"The only accession which the Roman Empire received during the first century of the Christian era, was the province of Britain. In this single instance the successors of Caesar and Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing, though doubtful intelligence of a pearl fishery attracted their avarice; and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war of about forty years [A. D. 41-81], undertaken by the most stupid [Claudius], maintained by the most dissolute [Nero], and terminated by the most timid [Domitian] of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. . . . At the very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired, his legions, under the command of the virtuous Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians at the foot of the Grampian hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms round every part of the island.
"But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal from the Government of Britain. . . . Before his departure, the prudent general had provided for security as well as for dominion. He had observed that the island is almost divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs, or, as they are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military stations, which was afterwards fortified in the reign of Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart erected on foundations of stone. This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of the Roman province. The native Caledonians preserved in the northern extremity of the island their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valor. . . . The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe, turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians.
"Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the maxims of Imperial policy, from the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan [A. D. 98]. That virtuous and active prince had received the education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general. The peaceful system of his predecessors was interrupted by scenes of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long interval, beheld a military emperor at their head. The first exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike of men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of Domitian, had insulted with impunity the majesty of Rome.
"Decebalus, the Dacian king, approved himself a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor did he despair of his own and the public fortune, till, by the confession of his enemies, he had exhausted every resource, both of valor and policy. This memorable war, with a very short suspension of hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor could exert, without control, the whole force of the State, it was terminated by the absolute submission of the barbarians. The new province of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the precept of Augustus, was about thirteen hundred miles in circumference. Its natural boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss or Tibiscus [Temes], the Lower Danube, and the Euxine [Black] Sea.
"Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause upon their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst for military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the nations of the East; but he lamented, with a sigh, that his advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equaling the renown of the son of Philip. Yet the success of Trajan, however transient, was rapid and specious. The degenerate Parthians, broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms. He descended the River Tigris in triumph, from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals who ever navigated that remote sea. His fleets ravaged the coasts of Arabia; and Trajan vainly flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of India.
"Every day the astonished senate received the intelligence of new names and new nations that acknowledged his sway. They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchis, Iberia, Albania [countries above Armenia between the Black and the Caspian Seas], Osrhoene [a province of Mesopotamia in the bend of the Euphrates], and even the Parthian monarch himself, had accepted their diadems from the hands of the emperor; that the independent tribes of the Median and Carduchian hills had implored his protection, and that the rich countries of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, were reduced into the state of provinces. But the death of Trajan soon clouded the splendid prospect; and it was justly to be dreaded that so many distinct nations would throw off the unaccustomed yoke when they were no longer restrained by the powerful hand which had imposed it."
In A. D. 117, Trajan died, and was succeeded by Hadrian, and—
"The resignation of all the Eastern conquests of Trajan was the first measure of his reign. He restored to the Parthians the election of an independent sovereign, withdrew the Roman garrisons from the provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, and, in compliance with the precept of Augustus, once more established the Euphrates as the frontier of the empire."
"The martial and ambitious spirit of Trajan formed a very singular contrast with the moderation of his successor. The restless activity of Hadrian was not less remarkable, when compared with the gentle repose of Antoninus Pius. The life of the former was almost a perpetual journey; and as he possessed the various talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty. Careless of the difference of the seasons and of climates, he marched, on foot and bareheaded, over the snows of Caledonia and the sultry plains of the Upper Egypt; nor was there a province of the empire, which, in the course of his reign, was not honored with the presence of the monarch. But the tranquil life of Antoninus Pius was spent in the bosom of Italy; and during the twenty-three years that he directed the public administration, the longest journeys of that amiable prince extended no farther than from his palace in Rome to the retirement of his Lanuvian Villa.
