According to the words of the fifteenth verse these images will in some future day, which the Lord knows, find a consummation in one great image, unto which all bow and pay homage or else suffer martyrdom. To receive the mark of the beast as spoken of in verse sixteen is to receive the ceremonies and customs and doctrines peculiar to each respective sect. Any one acquainted with the customs and doctrines of the different denominations can to-day determine to what denomination a stranger belongs by his dress or manner of speech. The number six hundred sixty-six refers to the number of leading religious denominations. We will now, briefly as possible, consider the first eight verses of the seventeenth chapter of Revelation. In verse one John speaks of seeing a great whore sitting upon many waters. In verse two he speaks of the kings of the earth becoming drunk on the wine of her fornication. This has all been true in the papacy. There is in this hierarchy an enchanting, delusive spirit that has intoxicated her subjects. This is the real secret of her power. In Rev. 17:5 the apostasy is termed “Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.” Here we see again the apostasy in two forms or generations. The mother is the first, and is identical with the first beast of Rev. 13:1. The harlot daughters are the second, and are identical with the second beast of Rev. 13:11. We consider it needful to enquire what is meant by the term Babylon. There is the natural world and the spiritual world. Babylon has existed under both. There are many references made to it in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament we find the origin and final doom of literal Babylon. In the Apocalypse we find the origin and final doom of spiritual Babylon, the antitype. In the days of Noah the world became very wicked and God destroyed all save Noah and his family. For a time after the flood the people were righteous and the whole earth was one language and one speech. Gen. 11:1. God’s people in those days all spoke the same language and understood each other, because they understood truth as it was. “And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Gen. 11:2-4. God’s people started on a pilgrimage in the order of God, but they tarried, they ceased to “go forward.” Had God’s people continued on Babylon would never have been built. This has its spiritual import. When God’s spiritual people cease to advance, when they get out of God’s order, they will soon seek some other way to heaven.