         Be patient, this is a rather long story but it gets to the
         point.  For a more detailed study on this subject please call
         404-299-1832 and ask for Bible studies, or for more
         information.

                   THE MARK OF THE BEAST, A HISTORICAL LOOK.


         How fair was the morning of the Church! how swift its
         progress! What expectations it would have been natural to
         form of the future history which had begun so well! Doubtless
         they were formed in many a sanguine heart: but they were
         clouded soon.  It became evident that, when the first
         conflicts were passed, others would succeed; and that the
         long and weary war with the powers of darkness had only just
         begun.  The wrestlings "against principalities and powers,
         and the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places"
         (Eph 6:12) were yet to be more painfully felt, and believers
         were prepared to be "partakers of Christ's sufferings," and
         not to "think it...strange concerning the fiery trial
         which...[was] to try...[them], as though some strange thing
         happened unto...[them]" (1 Pe 4:12, 13, [KJV]).

          But worse for the Church than the fightings without were the
         fears within.  Men who had long professed the Gospel "had
         need to be taught again what were the first principles of the
         oracles of God" (Heb 5:12).  They were falling "from grace,"
         and turning back to weak and beggarly elements, whereunto
         they desired again to be in bondage" (Gal 5:4; 4:9).  "Some
         had already turned aside after Satan (1 Ti 5:15)," and, where
         there was no special prevalence of error, a coldness and
         worldliness of spirit drew forth the sad reflection that "all
         seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's" (Php
         2:21).  Contentions were rife, and schisms were spreading;
         and men, in the name of Christ and of truth, were "provoking
         one another, envying one another." New forms of error began
         to arise, from the combination of Christian ideas with the
         rudiments of the world and the vagaries of oriental
         philosophy.

           Here were men, like Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses,
         "resisting the truth, reprobate concerning the faith" (2 Ti
         3:8). Here were "Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the
         truth had erred, saying that the resurrection was past
         already" (2 Ti 2:17).  Here was the "knowledge falsely so
         called" (1 Ti 6:20), teeming with a thousand protean forms of
         falsehood.

          While the Apostles wrote, the actual state and the visible
         tendencies of things showed too plainly what Church history
         would be; and, at the same time, prophetic intimations made
         the prospect still more dark: for "the Spirit spake
         expressly, that in the latter times men would depart from the
         faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of
         devils" (1 Ti 4:1)--that "in the last days grievous times
         should come," marked by a darkness of moral condition which
         it might have been expected that Gospel influences would have
         dispelled (2 Ti 3:1-5)--that "there would be scoffers in the
         last days, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where
         is the promise of His coming?" (2 Pe 3:3)--that the day of
         the Lord would not be "till the apostasy had come first, and
         the man of sin had been revealed, the son of perdition, the
         adversary who exalts himself above all that is called God or
         an object of worship, so that he sits in the Temple of God,
         showing himself that he is God" (2 Th 2:4-4).  "The mystery
         of lawlessness was already working, and as antichrist should
         come, even then were there many antichrists" (1 Jn 2:18, 22),
         men "denying the Father and the Son," "denying the Lord that
         bought them" (2 Pe 2:1), "turning the grace of God into
         lasciviousness" (Jude 4), and "bringing upon themselves swift
         destruction."

            I know not how any man, in closing the Epistles, could
         expect to find the subsequent history of the Church
         essentially different from what it is.  In those writings we
         seem, as it were, not to witness some passing storms which
         clear the air, but to feel the whole atmosphere charged with
         the elements of future tempest and death.  Every moment the
         forces of evil show themselves more plainly.  They are
         encountered, but not dissipated. Or, to change the figure, we
         see battles fought by the leaders of our band, but no
         security is promised by their victories.  New assaults are
         being prepared; new tactics will be tried; new enemies pour
         in; the distant hills are black with gathering multitudes,
         and the last exhortations of those who fall at their posts
         call on their successors to "endure hardness as good soldiers
         of Jesus Christ" (2 Ti 2:3), and "earnestly to contend for
         the faith which was once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).

             The fact which I observe is not merely that these
         indications of the future are in the Epistles, but that they
         increase as we approach the close, and after the doctrines
         of the Gospel have been fully wrought out, and the fullness
         of personal salvation and the ideal character of the Church
         have been placed in the clearest light, the shadows gather
         and deepen on the external history.  The last words of St.
         Paul in the second Epistle to Timothy, with the Epistles of
         St. John and St. Jude, breathe the language of a time in
         which the tendencies of that history had distinctly shown
         themselves.

