FOOTNOTES:

"The great palace which he raised at Nineveh surpassed in size and splendor all earlier edifices."—"Second Monarchy," chap. 9.

A description is preserved on the clay cylinder in the king's own words:

"For the wonderment of multitudes of menI raised its head—'the palace which has no rival'I called its name."—Taylor Cylinder, "Records of the Past." Vol. XII, part 1.

At the preaching of Jonah the city had repented; but in later years pride of conquest and luxury and wealth were filling it with blood. The prophet Nahum warned it of certain doom, appealing to those who had any fear of God to turn to Him. The message was:

THE SITE OF NINEVEH "How is she become a desolation!" Zeph. 2:15.THE SITE OF NINEVEH"How is she become a desolation!" Zeph. 2:15.

"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him." Nahum 1:7.

Some, no doubt, heeded the warning and turned to God for refuge. But the city's life of sin ran on. Then the prophet Zephaniah spoke the word, just as the stroke was to fall:

"Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction;she trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God." Zeph. 3:1, 2.

Prophecies uttered against the mighty city had declared:

"He will make an utter end of the place thereof." "The palace shall be dissolved ["molten," margin]." "She is empty, and void, and waste." Nahum 1:8; 2:6, 10. "How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in!" Zeph. 2:15.

The Medes and the Babylonians overthrew Nineveh. The king immolated himself in his burning ("molten") palace. Nineveh became a desolation. Describing a battle that took place there in the seventh century of our era, between the Romans and the Persians, the historian Gibbon bears testimony to the fact that it has indeed become "empty, and void, and waste:"

"Eastward of the Tigris, at the end of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh had formerly been erected: the city, and even the ruins of the city, had long since disappeared; the vacant place afforded a spacious field for the operations of the two armies."—"The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. 46, par. 24.

And to this day, the site of Nineveh is pointed out across the river from Mosul, only mounds of ruins, these almost obliterated by the drifting sands of centuries. The word spoken is fulfilled, though at the time it was spoken it little seemed to proud and prosperous Nineveh that such a fate could ever be hers.

"Before me rise the wallsOf the Titanic city,—brazen gates,Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled,—Imperial Nineveh, the earthly queen!In all her golden pomp I see her now,Her swarming streets, her splendid festivals.* * * * *"Again I look,—and lo!...Her walls are gone, her palaces are dust,—The desert is around her, and withinLike shadows have the mighty passed away."

* * * * *

"Again I look,—and lo!...Her walls are gone, her palaces are dust,—The desert is around her, and withinLike shadows have the mighty passed away."

From Nineveh's mounds we seem to hear a voice that says: "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth forever." 1 Peter 1:24, 25.

TYRE BY THE SEA "They shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers." Eze. 26:4.TYRE BY THE SEA"They shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers." Eze. 26:4.

Tyre was the greatest maritime city of antiquity. Its inhabitants, the Phœnicians, traded in the ports of all the known world. Ezekiel describes the heart of the seas as its borders. "Thy builders have perfected thy beauty," he says. He tells how all countries traded in its marts and contributed to its wealth. And then, obeying the word of the Lord, the prophet bears a message of rebuke and warning,—"the burden of Tyre,"—and pronounces the coming judgment:

"Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee.... And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, andbreak down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God." Eze. 26:3-5.

The accounts of travelers bear witness that the prophecy has been fulfilled. As to the site of the island city of Ezekiel's day, Bruce, nearly a century ago, said that he found it a "rock whereon fishers dry their nets." (See "Keith on the Prophecies," p. 329.)

In more recent times, Dr. W.M. Thomson found the whole region of Tyre suggestive only of departed glory:

"There is nothing here, certainly, of that which led Joshua to call it 'the strong city' more than three thousand years ago (Joshua 19:29),—nothing of that mighty metropolis which baffled the proud Nebuchadnezzar and all his power for thirteen years, until 'every head' in his army 'was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled,' in the hard service against Tyrus (Eze. 29:18),—nothing in this wretched roadstead and empty harbor to remind one of the times when merry mariners did sing in her markets—no visible trace of those towering ramparts which so long resisted the utmost efforts of the great Alexander. All have vanished utterly like a troubled dream, and Tyre has sunk under the burden of prophecy.... As she is now, and has long been, Tyre is God's witness; but great, powerful, and populous, she would be the infidel's boast. This, however, she cannot be. Tyre will never rise from her dust to falsify the voice of prophecy.

