or unsettle that which is already satisfactorily explained. movere.—I am, Mr. Editor, Yours most truly, Quieta non C. O. "HORÆ APOCALYPTICE." To the Editor of the Christian Observer. SIE, The January "Christian Observer" contains a letter from the author of Hore Apocalyptica, a work I had till then intended some day to study. The reverend writer refers to a remarkable chapter, the last of the very few in Scripture that contain a "He that hath an ear, let him hear;" and he says it is admitted that one or other of the two "beasts" therein is Popery. Now, Sir, I am one who owe my continued belief in Bible inspiration to the miracles displayed in the fulfilment of that chapter. Had it not existed, I think it improbable that I should now have called myself Christian. You must perceive that it could not have had this evidential effect while I was in the slightest uncertainty what either of those "beasts" represents; and I affirm of them, as of two visible credentials necessary to my faith, that neither of them is or ever was Popery, but each something else, nearer and enormously more important to you and me; and I will give my chief reasons at once, because I agree with you that one statement on each side of a question should be enough for truth-seekers. If the following facts can be gainsaid, be it so; all I ask is, strike, but hear them. The chapter, as found in the received Greek text, plainly treats first, and for eight verses, of a false deity, seven-faced, or worshipped under seven aspects; leopard-like, bear-pawed, and lion-mouthed; to be set up by Satan, and to receive Divine honours in every nation on earth. All this, I affirm, has been fulfilled. By the expression, having "on its heads [its seven aspects] the name (or names) of blasphemy," I understand that this false deity receives all the Scriptural names of the Most High, and no others, or is nowhere worshipped under any other. The ten crowned horns denote the same fact, as metaphysicians, especially the Rabbins, are known to ascribe to their Deity (true or false) ten distinctions, emanations, "crowns," or glories-(mind there are three distinct seven-headed and ten-horned beasts, and I am speaking only of that in chap. xiii.) The worshippers of different aspects of this idol often fancy each other mistakenly to have different gods, (mistakenly, for all who hold the same acts to be just and the same to be unjust, have really the same God); and one of the seven faces has repeatedly been slain with the sword of the Spirit, and yet revived. Verses 5, 6, are the only ones I have not seen fulfilled; for this deity has not, so far as I know, received yet a speaking mouth, but is still a dumb god, without oracle, prophet, or Pythoness. As I read that, not the idol but his oracle, when set up, is to continue working "42 months," I think it probable those months are not begun. Verses 7, 8, may, for aught I see, be already true, but more probably this deity is not yet acknowledged by every non-elect person of every nation on earth. Divided from this by the warning verses 9, 10, the rest of the chapter gives the notes of that power or entity that was or is destined to cause all this false worship, and even to be sole cause of the above deity being imaged or imagined; for the sea out of which he was said to arise in verse 1, I take to be the sea of Isaiah lvii. 20. Now, however many Hore Apocalyptice any interpreter may have devoted to his task, I do beseech that a few more be given it, for less than forty will be found enough to verify or falsify all these facts. 1. That the setting-up of the imaginary god has been entirely the work of a power arising out of the earth, and known to the first readers of the Apocalypse by a name whose letters stood for 666; and of this there is Scripture evidence, the name being recorded in the New Testament to have been used at the chief city to which John wrote. 2. That the New Testament contains, among its 3000 nouns, only one other than the above, whose letters make the same number. 3. That the said power or thing also may be found by the most ignorant possessor of the Scriptures in any language, by this mark. They contain altogether, from the record of Adam's age to this text, about 200 numeral statements exact like this to three figures. This is without counting double entries, and it is omitting every item contradictorily entered. Now, of the 200 things thus numbered, this is that one (and the only one) whose number is uncontradictedly 666. 4. That the said power doeth great wonders, and thereby causes men who see them to worship the aforesaid false deity, and to image him where he was not yet imagined, and then worship that image. 5. That the said power has had one preeminent human apostle, whose preaching thereof is translated into so many tongues, that it has been said to be, after the Bible, perhaps the widest spread writing of modern times. And this in great measure because the same man was a wonder-worker, and especially noted for that of making "fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men," so that his own and other nations have engraved this on marble monuments. 