“In this web of islands, the West Indies, began the life of both [North and South] Americas.  There Columbus saw land, there Spain began her baneful and brilliant Western Empire; thence Cortez departed for Mexico, De Soto for the Mississippi, Balboa for the Pacific, and Pizarro for Peru.  The history of the United States was separated by a beneficient Providence far from this wild and cruel history of the rest of the continent, and like a silent seed, we grew into empire; while empire itself, beginning in the South, was swept by so interminable a hurricane that what of its history we can ascertain is read by the very lightnings that devastated it.  The growth of English America may be likened to a series of lyrics sung by separate singers, which, coalescing, at last make a vigorous chorus, and this, attracting many from afar, swells and is prolonged, until presently it assumes the dignity and proportions of epic song.”

A writer in the Dublin Nation about the year 1850 spoke of the United States as a wonderful empire which was “emerging,” and “amid the silence of the earth daily adding to its power and pride.”

In Martyn’s “History of the Great Reformation,” Vol. iv, p. 238, is an extract from an oration of Edward Everett, on the English exiles who founded this government, in which he says:—­

“Did they look for a retired spot, inoffensive from its obscurity, safe in its remoteness from the haunts of despots, where the little church of Leyden might enjoy freedom of conscience?  Behold the mighty regions over which in peaceful conquest—­victoria sine clade—­they have borne the banners of the cross.”

We now ask the reader to look at these expressions side by side:  “Coming up out of the earth,” “coming forth from vacancy,” “emerging amid the silence of the earth,” “like a silent seed we grew into empire,” “mighty regions” secured by “peaceful conquest.”  The first is from the prophet, stating what would be when the two-horned beast should arise; the others are from political writers, telling what has been in the history of our own government.  Can any one fail to see that the last four are exactly synonymous with the first, and that they record a complete accomplishment of the prediction?  And what is not a little remarkable, those who have thus recorded the fulfillment have, without any reference to prophecy, used the very figure which the prophet employed.  These men, therefore, being judges—­men of large and cultivated minds, and whose powers of discernment all will acknowledge to be sufficiently clear—­it is certain that the particular manner in which the United States have arisen, answers most strikingly to the development of the symbol under consideration.

We now extend the inquiry a step further:  Have the United States “come up” in a manner to fulfill the prophecy?  Has their progress been sufficiently great and sufficiently rapid to corresponds to that visible and perceptible growth which John saw in the two-horned beast?