"Dim is her glory, gone her fame,Her boasted wealth has fled;On her proud rock, alas! her shame,The fisher's net is spread.The Tyrian harp has slumbered long,And Tyria's mirth is low;The timbrel, dulcimer, and songAre hushed, or wake to woe."—"The Land and the Book," Vol. II, pp. 626, 627.

—"The Land and the Book," Vol. II, pp. 626, 627.

Yet another city of ancient times there was, the mightiest of them all, whose fate was a subject of prophecy, and whose history bears special testimony for us today; for, more thanany other, the Lord used that city as a symbol of the pride of life and the exaltation of the selfish heart against God.

Let us study briefly the desolations pronounced upon Babylon of old.

BABYLON IN THE DUST "Babylon shall become heaps,... without an inhabitant." Jer. 51:37.BABYLON IN THE DUST"Babylon shall become heaps,... without an inhabitant." Jer. 51:37.

While Babylon was still the mightiest city of the world, with the period of greatest glory yet before it, the Lord revealed its ignoble end. By the prophet Isaiah He declared:

"Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged." Isa. 13:19-22.

Never could a more doleful future have been pictured for a city full of splendor, the metropolis of the world. About one hundred and seventy-five years after this word was written on the parchment scroll, the Medes and Persians were at the gates of Babylon. Her time had come, and Chaldea's rule was ended.

"Fallen is the golden city! in the dust,Spoiled of her crown, dismantled of her state.She that hath made the Strength of Towers her trust,Weeps by her dead, supremely desolate!"She that beheld the nations at her gateThronging in homage, shall be called no more'Lady of Kingdoms!'—Who shall mourn her fate?Her guilt is full, her march of triumph o'er."

"Fallen is the golden city! in the dust,Spoiled of her crown, dismantled of her state.She that hath made the Strength of Towers her trust,Weeps by her dead, supremely desolate!

"She that beheld the nations at her gateThronging in homage, shall be called no more'Lady of Kingdoms!'—Who shall mourn her fate?Her guilt is full, her march of triumph o'er."

But still, under Medo-Persia, and later under the Greeks, the city itself was populous and prosperous and beautiful. The skeptic of the time may have pointed to it as evidence that here, at least, the Hebrew prophet had missed the mark.

Apollonius, the sage of Tyana, who lived in the days of Nero and the apostles, has left an account of Babylon as he saw it, as late as the first century of our era. Still the Euphrates swept beneath its walls, dividing the city into halves, with great palaces on either side. He says:

"The palaces are roofed with bronze, and a glitter goes off from them; but the chambers of the women and of the men and the porticoes are adorned partly with silver, and partly with golden tapestries or curtains, and partly with solid gold in the form of pictures."

And of the king's judgment hall he reported:

"The roof had been carried up in the form of a dome, to resemble in a manner the heavens, and that it was roofed with sapphire, a stone that is very blue and like heaven to the eye; and there were images of the gods, which they worship, fixed aloft, and looking like golden figures shining out of the ether."—Philostratus, "Life of Apollonius," book 1, chap. 25.

Evidently Babylon was still "the land of graven images," and the desolation foretold by the prophet had not yet befallen its palaces. But that prophetic word, written eighthundred years before, was still upon the scroll of the Book, the sure Word of God, who sees the end from the beginning.

EGYPT'S GLORY DEPARTED "The idols of Egypt shall be moved." Isa. 19:1.EGYPT'S GLORY DEPARTED"The idols of Egypt shall be moved." Isa. 19:1.

The view given us by Apollonius is perhaps the last glimpse we have of Babylon's passing glory. Even then for centuries the walls had been a quarry from which stones were drawn for Babylon's rival, Seleucia, on the Tigris. And Strabo, the Greek geographer, who also wrote in the first century, had described Babylon as "in great part deserted," adding,

"No one would hesitate to apply to it what one of the comic writers said of Megalopolitæ, in Arcadia, 'The great city is a great desert.'"—"Geography," book 16, chap. 1.

Already pagan writers had begun to describe its condition in the terms of the prophecy uttered so long before. And now what is its state? The doom foretold has fallen heavy upon the city, upon its palaces, and "upon the graven images of Babylon." For a century and more, travelers' accounts have frequently borne witness to the exact fulfilment of theprophecy in the remarkable desolations of that city, once mistress of the world.

