Europe the powers that ruled in church and state had for centuries been
controlled by Satan, through the medium of the papacy. But here is brought
to view a new manifestation of satanic power.

It had been Rome's policy, under a profession of reverence for the Bible,
to keep it locked up in an unknown tongue, and hidden away from the
people. Under her rule the witnesses prophesied, "clothed in sackcloth."
But another power--the beast from the bottomless pit--was to arise to make
open, avowed war upon the word of God.

The "great city" in whose streets the witnesses are slain, and where their
dead bodies lie, "is spiritually Egypt." Of all nations presented in Bible
history, Egypt most boldly denied the existence of the living God, and
resisted His commands. No monarch ever ventured upon more open and
high-handed rebellion against the authority of Heaven than did the king of
Egypt. When the message was brought him by Moses, in the name of the Lord,
Pharaoh proudly answered, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice to
let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go."(392)
This is atheism; and the nation represented by Egypt would give voice to a
similar denial of the claims of the living God, and would manifest a like
spirit of unbelief and defiance. The "great city" is also compared,
"spiritually," to Sodom. The corruption of Sodom in breaking the law of
God was especially manifested in licentiousness. And this sin was also to
be a pre-eminent characteristic of the nation that should fulfil the
specifications of this scripture.

According to the words of the prophet, then, a little before the year 1798
some power of satanic origin and character would rise to make war upon the
Bible. And in the land where the testimony of God's two witnesses should
thus be silenced, there would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh and
the licentiousness of Sodom.

This prophecy has received a most exact and striking fulfilment in the
history of France. During the Revolution, in 1793, "the world for the
first time heard an assembly of men, born and educated in civilization,
and assuming the right to govern one of the finest of the European
nations, uplift their united voice to deny the most solemn truth which
man's soul receives, and renounce unanimously the belief and worship of a
Deity."(393) "France is the only nation in the world concerning which the
authentic record survives, that as a nation she lifted her ha