now exist in Europe, Asia, Africa, and he rises later from among the horns and is autocrat over all.

"2. No system like the 'Woman Babylon' now exists, to be upheld by the 'beast and ten kings' for a while and then destroyed by them. Papal Rome cannot be the 'Babylon' now; the Pope, in spite of all his claims, is in fact of small account just now. "3. But the Kaiser and the ambitions of Germany and the War do give the nations a sample of what will come in the days of the 'beast.'

"4. A season of peace will follow this war, in which the Lord will give man another trial in religion and government; but the outcome will be 'Babylon' and the 'Beast.' But I am firm in the belief that the Kaiser does not 'fill the bill' of the Antichrist, whether politically as the 'ten-horned beast,' or doctrinally as the 'two horned,' his minister and miracle-worker.

"Wilhelm II will have to be grayer than he is now to see his Antichrist's day."

V

We conclude with a brief paragraph from the Rev. Robert Cameron, D. D., of Seattle, Wash., joint editor with the Rev. Mark A. Matthews, D. D., of Watchword and Truth.

"As to the Kaiser," he says, "I see no difficulty in answering that. The Antichrist will be at the head of the ten nations; his capital, or rather the center of his political movements, will be Babylon rebuilt; his religious persecutions will have their center in Jerusalem and Palestine. That is per

fectly plain. Therefore, the Kaiser cannot be the Antichrist. He may be, and is doubtless, in some respects, a foreshadowing of what the Antichrist will be."

Summing up the foregoing therefore, we find that the Kaiser is not the Antichrist for the following

reasons:

1. Because the time has not arrived for the Antichrist to appear.

(a) The people, that is the democracy, are not yet in power in the eastern and western portions of the Roman Empire. In other words, the renewed Roman Empire is not yet formed.

(b) The apostasy has not yet come to a head. (c) The Church has not yet been translated. 2. The Kaiser is making war against some of the very peoples who will give the power to the Antichrist, which contradicts the thought that he could be that person.

3. The Antichrist and the "Beast," if they be regarded as separate persons, arise in the East and not in northern Europe, which precludes the thought of the Kaiser being the Antichrist.

QUESTIONS ON THE LESSON

1. Name and identify the contemporaneous Bible teachers mentioned.

2. How is the Kaiser said to suggest the Antichrist? 3. How should these likenesses be measured?

4. From among whom will the Antichrist ultimately arise?

5. How do Dr. Scofield and some others distinguish between the "Beast" and the Antichrist?

6. In what marked particular does Dr. Scofield corroborate Dr. Haldeman?

7. According to Mr. Gaebelein what must precede the manifestation of the Antichrist?

8. What in his judgment holds back the apostasy?

9. State in your own words the four points made by Dr. Erdman.

10. Sum up all the answers.

XXI

WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES ABOUT RUSSIA

I

HE writer rejoices with Russia in her newfound freedom, and hopes for the day when all classes of her democracy will be thoroughly united in an invincible prosecution of the present war. So far as he can see, such a solution of her present difficulties is essential both to her own welfare and to anything like an early ending of this terrible world-wide conflict.

But after saying this with absolute sincerity and in good faith, he is obliged to add, as a faithful interpreter of the Word of God, that he would not be surprised if the democracy of Russia were shortlived. Not necessarily that this decade nor even this generation should witness its demise, but only that, sooner or later, she will return to some form of monarchical rule. The Bible seems to foreshadow this. And, indeed, that Russia should at length be found in alliance with Germany is not one of the improbabilities, judging from the same source.

II

To set this before the reader requires a brief recapitulation of some of the things spoken of in the previous chapters.

For example: our Lord Jesus Christ is to return again from heaven, prior to the introduction of the Millennium upon the earth. This return, as previously stated, is an event of two stages. There is a coming for His saints, when the dead shall be raised and the living caught up to meet Him in the air (1 Thess. 4); and a coming with His saints and His mighty angels in judgment upon the living nations and to set up His kingdom on the earth, or in other words, to begin His millennial reign. (See Zech. 14; 2 Thess. 2, and Rev. 20.)

Between these two stages there is an interval, the length of which is not revealed, but which is identified by some with Daniel's "seventieth week," 80called, or a period of seven years at the close of the present age, which that prophet predicted (chapter 9). However this may be, momentous events will be occurring on the earth during that interval, and not a few of them. in Palestine and the vicinity of Jerusalem.

In the first place, the Jews will have regathered there in large numbers, and be under the protectorate of some Gentile power.

In the second place, the nations of Europe, formerly constituting the Roman Empire, will have become federated again under a single head, according to Daniel 2 and Revelation 17. There are reasons for believing that one object of this federation is the control of the near East, as it has come to be called, and which includes necessarily Palestine, which Ezekiel calls "the middle of the earth" (38:12, R. V.).