are slain.”—­They are mistaken.  This is their infirmity.  The 1260 years are not yet expired, nor the testimony finished.  “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” (Isa. lix. 19.) The mystic woman is yet in the wilderness, and there she is nourished with the hidden manna “a time, times and half a time,” “forty and two months, or twelve hundred and sixty days,”—­that is, years; for, as formerly noticed, all these expressions mean the same period of time; the period during which the witnesses prophesy, on the one side, and the gentiles tread the outer court, on the other.  The profanation of the holy city,—­the church nominal, and the testimony of the witnesses against that conduct, is the same contest which in this chapter is represented under other symbols.  The waters of the symbolic flood have spread over all the nations of Christendom, corrupting the very fountains of natural and moral science, literature, politics and religion; so that hardly any principle is accepted by the human mind as settled, but all is thrown into debate.  Man’s intellect, craving substantial nourishment, and thirsting for refreshment which nothing but the water of life can supply, vibrates between ritualism and skepticism in our day.  The flood from the dragon’s mouth, consisting of truth and error, a combination of Christianity, refined idolatry and speculative atheism, fails to satisfy the necessary cravings of the immortal soul.  “There be many that say, Who will show us any good?” (Ps. iv. 6.)

In this state of the popular mind, there is a general sentiment which discountenances penalties inflicted for mere opinion.  The cry of toleration,—­“freedom of speech and of the press,” resounds in the public ear among most communities since the dragon was cast down from the mystic heaven.  This popular sentiment is not an expression of the law of charity, actuating hearts influenced by divine grace; but rather originates from indifference alike to the claims of Messiah and the destinies of mankind.  Thus “the earth helps the woman.”  Indeed, the nations of Christendom, contrary to their former policy, are now much more tolerant of ecclesiastical than of political heresies.  With few exceptions, the policy of the nations at the present time is to discriminate, not among churches, but among religions.  The popular voice is obviously in favor of dissevering that alliance between church and state, from which mankind have suffered in past generations.  While every earthly potentate, usurping the place and prerogatives of the Mediator, assumed to dictate the faith and worship of his subjects, all dissenters and recusants must necessarily be subjected to penalties.  Such was the policy of the dragon for centuries, while in the heavens of ecclesiastical and civil power.  The nominal church established by the state, defined heresy; and the heresy found by the church became