Earlier text: General ArticlesThe Roman Empire.
By Alonzo T. Jones
Although the “iron monarchy of Rome,” in the greatness of its strength, broke in pieces all kingdoms, yet the time was to come when it itself should be broken. At the same time that Daniel spoke of the fourth kingdom breaking in pieces and bruising all, he also said:— “And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter’s clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken.” Dan. 2: 41, 42. We must now inquire, Of what should this division consist? Into how many parts should Rome be divided? We think there can be but one answer possible. Because, as it is the “feet and toes,” and particularly the “toes,” of the image that are spoken of in connection with the division, it is certain that that division is shown by the toes of the image; and as this was the image of a man, there were certainly ten toes. Therefore the only reasonable or possible conclusion is that Rome should be divided into ten parts. However, we are not left to draw our own conclusions, logical and necessary though they be. In the seventh chapter of Daniel, this same series of kingdoms is gone over again under the symbols of “four great beasts,” the fourth one of which was declared by the angel to be the fourth kingdom, which shows it to be identical with the iron—the fourth kingdom—of the great image. This fourth beast had also ten horns, which exactly correspond to the ten toes of the image. Further, the angel said plainly of these ten horns that they were ten kings that should arise (Dan. 7: 24), which proves to a demonstration that the toes of the image are spoken of in connection with the division, with direct reference to the number of parts into which Rome should be divided. Therefore we know that ten kingdoms were to arise upon the ruins of the Roman power. Now we may ask, Where should these ten kingdoms arise? In other words, Are there any clearly defined limits within which the ten kingdoms should establish themselves? We believe there are. And that we may make the subject as plain and as easily understood as possible, we shall now define those limits. From the ascension of Nebuchadnezzar to the end of the world, these four kingdoms are the only ones that should ever bear universal sway. And each of these in its turn occupied territory peculiar to itself, from which it spread its power over the others. Although the four kingdoms were successive, and although each one in succession spread its power over all the territory of those that had preceded it, yet each one retained its own peculiar distinction from all the others. And this distinction is kept up throughout the book of Daniel, and is even recognized in the book of Revelation, which was written in the time of the supremacy of the fourth kingdom, in a prophecy that was not to be fulfilled till after the establishment of the ten kingdoms. The fact of the matter is, these are not only the four universal empires, but they also represent the four divisions of the then known civilized world, each one of which occupies territory peculiar to itself, and is never confounded with any of the others. Thus, Babylonia was first, and when it was overturned it was by the united power of Media and Persia, which occupied entirely distinct territory from that of Babylonia proper. Then when the Medo-Persian power was destroyed, it was by the power of Grecia, which arose from a territory entirely distinct from that of either Babylon or Medo-Persia. So, likewise, when the Grecian ascendancy was destroyed it was by a power that arose still further to the west, entirely beyond the territory of Grecia, in a territory entirely its own, and distinct from all the others. This is all expressed in a single verse in the seventh chapter of Daniel. After the description of the four great beasts which represent these four kingdoms, he says of the fourth beast, that he beheld till he was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame; then he says of the others:— “As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.” (Margin, Chaldee, “A prolonging in life was given them.”) Dan. 7: 12. This passage, with the point which we here make, is aptly and well illustrated by a passage from Rawlinson. Speaking of the Babylonian monarchy, he says:— “Even when this monarchy met its death at the hands of Cyrus the Great, the nationality of the Chaldeans was not swept away. We find them recognized under the Persians, and even under the Parthians, as a distinct people.”—Seven Great Monarchies, First Mon., chap. 8, last par. Thus it was with each and with all,—the dominion was taken away, but the nationality remained; the ruling power was transferred, but the national life continued. It follows, therefore, that, as it was Rome that was to be divided, the division must pertain to the territory that was peculiar to the fourth kingdom, and which had not belonged to any of the three that preceded it. Where was that? We can easily learn. (1) Media and Persia occupied the territory east of the Tigris and the Persian Gulf; (2) Babylonia, the territory from the Tigris to the Arabian Desert; (3) Grecia, from the Hellespont to and even beyond the Danube, and to the Adriatic Sea, northward to about the forty-fifth parallel of latitude; (4) The territory of Rome proper occupied all the rest west of the Danube and the Rhine to the Atlantic and the Frith of Forth, and all of the northern coast of Africa, to nearly as far east as the