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injuries toward our country, which were shameful and wicked, and renewed war with us, and has never yet forgiven us for our great victory. Indeed, not only the British government, but many of its people, have written and acted against us, and the church here, as if we were a gang of outlaws; and in spirituals they so esteem us.

Coincidence Tenth. The dragon, or monarchy, was to make war upon the Christian republicans of Europe. That this has been done is a matter of history. Russia, at the head, and all other powers at the tail, formed an alliance, in 1816, to fight and put down all Christian republicanism in Europe; and they called their hellish league the "Holy Alliance." How fearfully it has worked the ruin of the noble and true-hearted, the page of fresh blood-stained history in Austria, Italy, and Hungary can tell.

Coincidence Eleventh. This kingdom was to come and be established out of the limits of the European dragon. The United States was beyond these limits.

Coincidence Twelfth. This new kingdom, predicted by Daniel and John, was to arise and fill but a part of the earth at first. This is true of the United States.

Coincidence Thirteenth. The man child was born before the war with the dragon; and the kingdom, or government, came directly after the war. The confederate government of the colonies was, after the war, succeeded by the organization into a single nationality by the adoption of the present constitution. It was made up of the "Old Thirteen." It was called a kingdom of God, because composed of a truly Christian people; and any government is, in ancient idiom, called a kingdom. It was called the power of his Christ, because it elected God as king by acclamation, and drove off the devil; and because, by it, Christ is to get "the heathen

for an inheritance, and break them with a rod of iron; because it was the stone that was "to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

Coincidence Fourteenth.-Church and state union. was to be dissolved, or the "old serpent, the accuser of the brethren," was to be discarded. How gloriously true this was, all the world knows. An article on this very point alone, fills a large space in the American constitution. As in all points, the history of the origin, character, and progress of the United States, coincides with the sun, and moon, and twelve stars, and woman and her man child, and the new kingdom, with the utmost precision, it is infallibly certain that the United States was predicted by them. The devil himself could hardly dispute it.

This man child, or new kingdom, coincides with the stone cut out of the mountain, or fifth kingdom of Daniel; with the ancient of days and his throne; with the saints, and people of the saints; with the sanctuary and host; with the holy people, and power of the holy people; and with Israel restored in a country always waste, without walls and gates to its cities; and with the exodus of Israel from Egypt, and its crossing a sea, and organization of a republic in the wilderness.

SECTION IV.

ROMAN AND BRITISH MONARCHY, OR THE SEVEN-HEADED Dragon. "And there appeared another great wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did

cast them to the earth." The description of this character is brief, yet amply full to identify its symbolic meaning. There seems to be but one opinion about its meaning among critics, for all take it as a symbol of the Roman empire. We agree to this in the main, but must dissent from some of the expositions, in their details of the proof of this great fact. We shall give our proofs on a much heavier scale than others have done.

The characteristic points of this vision are: 1. A dragon. 2. His color. 3. His seven heads. 4. His ten horns. 5. His destruction of one-third of the stars. 6. His tail.

1. A dragon. This symbolizes a base tyranny, or monarchy. In Ps. lxiv, it is said, "Thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters." This passage, from its context, is seen to symbolize the powers of Egypt. Isaiah says, "Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" Rahab is a name of Egypt, and the dragon is a name put for Pharaoh's government. "In that day the Lord, with his strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." Here, the dragon and serpent represent the persecuting powers. Ezekiel says, "I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of the rivers." Here, Pharaoh is put for all Egypt, and the whole is called a dragon. Nebuchadnezzar is called, by Jeremiah, a dragon.(chap. 51.) Indeed, any organic body, used as a symbol, always represents an organic body. The dragon, or serpent, in the very beginning, is seen to represent a body, or religious doctrine and worship.

2. A red dragon.-That is, purros, or a fiery red dragon. This color represents his moral character, which is vengeful, and as destructive as fire. The common

distinguishing color of Roman royalty was a fiery red, or scarlet.

3. The seven heads. As the red dragon represented a government, so the heads represent the forms into which it was to be divided. For the symbol was a prophetic one, and the body of the dragon represented the government in unity, and the heads, in a broken or divided state. A head is a symbol of a government, as we saw in Daniel. There, the four kingdoms into which the Macedonian empire was divided, were represented by the four heads of the mingled leopard. The head of the great image, also, represented the empire of Babylon. Each head of the dragon must, therefore, be an empire, and not a particular quality of an empire, or representation of any political quality of a government, such as regal, or consular, or imperial. The moral character of the head is, in the heads of the dragon, represented by color, as in the four horses. Whether these heads grew out of the serpent at the same point, or at different points, is not stated; so that it is impossible to determine whether these different head governments were to appear simultaneously or successively. In the vision of the beast from the pit, it is there stated that the heads were to be consecutive, and not coeval; and, as that beast and this dragon coincide, it is evident these heads were to be successive representations of the whole serpent's power, for each is called the whole beast, or empire, in turn.

4. The crowns, or diadems.—In the Greek, the word here translated crowns, is diademata, or diadems, and differed from the stephanos, also translated crown. Daubuz and Wemyss, in the Symbol Dictionary, show that the stephanos symbolized delegated power, and that "diadems are constantly the symbols of imperial or

autocratic power, extending itself over all sorts of power, civil and ecclesiastical." These diadems, on the several heads of the dragon, showed that the government represented by each, would be a dominant power, or possess supreme empire for the time being. It should be here noted, particularly, that the divided state of the Roman empire is represented, in Daniel, by ten toes and ten horns, but, in Revelation, it is represented by both horns and heads together, or by either separately. And though the empire is represented as divided, yet still its history is treated of as if it were a unit only.

5. The division into heads shows, that the original government would be broken, and that its imperial power would exist in successive empires that would rise out of the original body; the head being smaller than the body, indicates that the head governments would not be as extensive as the original government, but that each head would represent the original. The body and heads would represent the chronological history of the empire, and also its locality; the head and body occupying different places.

6. The tail.-Isaiah interprets the symbolic meaning of the tail to be a false religion, taught by false prophets. "The ancient and honorable, he is the head, and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail."—Isa. ix. Here, by the ancient and honorable of Israel, is meant the civil power; and by the lying prophet, the corrupt religion of Judah. The tail of the dragon, therefore, represents a corrupt church, or impure and idolatrous religion.

7. The third part of the stars of heaven.-Heaven either symbolizes a church, or the place of the true church. The stars represent either spiritual or civil ruling powers, or authorities. The drawing of the third

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