e,
intelligent agents that appeared as the great opposers of the
establishment of Christianity by the rider of the white horse? We find
the answer undoubtedly in the propagators of the _Pagan religions_. As
soon as Christianity began to gain a foothold in the Roman Empire, the
priests and supporters of Paganism were exasperated to the last degree,
and they determined to crush out the Christian religion. An example of
Pagan opposition is found in the nineteenth chapter of Acts, where it is
recorded that the preaching of the gospel so stirred the people of
Ephesus that they were filled with wrath and for the space of about two
hours cried out, saying, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" This great
conflict between Christianity and Paganism will be more fully described
under other symbols in a subsequent chapter, therefore I will make this
description brief.

The destruction of life brought about by this rider of the red horse
doubtless signifies the great slaughter of the Christians at the hands
of the Pagans. During ten seasons of severe persecution, which occurred
under the reigns of the emperors Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus
Aurelius, Septimus Severus, Maximus, Decius, Gallus, Valerian, and
Diocletian, the Christians suffered every indignity that their
relentless persecutors could heap upon them. They had their eyes burned
out with red-hot irons; they were dragged about with ropes until life
was extinct; they were beheaded, stoned to death, crucified, thrown to
wild beasts, burned at the stake; yet "they overcame by the blood of the
Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives
unto the death." Chap. 12:11.

It may appear at first that taking the rider of the horse as a symbolic
agent but the killing which he effected as literal, is an inconsistency
and a variation from the laws of symbolic language; but such is not
necessarily the case. One principle laid down in the beginning was, that
the description of an object or event must necessarily be literal when
no symbolic object could be found to analagously represent it. The
destruction of human life could not well be represented symbolically,
there being no destruction analagous to it whose meaning would be
obvious; hence it must appear as a literal description. This is proved
by many texts in the Revelation that will admit of no other application;
such as verses 9-11 of this chapter; chapter 13:10; 17:6; etc.

But the literal destruction o