twentieth degree of longitude. Within the boundaries thus marked lay the territory of Rome proper. It was this territory that was peculiar to the fourth kingdom. And it is within the limits drawn under “(4)” above that we are to look for the ten divisions of the fourth kingdom and the establishment of the ten kingdoms. We propose to trace the history of these ten kingdoms from their tribal relations as savages in the dismal forests of Germany, through their devastating incursions into the rich and civilized provinces of Rome, and down to their own establishment within these provinces, and their development into civilized and influential kingdoms there. Rome, once so powerful, once so great, now, through luxury and indulgence, grown corrupt, effeminate, and weak, we shall see waste away and perish. We shall see the movements of the nations coming in to fill up with a new and vigorous people the place that Rome was no longer worthy to fill. Before we begin this history, it will be best, and in fact really necessary to a proper understanding of the subject, that we briefly sketch the boundaries of the provinces of the Roman Empire, both of Rome proper, and as far east as the Hellespont and the Black Sea. This task, however, has been so admirably performed by Gibbon that all that we shall need to do will be to quote his words. He says:— “We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines. We shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe the provinces once united under their sway, but at present divided into so many independent and hostile States. “Spain, the western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the ancient world, has in every age invariably preserved the same natural limits,—the Pyrenees Mountains, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic Ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally divided between two sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into three provinces,—Lusitania, Bætica, and Tarraconensis. The kingdom of Portugal now fills the place of the warlike country of the Lusitanians; and the loss sustained by the former on the side of the east, is compensated by an accession of territory towards the north. The confines of Grenada and Andalusia correspond with those of ancient Bætica. The remainder of Spain,—Galicia, and the Asturias, Biscay and Navarre, Leon and the two Castiles, Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon,—all contributed to form the third and most considerable of the Roman governments, which, from the name of its capital, was styled the province of Tarragona.” “Ancient Gaul, as it contained the whole country between the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the Ocean, was of greater extent than modern France. To the dominions of that powerful monarchy [a republic now], with its recent acquisitions of Alsace and Lorraine [lost again in 1870], we must add the duchy of Savoy, the cantons of Switzerland, the four electorates of the Rhine, and the territories of Liege, Luxemburg, Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant. . . . The sea-coast of the Mediterranean, Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphine, received their provincial appellation from the colony of Narbonne. The government of Aquitaine was extended from the Pyrenees to the Loire. The country between the Loire and the Seine was styled the Celtic Gaul, and soon borrowed a new denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or Lyons. The Belgic lay beyond the Seine, and in more ancient times had been bounded only by the Rhine; but a little before the age of Cæsar, the Germans, abusing their superiority of valor, had occupied a considerable portion of the Belgic territory. The Roman conquerors very eagerly embraced so flattering a circumstance, and the Gallic frontier of the Rhine, from Basel to Leyden, received the pompous names of the Upper and the Lower Germany. Such, under the reign of the Antonines, were the six provinces of Gaul,—the Narbonnese, Aquitaine, the Celtic, or Lyonnese, the Belgic, and the two Germanies. “We have already had occasion to mention the conquest of Britain, and to fix the boundary of the Roman province in this island. It comprehended all England, Wales, and the Lowlands of Scotland as far as the Friths of the Clyde and the Forth.”—Dec. and Fall, chap. 1, par. 23–26. A. T. J. Character Determines Everything
WHAT a subtle something is character, and yet how real it is! We recognize the fact that there is in man something back of his acts, determining them, making them what they are. An act in itself has no particular character. We look back of acts to motives to determine character. You strike a blow in anger, or you strike a blow in self-defense. We condemn one act; we justify the other. Why? Because back of the act was something leading to it and occasioning it. In the one case this something was bad, in the other, good. It is this something in every man which we call purpose, ruling-love, character. It is really the man. We judge something of what his acts in the future will be by what we know of his character. On character everything turns.—Illustrated Christian Weekly. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw into your work such strength of mind and muscle as God has given you.—Carlyle. LIVE near to God, and so all things will appear to you little in comparison with eternal realities.—R. M. McCheyne. Practical Thoughts about Jonah.
