As this second beast of the Apocalypse is to act a prominent part in the scenery afterwards presented in vision to the apostle, and a correspondent part in actual history, and as it is called by different names and appears under different aspects, it is necessary that its character be closely inspected, so that its identity may be clearly ascertained.  The description here given is very minute.  One thing is very obvious,—­that this beast of the earth is the confederate, the ally, and the accomplice of the beast of the sea.  They act in concert.  They had been thus represented in vision to Daniel.  In the seventh chapter of that prophecy we have the beast of the sea, as here, with his “ten horns,” (v. 7.) While the prophet narrowly “considered the horns, behold, there came up among them another little horn,” (v. 8.) It has been already shown that these horns represent the kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided, (v. 24.) Among these horns, kings, (v. 24,) or kingdoms, “another shall rise after them,”—­“among them,” yet in the order of time,—­“after them.”  Thus it appears that Daniel’s fourth beast had eleven horns; but the eleventh is called “another which came up,” to distinguish it from the ten, (v. 20.) “He shall be diverse from the first,” (v. 24.) It is thus evident that the last horn,—­the eleventh, is as really a horn of the beast, as the other ten; and of course this horn,—­“little” at its rise, but in time becoming “more stout than his fellows,” is the willing accomplice in crime of that beast whose horn it is.  “The same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them,” (v. 21.)—­“He had two horns like a lamb.”  He professed to be gentle and innocent as a lamb,—­to be the vicegerent of the “Lamb of God.”  He claimed only a spiritual jurisdiction.  As it is natural that a lamb should have only two horns, so the symbol is agreeable to nature.  But this lamb “spake as a dragon;” and that was contrary to nature.  No two animals in creation are in their respective natures more diverse or opposite than a lamb and a beast of prey.  These two antagonistic natures combined, indicate the crafty and cruel policy of this beast of the earth.  Daniel mentions the “little horn” of the civil beast; but says nothing of the “two-horned beast.”  On the other hand, John speaks plainly of this beast of the earth, but omits any mention of the “little horn.”  But the “beast of the earth” and the “little horn” sustain the same relation to the first beast, the “beast of the sea”—­the Roman empire; therefore the “two-horned beast of the earth” and the “little horn” are identical; and this identity is confirmed by the additional name “false prophet,” given to the beast of the earth in ch. xix, 20.  His alliance and co-operation with the civil beast is precisely the same as in this chapter.  He “wrought miracles before him,” that is,—­in his interest.  Some interpreters have mistaken this “false prophet” as a symbol of Mahometanism.  The facts of history demonstrate the fallacy of this interpretation; for the delusions of Mahomet never had, and they have not now, any affinity with the idolatries of the Latin Roman empire.  But these two beasts of the sea and of the earth are obviously in the closest sympathy, having a common interest.