The World's Prophetic History

IF the reader will do us the favor to read the 7th chapter of Daniel, he will find a scene described with many interesting particulars which may be briefly epitomized as follows: Daniel stood upon the shore of the sea. Suddenly the four winds of heaven came down in a mighty tempest on the waters. In the prolonged strife which followed between wind and wave, four great beasts were brought up; one after another, from the depths of the sea. Each succeeding boast overthrew the one before it, and took his dominion. The fourth beast had ten horns, among which there came up another that was particularly blasphemous and defiant against God. In the days of this power the Judgment took place, and the beast was utterly destroyed in the burning flame. Then the saints of the Most High took the kingdom, under the whole heaven, and possessed it forever and ever.

Such are the main features of this vision. Here we have evidently some great truths which are intimately connected with the welfare of mankind taught us under a series of beautiful figures. What do these symbols represent? The Bible itself explains every one of them. Thus "waters" denote peoples and nations. Rev. 17:15; Isa. 8:7. "Winds" denote political strife and war. Jer. 25:32,33. The "beasts" denote four great leading kingdoms to arise on the earth ohe after another. Dan. 7:17,23. The fourth beast, says the record, is the fourth kingdom; therefore the other beasts denote kingdoms, though they are, like this one, sometimes called "kings". The sea at length changes to a lake of fire, and the destruction of this last symbol therein, represents the overthrew of all wicked earthly governments, when the kingdom of God shall be set up and his people possess it forever and ever.

How beautifully these figures illustrate the great facts of human history is at once apparent. Thus, from the earliest known times, Western Asia, Northern Africa, and Southern and Western Europe, regions lying around the Mediterranean Sea, have contained those multitudes, peoples, and nations which are represented by the waters of the sea. Among these nations, during the time covered authentic history, political strife and revolution—"the four winds"—have run riot. As the result, there have appeared in that territory, one after another, four kingdoms which have arisen to such power as to be denominated in history, the "four universal kingdoms."

What kingdoms were these? History shows that from the day when this vision was given, B.C. 555, four such kingdoms have existed upon the earth; hence these must be the same as the four kingddms represented by the great image of Daniel 2, inasmuch as we cannot have two series of universal kingdoms covering the same time. These kingdoms, as we have seen by an examination of that chapter, were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome. Let us see how the symbols, fit these kingdoms.

The first was like a lion with eagles' wings. Such was Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. With the wings plucked, and a man's timorous heart given to it, this lion well represented the empire in its decadence under Belshazzar, when it Was, overthrown by the Persians.

The second beast was like a bear, representing the second kingdom—Medo-Persia. It raised itself up on one side; that is, the Persian element ranked the Median in the government. "Three ribs", that is, Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt—three provinces which the Persian-kingdom oppressed, as a bear would gnaw the ribs of its victim". The dates belonging to this kingdom are B.C, 538 to 331.

The third was like a leopard, with four wings and four heads. The third kingdom, Grecia under Alexander the Great, was fitly symbolized by the leopard With four wings; for that magic conqueror, with a celerity like that of the swift-footed symbol now before us, aided in his progress by the remarkable addition of four wings, flew over the nations of all the East from his capital to the verge of civilization, and conquered the world in a single campaign. The Persian empire fell before him on the plains of Arbela, Oct. 1, 331 B.C. Eight years thereafter, B.C. 323, Alexander drank himself to death; and within fifteen years from that time his vast empire broke up into just four parts, these divisions being represented by the four heads of the leopard. Alexander's two infant sons were easily disposed of, and his four leading generals seized these fragments of his empire and erected kingdoms for themselves. Cassander took Macedon in the West; Lysimachus had Thrace in the North; Seleucus erected the kingdom of Syria in the East; and Ptolemy had Egypt in the South.

The fourth was a great and terrible nondescript beast, fit symbol of rapacious, relentless, all-conquering Rome. The ten horns on this beast are declared to be ten kingdoms which should arise out of that fourth empire. These were the Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Pranks, Vandals, Sucvi, Heruli, Burgundians, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards. This division of the Roman empire into ten parts was accomplished between the years 356 and 483 A.D.

This brings us to the last phase of this power, the rise of another horn among the ten, with its long career of blasphemy and blood, and its final overthrow in the lake of fire. An exposition of this part of the prophecy would bring us to our own time, and carry us a little beyond; but a discussion of this point would overrun the present limits of our space, and must be deferred to a future number.