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SECTION X.

10th Mark.-The Antichrist must be animated by a most violent hatred against Christianity, and must also infuse it into his followers. The Popes have ever shown themselves the most zealous defenders and protectors of Christianity.

Doctor Newman, in his Lectures on the Turks, very justly makes the following remarks on the subject: "The Holy See has the reputation even with men of the world of seeing instinctively what is favourable, what is unfavourable to the interests of religion and of the Catholic faith. Its undying opposition to the Turks is not the least striking instance of this divinely imparted gift. From the very first it pointed at them as an object of alarm for all Christendom, in a way in which it had marked out neither Tartars nor Saracens. It exposed them to the reprobation of Europe as a people, with whom, if charity differ from merciless ferocity, tenderness from hardness of heart, depravity of appetite from virtue, and pride from meekness and humility, the faithful never could have sympathy, never alliance. It denounced not merely an odious outlying deformity, painful simply to the moral sight and scent, but an energetic evil, an aggressive, ambitious, ravenous foe, in whom foulness of life, and cruelty of policy were methodized by system, consecrated by religion, propagated by the sword." 1

It is admitted by all impartial historians, that but for the crusades Christendom must have fallen a victim to the victorious arms of Islamism. Now, who was it that summoned the princes of Christendom to these sacred wars? The Popes; it was they who, either in person or by their 1 Lect. iii. part i.

delegates, preached the crusades, and called upon all Christians to enrol themselves under the military standard of the Cross. Never did the followers of the false prophet receive a more deadly blow than the one inflicted upon them by the instrumentality of the great Pope St. Pius the Fifth. "Islamism has never recovered," writes Mr. Phillipps, "from the memorable victory of Lepanto. At the moment the battle was fought, and the victory won, that great Pontiff was seen to lift up his eyes to heaven, as he sat by a window in the Vatican palace at Rome, and the tears flowed, and his blessed soul was absorbed in mystic ecstasy. He beheld the

glorious Mother of God at the right hand of her Divine Son, interceding with Him and through Him for the safety of Christendom, and the success of the Christian arms; and it was given him to understand that the prayer of Mary had prevailed. Turning to his attendants, he announced to them a mighty victory over the infidels, worthy

St. John says, in the Apocalypse, that the woman clothed with the sun after bringing forth a man-child who was to rule all nations, was fiercely persecuted by the dragon, and "fled into the desert, where she had a place prepared by God, that they should feed her a thousand two hundred and sixty days." (Apoc. xii. 6.) This woman means the Church, who gave birth to Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords. The dragon, who persecutes the woman and her child, means the powers of darkness which arose against Christ and His Church. The flight of the woman into the desert, according to some writers, signifies the passage of the Church from Judea to the Gentile world, which, in the language of Scripture, is a wild desert, a place of spiritual desolation. The place prepared by God for the woman in the desert may signify Rome, which was chosen by God for the seat of the Supreme Pontificate. The nourishment of the woman from the face of the serpent for one thousand two hundred and sixty days, may signify the temporal power granted to the Church, that thereby she might withstand the power of the Antichrist.

of the intercession of the Mother of God. The event justified the Pope's assertion, and it was found when the official intelligence arrived, that it was achieved at the very moment when God opened the eyes of the holy father to see what was passing in that wonderful instant before the throne of His Omnipotence. Yes; in that critical hour St. Michael and his angels were fighting with the dragon, and Mary, the Immaculate Queen of Angels, was bruising his poisonous head." 1

ARTICLE IV.

The Marks which must characterize the Antichrist, considered in reference to Mahomet.

Our readers will remember how, in the conclusion of the first article, we proposed two questions: Is the Antichrist already come? and, if so, How shall we find him out?

We have answered the first question in the affirmative; and we have rested our answer on the fact that the dissolution of the Roman empire, which, according to the doctrine of St. Paul, interpreted by the early fathers, must be immediately followed by the coming of the Antichrist, has already taken place more than thirteen centuries ago. We now undertake to answer the second question.

My learned friend Mr. Phillipps, in his work on Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy, applies to Mahomet those marks which, according to the predictions of Holy Scripture, must characterize the Antichrist, and does not hesitate to declare that Mahomet is the great Antichrist predicted in Holy Writ. How far his arguments go to prove his statement it is for the public to judge. Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy.

Another modern writer, the celebrated Abbé Rohrbacher, the learned author of the History of the Catholic Church, supports this same opinion. This writer, in his valuable and interesting disquisition on Daniel's prophecy relating to the little horn, proves with great ability that Mahomet is that little horn, and the Antichrist of prophecy.

We confess that at first this opinion appeared rather strange to us. But having attentively examined its grounds, we felt insensibly drawn towards it, so that now we believe it to be supported by solid reasons.

A most striking fact which cannot fail to give weight to this opinion is, that Mahomet made his appearance exactly at the time marked down by the holy prophets for the coming of the great Antichrist. The prophet Daniel1 describes the dominion of the Antichrist-figured by the little horn-gradually springing up soon after the division of the fourth or Roman kingdom into ten kingdoms. Now it is an undoubted historical fact that at the end of the sixth century, a little after the division of the Roman empire into ten kingdoms, Mahomet appeared in Arabia, and in the beginning of the next century he set on foot his imposture and his empire, and did those very actions which are ascribed by the prophets of God to the Antichrist. Small as this empire originally was, it soon waxed great in the precise line marked out for it by the prophecy, and subdued the eastern world, spreading desolation all around, and tyrannizing over the oriental stars.2

1 Dan. vii.

2 There are persons who readily admit that Mahomet is the little horn of Daniel, but refuse to admit that he is the Anti

But to elucidate more clearly the grounds on which we conclude that Mahomet is the great Antichrist predicted in Holy Writ, let us consider again, in reference to him, the marks which must characterize the Antichrist and his wicked kingdom.

SECTION I.

1st Mark.-The Antichrist must professedly deny the Most Holy Trinity. Mahomet professedly denies the Most Holy Trinity.

How wonderful is the identity between the Antichrist described by St. John, and the author of the Koran. St. John distinctly says, that "he who denieth the Father and the Son, this is the Antichrist." 1 And Mahomet expressly says in the Koran: "God hath neither begotten, nor is begotten;" or, in other words: "There is neither Father nor Son in the Godhead." Who does not see that in this special feature, attributed by St. John to the Antichrist, Mahomet literally fulfils the predictions of Holy Writ? Let us throw our argument into a regular form. We are expressly told by St. John, that the Antichrist christ, who they think is yet to come. These persons little think that by holding this view they differ from the unanimous tradition of the fathers, who, with one consent, affirm the identity of the Antichrist of St. John with the Man of Sin of St. Paul, and Daniel's little horn; and with equal agreement pronounce that the coming of the Antichrist would be immediately subsequent to the division of the Roman empire into ten kingdoms. Bearing in mind this unanimous teaching of the holy fathers, if they admit that Mahomet is the little horn of Daniel, they must also admit that he is the true and real Antichrist predicted in Holy Writ. And, really, whoever considers this subject attentively, can easily perceive that no other historic personage did arise on the division of the Roman empire, besides Mahomet, to answer the scriptural predictions concerning the Antichrist and his kingdom.

11 John ii, 22,

2 Ch. 112.

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