largely this perfect number seven, and when at length we are able to view the whole scope of revealed truth an accomplished fact, we expect to find that the number seven has figured still more largely than we can at present comprehend. In seven days the Creator wrought and rested from his labour. (Ex. xx. 11.) Moses commanded Israel to observe the seventh month by a feast of seven days from the fifteenth day of the month. (Lev. xxiii. 39.) The seventh year was to be a sabbath of rest unto the field and the vineyard, that which grew of its own accord was not to be gathered. (Lev. xxv. 4.) After seven times seven years the year of jubilee was to free all bonds. (Lev. xxv. 10.) The allegorical book of Revelation is replete with sevens. And in seven thousand years

from creation we doubt not the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up, the page of its history being complete, if our reading of revealed truth be correct. Most notable of all, however, is the week of witness, the mystic week of years, half of which was fulfilled in our Lord's three years and a half ministry; leaving the other half to be fulfilled in the testimony of the Two Witnesses during the period called a thousand two hundred and threescore days upon which we propose now to treat, the tribulation the great one, that hour of temptation which shall come on all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth.

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We now turn to Rev. xii., where John records his vision of a great wonder (or sign) in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." This we take to be the church in her ordained position, where God has placed her in the purpose of his grace, and where she is, to that degree wherein she is right Godward; clothed with light, that she may be "the light of the world." (Matt. v. 14.) "All children of the light, and children of the day." (1 Thess. v. 5.) And with "the moon under her feet," all sublunary things are beneath her too, showing the exalted position she is ordained of God to hold in relation to earth and earthly things; in the world, but not of it; among men, but shining as lights; a reproof upon the world's darkness, like to her Lord, holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. And the better to identify her as the church, we find her crowned with twelve stars as the twelve apostles of the Lamb. But further, John saw her "travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered," and that in the presence of a monster enemy waiting "to devour her child as soon as it was born; and she brought forth a man-child which was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up unto God and his throne." From all which, we learn, that ere the rapture takes place, a time of great extremity shall have come, and just when the church appears exposed to some sweeping calamity, threatening wholesale destruction to the cause of truth in the earth, the moment will arrive wherein the waiting ones shall be caught away to meet their Lord who to the moment shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice

of the archangel, heard by them only for whom it is designed – their enemies being left in wonderment what has become of their prey. In the church thus caught away, we see the man-child caught up unto God and his throne, the church of the first-born, the firstfruits unto God and the Lamb, the kind of first-fruits of his creatures, the overcomers to whom he hath promised power over the nations to rule them with a rod of iron, evidently by sharing the throne with Him to whom the Father hath promised, "I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Psalm i. 8, 9.)

But now another, and surely a greater wonder appears to John. There was war in heaven. This heaven we understand to be the first heaven, the air, the atmosphere that surrounds the earth, the region into which the saints have been caught away, where evidently good and evil angels encounter each other, not for intercourse, but it would seem for contention. And here a surprise meets us, about which we can only ask suggestively: Can it be that the Prince of the power of the air, finding his prey has escaped his power on earth, now opposes them in their course through the air to meet their Lord, but under a convoy of the innumerable host of elect angels under the generalship of Michael they are safe? For we find it expressly said, "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels," and we note that it was a dragon that stood before the woman to devour her child on earth, and a dragon fighting in heaven, whether two dragons or not, we are not concerned to inquirethe power and inspiration of evil is one. But this we also note, that, "they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. What mode of attack and defence angels can have is beyond our finite minds to comprehend, but that they can fight and do-after some sort is too plainly revealed to be called in question by any truly devout mind. Neither is this a solitary instance on the inspired page of the contention of angels, we find it also in Daniel x. 13, 20, 21, and Jude 9. Nor is this a new feature of bold presumption in Satan to endeavour to devour the child as soon as it was born-the devourer that he is. Did he not his best to devour the righteous seed as soon as it was born in the person of Abel? And again, in the person of Joseph, "Let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we shall see what will become of his dreams." And again, in the person of Moses, for whose sake he slew all the male children of the Hebrew race for a while. And again, in the person of the Babe born in Bethlehem. At what a cost to the mothers of Bethlehem was the Messiah born there! Could it be that the Arch-fiend had prescience sufficient to know what deliverers these three were born to be, that his malice was so directed towards their destruction? Such questions

may be asked but cannot be answered. How little we know of Satan's capacity to defy, while he cannot defeat heaven's high decrees!