           The Church was in the beginning a community of brethren,
         guided by a few of the brethren.  All were taught of God, and
         each had the privilege of drawing for himself from the divine
         fountain of light.  The Epistles which then settled the great
         questions of doctrine did not bear the pompous title of a
         single man--of a ruler.  We learn from the Holy Scriptures,
         that they began simply with these words: "The apostles and
         elders and brethren send greetings unto the brethren."

                But these very writings of the apostles already
         foretell that from the midst of this brotherhood there shall
         arise a power that will destroy this simple and primitive
         order.

           Let us contemplate the formation and trace the development
         of this power so alien to the Church.

            Paul of Tarsus, one of the greatest apostles of the new
         religion, had arrived at Rome, the capital of the empire and
         of the world, preaching in bondage the salvation which cometh
         from God.  A Church was formed beside the throne of the
         Caesars. Composed at first of a few converted Jews, Greeks,
         and Roman citizens, it was rendered famous by the teaching
         and the death of the Apostle of the Gentiles.  For a time it
         shone out brightly, as a beacon upon a hill.  Its faith was
         everywhere celebrated; but erelong it declined from its
         primitive condition.  It was by small beginnings that both
         imperial and Christian Rome advanced to the usurped dominion
         of the world.

            The first pastors or bishops of Rome early employed them-
         selves in converting the neighboring cities and towns.  The
         necessity which the bishops and pastors of the Campagna felt
         of applying in cases of difficulty to an enlightened guide,
         and the gratitude they owed to the church of the metropolis,
         led them to maintain a close union with it.  As it has always
         happened in analogous circumstances, this reasonable union
         soon degenerated into dependence.  The bishops of Rome
         considered as a right that superiority which the surrounding
         Churches had freely yielded. The encroachments of power form
         a great part of history; as the resistance of those whose
         liberties are invaded forms the other portion.  The
         ecclesiastical power could not escape the intoxication which
         impels all who are lifted up to seek to mount still higher.
         It obeyed this general law of human nature.

             Nevertheless the supremacy of the Roman bishops was at
         that period limited to the superintendence of the Churches
         within the civil jurisdiction of the prefect of Rome.  But
         the rank which this imperial city held in the world offered a
         prospect of still greater destinies to the ambition of its
         first pastor.  The respect enjoyed by the various Christian
         bishops in the second century was proportionate to the rank
         of the city in which they resided.  Now Rome was the largest,
         richest, and most powerful city in the world.  It was the
         seat of empire, the mother of nations.  "All the inhabitants
         of the earth belong to her," said Julian; and Claudian
         declared her to be "the fountain of laws."

              If Rome is the queen of cities, why should not her
         pastor be the king of bishops? Why should not the Roman
         church be the mother of Christendom? Why should not all
         nations be her children, and her authority their sovereign
         law? It was easy for the ambitious heart of man to reason
         thus.  Ambitious Rome did so.

              Thus, when pagan Rome fell, she bequeathed to the humble
         minister of the God of peace, sitting in the midst of her
         ruins, the proud titles which her invincible sword had won
         from the nations of the earth.

             The bishops of the different parts of the empire,
         fascinated by that charm which Rome had exercised for ages
         over all nations, followed the example of the Campagna, and
         aided this work of usurpation.  They felt a pleasure in
         yielding to the bishop of Rome some portion of that honor
         which was due to the queen of the world.  There was
         originally no dependence implied in the honor thus paid. They
         treated the Roman pastor as if they were on a level with him.
         But usurped power increased like an avalanche. Admonitions,
         at first simply fraternal, soon became absolute commands in
         the mouth of the pontiff.  A foremost place among equals
         appeared to him a throne.

               The Western bishops favored this encroachment of the
         Roman pastors, either from jealousy of the Eastern bishops,
         or because they preferred submitting to the supremacy of a
         pope, rather than to the dominion of a temporal power.

             On the other hand, the theological sects that distracted
         the East, strove, each for itself, to interest Rome in its
         favor they looked for victory in the support of the principal
         church of the West.

