The above quote by Abraham Lincoln is from Charles Chiniquy’s book, “Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.” More quotes:

I will be forever grateful for the warning words you have addressed to me about the dangers ahead to my life, from Rome. I know they are not imaginary dangers. If I were fighting against a Protestant South, as a nation, there would be no danger of assassination. The nations who read the Bible fight bravely on the battlefield, but they do not assassinate their enemies. The pope and the Jesuits, with their infernal inquisition, are the only organized powers in the world which have recourse to the dagger of the assassin to murder those who they cannot convince with their arguments or conquer with the sword.

Unfortunately, I feel more and more every day that it is not against the Americans of the South, alone, I am fighting, it is more against the pope of Rome, his perfidious Jesuits and their blind and bloodthirsty slaves. As long as they hope to conquer the North, they will spare me; but the day we route their armies, take their cities and force them to submit, then, it is my impression that the Jesuits, who are the principal rulers of the South, will do what they have almost invariably done in the past. The dagger or the pistol will do what the strong hands of the warriors could not achieve. This civil war seems to be nothing but a political affair to those who do not see, as I do, the secret springs of that terrible drama. But it is more a religious than a civil war. It is Rome who wants to rule and degrade the North, as she has ruled and degraded the South, from the very day of its discovery. There are only very few of the Southern leaders who are not more or less under the influence of the Jesuits through their wives, family relations, and their friends. Several members of the family of Jeff Davis belong to the Church of Rome….

But it is very certain that if the American people could learn what I know of the fierce hatred of the priests of Rome against our institutions, our schools, our most sacred rights, and our so dearly bought liberties, they would drive them away tomorrow from among us, or they would shoot them as traitors. But you are the only one to whom I reveal these sad secrets for I know that you learned them before me. The history of these last thousand years tells us that wherever the Church of Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom of a free nation, she is a stone to her neck, to paralyze her, and prevent her advance in the ways of civilization, science, intelligence, happiness and liberty. — Ibid. pp. 294, 295.

This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. We owe it to popery that we now see our land reddened with the blood of her noblest sons…. I pity the priests, the bishops and the monks of Rome in the United States when the people realize that they are, in great part, responsible for the tears and the bloodshed in this war. — Ibid. pp. 296,297.

You are perfectly correct when you say it was to detach the Roman Catholics who have enrolled themselves in our army. Since the publication of that [the pope’s] letter, a great number of them have deserted their banners and turned traitor…. It is true also, that Meade has remained with us, and gained the bloody battle of Gettysburg. But how could he lose it, when he was surrounded by such heroes as Howard, Reynolds, Buford, Wadsworth, Cutler, Slocum, Sickles, Hancock, Barnes, etc. But it is evident that his Romanism superceded his patriotism after the battle. He let the army of Lee escape when he could easily have cut his retreat and forced him to surrender after losing nearly half of his soldiers in the last three days carnage.

When Meade was to order the pursuit after the battle, a stranger came in haste to the headquarters, and that stranger was a disguised Jesuit. After ten minutes conversation with him, Meade made such arrangements for the pursuit of the enemy that he escaped almost untouched with the loss of only two guns! — Ibid. p. 298.

The common people see and hear the big, noisy wheels of the Southern Confederacy’s cars: they call them Jeff Davis, Lee, Toombs, Beauregard, Semmes, etc., and they honestly think they are the motive power, the first cause of our troubles. But this is a mistake. The true motive power is secreted behind the thick walls of the Vatican, the colleges and schools of the Jesuits, the convents of the nuns and the confessional boxes of Rome. — Ibid. p. 305.

Please watch this highly interesting video clip from a Christian scholar of Hebrew. It gives all the more glory to God that the Holy Scriptures word for Word in the Bible are indeed divinely inspired. No man could have made it up!

Dear friends and followers of this website,

On April 6th I left my home in Niigata City and traveled to Noda city in Chiba prefecture which is just to the northeast of Tokyo. It was the first day of an extended trip which will last till the end of April. But only a few days later on May 2th, I’m off again on the road!

The red line starting at the top of the map and going southeast toward Tokyo was the first leg of my journey. The rest continues on to Osaka, and then back to Niigata via the expressway along the Sea of Japan. The blue arrow shows where I am at the time of this post, Shizuoka City.

Some folks have asked to have Skype sessions with me. While on the road it is difficult to arrange such direct sessions. I am not always in a quiet place with time and a good Internet connection. I need all 3 simultaneously! When at home I always have a quite place with Internet, and I can usually arrange making the time, but while on the road, it is very seldom I have all three factors at the same time. And this morning when I did, the person seeking to Skype with me was off line!

For the time being I may not be able to continue much on my project of adding more chapters to “The Two Babylons” article on this site. Maybe I will complete it next month.

In my research to try to figure out how Protestant theology has become corrupted and influenced by Roman Catholic dogmas, I have realized influential authors are part of the reason. C. S. Lewis is certainly an influential author and is acclaimed by Protestant evangelicals. But some things he wrote make me wonder if he really based his faith in the Word of God and the Jesus of the New Testament.

The author of this article is J. Saunders.

“It is largely due to Lewis, an Anglican, that I converted to the Catholic Church…”1
–Mark Brumley, President of RC Ignatius Press

“Lewis has been credited (or blamed) in recent years with setting numerous people on the road to Rome. Such Catholic converts have included many of the serious scholars and disciples of Lewis, some of whom knew him before he died…”2
–R.A. Benthall, Professor of Literature, Ave Maria College

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, N. Ireland in 1898 to Protestant parents and, for most of his adult life, was a Tutor at Oxford and a lecturer of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge. He wrote more than thirty books, and his most popular accomplishments include The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity. At age 32, through the encouragement of his devout Roman Catholic friend and colleague, J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), and after reading The Everlasting Man by Roman Catholic convert, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis converted to Christianity from atheism and returned to his Anglican roots where he remained until his death in 1963. Although Lewis never converted to Roman Catholicism, inwardly he leaned towards certain of its dogmas so that his colleagues considered him to be an Anglo-Catholic.

It is obvious, by the support given C.S. Lewis today by some conservative Christians, great ignorance exists about his life and beliefs. Therefore, we have included several pertinent quotations, individually cited, gleaned from both Lewis’s own writings, and those of his official biographers and personal friends, in order to enlighten and awaken. For, it is an indisputable fact that to those who seek reconciliation with Rome, C.S. Lewis is a bridge.

“Certainly the path he had taken to ‘mere Christianity’ was very largely the Roman road along which guides such as Chesterton and Tolkien, and Patmore and Dante and Newman had led him.”3 Patmore and Dante were Roman Catholic writers. Newman was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism and subsequently became a Cardinal.

“After more than two decades in the [RC] Church, I have met or learned of scores of far more illustrious Catholic converts who likewise list Lewis on their spiritual resumes.”4

“When I converted [to Catholicism] in my teens, it was largely due to reading Lewis’ Screwtape Letters…G.K. Chesterton and Lewis sort of guided me into the Catholic Church, even though Lewis wasn’t a Catholic.”5

In 1952, C.S. Lewis published his theological work Mere Christianity, which originally began in 1942 as a three-part BBC radio broadcast. As the title suggests, Lewis focused on the mere or common ground he felt existed in Christianity and tried to restate a theology without controversy. The result is a generic Christianity that suits anyone anywhere who can in any way relate to God. Lewis bent over backwards trying to find common ground with all denominations, omitting any doctrine that may be deemed offensive. For this reason, Tolkien disparagingly labelled his friend “Everyman’s Theologian.” Even Mormons find his writings inoffensive.

“He [Lewis] is widely quoted from tried-and-true defenders of Mormon orthodoxy. It just shows the extraordinary acceptability and the usefulness of C.S. Lewis because, of course, most of what he says is perfectly acceptable to Mormons.” 6

Mere Christianity has long been regarded a classic exposition of the Christian faith, yet oddly enough, not one Bible verse is quoted in the first half of the book and only three partial verses in the latter half with no Bible references in the entire book. How can we present Christianity without its foundation – the Word of God?

Mere Christianity is a compilation of four essays, transcripts that were sent to four clergymen to gauge their reaction with regard to its common ground.

“I tried to guard against this [putting forth his Anglican beliefs] by sending the original script of what is now Book II to four clergymen (Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic) and asking for their criticism. The Methodist thought I had not said enough about Faith, and the Roman Catholic thought I had gone rather too far about the comparative unimportance of theories in explanation of the Atonement. Otherwise all five of us were agreed.”7

“You will not learn from me whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic. This omission is intentional. There is no mystery about my position …the best service I could do was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times.”8

Regarding reunification, Lewis said that he “did at least succeed in presenting an agreed, or common, or central, or mere Christianity” and congratulated himself in having helped to bridge the “chasm” between Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism.

“If I have not directly helped the cause of reunion, I have perhaps made it clear why we ought to be reunited.”9

“The time is always ripe for reunion. Divisions between Christians are a sin and a scandal and Christians ought at all times to be making contributions toward reunion…the result is that letters of agreement reach me from what are ordinarily regarded as the most different kinds of Christians; for instance, I get letters from Jesuits, monks, nuns, also from Quakers and Welsh Dissenters, and so on.”10

In his quest for unity, Lewis had to muddy the waters of doctrinal distinction. For instance, in chapter 19 of his Letters to Malcolm, Lewis suggests that the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation [i.e., the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ], which takes place in the Mass, might be just as valid as the Protestant view of the Lord’s Supper as a memorial.

“There are three things that spread the Christ life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names – Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord’s Supper …anyone who professes to teach you Christian doctrine will, in fact, tell you to use all three, and that is enough for our present purpose.”11

“Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object to your senses.”12

Equating Mass [“Blessed Sacrament”] and the Lord’s Supper is not a light matter. In the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church, Article 28 describes transubstantiation accordingly: “Transubstantiation…is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture.” Article 31 describes the sacrifices of the Mass as “blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” Godly men and women – among whom were notable Anglicans – were burned at the stake for refusing to accept this Roman Catholic Sacrament. Lewis’s casual equation is an affront to the many who gave their lives defending the Truth of God.

Please read the rest of the article from http://www.bereanbeacon.org/articles/sponsored-articles/cs-lewis-a-bridge-to-rome.html

This is an article reposted by permission from my scientist friend, Dr. John G. Hartnett.

Science has become the new religion. Those who dare challenge the dictates of ‘science’ are often declared crackpots, pseudo-scientists or just plain crazy. If you deny or doubt evolution, or anthropogenic global warming (AGW), now called ‘climate change’, or the effectiveness or safety of certain vaccines, or the universal safety of genetically modified foods, as compared with natural breeding and hybridization practices, you are called nasty names. These might include ‘flat-earther’, particularly if you deny Darwinian evolution.¹

It has come to a point now that to be called a ‘creationist’ is a big negative, like you are a pseudo-scientist, or follower of astrology, or witch doctors, etc. Such a person is thinking irrationally and cannot be trusted according to the new paradigm.

Then there are those who are called some sort of ‘climate change denier’, who must be funded by ‘big oil’, as though they must have a corrupt vested interest or be just plain crazy. As a physicist I have analyzed the global temperature data, spanning the last 100 years, downloaded from the Met Office Hadley Centre.² I have no vested interest here, but I find that a continued warming trend is not supported by the data. But I remain skeptical. The main problem I see is the limitation of human time scales and the lack of any really robust model that successfully predicts developing trends.³

And there are those who question the safety of (some) vaccines and they are called ‘anti-vaxxers’. But this is not really about the idea of vaccines per se, but it is about questioning methods some large corporation might use when angling for their products to by-pass extensive testing protocols.⁴ As if, in a corrupt world, steeped in sin, there is not any good reason to doubt their motives and methods.⁵

In one case, not related to corruption, but a rush to market, the privatized Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Australia, in 2009, made a bad batch of a flu vaccine that had serious consequences for young children. So serious was the mistake that …

“Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Jim Bishop, made the unprecedented decision to ban nationally all the seasonal flu vaccines for the under-5s. Fluvax, the predominant vaccine, was triggering febrile fits in one in every 100 children – 10 times the expected rate. The side-effects, in some cases, were severe, and no-one could explain what had caused them.”⁶

That means they, in fact, expected febrile convulsions to be triggered by their vaccine in one in every 1000 children. That was the definition for ‘safe’ at that time for that particular vaccine. Like any drug, vaccines are not without risks and that has been acknowledged.⁷ So it is healthy to question the science, and or the limitations of its application, especially when small children are involved.

Many times we have been told something was good for us, even good for our health. Take cigarette smoking for example; no negative effects were found in the 1950-60’s, and doctors and dentists even recommended them—but now in many countries on every packet the label reads “smoking kills”.

I was born in 1952 and as a child in elementary (primary) school saw several children with deformed limbs, which later I learned was due to their mothers taking a drug called “thalidomide”. This was a drug given back in the 50s for the treatment of morning sickness during pregnancy, but quite clearly it was not fully tested before being released as one of the enantiomers⁸ (either R or S forms of the molecule) resulted in devastating malformation of the foetus, even resulting in death.⁹ Apparently, worldwide, about 10,000 cases were reported of infants with the same condition, called phocomelia, due to thalidomide, where only about 50% survived.

So what’s the message here? Skepticism is sometimes very healthy. It could even save your life.

Science without debate is propaganda!

Read the rest of this article from http://johnhartnett.org/2015/04/02/science-the-new-religion/

The dried blood of a saint liquefied (?) in the presence of Pope Francis

The other day my good friend, Dr. John G. Hartnett, shared with me a web article Pope Francis performs ‘half-miracle’ after dry blood of saint liquifies in his presence

Did the Pope really preform a miracle? Once I saw a YouTube of a magician on the street who suddenly turned a bottle of water into Pepsi Cola! I don’t know how he did it, but I sure know there was no supernatural miracle involved.

Below is a paragraph from a book by Henry Grattan Guiness, History Unveiling Prophecy. Henry Grattan Guinness D. D. (11 August 1835 – 21 June 1910) was an Irish Protestant Christian preacher, evangelist and author. He was the great evangelist of the Evangelical awakening and preached during the Ulster Revival of 1859 which drew thousands to hear him. He was responsible for training and sending hundreds of “faith missionaries” all over the world. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Grattan_Guinness)

He writes:

To the Reformers the Pope of Rome was the “Man of Sin,”and Antichrist, and the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Apocalypse; a doctrine not only em- bodied in the confessions of faith of the reformed churches, but sealed by the blood of their countless martyrs. Who can estimate the value and importance of the aid thus rendered to the Reformation by the delineations and warnings of prophecy? Let the learned Bishop Wordsworth have a hearing on this subject, for no other has written upon it with clearer understanding, and in nobler and more eloquent language,—”The Holy Spirit, foreseeing, no doubt, that the Church of Rome would adulterate the truth by many gross and grievous abominations, that she would anathematize all who would not communicate with her, and denounce them as cut off from the body of Christ and the hope of everlasting salvation; foreseeing also that Rome would exercise a wide and dominant sway for many generations, by boldly iterated assertions of unity, antiquity, sanctity, and universality; foreseeing also that these pretensions would be supported by the civil sword of many secular governments, among which the Roman Empire would be divided at its dissolution, and that Rome would thus be enabled to display herself to the world in an august attitude of imperial power, and with the dazzling splendour of temporal felicity; foreseeing also that the Church of Rome would captivate the imaginations of men by the fascinations of art allied with religion, and would ravish their senses and rivet their admiration by gaudy colours and stately pomp and prodigal magnificence; foreseeing also that she would beguile their credulity by miracles and mysteries, apparitions and dreams, trances and ecstasies, and would appeal to such evidences in support of her strange doctrines; foreseeing likewise that she would enslave men and (much more) women by practicing on their affections and by accommodating herself with dangerous pliancy to their weakness, relieving them from the burden of thought and from the perplexity of doubt by proffering them the aid of infallibility, soothing the sorrows of the mourner by dispensing pardon and promising peace to the departed, removing the load of guilt from the oppressed conscience by the ministries of the confessional and by nicely poised compensations for sin, and that she would flourish for many centuries in proud and prosperous impunity before her sins would reach to heaven and come in remembrance before God ; foreseeing also that many generations of men would thus be tempted to fall from the faith and to become victims of deadly error, and that they who clung to the truth would be exposed to cozening flatteries and fierce assaults and savage tortures from her,—the Holy Spirit, we say, foreseeing all these things in His divine knowledge, and being the everlasting Teacher, Guide, and Comforter of the Church, was graciously pleased to provide a heavenly antidote, for all these dangerous, wide-spread, and long-enduring evils, by dictating the Apocalypse. In this divine book the Spirit of God has portrayed the Church of Rome such as none but He could have foreseen that she would become, and such as, wonderful and lamentable to say, she has become. He has thus broken her magic spells; He has taken the wand of enchantment from her hand; He has lifted the mask from her face; and with His divine hand He has written her true character in large letters, and has planted her title on her forehead, to be seen and read of all: ‘ MYSTERY , BABYLON THE GREAT , THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH .’ “

What is this chart saying? It says that if the Bible version you use is one of the popular modern English translations such as ASV, RSV, NIV, ESV, etc., you are reading a corrupt translation with many omissions and errors that originated from the Roman Catholic Church!

If you don’t like 17th-century KJV English, why not try the American King James Version (AKJV)? It is a simple word-for-word update from King James English. And it’s free to copy in its entirety because it’s in the public domain! See: http://studybible.info/version/AKJV

For more information, please see: Where are God’s actual Words written? by Dr. John G. Hartnett.

Recently I learned that a Christian brother named Luke, a member of my fellowship, The Family International, came to the same conclusions as I did about Christ fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel 9:27. He shared it with other members and got many favorable responses. But it seems to me he may not know the complete background why the false doctrine of a future Antichrist making a 7 year covenant with the Jews came to be. And it seems he is not as convinced as I am that he may be correct. I thought my readers may be interested it reading what I shared with Luke.

The hypothesis in last paragraph came to me just this morning, March 18, 2015. It’s a “what if” scenario. I’m not saying it will happen, just what if it does happen? I’m I nuts? You be the judge.

Dear Luke,
Thank you for sharing those reactions with me. They are very encouraging!


You write:
> _*If the Antichrist*_ should arrive on the world scene and make a 
> _"*seven-year*_ middle east peace agreement covenant" between Israel and the 
> Arab/Muslim world, enabling the Jews to _*rebuild their Third Temple*_, and 
> again *_resume_* their sacrificial blood offering of animals _for their 
> sins_, I will readily acknowledge that I was wrong. And though it may sound 
> contrary I would actually be happy I was wrong, knowing that we have another 
> three and a half years _*before*_ all hell breaks loose on planet earth. But 
> I don't believe that's going to happen, and I kinda wish it did.

Now this is what I think: I firmly believe if such a man does appear on the scene, a man who fits what most people today think the Antichrist is supposed to be -- a false idea which was given to them by the Jesuits -- and even though he DOES make a 7 year treaty with the Jews, and the Temple of Solomon IS rebuilt, and the Jews DO begin their animal sacrifices, and the man who people say is the Antichrist DOES stand in that rebuilt temple of Solomon proclaiming himself to be God, I FIRMLY BELIEVE WITH ALL MY HEART IT WILL BE ALL A FAKE TO DECEIVE THE WORLD!!! I will choose NOT to believe that man is the true Antichrist! And why? Because I stand with firm conviction the early Protestants got it right when they declared the Pope, the papacy, to be the Antichrist! And I stand with firm conviction on their interpretation of Bible prophecy which makes a whole lot of sense to me and is far simpler than the complex theory of a 7 year covenant or treaty with the Jews to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem so they could resume animal sacrifices. Jesus never taught that Solomon's temple would ever be rebuilt. Would such a temple be a "holy place"? It would be most UNholy for it would be further blasphemy against God because of further rejection of Jesus' death on the Cross as the ultimate "lamb of God" who was sacrificed for our sins!

Anyway, this is how I see it now. And I have good friends who agree with me. And I can say with some other people, "If I have seen further than most men, it's only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Giants of the faith, men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Huss, Isaac Newton, Charles Spurgeon, Samuel B. Morse,, I could go on and on. 

And to take this a step further, let's say the Pope and the Vatican fight a literal war against this guy who people say is the Antichrist, and let's say the Pope and his forces actually WIN and defeat him! What then? That to me would be the ULTIMATE DECEPTION!!! If the armies led by the Pope actually did win, the Pope could say HE is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Christ leading God's people in the battle of Armageddon and defeating Satan and the Antichrist! That would make the Pope, Christ! Would YOU believe it? I would consider it the greatest lie ever!!!

In December 2014, I learned the interpretation of Daniel 9:27 which is held by mainstream Protestant seminaries today was cooked up in 1585 by a Jesuit priest named Francesco Ribera! He was commissioned by the Pope to invent theology that would get the Protestants to stop looking at the papacy, the Pope, as Antichrist. Today most Christians think of Antichrist only as the ruler of the world for 7 years just before the return of Jesus Christ. This is exactly how the Vatican wants Protestants to think! I myself held that interpretation for 40 years. Now I see it is based on a school of interpretation known as futurism which Jesuit Ribera fabricated in order to deceive Protestants as to who the Antichrist is.

Are you willing to follow wherever the evidence leads and change your views on certain beliefs when you find out the Bible teaches otherwise? I was and still am. I don’t claim to be smarter than others. The interpretations of prophecies on this page are in agreement with how the Protestants and Bible scholars through the ages used to see them. It was only from sometime in the 19th century when false Jesuit doctrines took root in Protestant theological circles.

I like to do to others as I would want them to do unto me. I don’t like long-winded complicated explanations of Holy Scripture. I believe God’s Word explains itself. Therefore the most solid interpretation one can get is from Scripture interpreting Scripture! I am trying to be as concise as possible.

The Seventieth Week of Daniel

Daniel 9:27  And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

• The “he” of Daniel 9:27 in all three times is the “Messiah the Prince” of verse 25 and the “Messiah” of verse 26. “He” is Jesus Christ, not the Antichrist.

  “Daniel 9:25  Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince…

  26  And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off…

• The “covenant” is the same covenant of Daniel’s prayer in verse 4.

  Daniel 9:4  ¶And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant …

  It’s the covenant God made with Abraham:
  Genesis 15:18  In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram,..

• Christ confirmed the covenant!

  Galatians 3:17  And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ,

• “One week” was the 7 years of Christ and His Apostles’ ministry to the Jews. Jesus was crucified 3 and a half years after He began to preach the Kingdom of God, and the first martyr, Stephen, was killed 3 and a half years later.
• The “with many” is referring to the people of Israel, Jesus and His disciples ministry to the Jews.

  Matthew 15:24  But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

• The “in the midst of the week” is when Jesus was crucified approximately 3.5 years from the start of His ministry.
• The “he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” means there is now no more need for daily animal sacrifices now that the Lamb of God was offered as the ultimate sacrifice for sins.

  Hebrews 7:27  Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.

• The “overspreading of abominations” is the abomination of desolation Jesus talked about:

  Matthew 24:15  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place,

  Which is further defined in Luke 21:20 as the Roman armies that desolated Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon:
  Luke 21:20  ¶And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.

I hope to add more to this post of other Scriptures later. If you disagree with any points on this article, I’m open to discuss it. And if you have any points to add or suggestions on to improve this article, they are most welcome.

My hitchhiking adventure to Aomori on March 6, 2015 was both wonderful and traumatic! Wonderful in that it was on a day of good warm weather with relatively little waiting for the next car. Traumatic in that I left my suitcase in car number 7, and my tablet PC in car number 9!

This is Miki who lives in the city of Noshiro. She was driving from Tokyo and had not slept all night. I was throughly into a deep conversation with her about the false teaching of the evolution of life. Her job is helping to bring new life into the world; She’s a midwife! Miki took me to a parking lot of a convenience store at Higashi Noshiro. There I took photos of her. Here she is holding the sign I was carrying that says Noshiro, which was the next city toward my destination of Aomori. I thanked her and she drove off, but to my dismay I saw that my suitcase wasn’t on the ground next to me! I left it in Miki’s car!

What to do in such a situation? I had no way to contact Miki. I could only pray that Miki would return to the spot she left me as soon as she noticed the suitcase, or that she would contact me eventually via Facebook for she had my name written on a tract that I gave her. I waited and waited, and I prayed and prayed. I also called a friend in Aomori and told him of my trouble. I could not access my Facebook account from my location for I had no WIFI, so I asked my friend to access my Facebook account for me. He did but there was no friend request from Miki. At the time of this post though 4 days later, there is still no friend request from her.

After about two hours Miki returned with my suitcase! Was I overjoyed! She apologized for taking so long to notice it, and I apologized for causing her trouble to drive all the way back for me. I take the ultimate responsibility.

I had lost two hours and had only a bit more than an hour left of daylight. After only a few minutes, another lady stopped for me. She said she saw me hanging around the parking lot of the convenience store and wondered what had happened to me. The lady took me to Futatsui which is about 10 kilometers further up the road. I still had 100 kilometers left to my destination.

It was now getting dark and from experience it has been often difficult to catch a ride further past Futatsui. Rather than use a sign and wait at the traffic light, I decided to walk up the mountain road. When I’m in a lonely place often the driver will have compassion on me and stop. Sometimes they will pass me, make a U-turn up the road, and come back for me. Such was the case today. A man who runs 3 food stores returned for me. He was going all the way to Hirosaki which was better than I hoped for! Hirosaki is in Aomori ken and only 40 kilometers short of my final destination.

The man’s name is Mr. Kimura. He runs three food shops with 21 employees. I often get rides from company presidents. Mr. Kimura wanted to take me to his shop in Hirosaki and treat me to a meal of one of his food products, but because we saw I might be able to catch the 7:21 p.m. train from Hirosaki station rather than the 8:13 p.m. later train, we opted for the earlier train. In my haste to catch that train I quickly disembarked without checking if I left anything behind. I made the train with only a minute to spare, but to my dismay, my tablet PC was not with me! I realized I left it in the car or perhaps might have dropped it when running to the train station. I had no way to contact Mr. Kimura. At the time I didn’t even know his name or the name of his shop! I only knew he had three food shops and the cities they are located.

The next morning after waking up a new thought occurred: I had told the driver where I work! It was a place he knew of. Hopefully, he would bring my tablet PC to the place. Sure enough, Mr. Kimura contacted my work place. He sent one of his employees to bring me the tablet. In the process, I learned his name, his phone number, and the name of his shop. The next time I come to Hirosaki I hope to visit him.

More photos

A lady who took me to Sakata from Tsuruoka. She is a former English teacher. She went out of her way to take me to Sakata, 20 kilometers away, for that was not her destination.

The lunch that driver #4 gave me.

Young man in car #6 holding a tract by John G. Hartnett that exposes evolution as a pseudo -science.

Car #6: A mother with her son and daughter who took me to Akita station.

Leo Herbert Lehmann (1895-1950) was an Irish author, editor, and director of a Protestant ministry, Christ’s Mission in New York. He was an accomplished priest in the Roman Catholic Church who later in life converted to Protestantism and served as the editor of The Converted Catholic Magazine. He authored magazine articles, books and pamphlets, condemning the programs and activities of the Roman Catholic Church.(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Herbert_Lehmann

1942 Second, enlarged edition.. April, 1944 Third printing, March, 1945

CHAPTER I. JESUITS, JEWS AND FREEMASONS

The Pope who supported Hitler during WW II, Pope Pius XII.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to understand fully what has been taking place in the world for the past twenty-five years unless we are able to grasp the underlying significance of what appears on the surface. It is necessary to penetrate behind the scenes of day-today happenings and examine thoroughly the active forces and planned objectives which are responsible for all that has come to pass so quickly in the past few years.

The 19th century left us deplorably weak in true knowledge of the history of State-Church conflicts. The facts of human development since the Reformation have become so inextricably tangled, that we have ceased to try to unravel them. We content ourselves in America with a mere superficial knowledge of events, and the conclusions arrived at, far from helping us to get at the real truth, only drive us farther away from an understanding of the real meaning of these events. Too much emphasis has been placed upon the mere economic aspect of the world-situation. The ideological and theoretical origins of Nazi-Fascism, as a consequence, have been almost entirely overlooked. Research is necessary to show where social, political and religious conflicts cross one another. There is abundance of incontestable proof that the forces of religion, as represented by the Catholic Church, have succeeded in dominating the political and í field, and that there exists a close bond between them and the origins, methods and objectives of the whole Nazi-Fascist movement in Europe. Furthermore, this domination has already spread to America. History proves that in every attempt made during the past half century against the liberal progress of mankind, the Jesuit Order, as the leader of Catholic action, has played a decisive role. We can go even so far as to state that Nazi-Fascism had its origin in the Society of Jesus, and that, like other movements in the past analogous to Fascism today, it was planned to serve the traditional aims of the disciples of Ignatius Loyola.

As long as this reverse side of the conspiracy against democratic liberalism goes undetected, Fascism will survive. The defenders of democratic ideology will not be victorious until they come out openly against their real enemy—the Knights of the Black Crusade.

The Jesuits were once irrevocably expelled from the nations of Europe, and from the Catholic Church itself, by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, and the only refuge they could find during their forty years of banishment was with the impious Catherine of Russia. Sworn to obey and defend the pope in all matters, they were hard put to it (even as Jesuits) to find a way out of the dilemma of being proteges of a monarch who thumbed her nose at the pope— in order to protect them from his wrath. Not to be outdone, the Jesuits politely and diplomatically protested to Catherine for thus disobeying the pope. And having thereby satisfied the requirements of their oath, they proceeded with a clear conscience to accept her hospitality. The truth of the matter is, that the Jesuits are not so much sworn to protect any individual pope as such, but rather the institution of the Papacy. By this Jesuitical distinction they hold themselves free to resist any pope who fails to follow their dictates; nor would they lament if such a pope were “providentially” speeded on his way to heaven. It is they, in fact, who comprise the Papacy. Their unalterable aim is to restore the nations of the world to the control of the Catholic Church.

As recently as 1886, the public press spoke frankly and fearlessly about the menacing tactics of the Jesuits to secure this worldcontrol by the Papacy. The New York Tribune, of Sept. 19; of that year, in a dispatch from Rome reporting the serious illness of Pope Leo XIII and his subsequent rapid recovery, states that the London Times referred editorially to the report that Pope Leo’s close approach to death “was due to poison administered by the Jesuits.” It relates that, after his sudden recovery, the pope established a new policy in the Church towards the Jesuits, “and that this new line of policy is the price at which he was able to procure the antidote which they alone could supply.” The Tribune report goes on to say:

“Within three days of the recovery from his illness, the pope issued a Bull re-establishing all the privileges, immunities, exceptions and indulgences formerly accorded to the ‘Society of Jesuits’, and declaring null and void all documents which his predecessors have ever written against the order. The fact that Leo XIII restored the order to what it was in the days of its supreme power is more than enough to paralyze all hopes of a peaceful determination of the conflict between the Vatican and the Quirinal; for the Jesuits constitute the belligerent element of Catholicism, and are thoroughly ‘intransigent’ on the subject of the temporal power of the world escaping from the control of the church . . .”

Far be it from us to doubt the sincerity of the Jesuits and their followers in believing that the control of the world by the Catholic Church is the only solution for the ills of mankind. They are welcome to their conviction, and are free in the United States to propagate their teaching and carry out their activities towards that end. The traditional manner in which they carry out their designs, however, should be disturbing to all who strive to sustain the democratic ideology and the principles of freedom and tolerance cherished so highly in this country.

In order to obtain their objective, they spend all their energies (as Nazi-Fascism does) against the two forces they consider inimical to their cause—Judaism and Freemasonry. From its first founding, the Jesuit Order has battled, by every means, against these two, because they are the chief advocates of tolerance and freedom for all. By the ruthless elimination of Jews and Freemasons in so many countries of Europe, Nazi-Fascism has merely effected what the Jesuits have schemed and worked for during many centuries.

In France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Belgium and Italy, the Jesuits, for many years before Mussolini and Hitler, led the fight against the Jews and Freemasons. In each of these countries it was a Catholic priest (prototypes of Father Coughlin) who was the spearhead of Fascist attacks on both Judaism and Freemasonry. In France it was the Jesuit Father Du Lac, with his Ligue Nationale Anti-semitique de France; in Germany the Jesuit Fathers Overmanns, Muckermann, Loffler and Pachtler; in Hungary it was Father Adalbert Bangha, and Father Bresciana in Italy—all of these worked under the banner of Positive Christianity and Christian Front to fight Judaism and Freemasonry, in order to get the millions of unsuspecting non-Catholics to serve their ends. They all proclaimed a crusade for “The Christian Reformation of States and of the World.”1 Father Overmanns2 states that “the rock of positive moral Christian law”3 is the best foundation for the creation of organizations capable of reuniting the members of all Christian religions.

Father Hugger, S. J., shortly after the establishment of the German Republic, wrote (in Stimmen der Zeit, June, 1919, p. 171):

“We are facing a ruinous state of affairs. Once again the work of restoration will have to be accomplished by youth. Will the Congregations of Mary not go forth for the third time as the instrument of reconstruction chosen by Divine Providence?”

Hitler4 also identified his National Socialist Party with “Positive Christianity.” In his Mein Kampf he states that he imbibed his anti-Semitism and his hatred of Masonry from the Catholic Christian Social Party of Lueger, then Mayor of Vienna, when he went there as a young man. “By combatting the Jews,” he says, “I am helping the work of the Lord.”

This “Christian Reform of States”—which is also the subject of the late Pope’s famous encyclical Quadragesimo Anno—is nothing else but the establishment of the Fascist, Corporative State, in which neither Jews nor Freemasons will have any part. Needless to say, it is also anti-Protestant.

The Jesuit Fathers Pachder and Muckermann proclaimed the Fascist doctrines of Nazism before Hitler was heard of. Father Muckermann wrote prolifically in favor of racial eugenics and sterilization,6 and continued to do so even in spite of the condemnation of sterilization in the encyclical Casti Connubii of Pope Pius XI in 1929.

1 P. Loffler, S. J., Zur Jubelfeier der Marianischen Kongregationen Freiburg, pp. 21, 47: G. M. Pachtler, S. J., Der Stille Krieg gegen Thron und Altar. (The Silent War against Throne and Altar), 1876; P. Bresciani, S. J., The Jew of Verona and The Roman Republic, published in the Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica. Rome.
2 In Stimmen der Zeit (Jesuit magazine), Feb. 1918, p. 182 et seq.
3 For the Jesuits, “Christian” is synonymous with “Roman Catholic”.
4 Cf. Art. 24 of “The National Socialist Party Program”: ”Die Partei als solche tertritt den Standpunkt eines positiven Christentums.”
5 P. 70, 1931, German ed.
6 Cf. Muckermann, Hermann, S. J.: Volkstum, Staat nnd Nation—eugenisch gesehen (“The People, State and Nation — from the Eugenic viewpoint”) ; also his Rassenforschung und Volk Zukunft, Berlin, 1932, in which he expresses the desire that the doctrine of race will penetrate the national consciousness as a religion (p. 81).

Jules Michelet, the great French historian, in his Histoire de France, and the German historian Wilhelm Herzog,7 stress the fact that those who directed the anti-Semitism at the time of the Dreyfus Affair depended upon the instructions and, above all, upon the financial support of the Jesuits. The Croix de Feu and the Parti Francais in France, and the Catholic Rexist Party in Belgium also had the support of the Jesuits. The Libre Parole, anti-Semitic daily newspaper, was founded by Jesuit money and its treasury was constantly replenished by them.8 The anti-Semitic leaders of the Dreyfus Affair, which was a plot against the French Republic, were products of Jesuit schools or had Jesuit confessors. In France, as elsewhere, anti-Semitism and anti-Masonic campaigns took the form of “integrated Nationalism/’9 They called for expulsion of Jews and Freemasons, the overthrow of the French Republic, and the setting up of a “Nationalist State.” Henlein’s Party in Czechoslovakia, likewise, preached the doctrines of Othmar Spann, the theoretician of the Corporative State and a protege of the Jesuits. One of the first acts of Father (now Monsignor) Josef Tiso, when he became Nazi premier of Slovakia, was the destruction of all Masonic lodges.

In his Mein Kampf Hitler repeats these principles of the Jesuits against Judaism and Freemasonry like a well-trained parrot. All that he says against the Jews and the revolution in Germany after the war, about Zionism, Jewish exploitation of indecency and obscenity in literature, movies, theater and the press, their part in the organization of vice, prostitution and white slavery, was borrowed almost word for word from the official writings of the Jesuits. Everything he says, likewise, against the Freemasons— their fight for religious tolerance, their efforts to break down racial and religious barriers, as well as their alleged disloyalty to Germany during the world war—is in agreement with both the teaching of the Jesuits and of the popes in their encyclicals against Masonry. The Jesuit Father Bea,10 shortly after the revolution in Germany, wrote:

“The part played by many Jews at the time of the revolution . . . the Zionist movement … all this should be a lesson to those who take their religion and their country seriously to put themselves resolutely on the defensive. The increase of anti-Semitic literature and anti-Semitic organizations is evidence that the people are ready for the fight against Judaism.”

7 Der Kampf einer Republik—die Affare Dreyfus, p. 34, et passim.
8 Cf. Herzog, opus cit., pp. 27, 52.
9 Idem, pp. 26, 36.

As far back as 1911 Father Overmanns, writing in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, states:

“It is impossible to deny the harmful influence of the Jews “on the ideal which we desire in our literature. . . . The Jews make use of the great scope of their influence to spread corrupt and obscene principles and thus cause immense damage to the spiritual life . . . Everyone can see that they create many literary works which are inspired by vile and worldly ideas . . . the hooks of these writers are filled with the base pleasures of life, a vile sensuality and pure naturalism. The commercial sense of the Jews is not offended by the worst obscenities, white slavery, prostitution and immorality of all kinds . . . “

The popes before Hitler proclaimed all this in even more brutal terms. Pope Pius VII, who restored the Jesuits to the Catholic Church and the nations of Europe after the downfall of Napoleon in 1814, issued a Bull in 1821 against the Freemasons. He calls Freemasonry “a cancer and a deadly disease of society.” And the reason he gives is because Masonic Lodges uphold the idea of religious tolerance: “. . . they receive into their order all classes and all nationalities, and favor all kinds of moral codes and all forms of worship.”

The culminating point in the Vatican’s fight against Jews and Freemasons is to be found in the encyclicals of Popes Pius IX-and Leo XIII. Pius IX styles Masonic Lodges “Synagogues of Satan,” and accuses them of having fomented wars and revolutions which put Europe to the fire and the sword. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Humanum Genus (1884), calls Freemasonry “a work of the devil,” and “an impure epidemic.” He accuses Freemasonry of aiming to destroy the churches, the state, and the public well-being. He states that among the chief reasons why Freemasons, and democracy, must be condemned are the following:

10 In Stimmen der Zeit, (Jesuit magazine), 1921, p. 172.

“They teach that all men have the same rights, and are perfectly equal in condition; that every man is naturally free; that no one has a right to command others; that it is tyranny to keep men subject to any other authority than that which emanates from themselves. Hence they hold that the people are sovereign, that those who rule have no authority but by the commission and concession of the people, so that they can be deposed, willing or unwilling, according to the wishes of the people. Thus the origin of all rights and civil duties is in the people or in the State, which is ruled according to the new principles of liberty. They hold that the State must not be united to religion, that there is no reason why one religion ought to be preferred to another, and that all must be held in the same esteem.”

He ends his encyclical by inviting all the Catholic clergy as well as the whole lay world to exterminate the Freemasons without mercy.11

All this was the plan of Mussolini and Hitler as expressed and put into practice by Nazi-Fascism. Circumstances have permitted it to go farther than the popes and to carry its principles by propaganda, invasion and war, into the whole world. In undermining the position that Jews and Freemasonry acquired since the French Revolution, it threatens to destroy the entire work of political and religious freedom initiated by the Protestant Reformation. It thus serves the aims of the Roman Church and the Society of Jesus, founded chiefly for the work of Counter-Reformation. For both Roman Catholicism and Nazi-Fascism regard the ideas that came out of the Reformation and the French Revolution as the chief source of the evils of our time—evils which they trace for their origins to Rousseau, Calvin, Luther, John Huss and Wycliffe —to Paris, Geneva, Wittenberg, Prague and London.

All of this again is to be found in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” An examination of this matter in the next chapter will show conclusively that this infamous forgery is the work of none other than the disciples of Ignatius Loyola.

11 Father Coughlin’s magazine, Social Justice, Oct.-Xov. 1939, reiterated all this in a series of three articles entitled Freemasonry in the Scheme of Satan. They repeat the papal assertions that Freemasonry is allied with the Jews and Communists, and end by calling it, in the words of Pope Pius IX, “The Synagogue of Satan.”

IT IS ADMITTED by all intelligent people that the so-called “Protocols of the Wise men of Zion” are criminal forgeries, and could never have been written either by a group of Jews or Freemasons. Yet their authorship remains unknown. The amazing part of it is that this fantastic fraud has succeeded in its planned objective– the ousting of all Judaic-Masonic influence in Central Europe by methods that would bring a blush to the cheek of a Torquemada. (Editors note: “Torquemada” may refer to a Spanish Dominican monk. As first Inquisitor-General of Spain (1483-98), he was responsible for the burning of some 2000 heretics.)

The contents of these alleged Protocols are well enough known, and have been broadcast by Nazi-Fascist (and Roman Catholic) agents in every country as verbatim reports—proces verbaux—of secret conferences at which certain Jewish leaders drew up plans for the formation of an invisible world-government. With the help of Masonic Lodges and the liberal, democratic, socialist and communist parties, these “Elders of Zion” are said to have conspired for the overthrow of all non-Jewish governments and to destroy all religions other than Judaism. Every despicable means to weaken Christian institutions is set forth by the imaginary leaders of this vast conspiracy.

All this is to be accomplished principally by means of the Masonic orders throughout the world, as the blind dupes and willing tools of this alleged super-imperialism of the Jews. Credit is claimed for the Jews in having instigated practically all revolutionary movements of the past century, assassination of rulers and heads of states, all the wars, civil, racial and international, and all the upheavals in and throughout the nations—from the Protestant Reformation to the economic conditions that resulted in our business depression. Behind it all there is pictured the cold calculation, the unscrupulous cunning and murderous fanaticism of these “Elders of Zion.” Protocol One tells of a vast army of spies and secret agents, well supplied with funds, who bore from within and create dissension and revolution in all countries. Support of anarchist, communist and socialist movements for the destruction of Christian civilization is outlined in Protocol Three; also the debasement and ruin of the currency system, leading to a world-wide economic crisis. Universal war against any nation or group of nations which fails to respond, is planned in Protocol Seven. Protocol Ten contains particulars how all morality is to be undermined and leading statesmen blackmailed, compromised and calumniated in order to force them to serve the ends of the conspirators.

The secret conclave, at which these monstrous plans were purported to have been drawn up, is said to have been held under the auspices of “one of the most influential and most highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry”; they are also said to have been “signed by representatives of Zion of the Thirty-Third Degree.”

No group or organization could ever be as evil and satanic as these Judaic-Masonic “Elders of Zion” picture themselves to be. They are the apotheosis of the anti-Christ, and could have been conjured up only by theological minds imbued with the fearful expectation of the eventual coming of an anti-Christ.

It must be admitted that there, is a certain similarity between this revolutionary plan of action and the Bolshevist program that followed the assassination of the Czar of Russia and the overthrow of the Kerensky regime. But of the seventeen members of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet government at that time, only one, Trotsky, was a Jew. Neither have the Masons ever been the least bit influential in Russia, either under the Czar or the Soviets. A world-wide economic depression also has since happened, somewhat similar to that allegedly planned by these elders of Zion. By no means, however, have the Jews and Masons ever so completely controlled the world’s finances. They suffered as much as others as a result of the economic debacle in 1929.

The Nazi-Fascists, who have successfully exploited these Protocols to their great advantage, and who have used these criminal forgeries to attain their primary objective, might well be accused of their authorship. But their publication antedated the rise of Fascism by a quarter of a century, when Hitler and Mussolini were youngsters learning their multiplication tables in school, and Franco babbling his “Hail Marys” at his mother’s knee.

Now, authorship of an anonymous document is best discovered from the document itself—by the cause it favors and by the enemies it depicts. These will appear even if placed in reverse. A clear sample of this can be seen from such an analysis of a part of these Protocols of Zion which I have before me. It is a reprint from The Catholic Gazette, of February, 1936, a monthly publication of the Catholic Missionary Society of London, England. Space limits permit the quotation of only parts of this nefarious document.

The Judaic-Masonic conspirators are speaking:

When all this is placed in reverse, the following appears:

This is exactly what is taught in all Catholic schools. Every retreat and mission given to priests and lay people begins with St. Ignatius’ picture of “The Two Camps”—the Catholic Church led by God on one hill, and a combination of Protestants, Jews, Masons, communists, socialists and atheists on the other led by Satan.

And all of this is to be found again in Father Coughlin’s Social Justice magazine. In its issue of February 5, 1940, for instance, he reiterates that the Catholic Church is “the ideal Christian Front” and proclaims that all those opposed to, or not with, it belong to anti-Christian groups which will soon “appear incarnated in the person of Anti-Christ himself.” He says that “lay Christian leadership of social matters is to be condemned.” In the same issue a special correspondent of his magazine in Rome writes an article that the “Only Hope of Christian Europe Lies in Rome,” and that Europe can be saved only by the resoration of the Holy Roman Empire; that England, “who more than any other country now represents the neo-Judaic, anti-Catholic spirit,” will be destroyed by Germany and Italy. In another part of this issue, liberal Catholic priests, like Msgr. John A. Ryan, are called “Hireling Clergy” paid by left-wing revolutionary groups. Towards the end is a trick questionnaire which implies twenty answers aimed to secure a poll from its readers which will be condemnatory of democracy.

Although first published in Russia in 1903, the Protocols of Zion had their origin in France and date from the Dreyfus Affair, of which the Jesuits were the chief instigators. They were planned also first to take effect in France, by the overthrow of the “Judaic- Masonic” government of the French Republic. But the discovery of the gigantic fraud of Leo Taxil, who had been openly supported by the Jesuits, the concluding of the Franco-Russian alliance, along with the Vatican’s difficulties with the French government at that time, made it more opportune to have them appear first in Russia.

These Protocols of supposedly Jewish leaders are not the first documents of their kind fabricated by the Jesuits.

For over a hundred years before these Protocols appeared, the Jesuits had continued to make use of a similar fraud called The Secrets of the Elders of Bourg-Fontaine against Jansenism—an anti-Jesuit French Catholic movement among the secular clergy. The analogy between the two forgeries is perfect—the secret assemblage in the forest of Bourg-Fontaine; the plan of the “conspirators” to destroy the Papacy and establish religious tolerance among all nations; the alleged plot against Throne and Altar, and the setting up of a world-government in opposition to the Catholic Church. There is the same dramatization of the negative pole of the historic evolution of the world, in order to bring out, by contrast, the positive Christian [Catholic] pole, around which all conservative forces—the monarchy, the aristocracy, the army, the clergy—must gather to save the world from Satan’s onslaught.

Analyzing, therefore, the ends to be attained by these Protocols of Zion, the means to be employed, the forces depicted as evil and those to be considered good, we must reach the conclusion that only to those whose objectives these forgeries were clearly intended to serve, can their authorship be attributed.

THE PRIME MOTIVATION of Catholic Action is its escatological complex that the Vatican, as God’s designated champion, must do open battle with the forces of Satan before the world ends. Present world trends have convinced Catholic leaders that the time for that Armageddon is fast approaching. In their minds there is not the slightest doubt but that ultimate and complete victory will be theirs. Neither have they any doubt as to who comprise these forces of Satan. They now name communism as the generic term for the objective at which the various forces aim who are on Satan’s side against the Catholic Church. And since they hold that all who are not 100 per cent with the Catholic Church are against it, liberals of all kinds are placed under the banner of communism. Leadership of these combined forces of evil is accredited to world Jewry and Freemasonry.

“The Protocols of Zion,” preceded by the like forgery of “The Secrets of the Elders of Bourg Fontaine,” have spread this belief among Catholics everywhere. Obvious forgeries though they are admitted to be, it is safe to say that nothing contributed more to the rapid victories of Fascism over the forces of liberty and tolerance than these alleged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As has been pointed out, they insidiously picture world Jewry and Freemasonry as conspiring to establish the reign of Satan on earth and, by contrast, the Catholic Church as the sole bulwark and only certain triumphant force against it. As employed by Nazi-Fascism in the past ten years, this fantastic but clever fraud has already succeeded in discrediting democratic institutions of government, even in the United States, and in glorifying the authoritarian rule of force and brutality.

No one can deny the chief role which the Catholic Church has played in these events and all that has led up to them during the past half century. Pope Pius IX1 calls Freemasonry “. . . the Synagogue of Satan … whose object is to blot out the Church of Christ, were it possible, from the face of the earth.” Pius X2 says:

1 Cf. Brief of Nov. 1865. These and other quotations have been published time and again in Father Coughlin’s Social Justice magazine, and in other printed and mimeographed brochures sent out from his Shrine at Royal Oak, Mich. One of these is called The Malist—For the Honest and Honorable, published at Meriden, Conn.

“So extreme is the general perversion that there is room to fear that we are experiencing the foretaste and beginnings of the evils which are to come at the end of time, and that the Son of Perdition, of whom the Apostle speaks, has already arrived upon the earth.”

As has been shown in a previous chapter, the popes of Rome condemn Masonry as in alliance with Judaism chiefly because it teaches tolerance of all religions and works for the establishment of popular government, secular education and international brotherhood. There is nothing too fantastic that the popes and Catholic authorities have not believed and propagated against Judaic- Masonic aims and activities. The most astounding and outrageous were the alleged revelations of the arch-imposter Leo Taxil towards the end of the last century. So successful was his deception of the pope himself and the whole Catholic world, that Father Herbert Thurston, S. J., is forced to deplore the fact that examples of “excessive credulity have been too lamentably brought home to our generation by the outrageous impostures of Leo Taxil.”3

Taxil’s real name was Jogand Pages, and he is described by Father Thurston (loc. cit.) as “the most blasphemous and obscene of anti-clerical writers in France.” He was once jailed for having published a book entitled Les Amours de Pie IX (“The Love Affairs of Pope Pius IX”). That was all before his conversion to the Catholic Church. It was then that he began to make alleged revelations about the Freemasons, and published a large number of books about them, each more astounding than the other. Sensing the Catholic Church’s demon complex, Taxil played this up with consummate art. In his many novels, which were published by the Catholic press all over the world, Taxil stressed the cult of Demonism, or what he called Satanisme. He pictured the Freemasons as practising this worship of the devil, and accused them of assassinations, sexual orgies and white slavery. He recounted that the Freemasons tried to get women into their power to the point of forcing them to have intercourse with the devil. As proof that Freemasonry was secretly controlled by the Jews, he revealed their alleged practices of Jewish rituals.

2 Cf. Supremo Apostolatus, 1903.
3 Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, pp. 701-703.

The Catholic clergy everywhere were especially delighted with Taxil’s sinister novel Palladismus, the story of Diana Vaughan who, according to him, was the result of the union of her mother with a devil named Bitron. These fantastic revelations convinced many that the Catholic hierarchy were in direct contact with this daughter of the devil through the intermediary of Leo Taxil, now their protege. Pope Leo XIII received Taxil in private audience, gave him his blessing, assured him that he had read his books against the Freemasons with intense interest, and that his writings were of great benefit to the cause of the Catholic Church. I pass over the question many will ask as to how an infallible pope could be so completely deceived by one of the most outrageous imposters who ever lived. It was one time that the Jesuits too were outdone.

For a long time Leo Taxil enjoyed the easy success he had obtained by playing upon the credulity of the Catholic clergy and laity. Then came the great denouement—planned and carried out by himself, as it were, for the fun of it. In order to enjoy his victory over the Jesuits to the very last, he called a public meeting in Paris on April 10, 1894, and announced, to the consternation of his hearers, that all his activities, his books and pamphlets, as well as the story of Diana Vaughan, the daughter of the devil who had been converted to the Catholic Church, were nothing but a huge joke dispassionately concocted and executed by him. He quietly told them that Diana Vaughan was merely the name of his typist!

The interesting, and serious, point in the whole affair is the fact that it was the Jesuits who translated Taxil’s novels into German. The Jesuit Father Gruber, whose article on Freemasonry in The Catholic Encyclopedia is nothing but a rehash of what Taxil says about it, widely publicized all his books. And they continued to reassert that what he had written was perfectly in accord with actual facts, even after they had broken with him because of his dramatic expose of himself.4

4 Cf. Hoensbroech, Der Jesuitenorden, Vol. II, page 504.

And even to this day, in the United States, the Catholic Church continues to publish and broadcast Taxil’s frauds about Freemasonry and its alliance with world Jewry. The New World, official organ of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, in its issue of March 26, 1910, published an article entitled Freemasonry— The Open Door To Damnation, as defamatory and fantastic as anything Leo Taxil ever wrote. It was reproduced, as a sample of Catholic animus towards Masons and Jews, in the Souvenir edition of Life and Action during the Knights-Templar Conclave in August that same year. It states that “Jews are the master spirits of the Masonic craft,” that “Freemasonry was founded and organized by Jews in the vain hope of destroying Christianity,” that they plot assassinations of prominent men, even in America, and corrupt the judiciary to set murderers free. Reminiscent of Pope Leo’s condemnation of Freemasonry in his Bull Humanum Genus, is the following:

“A society that admits to membership Christians, Turks, Jews, Chinese, and every other species of barbarian, and amalgamates them— or the majority of them—into an army of infidels and atheists, must be animated and controlled by the malevolence and malice of the evil spirit. . . . There is no reason to doubt that a Christ-hating Jew is the head of the Masonic craft at this time—and at all times.”

There is no need here to stress the fact that, when it comes to attacks on Judaism and Freemasonry, Leo Taxil has nothing on Father Coughlin. This priest and his powerful supporters among the Catholic clergy and laity in America are copying the methods of Hitler and the other dictators who have ruthlessly obliterated Freemasonry and Judaism from all of Central Europe. In reality they are not so much imitators of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco as the successors of the Popes, the Jesuits and the Taxils who initiated the campaign half a century before Nazi-Fascism came into being. Its objective was, and is still, to destroy the effects of the Reformation and to re-establish the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

EUROPE’S TRAGEDY, in Catholic opinion, is due to the breaking up of its great papal-controlled confederation of states by the Protestant Reformation. All the efforts of the Catholic Church since have been directed to the work of counter- Reformation—to re-establish the political and social order of pre- Reformation times. That order of states was hierarchical, not democratic, and was ruled at the top by the dual sovereignty of Pope and Emperor, by the union of Church-State authority. The political and social order that resulted from the Reformation, both in Europe and America, is regarded by the Catholic Church as pagan and anti-Christian; they give it the name of “pseudo-democracy.”

This is to be found in all official Catholic writings and is the burden of all papal encyclicals. The Jesuit weekly America,1 for instance, tells us that the evils of our present time are to be ascribed to this “pseudo-democracy, which is pagan in its remote origins and leads to an inhuman wage system, an uprooted proletariat and pauperism.” It goes further to say: “Protestant, rationalist, and now definitely anti-Christian in its inspiration, its logical fruit is Socialism,” and calls for “a return to an integral social order, the principles of which are still preserved in our languid memory of the great medieval experiment.”

Few realize how intense is the hatred of official Roman Catholic spokesmen for the American democratic way of life. This same Jesuit magazine America (which advertises itself as “the most influential Catholic magazine in the United States”) published the following in its issue of May 17, 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor:

1 April 13, 1940.

“How we Catholics have loathed and despised this Lucifer civilizaion, this rationalist creation of those little men who refuse to bend the knee or bow the head in submission to higher authority . . . Today, American Catholics are being asked to shed their blood for that particular kind of secularist civilization which they have been herocially repudiating for four centuries. This civilization is now called democracy, and the suggestion is being made that we send the Yanks to Europe again to defend it. In reality, is it worth defending? What’s the sum and substance of it all? All the Yanks in America will not save it from disintegration. Unless a miracle occurs, it is doomed—finally and irrevocably doomed. The New Order in Europe will be either a Nazi or a British totalitarianism, or a combination of both . . .

“American democracy is disintegrating, crumbling from within. Fatigue, disillusionment, disgust, the unbearable tension in society, the fear of war and the fear of bankruptcy, the absence of security, the technological revolution which has gone far beyond the instruments of social control, deep-rooted, anarchistic hatred of a social order, which has too long denied the principle of social justice, the revolt of the masses and the levelling of all values, the absence of any common ethical basis—these are but a few of the multiple factors in the decline which is now upon us . . .

“Leadership in this crisis will not come from the laity. It will not come from the bottom of the Catholic pyramid. It will come only from the top, from the Hierarchy. The Christian Revolution will begin when we decide to cut loose from the existing social order, rather than be buried with it.”

Whatever opinion the Catholic Church may now express about Hitler and his Nazi-Socialism, it stands 100 per cent with him and the other fascist dictators in this avowed objective of destroying the political and social order that came out of the Reformation and substituting therefor an integral, positive-Christian hierarchical confederation of states, similar to that which existed before Protestantism disrupted the authoritarian order of things in Central Europe. Hitler laid it down in article 24 of his National Social Party Program that “the Party as such starts from the standpoint of a Positive Christianity.” This is specifically a Jesuit principle of action, with the ultimate objective of inducing all Christian sects to unite with the Catholic Church for a “Christian reform of states” —the establishment of an hierarchical grouping of corporative states entirely devoid of Jewish, Masonic and Protestant influence. Bishop Hudal2 and other German prelates have pointed out the identity of the fundamentals of National Socialism and Catholicism. Father Coughlin and his Jesuit supporters preach the same in this country. To date, Hitler’s blitzkriegs are accomplishing in fact everything set forth in his ideological concepts for a “new order” in all of Europe after his ruthless extermination of Judaism and Masonry.

2 Die Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus, p. 18.

For centuries Vatican policy has based all its hopes for the restoration of its dominion over the nations of Europe upon a strong, militaristic Germany that would cleanse the Continent of all British Protestant influence from the West, and, above all, safeguard it from Russo-Slavic invasion from the East. A Greater Germany, in other words, must be made again the center of a revived Holy Roman Empire.

It is significant that Pope Leo XIII urged this very plan upon the late Kaiser Wilhelm II during the latter’s last visit to the Vatican. The Kaiser, in his Memoirs,3 vividly describes the colorful and solemn setting in which the interview took place, and says that he jotted down what was said for future reference. What interested him most was Pope Leo’s insistence that, by war, if necessary, the Holy Roman Empire should be restored, and that to this end “Germany must become the Sword of the Catholic Church.” Following are the Kaiser’s own words:

“It was of interest to me that the Pope said to me on this occasion that Germany must become the sword of the Catholic Church. I remarked that the old Roman Empire of the German nation no longer existed, and that conditions had changed. But he stuck to his words.”

Hitler succeeded the Kaiser and by Germany’s military might wiped out from all of Europe popular government, Freemasonry, and all the democratic freedoms against which Pope Leo XIII and other nineteenth century popes fulminated their condemnations.

Catholic propagandists in the United States, despite expressed opinions to the contrary, have not been unaware of this identity of interests between Nazi-Fascism and Catholic aims, and diplomatically, but definitely, have been striving for their realization. Hitler’s early conquests in Austria and Czechoslovakia were applauded as “a natural re-adjustment in Europe” by the Catholic Justice Herbert O’Brien of New York, in an article featured in the New York Herald Tribune of March 29, 1938. Needless to say, his opinions are not solely his own, but were obviously dictated to him by official Catholic authority. Taking occasion to warn the United States from participating in war on the side of England and France, Justice O’Brien stated that such a war would be unjust since its objective would be “to oppose certain political adjustments and changes in Central Europe resulting in economic and nationalistic confederations which had existed for generations before the great world conflict . . . and also to resist that great confederation of small groups which, up to the breaking out of the great world war. had enjoyed, under the beneficent sway of the Hapsburgs, commercial prosperity, independence and peace.” He goes on to say:

3 See, The Kaiser’s Memoirs, by Wilhem II, translated by Thomas R. Ybarra, p. 211, Harper & Bros. 1922.

“The opposition to this adjustment of the German peoples with some of the groups of the old Austrian Empire . . . comes from England and France. These two nations have expressed their bitter resentment over these changes as a disturbance of the ‘balance of power’ in Europe, and are fearful that Germany, in union with a re-united Austria, will place the German peoples in the ascendancy with ample force to maintain this position, and, by alliance with Italy, terminate Britain’s sole supremacy of the Mediterranean and directly affect its sole future control of India and Egypt and the African British colonies.”

He wrote that “dismemberment of the Austrian Empire was the most tragic blunder of the twentieth century. When England and France chopped up Austria they ruined Europe.” He applauded Hitler’s success in destroying Protestant British hegemony in Central Europe and in securing a return to the political and social set-up of the corporate union of states in a revived Holy Roman confederation:

“What America is witnessing is the normal reunion of these several parts into the original, living structure. It had to come. It could not be blocked. In justice to the 100 million people in Central Europe, why should anyone try to prevent it?”

He uncovered the whole pretense of official Catholic opposition even to Hitler’s religious and racial persecutions as well as to his “protectorates” over non-German nations as follows:

“It happened with Hitler. It would have happened without Hitler, and in spite of Hitler. And with the inclusion of these non-Germanic groups, Hitler’s anti-religious and racial persecutions must terminate and vanish. Hitler will pass away, but the great re-established union, together with religious liberty, will survive.”

What the Catholic Church is hoping and working for as a result of the present death struggle between the fascist and democratic blocs is the re-establishment in Europe of the “Real State,” a rigid hierarchical system wherein inferiors are subject to superiors. In this system each individual, like a cell in a body, must humbly submit to his fate and occupy his “natural place” which is allotted to him from birth and have no desire to get away from it. This basis of social structure is not only anti-Jewish, but also anti-Protestant. It corresponds exactly to the system of the Jesuit Order itself as founded by Ignatius Loyola, the essential point of which consists in an hierarchical structure of ideas, and is characteristic of all Catholic political thought.4 The hierarchical, as opposed to the Protestant democratic system, holds that the different races constitute the hierarchical steps in a cosmic system which no one has the right to change or modify either by individual or collective will.

The Jesuit Father Muckermann, in his many works on race hygiene, fully explains this ideology which is at the basis of all the aims and acts of Nazi-Fascism. Mixture of races, he holds, produces “inharmonious” descendants who have difficulty in allowing themselves to be absorbed into a national unity. It is well known that mixture of races brings forth strong individualities; and these in the Jesuit view, would disrupt the static “harmony” they desire among peoples and nations, as well as nullify the gregarious instinct which the Jesuits endeavor to foster. In their view “harmony” is a state where each one places himself humbly and voluntarily in the organic niche appointed for him by the supreme authority without any “diabolic inharmonious” desire to leave it. This is the way the Jesuit Order itself is built up, and this is the ideal Catholic aim for states and groups of states in the political and social order. It is the organic, static, hierarchical, integralist, corporative system of Nazi-Fascist teaching, which is already in effect in many countries of Europe. It is in direct opposition to the disintegralist, dynamic, liberal, free, democratic concept of political and social order.

4 Cf. Rene Fulop Muller, Macht und Geheimnis der Jesuiten, p. 41; also his Rassenheirarchie als Kirchliche Lehre, pp. 42, 204.

The Jesuit Order has its “Aryan paragraph” corresponding exactly to that of Hitlerism. Its Constitutions contain six impediments against reception into the Order, the first of which is Jewish descent up to the fourth generation. If Jewish descent is discovered after a candidate’s admission, it prevents his “radiation.” This Aryan paragraph first appeared in the statutes of the Order in 1593, was confirmed in 1608 and is to be found in the latest official edition published in Florence in 1893. General councils of the order have many times proclaimed that Jewish descent must be considered as “an impurity, scandal, dishonor and infamy.”5 Suarez, noted Jesuit theologican, also states that Jewish descent is an impurity of such indelible character that it is sufficient to prevent admission into the Order.6

This identity of interests between Nazi-Fascism and Jesuit Catholicism in the matter of opposition to the mixture of races and religions is something that cannot be denied. And this ideology is the prime cause of the war that is devastating the world at the present time. Hider, the fanatic, has already gone a long way to bring it to realization. If he succeeds in making it permanent, the “new order” which he has vowed to bring about in Europe will be what the Catholic Church has been strenuously working for during the past four centuries. As a result, Europe will be entirely free of that “pseudo-democratic liberalism” so hateful to official Catholicism. With or without Hider, as Justice O’Brien says, it had to come. And its beginnings could only have been accomplished by the ruthless war now being waged by Nazi-Fascism—a fact which its Jesuit proponents have fully realized during their centuries of counter-Reformation activities. But it is only by facing this fact, and forgetting Roman Catholic propaganda in our daily newspapers, that we can understand why a victory for an authoritarian Germany, not its crushing defeat by the democratic Allies, has been fervently desired by the Vatican.

5 Institutum 8. J., p. 278, 302; also Jesuit Lexicon, p. 939.
6 F. Suarez, Tractatus de religione Societatis Jesu, p. 34.

HITLER is a product of the Catholic Church. He has never renounced the religious doctrines nor condemned the political aims and aspirations of the Church into which he was born and baptized. Just as his father regarded the Catholic priesthood as the highest state to which anyone could aspire, so to him as a child the priest appeared as the ideal human being. In his autobiography Hitler says that he was deeply impressed with the religious ceremonies of the Catholic Church and was a member of the choir in his parish church. In his free time he took singing lessons at the nearby monastery. “This,” he says, “supplied me with the best opportunity to steep myself in the solemn magnificence of the brilliant feasts of the Church.”1

These early emotions never completely disappeared, and he has always remained conscious of the extremely suggestive value of ecclesiastical surroundings. Toward the end of his book he describes “the psychological conditions which tend to create that artificial and mysterious half-light in Catholic churches—the wax tapers, the incense …” In fact, in his Mein Kampf Hitler approves of everything particularly relating to Jesuit Catholicism as opposed to Protestantism. He approves of the indisputability of Catholic dogmas,2 of the intolerant attitude of Catholic education,3 of the necessity of blind faith,4 of the personal infallibility of the pope— imposed upon the Church by the Jesuits in 1870,5—and of the compulsory celibacy of the Catholic clergy. These are all matters that make Catholicism radically different from the other churches of Christendom. In an open and prophetic expression of his admiration for the Catholic Church, he says:

“Thus the Catholic Church is more secure than ever. It can be predicted that, as passing phenomena vanish away, she will remain as a beacon light amid these vanishing elements, attracting blind adherents in ever-increasing numbers.”

1 Cf. Mein Kampf, p. 4. 2 P. 293. 3 P. 385. 4 P. 417. 5 P. 507. 6 P. 513. See The Catholic Church in Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’; 15c Agora Publishing Co. It was a priest, Father Staempfle, not Hitler, who really wrote “Mein Kampf.”

This enthusiastic declaration of the Fuehrer is not only an expression of the prophetic sense generally attributed to him, but the manifestation of a desire firmly rooted in his soul. Like all Catholics of Central Europe, he was educated to resist Protestantism—the historical enemy which has always endeavored to detach governments and peoples from the political and religious influence of the Church of Rome. Throughout his book he has no word of disapproval for the Jesuit campaign against ail forms of Protestantism. It is true, that, in places, he states that both Protestantism and Catholicism, as religious units, are of equal worth, so far as his National Socialism is concerned. But an analysis of his particular statements regarding the two religious systems immediately shows how closely he is bound to ultramontane Catholicism. In the matter of racism and anti-Semitism, Hitler clearly indicates his hostility to Protestantism. He says:7

“Protestantism opposes in an extremely vigorous manner every attempt that is made to rid the nation of its worst enemy; in fact, the position of Protestantism with regard to Judaism is more or less dogmatically fixed. But we have now come to a point where this problem will have to be solved; otherwise all attempts at the renaissance of Germany and national regeneration will be of no avail.”

It is true that Protestantism can never associate itself with Jesuit racism. The protest to Hitler by the German Confessional Church in 1936, makes this clear: “Anti-Semitism,” it says, “often provokes excesses that nothing can justify, and which are merely the result of hatred for the Jewish minority.”8

The identity of Hitler’s ideology with that of traditional Jesuit Catholicism cannot be denied; nor the fact that by ruthless persecution and armed might, in collaboration with the other Catholic dictators, he has forwarded the ultimate objectives of the Catholic Church. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Salazar (the Catholic dictator of Portugal) ousted Jewish, Masonic and Protestant influence from all of Europe from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. In spite of this, however, many in America are still skeptical of any predetermined connection between Nazi-Fascism and Jesuit Catholicism. They point to the “persecution” of the Catholic Church in Germany, and to professions of faith in democracy by some Catholic spokesmen in the United States.

7 p. 123.
8 Cf. Basler National Zeitung, July 20, 1936.

There is here a case of obvious contradiction between reality and appearance. In the first place, Nazi opposition to the Catholic Church in Germany has been confined to its “liberal” elements, and Catholic leadership has always opposed these more than any others. The Jesuit party has long feared the infiltration of Protestant and liberal ideas into the German Catholic mind. During the post-war years, when Germany was a democratic republic, many of the ordinary secular clergy and some of the religious orders became enamored of the liberal, secularizing spirit. They formed the backbone of the Catholic Centre Party—which was the last bulwark against Hitler’s rise to power. But this last element of liberalism in Germany was dissolved by order of Pope Pius XI, as a stipulated condition of the Vatican’s concordat with Nazism; its leader, Klausener, was assassinated in the “blood purge” of June 30, 1934. The last liberal party in Italy also, headed by the exiled priest Don Sturzo, shared the same fate at the hands of the same Pope Pius XI. It is nothing new in Catholic history that religious and social reformers from within the Church should be the first to suffer its enmity. The heretics of history, delivered over to autocrat civil power for burning and imprisonment by the Church, are mute witnesses to this unchanging policy of intransigent Catholicism.

It can easily be seen that the identity of Jesuit political thought with the objectives of Nazi-Fascism makes it imperative to conceal it from the American public. Were it otherwise, the Catholic Church would suffer complete loss of its prestige in the United States—in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. It is not surprising, therefore, that the following evident contradictions may be noted with regard to Catholic Church propaganda:

1. Opposing views of Jesuit authors on actual questions concerning politics, economics, and even religious matters;

2. The adoption of national peculiarities in all countries, even in pagan lands;

3. The combatting of socialism with one hand and ottering it friendship with the other;

4. The favoring of chauvinist and nationalist views as well as of international pacific tendencies;

5. The making of eloquent declarations in favor of democracy, and at the same time seizing upon every possible means to undermine and wreck it;

6. The creation of situations apparently contradictory of one another.

Apart from this, there is nothing insincere on the part of intransigent Catholic leadership. The guiding forces of modern Catholicism are as sincere in their conviction as their predecessors of old that nothing good can come out of liberal political and social regimes. Liberalism in religion is anathema to them and their greatest enemy. They desire peace, but hold with the Nazi-Fascists that peace can come only by war, with all its appalling consequences, as a necessary evil. For by victorious war alone, they hold, can men and nations to be made to submit to the hierarchical idea of a world-order of states, races and individuals. Their conviction is that peace can come only from that “harmonious” acquiescence of men bound to their “natural place” in society and religion. From its apex, this pyramid of states is to be totally ruled by the theocratic institution of the Catholic Church, with the Pope of Rome as the Vicar of Jesus Christ and the sole mouthpiece of Almighty God.

Alone, and without well-planned direction, Adolf Hitler never could have accomplished what he did to this end. All the world is now convinced that he was no idle dreamer, nor just a poor paper-hanger, when he attempted his Munich Beer-hall putsch. His visions were realistically sketched out for him by those who directed him as a youth, and the grandeur of their ideas of a totalitarian world, symbolized by ritualistic ceremonies in cathedrals and churches, urged him to action.

When Hitler drew Austria into his hierarchic confederation, his action was greeted by Heils from Catholic Church prelates. After his bloodless absorption of Czechoslovakia and the land of the hated Hussites, there was rejoicing again within the Catholic world. A feeble, easily answered complaint from the Vatican followed his blitzkrieg that brought Catholic Poland again into the orbit of a centrally-controlled Europe. Definite refusal met the request of President Roosevelt, through his “peace ambassador” to the Vatican, that Pope Pius XII condemn Hitler’s invasion of Protestant Denmark and Norway.

Only short-sighted, idealistic Americans fail to understand that Hitler and the intransigent leaders of Roman Catholicism are one with Mussolini when he declared:

“Capitalism, parliamentarianism, democracy, socialism, communism, and a certain vacillating Catholicism, with which, sooner or later, we shall deal in our style, are against us.”

All of these, particularly the last, are the forces which the Jesuits and their counter-Reformation have fought against (and made use of) since the time of Martin Luther and his associates.

A FEW YEARS AGO, Americans considered it incredible that the Catholic Church could be officially in favor of the Fascist corporative state; much less that it could have been in any way responsible for the origin and spread of Corporatism. They refused to believe that the vaunted encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, of Pope Pius XI, was an endorsement of the Nazi-Fascist objective to discredit and destroy the structure of the liberal democratic state, and to set up, in its stead, authoritarian, hierarchical regimes. Yet, this encyclical embodied the whole aim of the Catholic Church for half a century before the rise of Fascism, namely, the total reconstruction of the then existing social order on Catholic- Fascist lines. The real title of this encyclical is: “On the Reconstruction of the Social Order,” and its plan is actually the ecclesiastical counterpart of the Fascist military onslaught against liberalism and democracy.

Americans heard Father Coughlin preach this for eight years, but merely shrugged their shoulders and took it for granted that his rantings were those of a crackpot and had nothing to do with the true aims and activities of the Catholic Church. It can now be seen that this plan of the Vatican, though camouflaged in terms to quiet the fears of Americans, was being carried forward officially by the Catholic Church in the United States as vigorously as in European countries.

In our first issue of The Converted Catholic Magazine,1 attention was directed to the plan as published under the auspices of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and signed by 131 Catholic prelates and noted laymen. It advocated a change in the United States’ Constitution to permit the enactment of the recommendations of Pope Pius XI into American law. It praised the NRA (National Recovery Administration, an agency created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 after congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act), which is now admitted as having been patterned on Fascist
Corporative lines,2 and which was abolished by unanimous opinion of the U. S. Supreme Court as destructive of American democracy. In spite of this, however, this plan of the Catholic Church says: “Had the NRA been permitted to continue, it could readily have developed into the kind of industrial order recommended by the Holy Father.”

1 Jan., 1940. p. 6.
2 Cf. John T. Flynn, in the N. Y. World-Telegram, July 12, 1940, where he states that, by the NRA, President Roosevelt, unwittingly, “attempted to introduce this feature of Fascism into our country”.
3 Feb. 8, 1940. The N.C.W.C. called it “the most important utterance made by the Catholic hierarchy since the bishops’ program of reconstruction of 1919”.
4 Cf. Richmond Times Dispatch, Feb. 9, 1940.

So cautiously had this plan been advanced in the United States, that it was not until the Roman Catholic hierarchy, in 1940, issued its pronouncement on “The Church and the Social Order”3 that the press could safely headline the news that “The Catholic Hierarchy Advocates Corporative System for the U. S.”4 Strange to say, there was then no public outcry. And even now, when patriotic Americans are turning the searchlight of suspicion on every sign of political and economic subversion, the greatest Trojan Horse of them all continues to tower unmolested in the very shadow of their searchlights. In newspaper offices, this Trojan Horse of Jesuit Catholicism is still regarded as the feared and untouchable “sacred cow.”

The misconception that the corporative system is purely an economic matter, has blinded the American press and public to the real aim behind Catholicism’s advocacy of it. Corporatism is indeed the economic ingredient of Fascism. But it is also the essential element of Fascism, since the corporatives make a parliament or congress unnecessary. For these corporatives are the means through which the “Leader” exercises his dictatorial will. It was precisely because the Supreme Court judged that, by the NRA, Congress had abdicated its powers and was thus paving the way for Fascism, that it took vigorous action against it. The entire ideology of Fascism and Nazism—in social, economic, educational, religious and military’ matters—is contained in the corporative system. Corporatism is Fascism.

The Roman Catholic bishops, though cautiously, have spoken nonetheless as plainly in favor of Nazi-Fascist ideology as the Catholic hierarchies of Italy, Spain and Germany. Like Hitler and Coughlin, they start from a standpoint of “positive Christianity,” and call for “a comprehensive program for restoring Christ to His true and proper place in human society,” for “a reform of morals and a profound renewal of the Christian spirit which must precede the social reconstruction.” Implicit in this is the customary anti- Semitic and Fascist condemnation of the “Masonic-Judaic plutodemocracies” as resting upon an immoral, un-Christian foundation.

It was in this same way that the Roman Catholic bishops of Italy, Spain and Germany supported the rise of Fascism and Nazism in their respective countries. In their pastoral letter from Fulda on August 30, 1936, the Catholic hierarchy of Germany solemnly declared to their people:

“There is no need to speak at length of the task which our people and our country are called upon to undertake. May our Fuehrer, with the help of God, succeed in this extraordinary difficult work . . . What we desire is that belief in God, as taught by Christianity, will not be overcome, but that it be universally recognized that this faith constitutes the only sure foundation upon which can be built the powerful and victorious bulwark destined to hold back the forces of Bolshevism…”

All doubts as to the whole-hearted support of Hitler’s program from the beginning by the Catholic hierarchy in Germany are cleared up by a perusal of the discourses and writings of Bishop Aloysius Hudal, Rector of the Collegio Teutonico in Rome and one of the closet consultors of the Holy See on German and Austrian affairs. In his book, The Fundamentals of National Socialism, he repeats the contents of many of his allocutions to the German colony in Rome. The following is a sample:

“Let us see, for example, how interesting are some of the objectives of the National Socialist program: popular unity as opposed to everything that can disrupt; language as the nation’s spiritual bond; consciousness of Germany’s historical destiny; the sentiment of race consciousness; the attempt to solve the Jewish question; assurance of pure German breeding; destruction of parties; culture of the family, and the ideal of the large family considered as a matter of honor and national pride; the militarization of the nation . . . ; a new system of instruction and education; the corporative idea; the aristocratic principle of government by a Leader. . . . Above all, the German people are indebted to this spiritual movement for the slow destruction of the idealogy of the Rights of Man, upon which the edifice of Weimar was founded, as well as for destruction of faith in formal juridical constitutions, of the dialectics of parliamentary procedures . . . and of democracy”.

In order to prove the identity of interests between Catholicism and Nazi Socialism, Bishop Hudal5 quotes from the Catholic German historian, Joseph Lortz of Minister, who, in his work, History of the Churches,6 shows that Catholicism and Nazi-Socialism agree on the following points:

“1. Both are mortal enemies of Bolshevism, Liberalism, and Relativism, that is to say, of the three deadly maladies from which our age is suffering, and which fiercely attack the work of the Church. The essential ideas of Nazi Socialism, together with the principle of liberty bound to authority, correspond exactly to the ideas that Popes Gregory and Pius IX endeavored to impose upon the 19th century, in face of a world which called itself progressive, and which received their teachings with sarcastic smiles. To this is added their common fight against Freemasonry.

“2. Their common fight against the Godless movement; against public immorality; against the stupid doctrine of equality, which is destructive of life; their fight for a rational and fertile structure of human society as desired by God, and for the corporative structure of the state as proposed by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI (Quadragesima Anno); their common fight against a mode of life that is unnatural and deprived of all healthy traditions as encountered in great modern cities and workmen’s localities.

“3. By its principle of authority and government by a Leader, a principle upon which all national life rests, National Socialism combines the German and the Catholic attitude towards human life.

“4. Most important of all: National Socialism is a confession of faith; opposing, as it does, unbelief and destructive doubt it has convinced all classes of society that the outlook of the believer is not, as liberalism has taught, an attitude of inferiority, but one that carries man towards the total accomplishment of his destiny. And although the Catholic Church should never identify itself with any movement, it cannot afford to mists the opportunity of gratefully accepting the help of this powerful ally in the fight which she is carrying on against atheistic rationalism.”

This Catholic historian calls attention to the fact which American observers have failed to note, that Nazi-Fascism is but the outcome of events in which the Catholic Church has played a decisive role for centuries. He says that National Socialism is the “fulfilment of destiny,” and goes on to say:

5 Op cit p. 236 et seq.
6 p. 291 et seq.

“It was born originally out of the most profound tendencies of the epoch, of which it is the crowning act. Undoubtedly, we now have the right to speak of an essential transformation, of the birth of a veritable new era, the accomplishments of which will remain, A new epoch has opened which will serve religion and the Church, and which will be extraordinarily well armed to carry on the fight against atheism.”7

This, and much more, is quoted by Bishop Hudal to prove the fundamental identity of the aims and purposes of Catholicism and Nazi-Socialism. The Catholic bishops in the United States cannot afford to be as frank in supporting Nazi-Fascist ideology in this country. They cannot but admit, however, that their fellow-bishops in Nazi-Fascist countries have been correct in their analysis of the benefits which this anti-liberal and anti-democratic ideology will bring to the organization of Roman Catholicism.

7 Franz von Papen, a papal Knight and Hitler’s most successful henchman, declared in Der Volkischer Beobachter of January 14, 1934: “The Third Reich is the first power which not only recognizes, but which puts into practice the high principles of the Papacy.”

A CLEVER MASQUERADE has always been characteristic of the political activities of Jesuit Catholicism. Jesuitry is a word in all our dictionaries that is defined as synonymous with subtle duplicity, indirection and disingenuousness. History is witness to the undeniable fact that the Jesuit Order, founded in 1540 for the express purpose of counter-Reformation, has excelled in the art of Machiavellian duplicity.1 It is an organization founded on military lines to fight for the political restoration of the Roman Papacy, and is the only order in the Catholic Church that binds its members by special oath for this purpose. It uses the deep-seated religious needs of the human heart in order to carry out a plan which is patently political and reactionary from the point of view of social matters.

This is a fact that must be borne in mind today in order to understand what is behind the onslaughts of what is known as Nazi- Fascism against the liberal constitutions of Protestant democratic countries. Present-day events appear as a mass of contradictions and confused paradoxes which, if they are to be fully understood, require a most acute analysis. In order to uncover the real forces which are playing for high stakes in the game, it is not sufficient to examine the mere surface of things as they happen. It is necessary to discover who is pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Otherwise we reach, not the real culprits, but only the puppets pushed out in front by their political masters to cover up and bear the brunt of the initial attack.

All the efforts so far made in America to fight the forces of Fascism, Nazism and Communism, in order to safeguard the gains of liberalism and democracy, have been frustrated by the fact that few have been aware that their chief strength lies in their ideology. Only now is it being slowly realized that they can never be overcome by fighting them merely along the lines of economic interests. But all that comes under the name of Fascism will never be successfully met until it is further fully realized that the essential foundation of its ideological factors is rooted in the past. Americans will never win out against it unless and until they bring to light the activating forces set in motion, long before Mussolini and Hitler, for the express purpose of arresting and eventually destroying the progress that followed upon the Protestant Reformation and the American and French Revolutions. Nazi-Fascism is not merely “Kaiserism with bad manners.” It is the spearhead of a hidden force which set out long ago to impose a new ideology upon the post-Reformation world.

1 Cf. the well-known Jesuit slogan: “Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re”- “Be suave in manner, aggressive in act”.

Religion, which has always been used by ambitious oppressors to serve the ends of their political power, is the mask to conceal their scheme of action. Although religion is the most sacred of man’s needs, it is the easiest and most effective cloak to hide a poisoned dagger from an enemy. It has always been used by political Catholicism as a Trojan horse with all the appurtenances of war safely concealed within its flanks. This is especially the case in liberal democratic countries like the United States, where a wealthy and powerful organization like the Church of Rome is safeguarded not only against open attack but even against mild and just criticism. American tolerance, leaning backwards, has forced a rigid policy on leading newspaper offices and bureaus of public information to treat the Church of Rome as a “sacred cow.” Just as the Trojans unsuspectingly accepted the mysterious horse thrust within their gates by the wily Greeks, so too has America stood in awe of the “sacred cow” of Catholicism and has never dared even to question its presence. Americans are justly fearful of being accused of religious bigotry and intolerance, since they have long prided themselves as guaranteeing religious liberty and freedom of expression to all comers. They have been thus without means to justify an open investigation of an organization suspected of concealing dynamite that, touched off by other dangerous forces, may explode in their midst and destroy the very Constitution that has enabled them to remain secure and prosperous themselves and tolerant to the Catholic church itself.

Observers in America’s ivory towers have been blinded to the real facts behind the present upheaval that threatens to wipe out every vistage of post-Reformation liberalism from the world. This is due in great part to that subtle duplicity which has enabled Jesuit Catholic forces to pave the way for, and cooperate with, Nazi- Fascism’s successful efforts to impose on the world an entirely new ideology, while at the same time making it appear in Protestant countries that the Catholic Church is on the side of democracy, is, in fact, one of the main bulwarks of democracy. Its real aim and purpose, however, can be known only by an examination of its activities before and since the rise of Fascism.

The Jesuits take a solemn oath to fight a crusade for “Catholic restoration,” the success of which has always depended first on the complete destruction of Protestantism and its increasing liberalizing effects on political and social life for the past four hundred years. For it was Protestantism that undermined the political power of the papacy in the past. It made religion a matter of individual choice; it liberated the individual from the authoritarianism of kings and popes; it freed the civil state from ecclesiastical interference; it caused non-Catholic governments to deny outright the vital claim of the Church of Rome to be, by divine right, a universal, independent entity and superior to all other forms of government; it took away from the Church of Rome direct control over all the institutions that go to make up the life of man—marriage, education, charitable, cultural and recreational activities. It is now accused by Catholic spokesmen as being the instigator of communism and atheism and the ally of world Jewry and Freemasonry.

Space permits only a very brief summary of the counter-Reformation activities of Jesuit Catholicism which led to the rise and present successes of Nazi-Fascism against the liberalizing effects of the Protestant Reformation. The Thirty Years War, the murderous reign of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the bloody attempts at Catholic restoration in England, are visible, and terrifying examples of the anti-Protestant activities of the Jesuit Order in the past. It was they who instigated the Dreyfus Affair as a means to overthrow the French Republic and thus nullify the effects of the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1848. For these, in the Jesuit view, were also the result of the Protestant Reformation.

“The Revolutions of 1789 and 1848.” says the Jesuit Father Hammerstein, 2 “were the result of the Reformation. And today we are faced with a choice of an alternative: either to live in a Socialism during these last years of heresy [Protestantism] or to infect public life with the principles of Christianism, that is to say ‘Catholic principles.’ Anything else is but half-measure.”

Hitler himself admits that he was helped by the methods of the Jesuit counter-Reformation to carry on his ideological war. His use of brute force against all opposing convictions and philosophical opinions is the result of the fact, as he says,3 that “I made a rigorous analysis of analogous cases which are to be met with in history, especially in the domain of religion.”

But it was not until after “World War I that the active plan for Catholic restoration began to take shape. Before the coming of Pope Pius XI, in 1922, the Catholic church had been forced into a more or less defensive position towards the liberal spirit of modern times. But with the election of this admittedly pro-Jesuit and pro-Fascist pope, Mussolini and Hitler also appeared on the scene, and in combination with them the Catholic church took the offensive. The following, from the historical work of Karl Boka,4 an ardent supporter of Catholic restoration, is to the point:

“At this decisive moment the Pope seized the reins and took into his hands the unified control of all fields of endeavor in which his predescessors had distinguished themselves. This was the beginning of Catholic Action of far-reaching importance, of the entrance of the church into the fight, into the battle for moral and religious renovation, and for the reform of social institutions. And this intervention had for its end the destruction of the liberal spirit of the 19th century and the triumph of the Christian Idea.”

Since then we have witnessed Catholicism’s open support of every step taken by Nazi-Fascism to impose authoritarian regimes upon all peoples: its active cooperation in the systematic oppression exercised by the Fascist regime in Italy itself; its secret agreement with Hitler’s National Socialism (the Vatican was the first to recognize Hitler’s regime); its support of Mussolini’s shameful conquest of Ethiopia and even of Japan’s invasion of China; its open alliance with Franco in his rebellion against the Spanish Republic; its joy at the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany and the obliteration of democratic Czechoslovakia; its part in the final triumph of Leon Degrelle’s Rexist Party in Belgium and its fulsome praise for the French Fascist State which under “good Marshal Petain,” took the place of the defunct French Republic. After Pearl Harbor the Vatican accepted General Ken Harada as Ambassador from Tokyo to the Holy See.

2 In his book, The Church and the State, p. 132. published before the first world war in England, when he was professor of Canon Law at Dutton Hall.
3 Cf. Mein Kampf, p. 186.
4 Staat und Parteien. p. 75, Max Niehams Verlag, Zurich and Leipzig.

The full account of events in Germany from 1918 till the rise of Hitler to power has yet to be written. But it cannot be denied that they were cleverly maneuvered to their outcome by the machinations of Jesuit diplomacy. The owning classes, whose liberalism was less an expression of ideal convictions than of material interests, were gripped with the fear of the growth of socialism under the Weimar Republic. By clever propaganda, Roman Catholic forces succeeded in convincing them that an hierarchical church was their best protection against the attacks of the “lower classes.” On the other hand, they used the anti-liberalism of German socialists to prove to these latter that political Catholicism and the socialist movement, both opponents of this liberalism, could form a solid basis for common action in the domain of political action.

The coalition between the Social-Democrats and the Catholic Center Party was the result of this maneuver; in reality it was an unconscious submission of the former to Jesuit Catholicism, which was thus enabled to use Catholic democratic politicians and the anti-Jesuits for its own ends. It was so cleverly done that the real aim of the Jesuits was not realized until Pope Pius XI dissolved the Catholic Center Party and thus left the way clear for Hitler’s rise to power. In all this, Hitler had the cooperation of Monsignor Kaas, the real head of the Catholic Center Party. The role played by former Chancellor Briining, the political leader of the Party, is as obscure as that of his ill-fated colleague Schuschnigg. The present pope, Pius XII, was papal nuncio in Bavaria at that time and was well known to have been an enemy of the German Republic. After Hitler came to power he was sent as nuncio to Berlin and immediately drew up a concordat between Hitler and Pope Pius XI. Shrewd Franz von Papen, a favorite protege of the Jesuits, also played an important part in preparing the way for Hitler’s final victory over the Social-Democrats and all other parties in the Reichstag.

And if we look closely into present happenings in our own Western Hemisphere we cannot fail to note a cautious, yet aggressive pro-Fascist and anti-liberal trend in all official Catholic utterances. American democracy’s greatest danger is Fascist penetration of the Latin-American Republics, whose way of life has always been controlled by the Church of Rome. Evidences are plentiful that this Nazi-Fascist penetration has the support of the Catholic Church.5 The Catholic press in the United States ridiculed and openly resented the attempt of the United States to “impose its will” on the Pan-American Conference held at Havana in 1942 to countract Nazi-Fascist efforts in South American countries. The close observer will not fail to note the pronounced anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic, anti-British and pro-Fascist tone of official Catholic periodicals and newspapers. They also pooh-poohed any need of compulsory military training in this country, and instructed the Catholic people to write to their senators and representatives in Washington to protest against efforts to pass the Burke-Wadsworth bill. They accuse the Jews and the Masons and liberal organizations of being the real “fifth columnists” against whom Mr. Hoover and his FBI should take action.6 Montreal’s Catholic Mayor Houde in 1940 openly defined Canada’s law requiring national registration for home defense, and urged the citizens of Canada’s largest city to disobey the law.

Political ecclesiasticism, which thus makes use of man’s need of religion to serve its thirst for power, forfeits the right to be called religious.

5 Cf. N. Y. Times’ report from Bogota, Colombia, June 3, 1940.
6 For confirmation of these facts, see issues of the Jesuit magazine America, N. Y. Catholic News, Brooklyn Catholic Tablet, Social Justice, et al. for 1940-41.

CATHOLIC ACTION, instituted by Pope Pius XI, is a generic term for Catholic reform and reconstruction—the restoration of Catholicism to the position of authority which it held over the nations before the Reformation. It has a two-fold object: a purge of liberal elements within the church itself, and the complete destruction of Protestantism and its liberalizing effects in those countries which threw off the yoke of the papacy in the past. Catholic Action was brought into being coincidentally with the rise of Nazi-Fascism, and was later consolidated by the Lateran Pact with Mussolini in 1929, and by the concordat with Nazi Socialism in 1933. It gained its objectives to a large extent in Europe through the military might and fifth column methods of its Nazi-Fascist partner.

It can be safely said that Nazi-Fascism and Jesuitism, the two greatest reactionary forces in the world today, are but two facets of the same unity—one civil, and the other ecclesiastical. For an authoritarian civil State cannot function properly without the help of an authoritarian ecclesiastical system. It is nonetheless true, though not sufficiently recognized, that a free electoral State is impossible without the spiritual support and nourishment of a free church.

Nazi-Fascism’s anti-Semitic ideology, its anti-Masonic and antidemocratic activities, its propaganda methods, the hierarchical structure of its organization, and even its war program, were copied from the Jesuit Order. The crusades of the Middle Ages also began with persecution of the Jews, and were preceded by a purging within the church itself. Likewise a brutal cleansing within Catholicism preceded the wars of religion instigated by the Jesuits in the 16th and 17th centuries. Its object was to rid Catholicism of the heretical Protestant influences which had arisen within the church’s organization before and after Martin Luther’s time. It is in the light of these events that Nazi Socialism’s fight with all the churches in Germany must be regarded. On the one hand, it was an attempted purge of recalcitrant elements within the Catholic Church which had been infected with liberal and Protestant ideas during the post-war years in Germany under the Weimar Republic. On the other hand, it was a fight against Protestantism and its liberal institutions which had been afforded still greater scope for development after the fall of the monarchy in 1918. The fight was carried out, in both instances, according to the traditional methods of Jesuit strategy.

Many Americans, however, do not see it in this light. They think only of the fact that the Hitler regime in the beginning interned Catholic priests in concentration camps because they refused to obey his dictates; that heads of religious orders were brought to trial for smuggling money out of the country; that some of the members of religious orders were arrested and found guilty of crimes against morals; that some priests were imprisoned for allegedly harboring communists; that the Hitlerites turned against Cardinal Faulhaber, Cardinal Innitzer and the Bishop of Salzburg; that public school education was taken out of the hands of the priests in Austria; that the Catholic Center Party was annihilated and its members persecuted; that its leader, Dr. Klausner, was assassinated on June 30, 1934, in Hitler’s “blood purge.” These and other facts are at times cited to show that Nazi Socialism seems to be actively opposed to the Catholic Church. They are, however, merely facts whose real significance is hidden beneath the surface. In reality, they are not indications of a war against the Catholic Church as a whole, but only against certain groups opposed to a corresponding plan of reconstruction and Fascist regimentation instituted at the same time by Pope Pius XI within the church itself. Hitler, Goebbels, von Papen, and the greatest part of the highest officials in the Third Reich are Catholics by birth and education.

The popular confusion about the relations between the Catholic Church and Nazi Socialism is due to the fact that few people have any precise knowledge of the inner workings of the Catholic Church. They have been led to believe that Catholicism is a rigidly uniform system. The truth of the matter is that it is not the wonderful unity that it is generally supposed to be. Like all natural and historical phenomena, the Catholic Church is also subject to the law of polarity and philosophical contradictions. It has always had its conservative, reactionary element pitted against opposing liberal groups. In order, therefore, to understand fully the status of the Catholic Church in relation to Nazi Socialism it is necessary to know the details of these opposing tendencies and forces within the church’s organization. History alone can furnish the key to the mystery.

An outstanding Catholic historian, Josef Schmidlin, draws a clear picture of the different factions which existed within the Catholic Church towards the end of the 19th century, and how victory for the intransigent Jesuit party led to the rise of Fascism. The following, from his History of the Popes of Modern Times,1 is to the point:

“The history of the Popes during the 19th century presents a succession of divergent systems following each other like a game of opposites and of warring forces striving for the mastery, with first one side winning and then another. On one side are the zealots striving in an intransigent and intolerant manner to preserve fixed traditions and orthodoxy, and who take a hostile attitude towards the progress of modern civilization and the liberal victories that followed on the great revolutions, which are the unremitting enemies of the [Catholic] Church, the State and the principle of authority. On the other side are the liberals who, actuated by a more equitable political sense, endeavor to break free from the traditional restraints bound up with the ideas of old, and who try to reconcile themselves with modern progress in order to live in peace with liberal states and governments, and to integrate the church, as a spiritual force, in contemporary civilization.

“From the beginning this war-like game of opposites has been going on within the Roman Curia, and especially within the College of Cardinals. It is most evident in the papal conclaves which become the stage for this play of divergent tendencies, which are afterwards openly expressed in the attitudes of successive pontiffs. For the popes support one or the other of these tendencies and personify them by the conduct of their internal and foreign policies after mounting the papal throne.”

Thus it can be seen that the Catholic Church has been torn between two main irreconcilable factions, corresponding to the two opposing ideologies of Fascism and Democracy, which are warring to the death at present all over the world. They are two distinct parties whose effects are felt in all ecclesiastical groups in the church. They are particularly active during times of papal elections, and at all times go beyond the field of religion and profoundly affect political and social affairs. Their effect can easily be seen in every phase of social and political life in the United States.2

1 Vol. III, p. 1.

The fight between these two opposing factions has been increasingly evident since the time of the Encyclopedists. The spirit of progress had developed so strongly in the 18th century, even within the Catholic Church, that Pope Clement XIV was able to succeed, where other popes had failed, in completely suppressing the Society of Jesuits which represented, then as now, the intolerant and intransigent element of Catholicism. In spite of Pope Clement’s irrevocable decree, however, the Jesuits were again restored to power by Pope Pius VII after the fall of Napoleon in 1814.’3 But the liberal Catholic groups, which recognized to a certain extent the victories won by the French Revolution, managed to exist side by side with the Jesuit reactionary group which has always regarded the liberal progress of civilization as something pernicious and diabolic. The progressive groups did all they could to bring the teachings of the church into line with modern philosophic doctrines, and thereby incurred the increasing enmity of the Jesuit faction. They showed themselves skeptical of relic and saint worship and of religious sentimentalities in general. Moreover, they made no secret of their hostility to the Jesuits. The Benedictine Order, long ante-dating the Jesuits, greatly angered the latter by their efforts in promoting what is known as the “Liturgical Movement”— a return to Evangelical Christianity and an attempt to cleanse Catholic worship of modern innovations and superstitions, such as wonder-working devotions to the saints. They aimed this especially at the Jesuits’ pet devotion of the “Sacred Heart,” which has since been outdone, however, by more modern fads like the Little Flower devotion. The Jesuits fought back by their usual underhand methods of playing on the fears of bishops and secular priests and even by sending members of their order, disguised as laymen, to spy on the Benedictines, as was done at the Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach near Cologne.

2 Cf. The Catholic Church in Politics, a series of six factual articles by L. H. Lehmann in The New Republic, Nov.-Dec., 1938.
3 The Jesuits lost heavily during their 40 years of banishment. Before their suppression they controlled practically all educational work in European Catholic countries. In 1749 they had 639 colleges with up to 2,000 students in each; in France alone they had 40,000 students.

A severe blow to the hopes of liberal Catholic groups was the Syllabus of Errors decreed by Pope Pius IX at Jesuit insistence. One of these “errors,” in particular, fairly took the ground from under the feet of those who had striven for a more progressive and liberal Catholicism. In complete accord with traditional Jesuit intransigence, Pope Pius IX solemnly condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with, liberalism and modern civilization.”

The history of the Catholic Church entered a new phase with the proclamation of the dogma of the personal infallibility of the pope, which was also railroaded through the Vatican Council (1870) by the machinations of the Jesuits. This was the severest blow of all to the liberal elements, and certain groups hostile to the Jesuits followed Doellinger out of the church and established themselves as the Catholic Christian Church. But the vast majority of those who had fought the Jesuits and opposed the dogma of infallibility bowed their heads and submitted with resignation. Bishop Fitzgerald of Little Rock, Arkansas, held out till the end and voted against it. Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis and five other American bishops left the Council and returned home without voting.

From that time the forces of reaction fought on, invisible from the outside, but all the more effectively because they worked by intrigue and trickery. The popes themselves often aided this underhand working—at times they covered up the real intent of the Jesuits and, at other times, they restrained them lest their excessive zeal should wreck the Vatican’s other political maneuvers. In order to prevent the news of the increasingly bitter controversies waged at papal conclaves from reaching the public, Pope Pius XI imposed an oath of perpetual silence on everyone connected with them in the future.

All these developments paved the way for the Vatican’s ecclesiastical support for the coming Fascism. There followed a rapidly increasing trend in Catholic action in favor of rigorously authoritarian, conservative and solely hierarchical policies. Apparent yielding to contrary policies in democratic countries did not in any way affect Rome’s fixed goal. It merely served to help its attainment, since it was able to employ what are now known as fifth column methods by using to its own purposes freedom of speech and religious tolerance in those countries. Once democracy and freedom of speech have been obliterated by military might, as in Nazi-Fascist controlled countries in Europe, the real authoritarian and intolerant nature of Jesuit Catholicism comes to light. It immediately proclaims itself the ecclesiastical counterpart of civil dictatorship. What has happened in France since its capitulation to Hitler and Mussolini is a clear case of this. Likewise in Germany the Catholic bishops in 1940 decreed a solemn oath of loyalty to Nazi Socialism,4 and in Slovakia in the same year the governmental structure of that country was publicly and officially declared to be a combination of Nazi Socialism and Roman Catholicism.

Catholic historians do not trouble to deny that the success of Fascism is to a great extent due to the reactionary policies of the late Pope Pius XI. Josef Schmidlin,5 already quoted, in spite of his prudence in the matter, states:

4 A Vatican dispatch to the N. Y. Times of Sept. 17, 1940, stated that the pope had decided that it was more ependient to defer official pronouncement on this pledge till the end of the war.
5 Op. cit., p. 3.

“This conservative heritage appears not only by the fact that the Pope (Pius XI) allied the church to the Fascist state, but also by the fact that he seeks to deprive the clergy and Catholicism of all political activity and strongly supports Catholic Action, which is based upon the principle of an absolute hierarchy.”

Schmidlin also points out that liberal Catholic groups during the reign of Pius XI placed their last and only hope in the election of a liberal pope to succeed him. By the selection of the aristocratic, conservative Cardinal Pacelli as Pius XII, that hope was forever frustrated.

The Fascist policies of the Vatican can be seen from the following four points:

1. In the application of “modern” methods of political action, that is, fascist methods,

2. In the opposition to the one-time Catholic (popular) political parties.

3. In the distrust of the lower clergy, because of its too tolerant attitude toward pre-Fascist ideas of individual rights and liberties.

4. In the creation of a movement of restoration, Catholic Action, entirely dependent upon Vatican bureaucracy.

Much of the mystery of Vatican relations with Nazi-Fascism can thus be solved. Persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany has been directed only against those elements which did not entirely submit to the ever-increasing centralization of authority in Church and State. To this end the Vatican helped to crush out the Catholic popular parties both in Italy and Germany and centralized all political matters in Rome. This insured to the dictators freedom from popular interference on the part of Catholics; it established a more complete dictatorial regime within the Catholic Church itself; it enabled the Vatican to enter into secret concordats with fascist countries already existing, and with democratic countries, like Spain, France, Belgium and Portugal, after the destruction of their democratic governments by revolution and blitzkrieg. Finally it left the way dear for complete harmony and unity between Nazi-Fascism and Jesuit Catholicism.

THE FULL STORY of the rise of Nazi-Fascism has still to be written. When it appears it will surprise most Americans to discover the part played in it by the Christian Churches— Protestant as well as Catholic. For Nazi-Fascism was as much a product of the Churches as of the State, and a movement towards religious as well as political and social authoritarianism. European Catholic historians immediately recognized it as the final act in the Jesuit plan of counter-Reformation instituted exactly four hundred years before—in 1940.

Americans will never fully understand the real aims and activities of the Church of Rome so long as they continue to look at Catholicism from our American point of view. On this side of the Atlantic attention has been focussed mainly on attempts of a few “liberal” Catholic spokesmen to integrate their Church with the American way of life. These are sincere in thinking that Catholic authoritarianism can be reconciled with the liberal, tolerant principles of American democracy.¹ But the Church of Rome has its roots in Europe; there its metaphysic was first established. It is therefore to its background and activities in Europe we must look if we want to judge what its real nature is. It is the policy determined upon “beyond the Alps” in Europe that directs and guides the Catholic Church even in America. Well-meaning Catholic spokesmen in the democracies are permitted to voice their liberal views, but their wishful thinking has never had any effect in really bringing the Catholic Church into line with our American democratic way of life.

¹ Cf. for example, the article of Rev. John F. Cronin, S. S., Rome—Ally of Democracy! in the magazine Common Sense for October, 1940.

This issue has been bitterly fought out in Europe between Nazi- Fascism and the Christian churches. As far as Europe is concerned the fight is ended—with victory on the side of Nazi-Fascism and Catholic ultramontanism. In Italy, Spain, Austria, Poland, Portugal, France and Belgium, Catholicism alone was involved. In Germany, however, both the Protestant and Catholic Churches have played their respective parts. There the struggles were as bitter, and purges as bloody, within the Churches as within the State. They were more severe and bloody within Protestantism than Catholicism; many more liberal Protestant leaders than Catholic were liquidated or put out of the way in concentration camps. By refusing to make any concessions to Nazism, the Evangelical Protestant Churches are said to have actually paved the way for the success of the “German Christian” movement. These “German Christians”—Protestant Fascists—professed to consider it necessary to submit to a spiritual leader in order to free Protestantism of liberalism and rationalism. They thus became one with the Catholic Fascists who, in keeping with the Catholic Action crusade of Pope Pius XI, were purging every taint of liberalism and democracy out of the Catholic clergy and were bringing the Catholic Church in Germany into line with pure Vatican absolutism. Gonzague de Reynold, ardent Jesuit Catholic reformer, in his book L’Europe Tragique,2 states:

“A real fight has been waged within Protestantism. The Evangelical Protestants refused to make any concessions and established a confessional church in opposition to that set up by the state . . . We are on the threshold of a religious schism. These are the final repercussions of the Reformation. We are witnessing a phase of dissolution [of Protestantism]. Many German Protestants believe that to reject a purely religious authority like the Papacy, would constitute a danger to the church and to Christianity.”

In order to understand what happened to the Catholic Church in Germany, it is necessary to go back to the time of Pope Leo XIII, well known for his unrelenting antagonism to the liberal constitutions of states.3 In order to counteract the increasing influence of 19th century liberalism on Catholic countries, Pope Leo XIII urged on Catholic leaders throughout the world the formation of Catholic political parties. He thought that if such Catholic parties took an active part in parliamentary politics they would, by securing the balance of power, succeed in obtaining victory for the Church. He even hoped that these Catholic political parties would eventually obtain a large enough majority, by democratic means, to enable them to seize complete control of governments. What actually happened, however, was the very opposite. The Catholic parties gradually came under the influence of their liberal opponents and copied many of their ideas. Thus in Italy the Catholic party became the “popular” liberal party headed by the now-exiled priest Don Sturzo; in Germany it became the liberal “Center” party.

2 P. 329.
3 Cf. Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII—also The Converted Catholic for October, 1940, p. 19.

This liberal influence of Catholic parties became so great that the Holy See began to regard Catholic political trends as a grave danger which actually threatened the juridical and political unity of the Church itself. These Catholic parties became infiltrated with the liberal spirit of the French Revolution of 1789. The ideas of the rights of man, of religious tolerance, of freedom of conscience, of speech and press, were adopted by a great number of Catholic politicians and by many of the lower clergy.

So pronounced had this trend of popular Catholic politics become in the United States, for instance, that when Alfred E. Smith was nominated for the Presidency in 1928, the Vatican and Catholic bishops in Europe were shocked to hear that Mr. Smith had been prompted by priests to proclaim these principles to be, not a mere matter of “favor” (as he first stated) but also a matter of “innate right.”4 This was rank heresy, and, after Mr. Smith’s defeat at the polls in 1928, the Vatican rebuked those who had advised the former Governor of New York to proclaim doctrines so contrary to official Catholic teachings.

By the end of the First World War, the Catholic political parties had begun to lose the importance which they had, in the eyes of the Vatican when it first brought them into being. They became so integrated with democratic States, founded as they were on political compromise, on tolerance and the idea of equality, that it was confusing to note the alliances made by some Catholic parties with bourgeois groups and by others with socialist groups. It had become apparent that the control of Catholic politics was being lost by the Holy See in Rome. Pope Leo XIII’s plan had miscarried, and had proved a boomerang against the real aims of the Church as he had proclaimed them. Catholic political action had acquired an independence that made it a menace to. rather than a docile instrument of, the Vatican. Liberal Catholicism, in fact, which, to all appearance, had received its death-blow by the decree of papal infallibility towards the end of the 19th century, had taken on a new lease of life by means of the very Catholic political parties which had been established and sustained by Pope Leo XIII to oppose the hated liberal constitutions of democratic States.

4 Cf. Alfred E. Smith’s reply to the Open Letter of the late Charles C. Marshall in Forum Magazine, March, 1928; also Mr. Marshall’s able work The Roman Catholic Church in the Modern State.

This is how the Vatican saw it after the First World War, and the conclusions which it drew from its observations in the matter were the first steps towards the rise of what we now call Fascism.

Many of the non-Jesuit religious orders in Germany, notably the Franciscans and the Benedictines, started movements which displeased the Vatican. The “Liturgical Movement” of the Benedictines; their attempt to establish contact with the Oecumenical Evangelical Movement, and their effort towards a reunion of all Christian Churches; the attitude of the Patres Unionis (“Fathers of Unity”) who were even prepared to modify the dogmas of papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception in order to help their work of reunion; their open and secret negotiations with groups in the Anglican Church under the guidance of the late Cardinal Mercier—all these liberal reform movements were regarded as tainting the lower clergy and the intelligent laity with the heresy of liberalism and Protestantism. The Vatican regarded its authority as gravely menaced by it all, and determined to wage relentless war against this growing liberalism in political and spiritual matters.

It should not be surprising that Rome became disturbed at the prospect of a revival of the Lutheran Reformation. It was particularly marked in Germany. Friedrich Heiler5 has the following to say on this point:

“These recent tendencies of Catholicism have spread to a great extent in Germany. German Catholicism is in fact a particular kind of Catholicism, due to the fact that it has been subject, continually if not visibly, to the influence of the reformed churches of Christendom, and has constantly absorbed certain features belonging to Evangelical Christianity.”

5 Professor at the University of Marburg, in his work, Im Ringen um die Kirche, p. 175 et seq.

But the democratic States were the most powerful in the world at that time. The Catholic political parties had become too strong to be stopped by mild protests or even by encyclical letters from Rome. Repressive action, carried out by the help of authoritarian secular regimes, was necessary. Thus the two great opposing factions within the Catholic Church became locked again in a gigantic struggle: one possessing the Evangelical Catholic idea, deep-seated as of old in the hearts of true Christian believers; the other, the coldly imperial, sectarian and intransigent Roman Party, represented by the Holy See under the domination of the Society of Jesuits.

It is in the light of these facts that Hitler’s “campaign against the churches” must be viewed. Neither Hitler nor the Jesuits could forgive priests and bishops in Germany who sided with the cause of liberalism and democracy during the Weimar Republic. It was against them that the acts of Catholic repression were directed. Hitler and Pope Pius XI acted in concert to destroy every vestige of liberalism in Germany: the one in social and political life, the other in the sphere of religion. By dissolving the Catholic Center Party, the Pope removed the last obstacle to Hitler’s rise to power, and also deprived the Catholic people and clergy in Germany of any say-so in political matters. He had done the same for Mussolini in Italy by the dissolution of the Partito Popolare and the exiling of its priest-leader Don Sturzo. By his Catholic Action he concentrated all Catholic political power in the Holy See. Thenceforth, the Vatican was free to make arbitrary concordats with the Fascist dictatorships.

The lower clergy in Germany did not yield without a struggle. Many defied both Hitler and the Pope. Some priests were imprisoned. Even when the pristine ardor of Cardinal Innitzer for Hitler and Nazi Socialism showed signs of cooling, hostility was engineered against him. Catholic schools, mostly under the care of liberal, non-Jesuit religious orders, were closed; some heads of these anti-Jesuit religious orders were punished for attempting to save their funds by smuggling them out of the country. In the press of America this was called “Hitler’s persecution of the Catholic Church,” and served to conceal the common purpose of Nazi Socialism and ultramontane Catholicism. There were some mild protests from Rome but no adverse action. Even the closing of Catholic schools in Austria went almost unprotested. These were regarded by the Vatican as but a small loss compared to what was gained by the elimination of disobedient priests and their liberal views. The Nazi-Vatican concordat continues to hold and function.

With the extinction of liberal Catholicism and the imprisonment of liberal Protestant leaders, Vatican absolutism was triumphant. Of supreme satisfaction to the Jesuit Catholic faction was the knowledge of the apparent dissolution of Protestantism in Germany, and the fact that the pro-Nazi Protestant “German Christians” were forced to realize, as Gonzague de Reynolds points out, that “to reject a purely religious authority like the papacy would constitute a danger to the Church and Christianity.”

CATHOLIC ACTION—the crusade for Jesuit-Catholic Reform— has the following characteristics:

1. Its direction, as laid down in Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, is explicitly entrusted to the Society of Jesus.

2. Its aims are: the extermination of the hated liberal spirit of the 19th century; the formation of a world crusade against socialism and communism; the success of the counter-Reformation.

3. The means to obtain these ends are: the annihilation of the old Catholic political parties, which became impregnated with the “democratic ideology, and the purging of the secular clergy, the religious orders and the laity in so far as they persist in holding to non-Jesuit opinions in matters of ecclesiastical policy.

4. The most suitable political regime to assure the success of this crusade for Catholic reconstruction is the hierarchical, authoritarian form of the Fascist state or of Nazi Socialism.

The secular clergy of the Catholic Church in Germany and other European countries have always secretly fostered a democratic tradition, and for many years considered it their principal task to live in peace with Protestantism and the liberal institutions of the modern world. For this reason they constituted the chief obstacle in the way of the Catholic Reconstruction Movement initiated by the late Pope Pius XL They were not friendly to the idea of the corporate state, to the plan of the new crusade, nor to the Vatican’s aim to set up complete papal absolutism. Unlike the Irish-dominated clergy in America, the Catholic clergy of France and of Germany and other European countries have never fully identified the pope himself with the seat of power in Rome. They acquiesced in taking their religion from Rome but not their politics, nor in accepting the Vatican’s direction of extra-spiritual matters in their respective countries.

In modern times, the European Catholic clergy veered increasingly to the idea that it was advisable to encourage Christian tolerance and friendly relations with all religious sects, even with those who belonged to no Church. Many were persuaded that the day would come when all the Christian Churches could be united on a basis of a universal Evangelical reform within the Catholic-Church. This liberal reform would be aimed at the overthrow of the “jurisdictional” papacy, with its unscriptural, political Roman Curia and its claims to ecclesiastical absolutism; it would be a reform against papal imperialism, against Jesuit-fascist discipline and overlordship. It would aim to set up an “Evangelical” Papacy which, freed of political ambitions, would act as a center of Evangelical unity for all Churches of Christendom. This would indeed be true Catholic reform—a second Reformation, the setting up of Evangelical Catholicism. It would mean the purging of medieval accretions of doctrine and liturgy and. of course, the complete banishment again of the Jesuits from the Church and the world, as was accomplished by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.

