A Cloudy Time.

The Protestant age is well represented in Scripture as a cloudy day. The primitive glory was seen as a morning without clouds; the papal age, as a long dark night. The Protestant age is far from the transplendent light and glory of the apostolic days, and yet it is not so dark as the time when popery ruled the religious world. The Protestant age presents a mixture of truth and error, of light and darkness, of salvation and sin. It is not clear day, as in the beginning, nor yet dark night, as was the age before it. Thus saith the prophet: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that there shall not be light; and bright ones shall withdraw themselves: but it shall be one day which is known unto Jehovah; not day, and not night. Zech. 14:6, 7, American Standard Version.

The day foreseen in the above prophecy is the gospel day. First there was to be a clear morning, a beautiful sunrise. In that time the holy saints, like stars, shone brilliantly in the midst of this earth. But it was foreseen that these "bright ones" would withdraw themselves. The thousands who were martyred as

cended to paradise; others lost the illumination-holiness-and drifted into apostasy; and those who remained true retired into a wilderness state of obscurity, while a beast-power, under a great apostate church, came visibly upon the field. This was a time of night. Of this period the prophet said, "There shall not be light.' Following this period there was to be a time when it was "not day, and not night." This applies to the Protestant era. Ezekiel foretold this in the following words: "As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day." Ezek. 34: 12. The era of Protestantism is the time during which God's people have been scattered; and this period is termed a cloudy day-a mixture of light and darkness.

Downfall of Spiritual Babylon.

In the Old Testament we read that the Israelites were carried away captive into literal Babylon, and that within its gorgeous palaces and impregnable walls they served for seventy years. During the time of their captivity Jerusalem and the sanctuary lay waste-a heap of ruins. But through the prophets God foretold the awful judgments that he was about to pour out upon the city and land of their captivity. Jeremiah foretold that the broad walls of Babylon would fall, that the city would be burned with fire, that the land would be emptied, and that the entire place would be left in perpetual desolations (see Jer. 25:7-13; 50th and 51st chapters). God delivered all his people out of all the land of the Chaldees (see Jer. 50: 4, 5, 17-19; 51: 2, 6-10, 45). He warned them to flee out and deliver their souls, for his wrath and vengeance would fall upon Babylon.

All this was typical. The literal city of Babylon was a type of the apostate church, a type of sectism as it exists in this dispensation. As we have seen in Rev. 17: 1-18, the Roman Catho

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lic sect is denominated "Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth." She is also termed "the great whore." She is a "mother." She has a large family of daughters. They also are "harlots." These harlot daughters are none other than the sects which came out of her; and these have produced many children and grandchildren, yes, and great-grandchildren. these harlot institutions-called churches-are of one blood and constitute one great family. All are traceable to Rome, their mother. With the most tender love to all honest souls still held captive in these cages of deception, we declare that, in the light of truth, Satan is the father of sectism, Rome its mother. It forms no part of the pure bride of Christ. As the mother's name is Babylon, we conclude that this is the family name. The multiplicity of human sects, from the mother down to the very latest daughter born into the family, are Mystery, Babylon, "that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth" (Rev. 17:5, 18).

Just as literal Babylon held the Israelities captive until God proclaimed his desolating judgments upon her, and warned Israel to flee