Suddenly the voices of the two witnesses were heard. Both voices were clear and distinct, yet neither clashed with the other, even though each voice used separate terms. They stood about a hundred yards apart from each other.

Everyone rose to their feet, every eye was fixed upon the two grand, fearless faces, as they thundered forth their words of warning of judgment, of entreaty. Then suddenly they turned their gaze and their speech upon Apleon himself.

As the "Te Deum" sprang spontaneously from the lips of Ambrose and Augustine, each saint voicing an alternate stanza, so now the two witnesses hurled their fulminations against the Man of Sin:

"Thou heart of all foulness and deceiveableness, with the breath of His lips shall the Christ slay thee." Isa. xi. 4.

"Thou marked one, the Lord shall consume thee with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy thee with the brightness of His coming." 2 Thess. ii. 8.

"O thou enemy! Thy destructions shall soon come to a perpetual end." Ps. lx. 6.

"It shall come to pass in that day (when Jehovah shall deliver His people out of thy hands) saith the Lord of Hosts, that I will break thy yoke (Apleon Emperor, Man of Sin, Anti-christ) from off the 'peoples' neck." Jer. xxx 8.

"Judgment shall sit, and Christ shall take away thy kingdom, to consume and to destroy it unto the end." Dan. vii. 26.

"Tophet is ordained of old, yea for thee, thou Man of Sin, it is prepared: God hath made it deep, and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." Isa. xxx. 33.

"And thou shall be taken, and with thee The False Prophet, thy co-adjutor, he whom thou hast deputed to work miracles before thee, and in thy foul name, and with all those whom thou and thy False Prophet have deceived, who have received thy brand on them, and who have worshipped thine image.—These all, you, your prophet, and your dupes, shall be cast into a lake of fire burning with brimstone". Rev. xiii. 2, 3. Rev. xix. 20.

Low and mocking, a laugh broke from Apleon, upon whose brow there still played that lambent flame. The laugh was caught up by the multitude, until one far-reaching volume of mocking, derisive laughter went rolling out-and-away from The Broadway, to Gareth and Goab, and every other suburb of the city, and back again.

As the last echo of the laughter died away, Apleon called, to his Viceroy:

"Where is the axe and the block?"

"Here, Sire!"

A score of men bearing broad, gleaming axes, with thrice a score of others, bearing, each three, a blood-red enamelled block, came forward into the centre of the square.

"Take those two drivelling prophets, and behead them!" cried Apleon.

A thousand hands were stretched towards the witnesses. This time they were readily taken. Their bodies were dragged to the blocks, and with one stroke to each, they were beheaded.

With a shout of triumph, that spread far and wide, the people acclaimed Apleon as "God Almighty."

"Let no man touch that carrion, to bury it!"

Was the order of Apleon.

That was to be doubly his hour of triumph. All arrangements had been made for his official coronation. An immense awning of purple and gold silk, was stretched over the whole of "The Broadway."

The time occupied in stretching the whole thing was not more than sixty seconds. A throne of Ivory, Pearl, and gold was set in the centre of the pavement, beneath the awning. Everything was done with the rapidity of a stage-setting in a theatre—it was all very theatrical!

A score of trumpeters executed a wonderful fanfare, then, amid more pomp than the world had ever yet seen, a crown, of fabulous value and of extraordinary magnificence, was set upon the head of Apleon, who occupied the throne, each of the ten kings actually touching, and helping to set the crown upon his head.

Hitherto, Apleon, though upheld by the ten kings and governments, had, after all, been an un-crowned Dictator. Now, in the hour of his seeming triumph over "The Two Witnesses," he was crowned Roman Emperor of the ten-kingdomed confederacy.

When the coronation ceremony was finally completed, and Apleon, mounted on his black horse, and surrounded by the ten kings, started to ride back to the Palace, he ordered messages to be flashed to all the cities of the world, announcing three days of rejoicing over the slaying of the Witnesses, and also the announcement of his own coronation.

The rejoicings in Jerusalem, Babylon, and elsewhere, over the death of "The Witnesses" was wilder than the "Mafficking" [Transcriber's note: Mafeking?] in England of the Boer war days. The two Witnesses had been a source of torment and fear upon all peoples (save those who clove to God) and now that their headless bodies lay stark and dead on the marble pave of "The Broadway," the people "rejoiced upon them, made merry, and sent gifts one to another." Rev. xi. 10.

The outrage upon decency, sanitation, and even common humanity, in suffering the two bodies to remain unburied, lasted three days and a half. Three days and a half was long enough period for the representatives of every nation, gathered in the city and neighbourhood, to be perfectly assured that they were dead. "And certain ones from among the peoples and the tribes and tongues and nations behold their corpses three days and a half, and suffer not their corpses to be put in sepulchre." Rev. xi. 9.

When Edward the 7th of Britain, lay dead in the great Abbey of the Empire, it was counted high honour to be part of the silent guard over the coffin.

And men almost fought for the privilege to stand guard over the headless forms of the Two Witnesses lying on that marble pave in Jerusalem: "It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." Luke xiii. 33.

But these death-guards were not silent. They laugh scornfully, derisively, and crack jokes upon the now silenced testimony of the Two Witnesses. Caricatures, and comic cuts upon their lives, their death, their oft-repeated warnings, were printed and sold in the streets of the city.

It was the evening of the fourth day after the setting up of the image in the Temple, and three and a half days since the Witnesses were slain. A last, a final public function before the dispersal of the kings, and others specially gathered for the coronation, and other ceremonies, had been arranged for 6 o'clock in "The Broadway."

Apleon, and the other kings had gathered. The trumpeters had blown one blast upon their silver instruments, when a cry of horror burst from the gathered multitudes. For the bodies of the Two Witnesses suddenly stood upon their feet.

They were facing Apleon, as they stood up. Their eyes met his startled, fearsome gaze. His face was deathly pale. A tomb-like hush of awe and fear was upon the gathered peoples.

Suddenly, overhead, three deep notes, like thunder rolled through space. The multitude thought it was thunder, the resurrected Witnesses knew it for the voice of their Lord, crying "Come up hither!"

And instantly their bodies rose in the sight of all the people. No awning was spread over the square, this evening, and every eye beheld the ascent of the resurrected saints, a wondrous cloud seeming to upbear them upon its billowy whiteness.

An overwhelming fear fell upon everyone. The arranged kingly function was suspended. Yet still the people remained. It was as though they were spell-bound.

And while everyone waited, wondering and fearing, a low, deep rumbling was heard beneath their feet. Then the earth trembled, and rocked.

For one long, shuddering instant every voice was hushed, horror got hold of the people. Then in a moment yells and shrieks of terror escaped men and women alike. From the roofs of the houses there came piteous cries for help, for, with the trembling of the earth, the houses rocked like children's houses of cards.

It grew dark, and bewildered by the sudden awfulness of the whole situation, and maddened by the hopelessness born of the sense of insecurity of even the foot of ground upon which each stood, the mob rushed blindly hither and thither. Panic, in its most hideous form got hold of them. In their blind, unseeing rushes they collided with each other, and a score of fierce passions leaped to life within them, chief of which was a lust for war. Madly, savagely, senselessly, neither knowing or caring with whom they fought, they stabbed and shot, and clawed and scratched, and boxed and wrestled with each other.

The many horses stampeded, and beat down hundreds of the people beneath their iron hoofs.

The darkness deepened, it grew sooty, inky. The horrors pressed upon the people, women and children, and even men grovelled on their faces in the dust, clutching and clawing at the ground.

Thunder in the heavens, and thunder under the earth deafened and terrified every soul. Fierce, wide, jagged ribbons of awful flame came out of the blackened heavens. Scores of thunderbolts, red and flaming, leaped out of the blackness of cloud above, and, hissing as they came, wrought awful death among the mobs upon which they descended. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, making a new horror.

