events of the last decade of the eighteenth century, that gave to the Papacy a deadly wound.

One further set of specifications remains for study:

The Work. Of the nature and work of the power represented by the little horn, the prophecy declares:

"He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." Dan. 7:25.

Do we find in the record that the Church of Rome has fulfilled these specifications also? The Scripture prophecy is absolutely a word-photograph of the workings of the papal church. Look at the main features:

1. Speaking great words against the Most High.

2. Wearing out the saints of the Most High.

3. Thinking to change the times and the laws of the Most High.

Every count in the indictment may be clearly proved, and that by testimony from Roman Catholic sources

"He Shall Speak Great Words Against the Most High"

As Daniel observed the little-horn power, he heard it speaking "very great things." The angel declared that these great swelling words were really against the Most High. And what could be more against the honor of the Most High than that to mortal man should be ascribed the titles and attributes of divinity? Here are some of the "great words:"

"All the names which are attributed to Christ in Scripture, implying His supremacy over the church, are also attributed to the Pope."— Bellarmine, "On the Authority of Councils," book 2, chap. 17.

This ruling has been actually applied through the ages. Says Elliott:

"Look at the Sicilian ambassadors prostrated before him [Pope Martin IV] with the cry, 'Lamb of God! that takest away the sins of the world!"""Hora Apocalyptica," part 4, chap. 5, sec. 2.

"The Pope is of so great dignity and excellence, that he is not merely man, but as if God, and the vicar of God (non sit simplex homo, sed quasi Deus, et Dei vicarius). The Pope alone is called most holy, . . . divine monarch, and supreme emperor, and king of kings. . . . The Pope is of so great dignity and power that he constitutes one and the same tribunal with Christ (faciat unum et idem tribunal cum Christo), so that whatsoever the Pope does seems to proceed from the mouth of God (abore Dei).""Prompta Bibliotheca" (Ferraris), art. "Papa;" Ferraris's Ecclesiastical Dictionary (Roman Catholic), art. "The Pope." Quoted in Guinness's "Romanism and the Reformation," p. 16.

These are no merely extravagant adulations of the Dark Ages, to be repudiated by the moderns; these terms express the unchanging doctrinal claims of the Roman Church, that put man in the place of God. The modern Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical letter dated June 20, 1894, repeated the claim:

"We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty."-"The Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII" (New York, Benziger Brothers), p. 304. Thus does the Papacy "speak great words against the Most High."

"And Shall Wear Out the Saints of the

Most High'

All through the Dark Ages we catch glimpses of the ruthless hand of Rome laid upon simple believers in God's Holy Word; but plans for wholesale wearing out of the saints of God were devised as the Waldenses and others rose to a widespread work of witnessing, heralds of the dawn of the coming Reformation,

"These who gave earliest notice,

As the lark

Springs from the ground the morn to gratulate;

Who, rather, rose the day to antedate,

By striking out a solitary spark,

When all the world with midnight gloom was dark
The harbingers of good whom bitter hate

In vain endeavored to exterminate."

-

- Wordsworth.

Pope Innocent III gave orders concerning them as follows:

"Therefore by this present apostolical writing, we give you a strict command that, by whatever means you can, you destroy all these heresies and expel from your diocese all who are polluted with them. You shall exercise the rigor of ecclesiastical power against them and all those who have made themselves suspected by associating with them. They may not appeal from your judgments, and, if necessary, you may cause the princes and people to suppress them with the sword."- Quoted from Migne, 214, col. 71, in Thatcher and McNeal's "Source Book for Medieval History," p. 210.

As the truth spread, so also the papal church redoubled its efforts by sword and flame. The historian Lecky

says:

"That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings."-"History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," Vol. II, p. 32.

Motley, in his "Rise of the Dutch Republic" (part 3, chap. 2), tells how Philip II of Spain - who declared that he would "never consent to be the sovereign of heretics". sent the Duke of Alva to take over the Netherlands:

"Early in the year the most sublime sentence of death was promulgated which has ever been pronounced since the creation of the world. The Roman tyrant [Nero] wished that his enemies' heads were all upon a single neck, that he might strike them off at a blow; the Inquisition assisted Philip to place the heads of all his Netherlands subjects upon a single neck for the same fell purpose. Upon February 16, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines."