Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/164

 But St. John gives us one more characteristic: it had the feet of a bear. Now we have already seen, in our remarks on Daniel's prophecies, that the bear symbolized the Medo-Persian empire; I therefore conclude that the territory of that empire had the same analogous relation to the Saracenic empire as the feet of a bear would hold to St. John's symbolical beast. Now in every animal the feet are the main instrument to effect its locomotion; and this is precisely the relation which the provinces of the Medo-Persian bear held to the Saracenic empire. Persia was, as we have already seen, the first kingdom to embrace Mahometanism, and it has been at all times from its Caucasian provinces that the chief strength of Mahometanism has issued forth. In other words, it had the feet of a bear. Besides all which, we may add what St. Jerome remarks of the four beasts of Daniel, that they represented the physical and moral characteristics of the peoples they symbolized. Hence, when it is said by St. John of the Saracenic beast that it had the head of a lion, the body of a leopard, and the feet of a bear, we are at once reminded of the loud and presumptuous language, the unfeeling cruelty, and the grasping ambition that have ever characterised the Mahometan system, and that