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REV. E. L. LANGSTON, M.A., ON 



which he would like to consider. He had thought that the world- 

 ruler, Anti-Christ, would bo a Jew by birth but a Roman or 

 Italian by nationality, just as the present Gevernor of Palestine 

 was an Englishman yet of Jewish race. He did not think the 

 " Gentile seasons " was as definite a period as the Lecturer made 

 out, and he could not accept his year-day theory. 



He did not expect literal fulfilment of the details of prophecy, 

 because it was not intended to give information as to the future, 

 but the language used must be such as would be understood by 

 those to whom it was addressed, in order that it might have 

 a present moral effect upon them, and so we had a prediction of 

 " swords " being turKe/i into ploughshares and " spears " into 

 pruning-hooks, as the present instruments of warfare were then 

 unknown. 



He thought it was clear that the beasts of Daniel VII. could 

 not include Babylon, as the interpretation of the dream stated 

 they were kings which would in the future arise, and that inter- 

 pretation was dated in the reign of the last king of Babylon. 

 He believed the first three beasts represented Israel, Egypt (or 

 the king of the south), and Assyria (or the king of the north), 

 the three nations cla&sed together in Isaiah xix. 23-24, and that 

 the man's heart being given to the lion referred to the future 

 national conversion of Israel. 



He did not agree with the Lecturer that the clay in Daniel's 

 image represented democracy, or that the vox populi could be 

 spoken of as the most fickle form of government. He instanced 

 the Swiss Republic and the United States as remarkably stable, 

 although democratic, and added that France, the most volatile 

 of peoples, had remained longer under the democratic form of 

 government of a republic than under any; of her previous 

 monarchical experiments. He thought the clay represented the 

 barbarians, who had overrun the Roman Empire and formed king- 

 doms, which had never been able to hold together as one empire, 

 although Charlemagne and Napoleon had attempted it. 



He called particular attention to the prophecy of Isaiah xviii., 

 which the Lecturer had altogether overlooked, and suggested that 

 the " land shadowing with wings beyond the rivers of Cush " that 

 sent her ambassadors by the sea " must be identified with the 

 British Empire, and that Israel was undoubtedly the " nation 

 dragged away and peeled, terrible from its beginning onward, but 

 meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have 

 despoiled." (This last expression referred to the way in which 

 great popular movements such as the Crusades had been directed 

 to Palestine.) The end of the prophecy (verse 7) speaks of this 

 people being brought as a present to Jehovah to the place of His 

 name, Mount Zion; which appears to contemplate the restoration 