All such aims and plans for a liberal, Evangelical reform, however, fell within the explicit condemnations of religious tolerance and the liberal, democratic idea by Jesuit-controlled popes during the past 150 years. The late General of the Jesuits, Wernz, in his treatise on Canon Law,1 says:

“As concerns the relations of the Catholic Church with other religious associations, there is no doubt that all religious associations of unbelievers and all the Christian sects are regarded by the Catholic Church as entirely illegitimate and devoid of all right of existence. These organizations are formally rebels against the Church. As a consequence, he is in grave error who believes that the different religious sects, such as, for example, the Anglicans, the Lutherans, the Orthodox Catholics, constitute legitimate parts of a universal Church of Christ, and that they are in some way collateral branches of the Catholic Church, or sister Churches.”

Against this hope for true Catholic, reform that would have brought about a tolerant, Evangelical Catholic Christian Church, the Jesuits swept the field for an absolutely totalitarian set-up in Catholicism to go hand-in-hand with the Nazi-Fascist regime in the secular order. On their side they had Hitler himself who, as far as condemnation of religious tolerance is concerned, has always shown himself to be a better Catholic than the ordinary European priest and many bishops. In Mein Kampf he upholds and approves of the dogmatic intolerance of the Vatican party in the Catholic Church; like the Jesuits he regards religious tolerance as an effective instrument for the establishment and support of the liberal aims of the Jews and Freemasons;2 his chief cause of complaint against the clergy of the Center Party in Germany was that they had allowed themselves to become convinced of the idea of tolerance, and that they had made alliances with these deadly enemies of the Christian religion; he holds that his principal task is the combatting of this deplorable situation from which religion has suffered so much.3 He also condemns Protestantism for persisting in its tolerant attitude towards Judaism; he adds, however, that

“the believing Protestant who belongs to National Socialism could exist side by side with the fervent Catholic without his religious convictions being in any way affected thereby”.4

This yielding of Catholics to the liberal tendencies of religious tolerance was regarded by the Jesuits as the “Protestantizing” of Catholicism; to correct this they deemed that drastic, punitive measures were imperative. The late Jesuit Cardinal Billot expresses true Jesuit contempt for this yielding of the secular clergy to liberalizing tendencies, and also advocates the severity that should be meted out to them, when he speaks of

“the poor little parish priests who fill the greater part of our religious magazines and periodicals with their speeches, seeking thereby to create a new apologetic to take the place of the miracles which the 20th century no longer understands. There are but two replies to make to this: the first is the whip . . .” 5

This is in perfect keeping with Mussolini’s symbol of the fasces or bundle of rods, such as he and his Nazi partner have so ruthlessly employed to scourge Europe of every vestige of liberty and tolerance. Thus, Hitler’s program of Catholic “repression” is but the carrying out of the Jesuit punitive measures, and a part of the plan for Catholic reform against those members of the Catholic clergy in all countries who have opposed Jesuit hegemony over Catholic affairs.6 Catholic Action, like Nazi-Fascism, ostensibly started out as a crusade against Godless communism which, the Jesuits say, is but the radical application of the Protestant principle of the separation of Church and State. They hold that communism is the extreme of Protestantism predicted by the Jesuits since their founding by Ignatius Loyola to fight the Reformation of Martin Luther, and is the result of the wrong principle that the internal life of the individual is the only place where he should be allowed to seek satisfaction for his religious needs. The Jesuits therefore launched their new offensive principally against Soviet Russia, the first country since the Wars of Religion that seriously threatened to undermine their work of counter-Reformation. They have found it more menacing to their aims than Protestant England was in the 16th and 17th centuries. By completely separating the State from the influence of all forms of religion, the communists have tried to make religion a purely private matter and by this means to effect the complete liberation of the individual and the conduct of civil affairs from all ecclesiastical influences. Because of this, the Jesuits identify Protestantism and democracy with socialism and communism and seek to destroy them together with all movements to the left of Fascism and Nazism.

1 Cf. his Jus Decretalium. Vol. 1. p. 13.
2 German edition, p. 345.
3 Ib,, p. 294.
4 Ib., p. 632.
5 Die erste ist die Peitsche . . .” in Hugo Koch’s Katholizismus und Jesuitismus. p. 53.
6 The German bishops, the Catholic Popular Association and the Center Party opposed the re-entry of the Jesuits into Germany in 1910. Because of this the Jesuits regarded the German bishops as “recalcitrants”; cf. Hoensbroech, The Jesuit Order, p. 248.

Catholic Action, similar to Nazi-Fascism, will not be content with any half-hearted reform in Catholicism. Just as a brutal war campaign against democratic nations has been deemed necessary in Nazi-Fascist policy, so a brutal cleansing within the church, even at the risk of some loss to Catholicism as a whole, is a necessary part of the Jesuit program of Catholic Reconstruction. Gonzague de Reynold, one of the most ardent zealots of the movement, whom we have already quoted in these pages, frankly admits that the wiping out of these Protestant tendencies (liberalism and socialism) constitutes the first problem of religion, namely, of Roman Catholicism, and that the new “Christian regime” which will come about as a result of this desired Catholic Reconstruction of the social order, will have to be Fascist, since, as he says, “Fascism has been the only successful attempt to create a new regime.”7 The Italian socialist, L. Segni,8 confirms this when he states that

“Fascism is an epiphenomenon in keeping with the evolution of the Catholic Church as directed by the tactics of the Jesuits.”

7 Cf. L’Europe Tragique, p. 93.
8 In his book, L’Esprit du Fascisme, p. 15 et seq.

NOWHERE has Catholic Action shown itself more in line with Nazi-Fascism than in Belgium where Leon Degrelle’s Rexist Party in 1940 came into its own. Pope Pius XI gave the Jesuit slogan Christus Rex1—”Christ the King”—to Catholic Action as the battle-cry for its crusade for Catholic Reconstruction of the social order. The same cry, Viva Christo Rey, was used by Franco’s Fascists in their war against the legitimate Republican government of Spain. It was the war cry of the fanatic Mexican Indians who were spurred on by the Jesuits to commit acts of sabotage against the Republican government of Mexico. It was also the cry of the Spanish Rebel officers who, with the help of their Moorish troops, tortured, violated and slaughtered nearly 15,000 men, women and children at Badajos.

The Rexists in Belgium claimed the honor of being the first fruits of Catholic Action, the “Christian Fronters” of Belgium. Their leader, Leon Degrelle—the Belgian peasants nicknamed him “Adolf” Degrelle—was won over to the movement by Monsignor Picard, when he was a student at the University of Louvain. He and all his assistants are products of Jesuit training.2 He became the great “lay apostle” of Catholic Action in the Jesuit drive to align the Catholic Church with Nazi-Fascist plans for the “new order” in Europe after the destruction of liberalism and democracy.

As the scope of Degrelle’s activities increased, his Christ-the- King movement was temporarily separated from Catholic Action in Belgium with the consent of the hierarchy. This maneuver was designed to give the Rexists greater liberty of action to work out Nazi-Fascist policies. Thereupon the apparently independent “Rexist Popular Front” was set up, ostensibly to fight “Jewish Communism,” much on the same lines as Father Coughlin’s “Christian Front” in America. Degrelle’s chief officer was the White Russian Denizoff, who was Secretary to the last President of the Council in the Czarist regime. Today Degrelle is Hitler’s right-hand man in Nazi-occupied Belgium where no signs of disagreement are apparent between the Catholic hierarchy and the Nazi invaders.3 He has organized his own storm troopers, formations de combat he calls them, and is fast bringing Belgium into close collaboration with Hitler’s new order. In a heavily censored dispatch from Liege to the New York Times on January 6, 1941, Degrelle said:

“We must make our choice now. We have faith in the Fuehrer as the greatest man of our times. Trust his spirit, his genius, and have faith in the Europe which he will build up. The youth of all Europe is today fighting shoulder to shoulder for a new order under German leadership. German weapons will win because they are defending a just cause Hitler saved Europe, and Belgium’s future could [several words missing] cooperation with the Reich.”

1 This slogan is from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits.
2 “Leon Degrelle is a pupil of these gentlemen [the Jesuits]; so also are all his colleagues.”—R. A. Dior, in Le Vatican, Paris, 1937, p. 42.

There never was any secret about Degrelle’s collaboration with Hitler. In its issue of May 20, 1936, the Paris newspaper Le Temps called attention to the close relationship between the Rexist Party and Hitler’s National Socialism, and shortly before the Belgian elections in May, 1936, Degrelle went to Germany to “study” Nazi propaganda methods. After the example of the German Fuehrer (and Father Coughlin) he sought to gather around him all the discontented elements of the middle class. In imitation of Goebbels, he curried favor with the workers by appearing to side with strikers. The chief point of comparison, however, between Rexism and Nazi-Fascism is that both declared war on Catholic liberal tendencies, among both the clergy and the laity, with the aim of setting up the Jesuit, authoritarian control of Catholic activities. This was the real reason why Catholic Action was instituted by Pope Pius XI.

It is not out of place to repeat the underlying reasons for this desire to abolish all pre-Hitler Catholic politics throughout Europe —a thing the Jesuits for many years had ardently longed to see accomplished. As already pointed out, the old Catholic political parties had become intimately bound up with the liberal constitutions of States, wherein all parties and religions were able to coexist freely. Furthermore, the ideology of the liberal democratic State, with its principles of religious and racial tolerance, was broadening the political and social outlook of these Catholic parties. The fraternizing of the secular clergy with the laity in these political parties furthered the spirit of tolerance as opposed to the traditional intolerance of Catholic dogma.

3 In their joint pastoral letter of October, 1940, the Catholic bishops of Belgium instructed their people as follows: “It is doubtless necessary to recognize the occupying power as a de facto power and to obey it within the limits of international conventions.” (Quoted from the Jesuit magazine America, Feb. 22, 1941.)

On the other hand, it must also be remembered that in Germany the two Catholic political parties, the Center Party and the Bavarian Popular Party, because of their close religious connections with the Catholic Church, had met with strong opposition from the Protestant part of the population. As a consequence, the continued existence of these parties threatened to compromise the aim of Catholic Action, which was to use Germany as the instrument to effect its counter-Reformation designs. It was thus necessary for the new Catholic policy to camouflage itself as a national movement, and make itself appear as the only party representing the nation as a whole.

It can thus be seen why the abolition of the pre-Hitler Catholic political parties in Germany had the approval of the movement for Catholic Reconstruction. Here is what Gonzague de Reynold has to say on the point:4

“The Center Party, which Hitler fought with all his might, was forced to commit suicide. But it was a party which had already shown signs of deterioration, which had made many mistakes and upon which the young people were turning their backs . . . The news that soon they could take part in real Catholic Action, without any addition of party politics, aroused great enthusiasm.”

For the very same reason the Rexist Party in Belgium, direct offspring of Catholic Action, likewise declared:

“All Catholic parties are the result of a fixed historical situation, and have advantages and disadvantages for the Church. “When these historical situations cease to exist, Catholic parties lose their reason for existence. This applies equally to the Catholic party in Belgium. Up till now differing opinions could be had as to their usefulness and their right to existence. Today, however, they are anarchronisms, as were the Center Party in Germany and the Popular Party in Italy.

“The Catholic Party did not understand the new ‘historic mission’; the confessional movement did not transform itself into a national movement. Because of these deficiencies it had to disappear like all other parties. The Rexist Party will now take up the defense of Catholic and ecclesiasiteal interests. It does not only intend to defend the Church, but also to take the whole religious question out of politics. It will effect this by means of the Constitutional guarantee of the rights of the Catholic Church and by drawing up a concordat to regulate the relations between the State and the Church.”5

4 Cf. L’Europe Tragique, p. 333.
5 Cf. Vaterland, Lucerne, Aug. 14, 1936.

Thus, according to this new Catholic policy, there is to be no apparent separation between Catholic Action and the Nazi-Fascist thrust for the establishment of its “new order” in Europe. To the Rexist Party was assigned the task of regulating the relations between the Catholic Church and the Fascist State in Belgium by means of a concordat, as was done in Germany through Von Papen and the present Pope Pius XII, then papal nuncio to Germany.. This “new historic mission” of the Church of Rome, initiated by the Lateran Pact and Concordat of 1929 between the Vatican and Fascist Italy, calls for collaboration with the Nazi-Fascist dictators, unhampered by any questioning or interference from the people or the lower clergy. Liberal principles and popular freedom have to be crushed out as completely in the Church as in the State.

“We in America are only now beginning to see clearly how the noose was formed to strangle all forms of liberalism and democracy in pre-Hitler Europe, in order to make way for the Nazi- Fascist hierarchical grouping of nations and individuals in a sort of revived Roman Empire of the German Nation. And the real motivating force behind it all has been the thrust of the Jesuit counter-Reformation, ante-dating all the dictators, which aimed to crush out of existence the hated liberal principles of the Protestant democracies. It has indeed been an ungodly combination that worked together to accomplish this objective: Catholic Reconstruction movement of Pius XI; Italian Fascism; Hitler’s National Socialism; French anti-Semitic Leagues; La Roque and the Cagoulards; Belgian Rexism; the Hungarian racist movement of Father Bangha; white Russian association; Croatian associations—whose hand appeared in the assassination of King Alexander of Serbia and French Foreign Minister Barthou; Slovene separatists led by the Jesuit Father Anton Koroshetz, who worked his way to the Presidency of the senate in Yugoslavia; the Catholic prelates and politicians of old Austria—Mgr. Seipel, Dollfuss, Schussnigg, et al.; the priest-politicians of Slovakia, Carpatho-Ukraine and Bohemia— Fathers Hlinka and Tiso; not forgetting Franco and his Fascist Generals in Spain and the Laval-Petain cliques in France. All of these worked closely together and were interlinked with the Catholic Church in working towards the same end—the destruction of the post-Reformation structure of Europe and the world.

But the end is not yet.

IT IS NOT generally known that the reasons which led the Allies to exclude the pope from the Peace Conference after the First World War were connected with the activities of Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII.

HIS TWELVE YEARS IN GERMANY

Monsignor Pacelli’s life has been divided between his native Italy and Germany where he spent twelve crucial years. Nuncio in Munich in 1917, he has dealt with the Kaiser and with the Republic, with revolutionary committees and Nazi conspirators. He was a friend of Friedrich Ebert, first president of the German Republic, and an intimate of Germany’s monumental Hindenburg under whose presidency he concluded a concordat with Prussia. He witnessed Hitler’s tempestuous beginnings in Munich and the machinations of his agents in Berlin. Viscount d’Abernon, Britain’s first ambassador to the Weimar Republic, in his Memoirs calls Pacelli “the best informed man in the Reich.”

His mission in Munich in 1917 was not the starting point of his German career. Even before the first world war, Monsignor Pacelli had been Papal State Secretary Gasparri’s most trusted expert on German affairs. It was no mere chance that in the very first months of the war he was stationed in Switzerland where he started with great devotion, tact and zeal, a truly Christian and humanitarian movement—the exchange of prisoners of “war. Yet, while there he had frequent contacts with the Kaiser’s propaganda chief, his old acquaintance Matthias Erzberger, for years a leading member of the Reichstag’s Catholic Center Party. It was with Matthias Erzberger in Switzerland that Pacelli engaged in the negotiations which deeply shocked Italy’s liberal Government, and which accounted largely for its opposition to the Vatican’s participation in the peace settlement.

* This article was published in The Converted Catholic Magazine for April 1943. The author, Pierre L’Ourson, was for many years connected with the League of Nanons in a responsible diplomatic capacity.

All his life Eugenio Pacelli has taken an active part in one of the most secret and complex intrigues of our time: the patient struggle of the papacy to regain and extend its temporal power. In this struggle, for the last seventy years, whenever a major issue of international politics was at stake, the Vatican has hitched its star to the Germanic juggernaut.

HIS TIE-UP WITH FASCISM

The Lateran Treaty in 1929 between the Vatican and Mussolini restored the sovereignty of the pope and allied the Vatican to the Italian Fascist Government. It also brought about a world-wide coordination of authoritarian powers of the corporative and nationalistic type, and the eventual entrance of Italy into the camp of Nazi Germany. Thus in 1940, after the fall of France and the proclamation of Marshal Petain’s Fascist French State, it looked as if in the present World War Vatican policy had gained substantial progress where it had failed in the previous one.

At the end of this war, when delegates of all countries will gather in an international peace conference, the pope, for the first time in more than a hundred years, will again be represented as a ruling monarch—provided that his miniature State is still intact. He expects to exercise considerable authority, although as a temporal ruler his influence will be less than that of Pope Pius VII at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Today, as Chief of State of Vatican City he possesses only a formal, juridical status. But he will have real power because of his self-assumed status as “Chief of Christendom,” a notion cleverly introduced, for more than ten years, into public international discussions and, after centuries of obliteration, re-admitted even in non-Catholic countries. As “Chief of Christendom,” the pope would take rank above all other Chiefs of State—just as the papal nuncio on the continent of Europe as well as in Latin America automatically becomes “dean” of the diplomatic corps.

“CHIEF OF CHRISTENDOM”

The idea of a Chief of Christendom, himself also a Chief of State, presiding over an assembly of Chiefs of State, is a medieval conception which has no place in our twentieth-century democratic world. It has been revived for political reasons, and unless denounced, will prove a dangerous challenge to freedom and progress. For just as the equality of individuals, the equality of nations is a fundamental principle of democracy.

EUGENIO PACELLI—POPE PIUS XII
“. . . has always been known for his strong German leanings,” says his official Catholic biographer, Kees van Hoek.

To recognize one Chief of State as senior and permanent hierarchical chief of all other States would be to set up an authoritarian world monarchy, even though the term ‘monarchy’ may not be used. Caesar Augustus in ancient Rome refused the unpopular title of king and preferred to be called “Imperator,” a dignity which the Roman Republic used to bestow temporarily upon a Supreme Commander appointed in a national emergency. Hitler played the same trick in Germany. It would have been easy for him to have had himself crowned Emperor. Instead, he found it more expedient to leave the Constitution of the Weimar Republic legally in force and to assume the less conspicuous name of Fuehrer or Leader—the “Mein Fuehrer” standing for the old-fashioned “Your Majesty” or “Sire.”

Protestant nations, it is to be hoped, will not accept this new international slogan of a “Chief of Christendom” which the Holy See is trying to smuggle into general acceptance. Whatever the illusions of clerical politicians who believe in the re-establishment of the supra-national rule of the papacy, their schemes are bound to work to the advantage of imperialist Germany.

Recent statements by Mr. Elmer Davis as well as Vatican diplomatic activity seem to indicate that the Axis Powers are seeking the mediation of the Holy See. If the Government of the Protestant Kaiser tried to enlist the support of the Vatican, there is no reason why Hitler’s predominantly Catholic Greater Germany should refrain from appealing to the pope, now that even the most fanatical Nazis can no longer hope to conclude the war by a crushing Axis victory. The last time the pope’s collaboration in post-war arrangements was made impossible by Article 15 of the Secret Treaty of London between Italy and the Allies. This explicit exclusion of the pope from the Peace Conference has ever since been branded by Catholic politicians as a villainous maneuver of international Freemasonry. They still point to the absence of a delegate of the Holy See at Versailles and Neuilly in 1919 as the deeper cause for the failure of the Peace Treaties and of the League of Nations.

TREATY OF LONDON

The real history of Article 15 of the Treaty of London and the reasons for the exclusion of the pope from the Peace Conference have never been fully understood in this country. The American public does not know that Italy demanded and that the Allies agreed upon the exclusion of the pope from the future peace settlement because they had evidence that some of the most prominent clericals at the Holy See were favoring the Central Powers, and had for months discussed and planned a secret German proposal to reconstitute in Rome a Papal State with internationally guaranteed access to the sea.

Only in face of the irrefutable fact that, in the midst of a terrible war, Vatican politicans were abusing the Christian peace apostolate of the Supreme Pontiff to further their temporal interests and to extend their power, even at the expense of their native land— these papal politicians were all Italians—did the Allies agree to Italy’s demand. Although from the beginning of the war it was obvious that the sympathies of the Vatican could not be with Protestant England, anti-clerical France and Orthodox Russia, Allied statesmen—some of them devout Catholics—found it hard to believe that papal diplomacy would place its political interests before those of millions of French and Belgian Catholics who had become victims of German aggression.

MATTHIAS ERZBERGER

The story of Germany’s collaboration with the Vatican in the last war has been told, as so often before, by a devout Roman Catholic who had himself been on the inside of the intrigue and who, vain by nature and bitter from disappointment, spoke out when he felt that he had been abandoned by his former associates. Our witness is none other than Matthias Erzberger, leading member of the Catholic Center Party, militant German imperialist in 1914, Germany’s foreign propaganda chief until 1917 when he promoted the Reichstag’s famous peace resolution, Imperial Under-Secretary of State, leader of the German armistice delegation, Minister of Finance and one of the Fathers of the Weimar Republic. He was assassinated in 1921 by young German nationalists, a few months after the publication of his outspoken book, My Experiences in the World War.1

SECRET VATICAN TREATY WITH GERMANY

One of Erzberger’s chief objectives was to secure diplomatic immunity and extra-territorial rights for the Holy See. As early as October, 1914, a few weeks after his appointment as chief of foreign propaganda, he suggested the establishment of a small neutral Papal State in that part of Rome which lies on the left bank of the Tiber, with a corridor to the sea and a port. His negotiations finally led to a draft treaty “regarding the recognition of the temporal power of the Pope.” This treaty, he says, had the approval of “competent personalities of the German Foreign Office.” The first version was submitted by Erzberger and his friends in Vatican circles in the beginning of 1915. It was formulated with characteristic thoroughness.

1 Erlebnisse im Weltkrieg, von Reichsfinanzminister A. D. Matthias Erzberger, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart & Berlin, 1920.

The following extracts of this secret treaty are from Erzberger’s book (pages 127ff.):

The temporal power of the Pope is recognized by the High Contracting Powers as extending over a territory including Vatican Hill and a strip of land connecting it with the Tiber and with the railroad to Viterbo and to be designated as Church State . . .

The church State is permanently independent and neutral. Its independence and neutrality are guaranteed by the High Contracting Powers.

Sovereign of the Church State to the Pope. During the vacancy of the Apostolic Chair the sovereignty is exercised by the College of Cardinals.

Citizens of the Church State are: Papal legates, nunzios and internunzios, members of the Papal Court, officials of the administrations and palaces of the Church State, members of the Palace guards as well as ecclesiastics permanently residing in the Church State . . .

The Kingdom of Italy pledges to render the Tiber navigable for oceangoing ships with draught of five meters, along the border of the Church State and thence to the sea, within two years from the ratification of the present treaty.

Papal ships can at all times navigate on the Tiber to and from the sea without being subject to the authority of the Italian State. Should Italy be at war or should it, for other reasons, deem necessary to close the Tiber waterway to general traffic, a channel is to be kept open for Papal ships, and river pilots are to be placed at their disposal. Papal ships shall be treated by the High Contracting Powers as extraterritorial in peace and in war and not subject to interference by a foreign power . . .

The Kingdom of Italy will pay to the Holy See within six months after the ratification of the present Treaty the sum of 500,000,000 Lire, to cover the cost of the Papal Court and of the administration of he Church State.

The sovereignty of the Church State includes finances and jurisdiction.

Diplomatic representatives of foreign powers accredited to the Holy See enjoy within the territory of the Kingdom of Italy the same privileges and exemptions as diplomatic representatives of the same rank accredited to the Kingdom of Italy … In case of a state of war or a break in diplomatic relations between the Power they represent and the Kingdom of Italy, they have to take residence in the Church State . . .

The High Contracting Powers, after the ratification of the present Treaty, will invite all those powers which are not signatories of this treaty to recognize the temporal power of the Pope over the territories designated in Article I as well as the extra-territorial status af Papal ships as provided in Article V.

This Treaty shall be ratified as soon as possible. Ratification documents will be deposited with the Holy See. The Treaty enters into force on the day on which ratification documents have been deposited.

It is not astonishing that the liberal Government of Italy should have resented this planned infringement of their country’s sovereignty by Germany and the Vatican. Nor was this all. Germany has never given without receiving. Only indirectly does Herr Erzberger inform his readers of the assistance which Germany had received and was to receive from the Holy See.

INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC COMMITTEE

After Italy entered the war on the side of the Allies, Erzberger, as the Kaiser’s chief of propaganda, organized in collaboration with an emissary of the Papal Secretary of State, an International Catholic Committee in which each country was represented by five or seven delegates. Its object was to urge upon all belligerents that the territorial independence and the political freedom of the Holy See should be guaranteed in the future peace. This International Catholic Committee and several of its sub-committees met repeatedly in Switzerland and Holland. Its chief purpose was to explain the German viewpoint to the world. Erzberger tells us that the high official of the Roman Curia with whom he negotiated in Switzerland was in charge of the exchange of prisoners of war. He was Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, the present Pope Pius XII.

PAPAL PEACE OFFENSIVE

Negotiations between Erzberger and Pacelli continued throughout 1916. In June of that year Erzberger was “asked by the German Secretary of State to inform the Vatican that the German Government was willing to accept the good services of the Pope in the matter of peace and would appreciate them.” He at once consulted with his “friend, the representative of the Papal Secretary of State in Switzerland” [Pacelli], who believed that the time had come for “winning the peace.” But after the Vatican peace move had produced its first results, it was checked by a parallel intervention of the German Foreign Office through Spain. The results which Berlin wished to obtain in 1916 were only of a diplomatic and psychological nature. Germany was in fact merely trying to disintegrate the home front of the Allies and to obtain a clear picture of the political situation in the Allied camp. The Papal peace move thus suited the Kaiser’s purpose.

In 1917, after Eugenio Pacelli had been appointed nuncio in Munich, Wilhelm II became more outspoken in his demands. According to Pope Pius XII’s official biography by Kees van Hoek (published in London in 1939 by Burns, Oates & Washburn, Ltd., publishers to the Holy See), the Kaiser told Monsignor Pacelli “that the Pope should mobilize the Episcopate all over the world in a moral peace offensive and begin by using his special influence on Catholic States by promoting [a separate] peace between Italy and Austria.”

JESUIT PROPAGANDA AMONG PROTESTANTS

Erzberger’s propaganda mission ended shortly after Pacelli had taken up residence in Germany. With laudable frankness Erzberger tells us (page 7) that he had been assisted by “a number of Jesuit priests who rendered us extremely valuable services in enlightening foreign countries.” Nor were these propaganda activities limited to Catholic circles. It should be of interest to Protestants in America to discover that this prominent Roman Catholic politician, working hand in glove with the highest dignitaries of the pope, also organized what was known as “Weekly Evangelical Letters.” These letters were edited by Dr. Deissmann, Professor of Protestant theology at the University of Berlin and were addressed especially to American Protestants. “Professor Deissmann,” says Erzberger, “was very skillful in drawing up his mailing lists . . . We adapted the contents of these letters deliberately to American interests . . . Professor Deissmann had reason to be satisfied with the response. The Secretary General of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, representing thirty evangelical church organizations with 125,000 communities, maintained close relations with him.” This gentleman might not have done so, had he known that these “Weekly Evangelical Letters” were financed and—in the last instance— directed by propaganda chief Erzberger and his Jesuit assistants.

Erzberger’s assassination in 1921 had been planned for some time. The young fanatics who killed him were only the instruments of others who wished to eliminate this man who knew too much, who already had said too much and who had been too closely connected with events in which the promoters of the present World War saw Germany’s humiliation.

PACELLI’S POST-WAR ACTIVITIES

Monsignor Pacelli’s stay in Germany lasted in all more than twelve years. He was in Munich under the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic which he fought, and at the time of Hitler’s first putsch in 1923. When France occupied the industrial Ruhr Valley because Germany refused to continue reparations payments, the Nunzio, though not accredited to Prussia, ostentatiously flew from the Bavarian capital to Duesseldorf in the Prussian Rhineland, and induced his friend Achille Ratti, then Pope Pius XI, to publish an open condemnation of the “Ruhr adventure.” In 1925 he obtained a concordat with Bavaria, a concordat with Prussia in 1929, after his appointment as nuncio in Berlin, and in 1933 the famous concordat with the whole of Hitler’s Germany.

“Cardinal Pacelli,” wrote Kees van Hoek, his official Catholic biographer, in 1939, “has always been known for his strong German leanings.”

Thus it is that Germans and Italians now have good reasons for looking forward hopefully to Pius XII’s mediation on their behalf. For his past history shows that, instead of condemning Hitler whom he knew well during the seven years of his stay in Munich, he negotiated a concordat with the Nazis just as he tried to negotiate one with the Kaiser’s Germany during the last war. He fears German radicals as much as his predecessor feared the bolsheviks. Like Pius XI, he is connected with the Fascist bourgeoisie through his family. His uncle, a famous banker, was the founder and guiding spirit of the Banco di Roma, one of Italy’s greatest banks and investment houses. His brother, Francesco Pacelli, who drafted the Lateran Treaty with Fascism, had more than a hundred secret conferences with Mussolini before the treaty was signed.

The Papacy undoubtedly can and will survive the present Fascist set-up in Italy, but in the lifetime of Eugenio Pacelli it will continue to support Italy’s vested interests and will continue to remain pro- German under any kind of a regime, provided it is not anti- Catholic.

Today, Papal diplomacy is again busy behind the scenes. Judging by its record in the last war and by the personal leanings of the present Pope and his Jesuit advisers, the Curia is not the disinterested and elevated tribunal which it is made to appear to Americans. The Pope, too, has a political axe to grind.

By propagating the idea that the Pope as “Chief of Christendom” is to be dean and arbiter in the future peace conference, clerical politicians, however, may render disservice to their cause. Protestants as well as Orthodox Catholics, who do not believe in any “Chief of Christendom,” might come to learn that the Allies in London in 1915, after all, were not so ill-advised.

SECTION X THE PRESENT STAGE.

CHAPTER I THE MODERN DENIAL OF THE HISTORIC AND PROTESTANT INTERPRETATION OF THE APOCALYPSE

THE period which has elapsed since the fall of Napoleon or the end of the French Revolution/era, has witnessed:

1. The denial of the historic and Protestant interpretation of the Apocalypse.
2. Its defense.
3. Its confirmation.

We propose in this closing section to trace these three steps in the story of the interpretation of the Apocalypse on historic lines.

In a lecture on “The Pope, the Antichrist of scripture,”the late eminent Dr. Candlish, of Edinburgh, thus refers to the modern twofold denial of the historic and Protestant interpretation- of prophecy.

“Two schools of interpretation have sprung up,”in recent times, “in opposition to the almost unbroken harmony of the Reformed Churches; but neither their numbers nor their impartiality entitle them to much consideration.

“1. The first is that which owes its origin to Germany, and the rationalist theologians of that country. It is patronized by Moses Stuart in America, and by Dr. Davidson in England. It holds that the prophecies in the Revelation, and of course those also in the other passages connected with it, have been long ago fulfilled, having all had reference to the fall, first of Jerusalem, and then of Pagan Rome. Moses Stuart advocates this view chiefly on the ground that the suffering Christians in John’s day could not be expected to take much interest in the events of a remote futurity, and that what John wrote for their consolation must have related more nearly to their present circumstances. To us it seems clear, on the other hand, that to believers smarting under pagan persecution, and ready almost to despair of Christ’s cause, nothing could be more encouraging than to see, however dimly, drawn out in long perspective before their eyes, the entire course of the eventful voyage through which the church had to pass, among troubled and tossing billows, until she reached at last the desired haven of rest. Moses Stuart’s reason, therefore, for antedating the fulfilment of the Apocalyptic predictions, has evidently no force in it, but the reverse. And when we come to the details of his exposition, we find so much vagueness of application, and withal so much violence in torturing texts, and dates, and facts, that we are rather driven at last to the idea of the late learned Dr. Arnold, that prophecy has no definite accomplishment at all: that it is a sort of mystical description, by anticipation, of the prolonged conflict of good and evil principles that goes on continually in the world and in the Church: and that it is designed to indicate no more than the general prevalence of good on the whole, amid partial and temporary victories of evil, and the complete triumph of the good over the evil at last.”

2. The other school of interpretation is that of certain modern expounders of unfulfilled prophecy, who, in their anxiety to magnify the grandeur of the scenes connected with the coming of Christ, would reserve all that is terrible, as well asyall that is glorious, in the Apocalyptic visions, for that momentous era. Hence they will not allow that any of the Church’s history already past, or anything in her position now, fulfills the predictions respecting Antichrist; and they look for some monster—some, I know not what, satanic incarnation—as yet to rise on the astonished world, that he may personally cope in arms with the Saviour corning in His glory, and be signally overthrown in the encounter. Of this school I content myself with speaking now, not in my own words, but in those of a profound student of prophecy, who on this point has rendered right good service to the Church of Christ: I mean the late Mr. Cunning-hame of Lainshaw.

“The truths which the Futurist desires to subvert, are not of secondary, but primary and vital importance. They are truths which martyrs have sealed with their blood, and which every genuine Protestant would still be ready to bear witness to, even unto death.

“In estimating the character of the Reformation and its transcendent importance, it is necessary to bear in mind that it was properly a testimony; and a testimony of a double nature. The Reformers, like the prophets of old, were to bear witness for the truth of God. This they did in their Confessions of Faith. But in the second place, as the ancient prophets were witnesses against Israel, so were the Protestants set as witnesses against Papal Rome, the great corrupter of the truth, and the slaughterer of the saints. This part of their testimony, like the former part of it, could only be fulfilled by their recurring to the written Word, for to men who are not themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost, it is not given to testify against the enemies of God, or the corrupters of His truth, in any other way, or with any other weapons, than the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Reformers did accordingly (as already observed), fulfill this part of their testimony by their perfectly unanimous denunciations of Rome, as Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, and the Pope, as The Man of Sin.

“Now from the last part of this testimony, it is manifest that the Futurists have entirely fallen; yea, they desire to destroy ,it root and branch, flattering themselves that they have thus risen to a higher degree of illumination, and have left us in the vale of darkness.

“No one who rejects the principles of interpretation affixing on Rome Papal and her bishop the characters of Babylon and the Man of Sin is truly a Protestant, seeing that he has denied that which all the Reformers held to be the testimony of the Spirit against that idolatrous Church.”

BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS AGAINST ROMANISM

An army of men is constantly employed on the coast of Holland in keeping up the barriers which prevent the ocean from invading the land. To neglect the barriers, or to permit them to be broken down at any spot, would be to bring certain and widespread destruction on life and property. Now the Word of God in its doctrinal, practical, and prophetic teachings, has erected strong barriers to keep out the errors and superstitions which tend, like a surrounding and devouring sea, to encroach on the Christian Church, overthrow her primitive faith and discipline, and conform her character to the world from which she has been delivered. The predictions and warnings of the Word of God relating to the Romish apostasy constitute a main part of these barriers.

This anti-Romish barrier has been broken down in England, by professedly Protestant ministers; clergymen of the Established Church, and the consequences of their act have been disastrous and appalling.

Three men stood forth as pioneers in this destructive work, the Rev. S. R. Maitland, Librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. James Todd, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin; and the celebrated “John Henry Newman, of Oxford. In the Donnellan Lectures preached by Dr. Todd before the University of Dublin in 1838, on “the prophecies relating to Antichrist in the writings of Daniel and St. Paul” the following inscription appears on the opening page. “To the Rev. Samuel Roffey Maitland, Librarian to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, as an humble testimony to the great value of his writings in the interpretation of prophecy, and as an acknowledgment of the assistance derived from them in the composition of the following pages, this volume is inscribed by his sincere and affectionate friend the author.”

Two years later John Henry Newman wrote his treatise on ” The Protestant idea of Antichrist”(dated 1840). That treatise opens with the following sentence :—”The Discourses which Dr. Todd has recently given to the world are perhaps the first attempt for a long course of years in this part of Christendom to fix a dispassionate attention and a scientific interpretation upon the momentous ‘ Prophecies relating to Antichrist in the writings of Daniel and St. Paul.’

In this treatise Newman quotes Dr. Todd’s Lectures, and builds on his arguments from beginning to end. “We have pleasure,”he says^ “in believing that in matters of doctrine we entirely agree with Dr. Todd.”Thus Todd derived his views from Maitland, while Newman drew his arguments from Todd.

What then, we enquire, were the views of these three men, and how did they originate?

Maitland had been a lawyer, was gifted with a remarkably acute intellect, and possessed the power of expressing his views in a clear and telling manner. Being trained for the Bar, his education had tended to develop argumentative power rather than historical and religious knowledge. The direction of his attention to prophecy was purely casual, and arose, as he tells us, from a chance remark made to him one day by a friend.

“Between nine and ten years ago,”he says,”I chanced to be in company with a gentleman (not a lawyer) but one whose right to speak on the subject you must yourself allow—an Irishman bred to the Church, in Trinity College, Dublin. Happening in the way of civil discourse to say something of the 1,260 years, he took me up (as, by your leave, some of your countrymen are apt to do), rather smartly, but all in perfect good humour and asked me ”How I could believe that system” I was a good deal startled, and such was my ignorance at that time that without considering the difference between our breeding I ventured to reply. We discussed the matter, and I soon found, as might have been expected, that my friend knew more of the matter than I did; and I was led to feel a strong suspicion that he was in the right. When he had left me, I pursued the enquiry almost in silence, for I knew scarcely any one who would have taken the trouble to talk about the matter, until after about three years, another gentleman, also bred to the Church, in Trinity College, Dublin, was kind enough to give me a visit. I found that he agreed with me j and he was the means of bringing me into a very interesting and instructive correspondence with a third gentleman, a Doctor of Divinity, and a Senior Fellow of the same College, and when I published my first enquiry I did not know that there were any men in the world but those three who were prepared to agree with me,”Thus originated Maitland’s attack on the Protestant Interpretation of prophecy.

For more than ten years Maitland continued to write on this subject; his works include treatises on the grounds on which the prophetic period of Daniel and St. John has been “supposed to consist of 1,260 years “; replies to reviews in The Morning Watch, ” an attempt to elucidate the prophecies concerning Antichrist “; replies to the works of Digby and Cunninghame on the prophetic times; strictures on Faber’s work on the ancient Waldenses and Albigenses” etc. No wide acquaintance with history, no deep sympathy with the great work of the Reformation, no spiritual insight into the Word of God, can be traced in these very polemical productions. From first to last they are occupied with captious objections to the interpretations of prophecy put forth by the Reformers, by Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Bishop Hurd, and other Protestant writers. The view of the Church of Rome that prophecy is silent as to the great apostasy of the Middle Ages, and in its references to Antichrist only supplies warnings against some infidel apostasy to take place in future times, is that which Maitland advocates. To accuse the Church of Rome of having apostatized from the faith of the New Testament was to him an utter mistake. Rome held all the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and only erred in some matters of secondary importance. In his tracts and treatises he cleverly selects the weakest and most vulnerable points in the Protestant interpretation of prophecy as the objects of special attack. He parades the differences in the views of prophetic interpreters, and the mistakes which some of them have made as to the fulfilment of the prophetic times. He denies the honesty and good faith of Bishop Newton, who had, he maintains, misrepresented the views of Sulpicius Severus. Bengel had made some manifest errors in his chronological interpretations. Cunninghame had been mistaken in supposing the Jews would be restored in the year 1822. The “Man of Sin “was an infidel, yet to arise, and sit for 1,260 literal days in a literal temple, of brick or stone, proclaiming himself to be God. The Albigenses were heretics, and their blood, shed by the Church of Rome, was not the blood of saints. Thus carping and quibbling, building up nothing, but objecting and opposing, on secondary or side issues, personal and non-essential points, the Rev. S. R. Maitland, formerly lawyer, now librarian to an archbishop, proceeds in pamphlet after pamphlet to demolish the foundations of Protestantism, as built on the prophetic testimony of the Word of God. The fact that that testimony had been a central and principal factor in the production of the Reformation, and had been sealed by the blood of saints and martyrs weighs nothing with him. The purely hypothetical character of his interpretation of prophecy as unsupported by the facts of history does not in the least distress him; nor the fact that his views in these matters were identical with those of the Church of Rome. He has no fear of the ocean of Popish superstition which waited to invade the land when the barrier he sought to break down was removed. The real use and importance of the prophetic barrier never seems to have occurred to him. Pull it down 1 , take it out of the way, destroy it; such was his constant cry; and most effectually that work was done. The times favoured the act. An age more critical than spiritual had commenced, and a Romeward movement was already arising, destined to sweep away the old Protestant landmarks, as with a flood.

Dr. Todd in his Donnellan Lectures preached before the University of Dublin in 1838, proclaimed himself Matt-land’s follower, and boldly attacked the views of the Reformers as to the Church of Rome. He rashly rushed into, the wide question of the interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel and St. John, and maintained that the fourth kingdom of Daniel’s vision is not the Roman empire; that the three first beasts of Daniel 7 are not identical with the kingdoms represented by the gold, silver, and brazen parts of the image; that destructiveness was no characteristic of the Roman power; that the “stone cut out without hands “was not fulfilled by the preaching of Christianity; that Romanism is not properly an apostasy from the faith; that Paul’s prophecies of “the Man of Sin “and the apostasy of the latter times, do not relate to the Church of Rome; that the study of history was not necessary in order to the comprehension of prophecy ; and that the symbolical prophecies of Daniel and John, though divinely asserted to be full of mysteries, should be taken “in their plain and literal signification,”as perfectly intelligible “without the need of any external aid to unfold a hidden meaning, or to discover in their visions a history of the Church and of the world.”He maintained that to “endeavour to prove that the corruptions of the Church were foretold in Scripture”was a “vain and chimerical speculation”that the prophecies relating to the apostasy were none of them fulfilled, and that the whole Protestant Church, including the Waldenses, Lollards, Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Huguenots, Puritans, and the great mass of Protestant interpreters of prophecy, the Protestant Confessions of Faith, the Westminster Assemblies Catechism, etc., were all in gross error as to the meaning of prophecy, and the character of the Church of Rome.

In his treatise on “the Protestant idea of Antichrist,”written in 1840, and built on Dr. Todd’s then recently delivered discourses, Newman plainly says “we take up Dr. Todd’s position.”Linking Maitland with Todd he says of the latter “pursuing the line of remark which the learned Mr. Maitland has opened, Dr. Todd has brought together a mass of information on this subject.”Accusing the Albigenses of error, and belittling as far as possible the testimony of the Waldenses, Hussites and others before the Reformation, he asks with Dr. Todd: “Are these the expositors from whom the Church of Christ is to receive the true interpretation of the prophecies? ”

The claims and admissions he makes in opposing “the Protestant idea of Antichrist,”deserve the most serious consideration. “We observe,”says Newman, “that the essence of the doctrine that there is ‘one only Catholic and Apostolic Church’ lies in this:—that there is on earth a representative of our-absent Lord, or a something divinely interposed between the soul and God, or a visible body with invisible privileges. All its subordinate characteristics flow from this description. Does it impose a creed, or impose rites and ceremonies, or change ordinances, or remit and retain sins, or rebuke and punish, or accept offerings, or send out ministers, or invest its ministers with authority, or accept of reverence and devotion in their persons? All this is because it is Christ’s visible presence. It stands for Christ. Can it convey the power of the Spirit? Does grace attend its acts? Can it touch, or bathe, or seal, or lay on hands? Can it use material things for spiritual purposes? Are its temples holy? All this comes of its being (so far) what Christ was on earth. Is it a ruler, prophet, priest, intercessor, teacher? Has it titles such as these in its measure as being the representative and instrument of the Almighty who is unseen? Does it claim a palace and a throne, an altar and a doctor’s chair, the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of the rich and wise, a universal empire, and a never- ending succession? All this is so because it is what Christ is. All the offices, names, honours, powers which it claims depend upon the determination of the simple question: ‘Has Christ, or has He not, left a representative behind Him?’ Now, if He has, all is easy and intelligible, this is what churchmen maintain; they welcome the news; and they recognize in the Church’s acts but the fulfilment of the high trust committed to her.

But let us suppose for a moment the other side of the al- ternative to be true; supposing Christ has left no representative behind Him. Well then, here is an association which professes to take His place without warrant. It comes forward instead of Christ and for Him; it speaks for Him, it develops His words, it suspends His appointments, it grants dispensations in matters of positive duty; it professes to minister grace; it absolves from sin; and all this of its own authority. Is it not forthwith according to the very force of the word ‘ Antichrist’? He who speaks for Christ must either be His true ambassador, or Antichrist; and nothing but Antichrist can he be if appointed ambassador there is none. Let his acts be the same in both cases, according as he has authority or not, so is he most holy or most guilty. It is not the acts that make the difference, it is the authority for those acts. The very same acts are Christ’s or Antichrist’s according to the doer; they are Antichrist’s if Christ does them not. There is no medium between a Vice-Christ and Antichrist.”

Exactly so. Well and memorably said; and this, the sin of Rome and the papacy. As destitute of warrant in the Word of God the Bishop of Rome claiming to be the vicar of Christ is Antichrist.

We thank you, John Henry Newman, for so clearly stating the alternative in this great question. Either the Pope of Rome is what he claims to be, the vicar of Christ, or in making that claim he is Antichrist. What his doctrines are, what his acts are, what his self- exaltation is, what his usurpations, tyrannies and persecutions have been in past ages, we well know, and can never forget. To regard him as the representative of Christ, as His vicar upon earth, we cannot. Truth and conscience forbid us to do it. We reject and abhor his false and blasphemous pretensions. But they remain. They characterize him. They are the crown he wears; his proud title; the badge upon his brow. He claims to be the vicar of Christ. He is therefore Antichrist, Dread alternative! Vicar of Christ or Antichrist. Not the former, then the latter. A fact to be remembered, pondered, and boldly declared.

Before the close of his treatise on “The Protestant idea of Antichrist,”Newman makes some remarkable admissions as to the character of what he calls “the Roman party,”in the Christian church. “One more remark,”he says, “shall we make, and that shall be the last. What is the real place of the Church of the Middle Ages in the divine scheme need not be discussed here. If-we have been defending it, this has been from no love, let our readers be assured, of the Roman party among us at this day. That party, as exhibited by its acts, is a low-minded, double-dealing, worldly-minded set, and the less we have to do with it the better.”

This he says, “not against the Church of Rome,”nor against ” individual members of it,”but against “that secular and political spirit which in this day has developed itself among them into a party, and at least in this country is that party’s motive principle and characteristic manifestation.”

With regard to this “Roman party “we readily agree with what Newman said before inconsistently entering the Church of Rome, ” the less we have to do with it the better.”

One concluding question is proposed by Newman. “If we must go by prophecy, which set of prophecies is more exactly fulfilled in the Church of the Middle Ages, those of Isaiah which speak of the evangelical kingdom, or those of St. Paul and St. John which speak of the antichristian corruption? “Without hesitation we reply the latter. The Church of the dark ages presents no fulfilment of Isaiah’s glorious visions of the final results of redemption.

Having denied the Anti-Romish witness of prophecy, Newman proceeded to demolish the doctrinal barrier, which separated the teachings of the Church of England from those of the Church of Rome. In Tract XC he boldly maintained that “the Articles are not written against the creed of the Roman Church, but against actual existing errors in it, whether taken into its system or not.”

“Scripture,”he said, “is not on Anglican principles the Rule of faith.”The “pardons”condemned in the Articles are only “large and reckless indulgences from the penalties of sin obtained on money payments.”In the thirty-first Article the Sacrifice of the mass is not spoken of, but the “Sacrifice of masses.””Bishop is superior to bishop only in rank, not in real power; and the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Catholic world, is not the centre of unity except as having a primacy of order”On purgatory, pardons, the worshipping and adoration of images and relics, the invocation of saints, and the mass, the Articles do not contain any condemnation of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, but only of such absurd practices and opinions as intelligent Romanists would repudiate. The mode of interpretation advocated by Newman “reconciled subscription to the Articles with the adoption of errors they were designed to counteract.”

As Dr. Arnold said about it “a man may subscribe to an article when he held the very opposite opinions—believing what it denies, and denying what it affirms.””I was embarrassed,”says Newman, “in consequence of my wish to go as far as possible in interpreting the Articles in the direction of Roman dogma, without disclosing what I was doing to the parties whose doubts I was meeting.”

In 1846 Newman left Oxford for Rome. On becoming a Catholic he accepted “those additional Articles which are not found in the Anglican creed,”transubstantiation included. “People say,”wrote Newman, “that the doctrine of transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God.”To use the words of John Knox, Newman ” mistook a harlot for the spouse of Jesus Christ.”A fatal mistake, and one fraught with tremendous consequences in the perversion of thousands from the faith of the Gospel to “another gospel which is not another”; one which if Paul were on earth to-day he would anathematize as he did the false doctrine of the Galatian Church, yea, though even preached by “an angel from heaven.”

The Romeward movement in the Church of England in whose inauguration Newman was so influential, has assumed the character of a widely extended u conspiracy “within that church against its doctrine, discipline and practice. It aims at the restoration of auricular confession, the worship of the mass, Romish ceremonies, superstitions, and idolatries, and corporate reunion with the Church of Rome.

The movement has attained gigantic proportions, and seeks the conversion of England to Romanism, through the perversion of the established Protestant Church. “To restore the authority of the Holy See in England “is its aim.

A large part of the Church of England has already become Romanized in doctrine and ritual. In her sanctuaries the priest kneels at the altar, or sits in the Confessional, and the deluded flocks follow their false shepherds, the blind leading the blind.

So momentous have been the consequences which have followed the breaking-down of the barrier^ erected by Prophecy against the errors and superstitions of the Church of Rome.

As the most celebrated works in defense of Christianity have been called forth by attacks on the Christian religion, so the ablest works in defense of the Protestant interpretation of Prophecy have been evoked by the controversial war waged against it in recent times. Among these the works of Cunninghame, Faber, O’Sullivan, Birks, and Elliott occupy a foremost place. Of the masterly book written by the Rev. T. R. Birks in 1843, under the title “First EIements of Sacred Prophecy, including an examination of several recent expositions, and of the year-day theory,”Faber says, “the attacks of ‘modern speculatists’ have called forth a most able and seasonable work in which they have been triumphantly exposed with a force of demonstration scarcely equalled, never excelled. The ‘First Elements of Sacred Prophecy’ I should pronounce to be a book henceforth indispensable to every honest and laborious student of the predictions of Daniel and St. John.”1 “By his masterly work on the First Elements of Prophecy, Mr. Birks,”says Elliott, “has advanced the cause of truth, and shown himself its martel and hammer, against what I must beg permission to call the reveries of the Futurist.”2

The work of the Rev. Mortimer O’Sullivan, D.D., on “The Apostasy Predicted by St. Paul,”published in 1842, is an able answer to Dr. Todd’s lectures on the subject. Dedicated to “the Provost, the Fellows and the Students of the Dublin University,”it is marked by candour and learning, by its Christian spirit, by the beauty of its style, and the strength of its argument. 3

O’Sullivan writes as one who had deeply studied both the Word of God, and the character of Romanism. No tone of bitterness mars his pages. They pour their sunlight into the dark caverns of the papal system, and produce a profound conviction that that system is the great apostasy predicted in the Pauline prophecy of the “Man of Sin.”

The “Horae Apocalypticae” of Elliott, which may well be considered as the most important and valuable commentary on the Apocalypse which has ever been written, was also called into existence by Futurist attacks on the Protestant interpretation of prophecy. In his preface to the fifth edition Elliott says:—”When I first began to give attention to the subject some twenty years ago, it was the increasing prevalence among Christian men in our country of the Futurist system of Apocalyptic interpretation—a system which involved the abandonment of the opinion held by all the chief fathers and doctors of our Church respecting the Roman Popes and Popedom as the great intended anti-Christian power of Scripture- prophecy,—that suggested to me the desirableness and indeed necessity, of a more thoroughly careful investigation of the whole subject than had been made previously. For thereby I trusted that we might see God’s mind on the question; all engaged in that controversy being alike agreed as to the fact of its being expressed in this prophecy, rightly understood: and whether indeed in His view Popery was that monstrous evil, and the Reformation a deliverance to our Church and nation as mighty and blessed, as we had been taught from early youth to regard them. Even yet more does the importance of the work strike us at the present time, when infidelity has become notoriously prevalent among our educated men, and even from ordained ministers in our own church a voice has been raised somewhat pretentiously, with questionings of the truth of Christianity as a religion supernaturally revealed from heaven, and denial of all supernatural inspiration of the Christian Scriptures. For supposing the evidence in proof of the fulfilment of the Apocalyptic prophecy in the history of Christendom since St. John’s time to be satisfactory and irrefragable, we have herein a proof similarly irrefragable not only of the possibility but also of the fact of the divine supernatural inspiration of one book at least of Holy Scripture;—a fact annihilative of the sceptic’s doctrine as to the impossibility in the nature of things of such inspiration, and rendering more than prob- able, ‘a priori’ the idea of divine supernatural inspiration in other of its prophetic books also.”

Elliott’s Commentary was practically the work of the lifetime of one of the most learned and laborious expositors of modern times. Like Gibbon’s “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” to which it frequently refers, it stands alone in its sphere, as a monumental work of surpassing value. The ten thousand references it contains to ancient and modern works bearing on the subject elucidated greatly enhance its value. We may safely say that during the half century which has elapsed since its publication, no other work on historic lines of interpretation has appeared of equal importance.

From the denial and defense of the Protestant interpretation of the Apocalypse we now advance to its confirmation by the events which have taken place since the French Revolution.

To trace the fulfilment of apocalyptic prophecy in the period we have now reached it will be needful,

1. To consider the things foretold with reference to the period, and

2. The things which have come to pass.

On comparing the one series of things with the other, we shall see that the predictions have to a large extent been fulfilled ; and that the fulfilment is such as to afford a strong confirmation of the historic interpretation of the Apocalypse; together with a clear’indication of the Clearness of those final judgments which mark the close of the present age.

I. APOCALYPTIC PREDICTIONS RELATING TO THE PRESENT PERIOD.

In the events of the French Revolution we have already traced the fulfilment of the judgments of the earlier vials, from the first to the fifth; from the “grievous sore”inflicted on “the worshippers of the beast,”or adherents of the papacy, to the judgments poured on “the throne of the beast,”or the seat of Papal sovereignty.

These solemn judgments occupied in their fulfilment the century which terminated with the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Beginning with the plague of infidelity and moral corruption which was the precursor of the French Revolution, these judgments included the overthrow of Monarchy, and abolition of the Roman Catholic religion in France, with attendant massacres and wars, appalling in character and world-wide in effects, and culminated in the spoliation of Rome, the captivity of the Pope, who died in exile, and the incorporation of Rome with France as the second city of the empire.

In the order of prophecy the judgments which follow these are those of the sixth vial.

PREDICTIONS UNDER THE SIXTH VIAL

1. The sixth vial is poured out on the River Euphrates, and dries up its waters.

The meaning of the sixth vial is determined by that of the sixth trumpet. Under the “woe “of the sixth trumpet, a destroying army, vast in jts numbers, issues from the River Euphrates as a judgment on idolatrous Christendom. With one consent historical interpreters have recognized the fulfilment of this “woe,”in the overthrow of the Eastern Roman Empire by the Turks, whose myriads of horsemen came from the banks of the Euphrates. Hence the drying-up of the Euphrates which takes place under the sixth vial, has long been interpreted to mean a wasting away or notable diminution of Turkish power; involving the decline of its population, and the loss of its territories.

2. The time indicated in prophecy for this event is the close of 2,300 years measured from the advance of Persia, or the ” pushing westward “of the Persian ram—the apparent starting point of the vision in Daniel 8, or the invasion of Greece by Persia B.C. 480. Measured from that date, the prophetic period of 2,300 years terminated A . D . 1821. Bichino, writing in 1797, anticipated that the “cleansing”of the downtrodden eastern “sanctuary”would take place at the close of 2,300 years, reckoned from the starting of Xerxes from Susa in 481 B.C. But it is evident that the period should be reckoned from the actual invasion of Greece by Xerxes in the following year B.C. 480. Allowing for the necessary subtraction of one year (in adding B.C. to A.D. dates) the 2,300 years ran out in 1821. At this date, then, the foretold “cleansing”of the downtrodden “sanctuary” ought to have commenced, or some notable diminution of the resources, armies, population, and territories of Turkey, as representing the apostate Mohammedan power which has trodden down Palestine and Eastern Christendom ever since the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

3. On the drying-up of the Euphrates, three “unclean spirits”like frogs, issue “from the mouth of the dragon, the mouth of the beast, and the mouth o*f the false prophet.”Satanically inspired, for they are “the spirits of devils,”and working in some sense ” miracles “or wonders, they “go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”In connection with this terminal event it is added, “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk’ naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue -Armageddon.

“The dragon, in chapter 12, is interpreted to mean the Sa- tanically inspired Paganism of Ancient Rome. The “beast “has been shown to be the eighth ruling head of the Roman Empire, or the papal power; while the “false prophet”is the minister of the beast; lamb-like in pretensions, but dragon-like in character, for he had “two horns like a lamb, and spake as a dragon “(ch. 12 : 11).

Heathen-like infidelity, Popery, and apostate priestcraft, would seem then, to be the three unclean spirits, whose noisy loquacity, symbolized by their being compared to “frogs,”and delusive influence, bring about the final dreadful Armageddon conflict.

4. The drying-up of the Euphrates “that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared,”is an evident allusion to the drying-up of the literal Euphrates, which preceded the capture of Babylon, by Cyrus and Darius, kings of the east. As the literal Babylon is in prophecy the figure of the apostate Church of Rome, the drying-up of the Euphrates may well have a secondary reference to the wasting or consumption of the stream of wealth and prosperity by which that Church is supported. An analogous double reference of apocalyptic symbolism is seen in chapter 17, where the “seven heads “of the wild beast power represent both “seven mountains where the woman sitteth,”and “seven kings,”or ruling powers.

5. The warning under the sixth vial, “Behold, I come as a thief,”and the blessing pronounced on those who “watch “and ” keep their garments “in preparation for the Lord’s coming, seem to point to the nearness at this juncture of the Second Advent, and to an awakening of watchfulness, and renewal of preparation among the Lord’s faithful followers, for His coming.

II. PREDICTIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE FALL OF THE PAPACY .

The 1,260 years’ duration of the papal power is properly measured from the .era of its commencement, the brief period which extended from the edict of Justinian, in A . D . 533, to the edict of the Emperor Phocas in A . D . 607, constituting the Bishop of Rome, Pope or Universal Bishop in the Christian Church.

Measured from the first of these dates, the 1,260 years of papal domination ended in 1793, the time of the fall of the papacy, and abolition of the Roman Catholic religion in the French Revolution.

Measured from the second of these dates, the year 607, the 1,260 years extended :—

1. In calendar, or prophetic years of 360 days, to 1849.

2. In solar years to 1867.

Fleming, as will be remembered, pointed out in 1701 that the 1,260 years’ papal duration should be reckoned in calendar or prophetic years, of 360 days which would cut off eighteen years from the 1,260, making 1,242 years; and that so reckoning the period from the decree of Phocas, it would end in 1848-9.

It will also be remembered that numerous writers on prophecy during the last three hundred years have indicated 1866-1868 as the last great terminus of the 1,260 years’ papal domination.

According then, to these anticipations based on the prophetic times of Daniel and Revelation, and on the facts of history, the years 1848-9 and 1866-7 ought to have possessed a terminal character in relation to the papal power.

III. PREDICTIONS AS TO THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

The Word of God, which foretells the “casting away “of the Jews, and their long exile from their land, foretells also their restoration. “He that scattered Israel will gather him.”Every prophet from Moses to Malachi dwells upon the theme, and the Apostle Paul devotes the central section of the Epistle to the Romans to its elucidation.

The restoration of the Jews, according to the “sure word of prophecy,”immediately follows the termination of “the times of the Gentiles.”It was our Lord who said “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”

Several stages are to mark this great restoring work. First, the scattered children of Israel are to be reunited, or unified as a people; secondly, while continuing in unbelief they are to return to their own land, and to be reconstructed as a nation; and thirdly, after passing through the deep trials which await them there, in order to compel them to judge their ways aright, as did Joseph’s brethren in the trial which befell them in Egypt, they are. to be led to repentance for their rejection and crucifixion of the Messiah, and converted by some manifestation of Christ; turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.

TIME OF JEWISH RESTORATION

According to the prophecies in the last chapter of Daniel the commencement of Jewish restoration takes place at the close of 1,260 years, reckoned, from the setting up of the desolating power by which Palestine has been long trodden under foot.

As the capture of Jerusalem by the Saracens A . D . 637, followed by the erection of the Mosque of Omar on the site of Solomon’s temple, was the initial date of the last down-treading of the city, the expiration of 1,260 years reckoned from this date, first, in lunar years, and second, in solar years, should have led to initial stages connected with the restoration of the Jews.

1. One thousand two hundred and sixty lunar years, from A.D. 637, terminated in 1860.

2. One thousand two hundred and sixty solar years from the same date, ended in 1897.

The years 1860 and 1897 should therefore have witnessed the inauguration of some important movements for the unification of the Jewish people, and their restoration to Palestine.

In our chapter on the seven vials we pointed out the wonderful fulfilment of the predictions, under the sixth vial of the drying up, or wasting away of the Turkish powder which has been taking place since 1821, the year of the (jreek insurrection. The coincidence of this with the close of 2,300 years, the prophetic period in the eighth of Daniel which terminates with “the cleansing of the sanctuary,”is Fruiitrkable (Note. This work must be a typo, but I have no diea how to correct it). The eastward pushing of the Persian ram in Daniel’s vision is the earliest commencement of the 2,300 years’ period connected with the post Babylonian “treading down of the sanctuary.”This great historical event, the invasion of Greece by the Persian Monarch Xerxes took place in the year B.C. 480. In the spring of that year the Persians commenced their march through Thrace and Macedonia against Greece; in the summer took place the famous battle of Thermopylae, and in the autumn the battle of Salamis. The great prophetic cycle of twenty-three centuries reckoned from B.C. 480 terminated in A. D. I82I, 1 the date of the general revolt of the Greeks in the Morea, Wallachia, Moldavia and the islands, from Turkish rule. This was followed the same year by the capture of Tripolizza, and the liberation of the Peloponnesus. The destruction of the Turko-Egyptian fleets in the battle of Navarino took place in 1827; since which the power of the Turks over their European, African, and Asiatic territories has ebbed as steadily as the tide.

Since the Syrian massacre of 1860, the government of the Lebanon district in Palestine has been transferred from Turkish to Christian hands. The Turk still holds Jerusalem and the larger part of Palestine in his grasp, but the movement for “the cleansing of the sanctuary”from Mohammedan rule is steadily progressing, and thus the preparation for the restoration of the Jews to their own land. Contemporaneously with the drying up of the Euphratean or Turkish flood, under the sixth vial, there takes place according to Apoc.16: 13, 14, the issuing forth of “three unclean spirits like frogs,”spirits of error which go forth throughout the world to gather together the antichristian hosts to the great and final battle of Armageddon.

As this prediction points to events of the most momentous character taking place in the present day, we ask for it the special attention of our readers.

I. ISSUING FORTH OF “THE THREE FROGS .”-MEANING OF THE SYMBOL.

“And I saw (come) out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are the spirits of demons working signs, which go forth to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together to the war of that great day of God Almighty” (Apoc. 16: 13,14).

“By this novel and very remarkable symbol,” says Elliott, “which followed next after that of the drying up of the waters of the Euphrates, but ranged still evidently under the sixth vial, there seemed signified some extraordinarily rapid, wide-spread, and influential diffusion throughout the whole Roman, or perhaps the whole habitable world, of three several unclean or unholy principles, characteristic respectively of the Apocalyptic dragon, beast, and false prophet, from whom they appeared to emanate: all being alike directed and speeded on their course by spirits of hell; and all alike, in respect of the earthly agencies employed to propagate them, resembling frogs; the well-known type of vain loquacious talkers and agitators, deluding and seducing the minds of men. Now by the dragon we know to have been meant (for the evangelist tells us so) that old serpent the devil, as in earlier days animating and acting in the paganism of ancient Rome; the covering skin in which he had been primarily depicted, in a vision figurative of the final war of heathenism against Christianity, at the opening of the fourth century, being that of a seven-headed dragon, and the seven heads said to figure Rome’s seven hills. Again, by the beast, or rather (according to the angel’s definition of the thing intended in his description) the beast’s eighth ruling head, we saw, on I think irrefragable evidence, that the Popes of Rome were meant, from and after the time of their occupying the dragon’s throne and empire in Western Christendom. Once more, by the false prophet, at least when with the further characteristic attached to it, so as in Apoc. 19: 20, of acting out its functions ‘before,’ or in subordination to, the beast (a characteristic which completely identifies it with the two-horned lambskin-covered beast of Apoc. 13), there is meant, we have seen, the apostate priesthood of the patriarchate of Western Europe, from and after the time of its subjection and official attachment to-the Romish Popedom.

“And what then, if this be correct, the three spirits, or principles, that may be considered most fitly characteristic of these three several actors on the scene:—of the devil, in that character specially in which he had agitated and spoken against Christ’s Church in the times of Pagan Rome ; of the Roman Papal Antichrist, and of the priesthood of the apostate Romish Church ? To myself, with reference to the two first, the answer seems sufficiently obvious: —viz., that the one from the dragon’s mouth is the principle of heathen-like infidelity, with its proper accompaniment of blasphemy, and perhaps too of rebelliousness against rightful authority, when opposed to it, alike divine and human (‘by which sin fell the angels’) : —and the one from the beast the pure direct principle of Popery, based on its fundamental antichristian dogma of the Roman Pope being Christ’s divinely appointed vicegerent on earth. But, on the question as to the third spirit intended, there is difficulty. For, as just defined, it seems hard to assign to the false prophet’s spirit a sufficiently distinct character from the beast’s spirit, seeing that the two-horned beast is described as the chief organ, agent, and mouthpiece, as well as supporter, of the papal beast, its principal. Yet on closer examination, the difficulty will, I think, vanish. The name here given to this agent of evil is simply that of ‘the false prophet’; without any further adjunct, expressive of its subjection to the beast, so as in Apoc.19. This seems not obscurely to suggest the solution. For ‘the false prophet’ is, by itself, the generic appellation of an apostate priesthood in the professing Church: and of an apostate priesthood what the most characteristic spirit but that of priestcraft? A spirit this of which the essence in professed Christianity, just as in heathenism, is to arrogate to its own peculiar order the distinction of being the appointed and necessary earthly mediator between men and God, the one effective deprecator of His wrath, and channel of his grace and salvation; and which is thus seen to be distinct from, and independent of, that of direct Popery; though naturally, and almost necessarily, its ally. In fact it acted thus independently ere the close of the fourth and through the fifth century, long before its organization under the particular form of the two-Jiorned lambskin- covered beast of Apoc. 13, just as the preparer of the way for a heading sacerdotal earthly Antichrist; though afterwards, under the particular organization just spoken of, devoting itself to him as his most effective instrument and supporter. Still, however, with the full retention of its own essentiality of the spirit of priestcraft.

“Such, I say,—if the dragon, beast, and false prophet mean what I think it proved they mean,—appear to me clearly to be the three principles, or spirits, intended :— spirits in regard of which the prophecy intimates that they would act with unity of effect, if not of purpose, so as to gather the powers of the world (very much as Ahab was seduced by a lying spirit to Ramoth-Gilead) in antagonism against Christ’s truth and people, introductorily to the great coming day of final conflict. And, if these be the spirits intended,—spirits to go forth, let it be remembered, after a certain progress made in the drying up under the sixth vial of the Turkman flood from the Euphrates,—it is only too obvious that within the last twenty or thirty years, the precise period marked out in the prophecy (for I will carry down my sketch, now on revising for my fifth edition, to the time present, A . D .1861), there has been an outgoing of principles and spirits of error, both in England and over the world, which have most strikingly answered to each and every one of them.”1

II. THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS OF DELUSION WHICH HAVE GONE FORTH SINCE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

The figure employed in the prophecy deserves careful consideration. It is drawn from two events in the prefig-urative history of the Jewish people; the plague of frogs in Egypt, and the drying up of the Euphrates before the capture of Babylon. As the turning of the waters to blood in Egypt was followed by the plague of frogs, so the turning of the waters to blood under the second and third vials is followed by the plague of unclean frogs under the sixth vial. In the same way as the drying up of the Euphrates by its being turned out of its channel (foretold in Jer. 51: 36) was immediately followed by the capture of Babylon, so the drying up of the antitypical Euphrates under the sixth vial is followed by the fall of “Babylon the great” under the seventh.

The connection between the drying up o’f the Euphratean flood and the issuing forth of the frogs is evident. While the river flowed in its fullness the frogs were hidden in its channel. But as the river was dried up the frogs issued from its bed and banks, and filled the air with their croak-ings. This relation between the drying up of the river, and the issuing forth of the frogs, points to a double significance in the Euphratean symbol. While the overflow of the Euphrates under the sixth trumpet connects its drying up under the sixth vial with the diminution and wasting away of the Turkish power, the drying up of the river under the sixth vial just previous to the fall of Romish Babylon under the seventh, indicates a causative connection between the two events; that the fall of the modern Babylon (like that of the ancient Babylon) is brought about by the drying up of the river which had supplied it with its wealth. This connection casts light upon recent history, and the prospects of the future, linking as it does the notable drying up of the mighty stream of papal revenues in and since the French Revolution, with the approaching destruction of the papal power, and of Romish Christendom. And further the removal of the old order of things under which the Romish church possessed unbounded wealth and supremacy in the continent of Europe has created a void into which a host of new-fangled theories, philosophies, and constitutions, social, religious, or anti-religious have rushed. Worse than the frogs of Egypt their promulgators assail not the ear of sense merely, but that of mind and spirit. They fill the press with their publications, the schools and the senate with their vociferations. Their inharmonious and jarring voices accuse, attack, affirm, deny, boast and blaspheme, without cessation. Every day adds to their number and their noise. This they say is the age of reason, and free speech. All chains are broken, all tongues loosed. Of the new order of things they are the apostles and prophets; the founders of the philosophy, the politics, the science and the religion of the future.

III. THE CROAKING OF FRENCH FROGS.

It is a curious physiological fact that frogs abound in France. It might almost be called the land of frogs. This arises from its numerous marshes. Thus the old French banners had three frogs as their device.

So noisy and troublesome are frogs in France that before the Revolution, the nobility and courtiers, when spending any time in the country, were in the habit of forcing the miserable peasants to flog the neighbouring waters all night to keep the frogs quiet. The banishment of the Huguenots, by causing large tracts to become neglected and undrained, increased the plague of fevers and frogs. And the moral history of the country has been analogous with the physical. Unhappy France has become morally a land of fevers and of frogs, and a centre from which they have spread throughout Europe, and more or less throughout-the world.

Identification of the three “unclean spirits.”While not excluding the idea put forth by Edwards and Barnes that Heathenism, Popery and Mohammedanism are referred to under this symbol, we strongly incline to the view of Elliott and others, that the “dragon,”the “beast,”and the “false prophet “chiefly represent :

1. Satan, as inspiring heathenism and infidelity—the dragon of Revelation 12.

2. The Papacy—the eighth head of the revived wild beast power of Revelation 13.

3. An apostate priesthood—such as the minister to “the beast”in Revelation 13.

As proceeding from the “mouths”of these three powers the “unclean spirits”are instruments of speech. They are “spirits,”not material forms; spirits inspiring multitudinous tongues; they are “unclean spirits,”false, ungodly, immoral; they are “frog like,”noisy, loquacious, unceasing in their vociferations; low in character while lofty in pretensions; drowning with their hoarse croakings the sound of nobler and more harmonious voices, and wearying the ear with persistent clamour.

As to the fulfilment of this remarkable symbol certainly no fact in modern history is more apparent, and none more appalling than the outburst of Rationalism, Romanism, and Ritualism which has succeeded the French Revolution. Infidelity has advanced in recent times to the utmost limit of its possible development; Romanism has assumed its highest pretensions; and Ritualism has undertaken to overthrow the Reformation, and to restore the apostate church of the middle ages. A common spirit animates these erroneous systems, which through the press have the ear of the civilized world. While divided in their doctrines they are united in their opposition to the Christianity of the New Testament. And their action is wide in its effects. It is fast transforming the philosophy, the literature, the policy, the science, and the religion, of the world.

IV. THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT FROM THE MOUTH OF THE DRAGON.

That the voice of ten millions of people, said Coleridge, “calling for the same thing is a spirit, I believe. But whether it be a spirit of heaven, or of hell, I can only know by trying the thing called for by the prescript of reason and God’s will.”

That there has gone forth from the mouth of the dragon, the early antagonist of Christianity in the days of Roman Paganism (Apoc.12) an unclean spirit of heathen-like infidelity during the period of the drying up, or wasting away of Turkish or Mohammedan power in the East, and the contemporaneous diminution, or gradual drying up of the secular privileges and resources of the Apostate Romish Church in the West, is a fact which must be evident to every observer of the course of modern history. In the sphere of politics, in science, in philosophy, in biblical criticism, in England and on the continent, an open attack has been waged against Christianity, against the word of God, and even against natural religion, unlike any attack of infidelity in preceding times. The Deism of the eighteenth century, and blasphemous Atheism of the French Revolution have given place to the materialism, pantheism, positivism, and agnosticism of modern times. In Mr. Balfour’s recent work on “The Foundations of Belief,” the creed of naturalism, which is the outcome of modern infidelity is exposed and condemned at the bar of reason, “The theory that ‘dwarfs’ and drags in the dust our estimate of the importance of man, that makes’ his very existence an accident,”his story only a passing episode ‘ in the life of one of the meanest of the planets’; that from some unknown origin, after infinite travail evolves through strife ‘ famine, disease, and mutual slaughter’ a race ‘with conscience enough to feel that it is vile, and intelligence enough to know that it is insignificant,’ and then consigns that race with all its labours, genius, devotion, sufferings, and aspirations to the pit of everlasting oblivion, to be as though it had never been—such a theory does violence to the deepest instincts of reason, and destroys the foundations of morality. ‘All that gives dignity to life, all that gives value to effort, shrinks and fades under the pitiless glare of a creed like this.’ ”

The late Herbert Spencer in a series of philosophic works designed to carry the theory of evolution to its utmost limits of development maintained that the great first cause is utterly and necessarily unknown; that God, if there be a God, is and will ever be “the unknown God”; and hence that there is no such thing as Revelation, and that all religion built upon the foundation of Revelation is worthless. On the continent, August Compete, the founder of the modern school of Positivists rejects not only religion, natural and revealed, but even philosophy; and as man is prone to worship something, proposes that he shall worship Humanity! Huxley, who calls himself an Agnostic, and was the inventor of that term, says “when the Positivist asks me to worship humanity, that is to say to adore the generalized conception of men as they ever have been, and probably ever will be—I must reply that I would just as soon bow down and worship the generalized conception of a ‘wilderness of apes.’ ”

Agnostics, he says “have no creed, and by the nature of the case cannot have any.”

The warfare in these modern days against Revelation and religion is waged not only by philosophy but also in the name of science. Charles Darwin the principal author of the theory of the development of species by the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, confessed the completeness of his infidelity. “I do not believe,”he says, “that there ever has been any Revelation.” “Unbelief crept over me at a slow rate, but was at last complete.” Nature had ceased to speak to him of God. Though once capable of, “wonder, admiration and devotion “in the presence of the works of God, now he says not even the grandest scenes could “cause any such convictions or feelings to rise in my mind. 2 I am like a man,” he confesses, “who has become colour blind.”Ceasing to believe in a future existence he abandoned faith in religion. To him man was but an improved animal. No spirit from on high had ever been breathed into him, and all his boasted knowledge of God and of futurity was a baseless imagination, and a fading dream. Since Darwin’s day how marvellously has spread this spirit of scientific rationalism, how portentous has become its development! In Germany Hackel’s ” Pedigree of Man”has carried Darwinianism to fantastic and amazing conclusions. The ancestor of the human race was not Adam but ” Homo primigenius,”the “ape man.”Man is an automaton. The freedom of the human will is an illusion. “Every atom is gifted with sensation and a will.”All molecules have memory, which is a general function of organized matter. Every atom is provided with an “atom soul.”The effective cause of everything is the “perigenesis of the plastidules “! “The blind unconscious forces of nature, working without end or aim, are the effective natural causes of all the complex forms of animal and plant life.””German science,”says the Free thought Publishing Company, which has adopted Hackel’s work as a text-book, “is one of the glories of the world: it is time that it should lend in England that same aid to ‘free thought which in Germany has made every educated man a free thinker.”

The modern attack on Revelation from without has been accompanied by an attack from within. Inquiries have been conducted in the name of biblical criticism into the age, authorship, and history of the books of the Old and New Testament, and into the trustworthiness of the gospel narrative, whose rationalistic tendencies have been of the most marked description, and whose disastrous influence has been most widely felt. “Springing from the soil of German Rationalism and French infidelity the so called ‘higher criticism’ has ‘spared nothing sacred or otherwise, and its progress has transformed the history of the past into a nebulous mist.'”Astruc and De Wette hazarded conjectures as to the structure of the Pentateuch; Ewald, Vatke, Graf, Kuenen and other critics carried the disintegrating process still further, applying the boldest hypotheses to the destruction of the sacred text; while Wellhausen, advancing beyond the mutilation of documents, the displacement of names, events and dates, strove to convert history to legend, and to reduce the riches of Old Testament Revelation to a medley of disordered facts, fictions, and immoralities. According; to the wild theories of this lawless and arrogant critic, the Jehovah of the old Testament was a mere tribal deity; His servant Moses never prohibited the worship of images, while he sanctioned the worship of the brazen serpent; priests and prophets forged the books of the law, etc. On searching for the proofs of Wellhausen’s theory they are not forthcoming. “It is all theory based on theory, and resulting in theory.””The narrative exists simply for the construction of the theory; the theory is not materially suggested by the narrative, nor is it in anyway dependent upon it, because as soon as any incident or statement is found inconveniently rigid for the requirements of the theory it is ruled out of court as unhistorical or spurious.” The “higher criticism thus developed in Germany has been transplanted to England and America, where however it appears in less startling and repulsive forms, and animated by a more reverent spirit. Thus Canon Driver’s “Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament,”while arbitrarily cutting up the text of scripture into innumerable shreds and fragments, and as- signing their sources with a dogmatic confidence which ill becomes one who has nothing to guide his judgment but the documents which he mutilates, acknowledges some sort of inspiration, and affirms that in revealing Himself to Israel God prepared the way for the manifestation of Himself in Jesus Christ. Still so complex does the problem of texual criticism become in the hands of this critic, as to make it practically impossible to teach the Bible to any man of ordinary intelligence.”2 The attacks on the gospel narrative, the very centre of scripture, have been chiefly conducted by German and French Rationalists. Two celebrated Swabian critics, Strauss and Baur, led the attack, which was followed up by Renan in his “Vie de Jesus,”a work which has been translated into all the languages of Europe. Space forbids us to follow the theories of these sceptical critics; a single sentence is all that we can quote from the writings of Strauss, a sentence which closes a volume of 784 pages, containing the most searching and unscrupulous attack on the gospel narrative which has ever been made. The following is the summary which Strauss gives of the results of his investigation.

“The results of the inquiry which we have now brought to a close have apparently annihilated the greatest and most valuable part of that which the Christian has been wont to believe concerning his Saviour Jesus; have uprooted all the animating motives which he has gathered from his faith, and withered all his consolations. The boundless store of truth and life which for eighteen centuries has been the aliment of humanity, seems irretrievably dissipated; the most sublime levelled with the dust; God divested of His grace; man of his dignity ; and the tie between heaven and earth broken.”And as if in bitter mockery all that Strauss proposes to substitute for the religion he claims to have destroyed, is “the idea of Humanity.”Baur, Strauss and Renan have been answered, but the infidelity of Germany and France remains as a dark and settled cloud over these countries. It has spread throughout Europe; extended to America, India, and the colonies, and more or less affected the world. Bales of the works of Tom Paine, and other infidel revolutionary publications have been sent out to seduce and poison the newly awakened mind of India; the works of Spencer, Huxley and other agnostics are widely read by the English speaking students in the colleges and universities of India and Japan, and are producing their natural fruit in the growth of a philosophic scepticism which bars the entrance of Christianity. Truly in our days the spirit of infidelity has gone forth throughout the world, and gathered an uncounted host of opponents to Christianity to “the battle of that great day of God Almighty”which seems already to have begun, and is to signalize the end of the present age.

V. THE “UNCLEAN SPIRIT “FROM THE MOUTH OF THE “BEAST.”

The revival of Popery which has taken place since the French Revolution, and especially during the Pontificate of Pius IX, and his successor Leo XIII, is one of the most remarkable facts of modern history. The system seemed to have received its deathblow, but lo! it lifts its head again with higher pretensions than ever. It has restored the Jesuits who had been suppressed by Pope Clement XIV, in 1773; and under their inspiring influence the Romanism of the past has been transformed into the Popery of the present.

The modern transformation of Romanism into Popery is an event which should arrest the attention of every thoughtful mind. In the year 1850 a magazine was commenced in Rome at the instance and under the direction of the Jesuits bearing the title Catholic Civilization (Civilta Cattolica). More than a hundred volumes of this magazine were published between 1850 and 1877. The Rev. William Arthur in his work on “The Pope, the Kings, and the People,”says of this magazine, “considering the number of books, serials, and journals in different languages of which it is the inspiring force, and considering the modifications it has already succeeded in bringing about in the ideas, and even in the organization of the whole Catholic society, they can scarcely be charged with vain boasting who call it the most influential organ in the world. The Jesuit Fathers forming its editorial staff reside close to the Pope’s palace, and work under his immediate direction.”1 “To reconstitute society according to the Catholic ideal “is its avowed aim. In order to this it considers that “a salutory conspiracy, a holy crusade”is needed. That conspiracy brought about the council of the Vatican, with its decree of papal infallibility.

On the 18th of July, 1870, six archbishop princes, forty-nine cardinals, eleven patriarchs, six hundred and eighty archbishops, and bishops, twenty-eight abbots, twenty-nine generals of orders, eight hundred and three spiritual rulers, representing the Church of Rome throughout the world, solemnly decreed the blasphemous dogma that the occupant of the papal chair is, in all his decisions concerning faith and morals, infallible! “It is said that arrangements had been made to reflect a glory around the person of the Pope by means of mirrors at noon when the decree was made. But the sun shone not that day. A violent storm broke over Rome, the sky was darkened by tempest, and the voices of the council were lost in the rolling of thunder.”

The following is the decree of papal infallibility promulgated by the Vatican Council:—”We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman Pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in the discharge of his office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith, or morals, to be held by the Universal Church, by the D.ivine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith and morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of the Church. But if any one,—which may God avert,—presume to contradict this our definition, let him be Anathema.”

“The new Vatican doctrine,”says Dollinger, “confers on the Pope the attribute of the whole fullness of power, (totam plenitudinem potestatis) over the whole Church as well as over every individual layman,—a power which is at the same time to be truly episcopal and again specifically papal, which is to include in itself all that affects faith, morals, duties of life, and discipline, and which can without any mediation whatever seize and punish, bid and forbid every one, the monarch as well as the labouring man. The wording is so carefully chosen that there remains for the bishops absolutely no other position and authority than that which belongs to papal commissaries or plenipotentiaries, as every student of history, and of the fathers will admit. The episcopate of the ancient Church is thus dissolved in its inmost being, and the Apostolic Institution to which, according to the judgment of the Church Fathers, the greatest significance and authority of the Church belongs, fades into an unsubstantial shadow.”

“In the future every Catholic Christian when asked why he believes this or that can and may give but the one answer: ‘I believe or reject it because the infallible Pope has bidden it to be believed or rejected.'”

The Vatican decree erects an “Asian despotism”over conscience and the Christian Church. The authority which it creates is independent, inasm.uch as it does not depend upon the Church, her bishops, or any living voice or power distinct from the papal personality; and “it is absolute inasmuch as it can be circumscribed by no human or ecclesiastical law.”These words are not those of an opponent of the Church of Rome, but of Cardinal Manning himself. The words are his, and his work “Petri Privilegium”was written to expound and sustain the principle they express.

“It needs but a step further,”says Janus, “to declare the Pontiff an incarnation of God.”

The Civilta Cattolica describes in the following words the exalted position of the Pontificate, regarded in the light of the Vatican decree: —

“The Pope is not a power among men to be venerated like another, but he is a power altogether divine. He is the propounder and teacher of the law of the Lord in the whole universe. He is the supreme leader of the nations, to guide them in the ways of eternal salvation; he is the common father and universal guardian of the whole human species in the name of God. The human species has been perfected in its natural qualifications by Divine revelation, and by the incarnation of the Word, and has been lifted up into a supernatural order in which alone it can find its temporal and eternal felicity. The treasures of Revelation, the treasures of truth, the treasures of righteousness, the treasures of supernatural graces upon earth, have been deposited by God in the hands of one man, who is the sole dispenser and keeper of them. The life-giving work of the Advent and Incarnation, work of wisdom, of love, of mercy, is ceaselessly continued in the ceaseless action of one man thereto ordained by Providence. This man is the Pope. This is evidently implied in his designation itself—the Vicar of Christ, for if he holds the place of Christ upon earth, that means that he continues the work of Christ in the world; and is in respect of us what Christ would be were He here below Himself visibly governing the Church. It is then no wonder if the Pope in his language shows that the care of the whole world is his; and if, forgetting his own peril he thinks only of that of the faithful nations. He sees aberrations of mind, passions of the heart, overflowing vices; he sees new wants, new aspirations; and holding out to the nations a helping hand with the tranquillity of one securely seated on the throne given him by God, he says to them, ‘Draw nigh to me, and I will trace out for you the way of truth and charity, which alone can lead to the desired happiness.’ “1

“Language like this,”says William Arthur, “is not to be smiled at when it goes to the heart of perhaps half a million of Ecclesiastics, each one of whom transmits the impression through a wide circle.”

Now let the reader ponder the following coincidence— “On the very day following the culmination of papal arrogance and self- exaltation, was declared that terrible Franco-German war in which the French Empire of Louis Napoleon—by the soldiers of which the Pope was maintained on his tottering throne—fell.The temporal sovereignty of the Pope fell with it.No sooner had the French troops been withdrawn from Rome and the French Empire collapsed than the Italian Government announced its intention of entering the Roman States, and did so. On the 2Oth of September, 1870, Rome was declared the capital of United Italy, and became the residence and the seat of the Government of Victor Emmanuel. The Times Summary for that year says:

“The most remarkable circumstance in the annexation of Rome and its territory to the kingdom of Italy is the languid indifference with which the transfer has been regarded by Catholic Christendom. A change which would once have convulsed the world, has failed to distract attention from the more absorbing spectacle of the Franco- German war. Within the same year the papacy has assumed the highest spiritual exaltation to which it could aspire, and lost the temporal sovereignty which it had held for a thousand years”

THE VOICE OF THE VICE GOD

“I am ‘the Voice,’ “said Pius IX, “for though unworthy, I am nevertheless the Vicar of Christ, and this Voice which now sounds in your ears is the Voice of Him whom I represent on earth.” “He that is with me is with God. If you are united to me who am His Vicar you are united to Christ.” Presented by the Belgian deputation in 1871 (the year following that of the Vatican decree) with a Tiara, “rich as ever it could be, ornamented with seventy-two large emeralds, as many agates’and rubies, while brilliants formed the warp of all the web,”the Pope said, “you offer me gifts, a tiara—a symbol of my threefold dignity in heaven, upon earth, and in purgatory.”Thus does the Infallible Pope interpret the meaning of the triply crowned mitre which he wears! Discoursing loftily on “the Patrimony of St. Peter,”he says, “Those who ought to guard the Patrimony of St. Peter take it away. It is true that I cannot like St. Peter launch certain thunder-‘ bolts that reduce bodies to ashes, but I can none the less launch the thunders which reduce souls to ashes; and I have done it by excommunicating all those who have perpetuated and borne a hand in the sacrilegious spoliation.”This bad tempered blasphemy is glorified as “Christo parlante.”

“Most blessed Father,”says the faculty of theology in Rome, “in obeying your Voice we are obeying our own conscience; devoted to the infallible authority of your teaching we shall ever venerate and diffuse it in expounding sacred doctrines. Let your blessedness deign to comfort us with your benediction.”And then they bow down and worship their idol, “l’idole qu’ils se sont erigee au Vatican “; as Montalembert said, “They offer up justice, truth, reason, and history in a holocaust to the idol they have set up at the Vatican.” Concerning a volume containing one hundred and one speeches of Pius IX, the Romish editor says, “Let this divine volume of the angel- ical Pio Nono be received as from the hand of an angel!”The degradation of Christ linked with this exaltation of the Pope strikingly appears in a sermon preached during the session of the Vatican Council in 1870. The discourse was under three heads: —

(1) Jesus Christ in the manger.
(2) Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
(3) Jesus Christ at the Vatican.

And the conclusion was that Christ was “a child at Bethlehem, a ‘ host ‘on the altar, and an old man at the Vatican.””Love the person of the Pope,”said Manning, “not as an abstract principle, not as the Holy See, not as an institution, but the living breathing man who has upon him the dignity and unction of the Great High Priest. Be filially devoted to him; for the time is come when according to the prophecy he is the sign which shall be spoken against; he is set for the fall and for the rising again of nations. He is the test of the world.” In the person of Pius IX, Jesus reigns on earth, and “He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet.”

THE MODERN ADVANCE OF POPERY

Following the reinstitution of the Jesuits there has taken place an alarming advance of Popery throughout the world. Rome has boldly invaded Protestant lands, imposed on them its hierarchy, alike in England, America, and the Colonies; multiplied its chapels, monasteries, nunneries, colleges, and schools; entrapped thousands of the children of Protestants in its educational institutions; secured large endowments from Protestant governments; introduced ele- ments of division and distraction into the legislation of Protestant countries; multiplied Catholic reviews, magazines and newspapers; poured forth a flood of cheap religious controversial works; tracts for the masses, romances, novels, works on poetry, history, music and architecture, designed to help forward the Romanizing movement. Under the influence of this extensive propaganda conversions to the Church of Rome have become frequent, and the whole attitude of Protestant society towards that church has changed. The influence on the public press of England and America has been most marked. The self-exalting Pope of Rome, the “Man of Sin”of Pauline prophecy, is systematically glorified as “His holiness.”His doings and sayings are constantly kept in evidence. Having ceased to persecute, and adorned himself in the garments of superhuman sanctity, the Pope has been “transformed into an angel of light,”and his ministers as “the ministers of righteousness “(2 Cor. 11 : 15). History is forgotten, the antichristian character of Popery ignored, or denied: and the seductive spirit of falsehood, superstition and idolatry, which has found a home within the professing church of Christ, spreads as a leaven of evil from class to class, and from country to country, in its effort to permeate with its poison the mass of modern society.

VI. THE “UNCLEAN SPIRIT “FROM THE MOUTH OF THE FALSE PROPHET.

This spirit, as we have already recognized, is that of priestcraft, whose essential characteristic is “to arrogate to its own “order the exclusive dignity of being the earthly mediator between God and man; and necessary for the effective averting of his wrath, and communication of his favour and salvation.”

That such a spirit has gone forth since the beginning of the outpouring of the sixth vial on the Turkish Empire, and spread far and wide in Protestant lands, is a matter of common knowledge. The initial date of the modern drying up, or exhaustion of the Turkish Empire, was, as we have already seen, that of the Greek insurrection in 1821. The I4th of July, 1833, was kept ^y tne ^ ate Cardinal Newman as the date of the start of the Tractarian movement; a movement which has developed into the Ritualism of the present day, with its conspiracy to Romanize England, through Romanizing the established Protestant church of the land.

The Romeward character of the ritualistic movement is evident not only from its doctrines and practices, as the saying of masses, the adoration of the elements, the claim of the ministry to be a sacrificing priesthood, the practice of auricular confession, and the use of Popish ceremonial, but from its effort to bring about the “corporate reunion ” of the English church with the Romish, and from the number of ritualists, both lay and clerical who have joined the church of Rome. The founder of the movement, Newman, went over to the Romish church, and was made a cardinal. Ward, Faber, Hurrell Froude, Pusey, and others intimately associated with Newman in the Tractarian conspiracy, regarded Protestantism with abhorrence, and strove to restore in the English church Romish doctrines and practices cast out of it by the Reformation. In order to accomplish this the most dishonest methods were employed. When Newman was endeavouring to restore Popery he wrote against it, justifying the act by saying beneath his breath, “I am not speaking my own words “; “such (anti-Romish) views are necessary for our position.”1 Though he had long held that the Roman was the one true church, Ward retained his position as a clergyman of the Church of England, “because he believed he was bringing many of its members towards Rome.”2 He justified equivocation, saying as his son tells us “make yourself clear that you are justified in deception, and then lie like a trooper.”3 Hurrell Froude, as early as 1834 confessed that the Tractarian movement was “a conspiracy.”4

The ritualistic “Society of the Holy Cross “consists of ” bishops, priests, deacons, and candidates for Holy Orders, in the Church of England, all its members being pledged to secrecy, to the saying of masses, the adoration of the elements, the practice of auricular confession, and the use of Popish ceremonial.”5 This was the society which made itself responsible for that abominable book written for the guidance of ritualistic father confessors, and known as the priest in absolution.”6 “The Order of Corporate Reunion is even more secret and mysterious than the Society of the Holy Cross, and is more unblushingly Popish, going the length of acknowledging the Pope as the lawful head of the whole visible church on earth.”7 A high official of the order plainly said at its first synod that “as a church we must have some executive head, and as there is no other competitor, we believe the Pope to be that head.”The order “actively pursues its labours,”and has representatives “in almost every English diocese.”The Roman Catholic Standard and Ransomer, in its issue for November 22, 1894, stated that “there are now eight hundred clergymen of the Church of England who have been validly ordained by Dr. Lee and his co-bishops, of the order of corporate reunion.”8 The solemn subscriptions and even the oaths of ritualistic clergymen are no longer to be depended on. Pusey taught that the confessor “may swear with a clear conscience that he knows not what he knows only as God.”1 He owned the abuse of the con- fessional, that it was “a sad sight to see confessors giving their whole morning to young women devotees, while they dismiss men or married women who have perhaps left their household affairs with difficulty to find themselves rejected with “I am busy, go to some one else.”

THE CONFESSIONAL IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

In a confessional book for children “edited by a committee of clergy,”which has had a wide circulation, it is taught that little children from six and a half years old should go to confession, and they are instructed that “It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.”3 That gross immorality has arisen from the practice of auricular confession in the Church of England was shown by archdeacon Allen in the course of a debate in the Lower House of Canterbury Convocation, on July 4,1877. “A venerable and wise high churchman,”he said, “told me that in his own experience he had known of three clergymen who practiced this teaching of habitual confession as a duty, who had fallen into habits of immorality with women who had come to them for guidance.”4 The dangerous tendency of the confessional is “proved beyond the possibility of refutation by the bulls of the popes themselves against solicitant priests.”The congregation of the Inquisition at Rome was compelled in 1867 to put forth an instruction addressed to all archbishops, bishops and ordinaries complaining that the Constitution on the crime of solicitation “did not receive proper attention, and that in some places abuses had crept in, both as to requiring penitents to denounce guilty confessors, and as to the punishing of confessors guilty of solicitation”(ie: of soliciting women while in the confessional to immorality). 5 Even Dr. Pusey speaking from experience said “you may pervert this sacrament (of penance) from its legitimate end, which is to excite an exceeding horror of sin in the minds of others, into a subtle means of feeding evil passions, and sin in your own mind “; and again “be assured that this is one of the gravest faults of our day in the administration of the sacrament of penance, that it is the road by which a number of Christians go down to hell.”‘ The father confessor is often while in the confessional “the murderer of souls.”During the conference held at Fulham Palace on confession and absolution Canon Aitken said that the system of auricular confession was “full of danger. He had had two or three instances of the extreme danger of the practice recently brought before him. A friend of his who occasionally used sacramental confession told him that in conversation with a young lady something made him think that she was unhappy, and he told her so. They arranged an interview, and he found that she was living in sin with her confessor. She had been betrayed into sin by the very peril of this institution.”1 When Dr. Longley, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, held an official and public inquiry as to a confessional scandal connected with the church of St. Saviour in Leeds, he wrote, after investigating the facts to the Rev. H. F. Beckett, the Vicar, that “Mr. Rooke who was then a deacon having required a married woman, a candidate for confirmation, to go for confession to you as a priest, you received that female to confession under these circumstances, and that you put to her questions which she says made her feel very much ashamed, and greatly distressed her, and which were of such an indelicate nature that she would never tell her husband of them.” Instead of trying to place the matter before Dr. Longley in a more favourable light Mr. Beckett’s reply to the bishop seemed to make the case even darker against himself for he declared “your lordship cannot but see that Mrs. ———-‘s not mentioning what had passed between her and myself to her husband is nothing at all to the pur- pose, since no woman would, I suppose, ever tell her husband what passed in her confession.”Dr. Tait, Arch-bishop of Canterbury said before the House of Lords with reference to the ritualistic book entitled “The Priest in Absolution,””no modest person could read that book without regret; it is a disgrace to the community that such a book should be circulated under the authority of clergymen of the established Church. I cannot imagine that any right minded man could wish to have such questions (as it suggests) addressed to any member of his, family; and if he had any reason to suppose that any member of his family had been exposed to such an examination, I am sure it would be the duty of any father of a family to remonstrate with the clergyman who had put the questions, and warn him never to approach his house again.”2 Of the ritualistic “Society of the Holy Cross”Mr. Ward says, “Its filthy confessional book has never been condemned by the society as a whole, though a few of its members have written and spoken against it. “3 The bishop of Carlisle, the late Dr. Harvey Goodwin, declared that the Society of the Holy Cross has “created a scandal in the church of almost unparalleled magnitude,” and that the “only right course for wise and loyal churchmen was to wash their hands of it.”But the society continues to spread the practice of auricular confession in the Church of England, as part of the work of “levelling up”to the methods of the Church of Rome.

REAL NATURE OF THE RITUALISTIC MOVEMENT

The Rev. W. I. G. Bennett, late Vicar of Frome, in his ,plea for toleration wrote, “It is not for a chasuble or a cope, lighted tapers, or the smoke of incense, the mitre or the pastoral staff, that we are contending, but as all who think deeply on either side of the question know full well for the doctrines which lie hidden under them.”We “set the bulbs,”said Dr. Pusey, “which were to bring forth the flowers.”The real object of the movement is “the restoration of Romanism in England by means of the National Church, and the consequent overthrow of the Reformation.”The extent to which the movement has grown may be partly gathered from the published list of 9,600 clergymen of the Church of England who have already joined it, with the names of the ritualistic societies to which they belong. How long shall these traitors be suffered to carry on their conspiracy, to multiply their secret societies, to spread their poisonous leaven, to teach Romish doctrines in Protestant pulpits, to subvert the foundations of the faith, to mislead multitudes to their eternal ruin; and to do this with Protestant money, with the connivance or support of Protestant bishops, and with the authority of a Protestant king and Parliament?— Is it not written “Purge out the old leaven.””Know ye not that a little leaven “leaveneth the whole lump?”Already nearly half the clergy of the Church of England are engaged in the Rome ward movement. By their means the venerable structure of the Protestant established church is burning with incendiary fires. The bishops sleep while the building blazes, or even cast fuel on the flames.

SPREAD OF RITUALISM TO OTHER LANDS

From England ritualism has spread with disastrous eflf cts to America, the continent, India, and the colonies. Nor is the climax of the movement reached. The spirit which inspires it is destined to carry it throughout the world. Its end will not be reached till the close of the great Armageddon conflict which marks with its lurid signal the termination of the present age.

This great prophetic period is mentioned no less than seven times in Daniel and the Apocalypse.

First as three and a half prophetic “times”in Daniel 7. The persecuting “little horn”arising among the ten horns of the divided Roman empire, and distinguished from them by his episcopal character as having “eyes”of intelligent oversight, “like the eyes of a man,”and by his proud self-exalting utterances, having, “a mouth that spoke very great things,”was to exercise tyrannical “dominion ” over the saints. They were to be “given, into his hand”until “a time, and times, and the dividing of time.”

Secondly, as the three and a half “times”of the scattering and subjugation of “the holy people in Daniel 12,””And I heard the man clothed in linen which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and swore by Him that liveth forever, that it shall be for a time, times, and a half; and when He shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.”

Thirdly, as “forty-two months,”during which “the holy city”shall be trodden under foot, (Rev. 11:2), “The court which is without the temple leave out (or cast out) and measure it not; for it is given unto the gentiles; and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months,”

Fourthly, as the 1,260 days of the prophesying of the sackcloth clothed witnesses, (Rev. 11:3),”And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred, and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.”

Fifthly, as the 1,260 days during which the persecuted woman is hidden and fed in the wilderness, (Rev. 12:6), “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.”

Sixthly, as “time, times, and a half”during which the woman is nourished from the persecuting dragon who had been cast down from his place of exaltation, (Rev. 12: 13, 14), “And when the dragon saw that he was cast out unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. 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.””And the dragon was wrath with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

Seventhly, as “forty-two months,”during which the revived head of the ten horned wild beast power, the head which has “a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies,”exercises dominion; finally “making war”with the saints, and overcoming them, (Rev. 13:5), “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.””And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.”

As 1,260 days are equal to forty-two months of thirty days each, and as forty-two months equal three and a half years, it is evident that one and the same period is intended. Should this period be interpreted on the day-day scale, or on the year-day scale? In other words are the 1,260 days to be taken as literal days of twentyfour hours each, or as symbolical days, representing 1,260 years?

We have shown in our chapter on Prophetic Chronology in “The Approaching End of the Age”(pp. 300-322), that the wild beasts of Daniel and the Apocalypse with their heads, and horns, and times are miniature representatives of historic events and periods. Every feature is on a reduced scale, and therefore among the rest the times of their duration. “The reduction is on as enormous a scale as when our world is represented by a globe a foot in diameter.”The fulfilment of one of these prophetic periods on the year-day scale supplies the key to all the rest. The “seventy weeks”of Daniel 9, extending from the decree of Artaxerxes to the advent and death of Messiah was ful- filled, not as seventy literal weeks, or 490 days, but as 490 years. Further both in the law and the prophets this scale is employed in relation to the times prophetically announced; in the law of Moses in the words “after the number of days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years”(Num. 14: 34); and in the prophecies of Ezekiel in the passage “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 shah bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: / have appointed thee each day for a year.

“Let these facts in relation to the prophetic times be duly considered, and especially the words “I have appointed thee each day for a year,”and the conclusion will be apparent that the symbolic times of Daniel and the Apocalypse should be interpreted on the year-day scale; in other words that the 1,260 days, the 1,290 days and the 1,335 days of these prophecies represent 1,260, 1,290 and 1,335 years.

An exhaustive and masterly treatise on the year-day system from the pen of the Rev. T. R. Birks (Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of Moral Philosophy), appeared more than fifty years ago in his work entitled “First Elements of Sacred Prophecy”; a book now difficult to procure. The following is a brief summary of the general scope of the argument. “The year-day theory,”says Professor Birks, “may be summed up in these maxims:-

“1. That the church, after the ascension of Christ, was intended of God to be kept in the lively expectation of His speedy return in glory.

“2. That in the Divine councils a long period, of nearly two thousand years, was to intervene between the first and the second advent; and to be marked by a dispensation of grace to the Gentiles.

“3. That in order to strengthen the faith and hope of the church under the long delay, a large part of the whole interval was prophetically announced, but in such a manner that its true length might not be understood, until its close seemed to be drawing near.

“4. That in the symbolic prophecies of Daniel and St. John, other times were revealed along with this, and included under one common maxim of interpretation.

“5. That the periods thus figuratively revealed are exclusively those of Daniel and St. John, which relate to the general history of the church, between the time of the prophet and the second advent.

“6. That in these predictions each day represents a natural year, as in the vision of Ezekiel; that a month denotes thirty, and a time or year, three hundred and sixty years. The first of these maxims is plain from the statements of scripture, and the second from the actual history of the world. The third is, on a priori grounds, a natural and reasonable inference from the two former, and is the true basis of the year day theory viewed in its final cause. The three following present the theory itself under its true limits. Perhaps no simpler method could be suggested in which such a partial and half veiled revelation could be made, than that which the holy Spirit is thus supposed to adopt, resting as it does on a plain analogy of natural times.”

A summary of Professor Birks’s argument will be found in “The Approaching End of the Age “(pp. 306-322). The argument is an exceeding able one, and affords a complete demonstration of the year-day theory.

STARTING POINT OF THE 1,260 YEARS OF PAPAL DOMINION

In the Prophetic calendar appended to my work on “The Approaching End of the Age,”and also in “Light for the Last Days,” have shown that the decree of the emperor Justinian, in 533, and that of the Emperor Phocas in 607, conferred on the Bishop of Rome headship over all the churches of Christendom. The latter decree is memorialized by the Pillar of Phocas in Rome, bearing inscription and date “Die prima Mensis August. Indict. Und. ac Pietatis ejus Anno quinto. Pro innumerabilibus Pietatis ejus Beneficiis.”The usurper Phocas was the murderer of the lawful Emperor Mauritius, of four of his sons, of his brother Petrus, and of the Emperor’s widow, Constantina, and her daughter. Such was the man who bestowed universal headship over the churches of Christendom on Boniface III.

JUSTINIAN STARTING POINT OF THE 1,260 YEARS

“The commencement of the twelve hundred and sixty years,” says Cunninghame, “is to be marked by the giving of the saints, and times and laws, into the hands of the little horn.”

“That the little horn is the papacy, has been established with such force of evidence by Mede, Bishop Newton, Mr. Faber, and other writers on prophecy, that I do not consider it at all necessary to enter upon the proof of it. The papacy being a spiritual power within the limits of the Roman empire, Mr. Faber argues, I think rightly, when he says that the giving the saints into the hand of the papacy, must be by some formal act of the secular power of that empire constituting the Pope to be the head of the Church. It is not, in fact, easy to conceive in what other mode the saints could be delivered into the hand of a spiritual authority, which, in its infancy at least, must have been in a great measure dependent upon the secular power for its very existence, and much more for every degree of active power which it was permitted to assume or exercise.

“Accordingly we are informed, by the unerring testimony of history, that an act of the secular government of the Empire was issued in the reign of Justinian, whereby the Roman Pontiff was solemnly acknowledged to be the head of the Church. That emperor, whose reign was marked by the publication of the volume of the Civil Law which was afterwards adopted through the whole extent of the Roman empire, by the different nations who had divided among themselves its territories, was no less ambitious of distinction as a theologian than as a legislator. At an early period of his reign, he promulgated a severe Edict against heretics, which contained a confession of his own faith, and was intended to be the common and universal standard of belief to his subjects. The severest penalties were enacted by it against all who refused implicit submission.

“A second Edict of the same nature was issued by Justinian in the month of March, 533; and on this occasion he formally wrote to the Pope, as the acknowledged head of all the churches, and all the holy priests of God, for his approbation of what he had done. The epistle which was addressed to the Pope, and another to the Patriarch of Constantinople, were inserted in the volume of the Civil Law; thus the sentiments contained in them obtained the sanction of the supreme legislative authority of the empire; and in both epistles the above titles were given to the Pope.

“The answer of the Pope to the imperial epistle was also published with the other documents; and it is equally important, inasmuch as it shows that he understood the reference that had been made to him, as being a formal recognition of the supremacy of the See of Rome.

“From the date of the imperial epistle of Justinian to Pope John, in March, 533, the saints, and times, and laws of the Church, may therefore be considered to have been formally”delivered into the hand of the papacy, and this is consequently the true era of the twelve hundred and sixty years.”

PHOCAS STARTING POINT OF THE 1,260 YEARS

It is manifest that the rise of the papacy was gradual. A second decree similar to that of Justinian was issued by the Emperor Phocas in 606 or 607, and a long list of prophetic interpreters from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries can be shown who adopted this latter decree as the proper starting point of the 1,260 years of papal domination.

From the decree of Justinian in A. D. 533 the 1,260 years’ period reached its termination in A . D. 1793, the central year of the French Revolution—that of the reign of Terror, and the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

From the decree of Phocas in A. D. 606-7, the 1,260 years, reckoned as calendar or prophetic years of 360 days each, ended in 1848-9; the year of the great European Revolution which witnessed the formal deposition of the Pope from his temporal authority, and the establishment of a Republic both in France and Italy.

Reckoned in full solar years, 1,260 years from the decree of Phocas terminated in 1866—7. The years 1866-1870 witnessed the overthrow of Papal Austria by Protestant Prussia; the Spanish Insurrection, and deposition of the Queen; the Ecumenical council at Rome, and declaration of papal infallibility; the overthrow of the Imperial power of Papal France in its conflict with Prussia ; and the rise of the Kingdom of United Italy, and of the Protestant Empire of Germany.

Thirty-four years have now elapsed since the memorable year 1870, when the Pope of Rome was decreed infallible, and lost the Temporal Sovereignty which he had held for more than a thousand years. As there is not the slightest probability that United Italy will consent to give up its dearly won position, and restore the secular dominion of the Popes, we are warranted in considering the year 1870 as that which witnessed the End of Papal Temporal Power.

The application and adjustment of the prophetic times to the order of historical events has, during the last nineteen centuries, advanced continually in the degree of its correctness. This was of course to be expected. The mysterious form in which the prophetic times in Daniel and the Apocalypse are stated, and the ignorance of the church as to the duration of her pilgrimage, and of the long apostasy which was to cast its shadow on her career, account for the errors of her earlier interpretations of these times; while the growing revelations of history explain the gradual advance in her comprehension of prophetic chronology so distinctly visible in later centuries, and especially during the last 700 years.

From Cyprian’s time, neat-the middle of the third century, as Elliott reminds us, “even to the times of Joachim and the Waldenses in the twelfth century there was kept up by a succession of expositors in the church a recognition of the precise year-day principle of interpretation; and its application made, not without consideration and argument, to one and another of the chronological prophetic periods of days, including the shorter one of those that were involved in the prophecies respecting Antichrist; though not, so far, to that of the 1,260 predicted days of Antichrist’s duration. An inconsistency this very obvious; and only to be accounted for, I think, by the supposition of some providential overruling of men’s minds; whereby they were restrained from entertaining the view, and carrying out their own principles, so long as it would necessarily have involved the conclusion of Christ’s advent being an event very distant. Further it appears that so soon as ever it was possible to entertain the year- day principle, and yet to have an expectation of Christ’s advent being near at hand, so soon the application was made of it to the 1,260 days predicted of Antichrist’s duration in Daniel and the Apocalypse. At the close of the twelfth century Joachim Abbas, made a first and rude attempt at it; and, late in the fourteenth the Wicliffite Walter Brute followed.”

The commentary on the Apocalypse by Joachim Abbas, Abbot of the monastery of Curacio in Calabria, was written about the year 1183. 2 Having become famous for his gift of scriptural research he received permission from Pope Lucius III, in 1182, “to retire awhile from the abbacy and its active occupation in order to give himself more entirely to these studies.”Nearly 1,260 years had elapsed from the nativity of Christ to the period in which Joachim wrote. Had Antichrist already come? “We may probably conclude,”says Joachim, “that Antichrist is even now in the world,”though the hour of his clear manifestation has not yet come. The holy city trodden down during the prophesying of the witnesses he held to be the Latin Church and Empire, and the forty-two months in which the witnesses preach clothed in sackcloth signify “so many generations of the cleric and monastic witnessing orders”; i.e., according to his own explanation elsewhere of the five months of the scorpion locusts, a period of 1,260 years. It was impossible, of course for Joachim, the abbot of a Roman Catholic monastery, to apply the 1,260 years prophesying of the witnesses to definitely anti-Romish testimony. He saw that the harlot city of the Apocalypse meant Rome; that the Antichrist would be the counterfeit of Christ; and that false prophets would issue out of the bosom of the church; but to rightly value the Protestant testimony which had even then commenced among the Waldenses, and was to grow in later times to such gigantic proportions, was beyond his power. Not so, however, with Walter Brute, the Wicliffite, in 1391, whose testimony is given to us by the venerable Foxe from original documents. To him the 1,260 and 1,290 days of prophecy were so many years, to be reckoned from the Hadrian desolation of Jerusalem to his own day. 1 But what if the Hadrian date was too early a starting point? To reckon the 1,260 years from the rise of the papacy would throw its termination into the distant future. Who should be bold enough to do this? A hundred and seventy years roll away. The Reformation has come, and the Romish anti-Reformation movement is in full flood. The massacre of the Huguenots in France is imminent; the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew. It is the year 1571. David Chytreus ventures to indicate the decree of Phocas as the possible commencing point of papal domination. He says that if reckoned from the beginning of the overthrow of the Western Roman Empire by the Gothic Alaric, in 412, the termination of the 1,260 years would be in 1672, or a hundred years later than the date at which he wrote, while if reckoned from the Pope exalting decree of Phocas in 606 its termination would fall in 1866, or 295 years later. According to this there might remain about 300 years of the fatal dominion of Antichrist.

Bullinger in 1573 states strongly the view that the Pope exalting decree of Phocas is the initial date of papal dominion, and refers to the notable preceding action of Gregory the great.

“The Byshop of Constantinople blynded wyth ambition, required to have the supremacie given hym, whom Palagius and Gregory Byshops of Rome wythstode: And this latter so impugned the supremacie of the Patriarch of Constantinople, that he slicked not to call hym the vauntcurrour of Antichrist, which would usurp the tytle of generally byshop. There remaine not a fewe espistles written of this matter, in his register. Nevertheless, a fe.we yeares after, when the Byshops of Rome were sore afrayde, least the dignitie should be geven to the Byshops of Constantinople, Boniface the 3, obteyned of the Emperour Phocas the murtherer, that he which was byshop of olde Rome, should be taken for the universal bishop, and Rome for the head of all churches: which constitution set up the Pope in authoritie, so as he was now taken of the most part of the west by shoppes for Apostolicall, and many matters were brought before hym to determine: whereby he got in favour of many princes, chiefly of Fraunce, by whose ayde he drove out of Italy both the Emperour of Greece, and the kings of Lumbardie, and brought Rome, and the best and most flourishing parts of Italy under his owne subjection.”

Such too had been the view of Bishop Bale, who in 1550 called Phocas “the first Pope maker,”and of that of the Magdeburg Centuriators in their monumental history published in 1559-1574. Napier, the famous inventor of Logarithms, in his remarkable work on the Apocalypse dated A.D. 1593, powerfully advocates the year-day theory. “In Prophetic dates ofdaies, weeks, moneths and yeares, everie common propheticall day is taken for a yeare.”He thought that the interval 1541 to 1756 would be marked by the downfall of Romish power.

Pareus in his commentary on the Apocalypse A.D. 1643 boldly reckons the 1,260 years of papal dominion from the decree of Phocas in 606. His work represents the substance of lectures delivered in the year 1608 to the Academy of Heidelberg, over which he presided. Boniface III, he says was exalted by a decree of Phocas to “the chaire of universal pestilence “in 606. “From the yeare of Christ therefore 606, untill this time the holy citie hath been trodden under foot by the Romane Gentiles, which is the space of 1,037 yeeres and is yet to be trodden down 223 yeeres more, to wit, untill the yeere of Christ 1866.”A bold prediction, based on the prophetic times! There is no hesitation about the language. From his chair at Heidelberg, in the seventeenth century, Pareus looked forward 223 years into the future, and guided by the sure word of prophecy pointed out the year 1866 as that which would witness the overthrow of papal dominion. And history in the events of 1866-70, justified his anticipation.