"Babylon shall become heaps," said the prophecy, "and owls shall dwell there." This is what Mr. Layard, the English archeologist, found on his visit in 1845:

"Shapeless heaps of rubbish cover for many an acre the face of the land.... On all sides, fragments of glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed brick are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched soil, which, bred from the remains of ancient habitations, checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site of Babylon a naked and a hideous waste. Owls [which are of a large gray kind, and often found in flocks of nearly a hundred] start from the scanty thickets, and the foul jackal skulks through the furrows."—"Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon," chap. 21, p. 413.

The prophecy said, "Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there." The words might be construed to mean that the famous site would never become the place of a Bedouin village. But it is literally true, say travelers, that the Arabs avoid the place even for the temporary pitching of their tents. They consider the spot under a curse. They call the ruinsMudjelibe, "the Overturned." (See "Encyclopedia of Islam," art. "Babil.")

As late as 1913, Missionary W.C. Ising visited the site where Professor Koldeway was excavating the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace. He wrote:

"Involuntarily one is reminded of the prophecy in the thirteenth of Isaiah and many other places, which, in course of time, have been fulfilled to the letter. No one is living on the site of ancient Babylon, and whatever Arabs are employed by the excavators have built their mud huts in the bed of the ancient river, which at the present time is shifted half a mile farther west."—European Division Quarterly, Fourth Quarter, 1913.

The massive ruins by the Nile bear witness to prophecy fulfilled. When Egypt rivaled Babylon, the word was spoken: "It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations." Eze. 29:15. It was not utterly to pass, as Babylon, but to continue ininferior state. Thus it came to pass. Once populous Edom, famed for wisdom and counsel, now lies desolate, according to the word: "Edom shall be a desolation: every one that goeth by it shall be astonished." Jer. 49:17.

RUINS OF EDOM "Edom shall be a desolate wilderness." Joel 3:19.RUINS OF EDOM"Edom shall be a desolate wilderness." Joel 3:19.

Thus the centuries bear testimony to the fulfilment of the prophetic word. The panorama of all human history moves before us in these writings of the prophets. Flinging their "colossal shadows" across the pages of Holy Writ, as Farrar says, we see—

"The giant forms of empires on their wayTo ruin."

It is no human book that thus from primitive times forecasts the march of history through the ages.

The Lord not only spoke the word in warning and entreaty for those to whom it first came, but it is written in the Scriptures of truth as a testimony to all time, that the Bibleis the word of God, and that all His purposes revealed therein and all the promises of the blessed Book are certain and sure. The prophets who bore messages from God to Nineveh, and Babylon, and Tyre, spoke messages also for our day.

Fulfilled prophecy is the testimony of the centuries to the living God. The evidence of prophecy and its fulfilment is God's challenge and appeal to men to acknowledge Him as the true God and the Holy Scriptures as His word from heaven.

"I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of My mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee.... Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it?" Isa. 48:3-6.

Surely no one can look at the evidence in history of the fulfilment of prophecy without seeing that of a truth the One who spoke these words knew the end from the beginning; and finding the living God in the sure word of prophecy, one must be prepared to listen to His voice in all the Scriptures, when it speaks of sin and the way of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Further, the prophetic word also has much to say of events yet future, of the course of history in modern times. It behooves us to give heed to what that word speaks concerning our own times and the events that are to take place upon the earth before the end. The apostle Peter exhorts us to the study in these words:

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." 2 Peter 1:19.

THE GREAT IMAGE "He that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass." Dan. 2:29.THE GREAT IMAGE"He that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass." Dan. 2:29.

FOOTNOTES:[A]"In the book of Jonah," saysRecords of the Past, "Nineveh is stated to have been an exceeding great city of three days' journey; and that being the case, the explanation that Calah on the south and Khorsabad on the north were included seems very probable. The distance between these two extreme points is about thirty miles, which, at ten miles a day, would take the time required."—Vol. XII, part 1, January and February, 1913.

[A]"In the book of Jonah," saysRecords of the Past, "Nineveh is stated to have been an exceeding great city of three days' journey; and that being the case, the explanation that Calah on the south and Khorsabad on the north were included seems very probable. The distance between these two extreme points is about thirty miles, which, at ten miles a day, would take the time required."—Vol. XII, part 1, January and February, 1913.

DANIEL INTERPRETING NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great Image." Dan. 2:31.DANIEL INTERPRETING NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great Image." Dan. 2:31.

