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prostrate before it. Physical force, no doubt, is at present employed in its behalf; but the question arises, How comes it that this system, of all others, can so prevail as to get that physical force to obey its behests? No answer can be given but this, that Satan, the god of this world, exerts his highest power in its behalf. Physical force has not always been on the side of the Chaldean worship of the Queen of Heaven. Again and again has power been arrayed against it; but hitherto every obstacle it has surmounted, every difficulty it has overcome. Cyrus, Xerxes, and many of the Medo-Persian kings, banished its priests from Babylon, and laboured to root it out of their empire; but then it found a secure retreat in Pergamos, and "Satan's seat" was erected there. The glory of Pergamos and the cities of Asia Minor departed; but the worship of the Queen of Heaven did not wane. It took a higher flight, and seated itself on the throne of Imperial Rome. That throne was subverted. The Arian Goths came burning with fury against the worshippers of the Virgin Queen; but still that worship rose buoyant above all attempts to put it down, and the Arian Goths themselves were soon prostrate at the feet of the Babylonian goddess, seated in glory on the seven hills of Rome. In more modern times, the temporal powers of all the kingdoms of Europe have expelled the Jesuits, the chief promoters of this idolatrous worship, from their dominions. France, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Rome itself have all adopted the same measures, and yet what do we see at this hour? The same Jesuitism and the worship of the Virgin exalted above almost every throne on the Continent. When we look over the history of the last 4000 years, what a meaning in the words of inspiration, that "the coming of the Man of Sin" is with the energy, "the mighty power of Satan." Now, is this the system that, year by year, has been rising into power in our own empire? And is it for a moment to be imagined that lukewarm, temporising, half-hearted Protestants can make any head against such a system? No; the time is come when Gideon's proclamation must be made throughout the camp of the Lord: "Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead." Of the old martyrs it is said, "The overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death." The same self-denying, the same determined spirit, is needed now as much as ever it was. Are there none who are prepared to stand up, and in that very spirit to gird themselves for the great conflict that must come, before Satan shall be bound and cast into his prison-house? Can any one believe that such an event can take place without a tremendous struggle--that "the god of this world" shall quietly consent to resign the power that for thousands of years he has wielded, without stirring up all is wrath, and putting forth all his energy and skill to prevent such a catastrophe. Who, then, is on the Lord's side? If there be those who, within the last few years, have been revived and quickened--stirred up, not by mere human excitement, but by the Almighty grace of God's Spirit, what is the

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gracious design of this? Is it merely that they themselves may be delivered from the wrath to come? No; it is that, zealous for the glory of their Lord, they may act the parts of true witnesses, contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and maintain the honour of Christ in opposition to him who blasphemously usurps his prerogatives. If the servants of Antichrist are faithful to their master, and unwearied in promoting his cause, shall it be said that the servants of Christ are less faithful to theirs? If none else will bestir themselves, surely to the generous hearts of the young and rising ministry of Christ, in the kindness of their youth, and the love of their espousals, the appeal shall not be made in vain, when the appeal is made in the name of Him whom their souls love, that in this grand crisis of the Church and of the world, they should "come to the help of the Lord--the help of the Lord against the mighty," that they should do what in them lies to strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of those who are seeking to stem the tide of apostacy, and to resist the efforts of the men who are labouring with such zeal, and with so much of infatuated patronage on the part of "the powers that be," to bring this land back again under the power of the Man of Sin. To take such a part, and steadily and perseveringly to pursue it, amid so such growing lukewarmness, it is indispensable that the servants of Christ set their faces as a flint. But if they have grace so to do, they shall not do so without a rich reward at last; and in time they have the firm and faithful promise that "as their day is, so shall their strength be." For all who wish truly to perform their part as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, there is the strongest and richest encouragement. With the blood of Christ on the conscience, with the Spirit of Christ warm and working in the heart, with our Father's name on our forehead, and our life, as well as our lips, consistently bearing "testimony" for God, we shall be prepared for every event. But it is not common grace that will do for uncommon times. If there be indeed such prospects before us, as I have endeavoured to prove there are, then we must live, and feel, and act as if we heard every day resounding in our ears the words of the great Captain of our Salvation, "To him that overcometh will I grand to sit with Me on My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father on His throne. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

