QUERY.—Bro. Smith: Will you please explain Rev. xvi, 6, in regard the “saints and prophets?” Will not their blood be shed by those on whom the seven last plagues fall? If you, or some one else, can make that passage harmonize with Rev. xv, 2, and Dan. xii, 1, it will be the means of removing doubts from the minds of some in this place and elsewhere. H. E. G. ANSWER.—The xviiith chap. of Rev. gives us a description of the destruction of Babylon the great. The last verse contains this remarkable declaration: “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” This destruction of Babylon we understand to be not the final disposition of the wicked at the end of the 1000 years, but her destruction at the coming of Christ. It has reference therefore to the living multitudes which constitute Babylon at that time; and yet it is said that “in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all that were slain upon the earth.” What does this mean? It cannot mean that all the blood of the saints which has ever been spilt upon the earth has been shed by the representatives of Babylon now living. It can only mean that they, being a part of great Babylon, are obnoxious to the same guilt which has been chargeable upon Babylon in ages past. The Scriptures elsewhere speak in the same manner. See Matt. xxii, 29-32. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Verse 35. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. The generation to which this language was addressed, certainly had not poured out all the righteous blood that had been shed from Abel to their day. But they showed by their works, their persecution of the saints, that they were no better than their fathers. So of those in Rev. xvi, 6, upon whom the seven last plagues come. Their purpose is to rid the earth of the saints of God. This they attempt to do. See Rev. xii, 17; xiii, 15. And though foiled in their purpose by the intervention of God in behalf of his people, that does not alter the degree of their guilt, nor, consequently, the severity of their punishment. The “prophets and saints” brought to view in this scripture are doubtless the same as mentioned in verse 24, of chap. xviii, already noticed, and therefore do not necessarily refer to persons living in the last generation. With this view of the subject, Rev. xvi, 6 harmonizes without difficulty with chap. xv, 2, and Dan. xii, 1.