"There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days."

In a dream by night the Lord gave to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a clear historical outline of the course of world empire to the end of time and the coming of the eternal kingdom.

The king was a thoughtful monarch; and having reached the height of his power, he was one night meditating upon "what should come to pass hereafter." Not for his sake alone, but for the enlightenment and instruction of men in all time, the Lord answered the wondering question of the king's meditation by giving him the dream. "He that revealeth secrets," said Daniel the prophet, "maketh known to thee what shall come to pass."

BABYLON IN HER GLORY "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." Isa. 13:19.BABYLON IN HER GLORY"Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." Isa. 13:19.

And that we may know at the beginning that there is nothing fanciful and uncertain about this great historic outline reaching to the end of the world, we note first the assurance with which the prophet closed his interpretation: "The dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

The details of the dream had been taken from the king's mind, while conviction as to the wondrous import of it remained. This was in God's providence, to show the folly of the worldly-wise men of Babylon, and to bring before the king the prophet of the Lord with a divine message. The prophet Daniel, under the inspiration of God, brought his dream again to the king's mind:

"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

"This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

"Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."

The prophet next declared the interpretation. And now follows the history of the world in miniature.

"Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold."

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL "Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." Dan. 5:28.THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL"Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." Dan. 5:28.

The parts of the image, then, of various metals, from head to feet, represented successive empires, beginning with Babylon; and the kingdom of Babylon, represented by Nebuchadnezzar, was the head of gold.

History shows how fitly the golden head symbolizes the Babylonian kingdom. Long before, the prophet Isaiah had described it as "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." Isa. 13:19. And now, in Nebuchadnezzar's day, it was the golden age of the Babylonian kingdom. No such gorgeous city as its capital ever before stood on earth. And Nebuchadnezzar was the great leader of its conquests, and the beautifier and builder of its walls and palaces. "For the astonishment of men I have built this house," one tablet reads; and hundreds repeat the story.

"Those portalsfor the astonishment of multitudes of peoplewith beauty I adorned.In order that the battle stormto Imgur-Belthe wall of Babylon mightnot reach;what no king before mehad done."—East India House Inscription.

Thus Nebuchadnezzar's records of stone today repeat the proud boast faithfully reported in the Scripture, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?" Dan. 4:30. To the king it seemed that such a city could never fall. One inscription reads:

"Thus I completely made strong the defenses of Babylon. May it last forever."—Rawlinson, "Fourth Monarchy," Appendix A.

But the prophet Daniel, proceeding with the divine interpretation, interrupted all such proud thoughts with the declaration, "After thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee."

Now the look was forward into the future. And the word came to pass. Babylon's decline was swift after Nebuchadnezzar's death. Daniel the prophet himself lived to interpret the handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar's feast:

"God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.... Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.... Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." Dan. 5:26-28.

The breast and arms of silver, in the great image, represented the Medo-Persian kingdom, which followed the Babylonian, "inferior" to it in brilliancy and grandeur, as silver is inferior to gold. Medo-Persia, however, enlarged the borders of the world empire; and the names of Cyrus and Darius are written among the mightiest conquerors of history.

But the prophet does not stop to dwell upon the grandeur of fleeting earthly kingdoms. The interpretation hastens on to reach the setting up of a kingdom that shall not pass away. Following Medo-Persia, a third power was to rise,

"And another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth."

The "third kingdom" after Babylon was Grecia, which overthrew the empire of the Medes and Persians. And Grecia's dominion fulfilled the specifications of the prophecy, which indicated a yet wider expansion of empire. Its sway was to be over "all the earth," said Daniel the prophet, foretelling its history. Arrian, the Greek historian, writing afterward, said that Alexander of Greece seemed truly "lord of all the earth;" and he adds:

"I am persuaded there was no nation, city, nor people then in being whither his name did not reach; for which reason, whatever origin he might boast of, or claim to himself, there seems to me to have been some divine hand presiding both over his birth and actions."—"History of the Expedition of Alexander the Great," book 7, chap. 30.

The sides of brass in the great image represented Grecia, the brazen metal itself being a fitting symbol of those"brazen-mailed" Greeks, celebrated in ancient poetry and song,

"Among the foremost, armed in glittering brass."

While Grecia's supremacy under Alexander was disputed by none, there was a power rising in the West that was soon to enter the lists for the prize of world dominion.