Lastly, I appeal to every reader of this work, if it does not contain an argument for the divinity of the Scriptures, as well as an exposure of the impostures of Rome. Surely, if one thing more than another be proved in the previous pages, it is this, that the Bible is no cunningly devised fable, but that holy men of God of old spake and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. What can account for the marvellous unity in all the idolatrous systems of the world, but that the facts recorded in the early chapters of Genesis were real transactions, in which, as all mankind were involved, so all mankind have preserved in their various systems,

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distinct and undeniable memorials of them, though those who have preserved them have long lost the true key to their meaning? What, too, but Omniscience could have foreseen that a system, such as that of the Papacy, could ever effect an entrance into the Christian Church, and practise and prosper as it has done? How could it ever have entered into the heart of John, the solitary exile of Patmos, to imagine, that any of the professed disciples of that Saviour whom he loved, and who said, "My kingdom is not of this world," should gather up and systematise all the idolatry and superstition and immorality of the Babylon of Belshazzar, introduce it into the bosom of the Church, and, by help of it, seat themselves on the throne of the Caesars, and there, as the high-priests of the Queen of Heaven, and gods upon earth, for 1200 years, rule the nations with a rod of iron? Human foresight could never have done this; but all this the exile of Patmos has done. His pen, then, must have been guided by Him who sees the end from the beginning, and who calleth the things that be not as though they were. And if the wisdom of God now shines forth so brightly from the Divine expression "Babylon the Great," into which such an immensity of meaning has been condensed, ought not that to lead us the more to reverence and adore the same wisdom that is in reality stamped on every page of the inspired Word? Ought it not to lead us to say with the Psalmist, "Therefore, I esteem all Thy commandments concerning all things to be right"? The commandments of God, to our corrupt and perverse minds, may sometimes seem to be hard. They may require us to do what is painful, they may require us to forego what is pleasing to flesh and blood. But, whether we know the reason of these commandments or no, if we only know that they come from "the only wise God, our Saviour," we may be sure that in the keeping of them there is great reward; we may go blindfold wherever the Word of God may lead us, and rest in the firm conviction that, in so doing, we are pursuing the very path of safety and peace. Human wisdom at the beast is but a blind guide; human policy is a meteor that dazzles and leads astray; and they who follow it walk in darkness, and know not whither they are going; but he "that walketh uprightly," that walks by the rule of God's infallible Word, will ever find that "he walketh surely," and that whatever duty he has to perform, whatever danger he has to face, "great peace have all they that love God's law, and nothing shall offend them."

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The Two Babylons - APPENDIX.

Note A, p. 6.

Woman with Golden Cup.

IN Pausanias we find an account of a goddess represented in the very attitude of the Apocalyptic "Woman." "But of this stone [Parian marble] Phidias," says he, "made a statue of Nemesis; and on the head of the goddess there is a crown adorned with stags, and images of victory of no great magnitude. In her left hand, too, she holds a branch of an ash tree, and in her right A CUP, in which Ethiopians are carved."--(PAUSANIAS, lib. i., Attica, cap. 33, p. 81.) Pausanias declares himself unable to assign any reason why "the Ethiopians" were carved on the cup; but the meaning of the Ethiopians and the stags too will be apparent to all who read pp. 48, 49, and 50, etc., ante. We find, however, from statements made in the same chapter, that though Nemesis is commonly represented as the goddess of revenge, she must have been also known in represented as the goddess of revenge, she must have been also known in quite a different character. Thus Pausanias proceeds, commenting on the statue: "But neither has this statue of the goddess wings. Among the Smyrneans, however, who possess the most holy images of Nemesis, I perceived afterwards that these statues had wings. For, as this goddess principally pertains to lovers, on this account they may be supposed to have given wings to Nemesis, as well as to love," i.e., Cupid.--(Ibid.) The giving of wings to Nemesis, the goddess who "principally pertained to lovers," because Cupid, the god of love, bore them, implies that, in the opinion of Pausanias, she was the counterpart of Cupid, or the goddess of love--that is, Venus. While this is the inference naturally to be deduced from the words of Pausanias, we find it confirmed by an express statement of Photius, speaking of the statue of Rhamnusian Nemesis: "She was at first erected in the form of Venus, and therefore bore also the branch of an apple tree."--(PHOTII, Lexicon, pars. ii. p. 482.) Though a goddess of love and a goddess of revenge might seem very remote in their characters from one another, yet it is not difficult to see how this must have come about. The goddess who was revealed to the initiated in the Mysteries, in the most alluring manner, was also known to be most unmerciful and unrelenting in taking vengeance upon those who revealed these Mysteries; for every such one who was discovered was unsparingly put to death.--(POTTER'S Antiquities, vol. i., "Eleusinia," p. 354.) Thus, then, the cup-bearing goddess was at once Venus, the goddess of licentiousness, and Nemesis, the stern and unmerciful one to all who rebelled against her authority. How remarkable a type of the woman, whom John saw, described in one aspect as the "Mother of harlots," and in another as "Drunken with the blood of the saints."!

