c symbols. The four beasts of Daniel 7, and the leopard beast of
Rev. 13, all arose out of the sea. Says Daniel, The four winds of Heaven
strove upon the great sea, and four beasts came up from the sea. The sea
denotes peoples, nations, and tongues, Rev. 17:15; and the winds denote
political strife and commotion. Jer. 35:32, 33. There was then, in this
scene, the dire commotion of nature's mightiest elements, the wind
above, the waters benneath, the fury of the gale, the roaring and
dashing of the waves, and the tumult of the raging storm; and in the
midst of this war of elements, as if aroused from the depths of the sea
by the fearful commotion, these beasts one after another appeared. In
other words, the governments of which these beasts were symbols owed
their origin to movements among the people which would be well
represented by the sea lashed into foam by the sweeping gale; they arose
by the upheavals of revolution, and through the strife of war.

But when the prophet beholds the rising of the two-horned beast, how
different the scene! No political tempest sweeps the horizon, no armies
clash together like the waves of the sea. He does not behold the
troubled and restless surface of the waters, but a calm and immovable
expanse of earth. And out of this earth, like a plant growing up in a
quiet and sheltered spot, he sees this beast, bearing on his head the
horns of a lamb, those eloquent symbols of youth and innocence, daily
augmenting in bodily proportions, and daily increasing in physical
strength.

Some may here point to the war of the Revolution as an event which
destroys the force of this application; but this furnishes no objection;
for 1. That war was at least fifteen years in the past when the
two-horned beast was introduced into the field of this vision; and 2.
The war of the Revolution was not a war of conquest. It was not waged to
overthrow any other kingdom, and build this government on its ruins, but
only to defend the just rights of the American people. An act of
resistance against continual attempts of injustice and tyranny, cannot
certainly be placed in the same catalogue with wars of aggression and
conquest. The same may be said of the war of 1812. Hence, these
conflicts do not even partake of the nature of objections to the
application here set forth.

The word which John uses to describe the manner in which this beast
comes up is very expressive. It is [Greek: anabainon] (_anabainon_), one
of