h time the dark noonday closes and we emerging hail with
joy the peaceful glowing evening light.

Prior to the year 1880 it was, with rare exceptions, universally conceded
that to gain heaven we needs must unite with some religious denomination.
About this time God by his Holy Spirit gave to men everywhere (whose
hearts were prepared) an intuitive knowledge that we could be saved and
live a Christian life outside the walls of sectism. Just to lean upon God
alone and be guided solely by his Word and Spirit, they discovered to be
their blessed privilege. We are not alone in thus interpreting Rev. 11:11.
We will quote from other authors. "Cloudy day (Protestantism). Length of
period 350 years." Rev. 11:9.--_S. L. Speck in Bible Readings_, p. 104.

"The two witnesses [Word and Spirit] lie dead three days and a half [three
and one-half centuries]. Rev. 11:7-9. The church dwells in a wilderness,
which is neither dark nor light. Period 350 years. Time from 1530 to
1880."--_W. G. S. in Bible Readings_, p. 69.

"Time of reign of second beast, from the year 1530 to 1880, making 350
years."--_H. C. Wickersham in Holiness Bible Subjects_, p. 178.

This same author on page 244 in quoting Rev. 11:11 encloses in brackets
the words: "At the end of three hundred and fifty years of Protestant
sectism the true children of God come out of Babylon and are sanctified."

"The three days and a half they were to lie dead is interpreted by the
Holy Spirit to mean three centuries and a half. This gives us the length
of the Protestant age."--_Biblical Trace of the Church_, p. 143.

In the few years prior to 1880 A.D., there was a great declension in the
spirituality of Protestantism. Who can deny this fact? Quite a number of
the leading denominations held revivals, where was witnessed the power of
the Holy Spirit. People were genuinely converted. They loved and worshiped
God in quite a degree of simplicity and equality. The ministry was of a
humbler class and more devoted to its charges. In the decade preceding
1880 there was a great change. This change perhaps can be no better
described than is done in the following words of Mr. Foster, bishop of the
Methodist denomination:

"Worldly socials, fairs, festivals, concerts, and such like, have taken
the place of the religious gatherings, revival meetings, class and
prayer-meetings of earlier days.... Under such worldly performance
spirituality is frozen to death.... The early Methodist ministers