"There is an ancient city of Babylon often mentioned in the Old Testament, but ages before John wrote, it had ceased to be inhabited, the only dwellers among its lonely ruins were howling beasts and hissing serpents. It has never been rebuilt to this day and has passed away forever. John refers therefore not to old Babylon, but to some power yet unseen (when he was upon the earth), that should be revealed in due time, and of which old Babylon was a symbol. Let us notice some of the features of ancient Babylon. "1. On that site took place the confusion of tongues which divided those who before had been of one speech and one family, into various tribes and schisms at variance with each other and of various tongues. The word Babylon, a memorial of this event, means confusion, and is derived from Babel. "2. Old Babylon persecuted the people of God and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. "3. It carried the people of God into captivity. "4. It was a mighty, resistless universal empire. The antitype, the spiritual Babylon, must correspond. There is a power that exhibits all these characteristics. By apostasy from the truth it originated the schism which has divided the family of God into different sects and parties which speak a different spiritual language. It has carried the church into a long captivity by binding upon it the thralldom of superstition. It has been a constant persecutor of the saints, and has enjoyed an almost universal dominion. That power is the woman that sits upon the seven-headed beast ... the false woman, symbolical of a false church, the great apostate spiritual dominion of Rome. And we may add, out of which have come--directly or indirectly--_all the religious sects of the present day_." Dr. Barnes says: "The word _Babylon_ became the emblem of all that was haughty and oppressive, and especially of all that persecuted the church of God. The word here (Rev. 18:4) must be used to denote some power that resembled the ancient and literal Babylon in these characteristics. The literal Babylon was no more; but the name might be used properly to denote a similar power." Wm. Kinkade, in Bible Doctrine, page 249, says, "I think Christ has a true church on earth, but its members are scattered among the various denominations, and are more or less under the influence of mystery Babylon and her daughters."