been maintained a perfect safeguard against idolatry in the
earth; the law would have held its place as a perfect, immutable, and
eternal rule of conduct, a safeguard against the antinomianism of all ages
and the Spiritualism of to-day; the view that the dead remain unconscious
in the grave till the resurrection, would always have been held, and then
there could have been no purgatory, no masses for the dead, no Mariolatry,
no saint worship--in short, no Roman Catholicism, and no Universalism, nor
Spiritualism; the true nature of the coming and kingdom of Christ would
not have been lost sight of, and the peace and safety fable of a temporal
millennium never could have existed.

To say nothing of other errors that would be corrected, suppose all
Christendom stood together on these four simple truths, how much division
could there have been in the Christian world? A second denomination could
not have existed. And what would have been the condition of things?--As
different from the present condition as one can well imagine--no paganism,
no Roman Catholicism, no Protestantism, no multiplied sects, no
Spiritualism,--but Christianity, broad, united, free, and glorious. Some
are taking their stand on these truths, and so will be shielded from the
delusions of these last days, for which the way, by ages of superstition
and error, has been so artfully prepared. Every one must stand upon them
who is governed by the literal rule of interpretation; for they are read
in so many words out of the sacred volume itself. But the churches
generally reject them, often with bitterness, scorn, and contempt, and
some even with persecution. And this is why Babylon has fallen.

That organization, called in Rev. 17:5: "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the
Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth," has been very generally
applied by Protestants to the Roman Catholic Church; but if that church is
the mother, who are the daughters? This question has been asked for many
years. Alexander Campbell said:--

"The worshiping establishments now in operation throughout
Christendom, incased and cemented by their voluminous confessions
of faith, and their ecclesiastical constitutions, are not churches
of Jesus Christ, but the legitimate daughters of that mother of
harlots--the Church of Rome."

Lorenzo Dow said:--

"We read not only of Babylon, but of the whore of Babylon, styled
the mother of harlots, which is suppose