Seven years later, in 1650, Holland in his work on the Apocalypse says that according to prophecy “there remain 216 years more “for the papal power; which calculation also places the termination of the 1,260 years in 1866.

Forty years later Cressener in 1690 stated that the years of the period should in his view, be reckoned as prophetic years of 360 days each, which would shorten the 1,260 years to 1,242. Following in the same line Robert Fleming in his memorable work on the “Rise and Fall of Papal Rome,”published in 1701, anticipated the year 184.8 as a critical year in the downfall of the papacy. He added, “Yet we are not to imagine that these events will totally destroy the papacy, although they will exceedingly weaken it, for we find that it is still in being and alive when the next vial is poured out.”He also indicated the year 1794 as one which would witness some notable papal overthrow. There was not a sign in the political heavens when Fleming wrote that such events were impending; he foresaw them only in the light of chronological prophecy. Both his anticipations proved correct: 1794, and still more 1793, the year of the Reign of Terror in France, and 1848, the year of the great Revolution, witnessed ttie preliminary overthrow of the papacy. Events further showed that the 1,260 years of prophecy should be reckoned both as calendar years of 360 days each, and as solar years; and that reckoned in these two forms from the decree of Phocas in A . D . 606 the period terminates first in the revolutionary year 1848, and secondly in the year 1866, so long anticipated as that of the end of papal power.

In the year 1746, Dr. Gill in his well known voluminous commentary, similarly placed the ending of the 1,260 years in 1866. The beginning of the Pope’s reign, he says, was in the year 606; “if to this we add 1,260 the expiration of his reign will fall in the year 1866, so that he may have upwards of a hundred and twenty years yet to continue. But of this,”he adds, “we cannot be certain; however the conjecture is not improbable.”

Reader in his Apocalyptic commentary ( A . D . 1778) placed the 1,260 years in the interval A . D . 606—1866.

Twenty four years later Galloway at the commencement of the nineteenth century, in 1802, also points to 1866 as the termination of the 1,260 years of papal dominion. So did Faber, in 1805, Frere in 1816, Holmes in 1819, Bicker-steth in 1823, Irving in 1828, and Elliott in 1844. Burder in 1849 says, “The year 606 appears to me to be the grand and momentous date from which it is most satisfactory to compute the 1,260 years of the Papal Antichrist^ If this be agreed then the eventful termination of his reign will be in the year 1866, and we are now approaching a period most momentous to the Church and to the world.”

Five editions of Elliott’s great work on the Apocalypse were issued between 1844 and 1861. I have before me Elliott’s diagram of the prophetic times in his last edition, (Vol. IV, p. 240), tracing their termination in the year 1866. That diagram of the convergent ending of the chief prophetic times stands as a last witness to the marvellous anticipation whose existence we have traced for three hundred years, in the writings of Chytraeus, Pareus, Holland, Fleming, Gill, Reader, Galloway, Faber, Frere, Holmes, Bickersteth, Irving, Burder, and Elliott, or from the middle of the sixteenth century down to within five years of 1866; the anticipation that that year, as terminating 1,260 years from the decree of Phocas, would bring about the predicted fall of papal power. We have now to trace the fulfilment of this remarkable and long continued anticipation, in the events of the years 1848, and 1866-70.

The Pontificate of Pius IX, the last Pope exercising temporal sovereignty, witnessed a double overthrow of papal power. The first of these took place in 1848. Marvellous were the events of the period! In a single fortnight in that year “a conflagration broke out which blazed from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Vistula.” France, Germany, Austria, and Italy were convulsed by the earthquake shocks of Revolution. Thrones fell like trees before a tornado. Lamartine and Louis Blanc, who were eye-witnesses and actors in the Revolution have each written its history. The literature of the subject is voluminous. Granier de Cassagnac, Reynault, Lord Normanby, Caussidiere, Emile Thomas, Proudhon, Grey, Lespez, Pre-vost Paradol, Guizot, Jules Simon, and other writers of various nationalities have told its tale. In his “Century of Continental History,” Rose has given a synopsis and diagrammatical summary of the revolutionary events of 1848. In July, 1847, the profound tranquillity of the western world was proclaimed from the thrones of England and France. On the 23d of February, 1848, the Revolution broke out at Paris. Barricades were thrown up, the Tuileries ransacked, the prisons opened, and frightful disorders committed. Louis Philippe abdicated on February 24th. A Republic was proclaimed from the steps of the Hotel de Ville on February 26th. The perpetual banishment of Louis Philippe and his family was decreed on the 26th of May. The election of Louis Napoleon to the national assembly followed on the 18th of June. On the 25th of June Paris was in a state of siege, in which 16,000 people were killed or wounded. On the 2Oth of December Louis Napoleon was proclaimed President of the French Republic. On March 15th, a little more than a fortnight after the fall of Louis Philippe a constitution was proclaimed at Rome. The Pope fled to Gaeta, on the 24th of November, where an asylum had been provided for him by the King of Naples. On the 8th of February, 1849, the Pope was formally deposed from his temporal authority, and a Republic proclaimed. The revolutionary contagion penetrated with amazing rapidity into every stronghold of European despotism. “Metternich fled before it, leaving the once powerful empire whose policy he had so long guided, a prey to terrible calamities. It descended the Rhine along its entire course from the mountains of the Black Forest, stirring its dukedoms and electorates into tumult and insurrection. It struck eastward into the very heart of Germany, still producing wherever it came the same commotions, popular assemblies, demands, threats, insurrections, skirmishings—all hostile to the royal prerogative. The great kingdom of Prussia felt its shock, and was well-nigh prostrated. The force of the movement was spent only when it had reached the Russian frontier. Providence had said to it ‘ tlitherto but no further’; and now accordingly its progress was arrested. It did not cross the Vistula, for Russia forms no part of the Roman earth, and Providence has reserved this powerful kingdom, it would appear, for other purposes. Such was the extent of the movement. On almost the same day the various nations inhabiting from the hills of Sicily to the shores of the Baltic met to discuss the same grievances, and urge the same demands. They did not act by concert; nothing had been arranged beforehand; none were more astonished at what was going on than the actors themselves in these scenes. One mighty influence had moved the minds of a hundred nations, as the mind of one man; and all obeyed a power which every one felt to be irresistible. Then suddenly were all the lights of the political heaven smitten, and as it seemed at the time, extinguished.””All over Papal Europe royalty was smitten—suddenly, terribly smitten. Laws were abolished; armies were forced to flee; dynasties were sent into exile; the supreme Power was in the dust; and the mob was the Monarch.”1 The flight of the Pope from Rome was followed by anarchy, and the dissolution of civil society in Italy. The Roman Republic which had been proclaimed proved short-lived. In 1849 it was forcibly suppressed by the French Republic, and the Pope restored to temporal dominion by French soldiers. “The sight of the soldiers of republican France in the streets of Rome compelling the Romans to submit to a very much worse government than that which the French themselves had rejected at the cost of revolution, and doing so professedly for the sake of French religion, was a singularly loathsome one, and grievously revolting and demoralizing to the conscience of Europe.”2

Restored to his throne by French bayonets, against the will of the Italians, the Pope was maintained in his unnatural position by a French army of occupation for twenty-one years longer, till the fatal year 1870, in which the French Empire of Louis Napoleon, and the papacy suddenly fell together. Isolated during this period as a temporal ruler, Pius IX turned his attention to becoming a great Pope, and promulgated the new dogmas of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, and the infallibility of the tiara crowned priest. The latter was the climax of papal self-exaltation.

EVENTS OF 1866-70

The overthrow of Papal 1 Austria by Protestant Prussia took place in 1866. Prussia declared war on the i8th of June, and was victorious in a series of battles. The total defeat of the Austrians at Sadowa, followed on the 3rd of July. Italy declared war against Austria on the 18th of June. The Austrians retired from Mantua, Verona, and Venice on October 9-17. The invitation of the Pope to all Catholic bishops to celebrate the eighteenth centenary of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul was issued on the 8th of December. We pause before this fact. Such was the period reached in 1866-7, the eighteenth centenary of Paul’s martyrdom at Rome. Such was the appointed time of papal downfall. Five hundred and ninety-nine bishops, and thousands of priests were present at the allocution delivered by the Pope on the 26th of June, 1867. Twenty-five martyrs were canonized by the Pope on June 29th. Then followed on September 13th the publication of the Pope’s encyclical letter summoning the CEcumenical council at Rome for the 8th of December, 1869. Immediately after, on September i8th a general insurrection broke out in Spain. Ministers resigned, the queen fled, and was deposed. The Jesuits were suppressed, and freedom of religious worship was decreed.

The twenty-first general council was opened at Romejon the 8th of December, 1869. At this great CEcumenical council were present six archbishop princes, forty-nine k cardinals, eleven patriarchs, six hundred and eighty archbishops and bishops, twenty- eight abbots, twenty-nine generals of orders; eight hundred and three in all. Four public sessions were held and between ninety and one hundred congregations. New canons were issued on the 24th of April, 1870. The Infallibility of the Pope, as head of the Church, affirmed by 547 placets against two non-placets, was decreed and promulgated the i8th of July, 1870.

The dogma was read by candle-light, amid the rolling thunders of a storm which burst over Rome. “The definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church Irreformable. But if any one presume to contradict this our definition, let him be Anathema.””The reader ceased. The storm alone was speaking. For a moment no human tone disturbed the air. But memory was repeating two terrific words, and imagination kept saying that the winds were whispering, ‘Irreformable! Anathema! ‘ ”

His great and memorable Vatican decree, the ne plus ultra of Popery, involved no less than “The legal extinction of Right”, and the enthronement of Will in its place, throughout the churches of one half of Christendom.”It subjected the Church to “more than Asian despotism.””The effect of it, described with literal rigour, was in the last resort to place the entire Christian religion in the breast of the Pope, and to suspend it on his will.””Whatsoever was formerly ascribed either to the Pope, or the Council, or to the entire governing body of the Church, or to: the Church general and diffused, the final sense of the great Christian community, aided by authority, tested by discussion, mellowed and ripened by time—all—no more than all, and no less than all—of what God gave, for guidance, through the power of truth, by the Christian revelation, to the whole redeemed family, the baptized flock of the Saviour of the world; all this is now locked in the breast of one man, opened and distributed at his will, and liable to assume whatever form—whether under the name of identity, or other name, it matters not—he may think fit to give it.”1

“Idle is it to tell us that the Pope is bound ‘ by the moral and divine law, by the Commandments of God, by the rules of the Gospel’; and if more verbiage and refutation could be piled up, as Ossa was set upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa, to cover the poverty and irrelevancy of the idea, it would not mend the matter. For of these, one and all, the Pope himself, by himself, is the judge without appeal. If he consults, it is by his will; if he does not consult, no man can call him to account. No man, or assemblage of men, is one whit the less bound to hear and to obey. He is the judge of the moral and divine law, of the Gospel, and of the Commandments; the supreme and only final judge; and he is the judge, with no legislature to correct his errors, with no authoritative rules to guide his pro- ceedings; with no power on earth to question the force, or intercept the effect of his decisions.”

FALL OF THE PAPAL POWER, 1870

Speedily was the blasphemy of this infallibility decree rebuked by the Most High! The same day that it was published there was dispatched from Paris to Berlin the declaration of war which sealed the fate of the second French Empire, and with it that of the temporal power of the papacy. On July 18th, when the Pope read, amid the thunder and lightning of an awful storm the decree which marked the climax of papal pretension, the announcement of his own infallibility, Napoleon III dispatched his challenge to Germany. We know what followed; how Protestant Prussia humbled herself before God by a day of special prayer on the ayth, and besought His blessing on her quickly gathering armies; how the wicked, and withered, and blood- stained emperor of Catholic France, accompanied by his poor unfortunate boy, assumed the next day the command of the wretchedly organized French troops at Metz; how the Germans defeated the French, both at Wissemburg and at Geisburg on August 4th, and on the 6th at Woerth and Forbach; how they bombarded Strasburg and defeated Bazaine, and drove him back into Metz, gained another great victory at Gravelotte, and forced the emperor and the entire army into Sedan, where on September ad, they had to surrender, and were all taken prisoners; how 300,000 men marched on Paris, and establishing their headquarters at Versailles, besieged it in September; how other German armies overran all France ; how Bazaine had to surrender Metz and 173,000 men in October; and how before the end of the year France lay bleeding and prostrate at the feet of her Protestant foes, without an army in the field, or an ally in Europe. And we know how also, long before this crisis arrived in France —Rome having been evacuated by the French troopswhich were sorely needed at home — the Pontifical government fell, to rise no more. The king of Italy forewarned the Pope of his intention to occupy Rome on September 8th, and did so in the following month. Rome decided, by an overwhelming vote, for union with Italy, and was with its surrounding territories incorporated by Royal decree with the Italian kingdom in October, 1870.

This was the full and final fall of the temporal power of the papacy. It was on the day of the last meeting of the Council, which had deified a man by declaring him possessed of the Divine attribute of infallibility, that Victor Immanuel’s announcement reached Rome; it was on the day that the German armies closed round Paris that the Italian general Cadorna invested Rome. The struggle lasted but a few hours; the Pope understood that further resistance would be mere wanton waste of life, for his Zouaves numbered but 8,000, and 50,000 Italians were arrayed against him. As soon as a breach had been made in the walls of Rome, the word to surrender was given.

“There, yea, there on the dome of proud St. Peter’s, being raised and beginning to flutter, was the white flag, and there unwinding itself did it float out upon the September breeze, and waved in the forenoon sun,—waved over Pontiff and Cardinal, over the Circus of Nero and the Inquisition of the P,opes. Was it real? Eyes would be wiped to see if they did not deceive. Eyes, ay, the eyes of soldiers, would be wiped from thick, hot tears. Could it be— could it ever be? Come at last! The hour for which ages had impatiently waited, for which myriads of Italians had died. Italy one! her arms outstretched from Etna and from Monte Rosa, clasping at last every one of her children, and even availing by their returning strength to lift up her poor old Rome from under the load of the priest and the stranger.

“He who two brief months before had, amid deep darkness at noonday, read out, by artificial light, the decree of his own unlimited power and irreformable law, lay down that night amid a rude and intrusive glare streaming from across the Tiber into the* multitudinous windows of the Vatican. It came from the lights of Rome all ablaze with illuminations for the fall of the temporal power.”

Can any one suppose that these things happen by accident? Consider what a combination is here! Far back, at the beginning of the dark ages, a wicked usurper and murderer, thinking perhaps to atone for his crimes, presumes to bestow a prerogative which pertains to Christ alone —the headship of all the Christian churches east and west—on the bishop of the ancient seat of the Empire, Rome; and the ambitious and worldly-minded bishop dares to accept the gift, and seat himself in the temple of God, as if he were God. Divine prophecy had foretold, more than a thousand years before, the uprising of this power at this period, and had foretold also that it should endure in the Roman world for 1,260 years. We pass on through the centuries, and note how this same power grows greater and greater, till it wields an authority mightier than that of the Caesars at the pinnacle of their glory, for it rules over two hundred millions of mankind, and, according to its own account, rules not in earth only, but in heaven and in hell. We note how the saints are given into its hand, and perish by millions at its instigation. We note how all the monarchs of the Roman world give it their voluntary submission for centuries, and how at last they rebel against it, and seek to overthrow it; how they succeed .n doing this time after time, though not fully or finally, till, when eleven centuries have been left behind us we see this power declining and failing. Twelve pass away; it is weaker still! Will it last out to a thirteenth? No; its duration is fixed at 1,260 years. We scan its condition more closely. Fall succeeds fall; yet it rises again, or rather is helped up again. The last four years are come; it still stands trembling. The fateful year is ushered in. Its first six months pass, and there is no sign of a crash; midsummer comes, and, lo ! the storm breaks, and before winter appears all is over—as a reigning dynasty in Europe it has fallen to rise no more! Is not this the finger of God?

Are we truly living at the close of the prophetic “Times of the Gentiles”? Have we reached the final stage in the predicted course of the church’s pilgrimage? Is the fourth and last watch of the “night”of her appointed suffering history shortly to expire; and does the dawn of a new age, and a new world, already lighten with its early rays the eastern sky? We have seen and set forth clear and multiplied proofs that “the end of the age is near at hand “; that its last sands are swiftly running out; but are all the signs we might have expected of this fact fulfilled? Writing in 1861, correcting his fifth and last edition of the “Horae Apocalypticae,”Elliott said, “some signs are still wanting, especially the non-gathering as yet of the Jews to Palestine, and, predicted troubles consequent.”Forty-three years have elapsed since Elliott thus”wrote, and now we behold the commencement of the Jewish restoration so long foretold, and its commencement at the time indicated ages ago in the prophetic word. The sight is a wonderful one, and a glorious confirmation of our faith, and of the correctness of our interpretation of “the sure word of prophecy.”

On every stage of Jewish history prophecy has shed its antecedent light. Their four hundred years’ captivity in Egypt was foretold; their forty years’ wandering in the wilderness foretold; their seventy years’ captivity in Babylon foretold; their “seventy weeks,”or 490 years of restored national existence in Palestine ending with the advent of Messiah foretold; their dreadful overthrow by the Romans, involving the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Temple, foretold; their long subsequent dispersion, and unexampled sufferings, their falling by the sword, and being “led captive into all nations,”and Jerusalem’s being trodden down by the Gentiles until the “times of the Gentiles “are fulfilled, was foretold; 1 the “seven times “or 2,520 years, of their subjection to Gentile sovereignty, under the succession of the four Kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, was foretold ; the “three and a half times,”or 1,260 years, of the last “scattering of the holy people”by the desolating power occupying “the Sanctuary,”whose “sacrifice “had been “taken away,”was foretold; 1 and the final reversal of all this oppression, dispersion, and misery was foretold; that He who had “scattered Israel”would “gather them”; 2 that He would assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth “; 3 that He would “gather them out of all the countries”where he had “driven them in His anger,”and bring them again into the “place”from which they had been exiled, and would “rejoice over them to do them good,”and “plant them in that land assuredly “with His “whole heart”and with His “whole soul”; 4 that He would make them “one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel,”and that they should be “no more two nations, neither be divided into two kingdoms any more at all “; 5 that “the children of Judah and the children of Israel should be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head”; 6 that the Lord would make “her that was cast off a strong nation,”and that He would “reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth and forever”; 7 that He would “make them a praise and a name whose shame had been in all the earth “; 8 that He would “pour upon them the spirit of grace and supplication,”and that they should “look”on Him “whom they pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourneth for an only son, and be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first born”; that there should be “a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.”

That the Lord would “cleanse them from all their filthiness and idols,”and give them “a new heart, and a new spirit,”and “take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them an heart of flesh”; and put His “spirit”within them, and “cause them to walk in His statutes, and to keep His judgments, and do them”; and that they should “dwell in the land that He gave their fathers,”and be “His people,”and that He would be “their God”; and that “the land which was desolate”should be “tilled, whereas it was a desolation in the sight of all that passed by”; and that they should say “this land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden, and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities are fenced and inhabited.”10 All this was foretold, and to confirm his declarations Jehovah had said “then shall the nations that are left round about you know that I the Lord have builded the ruined places, and planted that which was desolate: I Jehovah have spoken it, and I will do it.”

But not all at once, or by a single act, was this great restoration of the Jewish people to be accomplished. In his memorable vision the prophet Ezekiel portrays several successive stages in this work. He sees, representing figuratively the children of Israel, a valley filled with dry bones, and hears the question, “Can these bones live?” Then comes the command, “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.”Then the prophet beholds the bones coming together, “bone to his bone,””but there was no breath in them.”Later on at the call “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live,””the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”1 In explanation of the vision the Lord said to the prophet, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold they say, our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, Behold O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel, and ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put My spirit in you, and ye shall live; and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.””Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all.”2 First the unification of the lifeless people of Israel should take place; then their national restoration to their own land; and lastly their spiritual quickening, with all its glorious results. Such was the foretold order. Not forever are the Jewish people to be a dispersed, despised, down-trodden race; not forever is their unbelief and rejection of Messiah to continue; for as Paul tells us “blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved”; for this is God’s “covenant “with them; “for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance,” or irrevocable.

And now the thing foretold is taking place before our eyes. Tin- re is a stir in the Valley of Vision. The immobility and disjointed condition of the bleached bones, which had continued for ages, exists no more. Israel is still spiritually lifeless as a nation, but bone is coming to his bone. The Jews are unifying. They have proclaimed before the world the “solidarite”of Israel: and are beginning to return to their own land. And when did this movement commence? It began at the time of the French Revolution. Both events commenced at the close of the “seven times”of the four empires; at their first, or initial termination; the era of the seventh trumpet, with its seven vials of judgment on apostate Babylon. And the last 100 years which have witnessed the casting down of the Papal and Mohammedan powers, by the successive shocks of war and revolution, have seen the lifting up of the people of Israel from the depression of ages; their rapid emancipation, and national renaissance.

The first act in this marvellous modern movement was the enfranchisement of the Jews in England in 1753. In 1755 Moses Mendelssohn published the first of those writings which gave him a foremost place among the literary men of his time. In 1776 the United States of America embodied in their constitution the principle that Gentile and Jew were “equal”in right and privilege before the law. In the convulsion of the French Revolution “the chains fell from the limbs of Israel wherever the victorious armies of France appeared, and the Jews once more began to be accounted men.”In 1805 Russia revoked the edict of Jewish banishment. In 1806 the Jews were made citizens in Italy and Westphalia, as they had been previously in Holland and Belgium. In 1809 Baden, and in 1813 Prussia, and Denmark followed the example of other nations, and emancipated the Jews. Acts of Parliament were passed in England in their favour in 1830, 1833, and 1836; and in 1858 they were made eligible for election to Parliament. In 1866 Turkey had pledged herself to protect them from persecution; and in 1867 she gave them the right to hold real estate in the land of their fathers. In 1878 the Congress of Berlin made the fifll emancipation of the Jews in Roumania a condition of promised autonomy. And then in 1860 was formed the Universal Israelite Alliance, “an organization which has for its object the promotion and completion of the emancipation of the Jews in all lands, and their intellectual and moral elevation, as also the development of Jewish colonization in the Holy Land.”This great Jewish society has some three thousand branches widely scattered throughout the world. Beneath the device on the title page of its report representing the tables of the law illuminated with the glory of the Shekinah, two hands, are pictured, closely clasped in friendship and unity, with the motto ‘Toutes les Israelites sont solidaires les uns des autres.’ All Israelites are one!”

The aim of the Society, next to the realization of Jewish unity, is the cooperation of Jews throughout the world in efforts on behalf of their suffering and oppressed brethren, efforts to secure ” 1’emancipation de nos freres qui gemis-sent encore sous le poids d’une legislation exceptionelle.”Various associations are connected with the Alliance as national branches, as the Anglo-Jewish Association, under the presidency of Barori de Worms, Sir Barrow Ellis, Sir Julian Goldsmith, Sir Benjamin Phillips, Sir Saul Samuel, and Sir Albert Sassoon. Its records tell of efforts on behalf of suffering Jews in Morocco, Roumania, Russia, and Persia; of schools for neglected Jewish children established in Bagdad, Beyrout, Bombay, Constantinople, Corfu, Da-knaHciiK, Fez, Haifa, Jerusalem, Kezanlik, Philippopolis, Buliiiiica, Samacoff, Sophia, Tunis, and elsewhere. Jewish journal’s have been created or aided for the instruction and elevation of the Jews in various countries, and “to knit more closely the bond of union amongst the different Jewish communities.”But here the work of the Alliance stops. It has not sought to secure for the Jews a national position, or to bring about their restoration to Palestine.

The unity and emancipation of the Jews at which this Alliance aims, however desirable, fails to satisfy the heart of the Jewish people, which naturally turns to Palestine, the land of their fathers, with longings for restoration to their national position, and their original divinely-given inheritance and home. And hence the various attempts which have been latterly made to found Jewish colonies in Palestine; attempts to a considerable degree successful; and the large number of Jews who have returned to, and are settled in that land. But beyond these efforts a further movement was needed to bring about the reconstruction of the Jews as a nation in their own land. Was it possible that such a movement, vibrating far and wide throughout the scattered people, could arise? This is a prosaic and practical age. For long centuries the Jews have been domiciled in Gentile lands. Palestine has long lain desolate, and exists at the present day under the misgovernment of the Turks. Was it likely chat the Jews, already to a considerable extent emancipated from Gentile oppression would undertake the gigantic work of restoring their people to the land from which they had been exiled so long? It is true that the scriptures of the prophets had said that this would come to pass. But how could this thing be? How could the Jews be brought, in any wide and general way, to entertain the thought of such a restored national existence in Palestine? And how could they be led to attempt its practical realization?

Difficulties vanish in the presence of infinite, eternal power. Had not God brought forth the Jewish nation from Egypt; had He not restored them from captivity in Babylon, and could He not bring them again to their own land from the ends of the earth? “Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.”And now, lo! as the foretold period of 1,260 years from the Saracenic conquest of Palestine in A . D . 637, expires, as the year 1897 arrives, a new movement among the Jews springs into existence; Zionism arises, with its clearly defined aim “to procure for the Jewish people an openly recognized and legally assured home in Palestine.”

The first “ Zionist”Congress was held at Basle, in 1897. Each year since that date the annual Congress has increased in numbers and influence.

I have before me a description from the pen of an intelligent Christian eye-witness, Mr. Schonberger, of the fifth Zionist Congress, held at Basle. Three hundred Jewish delegates, and about a thousand Jewish hearers, crowded the large hall of the Stadt Casino. The delegates were highly-educated men, speaking a great variety of languages. “The three great speeches were those of Dr. Hertzl on the opening day, of Dr. Nordau on the second day, and of Mr. Israel Zangwill, of Ghetto fame, on the evening of the fourth day. Dr. Hertzl’s address which was most eagerly looked forward to, and listened to with profound interest, had all the soberness, earnestness and statesmanlike character which mark the commanding personality of the rcipccted and honoured founder of the movement. There was no brilliancy of diction, nor any attempt at oratory in its delivery; but its principal points, as well as the whole filing testified of the man who had undertaken a great task, and felt the full weight of his responsibility. It gave in a most concise and telling way the whole story of Zionism, its achievements and prospects; and described the spiriti and means by which it strives to attain its end. An altogether different thing was Dr. Nordau’s great address on the ‘Physical, economical, and intellectual amelioration of the Jews.’ Dr. Nordau is a masterful orator and most gifted word-painter, who brings to his task all the abilities of a savant, a writer and a journalist combined. His personality, and his gifts are alike striking. He is a veritable giant, and his strokes go home to friend and foe alike. His addresses are characterized by sweeping assertions, ana-tomicaL and pathological laying bare of Israel’s diseases, woes, and miseries; searching analysis of the deplorable physical and economic condition of the great masses of Jews, and their causes; a fiery denunciation of the rich— especially the ‘ lost’ Jewish millionaires. Israel Zang-will’s task was to expose the Jewish Colonial Association, and the Trustees of the Baron Hirsch Fund, on account of their standing aloof from Zionism.”

It is a significant fact, indicative of Jewish progress that the delegates at the Congress “total at more university degrees than the House of Commons, though the membership is not half that of the mother of Parliaments.”These delegates “come from everywhere, from Dawson City and Stockholm, from Astrachan and Tetuan; from Morocco, from Anatolia and the Argentine. In less than five years the movement has run through the British Empire, Russia, Roumania, and Galicia, and is making headway in Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland, and has its advocates for the return among the returned in Palestine.”

“The movement is distinctly liberal. The central authority is the Vienna executive, but each country has independent power within the framework of the movement. The most marked liberality of thought exists on religious matters. At one end is the rabbi, in fur cap, gabardine and side curls; at the other the rank Freethinker. Every shade of political thought is represented, and differences ignored in favour of the main idea of the return, and blood kinship of Israel. Nearly half a million of Jews have become interested Zionists. Next to no one is paid; volunteers do nearly everything except the sheer routine work. Its zeal has given birth to Neo-Hebrew. The old tongue lives again. It has its newspapers, magazines, novels and poetry, and ‘ Daniel Deronda’ or Byron’s Hebrew Melodies may be picked up in the tongue of Isaiah and the Talmudic Rabbis. Even London has its Hebrew newspaper, and a new Hebrew encyclopedia is being issued. Zionism has made Hebrew the language of instruction in the Jewish colonies in Palestine. The Zionists have managed to arrest the attention of the German Emperor, to obtain an audience of the Sultan, and raise £300,000 from 126,000 shareholders.”They are opposed by a certain set of rabbis under the influence of the more wealthy and worldly Jews, but as Dr. Hertzl said, “The poor and the wretched understand us; they have the imagination created by distress. They know from the experience of today and yesterday what the pangs of hunger will be tomorrow. In this condition there are many hundreds of thousands of our people. Judaism is an immense hostelry of misery, with branches throughout the world. Of the ‘Protest-Rabbis’ of the west who oppose the movement Dr. Max Nordau said, ‘with them we have already settled, and I hope that soon the whole Jewish people will have si’ttled with them.’ ”

This eloquent Jew, Dr. Max Nordau, addressing the delegates to the Congress said, “It seemed as if we were witnessing a miracle which affected ourselves, and all around us. We felt ourselves part and parcel of a fairy tale, in which we saw our brethren, thousands of years buried, again become flesh and blood. We wanted in the joy of this reunion to rehearse the sad history of the hundreds of years in which we had been dead in our tomb, in a grave which lacked the peace of a grave.””We have honestly striven everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities, and to preserve only the faith of our fathers. It has not been permitted to us. In vain arise loyal patriots, in some places our loyalty running to extremes; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers; and often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already made experience of suffering. We are one people — our enemies have made us one in our despite, as repeatedly happens in history. Distress binds us together, and thus united, we suddenly discover our strength. Yes, we are strong enough to form a State, and a Model State.”

ZION THE CAPITAL OR A JEWISH NATION

In his account of the International Zionist Congress at Basle in August last Richard Gottheil says, “A full seven years of service and work have passed by since a little band of one hundred and fifty enthusiasts met in the small hall of the Stadt Casino of that city in the year 1897. This year nearly six hundred delegates crowded to its utmost capacity the large meeting hall in that building; and these were little more than one-half of those that have been elected to represent Zionist constituencies. In 1897 the delegates came from only a few European states—notably Austria, Russia, Germany, France, and England. In 1903 there was hardly a corner of the globe in which Jews reside which was not represented. In Europe, from northern Scandinavia to southern Italy, from Ireland to the confines of Asia; and from North and South America, from far ofF Australia and South Africa; even from the Russo-Chinese frontier, these delegates came to meet their brethren and to sit in the Jewish Congress. The telegrams of greeting which poured into Basle showed that the Zionist organization is as far reaching as is the present day dispersion of the children of Israel. Even China proper was heard from in a communication from the Shanghai Zionist Association. It was not out of idle curiosity that these representatives had come to Basle; it was not the excitement of a moment that prompted these messages. Both men and messages bespoke, not only an underlying sentiment in the heart of the Jewish people, but also definite work in this great Jewish movement. The meeting in 1897 was largely tentative. That of 1903 was evidence of a fixed institution. The growth in members is paralleled by the growth in internal organization, and in other work of a most varied character. So large has become the number of delegates that a change has been found necessary in the method of representation, the basis of that representation being now two hundred in place of one hundred for each delegate.“

Within the Congress itself various parties have been formed. There is the government party, led of course by Dr. Hertzl, and the central committee at Vienna. There is the strictly orthodox party, called the Mizrachi, led by a Russian Rabbi in the long caftan of his own country; there is the young Zionist party, made up largely of former and present Russian students at German and Swiss uni- versities. Though not opposed to one another, and all working for one and the same end, they differ as to the means by which this end is to be reached; and these very differences show that the movement is pulsating with life — that it is not dead formalism, but the expression of the soul of Judaism.

“At the meeting in 1897 the question discussed was the eternaj one—to be, or not to be. At the Congress of 1903 definite propositions were made which demanded in their treatment the wisdom of experience, and the restraint of calm judgment. The road traversed by the Zionists between 1897 and 1903 was not only strewn with many obstacles, but covered by almost impassible barriers. A way had to be cleared through the jungle, and the undergrowth which centuries of neglect had allowed to arise in the path of the Jews. Opposition, more especially Jewish opposition had to be overcome at every point; for attacks had been made upon the Zionists in the open, and from behind ambushes. ‘ The rich ones among us, those who have gained fame and wealth in the international market of the world, have held severely aloof. Those who believed they would be looked upon as better citizens by crying out loudly their allegiance to the country in which they lived, fought us with all the weapons of satire and detraction. But a movement which is of the people, and for the people, which has its roots firmly set in the conscience of that people, will not down even at the insistence of the mighty, or at the satire of the garrulous. The movement progressed, and indeed gained strength from the opposition which it provoked. A Jewish Congress had been hailed as an impossibility. It was ‘shown to be a fact. A Jewish bank for strictly Jewish purposes had been decried as an anomaly. Yet the Jewish Colonial Trust was founded in London; a branch, the Anglo-Palestine bank, was founded in Palestine, and branches are now in the process of formation both in Russia and in America. A Jewish national fund was laughed at as the dream of enthusiasts. Yet such a fund has been founded and bids fair to give the material resources to Zionism without which of course it cannot work. But more than this, the Zionist movement is responsible for a great awakening of the Jewish conscience; for a return of many of our best and most intelligent Jews to Judaism; for a tremendous advance of culture among the Jews along Jewish lines in philosophy, in literature, in art. If the Jews have still a message to the world it is through this reawakened conscience that this message is spoken.’ “1

Our beloved brother David Baron of London who has as a converted Jew, deeply interested in the welfare of the Jewish people, attended the Zionist Congress, says in The Scattered Nation, “I am of the conviction that if Zionism does not as yet sufficiently represent the wealth and material resources of the Jewish nation, it does certainly represent a large proportion of its head and brain; and as I looked upon those hundreds of earnest, intelligent faces, gathered from all parts of the earth, and listened to the able, and often impassioned speeches made in different languages, I felt in my soul that Israel is God’s great reserve force for the future blessing of the world; and my heart goes out in yearning for the time when ‘the spirit shall be poured upon us from on high,’ and when these remarkable gifts, and this zeal and ability, shall be consecrated to the service of making known their long rejected Messiah and King among the nations.”

1. FROM the Saracenic conquest and occupation of Jerusalem and Palestine, in A . D . 637, to the formation of the Universal Israelite Alliance, in 1860, extend 1,260 lunar years.

2. From the same Saracenic starting point in Palestinian history, A . D . 637, to the First Zionist Congress in 1897, extend 1,260 solar years.

The narrative of the Saracenic conquest of Jerusalem and Palestine by the Saracens is told by Gibbon in his work on “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire “(Ch. LI): “Jerusalem, in the year 637,”says Gibbon, “was defended on every side by deep valleys and steep ascents; since the invasion of Syria the walls and towers had been anxiously restored; the bravest of the fugitives of Yermak had stopped in the nearest place of refuge; and in the defense of the sepulchre of Christ the natives and strangers might feel some sparks of enthusiasm which so fiercely glowed in the bosoms of the Saracens. The siege of Jerusalem lasted four months; not a day was lost without some action of sally or assault; the military engines incessantly played from the ramparts; and the inclemency of the winter was still more painful and destructive to the Arabs. The Christians yielded at length to the perseverance of the besiegers. The Patriarch Sophronius appeared on the walls, and by the voice of an interpreter demanded a conference. After a vain attempt to dissuade the lieutenant of the Caliph from his impious enterprise, he proposed, in the name of the people a fair capitulation, with this extraordinary clause, that the articles of security should be ratified by the authority and presence of Omar himself. The question was debated in the council of Medina; the sanctity of the place, and the advice of Ali, persuaded the Caliph to gratify the wishes of his soldiers and enemies; and the simplicity of his journey is more illustrious than the royal pageants of vanity and oppression. The conqueror of Persia and Syria was mounted on a red camel, which carried beside his person, a bag of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern bottle of water.’ Wherever he halted, the company, without distinction was invited to partake of his homely fare, and the repast was consecrated by the prayer and exhortation of the commander of the faithful. But in this expedition or pilgrimage, his power was exercised in the administration of justice; he reformed the licentious polygamy of the Arabs, relieved the tributaries from extortion and cruelty, and chastised the luxury of the Saracens, by despoiling them of their rich silks, and dragging them (in their faces in the dirt. When he came within sight of Jerusalem, the Caliph cried with a loud voice, ‘ od is victorious. O Lord give us an easy conquest!’ and pitching his tent of coarse hair, calmly seated himself on the ground. After signing the capitulation, he entered the city without fear or precaution; and courteously discoursed with the Patriarch concerning its religious antiquities. Sophronius bowed before his new master, and secretly muttered, in the words of Daniel, ‘the abomination of desolation is in the holy place.’ At the hour of prayer they stood together in the church of the Resurrection; but the Caliph refused to perform his devotions, and contented himself with praying on the steps of the church of Constantine. To the Patriarch he disclosed his prudent and honourable motive. ‘Had I yielded,’ said Omar, ‘to your request, the mos-lems of a future age would have infringed the treaty under colour of imitating my example.’ By his command the ground, of the temple of Solomon was prepared for the foundation of a Mosch; and during a residence of ten days he regulated the present and future state of his Syrian conquests.”

The Mosque of Omar still stands in Jerusalem on the foundation of Solomon’s Temple, as a witness of the Saracenic conquest whose initial date was the year A . D . 637.

In a series of works on the fulfilment of prophecy published during the last twenty-six years I have pointed out the importance of the year A . D . 637 in relation to the 1,260 years of Jewish and Palestinian desolation.

I. In the year 1878 I published my work on “The Approaching End of the Age,”and in a subsequent edition issued the following year added a Calendar of the Four Gentile Monarchies of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, commencing with the Era of Nabonassar, B.C.747, the starting point of Ptolemy’s Canon of the kings and times of these four empires.

In my calendar of the four kingdoms (p. 622) I stated that the capture of Jerusalem by the Saracens took place in the sixteenth lunar year of the Mohammedan Hejira, A.D. 637, and added the following chronological and historical facts.

“From the date of Nebuchadnezzar’s burning of the Temple (B.C. 587, 5th month, 10th day), to the setting up of the Mohammedan desolation in Jerusalem ( A . D . 637), there extend 1,260 lunar years. From Omar’s capture of Jerusalem ( A . D . 637), there extend 1,260 lunar years to A. D . 1860. Mohammedan massacre of 3,300 Christians at Damascus (July 9, 1860), followed by English and French intervention; 4,000 French troops landed at Bey-root, August 22d; Lord Dufferin, British Commissioner in Syria, reaches Damascus, September 6, 1860. From the same initial date there extended 1,260 calendar years to A . D . 1879; total defeat of Ottoman armies by Russia in 1877, followed in 1878 by British occupation of Cyprus, and protectorate in Asia. Berlin Treaty depriving the Porte of its most important possessions in Europe, and binding it to introduce ‘necessary reforms,’ signed July 13, 1878, in the beginning of the i,26oth calendar year from the summer of A . D . 637. From A . D . 637, 1,260 solar years extend to A. D. 1897.”

II. Ten years before the arrival of the year 1897 my work “Light for the Last Days “(published in 1887), I again pointed out, and with stronger emphasis the importance of the years 1860 and 1897, in connection with initial stages of Jewish restoration.

The following is the diagram of dates there given, and the paragraph which follows it:

A, D . 637——— 1,260 lunar years———-1860.
A . D . 637———-1,260 calendar years———-1877-8.
A . D . 637———-1,260 solar years——————-1897

“The first of these years, 1860, was a most critical one in the history of the Porte, and in the history of the Jews. It was the first stage in the liberation of the Holy Land from direct Turkish rule,—an early stage in the cleansing of the sanctuary from the power of the desolator; (being the date of the Druze massacre, and of the placing of the Lebanon under a Christian governor), and it was also the year of the formation of the ‘Universal Israelite Alliance,’ an initial step towards Jewish national reorganization. ‘*The action of England and France in Syria on this occasion might be considered a marked stage in the decline of the Ottoman power, as each such interference with its governmental action is an additional demonstration to the world of its loss of independence. The calendar termination from this Omar date (end of 1,260 years of 360 days each), is the year 1878, the year of the Berlin Conference, with its wholesale dismemberment of Turkey. The remaining solar termination is still ten years distant, 1897. What is it likely to -witness? Some more final and fatal fall of Ottoman power? Or some more distinct stage of Jewish restoration? Time will declare.”

III. In my work “Creation Centred in Christ”published in 1896, I again indicated the importance of 1860 and 1897 as the termini of 1,260 lunar, and 1,260 solar years, reckoned from the Saracenic conquest of Palestine in 637.

The following is the paragraph in that work referring to these dates.

“The prophetic times belong chiefly to the fourth Gentile kingdom, and especially to its latter half, or 1,260 years Papal and Mohammedan period. The French Revolution of last century and the fall of the papal temporal power coincident with the decree of papal infallibility in 1870 marked the termination of 1,260 years as measured from the Justinian and Phocas starting points in papal history. Reckoned from the Saracenic capture of Jerusalem and subjugation of Palestine in A . D . 637, 1,260 lunar years expired in 1860, the date of the liberation of the Lebanon district from Turkish rule, consequent upon the massacre of Christians in Syria, and also of the formation of the Universal Israelite Alliance, which has now branches throughout the world. Reckoned in solar form 1,260 years will terminate in 1897, and present events in Armenia confirm the view that we are on the eve of the break up of Mohammedan power in the East. It may be noted that the prophetic period of 2,300 years in lunar form extends from B . c. 336, the initial date of Alexander’s conquest (prominent in the prophecy of the ram and he-goat, Dan. 8), to A . D . 1897, the date of the expiration of 1,260 solar years from the setting up of Sarcenic rule in Palestine. Among all the signs of the nearness of ‘the end of the age’ none perhaps are more important than those connected with the state of the ^Jewish people. The removal of Jewish disabilities, and coincident rise of Jewish wealth, learning, and social and political influence; the unification of the Jews by various alliances, especially the Universal Israelite Alliance, which has countless branches in the present day all over the world; the persecution of the Jews on the continent, and particularly in Russia, where they are so numerous, and the constant growth of a national desire on ‘ the part of the Jewish people to return to the land of their fathers, all point to the proximity of the close of the ‘ Times of the Gentiles,’ which are throughout times of the depression and dispersion of the Jews.”1

The Zionist Congress held in Basle in l897 remarkably fulfilled the anticipations which I had expressed from time to time during the previous eighteen years, with reference to the importance. of that date as marking an initial stage of Jewish restoration.

The confirmation is so striking and important as to justify a fresh and close examination of the system of times and seasons which I have set forth in a series of volumes during the last twenty-six years. We cannot give this here, but we point out some salient suggestive facts. First as to Jewish dates.

The importance of the date B . c. 587, as marking the completion of Jewisb captivity at the destruction of the city and Temple of Jerusalem, by Nebuchadnezzar should be realized.

Then the fact that from that date:

1. One thousand two hundred and sixty lunar years extended to the Saracenic capture of Jerusalem in A . D . 637.

2. Two thousand five hundred and twenty lunar years (1,260×2) to the formation of the Universal Israelite Alliance in 1860: an important initial date in the Jewish restoration movement.

Then the further facts that from the Saracenic capture of Jerusalem in 637:

1. One thousand two hundred and sixty lunar years extend to the above date A. D . 1860.

2. One thousand two hundred and sixty solar years to the first Zionist Congress in A . D . 1897.

This confirms the importance of reckoning the prophetic times both in lunar and solar form. In my “Calendar of the Four Kingdoms,” published in 1879,1 have so reckoned them; and have set forth the discovery which I made in the study of the times of history and prophecy, that the period extending from February 26, B.C. 747, the Babylonian Nabonassar era, to August 22, 476, the date of the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, and of the termination of the Western Roman Empire, is exactly 1,260 lunar years. 1

The unquestionable fact that the duration of the four kingdoms of prophecy, of history, and of Ptolemy’s Canon, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, from the Babylonian era of Nabonassar B. c. 747, to the end of the empire of western Rome, A . D . 476, should be limited by, and contained in, the prophetic period of 1,260 years, in lunar form, is suggestive of a system of times, measuring the full duration of the four kingdoms of prophecy, starting with the Babylonian Nabonassar era. That such a system exists long continued examination of the subject has amply convinced me. Thus while 1,260 lunar years measure the four kingdoms from the Nabonassar era to the end of the western empire of Rome, the full period of 2,520 solar years (twice 1,260 years) extends from the Nabonassar era to A. D. 1774, the date of the accession of Louis XVI; recognized in the histories of Carlyle and Alison, as the date of the commencement of the era of the French Revolution.

A striking fact which I discovered that the difference in measure between 2,520 lunar years, and the same number of solar years, is seventy-five solar years, the very period placed by the recording angel in Daniel 12, at the termination of the prophetic times, plainly indicates that these times should be reckoned both in lunar and solar form; and that their epact, or the difference between their lunar and solar measurement, is adjusted to the terminal periods of these times, as measuring closing eras. Thus the period from 1859—1860, to 1934 is seventy-five years; and is the epact or difference between 2,520 lunar years, and the same number of solar years, reckoned from the completion of Jewish captivity at the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar B . c. 587.

B. C. 587———-2,520 lunar years———-A. D. 1859-1860 =2,445 solar years

B. C. 587 ———-2,52O solar years ———-A. D. 1934 2,520 lunar years = 2,445 solar years +75=2,520 solar years

Now as B.C. 587 the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, witnessed the completion of the captivity of Judah, whose commencing dates were the first, fourth and eighth years of his reign, “seven times,”or 2,520 years in full solar measure from these captivity dates are likely to extend to corresponding dates in the course of Jewish restoration.

Dates of completion, of Jewish Captivity in the first nineteen years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign; and corresponding dates at close of the prophetic period of”seven times.”

B.C. 605———-2,520 solar years———-A.D. 1916
B.C. 602———-2,520 solar years———-A.D. 1919
B.C. 598———-2,520 solar years———-A.D. 1923
B.C. 587———-2,520 solar years———-A.D. 1934

To these the last chapter of the prophecy of Daniel is both a historical and chronological key. Its dates are reckoned from the cessation of the “daily sacrifice,”in Jerusalem, and placing there of the “abomination that maketh desolate,”the idolatrous ensign of the desolating power.

The first fulfilment of this event took place B. c. 168. Antiochus Epiphanes having captured Jerusalem with great slaughter, caused the daily sacrifice to cease, polluted the Temple, and dedicated it to Jupiter Olympus, erecting his statue on the altar of burnt offerings, and putting every one to death who resisted his decrees. 1

The second fulfilment, of which the first was typical, took place in A . D . 70, when during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, foretold by our Lord, the daily sacrifice ceased, the Temple was burned, and Jerusalem overthrown with great slaughter. Referring to this awful event, and to the previous erection of the idolatrous standards of the Roman army in the precincts of the “holy city,”our Lord had said in reply to a question as to the approaching destruction of the Temple, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth let him understand) then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains, . . . for then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be “(Matt. 24: 15, 21).

More fully recorded in Luke, our Lord’s prediction was as follows,—”When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the-. Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”(Luke 21: 20-24).

Our Lord had previously foretold with tears this coming judgment, and again when on the way to crucifixion He speaks of it in His touching words, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children,””for if they do these things in a green tree what shall be done in the dry?”

The third fulfilment of the placing and setting up of the desplating”power in Jerusalem took place A . D . 637, when at the capture of the city by the Saracens, and the clearing of the temple area for the erection of the Mosque of Omar, the Mohammedan power became supreme; thenceforward to exercise dominion in the Holy City and Holy Land, “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”To the entrance of the polluting presence of this power the Patriarch Sophronius strikingly referred in the sentence quoted by Gibbon, “The abomination of desolation is in the holy place.”

Contemporaneously with this setting up of the Mohammedan desolating power in the East, took place the setting up of the idolatrous Papal power in the \Vest; and a comparison of the seven passages in Daniel and the Apocalypse relating to the 1,260 years continuance of the desolating power, yields proof of the conclusion that they refer to the duration of Popery and Mohammedanism.

These twin antichristian powers in the West and in the East, rose together, dominated together, have declined together, and are coming to their end together. Hence various general predictions as to the expected Antichrist may well include both of these in their range of meaning; as the declaration in the first epistle of John that the Antichrist will “deny the Father and the Son.”Popery virtually denies both in exalting the Pope to occupy the place of God, in the temple or church of God, and the place of Christ as the Head of that church; while Mohammedanism actually and openly denies both, in its implacable opposition to the truth revealed in scripture that Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father.

This breadth of range in the meaning of the prophetic word surely harmonizes with the vastness of the mind of its author. Analogous events are comprehended under the same expression, and room is given for the progressive unfolding of the divine meaning in the prolonged course of history.

Thus the “time of trouble “foretold in Daniel 12, seems to include both Jewish and Christian aspects. The “time of trouble “predicted by our Lord is certainly Jewish, and, judging by a comparison of Matthew 24 and Luke 21, commenced with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and continues throughout the period in which Jerusalem is “trodden down by the Gentiles,”and the Jews “led captive into all nations”; while the mention of “Michael”as “the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people”(Dan 12:1) connects “the time of trouble”with the warfare of “Michael and his angels”with “the dragon and his angels”; the seven headed ten horned dragon representing the satanically inspired Roman empire, in its heathenish warfare with the early Christian Church; a warfare renewed under the revived Roman power of Revelation 13, in the “war with the saints,”of later mediaeval and modern Reformation times. It is important to observe that both in the prophecies of Daniel and those of our Lord the “time of trouble “is immediately followed by the resurrection of the dead. “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,”says the revealing angel to Daniel, “some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmanent, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days”says our Lord, “shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers J of the heaven shall be shaken. And then shall ap-‘ pear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather together His elect from the foul winds, from one end of heaven to the other”(Matt. 24 : 29-31).

The same order of events is predicted in Zech. 14, where the gathering of “all nations against Jerusalem to battle”is foretold; the capture of “the city,”and “captivity “of the people, followed by the advent of the Lord to deliver, when “His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives,”and “the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee “; an advent to be succeeded by the manifestation of the universal kingdom of God ; “the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord, and His name one “(Zech. 14 : 1-9). Nor is this order different from that which is revealed in the prophecies of Paul, and in the Apocalypse.

If the ending epoch of Jerusalem’s treading down by the Gentiles be the epoch also of Christ’s second and glorious advent, to what great events are we now near at hand! The “fig tree”which on the Jewish rejection of Christ had withered away, begins to shoot forth leaves after its long period of barrenness, whereby we may know “that summer is nigh”(Matt. 24: 32, 33). The Jews after the dispersion of ages are again being gathered to their own land. Trouble awaits them there. Joseph’s brethren must be brought to self-judgment in a closing crisis of anguish and distress before Joseph reveals himself to them, as the brother whom they had sold into Egypt, and treated as dead. Then shall their tears of repentance be mingled with his tears of forgiving love. Then shall there be “a great mourning in Jerusalem,”for God will “pour upon the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in. bitterness for his first- born” (Zech. 12:10-14). Then shall be the national affliction ‘and humiliation of the “Day of Atonement”for Israel; following the “blowing of trumpets”which opens the “first day of the seventh month “(Lev. 23), the future Sabbatic portion of their history. There shall sound on the day of atonement for all their sins the jubilee trumpet of restoration to the land, and liberty to the people (Lev. 25); followed in its turn by the still more glorious “Feast of Tabernacles,” whose celebrations are bright with the joys of future ages.

An intelligent consideration of the present position of the Jewish people, of their long continued preservation, and of their deeply rooted national hopes, can only confirm the anticipation of their coming restoration to their own land; while the clear ami multiplied promises of the word of God as to their conversion to Christ leave no room for doubt as to the accomplishment of that blessed event. “The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob unto the mighty God: for though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea a remnant of them shall return “(Isa. 10: 21, 22). Most of the Jews are now in Russia, where expulsive forces are at work which shall yet drive them out of the country in large numbers. The antisemitic feeling in Germany is extremely strong, and growing in intensity; it exists in the Balkan, states, in France, Algiers and other countries. Forces are thus in existence, ready to expel the Jews in considerable numbers from Gentile lands. The increasing wealth of the Jews, and modern means of travel, facilitate migratory movements on a national scale. But both experience and scripture indicate that the restoration of the Jews will be gradual, and that the early settlers in the land will be chiefly drawn from the poorer classes. Steam communication from South Russia, and the eastern states of Europe, makes the journey to Palestine an easy one. Railways are in operation, and others being built in Palestine in several directions. The Turkish government which has possessed and ruled the land for more than four hundred years, is in a dying condition. The eastern question remains unsolved. Everything points to its solution by the return of the Jews to the land of their fathers. On the other hand the mutually antagonistic powers which surround Palestine, especially the Russian and Turkish, forecast by their presence coming struggles for the possession of the land which are likely to involve the restored Jews in great suffering, and even to expose them to threatened destruction. The Turks are accustomed to perpetrate massacres, and the Russians when roused are still barbarous in their modes of warfare. That Russia covets Palestine is a well known fact. Ten thousand Russian pilgrims annually visit Jerusalem, and the Crimean war which originated in a dispute as to the holy places in that city is a witness to Russian interest in the land of the nativity and the crucifixion.

Beyond the immediate prospects in relation to the Jews and Palestine rises the glowing and glorious picture of the future of that people and land, as portrayed in scripture, and illuminated by a study of the physical conditions, and ethnographical surroundings involved. Placed at the junction of three continents, and at the gateway of commerce between the West and the East; possessed of tropical valleys, and snow-clad mountains, the land of the palm and the cedar, of the olive and the vine, holds forth its hands of promise to the wandering exiled Jews. Carmel and Sharon covered in spring with their roses, the fields of Bethlehem, and hills of Nazareth with their anemones, the plain of Esdraelon with its corn-fields, the Jordan valley with its luxuriant foliage, the wilds of Bashan with their pastures, all wait for the Jewish hands and homes which are yet to cultivate and occupy them. The long neglected Gulf of Akaba with its noble headlands projecting into the Red Sea shall yet become a highway of commerce to southern Palestine. Ezion-geber at the head of that gulf will be connected by railway with the Dead Sea, the Jordan valley, and the Lake of Gennesareth. The waters of Merom, and sources of the Jordan shall be linked with the crowded streets of Damascus, and the snow-clad steeps of Hermon. The slopes of Lebanon will be populated, the city of Antioch revived. Beyrout already connected with the ports of the Mediterranean and with Damascus, shall be the gate of a highroad through the Euphrates valley to the Persian Gulf, India, and the East. Africa traversed with railways shall lie at the feet of Palestine, and Europe with its wealth of civilization shall flourish at its side. The Jews restored from all countries, and speaking all languages, shall be fitted for the work of evangelizing the world. Their marvellous commercial, political, and literary gifts shall come into fullest play. No more shall they be a despised and outcast people. The natural brethren, the blood relations of the King of Glory shall take a foremost place among the nations. The sigh of sorrow, the wail of grief shall be ‘turned to the song of gladness, and the shout of praise. The voice of redeeming love and mercy shall swell from innumerable multitudes; Jrnualcm shall vibrate with its music, Carmel prolong its cadence, and Lebanon echo back its strains. The song of angels shall awake again above the fields of Bethlehem; and heaven and earth unite their voices as never before in the anthem which shall celebrate the triumph of redeeming grace and mercy.

This subject has been more or less elucidated in the works I have written during the last twenty-six years, including, “The Approaching End of the Age,”published in 1878; “Light for the Last Days,”in 1887; “The Divine Programme of the World’s History,”in 1888; and “Creation Centred in Christ,”in 1896. The Astronomical Appendix to the last named work fills a volume of 627 pages, and contains tables of 101,217 solar and lunar dates, for a period of 3,555 years, from B.C. 1622, to A.D. 1934, stated in days, hours, and minutes, calculated from the prophetic times contained in the book of Daniel. The complete and unanswerable demonstration afforded by these extensive tables—tables which have been accepted, and are-in use, by astronomers throughout the world,—of the year-day theory, according to which the 1,260 and 2,300 “days”of the prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse, are interpreted to mean 1,260 and 2,300 years, settles the question of the historical fulfilment of these periods. Astronomy proves N that these periods are vast in their dimensions, twelve to twenty-three centuries in length; and that therefore they cannot be measures of the brief course of events in any single lifetime, as according to the Futurist theory they “are; but measures of great and long continued historical movements, as the rise and fall of the Papal and Mohammedan powers, or the down treading of the Jewish sanctuary, from the invasion of the west by Persia, to the decline of the Turkish power in the present day.

I will now briefly relate the facts connected with the origin of my interest in the prophetic times, and the progress I subsequently made in their elucidation.

It was in the early part of the year 1870, that I crossed the Pyrenees on my way from France to Spain. The snow lay thickly on the hills, and glittered on the Sierras, whose sharply pointed peaks stood outlined against the clear southern sky. The trains were crowded with travellers, largely of the agricultural class. There was a perfect babel of patois, in which through familiarity with French, and the study I had bestowed on Spanish, I could distinguish here and there intelligible sentences. On reaching Madrid I went with Mr. William Green, the friend and biographer of Matamoros, to see the newly opened Quemadero. Some workmen employed in cutting a road across the summit of a low hill close to the city had inadvertently dug into a broad bank of ashes, which had been, buried for one or two centuries. Mingled with the ashes they had found a large quantity of charred human bones, together with fragments of rusted iron, and melted lead. The spot was speedily verified as the famous Quemadero, or place of burning, one of twelve places where so called “heretics”were annually burned in Spain, during the reign of the Inquisition. I found the road had been cut through the centre of this bank of blackened bones and ashes. The strange stratum displayed seemed about six feet in depth, and covered quite a large area. There, then, exposed to the light of day were the ashes of Spanish martyrs. I stood in silence and looked at the ghastly monument. I had seen before not a little of Romanism on the continent, and in other countries, and had read of the multitude of martyrs who had suffered cruel deaths in past centuries at the hands of Spanish priests and inquisitors, on account of their faith in the pure gospel of the grace of God, and their opposition to Popish superstitions and idolatries. Now, for the first time, I found myself face to face with a terrible demonstration of the truth of these histories. There, lying before me were the bones and ashes of Spanish confessors and martyrs who had suffered death at the stake. I could examine them, and satisfy myself of their character. I could handle them, and did. Reverently I removed some burnt bones from the general mass, and wrapped them, together with a quantity of ashes, in a Spanish newspaper which I still possess, bearing the date of the day. Sadly turning from the spot I carried the parcel to my hotel where that evening under the influence of strong emotion, I wrote the following lines,—

Ye layers of ashes black, and half-burnt bones,
Ye monuments of martyrs’ stifled moans,
Of human agony and dying groans,
Cry out till every ear has heard your tones !
Cry till the murderess trembles, though her brain
Is drunken with the blood of millions slain:
She did not mean to show you; ’twas the spade
Of simple workmen which your horrors laid
Unearthed and bare before the light of day;
They only dug to open a new way.
As they advanced, the ground beneath them grew
In patches softer, changed its wonted hue,
And with the smell of death defiled the air.
They dug, and they discovered layer on layer,
Black bones, and rusted chains, and human hair,
And iron nails, and bits of melted lead,
And the burnt fuel of unnumbered dead.
They cut the heap across—it crowns a hill;
Its length is shown—its breadth lies buried still.
Doubtest thou, reader? I was there to-day;
I saw them at their work ; I brought away
Some pitiful remains which, while I write
These very words, are lying in my sight.
A piece of paper on this table holds
Some of this martyr-dust within its folds.
I pause and gently touch it with my hand ;—
It is not common earth; it is not sand :
I look at it; the tears have filled my eyes;
My God, what is it that before me lies?
The ground beneath was gravel and was red,
But this is dark and formed a separate bed.
How soft it is and light! it feels like soil
That has been saturated once with oil:
‘Tis fullof small black cinders; most is gray
And ashen; here is something burnt away
Black as the blackest coal; this was the meat
Of some relentless and devouring heat.
A little box beside the paper stands;
Its relics I collected with these hands:
I take a something from it like a stone,
‘Tis gray and light, ah ’tis a piece of bone ;
This was the side on which the muscles grew,
The other side its chambers are burnt blue.
These four are lumps of iron; they are red,
I ,ike fetters that have rusted off the dead.
This was an iron bolt, ’tis long, and curved,
To hold a chain or cord it doubtless served;
This is a hollow bone burnt through and through,
It leaves upon my hand a dusky blue;
This was a bar of iron, now mere nist;
And this is indistinguishable dust.
O Rome ! them Mother of a cherished race,
Blush not to show the world thy kindly face !
Thy bosom—hide its demons, hush—thy breast,
“Tis there alone that suffering men find rest.
How mild the chastisements thy love has used
Whene’er thy children have thy laws refused!
Gentle coercion ! pity’s tender tones !
TELL ME , THOU MURDERESS BLACK , WHAT MEAN THESE BONES?
These bones before me, those upon that hill,
Who, what were these thus slaughtered by thy will?
What did these helpless women? these poor men?
Why didst thou shut them up in thy dark den?
Why didst thou rack their limbs, and starve their frames,
And cast them bound into devouring flames?
True, they reproached thee for thy crimes and lies,
And prayed for thee with sin-forgiving sighs;
Thy multiplied idolatries abhorred,
No mediator honoured but their Lord;
Condemned thy priestcraft, and thy love of gold;
Clung to God’s word, and for its truths were bold;
Adorned by blamelessness the name they bore;
Loved not their lives to death: what did they more?
Were they adulterers—these prisoned saints?
Or murderers—these who died without complaints?
Hush ! for they sleep in Jesus—soft their bed;
His suffering saints their Lord hath comforted!
Hush! for the sevenfold wrath of God grows hot!
Hush! for her deep damnation slumbereth not.

That very year, l87O, within a few months from the date when I wrote these lines the papal temporal power fell, and fell forever.

Such was the origin of my interest in the fulfilment of prophecy in papal history. It was that day when standing breast deep in the ashes of Spanish martyrs, that my attention was specially and strongly directed to it; and it was”the promulgation the same year of the blasphemous decree of papal infallibility, and the coincident fall of the papal temporal power, which led me to study and write on the subject. The lines which I wrote in Madrid on the opening of the Quemadero subsequently grew to a volume entitled “The City of the Seven Hills.”As the fruit of eight years of study, from 1870 to 1878,1 published “The Approaching End of the Age,”a work which has since gone through many editions. Other works on the same theme followed. In 1896 my Astronomical Tables, based on the prophetic times regarded as astronomical cycles, were published. The discovery of the astronomical character of the prophetic times was made in the following way.

In July, 1870, while the Vatican council was being held in Rome, and at the date when the decision was arrived at in France to declare war against Prussia, I left Paris, terminating a gospel mission, which had extended over nearly two years, in which with the help of twenty-five Protestant pastors, including Bersier, Pressense, Armand de Lille, Lepoids, Cook, Jaulmes, Hollard, and others, I had organized and held eight hundred gospel meetings, in seventeen parts of the city, attended by many thousands drawn from all ranks and persuasions, Protestants, Romanists, and Infidels.

The decision of Napoleon III to declare war against Prussia was made Friday, July 15th. The declaration of war was signed on Sunday, July 17th. The infallibility of the Pope was Decreed by the Vatican council on Monday, July 18th. The declaration of war was delivered at Berlin on Tuesday, July igth. In the war which followed Imperial France, and the Papal power fell together.

The startling coincidence of the papal self-exalting act, with the overthrow of the papal temporal power, profoundly impressed me.The spectacle of the Paris^m which we had just held so many gospel services, suddenly invested by German armies, surrounded by a gigantic ring of artillery fire from which there was no escape; of the tragic fall of Napoleon, the rise of united Germany, the unification of Italy, all pointed to the passing away of the old order of things on the continent, and the advent of a new era. And then the question arose, what had the Word of God to say about these events? What did it indicate as to the rise, course and fall of the papal power? The search for an answer to that question led to a careful and extensive study of the subject. In the course of that study I met with the very able work of Professor Birks, of Cambridge University, on “The Elements of Sacred Prophecy.”The four last chapters of that book contain an admirable elucidation and defense of the year-day theory. The argument in these chapters appeared to me absolutely unanswerable, and in fact has never been answered or confuted. One section of these chapters proved of special interest, that on the Cyclical character of the Prophetic Times. A prolonged subsequent sojourn in England gave me the opportunity to examine this subject minutely, and to make the calculations necessary to prove that the prophetic times are astronomical cycles of long range, and surprising accuracy. In the course of this mathematical investigation I made further discoveries confirming and extending the evidence of the astronomical character of the prophetic periods, and of their fulfilment in the history of the four kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome; and in the duration of the Papal and Mohammedan powers.

The work of Professor Birks on “The Elements of Sacred Prophecy”has been long out of print, and is difficult to procure. I therefore quote the brief section whose study led me to the investigation of the prophetic times.

“The cyclical character of the prophetic times,”says Professor Birks,” seems to have been first unfolded by M. de Cheseaux, a French writer. 1 purely as a curiosity of science ; but it is Mr. Cunninghame who has revived attention to this interesting topic. Though unable to concur in the whole superstructure which he has reared on this basis, the first principles, 1 believe, are both true in fact, and form a remarkable and collateral confirmation of the figurative view of these prophetic times. Two or three remarks will perhaps make the subject plain to general readers, so far as it bears on the present argument.

“1. On the fourth day of creation it was announced as the divine purpose in the appointment of the heavenly luminaries—’ Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.’ The division of time was one main purpose of their institution as lights in the firmament. The word rendered ‘ seasons ‘ is the same which here denotes the times, and there is consequently a tacit reference to that original ordinance of God.

“The revolutions of the sun and moofi have thus, in every nation, formed llic basis of the calendar. The day, the month, and the year, are the first dements on which it depends. If the natural month and year had been each a complete number of days, or a simple fractional part, the calendar we uld have been quite simple. But this is not the case, and hence the Vii ious intercalations used to bring them into agreement.

‘ Where the calendar is adapted to the sun only, its construction is very simple. The Julian year is a close approximation, and the Gregorian is pr ctically correct for some thousands of years.

‘ Hut in the sacred calendar of the Jews, and those of Greece and the eastern nations, the motions both of the sun and of the moon enter into llic reckoning. And hence arise mixed calendars, more natural, since they arc fitted to the motions of both the natural lights of heaven, but more complex in their adjustment.

“The most natural niode of adjustment is by taking the nearest integer of the lowest period contained in the higher, and making this the unit for the next higher.denomination, intercalating where necessary.

“Thus the natural month is nearer thirty than twenty-nine days. Therefore thirty days will be the calendar month, and the unit of every reckoning where months occur.

“Again, the year is nearer twelve than thirteen calendar months. There- fore twelve calendar months will form the calendar year, and five days are intercalated to complete the whole number.

“2. Now just as the day and the month were taken for the basis of these shorter periods, so may the month and year be taken as the basis of higher intervals. These give us cycles, or periods of complete years which are almost exactly a complete number of natural months.

“The intervals of years which most fully possess this character, adopting the most exact scientific measures of the lunar month and solar year, are 8, II, 19, 30, 49 . . . . 315, 334, 353, 687, 1,040 years. Afterthis limit the increasing accuracy of the series is limited by the moon’s acceleration, and the uncertainty of our measures of time.

“Now.from this series there result several interesting conclusions which bear on the present question.

“The period of nineteen years, though not directly recognized in the Jewish calendar, formed the basis of that used by the Greeks, and was no less an integral element of it than the month or the year. Now the very next period to this, in the above series, is thirty years; which, on the year-day theory, is the prophetic month, and has thus a real existence as a cycle, no less than the natural month of thirty days, to which it bears a close analogy.

“The next period is that of forty-nine years; which, according to the dates in Josephus of sabbatic years, and the more probable view of the sacred text, is the interval from jubilee to jubilee; and therefore is fundamental in the Hebrew calendar. This will be a second scriptural instance, like the prophetic month, of a luni-solar cycle adopted for a higher unit, composed of a complete number of years.

“Let us now pursue the analogy a step further. As twelve common months of thirty days, form a year of three hundred and sixty days, which, with five days intercalated, make the solar year; so twelve prophetic months of thirty years will form a ‘ time’ of three hundred and sixty years, exceeding by seven only the very exact luni-solar cycle of three hundred and fifty-three years; which forms a kind of natural unit in the series.

“Again, a ‘time, times, and a half will compose a period of one thousand two hundred and sixty years. And this is exactly four times the accurate cycle three hundred and fifteen years, and, therefore, partakes itself of the same cyclical character.

“The most perfect cycle, perhaps, which can be certainly ascertained, in consequence of the moon’s acceleration affecting the higher periods, is one thousand and forty years. Now, on the year-day theory, this is exactly the difference between the two grand numeral periods of one thousand two hundred and sixty, and two thousand three hundred years.

“Finally, the highest prophetic period, two thousand three hundred years, is itself a cycle—4×315+1,040,—and is perhaps, the only secular cycle composed of centuries only, that is known to exist.

“From these remarks it appears that the prophetic month of thirty years, and the ‘ time,’ composed of twelve such months, as such have a scientific character, though less distinct, yet of the very same nature with those of the common month and year. It appears also that the two main periods of one thousand two hundred and sixty, and two thousand three hundred years are cycles; and that their difference, one thousand and forty years, is the most perfect cycle certainly ascertained. The interval of one thousand, two hundred and ninety years is also a cycle, and that of one thousand three hundred and thirty-five is defective only by one single year.

“These remarks seem to prove that the year-day interpretation, besides its direct scriptural evidence, has a further and collateral support in the analogies of science. The same principles of the intersection of the solar and lunar periods, by which the units of the ordinary calendar is determined, when carried further up the ascending series of time, produce, even from the abstract relations of the celestial periods, the larger but corresponding units of thirty, and three hundred and sixty years, or the prophetic month and time.

“And surely, in the view which is thus unfolded, there is a simple grandeur which harmonizes with all the other features of the inspired predictions. A fresh light is thrown upon the words of the Psalmist, where the same word is employed as in these mysterious dates__’ the appointed the moons for seasons.’ We are raised out of the contracted range of human reckonings to a lofty elevation of thought, and catch some glimpses of that mysterious wisdom by which the Almighty blends all ( the works of Nature and of Providence into subservience to the deep councils of His redeeming love. A divine ladder of time is set before us, and, as we rise successively from step to step, days are replaced by years and years by millennia; and these, perhaps, hereafter, in their turn by some higher unit, from which the soul of man may measure out cycles still more vast, and obtain a wider view of the immeasurable grandeur ot eternity. When we reflect, also, that the celestial periods by which these cycles are determined are themselves fixed by that law of attraction which gives the minutest atom an influence on the planetary motions, what a combination appears in these sacred times of the most contrasted elements of omniscient wisdom! Human science sinks exhausted at the very threshold of this temple of divine truth. It has strained its utmost efforts .in calculating the actual motions of the moon and the earth; but the determining causes which fixed at first the proportion of their monthly and yearly revolutions have altogether eluded its research. Yet these elements of the natural universe are linked in, by these sacred times and celestial cycles, with the deepest wonders of Providence, and the whole range of Divine prophecy. How glorious, then, must be the inner shrine, lit up with the Shechinah of the Divine presence, when the approaches themselves reveal such a secret and hidden wisdom!

“Every one of the passages in Daniel yields distinct evidence in favour of the year-day system. And when these various indications are compared together, and combined with the truth which has just been unfolded, of the connection of these numbers with the natural cycles of science, the proof seems the highest almost of which such a subject is capable, and forms little short of the convincing power of a mathematical demonstration.”

For more than twenty years I pursued the study of the astronomical character of the prophetic times. The further I investigated the question the more evident it became that not only these, but the whole system of Revealed Redemption Chronology, Levitical, Historic, and Prophetic, is adapted to the time order of Nature. The revealed periods vary from a few days to thousands of years, yet their character in this respect is the same. Calendars of human invention, both sacred and civil, invariably fall out of agreement with solar and lunar revolutions in the lapse of time. The number of such calendars is very great. They are of Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, Indian, Chinese and other origin. All alike fail to keep time with Nature. But not so is it with the divinely revealed time system in Scripture. The Levitical times are adjusted to both solar and lunar revolutions, and adjusted in such a way that their slowly accumulating errors are corrected in the prophetic times; while the adjustment of the latter to solar and lunar revolutions is far reaching and complete; so complete that it is possible to calculate from the prophetic times regarded as astronomical cycles tables of the whole course of vernal and autumnal equinoxes, of summer and winter solstices, of mean and true new moons, of the new moons of solar eclipses, and the full moons of lunar eclipses ; in short all the solar and lunar elements required in a calendar of times extending over thousands of years, embracing the whole course of human history.

In my work entitled “Creation Centred in Christ”I have published such tables; and have given the following account of the incommensurateness of the natural time units, days, months and years; and of the cycles to which these incommensurate periods give rise, in which their harmonization is accomplished (“Creation Centred in Christ,”Vol. I, PP- 324-330).

CYCLICAL CHARACTER OF THE PROPHETIC TIMES DISCOVERIES OF M. DE CHESEAUX

The perplexities and difficulties which encumber the attempt to adapt brief periods of time to both solar and lunar movements, as in the Civil Calendar, disappear directly it is a question of longer intervals.

Short, periods have to be artificially harmonized, larger i>nes harmonize| themselves. There exist various periods which are naturally measurable both by solar years and lunar months, without remainder, or with remainders so mail as to be unimportant.

Such periods are therefore SOLI – LUNAR cycles, and we shall henceforth speak of them as such. They harmonize with more or less exactness solar and lunar revolutions, and they may be regarded as divinely appointed units for the measurement of long periods of time, units of precisely the same character as the day, month and year (that is, created not by artificial means, but by solar and lunar revolutions), but of larger dimensions. They are, therefore, periods distinctly marked off as such, as much as the fundamental revolutions on which our calendar is based; that is, they are natural measures of time furnished by the Creator Himself for human use.

The lunar cycle of nineteen years employed by the Greeks is one of these periods, and the ancient cycle of Calippus is another. Their discovery has always been an object with astronomers, as their practical utility is considerable. But it was exceedingly difficult to find cycles of any tolerable accuracy, especially cycles combining and harmonizing the day and the month with the year.

About the middle of last century a remarkable fact was discovered by a Swiss astronomer, M. de Cheseaux, a fact which is full of the deepest interest to both Jews and Christians, and which has never received, either at the hands of Bible students or scientists the attention which it merits.

The prophetic periods of 1,260 and 2,300 years, assigned in the Book of Daniel and in the Apocalypse as the duration of certain predicted events, are soli-lunar cycles, cycles of remarkable perfection and accuracy, but whose existence was entirely unknown to astronomers until, guided by the sacred scriptures, M. de Cheseaux discovered and demonstrated them to be such. And further, the difference between these two periods, which is 1,040 years, is the largest accurate soli-lunar cycle known.

The importance of this discovery, and the fact that it is exceedingly little known, will explain our entering into a somewhat full account of the matter here. It is, besides, vital to our own immediate subject, and was, indeed, the means of leading me to the present investigation.

M. de Cheseaux was the astronomer who observed and described the six-tailed comet of the year 1744. His book on the cyclical character of the prophetic times is out of print, difficult to procure, and even to consult. A copy of it exists in the library of the University of Lausanne, and another in the British Museum. It is entitled, “Memoires posthumes de M. de Cheseaux,”and was edited and published by his sons in 1754. It contains “Rerriarques historiques, chronologiques, et astronomiques sur quelques endroits du livre de Daniel.”The calculations of the astronomical part were submitted to Messrs. Mairan and Cassini, celebrated astronomers of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, neither of whom called in question the accuracy of M. de Cheseaux’s principles, or the correctness of his results. M. Mairan, after having carefully read his essay, said “that it was impossible to doubt the facts and discoveries it contained, but that he could not conceive how or why they had come to be embodied so distinctly in the Holy Scriptures.”M. Cassini wrote, after having read the treatise and worked the problems, that the methods of calculating the solar and lunar positions and movements which M. de Cheseaux had deduced from the cycles of the book of Da< |el were most clear, and "perfectly consistent with the most exact astronomy"; he wished the essay to be read before the academy. From the year 1754 to 1811 M. de Cheseaux's discoveries seem to have almost completely dropped out of sight. The stirring events of the French Revolution, which took place in the interval, may have caused his remarkable treatise to be forgotten. In the year 1811 Mr. William Cunningham, of Lainshaw, in Scotland, the author of several valuable works on prophecy, noticed a reference to de Cheseaux's discoveries in the writings of M. Court de Gibelin. Mr. Cunningham published the fact in an article which appeared in the Christian Observer for that year. In 1833 Mr. Cunningham published a letter in the Investigator^ a monthly journal of prophecy, describing his finding a copy of M. de Cheseaux's work. "During the twenty-two years,"says Mr. Cunningham, "which have elapsed since my communication to the Christian Observer I have sought for the work of M. de Cheseaux without success till the present year. A young relation of mine having last year gone to Heidelberg to complete his studies, I requested him to endeavour to procure the book for me. His inquiries among the booksellers, were quite unavailing. At length, having become acquainted with a student from Lausanne, where the work was originally published, by his assistance search was made in the library of the university of that city. The first attempt was unsuccessful; but on a second and more careful search, the book was discovered, and a manuscript copy of that part which relates to the book of Daniel was taken for me, arid is now in my possession." The cyclical character of the prophetic periods of 1,260 and 2,300 years, and the 1,040 year's period which measure their difference, was subsequently called in question by Mr. Frere, a well- known writer on prophecy. In a letter to the Investigator dated January, 1835, Mr. Cunningham says, "With regard to Mr. Frere's vain endeavour to shake the cyclical periods of de Cheseaux . . . if a scientific friend, who last summer favoured me with some remarks entirely confirmatory of the importance of the conclusions of M. de 'Cheseaux, and also showed me the principle of calculating the cycles by continued fractions^ shall not take up Mr. Frere's paper, I will myself do it."The scientific friend here alluded to was believed by the editor of the Investigator to be Professor Birks, of Cambridge, who subsequently published in the pages of that journal a letter on the method of calculating these soli-lunar cycles by continued fractions, and also embodied in his valuable work on the elements of prophecy, published in 1843, a brief account of the astronomic character of the prophetic times. It was when reading this work of Professor Birks just after the fall of the Papal Temporal power in 1870, that my attention was arrested by that portion of it referring to these remarkable cycles, and I was consequently led to investigate their character with considerable care, and in doing so made a number of chronological discoveries, some of which I have since published in my writings on the fulfilment of prophecy. The astronomic portion of my work on "The Approaching End of the Age "was submitted, prior to its publication, to the criticisms of Professor Adams, of Cambridge. For this purpose I became Professor Adams' guest at the Observatory in Cambridge, and he verified de Cheseaux's Calculations with reference to the prophetic times. I still possess the papers in his handwriting in which the calculations are worked out. The following is a translation of M. de Cheseaux's ac-rount of his discovery of the astronomic character of the 1,260 and 2,300 years' prophetic periods: "We all know what a cycle is—that is to say, a period of time which harmonizes different celestial revolutions, comprehending, each of them, a certain number of times precisely, without fractional remainder. Such is, for ex- ample, the period of 4 Julian years, or 1,461 days, which, according to the ideas of the ancients, should contain exactly 4 solar years and 1,461 days; so that, supposing the sun on the 12th of April, 1749, at noon in Paris to be in 22° 40' of Aries, it should in 1,461 days, and at the same hour of midday, be found again precisely in the same position. The error is, as we know, 44' of an hour. This cycle belongs to the first order—those which are employed to harmonize solar years and days. "Cycles of the second kind are designed to bring lunar years or months into agreement with solar years. Such is Melon's cycle of 19 years. This ancient astronomer supposed that if the sun and moon were found, for example, on the first day of the year in conjunction at a certain point of the ecliptic, they ought to return again at the end of 19 solar years, or of 235 complete lunar months, to the same position without fractional remainder. The error of the cycle is about 2h, 3m; by which the solar year finishes earlier than the lunar. "Cycles of the third kind are 4 those which harmonize solar days with lunar months, as, for example, the cycle of 1,447 complete days, which comprehends at the same time 49 lunar months with 1.5’ nearly. "Lastly, we may make a fourth kind of cycle of those which unite the previous classes, and harmonize at the same time the solar year, the lunar month, and the day. Such ought to be the cycle of Melon, and still more the period of Calippus. The discovery of these cycles has been an object of the researches of almost all astronomers and chronologists, and it has seemed to them so difficult that they have almost laid it down as a fact that it was impossible to find those of ihe fourth class. It has been ihus far a kind of philosopher's stone in asironomy, like perpetual movement in mechanics. There have been times when, seeking to assure myself effectually that it was not possible to succeed in the matter, I commenced my research by the second kind of cycle. Supposing a lunar month of 29 d., 12 h., 44m., 3 s., the error is 7”’, by defect: in a solar year of 395 d., 5 h., 49 m., the error is not more than 5 s. by excess. I observed that by adding on the one side and on the other two periods of time proportional to these two revolutions, that is to say, 57"to the first and 11’ to the second, their agreement became very approximalely as 29 d., 12.75h. to 365.25d., or as 2,835 quarters of an hour to 35,064 quaners of an hour; or in dividing these two num- bers by 9, which is iheir common measure, as 315 to 3,896. This agreement was at the same time so simple and exact that, giving the lunar month its true lenglh of 29 d., 12 h., 44m., 3s. 7"', the resulting measure of the solar year is 365 d., 5 h., 48 m., 16 s., that is to say, 39 s. only too short. From that I concluded that at the end of 315 solar years or 3,896 lunar months the sun and the moon should meet very nearly at the same point in the ecliptic. We find, in fact, that at the end of 315 Julian years, 2d., 4h., 27m., or al ihe end of 115,051 days, 4h., 27 m., the sun and the moon return, to ihe 7th or 8th minute of a degree nearly to the same point of the heaven from which they started. This 7' or 8' of a degree makes an error of 3 h., 24m. as to the solar year, which ends 3 h., 24m. after the lunar; that is to say, which recommences for ihe 316th time at the end of 115,051 d., 7 h., 51 m. This difference of 3h., 24 m. belween the duration of 315 lunar years and that of 315 solar years, or the error of 315 years' cycle, is that of the cycle of Meton as

“The cycle of 315 years thus found, I forthwith observed that it was the quarter of the 1,260 years’ period, or the 3 and a half “times” of Daniel 8: 12, and 12: 7, compared with Apoc. 12: 6, 14; and consequently that this prophetic period was itself a lunar cycle of such a character that at the end of 1,260 Julian years—10d+6h,14 m., or of 460,-205d., 6 h., 14 m., the sun and the moon return within 1/2° nearly to the same point in the ecliptic, and that at the end of 1,260 Julian years — 10 h. + 7h., 23 m., or of 460,-205 d., 7 h., 23 m., the sun returns to the same point of the ecliptic exactly.

“This period has not only the advantage of comprehending a round number of years, a number sufficiently remarkable on account of the number of its aliquot parts [for 1,260 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 28, 30, 35, 36, 42, 45, 60, 63, 70, 84, 90, 105, 126, 140, 180, 210, 252, 315, 420, 630; that is to say, by 35 divisors, which is, I believe, the largest number of divisors a number of this kind can have], but also that of containing a number of days whose length occupies about the mean between those of the lunar and solar years comprised in this number. 1

“The agreement of this period, destined by the Holy Spirit to designate civil periods, with the length of the most remarkable periods of celestial movements, led me to conjecture that it might also be such with the period of 2,300 years- I examined then this last period by astronomic tables, and I found that at the end of 2,300 Gregorian years less 6 h., 14 m., or of 840,057 d. less 6 h., 1401., the sun and the moon return within half a degree nearly, to the place from which they started; and at the end of 840,057 d., 7 h., 23 m. the sun returns exactly to the same point of the ecliptic; from which it follows that the prophetic period of 2,300 years (remarkable also by the number of its aliquot parts, and because it contains a complete number of cycles) was also a cyclical period, and this cyclical period was also so perfect that although 30 times longer than the Calippic period, its error is, however, much less than double, since it only extends to 13h., 37m., and being proportionately subdivided in the period of 70 years, it is reduced to 29 m., that is , to say, to the 17th part of the error of the Calippic period, which I said just now was 8 h., 12 m.

“The equality of the errors of this cycle of 2,300 years with those of the preceding led me to conclude that their difference, that is, 1,04.0 years, ought to be entirely exempt from error, and should give a perfect cycle, and one all the more remarkable because it unites at the same time the three kinds of cycles, and forms consequently this famous cycle of the fourth kind vainly sought so long, and ultimately believed to be chimeric or impossible. Having then examined this period of 1,040 years by the tables of the most celebrated modern astronomers, I found that it held about the mean between them, as one may see in this little table:

“These differences are absolutely insensible for so large a period, and it would be impossible that the best astronomic tables should be exempt from them, on account of the imperfections of ancient observations upon which they are founded, from which it seems that we should conclude, according to all appearance, that this period of 1,040 years, or solar revolutions, indicated in a certain way by the Holy Spirit, is a cycle at once solar, lunar, and diurnal, per- fectly exact. . . . May I be permitted meanwhile to give to this cycle the name of THE DANIEL CYCLE?”

Convinced by the studies which I have conducted that the prophetic times are so closely adjusted to the revolutions of the sun and moon that I could derive the one from the other, and believing that it would clearly demonstrate the astronomical character of the prophetic times in Daniel to do this, i. e., to derive the course of solar years and lunar months, in days, hours, and minutes, for thousands of years, either past or future, from these prophetic times, I have had the solar and lunar Tables calculated, contained in the second volume of my work on “Creation Centred in Christ.”These astronomical Tables contain more than 100,000 solar and lunar positions, verified by 12,000 eclipses; and the whole of these 100,000 positions have been calculated by means of the prophetic periods regarded as Astronomical cycles. The tables have been submitted to the highest’astronomical authorities, and approved as correct and trustworthy. The demonstration they afford of the truth of the year-day theory, according to which the “days”of the prophetic times in Daniel and the Apocalypse are interpreted as signifying years, is complete. These mysterious prophetic times are not brief periods adapted to the measurement of events in any individual life, but vast periods, stretching over thousands of years, adjusted to the chronology of the history of Israel, of the Christian Church, and of the Gentile kingdoms, outlined in the word of God.

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than lie that is in the world.”— 1 John 4:4.

I. THE primary practical object of the Apocalypse is to make the Church victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Bible opens with defeat; it ends with victory. At its outset, man fallen, Satan triumphant; at its close Satan conquered, all his world powers overthrown, and the redeemed with the Redeemer, crowned as victors, and glorified.

At the close of His earthly life, looking back over its temptations and conflicts, Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.”In the beginning of His risen life, exalted and endowed with “all power in heaven and in earth,”He went forth leading His Church, “conquering and to conquer.”

In His heaven sent messages to the Churches which He left as His witnesses on earth, all the inestimable rewards of His kingdom are promised “To him that overcometh.”In the prophetic visions which succeed these messages, tracing the gradual subjugation of all things to Christ, the conflicts, sufferings, and victories and final glories of Christ’s saintly followers are described. This is the theme of the prophecy, and its object is practical. It was. a gift to the Church militant from Christ triumphant. The Son of God had overcome the world. The sons of God were now to overcome it. Faith was to make them victorious. They were to conquer their visible foes by faith in things invisible. All the powers of the world were to be arrayed against them. They were to be hated, persecuted, hunted into dens and deserts, cast into dungeons and flames. Yet were they to conquer. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” Who spoke that triumphant word? A lonely exile; a persecuted and banished saint and apostle. And when? In the days of proud Domitian, master of the world; in the time of Pagan Rome’s supremacy. How calmly he writes it in his letter of love to his “little children.”There is no flourish of trumpets; simply the clear note of victory. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast ordained strength, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”And so Christ led His Church to the battle-field. Calmly and unflinchingly He conducts them with open eyes into the deadly arena of their warfare. They are to fight with wild beasts in the Colosseum; to be driven into the darkness of the Catacombs; to die under the worst tortures pitiless Rome can inflict. They are later on to contend with worse enemies than heathen Rome. They are to fight with the powers of hell in the apostate Church which should succeed “to the throne of the Caesars. ‘The harlot Babylon was to be drunken with their blood; yet were they to overcome, and the victors were “to stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire, having the harps of God.” No music so lofty as theirs; no song more glad and glorious; followers of the Lamb, of Him who died on Calvary’s Cross, the Con- queror and Saviour of the world. To nerve such warriors, to arm them for the battle, to conduct them to victory, the Apocalypse was written. He who has not grasped this salient fact, has missed the meaning of the prophecy. Not to satisfy curiosity as to the future was this wondrous prophecy indited; nor merely to close the s.icred volume, to bind its several portions into unity as with a golden clasp, nor was it written to complete the book by shedding the glories of sunset, or rather of sunrise, over its concluding pages, to fill its last skies with splendour, with the light of the rising of a morning without clouds, the advent of a world where sin and sorrow and death can never come; not for these ends though doubtless they were contemplated, but for nobler purposes ; to form the characters, guide the steps, maintain the faith, and inspire the courage of those who were to pass through flood and flame to that final world of glory and immortality ; to make the saints and martyrs who were to share its triumphs and wear its crowns. And hence the glorious rewards promised in the seven letters to the Christian Churches with which it opens, letters purely practical in their object, are largely the theme of the succeeding prophecy. For in it the selfsame rewards are seen, and set forth in their most glowing colours, and in their true and proper relations, their place, and time, and circumstance, for the contemplation of the servants of Christ; that they may behold in advance the things promised, and the future world become as real to them as the present, as seen with the open eye of vision; so that the confessors might witness in the presence of Rome’s Caesars, standing the while in spirit before the throne of God; or tread their way amid the awful shadows of the Catacombs, as beholding the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. Yea to open heaven itself to the gaze and contem- plation of God’s pilgrim people was this prophecy given; that their conversation, or “citizenship”might be there, even while they wandered as strangers amid earth’s transient and troubled scenes; and that while journeying or warring on earth, they might be seated in heaven, where Christ is seated “at the right hand of God.”

And turning now to those practical letters which preface the Apocalypse, we ask what are the promised rewards which they hold forth “to him that overcometh “?

First, to the victors of the Church of Ephesus it is promised that they shall eat of “the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”Behold then the promised tree of life in the visions of the prophecy, bearing twelve manner of fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. See it there in its true location growing by the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, “proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

Secondly, to the victors of the martyr Church of Smyrna the crown of life is promised; and the revealing spirit adds “he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.”But what that second death, and for whom destined? The prophecy replies, “the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.””Death and Hades “it tells us are to be finally ” cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death.”

To the Church of Thyatira the promise runs “to him that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of My Father. And I will give him the morning star.”In the prophecy the shivering of the nations as the vessels of a potter with a rod of iron is portrayed. A woman clothed with the sun, and crowned with twelve stars brings forth “a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”The man child is caught up to God and to His throne, and the woman flees to the wilderness from the presence of the persecuting dragon. Later on the all conquering “Word of God,” the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords, comes with the white robed armies of heaven,””to judge and make war,”to “smite the nations with the sword of His mouth,”and “rule them with a rod of iron”; even He whose voice declares “I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.”

To the Church of Sardis which had a name to live and was dead, the command “be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die,”is followed by t he warning “if therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee,”and the promise “he that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment and I will not blot out his name from the book of life.”In the prophecy the thing promised is beheld; the bride of jhe Lamb is seen in her purity and perfection “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”And at the final judgment “the book of life is opened”; while those who enter the New Jerusalem are only “they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

To the Church of Philadelphia the encouraging promise is given, “him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.”In the visions of the prophecy the New Jerusalem is seen “descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.”Her walls, her gates, her streets, and her foundations are all described. Her beauty and her glory fill the bright closing vision. And of Him who is called “Faithful and True,”it is declared, “He had a name written that no man knew, but He Himself”; analogous with that secret name which He will yet write upon the victor’s brow.

To the degenerate Church of Laodicea, boasting herself “rich, and increased in goods, and needing nothing,”not knowing that she was “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,” after the gracious offer of tried gold, and white raiment, and healing eye salve Jesus declares His long-suffering love, and says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock,”promising to the individual soul that opens to Him the supper of His own personal and private fellowship: and promising further “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne even as I also overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne.”And in the succeeding prophecy the glorious reward thus promised is beheld, for there are seen the victor saints enthroned with the Lord, first in His millennial kingdom, and then in His eternal reign.

These relations of the prophetic visions of the Apocalypse to the hortatory letters addressed in its opening pages to Christian Churches, reveal the practical character of the prophecy; and the important practical uses which the Church, under the Spirit’s guidance, has made of the prophecy during the last nineteen centuries is a confirmation of its intended adaptation to practical ends. For first, the Martyr Church of the second and third centuries armed herself for her conflict with heathen Rome with weapons drawn from the arsenal of the Apocalypse. To her heathen Rome, seated on her seven hills was the Apocalyptic Babylon, drunken with the blood of saints and martyrs. Every feature of Rome’s character and history she saw delineated in the prophecy, in bold outlines, and vivid colours, her place, her power, her wealth, her wickedness, her doom. And the martyrs of those days beheld the exact picture of their experience in the slain beneath the altar portrayed in the prophecy, whose blood called for vengeance; a vengeance delayed but to come at last when in Babylon, the smoke of whose judgment should go up forever, “the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon earth “should be found.

Secondly, on occasion of the fall of persecuting heathen Rome the early Church of the fourth century recognized the prediction of that great event in the vision of the Apocalypse, and celebrated it in the triumphant language of the prophecy, and commemorated it in symbols drawn from that sacred source. To the newly liberated exultant Church the fall of heathen Rome was none other than that represented by the casting down of the great red dragon, who had sought to devour the man child destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron. As predicted the victory had been that of Christ and His martyr followers. “They overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”The triumphant song of the Church ascended in the Apoc- alyptic words “now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night.”

The coins of Constantine the Great bear witness to the use of the symbol of the dragon prostrate beneath the cross to commemorate the overthrow of the dominion of ancient heathen Rome.

Thirdly, the overthrow of the Roman Empire by Gothic invaders which followed, and especially the burning of the city of Rome by Alaric, in the year 410, led Augustine to write his noble book on “The city of God”; a book whose central conception is drawn from the Apocalypse, in which the two societies of the world, and of the people of God, are represented by the harlot city Babylon, and the Bride, the New Jerusalem. Augustine recognized Rome as Babylon, and devotes a large part of his work to the delineation of its character and history. On the other hand he dwells with loving appreciation on the past, present and future of the society of saints, “the city of God,” that city which has, unlike Rome, enduring foundations. The work of Augustine defended the Church, whose views it illustrates, from the accusation that it was the cause of the woes which had befallen the empire; and gave popularity and permanence to a conception of the relation of the society of the world to the society of saints, in striking harmony with the teachings of the Apocalypse.

II. The second great practical use of the Apocalypse lay in the aid which it rendered to the preservation of true Christianity from the extinction by which it was threatened in the Middle Ages. The Gothic overthrow of the Roman empire was succeeded by the gradual rise in the sixth and following centuries of Papal Rome.The wars and jurisprudence of Justinian in the sixth century laid the foundation of a new imperial power. The bestowment on the Bishop of Rome, by Justinian and Phocas, of universal oversight in the Christian Church, exalted the Pope to the position of the Spiritual Head of the restored empire, while the work of Charlemagne completed the movement by the creation of “the Holy Roman Empire “of mediaeval and modern history.

The empire thus restored became the support of apostate papal Christianity, and the oppressor and persecutor of the true saints of God, whom it drove into obscurity, and reduced in the course of centuries to almost complete extermination.

Foreseen and foretold in Apocalyptic prophecy the persecuting papal power, and idolatrous Romish Church became objects of dread and abhorrence to the faithful saints of the Middle Ages, who in their separate communities and mountain solitudes kept the ” commandments of God,”and continued the testimony of Jesus Christ. The records of the Albigenses, and Waldenses, of Wyckliffe and the Lollards, of Huss, Jerome of Prague and their followers, amply attest the preserving influence of Apocalyptic teachings during this perilous period. . By means of this prophecy the lamp of divine truth was kept burning which later on was to illuminate the world. The historian Gibbon justly connects the Paulicians, Albigenses, Waldenses, and other pre-reformation separatists from the apostate Church in the East and West, with the reformers of the sixteenth cen- tury. The faith of the Reformation and pre-reformation reformers was one; their testimony was one, their attitude to the Bible was the same, and their martyrs suffered in a common cause. The reformation movement did not commence with Luther, nor was he the first to translate the Bible into the vernacular. The exalted Head of the Church had maintained an unbroken line of faithful witnesses to His Truth during all the Christian centuries, and had fulfilled His promise that against the Church which He had founded upon a rock, the “gates of hell “should never prevail.

III. The third great practical use of the Apocalypse lay in its justification and support of the Reformation movement, by its delineation of the Church of Rome, and its command to the people of God to separate from that apostate Church, to republish the Scriptures, and to rebuild the Spiritual Temple, as the Jewish reformers Ezra and Nehemiah had restored the temple at Jerusalem after the Babylonish captivity. Ample materials exist for the verification of these statements in the voluminous works of the Re- formers of the sixteenth century. The reformation was built by them on doctrinal, practical, and prophetic grounds: there is no possibility of separating these elements in its foundation. To the Reformers the Pope of Rome was the “Man of Sin,”and Antichrist, and the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Apocalypse; a doctrine not only em- bodied in the confessions of faith of the reformed churches, but sealed by the blood of their countless martyrs. Who can estimate the value and importance of the aid thus rendered to the Reformation by the delineations and warnings of prophecy? Let the learned Bishop Wordsworth have a hearing on this subject, for no other has written upon it with clearer understanding, and in nobler and more eloquent language,—”The Holy Spirit, foreseeing, no doubt, that the Church of Rome would adulterate the truth by many gross and grievous abominations, that she would anathematize all who would not communicate with her, and denounce them as cut off from the body of Christ and the hope of everlasting salvation; foreseeing also that Rome would exercise a wide and dominant sway for many generations, by boldly iterated assertions of unity, antiquity, sanctity, and universality; foreseeing also that these pretensions would be supported by the civil sword of many secular governments, among which the Roman Empire would be divided at its dissolution, and that Rome would thus be enabled to display herself to the world in an august attitude of imperial power, and with the dazzling splendour of temporal felicity; foreseeing also that the Church of Rome would captivate the imaginations of men by the fascinations of art allied with religion, and would ravish their senses and rivet their admiration by gaudy colours and stately pomp and prodigal magnificence; foreseeing also that she would beguile their credulity by miracles and mysteries, apparitions and dreams, trances and ecstasies, and would appeal to such evidences in support of her strange doctrines; foreseeing likewise that she would enslave men and (much more) women by practicing on their affections and by accommodating herself with dangerous pliancy to their weakness, relieving them from the burden of thought and from the perplexity of doubt by proffering them the aid of infallibility, soothing the sorrows of the mourner by dispensing pardon and promising peace to the departed, removing the load of guilt from the oppressed conscience by the ministries of the confessional and by nicely poised compensations for sin, and that she would flourish for many centuries in proud and prosperous impunity before her sins would reach to heaven and come in remembrance before God ; foreseeing also that many generations of men would thus be tempted to fall from the faith and to become victims of deadly error, and that they who clung to the truth would be exposed to cozening flatteries and fierce assaults and savage tortures from her,—the Holy Spirit, we say, foreseeing all these things in His divine knowledge, and being the everlasting Teacher, Guide, and Comforter of the Church, was graciously pleased to provide a heavenly antidote, for all these dangerous, wide-spread, and long-enduring evils, by dictating the Apocalypse. In this divine book the Spirit of God has portrayed the Church of Rome such as none but He could have foreseen that she would become, and such as, wonderful and lamentable to say, she has become. He has thus broken her magic spells; He has taken the wand of enchantment from her hand; He has lifted the mask from her face; and with His divine hand He has written her true character in large letters, and has planted her title on her forehead, to be seen and read of all: ‘ MYSTERY , BABYLON THE GREAT , THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH .’ ”

IV. The practical use of the Apocalypse in the present day as casting light upon the whole course of Christian history’, revealing the plan of Providence, and confirming faith amid the assaults of modern scepticism.

“The Church of Christ in ‘these last days,”says Professor Birks of Cambridge, “is exposed to strong temptation, from the spread of a secret and disguised infidelity. Many causes have conspired in promoting it,—the long years which have passed since the first preaching of the gospel, the superstition of the middle ages, the religious feuds of later times, the progress of physical science, with the consequent occupation of men’s thoughts, more than ever, about sensible and outward things, and the widening intercourse with all the various creeds of the whole earth. Hence the faith of real Christians has often been severely sifted, and that of many others entirely undermined. A vague loose form of scepticism has crept in, and become fashionable, which does not care openly to discard Christianity, but is content to reduce it to the rank of uncertain opinion, a harmless and even beautiful form of the religious sentiment; while it denies the binding authority of its message, and treats the word of God with a hollow politeness, or perhaps with scornful indifference.

“At such a time we need to use every help which God has given us to expose this fearful evil. One of the chief of these is the word of prophecy. For here the Almighty Himself withdraws the veil, that we may see His hand clearly at work amidst all the changes of time, and discover the seal of His own prescience, whereby His word is stamped with a divine authority. Once let its truths enter our minds and infidelity can have no place within us. The history of our world becomes bright with the very sunshine of heaven. Where all before seemed to be disorder and darkness we can now discover light, love, order, and beauty. The gulf which appeared to separate us from the times of the gospel, and the personal history of our Lord, is bridged over; and the meanest events that are now passing around us are seen to be links in one mighty chain of Providence, which reaches from a past eternity, and loses itself in an eternity yet to come. The Church of Christ does well in taking heed to this word of prophecy, until Christ Himself, the true Day-star shall return to scatter the darkness. Amidst all the dimness of earthly hopes and human fancies, it is this holy light which alone can reveal the mysteries of divine Providence, while it leads our thoughts onward to the glory which shall be revealed.”

We occupy to-day a more advanced position than has ever been previously reached in the course of the five kingdoms of history and prophecy—a position from which we can trace with clearer light and fuller knowledge than that possessed by those who have gone before us, the plan of Providence directing the development and decline of human governments, and the rise and establishment of the kingdom of God. Standing as we do at the close of the fourth, or Roman kingdom of the visions of Daniel and the Apocalypse, we behold the fulfilment of their predictions as to the four kingdoms, and especially as to the last, in its pagan and papal stages, the long course of its antichristian and persecuting action, and the outpouring of the vials of God’s wrath by which its destruction is being accomplished. We trace the fall of the western and eastern divisions of the Roman empire, under Gothic, Saracenic and Turkish in- vasions; the rise of the Papal and Mohammedan apostasies, their dominion and decline; the fall of the Papal temporal power at the date so long foretold, and the parallel wasting away of Turkey, and subjection throughout the world of Mohammedan countries to Christian rule,—together with the marvellous rise of the Jewish race to wealth and power, and the commencement at the predicted period, of their national reconstitution, and restoration to the land of their fathers.

In all these mighty movements, with their world-wide effects, we can clearly see the fulfilment of the sure word of prophecy, the actual realization in the history of the past, and in present events, of the course of things predicted thousands of years ago in the writings of holy apostles and prophets contained in the scriptures. Our faith in the inspiration of the Bible is thus confirmed; the ceaseless assaults of scepticism are resisted and repelled as the foaming waves of the sea by the lofty rocks against which they hurl themselves in vain; and the very oppositions ot unbelief, of scepticism, naturalism and materialism, as foretold in prophecy among the salient characteristics of the closing days of the present dispensation, confirm our faith in the Word of God, which has forewarned and forearmed us against these attacks.

In the “divinely pictured visions of the Apocalypse,”as Elliott has admirably shown, the philosophy of the history of Christendom is set before us, “the chief eras and vicissitudes of the Roman Pagan Empire,”and “the sketch of the Christian body such as it would present itself to the all-seeing eye of God’s spirit,”the sealing of an elect number out of the professing, church, or mystic Israel, and the subsequent “fortunes and histories of Christendom and the church distinctly in two different lines of succession:—the one the visible professing and more and more antichristian church :—the other no visible corporate Christian body (the once visible faithful Catholic church being now hid from men as in a wilderness), but Christ’s own real church, the out gathering and election of grace, individually chosen, enlightened, quickened, and sealed by Him with the holy spirit of adoption ; a body notable as “God’s servants “for holy obedience ; and though few in number as compared with the apostate professors of Christianity, yet in God’s eye numerically perfect and complete. Thenceforward the prophecy traced them in their two distinct lines of succession, through their respective fortunes and histories down even to the consummation. On the one hand there was depicted the body of false professors, multiplied so as to form the main and dominant constituency of apostate Christendom, as developing more and more a religion not Christian but antichristian, it being based on human traditions, not on God’s word: and, after falling away to the worship of departed saints and martyrs as mediators, in place of Christ, as alike in its western and eastern division, judicially visited and desolated by the divine avenging judgments of emblematic tempests, scorpion-locusts, anci horsemen from the Euphrates : in other words, of the Goths, Saracens, and Turks :—then as in its western division, rising up again from the primary desolating judgment of Gothic invasion, in the new form of an ecclesiastical empire, enthroned on the seven hills of ancient Rome : its secret contriver being the very Dragon or Satanic spirit, that had ruled openly before in the Pagan empire; its ruling head proud, persecuting, blasphemous, and self-exalting against God, even beyond his pagan precursors; its constituency and priesthood characterized by “unrepented idolatries, and fornications, thefts, murders, and sorceries”: in fine as continuing unchanged, unchangeable in its apostasy, notwithstanding the repeated checks of woes and judgments from heaven, even until the end; and therefore then at length in its impenitency to be utterly abandoned to judgment, and, like another Sodom, made an example of the vengeance of everlasting fire :—this being in fact the grand essential preliminary to the -world’s intended and blessed regeneration.

On the other hand, with regard to Christ’s true Church, the election of grace, consisting of such as should hold to Christ as their head, and keep the word of God, and testimony of Jesus, the Apocalyptic prophecy represented them as almost at once entering on a great and long tribulation; yet though in number few and fewer, and reduced soon to a state spiritually destitute and desolate, like that ot the wilderness, so as to constitute them a church invisible rather than visible, as still secretly preserved by their Lord; … and then as witnesses for Christ’s cause and truth matte war on by Rome’s revived empire, as by a beast from the abyss of hell; and so being at length conquered and apparently exterminated : yet suddenly revived and exalted in the presence of their enemies ; a revelation from heaven of Christ as the Sun of righteousness introducing and accompanying this glorious revival of God’s slaughtered witnesses ; and “a political revolution attending, or following, under which the tenth part of the ten-kingdom ecclesiastical empire would fall. All this the prophecy figured as the result of God’s second great intervention for His Church;”and “fulfilled in the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, the discovery introducing it of the doctrine of justification simply by faith in Christ Jesus; and the downfall following it of the tenth part of the Popedom in Papal England. Thus was the Protestant Reformation distinctly figured in the Apocalypse as a glorious, divine act.”

“As to the subsequent ‘indifferentism in religion,’ which followed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was not unforeshown in the further developments of the Apocalypse. Yet it seemed also pre-intimated how, as if from some gracious revival of religion in God’s still favoured Protestantism, there would afterwards speed forth in the latter times three missionary angels, flying through midheaven, with voices of faithful gospel-preaching throughout the length and breadth of the world, of warning against Papal Rome, and denunciation of its quickly coming judgment: a contemporary energetic revival and going forth of the spirit of Popery, conjunctively with other kindred and allied spirits of Pagan-like infidelity, and pseudo-Christian priestcraft, being but the last putting forth of its bravery, to hasten the final crisis, and constitute the precursive and justification of its fall: acts these that would be nearly the last public ones promoted, or mingled in, by the little body of Christ’s faithful ones on earth. For it was foreshown how that Christ’s advent would speedily follow; and contemporarily therewith, and with the mystic Babylon’s destruction by fire, His witnessing saints and all that fear Him, small and great, have the reward given them of an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of their Lord; and that so, and then (not before, or otherwise), the promised regeneration of all things, the Christian’s great object of hope, should have its accomplishment, in Christ’s own reign with His saints; and therewith, at length, the true and only complete evangelization of the world.

“Such is the Apocalyptic moral philosophy of the history of Christendom, its rule of faith not tradition, but the Bible; its Church of the promises that alone of true believers in Jesus; and God’s glory in Christ the grand and final object ever set forth in it.”1

In the foregoing view there is a consistency with the Apocalyptic figuration, and the actual history of the Christian Church which cannot fail to deeply impress, those whose minds have not been blinded by prejudice, or warped by erroneous conceptions as to the subject of Apocalyptic prophecy, and the philosophy of Christian history. For the Apocalypse is manifestly “the story of Christ’s kingdom “; its faithful and suffering saints are none other than those who “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ”(chap, xii, 17), who overcome in their warfare with the satanically ruled world power “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and loved not their lives unto the death” (v.11), those wrfio “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”(chap, xiv, 12), those who are “-the martyrs of Jesus”(chap, xvii, 6), those who are “called, and chosen, and faithful”(chap, xvii, 14), those whom God calls “My people”(chap, xviii, 4), those who “have the testimony of Jesus”(chap, xix, 10), those who were “beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God” (chap. xx). They form “a great multitude, which no man could number;’ of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,”they ascribe their “salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb”; they have come “out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”; they are the “palm bearing”multitude before the throne (chap, vii, 9) the victors who “sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb “(chap, xv, 3), the hundred and forty-four thousand who stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion, “having His Father’s name written in their foreheads,”who “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,”who were “redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb”(chap, xiv, 1—4). They are the “blessed”who “are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb”(chap, xix, 9), the “blessed and holy”persons who “have part in the first resurrection,”on whom “the second death hath no power,” “priests of God and of Christ “who “reign with Him a thousand years” (chap, xx), and later on “reign forever and ever “(chap, xxii, 5). They are the citizens of “the holy Jerusalem,”who constitute “the bride the Lamb’s wife,”a city which is yet to “descend out of heaven from God,””having the glory of God”(chap, xxi); in which city the saints of the Seven Churches addressed in the opening Epistles of the prophecy have their part, and receive their reward, for on them Christ promises to “write the name of the city of My God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from My God”(chap, iii, 12), the saints to whom He promises that they shall “sit with Him on His throne,”when He comes in the glory of His kingdom (chap, iii, 21).

The Apocalypse describes the double conflict or warfare of these saints and martyrs of Jesus, first their conflict with Pagan Rome (chap, xii), and then with Papal Rome (chaps, xi, xiii, xvii), first the warfare in which they overcome, and secondly the warfare in which they are overcome, and utterly silenced, but from which slain condition they rise, and are exalted to power, in manifest analogy to the experience of their Lord, the Lamb, who had been slain, and raised and exalted to the right hand of God- These in the dark ages were His faithful “witnesses,”the Church “hidden in the wilderness,” like the prophet Elijah in the days of the Baalitical apostasy of Israel. And these in the glorious Reformation, the age of “the little book, open,”of the restored Word of God, were they who took “the little book”from the hand of the Angel of the Everlasting Covenant, whose face was as the sun, and fed upon it like the prophet Ezekiel, and then in the power of its teachings “prophesied again, before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings”(chap. x).

Do we not recognize in all this the Church of Jesus Christ? Are we not acquainted with her history? Or do we conceive of that Church as reigning in the world over subject kings and nations, clothed in glory and magnificence, “arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls “? By which figure is the true Church of Christ represented in the Apocalypse, by the woman who is “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,” who is forced to “flee into the wilderness,”and to remain hidden there during the period of the dominion of the revived wild beast power? (Rev. 12, 13), or by the woman seated upon the beast, reigning over “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues”? (chap. xvii). If the latter be to us the figure of the Church of Christ then have we confounded the Bride of the Lamb, with the Harlot Babylon, A fatal error too common in our days.

But if on the other hand we recognize in the suffering hidden Church of the Apocalypse the figure of the true spiritual Church of Christ in this dispensation, analogous with the faithful hidden Israel of Jewish history, who had never bowed the knee to Baal, how confirmatory to faith becomes the marvelous Apocalyptic anticipation of the course of Christian history! How clearly we behold the evidence of divine inspiration in the prophecy, for by no mere human wisdom could the strange and chequered history of the Church, its apostasies, its contrasts, its conflicts, its victories, have been foreseen; yet here is all the story told in advance, the events described long before they came to pass, sketched with masterly power, drawn in striking colours, ineffaceable by time, portrayed not only with fidelity, but with an insight into their deepest meaning most manifestly divine. And every century by its fresh fulfilments has only added to the evidence of that inspiration, while the events of the present, as they unfold before our eyes, still further confirm it. Upon “the impregnable rock of holy Scripture”then we take our stand, nor fear the assaults of modern scepticism; our faith in the Bible as the Word of God, confirmed and deepened, assured that while “heaven and earth shall pass away,”the word of the Lord as contained in that sacred volume shall abide as living and life-giving truth forever.

V. The use of the Apocalypse in setting and keeping before the Church from age to age the ever brightening hope of the Coming and Kingdom of Christ.

The foregoing marvellous fulfilments of prophecy having taken place, confirming our faith, and indicating our advanced position in the revealed course of the present dispensation, we have but to follow the further delineations of the prophecy in order to perceive the character of the events which lie before us, in the ever advancing development of- the Kingdom of God.

On enquiring the nature of the leading event which is to mark the termination of the present age we are directed by the sure word of prophecy to expect that “the stone cut out without hands “during the existence of the quadripartite image, is to fall upon the clay-iron feet of the image with destructive force, to crush, the entire image to dust which the winds of heaven will sweep away, and then to grow to a great mountain, and fill the earth: in other words, as the prophecy explains, that in the closing days of the divided and weakened Roman Empire, the last of the four Gentile kingdoms, a destructive revolution shall take place, a manifestation of divine judgment, in which the antagonistic kingdoms of this world shall be overthrown and swept away; and that on the accomplishment of this event the kingdom of God shall pass from its present initial stage to its further millennial stage, and become a universal kingdom, filling the whole earth with its presence. Exactly how this great change shall be accomplished is not clearly revealed in these earlier prophecies. The coming of “the Ancient of Days,”is spoken of, and the “giving of judgment to the Saints of the Most High”(Dan. 7 : 22), at the close of the “three and a half times,”or 1,260 years of the dominion of the persecuting, self-exalting “little horn,”or papal power; when “the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end “; a judgment in which because of ” the great words which the horn spake, the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.”Apparently this event takes place when “the Ancient of Days “sits on the fiery throne of final judgment, while “thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him,”for then “the judgment was set, and the books opened”; but a comparison of this earlier and briefer prophecy with the more detailed predictions in the Apocalypse reveals the fact that the fourth empire, that of Rome, with its persecuting papal head, is overthrown under the judgments of the seven vials; and that the advent of Christ in judgment, accompanied by His saints, has more than one stage, for a period of a thousand years is to separate between His revelation “to tread the wine-press of the wrath of God”as described in Rev. 19, and His corning on His great white throne to judge “the dead small and great,”out of the things “written in the books,”described in Rev. 20. The recurrence of the remarkable expression “the books were opened”in Dan. 7: 10, and Rev. 20: 12, links together these two descriptions of the final judgment, as relating to the same event; but while the judgment of Rev. 20:12 is certainly post-millennial, the destruction of “the beast,”or persecuting Roman power is, according to Rev. 19: 20 a pre-millennial event; indicating the conclusion that the judgment described in Dan. 7 includes both the pre and post- millennial stages of the judgment of “the Beast,”and of “the dead small and great,”more fully portrayed in the Apocalyptic prophecy.

