THE UNITED STATES HAVE ARISEN IN THE EXACT MANNER IN WHICH JOHN SAW THE TWO-HORNED BEAST COMING UP.
The manner in which the two-horned beast was seen coming up, shows, equally with its location and its chronology, that it is a symbol of these United States. John says he saw the beast coming up “out of the earth.” And this expression must have been designedly used to point out the contrast between the rise of this beast, and that of other national prophetic symbols. The four beasts of Daniel 7, and the leopard beast of Rev. 13, all arose out of the sea. Says Daniel, The four winds of Heaven strove upon the great sea, and four beasts came up from the sea. The sea denotes peoples, nations, and tongues; Rev. 17:15; and the winds denote political strife and commotion. Jer. 33:32, 33. There was then, in this scene, the dire commotion of nature’s mightiest elements, the wind above, the waters beneath, the fury of the gale, the roaring and dashing of the waves, and the tumult of the raging storm; and in the midst of this war of elements, as if aroused from the depths of the sea by the fearful commotion, these beasts one after another appeared. In other words, the governments of which these beasts were symbols owed their origin to movements among the people which would be well represented by the sea lashed into foam by the sweeping gale; they arose by the upheavals of revolution, and through the strife of war.
But when the prophet beholds the rising of the two-horned beast, how different the scene! No political tempest sweeps the horizon, no armies clash together like the waves of the sea. He does not behold the troubled and restless surface of the waters, but a calm and immovable expanse of earth. And out of this earth, like a plant growing up in a quiet and sheltered spot, he sees this beast, bearing on his head the horns of a lamb, those eloquent symbols of youth and innocence, daily augmenting in bodily proportions, and daily increasing in physical strength.
Some may here point to the war of the Revolution, as an event which destroys the force of this application; but this furnishes no objection; for 1. That war was at least fifteen years in the past when the two-horned beast was introduced into the field of this vision; and 2. The war of the Revolution was not a war of conquest. It was not waged to overthrow any other kingdom, and build this government on its ruins, but only to defend the just rights of the American people. An act of resistance against continual attempts of injustice and tyranny cannot certainly be placed in the same catalogue with wars of aggression and conquest. The same may be said of the war of 1812. Hence, these conflicts do not even partake of the nature of objections to the application here set forth.
The word which John uses to describe the manner in which this beast comes up, is very expressive. It is ἀναβαίνω (anabainon), one of the prominent definitions of which is, “to grow or spring up as a plant.” And it is a remarkable fact that this very figure has been chosen by political writers, as the one which best illustrates the rise of our government. Mr. G. A. Townsend, in his work entitled, “The New World Compared with the Old,” p. 462, says:—
“Since America was discovered, she has been a subject of revolutionary thought in Europe. The mystery of her coming forth from vacancy, the marvel of her wealth in gold and silver, the spectacle of her captives led through European capitals, filled the minds of men with unrest: and unrest is the first stage of revolution.”
On p. 635, he further says:—
“In this web of islands, ‘The West Indies,’ began the life of both [North and South] Americas. There Columbus saw land, there Spain began her baneful and brilliant Western Empire; thence Cortez departed for Mexico, De Soto for the Mississippi, Balboa for the Pacific, and Pizarro for Peru. The history of the United States was separated by a beneficent Providence far from this wild and cruel history of the rest of the continent, and, like a silent seed, we grew into empire; while empire itself, beginning in the South, was swept by so interminable a hurricane that what of its history we can ascertain is read by the very lightning that devastated it. The growth of English America may be likened to a series of lyric songs by separate singers, which coalescing, at last make a vigorous chorus, and this, attracting many from afar, swells and is prolonged, until presently it assumes the dignity and proportions of epic song.”
A writer in the Dublin Nation about the year 1850, spoke of the United States as a wonderful empire which was “emerging,” and “amid the silence of the earth daily adding to its power and pride.”
In Martyn’s “History of the Great Reformation,” Vol. iv, p. 238, is an extract from an oration of Edward Everett on the English exiles who founded this government, in which he says:—
“Did they look for a retired spot, inoffensive from its obscurity, safe in its remoteness from the haunts of despots, where the little church of Leyden might enjoy freedom of conscience? Behold the mighty regions over which in peaceful conquest—victoria sine clade—they have borne the banners of the cross.”