Some of the ancient writers say that at the time of his death Alexander had in mind to push westward to strike down the growing power of the city of Rome, of which he had heard. Plutarch says that this man Alexander,

"who shot like a star, with incredible swiftness, from the rising to the setting sun, was meditating to bring the luster of his arms into Italy.... He had heard of the Roman power in Italy."—"Morals," chap. on "Fortune of the Romans," par. 13.

Lucan, the ancient Roman poet, repeats the thought:

"Driven headlong on by Fate's resistless force,Through Asia's realms he took his dreadful course:His ruthless sword laid human nature waste,And desolation followed where he passed...."Ev'n to the utmost west he would have gone,Where Tethys' lap receives the setting sun."—"Pharsalia."

"Driven headlong on by Fate's resistless force,Through Asia's realms he took his dreadful course:His ruthless sword laid human nature waste,And desolation followed where he passed....

"Ev'n to the utmost west he would have gone,Where Tethys' lap receives the setting sun."

—"Pharsalia."

But in the prime of his years, Alexander was cut down, and Rome had yet more time in which to develop its strength preparatory to the deciding contest for the mastery of all the world. Sure it is that after Grecia, there followed the Roman Empire, the strongest and mightiest and most crushing of them all. This fourth universal empire the prophet proceeded to describe, as represented by the legs of iron in Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the great image.

"The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise."

How appropriately the iron of the image fits the character of the fourth great empire! Gibbon, the historian, calls it "the iron monarchy of Rome." It broke in pieces the kingdoms, subduing all, just as prophecy had declared so long before. As iron is strongest of the common metals, so according to the prophecy—"as iron that breaketh all these"—this fourth kingdom was to be more powerful than any before it. Strabo, the geographer, who lived in the days of Tiberius Cæsar, said,

"The Romans have surpassed (in power) all former rulers of whom we have any record."—"Geography," book 17, chap. 3.

Hippolytus, bishop and martyr, who lived in Rome in the third century,—under the "iron monarchy,"—wrote thus of this prophecy:

"Already the iron rules; already it subdues and breaks all in pieces; already it brings all the unwilling into subjection; already we see these things ourselves."—"Treatise on Christ and Antichrist," sec. 33.

Hippolytus also saw clearly from the prophecy that the empire of his day would be divided, and he wrote of the kingdoms that were "yet to rise" out of it. For Daniel's interpretation explained clearly the meaning of the mingling of clay with the iron in the feet and toes of the great image.

"Whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

"And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

"And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."

"The kingdom shall be divided." So declared the prophet of God. In the height of its power, Rome scouted thethought that so mighty a fabric could ever be broken up. Horace sang in his "Odes,"

"How, added to a conquered world,Euphrates 'bates his tide,And Huns, beyond our frontiers hurled,O'er straitened deserts ride.* * * * *"The Goths beyond the sea may plot,The warlike Basques may plan;Friend, never heed them! vex thee not;For this our mortal spanOf little wants."—Book 2, Marris's Translation.

"How, added to a conquered world,Euphrates 'bates his tide,And Huns, beyond our frontiers hurled,O'er straitened deserts ride.

* * * * *

"The Goths beyond the sea may plot,The warlike Basques may plan;Friend, never heed them! vex thee not;For this our mortal spanOf little wants."

—Book 2, Marris's Translation.

But the words were written on the ancient parchment in the days of Babylon, "The kingdom shall be divided;" and true to the word of the prophet, the Roman Empire fell apart with the mixture of nations and peoples that swept into it. The elements did not hold together, even as the mixture of iron and clay in the image did not cleave together. Broken up by the invasions of fresh nations from the north, the Western Empire was divided into lesser kingdoms, out of which have grown the modern nations of western Europe.

Not one word in the outline of the prophecy thus far has failed of fulfilment. These modern kingdoms growing out of divided Rome have never been reunited. "They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men," said the prophecy. Nearly all the reigning houses of Europe today are related by intermarriage; the prophecy said it would be so; but "they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." So we see it. No statesman, no master of legions, has been able to join these nations together again in one great empire. Charles V had the thought in mind, some think. Napoleon dreamed of doing it. But it was not to be. Nevermore was there to be one universal monarchy.

We may know that as surely as the course of world empire has followed the exact outline of the prophecy put on the inspired record in the days of Babylon of old, just so surely thespecifications of the closing portion of the outline will be fulfilled.