In the following “Illustrative Applications” of the International lesson on Jonah, by H. Clay Trumbull, in the S. S. Times, there are pointed truths for all:— “The word of the Lord came, . . . saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, . . . and cry against it.” If the word of the Lord had come, saying, Stay where you are, and cry against Nineveh, the call to duty would not have been a very trying one. It is very easy to cry out against people's sins behind their backs. Almost everybody is ready to cry out against the sins of that city away over yonder, or of that people out there, or of those persons who are not present just now; but when the call is to go right to them, and say face to face all that you think of their character and doings—that is a very different matter. Jonah thought so in his day; most of us think so in our day. “Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” It was not the going to Tarshish that was wrong; but it was the going to Tarshish when the Lord had directed the going to Nineveh. Tarshish may have been in itself a better place than Nineveh; but Tarshish was no place for a man who belonged in Nineveh. The real question for any man is not, Which is the better of two places opening before me? but, Which is the place to which God directs me? In answer to that question, the worse place may be the better one, and the better place may be the worse one. A man may run away from duty by going to a prayer-meeting when he has been hired to watch a factory for that night, or when he has a sick wife needing his constant attention. And, on the other hand, a man may be turning away from the call of God when he enters an honorable profession outside of the ministry, after being summoned of God to the ministry. God is to point the way to Nineveh or to Tarshish; then it is like rising up to flee from the presence of the Lord to go anywhere else than in that direction. “The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea.” The winds and the waves are in the Lord's control. He can raise a tempest, and he can quiet it down again. There is a lesson of warning and a lesson of hope in this truth. It suggests the folly of defying the Lord; and it also suggests the folly of doubting the Lord. If we are over against the Lord, we have his tempests to fight, on land or on sea. If we are on the Lord's side, no tempest can harm us, or hinder our course for a moment, save as he directs it, and as it is for our true good. “But Jonah . . . was fast asleep.” It is a mistake to suppose that a troubled conscience always keeps a man awake. Some of the worst men in the world are good sleepers. It is a sad side of the sinner's experience, that his conscience is quickly blunted, so that it doesn't disturb his rest. And many of us sleep when we ought to be up and doing. The peril of those about us does not hinder our repose. The ability to sleep easily isn't always to our credit, any more than it was to Jonah's. “So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.” There is no such thing as “chance” in this world. “Luck” is under God's control as surely as is “skill.” That which seems “the merest chance” is but an item in the plan of God. When once this truth has full possession of a child of God, he has no sense of security apart from God's protection of him; no sense of fear while in God's keeping, even though in the midst of abounding perils. Jonah said, “I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven.” His devotedness to the Lord had not been apparent in his course on that voyage. It was necessary that he should tell of it plainly, in order to its being known to those about him. It is right for a man to refrain from any officious show of his religious faith; but if those who are a man's companions, by day and by night, have to be told that he is a servant of God, there is something wrong in his case and in his course, as there was in Jonah's. “The men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.” There is a great deal of that kind of knowledge in the world; men know a thing because it has been told them. And men tell a great deal more about themselves than they think they do. Men are continually confessing their faults one to another, by unconscious disclosures of their story, or under the pressure of fear or remorse. Sin cannot be concealed, when God would have it made known. “He said, . . . Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you.” There was no safety in that ship for anybody, so long as Jonah was there; for he was there in defiance of the Lord. And Jonah himself would be safer in the bottom of the sea in submission to the Lord, than on that ship in defiance of the Lord. So it is with any sinner who is fighting the Lord, or fleeing from the Lord. His only safety for himself, or for those linked with him, is through his quitting the place where he has no business to be, even though he has to be thrown into a stormy sea to get out of that place of duty-shirking. THOSE who think that papal superstitions and blasphemies are all things of the past, may see some of the teachings of the “Dark Ages” in the following extract from a Catholic paper published in Buffalo, N. Y., under the supervision of the bishop, and in the interest of a society for children:— What is the priest? A man who holds the place of God; a man who is clad with all the powers of God. . . . When the priest remits sins, he does not say, “God pardons you,” he says, “I absolve you;” at the consecration, he does