We now ask the reader to look at these expressions side by side: “Coming up out of the earth,” “coming forth from vacancy,” “emerging amid the silence of the earth,” “like a silent seed we grew into empire,” “mighty regions” secured by “peaceful conquest.” The first is from the prophet, stating what would be when the two-horned beast should arise; the others are from political writers, telling what has been in the history of our own government. Can any one fail to see that the last four are exactly synonymous with the first, and that they record a complete accomplishment of the prediction? And what is not a little remarkable, those who have thus recorded the fulfillment, have, without any reference to prophecy used the very figure which the prophet employed. These men, therefore, being judges—men of large and cultivated minds, and whose powers of discernment all will acknowledge to be sufficiently clear—it is certain that the particular manner in which the United States have arisen, answers most strikingly to the development of the symbol under consideration.
We now extend the inquiry a step further: Have the United States “come up” in a manner to fulfill the prophecy? Has their progress been sufficiently great and sufficiently rapid to correspond to that visible and perceptible growth which John saw in the two-horned beast?
Every person whose reading is ordinarily extensive, has something of an idea of what the United States are to-day; he likewise has an idea, so far as words can convey it to his mind, of what they were at the commencement of their history. The only object, then, in presenting statistics and testimony on this point, is to show that our rapid growth has struck mankind with the wonder of a constant miracle.
Said Emile de Girardin, in La Liberté (1868):
“The population of America, not thinned by any conscription, multiplies with prodigious rapidity, and the day may be foreseen when they will number sixty or eighty millions of souls. This parvenu [one recently risen to notice] is aware of his importance and destiny. Hear him proudly exclaiming, ‘America for Americans!’ See him promising his alliance to Russia; and we see that power which well knows what force is, grasp the hand of this giant of yesterday.
“In view of his unparalleled progress and combination, what are the little toys with which we amuse ourselves in Europe? What is this needle gun we are anxious to get from Prussia, that we may beat her next year with it? Had we not better take from America the principle of liberty she embodies, out of which have come her citizen pride, her gigantic industry, and her formidable loyalty to the destinies of her republican land?”
The Dublin (Ireland) Nation, after speaking of Russia, says:—
“In the west, an opposing and still more wonderful American Empire is emerging. We islanders have no conception of the extraordinary events which amid the silence of the earth are daily adding to the power and pride of this gigantic nation. Within three years, territories more extensive than these three kingdoms [Great Britain, Ireland and Scotland], France and Italy put together, have been quietly, and in almost ‘matter of course’ fashion, annexed to the Union.”
Mitchell, in his School Geography (4th revised edition), p. 101, speaking of the United States, says:—
“When it is considered that one hundred years ago the inhabitants numbered but 1,000,000, it presents the most striking instance of national growth to be found in the history of mankind.”205
Let us reduce these general statements to the more tangible form of facts and figures. A little more than two hundred years ago, Dec. 22, 1620, the Mayflower landed one hundred of these voluntary exiles on the coast of New England. Here, says Martyn, “New England was born,” and this was “its first baby cry, a prayer and a thanksgiving to the Lord.”
Another permanent English settlement was made at Jamestown, Va., in 1607. In process of time other settlements were made, and colonies organized, which were all subject to the English government till the declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
The population of these colonies, according to the U. S. Magazine of August, 1855, amounted in 1701, to 262,000; in 1749, to 1,046,000; in 1775, to 2,803,000. Then commenced the struggle of the American colonies against the oppression of the mother country. In 1776, they declared themselves as, in justice and right, an independent nation. In 1777, delegates from the thirteen original States, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, in Congress assembled, adopted articles of confederation. In 1783, the war of the Revolution closed by a treaty of peace with Great Britain, whereby our independence was acknowledged, and territory ceded to the extent of 815,615 square miles. In 1787, the Constitution was framed and ratified by the foregoing thirteen States, and on the 1st of March, 1789, went into operation. Then the American ship of State was fairly launched, with less than one million square miles of territory, and about three millions of souls.
Thus we are brought to the time when, in our interpretation of Revelation 13, this government is introduced into the prophecy as “coming up.” Our territorial growth since then has been as follows: Louisiana, acquired from France in 1803, comprising 930,928 square miles of territory. Florida, from Spain in 1821, with 59,268 square miles. Texas, admitted to the Union in 1845, with 237,504 square miles. Oregon, as settled by treaty in 1846, with 380,425 square miles. California, as conquered from Mexico in 1847, with 649,762 square miles. Arizona (New Mexico), as acquired from Mexico by treaty in 1854, with 27,500 square miles. Alaska, as acquired by purchase from Russia in 1867, with 577,390 square miles. This gives a grand total of three millions, five hundred and seventy-eight thousands, three hundred and ninety-two (3,578,392) square miles of territory, which is about four-ninths of all North America, and more than one fifteenth of the whole land surface of the globe.