The existence of these stages in the divine judgment will cause no surprise when we reflect on the character of the present and millennial dispensations taken as a whole; for as Jonathan Edwards has shown in his “History of Redemption,”the whole period from the ascension and enthronement of Christ to His final coming to judge “the dead small and great,”is characterized by the taking down and removing of antagonistic world powers, one after the other, until every foe is placed in subjection beneath His feet. The mighty work of subjugation is not accomplished by a single act, but by a succession of acts; acts figured under the seals, trumpets, and vials of the Apocalypse. Many of these acts have already been accomplished, while others remain to be fulfilled. Among the former no less than six of the “vials”of the judgment of the seventh trumpet, or “last woe,” have been poured -forth, while the outpouring of the seventh vial, if not already begun, is manifestly close at hand.

In considering the events of the seventh trumpet era as including those which are now transpiring around us, we should take into account the important fact that the seventh trumpet has a double character, as being both a “woe”trumpet, and a “jubilee “trumpet. It is distinctly stated to be a “woe “trumpet in Rev. 8 : 13, and n : 14. On the other hand it is most certainly a jubilee trumpet, for on its sounding the joyful proclamation is made, “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.”

Now it is a matter of the profoundest interest that we can plainly trace in the events which have taken place since the middle of the eighteenth century these two features of the predicted seventh trumpet era. On the one hand we behold the accomplishment of the foretold judgments of the vials, as outpoured on Western and Eastern Christendom; and on the other hand we can as plainly see the rising up of a new and better order of things, preparing the way for the promised “gathering together in one of all things”in “the fulness of times,”under the headship of Christ (Eph.1: 10).

The recognition of these two opposite movements in the present day is not an easy attainment. Those who see the one are apt to ignore or deny the other. Hence while some are pessimists others are optimists, in the interpretation they attach to contemporaneous events. But time corrects such partial views, and with added years, and widened observation, we come to occupy a position midway between these opposite extremes. “Are you a pessimist? “said one to the late Dr. A. J. Gordon of Boston. “No,” said he, “I am not.””Are you then an optimist?”asked the interrogator. “No,”he answered, “I am not.””What then are you? “he was asked. “/ am a truthist”he replied.

If I may be permitted to refer to my own experience as a student of prophecy for more than forty years, I can distinctly trace two stages in the development of my views, in which the downward and upward movements of the age, successively occupied my attention. Briefly to narrate the facts I may say that when evangelizing in France before the outbreak of the Franco-German war of 1870, I saw everywhere around me the prevalence of Romanism and infidelity. Visits to Spain and Italy only extended the view of this sad state of things, while growing acquaintance with Germany showed the reign of Rationalism in a country which had taken a leading part in the reformation of the sixteenth century. In all these lands there still ‘existed a small body of evangelical Christians, but they were inconspicuous compared to the mass of the population under the sway of Romish or Rationalistic errors. By the Vatican Council of 1870 which decreed the Pope of Rome to be “The Infallible Teacher of Faith and Morals,”the errors and superstitions of the Church of Rome were practically declared to be “irreformable.” Nothing then awaited that apostate church but the destruction foretold in such solemn and terrific terms by the Apocalypse; a church which boasted that it embraced in its communion no less than two hundred millions of the professing Church of Christ, and indeed exalted itself as the true and only Church of Christ on earth.

The more I pondered the present condition-of the Church of Rome, the revival and spread of Neo-Romanism in the form of Ritualism, and the widespread prevalence of scepticism and infidelity, the more I became conscious of the operation of a vast downward movement affecting’the larger part of the professing Christian Church, like the’ slow retreat of the tides, or the gradual darkening of the heavens at the close of day. The growing infidelity of the age especially impressed me, its tendency to naturalism, and even agnosticism. “With the progress,”as I wrote, “of rationalism there is a growth of radicalism and nihilism, and the destruction of religious faith threatens to involve on a more or less extended scale the destruction of civil lorder, and common morality.”

The view thus given of the condition of Christendom, while harmonizing with many of the prophetic forecasts relating to the period, was far from encouraging. The prospect seemed to darken, and to point to the proximity nf the day to which our Lord referred when He asked the ijiicstion, “When the Son of Man cometh shall He find t.iith on the earth? ”

During the thirty-five years which have followed the fall of the papal temporal power in 1870 I have become prac-tirally engaged in missionary work in many parts of the world. In the prosecution of that work it has been my lot to travel in America, Africa, India, China, and Japan; and in these regions I have seen the wonderful spectacle of a new world rising up, like some vast continent emerging from the depths of the ocean. Extending my study of the movement it became evident that this new world had been rising up for the last three or four hundred years, but especially since the Puritan colonization of America in the seventeenth century. The growth of civil and religious liberty, the marvellous progress of science, the extension of the British empire, the rise of the United States, of United Germany, of United Italy, the political regeneration of India, the exploration and uplifting of Africa, the opening and evangelization of China, the amazing progress of Japan, the ever increasing approximation of all peoples by steam and electric communication, the rapid spread of education, the multiplication and extension of Christian missions, all were evident features of a world movement, analogous to, though far surpassing that in the history of Greece and Rome which preceded the advent of the Christian religion, and prepared its way; or like the terrestrial changes which prepared the world for the appearance of man; the dawn of light, the retreat of the submerging waters, the clearing of the sky, the rise of islands and continents, and the clothing of the waste and desolate places with the wonders of vegetable and animal life.

On considering these two contrasted world movements several broad facts as to their nature, causes and tendencies became apparent.

First, considering their history in the past, and the forces from which they spring, the inveterate tendency in fallen man to depart from the living God, and the law of progress, both natural and spiritual, under which we are placed, it became evident that both these movements, the downward and the upward, will continue to operate in the future; a conclusion which harmonizes with the teachings of prophecy.

Secondly, that the two movements differ profoundly in this respect, that whereas the downward world movement has its fixed limits, the upward movement belongs to a divine order of things which is in its nature enduring and eternal.

Thirdly, that according to the sure word of prophecy including the witness of the prophetic times, the limit of the downward world movement lies in the proximate future.

Fourthly, that the arrest of the great apostasy win be effected by the manifestation of Christ in the judgment described in Rev. 19, under the figure of His coming forth from heaven to “tread the wine- press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

This great and solemn fact brings before us the teachings of the New Testament on the Second Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those teachings are so important as to de-mand their exhibition in the following section;

THE COMING ONE

“For yet a little while, O how little, and The Coming One shall come, and will not tarry.”—Heb. 10:37.

LOOKING around us into the past, and into the future, what is our position at the present time?

We stand on a lofty eminence of observation, placed between the two Advents of Christ; His advent to redeem and to save, and His advent to judge and reign. Nineteen centuries of Christian history separate us from the first of these Advents; while no revealed interval separates us from the second. We know “neither the day, nor the hour”when our Lord cometh.

What is the teaching of the New Testament on the subject of the second Advent of Christ? What place does it assign to it? How far does it give it prominence? To what practical uses does it put the prospect of the Lord’s coming? And what position does that coming hold in the last great prophecy in the Bible, the sacred prophecy with which it ends? Let us turn to the New Testament, and patiently scanning its pages seek to collect in one mew the substance of its testimony on this great subject. Surely such a doctrine deserves this effort to understand its meaning and its place in the word of God! Our examination must of necessity be brief and superficial, little more than a grouping of scripture passages, but the glance which we bestow on these may lead to further and deeper study of “the whole counsel of God “in the matter. Let us then turn to “the sure word “of scripture prophecy, given by “inspiration of God “; inwardly praying for the illumination of the Holy Spirit that we may be led into all truth.

We begin with the Gospels. There, on the mount of beatitudes, we behold Jesus teaching the multitudes, preaching the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, whose establishment was then at hand, and as we listen awed and borne away by the divine wisdom and authority of His discourse, we hear Him speak of that day of Judgment in which His word shall decide the eternal issues of our destiny, how He will say to false professors of His name, “I never knew you, depart from Me ye that work iniquity.”We tremble at the message and take heed; while He Himself, rises before us in the vision of that coming judgment as our great and final Judge.

Turning over the pages of the record we behold our Lord by the Sea of Galilee. Multitudes have heard without understanding them the parables of the kingdom of heaven which He has just spoken, but His disciples lingering when the multitudes have departed, crowd the house while He explains their meaning. The wheat and the tares were “the children of the kingdom,”and “the children of the wicked one.”The harvest was the “end of the age.”Then would “the Son of Man send forth His angels to gather out of His kingdom all things which offend, and them which do iniquity,”and to cast them into a furnace of fire, where should be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then should the righteous “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

Later on we see Christ seated on the Mount of Olives, with four of His disciples. It is the last week of His earthly life. The temple and city of Jerusalem lie beneath them full in view. “There shall not be left,”He says, “one stone up on another that shall not be thrown down.””When shall these things be,”ask his disciples, “and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the age? “Wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, Christ answers, shall happen. There shall be persecutions, false prophets, apostasies, and a world- wide proclamation of the Gospel as “a witness unto all nations.”Then should the end come. A great and unparalleled tribulation should take place, and “immediately after”its termination sun and moon should be darkened, the stars of heaven fall, and the sign of His second advent be seen. Then the Son of Man would come “in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,”and He would “send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, to gather together His elect from the four winds, and from one end of heaven to the other.” And for that coming the world and the Church should be unprepared, for it should overtake an ungodly world as did the flood in the days of Noah, and find an unfaithful Church slumbering—slumbering till wakened by the midnight cry, “Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him.”The wise virgins having oil for their lamps trim them, and go in to the marriage; the foolish virgins having no oil, their lamps gone out, are excluded. In a later parable our Lord tells us that His coming would not take place speedily; “after a long time,”the master of the household should return to reward his faithful servants. And every act, even the most trivial ministration of kindness to suffering men whom He calls His “brethren “would be remembered and rewarded as done to Himself, when He should come “in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him,”and seated “on the throne of His glory “should separate His true disciples from false professors of the Christian name, as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. Then should the wicked go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.

Following Christ to the upper chamber in Jerusalem, we witness the paschal supper the night before His crucifixion. He is comforting His disciples, sorrowing in the prospect of His departure. “Let not your hearts be troubled,”He says. “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also.” Earth is not all. “In My Father’s house are many mansions.”Words of tender love, and lofty meaning, how have ye comforted the sorrowful from age to age, and kept the lamp of hope burning through the long night of Christ’s absence; the vision of those many mansions shining above the gloom; and the promise “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself,”lingering like a sweet strain of immortal music in the memory; love’s own promise, holding forth love’s last best gift; the restoration of Him whom for a season the Church has ceased to behold: the return of the Lord to present the Church to Himself'”a glorious Church,””holy and without blemish,”henceforth to be forever with Him who is her life, her righteousness, her all.

From the scene in the upper chamber we turn to that in which after His resurrection from the dead our Lord revealed Himself to His disciples gathered together in Jerusalem, and commanded them to wait there for the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost. Had the time come for the expected deliverance of the Jewish people from the yoke of Gentile rule? They ask Him the question, “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? “Memorable was His reply: “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power^ but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”Both promises were fulfilled; and the book of Acts is the record of their fulfilment. The disciples of Christ were baptized with the Holy Ghost, and became His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Not to the early church was it given to know the length of the journey that lay before her, the period of her toil, and suffering, and waiting for her Lord. The knowledge would have damped her zeal, or worn out her patience. Better than such knowledge was the gift bestowed upon her. Hers was not to know, but to love, to labour, and to wait. The evangelization of the world was committed to her; a work to this day but half accomplished, if even that. Great fields unreaped though white to harvest, still remain. And still the great commission presses upon the Church “Go,””preach the gospel to every creature,”and the twofold promise is hers; that of the Spirit’s baptism; and that of the perpetual presence of her Lord.

While the words of the great commission were still sounding in the ears of Christ’s disciples, “while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

Gazing after Him they remained rooted to the spot. Then two angels, “in white apparel”stood in their midst, and in a brief memorable sentence, turned their thoughts from the Lord’s departure to His return. “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.”

A few days later Peter and John, having received with the other disciples the baptism of power, of cloven fiery tongues, for gospel testimony, are standing in the temple witnessing for Christ. “Repent” they cry to the crowds around them, “be converted that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, -whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

Later on Paul is standing on Mars Hill, preaching to the Athenians the gospel of the resurrection. “God,”he says, “commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance to all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” Strange and startling words! Unprepared to receive them, some mock, and others say, “we will hear thee again of this matter.”So Paul departs from among them to go to Corinth where the Lord had “much people” to bring to Himself.

And now Paul is writing his great Epistle to the Romans; a treatise rather than an epistle: the noblest treatise ever written unfolding the gospel of Christ. He has reached the place in which he is exhibiting the mercy God has in reserve for unbelieving outcast Israel. “Blindness”is happened to them, says Paul, “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in: and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”God has concluded Jew and Gentile in unbelief “that He might have mercy upon all.””O the depth of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge!”

Further on in the Epistle Paul is reasoning with the Christian who in matters of secondary importance judges his brother, and presumes to set him at nought. “Why dost thou judge thy brother?” says Paul, “for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” “so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”Thus Paul substitutes the just judgment of the righteous judge for the rash judgment of man by man in doubtful things.

And now Paul is writing to the Corinthians. He begins his epistle with words of encouragement. God would “confirm them to the end,”that they might be “blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”But divisions and disorders had appeared among them. He comes to the subject of the Lord’s supper, and reminds them of Christ’s own institution of the ordinance, and of its meaning. “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.”To remember Him; to show forth His death; to anticipate His return; to link the first advent with the second; to bind them together with an unbroken chain of sacramental acts and seasons; such the object, the effect of the sacred ordinance. And so in lowly tabernacles, in lofty temples, in upper chambers, in prisons, in caves, in deserts, has the Church kept without intermission this sacred ordinance of communion and commemoration, during the long centuries which have elapsed since her Lord’s departure, waiting for His return.

With a marvellous and matchless chapter on the resurrection of the dead Paul closes the Epistle. “Every man,”he tells us, shall be raised “in his own order. Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s at His coming “; then later on the end, when death should be destroyed. But should all die? “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump.” Then shall death be “swallowed up in victory.”

In his second Epistle to the Corinthians he resumes the subject, and reminds them that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that which he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”A salutory view of a solemn subject, never to be forgotten or ignored. To the Ephesians he writes his epistle of unity, speaking of “unity of faith and knowledge; of one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all; and of the gathering together in one of all things in heaven and earth in Christ, in the dispensation of the fullness of times.”

To the Philippians he expresses his confidence that “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”; saints of whom he could say, associating them with himself, ” our citizenship is in heaven from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.””Rejoice,”he says, and “let your forbearance—or gentleness—be known unto all men; the Lord is at hand.”

To the Colossians he unfolds the mystery of Christ in us, “the hope of glory “; and says, “when Christ who is? life shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.”

To the Thessalonians he writes two Epistles, speaking in every chapter of both on the subject of the Lord’s coming. They had ” turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.”They were Paul’s hope, joy, and crown of glorying “before our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming.”He prays that their hearts may be established “unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”He comforts them concerning those who had “fallen asleep in Jesus,”that God would “bring them with Him.””For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”He reminds them that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, when they are saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall in no wise escape.”But that day should not overtake God’s faithful people “as a thief.”And he prays for them that their “spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In his second Epistle to the Thessalonians he tells them that God will “recompense affliction to those who afflict them,””at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

“Touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him,”he tells them that that day should not come “except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed “; “and now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work, only there is one that restraineth now until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of His coming.””But the Lord is faithful who shall stablish you, and guard you from the evil one. And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ.”

To the Hebrews he writes that Christ who had appeared “once at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” and was now appearing “before the face of God for us,”would “appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto Salvation.””For yet a very little while He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.”

To Titus he writes of “looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”To Timothy of keeping the commandment without spot “until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in its own times He shall shew who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.””I charge thee,”he adds, “in the sight of God and of Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word: be instant in seaJon, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine, but having itching ears will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.”For “in later times some shall fall away from the truth giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils”: and “in the last days grievous times shall come.”But “I have fought the good fight,”says Paul, in this his last Epistle; “I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give to me at that day; and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.”

In his brief practical Epistle James writing to “the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion”exhorts them to “be patient until the coming of the Lord . . . stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”

Peter in his Epistles of hope encourages “the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion”to expect that their faith “though proved by fire”would be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”Partakers as they were of His sufferings, “at the revelation of His glory”they would “rejoice with exceeding joy.”As “a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed,”he exhorts the elders “Tend the flock of God which is among you . . . and when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.” In his last epistle he foretells that “in the last days mockers shall come with mockery walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”But such “willfully forget”the flood, and its solemn lessons. “Forget not this one thing,”he says, “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up … but according to His promise we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

In his first Epistle John writes, “Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour.”Therefore “abide in the Son, and in the Father.””And now my little children, abide in Him, that if He shall be manifested we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”Jude in his brief Epistle adds his final warning,—”remember ye the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they said to you, In the last time there shall be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts. These are they who make separations, sensual, not having the spirit. But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

Lastly, in the Apocalypse, the key-note of the final revelation is sounded. “Behold He cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they which pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over Him.”To that coming all the preliminary letters to the Churches, and all the subsequent actions of the prophecy are directed; the opening of its seals; the sounding of its trumpets, the pouring forth of its vials. Under the sixth vial the startling utterance is heard “Behold I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.”

After the fall of Babylon heaven is opened and “the King of kings and Lord of lords,”whose name is “Faithful and True,”the “Word of God,”comes forth, followed by the army of His white robed saints. He treads “the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

The destruction of His enemies is accomplished. “The first resurrection “takes place: and the risen saints and martyrs reign with Christ “a thousand years.”

At the close of this period, Satan being loosed for “a little time;” once more “deceives the nations,”and brings about the last apostasy. Fire falls from heaven, and consumes the enemies of the Lord and of His saints. It is the end. Now “the great white throne “is set, and He is seen “that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away.”The dead are raised, and “stand before the throne,”the books are opened, “and another book which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works.””And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.””And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.”

There follows the vision of “a new heaven, and a new earth,” and the descent of “the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband . . . having the glory of God.”God and the Lamb are her temple and her light. “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His servants shall do Him service: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads.”

The Apocalyptic visions are sealed with the words, “I JESUS have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things for the Churches.

“He which testifieth these things saith, YEA , I COME QUICKLY .”

“AMEN . COME LORD JESUS .”

On reviewing, however briefly, the foregoing passages, we cannot but be impressed by the fact of the close connection which exists between the coming and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that these constitute the goal of redemption history.

“Human history,”says Dr. Henry Smith, “has no other centre of convergence and divergence than the Cross of calvary.”He adds, “history has no other prophetic end than the Kingdom of Immanuel.”

Nowhere in Scripture is this latter fact more clearly set forth than in the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse, for in these the kingdom of God is revealed as the last of five universal kingdoms, diverse in source, in character, and in duration from the four great kingdoms which it follows, and replaces; the goal to which they advance, the end to which their entire movement is subject. The Apocalypse, as we have seen is the story of the fourth and fifth of these kingdoms, of the last great earthly empire, and the eternal kingdom of the God of heaven.

The glory of the kingdom of God irradiates this closing prophecy, and the history of the people who are to inherit that glory fills its pages. As “the sufferings of Christ and the glories which should follow,”are the chief theme of Old Testament prophecy, so the sufferings of His saintly people, and the glories which constitute their reward occupy this closing New Testament prophecy, the gift to his suffering and witnessing church of the ascended Saviour.

The greatest of all the events to which the Apocalypse directs the attention is the second Advent of Christ, in glory and majesty, to raise the dead, to judge the world, and to reign with His saints forever.

From the opening sentence “Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him,”to the last utterance, “Surely I come quickly,”the second coming of Christ occupies in the prophecy a prominence accorded to no other event; and on the subject of Christ’s coming and kingdom its revelations are far in advance of those presented in preceding prophecies.

The Apocalypse is thus the crown of all the progressive revelations in the word of God concerning these final events. For whereas in the second of Daniel we see the Kingdom of God as a great mountain filling the earth, and in the seventh of Daniel with increasing clearness as the kingdom of the Son of man, and of the saints of the Most High; and in the gospels of the New Testament, as the kingdom of the Father, and of the children of the resurrection, introduced by the advent of Christ with His angelic hosts, at the close of the times of Jewish trouble and desolation; and in the Epistles as the coming of Christ to raise the sleeping and translate the living saints to meet Him in the air at His advent; and then to manifest them in the glory of their risen life when He Himself is manifested with the angels of His mighty power, to destroy “the Man of Sin,”and to remove from His kingdom all that offend and do iniquity, and effect “the restitution of all things,”promised through all the prophets from the foundation of the world ; in the Apocalypse the precursory events which are to introduce that advent are represented in a long series of marvellous visions, its effects and consequences described in scene after scene of matchless glory and sublimity, and an entirely new revelation granted of a kingdom in which Christ and His risen saints shall reign for a thousand years after the destruction of all antagonistic world powers, and before the final day of the resurrection and judgment of “the rest of the dead,”and the establishment of the new heaven and earth of the eternal state.

And this sublime and glorious prophecy completes and closes the volume of Divine revelation. Borrowing its symbols from the earlier writings of the law and the prophets, gathering together in one the doctrinal and practical teachings of previous Scriptures, as converging rays meeting in a luminous centre, unveiling the vistas of eternal glory and felicity to which all the previous dispensations and ages of redemption history lead, and in which they issue, the Apocalypse forms the golden clasp of the entire volume of Revelation. And as the gift of the ascended Saviour, His own and His final utterance to the church; as His own opening of the mysteries of providence and of the future previously hidden from both men and angels, an unveiling granted to Him as the Lamb of God, as a reward of His sufferings, and crown of His victory, this closing prophecy possesses an altogether celestial position, and an incomparable glory. It speaks to us, not from earth as other prophecies, but from heaven. It is the voice of Him that liveth and was dead, and is alive forevermore, who holds the keys of death and hades; Him to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess; Him whom all angels worship and serve; and from whom shall flow the light and life of that eternal kingdom, in which sin and sorrow and death shall be no more.

No newly invented system of Apocalyptic interpretation have we set forth in this volume, but the old interpretation which has been ” from the beginning,”ripened and mellowed by the influence of time.

“none other things”

If the Apocalypse could speak to-day concerning itself it might employ the language of Paul, “I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things’ than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come;”for while opening to us new mysteries of Providence, it gives us no outline of futurity but that which was set forth from the dawn of revelation. It is but the expansion of preceding prophecies. The promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head contains it all. The king seated on Zion in the second Psalm, breaking in pieces his enemies with a rod of iron is the same as the King of kings and Lord of lords, wielding the rod of iron to subdue His foes in the visions of the Apocalypse; and the king of the one hundred and tenth Psalm, seated at God’s right hand, who is a priest forever after the order of Mel-chizedek is none other than the exalted Redeemer of the Apocalypse, who offers before the throne “the prayers of the saints,” sanctified and sweetened with the “much incense “which mingles with them in the golden censer of His high priestly service. Ezekiel saw in his prophetic visions the “living creatures”of the Apocalypse, and Isaiah its “new heavens and earth.”Daniel beheld in vision its wild beasts, saw its ten horned Roman empire, its persecuting Antichrist, its suffering saints, its mysterious “times and seasons,”its coming in the clouds of heaven of “the Son of Man,”its resurrection of the dead, its final judgment scene, and its everlasting kingdom of the God of heaven. Zechariah beheld its meek majestic King whose dominion was to be “from the river to the ends of the earth,”saw Him coming “with all His saints “in that day “known to the Lord,”to be “king over all the earth,”when there should be “one Lord, and His name one.”John the Baptist beheld its “Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.”And above all our Lord Jesus Christ Him- self revealed that clear and comprehensive outline of the future which contains within its framework all the series of events set forth in the visions of the Apocalypse; the progress of the kingdom of God, the wars, the famines, the pestilences, the persecutions, the false prophets, the apostasies, the tribulations, the universal preaching of the Gospel; the shaking of the heavens, the darkening of the luminaries, the falling of the stars, the calling of men on the rqcks to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb, the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, with His angels, to gather His saints from the uttermost parts of the earth, the judgment and reward of saints, the marriage of the Lamb, the final judgment of the world deciding the eternal issues of life and death, and the Palingenesia, or regeneration of all things, in which the “children of the resurrection ” are to be made “equal to the angels”; all these great and wondrous events were foretold by our Lord during the course of His earthly ministry. And the apostasy predicted by St. Paul, and the other apostles, with its “Man of Sin,”its “Son of perdition,”its Antichrist, its profaned temple, its deluded multitudes, and the saints protected from its peril and doom, is that apostasy with its blasphemous persecuting head, its idolatrous worship, and its suffering witnesses occupying so large and central a place in the vi- sions of St. John. The New Jerusalem, the city of the living God, on its Mount Zion, with its “innumerable hosts of angels,”its “general assembly and church of the first-born enrolled in heaven,”and its ” spirits of just men made perfect,”so gloriously described by Paul in the epistle to the Hebrews, that “Jerusalem which is above which is the mother of us all”of which he speaks in the Epistle to the Galatians, is none other than the New Jerusalem of the visions of the Apocalypse, the city of saints, bearing in its foundations the names of “the twelve apostles of the Lamb,”and on its gates the names of the tribes of Israel. God’s long-suffering patience, deferring the Advent of “the day of the Lord “in mercy to a sinful race, yet bring- ing it at last, when unexpected, “as a thief in the night,”when the heavens shall be wrapped together as a scroll, and the earth dissolved with fire, to make way for the new heavens and earth, all these which John beheld in Patmos, were seen by Peter years before, and made the subject of his last warning words. For the testimony of prophecy is one: and the Apocalypse but the last and most complete “unveiling”of that course of things partially and progressively revealed in previous prophetic teachings. Thus the last book in the sacred volume of Revelation teaches us “none other things”than those which the voices of the prophets declared from the earliest times; as the light of the noon is none other than the brighter radiance of the light which had shone from the dawning of the day.

O holy harmony of inspiration, O sacred continuity of testimony, thou art worthy of the God of Truth, to whom all things have been known from the foundation of the world.

Time as an interpreter

We have shown in the preceding pages that history has all along revealed the meaning of prophecy; that it did so in Old Testament times; that it did so at the advent of Christ, the accomplishment of His sufferings, and glories, expounding by their fulfilment the prophecies of these events; and that it has done so ever since, opening from century to century the meaning of the mysterious predictions relating to the course of Christian history. We have thus shown that

1. The events of history explained the meaning of the Six first Seals of the Apocalypse.The early victories of the gospel of Christ, the rapid spread of Christian teachings, and extension of the Christian church through-out the Roman Empire, in the face of tremendous opposition from Jew and Gentile, explained the meaning of the first seal, the going forth of the rider upon the white horse, ” conquering and to conquer.”No doubt whatever rested on the minds of the primitive Christians, as to the significance of this opening Apocalyptic seal; and the view they took has held a leading position ever since. It can be traced in every century, from the first Apocalyptic commentary extant, that of Victorinus, down to Alford’s commentary on the Greek New Testament published in our own days. The application of this vision to the conquests of Christ is confirmed by the analogous vision in the nineteenth chapter of the going forth of the rider on the white horse of victory, and the name the rider bears, “The Word of God,””the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.”

The calamities which fell upon the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries, explained the second, third, and fourth seals. The dreadful civil wars by which the empire was long distracted, the oppressive fiscal policy resulting in widespread famines, and above all the desolating plague which in the third century swept off one half the population, explained the meaning of the going forth of the riders on the red, black, and livid horses, whose mission it was “to take peace from the earth,”that “men should kill one another “; to tax the necessaries of life ; and to “kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”The commentary of Victorinus recognizes the.application; and the view became current in the early church that the calamities which were weakening the Roman Empire and preparing the way for its destruction, were not only fulfilments of Apocalyptic prophecy, but also of our Lord’s last great prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives in which He forewarned Hisdisciples of wars, famines, and pestilences as precursors of His coming, and of “the end of the age.”

The cruel persecutions of the Church by pagan Rome, especially in the time of Diocletian, giving rise to the era of the martyrs, explained only too clearly the meaning of the fifth seal, the seal of martyrs.

The overthrow of the pagan Roman Empire which followed in the fourth century, shaking as with an earthquake, and darkening as with an eclipse of the heavenly luminaries the state and religion of ancient Rome, interpreted the sixth seal; especially as that appalling event was viewed as an adumbration of the final judgment of the world, in the great day of “the wrath of the Lamb.”

2. The triumph of Christianity over Paganism in the fourth century explained to the Church of that period the meaning of the vision in Revelation12, of the casting down of the persecuting dragon from his throne. Representations of the prostrate dragon were inscribed by Con-stantine upon his coins, and above it the symbol of the victorious Cross; and the joy and triumph of the early Church found expression in the glowing words in the Apocalypse, “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God,”and the power of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before God day and night; and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death (Rev. 12: 10, 11). This notable victory of Christianity over Paganism led the early Church to adopt an erroneous interpretation of the vision of the millennial reign of Christ “and His saints and martyrs. The binding of Satan for a thousand years, that he should “deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled,”was regarded by the Church of the fifth and following centuries as an accomplished fact. The Church of the Middle Ages erroneously believed herself to be living in the millennium! Not till the seventeenth century did the church escape from this false interpretation of prophecy, compelled to abandon it by the stern teachings of historical events.

3. The Gothic invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries, by which the Western Roman Empire was overthrown, and broken into fragments, amid terrible bloodshed and desolation, explained the meaning of the four first trumpets; while the Saracenic and Turkish overthrow of the Eastern Roman Empire which followed revealed the significance of the fifth and sixth-trumpets. In the light of their fulfilment in history the trumpets of the Apocalypse are seen to possess the same character, and general purpose. Without exception they are “woe”trumpets; trumpets of war and desolation, heralding and sounding forth the overthrow of the Roman Empire Western and Eastern. The meaning of the seventh trumpet, with its seven vials of judgment on “Babylon “and the “Beast”remained a mystery till the outbreak of the French Revolution. The fifth and sixth trumpets had long before been clearly understood to refer to the Saracenic and Turkish conquests in the East. As the first four trumpets precede the fifth and sixth their application to the Gothic invasions which overthrew the Empire of Western Rome became a natural, and almost inevitable inference.

4. The rise of the Papacy and revival of the Roman Empire under Charlemagne, the “Holy Roman Empire”which from its foundation in A . D . 800, continued for a thousand years till its overthrow by Napoleon, cast unexpected light on the marvellous prophecy in Revelation 13, of the restoration of the Roman Empire in its second, or Gothic form, under its revived eighth head; the “deadly wound”of the seventh head having been “healed.”The identity of this eighth head with the “little horn”of Daniel 7, arising together with the ten horns of the divided Empire, is so plain and evident as to need no comment. Both occupy the same place, both have the same “mouth speaking great things and blasphemies,”both are cruel persecutors of the saints, and both last for the same period. Long has the Church recognized in these symbolical predictions the representation of the Roman Papacy. In a multitude of particulars history has here fulfilled prophecy, and illuminated its meaning as with the light of day.

5. The glorious Reformation of the sixteenth century explained the vision in Revelation 10, of the sudden descent and action of the rainbow crowned Covenant Angel, whose voice was as the roar of a lion, and who held in his right hand “a little book open”! That Reformation gave back the Bible to the nations, and inaugurated the age of the book. It fulfilled the command of the angel of the vision to re-publish the gospel to “peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”It fulfilled the command to “measure,”or reform and restore, the Church, represented by the temple, altar, and worshipping people; while rejecting of “casting out”the portion of the professing Church answering to “the court which is without,”which was “given to the Gentiles “to be trodden under foot for 1,260 years (Rev. 11:2). Clearly comprehended by the Reformers of the sixteenth century this great prophecy was acted on by them to the letter, as the divine plan, and authorization of their work.

At this point the revealing angel of the vision, standing “upon the sea and upon the earth,”as claiming both for the sphere of his command, lifts up his band to heaven and swears “by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and the sea and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer (or that time shall no further be prolonged), but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets” (Rev. 10:5-7). The sense gathered is that time should no longer be extended “to the so far permitted reign of evil, the seventh trumpet’s era being its fixed determined limit.”1 A comparison of this oath of the revealing angel with that in Daniel 12, relating to the three and a half “times “of the “scattering of the power of the holy people,”sheds additional light on its meaning, and confirms its solemnity and importance,—-God’s oath, sworn in Reformation days, as to the proximate termination of the prophetic times, their ending with the seventh trumpet, whose sounding was even then at hand.

6. The tremendous papal reaction of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by whose anti-Protestant wars, persecutions and massacres Europe was deluged with blood, and far more martyrs put to death than in all the persecutions of the early Church by Pagan Rome, explained the “war”against Christ’s sackcloth clothed witnesses of the wild beast power in Revelation ii; and the cruel suppression of the Huguenots and Waldenses at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes: and the immediately succeeding English Revolution, with its restoration of the persecuted Protestant church to civil and religious freedom, and political ascendency, occurring at the predicted close of the sixth trumpet woe, and shortly before the sounding of the seventh trumpet of the French Revolution, cast a flood of light upon the meaning of the death, resurrection, and ascension of the witnesses—Christian witnesses whose position, action, testimony, sufferings and success, were typified of old by those of the Jewish prophets and Reformers, in the dark days of Baalitical and Babylonish apostasies.

7. The French Revolution in which as by the explosion of the long pent-up forces of a volcano the papal church and state were suddenly torn from their foundations, and overwhelmed in common ruin; and its repeated after waves of war and desolation affecting every throne and country of Europe, explained the outpouring of the introductory Vials of judgment under the seventh trumpet; vials expressly stated to be poured forth on the persecuting wild beast power, his followers, worshippers, and throne; those who had “shed the blood of saints and prophets,”and to whom in righteous vengeance blood was given “to drink.”The wasting away of the Turkish power which has followed in the East has explained the ” drying up “of the Euphratean flood of the sixth trumpet, or Turkish woe; a drying up represented under the sixth vial. The seventh vial poured out on “Babylon the great,”remains to be fulfilled. There may be a doubt as to its commencing point, but the accomplishment of its main predictions is certainly future, though near at hand.

8. The character and history of the Church of Rome, her proud position as seated on “the seven hills”of the Imperial city, and “reigning over the kings “and peoples of the earth, her gorgeous self-adornment, her fabulous wealth and luxury, her adulterous association with kings and princes of the Roman Empire, her multiplied idolatries, and cruel persecutions of the saints, and her judgment as finally hated and cast off”, stripped and torn by the ten horned wild beast power which had previously carried her, and done her bidding; all this has been recognized as marvellously portrayed in the Apocalyptic vision of the harlot “Babylon the Great,”drunken with “the blood of the saints, and of the martyrs of Jesus.”

Like the apostle John who “wondered”as he gazed on this vision “with a great wonder,”1 so do we contemplate it with admiration and astonishment; so marvellous has been the historic reality, and so marvellous its prediction. Its representation forms the most complete and striking portrait in the Apocalypse; a portrait whose terrible out- lines and vivid colours have arrested the attention of the Church for ages; a portrait set as a warning to God’s people in danger of being deceived and ensnared by the pretensions and wiles of the great church of the apostasy, and called to separate themselves from her sins, that they may escape her doom.

9. The duration of the papal power for the long period of 1,260 years from its commencement under the Pope exalting decrees of the Emperors Justinian and Phocas to its fall in the French Revolution of 1793, the revolution of 1848, and the final overthrow of the Temporal Power in 1870, has established the meaning of the “1,260 days “of the Apocalyptic prefiguration; has demonstrated the truth of the year-day theory; a demonstration sealed by the discoveries of astronomy as to the secular and cyclical character of the prophetic times in the book of Daniel and in the Apocalypse; confirming and settling with exactness their duration; and exhibiting their position, as integral parts of a great system of times, natural and revealed.

Slowly thus, century by century, time has interpreted the meaning of the mysterious visions of prophecy relating to the long and complex course of Christian history, clearing away their obscurities, as it has translated their anticipations into accomplished facts. Under its operation the apocalypse of prophecy has to a large extent given place to the apocalypse of history; the shadowy outline of the one to the substance of the other. Providence has proved the key to prophecy; and has confirmed on the whole that historic interpretation to which the Church of Christ has most commonly given her adhesion. The Praeterist interpretation which would confine the reference of Apocalyptic prophecy to events in the time of Nero, and the fall of Pagan Rome,—disproved by the post-Neronic date of the Apocalypse as revealed in the time of Domitian—has been cast into oblivion by the discoveries of time; and on the other hand the reveries of Futurism have been shown to be speculations concerning future fulfilments of predictions which for the most part have been already accomplished. As time has been the great interpreter of prophecy in the past, so doubtless will it continue to be in the future. To wait and watch for its discoveries is clearly the wisest course; curbing the premature flight of speculation; standing on the firm ground of ever evolving fact; leaving God to be His own interpreter in the Providential acts destined to fulfill and illuminate His spoken words.

Nineteen centuries of the fulfillment of New Testament prophecies concerning the course of events during the Christian dispensation lie behind us. The fall of Jerusalem, the triumphs of the Gospel, the vicissitudes of the Roman Empire, the sufferings of the Church under Pagan Rome, the victory of the martyrs, the abolition of Paganism and establishment of Christianity, the gradual development of the great apostasies in the West and in the East, the overthrow of the Western Empire by Gothic invasions, and of the Eastern Empire by the Saracens and Turks, the depressed and hidden condition of the true Church during the middle ages, the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, the slaughter and resurrection of the Christian witnesses, the retributive judgments of the French Revolution, the universal proclamation of the Gospel in modern times, the fall of the Papal temporal powerm at the moment of the highest act of papal self-exaltation, and at the date anticipated for centuries by students of the prophetic word, the wasting away of Turkish power, the issuing forth of spirits of delusion, Ronitsh, Ritualistic and Infidel in our own days, and the visible commencement of the rise of the Jewish people from the depression of ages, of their unification, and of their restoration to the land of their fathers, all these events by their striking fulfilments of the anticipations of prophecy have confirmed our faith in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. In vain do the restless waves of scepticism dash against the base of that impregnable rock. And now astronomy is adding its testimony to that of history in confirmation of the prophetic word. The stars in their courses are fighting for Israel. The sacred “times and seasons “of the law, equally with those of the prophets are found to possess a hidden astronomic character, binding them together as a systematic whole, linking them indissolubly with the System of Nature, proclaiming their true measures, settling their historic place, and demonstrating the divineness of their origin.

The folly of those who misled by the rash speculations which have arisen in modern times under the name of science, have denied to Scripture all insight into the system of nature, is becoming apparent. There is no science, say they, in the Bible! There is a deeper science there than they have investigated, a science yet to be developed in the future with convincing clearness, and taught in class-books among the elementary facts of Bible knowledge. The law of Moses, say they, was the compilation of unscrupulous priests in later times. But astronomy is rising up to rebuke them with its evidence of the profound connection of Mosaic and Prophetic Times and Seasons, as a harmonious system adjusted to the chronology of redemption history.

The Bible, say they, contains the grossest errors. But the fresh examination of its teachings which Bible criticism has provoked, reveals the fact that no absolute disproof exists of a single historic or doctrinal statement in Scripture. The creation of the world in the stages described in Genesis has never been disproved, but is even confirmed as to its general outline by the findings of geology. Astronomy proclaims light to be, the eldest occupant of the universe, just as does the sublime opening of the Bible account of creation. The creation of man in the image of God has never been disproved, and his merely animal origin is but the theory of a sceptical naturalist who confessed that he had lost the sense he once possessed of the presence of God in nature, and his action in the government of the world. The fall of man has never been disproved, but is confirmed by the witness of history, and the voice of experience. The occurrence of the flood has never been disproved but is confirmed by universal tradition. What if we have to modify our ideas as to its absolute universality, if it was universal as to the race of man, and the then known habitable world? The account of the Bible as to the post- diluvian population has never been disproved, its Japhetic, Semitic, and Hamitic elements, and their dispersion from the valley region of the Tigris and Euphrates. The discoveries of archaeology are exalting our ideas of the antiquity of civilization in the region of Assyria, and evidences are accumulating of the migration of races from that ancient world centre. The noble narrative of the call of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees which opens the Jewish and Christian pages of redemption story has never been disproved, and the history of the patriarch remains to-day like the inscriptions engraved on the granite monuments of Egypt, indestructible by the ravages of Time. The very name of Abraham, father of many nations, is a prophecy which every age has fulfilled, and whose marvellous anticipation of the future is but enlarged and exalted by the widening course of events in Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian history. The Sinaitic revelation has never been disproved, and the Jews remain today a witness to its’ reality by their adherence to its legislation.

The conquest of Canaan and its division among the tribes has never been disproved, and the history of the Jewish occupation of the land confirms its truth, while the labours of Palestine exploration in our day have served to verify the names and positions of countless places mentioned in the book of Joshua. The inscriptions of Moab, of Shishak king of Egypt, in the days of the son of Solomon, the records of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians, but confirm the truth of later Jewish history, which from the time of the captivities moves in the full light of amply verified events. The same may be said of the whole of New Testament history. As to the doctrines of the Bible none of these have been disproved, or ever will be. We repeat it, no one important historic event, or doctrine in the Bible has ever been absolutely disproved, while on the other hand the proofs of the truth of Bible history and doctrine are accumulating year by year, and this largely as a result of the attacks to which they have been subjected. And the inward witness of the human soul to the truth of Bible teachings remains unaltered and unanswerable. No sooner has scepticism completed in the writings of Spencer its alleged destruction of religion than the breath of a divine revival makes the reality and power of religion more apparent than before.

The skeptic boldly proclaims the retreat of the tide of Christian faith, but scarce have the words fallen from his lips than the incoming waves of the advancing tide of spiritual religion roll over the spot he occupied, and falsify his presumptuous declaration.

And thus the last great prophecy in the Bible, the Apocalypse, which has suffered from the baseless speculations of its friends, and the unscrupulous attacks of its foes, lifts up its voice in these our days, clear as a trumpet, to teach the true philosophy of Christian history, and to confirm the faith of God’s people by its exhibition of a knowledge of the future possessed in apostolic times, immeasurably transcending that of mortal man. In the course of events which it reveals we behold the mirror of the decline and fall of the Roman empire so eloquently narrated in Gibbon’s monu-mental work, and of the complex and troubled story of the Christian church, the story of its trials and triumphs, of its apostasies and reformations, and of its actual condition in the days in which we live. And as we study the one and the other, the story of the decline of human governments, and the rise of the divine, we are impressed with its profound connection with the remoter history of the past, and with the progress and prospects of the world. The kingdom of God is seen to be the true goal of history, and the revolutions of the past take their place as acts in a general movement whose course has been foretold from the earliest ages, a movement as much beyond the power of man to arrest as the sweep of worlds in the amplitudes of space. And who can measure the power which the apocalyptic prophecy has exerted on the faith and practice of the Christian church from age to age? Who can measure its influence on Christian hope and Christian courage? Has it not been the strength of the martyrs, the inspiration of the reformers, the support of the confessors and witnesses of all the Christian centuries? Has it not been a lamp in the darkness of the darkest ages of the past? Is it not as the bright and morning star of the times in which we live, the herald of a new and better day? And are not its visions of the future the lofty and luminous vistas through which the church militant gazes into an eternity to come, the magic mirror in which she beholds the glories of the church triumphant? Does she not sit in the auditorium of its sublime revelations, and listen as through a telephonic instrument adjusted to the sounds of the celestial region, to the songs of innumerable harpers harping with their harps, and the thunders of redemption praises? Is she not brought by its wondrous revelations, while still journeying in the world which is, under the power of the greater and more glorious world which is to come? Is not the future, in its sublimest features thus made present to her, and the unseen made visible, and as enduring, more real even than the fleeting things around her? Are not those celestial visions the inspiration of her sweetest songs, and do they not shine before her gaze in the supreme moment when she reaches the boundary of mortal life, and the things of time and sense fade from her view forever?

O glorious and sacred prophecy, thou sublimest chapter in the sublime volume of revelation, thou wonder of our childhood’s imagination, thou mystery of our manhood’s thought, thou star of our pilgrim wanderings, thou sunburst of our maturist conceptions, by thee we behold death’s conqueror planting his triumphant feet upon our deadliest foe. By thee we behold the morn in which He will wipe all tears from off all faces, when sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Thy trumpets of woe are but the preludes of thy trumpets of victory, and the darkness of thy night of sorrow of the brightness of thy morning without clouds. Thine are the martyrs, thine the conquerors. They stood amid thy flames, % they stand on thy sea of glass mingled with fire. Thine is the wilderness of desolation, thine the paradise of God. Babylon and Jerusalem are thine, the proud city on its seven hills of sin and shame, and the city of holiness on its abiding Zion. The lonely isle of banishment is thine, and the society of blissful multitudes in the habitations of saints and angels. Thine is the widowhood of the church, and thine the marriage of the Lamb. The sackcloth clothed witnesses are thine and thine the saints in their shining robes of light. Yea thine is the Victor, who died, and rose, and lives forevermore. From him radiate all thy beams of glory, for thou art “the revelation of Jesus Christ,”and “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”And thou art the final chorus in the anthem of revelation, the climax of its triumphant praise. In thy fields of glory, in thy city of felicity, the last utterances of revelation sound upon our ears. In thine endlessness is its finis, for thine end has no end, and is but the beginning of eternity. Fit termination of the volume of the book of the eternal, in thee ends the deathless story of redeeming love. In thy multitude that no man can number, of all nations, kindreds, tribes, and tongues, who have come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, the palm-bearing multitude before the throne of God, we behold the fruit of the Redeemer’s travail, the reward of the anguish of the divine sufferer on Calvary’s cross. In that innumerable host of blood-washed victors we behold the fulfilment of the prevision of His troubled yet triumphant soul, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.””A multitude that no man can number,”a joy that none can measure, a life that shall never end. Sin thou art pardoned; sorrow thou art no more, death thou art swallowed up of life, Thanatos thou art replaced by Athanasia. In thee, thou Palingenesia the goal is reached; in thee thou victory of goodness the love of God is perfected. Shine deathless day, sound ceaseless hallelujahs, and let all nature, all worlds, all angels, join the chorus of joy. For behold a New Creation rises never more to be dimmed with shades of sin and grief, and sheds its transcendent light on a measureless universe.

This book is a continuation of History Unveiling Prophecy by H. Grattan Guinness

SECTION VIII THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY NEW ERA STAGE

FOLLOWING the establishment of Protestantism in the Revolution of 1688, came the Expansion of England; the rise of America; the great Revival of Religion; and the dawn of modern world-wide missions. The siege and heroic defense of Londonderry, the battle of the Boyne, and the victories of Marlborough marked the termination of the struggle led by William of Orange against the Papal foe. On the 15th of September, 1697, William signed the Peace of Ryswick—a peace between Great Britain, the United Provinces, France, Spain, and the Emperor Leopold I. Under this Treaty, concluding the nine years’ war with France, Louis XIV acknowledged the Prince of Orange as King of Great Britain without condition or reserve; Strasbourg was restored to the empire, Luxembourg to the Spaniards, together with other places taken by the French since the treaty of Nimeguen; and all places in the Low Country taken by France were abandoned. Concluded on as fair terms as England could exact, this pacification, as far as the prospects of the continent were concerned, was but “a preliminary armistice of vigilance and preparation.”In England, however, the effect was of a more important character, and signalized the commencement of a new era of full civil and religious liberty.

On his return to England, William appointed the ad December, 1697, a day of solemn thanksgiving for the conclusion of the general peace. On that day, the Cathedral of St. Paul’s, the magnificent work of Sir Christopher Wren, was first opened to the public. The period thus inaugurated has seen the expansion of England to world-wide dimensions.

WARS WITH FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

“The great English Navy,”says Seeley, “first took definite shape in the wars of the Commonwealth, and the English army, founded on the Mutiny Bill, dates from the reign of William III. Between the Revolution and the Battle of Waterloo, it may be reckoned that we waged and won seven great wars, of which the shortest lasted seven years, and the longest about twelve. Out of a hundred and twenty-six years, sixty-four years, or more than half, were spent in war.

“Let us pass these wars in review. There was first the European war in which England was involved by the Revolution of 1688. It is pretty well remembered, since the story of it has been told by Macaulay. It lasted eight years, from 1689 to 1697.

“There was then the great war called from the Spanish succession, which we shall always remember, because it was the war of Marlborough’s victories. It lasted eleven years, from 1702 to 1713.

“The next great war has now passed almost entirely out of memory, not having brought to light any very great commander, nor achieved any definite result. This war lasted nine years, from 1739 to 1748.

“Next comes the seven years’ war in which we have not forgotten the victories of Frederick. In the English part of it we all remember one grand incident, the battle of the Heights of Abraham, the death of Wolfe, and the conquest of Canada. And yet in the case of this war also it may be observed how much the eighteenth century has faded out of our imaginations. We have quite forgotten that that victory was one of a long series, which to contemporaries seemed fabulous, so that the nation came out of the struggle intoxicated with glory, and England stood upon a pinnacle of greatness which she had never reached before. This is the fourth war. It is in sharp contrast with the fifth, which we have tacitly agreed to mention as seldom as we can. What we call the American war which from the first outbreak of hostilities to the peace of Paris lasted eight years, from 1775 to 1783, was ended ignominiously enough in America, but in its latter part spread into a grand naval war in which

England stood at bay against almost all the world, and in this, through the victories of Rodney, came off with some credit.

“The sixth and seventh of the two great wars with Revolutionary France which we are not likely to forget, though we ought to keep them more separate in our minds than we do. The first lasted nine years from 1793 to 1802, the second twelve from 1803 to 1815.

“Now probably it has occurred to few of us to connect these wars together, or to look for any unity of plan or purpose pervading them. But look a little closer. Out of these seven wars of England five are wars will) ‘France from the beginning, and both the other two, though the belligerent at the outset was in the first Spain, and in the second one our Colonies, yet became in a short time and ended as wars with France. . . . I say ‘these wars made one grand and decisive struggle between England and France.’ On the continent, in Canada, and in India, England overcame the armies of France. England, as a result, became a great world power.

“The Expansion of England in the New World and in Asia is the formula which sums up for England the history of the eighteenth century.”

The second great feature of the period is the

I. Rise of the United States of America.

The Puritans who after a warfare against arbitrary power in England subverted the monarchy and overturned the church, laid in America the foundation of the most mighty Republic the world has ever known.

Exiled from England during the reign of Mary, the Puritans returned on the accession of Elizabeth “bent upon the great design of extirpating from the constitution of the church what they deemed the last degrading vestiges of popery, and remodelling it after the doctrines and practices of the Continental Reformers.””Now commenced a stern and unrelenting struggle. The High Church party resolved to admit no compromise. The Puritans, on the other hand, exposed to the utmost rage of persecution, could only oppose to it an indomitable firmness and tenacity. The Puritan ministers ejected from their livings, driven from their pulpits and their homes began to travel the country, and disseminate their views, by preaching and issuing pamphlets, in defiance of fine and imprisonment.”

When James I came to the throne “the Puritans lost no time in presenting to the king a petition signed by 825 ministers, praying for the removal of superstitious usages and other abuses which deformed the Church.”The celebrated Hampton Court Conference was the reply, a conference in which James I brow beat the unfortunate Puritan ministers in the coarsest manner, “encouraged by the sycophantic smiles of the prelates and courtiers.””If,”said he, “you aim at a Scottish Presbytery, it agrees as well with Monarchy as God with the devil. I will none of that. I will have one doctrine and one discipline.”Rising from his chair, he added, “I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or yet do worse.”

Denied the religious liberty they sought in England, many of the Puritans fled to Holland, and from that country made their way to America. Their voyage in the Mayflower marked the commencement of the mighty development of civil and religious freedom existing in America today. After tossing on the Atlantic in their small and crowded vessel, for more than two months, the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock on the 25th December, 1620. “Here the low sandhills of Cape Cod covered with scrubby woods that descended to the sea, seemed at the first glance, a perfect paradise of verdure to the poor sea-beat wanderers.”Before entering the harbour they subscribed their names to a covenant in which they stated that “having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern part of Virginia,”we “do solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into it civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation . . . and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”

American writers have denominated this voluntary agreement ” the birth of popular constitutional liberty,”and though it was no intention of the Pilgrims to cast off subjection to England, they did practically, by giving every man the right of voting and choosing officers to draw up and carry out the laws of the colony, “lay the foundation of a totally new system of government upon the basis of a democratic equality and practical independence, over which the nominal sway of a distant power could never exert any efficient permanent control.”

A further settlement of Puritan Pilgrims in Massachusetts in the time of Charles I, formed a later stage in the planting of American colonization. Like the Pilgrims of 1620, these had been “driven forth from their native country by the intolerable burdens of enforced conformity.”But the Puritan settlers had not completely shaken off the spirit of intolerance from which they had suffered. For announcing the principle that the civil magistrate had no right of control in the sacred sphere of conscience, Roger Williams was banished from the colony. Driven forth in the depths of winter, under storms more fierce than those that assailed the Pilgrim Fathers when they landed from the Mayflower, he had to skulk for many weeks amid the intricate wilds of the leafless forest, glad when he discovered a hollow tree to shelter him from the pitiless blasts of the north wind laden with ice and snow. “But the ravens,”said he, “fed me in the wilderness.”The wild Indians protected the outcast, and through his long life, he never forgot the debt of gratitude. Williams removed at length to Rhode Island. Five companions who shared with him the large views of liberty for which he had endured these sufferings, followed him thither; and there, with the advice of the benevolent governor of Boston, and beyond the reach of the Charter of Massachusetts, the pioneer of liberty founded a new settlement, to which he’ gave the name of “Providence.”

Thus was planted that sapling which has since grown into the mighty tree of the United States of America. The American Declaration of Independence in 1776 marks one of the most important stages in the New Era of civil and religious liberty which broke on the world at the commencement of the eighteenth century. The hand of a Higher Power is here seen, guiding events to nobler issues than had been contemplated by even the best of men. From the Pilgrims of the Mayflower to Roger Williams, and from Roger Williams to Washington, the path exhibits a continuous ascent to the lofty level of freedom attained by the American people. The discovery of the New World was the prelude to the Reformation; and the completion of the edifice of civil and religious liberty in the New World has been the crown of the new era inaugurated by the doctrines of the Reformers, and the deeds of the Puritans.

II. The eighteenth century witnessed a revival in England and America of spiritual life.

Liberty is not the chief possession needed by mankind. Spiritual life is still more essential, and God, who gave in this era enfranchisement and enlargement to oppressed Protestant peoples, granted also a deep and wide-spread revival of spiritual religion, whose effects have since extended throughout the world.

Like the Reformation of the sixteenth century, this revival began in Germany. August Herman Franke, a professor of Divinity at Halle in Saxony, filled with faith and love, placed an alms box at his study door, into which contributions were thrown for the purchase of books for the instruction of the poor. The erection of schools for poor children followed, and then the building of his great orphan home. A wonderful revival of the spirit of piety in the city and University of Halle accompanied the movement, whose influence extended to other places in Germany.

In 1710 Zinzendorf was sent to the seminary of Halle, where he became a pupil of Franke, and experienced the quickenings of spiritual life. Devoting himself to the service of God, Zinzendorf formed at Halle a society of like-minded persons called the “order of the grain of mustard seed.”After studying in the University of Wittemburg, and travelling in Holland and France, Count Zinzendorf went to reside at Bertholdsdorf, in Lusatia, on the borders of Bohemia. A few members of the Moravian Church, driven by persecution from their native country, sought refuge with him in 1722, and were permitted to form a settlemerit on his estate, which received the name of Herrnhut, “The Lord’s guard,”or “Watch of the Lord.”Other Moravian refugees joined the settlement, which grew under the fostering care of Zinzendorf to an important centre of religious life and missionary operations. In 1727 the Church of the United Brethren was established at Herrnhut. The Moravian brethren were the direct descendants of the ancient Hussites of Bohemia, among whom the Reformation had been crushed by cruel and prolonged persecution. It may be said that the slain Hussites were revived in the Moravians of Herrnhut.

From Zinzendorf John Wesley received the clear knowledge of the gospel. At that time religion in England was in a dreadfully low and dead condition. A few young men at Oxford University, of whom Wesley was one, formed a company knit together by ties of religious sympathy. By their fellow students they were derided as “Sacrament- arians,””Bible Bigots,””Bible Moths,””The Godly Club.”Whitfield was drawn towards them, and defended them from the revilings of opponents. Thus began the great Methodist movement, which has since grown to such gigantic proportions. In 1737 Wesley sailed for America, in company with some Moravian missionaries. After his return from Georgia, he connected himself more closely with Zinzendorf. Differences afterwards arose which led the Methodists and Moravians on diverging paths, but in spirit they were one. Baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit, Whitfield and Wesley did a glorious work of evangelization in the eighteenth century. Crossing the Atlantic repeatedly, they were the first great preachers in both hemispheres, and were the means of the conversion of thousands.

Whitficld’s ministry was one of unparalleled power. “Before Whitfield no one man had ever come into contact with so many minds; no one voice had ever rung in so many cars; no one ministry had touched so many hearts.”

A most remarkable outpouring of the Spirit of God was manifested at the same time in New England in connection with the labours of Jonathan Edwards.

The year 1741 witnessed a revival which seemed like the return of Pentecostal days. Edwards has left a full account of it. Deep convictions of sin, and transporting views of the excellency of Christ, and of the glory and sufficiency of the gospel, characterized this work, which was productive of numerous and wide-spread conversions, and unwonted growth in grace. In 1743 Edwards became acquainted with Brainerd, then a missionary to the Indians at Kaunaumeek, and subsequently wrote his memoir. From Brainerd may be dated the era of modern missions.

In Northampton, New England, the spot consecrated by the labours of Jonathan Edwards, the remains of David Brainerd and Jerusha Edwards lie side by side. Around their humble graves has sprung up a lovely and peaceful cemetery, whose inscriptions recall the history of the Puritan forefathers of America. The Puritans have passed away, but the spirit which inspired them still lives and operates, and is the mightiest influence of modern days. It has emancipated England, and given birth to America, and through these is transforming the religious beliefs and political institutions of surrounding nations.

The Anglo-Saxons number to-day more than a hundred millions, are in possession of a third of the earth, and rule over 400,000,000 of its inhabitants. Steam and electricity have given wings to the world-transforming movement; and it is evident to all thoughtful minds that the way is being everywhere prepared for the advent of a new and nobler order of things connected with the Kingdom of God.

III. Apocalyptic Interpretation in the Eighteenth Century.

The advent of the new era which followed the English Revolution had a most marked and important effect on Apocalyptic interpretation. Fresh fulfilments of prophecy were recognized, and the attainment of an advanced and commanding position for the study of the subject. The progress in science, philosophy, and theology which marked the period was reflected in Apocalyptic literature. The age of Sir Isaac Newton, of Butler, and of Jonathan Edwards saw the production of works on prophecy of greater learning and breadth of view than any that had previously appeared.

Among the most important works on the Apocalypse produced in the interval between the English and French Revolutions are those of Cressener (1690), Sir Isaac Newton (1691), published in 1733 after his death), Vitringa (1695), Fleming (1701), Whiston (1706), Daubuz (1720), Lancaster (1730), Roberts (1730), Lowman (1737), Bishop iof Clogher (1749), Bishop Newton (1754), Bengel (1757), Jonathan Edwards (1773), and Gill (1776).

To these we must add the work of the Swiss astronomer, Loys de Cheseaux, on the times of Daniel and the Apocalypse, published in 1754.

The following advances in prophetic interpretation are exhibited in these works:

1. The definite conclusion that the death of the Apocalyptic witnesses was past, and their resurrection accomplished.

In 1689, the year of the coronation of William of Orange as William III, Dr. Cressener published a volume on the “Judgments of God upon the Roman Catholic Church,”with a dedicatory preface addressed to the king in which he holds forth the prospect of a ” speedy revival of the Reformation where it has been extinguished,” and hails the English Revolution as “the first opening of the glorious scene.””It may now be reasonably concluded,”says Cressener, ” that the death of the witnesses is already past, and that in all probability the point of time from which the three and a half years of its continuance did begin was at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the king of France.”In 1690 Cressener published “A demonstration of the first principles of the Protestant applications of the Apocalypse,”in which he maintained that it was impossible that the death and resurrection of the witnesses could have taken place before the period then reached ; and that their resurrection was ” unexpectedly fulfilled by the return of the Protestants of Savoy,”in spite of the opposition of their enemies to their own land, and the re-establishment of the Protestant religion in the Vaudois valleys where it had been suppressed three and a half years previously.

He remarks that the Vaudois were for many ages the only considerable party of Protestant witnesses, and are therefore not beneath the notice of the prophecy. Their return “may therefore be very well accounted as the first comfortable earnest of a more universal revival of the silenced churches in other places.”

The celebrated Whiston, Sir Isaac Newton’s successor in the chair of mathematics at Cambridge, maintained the same view in his work on the Apocalypse. Whiston calls attention to the interesting fact that the resurrection of the Vaudois “was foretold from this prophecy before it came to pass by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.”1 There is a mention in Evelyn’s Memoirs of a visit paid by Mr. E. on the 18th of June, 1690 to Bishop Lloyd. Referring to the death and resurrection of the Apocalyptic witnesses the bishop mentioned “that he had persuaded two exiled Vaudois ministers to return home, when there was no apparent ground of hope for them, giving them £20 towards the expenses^ and which return was wonderfully accomplished.”

The story of the Vaudois restoration is related as follows by Whiston: ” The Duke of Savoy, the sovereign of these Vaudois, by an edict dated January 31, 1685-6, N. S., forbade the exercise of their religion on pain of death; and therein ordered their churches to be demolished, and their ministers to be banished. The edict for the banishment was dated Turin, April 9th; enrolled the 10th, and published in the valleys the nth, and an army sent against them of Savoy and French troops who attacked them on the 22d of the same month, and totally subdued them in the following month of May; when many of the poor people were killed and barbarously slaughtered; great numbers cast into prison, and inhumanly used there, and the miserable remainder of them were at length released out of prison, and permitted to depart about the beginning of December, so that the total dissipation of them was not completed till that time, or the beginning of December the same year, 1686. In the meantime these poor Vaudois were very kindly received and succoured by the Protestant States, particularly those of Holland, Brandenburg, Geneva, and Switzerland, and so preserved from ruin. Towards the latter end of the year 1689, about three years and a half after the publication of the Edict above mentioned, in the valleys, or the beginning of its execution, they passed the Lake of Geneva secretly, and entering Savoy with their swords in their hands they recovered their ancient possessions, and by the middle of April, A. D . 1690, established themselves in it, notwithstanding the opposition of the troops of France and Savoy; of whom they, who were comparatively but a few, slew great numbers with inconsiderable loss; till the Duke himself, who had now, left the French interest, by his League, and an Edict signed June 4, 1690, just three and a half years after their total dis- sipation, recalled the rest of them and reestablished tham, with liberty to the French refugees themselves to return with them also. So that on the whole, these Vaudois, when they were about to finish their testimony, or near the conclusion of their 1,260 years’ prophecy in sackcloth, have been slain, i. e., in prophetic style, imprisoned, murdered, expelled and banished; . . . they have continued in that state of expulsion three years and a half, exactly according to this prophecy, and that in the public view • of the Papists, and to their great joy. And after those three years and a half now over the Spirit of life from God has entered into them, and they have risen again from the dead, and stood upon their feet, i. e., recovered their old habitations, and obtained the pardon and protection of their prince; and so terribly defeated their numerous enemies that fear and terror could not but fall upon them thereupon; exactly also as their prophecy foretold of them. And this event is the more to be observed because it takes in the resurrection of both the witnesses, the Waldenses and the Al- bigenses, which have been a united people, and dwelt together in these valleys of Piedmont ever since the conclusion of the Crusades against the latter of them in the thirteenth century; and because it was from this prophecy expressly foretold before it happened by the most learned the Lord Bishop of Worcester, as is well known to many, and exactly come to pass accordingly. And thus far of the prophecy seems to me to have been already fulfilled, and that very remarkably.”

Various books on the Vaudois written since Whiston’s time, tracing their history down to the present day, exalt the Glorieuse Rentree accomplished under Henri Arnaud, as the crisis of their restoration. After the treaty of 1690, their privileges were constantly confirmed, and perfect liberty of conscience accorded them. “The Protestant powers continued their protection, and particularly England; for a pension was granted by that country to the pastors under William and Mary, which was named the English Royal Subsidy; and this being found insufficient, in 1770 a general collection was made, the interest of which was paid under the name of the English National Subsidy.”

In Switzerland “studentships were established at the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne and Basle for the young Vaudois intended for the ministry.”2 The Vaudois church which has of late years experienced a spiritual revival is now engaged in conducting a wide-spread work of evangelization in Italy.

Thus has God fulfilled His Word. The resurrection of the slaughtered witnesses, prefigured by the resurrection of their Lord, ” the faithful and true witness,”has been accomplished. The memorable prediction in relation to Him, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, nor suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption,”has been fulfilled in a figurative sense in the experience of his slaughtered saints. On the third day He rose again from literal death—in the third year they rose from symbolical death. The powers of destruction were unable to retain their victims. The spirit of life proved victorious. Christ and His witnesses have arisen. He lives forever, and they too, live as witnesses to die no more.

2. The recognition of the fact that there have been several stages in the death and resurrection of the witnesses.

Some interpreters are of opinion, says Bishop Newton, that this prophecy of the death and resurrection of the witnesses was accomplished by the advent of the Reformation three and a half years after the complete suppression of the Waldenses, Hussites and Lollards celebrated in the Lateran Council in 1514. “Some again think this prophecy very applicable to the horrid massacre of the Protestants at Paris, and in other cities of France, begun at the memorable eve of St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572. According to the best authors there were slain thirty or forty thousand Huguenots in a few days. “Their dead bodies lay in the streets of the great city,”one of the greatest cities of Europe, for they were not suffered to be buried, being the bodies of heretics; but were dragged through the streets, or thrown into the river, or hung upon gibbets, and exposed to public infamy. Great “rejoicings “too, were made in the courts of France, Rome, and Spain; they went in procession to the churches, they returned public thanks to God, they sang Te Deums, they celebrated Jubilees, they struck medals; and it was enacted that St. Bartholomew’s Day should ever afterwards be kept with double pomp and solemnity. But neither was this joy of long continuance, for in little more than “three years and a half,”Henry III, who succeeded his brother, Charles IX, entered into a treaty with the Huguenots, which was concluded and published on the 14th of May, 1576, whereby all the former sentences against them were revised, and the free and open exercise of their religion was granted to them: they were to be admitted to all honours, dignities and offices, as well as the Papists; and the judges were to be half of one religion, and half of the other ; with other articles greatly to their advantage. “Others again have recourse to later events, and the later indeed the better and fitter for the purpose. Peter Jurieu, a famous divine of the French Church at Rotterdam, imagined that the persecution then carried on by Louis XIV against the Protestants of France, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in October, 1685, would In: the last persecution of the Church . . . Bishop Lloyd, and after him Mr. Whiston, apply this prophecy to the poor Protestants in the Valleys of Piedmont, who by a cruel Edict of their sovereign, the Duke of Savoy, instigated by the French king, were imprisoned and murdered, or banished and totally dissipated at the latter end of the year 1686 . . . but reestablished by another Edict signed June 4, 1690, just three and a half years after their total dissipation … at the same time “with these massacres, “popery here in England was advanced to the throne, and threatened an utter subversion of our religion and liberties, but in little more than ‘ three years and a half’ a happy deliverance was wrought by the glorious Revolution.”

Though more than two hundred years have elapsed since the English Revolution, the Protestant religion continues dominant in England. No great persecution of Protestants has ever taken place since the suppression of the Huguenots and Waldenses in 1685-6. So far Jurieu’s expectation has proved correct; the Papacy has manifestly lost the persecuting power it formerly possessed; it cannot now burn Protestants as heretics, or subject them to wholesale massacre. The inquisition has been abolished, and the reign of Papal tyranny brought to an end.

This accomplishment of the predicted “death and resurrection” of the witnesses in several stages is not an exceptional event, but has its parallel in the method in which other analogous prophecies have been fulfilled.

Thus the Babylonish captivity had several commencing dates, and corresponding termini; so also the “seventy weeks”of Daniel; and the great period of “seven times,”connected with the duration of the four Gentile empires. The same thing is observable in the fulfilment of the three and a-half “Times,”assigned to the duration of the Papal power, as shown in the “Calendar of the Times of the Gentiles,”appended to the work I published in 1878, on “The Approaching End of the Age.”All these prophecies have been accomplished “according to that latitude which is agreeable and familiar unto divine prophecies, being of the nature of the author, with whom a thousand years arc but as one day, and therefore not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germanent accomplishment throughout many ages though the height of fullness of them may refer to some one age.”

3. The prophetic interpreters of the eighteenth century recognized the fact that the woe of the sixtb’trumpet had ter- minated at the Peace of Carlowitz.

This date of the termination of the sixth trumpet, or Turkish ” woe,”had long been foreseen. “The end of it,”says Whiston, “was foretold by Mr. Brightman about a century ere the time came; and by Dr. Cressener some years before; and both from the same prophecy, and all came to pass accordingly.”

The duration of the Turkish “woe”of the sixth trumpet is limited in the prophecy to “a day, a month, and a year “; which on the year- day scale of fulfilment is either 360 + 30 + 1 = 391 years, or 365 + 30 + 1 = 396 years.

Whiston, who was an astronomer, takes it as the latter. The Ottoman Emperors, whose device is the crescent, the sign of aggressive Islam, began their reign in Europe in the year 1299. Ertoghrul, the father of Otbman, had previously led the advance of the Turks from the Upper Euphrates. In the Turkish annals, Osman, or Orthoman, is looked upon by the sultans as the founder of their dynasty; hence the name Osmanlis. “Names come from heaven,” says the Koran; Ottoman’s signified “bone breaker,”and well have the Ottomans deserved the name they bear. “In 1301,”says Sir Edward Creasy, “Othman encountered for the first time a regular Greek army which was led against him by Muzaros, the commander of the guards of the Byzantine Emperor. This important battle took place at Koyounhissar, in the vicinity of Nicomedia. Ottoman gained a complete victory, and in the successful campaign of the six following years he carried his arms as far as the Black Sea, securing fortress after fortress, and hemming in the strong cities of Bousa, Nice and Nicomedia with a chain of fortified posts.” Under the reign of Aladdin the corps of the Janissaries was created, so long the scourge of Christendom, The formation of cavalry, arrayed under banners in thousands and in hundreds followed, and speedily effected the conquest of the Danubian provinces. The Byzantine Empire, fallen to the lowest degree of abasement, cankered with anarchy, idolatry and corruption, became a prey to the inroads of the Turks. The conquest of the Greeks succeeded, and the memorable capture of Constantinople. Under Mahomet II, “one of the most detestable manslayers recorded in history,”the Ottomans, who had been rather an army than a nation, were organized under a code of laws. The number four was taken “as the basis of the hierarchical government, in honour of the four angels who support the Koran, and of the four Khalifites, disciples of Mahomet.”1 Wallachia, Mosnia, Karamania, the Crimea, Rhodes, Cyprus, Egypt and Hungary were successively conquered by the Turks, against whom the Crusades launched in vain their enormous armies.

briefer lunar form. From the Era of Martyrs, A. D. 284, the earliest commencing point of the period, twelve hundred and sixty lunar years extended to Luther’s conversion in 1506-7. This was the date of spiritual quickening in the soul of the reformer. Luther entered the monastery of St. Augustine on the 17th of August, 1505, being then twenty-one years and nine months old. His conversion took place “in the second year of his abode in the convent (D’Aubigne, “History of Reformation,”p. 63). “From that moment light sprang up in the heart of the young monk of Erfurth.” From the fall of Paganism at the victory of Constantine at the battle of Milvian Bridge, October 28th,. 312, 1,260 solar years extend to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 1572. The Papal Era of Indictions began September*!, 312, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew began on the 24th of August, and continued during September, 1572; the interval being exactly i,26p solar years. The period from the end of the Western Roman Empire, August 22, 476, to January 26, 1699, the date when the peace of Carlowitz was signed, is just 1,260 lunar years. This and the almost contemporaneous Peace of Ryswick marked, as we have said, the inauguration of a new era, in relation to Papal and Mohammedan domination.

A. D. 284. 1,260 lunar years. A. D. 1506-7.
A. D. 312. 1,260 solar years. A.D. 1572.
B. C. 747. 1,260 lunar years. A. D. 476 (August).
A. D. 476. 1,260 lunar years. A. D. 1699 (January).
B. C. 747. 2,520 solar years. A, D, 1774.

The disastrous defeat of the Turks in the attempt to capture Vienna marked the approaching downfall of the Mahommedan Empire, in Europe. Under the “Holy Alliance”—a league of the Emperor of Austria, the King of Poland, and the Republic of Vienna, a successful war was waged against the common foe. Prince Eugene of Savoy was placed by the Emperor at the head of the Austrian army. A series of victories over the Turks was concluded by the Peace of Garlowitz, in 1699, and with the loss at that time of Hungary, Transylvania, the Morea, Dalmatia, Podolia, the Ukraine and Azof, the Ottomans ceased to be the terror of Christendom.

Under the sixth trumpet the Euphratean horsemen are loosed to slay “the third part of men,”or overthrow the Eastern Roman Empire, on account of the “worship of devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood,”and the “murders, sorceries, fornications and thefts “practiced by its inhabitants. But the judgment is limited to the period symbolically described as “a day, a month, and a year,”391 or 396 years. Brightman, writing in the year 1615 says that the commencement of the Ottoman ravages “falleth in the yeare 1300 by one consent of all the historians.”Measuring thence the 396 years of the Turkish woe he adds that the period “shall expire at last about the yeare 1696.”2 In his book on the “Judgments of God”published in the year 1689, Cressener says, “The grounds that I rely upon to make me apprehend that the ‘ second woe ‘ will be at an end within these few years are these. The second woe is the Turkish Empire, and its invasions upon the Roman Empire: and the time of the continuance of that woe is determined by the prophecy to a set number of years, which if we count from the rise of the Ottoman Empire, about the year 1300, will expire soon after the year 1690.” The fulfilment of these anticipations is remarkable. Whiston, writing after the event reckons the period of the woe as 396 years, and shows its accurate termination at the Peace of Carloivitz in 1699.

4. During the eighteenth century, Cressener, Tur-retine, and Vitringa set forth clearer and stronger demonstrations of the Protestant interpretation of prophecy than had ever before been made. A mighty change had taken place in England with reference to Protestantism, during the reigns of Charles II and James II. “The religion of Rome had become, not only fashionable at Court, but the religion covertly, or avowedly, of the reigning kings themselves. Moreover, the sufferings of the Episcopal clergy during the fifteen years’ ascendancy of Cromwell and the Puritans had tended to make them look on the latter as their nearest and chiefest enemy; and by a corfsequence not unnatural, to regard Popery with less of disfavour, and sometimes even with the thought and desire for friendly ap- proximation and union. This feeling could not but have its effect on the current view of the prophecies in Daniel and the Apocalypse, which had been hitherto by the Reformers alike German, Swiss, and English, applied undoubtingly to the Roman Popedom. By the celebrated dutch scholar and politician, Grotius, and by our english Dr.Hammond, a prasterist view was adopted of the Apocalyptic Beast, and his great city Babylon, very like Alcasar’s, referring it all to the old Pagan Roman City and Empire.”Bossuet traces the parentage of this view to the Jesuit Alcasar. “ Le savant Jesuite Louis d’Alcasar, a fait un grand commentaire sur 1’Apocalypse, ou Grotius, a prit beaucoup de ces idees.”1

Cressener writing in the year 1690 says “the present age is so generally prepossest with the interpretations of these learned men that it is necessary to remind (the approvers) that these are great novelties in the doctrine of the Church of England. . . . It is manifest by the Homilies, approved of in our articles as the faith of our Church, that the charge of Babylon on the Church of Rome is the standing profession of the Church of England: and it continued to be the current judgment of all the best learned members of it till the end of the reign of James I.”

Cressener’s book entitled “A Demonstration of the first principles of Protestant Applications of the Apocalypse,”as Elliott says “well answers its title . . . In a series of connected propositions he incontrovertibly establishes, against Alcasar and Bellarmine, that the Apocalyptic Babylon is not Rome Pagan, as it existed under the old Pagan Emperors, nor Rome Paganized at the end of the world, as Ribera and Malvenda would have it to be; but Rome Papal, as existing from the sixth century. For he argues it is Rome idolatrous and antichristian as connected with the Beast or Roman Empire in its last form, and under its last head, which last head is the seventh head revived, after its deadly wound with the sword: with and under which the Beast exists through all the time of the witnesses; in other words from the date of the breaking-up of the old empire into ten kingdoms, until Christ’s second coming to take the kingdom.”

The eminent Swiss theologian Turretine had published five years before in his “Theological Institutes,”his most powerful proof of the truth of the interpretation which identities the Church of Rome with idolatrous Babylon, and the Pope of Rome with the “man of sin,” or Antichrist; and five years after the appearance of Cressener’s Commentary the learned Dutch Theologian Vitringa, in answer to Bossuet, sent forth his standard work on the Apocalypse, Anakrisis Apocalypsios, with its copious and masterly demonstration of the same conclusion. Vitringa’s work is deservedly associated by Dean Alford with those of Elliott and Bishop Wordsworth on this subject, as especially worthy of consideration. 1

The works of Vitringa (7705″), Daubuz (77,20), and Sir Isaac Newton (1773) 2 viewed from the standpoint of learning, represent the high water mark of Apocalyptic interpretation in the eighteenth century.

Vitringa was Theological Professor in the academy of Franeker, and “from that petty Dutch town, near the mouth of the Zuyder Zee, sent forth those masterly and learned works on Isaiah and the Apocalypse which have always been regarded as placing him on a high rank among Biblical expositors.”3 He illustrated each subject he handled by “a wide ranging erudition alike in secular and ecclesiastical, Hebraic and Greek literature; often applying a just and acute criticism to show the untenableness of opinions, more or less plausible, adopted by expositors of note before him.”

The large folio commentary on the Apocalypse by Daubuz is “redundant with multifarious research and learning.”He was by birth a French Protestant; one of the many who had taken refuge in England after the Revocation of the edict of Nantes. While Vicar of Brotherton near Ferrybridge in Yorkshire he wrote his “Perpetual Commentary on the Apocalypse,”of which an abridgment was subsequently published by a writer named Lancaster, which however fails to give any adequate idea of “the research and learning of the original.”

Sir Isaac Newton’s “Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse”was the outcome of many years of study, his attention having been turned to the subject as early as 1691, while his work was not published till forty-two years later, in 1733. Of the exalted genius of Sir Isaac Newton, of his mathematical, scientific, historical and chronological researches, it is needless to speak. His skillful tracing of the most intricate subjects, accuracy of statement, clearness of demonstration, and far-reaching comprehensiveness of view have never been surpassed. In their acceptance of the historical interpretation of the Apocalypse, and in the general outline of their views, Vitringa, Daubuz, and Newton were in agreement. They held that history was the true interpreter of prophecy. They held that the seals, the trumpets, and the vials of the Apocalypse portrayed the course of Christian history from the time of St. John down to the consummation. They regarded the Church of Rome as Babylon the great. They interpreted the wild beast power in its three successive Apocalyptic forms, 2 under its crowned heads, under its crovvned horns, and as bearing and then casting off the Harlot of Babylon, as the Roman Empire, first as united under its earlier chiefly pagan rulers; then as divided under its Gothic kings; and lastly as submitting to and then casting off and warring against the corrupt and guilty Church of Rome.

To them the martyrs of the Apocalypse were the Christian martyrs who had suffered under pagan and papal persecution, and its witnesses the witnessing saints of Mediaeval and Reformation days. Their interpretations involved the rejection alike of the Praeterist view which confines the fulfilment of the Apocalypse to the Neronic period in the first century, and the futurist view which relegates its fulfilment to an imaginary still future period, some brief crisis at the close of the Christian dispensation, as erroneous, and contrary to the testimony of history, and of holy writ. As to unfulfilled prophecy, Sir Isaac Newton who avoided speculation both in science and theology, wisely said, “Let Time be the interpreter.”How great is the contrast between such interpreters of prophecy and the futurists of modern times; the interpreters who have forgotten history, and have rudely broken with the traditional interpretation of the past eighteen centuries. The fact that Koine has lost her persecuting power, and that infidelity looms largely in these modern days as the opponent of Revelation, explains in some degree, though it does not justify the abandonment of the traditional interpretation of the Apocalypse. To forsake the sober historical interpretation of that sacred prophecy, and substitute for it invented and imaginary fulfilments to take place at some future time, is unworthy of a rational and reverent mind. Instead of speculating uncertainly, or even wildly,- on what is to be, let the modern student of prophecy turn his attention to what has been, and what is. Let him soberly compare the indisputable facts of history with the mysterious predictions in God’s holy word, for in such a comparison, if anywhere, the truth on the subject is to be found.

5. “Jonathan Edwards, the greatest theologian of the eighteenth century, ably exhibited the meaning and place of Apocalyptic prophecy in the Divinely revealed history of Redemption.

Jonathan Edwards who is generally regarded as “the most distinguished metaphysician and divine of America,”exercised his ministry in New England from 1722 to 1750, and died as President of Princeton College, New Jersey, on the 28th of March, 1758. In his “essay on the writings and genius of Jonathan Edwards”Henry Rogers says, “By the concurrent voice of all who have perused his writings, he is assigned one of the first, if not the only first place, amongst the masters of human reason. The character of his mind was essentially logical; the dominant attribute was reason. He possessed probably in a greater degree than was ever before vouchsafed to man the ratiocinative faculty, and in this respect, at least, he well deserves the emphatic admiration which Robert Hall expressed when he somewhat extravagantly said, that Edwards was ‘the greatest of the sons of men.’ ”

Edwards’ “History of Redemption”appeared in the form of sermons preached by him in 1739, and published in 1773, fifteen years after his death. The date of the publication was remarkable as that of the inauguration of the French revolutionary era, with its woes on Papal Christendom. It was the year of the suppression of the Jesuits by Clement XIV. The appalling death of the corrupt and profligate Louis XV, took place the following year, on the 10th of May, 1774; and on the same day the accession of Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette, subsequently dethroned and executed in the French Revolution.

The design of Edwards in his “History of Redemption “was “to show how the most remarkable events in all ages from the fall to the present times, recorded in sacred and profane history, were, adapted to promote the work of redemption; and then to trace by the light of scripture prophecy how the same work should be yet further carried on even to the end of the world.”

It was a work which singularly suited the sublime and comprehensive character of his mind. To him the history of the world with all its changes and revolutions exhibited one great divine work, ceaselessly carried on from age to age, for the redemption or recovery of mankind. The Bib|e was the book of redemption. Its histories and prophecies were histories and prophecies of redemption. In his view the story of redemption falls into three parts; the first, that of the antecedents of redemption; the second, that of the accomplishment of redemption; the third, that of the application of redemption. The first, that of history before Christ; the second, that of the history of Christ; the third, that of subsequent history. Seventeen hundred years had elapsed of this third period, up to Edwards’ time, exhibiting the progress of Christ’s kingdom, and the fulfilment of the prophecies regarding the Christian dispensation. Those prophecies included not only Old Testament predictions, as those in the book of Daniel, but also the prophecies of our Lord; of St. Paul, and of the Apostle John, the favoured seer of New Testament times. The Apocalypse, as the gift of the ascended Saviour, and the last great Scripture prophecy, held a place of preeminence. In its wondrous visions the story of the conflicts and triumphs of the Christian Church was told in advance; and its practical power as illuminating the perilous path the church was called to tread, sustaining her faith, inspiring her courage, nerving her efforts, and brightening her hopes, was of inestimable value. The views of Edwards as to the meaning of the Apocalypse were in harmony with those of the historical interpreters of pre-reformation, and reformation times. They were the views of the Puritans, and of the Pilgrim Fathers. The early Christian settlers of New England held these views. The men and women whose mouldering tombstones stand today in the pine shadowed cemetery of Northampton, where the dust of David Brainerd sleeps, professed them. To Edwards they were no doubtful speculations. The testimony of innumerable saints and martyrs consecrated them. The glorious work of the Reformation which was built upon these views, justified them. History sealed them with its unerring testimony. Such was their self-evidencing light that they afforded an unanswerable argument for the inspiration of Scripture, doubly needed in those days of scornful deistic unbelief, and threatened darker infidelity. To hold fast, and hold forth the Word of God under these circumstances, was evident duty, for “prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”And so in his most scriptural and comprehensive “History of Redemption,”Edwards interweaves, in simple unaffected language, the facts of Christian history, and the predictions of Apocalyptic prophecy, the prophecy reading as history in his luminous expositions.

The reader is referred to Edwards’ “History of Redemption”in which, among others, the following themes are dealt with.

I. The two ways in which the story of Redemption Is narrated in Scripture, historic and prophetic.

II. The terminal character of the Christian dispensation.

III. The kingdom of heaven as the fifth and final kingdom of Daniel’s prophecies.

IV. Rome, the persecuting Babylon of the Apocalypse.

V. The warfare and casting down of the Satanically inspired great red dragon of the Apocalypse.

VI. Signification of the judgment of the sixth seal.

VII. Satan as the dragon casting out a flood of water to overwhelm the woman fleeing to the wilderness.

VIII. Signification of the four first trumpets.

IX. The great apostasy and rise of Antichrist.

X. Date, and gradual character, of the rise of Antichrist.

XI. The locust woe of the fifth trumpet.

XII. The horsemen woe of the sixth trumpet.

XIII. The uninterrupted succession of gospel witnesses.

XIV. The persecuted woman hidden and sustained in the wilderness.

XV. The company of pure and faithful Virgins.

XVI. The Harlot Babylon drunken with the blood of saints and martyrs.

XVII. The persecuting little Horn of Daniel 7.

XVIII. The saints warred against and overcome by the revived wild beast of Revelation 13.

XIX. The glorious fulfilment of the prophecy that the gates of hell should not prevail against the church.

XX. The marvellous fulfilment of the prophecy concerning Antichrist.

XXI. Strong encouragement to expect the fulfilment of prophecies which are as yet unaccomplished.

6. By various interpreters of prophecy in the eighteenth century it was clearly shown that the outpouring of the vials remained unfulfilled; and that their accomplishment as following speedily after the conclusion of the sixth trumpet was then at hand.

The futurity of the vials was intelligently maintained in the work we have referred to entitled: “a new Systeme of the Apocalypse, written by a Huguenot minister in the year 1685, and finished but two days before the Dragoones plundered him of all except this treatise.”

While Jurieu asserted that the six first vials had already been poured out, and that the seventh had been pouring forth since Luther’s Reformation, the anonymous author of the above remarkable treatise maintained in opposition to Jurieu that the seven vials belong to the period of the seventh trumpet, or “Third woe” since they are the “last plagues”; that the “second woe”(that of the sixth trumpet), is expressly said to terminate before the “Third woe” begins; that the death and resurrection of the witnesses precede the seventh trumpet, and the whole order of the vials; and that under the seven vials Popery and Mohammedanism, together with all opposition to the gospel, will be brought to an end.

In this view of the vials the exiled Huguenot minister followed Launay, or Launeus, who wrote a Commentary under the name of Jonas le Buy, Sr. de le Perie. Vitringa refers with approval to the view of Launeus that the seven vials answered to the seven compassings of Jericho on the seventh day. Whiston also definitely held that the seven vials were contained in, and are the evolution of the seventh trumpet; and that the sounding of the seventh trumpet was still future in his time, but would occur shortly.

Bishop Newton maintained that the vials were future; and so did Dr. Gill in his “Commentary on the Apocalypse.”The expectation was general that the outpouring of these vials was at hand; an expectation strongly confirmed by the declaration occurring at the end of the “second woe,”that “the third woe cometh quickly”(Revelation 11:14).

7. In his “Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse,”Sir Isaac Newton expressed the view that only under the seventh trumpet would the time come for a perfect understanding of their mysteries. “The event,”he said, “will prove the Apocalypse; and the prophecy thus proved and understood will open the old prophets, and all together will make known the true religion, and establish it. For he that will understand the old prophets must begin with this; but the time is not yet come for understanding them perfectly, because the main revolution predicted in them is not yet come to pass. In ‘ the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets, and then the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and His Christ, and He shall reign forever. 1

There is already so much of the prophecy fulfilled that as many as will take pains in this study may see sufficient instances of God’s providence : but then the signal revolutions predicted by all the holy prophets will at once both turn men’s eyes upon considering the predictions, and plainly interpret them. Till then we must content ourselves with interpreting what has been already fulfilled.”He adds, “Amongst the interpreters of the last age, there is scarce one of note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing; and thence I seem to gather that God is about opening these mysteries.”2

8. A century before the French Revolution Sir Isaac Newton anticipated that the prevalence of infidelity would in all probability be an instrument in the hand of God for the overthrow of the tyrannical supremacy of the Church of Rome. “Sir Isaac Newton had,”says Whiston, “a very sagacious conjecture, when he told Dr. Clarke, from whom I received it, that the overbearing tyranny and persecuting power of the anticbristian party, which hath so long corrupted Christianity, and enslaved the Christian world, must be put a stop to,and broken to pieces, by the prevalence of infidelity for some time before Christianity could be restored;”which, adds Whiston, writing A. D . 1744, “seems to be the very means that is now working in Europe for the same good and great end of Providence.

9. In the year 1701, Fleming, in his work on “The Rise and Fall of Rome Papal,”pointed out that the years 1794 and 1848 would be marked as crises in the overthrow of the Papal power.

Those dates were reached by reckoning the 1,260 years of Papal duration, first, from Justinian’s Pope exalting Edict, in A . D . 533; and secondly, from the similar decree of Phocas in A . D. 606. In the latter case 1,260 calendar years extend to 1848; and 1,260 solar to 1866. The year 1793 did prove the most central in the French Revolution, that of the Reign of Terror; while 1848-9 and 1866-7 were marked years of crisis in the downfall of Papal sovereignty.

Dr. Gill, in his “Commentary,”A . D . 1746, maintained that the date when the Bishop of Rome was made Universal Bishop, or Pope, should be considered that of the decree of the Emperor Phocas in the year 606; “if to this,”he says, “we add 1,260, the expiration of his reign will fall in the year 1866, so that he may have upwards of a hundred and twenty years yet to continue; but of this we cannot be certain; however, the conjecture is not improbable.”

Events proved this remarkable “conjecture “to be correct. The years 1866-1870 were those of the wars between Germany, Austria, and France, resulting .in the overthrow by Protestant Germany of the two chief Catholic powers in Europe; they also witnessed the Antipapal Revolution in Spain, the Vatican Council in which the Pope was decreed to be infallible, the downfall of the Papal Temporal power, and the liberation and unification of Italy.

10. The astronomical confirmation of the year-day theory. -While the celebrated German theologian, John Albert Bengel who held the historic fulfilment of the Apocalypse, was working out his curious and fantastic theory as to the significance of the prophetic times, a Swiss astronomer, Lays de Cheseaux, little known to fame, discovered their astronomic value, viewed as periods measured on the year-day scale.

It seems strange to think of these two gifted men, so different in character and occupations, working unknown to one another, at the same time, on the same problem, that of the true measure of the prophetic times, and reaching conclusions so opposite; those of the theologian doomed to disappear as time demonstrated their falseness; and those of the man of science destined to endure as founded, not on speculation, but on indubitable chronological facts.

Assuming as a fundamental principle the position that the Beasts number 666 construed as years must equal the Beasts’ numerical period forty-two months, Bengel shortened the prophetic ” months “to suit his theory, and fitted them to historical events in an arbitrary manner, supposing the forty-two “months”to extend from A.D. 1143 to A . D . 1810. 1 A second similar period of 666-7 years extends from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, in A.D. 476 to A.D. 1143. That Bengel was bordering on a correct view as to a double, or even treble fulfilment of the number 666, viewed as years, in the rise, reign, and decline of the great antichristian power seems to me evident. His error was (1) in the location of the 666 years, and (2) in arbitrarily shortening the prophetic forty-two months to agree- ment with 666 years.

Bengel’s mistake reminds us of the fact that there is commonly an element of truth in error; that our errors are often half-truths; and therefore not to be wholly rejected, but rather corrected by the separation of their dross, or the addition of omitted elements.

A copy in manuscript of the work of Loys de Cheseaux lies before me. I had it made from the original in the library of the British Museum. It is entitled “Memoires Postumes de Monsieur Jean Philippe Loys de Cheseaux, Correspondant de 1’Academie Royale des Sciences de Paris, Associe etranger de celle de Gottingen; sur divers sujets d’astronomie, et de mathematiques, avec de nouvelles tables tres exactes des moyens movements du Soleil, et de la lune.”

Its date is 1754. In the chapter on “the discoveries of M. de Cheseaux,”in “The Approaching End of the Age,”pp. 399-406, I have given an account of this remarkable work; and referred to it in ” Light for the Last Days,”p. 186; and in “Creation Centred in Christ,” Vol. I, pp. 324—330, have given a translation of M. de Cheseaux’ ac- count of his discovery of the astronomic character of the 1,260 and 2,300 years prophetic periods. I have added in these books accounts of further discoveries made by myself in the same line of investigation, and have furnished in Vol. II of “Creation Centred in Christ “full tables of solar years and lunar months for 3,555 years, calculated to days, hours and minutes from the prophetic periods contained in the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of John, interpreted on the year-day scale.

These tables which extend to 627 pages contain 101,217 Solar and Lunar dates. Copies of the tables exist in all the principal astronomical observatories in the world, where they are in practical use, having been accepted by astronomers as correct and trustworthy. The confirmation afforded by these tables of the year- day theory is complete.

11. Towards the close of the interval between the English and French Revolutions Gibbon wrote his monumental work on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

It was in Rome, as he tells us, on the 15th day of October, 1754, as he sat “musing among the ruins of the capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter “that ” the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City”first started in his mind. “My original plan,”he says, “was circumscribed to the decay of the city, rather than of the empire.”Gradually the idea widened until it embraced the larger subject. For twenty years this work occupied the labours of his life. During this period the vision of the slow decline and ultimate fall of the Western and Eastern Empires of Rome, the mightiest and most enduring political fabric the world has ever beheld, passed before his mind; the “various causes and progressive effects”connected with the vast and awful movement ; ” the artful policy of the Caesars who long maintained the name and image of a free republic; the disorder of military despotism; the rise, establishment and sects of Christianity; the foundation of Constantinople ; the division of the monarchy; the invasion and settlement of the barbarians of Germany and Scythia; the institution of the civil law, the character and religion of Mahomet, the temporal sovereignty of the popes ; the restoration and decay of the Empire of Charlemagne in the west; the crusades of the Latins in the East; the conquests of the Saracens and Turks; the ruin of the Greek Empire ; the state and revolutions of Rome in the middle age.”On that history he continued to labour throughout all the eventful years of the second half of the eighteenth century, from the 18th of October, 1764, to the 27th of June, 1787, when “between eleven o’clock and midnight”he wrote the last line of his great work in the summer-house of his garden at Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Leman. More than once have I visited that spot, and sought to realize the circumstances and the emotions of the historian on completing his gigantic task. He tells us that on that memorable night as he paced the walk beneath the ” acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent.”One wonders what were then the thoughts of higher intelligencies in the invisible world as they beheld from their loftier standpoint, and with clearer vision, the wonderful retrospect of the long decline and tragic fall of that Empire which they knew to be destined to be the last of human monarchies before the advent of the Eternal Kingdom of God? Had the work of the historian no interest in their eyes? Did they not recognize its value as giving for the first time a connected view of the course of events which prophecy had long before portrayed; and did they not note the fact that whereas the historian had brought down his narration only to the fall of the Eastern Empire in 1453, preceding the Reformation, and had but glanced at the latter event as almost foreign to his subject, the inspiring spirit of prophecy, overpassing these limits, had taken in the yet further stage in the history, that of the awful impending revolution which was destined to lay in ruins the still existing empire of Papal Rome; the ten-kingdomed Western Empire under its Papal head, the proud possessor of temporal and spiritual sovereignty, and of a dominion over the minds of millions such as the Caesars in the centuries of their loftiest elevation had never attained. For what but this, and the brighter scenes which should succeed it, was the theme of the Apocalypse, that last prophetic revelation of the course of human history, conveyed by angelic intervention? What was its theme but the decline and fall of earth’s greatest empire, and the rise and establishment of the Kingdom of God? What was its theme but that twofold conflict of Rome Pagan, and Rome Papal with the early martyrs and later witnesses of Christian history, and the long succession of judgments by which the might of the iron Empire was to be broken and brought to nought to make way for the kingdom of the Son of Man, and of the Saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and of whose dominion there shall be no end?

Suspense, expectation, review, such were the characteristics of the period which immediately preceded the great revolution which changed the face of the continent and of the world. Interpreters of prophecy had clearly recognized the fact that the pouring out of the predicted vials of Divine wrath and judgment on the papal power was still a future event; and one which would speedily occur. The short- ness Of the interval between the second woe, whose termination had taken place at the Peace of Carlowitz, and the third woe, that of the seven vials, had been foretold in the words, “the second woe is past, and behold, the third woe cometh quickly.”1 No long interval, therefore, was to be expected before the outbreak of the coming judgment, and one interpreter of prophecy, the great Sir Isaac Newton, had anticipated the rise of infidelity as a power destined to overthrow the vast structure of tyranny and superstition which still encumbered and oppressed the world; and even then, in those closing decades of the century, his expectation seemed to be in process of accomplishment, for such a tide of infidelity had set in as never before had been witnessed, threatening to engulf all things in its destructive flood.

Yes, the time seemed short, and even calculable. Had not the prophetic word limited the duration of the Papal power to 1,260 years, and did not the rise of that power take place when the Emperors Justinian and Phocas conferred on the Bishop of Rome the title of Universal Bishop of the Christian Church, or Head of Christendom, the former in the year 533; the latter in the years 606 or 607 ; and calculating the period of 1,260 years from those dates, would it not terminate in the years 1793 and 1866—7?

And taking the period in its calendar form of 1,260 years, of 360 days each, would not the period as reckoned from the decree of Phocas terminate in the year 1848-9? So had Fleming pointed out in 1701, and a long series of prophetic interpreters from Pareus in 1643, to Gill in 1776 had similarly indicated these dates. But were these expectations destined to disappointment? Were they idle dreams? Was the papacy after all to continue for centuries to come, and were the foretold vials to be delayed to some still distant date? No; that could hardly be. The inspiring Spirit had declared the interval would be short between the end of the second, or Turkish woe, and the advent of the third woe; and the prophetic times seemed to fix a proximate boundary to the continuance of the dominion of the Papacy.

And so the students of the prophetic word watched the course of events, and waited for the fulfilment of the judgments on the Papal power foretold in the Book of God.

SUDDENLY the storm burst on France, and on the world. The elements of destruction had long been gathering. The skies were already dark. There was a restless heaving of the nations. The throes of a terrible convulsion were felt to be at hand. It came like the bursting of a volcano. Thrones and temples went down in the wreck. France was covered with carnage; Europe thrown into war; the world revolutionized.

Never was there anything more terribly majestic in human history—never will there be—till the last judgment day.

Viewed in relation to the past and to the future, to all that it destroyed, to all that it inaugurated, the French Revolution stands alone, without a parallel.

Viewed in itself as an explosion of infidelity, immorality, massacre and war, there is nothing; in the range of the world’s history to compare with it.

Before the tremendous forces which it unchained, thrones, temples and institutions which had stood for ages were overturned as trees by a tempest, and swept away as straws by a whirlwind.

“Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty,
Give unto the Lord glory and strength:
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters,
The God of glory thundereth;
The Lord is upon many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful,
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty;
The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars;
Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
The Lord sitteth upon the flood;
Yea, the Lord sitteth King forever.”

The history of the French Revolution is the history of Europe for more than a century; the history of the modern world.

Alison, who entitled his voluminous history of the French Revolution, “The history of Europe’ since the accession of Louis XVI,”begins by declaring that “There is no period in the history of the world which can be compared with it, in point of interest and importance,”and that “in no former age were events of such magnitude crowded together, or interests so momentous at issue between contending nations. From the flame which was kindled in Europe the whole world has been involved in conflagration, and a new era has dawned upon both hemispheres from the effects of its extension.”

On the 10th of May, 1774, the corrupt and profligate Louis XV died. On the same day Louis XVI came to the throne of France; the Louis, who nineteen years later was executed on the scaffold.

At this point—the accession of Louis XVI in 1774— Carlyle, like Alison, begins his history of the French Revolution, written as with a pen of fire. 1

In France at this time, France of the many massacres of the Huguenots, “Faith had gone out, scepticism had come in.”

“In such a France,”says Carlyle, “as in a powder-tower, where fire unquenched and now unquenchable is smoking and smouldering all around, has Louis XV lain down to die; “a “portentous hour.”His reign had been, to use the words of Alison,, “the most deplorable of French history. The whole frame of society seemed to be decomposed … all that we read in ancient historians, veiled in the decent obscurity of a learned language, of the orgies of ancient Babylon, was equalled, if not exceeded, by the nocturnal revels of the Regent Orleans, the Cardinal Dubois, and his other licentious associates nor were manners improved on the accession of Louis XV, who fell under the government of successive mistresses each more dissolute and degraded than her predecessor, until at length decorum was so openly violated at court that even the corrupted circles of Versailles were scandalized by the undisguised profligacy which was exhibited.”

On the doings of Madame Pompadour, Madame Du Barry, and the Pare aux Cerfs we drop the veil.

Embarrassment in the national finances, involving an annual deficit of seven and a half millions of money was a further feature of the period. The Church was “richer than Golconda,”while the poor of the land groaned like wild animals under the load of oppression, and the lash of cruelty. The process of “stripping barer,” which men “called governing,” was coming to a crisis. The despised masses in their “clay houses, and garrets, and hutches,”consisted as Carlyle reminds us, of “units,”every one of which had “his own heart and sorrows “; a “miraculous man with a spark of the Divinity, what thou callest an immortal soul, in him.””Untaught, uncomforted, unfed, they pine stagnantly in thick obscuration, in squalid destitution and obstruction,—the lot of millions.”Some rioted and were hanged the following days. “O ye poor naked wretches,”says Carlyle, “and this, this is your inarticulate cry to heaven, as of a dumb tortured animal, crying from uttermost depths of pain and abasement. Do these azure skies, like a dead crystalline vault, only reverberate the echo of it on you? Respond to it only by hanging on the following days?—Not so: not forever. Ye are heard in heaven. And the answer too will come,— in a horror of great darkness, and shakings of the world, and a cup of trembling which all the nations shall drink.”

Here then, was a kingdom full of oppressions, superstitions, immorality, and infidelity. The salt of the land had been cast out. The Huguenots had been expelled; the Jansenists crushed. The Huguenots had striven to produce a Reformation outside the Romish Church ; the Jansenists a Reformation within it. Both had been defeated and suppressed with the utmost tyranny and cruelty. What histories theirs! Let the great library of Huguenot works in Paris, and the Jansenist works collected in New York 1 bear witness.

France had got rid of Huguenots and Jansenists; only the crimson blood stains of the tragedy remained. Pope and king had it all their own way. Side by side they stood, with their feet planted on the necks of a prostrate people, whose bodies and souls they had enslaved. But that people could still see, and feel, and think. They were millions in number, and began at last to turn under the heel of tyranny. Why should they be forever trodden on, they asked; by what right, human or divine were they, the people, sacrificed to crowned and mitred dignities? Had not the individual man his rights? The tyranny which trampled on them was consecrated by religion. What then was the religion worth? It claimed to be the only authorized, the only divine religion in the world, but it was an imposition. Let its mask be torn away. Thus did superstition make men infidels; while tyranny made them rebels. Infidel revolutionists know no restraint. As a force they can only destroy. 2

First then, in the list of the destructive agencies which produced the French Revolution, should be placed infidelity. A revolution in the inner realm of mind preceded the revolution in the outer social realm.

Marvellous in their adaptation to its accomplishment were the instruments of this work. Of these Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau were among the chief. Montesquieu was born on the i8th of January, 1689, the year of the completion of the English Revolution; Voltaire on the 2Oth of February, 1694; Rousseau on the 28th of June, 1712.

In the profound quiet of his retreat Montesquieu, who was a philosopher, compared the leading governments of the world, and analyzed their abstract rights, in works which have become famous, and produced an immense and lasting influence on public opinion in France. His greatest work, “L’Esprit des Lois”undermined the existing government without directly attacking it. It destroyed its foundations in the minds of men. Rousseau’s numerous and eloquent works, especially his “L’inegalit’e parm’i les hommes”and “Contrat social”poured light on the injustice of the existing order of things; while Voltaire’s satires held up all that had been reverenced to contempt and mockery. For the better part of a century he wrote, and wrote; sending forth a stream of essays, tragedies, comedies, fictions, histories, and poems in Seventy Volumes, which from first to last were “one continued sneer at all that men do hold, and all they ought to hold sacred.”Didero and D’Alembert in their infidel Encyclopedic, attacked both faith and superstition in the name of science. A host of writers of similar principles sprang up, and through the popular press poured forth a flood of infidelity. Under its influence the old bonds were loosened; the old landmarks swept away.

Writing from Paris, December 25, 1753, Lord Chesterfield said, “All the symptoms I have ever met with in history, previous to great changes and revolutions in government, now exist, and daily increase in France.”There was “a monarchy all but absolute, a feudal nobility with oppressive powers, and invidious privileges; a burdensome official aristocracy, with its own privileges and exemptions; an exacting royal administration; injurious monopolies; and an oppressed and suffering people without political rights.”

There was a Church which had crushed the Huguenots and Jansenists; a society utterly corrupt in morals, and literature propagating infidelity, and sowing the seeds of revolution.

Now was seen the marvellous spectacle of a nation which had silenced her noble Protestant teachers, had cast out the salt which might have preserved her from corruption; a Church which had triumphed over truth, and trampled religion beneath her feet; and a monarchy which denied rights and liberty to its subjects, “confronted by a new class of thinkers”; hostile alike to state and religion; men who were the direct product of the system they opposed; clever, satirical, resolute, unsparing, bold in their assaults; followed, flattered, worshipped by the multitude; idolized even by those whom they had taught to dethrone the vain idols their fathers had adored.

Following the change of public thought, came a change of action. With the pressure of financial distress the Parliament of Paris demanded “that the states-general should be assembled to devise means for the relief of the country.”Nearly two hundred years had elapsed since this “disused and almost forgotten body “had been called into existence. The king, “distracted by divided counsels, but leaning to a liberal policy”consented to “this hazardous venture, and convoked the states-general.”The tiers-etat were to be double the number of the other orders; by this arrangement power was at once transferred to the lower classes, which up to that time, had been without political influence.

The famous Mirabeau cast in his lot with the commons; a “body intent upon reforms, and a steady foe to privileges. Its mission was to satisfy the complaints of the people; and it was burning to resist the pretensions of the nobles and the Church.””The two higher orders sat apart in their respective churches, leaving the Commons as the largest body in possession of the great hall “the Commons insisted that the verification of the powers of the three estates should be conducted by the entire body, and awaited the coming of the two other orders . . . after five weeks of fruitless negotiations the Commons took a bolder step and declared themselves the National Assembly. It was an act of usurpation which marked the commencement of the Revolution.”

They followed up the act by “decrees designed to secure their own authority. The king, influenced by the cotirt, closed the doors of the hall against the assembly.””The Commons at once adjourned to the racket court -where they swore not to separate until they had given a constitution to France.”On the racket court being closed against them, they adjourned to the Church of St. Louis. Threatened and commanded to separate they refused to move.

“This defiance of the king’s authority was submitted to by the court, and from that day power passed into the hands of the Assembly.”1 In the struggle which followed, two popular parties strove for the ascendancy, the Girondists and the Jacobins. The former, the representatives of the people in the Gironde, near Bordeaux, endeavoured to obtain “the sovereignty of right over force; of intelligence over prejudices; of people over governments; they sought equality; the substitution of reason for authority; the reign of the people; they called the principles they proclaimed “a gospel of social rights, a charter of humanity.”Lamartine has written their history in three eloquent volumes. The Jacobins, so called from the convent of Jacobins in which the deputies from Brittany first met, under the name of the “Club Breton,”were of a different character. Distinguished by the violence of their proceedings, prepared for the commission of every crime, they attracted “the most audacious and able of the democratic party.”

“Fifteen hundred members usually attended their meetings; a few lamps only lighted the vast extent of the room; the members appeared for the most part in shabby attire, and the galleries were filled with the lowest of the populace. In this den of darkness were prepared the bloody lists of proscription and massacre; the meetings were opened with revolutionary songs, and shouts of applause followed each addition to the list of murder, each account of its perpetration by the affiliated societies. Never was a man of honour— seldom a man of virtue—admitted within this society; it had an innate horror of every one who was not attached to its fortunes by the hellish bond of committed wickedness. A robber, an assassin, was certain of admission—as certain as the victim of their violence was of rejection. The well-known question put to the entrant: —”What have you done to be hanged if the ancient regime is restored? “exemplifies at once the tie which held together its members. The secret sense of deserved punishment constituted the bond of their unholy alliance. Their place of meeting was adorned with anarchical symbols, tricolour flags, and busts of the leading revolutionists of former times. Long before the death of Louis XVI, two portraits, adorned with garlands, of Jacques Clement and Ravaillac, were hung on the walls: immediately below was the date of the murder which each had committed, with the words, “He was fortunate, he killed a king.”

The leaders of this party were Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Billaud Varennes, St. Just, and Collot d’Herbois— names destined to acquire an execrable celebrity in French annals, whose deeds will never be forgotten so long as the voice of conscience is heard in the human heart. Into the hands of these wretches came the government of France.

Among them, Danton gained the ascendancy. “Nature seemed to have expressly created him for the terrible part which he played in the Revolution . . . His figure was colossal, his health unbroken, his strength extraordinary; a countenance ravaged by the smallpox, with small eyes, thick lips, and a libertine look, but a lofty commanding forehead at once fascinated and terrified the beholder. A commanding air, dauntless intrepidity, and a voice of thunder fitted him to be what Mirabeau described as “a huge blast bellows to inflame the popular passions.”1

“Marat was the worst of this band. Nature had impressed the atrocity of his character on his countenance, hideous features, the expression of a demon, revolted all who approached him . . for more than three years his writings incessantly stimulated the people to cruelty . . so complete a fanatic had he become in this respect that he scrupled not to recommend torture to the captives, burning at the stake, and branding with red-hot iron, as a suitable means of satisfying the public indignation . . . But all the leaders of the Jacobins sink into insignificance before their ruler and despot, Robespierre … a sanguinary bigot, a merciless fanatic, with talents of the highest order, his reasoning powerful, his intellect cool, his sagacity great, his perseverance unconquerable. He adhered steadily to principle. He maintained that the multitude can do no wrong.””He strove to destroy all the higher classes of society,”and “well-nigh annihilated the whole intellect and virtue of France . . . Napoleon did not prosecute savage warfare for the external glory of the republic with more vigour and perseverance than Robespierre did internal massacre to exterminate its domestic enemies, and the extraordinary success and long-continued power of both proved that each had rightly judged the popular mind in his own day—that they both marched, as Napoleon said, “with the opinion of five millions of men.”1 He had great designs in view in the reconstruction of the social edifice after three hundred thousand heads had fallen. His visions were of an innocent republic, with equal fortunes, arising out of the sea of blood. He never abandoned a principle, but he never saved a friend. It was hard to say whether his supporters or his enemies fell fastest beneath the scythe of his ambition.

Our limits forbid us to give any full account of the tragic events of the Revolution, which beginning with the convocation of the states- general in 1789, and the establishment of a Republic in 1793, advanced to the strife between the Girondists and Jacobins, and after the fall of the former, entered on the era of the Reign of Terror, the period of general massacre; and culminated in the rise of military despotism, and all the terrible wars of Napoleon. History tells us “how the infidel democracy suddenly up rose in its might, destroyed the Bastile, issued its declaration of the rights of man; assaulted the king and queen by night, at Versailles, and murdering some of their body- guard, forced them to proceed as prisoners to Paris, the bloody heads carried on pikes before the royal carriage. How the people confiscated all the vast revenues of the Church, all the domains of the crown, and all the estates of refugee nobles, for the use of the State; subjected to themselves all ecclesiastical, civil, and judicial power throughout the country; murdered the royal guard, and some five thousand leading royalists; dethroned, imprisoned, tried, condemned, and murdered the king, and then the queen; declared war against all kings, -and sympathy with all Revolutionists everywhere; how the “reign of terror”witnessed the slaughter of one million and twenty-two thousand persons, -of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes, till the streets of Paris ran with blood, and the guillotines could not overtake their work. How thousands were mowed down by grape-shot fusillades; drowned in “noyades,”where in loaded vessels, hundreds of victims were purposely sunk in the rivers; roasted alive in heated ovens, or tortured to death by other infernal cruelties. How Christianity was publicly renounced, and a prostitute enthroned as “goddess of reason”at Notre Dame, and worshipped by the National Convention, and by the mob of Paris, with the wildest orgies of licentiousness (morality as well as mercy having perished with religion); how the most horrid mockery of the solemn rites of Christianity was publicly enacted, an ass being made to drink the sacramental wine; how the Sabbath itself was abolished, and the decade substituted for the week; and how hundreds and thousands of priests were massacred or driven into exile, and the churches and cathedrals turned into stables and barracks. Taken as a whole, the French Revolution was a convulsion, in which the angry passions of men, set free from all restraint, manifested themselves with a force and fury unprecedented in the history of the world, against monarchical, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, and religious institutions.”

Five features in this marvellous course of events demand recognition.

1. The complete overthrow of the corrupt and tyrannical government of France.—On the 2ist of January, 1793, between the Gardens of the Tuileries and the Champs Elysees, surrounded by an innumerable multitude as far as the eye could reach, standing on the scaffold, his hands bound, his words lost in the roar of the drums being beaten, Louis XVI, King of France, laid his head upon the block, and the descending axe terminated his existence. With the execution of the king, and the murder of the queen, fell the government of France, laden with the crimes of centuries of oppression, -corruption, and cruelty.

2. The complete overthrow of the Roman Catholic Church in France.-—On the 23d of November, 1793, “atheism in France reached its extreme point, by a decree of the municipality ordering the immediate closing of all the churches, and placing the whole priests under surveillance.”The services of religion were now universally abandoned. The pulpits were deserted throughout all the revolutionized districts; baptism ceased; the burial service was no longer heard; the sick received no communion; the dying no consolation. A heavier anathema than that of papal power pressed upon the peopled realm of France—the anathema of heaven, inflicted by the madness of her own inhabitants. The village bells were silent; Sunday was obliterated. Infancy entered the world without a blessing; age left it without a hope. In lieu of the services of the Church, the licentious fetes of the new system were performed by the most abandoned females; it appeared as if the Christian worship had been succeeded by the orgies of the Babylonian priest, or the grossness of the Hindoo theocracy. On every tenth day a revolutionary leader ascended the pulpit, and preached atheism to the bewildered audience; Marat was universally deified; and even the instruments of death were sanctified by the name of the “Holy Guillotine.” Throughout the whole of France the Roman Catholic Churches were desecrated; Notre Dame in Paris was converted into the “Temple of Reason”: 24,000 priests were massacred, and 40,000 Churches ” turned into stables.”

