A CORRESPONDENT, referring to a question recently answered in the “Question Corner,” thinks that we have an altogether wrong view of the seven heads of Revelation 17, and that these heads represent Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, Medo-Persia, Grecia, Rome, and the United States. We are told that “at the time that John received the revelation of Jesus Christ, five of these satanized kingdoms had fallen, Rome was then in power, and the United States was yet to come.” We are sure that our correspondent has not thought around the question on all sides. In the first place, let him go back to the 13th chapter of Revelation. The beast of the 17th chapter is the same as the beast of the 13th chapter, only in a later phase. It is the one beast on which all these heads appear. They belong to one general system of dynastic church-and-state government. The United States is represented by another beast, with two horns like a lamb, and which spake as a dragon, depicted in the same chapter. It is not the same beast; it is not a head of that beast; it is a totally distinct beast, coming up in an entirely different territory, living at the same time that the seven-headed beast lives, and doing its work in the presence of the seven-headed beast, when that other beast is living. This disposes of the one conception, that the United States is one of the heads of the seven-headed beast. In the nature of the case, it can not be. 2. The beast represents the great system of church-and-state government antagonistic to God; the seven heads, seven great dynasties beginning at a certain time in the past, and continuing until Christ our Lord shall come. It is true that Egypt was a persecutor of God’s children, it is also true that Assyria was. It is just as clearly true that the Philistines were, that the Midianites were, that the Amalekites were, and other powers; but they do not belong to that system. That system begins with Babylon, and it begins with Babylon at the time that the kingdom was taken away from Israel, and Israel (or Judah, rather) went into captivity to Babylon. If we would learn the beginning of the sevenfold system of government, let us compare the story of the birth of the Man-child of Revelation 12 with the fourth and fifth chapters of Micah. That very clearly shows that Babylon is the very beginning of this beast power, and that from the time when Judah went into captivity. 3. It is not a church, however corrupt it may be, which makes the beast. It is not proper to speak of a corrupt ecclesiastical body as the beast. It is only when that ecclesiastical body is united with state power that we have the beast. The deadly wound which one of the heads received, did not mean the utter wiping out of that dynasty, or the utter destruction of the ecclesiastical power connected with it, but the separation, or breaking of this union. 4. These heads, beginning with Babylon, are as follows: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, Pagan Rome, Papal Rome, church-and-state Protestantism, and the Papacy restored. 5. The Revelation is not to be considered from the standpoint of the chronology of John’s day. God sent and signified by His servant John, and among the signs that He used was John himself. John stood in the place of God’s children. He represented them not only for his own day, but for their days as well. He represented them not only at the time when the Lamb of God ascended up on high as Priest, but he represented them as they will live upon the earth at the last generation, and see Christ coming in the clouds of heaven. He therefore represented God’s children not only in the beginning of the great lines of prophecy, but in the end also, not simply in some particular stage of these lines of prophecy, but also in other stages. For instance, we have three times over the seven heads presented,—once upon the dragon, showing that they were moved and actuated by Satan; but the chronological view-point of that prophecy is at the first advent, when our Lord was caught up to God and to His throne. Their second appearance is upon the beast, when one of the heads, namely, that which persecuted God’s children for 1,260 years, was wounded unto death, but that deadly wound was healed. The third time that the heads are presented before us, is in Revelation 17. But the chronological view-point of this prophecy is just before the judgments of God fall upon the earth. They are then impending. It is one of the seven angels that had the seven bowls of wrath, that comes to John and says, “I will show thee the judgment of the great harlot.” But in order that the servant of God may understand why the judgment, God reveals the sin and the wickedness of that harlot during the “wilderness” state, contrasting this “wilderness” state with the wilderness state of the true church in the twelfth chapter; the true, driven and persecuted and hunted to death, the false, riding in triumph upon the governments of the earth.5 6. The last phase of this beast power is not yet manifested. It will endure only a little while, and will go down into the pit of destruction. From the chronological standpoint of the time which John represented, when God’s judgments are impending, five of these heads had fallen,—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, Rome Pagan, Rome Papal. Another was upon the stage of action in the old-world dynasties, and that is the mixed conditions that we find in Europe to-day, divided up into governments, but all working to one and the same end, the church connected with the government, and all of them more or less intolerant of dissenters. The one that is to be, is the church of Rome restored by the powers of earth, bringing back the same phase of the beast power that is described in the first part of the chapter. 7. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes, judgment will be pronounced upon all the nations of the earth. The nations will then be judged, and judgment will be executed upon them. See the prophecies of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. Consequently, those nations will never be seen in this world or elsewhere again, and at the end of the thousand years, when the wicked dead are raised and come up with all their old animosity against right and truth, with all the love of war in their hearts, they will not come up as subjects of so many nations, nor will they—nor could they—organize as nations. Under what nation would Nimrod be counted, or Nebuchadnezzar, or Alexander, or Hannibal? For the later phases of nations have taken the places of the ancient ones. They will simply come up with the same characters they possessed when they went down, and they will be marshaled into new armies by Satan, who deceives them. For all the old national lines and boundary-lines were obliterated when Christ the Lord came one thousand years before. During the thousand years and at their close, the incorrigibly wicked will as individuals receive their just deserts, and the long night of sin will forever pass away. And He that sitteth upon the throne shall say, “Behold, I make all things new.”