"Notwithstanding this difference in their personal conduct, the general system of Augustus was equally adopted, and uniformly pursued, by Hadrian and the two Antonines. They persisted in the design of maintaining the dignity of the empire, without attempting to enlarge its limits. By every honorable expedient they invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavored to convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and justice. During a long period of forty-three years [A. D. 117-161], their virtuous labors were crowned with success; and if we may except a few slight hostilities that served to exercise the legions of the frontier, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius offered the fair prospect of universal peace. The Roman name was revered among the most remote nations of the earth. The fiercest barbarians frequently submitted their differences to the arbitration of the emperor; and we are informed by a contemporary historian that he had seen ambassadors who were refused the honor which they came to solicit, of being admitted into the rank of subjects.
"The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct, they announced to the nations on their confines that they were as little disposed to endure as to offer an injury. The military strength which it had been sufficient for Hadrian and the elder Antoninus to display, was exerted against the Parthians and the Germans by the Emperor Marcus [Aurelius, A. D. 161-180]. The hostilities of the barbarians provoked the resentment of that philosophic monarch, and, in the prosecution of a just defense, Marcus and his generals obtained many signal victories both on the Euphrates and on the Danube."—Dec. and Fall, chap. 1, par. 4-12.
After a sketch of the provinces, which we shall have occasion hereafter to notice, Gibbon gives the area and population of the empire, as follows:—
"This long enumeration of provinces whose broken fragments have formed so many powerful kingdoms, might almost induce us to forgive the vanity or ignorance of the ancients. Dazzled with the extensive sway, the irresistible strength, and the real or affected moderation of the emperors, they permitted themselves to despise, and sometimes to forget, the outlying countries which had been left in the enjoyment of a barbarous independence; and they gradually usurped the license of confounding the Roman monarchy with the globe of the earth. But the temper as well as the knowledge of a modern historian, requires a more sober and accurate language. He may impress a juster image of the greatness of Rome, by observing that the empire was above two thousand miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern limits of Dacia to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer; that it extended, in length, more than three thousand miles, from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates; that it was situated in the finest part of the temperate zone—between the twenty-fourth and fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and that it was supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles, for the most part of fertile and well-cultivated land."—Dec. and Fall, chap. 1, last par.
"The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome,—of citizens, of provincials, and of slaves,—cannot now be fixed with such a degree of accuracy as the importance of the object would deserve. We are informed that when the Emperor Claudius exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six million nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens, who, with the proportion of women and children, must have amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But after weighing with attention every circumstance which could influence the balance, it seems probable that there existed, in the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there were citizens, of either sex and of every age; and that the slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of the Roman world. The total amount of this imperfect calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions of persons, a degree of population which possibly exceeds that of modern Europe, and forms the most661numerous society that has ever been united under the same system of government."—Id., chap. 2, par. 17.
It should be borne in mind that when Gibbon states that this degree of population “possibly exceeds that of modern Europe,” it was the Europe of more than a hundred years ago. This was written about A. D. 1773, and, according to the printed estimates, at that date Europe contained a population of about 107,000,000. Its population, June, 1882, was 327,743,400.
In the reign of Marcus Aurelius we reach the summit of the greatness of the Roman Empire. In the reign of Commodus, his son and successor, A. D. 180, this mighty “fabric of human greatness” began to decline and totter toward its fearful fall. At this point, therefore, we shall close our view of the greatness and power of Rome, only pausing to remark that, in view of the indubitable evidences which we have presented, we cannot see how any one can doubt that the prophet spoke directly of the Roman Empire when he said:—
“The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things; and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.”
A. T. J.
(To be continued.)
Work While It Is Day.
