while it is predicted of them that "they had their dominion taken away," it is also added,--"yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time," (v. 12.) That is, though their distinct and successive _dominions_ were severally swept from the earth, yet their _lives_,--the diabolical principles by which they had been actuated survived; and these passed, by a kind of transmigration, into the body of the fourth beast. This transition of animating principles or imperial policy of inveterate hostility to the kingdom of God, we think, is plainly indicated by the three features of this beast of the sea, the "leopard, bear and lion." If these three "slew their thousands," this monster has "slain his ten thousands" of the saints; and the remnant of the woman's seed are yet to be "slain as they were," (ch. vi. 11.) "The dragon gave him his power,"--physical force, "his seat" or _throne_,--his right to reign, "and great authority"--dominion--by the voice of the people. Thus, it is obvious that the seven-headed, ten-horned beast is the first, and the oldest, among the combined enemies of the Christian church; all of whose origin is from the dragon, the abyss or bottomless pit. The writers of the church of Rome, while forced to acknowledge that this beast is emblematical of the Roman empire, still insist that _pagan_ Rome is intended. It is sufficient in opposition to this false interpretation to observe, that the beast appears to John with crowns, not upon his _heads_, but upon his _horns_, denoting the actual division of the empire into ten kingdoms: an event which did not transpire till after the empire had become nominally Christian under the reign of Constantine the Great. The reign of this emperor and his successors, by their largesses fostered the luxurious propensities of the Christian ministry, and so contributed to prepare the way for the rise of the next enemy in this antichristian confederacy against the witnesses.--The "head wounded unto death is the _sixth_. John says expressly, elsewhere, "five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come," (ch. xvii. 10.) The "five fallen" were, kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and military tribunes. All these forms of civil government had passed before the time of the apostle. The one existing in his time, was the sixth head,--the emperors; by one of whom the apostle was now subjected to banishment in the desert isle of Patmos. This wound is supposed by some to be the change from paganism to Christianity in the empire. No; this view is many ways erroneous: but it is enough to remark that the Roman empire, according to both prophets, Daniel and John, is to continue _bestial_ under all changes, during the whole period of 1260 years. The deadly wound was inflicted by the northern invaders who overturned the empire, and, for the time, extinguished the very name of emperor in the person of Augustulus. After the division of the western member of the empire had been subdivided