The sum of the matter then is, that Peter was not living in the "last days;" that the prophecy of Joel was not in its entirety fulfilled in the outpouring of God's Spirit upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost; that at no time subsequent to the days of the Apostles has there existed such conditions in the earth as amount to a complete fulfilment of Joel's prophecy; therefore at some time future from the days of the Apostles, we may look forward to a universal outpouring of God's Holy Spirit upon all flesh, resulting in a universal peace and widespread knowledge of God, brought about, unquestionably, by a subsequent dispensation from that in which Peter wrought--the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, in which God promises to "gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in Him." [26] _Daniel's Prophecy of the Rise of the Kingdom of God in the Last Days._ The second special Scripture to which I have promised a separate consideration is the prophecy of Daniel relative to the succession of the great earth empires; and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God, which in "the last days" shall fill the whole earth and remain for ever. By an error on the part of Christian writers Daniel's prophecy concerning the Kingdom of God to be set up in "the last days" is supposed to have been fulfilled by the founding of "The spiritual kingdom of Christ" in the days of Messiah's earthly ministry; and therefore the conclusion is drawn that those days were "the last days," and the dispensation then ushered in, the final dispensation of the Gospel. It is my purpose here to refute that error. The prophecy in question is familiar, and comes from Daniel's interpretation of the king of Babylon's dream of the great image, whose "brightness was excellent, whose form was terrible." The head of the image was of gold; his breast and arms were of silver; the body and thighs of brass; the legs of iron; and the feet and the toes part of iron and part of clay. The king in his dream also saw a little stone cut out of the mountain without hands, that smote the image upon the feet of mixed clay and iron, and broke it to pieces--until it became like the chaff of the summer {XXXVII} thrashing floor, and the wind of heaven carried it away, that no place was found for it: but the little stone cut from the mountain without hands, which smote the image on the feet and ground it to dust, became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This it the dream; and this is the prophet's interpretation, addressed to the king of Babylon: