“4. _The Length of the Prophetic Numbers._ In explaining these, Mr. Miller adopted the Protestant view, that they represent years. There is probably no point respecting which Protestant commentators have been more agreed than this. Faber, Prideaux, Mede, Clarke, Scott, the two Newtons, Wesley, and almost every expositor of note, have considered this a _settled question_. Indeed, so universal has been this interpretation of these periods that Professor Stuart says: ‘IT IS A SINGULAR FACT THAT THE GREAT MASS OF INTERPRETERS in the English and American world have, for many years, been wont to understand the _days_ designated in Daniel and the Apocalypse as the _representatives or symbols of years_. I found it difficult to trace the origin of this _GENERAL, I might say ALMOST UNIVERSAL, CUSTOM_.’—_Hints_, p. 77. “He also says: ‘For a long time these principles have been so current among the expositors of the English and American world, that scarcely a serious attempt to vindicate them has of late been made. They have been regarded as _so plain_ and so well _fortified_ against _all objections_, that _most expositors_ have deemed it quite useless even to attempt to defend them. One might, indeed, almost compare the ready and unwavering assumption of these propositions, to the assumption of the first self-evident axioms in the science of geometry, which not only may dispense with any process of ratiocination in their defense, but which do not even admit of any.’—_Hints_, p. 8. “Prof. Stuart, however, dissented from this ‘almost universal custom,’ and claimed that the prophetic days—the 1260, 1290, 1335, and 2300—indicated only days. Of the 1260 he said: ‘The very manner of the expression indicates, of course, that it was not the design of the speaker or writer to be _exact_ to a day or an hour. A little more or a little less than three and a half years would, as every reasonable interpreter must acknowledge, accord perfectly well with the general designation here, where plainly the aim is not statistical exactness, but a mere generalizing of the period in question.’—_Hints_, p. 73. “Again he says: ‘A statistical exactness cannot be aimed at in cases of this nature. Any near approximation to the measure of time in question would, of course, be regarded as a sufficient reason for setting it down under the general rubric.’ “‘By the 1260 days,’ he said, ‘no more than three and a half years literally can possibly be meant’ (p. 75); and of the 2300: ‘We must consider these 2300 evening-mornings as an expression of simple time, _i. e._, of so many days, reckoned in the Hebrew manner.’—p. 100. “Prof. C. E. Stowe, D. D., of Andover Mass., in his ‘Millennial Arithmetic,’ claimed that ‘_day_ does not mean _year_ in the prophecies any more than elsewhere and that ‘a definite designation of time was not here intended, but only a general expression.’—p. 13.