The fourth great kingdom was to be divided. Rome was the fourth empire: it was divided. The kingdoms of the divided empire are acting their part before our eyes today.

And what next? That is the question for us. Now the prophetic outline that began with ancient Babylon touches the things of our own day. The word spoken before Nebuchadnezzar so long ago is now spoken especially to us:

"In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

"Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

"In the days of these kings,"—these kingdoms of our own time,—the next great world-changing event is to be the coming of Christ to begin the setting up of his everlasting kingdom. That is the grand climax toward which all the course of history has been tending. At last the end is to come.

"Down in the feet of iron and of clay,Weak and divided, soon to pass away;What will the next great, glorious drama be?—Christ and His coming, and eternity."

As the stone, cut out of the mountain "without hands," smote the image, so that all its parts, representative of earthly dominion, were ground to dust and blown away, so Christ's coming kingdom, set up "without hands," by no human power, but by the power of the eternal God, will end allearthly dominion and bring the utter destruction of sin and sinners out of the earth.

"The dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

Then may all eyes well be turned toward the next great step foretold in the prophetic outline—the coming of Christ's glorious everlasting kingdom, which shall not pass away.

"Look for the waymarks as you journey on,Look for the waymarks, passing one by one,Down through the ages, past the kingdoms four,—Where are we standing? Look the waymarks o'er."

PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSIONARY W.C. ISING Ruins of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, in which was the hall of Belshazzar's Feast.PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSIONARY W.C. ISINGRuins of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, in which was the hall of Belshazzar's Feast.

THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST "This same Jesus ... shall so come in like manner." Acts 1:11. COPYRIGHT STANDARD PUB. CO.THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST"This same Jesus ... shall so come in like manner." Acts 1:11. COPYRIGHT STANDARD PUB. CO.

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM "Behold, thy King cometh,... lowly, and riding upon an ass." Zech. 9:9.THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM"Behold, thy King cometh,... lowly, and riding upon an ass." Zech. 9:9.

"Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Heb. 9:28.

Too often the second coming of Christ is looked upon simply as a doctrine. It is, however, more than a doctrine merely to be believed; it is an impending event, something that is to take place on earth, and the most stupendous, all-transcendent event for the world since Christ came the first time to die on Calvary for the sins of men.

This second coming of Christ, like His first coming, has been the theme of divine prophecy from the beginning. This was emphasized by the apostle Peter in his second recorded sermon. He pressed upon the people of Jerusalem the fact that the things "which God before had showed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer" (Acts 3:18), had been fulfilled to the letter before their eyes. Not a word had failed. Just so, he said, all that the prophets had spoken of His second coming would be fulfilled:

"He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times ofrestitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." Acts 3:20, 21.

As iniquity began to abound, God sent a message to the antediluvian world, declaring that Christ's coming in glory would end the reign of sin:

"Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all." Jude 14, 15.

The promise of Christ's coming was the "blessed hope" in the patriarchal age. In Job's dark hour of trial his heart clung to the promise, and he was kept from despair:

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: ... whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Job 19:25-27.

The psalmist sang of it:

"Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him." Ps. 50:3.

And the prophets of later times were unceasingly moved upon to talk of the glory of that coming, of events preceding it, and of the preparation for it.

"I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence." "Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him." Isa. 62:6, 11.

The message of His coming is to be heralded to the ends of the earth; for it is "good tidings of great joy" to every one who will receive it.

On that last night with His disciples before the crucifixion, when His heart was sorrowful even unto death, as the burdenof all our iniquities was about to be laid upon Him, Christ's love for His own made precious to Him the thought of His second coming to gather them home at last, safe from all sin and trouble; and He said:

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3.

In that assurance the heart finds rest. O the preciousness of the promise, "I will come again"! "I am coming for you," is the cheering message. "Yes, Lord," we reply, "we will wait, and watch, and be ready, by Thy grace."

Christ's second coming is to be visible to all the world. There is to be nothing secret or mystical about it. The revelator says:

"Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him." Rev. 1:7.

Christ Himself described the scene to His disciples as it will appear to the eyes of all:

"As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matt. 24:27. "Then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory." Mark 13:26.

The day of the Lord—the close of probation, the initial outpouring of the judgments of God—will come "as a thief in the night," but Christ's personal appearing will be visible to all. The heavens will open, the earth quake, the trump of God resound, and such glory as mortal eye has never seen will burst upon the world when He comes as King of kings and Lord of lords.

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