The thunder and rumble beneath the earth increased. The whole surface of the city heaved like the swell of a storm-tossed sea. Chasms, fissures, gulfs yawned every-where, and thousands of people toppled into the opened earth. Suddenly, the whole heavens were filled with an appalling succession of frightful crashings; it was as though hundreds of millions of powerful rockets were exploding in successive volleys of millions each. Beneath the earth, thunders and crashings went on at the same time. Then, in every direction, the earth fissured and gaped and yawned wider than ever, and with blood-curdling roarings and crashings, a whole tenth part of the city tottered and fell into the yawning gulfs, with thousands upon thousands of people.

Slowly, the rumble of falling buildings, and the hideous thunders below and aloft died away, and a strange, awesome hush fell upon the city. Slowly, too, the darkness melted, leaving the sky blood-red. The blood gradually merged into pink towards the centre of the dome, the pink became gold, then every living eye in the city and suburbs became centred upon that golden centre, and all saw the forms of the TWO WITNESSES, with a pavement of dazzling white cumulus beneath their sandalled feet.

The wondrous scene was as the very voice of God to the watching multitudes, if they could but have understood, the voice testifying to the power and truth of God and His word.

It was the new, the fashionable part of the city that had suffered in the earthquake and its attendant horrors—the part of the city where "Satan's seat was," chiefly.

With the engulphing of the most fashionable part of the city, there was a consequent heavy toll of human life. Seven thousand men of name, of notable rank, perished in the earthquake.

When the last building had tottered into the yawning chasms of the riven earth, and the souls of the late deriders of God had toppled into their hell; when the clouds of dust had cleared away; when no further earth-rumble came, then with a gasp of terror the remainder of the gathered thousands of people "Gave glory to God."

There was no worship; no sorrow for their sin; no repentance; not even any remorse; certainly no conversions of the whole mass, any more than were of Jaunes and Jambres, when they declared, of the Miracles of Moses and Aaron, "This is the finger of God."

Some there were, who had been near to yielding to the pleadings of the Two Witnesses, who were wholly won to God in this hour, but the vast mass of the people continued to worship the Beast. Their cry to God had been but a terror-stricken cry.

By the morning the gathered masses had wholly recovered themselves, and the suspended public function was carried out. One part of this function was the partition of Palestine among certain rulers, millionaires, and others. "He (Anti-christ) shall divide the land for gain." Dan. xi. 39.

With the horror and fear of the survivors of this earthquake, the "Second Woe" was finished, "and behold the third woe cometh quickly."



CHAPTER XV.

FLIGHT! PURSUIT!

Throughout the latter half of the "Day of Blasphemy," when the "Abomination of Desolation," had been set up in the Temple of Jerusalem, the exodus of fearsome, fleeing people went on. With nearly three million visitors, from every land, the more or less rapid departure of a hundred thousand or more, was not noticed. In fact, more than that number of persons might be expected to leave every twenty-four hours—the ordinary exit of visitors after the special visit.

But, presently, it was reported to Apleon, that a mighty exodus of Jews and Gentiles, few of whom wore the "Brand of the Covenant," had taken place, and was still taking place. He had spies everywhere.

The whole of Jewish population, with those on visit to the city for this special occasion, were either for the Anti-christ or against him, those against him were but a very small minority.

The deluded, idolatrous Jews will hate and betray their nearest and dearest relations and friends, as Micah prophesied that they would: "Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide; keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom." Micah vii. 5. And endorsing this, Jesus said: "They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all, for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and, shall hate one another." Matt. xxiv.

With father, mother, brother, lover, sister, friend all acting as betrayers of their own kith and kin, Apleon soon learned much that he needed to know as to the fugitives. He discovered that the many thousand fleeing Jews had, first, at least, travelled southwards, and he instructed his emissaries to ascertain the objective point of these fleeing Jews. He left the whole thing in the hands of his chaplain, "The False Prophet," who had the essence of all the subtlety of Hell in his composition, with all the devilish ingeniousness of cruelty of every Inquisitor who had ever practised in past days. A "lamb" in seeming, he was a "dragon in actual nature." Rev. xiii. 11.

Spies had informed him that Cohen, the first high-priest, was undoubtedly the leader of the fugitives, but that his wife and daughter had refused to accompany him. "They are wholly with our World-Lord, Apleon," one of the spies had said.

"Will Cohen, think you," asked the chaplain, "steal back under cover of one of the dark nights and try to induce his wife to join him?"

"No," laughed the spy. "He will think himself well rid of her. She has been the plague of his life. Every drop of her blood is as sharp as the juice of a lime. Her lips distil wormwood. And vinegar is a cloying sweetness compared to her kindest thought or utterance, and——"

"But the daughter," interrupted the chaplain, sharply, "What of her? Is she a replica of her mother?"

"Not a bit, not a bit of it!" And the eyes of the betrayer flashed with a new light. "Miriam is as beautiful as a houri, as fair as the light of a sun-lit day after a black night of tempest, and as sweet in disposition as Rachel, the favoured of our father Jacob."

"If she is all this, why is she unwed? or perhaps she loves, and perhaps we could make her a tool of her lover, and thus find out where her father has led those dogs of fugitives."

There was a look of hate and malice in the eyes of the betrayer, as he answered: "Yes, she loves, loves as her very life, but the man she loves is an even greater zealot than her father, and he has gone with Cohen—curse him! may he never more be seen by Miriam!"

The chaplain laughed maliciously: "Oh! the wind blows in that quarter, eh? You love the fair Miriam, but another has cut you out!"

The betrayer was inclined to be surly, but the chaplain knew how to speak like the "lamb," and quickly mollified the young Hebrew. Then, together, they plotted and conferred, their plotting based on the supposition that young Isaac Wolferstein, the fugitive lover of Miriam would return, secretly, to induce Miriam to share the loyal-to-Jehovah flight of himself and her father.

* * * * * *

The vineyard of Cohen was an eighth of a mile from his villa, and the villa was a mile and a half from the Jaffa Gate of the city. Miriam had wandered out as far as the vineyard, for her heart was too sore to sleep that night. She made her way to the arbour, where so often Isaac and she had held sweet and tender intercourse. During the last twelve hours, she had turned unto God and unto the Messiah who was so soon to come to deliver His people and to set up His kingdom.

She had gazed upon the resurrected Two Witnesses, as they had appeared, glorified, in the Heavens, after that awful earthquake. And, recalling the words of their preaching, and all that her lover and father had urged upon her before they reluctantly left her, to flee the city, she had been suddenly bowed before God, in penitence and prayer.

"If only Isaac would come back for me," she moaned, as she dropped wearily upon the seat of the arbour.

"He has come back, Mirry, darling!"

At the first sound of the voice that spoke, she leaped to her feet, crying: "Isaac! Isaac! Forgive me, dear, that I——"

She got no further, his arms enclosed her fair form, his hot lips gave and received love's pure caress, and when at last he spoke again, it was to say: "God has given us again each other, darling, and nothing but death must ever part us again."

The hours passed and to them they seemed but as minutes. He had much to tell of the flight of the Believers, as he termed them, and had many words of message from her father.

The morning comes early in Palestine. At the first blush of dawn they stole out of the vineyard, to where his motor waited. They had eyes only for each other, as, hand in hand, they moved through the morning twilight. Then, with a bewildering suddenness, from the off-side of the motor, a dozen crouching men sprang out.

Five minutes later, amid the mocking, jeering laughter of their captors, they were being taken to the city—only not together. Miriam was forced to ride in the car seated by the side of their betrayer, the man whom she hated, and whose love-overtures she had scorned and repulsed. Her wrists and her ankles were bound with cords, and she had been lifted into the car, bodily, by the man of her hate. To humble her and to shame her, the cur had kissed her again and again before her captive lover, then with a carefully judged malice, he had seated her, by his side, on the seat that faced the rear of the car, so that her captive-lover would be further tormented by the sight of her, compelled to accept his, his rival's, caresses.