And while this expansion has been thus rapidly going forward here, how has it been with the other leading nations of the globe? Macmillan & Co., the London publishers, in announcing their “Statesman’s Year Book” for 1867, make an interesting statement of the changes that took place in Europe during the half century between the years 1817 and 1867. They say:—
“The half century has extinguished three kingdoms, one grand duchy, eight duchies, four principalities, one electorate, and four republics. Three new kingdoms have arisen, and one kingdom has been transformed into an empire. There are now forty-one States in Europe against fifty-nine which existed in 1817. Not less remarkable is the territorial extension of the superior States of the world. Russia has annexed 567,364 square miles; the United States, 1,968,009; France, 4,620; Prussia, 29,781; Sardinia, expanding into Italy, has increased by 83,041; the Indian Empire has been augmented by 431,616. The principal States that have lost territory are Turkey, Mexico, Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands.”
We ask the especial attention of the reader to these particulars. During the last half century, twenty-one governments have disappeared altogether; and only three new ones have arisen. Five have lost instead of gained in territory. Only five, besides our own, have added to their domain. And the one which has done the most in this direction has added only a little over half a million of square miles, while we have added nearly two millions. Thus the United States government has added over fourteen hundred thousand square miles of territory more than any other single nation, and over eight hundred thousand more than have been added by all the other nations of the earth put together! In view of this fact, can any one doubt, looking the whole world over, which government it is that has been, during this time, emphatically “coming up”?
In point of population, our increase since 1798, according to the census of the several decades, has been as follows: In 1800, the total number of inhabitants in the United States was 5,305,925; in 1810, 7,239,814; in 1820, 9,638,131; in 1830, 12,866,020; in 1840, 17,069,453; in 1850, 23,191,876; in 1860, 31,445,089; in 1870, 38,555,983. These figures are almost too large for the mind to readily grasp.
And how long a time has it taken for this wonderful transformation? In the language of Edward Everett, “They are but lately dead who saw the first-born of the pilgrims;” and Mr. Townsend (p. 21) says: “The memory of one man can swing from that time of primitive government to this—when thirty-eight millions of people living on two oceans and in two zones, are represented in Washington, and their consuls and ambassadors are in every point and metropolis of the globe.”
Is this enough? The only objection we can anticipate is that this nation has progressed too fast and too far—that the government has already outgrown the symbol. But what shall be thought of those who deny that it has any place in prophecy at all? No; this prodigy has its place on the prophetic page; and the path which has thus far led us to the conclusion that the two-horned beast is the prophetic symbol of the United States, is hedged in on either side by walls of adamant that reach to heaven. To make any other application is an utter impossibility. The thought would be folly, and the attempt, abortion.
We now bring to a conclusion the argument showing the application of the two-horned beast of Rev. 13. The evidence might be greatly extended; for the character of the government, the dragon voice with which it speaks, and the great wonders it doeth, all show that it is a symbol of our own government, just as clearly as the questions of its location, chronology, and the manner of its rise, which we have already examined. For a full discussion of this subject, we refer the reader to the work entitled, The United States in Prophecy, published at this Office.
We have here aimed to establish only a few vital points, of such a nature that if they are sustained, the application of all the remaining specifications of the prophecy inevitably follow.
These are the agencies, the work of which calls forth the warning of the third message. We have shown that that message is now due, and is being proclaimed all over the land. And this position is impregnably fortified by the collateral evidence which has been given, that the two-horned beast, against whose work this third message warns us, is already upon the stage of action, performing the part assigned him in the prophecy. He who has attentively read the past volume of the REVIEW has seen some of the evidence which proves that the issue of Rev. 13:14–17 is soon to be pressed upon us.
Held to the application of the symbol of verse 11 to our own government, we have for more than a score of years predicted an issue upon the Sunday question, the formation of an ecclesiastical organization which would be an image of the beast, and the enforcement of the observance of the first day of the week by the strong arm of the law. And in the zealous efforts which are of late being made to secure a religious amendment to the Constitution of the United States, we behold the movement in which the fulfillment of this part of the prophecy is undoubtedly to appear.
Reader, are you ready for the issue? Weigh carefully the testimony and act according to the evidence in the case. There may be a seeming advantage in error for the time being. It will enable you to avoid some crosses, sacrifices, and self-denial; but it will occasion a terrible loss in the end. He that shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and he that shall lose it for my sake, said Christ, shall find it. U. S.