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The Rise of this Nation

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 8, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 38, No. 8.

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The Rise of this Nation.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THAT the two-horned beast of Rev. 13:11–18, symbolizes this nation, is clearly proved by all the specifications being exactly met here. John saw the two-horned beast “coming up out of the earth.” No other beast thus arose. All the others came up out of the sea. Dan. 7:3; Rev. 13:1. The winds blew upon the sea, and those beasts arose. The waters represent peoples and nations; Rev. 17:15; that is, there was war and commotion among the nations. Some fell, and upon their ruins arose another kingdom. The kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, arose by aggression and conquest, by overthrowing other nations, and taking their places. But not so of this nation. It came up out of the earth.
To illustrate: You plant some seeds in the ground. They spring up, grow, become very large, and spread themselves over much ground; so with this nation. The pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth, felled the trees, erected their cabins, and began a settlement. One village sprang up, and then another, as it were, out of the earth. The seed has grown and spread from one little boat load to thirty-eight millions of people, and from one weak colony to forty great States.
No other kingdom has been overthrown, no conquests made, but, unlike other nations, we have grown up out of the soil. See how villages and cities come up here in the West. A railroad depot is made miles from any habitation. In four years’ time there is a city of thousands! It seems like magic. Where did it come from? Who could describe it better than John?—it came “up out of the earth.” Says the Christian Statesman:—
“We are a strange people, having no parallel in the history of the world as to our early origin. The nations of the old world are composed of peoples that have had their homes in the lands in which they live, they and their fathers, time out of mind. But our nation is composed of a different class of population. The land which we occupy was not known to civilization until a few hundred years ago.”
D. M. CANRIGHT.