Isaac Wolferstein was cruelly bound, fastened to the rear of the car, and made to stumble over the road, and often to be dragged, when the pace of the car carried him off his feet. Once or twice he almost fainted, for the soles of his feet were skinned—his captors had purposely divested him of his shoes and socks. The ants found out the bare, bleeding feet and added torment to his pain.

The city was astir as the car entered. The news was shouted from the car, that one of the accursed, who defied "The Lord, Apleon," had been captured, and was to be tortured in the Broadway.

* * * * * *

The great open space was crowded with people. As, of old, the Roman populace gathered in holiday, theatre mood to see the Christians tortured and slain, so had this great concourse gathered about the beautiful Miriam, and her handsome lover Isaac Wolferstein.

One of the Kiosks, from which "Covenant" brands were worked, was opened, and the spring instrument was brought out. Apleon's chaplain was there, and in a voice heard clearly by everyone at the farthest remove from him, he asked:

"Isaac Wolferstein, will you worship "The Lord Apleon?"

Wolferstein was hoarse with pain and thirst, but lifting his head proudly, he looked the "False Prophet" full in the eyes, as he cried fearlessly:

"Never! Apleon, is a demon, and of his father Beelzebub!"

"Silence, you beast!" yelled his tormenter, and he struck him across the lips with the stick he carried. Then he turned towards the beautiful Jewess, saying:

"Miriam Cohen. Will you worship our Lord Apleon, and wear his brand?"

"Never!" she cried.

He spat at her, as he said, "Well, we shall see!"

He turned to Wolferstein again, saying: "Where has Cohen, the ex-priest, and that herd of disloyal pigs gone?"

"I will not tell you!" replied the captive, proudly.

"You defy me, so be it. Aha, aha!" The "False Prophet" laughed mockingly. Turning to some of the Apleon guards who were massed on two sides of the Broadway, he said:

"Strip him! and lash him——." He lifted his eyes to the sun, calculated how it would travel, then, with a fiendish smile, he indicated one of the pillars of the colonnade, "lash him there were the sun will reach him."

They tore the clothes from the fine form of the loyal young Jew. Then, when he was absolutely nude, they fastened him to the pillar.

A honey-seller stood in the crowd. An officer of the guards spied the man, and called him out. "Take a handful of that fellow's honey," he ordered one of his men, "and lightly smear that foul Jew's back and shoulders, his face and ears too. Don't put it on thickly, but as light as you can, that the insects may find his flesh through the honey."

The officer's bidding was done. Then began as hideous a martyrdom for Isaac Wolferstein, as had ever come to a soul loyal to God. The flies, ants, and a score of other stinging things found him out. His honey-smeared flesh was black with them.

In his agony and torture he turned his eyes upon Miriam. "My darling!" he cried, as well as his dried leather tongue and throat would let him. "God will pardon you, surely, if you bend to circumstances, and wear the foul sign!"

"But I should never forgive myself, Isaac," she called. "And how could I meet Jehovah's searching eye, if I failed Him now. Courage, courage dear one!"

She knew, as we know, that Wolferstein meant no disloyalty to his God, but that he was momentarily beside himself with the agony of his torture and his love for her.

With a very suave, mocking smile, "The False Prophet" spoke across the six yards that separated him from Miriam, saying:

"Tell us where your father and that foul herd that went with him, are located."

"I will not, not even if you torture me to death," she cried.

"Wait until your torture begins, before you brag!" this to Miriam. Then turning to some of the soldiers, he cried: "Strip her, don't leave a rag upon her, and treat her from top to toe with that smearing of honey!"

Wolferstein shut his teeth sharply with the agony that swept over him at this order. In that moment he was unmindful of his own torture, in his dread contemplation of his loved one's shaming and torment. He shut his eyes that he might not see all that followed.

The brutal soldiery took a fiendish delight in fulfilling the order given them. They literally rent the clothes off the beautiful girl in strips and ribbons. Then when she stood absolutely nude before them, they smeared the beautiful form with the honey.

"Lash her to that pillar," cried Apleon's hellish deputy. He indicated a pillar, adding: "While they will both get the full benefit of the sun, they can see each other—lovers are never really happy out of sight of each other!"

There was a roar of laughter at this thrust.

We cannot—there is no need to detail all their sufferings. In less than two hours both were crazed with the blistering sun, and the ravening of the foul and biting insects.

Once, just before the crazing robbed him of coherent thought, the mind of Wolferstein travelled to the Psalm he knew so well from his childhood's days, and his black backed lips feebly murmured:

"Be not far from me, O God, for there is none to help me. Many bulls of Bashan have compassed me. I am poured out like water, my heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; I am brought into the dust of death; for dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. Be not Thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste Thou to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog."

The lovers were alike, both past speech a moment later, and it looked as though they would soon be past consciousness. Not a single eye, apparently, in all that vast crowd, had cast a glance of pity upon them, no voice had been raised in sympathetic pleading for them. Devilism was the heart of all things, and it changed men and women into veritable demons. Their persecutors had been as fiends in their torturing, and the onlookers enjoyed the scene as of some fine sport.

And now it looked as though both were dying. Both were losing consciousness. The half-closed eyes were blood-shot; the lips were baked black, and hideously swollen; their mouths were open; and where the suffused blood—from the fierce knottings of the cords that bound them—showed blue and purple, the veins were swollen to the bursting point.

"The block and the axe!" commanded "The False Prophet." The grim things were brought.

"Loose the carrion!" came the next command.

A dozen hands were busy in a moment with the knotted cords. Miriam was the first to be fully released. Her eyes were closed; her breaths were heavy, slow throbs; her beautiful form bent and swayed; and the soldier who held her had to bear all her weight. He carried her to the block; then, waiting, glanced for instructions to where the officer of the guards, and "The False Prophet" stood.

An executioner, toying with his axe, stood by the side of the block.

"Off with it!" called "The False Prophet," laughingly.

The soldier lifted the nude, insensible form of the beautiful girl so that her neck rested in the hollow of the block. He held her in position. The axe fell. The head rolled to the stone pave. A woman close by, caught the head by the hair, twisted her fingers well into the beautiful black swathes, and swinging the gory thing around her head, let it fly from her hand, shouting, as it hurled through the air.

"A kick-off, for the first team!"

The mob, among whom the head fell, began to play football with it. A moment later, the head of Isaac Wolferstein rolled to the pavement, and a second woman caught that and hurled it over the heads of the people in the opposite direction to that in which Miriam's head had gone.

"A kick-off," shouted the hurler of the head, "for the second team." [1]

* * * * * *

This effort to trace Cohen and the fugitives had failed, but the knowledge soon came in, in four or five different ways. One of the wireless messages had brought a clue. Some traders brought in a fuller clue, and rapidly other news came to hand.

It soon became perfectly clear that there existed some kind of evident understanding between the various fleeing crowds, and that their first place of united meeting was to be one of the agricultural colonies near to the old Kadesh-Barnea.

By this time the fugitives had had four good days start. Apleon ordered an enormous body of troops to go in pursuit, and to slay or capture the fugitives—capture, by preference, that they might be publicly tortured and beheaded.

Mad with the lust for blood, and that fouler lust of Religious revenge, the pursuing host sped southwards. The wondrous new motor-trains, that would career over hillocks easier than a thoroughbred hunter gallops over a turfy down, carried the expedition. There were a hundred trains of thirty cars each, besides a thousand or more single Motor-Cars, carrying from twelve to twenty persons. Worked on the then latest principle,—ether-driven—the cars and trains swept onward at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. Over head, travelling at the same rate, was a fleet of aerial war-ships, armed with infernal torpedoes, that if dropped into any town or community, would wipe out every living soul, and destroy the stoutest city, in a few minutes.

It looked as though the devoted band of Jews and Gentiles who had fled south were doomed.

Wild, exultant shouts of ironical laughter and unholy glee burst from the land and aerial pursuers, as they came within a moment or two (at their rate of travelling) of the fugitives.

The latter had seen them, heard them, and, as a body, were bowed in prayer for——. They scarcely knew what to ask, for deliverance or for fortitude, so that the essence of their prayer was "undertake for us, Lord!"

