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VICARIUS FILII DEI

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 2.

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“VICARIUS FILII DEI.”

By Nels Anderson

[The following lines are an acrostic. The initial letters of the lines reading downward form the words, “Vicarius Filii Dei.” The eighteenth verse of the thirteenth chapter of Revelation will be found by reading the words in italic down on the left and up on the right.]
VAIN is life here if worldly fame we seek; If gold is god, and our six ten years here Call but for carnal wisdom and its weak Attributes. Shall we let threescore year Roll by Him uselessly? A hundred times, In that brief six ten years, O man! His blood Undid thy sins. Hath what is thine of crimes Soiled so thy understanding, none number good? False thinkest thou the count His prophets made? Impossible the text, and babble all? Look deep—the number of a man is weighed In balances of justice; a shining wall Incloses it—the works of God no man Dare raze. The beast, whose number none began Except himself, for centuries the ban In Christdom, it is the figure of a man. NELS ANDERSON. Parkersburg, Iowa.