20:13 the translators have explained that the word “hell” means “grave.” Reversely, in the margin opposite 1 Cor. 15:55, the translators have explained that “grave” means “hell.” The terms are interchangeable and the meaning is the same. In every place foregoing in which the citations appear in italic type, the translators have rendered Sheol or Hades by “grave” or “pit” instead of “hell.” In the margins of the old family Bibles, printed before Pastor Russell was born, we are told in seven places, and in both ways, in both the Old Testament and the New, that hell means the grave, and the grave means hell.—Psa. 49:15; 55:15; 86:13; Isa. 14:9; Jonah 2:2; 1 Cor. 15:55; Rev. 20:13. And power was given unto them.—To his Holiness, the Pope, and all the cardinals, bishops, archbishops, priests, inquisitors, kings and rulers. Over the fourth part of the earth.—Over Europe, but not over Asia, Africa or America. To kill with sword, and [with hunger] FAMINE and [with] death.—The destruction of New Creatures by wresting of the Scriptures and their spiritual starvation are here in evidence; but there was also a literal fulfilment. “Human and Satanic ingenuity were taxed to their utmost to invent new and horrible tortures, for both the political and religious opponents of Antichrist; the latter—heretics—being pursued with tenfold fury. Besides the common forms of persecution and death, such as racking, burning, drowning, stabbing, starving and shooting with arrows and guns, fiendish hearts meditated how the most delicate and sensitive parts of the body, capable of the most excruciating pain, could be affected; molten lead was poured into the ears; tongues were cut out and lead poured into the mouths; wheels were arranged with knife blades attached so that the victim could be slowly chopped to pieces; claws and pincers were made red hot and used upon sensitive parts of the body; eyes were gouged out; finger nails were pulled off with red hot irons; holes, by which the victim was tied up, were bored through the heels; some were forced to jump from eminences onto long spikes fixed below, where, quivering with pain, they slowly died. The mouths of some were filled with gunpowder, which, when fired, blew their heads to pieces; others were hammered to pieces on anvils; others, attached to bellows, had air pumped into them until they burst; others were choked to death with mangled pieces of their own bodies; others with urine, excrement, etc., etc.”—B. 346. And with the beasts of the earth.—The evil governments. “Kings and princes who trembled for the security of their crowns, if they to any extent incurred the pope’s displeasure, were sworn to exterminate heresy, and those barons who neglected to aid in the work of persecution forfeited their estates. Kings and princes, therefore, were prompt to comply with the mandates of the Papacy, and the barons and their retainers were at their service, to aid in the work of destruction.”—B. 333.