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NOTE B, p. 6.

Hebrew Chronology.

Dr. Hales has attempted to substitute the longer chronology of the Septuagint for the Hebrew chronology. But this implies that the Hebrew Church, as a body, was not faithful to the trust committed to it in respect to the keeping of the Scriptures, which seems distinctly opposed to the testimony of our Lord in reference to these Scriptures (John v. 39; x. 35), and also to that of Paul (Rom. iii. 2), where there is not the least hint of unfaithfulness. Then we can find a reason that might induce the translators of the Septuagint in Alexandria to lengthen out the period of the ancient history of the world; we can find no reason to induce the Jews in Palestine to shorten it. The Egyptians had long, fabulous eras in their history, and Jews dwelling in Egypt might wish to make their sacred history go as far back as they could, and the addition of just one hundred years in each case, as in the Septuagint, to the ages of the patriarchs, looks wonderfully like an intentional forgery; whereas we cannot imagine why the Palestine Jews should make any change in regard to this matter at all. It is well known that the Septuagint contains innumerable gross errors and interpolations.

Bunsen casts overboard all Scriptural chronology whatever, whether Hebrew, Samaritan, or Greek, and sets up the unsupported dynasties of Manetho, as if they were sufficient to over-ride the Divine word as to a question of historical fact. But, if the Scriptures are not historically true, we can have no assurance of their truth at all. Now it is worthy of notice that, though Herodotus vouches for the fact that at one time there were no fewer than twelve contemporaneous kings in Egypt, Manetho, as observed by Wilkinson (vol. i. p. 148), has made no allusion to this, but has made this Thinite, Memphite, and Diospolitan dynasties of kings, and a long etcetera of other dynasties, all successive!

The period over which the dynasties of Manetho extend, beginning with Menes, the first king of these dynasties, is in itself a very lengthened period, and surpassing all rational belief. But Bunsen, not content with this, expresses his very confident persuasion that there had been long lines of powerful monarchs in Upper and Lower Egypt, "during a period of from two or four thousand years" (vol. i. p. 72), even before the reign of Menes. In coming to such a conclusion, he plainly goes upon the supposition that the name Mizraim, which is the Scriptural name of the land of Egypt, and is evidently derived from the name of the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah, is not, after all, name of a person, but the name of the united kingdom formed under Menes out of "the two Misr," "Upper and Lower Egypt" (Ibid. p. 73), which had previously existed as separate kingdoms, the name Misrim, according to him, being a plural word. This derivation of the name Mizraim, or Misrim, as a plural word, infallibly leaves the impression that Mizraim, the son of Ham, must be only a mythical personage. But there is no real reason for thinking that Mizraim is a plural word, or that it became the name of "the land of Ham," from any other reason than because that land was also the land of Ham's son. Mizraim, as it stands in the Hebrew of Genesis, without the points, is (the word being derived from Im, the same as Yam, "the sea," and Tzr, "to enclose," with the formative M prefixed).