3. The complete overthrow of the Papacy in Italy.—On the invasion of Italy by the French Revolutionists, the government of the Pope was overthrown. Berthier “marched upon Rome, set up a Roman republic, and laid hands upon the Pope. The sovereign pontiff was borne away to the camp of the infidels . . . from prison to prison, and finally, carried captive into France. Here he breathed his last at Valence, in the land where his priests had been slain, where his power was broken, and his name and office were a mockery and by- word, and in the keeping of the rude soldiers of the unbelieving commonwealth, which had for ten years held to his lips a cup of such manifold and exceeding bitterness.”

The spoliation of Rome accompanied the overthrow of the Papacy. “Long before the Pope had sunk under the persecution of his oppressors, Rome had experienced the bitter fruits of republican fraternization. Immediately after the entry of the French troops, commenced the regular and systematic pillage of the city. Not only the churches and the convents, but the palaces of the cardinals and of the nobility, were laid waste. The agents of the Directory, insatiable in the pursuit of plunder, and merciless in the means of exacting it, ransacked every quarter within its walls, seized the most valuable works of art, and stripped the Eternal City of those treasures which had survived the Gothic fire, and escaped the rapacious hands of the Spanish soldiers in the reign of Charles V. The bloodshed was much less, but the spoil collected incomparably greater, than at the disastrous sack which followed the storm of the city, and death of the Constable Bourbon. Almost all the great works of art which have since that time been collected throughout Europe, were then scattered abroad. The spoliation exceeded all that the Goths or Vandals had effected. Not only the palaces of the Vatican and the Monte Cavallo, and the chief nobility of Rome, but those of Castel Gandolfo, on the margin of the Alban Lake, of Terracina, the Villa Albani, and others in the environs of Rome, were plundered of every article of value which they possessed. The whole sacerdotal habits of the Pope and cardinals were burned, in order to collect from the flames the gold with which they were adorned. The Vatican was stripped to its naked walls; the immortal frescoes of Raphael and Michael Angelo, which could not be removed, alone remaining in solitary beauty amidst the general desolation. A contribution of four millions of francs in money, two millions in provisions, and three thousand horses, was imposed upon a city already exhausted by the enormous exactions it had previously undergone. Under the directions of the infamous commissionary Haller, the domestic library, museum, furniture, jewels, and even the private clothes of the Pope were sold. Nor did the palaces of the Roman nobility escape devastation. The noble galleries of the Cardinal Braschi, and the Cardinal York, the last relic of the Stuart Line, underwent the same fate. Others, as those of the Chigi, Borghese, and Doria palaces, were rescued from destruction only by enormous ransoms. Everything of value that the treaty of Tolentine had left in Rome be- came the prey of republican cupidity; and the very name of freedom soon became odious from the sordid and infamous crimes which were committed under its shelter.

“Nor was the oppression of the French confined to the plunder of palaces and churches. Eight cardinals were arrested, and sent to Civita Castellana; while enormous contributions were levied on the Papal territory, and brought home the bitterness of conquest to every poor man’s door. At the same time, the ample territorial possessions of the Church and the monasteries were confiscated, and declared national property; a measure which, by drying up at once the whole resources of the affluent classes, precipitated into the extreme of misery the numerous poor, who were maintained by their expenditure, or fed by their boulity. All the respectable citizens and clergy were in fetters; and a base and despicable faction alone, among whom, to their disgrace be it told, were found fourteen cardinals, followed in the train of their oppressors; and at a public festival, returned thanks to God for the miseries they had brought upon their country.”

4. The Wholesale Revolutionary Massacres in Paris, and throughout France.—The great massacre of St. Bartholomew was. cast into the shade by “the St. Bartholomew of five years,”as the massacre of the Revolution has been called. More than 30,000 were massacred in the city of Lyons; at Nantes, 27,000; in Paris, 150,000; in La Vendee, 300,000. In all France about two millions of persons were massacred, of whom 250,000 were women; 230,000 children; and 24,000 priests. The massacre of the priests “was but the prelude to a general massacre in the Abbaye, the horrors of which exceeded anything hitherto witnessed in the Revolution. Wearied at length with the labour of hewing down so many victims, they fell upon the plan of instituting a mock tribunal, with the murderer Maillard for its president, in which, after going through the form of a trial, they turned them out to be massacred by the people who thronged the prison doors, loudly clamouring for their share in the work of extermination. The cries of these victims, who were led out to be hewn to pieces by the multitude, first drew the attention of the prisoners in the cells to the fate which awaited themselves; seized separately and dragged before an inexorable tribunal, they were speedily, given over to the vengeance of the populace. Reding was one of the first to be selected- The pain of his broken limbs extorted cries even from that intrepid Swiss soldier, as he was dragged along from his cell to the hall of trial; and one of the assassins, more merciful than the rest, drew his sword across his throat, so that he perished before reaching the judges. His dead body was thrown out to the assassins. The forms of justice were prostituted to the most inhuman massacre. Torn from their dungeons, the prisoners were hurried before a tribunal, where the president Maillard sat by torchlight with a drawn sabre before him, and his robes drenched with blood; officials with drawn swords, and shirts stained with gore, surrounded the chair. A few minutes, often a few seconds, disposed of the fate of each individual. Dragged from the pretended judgment- hall, they were turned out to the populace, who thronged round the doors armed with sabres, panting for slaughter, and with loud cries, demanding a quicker supply of victims. No executioners were required; the people despatched the condemned with their own hands, and sometimes enjoyed the savage pleasure of beholding them run a considerable distance before they expired. Immured in the upper chambers of the building, the other prisoners endured the agony of witnessing the prolonged sufferings of their comrades; a dreadful thirst added to their tortures, and the inhuman jailers refused even a draught of water to their earnest entreaties. Some had the presence of mind to observe in what attitude death soonest relieved the victims, and resolved when their hour arrived, to keep their hands down, lest, by warding off the strokes, they should prolong their agonies.”

“Similar tragedies took place at the same time in all the other jails of Paris, and in the religious houses, which were filled with victims.”

This was the era of the guillotine. Fixed first on the Place St. Antoine, and soon after at the Barriere du Trone, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, that terrible instrument of decapitation was in daily and ceaseless use.

In its victims “first the nobles and ecclesiastics only were included: by degrees the whole landed proprietors were reached; but now the work of destruction seemed to be approaching every class above the lowest. On the lists of the Revolutionary Tribunal, in the latter days of the Reign of Terror, are to be found tailors, shoemakers, hairdressers, butchers, farmers, mechanics, and workmen, accused of anti-revolutionary principles. From the loth of June to the I7th of July, that court had sentenced twelve hundred and eighty-five persons to death. The people felt pity for these proscriptions,- not only from their frequency, but their near approach to themselves. Their reason was at length awakened by the revolutionary fever having exhausted itself; humanity began to react against the cease-less effusion of human blood, after all their enemies had been destroyed It was impossible that pity should not at length be awakened in the breast of life spectators, for never had such scenes of woe been exhibited to the public gaze. ‘ The funeral cars,’ says the republican historian, Lamar-tine, ‘ often held together the husband, wife, and all their children. Their imploring visages, which mutually regarded each other with the tender expression of a last look, the heads of daughters falling on the knees of their mothers, of wives on the shoulders of their husbands, the ‘ pressure of heart against heart, both of which were so soon to cease to beat—now gray hairs and auburn locks cut by the same scissors, now wrinkled heads and charming visages falling under the same axe; the slow march of the cortege, the monotonous rolling of the wheels, the hedge of sabres around the procession, the stifled sobs of the victims, the hisses of the populace, the cries of the furies of the guillotine—all im-pressed a mournful character on these assassinations, which seemed to be provided for no other purpose but to serve for the pastime of the people.’ “3 ‘ “At Lyons the scaffold opposite the Hotel de Ville, where the trials were conducted, was kept in ceaseless employment. Around its bloody foundations large quantities of water were daily poured; but they were inadequate to wash away the ensanguined stains, or remove the fetid odour. So noxious did they become, that Dorfeuille, the functionary entrusted with the executions, was obliged to remove it to another situation; where it was placed directly above an open sewer, ten feet deep, which bore the gore away to the Rhone. The washerwomen there were obliged to change their station from the quantity of blood which became mingled with its waters. At length when the executions had risen to thirty or forty a day, the guillotine was placed in the middle of the bridge at Mo-rand in the centre of the Rhone, into which the stream of blood at once fell, and into which the headless trunks and severed heads were precipitated. Yet even this terrible slaughter, which went on without intermission for three months, appeared insufficient to the Jacobins.”

“At Nantes a Revolutionary Tribunal was formed under the direction of Carrier, and it soon outstripped even the rapid progress in atrocity of Damon and Robespierre. ‘ Their principle,’ says the Republican historian, ‘was, that it was necessary to destroy, en masse, all the prisoners. At their command was formed a corps called the Legion of Marat, composed of the most determined and bloodthirsty of the Revolutionists, the members of which were entitled, of their own authority, to incarcerate any person whom they chose. The number of their prisoners was soon between three and four thousand, and they divided among themselves all their property. Whenever a fresh supply of captives was wanted, the alarm was spread of a counter revolution, the generale beat, the cannon planted; and this was immediately followed by innumerable arrests. Nor were they long in disposing of the captives. The miserable wretches were either slain with poniards in the prisons, or carried out in a vessel and drowned by wholesale in the Loire. On one occasion, a hundred “fanatical priests,”as they were termed, were taken out together, stripped of their clothes, and precipitated into the waves. The same vessel served for many of these noyades ; and the horror expressed by many of the citizens for that mode of execution, formed the ground for fresh arrests and increased murders. Women big with child, children eight, nine and ten years of age, were thrown together into the. stream, on the banks of which, men armed with sabres were placed to cut them down, if the waves should throw them undrowned on the shore. The citizens, with loud shrieks, implored the lives of the little innocents, and numbers offered to adopt them as their own; but, though a few were granted to their urgent entreaty, the greater part were doomed to destruction. Thus were consigned to the grave whole generations at once—the ornament of the present, the hope of the future.’ So immense were the numbers of those who were cut off by the guillotine, or moved down by fusillades, that three hundred men were occupied for six weeks, in covering with earth the vast multitude of corpses that filled the trenches which had been cut in the Place of the Department at Nantes, to receive the dead bodies. Ten thousand died of disease, pestilence, and horror, in the prisons of that department alone.”2

“The noyades at Nantes alone amounted to twenty-five, on each of which occasions from eighty to a hundred and fifty persons perished; and such was the quantity of corpses accumulated in the Loire, that the water of that river was infected so as to render a public ordinance necessary, forbidding the use of it by the inhabitants. No less than eighty thousand perished in these ways, or by the guillotine, in Nantes alone, during the administration of Carrier; and the mariners, when they heaved the anchors, frequently brought up boats charged with corpses. Birds of prey flocked to the shores, and fed on human flesh; while the very fish became so poisonous as to induce an order of the municipality of Nantes, prohibiting them to be taken by the fishermen.”3

“From Saumur to Nantes, a distance of sixty miles, the Loire was for several weeks red with human blood; the ensanguined stream, far at sea, ” divided the blue waves of the deep. The multitude of corpses it bore to the ocean was so prodigious that the adjacent coast was strewed with them; and a violent west wind and high tide having brought part of them back to Nantes, followed by a train of sharks and marine animals of prey, attracted by so prodigious an accumulation of human bodies, they were thrown ashore in vast numbers. Fifteen thousand persons perished there under the hands of the executioner, or of diseases in prison, in one month: the total victims of the Reign of Terror at that place exceeded thirty thousand.”

5. The overthrow of Roman Catholic governments, and enormous destruction of life connected with the -wars of Napoleon.— The reign of the guillotine was followed by the reign of the sword. With the rise of Napoleon, the French Revolution took a new character, and became the scourge of Europe. The armies of France were now led on an unparalleled career of conquest by that man who was the most “gigantic manifestation of mental power and despotic will “the world had ever seen. Arrogant, unscrupulous, selfish, remorseless, ambitious, self-reliant, with indomitable vigour, unwearying energy, marvellous military genius, surpassing administrative ability, uniting a lofty comprehensive intellect with utter disregard for moral considerations, Napoleon sacrificed the lives of millions, overturned the thrones of Europe, revived the Empire of Charlemagne, and strove to obtain the monarchy of the world.

His career as a ruler and conqueror consists of two chief periods : the first, that of his seizure of the reins of power as First Consul, followed by his Italian, German, Egyptian, and Syrian campaigns ; secondly, that commencing with his assumption of Imperial power in 1804, and extending to his fall in 1815, embracing the campaigns of Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland ; the long Peninsular war, the later wars in Italy, leading to the extinction of Papal authority; his struggle with Austria, his disastrous invasion of Russia; his last fatal war with Germany, and his final defeat by the Allied Powers at the Battle of Waterloo.

CAREER OF NAPOLEON

Born on the 15th of August, 1769, Napoleon was five years old at the accession of Louis XVI in 1774. After a military training, Napoleon, as an officer of Artillery, began his career by dispersing the National Guard of 30,000 men in Paris with grapeshot in October, 1795.

In 1796 he was sent to Italy by the French Directory, where he took Piedmont, Milan and Lombardy, quartering his troops on the unfortunate inhabitants, who were forced to pay the expenses of the war, including 20,000,000 francs exacted from Lombardy. On Pa via resisting, he took the town by storm, and abandoned it to plunder by his troops. The Duke of Parma was compelled to pay 1,500,000 francs, and the Duke of Modena 6,000,000 ; and 2,000,000 more in provisions, cattle, etc. He took Leghorn, where the merchants paid 5,000,000 for ransom, and 50,000,000 francs was forwarded from these wars of plunder in North Italy to the French Directory. Milan having been evacuated by the Austrians, Napoleon seized from the Pope Bologna and Ferrara, and compelled Pius VI to pay 15,000,000 livres in gold, 6,000,000 more in goods, and to permit the spoliation of works of art and manuscripts which were sent to Paris. On Austria preparing a fresh army for the recovery of Lombardy of fifty to sixty thousand men, Napoleon in six weeks destroyed it in detail. A third army was sent into Italy by Austria, the same year (1796), of 50,000 men, which Napoleon succeeded in dividing and conquering. He then regulated internal affairs in North Italy, forming a republic. The Pope, after paying 5,000,000 livres, stopped payment, while Austria, reinforcing her army by 50,000 men, continued the struggle, but was defeated with immense loss. The condition of North Italy was miserable in the extreme, both armies treating the nation as enemies. On all hands the people were plundered, and when they resisted, killed.

Secure from the Austrians, Napoleon turned against the Pope, and in- vaded Ancona, the Marches, and Tolentina. Pius VI sued for peace, and was forced to pay 15,000,000 livres within a month, and as much more in two months. He was permitted to remain in Rome a little longer.

The Austrians now raised a new army, chiefly recruits. General Bernadotte, with 20,000 men from the Rhine Provinces, reinforced Napoleon, who conquered the Austrians, and advanced through the Tyrol and Upper Styria to within eight days’ march of Vienna. The Austrian Emperor sued for peace, and ceded to Napoleon the Austrian Netherlands and Lombardy, who promised him, by a secret treaty Venice, in part compensation. The Doge resigned. Thus ended the republic of Venice: after fourteen centuries of existence, and with it the naval power of Italy became extinct. Genoa paid 4,000,000 livres to the Directory in Paris, f and had her constitution remodelled to a republic. All Italy, excepting Naples, was now in subjection to France.

In December, 1797, Napoleon, returning from his wars in Italy, was received with acclamation in Paris.

1798. In pursuance of his plan of world conquest, Napoleon made an expedition to Egypt. Malta surrendered, and the spoliation of its churches took place. On March 29th, 5,000 Mamelukes were defeated by Napoleon at Alexandria. The French fleet was destroyed by Nelson. The Sultan declared war against France. In Cairo there was a terrible massacre of Mussulmans by French troops. With 10,000 men Napoleon crossed the desert, by Suez, to Palestine. Jaffa was given up to plunder, with frightful horrors, and the Turkish prisoners were massacred wholesale. The defense of Acre followed. After fifty-four days from opening the trenches, Napoleon was compelled to raise the siege, and return to Egypt. He reached Cairo I4th June.

1799. “With 10,000 men on the banks of the Euphrates,”said Napoleon, “I might have gone to Constantinople or to India, and have changed the face of the world. I should have founded an Empire in the .Hast, and the world would have run a different course.”

Towards the end of July, the Turkish fleet landed 18,000 men at Aboukir, near Alexandria. Napoleon attacked them, and 10,000 Turks perished by the bayonet, or the sea. The victory of Aboukir on the 17th June, 1799, closed the Egyptian campaign, and Napoleon returned to I’Vance.

In Paris he arbitrarily dissolved the Assembly of 500, and was made first of three Consuls. He reopened the Roman Catholic Churches, which bad been closed in the Revolution. 1800,

Crossing the St. Bernard pass with his troops, Napoleon defeated the Austrians at Marengo ; Piedmont and Genoa were given up to France.

1801. Napoleon appoints the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in France; and arranges that the incumbents should be approved by civil authority. All convents were abolished.

1802. Napoleon was appointed Consul for life. He immediately re- duced the number in the Senate. Switzerland supplied 16,000 men for the service of France, and Napoleon became Mediator of the Helvetic League. The Civil Code Napoleon was drawn up.

1804. Tragedy of the Duke D’Enghein.—On the l8th of May, Napoleon was crowned as Emperor. Pius VII was compelled to be present at the coronation, and blessed the crown, while Napoleon put it on his own head. He then changed the Italian republics into monarchies. At Milan he crowned himself with the iron crown of the Lombard kings.

1805. Napoleon’s campaign in Germany. A new coalition of England, Russia, Austria and Sweden was formed against him. On the 2d of December, 1805, he gained the great battle of Austerlitz, the loss of the allies was tremendous. Multitudes perished in a frozen lake. Austria gave up the Venetian provinces to Italy, and the Tyrol to Bavaria.

Napoleon then united the provinces of Germany as the Confederation of the Rhine, placing himself at the head. He dissolved the old German Empire. Thus ended the “Holy Roman Empire,”after an existence of 1,000 years. In October of 1805 was fought the battle of Trafalgar.

1806. Having made his brother Joseph .king of Naples and Sicily, Napoleon attacked the Prussians, defeating them at Anerstadt and Jena. The Prussians gave up the fortresses of Magdeburg, Spandau, and others. Napoleon entered Berlin 2ist October. Turning to Poland, he occupied Warsaw. A winter campaign against Russia followed. At the battle of Friedland he defeated the Russians, and agreed that Russia should take Finland. He then sent Junot to take Portugal. In Italy Napoleon annexed the Marches, or Adriatic provinces, to his kingdom of Italy. His troops invade Rome ; Napoleon telling the Pope that he regarded himself as the successor of Charlemagne, and therefore King of Italy.

Invading Spain, Napoleon occupied Madrid, where he made his brother Joseph “King of Spain and the Indies.”

The seven years Peninsular war followed. Six hundred thousand French troops enter Spain; only 250,000 return to France. Loss of Spaniards incalculable.

1809. New Austrian war. Napoleon conquers in the battle of Eckmaul, and enters Vienna. He wins the battle of Aspern. In the great battle of Wagram, he defeats the Austrians, great loss on both sides.

Napoleon divorcing his lawful wife, Josephine, marries the daughter of the Emperor Francis of Austria.

The Pope was taken as a prisoner to Savona, and thence to Fontain- bleau, and the Papal territory divided.

1810-1811. Period of Napoleon’s greatest power. French Empire extends from Denmark to Naples. Population of France 42,000,000. Population of the new French Empire of Napoleon 80,000,000.

At that period Austria and Russia were Napoleon’s allies. In Sweden he placed his General Bernadotte on the throne. Spain was bleeding at every pore from the effects of the Peninsular war. Britain alone defied the power of the great conqueror.

1812. Napoleon’s Russian campaign. With an enormous army, consisting of 270,000 French; 80,000 Germans from the Rhine Confederation, 30,000 Poles, and 20,000 Prussians, Napoleon invaded Russia, advancing as far as Moscow, which the Russians evacuated and burned. The disastrous French retreat succeeded, in which 125,000 were slain; 132,000 died of fatigue, hunger, disease and cold; 193,000 were made prisoners, the loss including 3,000 officers, and forty-eight generals. The Russians lost 308,000 men.

Returning with the remnant of his troops to Germany, Napoleon won the battle of Lutzen, against Prussians and Russians united. A series of battles at Dresden followed, and a disastrous defeat of the French army at Leipsic : 25,000 French were made prisoners of war. Napoleon reached the Rhine with seventy or eighty thousand out of an army of 350,000. Returning to France, he issued a new conscription for 300,000 men. But the allied armies entered Paris before he could reach it, and compelled Napoleon to abdicate on the 4th of April, 1814; assigning to him the Island of Elba. A conspiracy for his restoration to France followed. Napoleon escaped from Elba, assembled rapidly an army of 125,000 men, of which 25,000 were cavalry. He attacked Blucher.

1815. The Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon defeated by the allied armies ; great loss on both sides. Thus closed a series of,wars which had lasted twenty- three years. During ten years, Napoleon raised by conscription two millions, one hundred and seventy-three thousand men (2,173,000), of whom two-thirds perished in foreign lands, or were maimed for life.

On Napoleon’s second abdication, on the 22d of June, 1815, he was sent as a prisoner to the Island of St. Helena, where after an imprisonment of nearly six years, he died of cancer in the stomach, May 5, 1821. On the night of his death there was a terrible storm in the island, trees being torn up by the roots.

Reviewing the career of Napoleon “it may safely be admitted that not only in his power of combination—of embracing in one harmonious plan a great number of distant and independent elements,—but also of watching over and directing, at one and the same time, the complicated movements of mighty armies, the tone of the public press, the operations of foreign and domestic commerce, in addition to the endless intricacies and details of his system of policy, and tile great measures of his government, not merely in France, but through the whole extent of his vast empire— he was unequalled by any commander or sovereign that ever lived. . . . No other sovereign of whom history makes mention, ever maintained himself, even for a single day, against such a combination of gigantic powers: yet Napoleon not only maintained himself, but for twelve years, was constantly adding to his dominions in the’face of an opposition as was never before or since arrayed against any single ruler . . . with all his sagacity, he committed the stupendous error, of supposing that he could, in the nineteenth century, hold Europe in subjection by the mere force of his intellect and will, without the exercise of any strictly moral attributes, and without laying the foundations of his power in the affections of his people.”

SUMMARY Retributive character of the French Revolution.

Viewed as a whole, the French Revolution presents in its destructive effects, a spectacle of Divine Judgment without a parallel in human history. Terrible as was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, even it sinks into a secondary place when compared with the wholesale slaughter by massacre and war which accompanied this fearful modern judgment, affecting not only the whole of France, but all the surrounding nations of Europe.

In letters of flame across the movement, is written the word Retribution.

France, the France of St Bartholomew, of the wars of the Huguenots, of the siege of La Rochelle, of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, of the suppression of the Jansenists, of the destruction of Port Royal, the France which had cast out with sublime folly and inhuman cruelty, the gospel and the Saints of God, was visited with a plague of infidelity and immorality, like an ulcerous sore, covering the nation from head to foot. The proud and tyrannical monarchy, which had persecuted and banished the Huguenots was overthrown and abolished in a national convulsion of revolutionary crime and excess in which all restraints of law and order, human and divine, were relaxed and dissolved; government delivered into the hands of sanguinary wretches; monarchy brought to the scaffold; aristocracy abolished, estates confiscated or plundered; the nobles slain or exiled; youth, talent, beauty ruthlessly sacrificed: prisons glutted with victims; rivers choked with corpses; churches desecrated; priests slaughtered; religion suppressed; an infidel calendar substituted for the week with its sabbath; and the worship of a harlot as the goddess of Reason for the worship of the host on the altars of the Church of Rome. In France was beheld the reign of infidelity, anarchy, and the guillotine; while from France were communicated to surrounding Europe the fires of revolution and an anti-ecclesiastical mania that has never since been allayed. Nor was this all, for democratic revolution was succeeded by military despotism• the horrors of massacre by the horrors of war. All Europe was involved in the far-reaching conflagration. Italy, Austria, Germany, Poland, Spain, Portugal, and Russia were one after another invaded by the bloodthirsty armies of France, led by a resistless conqueror, eclipsing in his military powers the Alexanders and Csesars of antiquity. The Catholic nations which had warred for centuries against the Reformed faith were successively crushed under the feet of this ruthless despot; thrones overturned, crowns trampled in the dust; armies scattered; cities pillaged; provinces wasted with war; and reduced to desolation.

The Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Catholic Church were prostrated by the tornado; the Imperial and Papal powers overthrown in common ruin. Side by side they had stood supreme for a thousand years; and both were abolished. The Holy Roman Empire which had risen with Charlemagne, which had revived the Imperial power of the Caesars—combined Germany, Italy and France in a single empire, and maintained its existence under a long succession of rulers, with varying fortunes through the Middle Ages, and the succeeding centuries of the Reformation; the empire which had warred against and crushed the Hussites with barbaric cruelties; which had stood as the pillar of the Papacy in the days of Luther; which had inflicted on Germany the horrors of the thirty years’ war in the time of Gustavus Adolphus; was now in a series of sanguinary conflicts stripped of its Italian territories, driven back bleeding at every pore from the plains of Lombardy, and then, as an Imperial power, totally suppressed, and brought to nought. In Germany, divided into a host of petty principalities, the “Confederation of the Rhine”was formed, which, contrary to all that was intended by Napoleon, was destined, together with the contemporaneous growth of Prussia, to lead to the rise of the German Empire, and to the subsequent victories over Roman Catholic Austria and France of Sadowa and Sedan.

Piedmont, in northern Italy, which had all but exterminated the Waldenses, and turned their wild and lonely valleys into a slaughter- house, was overrun by merciless invaders, and filled with the horrors of ruthless spoliation and bloodshed. The Pope of Rome, stripped of his possessions, his temporal government abolished, was carried captive to die in a foreign land, and Rome given up to plunder and desecration.

Spain, which had crushed the Reformation within in her own borders, and in other lands, by the horrors of the In-i quisition, and the Auto da Fe, was delivered over to the dreadful bloodshed and miseries of the seven years Peninsular war: the Inquisition suppressed; and a revolutionary spirit awakened which has made the country since the threatre of endless strife, disaster, and decay.

And then the guilty powers which had wrought the widespread havoc were arrested and destroyed. All the revolutionary leaders in France came to miserable ends. The nations of Europe combined against the military despot who sought to become the master of the world; the powers of Nature fought against him; the sands of the Syrian desert, the snows of Russia, the waves of the ocean rose up to arrest his progress; his armies scattered, his fleets destroyed, he was compelled to abdicate, and chained like an eagle to a rock in mid ocean, was left to contemplate the ruin of all that he had planned and wrought, and the triumph of the powers he had once defeated and despised. 4 “The Lord is known by the judgment which He executed! the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.

II. Influence of the French Revolution on the Interpretation of Prophecy.

The effect of the French Revolution on prophetic interpretation has been profound and lasting. It has inaugurated a new era in the interpretation of the Apocalypse. Men have lived to see the accomplishment of the judgments on Papal Christendom so long foretold, and so long expected; and, while trembling at the view, have had new hopes kindled within them, respecting the nearness of the promised kingdom of God. In studying the works on prophecy written since the commencement of the Revolution by Bichino, Galloway, Faber, Cunninghame, Frere, Irving, Fuller, Croly, Habershon, Keith, Bickersteth, Brooks, Birks, Elliott and many others, one seems to hear the prolonged reverberation of the seventh trumpet of the Apocalypse— the great trumpet of Judgment and of Jubilee.

In 1794, the year following that of the Reign of Terror, Bichino published his work on “The signs of the times, or the overthrow of the Papal tyranny in France, the prelude of destruction to popery and despotism, but of peace to mankind.”The preface is dated January 19, 1793, only two days before the execution of Louis XVI. Three leading conclusions dominate Bichino’s treatise : (1) that the perse- cuting wild beast power of the Apocalypse is chiefly represented by the French monarchy ; (2) that this power had slain the Witnesses by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, while God had raised them from the dead in the persons of their successors; (3) that the prophetic period of 1,260 years measuring the domination of the Papacy had been fulfilled. Reckoned from its commencing point at Justinian’s decree, conferring on the Bishop of Rome the universal oversight of the Christian Church in the year 529, the period had expired in 1789, the opening year of the French Revolution. More correct computations adopted since Bichino’s time place Justinian’s decree in the year 533, and make the 1,260 years terminate in 1793, the central year of the Reign of Terror. “My mind has of late,”says Bichino, “been much affected with the appearance of things in the Christian world, and the occurrences which have, within these few years, burst upon us; occurrences which are unparalleled in the history of nations.”He then refers to the striking fulfilment of Sir Isaac Newton’s conjecture “that the overbearing tyranny and power of the antichristian party which hath so long corrupted Christianity, and enslaved the Christian world, must be put a stop to, and broken to pieces by the prevalence of ‘infidelity”, for some time before primitive Christianity could be restored; “and refers to Whiston’s observation in 1744, that the infidelity Sir Isaac Newton expected seemed to be ” the very means now working in Europe for the same good and great work of Providence.” In turning over the pages of Bichino’s work, one seems to see the awful sufferings and hear the heartrending groans of the persecuted Huguenots under Louis XIV. The noble French preachers, Saurin and Claude, tell us of the horrors their eyes had seen; “now,”says Saurin, as quoted by Bichino, “we were banished, then we were forbidden to quit the kingdom on pain of death. Here we saw the glorious rewards of those who betrayed their religion; and there we beheld those who I had the courage to confess it haled to a dungeon, a scaffold, or a galley. Here we saw our persecutors drawing on a sledge the dead bodies of those who had expired on the rack, there we beheld a false friar tormenting a dying man, who was terrified on the one hand with the fear of hell if he apostatized, and on the other with the fear of leaving his children without bread if he should continue in the faith.”When the arguments of priests failed, cruel soldiers were quartered in their houses, to exert their skill in torments to compel them to become Catholics. “They cast some,” says Claude, “into large fires, and took them out when they were half roasted, they hanged others with ropes under their armpits and plunged them into wells till they promised to renounce their religion; they tied them like criminals on the rack, and poured wine with a funnel into their mouths, till, being intoxicated, they promised to turn Catholics. Some they slashed and cut with pen-knives; some they took by the nose with red-hot tongs, and led them up and down the rooms till they promised to turn Catholics. These cruel proceedings made eight hundred thousand persons quit the kingdom.”This system of persecution remained more or less in force till it was over- thrown in 1789.

My eyes fall while I write on a venerable witness to the truth of these accounts. A grand old Huguenot Bible lies before me, a folio volume printed in La Roxhelle in 1606. Its antiquated French title is as follows : “La Bible, qui est Toute la saincte escriture du Vieil et du Nouveau Testament ; autrement L’ancienne et la Nouvelle Alliance, le tout reveu et confere sur les textes Hebrieux et Grecs par les Pasteurs, et Professeurs de Feglise de Geneve.”A figure of a winged woman adorns the title-page. She is represented as leaning on a cross, trampling on a prostrate skeleton, and upholding in her hand a book with the title “Religion Chrestiene.”The Huguenot metrical version of the Psalms, with their tunes printed in square shaped semi-breves, is appended to the volume, and also a simple and scriptural Liturgy. The leather binding is almost black with age, and seems to show by its look, and that of the discoloured edges, that the book must have been long concealed in some Huguenot chimney, and embrowned by smoke. On opening the venerable Book, my eyes fall on the verses relating to the Witnesses: “Et quand ils auront acheve leurtesmoignage, la beste qui monte de 1’abisme fera guerre cont’eux, et les vaincra, et les tuera. Et leur corps morts seront gisans es places de la grand cite, qui est appelee spirituellement Sodome et Egypte, la ou aussi nostre Seigneur a este crucifie . . . mais apres ces trios jours-la et demi, 1’esprit de vie venant de Dieu entrera en eux, et ils se tiendront sur leurs pieds, et grande crainte saisira ceux qui les auront veus . . . Le second mal-heur est passe, et voici, le troisieme malheur viendra bientost. Le Septienne Ange done sonna de la trompette, et furent faites grandes voix au ciel, disans, Les royaumes du monde sent reduits a nostre Seigneur et a son Christ, et il regenera es siecles des siecles.”Did you behold from your heights of glory, O ye Huguenot sufferers, the inauguration of that great predicted event? Did you witness its awful commencement, you spirits of the just made perfect; you martyrs and confessors of that noble army of those who for the sake of Christ and the Gospel ” loved not their lives even unto death”? Did you behold the judgments of God poured forth on that Papal France which had been guilty of your blood? Ye knew her prisons well; did you rejoice to see that terrible Bastile overthrown, where stands today the lofty column with the golden Statue of Liberty shining on its summit? France would have none of you; she shed your blood in torrents; she forced you into exile; what thought ye of the tremendous overthrow of her monarchy and Church in the French Revolution? Were ye of those holy beings, those victors over “the beast, and his image, and his mark,”who stood on “a sea of glass mingled with fire”having “the harps of God,”and who when the golden girded angels were sent forth from the Temple of God’s glory and power, to pour out the vials of his wrath on the beast, and his worshippers, and on Babylon the great, drunken with the blood of saints, and martyrs, sang the triumphant song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty ; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints; who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name ? For Thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee, for Thy judg- ments are made manifest.”

Surely you were there in that shining host of victors, ye blessed, martyred witnesses of the Lamb.

With many deep emotions I handle the venerable and sacred volume which remains as a visible memento of your faith and sufferings. Turning to its last page, written on the inside of the iron- bound cover, I decipher the record of a baptism, containing the” names of the baptized,—the near relations, and the officiating” Minstre de 1’evangile,”with the touching words, “ fait aux desert,” celebrated in the wilderness—and the date 1745; the time of the Eglise du desert. Sweet and simple record of suffering experiences at the close of those days during which the Woman clothed with the sun, and crowned with stars, was hidden in the wilderness from her persecutors, fed there, like Elijah, by the Providence of God; and sustained by the words of the Book, its words of consolation and Eternal Life. One wonders what that woman shall be like, when she comes forth from the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her Beloved, arrayed in the pure linen of spotless righteousness, “having the glory of God “; with the Father’s name shining on her forehead, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband ? Shall she remember her past in that day of gladness, and bless “the hand that guided, and the heart that planned, when throned where glory dwelleth, in Im-manuel’s land”? Yes; nought shall be forgotten. Ye shall “remember all the way”by which God led you through the wilderness, to bring you to the better land. And all the bitter tears of your earthly sorrows shall be wiped away. O wondrous music of your gladness; me-thinks even now I can catch from afar some faint sounding of its thrilling strain.

“THE SEVENTH TRUMPET SOUNDED”

They had reached this glorious and dread event. Such was the conviction of the Apocalyptic interpreters at the time of the French Revolution. Its terrible thunders could be heard rolling in the dark firmament overhead. Surely this was the end of the great’ apostasy; the end of the gigantic fabric of antichnstian power now falling on every side, like the ruins of some vast structure held in the grasp of roaring and relentless flames.

What was to follow? Did the Apocalyptic interpreters, who witnessed these great and terrible events, expect the immediate advent of the Kingdom of God? They did not, for they knew that the destruction of the Apostate Papal Empire was to be accomplished, not by one single act, but by a series of judgments under the outpouring of the seven vials, contained in the seventh trumpet; vials which were the evolution of the “third,”and “last woe.”Bichino, for example, in his “Signs of the Times,”says as regards the contents of the seventh trumpet, “we are not to understand that on the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the kingdom of universal righteousness, peace and happiness is instantly to commence; but that that great scene now opens which is to prepare the way for it.”

An old copy of Galloway’s work on the Apocalypse lies before me. Its date is 1802. The author had witnessed the horrors of the French Revolution, and writes as profoundly affected by what he had seen. He recoils from it as from some hideous spectre. “This monster,”he says, speaking of the Jacobin Club, “directed all the operations and explosions of the revolution. It everywhere appointed the most active leaders, and as instruments employed the profligates of every country. Its power far surpassed that which has been attached to the Inquisition, and other fiery tribunals, by those who have spoken of them with the greatest exaggeration. Its centre was at Paris, whilst clubs in every town, in every little borough, overspread the surface of the whole kingdom. The constant correspondence kept up between these clubs, and that of the capital, was as secret and as speedy as that of freemasonry. In a word, the Jacobin Club had prevailed in causing themselves to be looked up to as the real national representative. Under that pretense they censured all the authorities in the most imperious manner. And whenever their denunciations, petitions, or addresses failed to produce immediate effect, they gained their point by insurrections, assassinations, and fire.”

At its nod a horde of banditti started up in the several provinces, plundering, prostrating and burning the castles and archives of the seignoral nobility, and the mansions of men of all ranks. At its nod the most bloody civil wars were kindled, in which no quarter was given on either side, whilst France became a field of blood—and was made “one great tomb.”Galloway sees in these judgments the outpouring of the earlier vials of the Apocalypse. An awful gloom overspreads his pages, only relieved by the hope that the year 1866 would witness the end of Papal power, the termination of its 1,260 years as reckoned from the decree of Phocas in A . D . 606 —7.; and the advent of a better order of things destined to usher in the Kingdom of God.

From Galloway’s work I turn to Faber’s “Dissertation on the Prophecies,”published in 1805. He too, writes as an eye-witness of the French Revolution. On the 12th of August, 1792, he tells us, the Jacobins, who counted 300,000 adepts, and were supported by 2,000,000 men scattered through France, armed with torches and pikes, and all the necessary implements of revolution,”overthrew the French monarchy, and inaugurated the reign of Terror. “On this memorable day,”he says, “I conceive the Third woe trumpet to have begun its tremendous blast.””As the first of these days witnessed the abolition of all the distinctions of civil society, so the second beheld the establishment of atheism by law. A decree was then passed ordering the clergy to leave the kingdom within a fortnight after its date, but instead of allowing them the time specified, even by their own decree, the Jacobin tyrants of France employed the whole of that period in seizing, imprisoning, and putting them to the most cruel deaths.”

The very treatment which Louis XIV had given to the ministers of the French Protestant Church in 1685, was now inflicted by the infidel Jacobins in 1792 on the priests of the French Roman Catholic Church:—they were ordered to leave the kingdom in a fortnight, and massacred by the way. We know not how many of the Huguenot pastors perished at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, hut we know that 24,000 priests were massacred in the French Revolution, and 2,000,000 persons murdered in France. Thus had the vengeance of God begun to “destroy them that destroy the earth,”to bring to an end, the tyrannical and persecuting rule of Rome. Faber’s book seems to vibrate with the earthquake shocks of the Revolution it describes. In reading it one seems to feel the throes of the awful convulsion of which the author had been the witness.

From Faber we turn to Cunninghame. The sounding of the seventh trumpet in the French Revolution is the principal theme of his remarkable work on the Apocalypse, written in 1812. “There have been,”says Cunninghame, “only three great Revolutions of the Roman Empire in the west, from the ascension of our Lord to the present period. The first was that in the age of Constantine, whereby the religion of the state was changed from Paganism to Christianity. The second was at the period of the Reformation, and it shook Europe to its foundations. The third is the Revolution which began in France in the year 1789, and having by its first vibration overthrown the monarchy of the Bourbons in the year 1792, has from that period to the present continued to agitate Europe.””The seventh trumpet sounded at the fall of the French monarchy in 1792.””This trumpet comprises within itself the whole of the seven vials of wrath, which are the constituent parts of the third woe.”

Cunninghame gives an extract from a letter which he had received from the celebrated Andrew Fuller, of Kettering, who says, ” I am fully persuaded that this is the period of the pouring out of the vials. The seventh trumpet seems to me to have sounded about the time of the French Revolution, and to wear a double aspect: 1st, of wrath towards Antichrist, I mean the grand Papal apostasy in all its branches ; 2d, of mercy towards the Church, and even the world, in- as much as it was the signal of “the kingdoms of this world becoming those of the Lord and His Christ.”Hence I conceive the period of the vials is also a period to be distinguished by the spread of the gospel, This view is more fully developed in Andrew Fuller’s posthumous work on the Apocalypse, published in 1815. In its preface he says, ” The manuscript has lain by me between four and five years, during which I have frequently examined its contents, and availed myself of any further light which by reading or reflection has appeared on the subject.”On page 192 he says, “If the sounding of the seventh angel form an era in the Christian Church, it requires that we pause, and pay particular attention to it. The contents of this trumpet are of deeper interest than any that have preceded it, both to the enemies of the Church, and to the Church itself. It wears a twofold aspect. Towards the enemies of the Church it is a woe-trumpet, and a signal of mighty vengeance: towards the Church itself it is a harbinger of joy, a kind of jubilee-trumpet, announcing the year of enlargement; for when the seventh angel sounded, there were great voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.”

Under the first of these aspects it includes the seven last plagues, which are but so many subdivisions of it under the last aspect it comprehends all the success of the gospel previous to and during the Millennium, with all the glorious results of it as described in the remainder of the prophecy. We are not to consider it, however, under either of these aspects as being more than a signal of things which are to follow. As the vengeance will not all be poured forth at once, so neither will the kingdoms of this world at once become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; but from the sounding of Ms trumpet both shall have a commencement^ and both be singularly progressive under it.”

Frere, a gifted contemporaneous writer, whose “Combined View”of the prophecies was published in 1815, states in its preface that he had “for about seventeen years been increasingly impressed with a sense of the, importance of the period of the world in which we live.”Though differing in some respects from the views of Faber and Cunninghame, he was at one with them in considering that the seventh trumpet had sounded in the French Revolution, that the seven vials were included under it, and that their outpouring was for the purpose of the destruction of the Roman Empire as a preparation for the advent of the Kingdom of Christ. This he shows in a historical and chronological diagram at the commencement of his work. He divides the history of the Roman Empire into three periods: “First, the period of its strength as a republic, and under its emperors. Secondly, the period of its weakness, when divided into ten kingdoms. Thirdly, the period of its destruction; “and considers tha ” the three successive periods in the history of the Church during the same space of time are those in which it is opposed by its three great enemies, the Pagan, Papal, and Infidel powers “; and that “the period of the destruction of the empire is the same as the period of Infidelity in the history of the Church.”Broad and comprehensive views these, and well deserving our consideration.

The celebrated preacher, Edward Irving, published in the year 1826 a work on “Babylon and Infidelity Fore-doomed of God,”which he dedicated to Frere. In the preface he acknowledges that it was through Frere’s teachings he was led to the view “that the Apocalypse is a narrative of events running on in regular historical order.”There is so much of humility, and such a tone of deep conviction in Irving’s words that we cannot refrain from quoting them.

“To my beloved friend and brother in Christ, Hatley Frere, Esq:

“When I first met you, worthy sir, in a company of friends, and, moved I know not by what, asked you to walk forth into the fields, that we might commune together, while the rest enjoyed their social converse, you seemed to me as one who dreamed, while you opened in my ear your views of the present times, as foretold in the book of Daniel and the Apocalypse. But being ashamed of my own ig-jporance, and having been blessed from my youth with the desire of instruction, I dared not to scoff at what I heard, but resolved to consider the matter. More than a year passed before it pleased Providence to bring us together again, at the house of the same dear friend and brother in the Lord, when you answered so sweetly and temperately the objections made to your views, that I was more and more struck with the outward tokens of a calm and sincere believer in truth. And I was again ashamed at my own ignorance, and again resolved to consider the matter. After which I had no rest in my spirit, until I waited upon you and offered myself as your pupil, to be instructed in prophecy according to your ideas thereof. And for the ready good-will with which you undertook, and the patience with which you performed this kind office, I am forever beholden to you, most kind and worthy friend.

“As becometh one that is ignorant towards his teacher, I received without cavilling, and endeavoured to comprehend the whole scheme and substance of your interpretation, both of Daniel and the Apocalypse; and then withdrew to consider and try the matter by the two great criterions,—the structure of the books themselves, and the correspondence with the events which had been fulfilled ; adding a careful consideration of the discursive prophecies also^ which cast many cross-lights upon the subject. Now I am not ashamed to confess, that, at first, my mind fell away from the system of interpretation, which, with Mede and Moore, and other exact interpreters, you have followed, and inclined to the simple idea, that the Apocalypse is a narrative of events running on in regular historical order, Nor was it till after your system of interpretation had de- composed itself in my mind, that it gradually recomposed itself, under a more patient and assiduous consideration of the subject. Which I mention, because I believe it to be the true way in which this or any other subject ought to be studied, and in which I wish this discourse to be read; with the humility of one who desireth to comprehend the whole matter, then to be weighed apart from the authority of a teacher, and the forms of his arguments, and so expect the approval or disapproval of the conscience expected and waited for. I mention it, moreover, in order publicly to declare my acknowledgments to you, most kind and generous friend. For I am not willing that any one should account of me, as if I were worthy to have had revealed to me the important truths contained in this discourse, which may all be found written in your treatise on the prophecies of Daniel: only the Lord accounted me worthy to receive the faith of those things, which He had first made known to you, his more worthy servant. And if He make me the instrument of conveying that faith to any of His Church, that they may make themselves ready for His coming, or to any of the world, that they may take refuge in the ark of His salvation from the deluge of wrath which abideth the impenitent, to His name shall all the praise and glory be ascribed by me, His unworthy servant, who, through mercy, dareth to subscribe himself,

“Your brother in the bond of the Spirit, and the desire of the Lord’s coming.

“EDWARD IRVING .”

To Irving the conviction that, to use his own words, “the ending of the 1,260 years was in the year 1792, the year of the French Revolution,”and that at that date the seventh trumpet had sounded, was one which profoundly affected him, and one which he embodied in eloquent and moving sermons on the prophecies which sometimes lasted as much as two and a half hours. All London flocked to listen to his orations, and an interest was awakened in prophetic studies whose effects have never ceased. There was a want of balance in his temperament, and “a prodigious want of tact “in his lengthy prayers and sermons, but the strength of his convictions, and his singular eloquence, were unquestionable. “Irving,”says Chalmers, “is very impressive, and I do like the force and richness of his conversation.”There can be no doubt that he was a witness of important truths to his day and generation; but a warning, too, of the dangers attending speculation on coming events, and reliance on interior impressions as a source of divine revelation. The rock on which he struck is indicated by the wreck that remains of his work and influence, but his life was given to the service of Christ, and his death was hallowed by a sacred sense of his Master’s presence. The last utterance which fell from his lips was a quotation of the words of the great apostle of the Gentiles, “Whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the Lord.”Faintly came the parting sentence, “If I die, I die unto the Lord. Amen.”

Irving died in December, 1834. In the same year Habershon published his “Dissertation on the prophetic Scriptures, chiefly those of a chronological character, showing their aspect on the present times, and on the destinies of the Jewish nation.”

His sober mind sought to build on the terra firma of historical and chronological facts, and his chart of scripture history and prophecy is in advance of any that had previously appeared. In his view the sounding of the seventh trumpet indicates “the fall of’ Mohammedanism and Popery.”The terminal period of the prophetic times was in his judgment the interval extending from the French Revolution in 1793 to the yet future year 1918—9.

The excellent Edward Bickersteth, who published the first edition of his valuable and often reprinted “Guide to the Prophecies,” as early as 1823, held like Habershon “that the first great blow to Popery was in 1793, the French Revolution, and the date of the first close of the 1,260 days.””Daniel gives us,”he says, “two further periods of thirty and forty-five years longer. At the close of the thirty years, 1822-3, the first French Revolution having ended, the sixth vial began in the independence of Greece, and the wasting of the Turkish Empire. At the close of the seventy-five years we reach 1868.”The year thus indicated proved to be that of the summoning of the Eccumenical Council, which met in December, 1869, and affirmed the Infallibility of the Pope on the 18th of July, 1870. The Franco- Prussian war, and the fall of the Papal Temporal Sovereignty followed that event with startling suddenness. It was the long- predicted end of the Papal Temporal power.

The prophetical works of Cunninghame and Bickersteth had a marked effect on the mind of that great and good man, Dr. Chalmers. The following letter from him to Edward Bickersteth written on February 17, 1836, “is interesting in itself, and still more for the sympathy it discovers between two men so variously gifted, and honoured above most in their own day, in the diffusion of Divine truth.”

“February 17th, 1836. “MY DEAR SIR,

“I should have acknowledged much sooner the receipt of your kind note, and of the precious volume which accompanied it. I am now reading it with great interest, and think I shall accord more fully with its views than with those of any author I have yet read, who has ventured on the field of unfulfilled prophecy. I lately finished the perusal of all Mede” s, and of all Cunninghame’s prophetical works, and certainly have been much impressed by them. I sympathize, however, far more with your doubts, than I do with his decision, on the subject of a personal reign. But of this, on the general, I am well satisfied, that the next coming (whether in person or not, I forbear to say) will be a coming, not to the final judgment, but to precede and usher in the millennium. I utterly despair of the universal prevalence of Christianity, as the result of a pacific missionary process, under the guidance of human wisdom and principle. But without slackening in the least our obligation to help forward this great cause, I look for the conclusive establishment through a widening passage of desolating judg- ments, with the utter demolition of our present civil and ecclesiastical structures.

“Let me advert to the practical character and unction of your work, as stamping an additional virtue upon it; being throughout a powerful address to the conscience, instead of a mere entertainment, which too many of our works of prophecy are, to the curiosity of men.

“I am, my dear sir,
“Yours most gratefully and respectfully, “THOMAS CHALMERS .”

The Rev. S. W. Brooks, the author of “Abdiel’s Essays on the Advent and Kingdom of Christ,”wrote, at Bicker-steth’s suggestion, a work on the “Elements of Prophetical Interpretation,”in which he advocates with great force the view that the French Revolution inaugurated the period of the outpouring of the seven vials destined to destroy the. Apocalyptic beast, and Babylon the great. He also edited in the years 1831-6 a valuable prophetic journal entitled the Investigator and Expositor of Prophecy containing important articles by Cunninghame and Birks on the prophetic times, and reviews of works on prophecy, etc. Appended to the fifth volume is a most comprehensive “dictionary of writers on the prophecies,”occupying more than too pages.

In 1843, the Rev. T.R.Birks, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, published his “First Elements of Sacred Prophecy” followed by many other valuable works on prophetic subjects. For clearness of statement and cogency of argument, I know of no writings in the whole range of prophetic literature to be compared with those of Mr. Birks. In his later years he occupied the position of Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge.

Like Bickersteth, whose eldest daughter he married, and whose memoir he wrote, he held that the outpouring of the seven vials had commenced with the French Revolution, and that we have reached the era of the destruction of the fourth and last Gentile Empire, and are rapidly approaching the period of the Lord’s Second Advent.

In 1844 the Rev. E. B. Elliott of Brighton, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, published the first edition of his “Horae Apocalypticae,”a learned and laborious commentary on the book of Revelations in four volumes, dedicated to the Earl of Shaftesbury. For twenty years Mr. Elliott had studied the subject, and he produced a work of standard value, which for more than half a century has re- mained without a rival in its own peculiar field.

The late Dr. Candlish, of Edinburgh, who had a wide acquaintance with theological literature, and was no mean judge of such matters, in a lecture on “The Pope the Antichrist of Scripture,” named in “a host of modern authorities “”as among the most learned, profound and able expositors any of the body of Scripture have ever had,—Elliott in England, and Gaussen in Geneva.”Dn Gumming, of London, whose numerous works on prophecy are widely known, stated it as his view that Elliott’s “Horse “occupied a place in reference to prophetic exposition parallel with u that which Newton’s ‘Principia’ has occupied in reference to science.”Albert Barnes, of America, in his valuable commentary on the Apocalypse, has reproduced the views of Elliott, with illustrations drawn from the writings of the historians, Gibbon and Alison. While differing from Cun-ninghame, Faber, Frere, and Birks, on certain secondary details, Elliott is at one with them in considering that the French Revolution is the opening of the seventh trumpet era of the Apocalypse, and that we are living now in the period of the outpouring of the -seven vials destined to destroy the Papal and Mohammedan powers.

III. Interpretation of the Seven Vials.

The Apocalyptic vision which introduces the outpouring of the seven vials is full of glory and sublimity. A sea of glass mingled with fire is beheld, and standing upon it those who have “gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name,””having the harps of God,”singing ” the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints; who shall not fear Thee O Lord, and glorify Thy name, for Thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship, before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest.”Seven angels then issue from the temple “having the seven last plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles; and one of the four living creatures gives to the seven angels seven golden vials, full of the wrath of God, who liveth forever and ever.”And the temple is filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from His power; and no man is “able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels”are “fulfilled.”‘

The outpouring of the seven vials, on Babylon and the beast, brings about the climax of the Apocalyptic Drama.

Their imagery is drawn from the plagues inflicted upon Egypt and the judgments poured forth on Babylon by the Euphrates. The sevenfold order of the vials as falling under the seventh trumpet is typified by the events at the fall of Jericho, when during seven successive days the city was compassed about by the warriors of Israel, led in their march around the city by seven priests blowing ” seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord,””and on the seventh day compassing the city after the same manner seven times.”At the seventh time Joshua directed the people to shout,—” shout for the Lord hath given you the city “; on the rising of which great shout the wall of Jericho “fell down flat,”and Israel entering in ” utterly destroyed all that was in the city,”and “burnt the city with fire.”And with this fall of Jericho which introduced and in principle comprehended the victories of Joshua over the Canaanites, did Israel enter into their Canaan inheritance and rest.

And now we hear “a great Voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.”

Then in succession on the earth, on the sea, on the rivers, and on the sun, the vial judgments are poured forth; and thus on the totality or entire realm of the antichristian world power.

The earth is smitten with a plague falling on the worshippers of “the beast”; the sea and the rivers become blood; the sun scorches with destructive fire.

Thus did the four first trumpet judgments fall on the earth, the sea, the rivers, and the celestial luminaries. But mark the difference. For whereas the judgment of the first trumpet was that of a storm of hail and fire, that of the first vial was a grievous sore, like the sixth plague of Egypt, “the boil breaking forth with blains upon man and beast”(Ex. 9: 10), and that, too, inflicted by “ashes of the furnace,”” sprinkled up towards heaven.”So were ashes of the “smoking furnace “seen by Abraham in his dread vision of the Egyptian bondage of his seed. “Sprinkled up towards heaven! “Like the cry of Abel’s blood rising, to the skies.

And then, whereas at the sounding of the second trumpet a mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea, at the pouring out of the second vial the sea itself became a sea of blood.

And whereas, at the sounding of the third trumpet, the waters of the rivers were embittered,, and became like wormwood, at the pouring out of the third vial, the streams and fountains of water were, as of old in Egypt, changed to blood. The worshippers of the beast and persecutors of the saints and martyrs are given blood to drink, ” for they are worthy “(Rev. 16 : 6).

And whereas at the sounding of the fourth trumpet, the third part of the luminaries of heaven were darkened as by a dread eclipse, at the pouring out of the fourth vial, the sun blazes with scorching heat upon the inhabitants of the earth, so that men ” scorched with great heat blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues,”and “repent not to give Him glory.”

The fifth, sixth, and seventh vials are poured forth on the throne of the beast, on the River Euphrates, and into the air. Under the fifth vial the kingdom of the beast is filled with darkness, as in the ninth plague of Egypt. Under the sixth vial the waters of the Euphrates are dried up, as at the taking of ancient Babylon. Under the seventh vial great Babylon is destroyed, while the solemn final sentence sounds from heaven, “It is done.”

It should further be observed that while under the sixth trumpet the destroying army of Euphratean horsemen were loosed for their career of destruction, as a judgment on idolaters worshipping the work of their hands, “idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk; who under the dreadful infliction repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornications, nor of their thefts ; “that under the pouring out of the sixth vial the waters of the Euphrates are dried up “that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.”

The seventh trumpet, like the seventh vial is final. As the third and last of three woe trumpets it contains the “seven last plagues”of the vials. Such are the resemblances, and such the differences, of the trumpets and vials.

INTERPRETATION OF THE SEVEN VIALS

And now, behold, the growth of light and understanding as to the meaning of these last judgments of the Apocalypse.

For as the light of approaching morn is first dim and faint, then waxes stronger, and becomes more evident, and then gaining intensity gilds the eastern clouds with touches of brightness, and sends up rays to the zenith, to herald the rising of the star of day, so has it been with the growth of light and understanding in relation to these sacred prophecies. Far back in past ages they shed a dim light upon the minds of men, who scarce comprehended more than the existence of some mysterious woes in reserve for the closing days of the Christian dispensation; but as the centuries rolled on the meaning of the strange predictions became localized in place and time; erroneous conceptions one after another were cast off, and at length a full persuasion of the character and sphere of these final judgments took possession of the minds of those who pondered the meaning of the oracles of God, and a solemn hush of expectation fell upon their spirits as they awaited the fulfilment of the things foretold. At last the hour arrived; the dreaded tempest broke; and as the vials of wrath were poured forth upon apostate Christendom, the saintly watchers, trembling at the things they beheld, recognized the fulfilment of the predicted woes, and were awakened to expect that great event to which these judgments are but the introduction, the return in glory and majesty of the King of Righteousness, and Prince of Peace, of whose kingdom there shall be no end.

EARLIER INTERPRETATIONS OF THE VIALS

For first, in the centuries preceding the Constantine Revolution the seven vials were thought to be plagues inflicted on some short- lived infidel antichrist who should rise up at the end of the world, as a Satanic apparition, and blazing for a few brief years, like a disastrous comet, should plunge again into darkness, and disappear from the astonished scene. Then in Mediaeval times some thought as did Joachim Abbas, that the seven vials were judgments which ran parallel with the seven seals, and seven trumpets, thus extending the period “of the vials to the entire interval between Christ’s departure and His return. When, later on, the Papal head was recognized as the predicted Man of Sin, and Papal Rome as the foretold Babylon, students of prophecy began to apply the vials to the long series of woes inflicted on the Papacy and Church of Rome, from those of the great schism towards the close of the middle ages, to those of the wars attending the Reformation, and the Puritan Revolution, in which the supremacy of Rome was over a large extent of Europe overthrown. But when the eighteenth century began it was seen by the most intelligent students of prophecy that the period of the seven vials was still future; and some were able to fix the very time of their fulfilment with correctness; while others anticipated with wonderful insight the nature of the judgments the vials were destined to bring. At length the fulfilment came, and came at the hour which had been indicated in the prophetic times. Then, one after another, as the vials of wrath were poured forth, they were seen to accomplish the prophecies of God’s Holy Word; and men bowed their heads, and worshipped Him who liveth forever and ever, whose word is true from the beginning, and standeth fast for evermore. The fabric of heaven and earth may be dissolved, and pass away like the vision of a night, but His word shall not pass away, but be fulfilled in its season ; not one thing failing of all that had been foretold.

For in the first place it was recognized from the beginning that the Babylon of chapters 17 and 18, is none other than Rome; and thus the sphere of the vials was localized. Victorinus in the third century, says of Rev. 17:9, “The seven heads are the seven hills on which the woman sitteth, that is, the city of Rome.”

So Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine, and all the early fathers. The vision in the nineteenth chapter which closes the vial series Victorinus says represents “our Lord coming to His kingdom with the heavenly army.”The contemporaneous judgment of the winepress he says represents “the nations that should perish on the advent of the Lord.”But further light on the symbolism of the seven vials he lacks. Prlmasius, Bishop of the Carthaginian province in 553, says that the fall of Babylon under the vials is that of Rome. Bede, in the seventh century, recalls the fact that God declares repeatedly in Leviticus “and I will smite you with seven plagues.””And these,”he adds, “are to be the last when the Church shall have come forth from the midst of it”thus connecting the outpouring of the vials with a previous exodus of the Church from the scene of judgment, according to the words, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her plagues.”Such an exodus was the Reformation of the sixteenth cen- tury, and such in a different way was the exodus forced on the Huguenots of France before the fall of those woes which covered the country which banished them with bloodshed.

Ansbert in 770 interprets the first vial as symbolizing the plague of infidelity; a remarkable anticipation of the truth.

The Albigenses and Waldenses, the Wycliffites and Hussites all applied the judgments on Babylon under the vials to Papal Rome. The Reformers did the same, and interpreted the seven vials of a series of judgments inflicted chiefly on Rome. Thus Bullinger in 1573 applies the third vial to Popes and Papal princes, “stirring up bloody wars in which themselves were slain.”Foxe in 1587 thought the first five vials were poured on ancient Rome, and the sixth and seventh on Papal Rome.

Brightman in 1615 considered that the vials had been poured out, the first in the later Reformation days, in the time of Queen Elizabeth; the second in the time of the Council of Trent; the third he connected with the Jesuits; the fourth with the contentions arising from the light shinning from the newly opened scriptures ; the fifth on Rome, the throne of the beast; the sixth had past reference to the Turks from the Euphrates; the seventh completed the overthrow of Papal and Mohammedan power.

Pareus in 1615 thought the first vial represented “the ulcerous sores which fell on the Papists from Luther’s Reformation; the second and third deadly decrees of the Council of Trent; and judgments on Papal bishops and doctors for shedding saints’ blood; the fourth, fresh heat and light from the Scriptures enraging the Papists; the fifth, the darkening of Rome; the sixth, the drying up the resources of the anti-typical Babylon; the seventh, atmospheric pestilence, followed by universal destruction.

Mede in 1643 held that the vials related to the destruction of Antichrist; the first at the time of the secession of the Waldenses, Wycliffites, and Hussites; the second at Luther’s secession; the third at the secession and protest in the time of Elizabeth; the rest of the vials he thought future; of these the fourth might fall on “the German emperor as the chief luminary of the Papal system,”the fifth on Rome; the sixth on the Turkish Empire; the seventh on Satan’s kingdom as the prince of the power of the air. Here we recognize an advance in interpretation. Jurieau in 1685 maintained that the vials were the “steps by which the Babylonian or Papal Empire comes to its ruin.”The first vial he thought was poured out in the tenth century; the second and third in the earlier and later crusades; the fourth Papal despotism in the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries; the fifth the woes on the Papacy leading to the transference of the Papal seat from Rome to Avignon; the sixth the overthrow of Constantinople by the Turks; and the seventh the earthquake of the Reformation; so blind was this great man to the judgments which were yet to fall on the Papal and Mohammedan powers. But now came a notable advance in the interpretation; Launeus, living at the same time with Jurieu noted the fact his predecessors had overlooked, that the seven vials were the “seven last plagues,”and that the seventh, trumpet was the last, or finishing woe. The vials, therefore, belonged to a future period. The banished Huguenot minister to whom we have referred who wrote a book entitled “A New System of the Apocalypse,””finished but two days before the dragoons plundered him of all except this treatise,”followed Launeus in his interpretation, and opposed the views of Jurieu as to the past fulfilment of the vials.

“Seeling,”he says, “the vials contain judgments yet to come, I design not to speak otherwise of them than by way of conjecture.” The first vial may then represent the rage and miseries of prelates and priests at the diminution of their revenues, their blind zeal and superstition. The sea of the second vial is “the Papal kingdom.” Under the third vial the members of the Church of Rome who had shed the blood of Protestants shall turn their arms against themselves “and tear one another. And by that means like shall be returned unto them for like.”The fourth vial will probably be poured on the Ottoman Emperor, as the sun of the Eastern Empire. The fifth on the city of Rome; the sixth on the Turkish Empire preparing the way for the conversion of the Jews; the seventh a final and universal judgment on antichristian power. How truly remarkable are some of these anticipations. Sir Isaac Newton, living at the same time, laid stress in his work on the Apocalypse on the predicted sealing up of the meaning of these prophecies, till the time of the end. This period he thought that of the seventh trumpet, at whose sounding “the mystery of God should be finished.”That “main revolution”when all would be explained was “near at hand.”

Whiston as we have seen tells us it was Newton’s persuasion ” that the antichristian, or persecuting power of the Popedom which had so long corrupted Christianity would be put a stop to and broken to pieces by the prevalence of infidelity for some time before primitive Christianity could be restored.”Whiston in 1706 strongly advocated the view that the seven vials were contained in the seventh trumpet, and were all future. Vitringa, whose learned work on the Apocalypse belongs to the same period, acknowledged the plausibility of the opinion of Launeus that the vials were the development of the seventh trumpet, but puts forth the view that the earlier vials were already fulfilled in Papal history. Fleming, whose book on the rise and fall of the Papacy was published in 1701 deeply studied the question of the vials, and thought the fourth vial was poured on the sun of the Papal kingdom, the “houses of Austria and Bourbon.”He regarded it as partly fulfilled, and to be more so afterwards. As France was made use of to vex and scorch the Austrian family “so might it be hereafter.”The present French king takes the sun for his emblem, and this for his motto, Nee pluribus impar (not equalled by many). As to the expiration of this vial, / do fear it will not be until the year 1794.. The reason of which conjecture is this, that I find the Pope got a new foundation of exaltation when Justinian upon his conquest of Italy, left it, in a great measure, to the Pope’s management, being willing to eclipse his own authority to advance that of this haughty prelate.”Reckoning the 1,260 years from Justinian, Fleming reaches 1794. He adds the notable conclusion that as the Pope received the title of Supreme Bishop in A . D. 606, 1,260 years from that date in prophetic or calendar measure (1,242 solar years) would expire in 1848, at which date the vial judgment of 1794 he thought would reach its terminus. A wonderful anticipation of the truth! “But yet we are not to imagine”he adds, “that this vial will totally destroy the Papacy (though it will exceedingly weaken if) for we find this still in being and alive when the next vial is poured out.”Whiston, in a later edition of his “Commentary on the Apocalypse,”published in 1744, expressed the view that the infidelity which was destined to overthrow the Papal Babylon had begun to reveal its presence. In this he was indisputably correct.

Bishop Newton in 1754 declared that the symbolism of the fourth vial might represent “a most tyrannical and exorbitant exercise of arbitrary power by those who may be called the sun in the firmament of the beast, pope, or emperor,”adding, “time must discover.”

Dr. Gill in 1776 said in regard to the question whether the vials had been poured out, “I am ready to think they are not, because they seem to me to refer to the seventh trumpet”He thought the first vial would be probably not physical, but moral in character. Under the second vial he anticipated a judgment on the maritime powers of Spain and Portugal; under the third woes on the Papal lands of Italy and Savoy; the fourth might be poured on the ruling house of Austria, or the Pope; the fifth would fall on Rome, the sixth on the Turkish power, the seventh would bring to an end the kingdom of Satan.

Two years before Gill’s Commentary was published, Louis XVI came to the throne of France, the monarch who lost his life in the French Revolution. How near was the interpreter to the events of which he wrote, while all unconscious of their close proximity.

Reckoning from the decree of Phocas, Gill considered that the Papal power would fall in 1866. In 1866-70 came the crisis of its termination as a Temporal Government; but what great events had to precede that momentous close of an apostate dominion which had lasted for more than a thousand years.

Thirteen years later than the publication of Gill’s Commentary, on the I4th of July, 1789, began the French Revolution with the destruction of the Bastille, and four years later, in 1793, came the Reign of Terror. In August, 1792,40,000 priests were exiled. In September took place the massacre in Paris. On the aoth of January, 1793, Louis XVI was condemned to death, on the 21st he was executed. In March followed the war in La Vendee; on the 23d of June the proscription of the Girondists. On the i6th of October the execution of Queen Marie Antoinette. On the loth of November the worship of the goddess of Reason in Notre Dame; on the 24th the adoption of the New Republican Calendar. In 1794 Robespierre was president. On the 28th of July he and seventy-one others were guillotined. Bonaparte’s campaign followed; then his dictatorship as first consul; and then his coronation as emperor. In the twenty years of his wars most of the kingdoms of Europe were overthrown ; mil- lions perished by the sword; the Papacy was stripped of its revenues and temporal dominion, and the Pope carried into captivity. In the brief space of a quarter of a century the whole face of Europe was changed by a Revolution, which for crime, bloodshed, and world-wide effects, was without a parallel in human history.

To the students of prophecy it was now no longer a question what the vials signified. They beheld them poured forth. And with what terrific rapidity and dire effects!

In the infidelity and corruption in France which preceded and led to the Revolution they beheld the first vial fulfilled; in the unexampled bloodshed of the Revolution they saw accomplished the second and third vials; in the dreadful wars of Napoleon the fourth vial; in the deposition and captivity of the Pope, and spoliation of Rome, the fifth vial; in the decline and wasting away of Turkish power the sixth vial; and in the consummation of Babylon’s destruction which they still await, the seventh and concluding vial.

THE FIRST VIAL

It had long been acknowledged that the grievous sore of the first vial must represent either a physical or a moral plague, and the probability admitted that it represented the latter; especially as considered in the light of that passage in Isaiah i, in which the hateful moral condition of apostate Israel is described under the same figure, —”from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores.”And what for a century had been the moral state of France but this? A plague rendered more acute and deadly by the venom of infidelity which had taken possession of the entire nation, loosening every moral tie, and preparing the totally apostate people to dethrone God Himself, if it had been possible, substituting the worship of a licentious harlot, as the goddess of Reason, for the worship of the living and true God.

The thing foretold had come to pass. The moral monstrosity was an accomplished fact. On the worshippers of the Papal Power were plainly seen the hateful plague blotches. They were marked men, like the plague-smitten Egyptians in the days of old; men to be shunned with aversion and horror.

Writing in 1813 Cunninghame says that atheism and anarchy were chief blotches in the dreadful plague. “On the Continent these dreadful principles have had their full sway, and in the devoted country of France and its immediate dependencies they have at length produced a degree of moral turpitude, perhaps unequalled hitherto in the history of our species.”

Faber saw in the delusive spirit of atheism which had sway in the Revolution the darkest form of Antichristian apostasy; that of the open and blasphemous denial of the Father, and of the Son,

Elliott, taking a more comprehensive view of the actual facts sees the fulfilment of the Apocalyptic symbol in “that tremendous outbreak of social and moral evil, of democratic fury, atheism, and vice, which characterized the French Revolution; that of which the ultimate source was in the long and deep-seated corruption and irreligion of the nation; its outward vent, expression and organ in the Jacobin Clubs, and their seditious and atheistic publications; • its result, the dissolution of all society, all morals and all religion, with acts of atrocity and horror accompanying scarce paralleled in the history of man; and suffering and i anguish of correspondent intensity throbbing throughout the whole social mass, and corroding it:—that which from France, as a centre, spread like a plague, through its affiliated societies, to the other countries of Papal Christendom, and proved, wherever its poison was imbibed, to be as much the punishment as the symptom of the corruption within.”

The commencement of this moral plague in France was certainly earlier than 1792, the date at which Bichino, Faber, Cunninghame and Frere had thought the seventh trumpet sounded, and the vial judgments began.

Faber points out that on the 26th of August, 1792, the denial of God in France “was for the first time formally established by law.”Let it be granted that this was a crisis in the plague, but let it be also admitted that the plague in question was raging in 1755 when Rousseau published his “Discours sur 1’origine et les Fondements de PInegalite parmi les hommes,”and Diderot and D’Alem-bert were issuing their infidel “Encyclopaedie.”

Of Voltaire Vinet says “a partir de 1’an A . D ., 1750, il fut encore le plus populaire et le plus puissant des ecrivains 1’an 1750, ou plutot 1746, marque le point essentiel dans la carriere et dans la direction du siecle.””De 1’an 1750 a 1’an 1780, epoque ou la publication complete de 1’ouvrage de Raynal, est comme le dernier eclat d’une incendie, a qui rien ne reste a devorer.”

Ascending still earlier in the century we recall the facts that in 1727 the Church of the United Brethren was established by Count Zinzendorf at Herrnhut; that in 1731 – Whitfield and Wesley commenced their evangelistic labours so marvellously blessed on both sides of the Atlantic: and that in 1740-44, the Glorious Revival took place at Northampton in New England, in connection with the labours of Jonathan Edwards, who thought the work of God which he witnessed, and has so fully described, was the dawn of the Millennial Day. May we not hear in the voices which sounded forth in this great and remarkable awakening, alike in Germany, in England, and in America, the seventh trumpet of the Kingdom of Christ, already commencing to peal forth its glad note of jubilee?

For surely that trumpet is primarily the trumpet of the kingdom and only in a secondary sense the trumpet of woes and judgments sent to prepare the way for the establishment of the Kingdom. Viewed in this light, may not the going forth of the angel of the everlasting gospel just before the fall of Babylon (Rev. 14 : 6, 8), coincide with the sounding of the seventh trumpet of Jubilee?

Sir Isaac Newton said most correctly, “An angel must fly through the midst of heaven with the everlasting gospel to preach to all nations before Babylon falls, and the Son of Man reaps His harvest.”

Did not this flight of the angel of the Everlasting Gospel begin in the Great Revival in the time of Zinzendorf, Wesley, Whitfield, and Jonathan Edwards? Are not modern missions in all their world-wide range the evolution of the Revival which then began?

If this be so, how cheering the view presented of the mode in which the seventh trumpet era was inaugurated. It broke upon the world, not as the mere messenger of woes and judgments, but as the herald of mercies prepared for all mankind. Its trumpet note was primarily one of triumphant joy; its thrilling proclamation liberty for the captives, and salvation for the lost.

THE SECOND VIAL

And now returning to the vials we recall the fact that ihe first vial has been poured out on Papal France, where (Itr worshippers of the beast are covered with its predicted “noisome and grievous sores”; and that the plague has been recognized by the interpreters of the prophetic word.

They note the universal massacres and dreadful wars which followed. “France,”says Cunninghame, “became drenched in its own blood, and the whole territory converted into a vast slaughter- house. It has been computed that two millions of men perished in that devoted country within three years after it became a Republic.

“Long after the Revolutionary massacres had ceased, French blood still continued to flow in torrents, and from the accession of Napoleon to the Consular and Imperial powers, till his overthrow by the combined forces of Europe, it successively fertilized the soil of every country from the banks of the Tagus to the deserts of Poland and European Russia in the series of dreadful wars carried on to glut the ambition of a ferocious usurper. In particular during the late awful campaigns in Russia, Germany and France, this and the following vial have received a fearful accomplishment in a destruction of the human race without example in the annals of modern times.”

The “sea “on which the second vial is poured out turning it to blood, is understood by Cunninghame to represent primarily the French nation. Elliott and other interpreters consider that the sphere of this judgment was in a special sense a maritime one ; that its effects fell on “the maritime power, and commerce, and colonies of Papal Christendom.”

The democratic revolutionary spirit of France and the naval force of England contributed to effect the purpose of Divine Providence. First, the Isle of Hayti or St. Domingo, the most flourishing of the French colonies, being infected by the like infidel principles, was lost after a servile war of twelve years, in which 60,000 blacks were slaughtered.

Then, for twenty years, the fleet of England (preserved and directed by the same good providence of God) wasted in all directions the ships, commerce, and maritime colonies of France, and of her allies, Holland and Spain. Their Beet was destroyed in 1793, at Toulon, by Lord Hood; by whom also Corsica, and nearly all the Spanish and West Indian Islands were taken in 1794. In 1795 followed the naval victory of L’Orient, and the capture of the Cape of Good Hope.

The victory in 1797 off Cape St. Vincent was quickly succeeded by that of Camperdown over the Dutch fleet.

Then followed Lord Nelson’s three mighty victories of the Nile in 1798, of Copenhagen in 1801, and in 1805 of Trafalgar.

Viewing the losses suffered by France from 1793 to the end of 1815, we find that nearly 600 vessels of war, besides numerous ships of commerce, were destroyed, together with a large proportion of their officers and men.

The world’s history does not furnish such a period of naval war and bloodshed. “The sea became as the blood of a dead man.” Finally, when the maritime power of the papal nations had been swept away by English victories, the Spanish colonies of South America threw off their allegiance, after another scene of carnage, only paralleled by those before described; the Brazils also were separated from Portugal, and so the prediction was complete : as regarded the papal European colonies, they became “dead.”

Doubtless the judgments on many of these colonies might be considered as being retributive for the cruelties practiced in their exercise of the slave trade.

THE THIRD VIAL

Slaughters in papal lands watered by the Alpine fountains and streams, and by the boundary rivers, the Rhine and Upper Danube, followed. It seems natural to apply the third vial to this dreadful retributive judgment.

Albert Barnes notices that four points as to this vial are clear: (1) “That it would succeed the first mentioned, and apparently, at a period not remote. (2) That it would occur in a region where there had been persecution. (3) It would be in a country of streams, and rivers, and fountains. (4) It would be a just retribution for the bloody persecutions which had occurred there.”

In this interpretation of it he follows Elliott, who says, “During the year 1792 war was declared by France against Germany, and the next year against Sardinia; consequently all those towns watered by the Rhine and Alpine streams became scenes of carnage. Metz, Worms, Spires; the towns formerly desolated by Attila, suffered. Another French army entered upon the countries situated on the Meuse, a branch of the Rhine; a third advanced into Piedmont, the Alpine frontier. In 1793 and 1794 war still raged in the same quarters. The French advanced to Holland. In many places the success fluctuated, but in most instances they were victorious. At last Charles of Austria drove their generals, Moreau and Jourdan, and theif armies back to the Rhine.

In A. D. 1797 Bonaparte attacked the Sardinians and Aus-trians. The course he tracked was from the Alpine rivers through Northern Italy, till he reached Venice. Every river was a scene of carnage, and he crossed seven in succession. The Alpine rivers were turned to ” blood.”

It was in 1797 that Bonaparte uttered the remarkable threat, “I will prove an Attila to Venice.”

Before peace could be restored Austria was forced to submit; and the treaty of Campio Formio stipulated that the valley of the Rhine, one part of the prophetic scene, together with the Austrian Netherlands and Palatinate on one side of the Rhine, and Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Baden and Westphalia on the other, should all be made over to France.

Again in 1799 the “fountains of waters”were dyed with blood, the French having suffered reverse and been driven out of all the places they occupied in North Italy ‘ with much bloodshed.

The war soon recommenced. In 1800 that terrible and decisive battle of Marengo was fought, and the Danube became the scene of judgment. One victory after another succeeded, till the memorable battle of Austerlitz completed the overthrow of the Austrian power.

The reason ( given by the angel for the judgment is remarkable —”They are worthy, for they have shed the blood’ of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink.”

Was it not so that the cruelties—of the French and Piedmontese, and the rulers of Savoy, against the Waldenses and Albigenses, the Huguenots and Calvinists, from the end of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, and of Austria against the Hussites, the Waldenses and Lutherans in Lombardy, Moravia, and the Netherlands already related -did call out for retributive justice? “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth.”

THE FOURTH VIAL

“In regard to the application of this vial,”Barnes the Commentator, who follows Elliott, says, “the following things may be remarked: (a) That the calamity here referred to was one of the series of events which would precede the overthrow of the ‘beast,’ and contribute to that—for to this all these judgments tend. (b) In the order in which it stands, it is to follow, and apparently to follow soon, the third judgment—the pouring of the vial upon the fountains and streams, (c) It would be a calamity such as if the sun, the source of light and comfort to mankind, were smitten, and became a source of torment. (d) This would be attended by a great destruction of men, and we should naturally look in such an application for calamities in which multitudes of men would be, as it were, consumed, (e) This would not be followed, as it might be hoped it would, by repentance, but would be attended with reproaches of God, with profaneness, with a great increase of wickedness.

Now, on the supposition that the explanation of the previous passages is correct, there can be no great difficulty in supposing that this refers to the wars of Europe following the French Revolution; the wars that preceded the direct attack on the papacy, and the overthrow of the papal government. For these events had all the characteristics here referred to. (a) They were one of a series in weakening the papal power in Europe—heavy blows that will yet be seen to have been among the means preliminary to its final overthrow. (b) They followed in their order the invasion of Northern Italy—for one of the purposes in that invasion was to attack the Austrian power there, and ultimately through the Tyrol to attack Austria itself. Napoleon, after his victories in Northern Italy, above referred to, (comp. chapter xx of Alison’s ‘History of Europe’), thus writes to the French Directory: ‘Coni, Ceva’, and Alexandria are in the hands of our army; if you do not ratify the convention, I will keep their fortresses and march upon Turin. Meanwhile, I shall march to- morrow against Beaulieu, and drive him across the Po; I shall follow close at his heels, overawe Lombardy, and in a month be in the Tyrol, join the army of the Rhine and carry our united forces into Bavaria. The design is worthy of you, of the army, and of the destinies of France. 1 (c) The campaign in Germany in 1796 followed immediately this campaign in Italy. Thus, in chapter XX of Alison’s History, we have an account of the campaign in Italy; in chapter xxi we have the account of the campaign in Germany; and the other wars in Europe that continued so long, and that were so fierce and bloody, followed in quick succession—all tending, in their ultimate results, to weaken the papal power, and to secure its final overthrow, (d) It is hardly necessary to say here that these wars had all the characteristics here supposed. It was as if the sun were smitten in the heavens, and power were given to scorch men with fire. Europe seemed to be on fire with musketry and artillery, and presented almost the appearance of the broad blaze of a battlefield. The number that perished was immense. These wars were attended with the usual consequences—blasphemy, profaneness, and reproaches of God in every form. And yet there was another effect wholly in accordance with the statement here, that none of these judgments brought men to ‘ repentance, that they might give God the glory.’ Perhaps these remarks, which might be extended to great length, will show that, on the supposition that it was intended to refer to those scenes by the outpouring of this vial, the symbol was well-chosen and appropriate.”

Elliott says the “scorching with fire “we may refer to the sufferings of the countries which were exposed to these fearful troubles. The accounts which we have received enable us to appreciate the point and truth of Napoleon’s own observation,—”The genius of conquest can only be regarded as the genius of destruction.”Conscriptions, taxation, loss of life, pillage of property, devastation, and ruin,, marked his course, and sullied the glory of his exploits. Men were “scorched with great heat.”

THE FIFTH VIAL

The fifth vial is poured out on “the seat of the beast.””We have already seen,”says Elliott, “how in the Revolution the Romish clergy suffered. Their means of support was withdrawn by the abolition of tithes, the confiscation of the Church lands, and the destruction of monastic houses. This was followed by the national abolition of the Romish religion, and the razing the churches to the ground. So was the whole French ecclesiastical establishment broken up. Twenty-four thousand of the clergy were massacred with horrid atrocities; the terrified remnant fled.

“So much had the anti-papal spirit increased, that the French army urged their march against Rome itself, and the Pope only saved himself by the surrender of several towns, and the payment of a large sum of money, and the best treasures of the Vatican.

“At length the decree went forth for the humbling of the beast himself. In 1809 Napoleon declared the Pope’s temporal dominion at an end. The estates of the Church were annexed to France; and Rome was degraded to be the second city of the French Empire. Surely on ‘ the seat of the beast’ the vial of wrath had been poured out.

“Subsequently the Pope was brought prisoner to France, and there, as a pensioner, he received a stated salary. True he afterwards gained back the privilege of fixing his seat at Rome. But the world had seen his weakness, and a precedent was established for the benefit of future generations.

“In France the Romish religion continued only to be tolerated on an equality with other religions; in Portugal and Spain church property has been lately confiscated; and in Italy still later events have shown that the papal authority, if unsupported by temporal power, has not any longer in itself that which can maintain its supremacy.”

THE SIXTH VIAL

The drying up of the Euphrates flood under the sixth vial had long been understood to refer to the wasting away of the Turkish or Mohammedan power, which according to prophecy, was to follow the judgments of the French Revolution.

The Turks who had overthrown the corrupt Eastern Empire of Rome had come into Europe “from the upper stream of the River Euphrates. All over Southeastern Europe the flood had extended as far as Venice. It had been a fearful ‘woe’ on Eastern Christendom. In 1820 a formidable insurrection against the Turkish power began in Greece, which quickly spread to Wallachia, Moldavia, and the Aegean isles.

“In 1826 Turkey was obliged to surrender to Russia all its fortresses in Asia, and frightful civil commotions distracted Constantinople, ending in the slaughter of the Janissaries, when 4,000 veteran but mutinous and unmanageable soldiers were shot or burned to death by order of the Sultan himself in their own barracks in the city, and many thousands more all over the country. The empire had for centuries groaned under their tyranny, and Mahmoud II was resolved to organize a fresh army on the military system of western Europe, and saw no other way of delivering himself from the tyrannical Jannissaries than this awful massacre, which, while it liberated Turkey from an intolerable incubus, at the same time, materially weakened her strength. Before a fresh army had been matured, Russia again attacked the Turkish Empire, and backed up by England and France, secured the independence of Greece, after the great naval battle of Navarino, in which the Ottoman fleet was totally destroyed. In 1828 and 1829 Russia again invaded Turkey; her armies crossed the Balkans, and penetrated as far as Adrianople where a treaty, more disastrous to the Porte than any previous one, was concluded. The freedom of Servia was secured, and no Turk was permitted to reside in future north of the Danube, while Russia obtained one of the mouths of that river, and territory to the south of it. The large Turkish province of Algeria in North Africa was lost to the Sublime Porte, and became a French colony in the following year.

“In 1832 Turkey was brought to the verge of dissolution in consequence of the successful rebellion of the powerful pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali. He attacked and conquered Syria, and defeated the Turkish armies in three great battles, and he would have taken Constantinople had not the western nations intervened. A second rebellion on the part of Egypt took place in 1840, when Ibrahim Pasha defeated the Turks at Nezib. The Turkish fleet was betrayed into the power of Mehemet Ali, and taken to Alexandria; and Europe was obliged again to interfere to protect the Sultan from the rebellion of his vassal, who could at that time have easily overthrown the Turkish empire. In the following year the British Admiral took Siaon, Beyrout, and St. Jean d’Acre; and, in order to restore the Turkish rule, which had been completely lost, drove Mehemet Ali out of Syria. Egypt has been, however, virtually independent ever since, and her present rulers bear the title of Khedive, or king, in recognition of the fact. They are now far more under the power of England than under that of Turkey.

“In 1844 the Porte was compelled by the Christian nations of Europe to issue an edict of religious toleration, abolishing forever its characteristic and sanguinary practice of execution for apostasy, that is, for the adoption of the Christian faith. As this was entirely against its will, because against the precepts of the Koran, and contrary to the practice of all the ages during which Mohammedanism had been in existence, it was a most patent proof that Ottoman independence was gone, as a matter of fact, though often mentioned still as a plausible fiction of diplomacy, and that henceforth it had to shape its conduct in accordance with the views of its neighbours, the Christian nations of Europe. It was a compulsory sheathing of the sword of persecution, which had been relentlessly wielded for over twelve centuries, a most marked era in the overthrow of Mohammedan power.”

THE SEVENTH VIAL

This is the greatest of the vials, and the last. On its outpouring is heard “a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.”As this is the vial of the destruction of “Babylon the great,”the detailed descriptions of that event in Rev. 17, 18, and 19 belong to it, and will be fulfilled in its course. The scope of the seventh vial in apocalyptic prophecy is greater than that of all the preceding vials. To it belongs the solemn and sublime description of the issuing forth from the opened heaven of the rider on the white horse, in chapter 19, to “judge and to make war,”whose eyes are as a flame of fire; on whose head are many crowns; whose garment is a vesture dipped in blood; whose name is “Faithful and True,”the “Word of God,”the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”; whose followers are “the armies in heaven,”seated upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean; from whose mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he should smite the nations; who shall rule the nations with a rod of iron ; and who “treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

This is He who, in the language of Old Testament prophecy, “comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength, mighty to save “; concerning whom the question is asked, “Wherefore are Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth the winefat?” and who Himself replies, “I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with Me; for I will “tread them in Mine anger, and trample them in My fury ; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment. For the day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My redeemed is come! ”

And as the final treading of “the great winepress of the wrath of God “is described at the close of the parenthetical visions in Rev. 14, that judgment also belongs to those of the seventh vial, in which according to Rev. 19, “the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God”is trodden. If the winepress is not trodden twice over, both passages must refer to the same event. And hence the destruction of “the vine of the earth,”or Harvest of the Vintage in chapter 14 takes place under the seventh vial. Its prediction is as follows,—”And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. A.nd another angel came out from the altar, which had power over -fire, and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”

And further, to the judgment of the seventh vial belongs the Armageddon conflict and its issues of the nineteenth of Revelation, under which “the beast “and “the kings of the earth, and their armies,”are “gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army “; when “the beast is taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him,”and both are “cast alive “into the lake of fire. This final destruction of the anti- Christian hosts is that of “the supper of the great God,”to which “all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven “are called to come, that they “may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, small and great.”

The events of the seventh vial as described in Rev. 16, are as follows,—

1. The preliminary warning, “Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.”

2. The gathering together of the anti-Christian hosts “into a place called in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon.”

3. The pouring out of the seventh vial into the air; not as previous vials on “the earth,”on “the sea,”on “the rivers and fountains of waters,”and on “the sun,”all of which spheres are local and restricted; but “into the air,”a universal judgment on the sphere of Satan’s government, as “the prince of the power of the air “(Eph. 2 : 2).

4. The great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne saying, “It is done”a terminal sentence analogous to the “It is finished”of Calvary, and “It is done “of the New Creation in chapter 21 : 6.

5. The voices, and thunders, and lightnings.

6. The “great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”

7. The tripartite division of the great city Babylon; “the great city was divided into three parts “; the “great city “of chapter 11, ” which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified “; the city whose “tenth part “had fallen by the “great earthquake “which followed the death, resurrection, and ascension of the witnesses; the “great city Babylon “of the judgment described in chapter 18, at the smoke of whose burning ascends the cry “What city is like unto this great city ? “”That great city that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls;””that mighty city”whose merchandise of all preciotfs” things includes “the bodies and souls of men “; which’as “a great millstone cast into the sea “shall be “thrown down,”and “found no more at all “; the city by whose “sorceries were all nations deceived “; and in which “was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”

8. The fall of “the cities of the nations.”

9. The coming of “great Babylon””in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.”

10. The convulsion in which “every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”

11. The great hailstorm falling on men out of heaven, “every stone about the weight of a talent “; men blaspheming “because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great.”

Continue to part III

Henry Grattan Guinness D. D. (11 August 1835 – 21 June 1910) was an Irish Protestant Christian preacher, evangelist and author. He was the great evangelist of the Evangelical awakening and preached during the Ulster Revival of 1859 which drew thousands to hear him. He was responsible for training and sending hundreds of “faith missionaries” all over the world. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Grattan_Guinness)

The alternate title for this book is

Time as an Interpreter.

My good friend Dr. John Gideon Hartnett sent me the link to this book in PDF format on http://historicism.com/ PDF files are not nearly as easy for me to read as HTML.

H. Grattan Guinness He is also the author of Romanism and the Reformation which is also posted on this site.

The text is slightly edited. I just couldn’t take the time to make all the tables and add all the footnotes. I’m only interested in the message. Yes I know good documentation should have references. You can download and read for yourself the PDF file I got the text from.

This book is continued in Section X The Present Stage

PREFACE

THE lofty decree of Papal Infallibility issued by the Vatican Council of 1870, immediately followed by the sudden and final fall of the Papal Temporal Power, after a duration of more than a thousand years, was the primary occasion of my writing that series of works on the fulfilment of Scripture prophecy which has appeared during the last quarter of a century.

I left Paris, where I had been labouring in the Gospel, at the outbreak of the Franco-German war in July, 1870. It was in the light of the German bombardment of that city, of the ring of fire which surrounded it, and of the burning of the Tuileries, that I began to read with interest and understanding the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse. Subsequent visits to Italy and Rome enlarged my view of the subject. A library of books bearing on it was accumulated, historical, astronomical, and prophetic, including 150 commentaries on the Apocalypse, ancient and modern, from the commentary of Victorinus in the third century., down to those of Elliott and others in the nineteenth. These studies laid the foundation of my works on prophecy.

The present work, which differs in important respects from my previous works, as being chiefly historical in character, may be fitly introduced by a brief explanation of the method of interpretation which it follows.

A great and incontrovertible principle underlies the method it pursues in the interpretation of the Apocalypse. Simply stated that principle is that :

In two ways does the great Revealer of the prophecy explain its meaning — by words, and deeds ; by written word, and acted deeds. He has given us a verbal explanation of its most central and important vision, one which stands in close and commanding connection with all its other visions and in the long course of Christian history he has fulfilled its predictions.

Thus Scripture is the key to Scripture; and Providence to Prophecy.

The historic interpretation of the Apocalypse which rests on this twofold foundation has been slowly developed under the influence of the divine action in Providence; it has changed in details with the changing currents of Providence; it has grown with the growth of the knowledge of the plans of Providence; it has been confirmed and sealed by the whole course of Providence. It is no vain, or puerile, or presumptuous speculation. It is a reverent submission to the very words of God, and a reverent recognition of His acts. God has spoken; He has given an explanation of the central and commanding vision of that prophecy; and God has acted; He has fulfilled its predictions. In pointing to the words and deeds of God we act as His witnesses. What hath God said? What hath He done? These are the questions. We are wearied with vain speculations as to the meaning of prophecy which have no other foundation than the assertions of men. We are wearied with speculations as to imaginary future fulfilments of prophecies which have been plainly accomplished before our eyes in the past; prophecies on whose accomplishment in the events of Christian history the structure of the great Reformation of the sixteenth century was built; on the fact of whose accomplishment in their days the confessors stood, and the martyrs suffered. Alas! the speculations of men have clouded these facts and brought into disrepute the Holy Word of God. Even good men have been led to neglect the voice of divine prophecy, and to refuse its lamp to light their steps, through the follies of its exponents. Is it not time that the last prophetic book in the Word of God, a book bearing the seal of the signature of the name of “JESUS” should be lifted up from dust of neglect, and set upon a candlestick in the midst of the house, to shed its clear light and cheering beams on all around? Let the reverent believer who “trembles” at God’s word, the patient student who has searched the records of the past, the uncompromising witness who fears not the faces of men, lift up that fallen lamp from the soil on which men have cast it, and place it where Copernicus placed the sun, as a kingly light enthroned in the centre of its system.

In agreement with the foregoing principle I have written, among others, two works, on the interpretation of the symbolical prophecies in Daniel and the Apocalypse by means (1) of divinely given explanations of their meaning contained in the books themselves, and (2) by the events of history. The first of these works, published in 1899, is entitled “A Key to the Apocalypse, or the seven divinely given Interpretations of symbolic prophecy.” The second is the present work.

In the first of these I have shown that as God has graciously given us His own all-wise and infallible explanations of the meaning of certain leading and determinative portions of the symbolical prophecies in the book of Daniel and the Apocalypse, no interpretation of these prophecies can be secure and trustworthy which does not rest on these divine explanations, and employ them as keys to unlock the meaning of the prophecies as a whole.

The seven divinely given interpretations of Daniel and the Apocalypse are the following :

I. The interpretation of the vision of the great image in Daniel 2.

II. The interpretation of the vision of the great tree in Daniel 4.

III. The interpretation of the handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar’s Palace in Daniel 5.

IV. The interpretation of the ram and he-goat in Daniel 8. V. The interpretation of the four wild beast kingdoms, and of the kingdom of the Son of Man, in Daniel 7.

VI. The interpretation of the seven stars, and seven candlesticks in Revelation 1.

VII. The interpretation of the woman “ Babylon the great,” and of the seven-headed, ten-horned beast that carries her, in Revelation 17.

Concerning the last of these interpretations I have shown that “of all the visions in the prophetic part of the Apocalypse (chaps. vi-xxii), that of Babylon and the beast in chap. xvii, is the only one divinely interpreted;” and that through the interpretation of this vision a door is opened to the understanding of the rest of the prophecy.

(1) The woman is interpreted as signifying the city of Rome.

(2) The city is represented as sitting on “seven hills,” the well known seven hills of Rome.

(3) The “many waters” over which she rules are interpreted as “peoples, and multitudes, and nations and tongues.”

(4) The wild beast which sustains and carries her the ten horned wild beast of Daniel’s prophecies, the fourth of his four Gentile kingdoms, the kingdom of Rome-is interpreted in detail.

(a) Its seven heads are interpreted to represent ruling powers. Of these it is expressly stated “five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come.— Thus the sixth head of the wild beast power which carried the harlot is stated to have been in existence when the Apocalypse was written ; and must necessarily therefore refer to the government of the Cesars, as then represented by the Emperor Domitian. This locates the visions of the Apocalypse as relating to Roman and Christian history.

(b) The ten horns are interpreted as ten kingdoms, then future, into which the empire should be divided. These horns, or kingdoms first submit to the harlot city, and then rise against her and “ make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.”

As to the use of this central interpreted vision to explain the other visions of the Apocalypse I have pointed out that there are three visions in the Apocalypse of the ten horned wild beast power.

The first in chapter 12.
The second in chapter 13.
The third in chapter 17.

(1) That the interpretation of one of these in chapter 17, determines the meaning of all three.

(2) That these three visions of the wild beast power represent successive stages in the history of the Roman Empire, as first under the government of its seven heads; secondly under the government of its ten horns, for in the prophecy the crowns are transferred from the heads to the horns; and thirdly as carrying, and then casting off and destroying, the harlot Babylon.

(3) That the story of Babylon and the Beast occupies the largest and most central part of the Apocalyptic prophecy, being referred to in no less than ten successive chapters: Chapters 11. 125 131 141 15) 16, 17j 18, 19) 20.

(4) That to the visions relating to the Roman Empire under its revived eighth head prophetic times are attached representing

1. The period of the sun-clothed woman in the wilderness (chap. xii).

2. The period of the rule of the eighth head of the wild beast (chap. xiii).

3. The period during which the outer temple court is trodden under foot by the Gentiles (chap. xi).

4. The period during which the witnesses prophesy in sackcloth (chap. xi).

These four periods are manifestly the same period stated in three forms, as days, months, and “times,” or years 1,260 days; forty-two months, and three and one-half “times,” or years: and are to be interpreted on the year-day scale; a scale recognized in both the law and the prophets; the scale on which the ” seventy weeks” to Messiah are universally interpreted; a scale justified by the course and chronology of Christian history, and confirmed by the discoveries of astronomy as to the cyclical character of the prophetic times.

The interpretation of the Apocalypse thus reached is in harmony with that of the book of Daniel, and links both prophecies with one and the same series of events-the course of five kingdoms, the temporal kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, and the eternal kingdom of God. The Apocalypse is simply the story told in advance of the two last kingdoms of Daniel’s prophecy; the story of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and of the rise and establishment of the kingdom of God.

From the interpretation of the Apocalypse by means of the divinely given explanation of its most central and commanding vision, we now advance to the subject of the present volume, the interpretation of the prophecy by the events of history.

History has ever been the interpreter of prophecy. It was so notably in New Testament times, for the sufferings and glories of our Lord, foretold in the Old Testament, remained uncomprehended until their meaning was revealed by the events of history. Similarly the predictions concerning the great apostasy, or “falling away ” from the faith and practice of Apostolic times which has taken place in the Christian Church, were not comprehended till explained by historical events. And thus has it been all along. From the beginning of the world to the present day Time has ever been the chief interpreter of prophecy. For prophecy is history written in advance. As the ages roll by history practically takes the place of prophecy, the foretold becoming the fulfilled.

A clear and comprehensive view of the leading events of Christian history up to the date of the Reformation is afforded by Gibbon’s noble work on “ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” This standard work embraces in a single view the history of the Roman Empire and Christian Church for fourteen centuries, from the time of the Antonines to the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire at the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. It is enhanced by its extensive learning, its philosophic spirit, the lucidity of its arrangement, and the majesty of its style. The value of Gibbon’s work as an unintended key to the Apocalypse is exhibited by the well-known commentator Albert Barnes in the following interesting account of his own experience:

“Up to the time of commencing the exposition of this book (the Apocalypse) I had no theory in my mind as to its meaning. I may add, that I had a prevailing belief that it could not be explained, and that all attempts to explain it must be visionary and futile. With the exception of the work of the Rev. George Croly, which I read more than twenty years ago, and which I had never desired to read again, 1 had perused no commentary on this book until that of Professor Stuart was published, in 1845. In my regular reading of the Bible in family and in private, 1 had perused the book often. 1 read it, as 1 suppose most others do, from a sense of duty, yet admiring the beauty of its imagery, the sublimity of its descriptions, and its high poetic character; and though to me wholly unintelligible in the main, finding so many striking detached passages that were intelligible and practical in their nature, as to make it on the whole attractive and profitable, but with no definitely formed idea as to its meaning as a whole, and with a vague general feeling that all the interpretations which had been proposed were wild, fanciful and visionary.

“In this state of things, the utmost that I contemplated when I began to write on it was, to explain, as well as I could, the meaning of the language and the symbols, without ‘attempting to apply the explanation to the events of past history, or to inquire what is to occur hereafter. I supposed that I might venture to do this without encountering the danger of adding another vain attempt to explain a book so full of mysteries, or of propounding a theory of interpretation to be set aside, perhaps, by the next person that should prepare a commentary on the book.

“Beginning with this aim, I found myself soon insensibly inquiring whether, in the events which succeeded the time when the ‘book was written, there were not historical facts of which the emblems employed would be natural and proper symbols, on the supposition that it was the divine intention in disclosing these visions to refer to them, and whether, therefore, there might not be a natural and proper application of the symbols to these events. In this way I examined the language used in reference to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth seals, with no anticipation or plan in examining one as to what would be disclosed under the next seal ; and in this way also I examined ultimately the whole book: proceeding step by step in ascertaining the meaning of each word and symbol as it occurred, but with no theoretic anticipation as to what was to follow.

To my own surprise, I found, chiefly in Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ a series of events recorded such as seemed to me to correspond to a great extent with the series of symbols found in the Apocalypse. The symbols were such as it might be supposed would he used, on the supposition that they were intended to refer to these events; and the language of Mr. Gibbon was often such as he would have used, on the supposition that he had designed to prepare a commentary on the symbols employed by John. It was such, in fact, that if it had been found in a Christian writer, professedly writing a commentary on the book of Revelation, it would have been regarded by infidels as a designed attempt to force history to utter a language that should conform to a predetermined theory in expounding a book full of symbols. So remarkable have these coincidences appeared to me in the course of this exposition, that it has almost seemed as if he had designed to write a commentary on some portion of this book; and I found it difficult to doubt that that distinguished historian was raised up by an overruling Providence to make a record of those events which would ever afterwards be regarded as an impartial and unprejudiced statement or the evidences of the fulfilment of prophecy. The historian of the I Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ had no belief in the divine origin of Christianity, but he brought to the performance of his work learning and talent such as few Christian scholars have possessed. He is always patient in his investigations; learned and scholar-like in his references; comprehensive in his groupings, and sufficiently minute in his details; unbiased in his statement of facts, and usually cool and candid in his estimates of the causes of the events which he records; and, excepting his philosophical speculations, and his sneers at everything, he has probably written the most candid and impartial history of the times that succeeded the introduction of Christianity that the world possesses; and even after all that has been written since his time, his work contains the best ecclesiastical history that is to be found. Whatever use of it can be made in explaining and confirming the prophecies will be regarded by the world as impartial and fair; for it was a result which he least of all contemplated, that he would ever be regarded as an expounder of the prophecies in the Bible, or be referred to as vindicating their truth.

“It was in this manner that these Notes on the Book of Revelation assumed the form in which they are now given to the world; and it surprises me-and, under this view of the matter, may occasion some surprise to my readers-to find how nearly the views coincide with those taken by the great body of Protestant interpreters. And perhaps this fact may be regarded as furnishing some evidence that after all the obscurity attending it, there is a natural and obvious interpretation of which the book is susceptible ” (Barnes on the Revelation, preface, pp. xi-xiii).

The present volume traces the history of that interpretation, describes its progressive development under the modifying influence of the events of the last nineteen centuries from stage to stage, from its germinant form in the pre-Constantine centuries, through Medieval and Reformation times, down to the present day.

As written later than Elliott’s great work on the Horae Apocalypticae, whose five editions appeared in the years 1844-1862, the present work takes into account the long expected fall of the papal temporal power in 1870, immediately following the decree of papal infallibility; and the present deeply interesting Zionist movement dating from 1897, for the national restoration of the Jews to the land of their fathers.

An important confirmation of the historical interpretation of the Apocalypse afforded by the discovery of the astronomical features of the prophetic times, is briefly set forth at the close of the volume. The extensive astronomical tables published by the author in 1896 are based on the remarkable fact that the prophetic times of Daniel and the Apocalypse are extremely perfect astronomical cycles harmonizing solar and lunar revolutions. The year-day theory resting on Scripture analogy and historic strongly confirmed by the discovery, and the fulfilment is 1,260, 1,290, 1,335, and 2,300 ”days” of Daniel and the Apocalypse proved to represent the same number of years in Jewish and Christian history.

It is a deep satisfaction to the author to remember that whatever may be the views of a modern section of sceptical or speculative interpreters of the Apocalypse, who either see no reference to definite historical events in the prophecy, or relegate its fulfilment to future times, in accepting and advocating its historical interpretation, in regarding it as the story told in advance in symbolic language of the events of the Christian centuries, he is treading in the steps of the greater part of Apocalyptic interpreters from the earliest times, of Justin Martyr; Irenaeus ‘ Tertullian, Hippolytus, Victorinus, Methodius, Lactantius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerome, and Augustine among the Fathers; of Bede and Anspert, Andreas and. Anselm, Joachim Abbas and Almeric of the middle ages, of the AIbigenses and Waldenses, of Wickliffe and the Lollards, of John Huss and Jerome of Prague of pre-Reformation times ; of the Reformers, English, Scottish, and Continental; of the noble army of Confessors and Martyrs who suffered under Pagan and Papal Rome; of the Puritan theologians, of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, of Mede and More, and Sir Isaac Newton, and Jonathan Edwards that greatest of American theologians, of Bengel the learned German exegete, of Alford and Wordsworth, of Birks and Bickersteth, of Faber and Elliott in England, and a host of others, men distinguished for their ability, their assiduity, their spirituality, their deep study of the prophetic world, in short by what appear to be the greatest and best of the expositors of the book. Modern historical interpreters of’ the Apocalypse are in good company; they stand with the Fathers, the Confessors, the Martyrs, the Reformers, with men who suffered for the truth they believed, and were practically guided and inspired by the interpretations they have handed down to posterity. The fanciful interpretations of the Preterists who falsely conceive the Apocalypse to bear a Neronic date, and to be Neronic in its references, have never been a practical power in the history of the Church; the vague interpretations of a modern school, German and English, which ignoring the clearly defined order of the Apocalyptic Visions, their synchronisms acid successions, their system of prophetic times, fixed acid absolute, and sure as the times of the celestial luminaries, reduce the prophecy to a nebulous mass of anticipations of things in general in human history, have wrought no victories, have accomplished no reformations, have sustained no martyrs, and are self-refuted by their impotence, and unworthiness as expositions of the last great revelation of Jesus Christ concerning “ the things” which were to “come to pass.” The same may be said as regards the reveries of the Futurists ; barren of practical and worthy effects, they have denied accomplishments recognized by the great mass of prophetic interpreters in the past; they have invented future fulfilments, as unsubstantial and impossible as the dreams of those who they have forsaken the great trend, the main path, the well trodden highway of Apocalyptic interpretation, based upon divine explanations of prophetic symbols, and unquestionable historic facts, for empty speculations about the future unprofitable speculations mistake bizarre imaginations for sober realities as to the coming universal dominion of a short-lived infidel antichrist, to be seated in a literal temple to be erected by the Jews in Palestine, who in the brief space of three and a half years is to fulfil all the wonders of the Apocalyptic drama, and exhaust the meaning of the majestic prophecy which the Church of God has been blindly misinterpreting and misapplying throughout all these ages. Surely it is time for such interpreters to consider the unscripturalness and unreasonableness of the method of interpretation which they employ, the absence of authority, of warrant, for their views, the entire lack of demonstration human or divine; and the fruitlessness of their speculations, as afford rig no present guidance to the Church, and their injuriousness as extinguishing the lamp which God has given His people to guide their steps along the perilous way of their pilgrimage. 1 am well convinced from wide observation that many excellent persons adopt these modern prophetic speculations because good men have advocated them, here and there and for no better reason; they have heard them advanced in prophetic conferences, they have read them in books. and tracts, full of confident assertions, superficial and dogmatic compositions on the sublimest questions which can exercise the human mind, and they have been satisfied to believe without proof, and to repeat without independent investigation the marvellous inventions of busy brains as to the antichrist of the future, without ever having soberly inquired whether the Reformers and Martyrs were right or not in their recognition of the antichrist as already come, and as long reigning in the professing Church, the Standard Bearer of an abominable apostasy, the very Masterpiece of Satan for the delusion of mankind. Let us appeal to such to open their eyes to the facts of history, to turn their thoughts for awhile to the sublime story of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, of the rise of the great apostasies in the Eastern and Western Church, of the testimony and sufferings of the Christian witnesses of the middle ages, and Reformation days, and of the retributive acts of Providence in our own time, the manifest and awful judgments which have been poured forth on Papal Rome in and since the French Revolution, judgments whose afterwaves are rolling and reverberating still, uttering with no uncertain sound the solemn conclusion that so far from living in days preceding the fulfilment of Apocalyptic prophecy, we are living in the closing days of the accomplishment of the things which it has foretold.

In writing thus, and in making this appeal, 1 write as one who has long and deeply studied both Prophecy and History, and as one who knows that his days are numbered, and that he must give account before long of his stewardship as a teacher in the Christian church, for in the present year of the publication of this volume I have entered on the fiftieth year of my ministry, a ministry in which I have striven to teach in harmony with the oracles of God,” and to declare, as far as in me lies, the whole counsel of God.” I have no private ends to accomplish by the publication of this book; it is written in the interest of truth, as a heritage for my children, a guide to those whom I would not and dare not mislead, a help to young men and women prosecuting their studies in their homes or colleges with a view to future usefulness; and for ministers of the gospel, most of them my younger brethren, to whom I would be of service; and for the sake of any into whose hands it may come, of open heart and unprejudiced mind, desirous of understanding more clearly the meaning of the last predictions in the Word of God. Brethren, beloved in the Lord, in writing thus, it is not 1 who testify, but the voice of a multitude of Witnesses, mostly gathered now before the throne of God. We shall spend eternity with them; are we prepared to join their songs of triumph, to echo the hallelujahs which break from their lips? Is the testimony of the Word of God to us what it was to them? Is our testimony in the world in harmony with theirs? Can we join the Reformers in their witness, and the Martyrs in their song? They stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire, having the harps of God, proclaiming the accomplishment of God’s judgments in the fall of Papal Babylon; shall we stand apart from them, electing to sing some little song of our own out of harmony with the great volume of the voice of God’s redeemed? Let it not be! It would be unworthy of us. Compassed about with “so great a Cloud of Witnesses ” let us lay aside indifference and ignorance, prejudice, and misconception, and take our place with these in the great arena of conflict, dyed with martyr blood, to maintain “the Testimony of Jesus Christ, looking away from all beside to Him as the Author and Finisher of our faith, whose hand has given us this final prophecy to be our armour in the day of battle, our guide in the perils and perplexities of our pilgrimage, our morning star amid the darkness which precedes the dawn of eternal day. Behold the volume whose seals his hand, his providence, have loosed. Seal it not again. Neglect it not. Doubt no more its meaning. For lo Time, that great Interpreter, has rolled back the veil which once hung upon its mysteries, and is irradiating its pages as with the sunlight of heaven.

IT was towards the close of the first century of Christian history, in the year 95 or 96, that the aged Apostle John, banished by the Roman Emperor Domitian, to the lonely island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, beheld the Apocalypse. More than sixty visions described in the eventful years had elapsed since the ascension of his blessed Lord. During that long period he had looked back to that sublime and glorious event, as the closing incident in his Master’s earthly history, and often had retraced in thought every step of his last walk with the risen Saviour over the Mount of Olives, to the sloping fields above the little village of Bethany with the deep Jordan valley and the blue far-off hills of Moab full in view. On countless occasions he had recalled his Lord’s last charge, and parting blessing, and gazed in thought on His ascending form, and on the white robed angels whose words directed the minds of the bereaved disciples from the sorrowing contemplation of their Lord’s departure, to the glad anticipation of His return, saying, “This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” But when was it to be that promised return? Was it to take place in the lifetime of the disciple whom Jesus loved? Had not the Master said concerning that disciple when speaking to Peter, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” Peter had died, following his Lord to the cross. Was he, John, to escape death? Was he to enjoy translation with the saints who were to be ‘I alive and remain ” to the Second Advent? Yet he remembered that Jesus had not promised he should not die, but had only said, “If I will that he tarry till I come.” What could that mean? The strange mysterious sentence lived and lingered in his thoughts; he ends his gospel narrative with it. Was he to behold before his departure some glorious prefiguration of his Lord’s return, like the scene on the Mount of Transfiguration; some vision, unveiling the secrets of the future more fully than they had been foreshadowed by that memorable event? No such revelation had been given, and he was now grown old; a venerable, patriarchal man, gentle and gracious in mien; the last survivor of the apostles. He had shared the promised baptism of Pentecost; had witnessed the marvellous growth of the Christian Church; had seen the fall of Jerusalem; the destruction of its glorious temple, of which now not one stone was left standing upon another; had witnessed the accomplishment of those dreadful judgments on the Jewish nation in anticipation of which his Master’s tears had fallen on the Mount of Olives, bedewing the palm branches spread by the multitudes beneath His feet. He had seen too the preliminary fulfilment of the signs of the approach of the Second Advent which his Master had predicted; the earthquakes, famines, pestilences, wars, and persecutions, the appearance of false prophets, and false Christs, of fearful signs and wonders in heaven. The idolatrous ensigns of the desolating Roman power had been planted within the precincts of the Holy City. The triumphal arch of Titus had been reared in Rome, the mighty metropolis of the world, to commemorate Jerusalem’s fall; that arch on which were represented in striking sculpture the sacred vessels of the sanctuary carried in triumph by heathen hands; the seven branched golden candlestick, the table of the shew bread, and the book of the law. Jerusalem was no more. The Jewish Dispensation founded ages before by those supernatural revelations granted to Moses and Israel on Mount Sinai had come to an end. The kingdom of heaven had taken its place, growing up silently as a grain of mustard seed, from small and despised beginnings to far reaching development. From the upper chamber of Jerusalem it had spread through Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and across the Roman Empire, in which there was scarce a city of importance which had not a Christian Church. It had reached Antioch and Alexandria, Crete and Corinth, Philippi and Thessalonica, Ephesus and Smyrna, Pergamos and Thyatira, Athens and Rome; it had spread throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Egypt, and even as far as the western confines of Spain, and the distant isles of Britain; and this in spite of the most violent opposition and persecution from Jews and Gentiles. The gospel had penetrated even to Caesar’s household, and won the hearts of some of his nearest kindred. The aged Clement presided over the Christian Church in the city of Rome, undeterred by threats of imprisonment and martyrdom; while another Clement of high born position had just witnessed for Christ even unto blood, whose wife Domitilla had been banished to the desolate island of Pandateria, where she was suffering the same punishment for the Christian faith as John himself was enduring in Patmos.