              Rome carefully enregistered these applications and
         intercessions, and smiled to see all nations voluntarily
         throwing themselves into her arms.  She neglected no
         opportunity of increasing and extending her power.  The
         praises and flattery, the exaggerated compliments and
         consultations of other Churches, became in her eyes and in
         her hands the titles and documents of her authority.  Such is
         man exalted to a throne: the incense of courts intoxicates
         him, his brain grows dizzy.  What he possesses becomes a
         motive for attaining still more.

            The doctrine of the Church and the necessity of its
         visible unity, which had begun to gain ground in the third
         century, favored the pretensions of Rome.  The Church is,
         above all things, the assembly of "them that are sanctified
         in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. i. 2)--"the assembly of the
         first-born which are written in heaven"(Heb. xii. 23).  Yet
         the Church of our Lord is not simply inward and invisible; it
         is necessary that it should be manifested, and it is with a
         view to this manifestation that the sacraments of Baptism and
         the Lord's Supper were instituted. The visible Church has
         features different from those which distinguish it as an
         invisible Church.  The invisible Church, which is the body of
         Christ, is necessarily and eternally one. The visible Church
         no doubt partakes of the unity of the former; but, considered
         by itself, plurality is a characteristic already ascribed to
         it in the New Testament.  While speaking of one Church of
         God, it no sooner refers to its manifestation to the world,
         than it enumerates "the Churches of Galatia, of Macedonia, of
         Judea, all Churches of the saints." These Churches may
         undoubtedly, to a certain extent, look for visible unity;
         but if this union be wanting, they lose none of the essential
         qualities of the Church of Christ.  The strong bond which
         originally united the members of the Church, was that living
         faith of the heart which connected them all with Christ as
         their common head. Different causes soon concurred to
         originate and develop the idea of a necessity for external
         union.  Men accustomed to the political forms and
         associations of an earthly country, carried their views and
         habits into the spiritual and eternal kingdom of Christ.
         Persecution, powerless to destroy or even to shake this new
         community, made it only the more sensible of its own
         strength, and pressed it into a more compact body.  To the
         errors that sprung up in the theosophic schools and in the
         various sects, was opposed the one and universal truth
         received from the apostles, and preserved in the Church. This
         was well, so long as the invisible and spiritual Church was
         identical with the visible and external Church.  But a great
         separation took place erelong: the form and the life became
         disunited.  The semblance of an identical and exterior
         organization was gradually substituted for that interior and
         spiritual communion, which is the essence of the religion of
         God.  Men forsook the precious perfume of faith, and bowed
         down before the empty vessel that had contained it. They
         sought other bonds of union, for faith in the heart no longer
         connected the members of the Church; and they were united by
         means of bishops, archbishops, popes, mitres, canons, and
         ceremonies.  The living Church retiring gradually within the
         lonely sanctuary of a few solitary hearts, an external
         Church was substituted in its place, and all its forms were
         declared to be of divine appointment.  Salvation no longer
         flowing from the Word, which was henceforward put out of
         sight, the priests affirmed that it was conveyed by means of
         the forms they had themselves invented, and that no one could
         attain it except by these channels.  No one, said they, can
         by his own faith attain to everlasting life.  Christ
         communicated to the apostles, and these to the bishops, the
         unction of the Holy Spirit; and this Spirit is to be procured
         only in that order of succession! Originally, whoever
         possessed the spirit of Jesus Christ was a member of the
         Church; now the terms were inverted, and it was maintained
         that he only who was a member of the Church could receive the
         Spirit.

             As these ideas became established, the distinction
         between the people and the clergy was more strongly marked.
         The salvation of souls no longer depended entirely on faith
         in Christ, but also, and in a more especial manner, on union
         with the Church.  The representatives and heads of the Church
         were made partakers of the trust that should be placed in
         Christ alone, and became the real mediators of their flocks.
         The idea of a universal Christian priesthood was gradually
         lost sight of; the servants of the Church of Christ were
         compared to the priests of the old covenant; and those who
         separated from the bishop were placed in the same rank with
         Korah, Dathan, and Abiram! From a peculiar priesthood, such
         as was then formed in the Church, to a sovereign priesthood,
         such as Rome claims, the transition was easy.

