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 with every fiendish device of modern ingenuity, to slaugh- ter one another at the command of "the powers that be."

The proud are now called happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up in power. (Mai. 3:15.) Can we not see, then, that the destruction of this great image by the smit- ing of the stone, and the establishment of God's kingdom, mean the liberating of the oppressed and the blessing of all ? Though for a time the change will cause disaster and trouble, it will finally yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

But now, calling to mind the difference of standpoint, let us look at the same four universal empires of earth from the standpoint of God and those in harmony with him, as portrayed in vision to the beloved prophet Daniel. As to us these kingdoms appear inglorious and beastly, so to him these four universal empires were shown as four great and ravenous wild beasts. And to his view the commg Kingdom of God (the stone) was proportionally grander than as seen by Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel says : " I saw in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings; . . . and behold another beast, a second, like a bear;, . . and lo another, like a leopard. . . . After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth. It devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it; and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns." Dan. 7 r 2-7,

The details relative to the first three beasts (Babylon the lion, Medo-Persia the bear, and Greece the leopard), with their heads, feet, wings, etc., all of which are symbolic, we pass by, as of less importance in our present examination thaax the details of the fourth beast! Rome.

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