frangible authority of a mortal, was as easy a task in the hands of an inspired penman, as that of the rapid career of the desolator of kingdoms. Though no power could stand before him, or deliver out of his hands, while his commissioned work remained to be done, yet, according to the same word of the Ruler among the nations, who raiseth up and who casteth down, so soon as ever the measure of his greatness was full, and the name of Great was won by the sacrifice of many thousands, the conqueror of the world became a corpse. It was the resolution of him whose purposes had never been thwarted, and who was taking to himself the name of a god, to fix the seat of his universal empire at Babylon, and from thence to rule the world he had conquered. But it was not so written in the word of the living God. Alexander the Great would have healed Babylon; but it was not healed. And he who had triumphed over the face of the earth, to whose prowess no city could refuse to yield, who built Alexandria and divers other cities, could not stay the decline of one, against which the word of the Lord of Hosts had gone forth, nor rebuild a temple which was devoted to everlasting desolation; but after having achieved all the predicted wonders of his brief but most eventful history, on the immediate completion of his conquests and establishment of his unrivalled authority, and in the thirtyfourth of his year bloom of his manin the age, very hood, and the very fulness of his just ripened glory, he died, at Babylon, on his first attempt to do that which it was written in Scripture was not to be done. And it was WHEN he was strong that the great horn was broken.

For it came up four notable ones, toward the four winds of heaven. Ver. 8. Now, that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. Ver. 22.

The words of prophecy glide as smoothly over the lapse of ages as over the track of a single destroyer,the founder of kingdoms. The Grecian sovereignty over the west of Europe, great part of Asia, and the most renowned and fertile region in Africa, did not end with the first great king who set it up. Out of the same nation, and under his chief captains, four notable kingdoms, though inferior in power, arose towards the four winds of heaven, viz. Macedon and Greece, under Cassander, in the west; Thrace, and the other northern regions, subject to Lysimachus; while the dynasty of the Ptolemies began in Egypt, and that of the Seleucidæ in Assyria. After their respective eras had ceased, the Assyrian, or eastern kingdom, partially escaped, more than the rest, from the Roman yoke. The vision was for many days. But the locality was fixed for the rise and prevalence of another power, more marvellous than that of Alexander, which was long to reign triumphant, in the latter times, in the countries over which he ruled, of which the form and progress is traced in the sequel of the vision.

The vision was not only to be for many days, but the long period of its duration is noted, even two thousand three hundred days or years; for the words manifestly do not admit of any other interpretation, or any lesser measure of the time, than that which is common to them with other prophetic periods in Scripture.

When Daniel had seen the vision, and sought the meaning, there stood before him as the appearance of a man. And he heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. And the first words which the angel uttered were, Understand, O son of man, for AT THE TIME OF THE END shall be the vision. And he said, behold I will make thee know

what shall be in the last end of the indignation; for at the time appointed the end, (ver. 15-19;) and after the explicit but brief declaration, that the ram with the two horns represented the kings of Media and Persia, that the rough goat was the king of Grecia, that the great horn was the first king, and that the four horns which arose after the great horn was broken, were four kingdoms that should stand up out of the nation, he unfolded the great object of the vision, and describes at far greater length than all that was there revealed concerning the former, the great and marvellous power that was to arise out of one of them, and finally, to occupy the place of these kingdoms. If then we seek to know the meaning, or to understand the vision, it is obvious that we have to look to the time of the end, to- the last end of the indignation, and to the latter time of their kingdom. The date is even given, and he said unto me, Unto two thousand three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. Ver. 14.

The first object in the vision, is the pushing of the ram, or of Persia, westward, and northward, and southward. The conquest of Persia by the first king of Grecia, who reigned over the east, is literally described. The subdivision of the empire of Alexander into four great kingdoms, is as evident from prophecy as from history; and history itself, in the hands of any single writer, is overmatched by the minuteness and explicitness of the things noted in the scripture of truth, in combining the events and unfolding their causes relative to two of these kings, in tracking their destiny down to the time of the subjugation of Macedon by the Romans, which prepared the way for their subjugation of Judea. That subject, in immediate connexion with the history of Alexander the Great, pertains to the last prediction of Daniel. The previous vision referred to the Roman empire. But the

present not only respects a remote period, the time of the end, but the dominion that should arise in the latter times, as here described, was, without any allusion to the fourth great kingdom as to the second or third, to occupy the place of the Persian and Grecian kingdoms, or to spring up at last out of their dominion.

And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land.— Ver. 9. IN THE LATTER TIME OF THEIR KINGDOM, when the transgressions are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.-Ver. 22. A power was to arise in the east, similar, in some respects, to the papal in the west, and designated, in like manner, by a little horn, which was to become exceeding great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it was in the latter part of their kingdom, or at a remote period from its commencement, and out of one of them, (and therefore not the Roman apostacy which prevailed in the west,) and when the transgressors were come to the full (and appearing on that account in the character of a "wo") that Mahometanism arose in the east, marked with every feature of the prophetic little horn. So soon as the shadow of a doubt or difficulty rises on the subject, in the mind of any protestant, we may call up such witnesses as may stand beside heathens, in giving testimony, that was not prejudiced in behalf of revelation. "When Mahomet erected his holy standard," says Gibbon, "Yemen was a province of the PERSIAN empire." Without a question, as without a rival, Mahometanism has been the exceeding great and prospering and prevailing power over the countries that formed the various kingdoms which succeeded to the Grecian empire under Alexander, the conqueror of Persia, *Vol. ix. p. 232, c. 50.

Possessed at first of little temporal power, like the bishop of Rome, yet from the same cause, or the assumption of spiritual authority, it soon became exceeding great. Originating and rapidly extending in Arabia, on the south, it soon spread over Assyria on the east, and Palestine, or the pleasant land. These countries, in the early history of its progress, speedily either owned the mission or were subjected to the dominion of the king of fierce countenance, who, without the pretext of national injuries to avenge, came avowedly as the heaven-appointed avenger of transgression, and propagated his religion by the sword. Unlike to every other armed hero of the field, he sought to overawe the minds of men by dark sentences, and pretended revelations, and united in his own person the assumed character of the prophet of God and the founder of an earthly kingdom. The superhuman wisdom manifested in the composition of the Koran, which it was given unto him to enunciate and expound unto the world, was, together with the sword, the alleged internal and external evidences of his faith. Consisting, in general, of a mystical unmeaning ribaldry, calculated to perplex the understanding, to darken counsel, to stifle inquiry, and to prostrate the minds of men into a blind and abject submission to his faith, the Koran is full of dark sentences, of which the wily impostor understood the device and the object. Well did he know that its pretended celestial origin was a fable. And the Koran may literally be said to have come forth, and to have first subsisted in sentences, as it will not be denied that these sentences are dark. "Gabriel suc

cessively revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the emergency of his policy or passion; and

6