              In fact, no sooner was the erroneous notion of the
         necessity for a visible unity of the Church established, than
         another appeared--the necessity for an outward
         representation of that union.  Although we find no traces in
         the Gospel of Peter's superiority over the other apostles;
         although the very idea of a primacy is opposed to the
         fraternal relations which united the brethren, and even to
         the spirit of the Gospel dispensation, which on the contrary
         requires all the children of the Father to "minister one to
         another," acknowledging only one teacher and one master;
         although Christ had strongly rebuked his disciples, whenever
         ambitious desires of pre-eminence were conceived in their
         carnal hearts the primacy of St. Peter was invented and
         supported by texts wrongly interpreted, and men next
         acknowledged in this apostle and in his self-styled
         successors at Rome, the visible representatives of visible
         unity--the heads of the universal Church.

           The constitution of the Patriarchate contributed in like
         manner to the exaltation of the Papacy.  As early as the
         three first centuries the metropolitan Churches had enjoyed
         peculiar honor.  The council of Nice, in its sixth canon,
         mentions three cities, whose Churches, according to it,
         exercised a long- established authority over those of the
         surrounding provinces: these were Alexandria, Rome, and
         Antioch.  The political origin of this distinction is
         indicated by the name which was at first given to the bishops
         of these cities: they were called Exarchs, from the title of
         the civil governors.  Somewhat later they received the more
         ecclesiastical appellation of Patriarchs.  We find this title
         first employed at the council of Constantinople, but in a
         different sense from that which it afterwards received. It
         was not until shortly before the council of Chalcedon that it
         was given exclusively to the great metropolitans.  The second
         general council created a new patriarchate, that of
         Constantinople itself, the new Rome, the second capital of
         the empire.  The church of Byzantium, so long obscure,
         enjoyed the same privileges, and was placed by the council of
         Chalcedon in the same rank as the Church of Rome.  Rome at
         that time shared the patriarchal supremacy with these three
         churches.  But when the Mahometan invasion had destroyed the
         sees of Alexandria and of Antioch,--when the see of
         Constantinople fell away, and in later times even separated
         from the West, Rome remained alone, and the circumstances of
         the times gathered all the Western Churches around her see,
         which from that time has been without a rival.

           New and more powerful friends than all the rest soon came
         to her assistance.  Ignorance and superstition took
         possession of the Church, and delivered it, fettered and
         blindfold, into the hands of Rome.

            Yet this bondage was not effected without a struggle.
         Frequently did the Churches proclaim their independence; and
         their courageous voices were especially heard from
         Proconsular Africa and from the East.

             But Rome found new allies to stifle the cries of the
         churches.  Princes, whom those stormy times often shook upon
         their thrones, offered their protection if Rome would in its
         turn support them.  They conceded to her the spiritual
         authority, provided she would make a return in secular power.
         They were lavish of the souls of men, in the hope that she
         would aid them against their enemies.  The power of the
         hierarchy which was ascending, and the imperial power which
         was declining, leant thus one upon the other, and by this
         alliance accelerated their twofold destiny.

             Rome could not lose by it.  An edict of Theodosius II and
         of Valentinian III proclaimed the Roman bishop "rector of
         the whole Church." Justinian published a similar decree.
         These edicts did not contain all that the popes pretended to
         see in them; but in those times of ignorance it was easy for
         them to secure that interpretation which was most favorable
         to themselves.  The dominion of the emperors in Italy
         becoming daily more precarious, the bishops of Rome took
         advantage of this circumstance to free themselves from their
         dependence.

             But already had issued from the forests of the North the
         most effectual promoters of the papal power.  The barbarians
         who had invaded and settled in the West, after being satiated
         with blood and plunder, lowered their reeking swords before
         the intellectual power that met them face to face.  Recently
         converted to Christianity, ignorant of the spiritual
         character of the Church, and feeling the want of a certain
         external pomp in religion, they prostrated themselves, half
         savage and half heathen as they were, at the feet of the
         high-priest of Rome. With their aid the West was in his
         power.  At first the Vandals, then the Ostrogoths, somewhat
         later the Burgundians and Alans, next the Visigoths, and
         lastly the Lombards and Anglo-Saxons, came and bent the knee
         to the Roman pontiff.  It was the sturdy shoulders of those
         children of the idolatrous north that succeeded in placing on
         the supreme throne of Christendom a pastor of the banks of
         the Tiber.