By Horatius Bonar
Do I paralyze effort when I say, “Work while it is day; for the night cometh, when no man can work”? Nay, do I not thus stimulate zeal, and toil, and prayer, and love to the uttermost? Do I lull men to sleep when I say, “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” and time is ebbing fast? Do I tempt the sinner to postpone his conversion, because I speak of the “wrath to come” as so very nigh? Or do I with less serious haste beseech men to be reconciled to God, because I add that the time of reconciliation, the acceptable year of the Lord, is fast running to a close? Do I cherish idleness instead of diligence, softness of spirit instead of hardness, heedlessness about redeeming time instead of eagerness to gather up its fragments, when I announce that “the day goeth away, and the shadows of evening are stretched out”? Do I tempt the minister or the missionary into indolent security, when I declare that “the Judge standeth before the door,” and that erelong the time of working, and preaching, and inviting, will be over? Do I persuade the soldier of the risen Jesus to ungird his weapons because I tell him that his feet are already on the battle-field, and bid him listen to the loud roar afar, that forewarns of the deadly onset?
Do I preach Christ crucified the less, because I preach also Christ coming to reign? or do I the less proclaim that “here we have no continuing city,” because I can point so clearly to that which is to come, the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God”? Or do I make saints feel the less that they are strangers here, because I set forth to them the “new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”?
Do I undervalue the cross because I magnify the throne? In holding up to view the crown of glory, do I deprecate the crown of thorns? Do I enfeeble my proclamation of immediate and free forgiveness to sinners through the Sin-bearer, because I enforce it with the announcement, “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh”? Do I foster error, or heresy, or lax walking, or any departure from the faith, when I warn men that the perilous times of the last days are setting in, when Satan will cast abroad the rage of his wrath, and the unclean spirits will overflow the earth with their delusions, to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect, and to gather the nations to the battle of the great day of God Almighty?
I do not know how it may be with others, but I feel that when I say, “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” I have a weapon in my hand of no common edge and temper. To be able to announce, The Lord will come, is much; but to be able to say without the intervention of an interval, He is at hand, is greatly more. I can go to the struggling saint against whom the battle seems to go hard, and say: Faint not, the Lord is at hand, and he will bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
To the saint wearied with a vexing world, fretted with its vanities, and troubled with the thickening darkness of its midnight, I can say: Be of good cheer, the Lord is at hand; but a little while, and that shall cease to vex; sooner than you think, the morn will break—yea, before it is broken we shall be caught up and meet morning ere it is “spread upon the mountains.” To the suffering saint I can say: Weep not, the Lord is at hand; the torn heart shall be bound up, and the bitterness of bereavement forgotten, in the joy of union forever. To the flagging saint, heavy and slothful in his walk, I can say: Up, for the Lord is at hand; work while it is day; look at a dying world, all unready for its Judge; cast off your selfishness and love of ease. To the covetous saint I can say: The Lord is coming; it is no time for hoarding now; heap not up treasures for the last days.
Next to our own salvation must come the duty of sending the gospel to all. We begin in the inner circle, but woe to us if we stop there. Woe to us if we preach not the gospel to every creature. We feel a peculiar call to this, and a peculiar agency enforcing this call from our very system. For but a little time remaineth. The night is falling. The storm is beginning to burst. We cannot tarry; we must go forth. We cannot heap up treasures for the last days. We must give liberally as long as the time allows. Those who look for a calm, long day, may sit down listlessly, but we dare not. Those who look for a mere extension of the present state of religion as the millennium the world is to enjoy, may excuse themselves from giving, and may heap up treasures. But we dare not; we feel that there is not a moment to be lost; and that whether there are few or many to be saved, it matters not to us. We must fulfill our ministry, not counting even our lives dear to us, that we do the will of Him who sends us, and testify the gospel of the grace of God.—Horatius Bonar, D. D.
The Unreasonableness of Man.
SURELY man is the most unreasonable of God’s creatures. Feed the birds of the air or the beasts of the field, and they will be satisfied; but the more is given to man, the more he requires.
Look at it a moment. If he have riches, he will hug his bags of gold, and carry out his plans to increase them. If he have estates, he will join house to house, field to field, vineyard to vineyard. Give him a county or a kingdom, and he will crave for more. When he rises in the morning, he expects to pass through the day prosperously. If he lies down to rest at night, he expects to enjoy refreshing sleep. If he proposes a journey, he expects to perform it unmolested and uninjured. If he passes through one birthday, he expects to arrive at another in good health; to eat and drink, to ride and to walk, to wake and to sleep, in peace, without considering that these things cannot take place unless God, in his infinite mercy, keeps him from a thousand temptations, and delivers him from ten thousand dangers.
