Of this beast which John saw, one of the heads was, as it were, “wounded [or slain] to death”――the very words which were used in the description of the Lamb (Revelation v, 6), as if there were in this an attempted, although feeble, imitation of Christ. Worldliness, too, has its Calvaries and Gethsemanes; but they fall far short in measure and in purpose of the great sacrifice of the cross. They are compulsory, not self-chosen sacrifices; they are not redemptive and substitutional in their design, but retributive inflictions of divine justice; they involve but a part of the being, and are not, as was Christ’s offering, the surrender of the whole self. Many such wounds has worldliness received. The serpent’s head has been bruised again and again by the seed of the woman. In the judgments which have come upon the world throughout the course of its history――in the deluge, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the exodus from Egypt, the overthrow of Nineveh and Babylon, the fall of Jerusalem――its spirit has been rebuked, condemned, punished. Indeed, in all the dissolutions and decay of nature――in the fading of the grass, in the falling of the flower and of the leaf――the warning is being constantly given, “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof.” Most of all, in the cross of Christ has the world received its deadliest wound. But how soon is the wound healed, how quickly are the lessons of providence forgotten! and the tide of worldliness, stayed for a moment, resumes its volume and rapidity and carries its victims to their destruction. It is this power of recuperation which contributes to the might of worldliness and makes it the more dangerous. Success adds to its fascinations and multiplies its votaries. “All the world wondered after the beast” whose deadly wound was healed. In comparison with its triumphs the cross of Christ becomes a stumbling-block to some and foolishness to others, because of the paucity of its victories. And in worshiping the beast its followers are scarcely aware, or are oblivious to the fact, that they are worshiping the dragon himself; for Paul says, “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God.”