imposition, brought to trial, condemned, excommunicated, and his pulpit declared vacant?  There is nothing imaginary in the statement that the creed-power is now beginning to prohibit the Bible as really as Rome did, though in a subtler way.

“Oh! woful day!  Oh! unhappy church of Christ! fast rushing round and round the fatal circle of absorbing ruin!...  Daily does every one see that things are going wrong.  With sighs does every true heart confess that rottenness is somewhere; but, ah! it is hopeless of reform.  We all pass on, and the tide rolls down to night.  The waves of coming conflict which is to convulse Christendom to her center are beginning to be felt.  The deep heavings begin to swell beneath us.  ‘All the old signs fail.’  ’God answers no more by Urim and Thummim, nor by dream, nor by prophet.’  Men’s hearts are failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth.  Thunders mutter in the distance.  Winds moan across the surging bosom of the deep.  All things betide the rising of that final storm of divine indignation which shall sweep away the vain refuge of lies.”

In addition to this, we have spiritualism, infidelity, socialism, and free-love, the trades unions, or labor against capital, and communism, all assiduously spreading their principles among the masses.  These are the very principles that worked among the people, as the exciting cause, just prior to the terrible French revolution of 1789-1800.  Human nature is the same in all ages, and like causes will surely produce like results.  These causes are now all in active operation; and how soon they will culminate in a state of anarchy, and a reign of terror as much more frightful than the French revolution as they are now more widely extended, no man can say.

Such are some of the elements already at work; such the direction in which events are moving.  And how much further is it necessary that they should progress in this manner, before an open war-cry of persecution from the masses, against those whose simple adherence to the Bible shall put to shame their man-made theology, and whose godly lives shall condemn their wicked practices, would seem in nowise startling or incongruous?  But some may say, through an all-absorbing faith in the increasing virtue of the American people, that they do not believe that the United States will ever raise the hand of persecution against any class.  Very well.  This is not a matter over which we need to indulge in any controversy.  No process of reasoning, nor any amount of argument, can ever show that it will not be so.  We think we have shown good ground for strong probabilities in this direction; and we shall present more forcible evidence, and speak of more significant movements hereafter.  As we interpret the prophecy, we look upon it as inevitable.  But the decision of the question must be left to time.  We can neither help nor hinder its work.  That will soon solve all doubts and correct all errors.