The following, from a standard authority, will serve to show an almost universal agreement on this subject; and with its presentation we pass to the investigation of questions more difficult, and more worthy of our reflection. “Among Protestant writers, this (‘the little horn,’ of Dan. 7:8) is considered to be the popedom.”—_A. Clarke, Com. in loco._ “To none can this (‘He shall speak great words againt the Most High’) apply so well, and so fully, as to the popes of Rome.”—_Idem_, v. 25. The real point of debate, as intimated above, is the question whether the Roman Catholic church has been instrumental in bringing about the change of the Sabbath. The gentleman errs in asserting that we have anywhere stated that such a change was brought about by any particular officer or council. This we have never urged, nor does it accord with the view held by us. The “little horn” represented, not one, merely, but a whole line of priest-kings, who were to extend from the time of their rise, to the Judgment, and the setting up of the kingdom of God. Of this line of rulers, it is stated—not that they should really succeed in bringing about an actual change in the requirements of the law of God—but that they should “_think_” to accomplish this end. It is also said that, for a time, times, and dividing of time (1260 years), the saints of God and the law of God should be delivered into their hands. Not, indeed, that God would forsake either his people or his law, utterly, but that, for the period in question, they should be permitted to pursue a course destructive to the one, and antagonistic to the other. In other words, that they should put to death the saints, and presume to alter the commandments of God. These specifications are simply introduced by way of identification. It is not said that the power indicated should spring into life suddenly, and without a previous stage of development; nor is it declared that the principles which were to characterize it in its mature life should be wholly peculiar to itself. Other powers, such as pagan Rome, might have persecuted the people of God before the rise of the papacy, as they unquestionably did. Other men might have begun the work of tampering with the law of God, long before the days of the hierarchy, and might have prepared to its hands the materials necessary to the accomplishment of the final blasphemous work of the man of sin.