een Judea and Rome, previous to the Saviour's
advent, on account of which she was greatly depressed and humbled, so that
it might with propriety be said that one-third of her stars were cast to
the ground. This depression was one great reason why the church within her
borders looked so earnestly for a Deliverer.

The Man-child is the one "who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron,"
according to the prediction of Christ in the second Psalm; which proves
its reference to the Saviour.

The purpose of the dragon to destroy the child of the woman as soon as it
should be born, in accordance with the view here taken, would symbolize
the purpose of the Roman power, by the agency of Herod the Roman governor
in Judea, to destroy the infant Saviour. "When he had gathered all the
chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them
where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem, in
Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet." And Herod "sent forth and
slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts
thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had
diligently inquired of the wise men," Matt. 2:1-16. Thus Rome sought to
slay the Saviour as soon as he was born; but Joseph took the child and
fled into Egypt. Afterwards Christ was crucified by Roman soldiers, and
deposited in the tomb, arising again the third day.

His being caught up to God and to his throne, symbolizes his resurrection
from the dead, and ascension from the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:9), to the
right hand of the Majesty on high; "whom the heaven must receive until the
times of restitution of all things," _Ib._ 3:21.

The flight of the woman into the wilderness, denotes her descent from the
conspicuous position she had occupied, and the dispersion of the church.
With the crucifixion of Christ, Judaism was no longer the casket in which
the church was enshrined. It left its place in the moral heavens, and the
followers of Christ were scattered abroad, Acts 8:1-4. Thus she virtually
fled into the wilderness--into the condition, where, subsequently, she was
to be nourished for 1260 prophetic days.

It is objected to the application of the man-child to the Saviour, that it
should be prophetic, and not retrospective. This objection would be
equally valid to the application of the symbolic heads, against which it
is never urged. That which is retrospective, to be appropriately
symbolized, m