How strikingly the history of the world confirms the testimony of the Word of God. That Word declares that, until the God of Heaven shall set up his kingdom, there shall be four universal kingdoms upon earth-and no more. In these two stronglymarked, prophetic visions, that truth is affirmed and re-affirmed. And, according to human calculation, it would seem to have been then a most unlikely truth. The chances, as men speak of such things, appear to have been all against it. The probability would seem to be, that some mighty king, some great conqueror, would arise and defeat it. No man, at that time, could have conceived of such a thing as true. Human wisdom would then have counted on the reoccurrence of what had already been. Four times, in the history of the world, this dream of universal dominion has been realized. Shall it be but four? In all future time, shall not another erect a throne, to be what these, in their day, had been?

No. "By Me kings reign." And when God refuses the grant of power, in vain may earthly potentates seek to attain it. The sceptre shall break in their hands. The substance shall become a shadow. No hand can grasp it. Somehow it has come to pass, that, whenever made, the effort has been defeated. There have been but four universal monarchies.

FOUR GREAT EMPIRES.

CHAPTER VIII.

BARNES, who misunderstands the latter part of this prophecy, thus writes:-"This chapter contains an account of a vision seen by the prophet in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar. The prophet either was, or appeared to be, in the city of Shushan-afterwards the capital of the Persian empire, in the province of Elam. To that place-then an important townthere is no improbability in supposing that he had gone, as he was then unconnected with the government, or not employed by the government (ch. v.), and as it is not unreasonable to suppose that he would be at liberty to visit other parts of the empire than Babylon. Possibly there may have been Jews at that place, and he may have gone on a visit to them. Or perhaps the scene of the vision may have been laid in Shushan, by the river Ulai, and that the prophet means to represent himself as if he had been there, and the vision had seemed to pass there before his mind. But there is no valid objection to the supposition that he was actually there; and this seems to be affirmed in ver. 2. While there, he saw a ram with two horns, one higher than the other, pushing westward, and northward, and southward, so powerful that nothing

could oppose him. As he was looking on this, he saw a he-goat come from the West, bounding along, and scarcely touching the ground, with a single remarkable horn between his eyes. This he-goat attacked the ram, broke his two horns, and overcame him entirely. The he-goat became very strong, but at length the horn was broken, and there came up four in its place. From one of these there sprang up a little horn that became exceeding great and mighty, extending itself toward the South, and the East, and the pleasant land -the land of Palestine. This horn became so mighty that it seemed to attack 'the host of heaven'-the stars; it cast some of them down to the ground; it magnified itself against the Prince of the host; it caused the daily sacrifice in the temple to cease, and the sanctuary of the Prince of the host was cast down. An earnest inquiry was made by one saint to another how long this was to continue, and the answer was, unto two thousand and three hundred days, and that then the sanctuary would be cleansed. Gabriel is then sent to explain the vision to the prophet, and he announces that the ram with the two horns represented the kings of Media and Persia; the goat, the king of Greece; the great horn between his eyes, the first king; the four horns that sprang up after that was broken, the four dynasties into which the kingdom would be divided; and the little horn, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, and that would stand up against the Prince of princes, and that would ultimately be destroyed. The effect of this was, that Daniel was overcome by the vision for a certain time; afterward he revived, and attended to the business of the king, but none understood the vision."

I have already explained, in the course of previous remarks, that God's method of communicating with his people before the advent of our Lord was through the instrumentality of prophets, by visions, by dreams, and in various other ways making known his will, directly and indirectly, for the encouragement of those he desired to instruct in his high and solemn purposes. He no less plainly made known his mind in relation to the future, presignifying what were the events that were coming on the earth. But the future is of necessity dark. It is easy to understand partly the necessity of obscuring or darkening the otherwise excessive splendour of the future by those veils, or hieroglyphs or symbols, under which God was pleased to convey what he deemed expedient of the nature of the future, for the encouragement, the comfort, and the hope of his saints. If God had revealed the future as transparently as the past, human responsibility would have ceased; human effort would have been paralysed; and the ordinary process by which God carries on his providential government would be superseded. If, on the other hand, God had given us no glimpses of the future, we should all be at sea: we should find ourselves struggling in the midst of storms, the end of which we should neither see nor be sure of. We should be in this world toiling in a dark and troubled night, the happy close of which would be unknown, and its morning uncertain. Therefore, God in his great love has given us as much of the future as will convey to us a broad and general idea of what is to be; and yet he has given it so darkly, that none of us shall be able to foretell, while any of us may be able to forthtell, some of the things that are coming on the world.

This vision in the 8th chapter is partly explained by the Spirit of God speaking through Daniel himself; and that explanation, rather than the basis of it, is the part to which I direct specially your attention. First of all, it is said, "The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia." It is a remarkable confirmation of this, that the seal and distinctive mark on the diadem of the kings of Persia and Media was a golden ram. As you have in the French empire the eagle, and in our own empire the three national symbols mingled into one, so the Medo-Persian empire had a ram for its distinctive symbol, and on its diadem a golden ram, as all history and allusions contemporaneous with its existence will sufficiently and abundantly explain.

We are told of this ram that " he pushed westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand." This was the sovereignty asserted by and secured for Medo-Persia by its victorious kings, by which was constituted the next empire invested with almost universal supremacy, as delineated in this chapter under these symbols.

After this there comes into the foreground a "rough goat, the king of Grecia." It is said of this rough goat, "that he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him; and there was none that could deliver the ram out of