elf-righteousness were making vigorous shoots; and the
real gospel of Christ was hidden from the men that professed it."

To the same effect is the report of Mosheim:--Of the life and morals of the
professing Christians of the fourth century, he says: "Good men were, as
before, mixed with bad; but the bad were by degrees so multiplied, that
men truly holy and devoted to God appeared more rarely; and the pious few
were almost oppressed by the vicious multitude." Of their doctrines he
says: "Fictions, of early origin" (about saint veneration and relics, a
purifying fire, celibacy, &c., &c.), "now so prevailed as in course of
time almost to thrust true religion aside, or at least to exceedingly
obscure and tarnish it."

Says Mr Lord:--"Constantine and his successors introduced a flood of false
doctrines, superstitions and idolatries, into the church, which were
incompatible with a pure worship, and swept all who yielded to their
impulse to the gulf of apostasy. Such were the veneration of the cross,
and ascription to it of miraculous powers, the homage of relics, the
invocation of saints, the conversion of religion into gorgeous ceremonies,
the encouragement of celibacy, and the arrogation of the throne and
prerogatives of God by civil and ecclesiastical rulers. These falsehoods,
follies, and impieties, introduced or adopted by the emperors, encouraged
by their example, sanctioned by their laws, and enforced by the penalties
of excommunication, imprisonment, the forfeiture of civil rights,
banishment, and death, came armed with an overpowering force to all who
were not fortified against them by the special aids of the divine spirit,
and like a resistless torrent bore away the great mass of the
church."--_Exp. of Apoc._, p. 350.

With the accession of multitudes of unworthy members, and the prevalence
of false doctrines, the true church would have been speedily overwhelmed
had not the people of God been sustained from such deleterious influences.
To the woman, therefore, were given two wings of a great eagle that she
might escape. Wings are symbolic of power of flight--for succor, or escape.
The four-winged leopard of Daniel used his speed to approach and demolish
the enemy; the woman, to escape hers. The church of old was sustained in
like manner. Thus God said to Israel, "Ye have seen what I did unto the
Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you to
myself."--Ex. 19:4.

On the introduction of new r