eady referred
to. But these, as we have seen, cover all the available portions of the
eastern continent.

Another consideration pointing to the locality of this power is drawn
from the fact that John saw it arising from the earth. If the sea from
which the leopard beast arose, Rev. 13:1, denotes peoples, nations, and
multitudes, Rev. 17:15, the earth would suggest, by contrast, a new and
previously-unoccupied territory.

Being thus excluded from the eastern continent, and impressed with the
idea of looking to territory not previously known to civilization, we
turn of necessity to the western hemisphere. And this is in full harmony
with the ideas already quoted, and more which might be presented, that
the progress of empire is with the sun around the earth from east to
west. Commencing in Asia, the cradle of the race, it would end on this
continent, which completes the circuit. Bishop Berkley, in his
celebrated poem on America, written more than one hundred years ago, in
the following forcible lines, pointed out the then future position of
America, and its connection with preceding empires.

"Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last."

By the "four first acts already past," the bishop had undoubted
reference to the four universal kingdoms of Daniel's prophecy. A fifth
great power, the noblest and the last, was, according to his poem, to
arise this side the Atlantic, and here close the drama of time, as the
day here ends its circuit.

To what part of the American continent shall we look for the power in
question? To the most powerful and prominent nation certainly. This is
so self-evident that we need not stop to pass in review the frozen
fragments of humanity on the north of us, nor the weak, superstitious,
semi-barbarous, revolutionary, and uninfluential kingdoms to the south
of us. No; we come to the United States, and here we are held. To this
nation the question of the location of the two-horned beast
undeviatingly leads us.

As an objection to this view, it may occur to some minds that the
two-horned beast exercises all the power of the first beast before him
(Greek [Greek: enopion], literally, before his eyes) and does wonders in
his sight; and how can the United States, separated by an ocean from
European kingdoms, hold such an intimate relation to them? We answer,
Space and time are