So continually are we partaking of God’s blessings that we look on them as a matter of course; the seed we sow must, in our apprehension, spring up abundantly; our tables must be provided for, and the mercies of yesterday must be supplied to-day, and those of this year continued to us through the next. How seldom do we offer up the prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” with a full consciousness of our entire dependence on our heavenly Father for our supplies! And how frequently do we feel more gratitude to our fellow-beings for a passing act of kindness than to the Lord of life and glory for his permanent and unmerited mercies! We bow to a fellow-sinner to obtain at his hands the empty nothingness of an hour, while the love of the Redeemer of the world, the means of grace, and the hope of eternal glory, are sought for with indifference.
Let us look more on our common mercies as gifts of God. Let our health and our strength, our days and our nights, and our smallest comforts, be regarded as being bestowed by a heavenly Benefactor; and let us bear in mind our own unworthiness, that we may be more reasonable in our desires, and more grateful when they are attained.—Sel.
The Power of Zeal
It is not the extent of your knowledge, though that is useful; it is not the extent of your talent, though that is not to be despised; it is your zeal that shall do exploits.
Orphan Christians.
THIS truth of a present God is the consummate truth of divine revelation and of human experience. All else in revelation leads up to this; all else in religious experience prepares for and grows out of this. Nature assures us that there is a God; the Christ of eighteen centuries ago tells who he is, only that we may spiritually enter into fellowship and have acquaintance with him. That he has the power of directly and immediately communicating with man, that man has the power of directly and immediately entering into communication with him, these two correlative truths are the ultimate disclosure of revelation and the ultimate fact of experience.
I do not wonder at skepticism without the church in this fact of spiritual experience, since it is hardly believed within the church. “I will not leave you orphans,” said Christ as he was about to depart. The great majority of Christians seem to me to be orphans. They believe in a Father that once was; they believe in a Father that is yet to be; but they do not believe in a Father that now is, in a living God, in a Perpetual Presence. Their religion is a memory or a hope, not a present life. They relegate divine inspiration to past ages, and postpone divine fellowship to future ages. They are like men in a tunnel, who look back and see the light at the end they have entered, and look forward and see the light at the end from which they are to emerge, but are now in the darkness.
To think that God did not guide Moses is infidel; but it seems to them almost as infidel to believe that he did guide Abraham Lincoln. To doubt that he dwelt with his people in Palestine is unbelief; to think that he dwells with his people in the United States is presumption. What Peter means by the promise, “Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off;” what Paul means by the prayer, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,” “that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God;” what John means by the declaration, “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ,” they do not know. He who attempts to interpret these and kindred utterances seems to them mystical, visionary, dangerous. They believe in a voice that once spoke, but not in a voice now speaking; they listen to the echo, and try to be content. Their God exists for them only in the pluperfect and the future-perfect tenses, not in the present tense. They believe in “I was that I was,” and in “I shall be that I shall be,” but not in “I am that I am.”—Sel.
God’s Use of Weak Instruments
By Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné
God, who prepares his work through ages, accomplishes it by the weakest instruments when his time is come.—D'Aubigné.
