great millstone, Babylon, the great city of confusion, with all her boasted civil and ecclesiastical power, and with all her assumed dignity, her wealth, her titles, her influence, her honors, and all her vain glory, will be cast into the sea (the restless sea of ungovernable peoples) to rise no more.— Rev. 18:21; Jer. 51:61-64.

Her destruction will be fully accomplished by the end of the appointed "Times of the Gentiles"-1915. Events are rapidly progressing toward such a crisis and termination. Though the trial is not yet completed, already many can read the handwriting of her doom-"Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting!" and by and by the fearful doom of Babylon, Christendom, will be realized. The old superstitions that have long upheld her are fast being removed: old religious creeds and civil codes hitherto reverenced and unhesitatingly endorsed are now boldly questioned, their inconsistencies pointed out, and their palpable errors ridiculed. The trend of thought among the masses of men, however, is not toward Bible truth and sound logic, but rather toward infidelity. Infidelity is rampant, both within and outside the church nominal. In the professed Church of Christ the Word of God is no longer the standard of faith and the guide of life. Human philosophies and theories are taking its place, and even heathen vagaries are beginning to flourish in places formerly beyond their pale.

Only a few in the great nominal church are sufficiently awake and sober to realize her deplorable condition, except as her numerical and financial strength are considered, the masses in both pews and pulpits being too much intoxicated and stupefied by the spirit of the world, so freely imbibed, even to note her spiritual decline. But numerically and financially her waning condition is keenly felt; for with the perpetuity of her institutions are linked all

the interests, prospects and pleasures of the present life; and to secure these the necessity is felt of keeping up a fair showing of fulfilling what is believed to be her divine commission,--to convert the world. Her measure of success in this effort we will note in a succeeding chapter.

While we thus see Babylon arraigned to answer for herself in the presence of an assembled world, with what force does the Psalmist's prophecy of this event, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, recur to the mind! Though God has kept silence during all the centuries wherein evil triumphed in his name and his true saints suffered persecution in multiplied forms, he has not been oblivious to those things; and now the time has come whereof he spoke by the prophet, saying, "But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." Let all who would be awake and on the right side in these times of tremendous import mark well these things and see how perfectly prophecy and fulfilment correspond.

CHAPTER V.

BABYLON BEFORE THE GREAT COURT.

HER CONFUSION-NATIONAL.

THE CIVIL POWERS IN TRouble, Seeing the Judgment is Going AGAINST THEM. IN FEAR AND DISTRESS THEY SEEK ALLIANCE ONE WITH ANOTHER, AND LOOK IN VAIN TO THE CHURCH FOR HER OLD-TIME POWER.-THEY INCREASE THEIR ARMIES AND NAVIES.-PRESENT WAR PREPARATIONS.-THE FIGHTING FORCES ON LAND AND SEA.-IMPROVED Implements of War, New DISCOVERIES, INVENTIONS, Explosives, etc.-Wake Up the Mighty Men: LET THE WEAK SAY, I AM STRONG; BEAT PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS AND PRUNING HOOKS INTO SPEARS, ETC.-The United States of AMERICA Unique IN HER POSITION, YET THREATENED WITH EVEN GREATER EVILS THAN THE OLD WORLD.-THE CRY OF PEACE! PEACE! When There is no Peace.

"FOR

OR these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. . . . Upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

"Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. . . . For our God is a consuming fire."— Luke 21:22, 25-27; Heb. 12: 26-29.

That the civil powers of Christendom perceive that the judgment is going against them, and that the stability of their power is by no means assured, is very manifest. Disraeli, when Prime Minister of England, addressed the

British Parliament, July 2, 1874 (just in the beginning of this harvest period or judgment day), saying, "The great crisis of the world is nearer than some suppose. Why is Christendom so menaced? I fear civilization is about to collapse." Again he said, "Turn whatever way we like, there is an uncomfortable feeling abroad, a distress of nations, men's hearts failing them for fear. . . . No man can fail to mark these things. No man who ever looks at a newspaper can fail to see the stormy aspect of the political sky that at present envelops us. . . . Some gigantic outburst must surely fall. Every cabinet in Europe is agitated. Every king and ruler has his hand on his sword hilt; . we are upon times of unusual ghastliness. We are approaching the end!"

If such was the outlook as seen in the very beginning of the judgment, how much more ominous are the signs of the times to-day!

From an article in the London Spectator, entitled "The Disquiet of Europe," we quote the following:

"To what should we attribute the prevailing unrest in Europe? We should say that though due in part to the condition of Italy, it is mainly to be ascribed to the wave of pessimism now passing over Europe, caused partly by economic troubles and partly by the sudden appearance of anarchy as a force in the world. The latter phenomenon has had far greater influence on the Continent than in England. Statesmen abroad are always anticipating danger from below-a danger which bomb-throwing brings home to them. They regard the anarchists as, in fact, only the advance guard of a host which is advancing on civilization, and which, if it cannot be either conciliated or defied, will pulverize all existing order. They prophecy to themselves ill of the internal future, the existing quiet resting, as they think, too exclusively on bayonets. Judging the internal situation with so little hope, they are naturally inclined to be gloomy as to the external one, to think that it cannot last, and to regard any movement . . . as proof that the

end is approaching rapidly. In fact, they feel, in politics the disposition toward pessimism which is so marked in literature and society. This pessimism is for the moment greatly deepened by the wave of economic depression."

The following from the same journal of March 9, '95, is also to the point:

"THE TRUE COntinental DANGER.-M. Jules Roche has given us all a timely warning. His speech of Tuesday, which was received in the French Chamber with profound attention once more reminded Europe of the thinness of the crust which still covers up its volcanic fires. His thesis was that France, after all her sacrifices-sacrifices which would have crushed any Power less wealthy-was still unprepared for war; that she must do more, and above all, spend more, before she could be considered either safe or ready. Throughout he treated Germany as a terrible and imminent enemy against whose invasion France must always be prepared, and who at this moment was far stronger than France. Under his last Military Bill the Emperor William II. (said M. Roche) had succeeded not only in drawing his whole people within the grip of the conscription, but he had raised the army actually ready for marching and fighting to five hundred and fifty thousand men, fully officered, fully equipped, scientifically stationed,-in short, ready whenever his lips should utter the fatal decision which his grandfather embodied in the two words 'Krieg-Mobil.' France, on the contrary, though the net of her conscription was equally wide, had only four hundred thousand men ready, and to save money, was steadily reducing even that proportion. In the beginning of the war, therefore, which now usually decides its end, France, with enemies on at least two frontiers, would be a hundred and fifty thousand men short, and might, before her full resources were at her Generals' disposal, sustain terrible or even fatal calamities. The deputies, though far from devoted to M. Jules Roche, listened almost awe-struck, and M. Félix Faure has decided that, for the first time in six years, he will exert a forgotten prerogative granted to the President of the Republic, and preside at the meeting of the Supreme Military Council, to be held on March 20th. He evidently intends,