The sky lowered over their heads. They thought it was the aerial fleet hiding the sun—but the winged warriors were not quite come up over their place of gathering.

The prostrate refugees remained, to a man, upon their faces. Souls in direct dealing with God have no curiosity as to outside events.

Suddenly, like the hiss of ten thousand times ten thousand snakes, a rushing sibilation passed through the momentarily darkened air. At the same instant the earth trembled, and there was an awful, thunderous rumbling in the nether world.

Simultaneous with both of these phenomena there came yells and screams, then,—anon—silence.

The mass of refugees raised themselves, and stood silent with awe and thankfulness. Sheets of flame had rushed out of the heavens, overwhelmed the aerial fleet of vengeful pursuers, fired the vessels, and hurled men and machines downwards into a mighty gulf. For the trembling, and thundering of the earth had been the result and accompaniments of a terrible earth-quake, that now swallowed up the whole pursuing host—land and aerial, alike.

For a moment or two no sound came from the mighty crowd of miraculously-delivered refugees. Then, suddenly, one of the late priests of the Temple, a chorister-priest, burst into song:

"Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. The Lord is my strength and my song, and He is become my salvation: He is my God . . . . My father's God, and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a Man of war: the Lord is His name. Our enemy's chariots and his host hath He cast into the earth . . . . Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: Thy right hand, O Lord, dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou hast overthrown them that rose up against Thee; Thou sentest forth Thy wrath, which consumed them."

Almost in the instant of the starting of the song, thousands of Jews, (and Gentiles, as well) had recognized the Red Sea Triumph Song, and had joined the voice of the leader. What a swell of triumph it was! On, on they sang:

"The enemy said: I will pursue, I will overtake; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, and my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with Thy wind, and they were destroyed.

"Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the Gods! Who is like Thee, glorious in Holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength. The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestine. Fear and dread shall fall upon them: by the greatness of Thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till Thy people, O Lord, till the people pass over, whom Thou hast purchased.

"Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever."

Three times over, led by the impromptu priest-precentor, that grateful, jubilant, delivered people sang the last sentence.

Then, as their song of praise finished, the leaders took counsel together as to what they should do next. It was the unanimous feeling, and expressed opinion, that Apleon would send forth other expeditions to destroy them, if he learned that they had escaped the fate of his aerial and land pursuit.

"I do not believe," cried Cohen, the chief spokesman among the Jews, "that God Jehovah has permitted one of our pursuers to escape. God's judgments, like His mercies, are full and complete. Will Apleon, the Traitor to his covenant-word, ever know the fate of our pursuers? I believe not, unless anyone of us here retrace his steps to Jerusalem to tell him, and that would mean public torture and death to the tale-bearer."

He paused, and glanced around on the throng nearest to him, as he asked:

"Does anyone present know anything in the Scriptures relating to this present position, that will serve as a guide to our movements now?"

A tall, fine-looking man responded by lifting his right arm. He was asked to speak. He came forward and stood upon the hillock where Cohen stood. Holding aloft a Bible, he cried:

"Men and Brethren, of the stock of Israel, and Gentiles associated with them. I was a Christian minister, so-called, in Australia, when the 'Rapture' took place. I was left behind, because, though I could preach eloquently enough, and could keep my church filled to over-flowing. I was not a converted man; I had been trained for the church, as my only brother had been trained for the bar. I never realized the need of conversion, my soul was filled with pride in my gifts, hence I was left behind when Christ came for His own,—and, among His own, thank God, were many 'Israelites indeed,' as well as Gentiles.

"Since my conversion, friends, (and though too late for the Rapture, yet still the glorious event took place within forty-eight hours of the Rapture) I have studied my Bible, to see what should happen. Everything has happened according as the New Testament has laid it down: The 'people of God,' the Jews, have built their Temple. They made their seven-year covenant with Apleon. The Anti-christ, the Scripture calls him. At the end of the three and a half years (half of the covenant time) he orders the Sacrifice to cease in the Temple at Jerusalem—and everybody here knows how literally all this has happened.

"He has set up his own image to be worshipped, as was foretold, and God's ancient people, with those of us here who are Gentiles, have fled. We are here, to-day, here at this moment, living out exactly what the New Testament had all along prophesied would come to pass. In that wonderful book, which deals with these times in which we are now living,—Revelation twelve, it says, that the faithful Jews, and others, 'were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, (three and a half years from now,) friends, which period will complete the seven years of Apleon's (Anti-christ's) reign.

"Now listen again to that same prophesy, friends: 'And the Serpent (Apleon) cast out of his mouth water as a flood, after (the fugitives, us who are here today) that he might cause them to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped (the fugitives) and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.' Has not every item of this been actually fulfilled, has not God opened the earth and swallowed up the flood, and delivered us? Then that wonderful prophecy goes on:

"And (the fugitives) fled into the wilderness, where they had a place prepared of God, and where they should be fed for twelve hundred and sixty days, (three and a half years.)

"I do not pose as a prophet, friends, but I cannot help thinking from all I read, some of which I have quoted to you, that God's mind for us is that we should make our way into the wilderness beyond here, where God's people of old time went, after God had swallowed up Pharoah's hosts, even as He has just swallowed up Apleon's hosts. For, did you notice, in the word I quoted to you just now, it not only said 'the wilderness,' but 'her place.' It was the wilderness yonder there——"

He pointed Southwards with his finger. "In Sinai; where Moses fled from the wrath of Pharoah; where Israel fled when pursued by the Egyptians; where Elijah fled from bloody Jezebel, and where, again and again, God's people have found shelter, so that God calls it 'her place.' It comes to me, as I speak thus, that since Apleon's attempt to destroy us has failed, (whether he will learn that, or not, he will know that his punitive expedition does not return to him) his rage will be fixed against all, in every part of the world, who will not Worship him, and his image. So that the persecuted ones, in each land, against whom his rage shall blaze, will probably flee to some wilderness in their own land, while thousands of those who cannot flee will meet martyrdom.

"But wheresoever the wilderness shall be, whether down there in Sinai, or in that vast desert in my wonderful land of Australia, or in one or other of America's deserts, or the desert of whatever land it may be. God will, I believe, miraculously feed, as He miraculously fed the fugitive millions of Israel with manna, and fed Elijah with food from Heaven by ravens. He could send 'manna' again, or any other food he pleased. Or he could as readily feed if he pleased, with one meal to last the three and a half years, as he could make his servants of old 'go in the strength of one meal for forty days.'"

There was a little more in this strain, then there followed a kind of general conference upon the matter in hand. The whole thing was too serious to be delayed, or trifled with, and, eventually, it was agreed to travel as swiftly as might be to the "Wilderness of Sinai," where waiting upon God, they would hope to be directed in any future movement, or be sustained by his wonder-working hand.



[1] May God arouse readers of this scene to reflect that there must be thousands living to-day, who will suffer thus hideously. Some, too, who to-day are members of churches, others, children of Christian Parents, many too, of the "Almost persuaded" among us.



CHAPTER XVI.

MARTYRED.

It was three months since the image of Apleon had been set up in the "Holy" place in Jerusalem. Now all the world worshipped "The Beast," for the images had been multiplied until every town and city and almost every church, etc., had its own idol.

The world had begun by "Wondering after" the Beast, it gave itself up to error, despised the Truth, opened itself to receive the "Strong delusion," the Anti-christ lie, so that the worship of the Beast himself, then of his image, became but just consequent steps one after the other.

In Ancient Roman days its Emperors took divine titles, accepted homage, worship, honor, all of which belonged, by right, to Deity alone. Augustus had temples reared for the worship of himself, and, through all the ages since, the remains of one of these temples (at Angora) has remained, and inscribed upon a great stone lintel is the significant word: "To THE GOD AUGUSTUS." Near by, in the same district, is a kindred inscription, "To MARCUS AURELIUS . . . . by one most devoted to his Godhead." Nero and Domitian, fiends of blood and lust, were styled, while they lived, "GOD," and "OUR GOD AND LORD."