BEFORE making any comments on the "little horn" of Daniel 7, we wish to complete the notes on the "little horn" of Daniel 8, which was the subject of last week’s lesson. By reference to the notes of last week, it will be seen that we proved conclusively that the "little horn" of Daniel 8 represents the Roman Empire. This proof cannot here be repeated, but one or two additional proofs will be given. It will be remembered that the third kingdom—Grecia—represented by the goat with the notable horn, was divided into four parts after the death of Alexander, the four divisions being represented by the four horns which "came up" after the great horn was broken. The prophet then introduces the fourth kingdom—Rome—as follows:—
"And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land." Dan. 8: 9. This seems to some to be an objection to calling this little horn Rome; for how, they ask, could Rome be said to come forth from one of the divisions of the Grecian Empire? In point of fact, this is no objection at all; but on careful consideration it is just what we might expect; for if Grecia was a universal empire, which is affirmed by both sacred and profane history, then any power which should rise up against it, must naturally come forth from some part of it. That Alexander’s dominion was universal, extending even to Rome, is attested by the following statements:
"The Lucanians and Bruttians [inhabitants of Italy] are especially mentioned as having sent embassies to Alexander at Babylon." "The Tyrrhenians also," said Aristobulus and Ptolemaeus, "sent an embassy to the king to congratulate him upon his conquests." "There is every reason to believe that among the Tyrrhenian ambassadors mentioned by Alexander’s historians, there were included ambassadors from Rome. . . . History may allow us to think that Alexander and a Roman ambassador did meet at Babylon; that the greatest man of the ancient world saw and spoke with a citizen of that great nation which was destined to succeed him in his appointed work, and to found a wider and still more enduring empire." —Arnold’s History of Rome, chap. 30, par. 1 and 2.
BUT there is still more direct evidence to show the propriety of speaking of Rome as coming out of one of the divisions of the Grecian Empire. We quote and abridge from Prideaux, who relates the history in a very entertaining manner. First, however, we will state that the four divisions represented by the four horns, were Macedon, Thrace, Syria, and Egypt. In the year 168 B. C., Antiochus Epiphanes, then king of the Syrian division, determined to make himself master of Egypt, which was then governed by his nephew and niece, who were very young, and incapable of successful resistance. Says Prideaux:—
"This he most certainly would have accomplished, but that he met a Roman embassy in his way, which put a stop to his further progress, and totally dashed all the designs which he had been so long carrying on for the making of himself master of that country."—Connexion, Vol. 2, Book 3, "An. 168, Ptol. Philometer 13."
THE embassy was one which the Roman Senate had sent in response to the urgent request of the young Egyptian monarch for assistance against Antiochus. The reader will not fail to note that only three ambassadors, and not an army, were sent by the Romans to command Antiochus to desist from his intended war upon Egypt. These ambassadors met Antiochus when he was only four miles from Alexandria, on his way to besiege that city. The chief ambassador was Popillius, with whom Antiochus had been intimate while he was in Rome as a hostage. On seeing Popillius, Antiochus reached forth his hand to embrace him as an old friend. "But Popillius, refusing the compliment, told him that the public interest of his country must take the place of private friendship; that he must first know whether he were a friend or an enemy to the Roman State, before he could own him as a friend to himself; and then delivered into his hands the tables in which were written the decree of the Senate, which they came to communicate to him, and required him to read it and forthwith give him his answer thereto. Antiochus, having read the decree, told Popillius he would consult with his friends about it, and speedily give him the answer they should advise; but Popillius, insisting on an immediate answer, forthwith drew a circle round him [Antiochus] in the sand, with the staff which he had in his hand, and required him to give his answer before he stirred out of that circle; at which strange and peremptory way of proceeding, Antiochus, being startled, after a little hesitation, yielded to it, and told the ambassador that he would obey the command of the Senate; whereupon Popillius, accepting his embraces, acted thenceforth according to his former friendship with him."
BUT the point of all this is found in the next two sentences of Prideaux. Says he: "That which made him [i. e., Popillius] so bold as to act with him after this peremptory manner, and the other so tame as to yield thus patiently to it, was the news which they had a little before received of the great victory of the Romans, which they had gotten over Perseus, king of Macedonia. For Paulus Æmilius, having now vanquished that king, and thereby added Macedonia to the Roman Empire, the name of the Romans after this carried that weight with it as carried a terror in all the neighboring nations; so that none of them after this cared to dispute their commands, but were glad on any terms to maintain peace, and cultivate a friendship with them."
