p. 78 | THE TWO HORNS by M. E. Cornell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 4, 1862

THE TWO HORNS.

By M. E. Cornell

SINCE the organization of the Southern confederacy the idea has been suggested by some that the North and South were symbolized by the two horns of the last beast mentioned in Rev. xiii, 11. To this view we offer the following objections:

1. The two-horned beast is introduced in 1798 (where the first beast went into captivity), as having two lamb-like horns. The horns were seen as the beast was coming up—when the power was youthful. The horns did not come up when the beast had waxed old as this government has at the present time.

2. The two horns were both mild and harmless like the lamb. Is the Southern Confederacy mild or lamb-like? If its voice is the innocent bleat of the lamb, what can the voice of the dragon be!

3. If the Southern Confederacy is established and maintained, it would really be another government rising, but horns are sometimes used to represent only distinct features in a government. Thus the two horns on the ram [Dan. viii, 3, 20], representing the kings of Media and Persia, were distinct elements of the same power or government.

4. If the lamb-like horns signify the youthfulness of the power, or its mildness and purity, in either case it will not apply to the United States at the present time. This government that was so lamb-like in its beginning is now old in iniquity, and speaks for an image to the beast. The dragonic features only remain.

What then are the two horns? They must signify two distinct elements in this government, which have existed from its very beginning. For as soon as the beast was visible on the earth—as he was “coming up”—the young horns appeared. This fact should lead us to inquire what was in the minds of the Pilgrim Fathers when they braved the perils of the mighty ocean, and cast their lot among the rude savages of this vast wilderness. What were the objects they had in view when they laid the foundations of a new government? The true answer is well expressed by Hon. J. A. Bingham. In speaking of the Puritans he says: “I can tell you that they had another and sublimer object in view; it was to found what the world had not seen for ages, viz., a church without a pope, a State without a king.” Their object was to establish and maintain civil and ecclesiastical rights and privileges. These two grand features were prominent from the beginning. Protestantism and Republicanism have ever been prominent and distinct in all departments of the machinery of this great nation. These are unquestionably signified by the two horns. How lamb-like their profession! The Republican’s creed is the Declaration of Independence. The Protestant’s creed is the Bible.

These constitute the lamb-like horns. No better symbol could be used to represent the gentleness and purity of this government in the beginning.

M. E. CORNELL.