ples, 17:15; and by hordes of barbarian Huns, Goths, and
Vandals, Rome was inundated as by a flood, in the 5th century; and in A.
D. 476 its government was entirely subverted.

Such an irruption of barbarians might be expected to extirpate
Christianity from the earth; but help came from an unexpected quarter. The
woman had retired to her secure retreat, and the earth swallowed up the
flood. Those barbarous tribes were absorbed by, and mixed with, the
previous population of the empire, and constituted the clay ingredient
with the iron, in the feet of the metallic image.--Dan. 2:41. They rapidly
assimilated to the character and habits of the previous inhabitants; and
ultimately adopted the forms of government and religion which for a time
they subverted; and within the limits of the Western empire, in the place
of the Imperial head, constituted ten contemporary kingdoms. These were a
continuation of the former government, and were symbolized by:

The Ten-Horned Beast.

"And I was standing on the sand of the sea, and saw a wild beast
ascending out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on
his horns ten diadems, and on his heads names of reviling. And the
wild beast, which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like
those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion: and the
dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his
deadly wound was healed: and all the world admired and followed
the beast. And they worshipped the dragon, for he gave power to
the wild beast: and they worshipped the wild beast, saying, Who is
like the wild beast, and who is able to make war with him?"--Rev.
18:1-4.

The sea, from which this beast emerged, is evidently the turbulent state
of anarchy, to which the people of the fourth kingdom had been reduced, on
its subversion. And the beast which came up out of the sea, represents the
forms of government which then arose.

Its heads and horns synchronize with those of the dragonic monster, which
had preceded it, and disappeared from the view of the revelator. And they
doubtless symbolize the same forms of government. See pp. 145-148.

The ten crowns encircling its horns, indicate that an era is foreshadowed,
when the sovereignty of the kingdom shall have been transferred from the
forms of government symbolized by the heads,--which had before