7. "And from Him he took away the daily service."* How many millions of Christians has Mohammedanism taken away from Christ's worship? 8. "And the place of His sanctuary was cast down." Not only the sanctuary, but the place of the sanctuary. Jerusalem was taken by the Saracens expressly because they counted it a holy city, and as such they erected the Mosque of Omar. This was indeed to degrade the place of the sanctuary.

9. "And an host was given to him against the daily service, by reason of transgression." Christian priests had corrupted the truth, they practically denied the finished work of the cross, and blasphemously thrust the worship of the Blessed Virgin, and of saints, angels, and even relics and images, into the place due alone to Christ. The "Court of the Temple" was paganised (Rev. xi. 1), and therefore the Holy City was trodden under foot. Hence Mohammedanism was in judgment permitted to be an instituted religion; "an host was given unto it.”

10. "It cast the truth to the ground."

The doctrines and assertions of Mohammedanism were accepted as God's truth by as large a multitude of nations as confessed the name of

is applied generally to any thing done continually—e.g., “ I have set the Lord always before me" (Ps. xvi. 8). It is also applied to the continual performance of all parts of Divine service. I have therefore given service as the general, instead of sacrifice, the specific term.

Christ. Yet its doctrines, even on the unity of God, are not true, for they deny complexity in unity, the only possible unity of which we can conceive. With that denial is involved the denial of all that characterises "the everlasting covenant."

11. "And it practised and prospered."

How wonderfully true of Mohammedanism!

Such was the vision of the Eastern Little Horn. It was no wonder that a heavenly attendant should ask concerning its continuance.

"And I heard a certain Holy One speaking energetically,* and another† Holy One said to the Wonderful Numberer, who was speaking energetically, ‡ How long shall be the vision of the daily service, and of the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?"

The desolating transgression is spoken of four times by Daniel, and in three of them with a different, although analogous reference :

i. Here, where the desolating transgression, the removal of the daily service, and the treading down of the sanctuary and the host continue until "the cleansing of the sanctuary."

* part. piail.

Tone-i.e., one other.

, from, a wonder, or miracle, or hidden divine mystery; 3, to measure by counting. How one's thoughts revert to "the very hairs of your head are all numbered."

ii. In chap. ix. 26, 27, where the Roman treading down

is predicted.

iii. In chap. xi. 31, where Antiochus is predicted.

iv. In chap. xii. 11, which is the same as that in chap. viii. 13.

Our Lord refers to "the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (Matt. xxiv. 15, and Mark xiii. 14), which seems to be synchronous with "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies," in Luke xxi. 20.

Under any system of interpretation the Roman desolation could not be the one spoken of here. Two thousand three hundred days have long since passed, and 2300 years would carry us far into the millennium. Neither did the Romans, nor any other, set up in Jerusalem an impious religion which "practised and prospered." Mohammedanism did, and has successfully trodden down "the place of the sanctuary."

"And He said unto me "-i.e., the Wonderful Numberer said to Daniel. Either, then, Daniel was "the other holy one," or Christ answered not only him but Daniel also.

"And He said unto me unto evening-morning 2300, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” *

* The margin reads "justified." The Hebrew PT is not identical in meaning with dikaιów. The latter is only used in the forensic sense of acquitting, and never in the sense of cleansing. The Hebrew word is applied to being righteous, as well as in the forensic sense of being acquitted-e.g. (Dan. xii. 3), “They that turn many to righteousness. Gen. xliv. 16-"How shall we clear ourselves?"

The phrase evening-morning is again referred to in v. 26 as characteristic of the vision. Our attention, therefore, is especially drawn to it. Naturally, evening ends in darkness. At one great future time evening will end in morning. When Jesus stands with His feet on the Mount of Olives there shall be "one day (i.e., a peculiar day) which shall be known unto the Lord, not day, nor night but it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light" (Zech. xiv. 7). The morning of that day shall see the sanctuary cleansed. This brings us down in time to the 1335th day-i.e., seventy-five years beyond the termination of the treading down of the city. We have already seen how Nebuchadnezzar's 2520 years date from the era of his reign, and end with the conclusion of the 1260 days-i.e., A.D. 1896.

Applying a similar principle here, we begin to calculate from the time that the "rough goat" completed the destruction of the ram-i.e., Alexander's final defeat of Darius, which was about two years after the battle of Arbela-i.e., B.C. 229. From that date 2300 years end A.D. 1971, which is the seventy-fifth year after 1897. Then shall it be said to Jerusalem, "Thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." It is the

morning light.

Daniel longed for further light. He says "And it came to pass when I, even I, Daniel, had seen the vision,

This double application of the Hebrew word misled Jerome into apply. ing "justificationes" in a moral instead of a forensic sense, and so the Vulgate was greatly instrumental in corrupting Western theology.

and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man.'

"And I heard the voice of a man † between [the banks of] Ulai. And He cried and said, Make this [man] to understand the vision. So he came near where I stood, and when he came I was afraid, ‡ and fell upon my face. But he said unto me, Understand, O son of man, for the vision is for the time of the end."

This is the first occurrence of the remarkable phrase "the time of the end." It is found only in the Prophet Daniel, and in the following places :-Chap. viii. 17— i.e., here; and xi. 35, 40; and xii. 4, 9.

Its application, therefore, is to the close of the times of the Gentiles. "At the time of the end shall be the vision," is illustrated by "the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end."

From several causes commentators have hitherto been unable to explain this vision and the corresponding one in chap. xii. I shall not enter into details, because my object is not to write about the errors of others, but to elucidate truth. The view given above of the evening-morning, and of the date from Alexander's defeat of Darius, removes (I hope) the principal difficulty.

"Now, as he was speaking with me I was in a deep

3-a mighty one, from 7, to prevail. It applies to man in his adult vigour, and forms part of the compound name Gabriel-the might of God. As an active participle we have it in the mighty God. + D-man in the Divine image. Our Lord is Ben Adam-the Son of Man.

-I was greatly afraid.