And with the lapse of time changes for the worse had taken place in many Christian Churches, gross corruptions of the pure doctrines of the gospel had appeared. Self-righteous legalism and Judaic ritualism on the one hand, and false philosophy, the boasted wisdom, of the Gnostics on the other, had perverted the minds of many, corrupting them from the simplicity which is in Christ. Sects had arisen in the Church which denied the divinity of Christ, and the atoning character of His death. Tares had been sown by the enemy among the wheat, and were already flourishing on every side. It appeared as though the Antichrist so long before foretold by Daniel, and so emphatically predicted by Paul, might speedily con; springing up as a horn or ruler among the kings of the divided Roman Empire, and exalting himself as an overseer in the Christian Church, in whose symbolical temple it was foretold he would sit supreme, clothed with divine honours and prerogatives, and deceiving many to their eternal destruction. These things were to be, and the times seemed dark enough to indicate that they might even then be at hand. Daniel had revealed in mystical language the time of the manifestation of this antichristian power, and the period of its continuance. But what was the exact meaning of those times of Daniel? What meant the “time, times, and a half time,” of which he spoke; the 1,260, 1,290. and 1,335 days; the 2,300 ,evenings and mornings”; the periods which were to reach to the resurrection and promised “rest”, of the righteous at the end of the days ? Were they literal days which were meant, or were the days he spoke of symbolical of larger periods? Were these revelations in Daniel the last to be granted on the subject, or was more light to shine forth through communications of the truth yet to be given to the Church of “the last days”? Questions such as these may well have occupied the mind of the aged apostle in the lonely hours of his banishment.

We can conceive him standing on the rocky height of some Patmos headland watching the western sun descending over the blue waters of the Aegean Sea, making a broad pathway of golden light on the waves, till they shone like “a sea of glass mingled with fire,” or beholding the sun rise in the glowing cast over the Asiatic shores, transporting his thoughts to the advent of the “morning without clouds,” yet to shine upon the world. Or when he watched the host of heaven come forth by night, and fill the glittering canopy above the lonely isle, while the “many mansions ” of which his Master had spoken came to his mind, and the angel hosts who do His bidding, can we not conceive him longing that one of these glorious beings might be sent to him as of old one had been sent to Daniel, the man “greatly beloved,” to impart some of that knowledge of the future enjoyed in higher and holier realms? We know not what he thought or desired, but we know what God granted to the aged and privileged apostle.

It was on one Lord’s day of his sojourn in Patmos, the day commemorating Christ’s triumphant ‘resurrection, that being alone, and ‘I in the spirit,” or rapt in ecstasy from the outward world, and oblivious of its presence, he suddenly heard behind him a great voice as of a trumpet, speaking to him such words as mortal car had never heard before.

” I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest write in a book and send it unto the seven Churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”

And turning in the direction of the Voice he saw seven golden candlesticks, and standing in their midst, One whom he recognized as “like unto the Son of Man,” but 0 how changed from the Christ on whom he had so often looked in Galilee, and on whose bosom he had leaned in the upper chamber at Jerusalem! For every trace of humiliation was gone. No tears upon the cheek, no thorns upon the brow, He stood there transfigured and glorified; His face as the noonday sun shining in its strength; His garment white and glittering, and girt at the waist with a golden girdle; the hair of His head white with the snows of dateless years, as the “Ancient of days ” beheld by Daniel; His eyes like a flame of fire; needing no exterior light to aid their vision, but penetrating the secrets of the soul with holy searching gaze; His feet as burning brass, strong as the pillars of heaven, and glowing as though they burned in a furnace; His voice as the mighty and majestic sound of many waters; seven stars glittered in His right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword, the evident symbol of the Word of God, living and powerful, and piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, proceeded from His lips.

At this sudden and marvellous apparition of the glorified Redeemer all strength forsook the aged apostle. Falling at the feet of the Son of God he lay there as one dead. Then touching his prostrate form with His right hand, the Lord strengthened him, saying in His own well-remembered voice, ‘I Fear not; I am the First and the Last; I am He that liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore. Amen; and have the keys of death and of hades.”

And now aroused to wondering attention, the aged apostle received from the lips of Christ the divine commission to communicate to the seven Churches of Asia, representing symbolically the entire Christian Church throughout the world, a faithful record of all that he had seen, and was yet to behold.

“Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things, which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.-“

And first to the seven Churches of Asia Minor John is directed to write brief letters, charged with lofty meaning; letters appreciating, judging, encouraging, rebuking, and counselling these representative Churches; and conveying through them messages from the glorified Redeemer to the whole Christian Church throughout the world. In these letters, bearing on their forefront descriptive titles of Christ referring to attributes suited to the character and condition of the Churches addressed, our Lord speaks in the tone of sovereign authority, perfect knowledge, burning holiness, and tender love. His eyes as a flame of fire search the secrets of hearts, yet beam with infinite compassion. His lips are full of promises, his hands of gifts and graces. Every sentence in these celestial communications bears the impress of His personality. In listening to their words we car the very voice of the Son of God speaking to our individual souls, out of the world of glory. ,I know thy works.” “I have somewhat against thee.” “I am He that searcheth the reins and hearts.” “I will give unto every one of you according to your works.” I have set before thee, an open door.” ”I have loved thee.” “I will keep thee”. “I would thou wert cold or hot.” “I will spew thee out of My mouth.” “I counsel thee.” “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.” “I stand at door and knock; if any man hear My voice and open to Me, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me.” Each letter closes with a special promise of glorious and eternal reward “to him that overcometh”; and with the solemn appeal to the individual Christian conscience, “he that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches.”

Having received these communications from the Lord Jesus Himself, standing amid the golden candlesticks which symbolized the Churches He addressed, John now beholds heaven opened, and sees the throne of God, and the worshipping hosts before the throne, and hears them crying, ” Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come; ” ” Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” In the right hand of Him who sits on the throne, John now beholds a seven sealed book, and hears an angel cry with a loud voice, cc Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? ” None in heaven or earth is found worthy to open the book or look thereon. Then appears the sublime and solitary Exception. In the midst of the throne, standing among the four living creatures and adoring elders, is seen “a Lamb as it had been slain.” He who had redeemed man by His blood shed on Calvary’s tree, is there enthroned. Lo! The Lamb advances and takes the seven scaled book from the hands of Him who sits upon the throne, while the songs of the redeemed proclaim Him worthy to open its seals. and countless myriads of holy angels cry, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” The whole creation takes up the anthem and sounds forth His praise. Then the Lamb opens the seals of the sacred and mysterious book, and unveils the contents of this final revelation of providence and prophecy.

As He opens the seven seals, successive visions appear to the gaze of the inspired seer of Patmos. First four horses, white, red, black, and livid, are beheld issuing forth, with their various riders. The souls of the martyrs are seen under the altar of sacrifice, and their cry for righteous retribution is heard. Heaven and earth are then shaken with the judgments attending the day of “the wrath of the Lamb. “A pause follows in which the destructive winds of judgment are stayed, while a definite number of saints are sealed out of the twelve symbolical tribes of Israel. Then an innumerable multitude of the redeemed from all nations, kindreds, peoples and tongues, is seen gathered before the throne of glory, with palm branches of victory, and songs of grateful joy. “They have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The Lamb who has redeemed them leads them to fountains of living water, and God wipes away all tears from their eyes.

At the opening of the seventh seal there is silence in the symbolical heaven of the vision, during which seven angels prepare to sound trumpets of woe. At the successive sounding of these trumpets various judgments fall on the earth, seas, rivers, and sun of the symbolical world scene. After the sixth of these woe-trumpets occur parenthetical visions, followed by the sounding of the seventh trumpet, proclaiming the advent of ‘”the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.” The parenthetical visions are then continued. There is seen the persecution of a sun-clothed woman by a wild beast power. Three stages of the conflict are marked. First the Draconic world power is cast down by “Michael and his angels,” who overcome by “the blood of the Lamb,” and the witness of martyrs who loved not their lives unto the death.” Then the woman fees to the wilderness, from the persecutions of the revived wild beast power, who makes war against the saints and overcomes them. Lastly, under the judgments of the seven vials, the persecuting wild beast power, and that of Babylon the great, are utterly destroyed. Great Babylon is burned, the beast is cast into the lake of fire, and Satan bound for a thousand years, while the saints and martyrs reign with Christ. The final judgment of the great white Throne succeeds, and the New Jerusalem, arrayed in the glory of God, as the Bride of the Lamb, descends from heaven into the new earth, and becomes the everlasting abode of righteousness and bliss.

Such in brief is the general outline of the Apocalyptic drama. How great the progress it depicts! At the beginning the crowns of glory and dominion are worn by the potentates of the world ; the saints are oppressed and persecuted, forced to flee to the wilderness, and trodden under foot; at the close, dominion, crown, and glory are transferred to the suffering saints and their great Leader. The Lamb is crowned with “many crowns,” and the victorious martyrs are exalted to reign with Him in His eternal kingdom.

Prefacing his description of these visions by the title “The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass,” John wrote as he was directed to the seven Churches of Asia; opening his message with greetings of Cc grace and peace ” from the Eternal Father, the Spirit, and the Son. A doxology of praise bursts from his lips to Him “Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.” The keynote of the Apocalyptic prophecy is sounded, “Behold He cometh with clouds,” indicating its character as the book of the Advent of Christ, and of the Kingdom of God. At the close is added the seal of Christ’s own name and authorship. “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto. you these things in the Churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” “Surely I come quickly,” is the final word of the prophecy.

THE RECEPTION OF THE APOCALYPSE BY THE EARLY CHURCH

From the seven Churches of Asia Minor copies of the Apocalypse, multiplied by Christian hands,-rapidly spread in all the Churches throughout the Roman Empire. Its apostolical authorship was recognized from the first, and its sacred character admitted. Early added to the Canon of the New Testament, it became the closing book of the entire Word of God.

No book of the New Testament was accorded a more general reception. The chain of evidence on the subject is complete. Justin Martyr, a Christian philosopher, born about A. D. 103, six or seven years after John’s banishment to Patmos, in his dialogue with Trypho thus refers to the Apocalypse: A man from among us by name John, one of the apostles Christ, in the revelation made to him, has prophesied that the believers in our Christ shall live a thousand years in Jerusalem.– Justin Martyr suffered martyrdom for the Christian faith about A. D. 165. Irenaeus, Bishop of the Lyonnese Church, in his book on Heresies written between A. D. 180 and 190, speaks of the Apocalypse as the work of John the disciple of the Lord, that same John that leaned on His breast at the last supper. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, about A. D. 170, wrote a treatise on the Revelation of John. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, about 181, according to Eusebius, made use of quotations from John’s Apocalypse. So also did the martyr Apollonius, at the close of the second century, in an eloquent apology before the Roman Senate, in the reign of Commodus. Clement of Alexandria, who flourished about 194, frequently quoted the Apocalypse. Tertullian, the contemporary of Clement, one of the most learned of the Latin fathers, quotes or refers to the Apocalypse in more than seventy passages in his writings, and declared that “the succession of bishops traced to john I rested’ on John as its author” 1 Hippolytus, a greatly esteemed Christian Bishop, and martyr, who flourished about A. D. 220, in early life a disciple of Irenaeus, wrote an express commentary on the Apocalypse. Origen, the most critical and learned of the early fathers, received the Apocalypse into the Canon of Scripture. “What shall we say of John,” he asks, “who leaned on the breast of Jesus? He has left us a gospel:

. . . he wrote likewise the Revelation, though ordered to seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered : he left, too, one Epistle of very moderate length, and perhaps a second and a third, for of these last the genuineness is not by all admitted.” ² Cyprian, Bishop and martyr, the contemporary of Origen, held similar views. Victorinus wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse in the third century, which is still extant; Methodius, Arnobius, Lactantius, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine all received the Apocalypse, and regarded it as the inspired production of the last of the Apostles. In the centuries which followed the times of these Fathers, the acceptation of the Apocalypse by the Christian Church, both in the cast and in the west, was universal. In all the early and later translations of the Scriptures, the Apocalypse found a place; and the literature to which its exposition has proved by its exceptional magnitude the interest which the prophecy has awakened in almost every age of the Church’s history.

¹ “Adv. Marcion,” Book IV, Ch. 5.
² Quoted by Eusebius, H. E. V1, 25

AS the direct gift of the ascended and glorified Redeemer, His message from heaven, His last message through the last of His apostles, the Apocalypse possessed from the very first for the Christian Church a special and incomparable interest. Granted in the days of Domitian towards the close of the first century while the Church was suffering from the cruel persecutions of heathen Rome, this prophecy of the sufferings and triumphs of her saints and martyrs, struck a cord which strongly vibrated in every Christian heart. To the Martyr Church of the first three centuries, this book of martyrs was at once the mirror of her experiences, and the treasury of her hopes. It illuminated the darkness, and dreariness of her lot with rays of celestial brightness. It was recognized as the golden crown of Revelation; the highest stone of its structure; the most triumphant note of its lofty music. What wonder that every sentence of the mysterious prophecy should have been studied with earnest attention by the Church of primitive times? What wonder that its visions should have arrested the gaze of men eager to read the meaning of the present, and to pierce the secrets of futurity? What wonder that the hands of humble sufferers, of lonely exiles, of holy martyrs, should have transcribed its pages with loving care, and transmitted them to their beloved companions in “the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ”?

And that they did so study this closing prophecy of Scripture is evident from the fact that the entire Apocalypse can be reproduced from its quotations in the writings of the early Fathers which remain in our hands. 1 One complete commentary on the book has come down to us from the third century, that of the martyr Victorinus a brief and simple exposition, exhibiting the views of the Church of that period on its mysterious meaning.

And now, going back in thought to those early days of purer faith, and nobler heroism, let us endeavour to realize what *ere the first faint dawnings of the comprehension of this mysterious prophecy which penetrated the mind of the primitive Church; and mark the dawn light slowly increasing, as the course of history unfolded the meaning of the prophecy, and the secrets of Providence became revealed to every eye.

¹ See index to quotations from the Apocalypse in the writings of the early Fathers at the close of this chapter

I. Title and subject of the prophecy.

On opening the Apocalypse the early saints and martyrs saw plainly written upon its forefront its descriptive title,– The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass . . . for the time is at band.” Here then they beheld an authoritative definition of the subject of the prophecy. Not to some distant period in the future of the Church’s history, did this prophecy relate, but to events whose occurrence was even then, nineteen centuries ago, ” at hand.— This inspired declaration determined the primitive interpretation. Not a single trace is to be found in that interpretation of the “gap theory ” of modern futurism, the theory that the prophecy, overleaping the last nineteen centuries of Christian history, plunges at once into the remote future, and occupies itself with the events of a brief closing period, a mere stormy sunset hour, in the story of the world. To the Church of the first three centuries the fulfilment of the Apocalypse bad already begun, and was to continue without a break to the final consummation of all things.

II. Her study of the prophecy revealed to the primitive Church its Christian character.

It was evident that the Apocalypse was sent to Christian Churches ; that it was prefaced by letters addressed to these Churches; that its leading prophetic features had their parallels in these prefatory letters ; that the warnings and promises in the letters related to things set forth more fully in the visions of the prophecy ; that the saints of the prophetic portion of the book were those who kept “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” 1 and that its martyrs were ‘I the martyrs of Jesus” 2 Hence a Christian meaning was attached by the early Church to the entire book. It was regarded as the prophetic story of the trials and triumphs of the Church of Christ.

¹ Rev. 12:12 ² Rev 17:6.

III. He early Church regarded the Apocalypse as the New Testament continuation of the prophecies of Daniel.

The history of the Gentile world from the period of the Jewish captivities presented then, as now, the succession of four great Gentile Kingdoms; those of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The last of these, the greatest of the four, was at that time in the fullness of its strength, and at the acme of its glory. Ptolemy of Alexandria, the great astronomer and chronologer of the second century, had traced and tabulated in his invaluable Canon, the order and succession of these four kingdoms; associating with a series of dates in the reigns of their kings the whole of his astronomical observations. To the early Church these four kingdoms of history were mirrored in the visions of prophecy. Daniel had doubly foretold their course in his vision of the quadripartite image, of gold, silver, brass and iron; and in his vision of the four beasts; the lion, bear, leopard, and ten-horned wild beast which trod down and crushed, with iron strength, the nations of the earth. The visions of the Apocalypse were recognized as the continuation of those of Daniel, as relating to the fourth of these Gentile kingdoms, and to that divine eternal kingdom which Daniel foretold, destined to destroy and replace the kingdoms of the world.

“The golden head of the image, and the lioness, denoted the Babylonians; the shoulder and arm of silver, and the bear, represented the Persians and Medes; the belly and thighs of brass, and the leopard, meant the Greeks, who held the sovereignty from Alexander’s time; the legs of iron, and the beast, dreadful and terrible, expressed the Romans, who hold the sovereignty at present; the toes of the feet, which were part of clay and part of iron, and the ten horns, were emblems of the kingdoms that are yet to rise; the other little horn that grows up among them meant the Antichrist in their midst; the stone that smites the earth and brings judgment upon the world was Christ. Speak with me, O blessed Daniel. Give me full assurance I beseech thee. Thou dost prophesy. concerning the lioness in Babylon, for thou, I wast a captive there. Thou hast tin folded the future regarding bear, for thou wast still in the world, and didst see the, things come to pass. Then thou speakest to me of whence canst thou know this, for thou art already gone to thy rest? Who instructed thee to announce these things, but He who formed thee in thy mother’s womb? That is God, thou sayest. Thou hast spoken indeed, and that not falsely. The leopard has arisen; the he-goat is come ; he bath smitten the Ram; he bath broken his horns in pieces; he bath stamped upon him with his feet. He has been exalted by his fall; (the) four horns have come up from under that one. Rejoice, blessed Daniel! thou hast not been in error! all these things have come to pass. After this again thou hast told us of the beast, dreadful and terrible. “It has iron teeth and claws of brass: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it.’ Already the iron rules; already it subdues and breaks all in pieces; already it brings all the unwilling into subjection; already we see these things ourselves. Now we glorify God, being instructed by thee.”

IV. The early Church interpreted the first vision, that of the crowned Rider seated upon a white horse, armed with a bow, going forth “conquering and to conquer,” as a representation of Christ going forth on His victorious mission.

Thus Victorinus in his commentary on the Apocalypse written in the third century says, “The first seal being opened he saw a white horse and a crowned horseman bearing a bow. For this ‘ was at first drawn by Himself. For after the Lord and opened all things, He sent the Holy Spirit, whose words the preachers sent forth as arrows, reaching to the human heart that they might overcome unbelief.

A comparison of this opening vision with that in the nineteenth chapter, of the rider on the while horse, whose name was “King of Kings and Lord of Lords,” justified in the view of the early Church the application of the first seal to Christ’s victorious mission.

The fact that Christ had founded a Kingdom whose power was greater even than that of Rome, became early apparent. The words of Origen in his answer to Celsus strikingly exhibit the conviction of the primitive Church, that its marvellous progress could only be explained by attributing it to the action of supernatural power. “Any one who examines the subject,” says Origen, “will see that Jesus attempted and successfully accomplished works beyond the reach of human power. For although from the very beginning, all things opposed the spread of His doctrine in the world,-both the princes of the time, and their chief captains and generals, and all, to speak generally, who were possessed of the smallest influence, and in addition to these the rulers of the different cities, and the soldiers, and the people,-yet it proved victorious, as being the Word of God ‘ the nature of which is such that it cannot be hindered ; and becoming more powerful than all such adversaries, it made itself master of the whole of Greece, and a considerable portion of barbarian lands, and converted a countless number of souls to his religion.” 1

“The outcry,” says Tertullian, “is that the State is filled with Christians; that they are in the fields, in the citadels, in the islands; they make lamentation as for some calamity, that both sexes, every age and condition, even high rank, are passing over to the profession of the Christian faith.”

The triumph of Christianity over Paganism described by the historian Gibbon is in striking harmony with the view of the early Church as to the destinies of Christ’s kingdom. ‘While the Roman world,” says Gibbon, “was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion quietly insinuated itself into the minds of men ; grew up in silence and obscurity ; derived new vigour from opposition; and finally erected the triumphal banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period, or to the limits of the Roman Empire. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of humankind in arts and learning, as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by the means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili in a world unknown to the ancients.”

With the vision of Christ going forth on His world-conquering mission, the Apocalypse most naturally begins. At the outset of the drama, the glorious Conqueror goes forth to whose head at the close are transferred the “many crowns ” of universal dominion.

And in the vision thus interpreted is found a key to the entire prophecy; for this is the starting point of the whole. Seals, trumpets, and vials set forth a continuous course of history stretching to the consummation, having as its commencement the going forth of the Gospel of Christ to accomplish its world-subduing work. The inference is unavoidable that the Apocalypse presents a prophetic foreview of the entire course of Christian history, from the foundation of the Church to the end of the world. Nor was any other interpretation ever known in the Christian Church till the rise of modern futurism.

V. The red, black, and livid horses, and their riders, of the second, third, and fourth seals, were explained by primitive interpreters as signifying the wars) famines and pestilences which our Lord had predicted in the twenty fourth of Matthew, as salient events which would occur in the interval between His departure and His return. Thus in the commentary of Victorinus, who died as a martyr under the persecution of Diocletian, after the application of the going forth of the rider on the white horse of the first seal to the victorious Kingdom of Christ, he adds, “The other three horses very plainly signify the wars, famines, and pestilences announced by our Lord in the gospel.

“VI. The vision under the fifth seal of the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar, was interpreted by the Church of the first three centuries as representing the continuous persecutions and martyrdoms of Christ’s saints; while the sixth seal was regarded as a vision of the judgments attending the consummation, or close of the age. No other view of the meaning of the seals was possible to the early Church. Their scope seemed to reach to the consummation) and it was most natural that their mysterious symbols should be interpreted in the light of our Lord’s plain unmetaphorical predictions concerning the events whose occurrence should extend to His Second Advent. Both prophecies were by the same divine Revealer; and both seemed to predict the same course of events; wars, famines, pestilences, earth quakes, persecutions; a universal proclamation of the gospel, a great tribulation; and then the darkening of the sun and moon; the falling of the stars; the shaking of the powers of heaven; and the advent of the Son of Man in the power and glory of His kingdom.

Holding this view as regards the six first seals, the early Church, unable to anticipate the long course of history which lay concealed in the future, considered that in the remaining visions of the book the revealing Spirit retraced the steps leading up to the consummation, in order to fill in, the features omitted in the introductory sketch. Thus Victorinus says with reference to the trumpets and vials, which succeeded the seals, “we must not regard the order of what is said, because frequently the Holy Spirit, when He has traversed even to the end of the last times, returns again to the same times, and fills up what He had (before) failed to say.” To this interpreter the brief “silence” under the seventh seal was “the beginning of everlasting rest ” ; while the judgments of the trumpets represented events connected with the coming of Anti-Christ.

VII. According to Victorinus the mighty cloud-clothed angel of the covenant of Revelations 10, “is our Lord.” His position as standing on sea and land signifies that all things are placed under His feet.” The command to measure the temple,” he regarded as relating, not to the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, but to the right ordering of the Christian Church. By the assembly of its bishops its faith was to be brought into agreement with the teachings of the Word of God. The slaughter of the witnesses he explains as representing the slaying of holy prophets by Antichrist in the last times. The 1,260 days of their prophesying he interprets literally, as the period of three years and six months, during which the witnesses should prophesy in their sackcloth clothed character, as despised and persecuted by the world. To have interpreted the 1,260 days as symbolically representing 1,260 years of a suffering and subjected condition of witnesses to gospel truth, was of course impossible at that early period of the Church’s history. The latter view only dawned upon the minds of Apocalyptic interpreters during the actual fulfilment of the prophecy in the middle ages.

VIII. The woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars, of Ch. 12, is, according to Victorinus, and all the early interpreters, “the ancient Church of fathers, and prophets, and saints, and apostles.— In his treatise on Christ and Antichrist, Hippolytus says, “ By the ‘woman clothed with the sun’ he meant most manifestly the Church, endued with the Father’s word, whose brightness is above the sun . . the words ‘upon her head a crown of twelve stars,’ refer to the twelve apostles by whom the Church was founded.” The “three and a half times” of her seclusion in the wilderness is the period of 1,260 days, or three and a half years, during which the Church “seeks concealment in the wilderness,” from the persecutions of Antichrist; finding no safety but in flight.

IX. The 144.000 sealed out of the twelve tribes of Israel, of Chs. 7 and 14, are interpreted by Tertullian as not Jews but Christians. ‘With the same anti-Judaic view he markedly speaks of the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem (though with the names of the twelve. tribes of Israel written on its gates) as Christian, not Jewish; the Jerusalem spoken of by St. Paul to the Galatians, as the Mother of all Christians.” 1

The same view was clearly and powerfully advocated by the celebrated Origen ; and was held by Methodius, and Lactantius ; in fact was a leading feature of primitive exposition.

X. On the important subject of Antichrist, “while there was a universal concurrence in the general idea of the prophecy, there was in respect of the details of application, a considerable measure of difference; these differences, arising mainly out of certain current notions of the coming of Antichrist as in some way Jewish as well as Roman, and the difficulty of combining and adjusting the two characteristics.” 2 The Roman view was derived from the Antichrist being represented in the prophecy as the eighth head of the Roman beast, arising after the healing of his deadly wound. 1 His Jewish character, where held, seems to have arisen from his being regarded as in some sense a false Christ, such as our Lord predicted in Matt. 24. Hence lrenaeus and Hippolytus imagined that the place of his manifestation would be the Jewish sanctuary, and that its time would synchronize with the last half week of the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9. The whole subject was necessarily involved in great perplexity to these early expositors. No correct anticipation of the fulfilment of the predictions relating to Antichrist, viewed as a whole, was possible in the opening centuries of the Church’s history. Certain points, however, were clearly and correctly seen. Justin Martyr, one of the earliest of the Fathers, considered the Apocalyptic ten-horned beast, or rather its ruling head, to be identical with St. Paul’s Man of Sin, and St. John’s Antichrist: and Irenaeus directed his readers to look out for the division of the Roman Empire into ten kingdoms, as that which was immediately to be followed by Antichrist’s manifestation. He also remarkably explained the number of Antichrist’s name, 666, as symbolizing Latteinos, the Latin man, “seeing that they who thus held the world’s empire were Latins.” 2

XI. To the early Fathers the Babylon of the Apocalypse represented Rome.

This is an important point owing to the magnitude of the position occupied by “Babylon the Great” in Apocalyptic prophecy; and also to the fact that the angelic interpretation of the vision relating to Babylon makes it the key to the whole prophecy.

“Tell me, blessed John,” says Hippolytus, “thou apostle and disciple of the Lord, what thou hast heard and seen respecting Babylon: wake up, and speak; for it was she that exiled thee to Patmos.” “Babylon, in our own John,” says Tertullian, “is a figure of the city of Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and triumphant over the saints.— On Revelations 17:9, Victorinus says, “The seven heads are the seven hills on which the woman sitteth -that is the city of Rome.” “On the Apocalyptic BabyIon’s meaning Rome, all agreed.”

XII. The continued existence of the Roman Empire was commonly regarded by the early Fathers as the “let” or hindrance to the manifestation of “the Man of Sin,” or Antichrist. In his magnificent apology addressed to the rulers of the Roman Empire, Tertullian says that the Christian Church prayed for the stability of the empire, because they knew “that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth-in fact the very end of all things, threatening dreadful woes-was only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman Empire. We have no desire to be overtaken by these dire events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed we are lending our aid to Rome’s duration.” As to the ‘I let ” or hindrance to the manifestation of the “Man of Sin,” “we have the consenting testimony of the early Fathers,” says Elliott, ” from Irenaeus, the disciple of the disciple of St. John, down to Chrysostom and Jerome, to the effect that it was understood to be the imperial power ruling and residing at Rome.”

XIII. The Martyr Church of the first three centuries interpreted the first resurrection foretold in the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse as a resurrection of the literal dead. Hence they believed in the pre-millennial Advent of Christ. On no point of interpretation was their agreement more remarkable. “On the millenary question, all primitive expositors except Origen, and the few who rejected the Apocalypse as unapostolical, were pre-millenarians; and construed the first resurrection of the saints literally.” 2 They looked for the appearance of Christ to destroy Anti-Christ. They believed that the Roman Empire would fall into ten kingdoms, then Antichrist would appear, and then Christ would come in the glory of His kingdom. Thus Lactantius held that after the destruction of Antichrist “the saints raised from the grave would reign with Christ through the world’s seventh Chiliad, a period to commence, Lactantius judged, in about two hundred years at furthest: the Lord alone being thenceforth worshipped in a renovated world; its still living inhabitants multiplying incalculably in a state of terrestrial felicity; and the resurrection saints, during this commencement of an eternal kingdom in a nature like the angelic, reigning over them.” 3

At the conclusion of his treatise on Christ and Antichrist, Hippolytus expresses himself as follows-,, Moreover, concerning the resurrection, and the kingdom of the saints, Daniel says, And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall arise, some to everlasting life.’ Esaias says, “The dead men shall arise, and they that are in their tombs shall awake; for the dew from thee is healing to them.” The Lord says, ‘ Many in that day shall hear’ the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.’ And the prophet says, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.’ And John says, ‘Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.’ Concerning the resurrection of the righteous, Paul also speaks thus in writing to the Thessalonians ‘ The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice and trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. These things then, I have set shortly before thee, O Theophilus, drawing them (from Scripture itself) in order that maintaining in faith what is written, and anticipating the things that are to be, thou mayest keep thyself void of offense both towards God and towards men, ” looking for that blessed hope and appearing of our God and Saviour,” when having raised the saints among us, He will rejoice with them, glorifying the Father. To Him be the glory unto the endless ages of the ages. Amen.’ ”

Such were the leading features of the interpretation of the Apocalypse by the Martyr Church of the first three centuries. In the Catacombs of Rome, there remains a profoundly interesting and touching reference to one of the opening and closing symbols of the Apocalypse in the oft recurring Monogram of the Name of Christ, in which the Greek letters Alpha and Omega., the first and the last of the Alphabet, are inserted on either side of the brief sign standing for Xpiorus or Christ; the whole being enclosed in a circle, the symbol of eternity.

The following are the passages in the Apocalypse forming the foundation of the monogram. ” I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”

” / am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest write in a book.” ” / am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last … I Jesus.” ” The two letters of Greece, the first and the last,” says Tertullian, ” the Lord assumes to Himself, as figures of the beginning and end which concur in Himself: so that, just as Alpha rolls on till it reaches Omega, and again Omega rolls back till it reaches Alpha, in the same way He might show that in Himself is both the downward course of the beginning on to the end, and the backward course of the end up to the beginning; so that every economy, ending in Him through whom it began,—through the Word of God, that is, who was made flesh,—may have an end corresponding to its beginning.” 1

Such was the faith that overcame the world !

The place and power of the Apocalyptic prophecy as sustaining in the Martyr Church, the hope of the speedy advent of Christ, and thus strengthening that Church for its warfare and victory over the persecuting pagan Empire of Rome, were of the highest practical importance. The historian Gibbon recognizes the immense influence of the hope of Christ’s speedy coming on the early Church. “The ancient Christians,” he says, ” were animated by a contempt for their present existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any adequate notion. It was universally believed that the end of the world and the kingdom of heaven were at hand. The near approach of this wonderful event had been predicted by the apostles; ” a view ” productive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment when the globe itself, and all the various races of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their divine Judge. The ancient and popular doctrine of the millennium was intimately connected with the Second Coming of Christ. As the works of creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. By the same analogy it was inferred that this long period of labour and contention, which was now almost elapsed, would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon earth till the time appointed for the last and general resurrection.”

While correct in its historical principle and leading features, the interpretation of the Apocalypse by the early Church was necessarily deficient in scope. It foreshortened the prospect to a narrow margin. It knew nothing of the long centuries which were destined to elapse before the dispensation had run its course. It knew nothing of the great Apostasy which was to darken the earth by its long and terrible eclipse ; and nothing of the glorious reformation which was to follow, although all these were foretold in the far-seeing prophecy. Rome Pagan, in her declining dominion, and proximate doom, filled the scene on which the early Christians gazed. One bright star shone in their sky, burning with intense and pristine splendour, the hope of the speedy coming of Christ. For that great event they watched and waited. They believed that to suffer with Christ was the prelude to reigning with Him, and that His kingdom was at hand. And this conviction nerved them to endure the utmost torments which heathen Rome had power to inflict. In this conviction they lived and died, ” more than conquerors.”

THE great historic event which immediately succeeded the Diocletian era of persecution was the fall of Paganism, and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire.

In its internal character and far-reaching effects this revolution is one of the greatest and most remarkable that has ever taken place in the history of the world.

The ruin of Paganism, as Gibbon has pointed out, is perhaps ” the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition.” During the long period of a thousand years the dark shadow of Paganism had covered the city and empire of Rome. Its temples were innumerable and adorned with the utmost magnifi- cence. Its’ wealth, the accumulation of ages, was fabulously great. Its priesthood was established and endowed by government, the Roman Emperor himself occupying the position of the supreme pontiff of the hierarchy. In the fourth century this monstrous system was brought to ruin. Working upwards from the lowest strata of society, the belief in the unity of the Godhead, and the divinity of the Christian religion, a belief commended by the lives, and sealed by the blood of the martyrs, had gradually reached the highest classes in the community, and effected the conversion of the Roman Emperor. The conviction that “the idolatrous worship of fabulous deities, and real demons, is the most abominable crime against the Supreme Majesty of the Creator,” led to the subversion of the temples of the Roman world, and the total suppression of Paganism. Maxentius, the last persecuting Pagan Emperor, was overthrown by Constantine at the memorable battle of Milvian Bridge, and his legions drowned in the waters of the Tiber. The Christian religion, liberated from persecution, became the religion of the State. The suppression of Paganism gradually followed, and within less than a century its ” faint and minute vestiges were no longer visible.”

In this memorable event Apocalyptic prophecy was strikingly fulfilled, a fact clearly recognized and openly confessed by the leading Christian writers of the period, and even celebrated by Imperial Enactment.

The fall of Paganism shed a flood of light on the Apocalyptic vision in which the issue of the deadly conflict between the Christian Church and the Imperial Roman power is represented by the casting down of the seven-headed Satanically inspired dragon from his lofty position of rule and authority.

The conflict and its issue are thus symbolically described in Revelation 12: “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place any more found in heaven, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

Several points in this most remarkable prophecy should be especially noticed.

1. The dragon is the ten-horned wild beast power of the Apocalypse whose identity with the fourth or ten-horned wild beast of the prophecies of Daniel was recognized by the Church of the second, third, and fourth centuries. Of the fourth beast ” dreadful and terrible ” Hippolytus says “who are these but the Romans …the kingdom which is now established ? ” ” John in the Apocalypse,” says Irenaeus, “teaches us what the ten horns shall be which were seen by Daniel.”

2. This ruling power, under a sevenfold succession of heads, is represented as Satanically inspired. In a later vision 2 the sixth head is identified with the form of Roman rule which existed in St. John’s own time, that of the Pagan Roman Caesars.

3. The dragon is described as “great.” The power of heathen Rome was then the greatest in the world. It had conquered and crushed the nations.

4. As “red “; red with much bloodshed of war and persecution.

5. As wearing the “crowns” which symbolized its rule, not on the ten horns, which had not then arisen, but on its previous succession of ” heads.”

6. As first standing before the ” woman,” who represented as the Fathers clearly saw the Judeo-Christian Church, 3 to devour her child as soon as it was born, and then warring against her, and “her seed.”

7. The conflict is described as a fierce and obstinate ” war.”

8. The army of the just, under its Heavenly Leader, is victorious over the dragon.

9. The victory is celebrated by a song of praise in which the great event is regarded as a signal triumph of the Kingdom of God. “Now is come salvation and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ.”

10. The victors are declared to have ” overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony “: not by sword and spear, as in a mere carnal conflict, but by moral, spiritual, and Christian weapons.

11. The martyr character of the conquerors is touchingly described in the concluding sentence ” they loved not their lives-even unto the death.”

In connection with the application of this remarkable prophecy, it should be observed that the figure of the dragon was used as an ensign by the armies of heathen Rome. Ammianus Marcellinus thus describes this heathen Roman standard: “The dragon was covered with purple cloth, and fastened to the end of a pike gilt and adorned with precious stones. It opened its wide throat, and the wind blew through it; and it hissed as if in a rage, with its tail floating in several folds through the air.” It was first used as an ensign near the close of the second century of the Christian era. ” In the third century it had become almost as notorious among Roman ensigns as the eagle itself; and is in the fourth century used by Prudentius,

Vegetius, Chrysostom, Ammianus, etc, in the fifth by Claudian and others.” 1

Two stages in the casting down of Roman Paganism should be distinguished; first its primary dejection when headed by Maximin and Licinius; and secondly, its final overthrow as headed by the apostate Emperor Julian. The persecution under Diocletian was the most prolonged and severe of those endured by the early Church. Under Maximin this persecution reached its climax. ” Before the decisive battle,” says Milner, “Maximin vowed to Jupiter that, if victorious, he would abolish the Christian name. The contest between Jehovah and Jupiter was now at its height, and drawing to a crisis.” “The defeat and death of Maximin,” says Gibbon, “delivered the Church from the last and most implacable of her enemies.”

The effort of the apostate Emperor Julian thirty years later to restore Paganism throughout the Roman Empire was similarly defeated by the wonder working hand of God. It was “the design of Julian,” says Gibbon, “to deprive the Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge and of power.” They were condemned to rebuild at enormous cost, the Pagan temples which had been des- troyed. By these rash edicts ” the whole empire, and particularly the East, was thrown into confusion.” The persecution which broke forth afresh against the Church was terminated by the tragic death of Julian on the field of battle, in A. D . 363.

Theodoret tells us that ” as soon as the death of Julian was known in Antioch (followed by the accession of the orthodox Jovian) public festivals were celebrated. And not in the churches and martyr chapels only, but even in the theatres the victory of the cross was extolled, and Julian’s oracles held up to ridicule. . . . They exclaimed as with one voice, ‘ Where are now thy predictions, O foolish Maximus ? God and His Christ have gotten the victory. ‘ ” 1

Bishop Gregory Nazianzen in a public discourse delivered on the occasion says, ” Hear this, all ye nations . all that are now, and all that shall be hereafter. Hear every power in heaven, even all ye angels, whose office was the destruction of the tyrant: not of Sihon, King of the Amorites, nor of Og, King of Bashan, rulers of little importance, and their afflicted Israel, a small people only of the habitable earth; but the destruction of the dragon, the apostate, the man of great mind, the common enemy and adversary of all; who madly did and threatened many things on the earth, and spoke and devised great wickedness against the height above. … Who shall worthily celebrate these things? Who shall declare the power of the Lord, and speak all His praise? Who shivered the armour, the sword and the battle, and broke the heads of the dragon in the water? . . . It is the Lord mighty and powerful; the Lord mighty in battle.”

Later on, alluding to the frustration of Julian’s attempt to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, and to destroy the very name of Christians, he says:—” What will be the end of the heathen if they turn not to Christ now ? Would that they would consent to be ruled not with the rod of iron, but with that of the Good Shepherd.”

To commemorate the fall of Paganism, the Emperor Constantine caused medals to be struck representing that event under the semblance of a dragon precipitated into the abyss. ” As we see on the coins of Constantine,” says ‘ Ranke, ” the Labarum with the monogram of Christ above the conquered dragon, even so did the worship and name of Christ stand triumphant above prostrate heathenism.”

In his Epistle to Eusebius and other bishops concerning the re- edifying and repairing of churches, Constantine’ said that ” liberty being now restored, and ‘ that dragon’ being removed from the administration of public affairs by the providence of the Great God, and by my ministry, I esteem the great power of God to have been made manifest, even to all.” 1

The Emperor Constantine, says Eusebius, ” caused to be painted on a lofty tablet, and set up in the front of the portico of his palace, so as to be visible to all, a representation of the salutary sign placed above his head; and below it that hateful and savage adversary of mankind, who by means of the tyranny of the ungodly, had wasted the Church of God, falling headlong, under the form of a dragon, to the abyss of destruction. For the sacred oracles in the books of God’s prophets have described him as a dragon and a crooked serpent, and for this reason the Emperor there publicly displayed a painted resemblance of the dragon beneath his own and his children’s feet, stricken through with a dart, and cast headlong into the depths of the sea.”

This triumphant celebration of the victory of the early Church over Roman Paganism was anticipated in the words of the Apocalyptic prophecy, ” Now hath come the salvation, and the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ . . . therefore rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.” ” The very word,” says Elliott, ” eufraivesthe, used in the Apocalyptic prophecy to wish the Christian professors joy, was the identical word addressed more than once to them in the Imperial Edict of Constantine.”

The exaltation of the Christian religion to the position of the religion of the State under Constantine, while productive of great advantages, especially in the cessation of persecution, led to serious declension, not only in the spiritual life of the Church, but also in her views as to the teachings of prophecy concerning her relations to the Roman Empire, and to the world. The divine weapon placed in the hand of the Church to preserve her from apostasy fell from her grasp. She lost the remembrance of her position as a pilgrim and a stranger on earth seeking a celestial city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. The transformation of the Martyr Church of the early centuries into the Christendom of the Middle Ages involved the change of Apocalyptic interpretation as to the reign of Christ and His saints in a post-advent kingdom, into a prediction of a Romanized Christianity ruling after the fashion of the Caesars, the peoples of the world.

“The great Constantine revolution,” says Elliott, “could hardly fail of exercising a considerable influence on Apocalyptic interpretation. A revolution by which Christianity should be established in the prophetically-denounced Roman Empire, was an event the contingency of which had never occurred apparently to the previous exponents of Christian prophecy; and suggested the idea of a time, mode, and scene, of the fulfilment of the promises of the latter-day blessedness that could scarcely have arisen before; viz.— that its scene might be the earth in its present state, not the renovated earth after Christ’s coming (and the conflagration) ; its time that of the present dispensation ; its mode by the earthly establishment of the earthly Church visible. For it does not seem to have occurred at the time that this might in fact be one of the preparations, through Satan’s craft, for the establishment, after a while, of the great predicted antichristian ecclesiastical empire, on the platform of the same Roman world, and in a professing but apostatized Church.” 1

This revolution of interpretation is strikingly visible in the case of Eusebius, who, though he seems in early life to have received the Apocalypse as inspired Scripture, and interpreted its seals in harmony with the method of Victorinus, was led, after the Constantine revolution, and the establishment of Christianity, to doubt the apostolic authorship of the prophecy. He continued, however, to apply the symbolic prefigurations of the Apocalypse to the changed events of the period; the casting down of the seven- headed dragon from its high and ruling position represented in the twelfth chapter seemed to him to agree in a marvelous manner with the dejection of Paganism, and of the Pagan Emperors, which had just taken place, from the supremacy which they had for ages exercised in the Roman world. The prophecies of Isaiah respecting the latter-day glory of the redeemed, and the Apocalyptic vision of the New Jerusalem, were applied by him to the Christian Church as newly established by Constantine. The millennial day of the glory and prosperity of the Church seemed to have dawned, and the language of the period was filled with the loftiest anticipations.

During the thousand years which followed, the Mediaeval period of history, the Church believed she was living in the millennium. The commencement of this millennium, or period during which Satan is bound, was variously dated; first with Augustine from Christ’s ministry, when the Redeemer beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven; and later on, when the lapse of time had proved the error of this view, from the Constantine revolution; the binding of Satan being taken to represent the restriction of Satanic power at the fall of Paganism. This extraordinary view continued to prevail up to the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Reformers supposing themselves to be living in the ” little season ” during which Satan was to be “loosed” at the close of the millennium. To carry out the view that the millennium had come, and that the Church, as Eusebius supposed, had reached the stage of existence represented by the latter-day glory predicted by Isaiah, and the new Jerusalem foretold by John, ” must soon have been felt most difficult: the Arian and other troubles which quickly supervened, powerfully contributing to that conviction. It resulted, perhaps not a little from this cause, that the Apocalypse itself became for a while much neglected;’ especially in the Eastern Empire, where the Imperial seat was now chiefly fixed.” 1

The sad effect of this neglect became evident in the dark apostasy which speedily followed. The Harlot Church denounced in the Apocalypse was magnified as the Bride of Christ, enriched with the privileges and adorned with the glories of the millennial state. The reign of Satan was mistaken for the reign of Christ. The solemn warnings of the Word of God intended to preserve the Church from the apostasy were forgotten; and the ” falling away ” foretold took place, carrying with it the whole of Christendom, with the exception of a small and feeble remnant of faithful witnesses to New Testament truths.

The growing perception of this apostasy led the prophetic interpreters of the fourth and fifth centuries to the view which had presented itself to the pre-Constantine Fathers, that the scene of the manifestation of Antichrist would prove to be the professing Christian Church. Thus Athanasius taught that the Antichrist of prophecy would prove to be a heretical ruler of the Roman Empire, making a Christian profession; and that Antichrist would come with the profession, ” I am Christ,” assuming Christ’s place and character, like Satan transformed into an angel of light. Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers, in France, the contemporary and friend of Athanasius, asked when the flood of Arianism swept over the western part of the Roman Empire, ” Is it a doubtful thing that Antichrist will sit in Christian Churches? “He denounced the Emperor Constantine as a precursor of Antichrist; and speaks of Bishop Arius, and Bishop Auxentius as Antichrists. Cyril, of Jerusalem, says of Antichrist, ” This man will usurp the government of the Roman Empire, and will falsely call himself the Christ.” ” He will sit in the temple of God : not that which is in Jerusalem, but in the Churches everywhere.” 2 Jerome, in interpreting Paul’s Man of Sin, declares that he ” is to sit in the temple, that is in the Church.” He adds, ” It is only by assuming Christ’s name that the simpler ones of believers can be seduced to go to Antichrist; for thus they will go to Antichrist, while thinking to find Christ.

WITH the Gothic invasion and the break-up of the western Roman Empire into ten kingdoms, came the predicted rise of Antichrist. The incipient fulfilment of the foretold partition of the empire began to be recognized as early as the fourth century. “In our time,” said Jerome, ” the clay has become mixed with iron. Once nothing was stronger than the Roman Empire, now nothing weaker, mixed up as it is with, and needing the help of barbarous nations.” “He who withheld is removed, and we think not that Antichrist is at the door!” On the unthinking Church, blind to the meaning of the events occurring around her, came the predicted ” Man of Sin,” to take his foretold place and sit supreme for long disastrous centuries in the very Temple or Church of God.

THE RISE OF THE PAPACY TO UNIVERSAL DOMINION

“A mighty and majestic figure,” says Pennington, ” comes upon our view in the Middle Ages. Its feet rest upon the earth, while its head towers towards the stars. A triple tiara, rich with the most costly gems, glitters on its brow. It is clothed in the sacred robes of the priesthood, but bears in its hand the golden sceptre of temporal dominion. The nations of the earth crouch at its feet. Around it clouds of incense roll upwards from innumerable altars. The ground on which it stands is whitened with the bones of God’s saints. 1

The rise of this power was gradual. The removal of the Imperial Government from Rome to Constantinople, and the break-up of the empire by invading hordes of barbarians, liberated the Bishop of Rome from the bonds which had confined his activities, and hindered the attainment of the supremacy to which he aspired. Rome had in earlier times sat queen among the nations. Why should not the Bishop of Rome be accorded the proud position of Head of the Churches of Christendom? Why should he not become their spiritual dictator? Applications for assistance and advice came to him from every quarter. His letters, first mild and moderate in tone, gradually assumed the form of arbitrary mandates. Encroachments were made on the spiritual jurisdiction of other bishops. Appeals addressed to him by bishops or presbyters, and applications from monarchs to interfere in their quarrels, led to his asserting the right to decide by his own arbitrary will the disputes of individuals and the controversies of the Church. Additional powers were gradually obtained. The Bishop of Rome was the alleged successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, to whom Christ had committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven. In the fifth century the lineal descent of the Popes from St. Peter was an accredited article of Christianity. Claiming to have been bestowed as a divine gift, the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over all other bishops was established by a law of the Roman Emperor. In the year 607 the Emperor Phocas, a blood-stained usurper, placed the crown of universal supremacy in the Christian Church on the brow of Boniface III. The temporal dominion of the Popes speedily followed. In the next century the usurper Pepin bestowed upon the Pope the city of Rome, and the exarchate of Ravenna, which he had wrested from the Lombards. Charlemagne, crowned by the Pope in the year 800 as Emperor of the Romans, enlarged the Pope’s dominions; and the Roman Empire, which had been overthrown by the barbarians, restored by Charlemagne, took officially the title of the Holy Roman Empire.

King and priest stood side by side at the summit of this empire. Which stood highest? That question which took centuries to settle, ended by the exaltation of the Papal power in 1268 to supremacy over the Imperial power. A large space in the history of the Middle Ages is filled by the struggle between the empire and the papacy. Its termination witnessed the subjection of the temporal to the spiritual dominion.

In the Donation of Constantine—a forged document on which Papal supremacy was largely built—the emperor transfers the diadem from his own head to the head of the Pope of Rome, and says ” in our reverence for the blessed Peter, we ourselves hold the reins of his horse, as holding the office of his stirrup-holder; and we ordain that all his successors shall wear the same mitre in their processions, in imitation of the empire y and that the Papal crown may never be lowered, but may be exalted above the crown of the earthly empire. Lo, we give and grant not only our palace, as aforesaid, but also the city of Rome, and all the provinces and palaces and cities of Italy, and of the western regions, to our aforesaid most blessed Pontiff and universal Pope.” The famous Decretal Epistles in the ninth century, now condemned as forgeries by the voice of Christendom, containing the ” alleged judgment of the Popes in former ages, in unbroken succession from St. Peter, supplied them with everything they could require to establish the sovereignty of the Popes over the monarchs of the earth, and their authority over the doctrines and practices of the Churches of Christendom.” In the exercise of his supremacy the Pope exalted or deposed monarchs, absolved subjects from their oaths of allegiance, declaring in the synod of 1080 “we desire to show the world that we can give, or take away at our will, kingdoms, duchies, earldoms, in a word, the possessions of all men, since we can bind and loose.” Gratian’s work, the Decretum, in the middle of the twelfth century, deciding questions relating to the Canon law of the Church of Rome, quoting as authority sixty-five of the forged Decretal Epistles, gave to the papacy a legal and long unquestioned standing. ” This work was always the authority for the Canon law of the Church of Rome, which was received into every nation before the Reformation. No book has ever exercised so much influence in the Church. In fact, this system of law constitutes the papacy.”

The subjection of the Bishops to Papal supremacy was followed by the destruction of the independence of Councils. ” The only business of Bishops at a Council was considered to be to inform the Pope of the condition of their dioceses, and to give him their advice in spiritual matters. The Pope in fact appropriated to himself all the rights and institutions of the Church. . . . National churches now found themselves subject to an irresistible despotism. Legates were appointed to represent the Majesty of the Pope in remote territories, who lived in splendour at the expense of the victims of their tyranny, deposing Bishops, holding Synods, promulgating Canons, and pronouncing sentences of Excommunication against those who dared to resist their arbitrary decrees.”

In the year 1268 the Popes “blotted out the name of the House of Hohenstaufen from under heaven.” The execution of Conradin, the grandson of Frederick II, the last heir of the House, leaving ” another stain of blood on the annals of the papacy, marked the termination of the struggle for two hundred years between the Emperors and the Popes for supremacy over the nations. The latter now reigned without a rival in Christendom.”

It only remained for the Popes to assume Divine honours. In the person of Boniface VIII, whose accession took place in 1294, the Pope sat “as God in the temple of God.” Human ambition could rise no higher. The Pope boldly laid claim to the attributes and prerogatives of Deity. He represented the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He claimed to rule in three worlds, Heaven, Earth, and Hell; and in token thereof was crowned with a triple crown. He paraded himself before the world as the infallible Teacher of faith and morals. Exalted above bishops, above councils, above kings, above conscience, from his decisions there was no appeal. He was the supreme Judge of mankind. Lifted up to sit on the high altar of St. Peter’s, the chiefest Church in Christendom, he was publicly adored, cardinals, the princes of the Church, kissing in turn his feet; bishops bending low before him in deepest reverence; and nations worshipping him as the visible representative of the Godhead, possessed of power to pardon sins on earth, to canonize saints in heaven, to loose souls from the pains of purgatory in the world be- neath; to judge, to govern, to bless, to save mankind; whose sentences, clothed with the authority of God, were inherently irreversible, irrevocable, final and everlasting.

And for what ends, and with what effects has the Godlike power of this great Usurper been employed?

Let history answer. Let the stake reply. Let the Inquisition speak. Let the Waldenses, the Wickliffites, the Lollards, the Hussites, the Huguenots sound forth the answer. Let Italy, let France, let Spain tell what they have witnessed. Let Roman Catholic lands in their notorious degradation, and Protestant lands deluged with blood by Papal wars and massacres, bear their testimony. The Bible prohibited; idolatry enforced; the gospel denied; Christianity caricatured; millions deluded; millions led to destruction; who can estimate the world-wide effects of this diabolical travesty of the religion of Jesus Christ? The cup of salvation changed into the cup of death; revealed religion, God’s greatest, highest gift to man, trans- formed into a snare, an instrument of delusion, tyranny, and eternal ruin to countless souls, and generations of mankind.

PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT OF PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION

Did the prophetic expositors of the Middle Ages, after the breaking up of the old Roman Empire, and the rise of the Papal power to supremacy over the Gothic kingdoms, recognize, on his appearance, the predicted ” Man of Sin,” or Antichrist?

Not at first. The comprehension of the character of Romanism and the papacy was a gradual growth. In its slow development the doctrinal errors of the Church of Rome were recognized as unscriptural long before the antichristian character of the papacy was perceived. Not until the papacy reached the monstrous height of self- exaltation and depravity which it attained in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was it seen to fulfill the predictions relating to the ” Man of Sin,” or Antichrist.

From the middle of the seventh century the Paulikians in Eastern Christendom, ” bore a continuous and unvarying protest against the grosser superstitions of saint mediatorship, image worship, and other kinds of idolatry, as well as against the established system of priestcraft which supported them.” 1 In Western Europe, Claude, Bishop of Turin, ” was a true, fearless, enlightened, and spiritual witness for Christ’s truth and honour, and against the superstition and wickedness of the age,” 1 and earned the title of ” the Protestant of the ninth century.” “When sorely against my will, I undertook at the command of Louis the Pious the burden of a Bishoprick,” says Claude, ” and when contrary to the order of truth I found all the Churches of Turin stuffed full of vile and accursed images, I alone began to destroy what all were sottishly worshipping. Therefore it was that all opened their mouths to revile me. And forsooth, had not the Lord helped me, they would have swallowed me up quick.” 32 From the works of Claude, and the treatises written against him, it appears that he protested against the ” worship of saints, relics, and the wooden cross, as well as of images; against pilgrimages, and all the prevailing Judaic or formal and ceremonial system of religion; against masses for the dead; against what was afterwards called transubstantiation in the Eucharist; against the supremacy of the Pope of Rome; and the authority of tradition in doctrines of religion. The written Word was made by him the one standard of truth.” 3

Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, from A . D . 810 to 841, was a determined enemy of all superstition. With reference to the invocation of saints, he held that ” there is no other Mediator to be sought for but He that is the God-Man.” “He combats the idea of merit in human works with as much zeal and force,” says Leger, ” as Calvin him- self.” 4 Gottschalc, a monk of the abbey of Fulda, left his monastery with missionary purposes, and after preaching the gospel agreeably with Augustine’s views of it, in Dalmatia, Pannonia, Lombardy, and Piedmont, was condemned as a heretic, degraded from the priesthood, beaten with rods, and cast into prison, where he lingered refusing retractation till his death in 868. 5 Treatises from the Lyonnese Church of this period exhibit “the same decided adhesion to the doctrines of Augustine.” A reference occurs in the letters of Atto, Bishop of Vercelli near Turin, A.D. 945, to “certain false teachers, known among the common people by the name of prophets, under whose teaching certain persons in his diocese had been induced to forsake their priests, and their Holy Mother the Church.” 6 In 1028 the archbishop of Milan discovered on a visitation a sect of so-called heretics whose central point and refuge was “the castle of Montfort, in the near neighbourhood of Turin, its chief teacher there being one Gerard.” When taken and imprisoned at Milan these heretics ” spoke of their High Priest in contradistinction to the Roman High Priest.” “In vain offers of life were made to them on condition of recantation. Gerardus especially, with happy countenance, seemed eager for suffering. The most continued steadfast; and so were burned, on the Piazza of the Cathedral.” 1

At the Council of Arras, heretics from the confines of Italy, who had been summoned before their Bishop in 1025, admitted their rejection of ” the whole doctrines, discipline, and authority of the Romish Church.” Berenger, in the year 1045, Principal of the Public School at Tours, and afterwards Archdeacon of Angers, combated the received doctrine of transubstantiation. His teaching was “condemned in Councils held at Rome, Vercelli, and Paris, in the year 1050, and he was deprived of the temporalities of his benefice.”

Peter de Bruys, originally a presbyter of the Church, ” became a missionary and protestor against what he denounced as the superstitions of the day in the French provinces of Dauphiny, Province and Languedoc. His success was great, and a sect formed of his followers,, vulgarly called after him Petrobrussians, but who called themselves Apostolicah. At length in the year 1126, after nearly twenty years of missionary labour, he was seized by his enemies, and burned to death in the town of St. Giles, near Thoulouse.”

The so-called heresies of Peter de Bruys ” were propagated after his death by a monk named Henry.” Beginning from Lausanne, in 1116, he preached in Paris and Languedoc “with eloquence such as to melt ‘all hearts, and a character for both sanctity and benevolence such as to win all admiration. He was the Whitfield of the age and country, and with success that to a Catholic eye was fearful.”- He was seized in the year 1147, convicted and imprisoned. ” Soon after he died, whether by a natural death or by the flames, is a point disputed.” In the same year heretics were discovered and burned at Cologne. Maintaining their doctrines in opposition to the Church of Rome ” from the Words of Christ and His apostles,” they suffered martyrdom, ” and what is most wonderful,” says Evervinus, ” they entered to the stake, and bore the torment of the fire, not only with patience, but with joy and gladness.”

The Henricians, or followers of Henry of Italy (called also Boni Homines) who were examined and condemned at the Council of Lombers, in 1165, rejected the characteristic doctrines of the Church of Rome, basing their beliefs on the Word of God alone.

Peter Waldo, or Valdes, a man eminent among Mediaeval witnesses to the gospel of Christ, sold all he had in the year 1170, distributed to the poor, and became the leader to “certain missionary bands known thenceforth under the name of Waldenses, as well as “Poor Men of Lyons.” Before the close of the next -century they were “well known as sectaries that had an intimate local connection with the Alpine valleys of Piedmont and Dauphiny.” Perpetuated from the time of Claude of Turin, the separatists in Piedmont appear to have commingled later on with the sectaries of Lyonnese origin under the common name of Waldenses. Driven by persecution from the plain of Lombardy the Waldenses took refuge in the valleys of the neighbouring Alps, where for many centuries they maintained, in opposition to the Church of Rome, their witness to New Testament teachings. An ancient manuscript copy of their treatise, “The Noble Lesson” exists in the library of Geneva, and another in the library at Cambridge. The date of this famous composition is A . D ., 1100.

The record of the date of “The Noble Lesson ” is preserved in the opening lines of the composition:

” O Frayres entende une noble Leycon
Souvent deven veglar e star en oreson
Car nos veen aquest mont esser pres del chavon.
Mot curios deorian esser de bonas obras far
Car nos veen aquest mont de la fin apropiar.
Benha mil et cent an compli entierement
Que fo scripta lara, que sen alderier temp.”

Leger’s translation of this ancient Waldensian confession is given as follows in the antiquated French of 230 years ago.

” O Freres ecoutes une noble Lecon,
Souvent devons veiller et etre en oraison.
Car nous voyons ce monde etre pres de sa fin.
Bien soignens devrions etre a faire bonnes ceuvres,
Car nous voyons ce monde de sa fin approcher :
Ily a mil et cent ans accomplis tout a fait
Que fut ecrite l’heure qu’estions es derniers terns.”‘

In this remarkable composition ” the following doctrines are drawn out with much simplicity and beauty:—the origin of sin in the fall of Adam, and its transmission to all men; the offered redemption through the death of Jesus Christ, who ” underwent agonies, such that the soul separated from the body, to save sinners;” the union and cooperation of the three Persons of the blessed Trinity in man’s salvation ; the obligation and spirituality of the moral law under the gospel; the duties of prayer, watchfulness, self-denial, unworldliness, humility, love, as ” the way of Jesus Christ” ; their enforcement by the prospect of death and judgment, and the world’s near ending; by the narrowness too of the way of life, and the fewness of those that find it; as also by the hope of the coming glory at the judgment and revelation of Jesus Christ. Besides which, we find in it a protest against the Romish system generally, as one of soul-destroying idolatry; against masses for the dead, the doctrine of purgatory, the confessional, priestly absolution, and priestly mercenariness; and “the suspicion is half hinted, and apparently half formed, that, though a personal Antichrist might perhaps be expected, yet popery itself, with its followers was probably one form of Antichrist.” 1 The astounding development of papal ambition in Innocent III, and the papal war of extermination which followed against the Albigenses and Waldenses, led the latter, early in the thirteenth century, to accept as an article of their creed the doctrine “That the papacy and Church of Rome were to be regarded as the Apocalyptic Harlot Babylon, and by consequence Antichrist,” a doctrine to which they held unalterably ever afterwards.” 2 This doctrine they embodied in their Treatise on Antichrist, and other works. The idea of Antichrist as a person or power professedly Christian in character is seen slowly dawning on the mind in the Apocalyptic commentaries of the Middle Ages. Primasius, Bishop of the Carthaginian province, whose name appears in a Council held at Constantinople in 553,- in his “Com- mentary on the Apocalypse” (discovered with his other works in the monastery of St. Theuderic, near Lyons, in the sixteenth century) lays stress on Antichrist’s affected impersonation of, or substitution of himself for Christ; and blasphemous appropriation to himself of Christ’s proper dignity. He seems to view the second two-horned beast of Revelation 13, as ecclesiastical rulers, “hypocritically feigning likeness to the Lamb, in order the better to war against him: and by the mask of a Christian profession, under which mask the devil puts himself before men, acting out the Mediator.”

The venerable Bede, whose death in a, Northumbrian monastery took place A . D . 735, similarly interprets in his ” Commentary on the Apocalypse,” the lamb-like beast of Revelation 13, as meaning ” Antichrist’s pseudo-Christian false prophets.” ” He shews the horns of a lamb, that he may secretly introduce the person of the dragon. For by the false assumption of sanctity, which the Lord truly had in Himself, he pretends that a matchless life and wisdom are his. Of this beast the Lord says, ‘Beware of false prophets’ which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.”

Ambrose Anspert, a Latin expositor whose era was A. D. 760 or 770, and dedicated his Apocalyptic commentary to Pope Stephen, interpreted the second beast of Revelation 13 as “signifying the preachers and ministers of Antichrist; feigning the lamb, in order to carry out their hostility against the Lamb; just as Antichrist too, the first beast’s head wounded to death, would, he says, exhibit himself pro Christo, in Christ’s place.”

Andreas, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, an expositor in the Greek Church during the latter part of the fifth century, explains after Irenaeus the two-horned beast as Antichrist’s false prophet, ” exhibiting a show of piety, and with pretense of being a lamb when in fact a wolf.” “With regard to the harlot seated on the beast in Revelation 17, he observes that Rome had been judged by certain earlier writers to be the city intended, because of its being built on seven hills; but he objects its having then for some time lost its imperial majesty: unless indeed, he adds, very remarkably, this should in some way be restored to her, “a supposition involving the fact of a previous overthrow of the city now ruling,” ie., Constantinople.

Berengaud, a Latin expositor of the Apocalypse, towards the close of the ninth century, explains the beast-riding harlot of Revelation 17 as Rome, and her predicted burning and spoiling by the ten kings, as the destruction of ancient Rome by the Gothic barbarians, with reference, however, as Rome was professedly Christian at that time, to the reprobate in her. 4

Before the conclusion of the eleventh century, the papacy under Gregory VII ” had risen to such a height of power as well as of pretension, and abused it to the enforcement of such unchristian dogmas, albeit in the professed character of Christ’s vicar, as to force on the minds of the more discerning, surmising about the Popes and Papal Rome, and their possible prefiguration in Apocalyptic prophecy, scarce dreamed of before. Already, just before the year 1,000, Gherbert of Rheims had spoken in solemn council of the Pope upon his lofty throne, radiant in gold and purple; and how that if destitute of charity, he was Antichrist sitting in the temple of God. And Berenger, in the eleventh century, as if apocalyptically instructed, and with special reference to the Pope’s enforcement of the antichristian dogma of transubstantiation, declared the Roman See to be not the apostolic seat, but the seat of Satan.” 1 Joachim Abbas, elected abbot of the monastery of Curacio in Calabria, about the year 1180, who had a greater repute as an expounder of prophecy than any other in the Middle Ages, taught in his valuable ” Commentary on the Apocalypse,” that as Christ is both King and Priest, Satan would ” put forth the first beast of Revelation 13, to usurp His Kingship, and the second to usurp His Priestly dignity: the latter having at its head some mighty prelate, some universal pontiff, as it were, over the whole world, who may be the very Antichrist of whom St. Paul speaks as being extolled above all that is called God, and worshipped ; sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God.”

Thus gradually the idea of the professedly Christian character of the predicted Antichrist penetrated the minds of leading expositors in the Middle Ages, and the view that the professing Christian Church would be the sphere of his manifestation. The notion that the foretold break up of the Roman Empire had not taken place, because the Greek Byzantine ruler was still, after the Gothic catastrophe, called the Roman Emperor, and that therefore the rise of Antichrist should still be regarded as a future event, long hindered the application of the prophecies concerning Antichrist to the papacy: as also the supposition entertained in the Middle Ages that the period in which they lived was part of the Apocalyptic millennium precursive to the three-and-a-half-years’ season of Satan’s loosing, and the mani- festation of Antichrist. ” The passing away of the millennial year 1,000 without any such awful mundane catastrophe, loosing of Satan, and manifestation of Antichrist, as had been popularly expected, tended to make men earnestly reason and question both on the long received millennial theory, and on that of the Antichrist intended in prophecy, more than before. Moreover, the incoming of the twelfth century from Christ, promised (should the world, last through it) to open to expositors the first possible opportunity of some way applying the year-day principle (which had never been recognized) not to the smaller three-and-a-half-days’ prophetic period only, but also to the great prophetic period of the 1,260 days, without abandonment of the expectation, 3ver intended, of Christ’s second advent being near.”

I. The Identification of Babylon and Antichrist.

IN the three centuries which preceded the Reformation the papacy was seen by men in a new light, and with growing clearness. The development of the “Man of Sin “reached its culmination, and the veil of professed sanctity which had concealed his real character fell from his shoulders. The papacy stood self-revealed.

Victorious over the imperial power in the middle of the thirteenth century, the popes of Rome “displayed far more ambition, arrogance, cruelty, and rapacity, than the kingdoms of this world with which they had struggled for the mastery.””Self-constituted vicegerents of the Almighty, the popes now sat ‘ as God in the temple of God,’ and compelled the nations of the earth to crouch in vassalage before them. They had enslaved alike the souls and bodies of their fellow creatures.”1 Boniface VIII who ascended the pontifical throne in 1294 “surpassed even Innocent III in the arrogance of his pretensions, launching his spiritual thunderbolts against states and empires, summoning princes to his tribunal that he might as an infallible judge settle their controversies, and laying claim to supreme dominion over the monarchs of the earth.”2 During the period of seventy years which began in 1305, a fierce struggle for the papacy was carried on between rival factions. A set of popes and anti-popes, in Rome and Avignon, fought for the tiara; pope hurled against pope the thunderbolts of anathemas and excommunications. The wealth of the papacy was enormous; the extortion and appropriation of benefices, the sale of bishoprics, of sacraments, of indulgences, yielded a golden tide of riches, “swelling the pomp, and augmenting the retinue of the pretended successors of the fisherman of Galilee.”3 All efforts to reform the Church proved abortive. “The vices, flagrant sins, and public crimes of the popes of the last half of the fifteenth century, and the early part of the sixteenth, gave them a conspicuous place in the annals of infamy. Paul II (1464—1471) was a great drunkard, put up all offices to sale, and spent all his days in weighing money and precious stones. He also directed an infamous war against the Hussites; oppressed his subjects, tortured the members of a literary institution because he affected to discover in it a dangerous conspiracy against the Pope, and died in the possession of a large treasure Sixtus IV was not only guilty of conspiracy, and of kindling the flames of war, but he was also dissolute, avaricious, intemperate, ferocious and bloodthirsty. Innocent VIII established a bank at Rome for the sale of pardons. Each sin had its price which might be paid at the convenience of the criminal. Alexander VI, and his son Caesar, were literally monsters in human shape. In early life, after he had become a cardinal, he was publicly censured for his gross debauchery. Afterwards he had five acknowledged children by a Roman matron, named Vanozia. After the death of Innocent in 1492, he succeeded by the grossest bribery in securing for himself the triple crown.

He had become rich through his preferment, and through inheritance from his uncle Cahxtus III. Of twenty-five cardinals, only five did not sell their votes. He is known to have sent four mules laden with silver to one, and to have given to another a sum of five thousand gold crowns. After his elevation he plunged without scruple and remorse into the practice of every vice, and the perpetration of every crime. His bastards were now brought forward and acknowledged as his children. The papal palace became the scene of Bacchanalian orgies. Licentious songs swelled by a chorus of revellers, echoed through its banqueting hall. Indecent play*s were acted in the presence of the pontiff. He himself quaffed large draughts of wine from the foaming goblet. He indulged in licentiousness of the grossest description. . . . Venality prevailed in the papal court. The highest dignities in the Church were conferred without shame upon the best bidders. He committed the greatest crimes for the advancement of his children. One of them, Caesar Borgia, was a fiend incarnate. The assassin’s dagger, and the poison bowl were the constant instruments of his vengeance. Almost every night some assassination which he had ordered took place in the streets of Rome. The inhabitants were in constant terror of their lives. He caused the murder of his brother, of whom he was jealous, because he was preferred by a mistress with whom they were both intimate. These deeds were possible only in the spot where the highest temporal and spiritual authority were united in the same person. The palace of the popes was, in fact, a pandemonium. At length the reign of Alexander came to a sudden termination. He perished by a poisoned draught which Caesar had prepared for one of the cardinals whose wealth excited the cupidity of the Borgias. Multitudes which gazed on that livid corpse as it lay in state in St. Peter’s Church, breathed a fervent thanksgiving to Almighty God for deliverance from the tyranny of an execrable monster, whose crimes had polluted the land, disgraced human nature, and placed him on a level with the very beasts that perish.”The crimes, impurities, cruelties and tyrannies of these and other popes of the period opened the eyes of the nations, while the contemporaneous intervention of printing, and revival of learning, poured a blaze of light on these deeds of darkness. “The world stood aghast with horror at the contemplation of deeds as bad as those perpetrated in the darkest period of pagan antiquity.”1 A distinguished Roman Catholic historian, whose testimony on this subject is not likely to be questioned, acknowledges the corrupt state of the Church of Rome before the Reformation in emphatic terms: “For some years,” says Bellarmine, ”before the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresies were published, there was not (as contemporary authors testify) any severity in ecclesiastical judicatories, any discipline with regard to morals, any knowledge of sacred literature, any reverence for Divine things, there was not almost any religion remaining.”2

RECOGNITION OF THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE “MAN OF SIN,”OR ANTICHRIST

History had interpreted prophecy, and justified the predictions in the Word of God. Men’s eyes were opened. This then was what apostles and prophets had foretold. The thing predicted, the thing unexpected, the incredible thing, had come to pass. Antichrist was come. The “Man of Sin “was there, clothed in scarlet and purple, adorned with gold, and precious stones, and pearls; crowned with the priestly mitre, and the proud diadem of the tiara; the VICECHRIST ; an enemy of the gospel; a persecutor of the saints; a monster of iniquity; he was there, lifted up at his coronation to sit on the high altar of St. Peter’s; worshipped by cardinals; adored by superstitious multitudes; a usurper of the place and prerogatives of God; a false idol; covetous, cruel, blood-stained, “drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus.”He was there in the seven- hilled city; he was there in the temple of God. Yes, this was he. Such were the convictions and confessions of God’s faithful saints and servants of those days.

In examining their testimony one cannot but be impressed by the spirit which animated the Mediaeval witnesses to gospel truth; for such they were, their whole contention against the system of Rome being on the ground of its antagonism to “the truth as it is in Jesus “; “the faith once delivered to the saints.”The seriousness of their spirit, their whole-hearted earnestness, their depth of conviction, the simplicity and singleness of their aim, the unflinching courage, the boldness of their attitude and tone, recall the confessors of Apostolic days, “the men who had been with Jesus.”In the presence of this long line of “witnesses,”one seems to hear a voice as from heaven saying, “Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”As the eyes of the mind are opened, we come to see that the spirit which animated and upheld these noble men and women, was none other than the Spirit of Jesus; that He Himself was in them, and that that was the profound secret of their utter unworldliness, their bold antagonism to error and superstition, their deep humility, their sanctity and strength. In these His servants and followers Jesus Christ walked on earth during those long dark centuries. Risen from the dead, He repeated in them the testimony He had borne to the truths of “the Everlasting Gospel”in the days of His earthly life.

And the three and a half years of His own sackcloth clothed testimony had their parallel in the three and a half’-‘- times “of their sackcloth clothed “witnessing; the twelve hundred and sixty literal days of the one answering to the twelve hundred and sixty years of the other; whilst His death and resurrection “on the third day,”were paralleled by their death and subsequent resurrection after that three years’ interval during which their enemies pronounced their testimony extinct. Thus did the Lord of Glory pass twice through analogous terrestrial experiences; first, in His own person, and next in the persons of His saints and followers, the members of His body, His flesh and His bones; first in the briefer period, and then in the longer; the one period answering to the other, on the prophetic scale of “a day for a year.”Here is one of the principal keys to the times and visions of the Apocalypse. Here is the key to the story of the Church of the Middle Ages, and it is furnished by the word of prophecy as compared with the facts of history.

When with our understanding thus opened to the meaning of this long central period of the history of the Christian Church, intervening between the fall of Paganism in the fourth century, and the Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we examine the records relating to the Paulicians, the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Wyclifites, the Lollards, and the Hussites, who in Eastern and Western Europe, in Armenia, in Bulgaria, in the South of * France, in the Alps of Piedmont, in Lombardy, in England, and Bohemia, kept the lamp of gospel testimony burning all through the Middle Ages, unextinguished by the superstitions, apostasies, and persecutions of those dismal times, and handed it on to the firm grasp of the Reformers, to be lifted up and set on a candlestick in the midst of Europe, and in the eyes of the nations, to shine as the great luminary of modern days, we recognize the unbroken continuity of the testimony of the true and living Church of Christ, and the fulfilment of His promise that against the Church He founded eighteen hundred years ago upon a Rock, the gates of hell should never prevail; that the living Church should continue, and its witness continue, un-conquered and unchanged, from age to age; the very gospel sounded forth by His lips, and by those of His apostles, sounding still as an undying testimony, from century to century, in the utterances of His faithful saints, until triumphant over all opposition, it should fill the world as the voice of many waters and mighty thunders, and as the music of harpers harping with their harps.

And so we turn, though it be but for a brief and superficial examination, to the records of those days before the Reformation, and open the histories of the Albigenses, Waldenses, Lollards, and Hussites; the story of Constantine, of Sylvanus the Paulician, of Sergius; of Claude of Turin, of the Publicani in England; of the ancient Leonists, of the French Vallenses, and Peter Waldo; of Wycliffe and Huss, and Jerome of Prague.

The memorable story is told in such works as Sismondi’s history of the crusade against the Albigenses; in Allix on the Churches of the Albigenses; in Faber’s valuable book on the history and theology of the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses; in “Jean Leger’s folio on the history of the Vaudois; in the “authentic details of the Valdenses “by Bresse; in Gilly’s “Waldensian Researches”; in Dr. Alexis Mutton’s “Israel of the Alps”; in the “Historical defence of the Waldenses “by Jeane Rodolphe Pegran ; in the valuable volume on “The Churches of Piedmont,”by Moreland, Cromwell’s commissioner; in the illustrated book on the Protestant Valleys of Piedmont, Dauphiny, and the Ban de la Roche by Dr. Beattie ; in Foxe’s “Acts and Monuments of the Martyrs”; in the writings of Wycliffe; in the voluminous works of John Huss; in the history of “The Reformation and Anti-reformation in Bohemia”; in McCree’s history of the progress and suppression of the Reformation in Italy, and in Spain; in Limborch’s massive work on the history of the Inquisition; in Llorente’s history of the Inquisition in Spain from its establishment to the reign of Ferdinand VII, an author who had been “Secretary of the Inquisition “; and in Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae on “The Witnesses “of the Middle Ages; works which cast a flood of light on the history of the long line of Christian confessors in pre-Reformation times, and the noble army of martyrs of those never to be forgotten days.

And in the forefront of these testimonies we boldly place Bossuet’s scornful work on the “Variations of the Protestant Churches”in which he pours forth the vials of contempt and obliquy on those despicable heretics the Waldenses, and Albigenses, and their predecessors the Paulicians of Armenia, and Bulgaria, the poor men of Lyons, the Bohemian Brethren, the impious and pernicious English arch-heretic Wycliffe, the Taborites, the Calix-tines, and others “of whom the world was not worthy. “As we turn over the pages of the eloquent Bishop of Meaux, the friend of Louis XIV, and persecutor of Madame Guyon and the Huguenots, we realize the truth of the Apocalyptic description of the Mediaeval “witnesses “to the gospel, which depicts them as “sackcloth clothed”for there in the pages of Bossuet’s work these men of God stand dressed in the sackcloth of opprobrium. They are accused of ignorance, of error, of Manicheism, of schism, of hypocrisy, of presumption, of vain pretensions; they are treated as the scum of the earth, and “the oftscouring of all things.”The learned and noble Leger, “one of the Vaudois Barbes (or pastors) and their most celebrated historian”is stigmatized “as unquestionably the most bold and ignorant of all mankind ! “Wycliffe, the blessed translator of the Bible into the English tongue, “subverted all order in the Church and State, and filled both with tumult and sedition.”The poor men of Lyons were ” obstinate heretics.”Though St. Bernard testified of the “Thoulousian heretics “that “their manners are irreproachable, they oppress none, they injure no man; their countenances are mortified and wan with fasting; they eat not their bread like sluggards, but labour to gain a livelihood,”yet “their piety is but disguise. Inspect the foundation, it was pride, it was hatred against the clergy, it was rancour against the Church; this made them drink in the whole poison of an abominable heresy.”

These heretics “never ceased inveighing against human inventions, and citing the Holy Scriptures, whence they always had a text on hand on all occasions.”This was their crime, and it was the crime which later on produced the Reformation, and gave birth to the temporal and spiritual liberties of the modern world.

We pursue Bossuet no further. Faber has answered him in his learned work on the true history and doctrines of the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses; and in “The Variations of Popery”Edgar has turned the tables on the Bishop of Meaux, and has shewn that it is the Church of Rome that has swerved from the teachings of the Apostles, not the Waldenses, Wycliffites, Hussites and Reformers, and that in all her leading and characteristic doctrines Rome has declined and departed from the faith of Apostolic times.

And now we reach the question, as to how this long line of Mediaeval witnesses to gospel truth interpreted the predictions in the Apocalypse, and kindred prophecies, with reference to the Antichrist, or “Man of Sin.”Did they recognize the fulfilment of these prophecies in the papacy? Rome stood before them, revealed in her thousand superstitions, her proud pretensions, her persecuting actions, The head of that Apostate Church stood forth before their eyes crowned with the glittering tiara of a triple sovereignty, in heaven, earth, and hell, claiming to be the Vicar of Christ, and a Vice-God on earth. Did they recognize his portrait in the Word of God? Did they write his name beneath that portrait, and leave their testimony for the enlightenment of later years? They did. And having written it, they sealed the testimony with their blood. Two hundred and fifty years before Wycliffe stood forth as the champion of Protestant truth; three hundred years before Huss and Jerome confronted the Council of Constance; four hundred years before Luther published his ninety-five theses in Wittemberg, the Waldenses wrote their treatise on Antichrist, a copy of which is contained in Leger’s folio volume, dated A . D . 1120. That treatise whose doctrine is the same as their catechism dated A . D . 1100, and was the doctrine they faithfully maintained century after century, thus begins—”Antichrist es falseta de damnation teterna cuberta de specie de la Verita . . . ap-pella Antichrist, O Babylonia, O quarta Bestia, O Meretrix, O home de pecca, filli de perdition.”The treatise is given in full, with a French translation in Leger’s work, pp. 71-83. In it is taught”that the Papal or Romish system was that of Antichrist, which from infancy in Apostolic times had grown gradually, by the increase of its constituent parts, to the stature of a full-grown man: that its prominent characteristics were to defraud God of the worship due to Him, rendering it to creatures, whether departed saints, relics, images, or Antichrist, ie: the antichristian body itself;—to defraud Christ, by attributing justification and forgiveness to Antichrist’s authority and words, to saints’ intercessions, to the merit of men’s own performances, and to the fire of purgatory ; to defraud the Holy Spirit, by Attributing regeneration and sanctification to the opus operatum of the two sacraments;—that the origin of this antichristian religion was the covetousness of the priesthood ; its tendency to lead men away from Christ; its essence a vain ceremonial; its foundations the false notions of grace and truth.”

“Antichrist,”says this treatise,”is covered with the appearance of truth and righteousness,”is “outwardly adorned with Christ’s name, offices, scriptures, and sacraments,”but though “covered and adorned with the semblance of Christ, His Church, and faithful members, opposes himself to the salvation wrought by Christ.”He “perverts unto himself”the worship “properly due to God alone,””he robs and deprives Christ of His merits, with the whole sufficiency of grace, righteousness, regeneration, remission of sins, sanctification, confirmation, and spiritual nourishment; and imputes and attributes them to his own authority, to his own doings, or to the saints and their intercession, or to the fire of purgatory. Thus he separates the people from Christ, and leads them away to the things already mentioned.”1 “He attributes the regeneration by the Holy Spirit to a dead outward faith”: “on which same faith he ministers orders and the other sacraments”: “he rests the whole religion and sanctity of the people upon his Mass”: “he does everything to be seen, and to glut his insatiable avarice.””He allows manifest sins without, ecclesiastical censure and excommunication”; “he defends his unity not by the Holy Spirit, but by secular power”; “he hates, persecutes, and makes inquisition after, and robs and puts to death the members of Christ.””These are the principal works of Antichrist.”And this “sys- tem”of iniquity “taken together is called Antichrist, or Babylon, or the fourth beast, or the Harlot, or the ‘Man of Sin,’ the son of perdition.”

Such also, was the belief of the Albigenses. “All agreed,”says Sismondi, “in regarding the Church of Rome as having absolutely perverted Christianity, and in maintaining that it was she who was designated in the Apocalypse by the name of the whore of Babylon.”

Even in the Romish Church the same view began to make its appearance towards the close of the twelfth century. The celebrated Joachim Abbas in his “Commentary on the Apocalypse,”written in 1183 declared that the harlot city reigning over the kings of the earth undoubtedly meant Rome, and that the false prophet foretold in the Apocalypse would probably issue out of the bosom of the Church; and that Antichrist might even then be in the world though the hour of his revelation had not yet come. Joachim was an abbot of the Roman Catholic Church in Calabria, learned in the Holy Scriptures, a deep student of the prophetic word. A few years later Almeric and his disciples taught that Rome was Babylon, and the Roman Pope Antichrist. Jean Pierre D”Olive, “another professed follower of Joachim, and leader in Languedoc of the austerer and more spiritual section of the recently formed Franciscan body, in a work entitled ” Pastils on the Apocalypse,’ affirmed that’ the Church of Rome was the whore of Babylon, the mother of harlots, the same that St. John beheld sitting upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns,’ and the chief and proper Antichrist a pseudo-Pope; also very remarkably, that some reformation, with fuller effusion of Gospel light might be expected prior to Rome’s final predicted destruction, in order that, through its rejection of that light, God’s destruction of it might be the rather justified before the world.”

In the following century, Robert Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln ( A . D . 1235-1253), boldly proclaimed the Pope to be Antichrist. “Christ came into the world to save and win souls,”said he, “therefore he that feareth not to destroy souls, may he not worthily be called Antichrist?”He foretold on his death-bed, with tokens of the deepest emotion that “the Church should not be delivered from her Egyptian servitude but by violence^ force, and the bloody sword.”1

In the same century the immortal Dante ( A . D . 1265— 1321) denounced the Church of Rome as the Babylon of the Apocalypse, painting the papacy in his poem on Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, in vivid colours, as the world beheld it then.

“Woe to thee, Simon Magus. Woe to you
His wretched followers, who the things of God
Which should be wedded unto goodness, them
Rapacious as ye are, do prostitute
For gold and silver.

Your avarice
O’ercasts the world with mourning, underfoot
Treading the good, and raising bad men up.
Of shepherds like to you the evangelist
Was ware, when her, who sits upon the waves,
With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld;
She who with seven heads towered at her birth,
And from ten horns her proof of glory drew,
Long as her spouse in virtue took delight.
Of gold and silver ye have made your God,
Differing wherein from the idolater,
But that he worships one, a hundred ye?
Ah, Constantine, to how much ill gave birth
Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower
Which the first wealthy Father gained from thee.”

In his poem on Paradise he says:-

“My place he who usurps on earth hath made
A common sewer of puddle and of blood.
No purpose was of ours that the keys
Which were vouchsafed me should for ensigns serve
Unto the banners which do levy war
On the baptized: nor I for vigil mark
Set upon sold and lying privileges,
Which makes me oft to bicker, and turn red.
In shepherd’s clothing, greedy wolves below
Range wide o’er all the pastures. Arm of God Why longer sleepest thou?”

At the end of his poem on Paradise, he refers to the Apostle John as:-

“The seer
That e’er he died, saw all the grievous times
Of the fair bride, who with the lance and nails
Was won.”

Dante died in 1321. Petrarch, who was crowned with the laurel of poetry by the Roman Senate in 1341, drew in eloquent words the same picture of the papacy.

Three years after Dante’s death, or about the year 1324, Wycliffe was born, the Morning Star of the Reformation. Grand and solitary witness, he stood forth, Bible in hand, 150 years before the days of Luther, a light shining in the darkness of the Middle Ages; like some mountain-top, while all the rest of the world lies in darkness, illuminated with the glory of the unrisen sun. He wrote a library of learned and powerful disquisitions, but his great work was the translation of the Bible into the English language. “The Scripture only is true”was his golden maxim, and he circulated as well as translated the priceless Word of God.

Roused to concern about his soul in his twenty-third year, at the time of the fearful pestilence which cut off so large a proportion of the population of the world in 1345, he reached spiritual conviction which was deep and abiding. “The pestilence subsided in England in 1348. The earliest of the works attributed to Wycliffe bears the date 1356, eight years later. This piece is entitled “Last age of the Church.”The end of the world seemed to be approaching, and the coming of Antichrist at hand. In support of this view Wycliffe cites among others the Abbot Joachim, whose work on the Apocalypse he had read.

Later on Wycliffe came to regard the Pope of Rome seated in his blood-stained garments on the high altar in the Central Church of Christendom as the “Man of Sin,”sitting in the temple of God, the true Antichrist of prophecy. Opening his English Bible, whose facsimile in black letter print, lies before us, we turn with interest to the “secounde pistel to tessalonicentes,”and read the words bearing on the papacy as he wrote them in 1380, “that no man deceyve you in any maner for no but departynge aweye schal come firste: and the man of synne schal be schewide, the sone of perdicionne … so that he sitte in the temple of God : shewynge hymself as he be God . . . the mysterie (or pry vete) of wickednesse worchith nowe.”

In his translation of the seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse, he writes concerning Babylon the great: “I siye a womman sittynge on a reed beast ful of names of blasfemye : havynge sevene hedis, and ten horns .’ . . a womman drunken of the blood of seyntis and of the blood of martiris of Jhu. (Jesus), and when I siye hire I wondride with greet wondrynge”

Yes, Wycliffe beheld her, as did John the blessed disciple of our Lord; the one in the visions of prophecy, the other in the facts of history. Seeing Rome in her true character, Wycliffe wrote his treatise “Speculum de Anti-christo “(Mirror of Antichrist) in which he unveils “the deceits of Antichrist, and his clerkes.”It is said openly, he ob- serves, “that there is nothing lawful among Christian men without leave of the Bishop of Rome though he be Antichrist, full of simony and heresy. For commonly of all priests he is most contrary to Christ, both in life and teaching, and he maintaineth more sin by privileges, excommunications, and long pleas, and he is most proud against Christ’s meekness, and most covetous of worldly goods and worships.”To subject the Church to such a sovereignty, he says, must assuredly be to subject her to the power of Antichrist.

Sedulous to maintain the preaching of God’s pure Gospel, in his tract entitled, “Of good preaching priests,”he says:- “The first general point of poor priests that preach in England is this—that the law of God be well known, taught, maintained, magnified. The second is— that great open sin that reigneth in divers states be destroyed, and also the heresy and hypocrisy of Antichrist and his followers.”He calls the ravening prelates and their officers “the clerks of Antichrist,”and argues “that Christian men of the realm should not be robbed by simony of the first-fruits, to go to the Bishop of Rome . . . that Christian men should give more heed to Christ’s gospel and His life than to any rules from the sinful bishops of the world; or else they forsake Christ, and take Antichrist and Satan for their chief governor. 1

“Worldly clerks show themselves traitors to God, and to their liege lord the king, whose law and regalia they destroy by their treason in favour of the Pope, whom they nourish in the works, of Antichrist, that they may have their worldly state, and opulence, and lusts maintained by him.”2 “Antichrist and his clerks travail to destroy Holy Writ,”teaching ” that the Church is of more authority and more credence than any gospel.” Writing on Indulgences, Wycliffe says, “This doctrine is a manifold blasphemy against Christ, inasmuch as the Pope is extolled above his humanity and deity, and so above all that is called God— pretensions which according to the declaration of the apostle agree with the character of Antichrist.”2

“The same may be said concerning the fiction of the keys of Antichrist … as might be expected from Antichrist, he sets forth new laws, and insists under pain of the heaviest censure, that the whole Church militant shall believe in them, so that anything determined therein shall stand as though it were a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“. . . Arise,”he cries, “O soldiers of Christ. Be wise and fling away these things, along with the other fictions of the prince of darkness, and put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and confide undoubtedly in your own weapons, and sever from the Church such frauds of Antichrist, and teach the people that in Christ alone, and in His law, and in His members, they should trust; that in so doing they may be saved through His goodness, and learn above all things honestly to detect the devices of Antichrist”3

Summoned to appear before his judges at Oxford, WyclifFe stood alone and unfriended. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Lincoln, Norwich, Hereford, Worcester, Salisbury, and London were there, sitting in judgment, together with the Chancellor of the University, and many of the inferior clergy. Forty years had passed since Oxford had first become the home of the Reformer. He was now gray with age and toil, but full of mental activity and divine illumination. Like another Elijah, he stood alone amid the generation of his countrymen, witnessing in clear, uncompromising terms to the eternal truths of God’s Holy Word. Banished from Oxford he continued to write in defense of the gospel to the end of his days. His closing years were passed in full expectation of imprisonment and martyrdom. Seized with paralysis in December, 1384, on the last day of the month and of the year, his noble spirit passed into the world of rest, and everlasting reward.

Wycliffe’s doctrines spread, not only over England, but to the continent, where they were the means of the enlightenment of John Huss. They were branded with condemnation by the Council of Constance, and the remains of the Reformer, by the command of the Pope, taken up and burned. His ashes were cast into the brook of Lutterworth, whence they were conveyed to the Avon, the Severn, and the sea; fit emblems of his doctrine now dispersed over the world.

A notable work entitled “The Ploughman’s Complaint”written by an unknown author about the time of Wycliffe, and subsequently reprinted by Tyndale and Foxe, the mar-tyrologist, after declaring that none is more against Christ than he that “maketh himselfe Christe’s Vicar in earth,”terminates with the prayer, “Lord, gene our king and his lords hart to defenden Thy true shepheardes and Thy sheepe from out of the wolves’ mouthes, and grace to know Thee that Thou art the true Christ, the Son of the heavenly Father, from the Antichrist that is the source of pride. And, Lord, gene us Thy poore sheepe patience and strength to suffer for Thy law, the cruelness of the mischievous wolves. And, Lord, as Thou hast promised, shorten these days. Lord, we axen this now, for more need was there never.”1

The followers of Wycliffe took the same ground. Boldly they tore away the mask from the pretended vicar of Christ. Among them Walter Brute occupies a place of prominence as a faithful witness to the truth, whose testimony is “detailed to us by the venerable Foxe from original documents.”

Brought up in the University of Oxford, Walter Brute, then a graduate, was accused of declaring that “the Pope is Antichrist, and a seducer of the people, and utterly against the law and life of Christ.”In speaking thus he had blasphemed against the High Priest of Christendom. He had blasphemed Christ in the person of His sole representative. What had he to say? Walter Brute stands there solitary, defenseless, but courageous. He dares to speak the truth before these scarlet-cloaked doctors of the Church. Familiar with Wycliffe’s New Testament, a student of the Word of God, he grounds his defense on the inspired words of prophecy. Did not the Pope answer to the Man of Sin prophesied by St. Paul? Was he not the chief of the false Christs, prophesied by Christ, who were to come in His name? Was not Rome the Babylon of the Apocalypse? Let it be admitted that this had been a mystery long hidden. “But if so, and only recently revealed, it would not be unaccordant with God’s dealings and revelations. ‘Make the heart of the people fat, that seeing they may not see,’ was said by Isaiah of long-permitted judicial blindness in the Jews; and again by Daniel it was written, ‘ seal up the vision till the time of the end.’ Now had come the time when the veil of mystery should be removed.”2

“Very vain,”he says, “had been the usual and long received ideas about Antichrist: ideas as of one that was to be born in Babylon of the tribe of Dan, to give himself out as the Messiah come for the Jews’ salvation, and preach three and a half years where Christ preached; to kill Enoch and Elijah, and be himself finally slain by lightning.”The times of Daniel and the Apocalypse, he argues, connected with the Antichrist, were symbolical of larger periods; and should be interpreted as the “seventy weeks ” extending to the past advent of Messiah on the year-day scale. As the seventy “weeks “after which Christ was slain meant weeks of years, not days, so the 1,290 days of prophecy meant 1,290 years; a period which he noticed extended from the placing of the desolating idol by Hadrian in the Holy Place, to the “revealing, or in other words the exposure of Antichrist,”in these latter days. As to that woman seated on the persecuting wild beast in Revelation 1 7, expounded by the angel to mean the city on seven hills, reigning over the kings of the earth, whose power was to continue forty-two months, or 1,260 days, this was Rome, whose duration was 1,260 years. Did not the ten days of Smyrna’s suffering signify the ten years of Diocletian’s persecution? Thus then, the 1,260 days represented 1,260 years. As to the Popes, “with their assumed kingly and priestly power, speaking like a dragon, and allowing none to sell their spiritual pardons but such as bore their mark, his name, identical with his number, 666, was Dux Cleri. “My counsel is,”says Walter Brute, “let the buyer be aware of those marks of the beast. For after the fall of Babylon, “If any man hath worshipped the beast and his image, and hath received his mark on his forehead, or on his hand, he shall drink of the wine of God’s wrath, and be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels, and of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torments shall ascend evermore.”

“John Huss and “Jerome of Prague were contemporaries of Walter Brute, and bore the same testimony, for which they were burned at the stake by the Council of Constance in May, 1416. In a letter to Lord John de Clum, Huss declares that the Church of Rome is the Harlot Babylon “whereof mention is made in the Apocalypse.” Writing to the people of Prague, he warns them to be “the more circumspect,”because “Antichrist being stirred up against them deviseth divers persecutions.”

When cast into prison for the Word of God, he wrote thus to his friends and followers:- “Master John Huss, in hope, the servant of God, to all the faithful who love Him and His statutes, wisheth the truth and grace of God. . Surely even at this day is the malice, the abomination, and filthiness of Antichrist marked in the Pope and others of this Council. . . . Oh, how acceptable a thing should it be, if time would suffer me to disclose their wicked acts, which are now apparent; that the faithful servants of God might know them. I trust in God that He will send after me those that shall be more valiant; and there are also at this day that shall make more manifest the malice of Antichrist, and shall give their lives to the death for the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall give, both to you and me, the joys of life everlasting.”

This epistle was “written upon St. John Baptist’s Day, in prison and in cold irons. I having this meditation with myself that John was beheaded in his prison and bonds for the word of God.”1

The year following that of the martyrdom of Huss and Jerome, witnessed the burning of Lord Cobham, at Smithfield. When brought before King Henry V and admonished to submit himself to the Pope as an obedient child, this was his answer:—”As touching the Pope, and his spirituality, I owe them neither suit nor service, forasmuch as I know him by the Scriptures to be the great Antichrist, the son of perdition, the adversary of God, and an abomination standing in the Holy Place.”

For this testimony Lord Cobham was drawn on a hurdle to St. Giles’ Fields, and “hanged there by the middle in chains of iron and so consumed alive in the fire, praising the name of God as long as life lasted.”

II. The Pre-Refbrmation War Against the Protestant Witnesses.

Not in a merely metaphorical sense was the persecution waged against the Albigenses, the Waldenses, and the Hussites, a “war”but in stern reality. It commenced by a crusade against the Albigenses in A . D . 1208. In his history of the period Sismondi tells us that ” Innocent III, impelled by hatred, had offered to those who should take up the cross against the Provincials the utmost extent of indulgence which his predecessors had ever granted to those who laboured for the deliverance of the Holy Land. As soon as these new Crusaders had assumed the sacred sign of the Cross, which to distinguish themselves from those of the East, they wore on the breast instead of the shoulders, they were instantly placed under the protection of the Holy See, freed from the payment of the interest of their debts, and exempted from the jurisdiction of all the tribunals; whilst the war which they were invited to carry on at their doors, almost without danger or expense, was to expiate all the vices and crimes of a whole life. . . . Never, therefore, had the Cross been taken up with a more unanimous consent.”

The first to engage through the commands of their pastors in this war which was denominated sacred were Eudes III, Duke of Burgundy, Simon de Montfort, Count of Leicester; the Counts of Nevers, of St. Paul, of Auxerre, of Geneve, and of Forez.

The Abbot of Citeaux with the Bernardines appropriated the preaching of the Crusade as their special province. “In the name of the Pope, and of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, they promised to all who should perish in this holy expedition plenary absolution of all sins committed from the day of their birth to the day of their death.”St. Dominic and his followers were sent by Innocent III to travel on foot, two by two, through the villages, to obtain full information about the so-called heretics, and to stir up persecution against them. Thus began the mission of the Dominicans, in subsequent times the terrible agents of the papacy in the work of the Inquisition. Descending the valley of the Rhone, by Lyons and Avignon, the principal army of the Crusaders began their dreadful work in Languedoc. “Men and women were all precipitated into the flames amidst the acclamations of the ferocious conquerors.”The cities of Beziers and Carcassonne had been armed by Raymond Roger against the advancing papal army, but were unable to resist the attack. When asked how the Catholics were to be distinguished from the heretics in the slaughter which followed, Amalric, Abbot of Citeaux answered, “Kill them all; the Lord will well know those who are His.”1 This command was carried out.

Vainly did the persecuted inhabitants of Beziers take refuge in the churches. In the great Cathedral of Saint Nicaise all were slaughtered; in the Church of the Magdalen seven thousand dead bodies were counted. The city was then fired, and reduced to a grand funeral pile. “Not a house remained standing, not a human being alive.”This dreadful crusade was continued until the greater part of the Albigenses had perished. “During the six hundred years which followed these events, invariably as far as occasions have served, the Church of Rome has avowed the same principles, and perpetrated or stimulated the same deeds. As soon as the war against the Albigenses was terminated the Inquisition was brought into full and constant action, encouraged and supported by the Romish Church to the utmost of its power.”2

We turn from the Albigenses and the South of France to the Vaudois in Piedmont. From the top of the famous Cathedral of Milan there is a magnificent view of the Alps of Piedmont. East and west they are seen to stretch as far as the eye can reach. The sun at noon falls full upon their crowded peaks. Dark forests mantling their lower slopes, they stand in silent sublimity, their summits crowned with glaciers and eternal snows. To the west among these, beyond the city of Turin rises the vast white cone of Monte Viso. Among the mountains at its base lie the Waldensian valleys. Five in number, they run up into narrow elevated gorges, winding among fir-clad steeps, and climbing to the region of the clouds which hover around the Alpine peaks. These valleys were the refuge and home of the “Israel of the Alps.” Protestants before the Reformation, they constituted a faithful remnant of the Church who had never bowed the knee to Baal. The first combined measures taken by the secular authority at the instigation of Rome for the destruction of the Vaudois do not appear to date before 1209, during the period of the Pontificate of Innocent III, when the Archbishop of Turin was empowered to destroy them by force of arms. At the commencement of the fourteenth century, (about 1308), the Inquisitors re-newed their murderous warfare. In 1487, Innocent VIII fulminated against the Vaudois a bull of extermination. “Thousands of volunteers—vagabond adventurers, ambitious fanatics, reckless pillagers, merciless assassins—assembled from all parts of Italy to execute the behests of the pseudo- successor of St. Peter. This horde of brigands, suitable supporters of a profligate pontiff, marched against the valleys in the train of another army of 18,000 regular troops, contributed in common by the king of France and the sovereign of Piedmont.”The Vaudois fled to the heights of the Alps, and sought to protect themselves against their foes. At the moment of their greatest danger they were sheltered by a thick fog; their enemies falling over the humid rocks into the fatal abyss below. The following year their assailants were more successful. The Vaudois had retired to the rugged slopes of Mont Pelvoux, 6,000 feet above the level of the valley. Here they had taken refuge in a huge cavern. Led by La Pelud, Cataneo’s ferocious fanatics climbing above the cavern, descended on the Vaudois, and piling up wood at its entrance set fire to it; “those who attempted to issue forth were either destroyed by the flames, or by the sword of the enemy, while those who remained within were stifled by the smoke. When the cavern was afterwards examined, there were found in it four hundred infants suffocated in their cradles, and the arms of their dead mothers. Altogether there perished in this cavern more than 3,000 Vaudois—including the entire population of Val Louise.”

We pause in the history of the Vaudois persecution to glance at the contemporaneous war waged against the Hussites in Bohemia. After the martyrdom of Huss and Jerome, their followers were subjected to the most cruel persecutions. “In the year 1421 the miseries of the Bohemians greatly increased. Besides the executions by drowning, by fire, and by the sword, several thousands of the followers of Huss, especially the Taborites, of all ranks, and both sexes, were thrown down the old ruins and pits of Kuttemburg. In one pit were thrown 1,700, in another 1,308, and in a third 1,321 persons.”1 A monument still marks the place. This warfare against the Hussites continued until their, testimony was silenced, and their name almost erased from the earth.

In his histories of the progress and suppression of the Reformation in Spain and Italy, McCrie has traced the propagation of the gospel in these lands by the instrumentality of the Albigenses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. “Province and Languedoc were at that time more Arragonese than French.””In consequence of the connection between the two countries some of the Vaudois had crossed the Pyrenees, and established themselves in Spain as early as the middle of the twelfth century.”From 1412 to 1425 a great number of persons who entertained the sentiments of the Vaudois were committed to the flames by the Inquisitors of Valencia, Rousillon, and Majorca. “In Italy many of the Vaudois and Albigenses established themselves in the year 1180. In 1231 Gregory IX published a furious bull against them, ordaining that they should be sought out and delivered to the secular arm to be punished. In 1370 the Vaudois from the valleys of Pragela emigrated to Calabria, and for a while flourished in peace. The colony received accessions to its numbers by the arrival of their brethren who fled from the persecutions raised against them in Piedmont and France; it continued to flourish when the Reformation dawned on Italy; and after subsisting for nearly two centuries, it was basely and barbarously exterminated.”2

The chief instrument in the suppression of the Reformation in these lands was the infamous Inquisition, whose infernal cruelties have made its name a horror to this day. That Satanic tribunal! What shall we say of it? Before us lie the two quarto volumes of Limborch’s history of the Inquisition; together with Llorente’s detailed and dispas- sionate account; also Rule’s book, in two volumes, and other works on the Inquisition in English and Spanish. When the Cjuemadero was opened at Madrid in 1870, and the ashes of the martyrs who had been burned by the Inquisition brought to light, we were present, and saw that thick bank of human remains, and stood breast deep in the ashes. We have seen in Mexico skeletons of victims of the Inquisition who had been buried alive; have visited the Inquisition in Rome; have seen its prisons, and conversed with its Inquisitors. Cold blooded tribunal! Ne plus ultra of tyranny! Its history, written in tears and blood, fills next to the story of the Crucifixion of Christ, the darkest page in the records of humanity. Llorente, who was secretary of the Inquisition in Madrid from 1789 to 1791, and in whose hands its archives were placed at the date of its suppression in 1811, has lifted the veil of secrecy which hid its diabolical character; has described its processes, and confirmed the copious witness of its victims to the almost incredible account of its cruelties. By his aid we see its all- powerful judges sitting in secret, during long centuries, under a succession of forty-four Inquisitor-generals, who in denial of every principle of justice, never permitted the accused to know the accusations laid to his charge, to face his accusers, or “to know more of his own cause than he could learn of it by the interrogations and accusations to which he was compelled to reply; “who extracted the confessions they sought by the infliction of the most ingenious, the most prolonged and the most exquisite tortures the mind of man has ever invented; putting into operation “water, weights, fire, pulleys, screws,—all the apparatus by which the sinews could be strained without cracking, the bones bruised without breaking, and the body racked exquisitely without giving up the ghost: “renewing those tortures from day to day; alternating the dungeon and the rack; until pain and anguish had done their work on the wreck of body and mind which remained in their hands, and then committing the victim to the flames, to burn like a fagot in the fire, until nothing; remained but his ashes encumbering the chain which hung around the blackened stake. The Holy Inquisition! The Holy Office! Foe of truth and justice; minister of Satan; thy name has yet to be invented, for no one word employed by human lips can adequately describe thee. Miscalled preserver of the faith, thou hast been the nurse of hypocrisy, the parent of fear, of falsehood, of slavery; mental and moral degradation and national ruin have followed in thy wake. Monster of mediaeval cruelty, thy black shadow flees from the light of modern days, pursued by the abhorrence and execration of the world.

The following is a numerical summary of victims who suffered during, the years 1481 to 1498, under the Inquisition in Spain:

1481. Burned alive in Seville, 2,000; burned in effigy 2,000; penitents, 17,000.

1482. Burned alive, 88; burned in effigy, 44; penitents, 625.

1483. About the same as in preceding year in Seville, and in Cordova; in Jaen and Toledo, burned alive, 688; burned in effigy, 644; penitents 5,725.

1484. About the same in Seville; and in the other places, burned alive, 220; burned in effigy, 110; penitents, 1,561.

1485. Seville, Cordova, as the year preceding. In Estra-madeira, Valladolid, Calaborra, Murcia, Cuenza, Zaragoza, and Valencia, there were burned alive 1 620; burned in effigy, 510; and penitents, 13,471

1486. In Seville and Cordova as the year before. In other places burned alive, 528; burned in effigy, 264; penitents, 3,745.

1487. About the same as the year before, and in Barcelona and Majorca many more, making in all, burned alive, 928; burned in effigy, 664; and penitents, 7,145.

1488. In the thirteen Inquisitions, burned alive, 616; burned in effigy, 308; and penitents 4,379.

1489. About the same as the preceding year.

1490. Burned alive, 324; burned in effigy, 112;and penitents, 4,369.

1491 to 1498. At about the same rate.

“Torquemada, Inquisitor-General of Spain, during the eighteen years of his inquisitorial ministry, caused 10,220 victims to perish in the flames ; burned the effigies of 6,860 who died in the Inquisition, or fled under fear of persecution; and 97,321 were punished with infamy, confiscation of goods, perpetual imprisonment, or disqualification for office, under colour of penance; so that no fewer than 114,401 families must have been irrecoverably ruined. 1 And the most moderate calculation gathered from the records of the Inquisition by the laborious Secretary, Llorente, up to the year 1523, when the fourth Inquisitor died, exhibits the fearful aggregate of 18,320 burned alive, 9,660 in effigy, 206,526 penitents. Total number of sufferers, 234,506, under the first four inquisitors-general.”

THE WITNESSES SILENCED

The Inquisition continued its career of persecution under its forty-four inquisitors-general till 1820, when it was finally suppressed. But as early as the Lateran Council in 1514. the whole of the pre- reformation witnesses to the gospel in PVance, Spain, Piedmont, Italy and Bohemia, by means of the sword, the rack, and the stake, had been crushed and silenced. In England the Lollards were extinct. None remained to witness to New Testament truth. The orator of the session, ascending the pulpit, addressed to the assembled members of the Lateran Council, the memorable exclamation of triumph :—” There is an end of resistance to the Papal rule and religion; opposers there exist no more.”

“After three days I will rise again.”—Matt. 27:63.

IT was on the 5th day of May, 1514, at the ninth session of the Lateran Council that the Papal Orator “pronounced his pasan of triumph over the extinction of heretics and schismatics.”

“Jam nemo reclamat, nutlus obsistit.”

“There is an end of resistance to the papal rule and religion: opposers there exist no more.”

Three years and a half later on, to a day, on October Jist, 1517, Luther posted up his Theses at Wittemberg. “The voice of an obscure monk rang through Europe, like the mighty thunder peal; awakening men from the slumber of ages, and shaking to its foundation the usurped dominion of Romanism.”1 In Luther and the Reformers the slaughtered witnesses to the truth of the gospel, risen from the dead, stood once more upon their feet before Rome and the world.

This was what the martyr Huss, a hundred years before, had foretold. “I am no vain dreamer,”he said, “but hold for certain that the image of Christ shall never be effaced. They wish to destroy it: but it shall be painted afresh in the hearts of gospel-preachers better than myself. And I, awaking as it were from the dead, and rising from the grave, shall rejoice with exceeding great joy.”

Jerome of Prague, his fellow martyr, named the interval one hundred years, “after which their memory would be vindicated, their cause triumphant.”

This double prophecy was fulfilled.

Pope Adrian, Leo X’s successor, in a brief addressed to the diet of Nuremberg in 1523, wrote thus: “The heretics Huss and “Jerome seem now to be alive again in the person of Luther.””Not in the compass of the whole ecclesiastical history of Christendom, save and except in the death and resurrection of Christ Himself, is there any such example of the sudden, mighty, and triumphant resuscitation of His cause and Church from a state of deep de- pression.”2 Their lofty and animated descriptions of this divine revival are clothed by the writers of the period in metaphors borrowed from the pages of the Apocalypse. Thus Milton wrote:-

“When I recall to mind at last, after so many dark ages, wherein the huge overshadowing train of error had almost swept all the stars out of the firmament of the Church; how the bright and blissful Reformation, by divine power, struck through the black and settled night of ignorance and anti-christian tyranny, methinks a sovereign and reviving joy musf needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears; and the sweet odour of the returning Gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of heaven. Then was the sacred Bible sought out of the dusty corners where profane falsehood and neglect had thrown it j the schools opened, divine and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues, the princes and cities now trooping apace to the new-erected banner of salvation; the martyrs with the unresistible might of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness, and scorning the fiery rage of the old red dragon.”

A new era had dawned upon the world: an era of Light, Liberty, Life, Progress; the Age of the Book. Then was the Bible translated into the vernacular languages of Europe, and later on into all the leading languages of the world, its sacred pages opened in the eyes of the nations, its truths expounded in their ears, its records placed in their hands, yea, its teachings written in the hearts, and reflected in the lives of millions emancipated from the prison house of papal bondage.

Then, to use the language of the historian, Gibbon, “the lofty fabric of superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercession of the Virgin, was levelled with the ground. Myriads of both sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and labours of social life. An hierarchy of saints and angels, of imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their temporal power . . . their images and relics banished from the Church; and the credulity of the people no longer nourished with the daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of paganism was supplanted by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer and thanksgiving . . . The chain of authority was broken . . . the popes, fathers, and councils, were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world; and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience.”

ADVANCE IN PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION

The advent of the Reformation shed a broad beam of light upon the very centre and heart of Apocalyptic prophecy. It illuminated the visions in the tenth and eleventh chapters, removing the obscurity which had hitherto hung upon their meaning; and caused the trumpet call to God’s people in the eighteenth chapter, to come out of Babylon, to sound forth as never before.

Now was the mighty cloud-clothed, rainbow crowned angel of the vision in the tenth chapter seen as it were to descend from heaven holding in his hand a little book open • and setting his feet on land and sea, he was heard to cry aloud as when a lion roareth. Then were heard the seven thunders of Rome’s anathemas, pealing forth their defiant reply. Then did the Reformers take from the hands of the angel the “little book”of the newly-opened Word of God, and eating it themselves, as Ezekiel had done before them, renew their prophecy, “before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”1 Then did the Reformers “rise and measure the temple of God”as commanded, “and the altar and them that worship therein,” leaving out, or casting out, as bidden, “the outer court”as given to the Gentiles to remain unreformed, and continue trodden under foot. Then too, was “the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt”denounced as such; 2 and the prophesying of Christ’s sackcloth clothed witnesses, like that of the Jewish prophets in the days of the Baalitical and Babylonian apostasies, clearly recognized: the “olive trees”or anointed ones, like the faithful reformers in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, after the return of Judah from the ancient typical Babylon seen to be “candlesticks”or light bearers, “standing before the God of the earth.”

Now was the mystery cleared up; now was the meaning of these wondrous visions revealed, and the testimony of prophecy confirmed the faith, and justified the position of the Reformers. What Ezra and Nehemiah, Joshua and Zerubabbel had been in the great work of the restoration of Judah from Babylonish captivity, of the rebuilding of the altar, and temple of God, and of the ruined walls of Jerusalem, such were the modern Reformers in the still more glorious work of the Reformation of the Church After her long captivity in the anti-typical “Babylon the Great”; and the visions of the Apocalypse based as to their symbolism, upon the history of Judah’s restoration, stood forth explained by the events of modern history; a brilliant lamp lighting the Reformers.’ feet; a miracle of divine prescience ; a seal of approbation upon the Reformation movement; a warrant for its work, a pledge of its success.

A TWOFOLD DISCOVERY

The Reformation was born of a twofold discovery; the discovery of Christ, and the discovery of Antichrist. This discovery was first developed in the mind of Luther; and from his mind it passed into the mind of Western Europe; from whence it has since gone forth throughout the world. It arose from Luther’s finding a Bible. To the awakened monk God revealed through His word the glorious gospel of salvation. Profoundly convinced of sin, Luther embraced “the righteousness of God”revealed in the Scriptures, and justification by faith in contrast with justification by works became the thrilling theme of his testimony.

There followed the posting up in October, 1517, of Luther’s ninety-five theses against indulgences, which he affixed to the door of the chief church at Wittemberg, boldly offering to maintain them against all impugners. “The truths most prominently asserted in them were the Pope’s utter insufficiency to confer forgiveness of sin, or salvation,—Christ’s all-sufficiency,—and the true spiritual penitent’s participation, by God’s free gift, independently altogether of papal indulgence or absolution, not merely in the blessing of forgiveness, but in all the riches of Christ. There were added other declarations also, very notable as to the gospel of the glory and grace of God, not the merits of saints, “being the true and precious treasure of the Church “,—a denunciation of the avarice and soul deceivings of the priestly traffickers in indulgences;—and a closing exhortation to Christians to follow Christ as their Chief, even through crosses and tribulation, thereby at length to attain to His heavenly kingdom. Bold indeed were the words thus published; and the effect such that the evening of their publication 1 has been remembered ever afterwards, and is ever memorable, as the Epoch of the Reformation.” 2

Following Luther’s discovery of Christ came his discovery of Antichrist. In the month of June, 1520, the Pope hurled a thunderbolt at Luther, condemning his doctrines in a bull, and ordering that ” unless within sixty days he retracted his errors, he was to be seized and sent as a prisoner to Rome.”

