38. self above all. But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold and silver, and with precious stones, and 39. pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge, and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for 40. gain. And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall 41. overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown; but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

42. He shall stretch forth his hand also

upon the countries; and the land of 43. Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Lybians and the Ethiopians 44. shall be at his steps. But tidings

out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. 45. And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace, between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.

Such is the prophetic description of this extraordinary person; a description which, in the opinion of the writer of this essay, formed after much and long deliberation on the subject, was intended to predict Napoleon Bonaparte, the late Em

peror of the French. The grounds on which this opinion is formed he will now proceed to state; and aware of the very important results to which this interpretation of the prophecy, if it should prove to be correct, will lead, he will arrange his proofs, for the greater convenience of considering them, under four separate heads, corresponding to the following particulars in the description of the predicted king; viz.

I. The Time of his Appearance.
II. His Character.

III. His Exploits.

IV. His End.

ACCORDING to the place in the prophecy, where this King is first introduced to our notice, we may infer that he will not make his appearance till the 1260 years of papal domination, which, as we are reminded in the thirty-fifth verse, will continue, "even unto the time of the end," shall have terminated; nor consequently till this latter period (the period during which God will gradually put an end to the triumphs of his enemies, to the sufferings of his church, and to the dispersion of Israel,) shall have commenced. In this period "the King" will appear; and, as it should seem, in an early part

of it because it is not till he shall have finished his work and come to his end, that the grand event, the deliverance of Israel, to which this prophecy points, is to be developed; an event which is to be accomplished before" the time of the end" shall have expired; but which, from its magnitude, and from the many other important occurrences connected with it, as indicated in various other prophecies, will probably occupy in its developement a considerable portion of time.*

An opinion has been entertained by several modern interpreters of prophecy, that this " King," whensoever he should appear, would be Antichrist under his last or infidel form. But there does not seem to be any thing in the prophecy itself to warrant such a conclusion. On the contrary, the description given of him, especially when connected with the time of his appearance, strongly militates. against it. The little horn of Daniel, and the ten-horned beast of St. John, the