            At the beginning of the seventh century these events were
         accomplishing in the West, precisely at the period when the
         power of Mahomet arose in the East, prepared to invade
         another quarter of the world.

             From this time the evil continued to increase.  In the
         eighth century we see the Roman bishops resisting on the one
         hand the Greek emperors, their lawful sovereigns, and
         endeavouring to expel them from Italy, while with the other
         they court the mayors of the palace in France, begging from
         this new power, just beginning to rise in the West, a share
         in the wreck of the empire.  Rome founded her usurped
         authority between the East, which she repelled, and the West,
         which she summoned to her aid. She raised her throne between
         two revolts.  Startled by the shouts of the Arabs, now become
         masters of Spain, and who boasted that they would speedily
         arrive in Italy by the gates of the Pyrenees and Alps, and
         proclaim the name of Mahomet on the Seven Hills; alarmed at
         the insolence of Astolphus, who at the head of his Lombards,
         roaring like a lion, and brandishing his sword before the
         gates of the eternal city, threatened to put every Roman to
         death: Rome, in the prospect of ruin, turned her frightened
         eyes around her, and threw herself into the arms of the
         Franks.  The usurper Pepin demanded her pretended sanction of
         his new authority; it was granted, and the Papacy obtained in
         return his promise to be the defender of the "Republic of
         God." Pepin wrested from the Lombards the cities they had
         taken from the Greek emperor; yet, instead of restoring them
         to that prince, he laid they keys on St. Peter's altar, and
         swore with uplifted hands that he had not taken up arms for
         man, but to obtain from God the remission of his sins, and to
         do homage for his conquests to St. Peter.  Thus did France
         establish the temporal power of the popes.

             Charlemagne appeared; the first time he ascends the
         stairs to the basilic of St. Peter, devoutly kissing each
         step.  A second time he presents himself, lord of all the
         nations that formed the empire of the West, and of Rome
         itself.  Leo III thought fit to bestow the imperial title on
         him who already possessed the power; and on Christmas day, in
         the year 800, he placed the diadem of the Roman emperors on
         the brow of the son of Pepin.  From this time the pope
         belongs to the empire of the Franks: his connection with the
         East is ended.  He broke off from a decayed and falling tree
         to graft himself upon a wild and vigorous sapling.  A future
         elevation, to which he would have never dared aspire, awaits
         him among these German tribes with whom he now unites
         himself.

             Charlemagne bequeathed to his feeble successors only the
         wrecks of his power.  In the ninth century disunion
         everywhere weakened the civil authority.  Rome saw that this
         was the moment to exalt herself.  When could the Church hope
         for a more favorable opportunity of becoming independent of
         the state, than when the crown which Charles had worn was
         broken, and its fragments lay scattered over his former
         empire?

             Then appeared the False Decretals of Isidore.  In this
         collection of the pretended decrees of the popes, the most
         ancient bishops, who were contemporary with Tacitus and
         Quintilian, were made to speak the barbarous Latin of the
         ninth century.  The customs and constitutions of the Franks
         were seriously attributed to the Romans in the time of the
         emperors. Popes quoted the Bible in the Latin translation of
         Jerome, who had lived one, two or three centuries after them;
         and Victor, bishop of Rome, in the year 192, wrote to
         Theophilus, who was archbishop of Alexandria in 385.  The
         impostor who had fabricated this collection endeavored to
         prove that all bishops derived their authority from the
         bishop of Rome, who held his own immediately from Christ.  He
         not only recorded all the successive conquests of the
         pontiffs, but even carried them back to the earliest times.
         The popes were not ashamed to avail themselves of this
         contemptible imposture.  As early as 865, Nicholas I drew
         from its stores of weapons by which to combat princes and
         bishops.  This impudent invention was for ages the arsenal of
         Rome.

              Nevertheless, the vices and crimes of the pontiffs
         suspended for a time the effect of the decretals.  The Papacy
         celebrated its admission to the table of kings by shameful
         orgies. She became intoxicated: her senses were lost in the
         midst of drunken revellings.  It is about this period that
         tradition places upon the papal throne a woman named Joan,
         who had taken refuge in Rome with her lover, and whose sex
         was betrayed by the pangs of childbirth during a solemn
         procession.  But let us not needlessly augment the shame of
         the pontifical court.  Abandoned women at this time governed
         Rome; and that throne which pretended to rise above the
         majesty of kings was sunk deep in the dregs of vice. Theodora
         and Marozia installed and deposed at their pleasure the
         self-styled masters of the Church of Christ, and placed their
         lovers, sons, and grandsons in St. Peter's chair.  These
         scandals, which are but too well authenticated, may perhaps
         have given rise to the tradition of Pope Joan.

