bear representing Persia? Simply a
transfer of dominion from Babylon to Persia. And so the prophecy
explains the successive passing away of these beasts, by saying that
their lives were prolonged, but their dominion was taken away; that is,
the territory of the kingdom was not blotted from the map, nor the lives
of the people destroyed ed, but there was a transfer of power from one
nationality to another. So the fact that the leopard beast is spoken of
as still an existing power, when the two-horned beast works in his
presence, is proof that he is, at that time, in possession of all the
dominion that was ever necessary to constitute him a symbol in prophecy.

What power then does the two-horned beast exercise? Not the power which
belongs to, and is in the hands of, the leopard beast, surely; but he
exercises, or essays to exercise, in his presence, power of the same
kind and to the same extent. The power which the first beast exercised
was a terrible power of oppression against the people of God. And this
is a further indication of the character which the two-horned beast is
finally to sustain in this respect.

The latter part of the verse, "And causeth the earth and them which
dwell therein, to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was
healed," is still further proof that the two-horned beast is no phase
nor feature of the papacy; for the first beast is certainly competent to
enforce his own worship in his own country, and from his own subjects.
But it is the two-horned beast which causes the earth (the territory out
of which it arose and over which it rules) and them which dwell therein,
to worship the first beast. This shows that this beast occupies
territory over which the first beast has no jurisdiction.

"And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from
heaven on the earth in the sight of men." That we are living in an age
of wonders none deny. Time was, and that not two score of years ago,
when the bare mention of achievements which now constitute the warp and
woof of every-day life, were considered the wildest chimeras of a
diseased imagination. Now, nothing is too wonderful to be believed, nor
too strange to happen. Go back fifty years, and the world with respect
to those things which tend to domestic convenience and comfort, the
means of illumination, the production and application of heat, and the
performance of various household operations; with respect to methods of
rapid locomotion