tly indicates that following the deadly blow
there would come a revival of the Papacy's influence, just as the
Catholic writer describes it. The prophet John, speaking of this same
power, says:

"I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly
wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.... And
they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is
able to make war with him?" Rev. 13:3, 4.

We see the healing process still going on, with evidences multiplying
that the world is more and more wondering after the papal power.

A New Era of Liberty and Enlightenment

With the ending of the 1260 years of papal supremacy, a new order was
ushered in. The Papacy had stood for absolutism in state as well as
church. Now the power of absolutism was broken. "Absolute monarchy,"
Edmund Burke said at the time, "breathed its last without a struggle."
There came the dawn of an era of greater religious liberty and
enlightenment, that has spread blessings over all lands.

The prophecy had said of the Papacy, that the saints and the times and
laws of the Most High were to be "given into his hand" for 1260 years.
As foretold in Christ's prophecy (Matt. 24:22), these days of the
tribulation of God's saints were "shortened." The power of the
Reformation weakened the oppressing hand, even before the prophetic
period ran out. And when the full 1260 years closed, the world saw the
grip of that papal hand yet further loosened, and God's providence at
work preparing the way for a world-wide proclamation of His gospel,
bearing witness against the perversions of the papal apostasy, and
restoring to men the Word and laws of the Most High.

The record of history witnesses that this time prophecy of the 1260
years of papal supremacy was exactly fulfilled. The Lord speaks in
prophecy that men may know that He is the living God. In these time
prophecies of His Word, He gives assurance not only that this troubled
world has not escaped from the hand of its Maker, but that its times are
in His hand also; and that when the time of His divine purpose fully
comes, He will surely cut His work short in righteousness, and end the
reign of sin on earth.

As the prophetic period of Dan. 7:25 meets its fulfilment in the history
of the Papacy, even so, we shall see, the work of the Roman Church
answers to the further specifications regarding the doings of this
"little horn" of Daniel's prophecy.

[Illustr