sentation, which is not an infrequent characteristic of symbolic prophecy. It is equally unnatural and incongruous that a pure and chaste woman, which this woman is represented to be, should bear a son without marriage, as, for example, that ears of corn should devour other ears, Gen. xli. 24, or that horns apart from living animals should pursue carpenters. Zech. i. 19. Symbolic prophecy, scorns all such restraint and tramples down all such absurdities. It is a characteristic of the writing; the interpreter is only required to conform himself to it. But there is here nothing more in effect than a mutation of the symbol. The woman passes into another—or rather she is reduplicated in another symbol. She appears in her son simply in another form. In this son, then, whom she bears, and in whose history the same idea and design is developed, we behold the future Conqueror himself as he appears going forth on his victorious career under the First Seal; for this offspring is a man-child who shall "rule all nations with a rod of iron."-Ch. xi. 5. In other parts of the book, and in other symbols besides these for the book teems with synonymous symbols-we recognize the Conqueror. We see him, in ch. xix. 11–21, represented by the same symbola Horseman on a White Horse, as under the first seal; we recognize him in another form, that of Michael, who fights with and overcomes the Dragon, ch. xii. 7, in the Lamb upon Mount Zion, ch. xiv., and elsewhere. But a leading synonymous sign under which he appears, and in which alone his history is fully developed, is the Woman passing through the vale,

or the wilderness of persecution, to the ultimate triumph of a glorious marriage, when this symbol itself passes into the correspondent one of the city, the New Jerusalem. In this the defeat and final victory of the Conqueror are depicted. The other symbols are to be regarded as variations performed on the leading theme. It is to be remembered that the second is the reduplicating version, and the perfect one contained in the Seventh and perfect Seal. It abounds with repetitions of the subject, and with rehearsals of it under fresh imagery. It is the reduplicating the full and the perfect version. There are, accordingly, many synonymous signs in it for the Conqueror. The Woman is the chief of these.

The Dragon is the second symbol of the Fourfold Group in the second version. His color is red, correspondent with that of the Red Horse of the Second Seal. It is the only instance in which the color is mentioned in the second quarternary; and it develops the correspondence. Nevertheless, the colors of the other members of the group may legitimately be inferred to be the same as in the first quaternary, for the prevailing color of the Woman, clothed with beaming light, and with the sun, is certainly to be inferred to be white, and the color thus to stand in unison with the white of the White Horse. The Tenhorned sea-monster is to be inferred to be black, the color of the real monsters of the deep, and therefore to correspond with that of the Black Horse; the Twohorned land beast to be pale, like some of the most savage land animals, and therefore the color to be

the same as that of the Pale Horse. This correspondence may be inferred, although it cannot be proved. If we follow the history of the Dragon, we see the history of one of the combatants of the conquering Horseman. We find him cast from heaven to earth by Michael, ch. xii. 7, who is a synonymous symbol for the Conqueror. We find him persecuting the Woman, ch. xii. 13, likewise a synonymous symbol: he is therefore waging war against the Conqueror: he is described as forming a confederacy against him in conjunction with his allies, the Beast and the False Prophet, ch. xvi. 13, 14: he is bound for a season, and restrained from action, but is loosed from his prison, when he makes a final onset against the Conqueror, which ends in his being taken and destroyed, by being cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, ch. xx. He is accordingly one of the three antagonists who are represented in the first Four Seals as entering into combat with the Conqueror of the book, and he answers in the second version to the Red Horse and Rider of the first version.

The Ten-horned Beast is the third member of this fourfold group we are examining. He is an associate and an ally of the Dragon, having, as appears from ch. xiii. 4, the same "worshippers:" he makes war on, and persecutes what, on the above ground, as well as for the reason that the length of the period is precisely the same, must be understood to be the same power as the Dragon, the period of his continuation and making war on the saints, being

forty-two months, ch. xiii. 5-7, which is the same as the 1260 days of the Dragon's persecution: he is a member of the threefold confederacy which is formed against the Conqueror previous to the final battle ch. xvi. 13, 14: his presence in this final battle is described, ch. xix. 19, 20, when he is taken captive and cast into "a lake of fire, burning with brimstone." He is evidently, then, a second of the three combatants.

The Two-horned Beast is the last member of the Quaternary. He is an associate of the Dragon, for he "speaks like " one, ch. xiii. 2, and "he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him," v. 12, who, as it has been shown, is an ally of the Dragon. He is accordingly in alliance with the Dragon and in combination with the Ten-horned Beast. As these have been shown to be two combatants of the Conqueror, he is necessarily the third. His complete identification with the Ten-horned Beast, as merely another phase of him, is shown in various parts of his portraiture, as it is rendered in ch. xiii. 11-18. But the real amalgamation of the two is more vividly portrayed, and is allegorically represented by the combination of the two in one compound symbol, viz., a Ten-horned Beast and a Whore riding on it, which is done in ch. xvii. In ch. xiii. they are represented as they existed during the period of the 1260 days, when the conflict of war went in their favor and victory, for a temporary season, perched upon their standards. In ch. xvii. they appear when this period of temporary triumph has ended and when they

are driven into the wilderness, in which they are now seen, v. 3-the wilderness, an image bearing the sense of defeat in respect to the contest, and in which the Woman had sojourned during the period in which their cause had had the ascendency. The wilderness, as it respects the four combatants, is evidently a correspondent image for defeat in a combat. When the Dragon drives the Woman into the wilderness he then must be understood as overcoming the Conqueror, if we hold in view unity of design in the structure of the prophetical piece, as we are bound to do; when the Woman flees into the wilderness for 1260 days, the victor is defeated by the three combatants who contend with him, and the defeat lasts for the period thus measured out; when the Beast and the Whore are in the wilderness, in which there is water, the Beast being a sea-monster, ch. xvii. 1, 3, victory reverts to the side of the final Conqueror, and they, in their turn, are defeated. This image, however, is not used in the latter reference in respect of the Dragon-the correspondent expression applied to him is his being chained in the bottomless pit, or, as the translation should be, the abyss of the sea, for a season. The reason for this probably is, his identification as a symbol with the dragon of the waters, while the reason for the wilderness, in the same sense, being employed in respect of the Beast and the Whore, may be held to be to place the Whore and the retribution inflicted on her in stronger contrast with the chaste Woman that was persecuted and forced to flee into the wilderness. The same idea, however, is prose