15-19); and after the-explicit but brief declaration, that the ram with the two horns represented the kings of Media and Persia, that the rough goat was the king of Grecia, that the great horn was the first king, and that the four horns which arose after the great horn was broken, were four kingdoms that should stand up out of the nation, he unfolded the great object of the vision, and describes at far greater length than all that was there revealed concerning the former, the great and marvellous power that was to arise out of one of them, and finally, to occupy the place of these kingdoms. If then we seek to know the meaning, or to understand the vision, it is obvious that we have to look to the time of the end, to the last end of the indignation, and to the latter time of their kingdom. The date is even given, and he said unto me, Unto two thousand three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. Ver. 14.

The first object in the vision, is the pushing of the ram, or of Persia, westward, and northward, and southward. The conquest of Persia by the first king of Grecia, who reigned over the east, is literally described. The subdivision.of the empire of Alexander into four great kingdoms, is as evident from prophecy as from history; and history itself, in the hands of any single. writer, is overmatched by the minuteness and explicitness of the things noted in the scripture of truth, in combining the events and unfolding their causes relative to two of these kings, in tracking their destiny down to the time of the subjugation of Macedon by the Romans, which prepared the way for their subjugation of Judea. That subject, in immediate connexion with the history of Alexander the Great, pertains to the last prediction of Daniel. The previous vision referred to the Roman empire. But the present not only respects a remote period, the time of the end, but the dominion that should arise in the latter times, as here

described, was, without any allusion to the fourth great kingdom as to the second or third, to occupy the place of the Persian and Grecian kingdoms, or to spring up at last out of their dominion.

And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land.— Ver. 9. IN THE LATTER TIME OF THEIR KINGDOM, when the transgressions are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.-Ver. 22. Ver. 22. A power was to arise in the east, similar, in some respects to the papal, in the west, and designated, in like manner, by a little horn, which was to become exceeding great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it was in the latter part of their kingdom, or at a remote period from its commencement, and out of one. of them, (and therefore not the Roman apostacy which prevailed in the west,) and when the transgressors were come to the full (and appearing on that account in the character of a "wo") that Mahometanism arose in the east, marked with every feature of the prophetic little horn. So soon as the shadow of a doubt or difficulty rises on the subject, in the mind of any protestant,we may call up such witnesses as may stand beside heathens, in giving testimony, that was not prejudiced in behalf of revelation. "When Mahomet erected his holy standard," says Gibbon, "Yemen was a province of the PERSIAN empire."* Without a question, as without a rival, Mahometanism has been the exceeding great and prospering and prevailing power over the countries that formed the various kingdoms which succeeded to the Grecian empire under Alexander, the conqueror of Persia.. Possessed at first of little temporal power, like the bishop of Rome,

* Vol. ix. p. 232, c, 50,

yet from the same cause, or the assumption of spiritual authority, it soon became exceeding great. Originating and rapidly extending in Arabia on the south, it soon spread over Assyria on the east, and Palestine, or the pleasant land. These countries, in the early history of its progress, speedily either owned the mission or were subjected to the dominion of the king of fierce countenance, who, without the pretext of national injuries to avenge, came avowedly as the heaven-appointed avenger of transgression, and propagated his religion by the sword. Unlike to every other armed hero of the field, he sought to overawe the minds of men by dark sentences, and pretended revelations, and united in his own person the assumed character of the prophet of God and the founder of an earthly kingdom. The superhuman wisdom manifested in the composition of the Koran, which it was given unto him to enunciate and expound unto the world, was, together with the sword, the alleged internal and external evidences of his faith. Consisting, in general, of a mystical unmeaning ribaldry, calculated to perplex the understanding, to darken counsel, to stifle inquiry, and to prostrate the minds of men into a blind and abject submission to his faith, the Koran is full of dark sentences, of which the wily impostor understood the device and the object. Well did he know that its pretended celestial origin was a fable. And the Koran may literally be said to have come forth, and to have first subsisted in sentences, as it will not be denied that these sentences are dark. "Gabriel successively revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the emergency of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim, that any

text of scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God and of the apostle was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm leaves and the shoulder blades of mutton; and the pages, without order and connexion, were cast into a domestic chest in the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend and successor, Abubeker."* During the life of Mahomet, the Koran thus existed only in sentences. And these also were dark, forming an "endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excite a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds."+ Though excessive artfulness be sometimes hid under the veil of mysticism, yet, compared with the light of the gospel or the dictates of reason, the sentences of the Koran are dark and incoherent, like a sick man's dreams, as if they really had been fancied in the moments of half-returning reason, on revival from epileptic fits, to which, perhaps falsely, it has been said that he was subject, and which, it has also been alleged, were the pretended seasons of his inspiration. Of light from heaven there is not a ray in the Koran. And the crescent is all darkness except where it dimly emits the reflected light of scripture, like the moon that brightens but to wane, and borrows all its far fainter radiance from the sun. Yet the Koran is the book "on the merit of which Mahomet rested the belief of his mission," and by which half the world has been ruled for more than a thousand years.

His power was mighty, but not by his own power. He possessed not any hereditary dominion, or authority, or wealth. "In his early infancy, he was

* Gibbon's Hist. Ibid. p. 268. † Ibid. 269.

+ Ib.

deprived of his father, his mother, and his grandfather: his uncles were strong and numerous; and in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was reduced to five camels and an Ethiopian maid-servant.' "As soon as he was of fit age, he was sent with his camels into Syria."+ "In his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage-contract stipulates a dowry of twelve ounees of gold and twenty camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. In the fortieth year of his age, he assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran." "Three years were silently employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes, the first fruits of his mission."|| A mighty power arose from nothing. He won an empire over the minds of men, such as mocked the ephemeral and evanescent kingdom of Alexander the great. And without a single adherent at first, after he announced his mission, Mahomet soon gave the law to millions. The roving Arabs were attracted to his standard by the hope of plunder, and the license to slay the enemies of the faith. Mahometanism, in its rise, progress, extent, and fall, occupies that prominency, and distinctiveness of character, in prophecy, which it has maintained in the world. It is the contrast between his original powerlessness and the might and influence which he attained, which is here marked; and no contrast could be greater. In this, as in all other respects, he stands forth distinguished from all the. kings that went before him. The camel-driver, a poor Arabian trader, and the servant of Cadijah, are forgotten in the name of Mahomet.

* Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 255.

prefixed to De Ryer's Alcoran, p. 5.

† Life of Mahomet,

Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 255, 256. c. 50. || Ibid. p. 284.