And Apleon fulfilled, to the minutest letter, all that was prophesied of him as regarded his assumption of the divine. "He will exalt himself," wrote Daniel "and magnify himself above God. He will speak marvellous things against the God of gods. He will not regard any God, for he will magnify himself above all." "He opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God," Paul said, "or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God."

Whatever may be the cause of it, the fact remains that ever since the Devil's lie in Eden was absorbed by, and ruined man, there has been a proneness, a latent tendency to idolatry in the human race. And the manifestations of this tendency have not been confined to peoples who in their recent past have been won from idol worship.

As late as the revolution days, in cultured, polished France, busts of Marat and others, were greeted in the streets with bursts of Hallelujahs, by the populace, and, even in the churches, all over France, the people sang odes and Hallelujahs, and bowed themselves before these busts, and at the mention of their names. Marat, especially was treated as divine and "was universally deified," and "divine" worship of his image was everywhere set up in churches.

And the "worship of the Beast" came about easily, and as the natural transition from the world's earlier adulation of the "Man of Sin."

Millions upon millions of his image, in the form of charms, were worn like the eikons of the Greek church. In the hour of death these eikons (likenesses) "of the Beast," were held before the eyes of the passing soul, as the crucifix was held, (in the old days before the destruction of the older ecclesiastical systems,) before the eyes of the dying Romanist and Ritualist.

In that first three months of the second half of the seven years of Anti-christ, much had changed in every way in the world. Under the supreme dictation of Apleon changes commanded by him were effected throughout the whole world, in one week, that would have occupied a century in the old days of the nineteenth century, say.

Babylon the Great, which had long since been rebuilt, had become the world's commercial centre. It was exclusively a commercial city, there was nothing ecclesiastical (Babylon ecclesiastical, the religious system had been destroyed, when all religious head-ship had been summed up in Apleon).

There was nothing military, in the New Babylon, and though every vileness in the form of entertainment was to be found in the great city, all this was but the recreative side of the life of the commercial people of the world's metropolis.

Ever increasingly, during the 19th century, and the first decade of the 20th, commerce had been growing as clamorous and as exciting as the "horse-leech," never satisfied, ever crying "give, give." It had clamoured for a common currency, common weights and measures, common code of terms, and a hundred and one kindred things.

But it was in Babylon the Great, that the woman of Zechariah v. 1—Commerce—had found all she had been insisting for, through all the past years,—and it all emanated from, and was centred in Apleon. And it was all connected with worship. "Covetousness, which is idolatry."

With the utter destruction of "Mystic Babylon," the vast religious system, (whose destruction we have seen,) there came a mighty impulse of commerce, and of consequent wealth to "Babylon the Great" the City.

Apleon had made it his head-quarters. "The kings of the earth lived wantonly with her." Her wharves and warehouses—built on that wondrous Euphrates—were packed with "merchandise of gold, silver, precious stones, of pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, and all rare woods, and all manner of vessels of ivory, brass, iron, marble, cinnamon, odours, ointments, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, beasts, sheep, horses, chariots, slaves—and souls of men."

Her vessels traded with the whole world. Her liners, travelling at 100 miles per hour, were in easy touch of every land. Her pride in her Maritime and commercial power, was overwhelming: "How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously. . . . For she saith in her heart, I sit a queen!" Her aerial merchandise fleets, too, were amazing!

* * * * * *

The three months had brought great changes to the trio in whom we are specially interested—Ralph Bastin, George Bullen, and Rose, his young wife.

Ralph, in quitting the editor's chair of the Courier, had received a handsome doucier, from Sir Archibald Carlyon, and this, at his special request, had been paid to him in the new paper currency of the time—there was a world-common currency, under the Apleon regime, as there was also a world-common code, weights and measures, etc.

He had also contrived to turn his savings into the paper currency. George Bullen had done the same, though in the case of each of them it had not been easy work, for both were marked men.

They knew themselves to be hated—and watched. Again and again they had narrowly escaped death, and each day they realized that it might be the last.

The news of the wondrous enthusiasm of the world's peoples gathered in Babylon and Jerusalem, in their new worship of the golden images of Apleon, had stirred London, New York, Berlin, Paris—atheistical Paris; and all other great world-centres, and in each city many images had been set up.

Though neither Ralph Bastin, or George Bullen had now anything to do with journalism—they could not obtain work of any kind because of the absence of the "mark of the Beast" upon their foreheads. But both were journalists by nature, hence when they knew that the image of the Beast was to be set up in St. Paul's on a given Sunday, they determined to be present to see how far this basest of idolatry had really laid hold of London.

The trio lived together in a little house, in a by-street in Bloomsbury. Rose would never allow her husband to go out without her; the times were too perilous, either for him to be in the streets, or for her to remain alone at home. In the actual language of Ruth, she had said to him:—

"Entreat me not to leave thee:—for whither thou goest I will go; where thou lodgest, I will lodge; . . . where thou diest, I will die; . . . the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."

On reaching the Mansion House—the old building was still there, though used for another purpose—they were amazed at the excitement which prevailed in the streets. Thousands of excited people were moving westwards, many of them evidently bound for St. Paul's.

Everyone seemed to be wearing the brand of the "Beast," and more than once our trio came very near to being set upon, for that they were defying public opinion, as well as the command of the All-Supreme Director of consciences as well as lives—Apleon—by the absence of the "Mark" upon them.

Arrived at the cathedral they had no difficulty in getting in, since the hour was early, and a rumour having obtained credence that the great idol was to be wheeled out upon the steps of the cathedral, the vast bulk of would-be worshippers remained outside of the huge building.

Presently these outside must have become acquainted with the falseness of the rumour for there was a tremendous rush into the building, until, in three minutes, it was packed to its utmost limits.

Ralph, George and Rose had secured seats, in the centre of the third row, almost under the great dome, for they wanted to get as perfect a view of the image as possible.

The hum of several thousand voices, as the gathered people gossipped about the image, made quite a volume of sound. Every eye was fixed on the great golden statue. It was a wondrous piece of work and the likeness of Apleon was an extraordinary one. The people who were seated far back could see only from the breast upwards. But those nearer (Ralph, and George, and Rose among them) who could see not only the whole figure, but the plinth and the pedestal upon which it stood, saw that the inscription on the plinth was the same as that which had been reported as upon the first image, the one set up in the Temple at Jerusalem—"I AM, THAT I AM!"

A shudder passed over our trio, as they read the blasphemy.

Now, suddenly, a richly-robed priest, holding a silver bugle to his lips, stood out on the altar steps. The shrill bugle call for "silence" rang through the great building, and a tomb-like hush fell upon the multitude.

Another priest, more gorgeously costumed than the first, came slowly forward chanting clearly and distinctly:

"We believe in Man, in the Religion of Humanity, Man is God, and God is man. We believe that all the excellencies which of old, were attributed to the God of the Bible, were but sparks struck out of the goodnesses that were within the man Himself. Hence we no longer need to be Divine by proxy." [1]

The organ rolled out a gay note to which the gathered thousands chanted a gay "Amen!"

"We believe," the priest went on in his chant—"that the living God, is the marriage of Force and matter, of Head and Hand. And we believe that the product of this co-ordination is in our Great Superman, the God of the Universe, Apleon, our Superior-God, and Him we worship and adore—"

The priest made a well-understood sign, and the whole mass of the people knelt—they were too crowded to prostrate themselves. The great organ pealed forth in some wondrous chordings, that were dying down into zephyr-like breaths, when the voice of the priest broke the comparative silence.

In harsh, commanding tones, he cried:

"You three rebels, kneel at once!"

The whole congregation lifted their eyes to see two men, and a beautiful woman between them, standing proudly, fearlessly, amid the great kneeling throng.

"Kneel, you apostate rebels!" thundered the priest.

For answer, Rose lifted her strong, powerful, beautiful voice, in a God-inspired spontaneous burst of true worship, singing:

"All Hail the power of Jesus' Name, Let angels prostrate fall."