not say, “This is the body of our Lord,” he says, “This is my body.” Who received your soul at its entrance into life? The priest. Who nourishes it to give it the strength to go through its pilgrimage? The priest. Who prepares it to appear before its God, washing its soul, for the last time, in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the priest. And if this soul should die, who raises it to life? Who restores calm and peace to it? Once more the priest. You cannot call to mind a single blessing of God without meeting beside this blessing the image of the priest. If you were to go to confession to the blessed Virgin or to an angel, could they absolve you? You might have two hundred angel confessors, and they could not give you absolution. A priest, simple though he may be, can do it; he can say to you, Go in peace; I forgive you. Oh, the priest is something great! After God, the priest is all things. If I met a priest and an angel, I would salute the priest before saluting the angel. The latter is the friend of God, the former takes his place. When you see a priest, think of our Lord Jesus Christ. A NEW YORK exchange has the following, which seems to indicate that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and that godliness is profitable as a business guide. It is just fifty years since a large dry goods firm was in active business in this city, when one day the head of the firm said to his partners, “We must restrict our operations. I find that the demands upon my time are such that I have not the requisite leisure for my religious duties, and I cannot go on in this way.” The other members of the firm consented, and the reduction was made. Just two years from that time there came a great financial storm which engulfed nearly all the business houses of the city. But the firm in question safely rode out the storm, and found that what they had done out of their religious convictions was really a matter of the soundest policy, though they were not aware of it at the time.—Presbyterian Observer. CARDINAL MANNING, in the October number of the North American Review, sustains the charge of the Pall Mall Gazette about the infamous crimes of London. Speaking of the existing laws of England, the Cardinal thus shows how they encourage inhuman crimes:— “By our present legal code a girl cannot give her consent to marriage before the age of twenty-two, but she is regarded as capable of consenting to her own ruin at the age of thirteen years. The man who marries her before twenty-one is punishable by law. The man who ruins a child of thirteen escapes with impunity. She may ruin herself at thirteen, but cannot marry, for defect of consent, till twenty-one. If any one should know that his dog or cat were detained in any house, the police, with all expedition, could search for his property. But if he knew that his child were detained in the house, neither he nor the police could enter it. His only remedy would be by writ of habeas corpus, which could not be obtained for many hours, and perhaps for days; but the ruin of his child might be at any moment. Once more I say, Children of thirteen, and all girls above that age, are supposed to be free agents, and capable of consenting to their own ruin; thus he who ruins them for life escapes with impunity, on the rule ‘Volenti non fit injuria.’” It has therefore been solemnly argued by men who have great legal reputation, that the abominable and inhuman trade of the procurer and the procuress cannot be punishable at law, because the end to which their hideous traffic is directed is not illegal. Here we have another legal dictum; the accomplices are not punishable, because the principals are within the rights of their liberty.” After stating how every effort to amend these infamous laws was persistently defeated “for five long years,” the Cardinal then refers to Mr. Stead’s assault:— “This heartless delay, full of vital consequences of demoralization and wreck and ruin to the innocent, the helpless of our people, justly aroused the indignation of those to whom justice and mercy are more dear than the redistribution of seats, or the disfranchisement for medical relief. Prompted—I might say stung—by an indignant impatience, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and other like-minded men, defying all antagonists, entered upon their warfare against the dominion of cruelty and lust. I have said elsewhere, that many of those who profoundly sympathize in the motives which induced the Pall Mall Gazette to take up the question might have desired its modes and expressions to have been revised and chastened; but that in such matter of moral life and death, and above all, when the obloquy and calumny of the bad and hasty and short-sighted censures of some good men, were heaped upon those who enter the furnace to save souls, I should hold it to be not only ungenerous, but cowardly and cruel, not to stand between the handful of men, who for the moral life of England, dared this courageous action, and the whole world of their censors. The substance of this action is intrinsically just and merciful. The incidental evils that may arise are of a lower order, and depend upon the use or the abuse which individuals may make of these terrible revelations.” Serving God in Small Things
By S. F. Smith
If you cannot be great, be willing to serve God in things that are small.—S. F. Smith. The Sabbath-School.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
LESSON FOR THE PACIFIC COAST—DEC. 5.
