Revelation 11:11-12

THE TRIUMPH OF THE WITNESSES.

After three days and. half the witnesses came to life. This implies that they regain their power and influence. The French "Convention," which inaugurated the Reign of Terror, guillotined all the royal family and many thousand citizens, decreed the dethronement of God, and made itself. terror to mankind, continued in existence for. little more than three years, and in about three and. half years the French nation began to recover from its madness. Its atheistic laws were repealed, and Christianity was acknowledged as the religion of the State. This was not all. The resurrected witnesses were in sackcloth no longer. The age of religious toleration had come. With the beginning of the present century. movement began to sweep over every civilized land in favor of religious liberty. It began in the United States, it extended to Great Britain, and has swept on until there is not. Catholic country where the laws do not permit the reading of the Bible and the preaching of the gospel. The sackcloth is laid aside, and the witnesses are taken up to heaven. This signifies, not their removal, but exaltation to. power and glory unknown for 1260 years. Do we behold it?

1. With the nineteenth century began. mighty movement to extend the circulation of the Bible. It is now translated into every written tongue of earth, and the Bible societies have made it the cheapest book in the world. To all who are not able to buy it is freely given. All are free to study it for themselves.

2. Ours is also the age of missions. At the same time began. movement to preach the truths of the Bible to all nations. There is no accessible land on the face of the earth where the voice of the missionary is not now heard.

3. But even beyond these facts there began, at the close of the last century and developed itself in the first quarter of the present,. movement to tear away the human creeds that had fettered the Word of God. The watchword of the reformers was the Bible alone. The movement has gathered power as it has gone on, until the creeds of men are as weak as the green withes of the Philistines. The day is near at hand when they will be laid aside forever. There is certainly manifested in these facts an exaltation of the witnesses to heaven.