             Rome became one wild theater of disorders, the possession
         of which was disputed by the most powerful families of
         Italy.  The counts of Tuscany were generally victorious.  In
         1033, this house dared to place on the pontifical throne,
         under the name of Benedict IX, a youth brought up in
         debauchery.  This boy of twelve years old continued, when
         pope, the same horrible and degrading vices.  Another party
         chose Sylvester III in his stead; and Benedict, whose
         conscience was loaded with adulteries, and whose hands were
         stained with murder, at last sold the Papacy to a Roman
         ecclesiastic.

             The emperors of Germany, filled with indignation at such
         enormities, purged Rome with the sword.  The empire,
         asserting its paramount rights, drew the triple crown from
         the mire into which it had fallen, and saved the degraded
         papacy by giving it respectable men as its chiefs.  Henry III
         deposed three popes in 1046, and his finger, decorated with
         the ring of the Roman patricians, pointed out the bishop to
         whom the keys of St. Peter should be confided.  Four popes,
         all Germans, and nominated by the emperor, succeeded.  When
         the Roman pontiff died, the deputies of that church repaired
         to the imperial court, like the envoys of other dioceses, to
         solicit a new bishop.  With joy the emperor beheld the popes
         reforming abuses, strengthening the Church, holding councils,
         installing and deposing prelates, in defiance of foreign
         monarchs: The Papacy by these pretensions did but exalt the
         power of the emperor, its lord paramount.  But to allow of
         such practices was to expose his own authority to great
         danger.  The power which the popes thus gradually recovered
         might be turned suddenly against the emperor himself.  When
         the reptile had gained strength, it might wound the bosom
         that had cherished it: and this result followed.

             And now begins a new era for the papacy.  It rises from
         its humiliation, and soon tramples the princes of the earth
         under foot.  To exalt the Papacy is to exalt the Church, to
         advance religion, to ensure to the spirit the victory over
         the flesh, and to God the conquest of the world.  Such are
         its maxims: in these ambition finds its advantage, and
         fanaticism its excuse.

             The whole of this new policy is personified in one man:
         Hildebrand.

             This pope, who has been by turns indiscreetly exalted or
         unjustly traduced, is the personification of the Roman
         pontificate in all its strength and glory.  He is one of
         those normal characters in history, which include within
         themselves a new order of things, similar to those presented
         in other spheres by Charlemagne, Luther, and Napoleon.

              This monk, the son of a carpenter of Savoy, was brought
         up in a Roman convent, and had quitted Rome at the period
         when Henry III had there deposed three popes, and taken
         refuge in France in the austere convent of Cluny.  In 1048,
         Bruno, bishop of Toul, having been nominated pope by the
         emperor at Worms, who was holding the German Diet in that
         city, assumed the pontifical habits, and took the name of Leo
         IX; but Hildebrand, who had hastened thither, refused to
         recognize him, since it was (said he) from the secular power
         that he held the tiara.  Leo, yielding to the irresistible
         power of a strong mind and of a deep conviction, immediately
         humbled himself, laid aside his sacerdotal ornaments, and
         clad in the garb of a pilgrim, set out barefoot for Rome
         along with Hildebrand (says an historian), in order to be
         there legitimately elected by the clergy and the Roman
         people.  From this time Hildebrand was the soul of the
         Papacy, until he became pope himself.  He had governed the
         Church under the name of several pontiffs, before he reigned
         in person as Gregory VII.  One grand idea had taken
         possession of this great genius.  He desired to establish a
         visible theocracy, of which the pope, as vicar of Jesus
         Christ, should be the head. The recollection of the universal
         dominion of heathen Rome haunted his imagination and animated
         his zeal.  He wished to restore to papal Rome all that
         imperial Rome had lost.  "What Marius and Caesar," said his
         flatterers, "could not effect by torrents of blood, thou hast
         accomplished by a word."

