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Roman Catholic writers admit that the papal church has sought to exterminate what it calls heresy, by the power of the sword.

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The Western Watchman (St. Louis), Dec. 24, 1908, says: "The church has persecuted. Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the church authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition. Wherever and whenever there is honest Catholicity, there will be a clear distinction drawn between truth and error, and Catholicity and all forms of error. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it."

Prof. Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute. of Paris, says:

"The Catholic Church is a respecter of conscience and of liberty. She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a 'horror of blood.' Nevertheless, when confronted by heresy, she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of the state to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war, and all her 'horror of blood' practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious for it is less frank- than shedding it herself. Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to preach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henry II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, whilst both in France and Germany during the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided, the religious wars."-"The Catholic Church, the Renaissance and Protestantism" (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1908), pp. 182, 183.

She has done it the Church of Rome has worn out the saints of the Most High. The prophet in vision saw an ecclesiastical kingly power rise among the kingdoms of the divided Roman Empire. Its look was more stout than its fellows, and the prophet heard it speaking "very great things," and

THE SHAME OF RELIGIOUS WARS

Christ viewing the battle fields of history, where millions of His followers have been slain in His name.

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saw it wearing out the saints of the Most High through the long centuries.

"Guilty!" is the clear verdict of history, against the Church of Rome on these two counts of the prophetic indictment.

"And Think to Change Times and Laws"

The power that was to speak great words against the Most High, and to wear out the saints of the Most High, was further in its self-exalting opposition to God-to assume to lay hands upon times and laws, evidently the times and the laws of the Most High; for to say that such a power would lay hands on the laws of men, changing or setting aside human legislation, would signify less than the preceding counts. This third specification states a climax in the indictment the self-exalting, persecuting power was to lay hands upon the very law of the Most High. It is clearly the same power that the apostle Paul said would rise to dominion after his time: "Then shall be revealed the lawless one." 2 Thess. 2: 8, A. R. V.

God's Law Unchangeable

Just as the laws of a government express its character, so the law of God is a reflection of the divine character. "The law of the Lord is perfect." Ps. 19:7. "Wherefore the law is holy," said the apostle, "and the commandment holy, and just, and good." Rom. 7:12.

Jesus declared, "I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." Ps. 40: 8. And He maintained the unchangeable, enduring integrity of that law: "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matt. 5:18.

But in Daniel's prophecy is foretold the rise of this power that was to think to change the times and the laws of the Most High.

Here, again, the evidence points straight to the Church of Rome; for it is a fact that the Papacy has laid violent hands on the law of God - upon the precept, too, that deals with sacred time and has thought to change it.

In a volume to be seen in the British Museum, dated 1545, the following comment on Dan. 7:25 is attributed to Philipp Melanchthon, the Reformer, associate of Luther (reproduced with the old English spelling):

"He changeth the tymes and lawes that any of the sixe worke dayes commanded of God will make them unholy and idle dayes when he lyste, or of their owne holy dayes abolished make worke dayes agen, or when they changed ye Saterday into Sondaye. . . . They have changed God's lawes and turned them into their owne tradicions to be kept above God's precepts."-"Exposicion of Daniel the Prophete," Gathered out of Philipp Melanchthon, Johan Ecolampadius, etc., by George Joye, 1545, p. 119.

This is exactly what the power represented by the little horn was to assume to do. The commandment of God is plain:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work. . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11.

A Change in Practice

But in general practice there has been a change the first day is commonly observed instead of the seventh day, which the Lord declares he blessed and made holy. The Roman Catholic Church points exultingly to the fact that this change, so universally allowed today, has come about solely through church tradition without Scriptural authority. For instance, one Catholic writer says:

"You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! but by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Al

mighty God? When God has spoken and said, Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day, who shall dare to say, Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead? This is a most important question, which I know not how you can answer.

"You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which the Bible has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments; you believe that the other nine are still binding; who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered."-"Library of Christian Doctrine: Why Don't You Keep the Holy Sabbath Day?” (Burns and Oates, London), p. 3.

Every one who studies the question must recognize the fact that there is no change authorized in Scripture. As Canon Eyton, of the Church of England, says:

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday. . . . Into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters." -"The Ten Commandments" (Trübner & Co.), London.

Dr. Heylyn, of the Church of England, wrote:

"Take which you will, either the Fathers or the moderns, and we shall find no Lord's day instituted by any apostolical mandate; no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of the week.”—“History of the Sabbath," part 2, chap. 1.

Authorities, both Protestant and Catholic, freely acknowledge that there is no divine authority for Sunday keeping. There has been a change in practice and teaching, but with no Scriptural authority.

What the Papacy Claims

The prophecy of Daniel 7 forewarned all that the ecclesiastical power that was to rise upon the division of the Roman Empire would think to change the times and the laws of the Most High. The Papacy steps forward and claims boldly that the church has power to set aside Scripture, to institute

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