their rights as kings.  When King Victor Emmanuel entered Rome on the twentieth day of September, 1870, the Pope’s temporal sun set forever, and he does not control even the city in which he lives—­Rome.  He is often referred to as “the prisoner of the Vatican.”  “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity,” said the prophecy; “he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.”  It was by force of arms that the Popes obtained and maintained their temporal power over the nations, and by the force of arms they have had their authority torn from them.  Religion has been referred to as “the basis of government”; for the legislators of any country are to a great degree influenced in their deliberations by religious sentiments.  In all Protestant countries that greatest of Protestant principles, religious liberty, is as truly recognized by statute as was that infernal principle of the Papacy, religious intolerance, when formerly enforced by law.  Protestant principles have so far permeated the nations of Europe formerly controlled by the Papacy that religious toleration is generally granted.  In Italy, the headquarters of Popedom, where the Catholics are greatly in the majority, religious liberty is granted by law.  And even Spain, denominated by the Encyclopaedia Britannica “the most Catholic country in the world,” exhibits “a general indifferentism to religion,” meaning that the fanaticism and intolerance of former ages that caused thousands, and perhaps millions, to be slain, is rapidly dying out.  In the vision before us, however, the special actions ascribed to this beast—­speaking, working miracles, deceiving, making an image and imparting life to it, etc., which all belong properly to the department of human life—­show conclusively that it is the character of this beast as an ecclesiastical power that is the chief point under consideration.  He was not to become such a terrible beast politically (for his horns were only like a lamb), but “he spake as a dragon.”  As soon as we enter the department to which speaking by analogy refers us, we find this beast to be a great religious power; and it is in this character alone that he is dilineated in the remainder of the chapter.  That the description of a religious system is the main burden of this symbol, is shown also by the fact that it is in every case referred to in subsequent chapters as the “false prophet.”  Chap. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10.  Therefore every reference I make to this second beast hereafter should be understood as signifying the religious system of Protestantism, unless otherwise stated.

That Protestantism in its many forms can be properly represented by a single symbol—­a beast or false prophet—­may seem a little strange at first; but when we come to consider next the making of an image to the beast, it will be seen that the Protestant sects, from God’s standpoint of viewing, are all alike in character, as were the multitudinous forms of heathen worship represented under the single symbol of the dragon.  Hence only one beast, or the making of one image, was necessary to stand as representative of the entire number.  It will be noticed by the reader that from verse 12 to the close of the chapter the term beast signifies the first beast, or the Papacy, and that the second beast, or Protestantism, is designated by the pronoun he.