Ralph and her husband caught the inspiration and the musical key, and the trio had reached the "Bring forth the Royal Diadem," before the great congregation of blasphemers awoke to the full meaning of what the song of the trio meant. Then, with a roar like ten thousand lions, they shouted:

"Kill them! Murder them!"

The priest raised his hand, the bugler sounded "Silence." The old hush fell upon the people, instantly, and the priest, with a triumphant note ringing in his voice, and with an equally triumphant smile on his face, cried:

"We have anticipated the action of such rebels as these, and have prepared for them. Outside there has been already set up an automatically-locked scaffold—"

With a wave of his hand towards our trio, he cried; "To the block with them, unless they instantly worship."

Pointing with his long index finger to the three Protesters, he shouted: "Kneel!"

For answer they drew themselves upright, and with a ringing gladness began to sing:

"Crown Jesus Lord of all!"

Instantly they were seized, and hurried out of one of the side entrances. With the utmost difficulty a way was cleared for the passage of the priests and the three victims—the bugler going ahead sounding sharp notes of warning on his instrument.

They reached the front of the cathedral, at last. The whole of the space in the front, at the sides, and far away into "The Fan" was packed with a seething, excited mass of human life.

Twenty feet high, a light but strong scaffold had been rapidly, and practically silently, erected—the whole structure having all its separate parts fitted with automatic lockings. The scaffold stood just outside the railings that fenced the cathedral from the "Fan."

On the platform of the scaffold was a conical-shaped block, enamelled in a brilliant red. A huge fellow, leaning on the handle of a wide-bladed gleaming axe, stood by the side of the block.

The trio of Protestants were taken up the steps of the scaffold. Two priests accompanied them. The chief of the two priests, he who had led the chant in the cathedral, held up before the trio a silver figure of Apleon, about eighteen inches long, and, (amid the intense silence all around, his words were distinctly heard) cried: "Will you worship God?"

"We do worship God—but we will not worship either the Anti-christ, Anti-God, or his image!"

It was Ralph who, in ringing fearless tones, replied, the other two responding with:

"Amen! Amen! to our God who sitteth on The Throne, and to the Lamb, for ever!"

A savage roar swept upwards from the maddened mass below.

Ralph was told to bow his head upon the block. He did so, while Rose sang clear and strong:

"Am I a soldier of the cross, A follower of the Lamb, And shall I fear—————"

The chief of the two priests, struck her heavily across the mouth and silenced her. At the same instant the executioner held aloft, by the hair, the severed head of Ralph Bastin.

Yells of delight, mingled with "Long live our God Apleon!" greeted the sight of the head.

George Bullen's head was now upon the block, while Rose, the light of a holy triumph in her eyes, unable to sing because of her bleeding mouth, shouted, "Jesus! Jesus! Precious Christ!"

She kept her eyes from the block, and turned slightly away, as the head of her dear one was held aloft amid the frantic delighted cries of the murderous mass below.

It was her turn now, and she turned rapturously towards the block. But before she could lay her head upon the blood-stained horror, the chief of the priests thrust her forward to the near edge of the floor of the scaffold, and, holding his hand up for silence, cried:

"Is she too beautiful for the block?"

He caught her up suddenly in his arms, and held her as high aloft as his strength would permit, as he shouted:

"Does any one want her, if you do, say so, and I will hurl her down!"

"Behead her!" roared a voice in the crowd, and thousands of voices joined in the cry.

The priest dragged her to the block and laid her neck in the hollow of it. There was a flash of steel in the sunlight, and the beautiful head rolled into the basket. The next moment it was being held aloft by the long, lovely hair, the people below yelling with joy.

At a sign from the priest, the bugler sounded for "silence." Then the priest cried:

"So shall die every rebel against our LORD GOD, The Emperor!"

With a wave of his hand towards the Cathedral behind him, he added:

"Our worship will be continued in our Temple and, for today, at least, worship will continue all day."

The fools, the dupes, flocked back to the cathedral—as many as could crowd in. Those who could not get in watched the bodies and heads of the three martyrs for God hurled down from the scaffold on the stones below.

Someone suggested the river, and six lengths of line were quickly got, and amid the howls of mingled execrations, and the notes of a fiendish joy, the three heads and three trunks were dragged down to the blackfriars end of the embankment.

Here men cut the clothes from the three bodies, and the naked forms were kicked into almost shapeless masses, before they were eventually hurled over the embankment into the swirling muddy Thames.

"He, (The False Prophet) had power . . . to cause that as many as would not worship the image of the Beast should be killed."

From this day there began a perfect reign of terror on the earth, for the vast bulk of the people who had yielded utter allegiance to the "Beast," and to his worship, became heretic-hunters. Natural affection appeared to be actually absent from the world, and sons and daughters betrayed fathers and mothers, husbands betrayed wives, wives husbands, and the friend his friends.

Thousands were beheaded every month, taking the earth over—men, women, and children, who had learned to trust God, and who waited for the coming Kingdom of Christ, when, having put down all enemies under his feet, he should begin his reign of a thousand years. These saved ones, and martyred ones, were "an innumerable multitude saved out of T H E great tribulation, from all nations, kindreds, and peoples, and tongues."



[1] This creed, in its essence, and often in its terminology is taken from a book already published, in which the religion of Humanism exalts man to the place of God. (Author.)



CHAPTER XVII.

A GATHERING UP.

At this stage it seems well to the writer to gather together in a brief—but necessarily very fragmentary fashion—some of the chief events of the second half of Anti-christ's reign, and those immediately preceding the millenial reign of Christ. The object of this little volume, as well as its predecessor—"In the Twinkling of an Eye"—being chiefly to incite in the readers of the two books, a desire to look into the wonders of the "After Events," we can only touch upon these things in the most disjointed fashion, many events, from necessity of space, being untouched altogether.

* * * * * *

The two scenes recorded in previous chapters—the torture and beheading of Isaac Wolferstein and his beautiful fiancee, Miriam Cohen, and the beheading of three at St. Paul's—were duplicated many thousands of times, every town and city of the wide world had its own hideous tale of torturing and of death.

The effect upon the bulk of the people was to deepen "the strong delusion," as to Anti-christ, under which they laboured, so that they fed upon "The Lie," and became abject slaves in their wills and worship of the "Man of Sin."

The effect of the persecution and martyrdoms upon most of the believers—kingdom believers—was to stiffen their faith, and to confirm their hope in the near Coming of the Christ, to take vengeance upon his foes and deliver his people.

The licentiousness and blasphemy of the times was as a veritable atmosphere abroad, so that, affected by it, the love of the many towards God waxed colder and colder, until they flung off the last semblance of allegiance to Him, in thought, word, or deed, and wholly given up to "The Lie," they ripened rapidly for Judgment.

But amid the almost universal declension, there was ever the remnant—Jew and Gentile—who "endured, seeing the invisible," and strengthening their souls in the special tribulation promise "He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved!"

And these endurers shall be God's witnesses unto all nations. No suffering, privation, no spending or being spent will be counted too much by these tribulation-time witnesses; they will live only to serve God in witnessing.

The chief source of temptation and danger to the "Kingdom Believers" will be from the ever multiplying "False Christs." Each new imposter parading some new notion, but each in turn, either publicly slain by order of the "False Prophet," or mysteriously disappearing. The only likeness of imposture in them all, existed in their claim to be the Saviour who should deliver from the awful days of tribulation which the would-be godly were passing through.

A similar thing preceded the first advent of our Lord, only then, the sole trust of these imposters was in their own statements; but before the coming of Christ again to the earth, when the cry will often be "Lo here is Christ," and "Lo there is Christ," these imposters will buttress their claims with the exhibition of supernatural powers.

The "remnant" of faithful Jews which we saw in our last chapter, escaping to the "wilderness," will be only a remnant. The main body of the Jews of the world will have concentrated themselves in Jerusalem, its neighbourhood, and parts of Palestine left to them after the partition of the land by Anti-christ. Dan. xi. 9.

