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/178

 dition. Such a system might truly be said to spring from "the earth;" it was, as St. Paul elsewhere expresses it, "of the earth, earthy." And the Turkish empire, rising on the ruins of the former Mahometan empire, that of the Saracens, and fulfilling all the designs of its predecessor, accurately fulfilled the prediction of St. John in its mystic meaning; it sprang from the earth, no wholesome well of living waters, but a bitter and death-distributing fountain, destined for many centuries to over-flow and destroy some of the fairest provinces of God's Holy Church.

And this beast "had two horns, like unto the horns of a lamb." It is impossible to read this description of the second beast, and not to remember the pastoral origin of the Ottoman Turks, springing, as they did, from the steppes of Scythian Tartary, with their vast flocks of sheep, and all the habits of a nomad pastoral people. Let the reader turn to Father Newman's lectures on "The Turks," and he will see how appropriate a symbol of the Ottomans was "the horns of a lamb." Now, observe this beast "had two horns, like unto the horns of a lamb." The strength of every beast, as St. Jerome has observed, lies in its horns, and in its other weapons of defence; and the strength of the Ottoman Turks, in their origin, lay in