was disputed by none, there was
a power rising in the West that was soon to enter the lists for the
prize of world dominion.

Some of the ancient writers say that at the time of his death Alexander
had in mind to push westward to strike down the growing power of the
city of Rome, of which he had heard. Plutarch says that this man
Alexander,

"who shot like a star, with incredible swiftness, from the
rising to the setting sun, was meditating to bring the luster
of his arms into Italy.... He had heard of the Roman power in
Italy."--_"Morals," chap. on "Fortune of the Romans," par. 13._

Lucan, the ancient Roman poet, repeats the thought:

"Driven headlong on by Fate's resistless force,
Through Asia's realms he took his dreadful course:
His ruthless sword laid human nature waste,
And desolation followed where he passed....

"Ev'n to the utmost west he would have gone,
Where Tethys' lap receives the setting sun."

--"_Pharsalia._"

But in the prime of his years, Alexander was cut down, and Rome had yet
more time in which to develop its strength preparatory to the deciding
contest for the mastery of all the world. Sure it is that after Grecia,
there followed the Roman Empire, the strongest and mightiest and most
crushing of them all. This fourth universal empire the prophet proceeded
to describe, as represented by the legs of iron in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream of the great image.

Rome

"The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh
in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these,
shall it break in pieces and bruise."

How appropriately the iron of the image fits the character of the fourth
great empire! Gibbon, the historian, calls it "the iron monarchy of
Rome." It broke in pieces the kingdoms, subduing all, just as prophecy
had declared so long before. As iron is strongest of the common metals,
so according to the prophecy--"as iron that breaketh all these"--this
fourth kingdom was to be more powerful than any before it. Strabo, the
geographer, who lived in the days of Tiberius Caesar, said,

"The Romans have surpassed (in power) all former rulers of whom
we have any record."--_"Geography," book 17, chap. 3._

Hippolytus, bishop and martyr, who lived in Rome in the third
century,--under the "iron monarchy,"--wrote thus of this prophecy:

"Already the iron rules; already it subdues and breaks all in