AND HIS DEADLY WOUND WAS HEALED.
By T.
In view of the fact that the pope is liable to die any moment, it is stated that “there is intense excitement in the sacred college among the candidates for the Papacy, and their supporters, and the governments most directly interested. France, Germany, and Austria have ordered their representatives in Rome not to leave the city. The selection of a new pope is especially important in view of the positive action taken by the Roman Catholic Church in connection with the Socialistic movement in Central Europe.” The prophet says of the Papacy that he saw it “as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed; and all the world wondered after the beast.” The spiritual power of the Papacy was shattered by the Reformation, and Protestantism, when it stood for the pure, free Gospel of Christ, was sanguine in the hope that Roman Catholicism could never regain her footing in the world. Their faith in the complete overthrow of the Papacy was also greatly strengthened when Napoleon’s army entered Rome about a hundred years ago and took the reigning pope prisoner. Victor Emanuel’s conflicts with the pope and his success in finally establishing his capitol in the city of Rome, seemed to be among the final strokes that would forever destroy the temporal power of the Papal Church. But in the prophetic description the statement is made that this power was “as it were wounded to death.” The wound, to all human appearances, was a deadly blow. But divine foresight expresses it only as an apparent deadly wound. He was wounded to death “as it were” only, and the statement is immediately added that “his deadly wound was healed,” and, furthermore, that “all the world wondered after the beast.” That Catholicism is gaining in power and influence among all the earthly governments, there can be no question. “All the world” is literally reaching out for her power. And nowhere is this to be more noticed than in the most pronounced Protestant lands. Even Germany, where the Reformation of the sixteenth century had its center and greatest influence, has fell to “wondering after the beast.” The same prophetic accuracy that foretells the “deadly wound” of the Papacy, also tells of the wound being healed. The history of the wounding has been but recently written. The work of the healing is now going on beneath our literal eyes. Do you see it? Do you know what it signifies? It is one of the very last acts in the world’s history. When the climax is reached, the Son of God will come in person to overthrow the evil which, under all its varied forms, has sought for so many centuries to dominate the minds of men. T.