It would seem as though the "remnant," meanwhile learn of God so intimately that they become the Evangelizers of the world, preaching the Gospel of the coming kingdom of Christ. Rev. xiv. 6, 7. Matt. xxiv. 14.

Among those Jews who were unable to escape with the "remnant," there are also others who are loyal to God, who would not worship the Beast or his image, many of whom are betrayed by their bigoted Jewish relatives. All these, alike, are delivered up to Anti-christ and to his creatures, to be tortured and to be killed.

"Then shall be great Tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." Matt. xxiv. 21, 22. Dan. xii. 1. Jer. xxx. 7, 11, 14, 15. Zech. xiii 8, 9.

May it not well be that the imprecatory Psalms, otherwise so difficult to understand, in the virulence of their desires for vengeance, etc., are prophetic of these days of persecution and tribulation? As well, too, must be many of the Prayers of the Psalms, etc. Ps. xxv. 2. Ps. lxxiv. Ps. cxl. Ps. lxxix. Isaiah xxxv. 3, 4. Isaiah li. 12-15. Micah vii. 8, 9. Luke xviii. 7, 8.

The almost universal return of the Jew to his own land, with all the aims of Zionism, and other kindred movements among the Hebrew people today is, curiously enough, not marked by the religious spirit, but purely national. The comparatively few pious souls (certainly not more than a quarter of a million, if that) who built the Temple, and afterwards flee into the "wilderness," or are beheaded rather than worship the Beast, or who, unable to get away in time, are beheaded for their loyalty to God, are now left out of future count in the history of the final fate of Jerusalem.

The city will probably be enormously enlarged and will come to embrace miles of suburbs, as London has absorbed towns as far distant, almost, as Croydon, in Surrey.

In the latter years of the great Tribulation there will appear to be a general rising of the nations against Jerusalem—against the Jews. It may well be, that all the powers will have become so indebted, financially, to the Jews, that there shall be an universal outbreak of Anti-Semitism, the real cause of the outbreak being inability on the part of the nations to pay their debts, when they shall make common cause against the Jew, hoping thus to clear off their debts, by the destruction of their creditors.

Preparatory to this great and final struggle, the great eastern boundary river, the Euphrates, will be dried up. The literal accomplishment of this great physical wonder, is an absolute necessity, if the vast hordes of the Eastern armies are to be marched to Jerusalem.

Even as those days of the end draw nearer and nearer God's people of that time will suffer more and yet more.

"Happy the dead who in the Lord do die from henceforth. Yea (saith the Spirit) that they may rest from their toils, for their works do follow with them. Ceased only that form of service which brings weariness, and have found perfect happiness in the ability to continue service without weariness."—ROTHERHAM.

While this is true of all the saints of all the ages, it is specifically true of those who, in The Great Tribulation, shall lay down their lives for God in faithful, enduring obedience.

And now the end draws ever more rapidly near. North, East, South and West of Palestine the armies of allies against Jerusalem close in upon her. Had the Jewish race been as loyally devoted to their God and His Word as they had been to Anti-christ the Deceiver, and his vile, promulgated laws, they would have, inevitably, recognized Psalms lxxxiii. 3, 4, as a prophecy of this time and the approach of their foes: "They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones." They have said, "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance."

But God has not forgotten His promises to Israel, and the time of her worst visitation, is to be His opportunity:

"Wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy." Zeph. iii. 8. "Now also many nations are gathered against thee (Zion,) but they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they His counsel: for He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor." Mich. iv. 11, 12. "In that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted My land." Joel iii. 1, 2, 9-12, 14. Zech. xiv. 1, 2. Zech. xii. 2, 3. Ps. lxviii. 1-3. Joel ii. 32.

Against the gathered multitudes of the armed nations—every devilish instrument of war then known, being brought to bear against the doomed city, doomed as the allies consider it—the Jews can bring but a comparatively feeble resistance. With seeming ease, Jerusalem would appear to be taken. "The city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, AND THE RESIDUE OF THE PEOPLE SHALL NOT BE CUT OFF FROM THE CITY." Zech. xiv. 2.

With great spoil, full of unholy rejoicing, their souls steeped in pride, their hands stained with blood, the victorious armies march to the great plain of Esdraelon to hold a mighty revel, and to prepare for any future event.

* * * * * *

"How oft after anxious provisions of man Flashes in with a silence God's unforseen plan!"

"God is a tower without a stair And His perfection loves despair."

The residue of the people of Jerusalem, who were left in the city on the triumphant departure of the allies of Hell, were utterly broken in spirit. Their discomfited hearts will be being prepared for some word or sin. Will they then begin to see their national, as well as their individual folly? Who can say for certain? But the near-to-come events with them, would almost seem to point to something like this. Certainly, God's unforseen plan was about to flash in upon their despairing condition.

The world's peoples were "fully ripe" for the Judgment, and the "sharp sickle" of Judgment was now waiting to fall into the earth.

First come "signs," every sign a warning, yet the peoples, the enemies of Christ, will not hear nor see. "Immediately after the Tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Matt. xxiv. 29. Isaiah xiii. 9-10-13. Joel ii. 30, 31. Joel iii. 15. Rev. vi. 12-14.

"And then" (after the Tribulation, and after these physical signs and disturbances) "shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven." Matt. xxiv. 30.

What will this sign be? We cannot actually say. The only Scriptural hint we know of is our Lord's own word that "the Manifestation of His Presence will be as the lightning which flashes from the one end of heaven to the other."

It may be that this will occur while men are horrified with the unnatural darkness, and that the "sign" will be a sudden and momentary cleaving of the black heavens, so that the glory of the Lord will break through, and He will, for an instant, be revealed in close proximity to earth. Will it be thus that the Jew will receive his sign from heaven?

That which follows, and which should be rendered: "Then shall all the tribes of the land mourn," points to the connection of this verse with Zechariah's prophecy: "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications: and they shall look upon ME Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Zech. xii. 10.

"And again, the manner in which Zechariah's prophecy is quoted in the Apocalypse may, perhaps, afford some slight argument in favour of the explanation of the sign suggested above, namely, that it is Christ Himself seen for a moment through a rift in the clouds, for John says, 'Behold He cometh with the clouds: and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all the TRIBES OF THE LAND shall mourn because of Him.'

"Thus the Jews, although they may not as yet understand all, will at least know that it was the Messenger of Jehovah whom they slew, and that in so doing they pierced Himself. And they will mourn with no feigned lamentation, but as one mourns for his first-born, nay, his only son. All their pride will have broken down; for the word will then have been fulfilled, 'I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of My holy mountain. I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.' Zeph. ii. 11, 12.

"Then will God look down upon the stiff-necked and rebellious people, whom long centuries of chastisement could not subdue, and lo! a remnant, broken-hearted and contrite, humbly confessing that 'all their righteousnesses are as filthy rags, that they are all fading as a leaf, and that their iniquities, like the wind, have carried them away.' They long for the personal interposition of God their Father, and cry, 'Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down!' They are ready at last, for their Messiah. Christ has become precious to them: there is no need that He, the true Joseph, should longer refrain Himself. He had indeed said, 'Ye shall not see Me henceforth till ye shall say, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."'"

"But that word withholds Him no longer; for now their eyes are waiting for the Lord their God, until that He have mercy upon them: their souls are watching for Him more than they that watch for the morning."

(PEMBER'S "GREAT PROPHECIES.")

Then shall He suddenly come, "His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley, and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to MY valley, when He shall touch the valley of the mountain to the place He separated." Zech. xiv. 4, 5.

In this great valley of His special making it is possible, probable, that our Lord will shelter His people, while He is destroying the hordes of Anti-christ. It is of this that Isaiah speaks: "Come My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, UNTIL THE INDIGNATION BE OVER PAST. For behold the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity." And when that awful judgment shall be over—"which shall burn as an oven," they shall come out of their shelter "skipping as calves of the stall." A wondrous figure of the frolicsome calves coming out of the darkness of their stalls into the glorious light, and into the full freshness of the luscious meadows.

