We are not predicting that this is to be the manner of the revival of the Empire and of the advent of its imperial head. We have merely suggested possible circumstances in the light of Scripture and present-day movements. The actual circumstances attending the rise of the ten kings and their Emperor must for the time remain conjectural. Certainly these kings will receive authority with him for one hour (Rev. 17. 12), a phrase which may be translated "at the same time;" and certainly they will agree to give their power and authority to him (v. 13). (3) _The Religious Standpoint._ We will now note the religious conditions which are to prevail for a time upon the resuscitation of the Empire. These are plainly indicated for us in Revelation 17. The apostle sees a woman sitting on the seven-headed and ten-horned beast. The woman is gorgeously arrayed, holds in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, and is drunken with the blood of the saints. Her name, written on her forehead, is "Mystery, Babylon the Great," "the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth" (vv. 3-6). The woman is symbolically described as the city of Rome (v. 18), and that leads on to a second mention of Babylon, in chapter 18, and a new description. Now to the description of the woman in chapter 17 nothing more closely corresponds than the Papacy. But if the Babylon of chapter 17 is to be identified with that of chapter 18, the Papacy answers to the whole description only to a limited extent. While, however, there is much in common in the two descriptions in these chapters, yet the two Babylons are possibly to be distinguished. The Babylon of chapter 17 is a "mystery," not so that of chapter 18. Again, the destruction of the one is different from that of the other. The first will be destroyed by the ten kings and their emperor (17. 16), the second by the direct judgment of God (18. 5, 8, 20); the first as the result of human antagonism, the second by famine, fire and earthquake. We are perhaps, therefore, justified in taking the more limited view in connection with the circumstances of chapter 17. Even so the woman may be regarded as representing the apostate sacerdotal systems which have sprung from the Papacy as well as that system itself. The position of the woman indicates an exercise of power which is voluntarily supported by the beast. That she sits upon the waters implies her religious dominion over the nations; that she is carried by the beast, who rules over the nations politically, implies that there will be a complete alliance between her and the ten kings with their chief, and that the sphere of her influence will be co-extensive with the dominions of the beast. The Papacy: Its Present Power.