose presence I delivered lectures on my researches in Asia , and also on the personal reign of Jesus Christ ." -- Ibid ., pages 398 , 399 .
Dr . Wolff travelled in the most barbarous countries without the protection of any European authority , enduring many hardships and surrounded with countless perils . He was bastinadoed and starved , sold as a slave , and three times condemned to death . He was beset by robbers , and sometimes nearly perished from thirst . Once he was stripped of all that he possessed and left to travel hundreds of miles on foot through the mountains , the snow beating in his face and his naked feet benumbed by contact with the frozen ground .
When warned against going unarmed among savage and hostile tribes , he declared himself " provided with arms " -- " prayer , zeal for Christ , and confidence in His help ." " I am also ," he said , " provided with the love of God and my neighbour in my heart , and the Bible is in my hand ." -W . H . D . Adams , In Perils Oft , page 192 . The Bible in Hebrew and English he carried with him wherever he
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