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 his hand. Therefore, the he-goat waxed very great: and, when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones, towards the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven ; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice, by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practised and prospered. Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, how long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, unto two thousand and three hundred days: then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. And it came to pass, when I, even I, Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. So he came near where I stood, and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, understand, O son of man; for AT THE TIME OF THE END (shall be) THE VISION. Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep, and my face toward the ground; but he touched me, and set me upright. And

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he said, behold I will make thee know what shall be in THE LAST END OF THE INDIGNATION; for at the time appointed the end shall be. The ram which thou sawest having two horns, are the kings of Media and Persia, and the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now, that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand, and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many he shall also stand up against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without hand. And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision, For it shall be fOR MANY DAYS.- -Dan. viii.

A ram, with two horns, one higher than the other, was the emblem of the united kingdom of Media and Persia, as is still to be seen on the ruins of Persepolis.

The one horn was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. Media was at first the greater, as it was also the more ancient kingdom; but Persia, under Cyrus, assumed the sovereignty, and the name of Media soon merged in that of the Persian empire. His conquests extended westward, and southward, and northward. And after Babylon fell, no other kingdom could withstand the power of Persia, and, recent as was then its origin or its name among empires, the Assyrian and Egyptian monarchies, which vied with each other in antiquity and splend

our, could not stand before it, and could neither retard its ascendency nor maintain their own. But great as was its power, even more suddenly than it arose, it was suddenly to be overthrown: and the subverter of its dominion was to come from the west.

The preceding visions had represented the earthly glory, and the tyrannical character of all the great successive kingdoms. But, in the present, the national symbol is adopted, in reference both to Persia and Macedon. Previous to the days of Daniel, and even from their origin as a nation, the Macedonians were designated in history as the Ægeadæ, or the goats people, their first king, Ceraunus, the leader of a large band of migratory Greeks in quest of a settlement, having fixed the seat of his empire on a spot to which a flock of goats fled, as he passed, for shelter from a storm, the oracle having previously commanded him to seek the goats as his guide to empire. But the symbols, however applicable and appropriate, may,—in respect to the Median and Persian kingdom, united under Cyrus, and the Macedonian, or, as generally termed the Grecian empire, founded by Alexander the Great,―be here dropped from the explicitness of the interpretation. Ver. 20, 21.The ram which thou sawest having two horns, are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Prophecy here assumes the explicitness, and requires to be viewed with the minuteness, of historical detail.

He came from the west over the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground. Ver. 5. Alexander, on ascending the throne of his father Philip, in the twentieth year of his age, reduced to obedience the Illyrians and Thracians, from the borders of Macedon to the banks of the Danube. Having subdued the Thebans, who disowned him as a leader, and

burnt their city, and overawed all his enemies in Greece, he was appointed Generalissimo of the Grecians in their general confederacy against their common enemy, the Persians. Traversing Thrace, he passed the Hellespont, subdued Bithynia, Phrygia, Cilicia, and all the other countries of the Lesser Asia, Syria, Egypt, and Babylonia, Armenia, Media, Persia, India, Bactria, Parthia, and Hyrcania, throughout all the provinces of the Persian empire, and even beyond its bounds. He waxed very great. Conquering kingdoms wherever he went, often passing over them with the speed of a courier, and bearing the tidings of his conquests, exclusive of partial excursions, he held on in a triumphant course and circuit of above twelve thousand miles, with a rapidity unparalleled by any single conqueror. He was the first king of Grecia, who, retaliating her wrongs on Persia, established an empire in the east, and lorded over Asia. His bright and rapid career is traced from its first rise to its sudden extinction.

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, ver. 6. The soldiers of Greece, with Alexander at their head, and the troops of Persia, faced each other for the first time in Asia, on the banks of the Granicus. The hostile armies were drawn up on the opposite banks. Alexander rejected with disdain the counsel he received, to desist from an immediate attack. He assailed them as they were standing before the river. Plunging into the stream, he encountered and overthrew them in the waters, and on the bank : a moment's delay would have been destruction; but he rushed impetuously into the midst of the enemy, and slew, with his own hand, the first of their generals and the fiercest of their chiefs. The king of Greece came close, (ver. 7.) unto the king of Persia. The modern theory of the art of

war, that of breaking the line, was practically illustrated by Alexander, whose great principle of warfare was to march in column, and with his Macedonian phalanx to penetrate to the centre of the Persian host, where Darius was stationed, or, in other words, to come close unto the king. Twice, with extreme difficulty, Darius so narrowly excaped from his hands, that his chariot, lance, and spear were taken, a first and a second time. And after routing all his armies, and subjugating his kingdom, so closely was he pursued by Alexander,-who, with only a few cavalry, traversed a desert by the nearest route in hopes of seizing him alive,—that, when about to be overtaken at last, Darius, slain by the hands of his soldiers in their despair of saving him, had scarcely breathed his last, or, according to one historian, had not expired, when the conqueror of Asia was at his side.

There was no power in Persia to stand before him; he cast down their empire to the ground, and stamped upon it. He brake the kingdom of Media and Persia. Ver. 7, 20. He passed the Granicus, with less than half the number, in confronting defiance of a hundred thousand troops. He slew a greater number at the battle of Issus, as Greek and Roman historians relate; and in the battle of Arbela, the death-blow of the Persian empire, an army of a million had not power to stand before him, and with such fury did he assail them, that nearly a third part of the mighty host lay dead upon the field.

The Bactrians, Scythians, Armenians, Syrians, and Parthians, and many savage mountaineers besides, were confederated with the Medes and Persians against the close band of intrepid Greeks, headed by Alexander, but none could deliver them out of his hand.

And when he was strong the great horn was broken. Ver. 8. No host on earth could encounter him. But the description of the momentary fall of the