The 31⁄2 times of Daniel, chapter xii, are, by this mode of explanation, easily understood. Three and a half times, or years, are equal to 1260 symbolic years. To this, if we add sabbatic years proportionably, we have 1440 years; and again adding proportionable sabbatic years, or one to every six, we have 1680 years. Then, as the symbolic year of 360 parts may represent any Hebrew year, it may represent the year 366 days or parts. We then have the following equation:

360: 366×1680-1708 years, or 623,833 days, 17 hours, 1 minute, and 40 seconds.

These 3 times were to begin at the cessation of the daily sacrifice. The daily sacrifice was offered at sunrise. The sun arose at the meridian of Old Jerusalem on the 189th day of the year 68, A. D., about 5 o'clock, A. M. This, then, is the beginning of the 3 times, or the 1260 symbolic days, or the 2300 "evening mornings." An "evening morning" was a lamb sacrifice at sunrise, and a lamb sacrifice at sunset-two lambs to a day; so 2300 are equal to 1150 days; add the proportion of sabbatic time, and 2300 evening mornings equal 31 times. These lengths all agree, and embrace, in solar time, 623,833 days and 17 hours; and, from the last Jewish sacrifice, end, at the meridian of

Philadelphia, at a quarter to three o'clock in the afternoon of July the 4th, 1776.

Another length of these times is 1335 days, which, by the same rule, equal 1810 solar years, and will end in 1878. These two endings begin and close the time of the end," and answer to the rise of the American Republic and the expansion into the millennium. The 1290 and 1335 days coincide with the two lengths of the 3 times.

In brief, Daniel's 70 symbolic weeks embrace the time from the decree of Cyrus to build and restore the city and temple, to the crucifixion of Christ and the final destruction of Jerusalem, which, in solar time, was 564 years to the first event and 603 years to the latter. And from this last event, the destruction of the holy place, it was to be 3 times, or 623,833 days and 17 hours, to the rise of a great nationality.

Now, if 70 symbolic weeks are equal to 564 solar years, 3 times, or 1260 symbolic days, are equal to 1708 solar years; but 1708 solar years, or 623,833 days, reach from the burning of the temple on the 189th day of the year 68, A. D., to the 4th day of July, 1776.

Let it be remembered, the 70 weeks call for two endings-the cutting off of Messiah, and the de

struction of the holy place. But these two events are 39 years apart. The two lengths are made out legitimately by adding the proper sabbatic time of days, weeks, and years, as authorized by the Jewish calendar; for the weeks themselves are "determined," nectag, cut short or abbreviated weeks. So that both lengths are accurately fulfilled, and are correctly termed "70 weeks."

But to suppose, as do most all of the old commentators, that a day means a year, and that 70 weeks are to be understood as 490 years, is to fall short of the events predicted, 94 years in the first case, and 113 years in the second; consequently, their theory is false. But time has not only demonstrated the error in their opinion of the 70 weeks, but also their error in relation to the 1260 and 1290 days that were to follow. If days meant years, pray tell us what great nationality arose at the end of 1290 years after the destruction of Jerusalem? or what other great event happened that could possibly be construed into a fulfilment? Positively none.

The calculation, being purely mathematical, and guided by astronomy, has been rigidly made to the tenth fraction of a second, and must be reliable. The interpretation of the chronology is legitimate,

for it is governed by Daniel's 70 weeks; consequently, the fulfilment is shown in the rise of a glorious civil and religious republic exactly at the end of these symbolic lengths, and that republic is the United States of America.

The fifth government in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, or the stone kingdom, symbolizes our great nationality.

The king of Babylon saw in his vision a vast image, "whose brightness was excellent, and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay." In this terrific image, as interpreted by the prophet, God showed to the Assyrian monarch the whole of monarchy to the end of time, in four great dynasties that should consecutively arise, his being the first of the series: "Thou art this head of gold. After thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee," etc. It is universally admitted by the learned, that the Assyrian, the Medo-Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman empires, are clearly and unequivocally represented here, and that, too, in the order in which they arose. In the fourth or iron portion of this image, another substance enters into the formation

of its feet and toes, of which a more minute and extended description and interpretation are given than of any other part of the dream: "And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; and there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with the miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." That the two materials constituting the feet and toes should always have been understood to represent a division of the kingdom into a stronger and weaker part of the civil government, is the only opinion perhaps ever offered by commentators in every age. The theory of Armageddon alone maintains that the division of the fourth empire, as represented by the feet and toes, symbolizes the ten kingdoms, which, according to Bishop Newton, was the exact number that actually did arise from the old Roman empire; but that the iron and clay in the feet and toes symbolized the union of Church and State, and