NOW SINCE it was the conquest of Macedon that gave Rome its prestige among the nations, and made it virtually a universal empire, having the power to dictate to other kingdoms, and to stop their projects by a single word, it is evidently very proper to speak of it as "coming out" of one of the horns of the goat, viz., the Macedonian horn. The historian, in describing the rise of the Roman Empire, could not well employ a more fitting expression than that used by the prophet, 370 years before the occurrence. The quotation given above shows the immense superiority of the Romans over Antiochus Epiphanes, and thus of itself effectually demolishes the theory held by some that that pusillanimous king was the "exceeding great" power represented by the little horn.
NOW WE must turn our attention to the present lesson, "The Little Horn of Daniel 7." The student must be careful not to confound this little horn with that of Daniel 8. The little horn of Daniel 8 represents the Roman Empire as a whole; the little horn of Daniel 7 represents the Roman Empire only under one phase, the whole empire being represented by the fourth beast, of which the little horn was only a part. We quote the description of the beast and the little horn, as given by the prophet.
"AFTER this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it; and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots; and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." Dan. 7: 7, 8.
WHEN Daniel was troubled over the explanation of this vision, an angel gave him the interpretation, and in beginning said: "These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever." Dan. 7: 17, 18. So the beasts represented the four universal kingdoms that cover the history of the world till the coming of the Lord. These four kingdoms have already been named, and therefore we well know that the fourth beast represents the Roman Empire. See the further description in Dan. 7: 23.
BUT Daniel was not completely satisfied with the first answer given by the angel. From his connection with Nebuchadnezzar’s dream he must have known the main features of these four kingdoms; but there were some particulars upon which he desired more light. "Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast [answered in verse 23], . . . and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows." Dan. 7: 19, 20. The answer to this request was given as follows:—
"Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, . . . and the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings." Dan. 7: 23, 24. The fourth beast was the fourth kingdom—Rome—and the ten horns, it is plainly stated, "are ten kings that shall arise," that is, ten parts into which the Roman Empire should be divided. This division is mentioned in Dan. 2: 41. It was effected by the incursions of the barbarous tribes which dismembered the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, so graphically described by Gibbon. The division was complete, and the undivided empire of Western Rome had ceased to exist, before the close of the fifth century A. C.663
AFTER the division of Rome into ten parts, another power was to arise, diverse from the others, and having the characteristics mentioned in Dan. 7: 8, 20, 21, 25. These characteristics are met in the papacy, and in no other power. It uprooted three powers to make room for itself, and as if to identify the papacy as the power here referred to, the pope’s tiara is a triple crown; such a crown is worn by no other ruler.
"AND he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws." Dan. 7: 25. If we find that these three specifications apply to the papacy, then it will be useless to look further for an application for the little horn. We can give to each specification only a very brief notice.
1. "HE shall speak great words against the Most High." It is a notorious fact that the pope is styled the "Vicar of the Son of God," indicating that he fills the office of Christ, Paul, speaking of the papacy, which he calls the "man of sin" (2 Thess. 2: 3, 4), says that he "exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped." This is parallel to Dan. 7: 25. It is fulfilled in the pope’s claim to have power to grant indulgences, a thing which God himself has never promised to do. Further, it is fulfilled in the papal dogma of infallibility. This dogma was ratified by the Council of 1870, and the following is a portion of the decree:—
"And since by the divine right of apostolic primacy the Roman pontiff is placed over the universal church, we further teach and declare that he is the supreme judge of the faithful, and that in all causes the decision of which belongs to the church, recourse may be had to his tribunal, and that none may re-open the judgment of the apostolic see, than whose authority there is no greater, nor can any lawfully review its judgment."—The Vatican Decrees, by Dr. Philip Schaff. Although this dogma was ratified in 1870, it has been held for centuries, as is shown by the following monstrous assertion in one of the Roman decretals:—
"If the pope should become neglectful of his own salvation, and of that of other men, and so lost to all good that he draw down with himself innumerable people by heaps into hell, and plunge them with himself into eternal damnation, yet no mortal man may presume to reprehend him, forasmuch as he is judge of all, and to be judged of no one."—Quoted by Wylie, History of Protestantism, Book 4, chap. 10.
