that _there can scarcely be a doubt_ that the period in question (the forty-two months) is designed to mark the time during which the conquest of Palestine and of the Holy City was going on. In close connection with this prediction, we have _the times of the two witnesses_.[49] They were to “prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.” Again, we think the longer reckoning meets the requirements of the passage, and is consistent with the historical events offered in explanation. During all the dark period of Papal rule, there has been a competent number of witnesses testifying in favour of the truth. The reader will find ample details in the exposition within. Let us turn now to the exposition offered by the great chief of the Literal-day theorists. His theory requires him to find the witnesses in Jerusalem immediately previous to its fall. But where the witnesses in Jerusalem prophesying during three and a half literal years? History is quite silent in regard to any such parties; nay more, the accounts which we have of the period render it exceedingly improbable that any such parties could have existed in Jerusalem at that time. The Christians, warned by their Master, had fled to Pella, and thereby escaped the calamity in which their unbelieving countrymen were overwhelmed. Yet, in the absence of history, and in spite of history, suppositions are made to stand in its place. We are told that some of the faithful and zealous teachers of Christianity would certainly remain in spite of their Lord’s warning. These, it is supposed next, would be slain by the Zealots, who would, notwithstanding, be unable to destroy Christianity. The truth should ever have a resurrection. We offer no further remark on this, than that if pure imaginations are to be alleged, where history fails, there can be no difficulty in meeting the requirements of any theory, inasmuch as inventions are much more “facile” than facts. But the exposure of the dead bodies of the witnesses is supposed to be perfectly fatal to the Year-day principle in this passage. “What now,” it is asked, “if we should insist on interpreting this (the three days and a half of exposure) as meaning three and a half years? It would bring out an absurdity; for a single month in the climate of Palestine would in one way or another destroy any dead body, not to speak of its being devoured.” Doubtless this is an absurdity; but it is an absurdity obtained {xxvii} by subjecting a symbolical passage to a very singular process, in which one part of the symbol is explained, and then read along with the _unexplained_ part. But explain both parts of the passage, the _lying exposed_, as well as the _days_, and then we have no incongruous sense, but an intimation, that for three and a half years the witnesses should be silenced, and be treated with great indignity, as if unworthy of Christian burial. Or if the question be regarding symbolical propriety, let the symbolical representation