             Gregory VII was not directed by the spirit of the Lord.
         That spirit of truth, humility, and long-suffering was
         unknown to him.  He sacrificed the truth whenever he judged
         it necessary to his policy.  This he did particularly in the
         case of Berenger, archdeacon of Angers.  But a spirit far
         superior to that of the generality of pontiffs--a deep
         conviction of the justice of his cause--undoubtedly animated
         him.  He was bold, ambitious, persevering in his designs, and
         at the same time skillful and politic in the use of the means
         that would ensure success.

              His first task was to organize the militia of the
         church. It was necessary to gain strength before attacking
         the empire.  A council held at Rome removed the pastors from
         their families, and compelled them to become the devoted
         adherents of the hierarchy. The law of celibacy, planned and
         carried out by popes, who were themselves monks, changed the
         clergy into a sort of monastic order.  Gregory VII claimed
         the same power over all the bishops and priests of
         Christendom, that an abbot of Cluny exercises in the order
         over which he presides.  The legates of Hildebrand, who
         compared themselves to the proconsuls of ancient Rome,
         travelled through the provinces, depriving the pastors of
         their legitimate wives; and, if necessary, the pope himself
         raised the populace against the married clergy.

             But chief of all, Gregory designed emancipating Rome from
         its subjection to the empire.  Never would he have dared
         conceive so bold a scheme, if the troubles that afflicted the
         minority of Henry IV, and the revolt of the German princes
         against that young emperor, had not favored its execution.
         The pope was at this time one of the magnates of the empire.
         Making common cause with the other great vassals, he
         strengthened himself by the aristocratic interest, and then
         forbade all ecclesiastics, under pain of excommunication, to
         receive investiture from the emperor. He broke the ancient
         ties that connected the Churches and their pastors with the
         royal authority, but it was to bind them all to the
         pontifical throne.  To this throne he undertook to chain
         priests, kings, and people, and to make the pope a universal
         monarch.  It was Rome alone that every priest should fear: it
         was in Rome alone that he should hope.  The kingdoms and
         principalities of the earth are her domain.  All kings were
         to tremble at the thunderbolts hurled by the Jupiter of
         modern Rome. Woe to him who resists! Subjects are released
         from their oaths of allegiance; the whole country is placed
         under an interdict; public worship ceases; the churches are
         closed; the bells are mute; the sacraments are no longer
         administered; and the malediction extends even to the dead,
         to whom the earth, at the command of a haughty pontiff,
         denies the repose of the tomb.

            The pope, subordinate from the very beginning of his
         existence successively to the Roman, Frank, and German
         emperors, was now free, and he trod for the first time as
         their equal, if not their master.  Yet Gregory VII was
         humbled in his turn: Rome was taken, and Hildebrand compelled
         to flee.  He died at Salerno, exclaiming, "I have loved
         righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore do I die in
         exile." Who shall dare charge with hypocrisy these words
         uttered on the very brink of the grave?

              The successors of Gregory, like soldiers arriving after
         a victory, threw themselves as conquerors on the enslaved
         Churches. Spain rescued from Islamism, Prussia reclaimed from
         idolatry, fell into the arms of the crowned priest.  The
         Crusades, which were undertaken at his instigation, extended
         and confirmed his authority.  The pious pilgrims, who in
         imagination had seen saints and angels leading their armed
         bands,--who, entering humble and barefoot within the walls of
         Jerusalem, burnt the Jews in their synagogue, and watered
         with the blood of thousands of Saracens the places where they
         came to trace the sacred footsteps of the Prince of
         Peace,--carried into the East the name of the pope, who had
         been forgotten there since he had exchanged the supremacy of
         the Greeks for that of the Franks.

            In another quarter the power of the Church effected what
         the arms of the republic and of the empire had been unable to
         accomplish.  The Germans laid at the feet of a bishop those
         tributes which their ancestors had refused to the most
         powerful generals.  Their princes, on succeeding to the
         imperial dignity, imagined they received a crown from the
         popes, but it was a yoke that was placed upon their necks.
         The kingdoms of Christendom, already subject to the spiritual
         authority of Rome, now became her serfs and tributaries.

              Thus everything was changed in the Church.

