dah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year." Applying this rule, the 1,260 days in which the church was to remain in the wilderness state equals so many years.

A careful consideration of all the foregoing time-prophecies reveals the fact that the mere reign of the papacy from the time of its establishment to its overthrow is not the central thought, but how long that power would hold down God's people and keep the Word and Spirit of God in sackcloth. How long the church was to continue in a state of apostasy-that is the thought. The 1,260 years were to measure the time from which the church went into real darkness until she came out in the clear light. Some have supposed that this period must have dated from the time when popery became fully established. Such, however, could not be the case, although the time-period includes that event; for the power of apostasy was greatly developed centuries before the final supremacy of the pope was established, and it was necessary to prepare a way for their exaltation. Popes obtained their authority by degrees. In A.D. 606 the Emperor Phocas conferred the title Universal Bishop upon the pope of Rome. In

A. D. 756 the pope became a temporal sovereign, but the power of papal usurpation did not reach the summit until the reign of Hildebrand, who succeeded the pope in A. D. 1073 under the title of Gregory the Seventh.

I will give a number of quotations from history which clearly locate the time in which the church really went into apostasy. Some of these are extracts from "The Revelation Explained," by F. G. Smith. "The living church retired gradually within the lonely sanctuary of a few solitary hearts. An external church was substituted in its place, and all its forms were declared to be of divine appointment. Salvation no longer flowing from the Word, which was henceforward put out of sight, the priests affirmed that it was conveyed by means of the forms they themselves invented, that no one could obtain it but by these channels. The doctrine of the church and the necessity of its visible unity which had begun to gain ground in the third century favored the pretensions of Rome.”— D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, book I, chap. I.

"At the end of the third century almost half of the inhabitants of the Roman empire and of

several neighboring countries professed the faith of Christ. About this time endeavors to preserve a unity of belief and of church discipline occasioned numberless disputes among those of different opinions and led to the establishment of an ecclesiastical tyranny."-Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Concerning the Roman diocese the Encyclopedia Brittanica gives the following:

"Before the termination of the third century the office was held to be of such importance that its succession was a matter of interest to ecclesiastics living in different sees."-Vol. XIX, page 488.

"Almost proportionate with the extension of Christianity was the decrease in the church of vital piety. A philosophising spirit among the higher and a wild monkish superstition among the lower orders fast took the place in the third century of the faith and humility of the first Christians. Many of the clergy became very corrupt and excessively ambitious. In consequence of this there was an awful defection of Christianity."-Marsh's Church History, page

185.

"We have found it almost necessary to sepa

rate, and indeed widely to distinguish, the events of the two first from those of the third century, for nearly at this point we are disposed to place the first crisis in the internal history of the church."--Waddington's Church History.

"This season of external prosperity was improved by the ministers of the church for the exertion of new claims, and the assumption of powers with which they had not been previously invested. At first these claims were modestly urged, and gradually allowed; but they laid a foundation for the encroachments which were afterwards made upon the rights of the whole Christian community, and for lofty pretensions to the right of supremacy and spiritual dominion.... Several alterations in the form of church government appear to have been introduced during the third century. Some degree of pomp was thought necessary. . . . An external dignity of the ministers of religion was accompanied by a still greater change in its discipline. Many of the Jewish and pagan proselytes . languished in the absence of ceremonies which were naturally adapted to the taste of the unreflecting multitude, while the insolent infidel haughtily insisted upon the inanity of a religion

which was not manifested by an external symbol or decoration. In order to accommodate Christianity to these prejudices, a number of rites were instituted; and while the dignified titles of the Jewish priesthood were, through a compliance with the prejudices of that people conferred upon the Christian teachers, many ceremonies were introduced which coincided with the genius of paganism. The true Gospels were taught by sensible images, and many of the ceremonies employed in celebrating the heathen mysteries were observed in the institutions of Christ, which soon, in their turn, obtained the name of mysteries and served as a melancholy precedent for future innovations and as a foundation for that structure of absurdity and superstition which deformed and disgraced the church."-Rutter's History of the Church, pages 52-56.

This "season of external prosperity" mentioned by Rutter began with the accession of Gallienus to the imperial throne in A. D. 260. Up to this time the hand of persecution had been raised against the church almost incessantly, and from 260 until the reign of Diocletian persecution ceased, during this space of al