6. That since this man's preaching, and mainly thereby, this power is now causing all his or its disciples, in every land, to receive, either in the right hand, or in the forehead, the right hand literally, or the forehead as the seat of publicly avowed intention, something the reception of which had been over and over again declared, by the prophets of all their religions, a distinctive “mark" of the reprobate. And here, by the way, I would advise any one who questions about the answering of public prayers, to observe what happened in every church and chapel on the last morning and evening that this nation were invited to assemble nominally before the Lord, for a special inquiry. It was the third morning of a month, and the evening a "Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity." 7. The said power neither works, nor ever has wrought, all these effects, but by one of two instruments, or horns; both of which have therefore been mistaken, by divers good expounders, for "the name of the beast," a mistake far from hurtful in their days. One of these names, not a single word, but an expression, was pointed out by Alcassar, a Jesuit, in St. John's own writings, and proved to make, as anciently written, 666. Now this I affirm to be the name, not of the beast, but of that horn by which he is now destroying England. 8. And the name of the other weapon is simply the other of those two words, that I said were the sole New Testament nouns making 666. 9. And though neither of these is Popery, there is a short cut for any seeker of the latter horn, if he will just note the first substantive spoken by Dr. Newman, or by Archbishop Manning, in the most important utterance hitherto of each of their lives. 10. To recapitulate: That which destroys Papists, and that which is destroying England, are the "two horns" of one thing. Of the 200 things mentioned in Scripture with numbers, this is that one whose number is 666. The name thereof, at the cities to which John wrote, is in Scripture in letters making 666. Again, his own expression for one of its two weapons (the one destroying us) made 666. And the name of the other weapon is the sole other Scripture noun whose letters stood for 666. I confess my mind is not so constituted as to be able, in the face of these facts, to believe either with Baden Powell, that prophecy is nonmiraculous, or with the High Church, that this awaits fulfilment by "Antichrist," or with the Reverend author of the Hora, that either beast is "Popery." E. L. GARBETT. 7, Mornington Road. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. Life Lost or Saved: Words of Affectionate Counsel, especially addressed to Young Persons in the Higher Classes of Society. London: Hatchard & Co.-is the title of a small volume, written, as we learn, by a married lady, who, if she gave her mind to literature, would immediately become the Hannah More, if not something more, to this generation. Her style is remarkably pure, and free from those absurd peculiarities which disgrace our Evangelical literature. We lately amused ourselves with astonishing a local secretary of one of our great Missionary Societies, in a jocular mood, with the information that missionaries never died the common death of all men. "How then ?" he exclaimed. We replied, "They are always 'removed by death !'"' -an expression which, beyond a narrow Evangelical circle, is never heard of. So we alone speak of a thing or a cause as being increasingly important; and an extended work, instead of an extensive one. Many will reply that these are trifles; but if trifles are singled out by those who love us not, as proofs of our ignorance and vulgarity, they cease to be trifles. We alone affect to pronounce "knowledge" as if it were spelt with two o's instead of one. Even Edward Bickersteth did so, and Professor Scholefield; that is, they began their sermons with this pedantry, but when they got warm with their Master's work, they dropped their long syllables and spoke like other men. We shall not battle the matter any further; but we will maintain against all comers that the literature which ought to evangelize a world, ought, in matters like these, to give no offence to the world, especially when the world is right and we are wrong. But let the author of this volume speak for herself. Let us hear what she says on sensational novels :- "It is beyond our scope to enter on particular criticisms. But, amongst the peculiarities that go to make up the objectionable character of the vast majority of novels, it must not be overlooked that they are what we may call purely gratuitous writings-written, that is, not like history, sacred or secular, to put on record facts that, having been links in God's moral government, should not perish from observation; but to construct, for mere amusement, some unreal tissue of circumstances, many of which one may well wish might never have happened at all. It follows that they are written under the fatal necessitynot of stating a fact, but of producing an effect. And it therefore follows that all the characters must be more or less caricatures, and all the circumstances more or less exaggerated—the true and the false, the sound and the unsound, fantastically jumbled-not 'to point a moral,' but to make a scene-not to suggest a train of thought, but to set people a-staring. Hence their very pitch, key, and temperament have come to be conventionally called 'sensational'something so beyond what we may call the concert pitch of truth and experience, that, to those who pass their days beneath