OUR lesson this week is confined to the last clause of Dan. 7:25: “And they shall be given into his hands until a time and times and the dividing of time.” The “they” of course refers to the “saints of the Most High” and the “times and laws,” which are mentioned in the same verse. The “time and times and the dividing of time,” then, indicates the period of papal supremacy; for we have already seen that the little horn symbolizes the Roman Catholic power. IN the first place we may notice that in the Douay Bible, as well as in the Revised Version, “time and times and the dividing of time,” is rendered, “time, and times, and half a time.” We have no need to conjecture what this means, for the Bible is its own interpreter. In Rev. 12:14 we find the same period of time mentioned: “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.” Now in verse 6 of the same chapter the same event is brought to view in these words: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.” From these two verses we learn that “a time, and times, and half a time” is only another expression for twelve hundred and sixty days. Then the little horn of Daniel 7 was to have supremacy for twelve hundred and sixty days. BUT the question now arises, “Is it possible that only twelve hundred and sixty days, three years and a half, covers the whole time which the prophecy allows to the papacy?” We answer, No; and the explanation is simple. The prophecy is symbolic; four mighty empires are represented by beasts; the Roman Catholic power is represented by a little horn of one of the beasts. It is obvious, then, that the prophecy would not be consistent if it should express the duration of those powers in literal years. The time would be out of proportion to the nature of the symbol representing the power. Therefore it is evident that the time must also be symbolic. We inquire, then, What is the standard of time when used in symbolic prophecy? In Eze. 4:4-6 we read the answer:— “Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it; according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days; I have appointed thee each day for a year.” Since all prophecy of Scripture proceeds from the same source, and is not of private interpretation (2 Pet. 1:20, 21), the interpretation given to a prophetic symbol in one place must be the interpretation of the same symbol in every place; therefore the “time, and times, and half a time,” or twelve hundred and sixty days, indicate just twelve hundred and sixty years. THE next question to be settled is, When does this period of time begin and end? There are several dates given by various authors to mark the rise of papal supremacy, but 538 A. D. seems to be the one that has the only just claim to consideration. The prophet, in describing the rise of the little horn, says, “He shall subdue three kings.” Dan. 7:24. This is in explanation of the fact that three horns were to be plucked up before it. Of course the only powers that would be rooted up to make room for the Catholic power would be those who were opposed to it. Now long before 538 A. D., paganism, as a State religion in the Roman Empire, was dead. Since the time of Constantine, Rome had been nominally Christian. The barbarous tribes by which the empire was divided into the ten parts, also embraced the Christianity of the empire. Says D’Aubigne:— “Already the forests of the North had poured forth the most effectual promoters of the papal power. The barbarians who had invaded the West and settled themselves therein,—but recently converted to Christianity,—ignorant of the spiritual character of the church, and feeling the want of an external pomp of religion, prostrated themselves in a half savage and half heathen state of mind at the feet of the chief priest of Rome.”—Hist. Reformation, Book 1, chap. 1, par. 31. But not all of these tribes were favorable to the pretensions of the bishops of Rome. Some of them, especially the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths, were Arian in faith. The contest between the Catholics and Arians was bitter and unrelenting, and so long as these powers held Italy and the adjacent country, no Catholic bishop could rule in Rome. In the year 494 A. D., the power of the Heruli was annihilated by the death of Odoacer. From that time it is impossible to trace them in history. In 534 the Vandals were conquered by Belisarius, the general of Justinian; and in 538 A. D., Rome, which until that time had been in possession of the Arian Ostrogoths, was occupied by the Roman army, and the Catholic religion was established. These conquests are described in detail in the 39th and 41st chapters of Gibbon. WHEN these Arian powers were overthrown (A. D. 538), previous imperial decrees concerning the bishop of Rome could go into effect. Speaking of the way in which the Roman bishop gradually usurped power over other churches, D’Aubigne says:— “To silence the cries of the churches, Rome found new allies. Princes who in those troublesome times often saw their thrones tottering, offered their adherence to the church in exchange for her support. They yielded to her spiritual authority, on condition of her paying them with secular dominion. They left her to deal at will with the souls of men, provided only she would deliver them from their enemies. The power of the hierarchy in the ascending scale, and of the imperial power which was declining, leaned thus one toward another, and so accelerated the twofold destiny. “Rome could not lose by this. An edict of Theodosius II. and of Valentinian III. proclaimed the bishop of Rome ‘ruler of all the churches.’ Justinian issued a similar decree. These decrees did not contain all that the popes pretended to see in them. But in those times of ignorance it was easy for them to gain reception for that interpretation which was most favorable to themselves.”—Hist. Ref., Book 1, chap. 1, par. 29, 30. TO SHOW plainly the object of these wars against the Arian powers, and what was gained by them, we make two brief quotations from Gibbon. After having rehearsed the defeat of the Vandals and the capture of Carthage by the Romans, the historian speaks as follows concerning Justinian:— “He received the messengers of victory at the time when he was preparing to publish the pandects of the Roman law; and the devout or jealous emperor celebrated the divine goodness, and confessed in silence the merit of his successful general. Impatient to abolish the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the Vandals, he proceeded without delay to the full establishment of the Catholic Church. Her jurisdiction, wealth, and immunities, perhaps the most essential part of episcopal religion, were restored and amplified with a liberal hand; the Arian worship was suppressed, the Donatist meetings were proscribed; and the synod of Carthage, by the voice of two hundred and seventeen bishops, applauded the just measure of pious retaliation.”—Decline and Fall, chap. 41, par. 11. THE victory of Belisarius over the Ostrogoths (A. D. 538) is thus described:— “The Goths consented to retreat in the presence of a victorious enemy; to delay till the next spring the operations of offensive war; to summon their scattered forces; to relinquish their distant possessions, and to trust even Rome itself to the faith of its inhabitants. Leuderis, an aged warrior, was left in the capital with four thousand soldiers; a feeble garrison, which might have seconded the zeal, though it was incapable of opposing the wishes, of the Romans. But a momentary enthusiasm of religion and patriotism was kindled in their minds. They furiously exclaimed that the apostolic throne should no longer be profaned by the triumph or toleration of Arianism; that the tombs of the Cæsars should no longer be trampled by the savages of the North; and without reflecting that Italy must sink into a province of Constantinople, they fondly hailed the restoration of a Roman emperor as a new era of freedom and prosperity. The deputies of the pope and clergy, of the senate and people, invited the lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary allegiance, and to enter the city, whose gates would be thrown open for his reception. “The first days, which coincided with the old Saturnalia, were devoted to mutual congratulation and the public joy, and the Catholics prepared to celebrate, without a rival, the approaching festival of the nativity of Christ.”—Decline and Fall, chap. 41, par. 22, 23. THESE quotations show most conclusively that in A. D. 538 the bishop of Rome did become literally “the pope,” i. e., the father, or head and ruler, of the churches. The last opposing horn had then been plucked up, and the papacy was free to enter upon that career of ecclesiastical tyranny which it had long been preparing for. And since this career was to continue 1260 years, it is evident that it must have been stopped in the year 1798 A. D. Let us see if at that time anything happened to justify this conclusion. From “Chambers’ Cyclopædia,” art. “Pius,” we quote:— “At length the [French] Directory ordered the invasion of Rome; Berthier entered the city February 10, 1798, and took possession of the castle of St. Angelo. Pius [VI.] was called on to renounce his temporal sovereignty, and on his refusal, was seized, February 20, and carried away to Siena, and afterwards to the celebrated Certosa, or Carthusian monastery, of Florence. On the threatened advance of the Austro-Russian army in the following year, he was transferred to Grenoble, and finally to Valence on the Rhone, where, worn out by age and by the rigor of confinement, he died in August, 1799, in the 82d year of his age, and the 24th of his pontificate. After the death of Pius VI., Cardinal Chiaramonte was chosen his successor (March 14, 1800). Rome, which up to this time had been in the occupation of the French, was now restored to the papal authority, and in the July of that year Pius VII. entered into his capital.” THUS we see that from 538 to 1798 A. D. there were 1260 years of unbroken power, plainly fulfilling the prophecy. It would be interesting to study the position of papal Rome before and after this period of supremacy, but that will have to be deferred till another time.