by some to be the change from paganism to Christianity in the empire.  No; this view is many ways erroneous:  but it is enough to remark that the Roman empire, according to both prophets, Daniel and John, is to continue bestial under all changes, during the whole period of 1260 years.  The deadly wound was inflicted by the northern invaders who overturned the empire, and, for the time, extinguished the very name of emperor in the person of Augustulus.  After the division of the western member of the empire had been subdivided among the victorious leaders of the invaders from the north, and the people of that section supposed the beast slain, the throne of Constantinople continued to be occupied by the representative of the empire.  In the popular apprehension the imperial head of the beast seemed to be utterly cut off by the sword of Odoacer,—­“wounded by a sword:”  but the several kingdoms into which the empire was divided, in process of time became united in the bonds of an apostate faith.  The imperial name and dignity were revived in the person of the emperor of Germany, Charlemagne, in 800; and by the wars among the horns of the beast, the title of emperor has been claimed alternately by Germany, Austria and France, down to our own time.  These dissensions and rivalries among the sovereigns of Europe,—­the mystic horns of the beast, were foreshadowed in the Babylonish monarch’s dream:—­“the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken,—­they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay,” (Dan. ii. 42, 43.) And doubtless these internal commotions among the common enemies of the saints of God, have tended, in divine mercy, to divert their attention occasionally from the witnesses.  While they have been made the instruments of mutual punishment, the Lord’s people have been “hid in the day of his fierce anger.” (Zeph. ii. 3.)

At what time the sixth head of the beast disappeared and the seventh became developed, is not clearly marked in the Apocalypse, and it is of comparatively little importance, since the latter is to “continue a short space” (ch. xvii. 10.) The central fact is the continuance of the beast a definite time under all the heads,—­1260 years.  Under all the forms of government through which the empire passed, it continued bestial and was the object of popular admiration.  “All the world wondered after the beast.”  The populace made court to, fawned upon, followed in the train, or formed the retinue of the beast.  We are to limit the phrase,—­“all the world,” for not all the inhabitants are to be understood, but such only as professed allegiance to the existing imperial dominion; and among those within the beast’s territorial jurisdiction, the witnesses still stood to their protest against his impious claims.—­But from admiration and loyalty, the servile multitude break forth into adoration, addressing the dragon and the beast in such language as is proper to God only. (Ps. lxxxix. 6.) The shouts of the rabble on Herod’s