          It was at first a community of brethren, and now an absolute
         monarchy was established in its bosom.  All Christians were
         priests of the living God, with humble pastors as their
         guides. But a haughty head is upraised in the midst of these
         pastors; a mysterious voice utters words full of pride; an
         iron hand compels all men, great and small, rich and poor,
         bond and free, to wear the badge of its power.  The holy and
         primitive equality of souls before God is lost sight of.  At
         the voice of one man Christendom is divided into two unequal
         parties: on the one side is a separate caste of priests,
         daring to usurp the name of the Church, and claiming to be
         invested with peculiar privileges in the eyes of the Lord;
         and, on the other, servile flocks reduced to a blind and
         passive submission--a people gagged and fettered, and given
         over to a haughty caste.  Every tribe, language, and nation
         of Christendom, submits to the dominion of this spiritual
         king, who has received power to conquer.

         What is the official pronouncement concerning the Pope in
         our day? Here it comes:

         " The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is
         not a mere man, but as it were God and the VICAR OF GOD."

         "The Pope is of such lofty and supreme dignity that, properly
         speaking, he has not been established in any rank of dignity,
         but rather has been placed upon the very summit of all ranks
         and dignities..."

         "He is likewise the divine monarch and supreme emperor and
         king of kings."

         "HENCE THE POPE IS CROWNED WITH A TRIPLE CROWN, AS KING OF
         HEAVEN AND OF EARTH AND OF THE LOWER REGIONS." Ferraris'
         Eccl. Dictionary (CATHOLIC) Article, Pope.


         "What are the letters supposed to be in the Pope's crown and
         what do they signify, if anything?"

         "The letters inscribed in the Pope's miter are these:
         VICARIVS FILII DEI, which is the latin for 'VICAR OF THE SON
         OF GOD.' Catholics hold that the church, which is a visible
         society, must have a visible head.  Christ, before HIS
         ascension into heaven, appointed St. Peter to act as his
         representative . . . Hence to the Bishop of Rome, as head of
         the church, was given the title, 'VICAR OF CHRIST.'

         Our Sunday Visitor.  (Catholic Weekly) "Bureau of information
         Huntington, Ind.  April 18, 1915.

         If you take the roman numerals from the Popes title and add
         them up you will get 666, thus he wears 666 on his miter. In
         his book "The Great Apostasy," Joseph F Berg, after having
         proved that 666 can be gotten from the Greek word LATEINOS
         and the Hebrew word ROMIITH which also refer to the Cathioic
         Church, he states: "Now we challenge the world to find
         another name in these languages: Greek, Hebrew, and Latin,
         which shall designate the same number."

         Even the Romanists themselves shame you in their clear-
         sighted comprehension of the issues of this question.
         Cardinal Manning says, "The Catholic Church is either the
         masterpiece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God."
         Cardinal Newman says, "a sacerdotal order is historically the
         essence of the church of Rome; if not divinely appointed, it
         is doctrinally the essence of antichrist." In both these
         statements the issue is clear, and it is the same.  Rome
         herself admits, openly admits, that if she is not the very
         kingdom of Christ, she is that of Antichrist.  Rome declares
         that she is one or the other.  She herself propounds and
         argues this solemn alternative.

                You shrink from it, do you? I accept it.  Conscience
         constrains me.  History compels me.  The past, the awful past
         rises before me.  I see THE GREAT APOSTASY, I see the
         desolation of Christendom, I see the smoking ruins, I see the
         reign of monsters; I see those vicegods, that Gregory VII.,
         that Innocent III., that Boniface VIII., that Alexander VI.,
         that Gregory XIII., that Pius IX.; I see their long
         succession, I hear their insufferable blasphemies, I see
         their abominable lives; I see them worshipped by blinded
         generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying
         indulgences, creating a paganized Christianity; I see their
         liveried slaves, their slaven priests, their celibate
         confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the ruined
         women, the murdered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions,
         the dying groans; I hear the cries of the victims; I hear the
         anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts; I see
         the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman
         Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield, those butcheries of
         St. Bartholomew, that Spanish armada, those unspeakable
         dragonnades, that endless train of wars, that dreadful
         multitude of massacres. I see it all, and in the name of the
         ruin it has wrought in the church and in the world, in the
         name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled,
         the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed; in the
         name of the millions it has deluded, the millions it has
         slaughtered, the millions it has damned; with holy
         confessors, with noble reformers, with innumerable martyrs,
         with the saints of ages, I denounce it as the masterpiece of
         Satan, as the body and soul and essence of antichrist.



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