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of LOCATION and CHRONOLOGY, the arguments which show that OUR COUNTRY IS THE ONE represented by the symbol of the two-horned beast of Rev. 13: 11-17, are ABSOLUTELY CON

CLUSIVE.

The author will esteem it a personal favor, if the reader will be pleased to study with particular care the arguments and facts which show, so far as location and chronology are concerned, that the symbol with two horns like a lamb refers to the great nation on this side of the Atlantic, and that the United States of America is a subject of prophecy. These are points which all can consider in an unbiased manner. And if this country is a subject of prophecy, if here some of the great plans of God and of human history are to be worked out, all ought to know it; for all are concerned in it. not these points, therefore, be passed by without due study and care.

Let

THE

coming up shows equally with its location and its chronology, that it is a symbol of the United States. John says he saw the beast coming up "out of the earth." And this expression must have been designedly used to point out the contrast between the rise of this beast and that of other national prophetic symbols. The four beasts of Daniel 7 and the leopard beast of Revelation 13 all arose out of the sea. Says Daniel, "The four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea; and four great beasts came up from the sea." The sea denotes peoples, nations, and tongues (Rev. 17: 15), and the winds denote political strife and commotion. Jer. 25:32, 33. There was, then, in this scene, the dire commotion of nature's mightiest elements the wind above, the waters beneath, the fury of the gale, the roaring and dashing of the waves, the tumult of the raging storm; and in the midst of this war of elements, as if aroused from the depths of the sea by the fearful commotion, these beasts one after another appeared. In other words, the governments of which these beasts were symbols owed their origin to movements among the people which would be well represented by the sea lashed into foam by the sweeping gale; they arose by the upheavals of revolution, and through the strife of war.

sea.

Falls of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park

But when the prophet beholds the rising of the two-horned beast, how different the scene! No political tempest sweeps the horizon, no armies clash together like the waves of the He does not behold the troubled and restless surface of the waters, but a calm and immovable expanse of earth. And out of this earth, like a plant growing up in a quiet and sheltered spot, he sees this beast, bearing on his head the horns of a lamb, those eloquent symbols of youth and innocence, daily augmenting in bodily proportions, and daily increasing in physical strength.

If any one should here point to the war of the Revolution as an event which destroys the force of this application, it would be sufficient to reply (1) that that war was at least fifteen years in the past when the two-horned beast was introduced into the field of this vision; and (2) that the war of the Revolution was not a war of conquest. It was not waged to overthrow any other kingdom and build this government on its ruins, but only to defend the just rights of the Ameri

can people. An act of resistance against continual attempts of injustice and tyranny can not certainly be placed in the same category with wars of oppression and conquest. The same may be said of the war of 1812. Hence these conflicts do not even partake of the nature of objections to the application here set forth.

The same view of this point is taken by eminent statesmen here and elsewhere. In a speech at the "Centennial Dinner," at the Westminister Palace Hotel, London, July 4, 1876, J. P. Thompson, LL. D., said:

"I thank God that this birthday of the United States as a nation does not commemorate a victory of arms. War preceded it, gave occasion to it, followed it; but the figure of Independence shaped on the Fourth of July, 1776, wears no helmet, brandishes no sword, and carries no stain of slaughter and blood. I recognize all that war has done for the emancipation of the race, the progress of society, the assertion and maintenance of liberty itself; I honor the heroes who have braved the fury of battle for country and right; I appreciate the virtues to which war at times has trained nations as well as leaders and armies; yet I confess myself utterly wearied and sated with these monuments of victory in every capital of Europe, made of captured cannon, and sculptured over with scenes of carnage. I am sick of that type of history that teaches our youth that the Alexan

South Dome and Vernal Falls, Yosemite Valley, Calif.

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ders and Cæsars, the Fredericks and Napoleons, are the great men who have made the world; and it is with a sense of relief and refreshment that I turn to a nation whose birthday commemorates a great moral idea, a principle of ethics applied to political society-that government represents the whole people, for the equal good of all. No tide of battle marks this day; but itself marks the high-water line of heaving, surging humanity."- United States as a Nation, pp. 13, 14.

Hon. Wm. M. Evarts quotes with approval a saying of Burke, respecting our Revolution, as follows:

"A great revolution has happened a revolution made, not by chopping and changing of power in any of the existing states, but by the appearance of a new state, of a new species in a new part of the globe. It has made as great a change in all the relations and balances and gravitations of power as the appearance of a new planet would in the system of the solar world."

The word which John uses to describe the manner in which this beast comes up is very expressive. This word is anabainon, one of the prominent definitions of which is, "To grow, or spring up, as a plant." And it is a remarkable fact that this very figure has been chosen by political writers as the one conveying the best idea of the manner in which this government has arisen. Mr. G. A. Townsend, in his work entitled, "The New World Compared with the Old," p. 462, says:—

"Since America was discovered, she has been a subject of revolutionary thought in Europe. The mystery of her coming forth from vacancy, the marvel of her wealth in gold and silver, the spectacle of her captives led through European capitals, filled the minds of men with unrest; and unrest is the first stage of revolution."

On page 635 he further says:

"In this web of islands the West Indies - began the life of both [North and South] Americas. There Columbus saw land, there Spain began her baneful and brilliant Western empire; thence Cortez departed for Mexico, DeSoto for the Mississippi, Balboa for the Pacific, and Pizarro for Peru. The