after) that God calls
into this service all his people who are yet under the sectarian yoke.
With this great host already dispersed over the world, the work of
making known this last message can and will be accomplished.

The positive statement that the _hour_ of his judgment is come shows
that the end is exceedingly near; hence the second and third angels must
follow the first in the closest proximity possible in order to introduce
their messages before the wrath of God is poured out upon apostate
Christendom. The time is so short that these three messengers can not
possibly refer to three distinct reformations in the world; hence they
must signify three important phases in the one last reformation that
carries the gospel to all nations in the short period of an "hour,"
which time also includes the final judgment.

A careful study of these three messages will show that they are
inseparably connected. The second cry was against Babylon, that she had
fallen. Rev. 18:1, 2 proves this fall of Babylon to be a moral one--a
giving away to ungodliness, iniquity and all manner of deception.
According to chapter 16:19 the great city of Babylon is composed of
three parts, being a confederation of the dragon[10] (heathenism), the
beast (Catholicism), and the false prophet (Protestantism). Chap. 16:13,
14. It is evidently to this latter division of Babylon that this second
message applies; for Paganism was always a false religion, and
Catholicism was always a corrupt one, during whose reign the church of
God, as already shown, was separate. Protestantism, then, was the only
part of the great city that could fall morally or spiritually. During
the space of three hundred and fifty years, from the formation of the
first Protestant creed, she held reign and authority over the people of
God, who were scattered among her hundreds of opposing sects.

[Footnote 10: That the dragon should be a part of great Babylon seems at
first improbable; but in this statement reference is made, not to the
dragon in his original, or Pagan, state, but to the form in which he is
manifesting himself in these last days to deceive the nations, working
in conjunction with apostate Christendom. This phase of the dragon power
which brings him into harmony with, and, in reality, a part of, modern
Babylon, will be more clearly understood when we come to consider the
three unclean spirits that come out of the mouth of the dragon, the
beast, and the false prophet