The Falling Stone

or

The Overthrow of the Last Kaiser.

My theme to-night is:

"The Falling Stone; or, God's forecast of world politics now being fulfilled, the overthrow of the Last Kaiser, or Cæsar, and the setting up of the Fifth and final great world power."

My text is to be found in the book of Daniel, second chapter, thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth and forty-fourth verses:

"Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces......And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. . . . . . And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed."

In the previous sermon I spoke on the "Great Tribulation." In presenting that subject I gave a general exposition of what is popularly known as "Daniel's image," together with corroborative testimony of the wild beasts Daniel saw in his own visions. I shall go over exactly the same ground to-night. I shall, however, give a more detailed exposition of the image and the symbolry of the beasts, verifying all from history till I reach the prophetic climax of the fourth empire. I shall then expound the mountain out of which the stone was cut, the stone itself, the falling of the stone and the setting up of the fifth and final kingdom. From all this I shall draw the corollary that God's forecast of world politics is now being fulfilled and that these fulfilling events are the daily demonstrations that this Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I shall close as usual by an appeal to professed Christians and to those of you who may be unsaved.

Nebuchadnezzar was King of Babylon. Babylon, as a Kingdom, was in the zenith of its glory. It had been built on and out of the ruins

of Assyria. It was so identified with it that classic writers like Herodotus and Strabo speak often of the Babylonians as Assyrians. The kingdom extended over Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, part of Greece, the African littoral and Spain, as far as the pillars of Hercules.

The City of Babylon was in the noontide of its splendor.

The hanging gardens swept up, terrace on terrace of verdant foliage and playing fountains, to the palm fronded heights. The tower of Belus rose hundreds of feet higher than the present Tour Eiffel. It was ascended by an exterior spiral roadway. At the top was a sanctuary for worshippers and crowning it all, a statue of the god worth its weight in millions of gold.

The walls of the city were three hundred feet in height, looking down upon a trench half as high, a trench that could be flooded from an artificial lake operated by locks of modern construction. The walls were pierced by a hundred brazen gates. Behind each gate a thousand men stood armed and ready to spring forth at the

first sounding of alarm. On the top of the walls was an esplanade or boulevard where chariots three abreast could be driven without incommoding one another. Bridges connected the flat roofed houses; so that there was an upper as well as lower city. In the lower city the streets crossed each other at right angles. They were paved and arcaded. The river Euphrates ran through the center of the city between marble banks or quays. Artistic bridges spanned the river, ferry boats glided back and forth, while here and there arched tunnels enabled the people to pass from side to side. In the heart of the city was the king's palace-eight miles square.

The inhabitants were wholly given up to pleasure, to unbridled lust and drunkenness. Here virtue had no place and vice was crowned with flowers.

In self satisfied pride and abounding content, Nebuchadnezzar ruled over this wide and wealth-filled kingdom.

One night, in the depths of his luxurious sleep he dreamed a dream. When he awoke it had

gone from him. Although he could not recall a single outline of it the impression weighed upon and terrified him. He summoned his wise men and astrologers. He commanded them to recall the dream and give him the interpretation. They protested. No king had ever made such a demand. Let him tell them the dream, they would give the interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar was filled with anger, with madness and fury that the absolutism of his will should be questioned or arrested even for a moment. He commanded them to be put to death.

Among the Jewish captives Nebuchadnezzar had led in his triumphal train after the siege and taking of Jerusalem were four young men, princes in Israel, among whom Daniel, the prophet, was easily preeminent. With the three others he had been placed by the king in the college of astrologers that they might become versed in the science, the knowledge and wisdom of the Chaldeans. The sentence included them. When Daniel heard of it he went to the Chamberlain and through him sought an interview with the king. It was accorded him. He presented him