such influence, the calmer beauties of sober thought and the sweet music of domestic life become, after a time, more or less dull, tame, and insupportable. We need not wonder that those most offensive realities unblushingly called 'fast young men and women,' are the genuine fruits of such a morbid, demoralizing, we might almost say brutalizing, style of things as is, to an amazing extent, exhibited in this class of writings. "We use strong language, because we must speak the truth. If any of our readers think it is beyond the facts of the case, we would refer them to a very interesting article in one of our most respectable literary journals, where they will find the whole subject treated by a master hand. For ourselves, though we are, on the one hand, far from stamping all so-called novels with the mark of 'Contraband;' so are we far, on the other, from acquiescing in anything beyond a very occasional and prudent reading, even of the best of them. Throwing aside, as downright poison, all that pander to vicious feeling, all that play fast and loose with the landmarks of right and wrong, all that introduce the youthful reader to scenes of darkness and depths of depravity, of which it may indeed be said that 'ignorance is bliss;' and looking only to that high-flown, melodramatic, 'clap-trap' style of treatment the novel writer must more or less adopt, if he look for novel readers; we would put our finger on one significant and all-important word-health. Short of absolute life or death, the soul has its health as well as the body. And health is as much the essential basis of happiness in the one as in the other. The practical conclusion is clear enough. Could you see a man eating nothing but ragouts, and drinking nothing but maraschino or strong green tea, you need be no physician to point your finger to the infallible consequences. But, as we before observed, the mind can no more subsist on high feeding than the body. The process may be longer or shorter, but it is certain-feverish enjoyment, exhaustion, loss of appetite, disease, and death. This is the true meaning of every form of the word 'fast.' As to literature, dram reading is but a more refined exhibition of dram drinking. It is no empiricism, no cold conventional mode of thinking, that makes it so. God made it when He made us; and man must overthrow His government, His universe, and Himself, if he thinks to make it otherwise. But this order and constitution of things, irreversible as it is in its nature, and * On "Sensational Novels," in the Quarterly Review for April, 1863. terrible in its vindication of itself on those who break it, is, like every ordination of its gracious Author, a law of love. It was made to secure our happiness, and we secure our happiness in keeping it." Amongst the most painful signs of the decay of deep piety in our day, is the fact that our cheap Sunday literature supports itself by stories of this description, which deceive many and do real good to few. A really good religious story requires, like a really good poem, a master's hand, whereas it generally falls to the lot of the young and totally inexperienced Christian. Alas! there is no need to draw upon the imagination for excitement; truth is stranger than fiction. Our author writes thus: "A young man on his death-bed, on being visited by his pastor, eagerly asked him whether, if he were to sacrifice all he possessed in this world, it would be sufficient to purchase for him a quarter of an hour's exemption from suffering in a future state. Queen Elizabeth, as she lay dying, cried out, 'Millions of money for one inch of time!' But the piercing cry was unavailing. "Eternity is just at hand, And shall I waste my ebbing sand, And throw my inch of time away?' "Alas! how many inches of what the dying queen so vainly cried for are thrown away, day by day and year by year, without a thought of what might be practically crowded into that little, little portion of our fleeting time; or of the dreadful consequences of so many portions going to the God who gave them with the awful record, 'Nothing done-nothing cared for-vanity-frivolity— self-indulgence and contempt of God!' May the Holy Spirit impress you, dear young friends, and us, with that solemn and weighty charge, 'Occupy till I come!'" We were once called upon to visit a young lady whose medical attendant told us that she was dreadfully afraid to die. "Doctor," she said, can you cure me? Can I recover ?" For she was in the last stage of consumption. "No, Miss, it is my duty to inform you that you cannot possibly "Oh! not three months!" she exclaimed. "Can I live one month?" "I am afraid not." "Oh! not one month! How long?" "I cannot tell. A few days, perhaps." We were sent for, and pointed her to the Lamb of God; we hope it was not too late; but speech had almost failed her, and it was an awful sight. Death came, and we saw her no more. Day by Day; or Counsels to Christians on the Details of Everyday Life. By the Rev. George Everard, M.A., Vicar of Framsden, Suffolk. Hunt & Co., London and Ipswich.-This valuable little volume may be said to fill up what is, we think, a sad deficiency in most of those theological publications of the day which are evangelical in principle. However admirably sound they many of them are, in setting forth the freeness of the Gospel, they fail, for the most part, |