On December 20th, 1520, “a pile of wood was erected at the east gate of Wittemberg. One of the oldest members of the university lighted it. As the flames arose, Luther advanced arrayed in his frock and cowl, and amid bursts of approbation from the doctors, professors and students, hurled into the fire the Canon Law, the Decretals, and the Papal Bull.””The defiance of Wittemberg was followed by the emancipation of half the nations of Europe from their spiritual and temporal bondage.”1

Hidden from his persecutors in a lonely castle in the Wartburg forest, Luther now translated the New Testament into vernacular German. He prefixed to the Apocalypse, in his great edition of the German Bible, in 1534, an outline of his views as to the meaning of the prophecy. He considered it contained a prefiguration of the chief events in the history of the Christian Church. The woman clothed with the sun, and crowned with twelve stars, who flees to the wilderness from her persecutors, represents in his view, the true Church; and the two witnesses a succession of faithful witnesses for Christ. Of the opposing wild beast powers, the first beast represents the papal secular revived Roman Empire; and the second beast the Pope’s ecclesiastical or spiritual empire. The number of the beast, 666, signifies according to Luther, the number of years that the beast may be destined to endure, measured, he says in his Table Talk, from Gregory, or perhaps Phocas. The Antichrist is, in his view, an ecclesiastical person. In his “De Antichristo,”he says, “The Turk cannot be Antichrist, because he is not in the Church of God.” “Whoever so came in Christ’s name,”he exclaims, “as did the Pope?”

As the Reformation advanced, the true meaning of the predictions in the tenth and eleventh chapters of the Apocalypse more and more forced itself upon men’s minds. Bullinger, at Zurich, in his expository discourses on the Apocalypse, published in 1557, boldly explains the angel vision in Apocalypse 10, as representing Christ’s intervention through the Reformers. The “little open book “in the hand of the angel he interprets as the gospel, opened to men by the Reformers, and given to the world with the aid of the newly invented art of printing. He says the oath in the tenth chapter alludes to the three and a half “times “of Daniel 12, and surmises that the redemption of the Church at Christ’s coming, to raise the dead and transform the living was even then drawing nigh. As to the witnesses, the number two indicated that they were to be few, yet sufficient. The great city of their slaughter is the empire of Papal Rome. The falling of the tenth of the city represented the mighty defections already begun from the Papal Church and Empire. On the seventh trumpet he says, “It must come soon, therefore our redemption draweth nigh.”He explains the second beast as the Papal Antichrist, rising under Gregory I, and his successor Boniface, to the position of Universal Bishop. “On the name and number of the beast he adopts Irenaeus’ solution, dwelling on the Latinism of the Papacy, much like Dr. More afterwards.”

Bale, Bishop of Ossory under Edward VI, published an Apocalyptic Commentary entitled “Image of Both Churches,”ie: the true and the false. He explains the vision of Apocalypse like Bullinger, as representing the Reformation; the book opened being the Scriptures- then newly translated into the vernacular languages, and expounded by gospel-preachers. The measuring rod in Reve- lation II he explains as God’s Word, “now graciously sent as out of Zion,”the temple as God’s congregation or Church, distinguished by His Word from the synagogue of Satan; the witnesses as faithful protestors for Christ that continue with God’s people all through the time of the Church’s oppression by her so-called “Gentile “foes. The fall of the tenth part of the city, represents the diminution of the Papal Church. We have here, says Bale, “what is done already, and what is to come under this sixth trumpet, whereunder we are now; which all belongeth to the second woe.”

In David Chytrceus’ Explicatio Apocalypsis, published at Wittemberg, in 1571, the 1,260 days of the Gentiles treading down the holy city are explained as 1,260 years, to be calculated either from Alaric’s taking of Rome in A . D ., 412, or from Pbocas’ decree, A.D., 606; and thus to end in A . D ., 1672, or in A . D ., 1866. The resurrection of the witnesses he explains of their speedy revival “on each individual occasion of their temporary suppression by Antichrist.”

Augustin Marlorafs exposition of the Revelation of St. John, published in 1574, under Queen Elizabeth, “is professedly collected out of divers notable writers of the Protestant Churches, viz:— Bullinger, Calvin, Caspar Meyander, Justus Jonas, Lambertus, Musculus, JEcolampadius, Pellicanus, Meyer, Firet.”On Apocalypse 10 he sets forth “the clear decisive explanation of its Angel-vision usual among the Reformers, as figuring the opening of the Scriptures and revived gospel preaching at the Reformation: also the exclusion of the outer court in Apocalypse 11, as signifying the exclusion of Papists.”

Thus similarly the venerable martyrologist John Foxe in his exposition of the Apocalypse written in the year 1586, —a work interrupted by his death,—applies the magnificent vision of Christ in Apocalypse 10 to the restoration of gospel preaching, the book in the angel’s hand representing God’s Word. The temple of Apocalypse he takes to be the Church; its inner court the true worshippers; its outer the false; the measuring of the temple its separation and reformation “as in our day,”implying a previous corruption under Antichrist. All this had been done under the sixth, or Turkish trumpet, whose end he considered to be near. Under the seventh trumpet which would follow, the Church would have its time of blessedness accomplished, in Christ’s coming, and the saints’ resurrection.

Brigbtman’s “Commentary on the Apocalypse “dedicated to ” the holy reformed churches of Brittany, Germany and France,”was published in A . D . 1600 or 1601, before the death of Queen Elizabeth. In this remarkable work which was deservedly popular with the Protestant Churches of the time, Brightman rightly identifies the locust woe of the fifth trumpet with the Saracen invasion, and the Euphratean woe of the sixth trumpet with the Turkish. The casting down of the dragon in Apocalypse 12, and his restoration in a new form under the beast of Apocalypse 13, he applies to the casting down of the rule of heathen Rome under Constantine, and the subsequent revival of Roman rule under the Popes ; the head of the empire being wounded J:o death by the Gothic invasions, and healed by Justinian and Pbocas in the exaltation of the papacy in the restored empire.

Considering the Apocalyptic interpretation of the sixteenth century as a whole we recognize not only a considerable advance in the understanding of the prophecy, but a practical application and use of its leading predictions of the highest importance. The glorious work of the Reformation was built upon doctrinal, practical, and prophetic grounds. Apocalyptic prophecy was accorded a prominent position among the stately pillars of its foundation. To the reformers the Church of Rome was “Babylon the great”of the Apocalypse, clad in purple and scarlet, adorned with “gold, and precious stones, and pearls,”a faithless harlot seated on a wild beast power, intoxicating the nations with the cup of her idolatries and superstitions, and drunken with “the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus.”The duty of separation from the Church of Rome was boldly proclaimed on the ground of the divine command in Revelation 18, “Come out of her my people that ye be not partaker of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”The duty to reform the Church was urged on the authority of the command in Revelation n, “Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.”While Rome excommunicated the Reformers, the Reformers excomm- unicated Rome in obedience to the command in Revelation 11, “The court which is without the temple, leave out (or rather ‘cast out’) and measure it not.”The Pope of Rome was resisted and condemned as “the Man of Sin,””the Antichrist,”the “standard-bearer”as Calvin calls him, “of an abominable apostasy.”The long line of pre- reformation martyrs, and the reformers and martyrs of the Reformation, were regarded as the sackcloth clothed and faithful witnesses of the Apocalypse, God’s anointed “prophets,”like Elijah and Elisha in the days of the Baalitical apostasy of Israel, and Ezra and Nehemiah in the time of the restoration of Jerusalem, and rebuilding of the temple, who, warred against and overcome by the wild beast power, had been figuratively raised from the dead, and exalted in full view of their amazed antagonists. To the Reformers of the sixteenth century the era of the seventh trumpet was at hand, when “The kingdoms of this world”would become “the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.”And they awaited the predicted and proximate hour when “like a great millstone “”that great city Babylon”should be “thrown down and found no more at all,”and the “great voice of much people in heaven “should lift up the rejoicing utterance, with thrice repeated hallelujahs, “salvation, and glory, and honour, and power unto the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments: for He hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand.”The prominence of Apocalyptic interpretation in the voluminous writings of the Reformers is one of their most marked features. They wielded the word of prophecy as the sharp two-edged sword of the Spirit, “piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.”And while God sealed their testimony with lasting spiritual success, they, on their part, sealed their witness with their blood. They inaugurated an era of light and liberty such as the world had never seen before, which remains as the colossal confirmation of their testimony, as interpreters and teachers of “the Word of God which endureth forever.”

IN tracing the development of the interpretation of the Apocalypse as ceaselessly following the unveiling of the plan of Providence by the events of history-, we direct our attention at this stage to the fresh page of history which lay before the eyes of prophetic interpreters in the seventeenth century.

I. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was succeeded by the great Papal Reaction of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; a movement which included the founding of the Order of the Jesuits, the Marian persecutions, the wars in France against the Huguenots; the Auto-da-fes of the Inquisition in Spain; the decrees and anathe- mas of the Council of Trent; the diabolical attempt of the Duke of Alva to exterminate the Protestants in the Netherlands, of whom 18,000 were slaughtered in six years; the fearful massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572; the invasion of the Spanish Armada in 1588 ; the Jesuit attempts on the life of Queen Elizabeth; the Gunpowder plot in 1605; the sanguinary thirty years’ war beginning 1618; the massacre of 20,000 Protestants in Magdeburg in 1631; the diabolical barbarities of Count Tilly in Saxony; the massacre of 40,000 Protestants in Ireland in 1641; and wholesale slaughter of the Waldenses in 1655; together with other wars, massacres, and persecutions too numerous to be mentioned. By these dreadful acts the papacy was revealed as the persecuting Antichrist, in colours so glaring and terrible as to compel universal recognition. It is note- worthy that while the Church of England in her Thirty-nine Articles drawn up at an earlier date, in 1562—articles strongly Anti-Romish in character—refrains from identifying the Pope with the predicted ” Man of Sin,”the Confession of the Westminster Assembly of Divines in 1647 (a confession ratified and established by Act of Parliament in 1649), does so identify him; as witness the following article,—”There is no other Head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that Antichrist, that Man of Sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.”Thus also the Articles of the Church of Ireland, drawn up in 1615, declare “The Bishop of Rome is so far from being the Supreme Head of the Uni- versal Church, that his works and his doctrines do plainly discover him to be that “Man of Sin “foretold in the Holy Scriptures, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and abolish with the brightness of His coming.”With these solemn affirmations of the Protestant Churches of the seventeenth century the voices of all the leading prophetic interpreters of the period agree. Their works are before us as we write. We have carefully examined their teachings, from those of Lord Napier’s “Commentary on the Apocalypse” 1 published in 1593, to Vitringa’s, a century later, including Cressener’s “demonstrations”of the principles of Apocalyptic interpretation in 1690; the works of Dent (1607), Taffin (1614), Forbes (1614), Brightman (1615), Bernard (1617), Cowper (1619), Taylor (1633), Goodwin (1639,) Mede (1643), Pareus (1643), Cotton (1645 and 1655), Roberts (1649), Holland (1650), Homes (1654), Tillinghast (1654), Stephens (1656), Guild (1656), Durham (1680), More (1680), Jurieu (1687), Marckius (1689), Cressener (1690), Vitringa (1695), Cradock (1697),and others. All these seventeenth century writers are agreed as to the historical principle of interpretation, and as to the general outline of events fulfilling Apocalyptic prophecy. Their views on the thirteenth chapter of Revelation are especially important in their clear recognition of the papacy as heading the second, or revived stage of the wild beast power; and its persecution of the saints during the forty-two prophetic “months,”or 1,260 years, of its domination. Cressener’s works may be especially mentioned as containing a powerful demonstration of this view.

II. Turning now to events in eastern Christendom we note that the capture of Constantinople, and overthrow of the Eastern Roman Empire by the Turks in 1453was too near in point of time to the opening of the sixteenth century to be properly judged of by the Reformers. The event was one of such enormous magnitude as to require a more distant standpoint for its correct appreciation. But in the course of the sixteenth century its full character and effects be- came plainly visible. The Saracenic and Turkish conquests in the time of Solomon the Magnificent, and the Amaraths and Achmets of the age were seen in their true colours. The House of Othman was ” lord of the ascendant, and numerous and fair provinces had been torn from the Christians, and heaped together to increase its already ample dominions.”The fulfilment of the locust and Euphratean woes of the fifth and sixth trumpets, in the conquests of the Saracens and Turks was now clearly recognized. In 1615 Brightman explained the 150 days ravages of the Locust horsemen as the 150 years of Saracenic conquests reckoned from their first ravages of Syria about A . D . 630. The year, month and day of Turkish conquests he reckons as 396 years (365 + 30+1)5 measuring it from the revival of the Othmans A . D . 1300, to the then future date of 1696. It is remarkable that the peace of Carlowitz in 1699, terminating seventeen years of war with Turkey, marked a closing crisis of Turkish power. “From that time forth,”says Sir Edward Creasy, “all serious dread of the military power of Turkey ceased in Europe.”The prophetic period may be reckoned as 391 years (360+30 + 1), 1 and as extending from the reign of Alp Arslan (1063-1072 according to Gibbon) to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Under Alp Arslan the Turks crossed the Euphrates, and invaded Europe. “The myriads of Turkish horse”says Gibbon, “overspread a frontier of 600 miles from Tauris to Erzeroum, and the blood of 130,000 Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet.”The story of the Turks in Eastern Europe is that of a succession of dreadful massacres without a parallel in the history of the world. With the capture of Constantinople, when Constantine XIV, the last Christian Emperor of the East fell and was “buried under a mountain of the slain,”Gibbon terminates his history of “the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

Goodwin (1639), expounds the fallen star of the fifth trumpet as Mahomet, fallen from the profession of”Christianity; and the smoke issuing from the pit as the false religion of the prophet. Of the sixth trumpet, or Euphratean woe, he says, “No prophecy doth or can more punctually describe any nation or event than this doth the Turks, and their irruption upon the Eastern Empire, who when they came first out of their native country, about the year 1040 after Christ, did seat themselves first by the River Euphrates, and were divided into four several governments or kingdoms,”etc., and completed their conquest of the Roman Empire “in the year 1453, which is 186 years since, who possess that whole Eastern Empire unto this day.”Mede (1643), reckons the Turkish woe from 1057 to 1453; and More (1680), does the same. There is perhaps no point on which historical interpreters of the Apocalypse from Mede and Goodwin onwards are more agreed than in the application of the fifth and sixth trumpets to the overthrow of the corrupt and apostate Eastern Empire by the Saracens and Turks.

III. The recognition of the fall of the Western and Eastern Empires, under the six first trumpets, led Mede, to the view that the Apocalypse contains two principal prophecies; first the prophecy relating to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the West, and in the East, figured under the seals, and six first trumpets; and secondly, the prophecy concerning the fortunes of the Christian Church, beginning with the vision of the descent of the angel in Chapter X, holding in his hand “a little book open.”An analogous twofold feature certainly characterizes the prophecies of Daniel, which consist of an earlier series relating to the Thrones, or governments of the world, and a later series relating to the Temple, and people of God, and the approaching Advent of Messiah. Throne prophecies followed by Temple prophecies,—such is the twofold order both in the book of Daniel and in the Apocalypse.

IV. From the fourth and fifth centuries up to the time of the Reformation the binding of Satan introducing the millennium was regarded as a past event. The Church of the Middle Ages imagined itself to be living in the millennium, and the Reformers considered that the outbreak of Papal persecution at the close of the Middle Ages was the fulfilment of the loosing of Satan for “a little season,” prior to the Great Day of Judgment.

By the middle of the seventeenth century the imagined “little season “of Satan’s loosing had so lengthened out as to prove the error of this interpretation. Mede was the first to appreciate the fact. His demonstration of the futurity of the millennium was an immense advance, and created an era in Apocalyptic interpretation. Elliott truly describes it as “a mighty step of change from the long continued ex- planation of the symbol as meant of Satan’s 1,000 years’ binding from Christ’s time, or Constantine’s.”The futurity of the millennium has held its ground as a Canon of interpretation from Mede’s time to the present day.

V. In harmony with this view, Mede, like the oldest Patristic Expositors, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, etc., interpreted the first resurrection as a literal resurrection of the Saints to be accomplished at the time of Antichrist’s destruction, at the commencement of the Millennial Age. In this Mede was followed by an imposing array of Puritan Expositors. This was a return to primitive doctrine resulting from the abandonment of the false millennium of the Middle Ages. Dr. Twisse, then prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, in an admirable and appreciative preface to Mede’s “Commentary on the Apocalypse,”gives a summary outline of the Apocalyptic interpretation of this learned Puritan, and says of him “many interpreters have done excellently, but he sur-mounteth them all.”

VI. Mede’s Synchronisms form the leading feature of his “Key to the Apocalypse.”He laid down the principle that in order to the correct understanding of this mysterious prophecy, it is necessary in the first place to fix the order of its principal visions, apart altogether from the question of their interpretation. In doing this he gives central prominence to the five times recurring period of 1,260 days, forty-two months, or three and a half “Times “; and locates the chief visions of the prophecy by their relation to this period, as preceding it, cotemporizing with it, or succeeding it. 1

The first synchronism established by Mede is that of what he calls “a noble quaternion of prophecies,”remarkable by reason of the equality of their times : —

1. The woman remaining in the wilderness three and one-half “Times,”or 1,260 “days.”

2. The revived Beast ruling forty-two “months.”

3. The outer court trodden down forty-two “months.”

4. The witnesses prophesying in sackcloth 1,260 ” days.”

These periods, Mede shows, are not only equal, but begin at the same time, and end together ; and therefore, synchronize throughout. As the various Apocalytic visions are connected with this central period, as introducing it, cotemporizing with it, or succeeding it, their place in the Apocalyptic drama is clearly indicated.

THE 1,260 YEARS OF PROPHECY

VII. The lapse of time now led to a further important development of the historic interpretation. Sixteen and a half centuries had rolled by since the commencement of the Christian era; thirteen and a half centuries from the fall of Paganism in the days of Constantine; and twelve and a half centuries since the invasion of the Roman Empire by Alaric, the initial act of its Gothic overthrow.

The principle of the “year day interpretation”of the prophetic times was already recognized, and the fulfilment of the great prophetic period of 1,260 years now forced itself on general attention, —a period occurring in different forms no less than seven times in Daniel and the Apocalypse.

Room at last existed in Christian history for the location of this great prophetic period, and from the beginning of the seventeenth century onwards it was accorded a prominent place in the historical interpretation of prophecy.

Naturally, with the lapse of time, and the progressive fulfilment of the predictions relating to the Papal downfall, the location of the period was shifted forward from earlier to later dates. The fall of the Papacy has been gradual, like its rise ; and the period in question was found to measure with remarkable accuracy the intervals which extended from the principal dates connected with its commencement, to corresponding dates in its decline and overthrow.

Lord Napier in his “Commentary on the Apocalypse,”published in 1593, places the first commencement of the 1,260 years “between the year of Christ 300 and 316,”and its corresponding end “about the year 1560,”at which date “the tenth part of the Papistical Empire was reformed.”He indicates a second possible fulfilment of the period in the interval extending from the accession of Justinian—a notable date in the rise of the Papacy—to the then future year 1786 ; which was a remarkable anticipation for the time, of the date of the French Revolution. Had Lord Napier dated the 1,260 years from the decree of Justinian in 533, constituting the Bishop of Rome “head of all the holy Churches and of all the holy priests of God,”he would have correctly anticipated its primary termination in the central year of the French Revolution, 1793,—the year of the execution of Louis XVI, and of the reign of terror, in which the Papal Church and State were overthrown as if by the explosion of a volcano.

Mede in 1642, placed the commencement of the 1,260 years at Alaric’s irruption, in 395; the date according to his view of the sounding of the first of the four trumpets connected with the overthrow of the Western Empire. Reckoning it thus, the termination fell in the then future year 1655, the year of the great massacre of the Protestant witnesses in Piedmont of which Milton wrote his memo- rable sonnet.

“Avenge O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.”

This location of the 1,260 years is prominent in Mede’s Chart of the Visions in the Apocalypse.

Pareus, whose valuable “Commentary on the Apocalypse ” was published in 1643, shortly after Mede’s, places the beginning of 1,260 years in A . D . 606, when Boniface III was exalted by a decree of the Emperor Phocas to “the chaire of universal pestilence.””From the yeare of Christ therefore 606, until this time the holy citie hath been trodden under foot by the Romane Gentiles, which is the space of 1,073 yeers, and is yet to be trodden down 223 yeers more, to wit, until the yeere of Christ 1866.”We have lived to see the correctness of this remarkable anticipation.

In the year 1866 the overthrow of Papal Austria by Protestant Prussia took place, and the Papal invitation to all Catholic bishops to “celebrate the eighteenth century of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul”was sent forth: 599 bishops were present at the Allocution delivered by the Pope in 1867. The Pope’s encyclical letter summoning the Vatican Council was issued in 1868, and the decree of Papal infallibility coinciding with the outbreak of the Franco- German war, together with the fall of the French Empire and the Papal Temporal Power took place in 1870. In the four years 1866— 1870 Papal power was overthrown in Austria, Spain, France, and Italy; and since 1870 the Pope has ceased to possess even a shadow of political sovereignty.

Pareus was not the first to point out 1866 as the termination of the 1,260 years. David Chytrceus in A . D . 1571 indicated Alaric A . D . 412, and the decree of Phocas, A . D . 606, as possible starting-points of the period. But the anticipation of Pareus was more definite in character; and he takes a leading place in the list of prophetic interpreters who during the last two hundred years have fixed on A . D. 606 and 1866 as the chief termini of the 1,260 years period of Papal rule.

It is a noteworthy fact that the historic interpretation of prophecy, constantly developing century by century with the unveilings of Providence, assumed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as to its leading outlines, a definite form from which it has never since departed. One has but to compare Mede’s diagram of the historical fulfilment of the Apocalyptic visions (1641), and that of Whiston (1706), with that of Elliott (1844-1862), to be convinced of the fact.

HERE we reach the beginning of the last act of the Papal tragedy. Louis XIV sat on the throne of France at Versailles. At his side was Madame de Maintenon. Behind her stood the Jesuit Confessor Pere la Chaise. Behind him again the Pope, and his inspirer the Prince of Darkness.

In Piedmont the trembling remnant of Protestants left by the great massacre of 1655 still clung to their native rocks, and Alpine fastnesses.

In England James II was struggling to restore Papal supremacy, and enslave the children of the Puritans who had bought their liberties at so great a price.

Behind the scene historically lay ages of darkness; before it ages of light.

O thou who wouldst draw near to behold this sight—the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed, take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place on which thou standest is holy ground.

Clear away the mists of ignorance which hide the great tragedy from thine eyes. Thou art the heir of freedom purchased by the sufferings and sacrifices of these martyr days. Gaze then upon the sublime and touching spectacle, and let it fix itself in thy memory forever.

Fear not to enter this gloomy region for light shall spring from the sepulchral darkness; life from the ashes of the dead.

Hark! a wail bursts forth from the lips of thousands of Protestant parents robbed of their children. That wail is the prelude of the last great Papal persecution of the Huguenots; a persecution which was followed by the French Revolution, inaugurating the modern era of civil and religious liberty.

“A terrible law strikes dismay into the hearts of fathers and mothers—a law that will bring us to the determination to go and cast ourselves at the feet of the king; begging him to grant us either death, or freedom of conscience for us and for our children; or permission, leaving behind us our property, to forsake the nation, and drag out a languishing existence, scattered in every country of the globe.”It is Pierre Jurieu who utters this bitter cry in his “Last Efforts of Afflicted Innocence,”relating to the effects of the statute of Louis XIV, of June, 1681.

And what was this law? It was a law which struck at the existence of the family; which authorized the wholesale compulsory conversion of all the children of the Protestants throughout France to the Roman Catholic Church. It authorized children of the tender age of seven years to renounce the religion of their Protestant parents, and gave freedom to the Romish priests and population to ensnare them into an enforced confession of the Romish faith; a mere sentence, a word expressing admission of some popish doctrine sufficing; forbidding the poor innocent to take back its words; and thus tearing the child from its parents and its home, and hurrying it, in spite of frantic protests from the father and the mother, into some nunnery or other place, to be there immured until “conversion “was complete.

A refinement of cruelty this, unmatched even in the persecutions of old heathen Rome.

Institutions spring up at once all over France, Nouveaux Catholiques for boys; Nouvelles Catholiques for girls; they are quickly crowded. Bereaved Protestant parents sit in their desolated homes, weeping over the children who have been torn away from them. “All the torments that have heretofore been inflicted upon us are as nothing,”say they, “in comparison with this.”It is, however, but the beginning of the tragedy. The parents are not yet converted. Unreasonable parents! The elder brothers and sisters still remain Protestants. They dare to hold prayer-meetings in their desolated homes. They bow down on their knees, and hide their weeping faces in their hands. They cry to the Father in heaven. What infamy! A stop must be put to this.

But how? Had Satan ingenuity equal to the occasion? How were the parents and elder sons and daughters to be compelled to come wholesale into the Catholic fold? By a new method. By Dragonnades. The army of Louis XIV was vast and powerful; his soldiers unscrupulous, ungodly, superstitious, lustful, intolerant, ready instruments for arty abomination. Quarter the soldiers in the homes of the Protestants. Commission these “booted evangelists ” to convert them; give them leave to do as they will in these homes with the women, as well as the men; with the mothers and the daughters. Set them to work. Let them stable their horses in the parlours; break the furniture; devour the provisions; tie the fathers hand and foot, and violate in their presence the wives and daughters. Let them prevent the wretched Huguenots from closing their eyes in sleep until they have renounced their Protestantism.

Keep the heretics awake; beat them; drag them about. Shout at them, walk them up and down the rooms all night long, Keep up this fiendish treatment day and night till they submit. Cursed heretics, what right have they to resist the will of Louis XIV, and the almighty Pope of Rome?

And these horrors were done; done throughout all France. The soldiers quartered on the Protestants “pinched them, prodded them, hung them up by ropes, tormented them in a hundred other ways, until their unhappy victims scarcely knew what they were doing.”” They spat in the faces of women, made them lie down on burning coals, made them put their heads into ovens whose hot flames stifled them.”The new mission went forward rapidly, Louis XIV directing. “From Guyenne and Upper Languedoc the Dragonnades extended to Saintonage, Aunis, and Poitou on the west, and to Vivarais on the East. Next came the turn of the province of Lyonnaise, of the Cevennes, of Lower Languedoc, of Province, of Gex. Later still the rest of the kingdom became a prey to the hideous work of the ” booted mission “as it was called—Normandy, Burgundy, and the central provinces, even to far-off Brittany, and to Paris itself.” “The horrors the dragoons inspired, the crimes they perpetrated, the sufferings the wretched victims endured,”who shall describe? But this was only the beginning of the tragedy.

A statute still remained—the Edict of Nantes—protecting the lives and liberties of the Huguenots. By one fell stroke this last, protection was swept away. The Edict was revoked. The floodgates were opened, and persecution in its worst, form rolled over the Protestant population of France.

The fatal day of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was the I7th of October, 1685.

The first article of the new law recalled all legislation favourable to the Huguenots.

The second forbade all gatherings of Protestants for the services of their religion.

The three following had reference to Protestant ministers. All these were commanded to leave France within fifteen days from the publication of the Edict, on pain of the galleys.

The seventh article abolished all private schools for the instruction of Protestant children.

The eighth prescribed that all children hereafter born of Protestant parents should be baptized by the parish priests, and brought up in the Roman Catholic religion. Recalcitrant parents incurred a fine of five hundred livres or more.

In the tenth article the king issued “very express and repeated prohibitions to all his Protestant subjects against leaving his kingdom, or allowing their wives or children to leave it, and against exporting their goods and chattels. The penalty was the galleys for men, and confiscation of body and goods for women.”

All the Protestant churches throughout France were shut or pulled down. Nothing but ruins remained. The pastors were exiled, and the flocks forbidden to follow them. An entire people, the best and noblest of the land, lay crushed under the cruel heel, the iron hoof, of the relentless Papal persecutor.

Then followed the great Exodus. Nothing could arrest it. Thousands on thousands of Huguenots fled from France.

The frontiers were guarded in vain. Disguised in all manner of ways, their faces disfigured, their garments rent, in the darkness of night, by sequestered paths, through forests, across mountains, and over the seas in open boats, they fled, and still fled, until half a million had escaped. They fled to Switzerland, to Holland, to England, and other countries. Four hundred thousand perished in the effort to escape. The prisons were crowded. The homes of the Protestants emptied, their houses left tenantless.

Thousands of Protestants had broken down under the strain, and professed submission to their Roman Catholic persecutors; but the great mass of the Huguenots had remained faithful. No power could conquer their convictions, or compel them to deny their Lord. Chained to the oars in the horrible galleys, and brutally beaten and bastinadoed by their captors, they remained faithful. Crammed into filthy jails, left to rot in dungeons, they remained faithful. Broken on the wheel they remained faithful. Aged pastors lay bound by their limbs to that cruel instrument, while through a long agony, protracted sometimes for hours, every bone in their body was broken. Stroke followed stroke while life remained. Groans went up from the galleys, from the prisons, from the lands of exile. In The Tower of Constance Huguenot women were immured without hope of release. The walls were nearly ninety feet high, and eighteen feet in thickness. It contained two great circular vaulted chambers one above the other. High and narrow loopholes admitted a feeble light. By that ray one of the noble women imprisoned there wrote on the wall.”Rhistez .” Yes, they “resisted unto blood”in that awful strife. Who were the victors in that struggle? Louis XIV and the Pope and priests of Rome, or the suffering Huguenots? Was not the Crucified the Conqueror? Is not the martyr the Victor? So they overcame. “When young Chamier underwent his horrible torture, for the scene of which, by a refinement of cruelty, the street in front of his paternal home had been selected, it was his mother that chiefly urged him to fortitude in suffering for the faith. “I have yet,”said she, “three children whom I shall cheerfully give up, if they be called to die for religion’s sake.”

Like the noble martyrs of primitive times “they loved not their lives unto the death.”They overcame; for greater is He who was in them, than he who was in the opposing world. Rome believed and boasted that she had triumphed. She rang her joybells. She struck Commemoration Medals. On one of them the crowned monarch stands on. the steps of the altar, and extends to France, represented by a kneeling suppliant the sceptre of his mercy, while around are inscribed the words Sacra Romana Restituta.—”The Roman religion restored.”

The Queen of Sweden received and sheltered some of the refugees. “I pray with all my heart,”said she, “that the false joy and triumph of the Church may not some day cost her tears and sorrows.”What it did cost France history has since related. In the Vaudois valleys at this same period the wave of persecution had reached its highest altitude. “In thy book,”cried Milton,

“record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infants down the rocks. Their groans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven.”

The Vaudois Protestants were cut up alive, roasted over fires, impaled on stakes, disembowelled, torn limb from limb, tortured in ways too horrible to describe. Leger’s volume contains pictures of all these horrors, and gives the names and numbers of the sufferers.

In 1686 Louis XIV sent 14,000 men under the Marquis de Catinat to join the Piedmontese army, to enforce the submission of the Vaudois. Following his victory over the Protestants of the Valleys the Duke condemned 14,000 of them to the prisons of Turin: of these 11,000 perished by heat, cold, hunger, and thirst in their imprisonment. The remaining three thousand on emancipation from prison fled over the mountains to Switzerland and Brandenburg. The republic of Geneva extended to the exiles a touching welcome.

In England James II had opened negotiations with the Pope. Papists were in full patronage and Jeffreys was holding his “bloody assizes.”In the army Protestant officers were replaced by Romanists; the Papal Nuncio was received at Windsor, and the seven Bishops sent to the Tower, the people venting their feelings in tears and prayers.

A storm was brewing, and a dark cloud hung over the land.

This closing crisis of Papal persecution had long been expected. Students of prophecy in the days of the Reformation and of the Puritan Revolution had forecast its advent and sought to calculate the period of its occurrence. They knew that the Protestant religion would be suppressed in some unprecedented way before the final judgments of God were poured forth on their persecutors.

They believed that the Protestant “witnesses “were yet to be slain; that they were to lie unburied for three and a half years, and then to be raised from death, and exalted to power and supremacy.

Peter Jurieu, one of the exiled Huguenot ministers wrote a book in 1687, a copy of which lies before us, entitled, “The accomplishment of the Scripture prophecies on the approaching deliverance of the Church, proving that the present persecution may end in three years and a half; after which the destruction of the Antichrist shall begin, which shall be finished in the beginning of the next age, and then the Kingdom of Christ shall come upon earth.”

It is a volume of six hundred pages, and remarkable for the clearness and force of its argument.

Was Jurieu mistaken?

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes took place on the 17th of October, 1685.

The English Revolution followed in 1688, and the coronation of William of Orange and Queen Mary took place on the nth of April, 1689.

From October, 1685, to April, 1689, the interval is three and a half years.

The English Revolution marked the end of Papal supremacy in England, and Papal persecution on any widely extended scale in the world. It was the first stage in the inauguration of a new era.

In 1688, James II, the last Popish King of England, abandoned his throne, and fled. The victories of William of Orange in Ireland and on the continent followed; including those of Marlborough over the armies of Louis XIV, in the nine years’ war with France from May, 1689, to January 1697.

The almost unexampled series of English victories of this war was succeeded by the Treaty of Ryswtck in September, 1697, and the full establishment of civil and religious liberty.

Encouraged by the English Revolution in 1689, the Vaudois refugees in Switzerland resolved to attempt to return to their country. Embarking at Nyon on the 16th of August, 1689, they crossed the Lake of Geneva, ascended the opposite heights, crossed the bridge of Marni, passed the towns of Cluse and Sallenches; crossed Mount Haute Luce, Mount Bon Hornme, and the River Isere; crossed Mount Tisserand and Mount Cenis, Mount Tourliers, the Valley of Jaillon, by Chamont above Suza, Mount Sei, and descended into the Valley of Pragela, the most northern of the Vaudois valleys. In this long and perilous journey across the Alps, they were led by Henry Arnaud. Though opposed by 10,000 French and 12,000 Piedmontese, they cut their way through, losing only thirty of their number in their numerous encounters with their enemies.

Climbing the precipitous Alps, crossing the snows, sleeping on the bare ground: subsisting only on bread and herbs, they escaped or put to flight their foes, preserved as by a miracle from all the perils of the way. Their return to their native valleys celebrated as “La Rentree Gloruuse “was effected three and half years after their total dissipation.

We have said that Jurieu published a work on the “Approaching deliverance of the Church,”in 1687, in which he anticipated that the Restoration of Protestantism would follow three and a half years after its overthrow at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

Another work on the Apocalypse written in 1685 by an exiled French minister contains the same anticipation. Copies of both of these works are lying before us. The latter contains the following reference to its authorship on the title-page, — “written by a French minister in the year 1685, and finish t but two days before the Dragoons plundered him of all except this Treatise.”

It is a small volume of about 300 pages. Fallen to pieces with age, with broken binding, and separated leaves, my copy is tied together with string to preserve it from destruction; an eloquent witness to the last great Papal persecution, and the anticipation based on the sure word of prophecy, of the speedy restoration of Protestant liberties. The author tells us that he was unacquainted with Jurieu’s view when he wrote. “There were divers of the refugees,”says he, “who had the sight of this discourse when they were in France. For the author had finished it near the end of August, 1685, about two days before the arrival of the new missionaries, the Dragoons, who plundered him of all he had. So that this was the whole that he was able to save out of that doleful shipwreck; which since his arrival at a place of security he hath reviewed and corrected, in several places. And having met with “the Accomplishment of Prophecies,”written by the famous Monsieur Jurieu, the author was exceedingly pleased to find that he had explained the eleventh chapter (of Revelation) as promissory of the reestablishment of the Reformed in France, according as that great man hath done.”

Not in France, however, but chiefly in England whither great numbers of the refugees had come, and in the Waldensiun Valleys, was the restoration of Protestantism to be effected. It came at the expected time. A darker experience awaited France, the execution of terrible judgments in retribution for her cruel and long continued persecution of the Huguenots. Regarded in its widest aspects, the English Revolution under William of Orange marked the commencement of the modern era of full Protestant liberties, and the political ascendancy of Protestant power in Europe, and throughout the world.

Next: History Unveiling Prophecy by H. Grattan Guinness – Part II

Jeremiah J. Crowley

Jeremiah J. Crowley (Ireland, Nov. 20, 1861 — Chicago, Aug. 10, 1927) was an American Catholic priest who left the Catholic Church and exposed Vatican influence in the American government. Crowley was accepted into the Chicago diocese by archbishop of Chicago Patrick Feehan in 1896, but fell out with him and opposed his successor, archbishop James Edward Quigley. He also wrote, “The Pope – Chief of White Slavers, High Priest of Intrigue”

This book is slightly condensed. I did not include all the pictures in the original, nor the paragraphs that refer to the pictures.

My favorite chapter is chapter 5, Archbishop Quigley Cowed by a Fearless Woman.. Quigley is the same guy who boasted in the Chicago Tribune that the Roman Catholic Church would someday rule the world through its agent, the USA!

Next to Charles Chiniquy, I consider Jeremiah Crowley is be a Martin Luther of America. Unfortunately Jesuit influence was already so strong in America that he is largely forgotton today. I sure didn’t hear of him until just a couple weeks before this post! I’m hoping to make Jeremiah J. Crowley’s name more familiar so that Christians may know his message to America and the world.

Jeremiah J Crowley

By JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY
A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS
Author of
” The Pope Chief of White Slavers, High Priest of Intrigue

COPYRIGHT
ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS,
IN THE YEAR 1912, (Now in public domain)
BY JEREMIAH J. CROWLET,
IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS AT WASHINGTON.

Challenge to Rome

I retired voluntarily, gladly, from the priesthood of Rome, after a vain attempt, in combination with other priests, to secure a reform of Humanistic abuses from within (see “Romanism A Menace to the Nation”). This failing, no other course was open but to quit the accursed System forever.

I will give TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS to any person who can prove that I was EXCOMMUNICATED and that the STATEMENTS and CHARGES against priests, prelates, and popes, in my books, “THE POPE-CHIEF OF WHITE SLAVERS, HIGH PRIEST OF INTRIGUE,” and “ROMANISM A MENACE TO THE NATION,” are untrue; and, furthermore, I will agree to hand over the plates of these books and stop their publication forever.

Will Rome accept this Challenge? If not, Why not?

JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY,
A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS,
AUTHOR, LECTURER, AND PUBLICIST.

The obstinate refusal of Rome, for several years, to accept my challenge, is proof, positive and irrefutable, that its cowardly, wine-soaked, Venus-worshipping, and grafting prelates, priests and editors have no other reply for adversary, but vituperation and assassination.

PREFACE TO THIS VOLUME

Seven years ago I published my work entitled “The Parochial School, A Curse to the Church, A Menace to the Nation,” which now forms Part II. of this volume.

Four years later, in 1908, I voluntarily withdrew from the priesthood and the Roman Catholic Church. This step enabled me to say things which I could not say with propriety during my priesthood and while acting as a mere reformer within the Church.

The contents of Part I., which is a large addition of new matter, will be read eagerly by all who are familiar with my first work; because it is the key and explanation of what I had already said, and throws upon it the light necessary for its full and complete understanding and appreciation.

Part I. will give a clearer and more complete view and be a more graphic and exhaustive exposure of the intrigues and the corrupt practices of the Vatican system, both at Rome and throughout the world, than it was possible for me to state when I first undertook, together with other priests and prelates, to contribute what little I could to bring about a reform in the Roman Catholic priesthood.

“They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think.”

To every one who loves humanity it must be a thing of profoundest import to learn whether or not the laws and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church are so framed as, of very necessity, to work injustice, to encourage vice, to punish the innocent, and to protect the guilty.

The questions raised in various forms in the ensuing volume concern the very perpetuity of free institutions. They are all questions which no liberty-loving soul can ignore.

That it should be possible in this enlightened age that such questions should be seriously raised is the wonder and the shame of it all.

It is in darkness, that evil men love rather than the light, that such things flourish.

I give this volume to the light of day to enlighten and aid the people, whose supreme right and duty it is to defend their liberties.

In the words of the Messenger in Antigone, I can say, in part, “I saw,” and in whole :

“I will speak and hold back
No syllable of truth. Why should we soothe
Your ears with stories, only to appear
Liars thereafter? Truth is always right.”
JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY.
CINCINNATI, O., June, 1912.

I was born and reared in the Roman Catholic Church; trained in her doctrines and polity; and ordained a priest in 1886. I was a priest in good standing up to 1907 (twenty-one years), when I retired voluntarily from the priesthood. For six years previous to my retirement I waged a crusade against the evils of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and while thus engaged challenged publicly, in speech and print, this Hierarchy to disprove the charges in Part II. of this volume, and also to prove that I was not, during that time, a priest in good standing. A copy of the challenge appears at the very beginning of Part II. That challenge was never accepted.

I now reiterate the challenge made in former editions of Part II. and elsewhere, as to the truth of the facts there stated. If the additional facts stated in Part I. are also true, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is doubly condemned and will be so judged and denounced by all right-minded men. If any of my alleged facts are proven false, I am ready to abide the consequences.

The Vatican method “the conspiracy of silence” should not be permitted to shield any one affected by the charges made in this book. Silence may sometimes be golden, but in this instance it indicates guilt.

I want my readers to understand that I am not assailing the plain Roman Catholic people. They are the victims of a religious system, foisted upon them by the accident of birth. They are living up to the light they have. God grant that the sunlight of truth may soon flood their pathway! I sympathize with them, I admire them, and I love them.

When I wrote Part II. I was a loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church. At that time I would gladly have died for her. I wrote it to save, if I could, the Roman Catholic Church and to protect the Public School. My facts were carefully weighed and my arguments were prayerfully presented. The protestations of fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church which are contained in Part II. and in my other writings were made in good faith. I now unreservedly withdraw them.

I wrote Part II. with the further object of inaugurating a crusade for the emancipation of the Roman Catholic people by purifying the Roman Catholic priesthood. I have reason to believe that my book has emancipated thousands of Roman Catholics. I know that it has emancipated me I am no longer a Roman Catholic. For its preparation I was compelled to study thoroughly the history of the Roman Catholic Church, a subject which is purposely neglected in Roman Catholic schools. An extensive reading of secular history naturally followed. The age-long story of papal, prelatical and priestly corruption astounded and confounded me. I began to see the papacy in a new light. The question of Dr. John Lord haunted me, “Was there ever such a mystery, so occult are its arts, so subtle its policy, so plausible its pretensions, so certain its shafts?” (Beacon Lights of History, Vol. V., p. 99.) I gradually awakened to the fact that I was believing in unscriptural doctrines and championing a religious system which was anything but the holy and true church of Jesus Christ.

THE PAPAL MEDAL.

THE PAPAL MEDAL.

This is a facsimile of both sides of the medal struck by Gregory XIII. in commemoration of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. On the obverse is the head of the Pope, with the Latin inscription reading, “Gregory XIII., Pontifex Maximus, the First Year.” On the reverse is a representation of the killing of heretics by an angel who holds in one hand a sword and in the other a crucifix. The Latin inscription reads, “The Slaughter of the Huguenots, 1572.”

Rome claims that she did not approve of the massacre of the seventy thousand Huguenots. Why, then, did the bells of the papal churches in Rome peal out joyfully when the news of the slaughter was received by Pope Gregory XIII.? Why did he have the above medal struck to commemorate the event, and why did he order Te Deums to be sung in the churches instead of Misereres or de Profundis? Why did not the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was at Catherine’s court, raise a voice of protest against the crime? No, Rome can not exculpate herself from this, one of the greatest crimes that ever stained the records of sinful humanity.

Fear not that the tyrants shall rule forever,
Or the priests of the bloody faith ;
They stand on the brink of the mighty river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death :
It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
And their swords and their scepters I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity. Shelley.

The gruesome history of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and of the archdiocese of Chicago in particular, “the conspiracy of silence,” the threats of excommunication issued against Revs. Cashman, Hodnett and myself, threats and attempts to murder me, the continued neglect of the pope to answer my letter to him as set forth in the preface to Part II. (in which letter I asked for an opportunity to give names of clerical offenders and the proof of their misconduct), the refusal of the pope to pay any attention to the petitions and charges which had been sent to Rome by myself and a score of the prominent priests of the archdiocese of Chicago, touching the immoralities of the clergy all these combined to undermine my loyalty to the papacy, and were large factors in causing my ultimate utter loss of confidence in the integrity of the pope and his cabinet. It was only a step from loss of faith in the authorities of the Church to loss of faith in her unscriptural doctrines.

In the summer of 1907 I found myself in such a state of mind regarding the Vatican system, and so out of sympathy with the unscriptural doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, that there was nothing for me to do but to withdraw from my crusade and await the end of the revolution which was going on in my soul. Shortly thereafter I closed my office in Chicago and went to the Pacific Coast, where I engaged in business. In a few months my mind was at rest. Romanism had sloughed from me just as completely as it had from the Very Rev. Father Slattery and from the Caldwell sisters, founders of the Roman Catholic University, Washington, D. C.

During the past two years I have been urged to republish Part II. of this volume in the interests of patriotism and enlightenment. I now feel that the time is ripe to yield to this demand. I realize as never before the danger to which civil and religious liberties are exposed from Vatican machinations. That danger is not chimerical; it is actual and pressing. Among other things, the Hierarchy is determined to move aggressively to secure public money for the support of Roman Catholic schools. According to the press reports, the Rev. Thomas F. Coakley, secretary to Bishop Canevin, of Pittsburg, Pa., addressing two thousand delegates at the convention of the American Federation of Roman Catholic Societies, in August, 1910, demanded that the Roman Catholic Church be granted by the State the sum of thirty-six million dollars a year for the education of Roman Catholics.

Since I have abjured Romanism, it may seem to some that Part II. should be revised. But I deem it better to let it remain as it is, because in this shape the public will have the benefit of the work as it was written by a Roman Catholic priest in good standing, which I was at that time, and, indeed, up to the time of my voluntary retirement from the priesthood. And further, this present volume containing Parts I. and II. will give the public some conception of the successive stages of that mysterious, tumultuous and painful experience by which I have been led by Providence from Romanism to Christianity, from the prayer-book to the Bible, from the pope to Christ.

In the good providence of God I read very carefully the Gospels, and pondered prayerfully the words and the deeds of our Lord. I also studied that wonderful book of the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles. I found that it contains the history of the first thirty years of the Christian church, that it is the only inspired church history which Christians have, and that the first Christians knew nothing of the sacrifice of the mass, the confessional, prayers to the Virgin and to the saints, purgatory, indulgences, priestly celibacy, or the primacy of St. Peter. Indeed, I learned in the Sacred Scriptures that whatever power and authority was given by our Lord to Peter was given equally to the other eleven Apostles, that Peter himself had a wife (Matthew viii. 14), and that even Paul asked if he had not the right to have a wife as did the other missionaries of the cross (I. Corinthians ix. 5) ; also that a bishop should have only one wife (I. Timothy iii. 2).

While I was engaged in the crusade against the corrupt Hierarchy alluded to in the opening paragraph, my friend, the Very Rev. John R. Slattery, President of St. Joseph’s Seminary for Colored Missions, Baltimore, Md., U. S. A., who had been chosen by Cardinal Satolli to edit his volume of sermons and addresses, and who had been most highly spoken of by Cardinal Gibbons, renounced his priesthood. He wrote an article entitled “How My Priesthood Dropped from Me,” which appeared in The Independent (a weekly magazine published in New York City) of September 6, 1906, p. 565. In it he said:

“In almost every case of a contested point between Catholics and Protestants, the latter are right and the former wrong.”

This article deeply affected me. Later, I had a number of interviews with Father Slattery in which I received corroborative evidence of the corruptions of the Hierarchy. I also received a number of important letters from him, one of which appears at the end of this volume. I became acquainted with the late Baroness von Zedtwitz, who, with her sister, the late Marquise des Monstiers- Meronville, had founded the Roman Catholic University at Washington, D. C. These ladies were born in the State of Kentucky. Their maiden name was Caldwell. They renounced Romanism during my crusade. On page 694 of this volume the reader will find a full account of the renunciation of the Roman Catholic faith by the Marquise. The Baroness published in 1906 a booklet entitled “The Double Doctrine of the Church of Rome.” In it she states:

“It is generally admitted that an ecclesiastical student when he leaves Rome [graduates at Rome], carries away with him little else than the papal banner, and has laid his primitive moral code at the feet of the infallible successor of St. Peter.”

This lady has been an honored visitor at the Vatican itself; and her words greatly impressed me. I had the honor qf meeting her in New York, and she astounded me with circumstantial accounts of prelatical duplicity and depravity which had come under her observation in the high places in the Hierarchy in Rome itself. From the Marquise I received the following withering letter concerning no less a personage than the Most Rev. John Lancaster Spalding, then Bishop of Peoria, 111., U. S. A., and now Titular Archbishop of Scitopolis, in partibus infidelium [in infidel parts], a warm friend of ex-President Roosevelt and President Taft, a Roman Catholic dignitary of international fame and an ecclesiastic for whom I had entertained profound respect when I first published Part II. :

“HOTEL SUISSE, ROME, “April 11, 1907.

“DEAR FATHER CROWLEY: I have just received your book [Part II.] and pamphlets, for which I thank you. I had seen and read the book last year in New York, and I shall have much pleasure in reading the brochures this summer. May Heaven reward you for your noble work in showing up the awful depravity of the Roman Church.

“If you ever have the opportunity to undeceive the world about that Svhited sepulchre,’ Spalding, of Peoria, I beg that you will do so in the sacred cause of truth. No greater liar and hypocrite walks the earth to-day. He is a very atheist and infidel, and I, who used to know him intimately, ASSERT IT. If today my sister and I are in open revolt against the Roman Church, it is chiefly due to the depravity of Bishop Spalding. Would that you could let his priests know that his asceticism is all bombast! A more sensual hypocrite never trod the earth. “A letter to this address will always reach me. “Yours sincerely, “[Signed] THE MARQUISE DES MONSTIERS.”

In the spring of 1907 the Baroness von Zedtwitz sent the following cablegram from Europe to Bishop Spalding:

“Bisaor SPALDING, “PEORIA, ILLINOIS, U. S. A. “Am aware of your efforts to shield yourself from exposure. When Catholics know the history of your hidden vices, as I do, you must flee Peoria. This I shall accomplish. “[Signed] BARONESS VON ZEDTWITZ.”

Rome, fearing exposure from the letters and charges of the Caldwell sisters, prevailed upon Bishop Spalding to resign the bishopric of Peoria, which he did in September, 1908. Rome, pursuing her usual policy in such cases, immediately promoted him to a nominal archbishopric which gives him the honor of the title without any subjects ; so that in case of exposure it could not be alleged that he is in actual charge of a diocese. However, he is still in politics, entertaining President Taft and ex-President Roosevelt at his home in Peoria, and belittling Governor Woodrow Wilson as a “schoolmaster” and therefore unfit to be President of the United States.

The abjuration of Roman Catholicism by these eminent women, and their charges against Archbishop Spalding, who had been their professed friend and trusted adviser, in whom they placed unbounded confidence, aroused my deepest horror and indignation. I kept saying to myself, “If such a prelate, the idol of American Catholicism and of liberal Protestantism, is an ‘atheist and infidel, a liar and sensual hypocrite/ is not the Vatican clerical system rotten, root and branch ?’

My reading, observation, meditation and experience gradually forced me to doubt the possibility of purifying the Roman Catholic priesthood, and ultimately led me to agree with the words written me by the Baroness von Zedtwitz :

“There is not, and never can be, modern Catholicism, and should ever the political necessity arise for purifying all religion, Catholicity would then and there be wiped off the face of the earth.”

During the crusade above mentioned, many priests of the Roman Catholic Church talked with me about the futility of ray efforts, saying in substance :

“Father Crowley, you are wasting your time and money in trying to purify the priesthood. The system stands for power and pelf. It can not be changed. Christ Himself, if there is a Christ, could not purify it.”

Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, the prominent pastor of St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago, the bosom friend and confidential agent of Archbishop Ireland, said to me repeatedly:

“The more I see and read of monks, nuns, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes the less am I a priest, and indeed the less am I a Roman Catholic.”

He also made this statement:

“While I believe the Roman Catholic Church will live forever, I believe the devil has his knee on its neck in this propaganda. I am prepared to prove all that I state, and if I can not prove it my proper home is the penitentiary.”

He frequently exclaimed :

“Oh, if the Roman Catholic Church would only uncover her scandals !”

Early in our crusade, in the first week of January, 1901, Revs. Cashman and Hodnett, representing a score or more of the prominent priests of Chicago, went to Washington, D. C., and personally filed charges of priestly corruption and crime against brother priests, including Rev. Peter J. Muldoon, with Papal Delegate Martinelli. Copies of charges had already been sent by registered mail to the Vatican. Rev. Cashman called to the attention of the Delegate several grave charges of clerical immorality. The pope’s representative shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and said: “The Vatican pays no attention whatever to such charges.” Rev. Hodnett staggered back in blank amazement, and, making the sign of the cross, said: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, protect us! Mother of God, save the church!” Rev. Cashman then asked: “Should not the standard for a Christian bishop be at least the equal of that for Caesar’s wife, above suspicion?” His Excellency Martinelli replied, with a cynical shrug: “Not necessarily; by no means.” Rev. Hodnett then fairly screamed : “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, protect us! Mother of Purity, save the church! Tom [Rev. Cashman], get your hat, let us get out of here! They are going to burst the Catholic Church in America!”

The last word of Revs. Cashman and Hodnett to Monsignor Martinelli was this: “If Muldoon is foisted upon the archdiocese of Chicago, look out for scandal!” Monsignor Martinelli replied: “That is a threat.” Rev. Cashman responded: “It is simply telling you what is going to happen.” Monsignor Martinelli then asked: “Will you stand by the written charges?” Revs. Cashman and Hodnett answered in one voice: “Quod scripsi, scripsi.” [What I have written, I have written.]

Notwithstanding these charges, Cardinal Martinelli came to Chicago to consecrate Rev. Muldoon, and in an interview which appeared in The Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1901, he said in part as follows :

“Officially I have heard absolutely nothing of this opposition [to Rev. Muldoon]. I am told that the newspapers are much concerned about the matter. Am I right?’ And the Italian laughed softly and allowed his eyes to twinkle with subdued merriment.”

The charges were unheeded, and the candidate, Rev. Muldoon, was duly elevated and consecrated, the Papal Delegate, Cardinal Martinelli himself, acting as consecrator.

What induced the pope to override the protests? What caused Cardinal Martinelli to “laugh softly?” Was it “the cash in his fob?”

The death of Archbishop Feehan of Chicago, July 12, 1902, created an enviable vacancy controlling some fifty million dollars. During the latter years of Feehan’s reign, the Muldoonites had control of the archdiocese and its funds, owing to the disability of the Archbishop, which was caused by excessive drink. Instead of taking steps to keep the Archbishop in a normal state, his close “friends” among the Muldoonites actually encouraged him in his unfortunate weakness. Hence on his death they found themselves practically masters of the situation. Caucuses were held by day and night ; representatives were sent to Rome with unlimited funds some for the pope as “Peter’s pence,” and some for the cardinals as “honorariums” for masses for the living and the dead, not forgetting a special memento that the Holy Ghost might direct them in their selection of a successor to Archbishop Feehan. The pope and cardinals, in accordance with their usual custom, kept this profitable archdiocese vacant for several months in order to give other aspiring candidates a chance to “come and see them” also.

The only obstacle to the complete fulfillment of the sinister designs of the Muldoonites was the publicity given at home and abroad to the charges made and filed by some twenty pastors and myself against Muldoon and his clerical supporters, including Papal Delegate Martinelli, Cardinal Gibbons, and other members of the Sacred College of Cardinals. At this very time our charges were being aired in the public press. Typewritten copies of Cashman’s “poems” were freely circulated and mailed to the pope and his cabinet, the Sacred College of Cardinals, including “Slippery Jim” and “the Dago.” Rome knew full well that Cashman received his inspiration from Archbishop Ireland and his “gang” of ecclesiastics, who hoped to see Archbishop Ireland landed Archbishop of Chicago as the preliminary step to a “red hat.” She feared further exposures, and even a schism, of which, indeed, Archbishop Katzer, of Milwaukee, warned Leo XIII. if he dared promote Muldoon to the archbishopric of Chicago.

Under the circumstances, the pope and his cabinet, notwithstanding the liberal “honorariums” which they had received, did not dare to hand over a graft of some fifty million dollars to Muldoon and his supporters.

This is the story in brief on which the following “poems” of Revs. Cashman and O’Brien were based, and is the principal reason why Archbishop Ireland was not among the recent “American” cardinals. ‘

Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, Permanent Rector of St. Mary’s parish, Evanston, Illinois, and one of the treasurers of our crusade fund, wrote me, in part, as follows :

“Our great trouble in Chicago is that our archdiocese, the greatest in the world, is governed, not by an Archbishop, or Bishop, but by one [“Rev. No. 14, Celibacy Inexpedient”] who would like to be one or the other, or both ; one who has too many irons in th.e fire ; one who controls both Church and State ; one who suspends priests to-day and policemen tomorrow; one who alternately distributes parishes to aspiring pastors and boodle to hungry politicians ; one who can give Chicago a mayor or a bishop, and secures uniformity of action by holding both under his thumb. This is our Pooh-Bah, our factotum, our power behind the throne. No wonder, then, that City Hall methods dominate our ecclesiastical administration. In Chicago we have not one City Hall, but two, both adopting the same standard of morality, both applying the same system of rewarding friends and punishing enemies, and both holding in like contempt every principle of morality and justice.”

The suspension of policemen has particular reference to the summary dismissal of Officer Neilan from the Chicago police force, because he stated that he had frequently found priests in houses of prostitution, and that of the many he found there, “Rev. No. 14, Celibacy Inexpedient,” and his boon clerical companion, Rev. Flannigan, were the worst offenders. Concerning them Neilan exclaimed, “I know that they are a pair of pimps, and Father Crowley is telling the truth,” was not the only Catholic policeman who had honestly and openly expressed himself concerning the immorality of the priests, but an example must be made of some one, and he w6 the victim. The lecherous ecclesiastics of Chicago were compelled to have recourse to this summary method of punishment in order to warn and silence a large body of men, who, in the discharge of their duties, frequently found priests in brothels, and sometimes in such a state of drunkenness that they had to lock them up over night or send them home in carriages. Why were they not booked, tried and punished like other American citizens guilty of similar misconduct?

Some days after his dismissal Neilan was found dead with a gun beside him. He was supposed to have committed suicide brooding over his dismissal, and the priests declared it was a “visitation of Divine Providence” for his having dared to expose “Ambassadors of Christ.” Did he commit suicide, or was that fearless and outspoken officer of the peace murdered in order to seal his lips ? Officer Neilan is not the only person who met with sudden and mysterious death during the crusade.

A woman of Cashman’s parish was supposed to have poisoned herself. She had supplied Cashman with important information concerning the proposals made to her in the confessional. Rev. Cashman named the person by whom he said “her mysterious death could be explained;” and Bishop Muldoon in a recent interview named to me the person “to be blamed for her death.”

The Very Rev. Daniel M. J. Dowling, Vicar General of the archdiocese of Chicago, died suddenly and mysteriously June 26, 1900, a few hours after a reunion dinner with brother clergymen. His sudden but timely removal was strikingly in accordance with the murderous methods of Pope Alexander VI. [Rodrigo Borgia], and other “Vicars of Christ.” Dowling’s death removed a serious obstacle to the promotion of certain Chicago Borgias. The press said he “quietly passed away from heart disease.” Bishop Muldoon, in my interview with him, last referred to above, told me that Dowling died from diphtheria. Was he poisoned at that reunion dinner at the Holy Name Cathedral?

Why was there not a thorough post-mortem investigation of these sudden and mysterious deaths? Rome does not believe in ante or post mortem investigations.

Other deaths have been unaccounted for in the archdiocese of Chicago, and the history of the Catholic Church there is a blot on civilization and Christianity. Still Archbishop Quigley endeavors to placate the Catholic people of Chicago by declaring that the priests and prelates of New York are fifty per cent, worse than those of Chicago ! ! ! This high standard of priestly corruption and crime in the archdiocese of New York may explain Archbishop Farley’s recent promotion to the Cardinalate, ranking him with Princes and Kings, and consequently placing him above plebeian Prime Ministers and Presidents ! ! !

Among the many affidavits filed at Washington and Rome against Bishop Peter J. Muldoon and other members of the Hierarchy, was one by Rev. Daniel Croke, then Rector of St. Mary’s parish, Freeport, Illinois, and since promoted to St. Cecilia’s parish, Chicago, charging Bishop Muldoon with gross immorality. This affidavit was placed in the hands of the Right Rev. James Ryan, Bishop of Alton, Illinois, and mailed by him to the Vatican. The Vatican ignored it because moral delinquencies are no bar to ecclesiastical preferment in the Roman Catholic Church ; indeed, they are a necessity and an advantage.

During the crusade we also filed with the proper ecclesiastical authorities an expose consisting of 198 pages of printed matter, including Court Records and charges against Archbishop Feehan, Bishop Muldoon. and other Catholic Church dignitaries. This was but one installment of what was filed by the protesting priests. It was edited by Revs. Cashman, Hodnett, Galligan and Smyth, prominent pastors of the archdiocese of Chicago, and myself, and its cost was met by my Roman Catholic clerical supporters. Among those who cooperated are the following priests :

SOME OF MY ECCLESIASTICAL CO-OPERATORS IN THE CRUSADE,

Very Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, permanent rector, St. Mary’s parish, Evanston, Illinois.
Very Rev. Hugh McGuire, permanent rector, St. James’ parish, Chicago, and Consultor of the Archdiocese.
Very Rev. Michael O’Sullivan, permanent rector, St. Bridget’s parish, Chicago.
Very Rev. Thomas F. Galligan, permanent rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, rector, St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett, rector, Immaculate Conception parish, Chicago.
Rev. Michael Bonfield, rector, St. Agatha’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Michael O’Brien, rector, St. Sylvester’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. William S. Hennessy, rector, St. Ailbe’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. John H. Crowe, rector, St. Ita’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Andrew Croke, rector, St. Andrew’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Daniel Croke, rector, St. Mary’s parish, Freeport, Illinois.
Rev. Michael Foley, rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Dixon, Illinois.
Rev. William J. McNamee, rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Joliet, Illinois.

One of the charges in the above-mentioned expose is as follows :

“Is Your Eminence aware that within the past few months [July 8-12, 1901], in this archdiocese [Chicago], there was held what in this country is denominated a spiritual Retreat, being an occasion especially set apart for the assembling of the priests of the Diocese for holy meditation, religious lectures, and acts of devotion; that these exercises were held in St. Viateur’s College (the only diocesan seminary), located at Bourbonnais’ Grove, Kankakee, Illinois, under the personal supervision of the Archbishop’s Vicar General and in the presence of Bishop-Elect Muldoon ; that all throughout the period of retreat, which lasted four days and nights, in the college building where the exercises were held, there were kept for sale, and sold, day and night, to the priests present, barrels of beer and whiskey, which in open and notorious fashion, to the scandal of all devout men, were served out in the same manner as I am told is common in ordinary bar-rooms, by the religious brothers of the college, some of whom were in training for the holy priesthood ; that shameful scenes of intemperance resulted, even to the point of intoxication among a number of those who were actually participating in the holy services. To such outrageous lengths did this unseemly conduct prevail that the temperate and devout were actually kept in fear of bodily injury and compelled to secure themselves at night behind bolted doors. Is the scandal thus wrought against God’s Church chargeable to him who exposes it or to those who, having the power and being charged with the duty of correcting it, nevertheless encourage and wink at the iniquity and make their choice of associates among the evil-doers? The like scenes have occurred repeatedly in previous years during the presence and supervision of the Archbishop himself. Is it conceivable, Your Eminence, that such things shall be permitted in silence and no voice raised in protest?

REV. WILLIAM J. McNAMEE.

REV. WILLIAM J. McNAMEE.

Rev. McNamee, during our crusade, labored day and night procuring affidavits against lecherous priests and prelates and photographs of them when they were not saying their prayers. The picture of a prominent Chicago priest, “Rev. No. 13, A Ballad Singer,” with one of his best girls, on page 451, was obtained by McNamee. Among other incriminating documents procured by this clerical “Sherlock Holmes” were most shocking affidavits made by respectable Catholic women against Rev. C. P. Foster, “Rev. No. 23, A Debauchee.” These affidavits, together with others, were filed with the pope and Cardinals Martinelli and Gibbons. Rev. McNamee placed certified copies of same in the hands of Archbishop Quigley, soon after the latter’s promotion to the archbishopric of Chicago, with the result that the debauchee priest was promoted by Cardinal “in petto” Quigley.

Archbishop Quigley when recently promoting this Rev. “Sherlock Holmes,” says in his papal organ, The New World, of October 15, 1911 :

“We heartily congratulate Rev. Father McNamee on his appointment as memorable [ ?] rector of St. Patrick’s Church in this city [Chicago]. The magnificent farewell reception and presentation of a purse tendered to Father McNamee by the parishioners of St. Mary’s Church and the citizens of Joliet evidence the high esteem in which Father McNamee is held by the people of Joliet.”

Was this promotion of Rev. McNamee the price of his good (?) will and silence? Bishop Muldoon calls him the “sleuth of the Crowley crusade.”

Since their conversion to Muldoonism, Rev. McNamee and his ehum, Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, have been qualifying for mitres under the areful supervision !’ Archbishop Quigley.

“Since when, Your Eminence, has it become a crime against the Church to expose men who are violating her sanctuary ? By what authority has it been proclaimed an offense for a priest, a pastor of Christ’s flock, to employ all the strength that God has given him to protect that flock from ravening wolves ? Shall I see the priest’s gown cloak a lecherous drunkard and not seek to tear away that sacred garb, late, my ecclesiastical superior, charged with even graver responsibilities in that behalf than an humble priest, halts in duty, shall I shelter myself behind such excuse and hesitate to do my part in the cleansing work? When has the Church of the living God, the God of truth and justice and purity, ever suffered when her sons have spoken truth, wrought justice and denounced impurity? The blood of John the Baptist was surely shed in vain if a priest of God must keep silence when lust and intrigue find favor in high places, and when to the drunkard’s hands are left the ministrations of the Holy of Holies.”

A score or more of the prominent priests of the archdiocese of Chicago jointly and severally filed at Washington and Rome at least one hundred documents containing grave charges against many of the leading members of the Chicago Hierarchy. Some of these documents were sworn to, but the Vatican paid no attention to them. We filed grave charges our opponents filed great checks I mean bank checks.

This explains why Rome remained silent and why we felt constrained to gain publicity for our cause through the press; but in this we were sadly disappointed for the time being, as the press was muzzled on Saturday, July 20, 1901. We realized then that some extreme measure must be adopted in order to unmuzzle the press, and consequently we had recourse to the following fearless and open method, which proved quite effective in removing the papal muzzle.

In a few hours we had printed several thousand large placards on which appeared in large type the following words :

“The blasphemy of the twentieth century will be hurled in the face of God Almighty and the Catholic people of the archdiocese of Chicago when Muldoon is made bishop on next Thursday.

“Read Father J. J. Crowley’s letter of resignation and his exposure of Archbishop Feehan and his demoralized clergy.”

Professional bill posters rode around in open carriages putting up these placards on the outside walls of nearly every Catholic Church in the city of Chicago between the hours of three and six o’clock Sunday morning, July 21, 1901.

On the same morning a leaflet hurriedly set up, consisting of four printed pages, making specific charges, with names, against eighteen of the leading members of the Hierarchy of the archdiocese of Chicago, were scattered among the Catholic people, already stunned by the posters, as they were leaving their churches. Some of those who were not fortunate enough to secure a copy offered as high as five dollars for same. On Monday, July 22, 1901, the press of Chicago and of the country told the story in brief.

These posters and leaflets, while they appeared over my name, were prepared and dictated to me in Cashman’s home by Revs. Cashman and Hodnett in behalf of the score of priests. The expense of printing and posting was met by Rev. Cashman, who became one of the treasurers of the crusade fund.

Notwithstanding the political power of Rome over politicians and press, the latter is and will be insuppressible and ever ready to do its duty, if the people will only do theirs. But as long as the people remain indifferent and allow themselves to be muzzled by Rome, they should not expect the press to fight their battle.

Let the non-Catholic people awake and do their duty in defense of liberty, enlightenment and progress, and the press will be ready and willing to join in the battle against the common foe Romanism.

Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett said repeatedly:

“The charges we filed at the office of the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, and at the Vatican, I am prepared to swear, on my bended knees before the Blessed Sacrament, are true, and if our request for a canonical investigation is granted, we will prove them up to the hilt.”

I quote a few lines from a letter written me April 8, 1904, by a prominent Roman Catholic lawyer of New York City, a graduate of Georgetown (Jesuit) “University” at Washington, D. C. :

“Mv DEAR FATHER CROWLEY :

“Father Unan, of the Paulists, told me plainly you were not a bit out about the condition of the Archdiocese of Chicago; he says every one knows its condition. I fear you are much misinformed as to the attitude of a great many people towards you. You have more friends and believers in your cause than you imagine. The condition in the Church in your city [Chicago] is beyond description, more than one has told me.”

A prominent nun of the Convent of the Good (?) Shepherd, Chi’cago, said to a Roman Catholic lady :

“We have reason to know that Father Crowley is right. Many of the fallen women and wayward girls in this institution were led into sin and shame by priests.”

In passing, let me state that the Convents or Houses of the Good (?) Shepherd, numerous in non-Catholic countries, are Roman Catholic prisons, maintained partially by public tax, but without Federal or State supervision, where the Roman Catholic Hierarchy may confine their victims or other unfortunates, and where cruel punishments can be inflicted upon the inmates generally with impunity. In all so-called Religious Houses, male and female, there is no accounting for the sufferings of the inmates, their illness or their death. If not requested, no coroner’s inquest is held. The inmates are utterly shut out from light and life, and generally from the protection of the law. The masses of the people do not know that these things are taking place. If they did, there would be an awakening of indignation and action which would speedily put an end to such horrors.

Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago, said to me, in one of my interviews with him, substantially the following:

“Father Crowley, the Roman Catholic Church would never permit an investigation of its priests and bishops ; an honest investigation would burst the Church. The priesthood is so rotten we would knock the bottom out of the Church if we made the least effort to discipline the priests as you demand. I must admit that there are bad priests in Chicago, .but I can assure you that the priests in New York are fifty per cent, worse.”

Archbishop Quigley made similar admissions to Roman Catholic people who appealed to him for protection from bad priests and bishops; and yet with full knowledge of their villainy he has promoted many of. these wicked ecclesiastics, and, in order to do so with impunity, declared he would muzzle the secular press and intimidate the non-Catholic press.

During our crusade a strong Roman Catholic Laymen’s Association was established in Chicago for the protection of women from licentious priests ; but the Vatican refused pointblank to take any notice of their charges and appeals. (See pp. 390-394.) The Chicago Hierarchy also refused to heed a petition signed by fifteen hundred Roman Catholic women, praying for protection from drunken and lecherous priests. The following is a copy of their petition :

“CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, “JUNE, 1903. “THE MOST REV’D JAMES E. QUIGLEY, “Archbishop of Chicago.

“Most Rev’d Sir: We, the undersigned Catholic women, members of different parishes in this Archdiocese, respectfully call your attention to conditions prevailing in many of the parishes of which some of us are members, conditions so notorious that they have been the subject of newspaper comment and are still the subject of comment and criticism, both among Catholic and non-Catholic people. On your advent to your present high office in early March of this year the fervent hope was frequently expressed in public and private that you would rectify the flagrant abuses which are a scandal to our beloved Church.

“As one of our daily papers editorially expressed it : ‘It is idle to mince the matter, for, as every Catholic layman knows, the great trouble in the Chicago church has been caused by the clergy.’ [Quotation from an editorial in the Chicago Daily Journal, March u, 1903, the day after Archbishop Quigley assumed charge of the archdiocese of Chicago.]

“If this were known to Catholic laymen, surely the women of our Church could not be in ignorance.

“The priests who are evidently referred to in the above paragraph are still serving at our altars and performing all the sacred offices of our religion, unrebuked and undisciplined, so far as we know.

“We humbly and respectfully look to you for protection and redress. “Obediently yours.”

Archbishop Quigley has neither rebuked nor disciplined his priests, but, on the contrary, he has followed the policy of popes, cardinals and bishops in promoting some of the very worst among them: for examples, Revs. No. 9, 10, n, 12, 14, 17, 22, 23 and 24. Though affidavits and abundant proofs were placed in his hands, charging “Rev. Xo. 12, A Wolf in Priest’s Clothing,” with an unmentionable criminal assault on a thirteen- year-old motherless girl at the very time she was receiving instructions for First Confession and Holy Communion, yet he (Quigley) forthwith promoted, and has lately repromoted, this clerical monster. By thus condoning the crimes and sacrileges of his conscienceless clergy Archbishop Quigley may become the next American Cardinal.

The latest information is that the pope has created another cardinal “in pectorc” or “in petto;” that is. in secret. I would not be surprised if it were the Czar of the Middle West, Archbishop Quigley, who, by condoning the crimes and sacrileges of his conscienceless clergy, is fully qualified to become a “Prince of the Church.” a “member of the Roman Curia, the official family of the pope.”

The Continent, a leading Presbyterian paper published in Chicago, in its issue of August 24, 1911, corroborates my statements as to Quigley’s qualifications :

“American Catholics are saying that the longwaited second American cardinal will be Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago. If Quigley is really the selection of the Vatican for the honor, the choice throws another deep shadow on the religious honesty of the cardinals at Rome. If their zeal was in the least for spiritual religion, Quigley is about the last American that they would desire to have as their associate in what they are pleased to call the ‘Sacred College.’ How religious the Archbishop of Chicago may be in his private life, The Continent would by no means presume to judge. But the whole tone of his public activity is the tone of political bossism and ecclesiastical tyranny. His administration of his archdiocese has exhibited a minimum of care for either public or private righteousness, and a maximum of determination to grip his own power and the power of his satellites on the life of Chicago and its environs. The appointment of Quigley as a cardinal means what has long been suspected, that the Vatican does not want an American cardinal not even as moderate an one as Archbishop Ireland but wants simply a Roman cardinal in America. That Quigley will be to the finish.”

The political power of the Roman Catholic Church in America was proclaimed to the non-Catholic politicians, in a speech delivered by Archbishop Quigley, May 4th, 1903, at the Holy Name Roman Catholic school, Chicago, and which appeared in part in The Chicago Tribune, May 5th, 1903 :

“In fifty years Chicago will be exclusively Catholic. The same may be said of Greater New York, and the chain of big cities stretching across the continent to San Francisco. . . . Nothing can stand against the Church. I’d like to see the politician who would try to rule against the Church in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed.”

CARDINAL FALCONIO

CARDINAL FALCONIO THE COMING “AMERICAN” POPE.

Cardinal Falconio, an Italian, Rome’s late chief secret service agent in the United States, has been recalled and rewarded for “signal service.” He is now Chief of the Secret Service Bureau at the Vatican, Dean of the “American” cardinals, and quasi American Ambassador to the Vatican. This Italian Franciscan monk claims American citizenship; and consequently Jesuitical expediency and hypocrisy not the Holy Ghost will inspire the Sacred College of Cardinals to elect Falconio the next pope an “American” pope ! ! ! This is a part of the plot and plan to capture America, and through America, to regain Temporal Power, not only in Italy, but throughout the world.

It is easy to see that we have a hard fight before us, and we should remember the advice : “The other fellow [the pope] is only a man, just as you are. Don’t let his spectacular displays and theatrical performances frighten you,”

This proclamation of Spiritual and Temporal Power by Archbishop Quigley, and his threat of political assassination, created a sensation throughout the country. The more Jesuitical members of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, considering his announcement premature, set telephone and telegraph wires in action to hush up the scare, fearing it might arouse and enlighten the sleeping non-Catholics.

Subjoined are photographs of Archbishop Quigley’s palace, conservatory and stable, the stable alone costing the archdiocese $80,000, according to Revs. Cashman, Smyth and Hodnett. It is rather more elaborate than the stable of Bethlehem in which the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born.

Cardinal Martinelli, ex-papal delegate to the Roman Catholic Church in America, in 1902 said to me in substance, at the Apostolic Delegation Office, Washington, D. C. :

“We know there are many immoral priests and bishops, but still the laity have no right to interfere with the clergy; if the laity understand they have any rights, they will do in America as they once did in France during the Revolution, they will murder the clergy. In this independent country it would not be wise to let the laity understand they have any right to interfere in church matters ; and one of the principal things we have against you, Father Crowley, is that you are enlightening the Catholic laity of this country as to their rights ; the laity have no right to expose their clergy, no matter how immoral they may be ; the laity must be ignored; they must be crushed!”

Cardinal Falconio, late papal delegate, in 1903 said to me in the home of Archbishop Katzer at Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

“Father Crowley, the Roman Catholic Church is divine, notwithstanding the fact that there are bad priests, bishops, and popes, and I beseech you, for the sake of our Holy Mother Church, to sign that apology drawn up by Archbishop Quigley, whitewashing those whom you have exposed.”

Is it any wonder that I withdrew from Romanism?

Why this rank, rampant immorality among the Roman Catholic Hierarchy? Priestly Celibacy and Auricular Confession, I assert, are chiefly responsible. Priestly celibacy and auricular confession ever have been, and are now, prolific sources of crime and licentiousness. Pope Gregory VII., in the eleventh century, imposed the unnatural law of priestly celibacy, notwithstanding the vehement protests of the priests, the vast majority of whom had wives and legitimate children. This decree, making priestly marriage a wrong and priestly celibacy a virtue, has honeycombed the Roman Catholic Church with corruption. The advantage to the Vatican system of having all ecclesiastics wholly separated from all legitimate connections with their native soil and natural interests, and the fixture in every kingdom of large bodies of men wholly devoted to the objects of the papacy, overpowered the voices alike of nature and of God.

Pope Gregory VII., and his infallible successors, in imposing priestly celibacy, were actuated by political rather than virtuous motives. This was generally admitted. Pope Pius II., himself the father of several children (see pp. 315, 316), once wrote these words: “Marriage has been forbidden to priests for good reasons, but there are better ones for permitting it to them.” Pope Leo XIII. was the father of several children, one of them being the eminent Cardinal Satolli, a man of conspicuous immorality. Bishop O’Connell, of Richmond, Virginia, is considered a reliable authority on the pontifical paternity of Cardinal Satolli.

In 1907 three thousand French priests signed and sent a petition to Pope Pius X., praying for the abolition of priestly celibacy. All of these priests were past the marrying age themselves, but were speaking from the weight of responsibility thrust upon them by confessions. This appeal was consigned to the papal wastebasket.

Dr. Robert E. Speer, the noted secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Missions, recently wrote:

“The celibacy of the priesthood had seemed to me a monstrous and wicked theory, but I had believed that men who took that vow were true to it, and that, while the Church lost by it irreparably and infinitely more than she gained, she did gain, nevertheless, a pure and devoted, even if a narrow and impoverished, service. But the deadly evidence spread out all over South America, confronting one in every district to which he goes; evidence legally convincing, morally sickening, proves to him that, whatever may be the case in other lands, in South America the stream of the Church is polluted at its fountains.”

Rome is ever and everywhere the same. She prefers priestly celibacy with concubinage to priestly marriage. However, the day is near when the enlightenment of the people through the Public School and the advancement of womanhood, will sound the death-knell of priestly celibacy and auricular confession. Papal intriguing and Hierarchical plotting against the Public School and Woman’s Suffrage are not riddles to those who understand the power of liberal education and emancipated womanhood.

Auricular confession as an absolute essential for eternal salvation is inculcated in the minds of the pupils of the Roman Catholic schools. This doctrine actually increases crime and debauchery by freeing the mind of remorse and by substituting absolution for repentance. It was established, as a portion of the acknowledged system of Rome, scarcely before the thirteenth century; and history attests the fact that it originated in the licentiousness of the Roman clergy in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, and assumed the form of canon law at the Fourth Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III., A. D. 1215, being confirmed by the Council of Trent, Session XIV.

Moral Theology of the Roman Catholic Church, printed in Latin, a dead language, containing instructions for auricular confession, is so viciously obscene that it could not be transmitted through the mails were it printed in a living language; neither would priests and bishops dare to propound said obscene matter in the form of questions to female penitents if their fathers, husbands and brothers were cognizant of the Satanic evils lurking therein; in fact, they would cause the suppression of auricular confession by penal enactments.

The Supreme Court of Leipzig, Germany, has recently condemned as immoral the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church regarding auricular confession as taught in the writings of St. Alphonsus De Liguori; and the civil authorities of the city of Sienna, Italy, lately forbade within its jurisdiction the sale of his vile writings on the same subject.

The governments of the most Catholic countries are compelled to curb that license which the Court of Rome allows, and to put down those atrocities which have received the patronage and blessing of the most celebrated Pontiffs.

Why, then, do the governments of non-Catholic countries permit the wholesale transmission through the mails of the immoral theology of St. Liguori, Dens, Kenrick, and others, to be retailed by bachelor priests and prelates in live languages to young girls and women in lecherous whispers in the Confessional? By so doing these governments co-operate in the moral assassination of females from the time they prepare to make their first confession (which, according to a recent decree of Pope Pius X., “is about the seventh year, more or less”) till they enter the gates of Purgatory that inexhaustible Klondike of the Roman Catholic clergy.

Confessors search the secrets of the home, and so are worshiped there, and feared for what they know.

If it is the purpose of a state or government to prevent crime and eradicate its causes, the whole of this diabolical system called the Confessional, which is known to worm out the secrets of families, the weaknesses of public men, and thereby get them under control to either silence them or make them active agents in the Roman Catholic cause above all, the debauching of maids and matrons by means of vile interrogatories prescribed by Liguori, and sanctioned by the Church should be abrogated by a national law in every civilized country on the globe.

At the request of a score of prominent priests, associated with me in the crusade, I presented the facts and proofs against a prominent Muldoonite, “Rev. No. 12, A Wolf in Priest’s Clothing,” to the State’s Attorney of Illinois. He looked into some law-books and stated that said crime was a capital offense in the Carolinas, and in other States it was punishable by several years’ imprisonment. He spoke of the great political influence of the Catholic Church, and refused to prosecute, fearing, I presume, that the influence of the Jesuitical Hierarchy would interfere with his political prospects. Soon thereafter he became Governor of his State. Though this Jesuitical influence in politics protects thousands of guilty priests and prelates in America and other non-Catholic countries, yet some of them, through fear of bodily harm, are compelled to flee their dioceses, and resume elsewhere their “sacred labors,” or travel incognito on pension from the pope. Among those who have been compelled to flee to escape chastisement, or perhaps death, from outraged husbands, fathers, brothers, or lynching by the community at large, are:

The Most Rev. Bertram Orth, lately Archbishop of Victoria, British Columbia.
The Right Rev. Thomas F. Brennan, formerly Bishop of Dallas, Texas.
The Right Rev. Timothy O’Mahony, late Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto, Canada, formerly of Australia,
and Cork, Ireland.
The Right Rev. Monsignor Capel, formerly of England.
The Right Rev. Monsignor Fowler, formerly of Sioux City, Iowa, and Philippine Islands.
Rev. W. R. Thompson, formerly of Portland, Oregon.
Rev. Lawrence Erhardt, formerly of Chicago.
Rev. F. J. Knipper, formerly of Troy, Ohio.
Rev. Levis T. McGinn, formerly of Brooklyn, New York.

Some of these were guilty of the crime of sodomy a crime, alas! to which monks, priests, prelates, and even popes, the “Vicars of Christ,” are not strangers.

The number of similar offenders is legion, and no wonder! The vast majority of priests, prelates and other members of the Hierarchy are driven into immorality by priestly celibacy and auricular confession. This wholesale demoralization was one of the principal motives for instituting celibacy and auricular confession. The result accomplished is just what the Vatican machine wanted. This demoralization compels wicked priests, prelates and other members of the Hierarchy, of both sexes, to stand by each other and for the Vatican system, their axiom being “Standum est pro auctoritate per fas out nefas” (Stand by authority, right or wrong). It is the same principle as is found among corrupt politicians, who, for their own protection, are compelled to stand by each other and for their political machine.

Rome, thoroughly aware of its diabolical crimes, for its own protection promotes the shrewdest of her demoralized ecclesiastics to the very highest offices, as will be seen in Part II. She appoints them as members of her Boards of Education, and makes them Superintendents, Principals, Assistant Principals and Teachers of her schools. The nun teachers in the Roman Catholic schools are grossly incompetent, to say the least.

An honest, patriotic editor of a prominent Roman Catholic weekly paper in this country, recently exclaimed:

“Oh, for another Luther, another Savonarola! The time was never so ripe as the present for such an one. If only the true condition of affairs were known, he would not be long in coming to the front. The Roman Catholic school is a curse to the nation, and it is pitiable to think that the education of so many thousands of our boys and girls is in the hands of ignorant, bigoted, superstitious monks and nuns, the vast majority of whom are foreigners many of them driven from their own countries.”

Is it any wonder that Romanism is a menace to the nation?

Since the spirituous Retreat, above referred to, St Viateur’s College was destroyed by fire, and for its rebuilding $800,000 must be collected from Catholics and non-Catholics, particularly the latter, if they are in business or politics. Mr. Andrew Carnegie was “held up” for $32,000 toward the resuscitation of this noted spirituous seat of learning, which institution evidently is not in favor of Prohibition. As a rule, the Faculty of Roman Catholic schools, colleges and universities worships at the shrines of Plutus, Bacchus and Venus. Popes, prelates, priests and monks may preach temperance along with “poverty, chastity and obedience,” but rarely ever practice it.

Many distinguished priests and prelates have been and are directly or indirectly interested in the liquor traffic. The Rev. Francis E. Craig, S. T. B. (Bachelor of Sacred Theology), the bosom friend of Jesuits, Papal Delegates, and Cardinal Gibbons, Treasurer of St. John’s Ecclesiasical Seminary, Boston, Mass., before his ordination, was an active partner in the firm of Ray & Craig. They were engaged in retailing groceries, and they also held a wholesale liquor license, and their place of business was situated at the northeast corner of M and Potomac Streets, Georgetown, D. C. The first floor was used as a grocery store; on the second floor was a “speak-easy,” whose location and existence was known to the initiated. A “speak-easy” is a place where intoxicating liquors are sold in violation of law. The third floor served for a gambling-den. Craig boasted that his share of the profits was more than $50,000 a year. Owing to certain legal proceedings, business drooped and was running stale when Craig saw a new opening. There were certain relations between Craig and the Jesuits at Washington, D. C, which warranted a closer intimacy. To make a long story short, he entered St. Mary’s Ecclesiastical Seminary, Baltimore, Md., and studied for the priesthood. At this time he was about forty years of age. About ten years ago he was ordained a priest of the archdiocese of Baltimore, and officiated under Cardinal Gibbons. His financial capacity was justly appreciated by the Cardinal, who loaned him to St. John’s Seminary, Boston, Mass., to act as its Treasurer. He is now a member of the Faculty and Bachelor of Sacred Theology, which title imports that he is profoundly versed in Church History and Sacred Theology with the necessary accompanying accomplishments. He is on the high road to yet loftier promotion, and it is quite within the range of probability that he will succeed his friend and patron, Cardinal Gibbons. He will certainly reach this post if he lives and if the Papal Czar of New England, Cardinal O’Connell, lends his powerful influence with the pope.

Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago, a corporation sole, controls some fifty millions worth of property, some of which is used for questionable purposes. In one of his buildings, which covers 99.2×100 feet, in the heart of Chicago, there are three saloons. This is a five-story building; the upper four stories being used as a bunk-house, I5c, 2oc and 25 c a night. This property was leased by Archbishop Quigley for 99 years and 9 months, commencing August i, 1910; rental for the first nine months, $4,500; next 10 years at $17,000 per year; next 14 years at $22,000 per year; next 26 years at $24,000 per year, and balance of term at $26,000 per year.

To the knowledge of the Archbishop of Chicago these saloons were in existence under the old lease which expired August i, 1910, yet this great advocate of Total Abstinence and Roman Catholic Education re-leased the property at an increased rental varying from 300 per cent, to 433 1-3 per cent, on the rental under the old lease. Why this exorbitant increase in rent? Is it on account of the desirability of the location, for just such saloons and their upstairs adjuncts, together with the immunity which the building enjoys from any municipal, state or federal interference, through the political pull of its ecclesiastical landlord?

This building, which is located in the First Ward, through its pro tern, occupants, plays an important part in the famous First Ward elections of Chicago, and also in state and federal elections.

I have it on indisputable authority that this house had a most disreputable name until recently. At present the ground floor is used for a combination saloon and restaurant. As to the second floor the reader will have to inquire of the priests and prelates of Chicago.

This building is leased by the Archbishop of Chicago for fifteen years, commencing May i, 1901, at $210 per month for the first 5 years, $250 per month for the next 5 years, and $271 per month for balance of term, leasehold assigned for value received to Pabst Brewing Co., 354 North Desplaines Street, Chicago.

These buildings, located in the heart of Chicago, are in the Paulist Fathers’ parish, and convenient to the exquisite offices of the Roman Catholic Church Extension Society of America, whose motto is, “We come not to conquer, but to win. Our purpose is to make America dominantly Catholic.” While not engaged in running church fairs with their usual attachments of gambling, lottery, prize-fighting, fortune-telling, etc., the Paulist Fathers devote the remnant of their energies to giving missions to non-Catholics. The conversion of heretics non-Catholics is their specialty, and in 1908 at the “American Catholic Missionary Congress,” held at Chicago, they boasted 25,055 “converts.” Their church is located in the tenderloin or white-slave district of the South Side, Chicago. Gamblers, saloon-keepers and white-slave-keepers have been generous toward it, and particularly so as a result of the work of the Vice Commission recently held in that city. I have it on the very best authority authority that can not be disputed that this Commission was manipulated and controlled by the Roman priests. It serves to furnish them with most valuable information which they could not obtain through the Confessional or otherwise. Such information in the hands of the Roman Hierarchy affords a new and rich species of graft Vice Commission Graft. The Vatican system thrives on ignorance, vice and crime. No wonder the priests and prelates hope to establish similar Vice Commissions in the large cities throughout the country.

Why did the Post office Department hold up the report of that Commission for several weeks? Was it inspired by the Roman Hierarchy in order to establish a precedent for holding up and destroying “matter offensive to the Church?”

Attorney C. C. Copeland, of the archdiocese of Chicago, a prominent, wealthy “convert” to Romanism, protested against priestly crime and corruption in an appeal which he wrote and sent to The New World, the papal organ, for publication. This appeal was refused insertion and ignored.

“LlBERTYVJLLE, ILLINOIS,
“Oct. 19, ’01.
“REV. J. J. CROWLEY,

“DEAR SIR:
“Enclosed I send you that paper to read and be returned to me. If you may want to use it, I may revise it some, as I have thought of doing, and then let you have it. I could add a good supplement under head of “After Two Years,” or something of the kind. My intention is to revise it and put it in some unique shape and scatter it through the Hierarchy. I have some notes already on a revision.
“Yours very respectfully,
“[Signed] C. C. COPELAND.”

The following is the original confession:

“Rev. Dr. Dunne [now Bishop Dunne, of Peoria, Illinois], in closing his discourse on the life and character of Very Rev. Thomas Burke, which was no overdrawn picture of that great priest, as every one can testify who knew him well, said: ‘Learn, then, to respect the dignity of the priest, and to appreciate the good that he is called upon to perform in the exercise of his ministry. Allow no man or woman to wantonly assail his character in your presence, for, believe me, in proportion as his reputation is lessened in the eyes of the community, his influence for good is weakened. Respect the priest as the Ambassador of your Divine Redeemer. Honor him as the minister of God. Love him as a friend, as a brother, as a father, who has nothing so much at heart as your eternal welfare.’

All this will every good Catholic do, and love to do and more, to a priest who himself respects the dignity of the position he occupies among men and the obligation which he incurred when he accepted the sacred mission to ‘Go forth and teach all nations,’ and who appreciates himself the good he is called upon to perform and the life he ought to lead in the exercise of that mission; so that the estimation in which he is held, the amount of good he may do, the freedom from assault in which he may live, the influence for good he may exercise, the respect and honor he will receive, as the Ambassador of our Divine Redeemer, and the minister of God, the love and obedience that will go out to him as a friend, as a brother, as a father, who has nothing so much at heart as our eternal welfare, depend upon himself.

A Kempis says: ‘Great is the dignity of priests to whom that is given which is not granted to angels.’ ‘The priest indeed is the minister of God.’ ‘Take heed to thyself and see what kind of ministry has been delivered to thee by the imposition of the bishop’s hands.’ ‘Thou hast not lightened thy burdens, but art now bound with a stricter band of discipline, and art obliged to a greater perfection of sanctity.’ ‘A priest ought to be adorned with all virtues and to give example of a good life to others. His conversation should not be with the vulgar and common ways of men.’

Now, if, instead of being this kind of a man, or of attempting to lead this kind of a life, or of fulfilling this kind of a mission, one who accepts the office of priest is a miser, and puts forth all his energies and improves every opportunity to enrich himself and hoard money, or is a drunkard, or gives his life to the enjoyment of sensual, worldly things, or is otherwise decidedly self-indulgent, unpriestly, or grossly neglects the duties which that mission imposes upon him, and disregards that sacred office, can and ought a good Catholic to respect him or defend his character? He certainly can not respect him. Unworthy priests weaken the influence, to a greater or less extent, of the whole priesthood; dishearten zealous bishops, priests and laymen and drive large numbers of their fellow-Catholics into doubt and infidelity. It is largely to them we may attribute the loss of two or three times as many members of the Church as we claim to have now, and in a great measure because of them that the Church is being rapidly depleted at this time, and unless their baneful influence is removed, is there not reason to fear that it has reached its zenith in this country? It looks this way to any one who travels much and is very observing and deeply interested.

But are there many unworthy, self-indulgent, bad priests in the United States? Too many, far too many, everywhere. The harvest is just now full and ripe in this land which is ours by discovery and settlement, and by the libation of the blood of martyrs, but too many of the reapers are blind, or perverse, and are not only going about destroying the golden grain, but are preventing the good, zealous reapers from gathering it in.

Has the Church no discipline left? Can it not remove these scandals, this hindrance to the working of the Spirit of Truth; prevent further depletion, and bring back the lost sheep to the true fold?

Could not ( i ) more care be taken in sending young men to Seminaries, (2) in ordaining priests, (3) and in weeding out those who have been ordained and tried, and are found unworthy?

A mission once a year is far better than sending a disedifying, disorderly, scandalous priest to take charge of a parish. Is there not too much of the spirit of the world in some of our young men, who are being ordained and put in charge of parishes these days? Many of them seem to want a parish ‘for what there is in it for themselves.’ The people to whom they are sent are intelligent, observing, and becoming more enlightened, and when they see this lack of spirituality in the life of the priest, his influence for good is lost. It is the intelligent, well-to-do members who are leaving us. They cannot endure that they themselves or their families shall be led and directed by a man whose sensibility has been blunted and whose passions have been aroused by intoxicants, or who demeans himself in an unpriestly manner, more like a loafer, or a sport, or a dude, or a miser, than like a gentleman. They demand that their priest shall be priestly, and unless the Hierarchy in the United States manages to meet this demand, can it be expected that the Church will grow in numbers and improve in the character of its members? Can one born in the Church well imagine the shock an intelligent convert receives when he first meets a drunken priest, or sees one drinking in a saloon, or sitting on a beer-keg at its door, or sees one at the altar celebrating mass after a night’s carouse, or learns that the result of years of earnest appeals from the pulpit for the orphans and the hospitals and the schools and the Pope has been the accumulation of a large fortune by the pastor, or sees a priest smitten of a woman and running after her, to the amusement of Protestants and humiliation of Catholics, or sees him in the company of women of not known unblemished reputation in unseemly places, or learns of the drinking, carousing and gambling of priests at their places of rendezvous, and of other still more unpriestly conduct, all of which he may but too often see and know of a truth in this land consecrated to the One who was ‘full of grace?’ Will it suffice to say that there was one Judas among the twelve, or that the majority of the clergy are self-sacrificing, zealous men and rest there? If there is even one such, should he be let to remain to disgrace the whole order? If a Catholic travels much and observes closely, he will be disposed to shun priests whom he does not know to be priestly, rather than seek them out as most agreeable, proper, profitable company. This is the case with not only some converts, but some who were reared Catholics. Laymen want protection for themselves and their families.

An exemplary convert, who was cashier in a bank in one of our large cities, told the writer with an aching heart how mortified he had often been at seeing priests coming there under the influence of liquor where he was the only Catholic, and having the clerks looking sneeringly at him, and how many have told him of similar and much worse experiences. When fathers know those conditions exist, how can they urge their children, who know them also, to go to their religious duties? ‘When the man is gone, what becomes of the priest?’

And is this the condition and this the conduct and this the character of many of the priests in our country? Of far too many, and the proportion of such is not diminishing. Have not Catholics been told too often and too long to hide these things out of charity? Was it ever the proper use of charity to overlook or hide such conduct in a priest? Simply for the man, and were he only concerned and affected, it might do for awhile, a Kempis says: ‘Admonish thy neighbor twice or thrice.’ Here is a mature man, ordained of God, who, by the simple fact of ordination, is supposed to be intelligent, and to understand the duties of his sacred office, scandalizing whole communities. It is not the man we are considering, but the communities and the effects of his life on them and on the work the Church is trying to accomplish. Has not the mantle of charity for this purpose been stretched till it is all in shreds and hides no one? Under circumstances where some have said that a priest was sick or had fits, would it not be better not to tell a lie and to say that he was drunk? Is not the truth always best? Does not hiding such depravity only nourish and encourage it? If some of our priests are of a low, depraved order of men, which is a fact, would it not be wiser to expose them and silence them? Is not such recklessness and depravity contagious? and if not treated heroically and in season, will it not spread like blood poisoning from a scratch and direful consequences follow? Can there be too much vigilance and severity in discipline in this matter, since the abuse has gone so far already?

Should any priest who is worthy of that highest title which any man can bear on this earth a priest of the Catholic Church blame you, Mr. Editor, for publishing this letter, or me for writing it? Ought not he to thank us rather? It is in defense of the most holy priesthood and for the purpose of protecting it against its very worst enemies that it is written.

Observing, thinking laymen from the Atlantic to the Pacific are aroused at the number and increase of these burning, depleting scandals, and unless something is done soon to stop them, these laymen will make themselves heard at Rome. The Church was instituted for the people, and the bishops and priests are sent forth to instruct and elevate the people, and the people have a right to demand that they do it faithfully, and Rome will see to it that justice is done to the people.

Our grand ceremonies and towering cathedrals are well enough, but will they supply the needs and make converts and save souls in parishes that are much worse off than without a priest? If the outlook for the future of the Church in the United States in this respect were not so saddening, so heartbreaking, so discouraging, one might enjoy those ceremonies and grand churches, and such like things, more. Statistics have been taken in many parishes in the West of Catholics who do and those who do not attend Mass, and the figures are appalling. As are the priests who are sent out, so will be the greater number of the people. ‘By their fruits shall they be known.’ They are wonder-workers for good or wonder-workers for evil. The writer of this letter, who thought when he became a Catholic that all priests must be intelligent, good, self-sacrificing, humble, pious men, will die before he will be able to understand how they can be otherwise. Oh, how his heart has ached when he found any of them otherwise! And, oh! how discouraging and almost hopeless the effort to try to do good has been through all these long years when he will realize that just one unfit, unworthy priest was doing more harm than a hundred or more zealous, well-directed laymen could do good. Is it not better to seek the truth, to find the truth, to proclaim the truth, to stand by the truth, to trust in the truth? Is it not said that ‘The truth shall make us free?’

To save Christianity to the people of the United States of America, and save them for Christianity, and to build up a civilization worthy of the name, is the work of the Catholic Church through its priests. If they are indifferent, incompetent, self-indulgent, worldly men, the work will not be done. Where rests the responsibility right now for the present and for the future? May God have mercy on us; may the Blessed Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Saints pray for us; may the bishops and priests of the Church work for us!”

I expect Mr. Copeland’s revision and supplement of “After Two Years,” plus eleven years which have elapsed since the writing of his letter, would make a good-sized volume. Rome’s silent contempt for the appeals and charges made by the Laymen’s Association of the archdiocese of Chicago against the Hierarchy, no doubt enlightened Mr. Copeland as to Rome’s real attitude toward clerical crime and corruption, and he is now, I believe, a sadder but wiser man.

Of late years, Mr. Copeland has been devoting his time and means in an effort to convert priests and prelates by scattering broadcast among them copies of the “Imitation of Christ,” by a Kempis.

I wonder if he has succeeded in converting “Rev. No. 9. A Gospel Pitcher,” who was his pastor and spiritual director for several years.

James Edward Quigley

On the 1 5th of June, 1903, Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago, had an interview with a lady by appointment to hear her complaints about certain bad priests. He met her, holding in his hand a bundle of papers which included an affidavit she had made against “Rev. No. 23, A Debauchee” Rev. C. P. Foster, Rector, Sacred Heart parish, Joliet, Illinois. He looked savagely at her, seated himself at the table, laid the papers to one side and commenced to pound the table with his fists.

“Don’t you know,” he cried, “that it is excommunication for a lay person to make affidavit against a priest?”

“Why, no,” she said, “I do not.”

“Well,” he said, “I tell you it is,” and His Grace kept pounding the table.

The lady, not at all terrified, drew her chair up to the table, and began to beat time with her hands upon it, saying: “Archbishop, I did not come here to be bullied; I came by appointment to tell you certain things about your bad priests, and I am going to tell them to you! If you persist in pounding the table and yelling, I will pound the table too and scream! You shall listen to me, and you had better be a gentleman!”

The Archbishop subsided gracefully, and the good woman told him her tale of truth, made up of experiences with the Catholic priesthood of the Archdiocese of Chicago running through a period of thirty years.

She said: “Don’t think, Your Grace, that the Catholic people are to be scared by threats of excommunication; we have become too wise for that; the so-called excommunication of Father Crowley opened our eyes.”

He said, “Did Father Crowley get you to make this affidavit ?”

She said: “He did not; but so far as Father Crowley is concerned, I say, God bless Father Crowley! he is a credit to our Church, and the Catholic people are proud of him! he is not like a great many others of your clergy here; for instance, he is not like Leyden!” [See “Rev. No. 22, A Seductionist.”]

“O my God,” said the Archbishop, throwing up his hands, “don’t mention his name; I’ve Leyden on the brain!”

“Very well, then, Your Grace, I will put some more of them on your brain!” and the brave woman called the attention of her Archbishop to certain sinning priests by name.

The Archbishop said, “Oh, that is ancient history! give me something modern!”

She said: “Is it ancient history when priests are getting drunk in this city every day, misconducting themselves in every shape and form and going under assumed names dressed as laymen?”

“Well,” he said, “you may think things are bad here, but they are worse elsewhere; they are worse in Buffalo and many times worse in New York.”

She said: “If that is so, that is no justification for our putting up with bad priests in Chicago; we Catholic women have actually built the Catholic churches here, and we are entitled to protection.”

He said: “It is the bounden duty of good Catholics to cover up the guilt of their clergy, just as it is their duty to hide the guilt of their parents!”

She said: “What? do you tell me that if my parents got drunk every day and were dragged out of disreputable places, having their faces battered and heads broken so they needed surgical care, and taken to police stations and kept there several days and every one knowing it, it would be my duty to try to make people believe that my parents were saints?”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “You can’t make me believe that,” she answered. She said: “Don’t you know, Archbishop, that there are bad priests here?”

“Well, yes,” he said, counting upon his fingers, “there are five six seven bad priests!”

She said: “You have been here but three months and you have found out seven; when you have been here six months you will probably find out that there are seventy-seven, and more.”

She then asked him how he could reconcile his unkind and unjust treatment of Father Crowley with his treatment of those seven bad priests, leaving them in the enjoyment of their rich parishes with full power to offer up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to hear confessions, and to have the care of souls.

He said: “Well, we must all admit that Father Crowley is a good priest, morally and otherwise, but he has given scandal by exposing the guilt of his brother priests.”

She said: “I am positive he has not, because we knew all about those priests before ever Father Crowley came here; to my knowledge a few of the good priests, for many years back, tried to stop priestly misconduct in this archdiocese, but they failed, and nothing was done until Father Crowley joined them in their efforts.”

He said: “Well, I personally have nothing against Father Crowley! I am ready and willing to give him the very best parish in the archdiocese; his case is now in the hands of the Papal Delegate [Archbishop Falconio], and if the Papal Delegate writes me to appoint Father Crowley to the Holy Name Cathedral, I will do it with as little hesitation as if he were my own brother!”

He then complimented her upon her courage, saying, “You are the nerviest woman I have ever met in my life!”

She said: “I am speaking for at least one thousand Roman Catholic women, and when I come here again I will be speaking for at least five thousand.”

The Archbishop, with great gallantry, opened the door for her, and he bade her good-day with a cordial clasp of the hand. This lady was one of the best workers in the Catholic Church in Chicago, having labored day and night in its interests, spending her strength and her means without limit. She has especially endeared herself to the poor and to the suffering.

The papal organ of the archdiocese of Chicago, The Nezv World, in its issue of March 9, 1912, over the signature of the Archbishop of Milwaukee, makes a two-column statement to the Catholic public, under the heading “The Catholic Colonization Society.” I give a few excerpts:

“The Catholic Colonization Society, U. S. A., is a properly chartered corporation under the laws of the State of Illinois, having been incorporated in July, 1911. It has succeeded to and taken the place of a former Illinois corporation of exactly the same name, which, having surrendered its charter, has no longer any legal existence. The present C. C. S. is truly national, inasmuch as its operations are not confined to any one section of the United States, and its membership comprises men representative of different races or nationalities: Belgian, Bohemian, German, Irish, Italian, Polish, though all American citizens. Among its members and directors it counts archbishops, bishops, priests and laymen. Being a Catholic organization established for the protection and promotion of Catholic interests through Catholic colonization, our society is naturally subject to the rules and laws of the Catholic Church, and will in all its dealings and undertakings seek the advice of the prelates of the hierarchy interested or concerned in the work of Catholic colonization.

“A special feature of the C. C. S. that we desire to develop on safe and expedient lines is the affiliation with it of other Catholic colonization societies. In view of the continuous influx of different races from the old country, the C. C. S. strongly encourages the formation of racial colonization societies, which may become affiliated with it and work under its guidance and with its assistance. This will facilitate the establishing of racial colonies for Bohemians, Italians, Polish, Slavs, etc. However much we may desire the quick and full amalgamation and merging of such races in the American nation, it can not possibly be denied that for a time racial settlement and colonies are necessary, if these newcomers to our shores are to keep the Catholic faith themselves and help to build up a glorious future of the Church in America. Where diocesan or state colonization societies are formed, these may also become affiliated with our society and thus profit by its larger experience and greater influence. Other Catholic colonization societies, although not affiliated with us, may yet work hand in hand with the C. C. S., where they will always find cordial and serious consideration. In this way the C. C. S. will become a great central bureau or agency where the work of Catholic colonization all over the United States can be concentrated and systematized so as to render it more successful and to offer the colonist more safety and security. Catholic colonization will then command the attention of all American citizens and do away with the old reproach that so much of this so-called Catholic colonization business is simply a fool’s play, if not downright swindle….

“The C. C. S. may be called another Church Extension Society which furnishes not money, altar and vestments, but the people, the priest and the church….

“It will arrange with the land company for the reservation of such tracts of land or such.a number of acres or farms as will be necessary to locate and develop thereon a well-sized colony; then it will settle and fix the most favorable prices and terms for which the land will be sold to Catholic settlers. Here it may be stated at once that our society does not look for the cheapest land. The cheapest is never the best. We look more for good and productive land at reasonable, although somewhat higher, prices. Besides all this the C. C. S. will arrange with the land company for the building of an appropriate church and school and parsonage to be erected within a certain time or as soon as a given number of Catholic families shall have settled there. The land company must, moreover, guarantee the salary of a priest for a certain time to be agreed upon. None of these arrangements will be made without the previous consent of the Bishop of the diocese in which the colony is located….

“In view of the great field lying before us with all its magnificent opportunities for a most useful, widely beneficial and, in fact, positively necessary Catholic colonization movement, it is to be hoped that the C. C. S. will find on the part of American Catholics all the support and help it deserves and a cordial co-operation all along the line. It is the only American national colonization society that enjoys the great honor of having received the hearty recommendation and encouragement of the Archbishops of America, assembled at their annual meeting. Friends of Catholic colonization can greatly help the C. C. S. by bringing its work to the attention of prospective Catholic colonists of their neighborhood or acquaintance, by sending useful and reliable information concerning large tracts of land available for farming settlements and obtainable at moderate prices, by warning us of fraudulent or suspicious colonization schemes, and in many other ways. Yet all this valuable help will not accomplish much without financial backing. In an undertaking of this kind it is money that counts. The future usefulness of the C. C. S. must depend largely on the financial support that it will get. Rich Catholics of noble hearts find here another splendid opportunity of showing their love for Holy Church and their brethren of the Faith. For Catholic colonization, as we propose it, is but another manifestation of the great missionary spirit that has, in our days, been wonderfully awakened in the Catholic Church of the United States.

“In conclusion I may say that the C. C. S. is controlled by a board of twelve directors, its operations are managed by an executive committee of five members, and its actual work is carried on by the following officers: Director general, Most Reverend Archbishop Glennon, St. Louis; president, Rev. J. De Vos, Chicago; vice president, Right Rev. Mgr. McMahon, New York; secretary, Very Rev. E. Vattmann, Wilmette, 111.; treasurer, Rev. A. Spetz, C. R., Chicago. The office of the C. C. S. is located in The Temple, Chicago, 111. S. G. MESSMER,
“Archbishop.
“MILWAUKEE, Wis., Feb. 26, 1912.”

It is evident that The Catholic Colonization Society is not advantageous to the general public, but detrimental to the public welfare.

Land owners, non-Catholic merchants, labor organizations and all other citizens, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, whose interests and rights are endangered by this Society, ought to wake up before it is too late. Congress of the United States ought to be called upon to investigate The Catholic Colonization Society, as well as the many Roman Catholic boycotting organizations, monopolies and trusts, which have been established in this country chiefly in the interests of a foreign potentate the pope of Rome.

PAPAL LIFE INSURANCE.

Another of Rome’s latest get-rich-quick schemes is the establishment of “The New World Life Insurance Co.” According to its prospectus, it is strictly a Roman Catholic organization, and its papal organizers have their eye on the “$78,000,000 of Catholic money in the shape of premium on policies, which is being paid annually to American life insurance companies.”

The prospectus of this Roman company explains why the “American life insurance companies” ought not to be patronized by Roman Catholics, and indirectly suggests a boycott of them. In the no distant future priests, prelates and lay leaders of the “American Federation of Catholic Societies” will find sufficient grounds for issuing a most severe boycott against “American life insurance companies” and thus corral the $78,000,000 or more annually.

This papal insurance company will afford a fruitful source of graft to the Roman Hierarchy and its lay agents. On the maturing of policies or on the death of policy holders, a large percentage of the moneys due will be expected for masses for the relief of the suffering souls of the deceased policy holders, as well as other large sums to “make America dominantly Catholic.”

The banking, colonization, loans and. insurance schemes of the Church of Rome in America and elsewhere, which are carried on under the guise of religion, have not been a “fool’s play,” but “downright swindle.” The papal land swindle in Minnesota is fresh in our memory. The many papal swindles in loans and insurance companies within recent years are not forgotten. The swindle in Archbishop Purcell’s bank in Cincinnati, which deprived several thousand people of their hard earnings, and other such swindles too numerous to mention, ought to be a warning not only to the Roman Catholic people, but also to tolerant, gullible non-Catholics.

One of the saddest scenes which I ever witnessed was while I was a member of the Roman Hierarchy that of an old maiden lady in Manchester, N. H., who died in 1886, cursing Archbishop Purcell and the pope of Rome for having swindled her out of her hard earnings-

Why are not these Roman clerical bankers, colonizers, etc., prosecuted and punished according to law?

American citizens, we are facing a crisis: Wholesale papal swindles, boycotts and persecutions are rapidly increasing a twentieth century papal inquisition will be the reward of our apathy, our cowardice.

It would require a large volume to contain even part of the evidence manifested, both by declarations and by acts, of Rome’s persistent policy to suppress all knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures. In the early centuries, and long before printing was invented, all manuscripts containing any translation into the vernacular from the original tongues was prohibited under the severest penalties. As. early as 860 A. D. Pope Nicholas I. put Bible reading under the ban. Gregory VII., known in history as Hildebrand, in 1073 continued the ban, and Innocent III., in 1198, issued a decree that all who read the Bible should be put to death. In 1229 the great Council of Toulouse passed a decree forbidding either the possession or the reading of the Bible; and the famous Council of Trent, 1545-63, did the same. In England, in the fourteenth century, any one who was found with Wycliffe’s Bible, that “organ of the devil,” incurred the penalty of death. In the reign of the “Bloody Mary” tons of Bibles were used as fuel to burn the martyrs, and it was said that “no burnt offerings could be more pleasing to Almighty God.” Pius VII. in 1816 denounced Bibles as “pestilences;” and Leo XII. in 1825 as “traps and pitfalls.” Pius VIII. in 1830 declared printingpresses from which Bibles were struck as “centers of pestiferous infection;” Gregory XVI. in 1844 condemned Bible Societies, and ordered the priests to tear up all they could lay their hands on. Pius IX. surpassed all his predecessors in the employment of abusive language to vilify Bible Societies, and under his authority many were banished from Tuscany for reading the Bible. It was also during his pontificate that Francesco Madai and his wife were imprisoned for ten months and then sent to the galleys for reading the Bible.

Coming down to our own generation, Leo XIII., an astute politician, having to play the game in England and America, Italy being lost, was well aware that he could not afford to defy Protestant opinion openly and publicly. And so he issued an encyclical which seemed to reverse the policy of his predecessors by permitting the laity to read the Bible. But every one knew, who had the necessary means of information, that this encyclical was insincere and hypocritical. For immediately on its issue secret instructions were given to all the priests to do all in their power to prevent the sale and distribution of the Bible. And so all other decrees, edicts, statements and permissions to the same -effect which have been issued since have been equally treacherous and insincere. To sum it all up in one word, I may give the statement of a distinguished priest who said: “The day in which the priests and Catholic believers give themselves to the reading and study of the Bible, that day will be the last for the Roman Church, for the priests, for the monsignors and for the papacy.”

The Paulist Fathers is an Order well known in the United States. Its special mission is to convert Protestants to Romanism and they boast that they are making more than 35,000 converts a year.