Again, we observe that the result of Michael's victory and the dragon's defeat is, that this power of evil is cast down into the earth, for we read-and let any who doubt the personality of Satan, note the wording of this passage: "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. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." Here we have a hint of his prescience. Now begins the great tribulation, the tribulation, the great one (see Alford, Rev. vii. 14), called by Daniel " a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time," (Dan. xii. 1,) and by our Lord, "great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be " (Matt. xxiv. 21), reaching on from the period of the rapture and first resurrection to the time that "the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations that shall have come up against Jerusalem to battle; and his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives;" the point of our earth that he latest left he shall earliest reach. (Compare Zech. xiv. 4, with Acts i. 9, 12.) When thus Satan shall have been cast out into the earth, and he shall have but one territory in which to operate, and for which to care, he shall concentrate his power upon earth, and proceed to bring forth his man, called by Daniel, "a vile person;' by Paul," that Man of Sin, the son of perdition, the Lawless One" (see Alford, 2 Thess. ii. 8), and by John, "a wild beast." (See Alford, Rev. xii. 2.) God has taken his man up into heaven, Satan will now have his man upon the earth. God incarnate has gone up. Satan having come down, shall become incarnate in a sense, and to a degree never hitherto seen, and shall exercise the astonishing power of giving life, i.e. breath, to an image, "that the image should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed" (Rev. xiii. 15), whatever that may mean. How much of fact and how much of figure we have here, the day must declare, but certain it is that "all the world shall wonder after the beast whose names are not written in the book of life." He who hath hitherto let-the Holy Ghost in the church militant-is now taken out of the way by the rapture of the church militant, and then shall that Wicked be revealed. (See 2 Thess. ii. 7, 8.) Hitherto there has been a withholding "that he might be revealed in his time," but now the apostasy has come, and "that Man of Sin must be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. Even him

whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." By this time the Gospel day has run its course, many have heard and learned of the Father and come to Christ, the longsuffering of God has waited as in the days of Noah, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But many have neglected the great salvation, have rejected the counsel of God against themselves, in the brilliant light and teaching of the Gospel in the latter half of this nineteenth century, men of science and culture have decided for themselves, and would fain teach others that "God is matter, and matter is God," and that the "survival of the fittest" is man evolved from-they know not what, thus making God, the Bible, and its chief author Moses only so many myths. "For this cause doth God send them the working of delusion, that they should believe the falsehood-the Lawless One-that they all of them may be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. ii. 11, 12, Alford.)

This period of wonders foretold by the Apostle in 2 Thess. i. and ii. we take to be the same shown to Daniel as a time and times, and the dividing of time, wherein shall arise "a little horn having eyes as a man, and a mouth speaking great things against the Most High, and he shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws, and they shall be given into his hand. But the judgment shall sit and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end." (Dan. vii. 25, 26.) This same power we find described in Rev. xiii. as a beast rising up out of the sea, to whom is given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power is given unto him to continue forty and two months, and to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. For another beast is seen coming up out of the earth, having horns like a lamb, but speaking as a dragon, exercising all the power of the first beast, and doing still greater wonders, causing fire to come down from heaven and working miracles whereby to impose upon his worshippers. The first beast we take to be a political power, an infidel power, utterly atheistic and materialistic-unless, indeed, spiritualistic-ignoring revelation and God altogether. But this second beast we regard as an ecclesiastical power that shall act in concert with, and further the ends of the first beast, by causing all both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here shall be seen the patience of the saints, they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Herein we find the woman of the previous chapter fleeing into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there a

thousand two hundred and threescore days, "and to her are 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, the great dragon," called the Devil and Satan. The dragon pursues her a while, but the earth is compassionate, opens its mouth, and swallows the flood designed to overwhelm her; yet such is his wrath that he goes to "make war with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus." (Rev. xii. 17.)

What all this figurative language is intended to convey it is impossible to foresee, but to us it seems clear, that from the seat of the beast-wherever that may be-those who are left behind when the church is caught away, the foolish virgins, the remnant of her seed who gave birth to the Man-child, will be driven by persecution to some remote part, and that in these fires of persecution, a remnant shall prove faithful in resisting the mark of the beast, and at the end of his reign he found overcomers.

But let us consider this beast that John saw rising out of the sea; and without indulging too much our fancy, may we not see in its likeness to a leopard with spots many, some possible allusion to the German empire with its states many? in its likeness to a bear, some possible allusion to the great northern power of Russia? and in its likeness to a lion, similar allusion to Great Britain, France, and Ireland, formerly one kingdom ?-three great powers out of whom shall mainly arise an International League uniting under one head the several factions known by the names of Socialism, Nihilism, Communism, Trades-Unionism, and Fenianism, who, when their time shall come, and with it The Man, shall confederate against all governments, called "the powers that be, ordained of God," and by force or by fraud, chiefly we apprehend by intimidation, shall obtain such control and influence as shall cause men in astonishment to exclaim, Who is like The Man, our Man? (called in the Scriptures of truth, a wild beast). Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? Appropriate to our subject have been some thoughts that have found expression in the latest deliverance from the chair of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, from which we cannot forbear quoting one passage. "In England, the principles which the French Revolution brought to the front-they were really born in England-have been working slowly through the solid order of our social system, and in these days we are feeling, I think, their full import, with remarkable, not to say startling result. If the movement had been clearly articulate, I doubt if it could have uttered its proclamation more plainly than in the phrase which Professor Clifford has formulated for us, The kingdom of man is at hand. The kingdom of man is at hand! I confess that I was glad when I saw the words; glad that since the idea is so widely working, it should be formulated so sharply, and in a shape which places it in such clear