All this time Anti-christ and his warrior hosts are camped in the plain of Esdraelon, preparing for a fresh attack that is to utterly demolish the Jews as a nation.

To Apleon, The Anti-christ, word comes of the appearance of Christ, and that He is espousing the cause of Israel.

Satan, and his colleagues, self-blinded, suppose that they can war with and overcome even Christ and His hosts of saints; and, determined to do this: "the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against His Anointed." Psa. ii. 2.

Armageddon—the Valley of Megidda; "The Valley of Jehosaphat;" "Bozrah," all these names are mentioned as the scene of the great final conflict between Anti-christ and Christ, between the armies of the earth, and the translated Saints of God who return with Christ.

It is probable that the line of the encamped hosts of Anti-christ will extend from Bozrah, on the southeast, to Megidda, on the North-west. Is it we wonder, merely a coincidence that this should measure exactly 1,600 Stadia, the actual distance named in Rev. xiv. 16, as that over which the blood of the judgment wine-press flowed.

Surely Habakkuk's wonderful prophetic vision covered this great battle-field. "God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran." The march of God's indignation would seem to be from Sinai, through Idumea, past Jerusalem, and on to the mighty field of Esdraelon's plain.

Oh, what a scene it will be! The glory, the judgment! our Christ on His White Horse; His eyes a flame of fire; on his head many crowns (diamens,) vestured and girded with his title "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS!" his bride is with Him—for the "Marriage of the Lamb" has taken place; the bride is every believer who has been gathered out of the world by the Spirit. You, who read this, he who writes this, if so be we are in Christ, "looking for, and hasting the coming of our Lord," yes, we shall be there, we shall be His army.

"On white horses," whether literal horses or not does not matter, the term implies force, power, swift movement, even triumph. Christ's army will be a cavalry force. Like our Lord we shall wear no armour,—"clothed in fine linen, white, pure,"—we shall be immortal, "no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper."

Every enemy, every foe of Christ will be there. The earth-armies, the dwellers of the earth, Demon-possessed, will be blinded, deluded by the lie of the Anti-christ, and "The False Prophet." There is no madness or delusion into which the most rational of men will not run when they are demon-possessed.

"Outside the city, the battle takes place, for the city has become Holy by the recent presence of Christ. Not even a private soldier of Anti-christ's hosts is inside the city, for, it may well be, that Christ has already appropriated it.

"Outside the city, the wine-press is trodden!" wonderful figure! "Fully ripe," is said to be the condition of the "grapes of the vine of the earth." What grape, more so a ripe grape, can stand the weight of a man as his foot crushes down upon it? And the iron heel of "The Lion of Judah," crushes out the life of these gathered hell-led, hell-inspired hosts, "and blood came forth out of the wine-press of God's wrath, up to the bits of the horses for distance of 1,600 stadia." A river of blood 160 miles in length, and reaching to the horses' bits in depth! Even if it be taken as a figure only, the figure is never so great as the fact it prefigures! "The land shall be drunk with blood, and its dust made fat with fatness, for it is the day of Jehovah's vengeance, the year of recompenses for the controversy against Zion." Isaiah xxxiv. 7, 8.

As a picture of the absolute triumph of God, on this occasion, the Psalmist uses the most awful figure of any in the Bible—THE LAUGHTER OF GOD! "He that sitteth in the Heavens SHALL LAUGH; the Lord shall have them in derision." Ps. ii. 4. "God is not mocked!"

"And the Beast (Anti-christ) was taken." The ring-leader is first taken, not slain with the others. Taken alive, he is cast into the Lake of Fire. The confidence of the mighty host of Hell-inspired warrior hosts, had been "Who is like unto the Beast? Who can war with him?" But they see him taken, taken alive, taken without being able to lift a finger against his captors. Tophet had been prepared for him, and into that awful abyss he sinks to rise no more.

"And with him the False Prophet who wrought the miracles in his presence." Colleagues in evil on earth, the two are hurled into the same Lake of Fire.

"And the rest were slain with the Sword of the Sitter on the horse, (The Conquering Christ,) which sword proceeded out of His mouth." "He speaks and it is done."

"And a certain angel standing in the sun," has been placed there ready to call forth the final actors on this hideous battle-field, "cried with a great voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in mid-heaven, 'Hither be gathered together to the great supper of God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and flesh of captains of thousands, and flesh of mighty men, and flesh of horses, and of those that sit on them, and flesh of all (classes of people,) both free and bond, and small and great . . . and the fowls were filled from their flesh." Rev. xix.

At the great and terrible conflict there are lightnings and thunders of unheard of force and might. "The Lord of Hosts," says Isaiah xxix. 6, "shall visit with thunder, with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire." All through God's judgments, during the seven years of Anti-christ, aerial convulsions will be continual. One reason for this, during the later events will doubtless be to overwhelm and destroy the myriad aerial engines of war used by the senselessly deluded attacking hosts arrayed against Jerusalem and against Christ and His Saints.

"And there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great." Rev. xvi. 18. Jerusalem will be split into three parts, as a result of this earthquake. But the effect upon the nations is utter ruin,—"the cities of the nations fell." London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Chicago, every other city, collapses like a rent balloon, and the opened earth swallows up palaces and cots, men and women, and what the overwhelming and the falling shall not slay, shall perish in the awful conflagrations produced.

"And Babylon the great was remembered in the presence of God to give her the cup of wine of the fierceness of His anger." Babylon, the great, the colossal city of mighty splendor, re-built, as we saw earlier in this book, will have become exclusively a commercial city. All the vice and sin and voluptuousness of all the vilest cities of the whole world, through all the ages, gathered up into one whole foulness, would be as virtue compared with the foulness and vice and voluptuousness of the Great Babylon.

"Fallen, Fallen, Babylon the Great." May we gather from the twice-repeated word "Fallen," that the collapse comprises the two things "Babylon, mystery!"—the foul religious system, the false worship,—and also Babylon the city?

God does not settle His accounts every Saturday night as petty tradesmen do. Babylon had been garnering judgment for herself, from the beginning. And the cry of doom goes out against her, from Heaven.

"Render to her even as she rewarded, and double the double according to her works; in the cup which she mixed, mix for her double; insomuch as she glorified herself and was wanton, TO THAT PROPORTION give to her torment and grief. Because she saith in her heart, I sit a queen and am not a widow, and shall see no mourning, therefore, IN ONE DAY, shall come her plagues, death, and mourning and famine, and with fire shall she be burnt, because strong is the Lord who hath judged her."

And never more after this shall the foul city arise.

Awful convulsions of the earth will take place all over the world. The whole configuration of the earth shall be changed. Mountains and islands, well known before, will disappear.

With all the other aerial and other convulsions of nature, a hailstorm, covering an enormous area, will be one of the horrors, when, putting the weight of the stones at the lowest average, they will probably be quite a hundred-weight each.

And so event will follow event in such rapid succession as to puzzle the writer how to place them wholly in consecutive order. Satan will be taken and bound for a thousand years. The living nations will have been judged as regards their treatment of the Jews, and as to their acceptance of the Gospel of the Kingdom.

On, on, on, event upon event, until the glorious millennial reign of Christ shall be ushered in.

But before anything of which we have written in these pages can come to pass, our precious, loving Lord must come into the air to take up His own people to Himself. For this every true Christian should be looking, waiting, watching,—and working while they wait, for He has said "Occupy till I come."

"So I am watching quietly Every day, Whenever the sun shines brightly I rise and say,— "Surely it is the shining of His face," And look unto the gates of His high place Beyond the sea, For I know He is coming shortly To summon me. And when a shadow falls across the window Of my room, Where I am working my appointed task, I lift my head to watch the door, and ask If He is come? And the Angel answers sweetly In my home,—— "Only a few more shadows, And He will come." "Even so, Lord Jesus! Come! Come quickly!"



"FINIS?" No! WAITING!