The following letter will show who are the managers and directors of this Order; what are its aims and purposes; what it has already accomplished, and the final goal which the Order proposes as the object of its endeavors; namely, to “make America dominantly Catholic.” The letter reads as follows and certainly requires no comment. It speaks for itself; and speaks loudly and alarmingly. Here is the letter. Read it and ponder it:

DIRECTORS OF THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARY UNION.
MOST REV. J. M. FARLEY, D D., VERY REV. E. R. DYER, S. S.,
Archbishop of New York, President St. Mary’s Seminary,
[Cardinal] PRESIDENT. Baltimore.
MOST REV. JOHN IRELAND, REV. MATTHEW A. TAYLOR.
Archbishop of St. Paul.
RT. REV. MATTHEW HARKINS, REV. WALTER ELLIOTT,
Bishop of Providence, R. 1. of the Paulist Fathers.
VERY REV. A. P. DOYLE,
Secretary-Treasurer.
Represented by:^THE CATHOLIC= Under Its Auspices The
The Missionary MISSIONARY UNION Apostolic Mission House
Incorporated under the laws of the State of New York.

“WASHINGTON, BROOKLAND STATION, D. C, “Feb. 6, 1912.

“My DEAR FRIEND: How near at hand do you think is the time when America will be dominantly Catholic? Things move on with rapid strides these days, and the recent creation of three American Cardinals has brought the Church once more to the forefront. The dominant note in the address of the Holy Father as well as in the replies of the Cardinals is the hope of wonderful progress among English speaking peoples. They have all spoken of the ‘era of convert making.’ All this indicates a marvelous advance along the lines whereon the Missionaries of the Apostolic Mission House have been working these twenty years.

“If all the Priests and laity would turn their faces to this one goal, what a tremendous impetus the movement would get! One of our great leaders recently said: and there is a burning truth in it ‘We must labor to gain the confidence, love and respect of the American people. This once gained, the Catholic Church in Her way to claim the American heart, may carry a thousand dogmas on her back.’

“Last year our Missionaries gave hundreds of Missions, and the record of convert-making is now away beyond the Thirty-five Thousand mark each year. Just think what this means! This estimate says nothing of the thousands of fallen-away Catholics that have been brought back to a good life.

“Come with us and share the glories of this work!
Sincerely yours in Xto.,
“CATHOLIC MISSIONARY UNION.
“A. P. Doyle, Treasurer.”

Let us follow up these Paulist Fathers a little closer and see some of the other things which they have been doing.

It was a trifling matter that these Paulist Fathers had prize-fights in the Paulist Church, Chicago, as one of their Church Fair attractions. It is not of much importance to mention that Rev. Peter J. O’Callaghan, head of the Paulist Fathers in the Middle West, President of the Total Abstinence Association of America, delegate appointed by President Taft to the Anti-Alcohol Congress at The Hague in 1911, and Commander of the Boy Scouts, was arrested on a charge of running gambling machines in his Church in Chicago for commercial purposes.

Of vastly more importance and of deeper and far wider reaching significance is what was done by the Romish priests across the seas. In last January (1912) a letter was received by a distinguished American lady from a friend in Italy, which stated that in the Fall of 1911, in the town of Forano, in Sabina, forty miles from Rome, the Romish priests collected all the Bibles they could lay their hands upon, carried them to the Public Square, piled them in a heap, saturated them with coal oil, set fire to the pile and reduced the Bibles to ashes.

It may be mentioned here that while the Romish priests were burning Bibles in Forano, and converting and baptizing 35,000 Protestants a year in the United States, Roman Catholic priests in South America were baptizing dogs at forty cents a head.

To give a further idea of the attitude of priests and prelates toward the Bible, as well as their influence over our Government and its officials, even in the Philippine Islands, I quote from Circular No. 32, S. 1908, issued by the Bureau of Education, Manilla, March n, 1908, addressed to the Division Superintendents of Schools, under the heading “Religious Teaching Forbidden”:

“It is not for the teachers in public school in this Catholic country, either to encourage the study of the Bible especially of the Protestant Bible among their pupils, or to say to those pupils anything upon the subject…. In view of the intimate personal relation of a teacher to his pupils, no religious instruction of any nature should be given by him at any time, even outside the schoolroom.”…

At the close of this circular, David P. Barrows, Director of Bureau of Education, Manilla, P. I., says:

“It is not believed that anything further can be added to make more clear the attitude of the department and of the administration on this point.”

Why did not the President recall this order as he did that of Mr. Robert G. Valentine, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, forbidding Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns, employed in Government schools for Indian children, to wear their religious garb and insignia of their faith while engaged in their duties within the schoolroom and in the grounds of such institutions?

I would like to ask the Paulist Fathers why their distinguished Episcopalian convert, Rev. Dr. Lloyd, once Bishop elect for Oregon, and his wife, returned to Protestantism not long after their much heralded conversion to Romanism? Is it not a fact that when the Paulist Fathers realized that Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd were about to withdraw from Romanism, being thoroughly disgusted with it, he (Lloyd) was Jesuitically placed in the Detention Hospital in Chicago, pending an order from the court for his removal to the insane asylum at Elgin, 111. He would be there to-day were it not for the exposure threatened by his noble wife, who, like him, had been scandalously shocked by the actions of priests and prelates of the Roman Catholic Church. The story as told by Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd would startle the world and convince the public that Rome is ever and everywhere the same.

I would also like to ask the Paulist Fathers how many of their alleged thirty-five thousand converts a year return to their original faith as did Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd; how many Paulist Fathers and Seminarians leave their Religious (?) Congregation each year; also how many nuns, monks and priests, including the Jesuits, leave the Roman Catholic Hierarchy; and how many of the Catholic laity leave the Roman Catholic Church each year.

Nothing more startling has ever been put before the public than Rome’s recent resolutions of boycott of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Watson’s Magazine, the Protestant Magazine, the Menace, etc., and her attitude as Censor of the United States Mails. At the annual convention of the American Federation of Catholic Societies, held at New Orleans, November 13-16, 1910, resolutions were passed calling for the passage of Federal laws to prevent the transmission by the United States mails of matter offensive to the Roman Catholic Church. In these resolutions postoffice employes were boklly called upon to destroy, without any warrant of law, any such mail in transit. The leading ecclesiastic at this convention was Archbishop Falconio, Papal Delegate to the Roman Catholic Church in America.

Archbishop Falconio had good reasons for tendering his sincerest congratulations to the American Federation of Catholic Societies at its convention held at Columbus, Ohio, August 20-24, 1911, for its “rapid progress” and “the effective good work accomplished” by it. He was fully aware, I presume, of the destruction of much printed “matter offensive to the Church” in the postoffices of the United States of America since their last reunion at New Orleans.

I know that several large parcels of printed matter mailed at the General Postoffice in Chicago during the months of December, 1910, and January and February, 1911, never reached their destination. This destruction commenced immediately after their New Orleans convention. On receipt of numerous complaints from subscribers the sender called on the post-office authorities for an explanation, but received no satisfaction whatever. This party’s mail continued to be held up, and, surmising the cause, the sender threatened public exposure of such unlawful action on the part of the Postoffice Department. This threat of exposure scared Rome and her Jesuitical agents, and since then the mail of said party has been unmolested. Ah, Rome fears publicity!

Meanwhile, to divert attention from their own criminal acts, they are loudly inveighing against the circulation of obscene matter through the mails; and by obscene matter they mean all matter inimical to the Church of Rome. Non- Catholics think they mean indecent and licentious matter.

The inconsistency of the private lives of popes, cardinals, prelates, priests and monks as compared with the deference exacted by them in public from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is, to say the least, ridiculous: for example, decollete gowns and peek-a-boo waists are out of order at formal receptions for male members of the Hierarchy. Any one who knows the kind of pictures and indecent realities that most delight the eyes of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy will not be faked by any pretended shock that they may profess to experience on contemplation of the nude in art, much less decollete gowns at formal functions.

As a satisfactory evidence of this fact it may be stated that the telephone companies in different cities have threatened to take away the phones from the residences of some priests because their conversation was at times so vile that the female operators refused to receive their messages and threatened to resign if required to do so.

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy should be indicted for illegally using the mails to operate confidence games, chainless letters, etc., in the alleged behalf of ”the poor homeless children,” “the poor orphans,” and “the poor suffering souls in purgatory.” No more shameless and outrageous system of fraud was ever perpetrated by men.

The American Federation of Catholic Societies, which embraces the numberless Associations, Societies, Clubs, Church Confraternities, etc., as well as their widespread military organizations, is a menace to our freedom and an injury to the Catholic people whom it pretends to serve. It is a mighty power for evil in the hands of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.

At the Columbus convention, among other boycotts, a boycott was declared against the Encyclopedia Britannica, which boycott was soon after printed and circulated broadcast throughout the English-speaking world. The following additional proclamation of the same boycott was issued and circulated with the endorsement of the New York County Federation of Catholic Societies, of which Cardinal Farley is the principal under the pope.

“No Catholic should purchase the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. No purchaser of it is bound to keep or pay for a work which falls so far short of the representation of the editors and publishers. It should be debarred from our public libraries, schools and other institutions. It should be denounced everywhere, in season and out of season, as a shameful attempt to perpetuate ignorance, bigotry and fanaticism in matters of religion.”

Mr. Samuel Byrne, editor of the Pittsburgh Observer (Roman Catholic), addressing the Catholic editors at the Columbus convention, said in part:

“I have come here for the purpose of very briefly suggesting one thing. It is, this: That the Catholic editors of the country, concertedly and persistently, urge their readers to notify the proprietors and managers of the daily papers that unless they use instead of the European dispatches of the Associated Press, those furnished by the newly established Catholic International United Telegraph Agency, they will withdraw their patronage from them, either as readers or as advertisers, and will, moreover, boycott both the offending newspapers and those who advertise in them.”

The boycott is the most powerful weapon and one in constant use by the Roman Hierarchy. By intimidation, threats and terror, they are able to suppress literature and destroy private business, and they do it most effectually. Few and far between are the newspapers who will dare to print anything which would fall under the adverse criticism of a priest.

The owners of newspapers, and especially of the great dailies which circulate in the large cities where there are many Catholics, are notified that there will be a sudden drop in their advertising patronage if they publish or refuse to publish certain matter condemned or approved by the Censor Bureau of the Roman Catholic Church, which has its representatives in numerous and extensive Catholic societies. Non-Catholics, too, who receive from some source or other information that the Roman Catholics are boycotting a particular paper, withdraw their advertisements to gratify and retain Catholic customers. The mere circulation of a city daily does not pay for the paper on which it is printed; the whole revenue is derived from their advertisements thus the press is at the mercy of the secret Roman boycott.

But the boycott is by no means confined to the press. It reaches out and extends universally in all directions. Business men and professional men of all kinds are at the mercy of the boycott. From some mysterious cause, which they can not comprehend, their patronage falls off, their receipts diminish, and if they do not make terms when informed of the cause of the falling off of business, bankruptcy stares them in the face. In many instances where the Roman Catholic Church possesses the influence, teachers, clerks, agents, and the ten thousand individuals of humbler rank, are absolutely at their disposal to be discharged from their places and turned out upon the world without means of support. These boycotts are rarely published as such. Sometimes, it is true, on special occasions when big interests are involved, they do not hesitate to have the boycott printed and circulated, but in the vast majority of instances the Roman boycott gets in its deadly work in the dark. And did anybody ever hear of an injunction being issued against a Roman boycotter, or any one of these said boycotters ever being put in contempt of court? So far does the influence of Rome extend that even the courts themselves, which are supposed to be the citadels of impartiality and justice, are prostituted to serve the interests of the Roman Hierarchy. The non-Catholic people should engrave it on their memories and keep it forever fresh in their minds that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Why prosecute and punish non-Catholic clergymen and other citizens, while Roman Catholic priests and prelates foes of the nation commit similar crimes, and worse, with impunity?

Why waste time and money in sham efforts to curb the trusts, and at the same time permit, and even assist, that trust of trusts the Vatican system to continue the even tenor of its way?

If the governments of the United States and of the British Empire had done their duty toward Catholics and non- Catholics alike, whose interests have been injured, and sometimes wholly destroyed by Romanism, the majority of priests and prelates who are “operating” under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, and the Union Jack, would be behind the bars not a few of them would have been rewarded with the hempen tie or electric chair.

Furthermore, if the Government of the United States had done its plain duty in protecting my rights and interests as an American citizen during the past ten years, Cardinals Martinelli and Falconio, Archbishop Quigley, Bishop Muldoon, and many other Roman ecclesiastics, would now be wearing stripes in penitentiaries as the guests of Uncle Sam, instead of purple and gold in luxurious palaces as “Ambassadors of Christ.”

ONE ATTACK UPON MY LIFE.

I will give one illustration of an attempt upon my life. People who are powerful by position and means, but guilty of crimes and about to be exposed, have no conscience to bother them with scruples if they turn to violence to get out of the way the object of their fear. The murder of Dr. Cronin in Chicago a few years ago will illustrate vividly the truthfulness of this statement.

During the time which has elapsed since I entered into this crusade for purity, truth and justice, attempts have been made upon my life. I have frequently told my friends who have expressed concern for my life that nothing better for my cause could happen than my violent taking off; that it would be the supreme emphasis upon my side of this controversy and would be the final circumstance to overwhelmingly convict the unholy priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. I put my life in the especial keeping of God at the beginning of this struggle. I have made my daily work the subject of daily prayer, and whatever happens to me I must take as God’s way of bringing to pass that for which I am devoting my time and for which I am willing to lay down my life. The Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, of St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago, found out a plot to kill me, for which murderous work’ six men had been selected. Henchmen who were ready to take life for pay were constantly on my track.

Soon after I was served with Cardinal Martinelli’s threat of excommunication, I went on Sunday afternoon. October the 20th, 1901, to see Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett. I visited with him in his parochial residence until about six o’clock in the evening, and then left his home to take the Northwestern Elevated Railway car. When I left Father Hodnett’s door I noticed that I was being followed by a man who weighed over two hundred pounds, about five feet eight inches in height, a bullet-shaped head, clean shaven face which was very red. He was a typical thug. He was the same man who followed me to Evanston the night before when I went to confer with the Very Rev. Hugh P. Smyth. I made a pretense of getting aboard the elevated when it came, stepping on and then off. This man stepped on and then off. I then stepped back again, and he followed me. I stood on the car platform and this man stood near me. He gave me several jabs in the side with his elbow, trying to provoke retaliation on my part so he could have an excuse for assaulting me. I suspected at once what the design of the fellow was. I saw that he hoped to embroil me into an encounter and then he could stab or shoot me and plead self-defense in the event of prosecution for murder or assault to kill. I determined to go the limit of endurance to avoid getting into a struggle with him, as I saw that even if I came out of such an encounter without physical damage my enemies would have me heralded throughout the country as a common brawler. I made no reply to these rude attacks. As soon as I reached Clark and Lake Streets I darted from the car and rushed down the steps, my hotel being near. Just then a westbound Lake Street trolley-car came by and I boarded it to elude him. He followed me. The car was crowded and we both were on the foot-board, he in front and I behind. Suddenly I jumped off. He followed me. I hurried to my hotel (Sherman House) and he followed me. I stayed in my room about an hour and then went downstairs.

In the elevator I met a gentleman about fifty-five years of age. He saluted me. He wanted to know my name and I told him. Said he: “Are you the priest that is after these bad Chicago priests?” I said: “Yes.” When we left the elevator he drew me to one side and said, “Father, I am a Catholic,” and he gave me his name and address; “the Catholic people of the country are with you; they know you are right; they want this thing stopped; I have been in the railroad service for thirty-five years and the toughest class I meet is the Catholic clergy.” I then noticed the thug with two other suspicious-looking characters edging up towards us, and I said to the gentleman: “You had better be careful! you had better not be seen with me! Those three men are bent on dirty business from what I know of the conduct of one of them within the past twenty- four hours.” He said: “What do you mean, Father?” I replied: “I believe those men are hired to provoke a quarrel with me so they can have an excuse for taking my life.” He put his hand to his hip pocket and said: “I’m from Kentucky; I have a gun; I’ll blow their brains out.” I said: “For goodness’ sake, mister, don’t make any move; that is just what they want.” Just then a friend of this gentleman approached. We were introduced, and I then said “Good evening” and left the hotel. After walking a few yards I saw this thug on my trail. I turned back to the hotel, thinking I could enter and leave by some other door and thus throw him off the scent. I left by another door, but his accomplices evidently told him where I had gone and he at once appeared dogging me. I returned to the hotel forthwith and met the two gentlemen with whom I had been conversing, and they said: “Father, you had better look out; your life is in danger.” I left the hotel again and walked south on Clark to Washington Street to take a car. I was closely followed by the thug. My two friends followed me to see if I would need help. His accomplices went as far as the corner of Clark and Randolph Streets. I got onto a street-car and stood on the rear platform. This thug got onto the car and stood close to me and jabbed me in the side with his elbow. When we reached Van Buren Street I sprang onto a west-bound Van Buren Street car. He rushed after me, but missed the car, and I would have eluded him if the car had not stopped at the Rock Island Railway station. At this place he overtook the car, and, standing close to me on the rear platform, said, “I came very near losing you.” I replied, “Who is paying you for this blackguardism ?” He replied: “It is none of your damn business.” I said: “I should say it is my business to protect myself from violence.” He said: “I am earning my living, and it is none of your business how I earn it.” I said: “You remind me of the Irishman who came to this country and put up at a cheap hotel in New York City. In the morning his landlord asked him how he liked the place. He replied that the food was good enough, but the sleeping was bad; there was something the matter with his bed; he burned a box of matches to find out, but could not. The landlord told him that the cause of his sleeplessness was bugs. The Irishman had never heard of them. The landlord assured him that he would not mind them after awhile, that he would get accustomed to them, that they had to make their living the same as everybody else. The Irishman replied: ‘I don’t object to their making a living, but it is the d – way they make it that I object to.’ ” I continued: “This may apply to you.” He burst into a loud laugh. He then said: “Father, I won’t hurt you, though I expected to have your block off before night. There is something about you, Father, that has convinced me that you are O. K. and the Muldoon gang are stiffs.” I said: “What were your instructions ?” He said: “To follow you up and get you into a fight and shoot your head off.” I said: “If you had done that, you would hang.” He said: “They said that nothing would happen to me; they would employ the best lawyers and I would get off on a plea of self-defense.” I asked: “Who is paying you?” “Well,” he said, “the gang that you are after is putting up the stuff.” He finally said: “Father, I won’t do you any harm. I am going to throw up this job.”

I afterwards learned from the two gentlemen whom I had left at the hotel, that they followed me when I left the hotel as far as the street corner, and the two accomplices to whom I have referred turned upon them: “What are you doing here? You are interfering in business you have no right to; get off the sidewalk!” A policeman was called and he took the names of these toughs, who then were allowed to go. Soon after this occurrence this railroad man attended High Mass at the Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago, and as he was entering the church he saw these identical toughs standing in the vestibule.

How fortunate I am that I live in the twentieth century and not in the fifteenth. If this were that dreary time of clerical supremacy, no doubt my body would be burned and its ashes cast into the Chicago River as Savonarola’s body was burned and its ashes thrown into the Arno River, but that river ran to the sea, and so it came to pass that his ashes were carried to every shore; and now, wherever liberty is loved, Savonarola has a shrine.

The Roman Catholic Church has been, and is, the mightiest and most dangerous trust in the world. In fact, she is the mother of trusts, and influences many creeds and cults. In them her Jesuitical agents are high in council: for example, Eugene A. Philbin, ex-District Attorney of New York City, Papal Knight and Attorney for Cardinal Farley, is an active Director and Endowment Trustee of The Federation of [Protestant] Churches and [Protestant] Christian Organisations in New York City, and as such exercises an influence, to say the least, favorable to Rome. This I know from personal experience. Papal Knight Attorney Philbin, though an active Director and Endoivment Trustee of The Federation of [Protestant] Churches and Christian Organizations in New York City is at the same time a leading light in the New York County Federation of [Roman] Catholic Societies, and the American Federation of Catholic Societies. Rome could not expediently recognize this quasi religious Federation of [Protestant] Churches, and [Protestant] Christian Organisations by publicly placing a “Prince of the Church,” John Maria Farley alias John Murphy Farley, or any other New York “alter Christus,” in a position so dangerous to “faith and morals,” as that assigned to heresy-and-immorality-proof Philbin. And, again, it would give grave scandal to “the faithful” if, forsooth, a cardinal, archbishop, bishop, priest or monk united publicly in a quasi religious work with heretics, clerical or lay, who are “illegitimate” by birth and living in “concubinage” if married by a Protestant minister.

Did any one ever hear of a Protestant being a Director or Endowment Trustee of the New York County Federation of [Roman] Catholic Societies or the American Federation of Catholic Societies?

Rome frequently and secretly places some of her ablest Jesuitical agents, of either sex, even in menial positions in non-Catholic homes and offices, both in church and state, in order to find out domestic, church or state secrets. A few years ago a prominent Jesuit in disguise took a position as valet in the home of the Marquis of Salisbury, Premier of England, and through his Jesuitical cunning so ingratiated himself with the Premier that he gained access to state papers, thus learning state secrets for his Church, which is ever on the alert to plot and plan as it deems expedient. Suspecting that his identity would become known through a lady guest who recognized him as the prominent Jesuit in Rome, who had once obtained for her a private audience with the pope, he disappeared during the night.

Through politics and the political appointment of Public School Boards, Superintendents, Principals and Teachers, the Roman Catholic Church has a powerful influence in controlling the Public Schools of the United States and Canada. A ruse well understood by priests and politicians is to use the public press to denounce alleged abuses and incompetencies in the Public School system for the purpose of bringing the system into general contempt. A notable instance of this is the systematic use of a large part of the press by prelates, priests and politicians to undermine the Public Schools under the false pretext of a kindly regard for their welfare.

The Public School is the basis and bulwark of our free Institutions. An enemy of these schools who would seek to destroy them, or even to impair their usefulness, is a public enemy, for he strikes at the very foundation of our system of republican government, which supposes intelligence as well as integrity in its citizens. Anarchists are not to be counted in it in comparison with the Roman Hierarchy, which is unceasingly working to subvert our Public Schools.

Rome’s Jesuitical emissaries, agents and missionaries are everywhere. They have no conscience but the pope’s dictation. They are allowed to assume whatever dress they please; for their better disguise, any occupations in church or state; they are in the highest and the lowest conditions, and have been known to appear as active and zealous members in non- Catholic associations and churches sometimes filling prominent Protestant pulpits. They are on the Public School Boards of Education; some of them are Superintendents, Principals and Teachers in the Public Schools; they occupy prominent positions in different societies and organizations. Their object is to engender strife, to influence party spirit, to produce faction, to counsel rebellion, to plot and plan assassinations : for examples, Bruno, Savonarola, Burke, Lord Cavendish, Dr. Cronin, Ferrer, Parnell, Ireland’s uncrowned king, and others. They avail themselves of every facility, right or wrong, to gain for the papacy, position and power. I need but instance Ireland, where Rome’s Jesuitical authority has borne its fruits in rebellions, and the sad, the continued degradation of the people. Is England at war with other nations? the pope’s aid may be solicited by them to create distractions in Ireland. There is a sore that is never allowed to heal: it has paralyzed, and still paralyzes, the power of England. Hence it has been the arena of political warfare.

History shows that the woes of Ireland and the cares of England began when Pope Adrian IV. sold Ireland to King Henry II. for a penny a household, “Peter’s pence,” and ever since then Rome has Jesuitically instigated ceaseless strife between Ireland and England, and she has an object in prolonging the agony. The honest and fearless Michael Davitt declared that in Ireland’s darkest hour Rome was her worst enemy. The fact is, Rome is really opposed to Home Rule or anything else that might benefit the Irish people and establish peace between Ireland and England. She knows that Home Rule would remove the bone of contention between these countries.

I have heard many prominent members of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, both in Ireland and America, declare that the pope, supported by bishops, priests and monks, would avail of every opportunity to thwart the ambitions of the Irish people and would fight to the last ditch to prevent Home Rule for Ireland. We can not forget how they planned the fall and brought about the sad death of that illustrious leader, Charles Stuart Parnell. Before his death, and afterward, prelates, priests and monks have been secretly enkindling strife, not only between Ireland and England, but between Catholics and non-Catholics, and even between the various factions which make up the Irish Party in order to prevent Home Rule, and thus retain the balance of power in the British Parliament for the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, which practically controls the said so-called Irish Parliamentary Party. The pope, bishops, priests and monks know that Home Rule would kill Rome rule in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales; and, indeed, cripple the Vatican’s political power in non- Catholic countries, where she, for selfish motives, unites the so-called Irish Catholics into organizations, spiritual (?) and military, such as are to be found in the “American” Federation of Catholic Societies, which Rome uses as a balance of power in American and Canadian politics. The establishment of an Irish Parliament would necessarily give rise to at least two political parties inside of the Roman Catholic Church, where at present all are united in a solid phalanx against England, thus placing the balance of power in the hands of the heretics the non-Catholics. Furthermore, a powerful support of the Roman Catholic Church in England would be withdrawn by the retirement of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the present balance of power in the English Parliament.

What led Pope Leo XIII. to fall in line with Pope Adrian IV. and Pope Pius VII. in an effort to help England at the expense of Ireland, and thus keep up strife between both countries? Why did he issue Papal Rescripts against the Parnell Testimonial and the Plan of Campaign? Irishmen, let me ask you one question: Why has the Holy See never issued any documents denouncing the terrible persecution of the Irish people? I confidently expect that all honest Catholics, without regard to race, will sympathize with me in my effort to enlighten them on papal intrigue and priestly corruption. Naturally I turn to the Irish people for their unstinted sympathy and support. I am one of them. Ireland was my cradle, and her sacred soil shelters the dust of my ancestors. I feel that the sad treatment to which Ireland has been subjected by Popes Adrian IV., Pius VII., Leo XIII., and other popes, should open the eyes of the Irish people, and spur them to combat all forms of ecclesiastical tyranny and corruption. The Irish people alone have it in their power to overthrow the Vatican system, and emancipate not only their race, but humanity.

Consider the tremendous words of an eminent Roman Catholic representative of a Roman Catholic power, spoken directly to the Hon. Andrew D. White, former Ambassador to Germany, and the head of the American Delegation to the first Peace Congress at The Hague. The following is an extract from Ambassador White’s diary, August 5, 1899, giving the Catholic representative’s statement in opposition to the claim of the pope in a message to the representative of the Netherlands and read by him at the close of the Peace Congress, in which the pope claimed that he was a peacemaker on earth:

“This eminent diplomatist from one of the strongest Catholic countries, and himself a Catholic, spoke in substance as follows:

“‘The Vatican has always been, and is to-day, a storm-center. The pope and his advisers have never hesitated to urge on war, no matter how bloody, when the slightest of their ordinary worldly purposes could be served by it. The great religious wars of Europe were entirely stirred up and egged on by them; and, as everybody knows, the pope did everything to prevent the signing of the treaty of Munster, which put an end to the dreadful Thirty Years’ War, even going so far as to declare the oaths taken by the plenipotentiaries at that congress of no effect.

“‘All through the Middle Ages and at the Renaissance period the popes kept Italy in turmoil and bloodshed for their own family and territorial advantages, and they kept all Europe in turmoil, for two centuries after the Reformation, in fact, just as long as they could, in the wars of religion. They did everything they could to stir up a war between Austria and Prussia in 1866, thinking that Austria, a Catholic power, was sure to win; and then everything possible to stir up the war of France against Prussia in 1870 in order to accomplish the same purpose of checking German Protestantism; and now they are doing all they can to arouse hatred, even to deluge Italy in blood, in the vain attempt to recover the temporal power, though they must know they could not hold it for any length of time, even if they should obtain it.

“‘They pretend to be anxious to “save souls,” and especially to love Poland and Ireland; but they have for years used those countries as mere pawns in their game with Russia and Great Britain, and would sell every Catholic soul they contain to the Greek and English Churches if they should thereby secure the active aid of these two governments against Italy. They have obliged the Italian youth to choose between patriotism and Christianity, and the result is that the best of these have become atheists. Their whole policy is based on stirring up hatred and promoting conflicts from which they hope to draw worldly advantage.

“‘In view of all this, one stands amazed at the cool statement of the Vatican letter.'”: Pp. 350-351, Vol. II., Autobiography of Andrew D. White.

General Lafayette, reared and educated a Roman Catholic, uttered this prophecy:

“It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country the United States of America are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated most of the wars of Europe.”

Did not Rome instigate the present conspiracies and insurrections in Mexico and in Portugal; did she not inspire the Turko-Italian War- and all for furthering her own cause power and pelf? Her policies and practices are quite evident to any one who closely studies her crafty, cunning Jesuitical methods.

In relation to the Mexican Rebellion, The Neiv York Times, through information received from its special correspondent, in its issue of May 23, 1911, says:

“MEXICAN CATHOLICS PLAN TO RULE NATION.

“FORMIDABLE PARTY ORGANIZED TO CARRY ELECTION AND OVERTURN DIAZ’S ANTI-CHURCH POLICY.

“MEXICO CITY, MAY 22.

“CATHOLICS WORKING FOR CONTROL.

“The organization of the Catholic Party, of which Gen. Diaz always said he was afraid, is proceeding, and it is extending its ramifications to the most distant sections of the country. Gabriel Somellera, a wealthy capitalist, is the organizer of record and the nominal leader of the party. Directly behind him, however, are the prelates of the Church and the landed aristocracy in so far as they have not gone abroad and they have an immense following of willing or unwilling peons, who are under the influence of the bread-giver and the parish priest. Another fact is that the Catholic Church in Mexico has a capital of at least $200,000,000 a larger sum than the capitalization of all the Government banks which escaped confiscation in the days of Benito Juarez or has since been amassed. This, of course, would give the Church party a very strong position either in business or politics.

“While the Maderistas or Progressives, as their self-effacing leader would have the party called are not resting on their laurels, their campaign organization is still rudimentary as compared with that of the Catholics. Many keen observers of this new trend of affairs to-day expressed the opinion to me that any election held in the next few months under the broader franchise and the Australian ballot, would, if fair, result in the defeat of Madero and the justification of the judgment of Diaz, who always excused delay in the extension of the suffrage by saying that he could not hand the country over to the Church party which he had fought so long.

“CATHOLICS WORKING QUIETLY.

“An element in the campaign which the newspapers have already begun to discuss openly, working more quietly, but not a whit less ambitiously than any claimant for the throne of Diaz, is the Catholic Church. The only step in the open that it has been necessary to take has been accomplished in the formation of the Catholic party and the publication of a platform providing for the closer union of Church and State. Mexico offers a great field for such a party.”

The New York Herald says:

“Those who gibly talk of intervention in Mexico are requested to stop long enough to consider that intervention would mean–

“War with Mexico.

“Unification of all Mexicans against the United States.

“Employment of an American army of 200,000 men, mostly volunteers, to invade Mexico.

“Long and arduous campaigns in tropical climate.

“Suspension of $150,000,000 of annual trade.

“Jeopardizing lives and investments of Americans now in Mexico.

“Incalculable expenditure of life and treasure.

“Antagonizing of Mexico’s sister Latin-American States.”

All of this Rome has planned and hopes to accomplish in order to serve her worldly purposes. Her political success on this Continent depends largely on the international complications which she is ceaselessly striving to bring about, notwithstanding the pope’s claim as a “peacemaker on earth.”

It may be important to state here that Archbishop Ireland, of St. Paul, Minnesota, arrived at his political headquarters, which are located one block from the White House, on the very day that President Taft summarily ordered the United States troops to the Mexican border. As usual, he called on the President. The White House is one of the sights which priests, prelates and “Princes of the Church” never want to miss. President Taft’s Mexican War Map, which is brought up to date every day, has a great attraction for them at present.

Relative to the recent troubles in Portugal, The New York Herald says:

“BISHOPS TO FIGHT LISBON CABINET.

“EPISCOPATE EXPECTED TO ADVOCATE OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT ON ACCOUNT OF SEPARATION LAW.

“LISBON, WEDNESDAY. The bishops of Portugal will hold a meeting next week to protest against the law of separation of Church and State. It is reported that they will refuse to recognize the Government’s authority in ecclesiastical matters and instruct the lesser clergy of the provinces to decline to accept the stipends offered to them and make propaganda against the Government at the forthcoming elections.”

The New York Times, in its issue of Dec. 23, 1911, says:

“TO PROSECUTE PRELATE.

“PORTUGAL WILL CHARGE LISBON PATRIARCH WITH CONSPIRACY AGAINST REPUBLIC.

“LISBON, DEC. 22. The Government has decided to prosecute Mgr. Anthony Mendes Bello, Patriarch of Lisbon, on a charge of conspiring against the republic. It is considered certain that the prelate will be sentenced to the maximum of six years’ imprisonment and ten years’ deportation to Africa.”…

The public press of Jan. 5, 1912, says.

“As a sequel to the punishment of the Patriarch of Lisbon, Mgr. Anthony Mendes Bello, who was ordered into exile for two years by the Portuguese Government on Dec. 28, all the Portuguese bishops to-day proclaimed their independence from the Government.

“The minister of justice, in reply to a communication from them, notifying him of their decision, declared that if they persisted in their refusal to recognize the civil authority they would all be expelled from Portugal. At the same time he will hold them responsible for any disturbances.”

If the governments of non-Catholic countries would only administer such medicine to priests, prelates and “Princes of the Church,” their political and supposed religious power would rapidly disappear and the liberties of the people would be secure.

Relative to the present war between Italy and Turkey, The New York Times, in its issue of Sept. 29, 1911, says:

“POPE FAVORS THE STEP,

“BUT HOPES THAT BLOODSHED WILL BE AVOIDED. “POPE FAVORS ITALY’S PLANS.

“The Pope is showing great interest in the preparations for the expedition, and has ordered a propaganda for the purpose of instructing the missionaries to use their influence in favor of the Italian plans, considering these plans as offering advantages for the spread of Catholicism in North Africa, but he hopes that success will be attained by Italy without the shedding of blood.”…

Since the beginning of the Turko-Italian War, bloodshed and butchery, even of women and children, have been of frequent occurrence, and, notwithstanding the hypocritical hope expressed by the pope, is, no doubt, a source of great joy to that “storm-center” the Vatican, which is now eagerly awaiting similar slaughter between Americans and Mexicans.

Popes and their Jesuitical agents have been and are the instigators of wars, and while the world is having real pain, Rome is having champagne.

“For ways that are dark the heathen Chinee”
Is not in it with the Roman clergy.

THE NAVIGATOR, THE CHURCH AND THE KNIGHTS.

The Knights of Columbus is one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, of all the numerous organizations embraced within the American Federation of Catholic Societies.

One of the aims of this organization is to secure the recognition of Columbus Day for a national holiday, upon which day the Roman Church, with all the pomp, trappings and circumstances, with cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and monks, together with all Catholic societies, congregations, confraternities and Roman Catholic military organizations, may parade the streets in all the gaudy robes and vestments and other insignia of the Roman Church in order to impress Americans with the sense of their power.

Among the methods which the Roman Catholic prelates, priests and politicians are using to “make America dominantly Catholic” is that of extolling those supposed to be of their own faith who were active in the discovery, colonization and settlement of America: and among these by far the most important stands Christopher Columbus.

Columbus was not a knight, though he lived near the close of the days of chivalry and was considerable of an errant on the seas, making four voyages to the land he thought to be India, besides others according to his own account, with which the reading world is less familiar.

As one of the discoverers of the New World leading to its settlement and colonization, he may deserve some praise, but the effort to make him a saint and advance agent of the “Holy Roman Catholic Church” on this continent, has no substantial basis in fact, since the latest investigations tend to support the view that he was a Jew at heart, as he certainly was half-Jewish in lineage, and that his representations to the Spanish sovereigns as to religion and even as to his birthplace, were made merely with a view of concealing his real origin and sentiments.

This is supported by such facts and considerations as the following:

1. The assertion of his illegitimate son and first biographer, Fernando, that his father did not desire his origin and fatherland to become known.

2. The answer of the same Fernando to the contemporary historian, Bishop Augustin Giustiniani, that the fatherland of his father was a “secret;” this circumstance at the same time reminding us that the writing of history in Spain as regards the New World, was restricted by law to the priestly orders.

3. The testimony of Pedro de Arana, brother of Beatriz Enriquez, the mother of Fernando and intimate friend of the Admiral, that “he had heard Columbus say he was a Genoese, but did not know where he was born.”

4. In a suit as to right of entail, the masculine line of the Admiral having become extinct in 1578, no Genoese Columbo appeared to claim the right; and of the two Italian Columbos who presented themselves, one from Cuccaro and the other from Cugureo, neither proved relationship.

5. Columbus never mentioned father or mother, and never used the Italian language. Of the ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by his hand, which either exist or are known to have existed (sixty-four being preserved in their entirety), all, except a few monographs in Latin, werfe written in Spanish. Is it reasonable that a young man leaving his native land at the age of fifteen, should forget his own language? Or that a poor young man should be able to speak and write a foreign language fluently? In the preamble to his diary, speaking of the title “Khan,” he says: “Which title in our Romance tongue means King of kings.”

6. The name Columbus signed to his contract with the Spanish sovereigns was Cristoval Colon, which is not the Italian correlative of Columbus, as many suppose, but a distinct Spanish family name; though Columbo is more extensively Italian, by which name the Admiral called himself to suit his own purposes, afterwards going back to the name Colon. Thus as the Spanish writer and critic Fernando de Anton del Olmet says: “We have four periods in the life of Christopher Columbus: a Spaniard in Spain before going to Genoa, an Italian in Italy on finding out the advantage of being one, a Spaniard in Spain on returning thither and believing it more practical to be such, and an Italian in Spain on being convinced of the advantage that it would bring to him.”

7. Columbus said he was “from Genoa and was born there,” but when Oviedo wrote, not many years after the death of Columbus, it was regarded as so very doubtful where the great navigator was born, that Oviedo mentions five or six Italian towns claiming the honor of his birth; and beginning with Savona, we find each of the following Italian towns claiming the honor of having given Christopher Columbus to the world: Plaisance, Cuccaro, Cogleto, Pradello, Nervi, Albissoli, Bogliasco, Cosseria, Finale, Oneglia, Quinto, Novare, Chiavari, Milan and Modena.

These claims arose largely from the lack of definite data among Columbo families in Genoa, and lines of his ancestry existing there, and the further fact that families of the name Columbo existed in each of these several towns. Speaking of these claims, Justin Winsor, the historian, says: “The pretensions of some of them were so urgent that in 1812 the Academy of History at Genoa thought it worth while to present the proofs as regards their city to the world. The claims of Cuccaro were used in support of a suit by Balthazar Columbo, to obtain possession of the Admiral’s legal rights. The claim of Cogoleto seems to have been mixed up with the supposed birth of the corsairs, Columbos, in that town, who for a long time were confounded with the Admiral. There is left in favor of any of them, after their claims are critically examined, nothing but local pride and ambition.”

8. A later claimant for this honor was the town of Calvi, in Corsica, and their cause was particularly embraced by the French. As late as 1882, President Grevy, of the French Republic, undertook to give a national sanction to these claims by approving the erection there of a statue of Columbus. The assumption is based upon a tradition that the great discoverer was a native of the place. “The principal elucidator of that claim, the Abbe Martin Cassanova de Pioggiola,” says Justin Winsor, “seems to have a comfortable notion that tradition is the strongest kind of historical proof, though it is not certain that he would think so with respect to the twenty and more other places on the Italian coast where similar traditions exist or are said to be current.”

“Finally, in order to determine the value of the evidence serving as basis to the claim made by Genoa to be the birthplace of the renowned Admiral,” says del Olmet, “it suffices to know that four cities have dedicated four marble monuments to their son, Christopher Columbus; two possess the register of his baptism, and eight or ten which present divers title-deeds to consider themselves his cradle, and opinions are not wanting which attribute to him a Greek nationality.”

9. The explanation why Columbus made contradictory statements as to the date of his birth, his birthplace, and concealed his real sentiments on other questions, has only recently been made clear through the discovery of sixteen notarial documents ranging from 1428 to 1528, by a local historian of Potevedra in Galicia, Spain, Mr. Garcia de la Riga, these documents relating to the Colon and Fonterossa families, who also found other evidences that Christopher Columbus, whose natal name was Cristoval Colon, was born and passed his childhood in that city, his parents having been Domingo de Colon and Susana Fonterossa, a Jewess. And though they probably emigrated to Genoa about 1450, when the boy Cristoval was about fifteen, availing themselves of commercial relations which existed between the two ports, there is no reasonable doubt remaining that Cristoval Colon was obliged to conceal his maternal origin, rather than incur the dangers of the Inquisition and the prejudices of his time; since, had his birthplace and family connections been known, the fact that his mother was a Jewess would have been not merely an insuperable obstacle to his receiving the attention of Ferdinand and Isabella, but a cause for his execution, or at least expulsion from the land of his birth. For as he states in his journal, the Jews were expelled from the domains of both Ferdinand and Isabella in the very same month in which he was appointed Admiral.

10. That Columbus was quite capable of such subterfuge is revealed in his own accounts of himself and otherwise. He relates how, in an early expedition as captain of a vessel under King Reinier, he deceived his own frightened crew by secretly altering the point of the compass so as to get the vessel within the Cape of Carthagena. He employed a similar artifice, it will be remembered, in his alteration of the log-book on his first voyage to America, thus deceiving his crew as to the distance they had sailed from Palos.

His early voyages referred to by himself, and supported by new-found documents, show him quite capable of deceiving even their Catholic Majesties. “Of the early career of Columbus,” says Justin Winsor, “it is very certain that something may be gained at Simancas, for when Bergenroth, sent by the English Government, made search there to illustrate the relations of Spain with England, and published his results, with the assistance of Gayangos, in 1862-18/9, as a Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers relating to negotiations between England and Spain, one of the earliest entries of his first printed volume, under 1485, was a complaint of Ferdinand and Isabella against a Columbus some have supposed it our Columbus for his participancy in the piratical service of the French.”

11. But, it may be asked, how does the nativity of Columbus at Pontevedra comport with his sending his title-deeds, despatches and documents to Genoa by Nicholas Oderigo, Ambassador from that city to the Court of the Catholic sovereigns? This is very reasonably answered by the discovery in the archives of Pontevedra of a document as follows:

“Order of the Archbishop of Santiago, Sire of Pontevedra, ordering the Council, on March 15, 1413, to pay to Mr. Nicholas de Oderigo de Janua, 15,000 maravedis old coin, in three sums of money.”

The parents of Columbus being members of the Colon and Fonterossa families residing in Pontevedra, who emigrated later on to Italy, it may be accepted that they availed themselves of some recommendation from or of, direct or indirect relation with the Oderigos. At all events, that the Ambassador Oderigo knew the true natal place of the Admiral, and knew how to keep the secret, may be deduced from the silence that he kept relative to the fatherland and origin of his friend, from the fact of having retained the copies entrusted to him, and which were not delivered to the authorities of Genoa until about two centuries later by Lorenzo Oderigo.

12. Cristoval Colon, known as Christopher Columbus, had a younger brother, Bartholomew, also a navigator, whom Columbus made Adelantado, or Governor General of the Indies, a man of importance. Two Genoese historians, Antonio Gallo, a native of Genoa, who knew the Colon family, and Bishop Giustiniani, also a contemporary of Columbus, each speaking of Bartholomew, say: “A minor, born in Lusitania ;” and Lusitania, in that time of the world, comprised Portugal and Gallicia, in which Pontevedra is located. So the probability of Cristoval’s having been born in the same country and of the same Hebrew parentage as his brother is rendered well-nigh certain.

13. Various historians, including Oviedo, state that the flag-ship of Columbus, the Santa Maria, and vulgarly known as the Gallician, was built at Pontevedra; and Mr. La Riega unearths a notarial contract executed at Pontevedra, July 5, 1487, freighting the vessel called Santa Maria, or La Gallega applying both names indiscriminately.

14. A plot of land appraised to the Colon family, half a kilometre from Pontevedra, was bounded by other lands in the cove of Portosanto in the parish of San Salvador, while a triangular space existed near the home of the elder Colon, adjacent to the Gate and Tower of Galea. In his first voyage Columbus named the first island discovered, San Salvador, and the fourth Portosanto; and in his third voyage, he gave the name Trinidad to the first land he saw, and called the first promitory, the Cape of la Galea.

15. The wily Hebrew character of Columbus is shown in the way he overcame the objection advanced by the sovereigns and the Church authorities, that his theory of the earth’s rotundity contradicts the Scriptures.

Cardinal Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, finally conceded that the theory was worthy of a trial, but the great body of churchmen stood firmly by the opinions of Lactantius and St. Augustine. Says the former, ridiculing the globular theory of the earth: “Is there any one so foolish as to believe that there are antipodes \vith their feet opposite to ours people who walk with their heels upward and their heads hanging down?” And St. Augustine declared it impossible that races on the opposite side of the earth could have descended from Adam and Eve, since there was no land passage, “and it was impossible for them to have passed the intervening ocean.”

Columbus contended merely that the plan was worthy of the experiment, while if successful the wealth of the Indies would reward the effort. “Gold,” he says in one of his letters, “is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise.” This last clause must have been peculiarly touching to the sovereigns who are credited with establishing the Holy Inquisition, and who expelled seventy thousand families of Jews, not allowing them to carry away their gold or silver. During their administrations between nine and ten thousand Jews were buried alive, seven thousand in effigy, while about one hundred thousand were persecuted in other ways.

16. The fact that the funds defraying the expenses of the first voyage, as referred to in a speech in Congress by the Hon. Julius Kahn, in December, 1911, were supplied by Luis de Santangel, the king’s chancellor and a converted Jew, is significant. “In his original account books, extending from 1491 to 1493, preserved in the Archive de Indias in Seville, Santangel is credited with an item of 1,140,000 maravedis, which were given by him to the Bishop of Avila, who subsequently became the Bishop of Granada, for Columbus’ expedition.”

Just how many Jews there were in the fleet of Columbus is not known. One was Luis de Torres, a Marano, or converted Jew, learned in the languages, who acted as Columbus’ interpreter; others of Jewish extraction were Msestre Bernal, the ship’s physician, and Marco, the surgeon, the latter of whom had undergone penance for his faith in October, 1490, ai Valencia, at the same time that Adret and Isabel his wife were burned to death for not adopting Catholicism.

The interest of Columbus in Jews was finally shown by his legacy to “the Hebrew who dwelt at the gate of the Jewry,” and whom he did not otherwise name in his will, and whom certain historians believe to have been a maternal relative.

17. It has been repeatedly noted by historians that the writing of Columbus was tinctured with the style of the Old Testament. Some of his disquisitions and apostrophes would not be out of place in that revered volume, such for illustration as his “Vanquishing the Waterspout,” and his “Vision of the River of Bethlehem,” inserted in a letter addressed to the sovereigns.

The regaining of the ancient land of Judea seems to have been a fixed idea with Columbus, a project he urged upon the sovereigns, and even the pope, and concerning which he wrote in his own “Prophecies:” “The conquest of the Holy Sepulchre is the more urgent when everything foretells, according to the very exact calculations of Cardinal d’Ailly, the speedy conversion of all the sects, the arrival of Antichrist, and the destruction of the world.”

If one will study the writings of the fifteenth century, Christian and Jewish, as related to Antichrist, a new light may dawn upon him in regard to the character and real sentiments of Columbus; as there were many who regarded the papacy in its hideous perversions of morality as the real Antichrist. It was an era of dissimulation, when deceit seems to have been frequently necessary to the preservation of one’s life; and Columbus seems to have been an adept in the art of dissembling.

“The person who may suspect the fervor of Columbus was one of his tactics,” says del Olmet, “being acquainted with the prevailing ideas of his country, can not be charged with being suspicious. Columbus proposes to the Catholic sovereigns the discovery of a world, in order to conquer the Holy Land with its riches. He fortifies his project with the religious spirit of that kingdom, in which a standing was given to the Tribunal of the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews decreed. If the Admiral of the Indies, in lieu of this, had publicly declared himself a Jew, it is not venturesome to state that his project, opposed to a great part of the scientific ideas of his time, being examined by a board of theologians, would rapidly have led the renowned alleged Genoese to those autos in which the faith, turned to fanaticism, changed into sanguinary persecution the pious indulgence of Christ.”

18. The reticence of Columbus as to his ancestry and birthplace, his vacillation as to his name, and his duplicity on many occasions and involving various questions, are seen to be all clearly explained when we find that he was not only of Hebrew lineage, but possessed of strong Jewish proclivities, thus explaining his great anxiety to regain the land of Palestine, his fervid literary style akin to the Hebrew prophets, and withal, his love of gold and avaricious spirit which led him even to acts of cruelty, as in sending a shipload of the natives from Cuba to Spain to be sold into slavery.

And this explanation is being accepted by all who take the time and trouble to examine it along with all the collateral facts discovered by Mr. La Riega. Not only has a favorable criticism on this conclusion been published in “La Espana Moderna,” Madrid, by Fernando de Anton del Olmet, but the Spanish Encyclopedic Dictionary accepts this view in the Columbus biography. Eva Canel, in Buenos Ayres, has written articles sustaining it, as has Martin Hume in London; and it appeals so strongly to rational minds that it may be safely used to illustrate the ancient adage that truth is mighty and will prevail!

The Roman Catholic Church seems to be unfortunate in her claims as to distinguished personages, it being conclusively shown that St. Peter, upheld by the Church as “the first pope and bishop of Rome,” was never in that city; St. Patrick, claimed as “the Apostle and Patron Saint of Ireland,” has been quite positively identified as a Protestant; and Christopher Columbus, the uncanonized saint of the Roman Church on this continent, and the Exemplar of the Knights of Columbus, is now demonstrated to have been a Spanish Jew! And according to the writings of reputable scholars, among them Mr. Justin Winsor, librarian of Harvard University, and Professor Charles Kendall Adams, LL.D., president of the University of Wisconsin, Christopher Columbus was little better than a pirate, a betrayer of innocent girlhood, a wife deserter, a kidnapper, a slave trader, a tyrant, and man of boundless cupidity.

The Knights of Columbus, founded at New Haven, Connecticut, February 2, 1882, by Rev. M. J. McGivney, curate of St. Mary’s Church, and including as incorporators, M. C. O’Connor, M.D., James T. Mullen, John T. Kerrigan, Wm. M. Geary and C. T. Driscoll, had on January i, 1905, a total membership of 127,206 persons, 43,537 of whom were insured and 83,669 were associate members. They are now said to be over 300,000 strong.

The total net assets of the Knights on the above date were $1,290,196.31, of which $1,239,137.89 was deposited as a mortuary reserve fund, for protecting outstanding insurance contracts. It will thus be seen to be a fraternal and benevolent order. But an adroit feature of this organization, to which Roman Catholics only are eligible, is the initiative service of four degrees, calculated to impress upon candidates their sacred obligations to uphold the Church on this western continent discovered by the great Columbus.

The relations of the Knights and the Church are supposed to be mutual and reciprocal, the Church using the order to further its ends of capturing America, and the Knights using the Church to exalt the glory of Columbus, and more particularly for their own political preferment. But some of the far-seeing leaders of the Hierarchy think there has been a mistake made in permitting such a young and vigorous order to participate in Church affairs, and to take root within the very pale and under the fostering care of the Church.

Some few years ago, Bishop Janssen, of the diocese of Belleville, Illinois, forbade the establishment of a Council of Knights in his diocese. The late Bishop of Hartford, Connecticut, also opposed the policy of the Church in organizing and supporting the Knights in any way, on the ground that sooner or later they would operate after the manner of a cancer in the human body and prove stronger than the Church itself. Various other dignitaries, bishops and archbishops, even ostensibly ardent members of the organization, were so impressed with similar ideas that secret appeals were made to the Vatican, to withdraw its sanction from the organization.

But the Vatican, in view of the pecuniary grants made by the Knights in support of “the faith,” and the hope they have aroused as an aid to capturing America, has tnus far taken no action against them. The late Cardinal Satolli in his extraordinary visit to the United States in 1904, ostensibly to perform the marriage ceremony for the daughter of Martin Maloney, a Marquis of the Roman Catholic Church, and for which, incidentally, he received a fee of several thousand dollars, was instructed to investigate the ground of these appeals against the Knights filed at the Vatican. For reasons which need not be stated, his advice to the American branch of the Roman Hierarchy was that, in view of the strength of the organization numerically, financially and intellectually, it would be unwise to oppose them for the present at least. In that year the organization presented the Catholic University at Washington, D. C., the sum of $50,000 to establish a chair in History in that institution.

The Knights themselves, it may be truthfully said, are not in the organization entirely for the sake of their own health, or even for the glory of the Church, inasmuch as there are many ambitious men among their leaders, and some that have little or no use for the Church. However, they work in collusion with the Hierarchy, and are heart and soul in politics. This fact is well known to political machines and non- Catholic politicians, whose candidates must receive the approval of Rome and the Knights before they dare nominate them for either dog pound or presidency.

Knights of Columbus have assured me that their organization, with the Church of Rome, controls the Municipal, State and Federal Government, and also influences the business interests throughout the country. They have also assured me within the past few years that it is almost impossible for a man to secure a position or promotion in any business house or corporation, if a Knight of Columbus be a competitor.

Notwithstanding these facts, the innocent Knights, like their Jesuitical spiritual advisers, publicly declare that they are not in politics, as the rules of their organization forbid their being in such unholy environment it being considered dangerous to their “faith and morals;” and in order to wholly disabuse the minds of the guileless non-Catholics of any such suspicion they frequently protest against the union of Church and State.

In the first session of the Sixty-second Congress, Hoa, Ben Johnson, of the Fourth Kentucky District, himself a member of the Knights, denounced (?) Dr. Emil Scharf, a brother Knight, for having promised to deliver the “Catholic vote” in his (Johnson’s) district, as well as in other congressional districts. Why this stage-play to the public through the Press Gallery in the Capitol at Washington, D. C.? If the gallant and honorable member from Kentucky was sincere in his denunciation of Dr. Scharf, why has he not denounced Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland, et al., for similar conduct, and worse? For the purpose of hoodwinking the non-Catholics this stage-play was continued, Dr. Scharf was “tried” and “expelled” from this politico-religious organization. If the Knights of Columbus were sincere, why have they not expelled their spiritual leaders, brother Knights, whose principal business is politics, aye, Jesuitical politics, which has been the curse of Catholic countries, and is to-day a menace to non-Catholic countries?

The Knights of Columbus, together with the Church of Rome, have succeeded in making October 12, Columbus Day, a holiday in many States of the Union, and have caused to be placed in Congress a bill to create it a national holiday, as shown in accompanying illustration. A similar bill will undoubtedly be passed in the near future.

The Church and the Knights have been instrumental in setting up various busts and statues of Columbus in public places, and even in the White House and the end is not yet! A majestic statue of this remarkable personage, Columbus, is being erected on the Plaza in front of the Union Station at Washington, D. C., in full view of the approaches from Capitol and city. The plan for erecting this statue was started by the Church and the Knights, who secured an appropriation of $100,000 from Congress. The President of the United States, at the suggestion of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and the Knights of Columbus, has fixed the date for this politico-religious celebration, as will be seen from the following item which appeared in The Catholic Telegraph, published in Cincinnati, Ohio:

“PRESIDENT FIXES DATE.
“President Taft has set Saturday, June 8, as the time for the unveiling and dedication of the Columbus memorial on Union Station Plaza, in Washington, D. C. The date was fixed following a conference on February 17, with James A. Flaherty, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; Edward L. Hearn, commissioner on the part of the Supreme Council of the order, and Colonel K. Spencer Cusby, of the War Department. Preparations are being made in Washington to accommodate fifty thousand visitors.”

Messrs. Flaherty and Hearn, before attending this conference, received instructions from their spiritual “bosses” Gibbons, Farley and O’Connell the “American” Princes of the Church, who will control the ceremony and be the principal attraction on the above date, Taft and other prominent plebeian non-Catholic politicians being permitted within the show-ring to assist.

I would respectfully suggest that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Knights of Columbus place upon the proposed monument the following inscription proposed by Dr. Henry Brown, of Spokane, Washington, for a similar monument at Walla Walla in that State:

Dr. Brown, in proposing this inscription, writes:

“I do not forget that very many people, through lack of information, may be tempted to look upon the wording as slanderous and inappropriate. But, for the benefit of all such, I will simply say that these (quotations) are the exact words used by Professor Justin Winsor, Harvard librarian, in his great work on Christopher Columbus, page 312, fifth line from the top and first line on page 282.”

If any religious sect is to control the ceremony, which should be entirely national, and in which all classes without regard to creed should participate, it would seem more appropriate and more in accord with the truth of history that this ceremony be controlled by the Jews.

The foregoing sketch of the life of Columbus, obtained from the most trustworthy historians, was contributed by Mr. Hyland C. Kirk, Washington, D. C.

Cardinal Martinelli in 1902, at the Apostolic Delegation Office, Washington, D. C., made a most interesting statement to me. I said to him, “Your Eminence, if the Catholics in this country numbered about seventy million and if the Protestants numbered about ten million, what would you do to the Protestants?” His reply was this, “Oh, Christ, I’d crush ’em!” “To crush ’em” is the spirit and design of Romanism in all its attitudes toward “heretics.”

No wonder Rome boasts that she is ever and everywhere the same. Her real attitude toward non-Catholics is the same to-day everywhere as it was in the days of the Inquisition, and yet some people say “the Roman Catholic Church is not as it was fifty years ago it is more liberal.” Is it?

Few have any idea of the crafty efforts which Catholic ecclesiastics make to hoodwink non-Catholics. Priests, bishops and cardinals cultivate a spirit of seeming liberality on purpose to win the esteem of the very people whom they hate, so that these people will be made unwilling to countenance any opposition to the movements of Romanism. The greatest victory which has been won by the Roman Hierarchy in the British Empire and in the United States lies in the fact that it has succeeded in making it unpopular for any one to impugn its utterances or policies.

“What is the smooth game in all this that is going on between the Vatican and England? Simply this: England is the stronghold of obstinate heresy the citadel of Protestantism. Therefore the Church of Rome is using every means at her command caresses, cajolery, threats, flatteries to bring proud England back into subjection to her yoke. Listen to Rome’s own confession from the mouth of Cardinal Manning: ‘Surely, a soldier’s eye and a soldier’s heart would choose by intuition this field of England for the warfare of Faith…. It is the head of Protestantism, the center of its movements, and the stronghold of its powers. Weakened in England, it is paralyzed everywhere; conquered in England, it is conquered throughout the world. Once overthrown here, all is but a war of detail.’ ” The Heretic, Berkeley, California.

The keen eye of the Vatican has, for years, been turned toward the British Empire and the United States. She is working the same wiles and witcheries, playing the same smooth, oily, ball-bearing, noiseless game with both countries. Through one of her organs (The Tablet, London) she complains as follows:

“Prussia, not a Roman Catholic country, has an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; Russia, a minister Resident; England and the United States alone -among Great Powers remain without an accredited representative to the Holy See.”

Mark the word accredited. England always has a backstairs representative; for example, Sir George Errington filled that office at the Holy See, to the detriment of Ireland and the Irish race during the Parnell Movement; and for aught we know, the United States of America has a backstairs representative at the Vatican to-day. Her late secret clerical agent there is at present a prominent bishop in America. Rome’s secret representative at the Capitol at Washington, D. C., is none other than the Papal Delegate, who has been recently promoted to the Cardinalate, as due reward for his “signal services” to his Lord the Pope, King of Heaven, of Earth, and of Hell. Her chief Jesuitical agent at Ottawa, Canada, is the Papal Delegate to the Catholic Church in that country.

I know and assert without fear of successful contradiction that the Vatican system the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has a grip upon all the departments of our Government, from the President to Department Clerks, including Legislative, Judiciary and Executive Departments, both Federal and State and the accommodating politicians, Catholic and non-Catholic, particularly the latter, are to blame for it all.

Every trap is being laid to ensnare Germany, the British Empire, the United States, and other non-Catholic countries, in papal schemes. In fact, the plans of Pope Leo XIII. and, therefore, of the Papacy, with reference to America, were thus tersely expressed in a letter from the Vatican (see New York Sun, July n, 1892):

“What the Church has done in the past for others she will now do for the United States.”

In a recent pamphlet issued by the Roman Catholic University of America at Washington, D. C, under the title “The Roman Catholic Mission Movement in America,” they say: “Our motto is, We come not to conquer, but to win. Our purpose is to make America dominantly Catholic.”

The Very Rev. Francis C. Kelley, D.D., LL.D., President of the Roman Catholic Church Extension Society of America, uttered the following in a recent address on “Church Extension and Convert-making:”

“Without a doubt, if American Protestantism were blotted off the religious map of the world, the work of the so-called Reformers of the fifteenth [sixteenth?] century, within fifty years, might well be called dead. Protestantism in the United States is a great source of missionary activity in foreign countries. The different Protestant organizations in the United States spend seven millions of dollars per annum in foreign missions, or almost half the spendings of all the rest of the non-Catholic world. Protestantism, then, really may be said to stand or fall on American effort.

“From a strategic point of view, America the United States of America is our best missionary field.

“Again, how many are fond of calling this a Protestant country! Is it? We deny!

“We who hope for a Catholic America have as yet come only to the end of the desert…. Only has it been given to some among us to enter the land of Canaan and gather souls, grapes so sweet and beautiful as to fill us with hunger for other fruits that await the coming of our successors. They will go, Joshuas, to the Jordan, to Jericho, to Hai, and to Jerusalem, and then only will the details of the work become clear. The little chapels the Church Extension movement will build shall be their fortified camps, and the men whom you [Paulist] Fathers of the Apostolate will send shall be advance-guards to point the way to the new and fertile fields that abound in the Promised Land.”

The Very Rev. Kelley and his missionary gangs, including General Secretary, Field Secretary, and retinue, travel throughout the western, middle west, and southern States in two private Chapel Cars, which are carried at the expense of the stockholders of the roads over which they are hauled. A vast majority of these stockholders are non- Catholics, and they are defraying the transportation expenses of a propaganda which would blot American Protestantism off the religious map of the world.

The patriotic (?) Archbishop Ireland, in presence of Cardinal Gibbons and a large number of prelates, priests, monks and nuns at Baltimore, Md., said in part as follows:

“The Catholic Church is the sole living and enduring Christian authority. She has the power to speak; she has an organization by which her laws may be enforced…. Our work is to make America Catholic. Our cry shall be, ‘Gods wills it,’ and our hearts shall leap with crusader enthusiasm.”

To secure the good will of non-Catholic politicians, Democratic and Republican, in the ignoble work of making America Catholic, that noted American conjurer, Cardinal Gibbons, surpassed himself in a recent interview given at Philadelphia, while attending the Pallium celebration of Archbishop Prendergast, the champion poker player of Pennsylvania. A summary of the interview appears in The New York Evening Sun in its issue of Feb. 12, 1912:

“GIBBONS ON TAFT.

“CARDINAL BELIEVES THE PRESIDENT WILL BE RENOMINATED.

“PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 2. That President Taft probably will be renominated by the Republicans is the belief of Cardinal Gibbons, who made a statement to this effect this afternoon prior to leaving this city for Baltimore. The Cardinal characterized Theodore Roosevelt as the ‘most popular man in the country to-day,’ but said that Mr. Taft, ‘being in the saddle,’ would undoubtedly win the nomination.

“In a short interview his Eminence declared that Mr. Taft deserves recognition for what he termed his honest, sincere efforts to serve the country. He said that in considering the election the Democrats must be considered, as they have lots of available Presidential timber.”

I fancy I hear Cardinal Gibbons saying, “American citizens, find the P! Heads I win, tails you lose.”

Though every milestone along the historical pathway of the Roman Catholic Church has been marked by its curse to humanity, yet there are, unfortunately, some non-Catholic bishops, ministers, editors and others who, on the plea of toleration, Christian unity, or for business or political reasons, do not like to hear the Roman Catholic politico-religious abomination criticized. In fact, they publicly commend Romanism and its Hierarchy, while priests, prelates and popes condemn them and theirs as “heretics” doomed to eternal damnation. Rome regards non-Catholics as “heretics;” she teaches, both in her churches and schools, that they are destined for Hell.

Here is Rome’s doctrine of fraternity, of toleration, of Christian unity! In The Western Watchman, organ of the pope and Archbishop Glennon, published at St. Louis, Missouri, we find Rome’s real attitude toward Protestantism in the following expression of fiendish hatred:

“Protestantism We would draw and quarter it. We would impale it and hang it up for crows’ meat. We would tear it with pincers, and fire it with hot irons. We would fill it with molten lead, and sink it in a hundred fathoms of hell-fire.”

In another issue of the same paper, December 24, 1908, we find the following editorial by its Editor-in-chief, Rev. David S. Phelan, LL.D., Rector of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish, St. Louis, Missouri, and designated by Cardinal Satolli, “the dean and senior of the Roman Catholic journalists of the United States:”

“Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the Church authorities. The Church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that…. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition…. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it…. But will the Catholic Church give bond that she will not persecute at all? Will she guarantee absolute freedom and equality of all churches and all faiths? The Catholic Church gives no bonds for her good behavior.”

The same papal organ, The Western Watchman, in its issue of September 28, 1911, contains the following:

“Protestantism is simply ruffianism organized into a religion. The first Reformer, Martin Luther, was the vilest blackguard of all time, in comparison with whom the Greek Thersites was a polished gentleman. All his associates in the sacrilege of sanctuaries and sacking of religious houses, were almost to a man men of the lowest character and beastliest morals. But who cares for their private lives? It is their public acts and utterances that concern us. These are public property, and they brand their authors as blackguards of the first water.”

And in an editorial in its issue of October 12, 1911, The Western Watchman confirms the declaration made lately in Cardinal Farley’s Cathedral by that international “lady-turner,” Jesuit Vaughan, of England, that Protestantism is dead:

“Protestantism in the United States has fallen to pieces; but what is more astounding, the ministers look complacently out upon the ruins…. All the money in the world will not bring back the spirit that is fled…. Even hatred of Catholicity is dead, and nothing now remains but the sombre duty of burying the dead.”

While Rome everlastingly hates non-Catholics, she constantly seeks their financial aid, both private donations and public moneys, to be used for her sectarian institutions. With unblushing coolness The Western Watchman, in its issue of December 16, 1909, declares:

“We do not think the Church in this country is overburdening herself with charities. She is winning her way to the hearts of the American people by her Christ-like beneficence; and the way from the heart to the pocketbook is very short, compared with the long road from the lip to the seat of pity. More Protestant money is finding its way into our charitable institutions than ever before. The duty of supporting our asylums and refuges will soon be borne in great part by people who have no affiliation with the Catholic Church.”

Here let me state that these moneys are, as a rule, unaccounted for and misused, as is the case in Roman Catholic institutions of Greater New York, where the diversion of large sums of public money paid to said institutions by the city for the support of its charges, is now being investigated by the City Comptroller in spite of the objections raised by the Catholic Church authorities and their reluctance to permit the accounts of these institutions to be audited. Cardinal Farley, who controls $60,000,000 worth of property between the Battery and the Bronx alone, through his attorneys, among them Eugene A. Philbin, has even declared that these Roman Catholic institutions would decline to receive any more children and would turn out those already placed there by the city rather than submit to an accounting for the public funds received by them. How beneficent! How Christ-like!

Let me throw a little light on Rome’s real attitude toward marriage.

Popular opinion in the British Empire is just now being greatly stirred by the agitation caused by the “Ne Temere” decree of Pope Pius X., which is producing such havoc in homes where Protestants marry Roman Catholics. One of the unfortunate victims of this infamous decree, a heartbroken wife and mother, has made the following fruitless appeal to the Earl of Aberdeen, the Lord Lieutenant and Governor General of Ireland:

“MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY:
“I pray your Excellency’s assistance under the following circumstances: I am the daughter of a small farmer in County Antrim, and a Presbyterian. I was married in May, 1908, in a Presbyterian church by my own clergyman, to my husband, who was and is a Roman Catholic. Before our marriage he arranged with me that I should continue to attend my own place of worship and he his. After our marriage we lived together for some months at my mother’s house in County Antrim, but work called my husband to the west of Ireland, where I joined him, and we lived for some months there. Afterwards we came to Belfast; there my first child, a boy, was born in June, 1909. During all this time there never was any difference between us about religious matters, and our boy was baptized by my own clergyman. My husband, on Sundays, would take care of the baby when I was out at church. A short time before our second baby, a girl, was born in August last, my husband spoke to me about changing my faith; in consequence, he told me of the way the Roman Catholic priest was rating him, and I was visited on several occasions by this priest, who told me I was not married at all, but that I was living in open sin, and that my children were illegitimate, and he pressed me to come to chapel and be married properly. I told him I was legally married to my husband and that I would not do what he wished, and on one occasion my husband and I besought him to leave us alone that we had lived peaceably and agreeably before his interference, and would still continue to do so if he let us alone. He threatened me, if I would not comply with his request, that there would be no peace in the house, that my husband could not live with me, and that, if he did, his co-religionists would cease to speak to him or recognize him. When he found he could not persuade me he left in an angry and threatening mood.

“From this time on my husband’s attitude to me changed, and he made no secret to me of the way he was being influenced. Our second baby was taken out of the house by my husband without my leave and taken to chapel and there baptized. My husband also began to ill-treat me, and told me I was not his wife, and I was nothing to him but a common woman. I bore it all hoping that his old love for me would show him his error. But the power of the priests was supreme, and on returning to my home some weeks ago, after being out for a time, I found that both of my dear babies had been removed, and my husband refused to tell me where they were, beyond that they were in safe-keeping. I did everything a mother could think of to get at least to see my babies, but my husband told me he dared not give me any information, and that unless I changed my faith I could not get them. A day or two after this, on pretense of taking me to see my babies, he got me out of the house for about two hours, and on my return I found that everything had been taken out of the house, including my own wearing apparel and underclothing, and I was left homeless and without any means of clothing beyond what I was wearing. My husband left me and I could not find out where he went. I subsequently saw him at the place where he was working. He was very cross with me, refused to tell me where the children were or to do anything, and told me to go to the priest, in whose hands he stated the whole matter was; and also said that unless I was remarried in chapel I would never see the children. I subsequently saw the priest, who said he could give me no information, and treated me with scant courtesy. I have tried to find my husband, but have failed, and can not now get any information of his whereabouts, or of that of my babies, and I do not even know if they are alive. My heart is breaking. I am told the police can do nothing in the matter; although, if it were only a shilling that was stolen, they would be on the search for the thief; but my babies are worth more to me than one shilling. In my despair I am driven to apply to you, as the head of all authority in this country, for help. I am without money, and, but for the charity of kind friends, I would be starving. I want to get my children and to know if they are alive; and I have been told, kind sir, that if you directed your law officers to make inquiries, they could soon get me my rights. Will you please do so, and help a poor, heart-broken woman who will continue to pray for the Almighty’s blessing upon you and yours?
“MRS. McCANN.”

This is only one specimen of the havoc wrought by the “Ne Temere” decree of the present “Vicar of Christ.”

In order to give the reader an idea of what is taking place across the border in Western Canada, I quote from press reports of recent date as follows:

From the Pioneer, Vancouver, B. C., December 23, 1911:

“WINNIPEG, December 23. Rev. Father Comeau, resident priest of St. Mary’s Church here, has made the following statement to an evening paper in regard to the recent ‘Ne Temere’ case at St. Boniface, when he refused to permit a Catholic woman to see her Protestant husband unless they were remarried by the Church:

“‘Suppose a Roman Catholic and a Protestant wish to get married we will imagine the husband to be a Catholic. The parties are married by a Protestant minister. The moment the marriage is contracted the husband has forsaken the Catholic doctrine and can be no longer recognized as a true Catholic. The only way he can come back into the fold is by getting his legal wife to be married to him by a Catholic priest, according to the conditions of the Catholic Church; that is, that she will not interfere with the practice of the doctrine, and the children shall be brought up in the Catholic faith. ”

‘If the wife refuses and he insists on coming back to the Church, the husband must take a vow never to live with her ” again.’

‘If, when reinstated as a Catholic, the man wishes to marry another woman, the ceremony to be performed by a Catholic priest,’ asked the reporter, ‘may he do it?’

‘Well,’ was the reply, ‘we try and get the man to seek a divorce from the State first, because in the eyes of the law he is still married, and while the Church does not recognize it, we do not want to lay ourselves open to persecution. There is a way out and that is by having a secret marriage.’

” ‘Take this as an instance: I am sent away to a mission, a long way up in the country. When I arrive a man comes to me and says, “Father, I have committed a sin for which I am truly repentant. Three years ago I was married to a Protestant woman by a Protestant minister. Later we separated. We did not get a divorce, and now I am living with another woman. Will you marry us?”

‘I might say, “I will run the risk and marry you in the eyes of God.” I then get two witnesses whom I can trust never to reveal what has taken place, and I marry the parties in secret. After this they can never part, as there is no such thing as a divorce in the Roman Catholic Church. Then they are married in the eyes of God and the Church, although perhaps not according to the law of the State. If the former wife should get to know of the second marriage, I might be persecuted. One never knows.'”

The following editorial from the Weekly People, published in Western Canada, January 13, 1912, may help to enlighten the reader about the promotion of bigamy by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy:

“A CATHOLIC PRIEST PROMOTING BIGAMY.

“A cog must have slipped from the brains and the tongue of Father Comeau, the resident priest of Winnipeg, an interview with whom appears in the Vancouver Pioneer of last December 23. The interview is a ‘dead give-away.’

“Father Comeau’s explicit answer to the reporter for the Pioneer concerning the case of a Catholic who married a Protestant woman, and who, seeing his wife refuses to submit to the conditions of the Catholic Church, leaves her, and insists upon returning to his Church, and wishes to be married to another woman by a priest, Father Comeau’s explicit answer to the hypothetical case was that he would ‘get two witnesses, whom I can trust never to reveal what has taken place, and I marry the parties in secret,’ adding that he knew that if the former wife should get to know of the second marriage he ‘might be persecuted.’ Prosecution under the law the Father calls ‘persecution.’

“It is of no consequence to the issue whether the law is wise or not that defines bigamy, and enters the act in the criminal code. The only thing that concerns the issue is that a man, married under the law, and not legally, divorced, is, under the law, a bigamist and punishable as such if he marry again during his first wife’s life. Such is the law of the land in Winnipeg. All this notwithstanding. Father Comeau stands forth not only as a condoner, but as a promoter, of bigamy; and, not only that, he stands forth as an encourager of others to steep themselves in crime as witnesses who are to keep the secret.

“Again and again the Daily People has maintained, and proved the claim with facts, that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is not the priesthood of a religion, but the agency of politics ambushed behind religion….

“Again and again the Daily People has pointed out that, differently from other political parties, all of whom, whatever the new policies that they may advocate, submit to the existing policies until overthrown, the Roman Catholic political party starts by disregarding the existing policies and violating them,”

In Eastern Canada, where very many of the French Canadians are driven like dumb cattle by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, this infamous and ungodly decree is enforced, and happy homes are broken up by priests and prelates, Archbishop Eruschesi, of Montreal, the coming “Canadian” Cardinal, being the principal home and marriage breaker.

Let no one suppose that this “Ne Teinere” decree of Pope Pius X. is a dead letter in the United States the land of the free and the home of the brave; or that I have to confine myself to the British Empire for examples of its having been put into actual practice.

Archbishop Glennon, of St. Louis, Mo., U. S. A., the warm friend of President William H. Taft and ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, annulled the marriage of Mr. John A. Howland and Mrs. Helen O’Brien Howland because they were married by a Baptist minister, and he compelled Mrs. Howland to sign the following un-American and un-Christ-like apology, which was read in the churches and published in the press of America and other non-Catholic countries:

“St. Louis, MISSOURI,
“October 29, 1910.
“To THE REVEREND PETER J. O’RouRKE,
“Pastor of St. Mark’s Church,
“Page and Academy Avenues.

“Dear Father: In submission to the obligation laid on me by His Grace, the Reverend Archbishop, of publicly repairing the scandal I have given, as a requisite for absolution, I confess to the world as a Catholic I was married by a Baptist minister on August 26, 1910. I ask the pardon of God for my sin- and- the prayers of the -faithful for the grace of – ; sincere repentance: Sincerely, “HELEN O’BRIEN.”

Think of the awful crime of being married by a Protestant minister!

In the Metropolitan Province of New York, presided over by Cardinal Farley, the story of the following case in the diocese of Trenton, N. J., directly ruled by Bishop McFaul, a Krupp gun of the Hierarchy, should arouse the millions of people who were born outside the pale of Rome, and, consequently, “illegitimate,” according to her decrees and teaching, as’ well as those who are living in “concubinage” because they have been married by non-Catholic clergymen, Justices of the Peace, or Judges of the Superior Courts. The King and Queen of the British Empire, the Emperor and Empress of Germany, President and Mrs. William H. Taft, ex-President and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Hon. Mr. and Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, Governor and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Morgan, Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schiff, and their children, are among the millions who have been declared by the “Vicars of Christ” to be “illegitimate,” “heretics,” etc., whom the cardinals, old and new, have solemnly sworn “to combat with every effort.”

I can understand how sincere non-Catholic people treat with silent contempt the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that “outside of Rome there is no salvation,” but I can not understand how they can complacently suffer the insult from the pope of Rome, who, with the quintessence of audacity, decrees and teaches that all those who are born of marriages contracted outside the Roman Catholic Church the “One True Church” are “illegitimate,” and that all parties A MENACE TO THE NATION. 179 having contracted marriage as above stated are living in “concubinage.”

The case set forth in the following letter will serve as another example of Rome’s real attitude toward non-Catholic marriages:

“PERTH AMBOY, NEW JERSEY,
“February 3, 1912.
“MR. JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY, New York City.

“Gentleman: I respectfully ask for your advice in a very important matter. “Stephen Dagonya, a Roman Catholic Hungarian, married a Hungarian girl, a member of my parish. The ceremony was performed by me in our church. When a child was born from this wedlock it was taken to Rev. Francis Gross, priest of the local Hungarian Church, who said to the party that a marriage performed by a Protestant minister or Judge is entirely null; the father and mother have to remarry before him in order to get a lawful marriage. However, he baptized the child and he issued a certificate of baptism, in which he declared that the child was ‘illegitimate.’ He added also that ‘the parents are living in concubinage.’ He affixed to it his signature and the seal of the Church. The certificate with two other similar ones is now with Mr. Charles M. Snow, editor of ‘Liberty/ who wants to make photos of them.

“As the father of the child is very desperate on account of the behavior of his priest, will you kindly advise him what to do under these circumstances. Has any priest any right in this country to declare that a marriage, which is lawful in the eyes of the country and according to the conscience of the party, was concubinage and the fruit of such marriage was illegitimate?

“Thanking you in advance for your valuable information in this matter, I am
“Very truly yours,
“[Signed] L. NANASSY,
“Pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church.”

My reply to the above letter was as follows:

“CINCINNATI, OHIO,
“March 29, 1912.
“REV. L. NANASSY,
“Pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church,
“Perth Amboy, N. J.
“Rev. and Dear Sir: Your letter of Feb. 3, 1912, addressed to my late residence in New York City, has just reached me, and I hasten to reply.

“While in Washington, D. C, some weeks ago, I saw and read the certificates to which you refer in your letter; and now that you have asked me personally to advise the ‘desperate’ husband and father, Stephen Dagonya, as to what he should do under the circumstances, I would suggest that the Rev. Francis Gross be prosecuted for criminal libel, and that this be made a test case in the interests of humanity. However, knowing the powerful and iniquitous influence of Rome over the Civil Courts, particularly when the plaintiffs or defendants possess slender means, I would suggest that a public appeal be made for adequate funds to thoroughly prosecute the case, to the millions who have been and are now indirectly charged by Rome with living in ‘concubinage’ or with being ‘illegitimate.’

“In case of an adverse decision in the lower Courts, through the influence of Rome, the case should be appealed, and, if needs be, carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, over which Chief Justice White, a Jesuitical Roman Catholic, presides by the favor of President Taft. And in case of an adverse decision by that august body, through the influence of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, I would suggest that the case be brought before Congress without delay, and if necessary before the bar of public opinion, as Rome, through her Jesuitical decrees, policies and practices, is undermining the inviolability of the home and the peace of nations.

“Rome hopes to gain complete political control of our beloved country through the cunning political influence of her four ‘American’ Cardinals at the corning Presidential election. Therefore, immediate exposure must be made of her in the Civil Courts and otherwise, if the liberties of this country are to be preserved.

“I shall be able to take the matter up with you personally in the near future. Believe me, “Very sincerely yours,
“[Signed] JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY.”

Listen to the following story of what occurred quite recently in Washington, D. C.:

A young man of that city, a Protestant by birth and education, age, twenty-eight years, had been paying his honorable attentions to a young lady, age, twenty-two years. His courtship was successful and the pair agreed to be married. The young lady was a Roman Catholic. Her faith in that Church and its priests had been weakened by a number of circumstances, and especially by the fact that upon one occasion when she went to confession she was met in the Confessional box by her then pastor, who smelled very strongly of intoxicating drink. She went home and told her mother about it, adding that “his breath smelled perfectly awful.” However, she continued a member of the Church up to the time of her marriage to the young gentleman above referred to.

The marriage was performed in Washington, D. C., September 16, 1911, in a Protestant church and by a Baptist minister. Within a week, September 22, 1911, the young bride received a telephone message from her sister, asking her to come over to her parents’ home. She went, and her sister told ‘her that she had received a letter from her mother, who was- then at Colonial Beach, in which her mother expressed the desire that she go to see her late pastor, Rev. P. J. O’Connell, St. Vincent’s Church, South Capitol and N Streets, Washington, D. C. The young bride said that she had no desire to see Rev. O’Connell, but that she would call on him “to please mama.” Accordingly, she immediately went to see the priest.

After some preliminary and formal conversation about indifferent matters, the priest asked her:

“Have you yet had your vacation?”

“Yes,” replied the lady, “and during my vacation I was married.”

“Married! Married! And who married you?” asked the priest.

“A Baptist minister,” replied the lady.

“You are not married! Why did you not come and consult me about getting married?”

She said, “I did not care to.”

The priest then asked her, “Did you not hear the rules about marriage read from the altar about two years ago?”

She said, “I do not know whether I did or not.”

He said, “Why did you not come to me and find out?”

She replied, “I did not care to know.”

The priest then angrily exclaimed: “You are not married! You are the same as a woman who walks the streets,” and added, “You are the same as a woman that a man would take to a room in a hotel and live with; you are the same as a woman in the ‘Division.'” (The Division in Washington, D. C, means the same as is understood by the Red Light section in other cities.)

Here the lady burst into tears, and the priest, thinking he had her “going,” added in great anger and terrific tones, “You are not married, and if you should die to-morrow morning your body would not be allowed to be brought inside of a Catholic Church.”

The lady had now quite recovered herself, and replied defiantly, “I know that, and I do not care.”

The priest now opened another view of the subject. He remarked, “You could leave that man to-morrow morning and marry some one else, because you are not a married woman.”

The lady answered, “I will not leave my husband, and if I did I would have to go to the law for a divorce and not come to you.”

The priest, finding himself baffled in all his efforts, continued, exclaiming, “You are not married! You are not married! The idea of such a thing! You are not married!”

The young lady now told the priest that she was well aware that she was not married according to the rules of the Roman Catholic Church, but that she was legally married and that was sufficient for her, and defied the priest to deny that her marriage was lawful.

Thereupon the priest left the room in a rage and the young lady went to her home.

She was at first reluctant to relate this interview to her husband, because she did not want him to know that her late pastor would presume to talk to her in such a manner. A few days afterwards, however, she did tell him. Upon hearing the story, her husband said that if he had been present one of the two would have been taken to the hospital, adding, “He had not better meet me on the street.”

Let no one suppose for a moment that the views here expressed are only those of an individual priest acting on his own responsibility. This is not the case. Such views are not private views. The “Ne Temcre” decree declares that marriages under the law of the land are invalid and that a Catholic going through this ceremony has not contracted matrimony and may be married again. Under the law of the land such a second marriage, without a decree of divorce, is the crime of bigamy, and Catholic priests and prelates are justified and authorized by the Church not only to pronounce such marriages invalid and to inform any subject of the Church of his or her right to contract a new marriage, but the priest is further authorized to become a party to the crime of bigamy by performing the second marriage ceremony himself.

The thoughtful reader will lay it to heart that the event which the foregoing story records took place in the city of Washington the capital of this nation; where President Taft presides and who has declared that there is a perfect consistency between earnest devotion to the Church and perfect obedience to the laws of the land; and further, that the event occurred in the archdiocese of Cardinal Gibbons, who poses par excellence as the great defender of “law and order,” and as which he has been eulogized by Theodore Roosevelt.

The annulling of marriages by Rome is not a rare occurrence. While she sternly denounces divorce as one of the greatest evils of the age, she frequently annuls marriages for the graft that is in it, or to show her disregard for the civil laws and marriage ceremonies performed by non-Catholic clergymen.

Priests and prelates have wrecked many homes and families. We even find them co-respondents in divorce suits; yet they continue to minister at the altar and in the confessional. Baroness von Zedtwitz declared shortly before her mysterious death that she would expose some of the crimes of popes, prelates and priests, were it not for the fact that such exposure would most assuredly break up many prominent homes, both in America and Europe.

In order to avoid scandal, protect the Roman Catholic Hierarchy of both sexes, and show contempt for the civil law, Pope Pius X. issued a Bull, “Motu Proprio,” which excommunicates any person, lay or cleric, man or woman, who shall without the permission of ecclesiastical authorities, summon any Roman Catholic ecclesiastic before a lay tribunal, either in a civil or criminal case. The main part of this Bull reads as follows:

“In these evil days, when ecclesiastical immunities receive no consideration, and not only priests and clerics, but even bishops and cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, are cited before lay tribunals, this condition of things absolutely demands of us to restrain by severe penalty those who can not be otherwise deterred from the commission of so heinous a crime against the religious character. Therefore, by this Motu Proprio we determine and ordain that whatever private person, lay or cleric, man or woman, shall, without having obtained permission of ecclesiastical authorities, cite to a lay tribunal and compel to appear there publicly any ecclesiastical person, either in a criminal or civil case, will incur excommunication, ‘lat<z sententice,' specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff. This by these letters is decided, and we wish it to stand ratified, everything to the contrary notwithstanding. "Given at St. Peter's, the ninth day of October, 1911, the ninth year of Our Pontificate.
“Pius PP. X.”

This recent decree of Pope Pius X. is a gigantic bluff to intimidate not only his “Catholic subjects,” but also the rulers and governments of non-Catholic countries and their subjects.

To many it would seem incredible that such things could happen in the twentieth century and under constitutional governments.

Why do not the rulers and governments of all non-Catholic countries step in to protect the rights of the people from such dangerous and infamous invasion by the pope of Rome, as did the Government of Russia which recently prosecuted Bishop Casimir Ruszkiewiez, suffragan bishop to the Archbishop of Warsaw, and Father Cisplinski on the charge of declaring a legal marriage null, and thus infringing civil authority? The result was a sentence of sixteen months’ imprisonment for both priest and bishop. The term is to be passed in a fortress and the bishop is to be deposed from his diocese.

Russia knows Rome and therefore nips her in the bud in order to prevent her gaining supremacy over civil authority. If the other non-Catholic countries had only done likewise, or would even do it now, Romanism would not wield the powerful, iniquitous influence which it does.

Why do not the Governments of the British Empire and the United States prosecute and punish according to law priests and prelates guilty of similar, and far worse, crimes?

I have no sort of controversy, personal or otherwise, with President William H. Taft, ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, or any other politician, but in the interest of humanity I feel constrained to warn the people everywhere of the intrigues going on between the Roman Hierarchy and politicians. Having been a member of that Hierarchy for twenty-one years, I know whereof I speak.

Up to the present time Mr. Roosevelt has made no answer to the protest from millions of American citizens, whom he denounced as possessed and influenced by an “unwarranted bigotry” because of their earnest and conscientious protest in behalf of constitutional liberty against the unwarranted claims of the papal power.

The official attendance of President Taft and other high non-Catholic government officials at Solemn High Mass on Thanksgiving Day for the last three years in St. Patrick’s Church, Washington, D. C., has established a deplorable precedent for future presidents, as well as for non-Catholic people throughout the country, for whom he has set the example. The President of the United States and other high non-Catholic officials should not permit themselves, through selfish motives, to be used by the Roman Catholic Church for advertising purposes.

Mr. Taft, addressing the Knights of Columbus, a strong politico-religious organization, at Portland, Oregon, October 12, 1911, said in part as follows:

“Instead of being a reason why you can not be patriotic, loyal sons of the United States, willing to yield up your lives if occasion calls, the fact that you are members of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is an assurance that you are such patriotic, loyal citizens.”

Can any one believe that President Taft is sincere when he makes this declaration? He surely knows the position of the Roman Catholic Church and its claim of the supremacy of the papal over the civil power. Here is what a great American papal organ, The Catholic World, says upon this subject, which statements are neither new nor original. The Catholic World says:

“The Roman Catholic is to wield his vote for the purpose of securing Catholic ascendency in this country. All legislation must be governed by the will of God unerringly indicated by the pope. Education must be controlled by the Catholic authorities, and under education the opinions of the individuals and the utterances of the press are included. Many opinions are to be forbidden by the secular arm, under the authority of the Church, even to war and bloodshed.”

Does not this savor of the Inquisition?

Who inspired Indian Commissioner Valentine’s order forbidding teachers to wear their religious garb (mask) in the Indian Schools, and why was it immediately revoked by President Taft pending future political developments? Was it a politico-religious “frame-up” favoring Romanism, with the understanding that the much sold “Catholic vote” would be given to him?

Priests and prelates realize that politicians who are reaching after office will do anything and everything to help Rome “make America dominantly Catholic,” in order to secure the “Catholic vote” for themselves and their party. Therefore, this presidential year is considered most opportune to force the issue and compel the Federal Administration to establish far-reaching precedents in favor of Romanism.

Another link in the chain between Washington and Rome is supplied by the following item which appeared in The Catholic Telegraph, Cincinnati, Ohio, in its issue of April 4, 1912:

“ROOSEVELT’S MISTAKE

“CAREFULLY AVOIDED BY MAJOR ARCHIBALD BUTT.

“ROME, March 30. It has become known that Major Archibald Butt, President Taft’s personal aide, besides bringing an autograph letter from the American Chief Executive to the Pope, brought credentials in the shape of three letters, addressed to Cardinal Merry del Val, the P&pal Secretary of State; Cardinal Rampolla, his predecessor in. that office, and an American prelate. All three were asked to arrange the audience with the Pope.

“The negotiations for the audience were conducted through ecclesiastical channels without the intervention of the American Embassy, lest the mistake which was committed when Colonel Roosevelt came to Rome on his return from Africa be repeated. Major Butt did not communicate with the Quirinal and did not see King Victor Emmanuel.

“The Pope was greatly pleased with the visit of Major Butt, which he subsequently contrasted with the failure of Colonel Roosevelt’s projected call. The letter which the Pope has sent to President Taft in care of Major Butt is merely complimentary.”

While it may be complimentary to President Taft, it is by no means complimentary or agreeable to patriotic American citizens that such a mission should be even thought of, let alone executed.

The press has informed the public that it was for the purpose of thanking the pope for the bestowal of three cardinals’ hats upon “Americans,” and asking information as to the proper rank of the various cardinals at great state functions.

Why should the President of this so-called free country thank the pope for having conferred papal titles on his agents, which titles, according to the regulations of the Church of Rome, give them precedence over the President himself? Why be SO solicitous of the “proper rank” of “Americans” who have sworn allegiance to a foreign potentate the pope?

This confidential and unpatriotic mission has already cost our country the life of one of its chivalrous sons.

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” said Washington, “the jealousy of a free people ought ever to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”

We might inquire if this autograph letter and visit, preceding the presidential election, was for religious or political purposes. I wonder if the present political crisis led President Taft and Major Butt to that haven, or did they come under the spell of Jesuit Vaughan of England, who has recently been “performing” in Canada and the United States, and to whom credit is given for “turning” President Taft’s sisterin- law to the Roman Catholic Church.

Vaughan and his manager, the pope, feeling that he “knocked out” Protestantism in Canada and the United States during his short evangelistic mission in 1910, on his present extended tour is concentrating his Jesuitical energies on the demolition of Socialism, the abolition of divorce, and the “turning” of wealthy non-Catholic women.

Let us hope that Jesuit Vaughan will not follow in the footsteps of that eloquent libertine, the Right Rev. Monsignor Capel, also an Englishman, whom the pope sent to America some years ago to convert non-Catholic women of rank, wealth and fashion, but as generally happens, while “turning” them be fell from grace, and for several years lived in a luxuriously furnished home in California, devoting the latter years of an ill-spent life to the guardianship of another man’s wife.and her ranch. However, he, like the vast majority of priests and prelates, being thoroughly posted in Canon Law and Sacred Theology, took care not to violate the “Ne Tcmere” decree, and consequently when he died recently, the public was informed that he passed away in the odor of sanctity and was buried with high honors from the Roman Catholic Church.

The Right Rev. Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, English priest and author, son of the late Episcopal Archbishop of Canterbury and a “distinguished convert” to the Catholic faith, is now in this country. Speaking of the outlook for religion in England, he says:

“I think we shall have all the religion that there will be in fifty or sixty years’ time, but there will be an enormous amount of infidelity and agnosticism. The other forms of Christianity are tumbling downstairs as fast as they can go.”

Messrs. Benson, Vaughan and other “Ambassadors of Christ” should remember what a Kempis says in the “Imitation of Christ” “Those who travel much abroad seldom become holy.”

Many distinguished Jesuit stars, while engaged in similar missions, have fallen by the wayside, among them that “eminent convert,” Rev. Thomas Ewing Sherman, son of the late General Sherman, who lately attempted suicide and had to be confined in an asylum. Priests and prelates ought to follow St. Paul’s example and take care lest while preaching to others they themselves may become castaways.

Here it may not be out of place to give a brief description of the Jesuits, commonly called the “Society of Jesus.” This Order is under the absolute control of its General, the “Black Pope.” They have been expelled by many European governments, and Pope Clement XIII. was even compelled by public opinion to promise their suppression, but was murdered before the fulfillment of this promise. His successor, Pope Clement XIV., was compelled by like opinion to suppress them, but was poisoned soon thereafter. Pope Pius VII., for political reasons, restored them to power, and ever since the Jesuits are the power behind the papal throne. To-day they are stronger in the United States than they ever were in any of the countries of Europe which expelled them as a menace to.the government

Harper’s Weekly of May 21, 1870, says of the Jesuits:

“The operations of this powerful Society embrace every part of the world, and are carried on by means of the most intricate machinery ever contrived by man. The Society is divided in five classes: ist. Professed Members (Professi); 2nd. Spiritual Coadjutors; 3rd. Lay Coadjutors; 4. Approved Pupils; 5th. The Novices.

“From his residence in Rome the General directs the movements of the Society in every part of the world by means of a system in which the art of ‘espionage’ is brought to perfection. Every month or every quarter he receives reports from the heads of all the subordinate departments; and every third year the catalogues of every province, with detailed reports on the capacity and conduct of every member, are laid before him. Besides this, the most active correspondence is maintained with all parts of the world, in order to supply the offices of the Society with the information they require. In the central house at Rome are kept voluminous registers, in which are inscribed the names of all Jesuits, of their adherents, and of all the considerable persons, whether friends or enemies, with whom they have any connection. In these registers, we are told, ‘are reported without alteration, without* hatred, without passion, the facts relating to the life of each individual. It is the most gigantic biographical collection that has ever been formed. The frailties of a woman, the secret errors of a statesman, are chronicled in these books with the same cold impartiality. Drawn up for the purpose of being useful, these biographies are necessarily exact. When the Jesuits wish to influence an individual, they have but to turn to these volumes to know immediately his life, his character, his faults, his family, his friends, his most secret ties.’ By the use of such machinery the Order has attained its high position and widespread influence.”

The General is at the head of this black and mute militia, which thinks, wills, acts, obeys the passive instrument of his designs. Their whole life must have but one aim the advancement of the Order to which they are attached.

From the preceding paragraphs, we can. understand how Jesuitism or Romanism gets control of and “converts” women of rank, wealth and fashion; and also how politicians who are not saints, fearing exposure, are compelled to do Rome’s bidding, no matter how unpatriotic. The private lives of politicians are closely watched and recorded. Sometimes they are entrapped in order to get them in the power of Rome.

The present complications of the political factions, in both Democratic and Republican parties, have been brought about by Jesuitism in order to ccnfuse the public and compel the aspiring candidates or their supporters to “come and see” the ecclesiastical bosses, who are supposed to control the “Catholic vote.” The more dissensions in the parties, the more helpless the candidates are in the hands of Rome, and the more she will demand in lieu of her alleged support for nomination and, eventually, election. Rome has played both parties “to a frazzle” in the present campaign, 1912.

During the first “American Mission” to the Vatican in 1902, Extraordinary Ambassador Taft made a deal with the pope involving several million dollars for the Friars’ lands in the Philippine Islands. And as a quid pro quo the pope of Rome granted to the Chief Executive at Washington the power of veto of bishops and archbishops in the Philippine Islands, a right which he will hardly ever dare exercise.

How long shall the Roman Catholic Hierarchy play the people for fools?

Shall the government be of the people, for the people, and by the people, or by the pope?

Let’s not let the pope of Rome name our President for us.

Lovers of your country, beware of Jesuitical intrigues, the political power of Romanism, and the honeyed words of politicians reaching after the presidency!

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy has taken advantage of the press agency age in which we live. The trans-Atlantic cable has lately been kept busy flashing the most trivial details concerning the so-called honors done America, “the youngest but richest daughter of the Church,” in elevating to the rank of princes and kings three of her wiliest Jesuitical emissaries, who claim to be American citizens. They can not be loyal American citizens and at the same time loyal “Princes of the Church.” Their very oath of allegiance to the pope, a foreign potentate, whose spiritual and temporal power they have solemnly sworn to promote and defend, “even to the shedding of blood,” precludes this possibility. The despotic dogmas of the Church of Rome are diametrically opposed to the Constitutions of all countries, and, therefore, cardinals, arch-;- bishops, bishops, monsignors, priests and monks, having sworrt allegiance to a foreign potentate, have so far renounced their allegiance to their lawful sovereigns or governments, and, consequently, should be considered as aliens with respect to citizenship.

If any one has the least doubt in the world that the cardinals’ first allegiance is due to the pope of Rome, and only their secondary allegiance, when not in conflict with their obedience due the pope, is given to their respective countries, let such an one read the oath taken by a cardinal when he enters upon his office, and all possible doubts will be dispelled.

The following is the oath which these three “American” cardinals, as well as all other cardinals, must take on becoming ‘Princes of the Church.” This translation of the oath was printed in the Daily Telegraph (London), Dec. i, 1911, and accepted as genuine by Monsignor Canon Moyes in a letter published in the Tablet of London (Roman Catholic), Dec. 16, 1911:

“I,,…. of the Holy Roman Church, cardinal of……., promise and swear, from this hour forward, as long as I shall live, to be faithful and obedient to the blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Apostolic Church, and our Most Holy Lord Pius X., and his canonically elected successor;

“To give no counsel nor to concur in anything nor aid in any way against the pontifical majesty or person;

“Never to disclose affairs entrusted to me by them personally, by their nuncios, or by letters, willingly or knowingly, to their detriment or dishonor;

“To be ever ready to aid them to retain, defend and recover their rights against all, to fight with all zeal, and all my forces, for their honor and dignity;

“To direct and defend honorably and kindly legates and nuncios of the apostolic see in all places under my jurisdiction, to provide for their safe journey, and treat them honorably going, during their stay, and during their return, and to resist even to the shedding of blood whosoever would attempt anything against them;

“To try in every way to assert, uphold, preserve, increase and promote the rights, even temporal, especially those of the civil principality, the liberty, the honor, privileges and authority of the Holy Roman Church, of our lord the Pope, and the aforesaid successors;

“When it shall come to my knowledge that some machination, prejudicial to those rights, which I can not prevent, is taking place, immediately to make it known to the Pope, his successor, or to some one qualified to convey the knowledge to them;

“To observe and fulfill, and see that others observe and fulfill the regulations, the decrees and the ordinances, the dispensations and preservation of provisions and apostolic mandates, the constitutions of Pope Sixtus V., of happy memory, concerning visits ‘Ad limina Apostolorum’ at the prescribed times, according to the tenor of said constitution;

“To combat with every effort heretics, schismatics, and those rebelling against our lord the Pope and his successors;

“When summoned for any reason whatsoever by the Holy Father or his successor, to come to them, or when detained by a just cause to send one to present my excuses, and to show them due reverence and obedience;

“Never to sell or to give away, mortgage, or alienate without consent of the Roman Pontiff, even though the consent of said chapters or convents or churches or monasteries or their benefices be had, the possessions belonging to the ‘mensa’ of the church, monasteries, or other benefices committed to me;

“Likewise to observe inviolably the constitution of the Supreme Pontiff Pius X., which begins Vacante Sede Apostolica, given at Rome the twenty-fifth day of December, in the year 1904, concerning the vacancy of the Holy See and the election of the Roman Pontiff ; and to lend no help nor countenance to any intervention of the civil power in the election of the Pope; likewise,

“To observe minutely each and all of the decrees, especially those which have emanated from the sacred – congregation of the ceremonies, or those to come from it, relative to the sublime dignity of the cardinalate, nor to do anything which would be repugnant to the honor and dignity of it, and to pay the rights of the cardinal’s ring conceded by Gregory XV. to the Sancta Congrcgatio de Propaganda Fide.

“So help me God and these holy gospels.”

Many of the same obligations are imposed in the oath administered to archbishops and bishops, including that part referring to action against heretics and schismatics (Protestants).

It is simply impossible for a cardinal, or any member of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, to be a loyal son of the Church and at the same time a loyal citizen of the United States, or of any country, no matter what Taft, Roosevelt and others, for political purposes, may allege to the contrary.

The Duke of Norfolk (Roman Catholic), Premier Duke of England, writing to Lord Beaumont (Roman Catholic), Nov. 28, 1850, says in part:

“I should think that many must feel as we do, that ultramontane [papal] opinions are totally incompatible with the allegiance to our Sovereign and with our Constitution.”

In passing, I may state that the appointment of a bishop or archbishop to a wealthy diocese in the United States costs the aspiring candidates and their supporters, clerical and lay, several million dollars. To the uninitiated this amount may appear extravagant, but when we consider the fifty million dollars’ worth of property, more or less, which comes directly under the control of the successful candidate appointed by the pope and his cabinet inspired, of course, by the Holy Ghost the sum total of the bribes to the Vatican is by no means excessive. Catholic and non-Catholic friends of aspiring candidates for papal honors are permitted and encouraged to “chip in” and use their political influence with the pope. And as for the price paid for “red hats,” the amount is inconceivable, and the intrigues connected therewith are sometimes international: for example, the Bellamy Storer-Roosevelt-Ireland episode.

The press has recently given us Rome and “red hats” usque ad nauseam, telling us of the pope’s admiration and love for America, Americans, their wealth and generosity.

Papal blessings and honors are frequently cabled* but we may well bear in mind the story of the great wooden horse of Troy and the enemy concealed within it remembering the motto: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentcs.” [I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts.] Wake up, non-Catholics!

I am convinced that the non-Catholic people are blind to their vital interests. On every side they are saying: “Oh, the Roman Catholic Church is not as it was fifty years ago; it is more liberal.” But the Roman Catholic Church is ever and everywhere the same. As she was fifty years ago so she is to-day, except that she is playing politics more astutely now than she was then.

I know by varied and bitter experiences the spirit of bigotry, bribery, hypocrisy, superstition, intrigue, persecution, treason and murder which actuates the Roman Catholic Hierarchy ; and I feel that an imperative duty calls me to resume my efforts to enlighten the Roman Catholic people everywhere as to the abominable priestcraft which is being practised upon them. For them I have only the deepest sympathy. Born, reared and trained in their faith, I know how naturally they are held in bondage and how easily they are deluded, degraded and despoiled in the sacred name of religion. And I also feel that it is my duty to awaken the non- Catholic people of all nations to a realization of the imminent dangers which confront them.

It is the verdict of history, says Mr. Mangasarian, that

“Where the priests are free, the people are slaves!
Where the priests are rich, the people are poor!.
Where the priests teach, the people are ignorant!
Where the priests prosper, progress is paralyzed!
Where the priests lead, they lead into misery,
bondage, poverty, superstition, persecution ruin!”

Lord Macaulay truthfully described the Vatican system when he said:

“It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a polity could, against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved the polity to such perfection that, among the contrivances that have been devised for deceiving and oppressing mankind, it occupies the highest place.”

There was affixed to a column at the corner of the Orsini Palace in Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century the following comparison between Christ and the pope:

“Christ said: My kingdom is not of this world.
The pope conquers cities by force.

Christ had a crown of thorns.
The pope wears a triple diadem.

Christ washed the feet of His disciples.
The pope has his kissed by Kings.

Christ paid tribute.
The pope takes it.

Christ fed the sheep.
The pope shears them for his own profit.

Christ was poor.
The pope wishes to be master of the world.

Christ carried on his shoulders the cross.
The pope is carried on the shoulders of his servants in liveries of gold.

Christ despised riches.
The pope has no other passion than for gold.

Christ drove out the merchants from the temple.
The pope welcomes them.

Christ preached peace.
The pope is the torch of war.

Christ was meekness.
The pope is pride personified.

Christ promulgated the laws that the pope tramples underfoot.”

Notwithstanding the wealth, political power, and the extraordinary increase claimed by the Roman Catholic Church, investigation will prove that she is losing ground everywhere as a religion: in fact, Romanism is not a religion: Romanism is first and last political. According to the most trustworthy statistics, eighty million followers have left the Roman Catholic Church during the past seventy-five years. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy has been exposed and dethroned by the despoiled Catholic people in Italy, France and Portugal. It is being exposed and dethroned by the Catholic people in Spain, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Ireland and other so-called Catholic countries, where it is trembling, tottering, falling.

Strange as it may seem to the casual observer, it is true, nevertheless, that in many Catholic countries the papal policy of power and pelf has been repudiated as a curse by the Catholic people and their representatives, while in non-Catholic countries the papal policy is embraced for the graft that is in it, by non-Catholic politicians elected to office by the credulous non-Catholic people; and this is especially true in the English speaking countries England, Canada and the United States. These unscrupulous politicians, high and low, are only too willing to serve the pope in his ungodly efforts to regain temporal power.

The political influence of the papacy is making rapid progress in non-Catholic countries, owing solely to the apathy of the people and the traitorous conduct of non-Catholic politicians, including Presidents and Prime Ministers, who, as a rule, are pledged to Rome by their corrupt political machines, in order to secure the supposed “Catholic vote,” which the pope pretends to control, but which he does not.

Non-Catholics are possessed by the false impression that the Catholic laity vote as a unit as they are directed by the Hierarchy. This is not true. There is a division in the Catholic laity upon political matters, and an independence of action of which non-Catholics have no conception. For the purpose of inducing non-Catholics to court the support of the Roman Catholic clergy and accede to their demands, they are made to believe by the representations of crafty, cunning priests and prelates that the pope controls the “Catholic vote.” Previous to political elections, priests, prelates and “Princes of the Church” promise the supposed “Catholic vote” to both political parties, Republican and Democratic of course, they could not conscientiously and consistently promise it to either the Prohibition or Socialist party. At the close of an election the pope is represented by his clerical, as well as lay, agents at the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic parties, and even in the very homes of the candidates. They are there to congratulate the victor and assure him that his election is due to the “Catholic vote,” and also to remind him that the pope and his representatives are entitled to the greater share of the appointments to be made by him. This papal political trick “heads I win, tails you lose” is successfully played at elections in all non-Catholic countries.

ARCHBISHOP GIOVANNI BONZANO PAPAL NUNCIO

ARCHBISHOP GIOVANNI BONZANO PAPAL NUNCIO.

The new head of the Papal Secret Service Bureau in the U. S. A., being asked, on his arrival in New York harbor, if he had any formal message for the people of this country, replied:

“I am very glad and feel greatly honored to have been sent to represent the ancient Church before the great American people, and where, in spite of your busy life and ways, you have so much time for religion and doing good work.”

Notwithstanding this declaration, Archbishop Bonzano knows or ought to know that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is responsible for the alliance between crooked politics and crooked business, which has been responsible for nine-tenths of the corruption in American politics.

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is the breeder of anarchy. In its efforts to prostitute the people’s schools to politics, it is an enemy of the most dangerous character and is more to be condemned than the anarchist.

Bonzano is the plenopotentiary representative of the pope of Rome, who, with the quintessence of audacity, claims to be “Our Lord God the Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ, King of Heaven, of Earth, and of Hell, and servant of the servants of God.” Was there ever such a contradiction?

The mass of the Catholic vote can not be corralled for the support of any man. If non-Catholics would only take a bold stand in defense of civil and religious liberty against Rome, they would find thousands yea, hundreds of thousands of nominal Catholics rallying to their camp. But these independent- thinking Catholics, seeing the obsequiousness and servility of non-Catholics in their obedience to the suggestions of the Roman Hierarchy, naturally decline to take the initiative in the defense of civil and religious liberty.

Yea, more than this. If the game of every man for himself was to be played in earnest, why should independent Catholics give up advantages and benefits which they might receive themselves through Roman influence in American and English politics for the use and behoof of non-Catholics who are cringing before Rome for the sake of business success and political preferment expected to be derived from her favoring influence?

Why, then, do the liberty-loving people of non-Catholic countries permit themselves to be deceived and enslaved by that debauched, liberty-destroying Hierarchy?

Those who are indifferent on this subject should note Lord Beaconsfield’s words of warning:

“We are sinking beneath a power before which the proudest conquerors have grown pale, and by which the nations most devoted to freedom have become enslaved the power of a foreign priesthood.”

There is urgent need of a wide publicity of the truth concerning Romanism! In the words of William Ewart Gladstone, uttered against the Vatican system, I would warn the lovers of liberty everywhere “against the velvet paw and smooth exterior of a system which is dangerous to the foundation of civil order…. Never was there invented a greater conspiracy against the liberty, virtue and happiness of the people, than that represented by Romanism.” And with the illustrious Gladstone, I say:

“I am confident that if a system so radically bad is to be made or kept innocuous, the first condition for attaining such a result is that its movements should be carefully watched, and above all that the basis on which they work should be faithfully and unflinchingly exposed.”

Protestantism is asleep! Romanism, the sleepless and tireless foe of liberty, enlightenment and progress, is awake! Shall we permit it to enslave us, or shall we follow the wise and patriotic example of Italy, France and Portugal?

TO THE PUBLIC

I am a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and I am in good standing. I am also a citizen of the United States of America.

I am engaged in the threefold work of (i) purifying my beloved Church from existing evils, (2) protecting the public school from Catholic clerical machinations, and (3) promoting a sympathetic understanding between Catholics and non-Catholics. I am prosecuting my threefold work by publishing, lecturing and preaching.

Priests and Prelates accuse me covertly of making false accusations in my book entitled ”The Parochial School, a Curse to the Church, a Menace to the Nation”: I now state that if my opponents can disprove the charges in my book, I will hand over to them all the plates of my book, and I will agree to stop its publication forever. Since these accusations were published, nearly two years have elapsed, and the Church officials have not arraigned me, nor taken any step looking to the disproof of my charges.

I will give Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00) to any one who can prove that I am not in possession of the “faculties” of a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY.
Chicago, November, 1906.

ENDORSEMENT BY A GREAT CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP

I am convinced that Almighty God brought Father Crowley to America to save the Catholic Church, and that the present scandal in Chicago the most terrible that has ever occurred in America was permitted by Providence to bring to a climax the reign of rottenness, that it might be unearthed, exposed and wiped out.
THE MOST REV, FRANCIS XAVIER KATZER, D. D.,
Late Catholic Archbishop of Milwaukee.

COMMENDATION OF PROMINENT CLERGYMEN

To ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
In view of the fact that the Rev. Jeremiah J. Crowley, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and an American citizen, feels that he has been providentially called into what he terms the threefold work of (i) purifying his Church from existing evils, (2) protecting the public school from Catholic clerical machinations, and (3) promoting a sympathetic understanding between Catholics and non-Catholics,

We, the undersigned, being personally acquainted with Father Crowley, hereby certify to our firm confidence in him as a Christian gentleman, to o-ur conviction as to the wisdom of his methods, and to our belief in the great importance and the pressing necessity of his work.

We bid him Godspeed in his preaching, lecturing and publishing. We feel that pulpits and pJatforms everywhere should be open to him, and that his book entitled ”The Parochial School, A Curse to the Church, A Menace to the Nation,” should be read by every thoughtful person, regardless of race or creed.

COMMENDATION OF PROMINENT CLERGYMEN

We most cordially commend him to all the people of America, earnestly bespeaking for him their hearty sympathy and generous support.

REV. J. WILBUR CHAPMAN, D, D.,
The Evangelistic Leader of the Presbyterian Church.

REV. WILBERT W. WHITE, D. D.,
President, Bible Teachers Training School, New York City.

REV. HUNTER CORBETT, D. D.,
Moderator, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.

REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D. D.,
Pastor of the Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.

REV. CORNELIUS WOELFKIN, D. D.,
Professor in the Baptist Theological Seminary, Rochester, N. Y.

REV. JNO. J. TIGERT, D. D.,
Bishop, Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

REV. CHARLES C. McCABE, D. D.,
Bishop, Methodist Episcopal Church.

REV. O. P. GIFFORD, D. D.,
Pastor of the Delaware Ave. Baptist Church, Buffalo, N. Y.

REV. HENRY C. MABIE, D. D.,
Boston, Mass.

REV. C. H. WOOLSTON, D. D.,
Pastor of the East Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pa.

REV. IRA LANDRITH, D. D.,
President of the Belmont College, Nashville, Tenn.

REV. J. D. MOFFAT, D. D.,
President of Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa.

On February 20th for some reason or another after using a utility to clean up this website from junk code, each and every page and post was deleted! Whether it was a bug in the utility, or perhaps a malicious attack by a hacker, I cannot say. I was able to restore most of the pages and posts from a backup file, but I lost several days work, 4 posts including 3 whole books, many editions on other pages and posts, and recent comments. This left me discouraged. But I can only blame myself for not making a more recent backup of the database after so much work.

I may switch to Drupal which I hear has much better security against malicious attacks. At this time, I am experimenting with a Drupal installation on http://gakudo-jpn.net/ One really cool thing that Drupal has is built in ability to publish books into chapters in separate pages! WordPress cannot do that so easily. It needs a third party plugin called Multipage, what this site is using. Third party plugins are subject to bugs that the WordPress developer have no control over.

I believe a bug in a plugin called WP-Optimize was the culprit. I uninstalled it.

Another WordPress plugin I uninstalled is WordFence. I find this plugin next to useless. It never really protected this site from malicious hacker code, it only told me about being hacked after the fact! And usually by then the site was infected so bad I could not even view it. Moreover, WordFence filled the database with junk! After removing WordFence, the database sql file was reduced from 60 megabytes to only 12!

I also got rid of WordPress Online Backup. I think it’s better to export the database directly from MyPHPAdmin in Cpanel. WordPress Online Backup took a lot of resources and slowed down the site.