How the Abomination of Desolation can be considered as set up in a Church where every sanctuary is adorned with all that can draw the heart to the Crucified, and raise the thoughts to the imposing ritual of Heaven, is a puzzle to me. To the man uninitiated in the law that Revelation is to be interpreted by contraries, it would seem more like the Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place if he entered a Scotch Presbyterian, or a Dutch Calvinist, place of worship. Rome does not fight against the Daily Sacrifice, and endeavor to abolish it; that has been rather the labor of so-called Church Reformers, who with the suppression of the doctrine of Eucharistic Sacrifice and Sacramental Adoration have well nigh obliterated all notion of worship to be addressed to the God-Man. Rome does not deny the power of the godliness of which she makes show, but insists on that power with no broken accents. It is rather in other communities, where authority is flung aside, and any man is permitted to believe or reject what he likes, that we must look for the leaven of the Antichristian spirit at work. It is evident that this spirit will infect the Church, and especially those in place of authority therein; so that the elect will have to wrestle against both "principalities and powers" in the state, and also "spiritual wickedness in the high places" of the Church. Perhaps it will be this feeling of antagonism between the inferior orders and the highest which will throw the Bishops into the arms of the state, and establish that unholy alliance which will be cemented for the purpose of oppressing all who hold the truth in sincerity, who are definite in their dogmatic statements of Christ's having been manifested in the flesh, who labor to establish the Daily Sacrifice, and offer in every place the pure offering spoken of by Malachi. Perhaps it was in anticipation of this, that ancient mystical interpreters explained the scene at the well in Midian as having reference to the last times. The Church, like the daughters of Reuel, comes to the Well of living waters to water her parched flock; whereupon the shepherds--her chief pastors--arise and strive with her. "Fear not, O flock, fear not, O daughter!" exclaims the commentator; "thy true Moses is seated on the well, and He will arise out of His resting-place, and will with His own hand smite the shepherds, and water the flock." Let the sheep be in barren and dry pastures,--so long the shepherds strive not; let the sheep pant and die,--so long the shepherds show no signs of irritation; but let the Church approach the limpid well of life, and at once her prelates will, in the latter days, combine "to strive" with her, and keep back the flock from the reviving streams.