2. "AND shall wear out the saints of the Most High." When we come to this particular, the evidence is overwhelming. Both time and language would fail to do justice to the matter. Prominent among papal atrocities is the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day. On the 24th of August, 1572, was begun in Paris one of the most horrible cold-blooded massacres that history records,—that of the Huguenots. The king himself, Charles IX., took part in it, shooting down many of those who were attempting to escape the fury of his soldiers. The number slain throughout France on this occasion is placed by the best authorities at 70,000. To show Rome’s connection with the massacre, we quote:—
"At Rome, when the news arrived, the joy was boundless. The messenger who carried the dispatch was rewarded like one who brings tidings of some great victory, and the triumph that followed was such as old Pagan Rome might have been proud to celebrate. . . . Through the streets of the Eternal City swept, in the full blaze of pontifical pomp, Gregory and his attendant train of cardinals, bishops, and monks, to the church of St. Mark, there to offer up prayers and thanksgivings to the God of Heaven for this great blessing to the See of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. . . . On the following day the pontiff went in procession to the church of Minerva, where, after mass, a jubilee was published to all Christendom, ‘that they might thank God for the slaughter of the enemies of the church lately executed in France.’”—History of Protestantism, Book 17, chap. 16, par. 15.
BUT the saints were to be worn out. This implies more than outright slaughter. We quote one paragraph from the account of the imprisonment of the Waldenses, when, at the command of Louis XIV., who was the obedient servant of the pope, they had been driven from their valleys:—
"We know not if ever before an entire nation were in prison at once. Yet now it was so. All of the Waldensian race that remained from the sword of the executioners were immured in the dungeons of Piedmont. . . . And how were they treated in prison? As the African slave was treated on the middle passage. They had a sufficiency of neither food nor clothing. The bread dealt out to them was fetid. They had putrid water to drink. They were exposed to the sun by day, and to the cold at night. They were compelled to sleep on the bare pavement, or on straw so full of vermin that the stone floor was preferable. Disease broke out in these horrible abodes, and the mortality was fearful. ‘When they entered these dungeons,’ says Henri Arnaud, ‘they counted 14,000 healthy mountaineers, but when, at the intercession of the Swiss deputies, their prisons were opened, 3,000 skeletons only crawled out.’”—Hist. Protestantism, Book 16, chap. 13, par. 18.
IN the above instance, we see how an entire nation was literally worn out, yet we have scarcely more than hinted at the atrocities visited upon the innocent Waldenses. In the following brief extract from the account of the martyrdom of Cranmer, we see a sample of how Rome proceeded to "wear out" individuals:—
"The fire was lighted, and then withdrawn, and lighted again, so as to consume him piecemeal. His scorched and half-burned body was raised on the pikes of the halberdiers, and tossed from one to the other to all the extent his chain would allow; the martyr, says the martyrologist, ‘lifting up such hands as he had, and his finger ends flaming with fire, cried unto the people in these words, “None but Christ, none but Christ,” and so being let down again from their halberds, fell into the fire, and gave up his life.’”—Wylie, Book 23, chap. 10.
CERTAINLY more is not needed to identify papal Rome as the little horn that was to "wear out the saints of the Most High." Rome has more than met the demands of the prophecy. And the one who reads the history from which these extracts are taken, must of necessity exclaim: Surely the Roman Catholic power is the woman whom the seer of Patmos saw "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Rev. 17: 6. Happy would it be for the saints of God if they could be assured that she is sated with blood. But such assurance cannot be given; for says the prophet, "I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." Dan. 7: 21, 22. E. J. W.