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thrown and the subverter of its dominion was to come from the west.

The preceding visions had represented the earthly glory, and the tyrannical character of all the great successive kingdoms. But, in the present, the national symbol is adopted, in reference both to Persia and Macedon. Previous to the days of Daniel, and even from their origin as a nation, the Macedonians were designated in history as the Ægeadæ, or the goats people, their first king, Ceraunus, the leader of a large band of migratory Greeks in quest of a settlement, having fixed the seat of his empire on a spot to which a flock of goats fled, as he passed, for shelter from a storm,-the oracle having previously commanded him to seek the goats as his guide to empire., But the symbols, however applicable and appropriate, may,-in respect to the Median and Persian kingdom, united under Cyrus, and the Macedonian, or as generally termed the Grecian empire, founded by Alexander the Great,-be here dropped from the explicitness of the interpretation. Ver. 20, 21.-The ram which thou sawest having two horns, are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Prophecy here assumes the explicitness, and requires to be viewed with the minuteness, of historical detail.

He came from the west over the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground. Ver. 5. Alexander, on ascending the throne of his father Philip, in the twentieth year of his age, reduced to obedience the Illyrians and Thracians, from the borders of Macedon to the banks of the Danube. Having subdued the Thebans, who disowned him as a leader, and burnt their city, and overawed all his enemies in Greece, he was appointed Generalissimo of the Grecians in their general confederacy against

their common enemy, the Persians. Traversing Thrace, he passed the Hellespont, subdued Bithynia, Phrygia, Cilicia, and all the other countries of the Lesser Asia, Syria, Egypt, and Babylonia, Armenia, Media, Persia, India, Bactria, Parthia, and Hyrcania, throughout all the provinces of the Persian empire, and even beyond its bounds. He waxed very great. Conquering kingdoms wherever he went, often passing over them with the speed of a courier, and bearing the tidings of his conquests, exclusive of partial excursions, he held on in a triumphant course and circuit of above twelve thousand miles, with a rapidity unparalleled by any single conqueror. He was the first king of Grecia, who, retaliating her wrongs on Persia, established an empire in the east, and lorded over Asia. His bright and rapid career is traced from its first rise to its sudden extinction.

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He came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power, ver. 6. The soldiers of Greece, with Alexander at their head, and the troops of Persia, faced each other for the first time in Asia, on the banks of the Granicus. The hostile armies were drawn up on the opposite banks. Alexander rejected with disdain the counsel he received, to desist from an immediate attack. He assailed them as they were standing before the river. Plunging into the stream, he encountered and overthrew them in the waters, and on the bank: a moment's delay would have been destruction; but he rushed impetuously into the midst of the enemy; and slew, with his own hand, the first of their generals and the fiercest of their chiefs.

The king of Greece came close, (ver. 7.) unto the king of Persia. The modern theory of the art of war, that of breaking the line, was practically illus

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trated by Alexander, whose great principle of warfare was to march in column, and with his Macedonian phalanx to penetrate to the centre of the Persian host, where Darius was stationed, or, in other words, to come close unto the king. Twice, with extreme difficulty, Darius so narrowly escaped from his hands, that his chariot, lance, and spear were taken, a first and a second time.

And after routing all his armies, and subjugating his kingdom, so closely was he pursued by Alexander,-who, with only a few cavalry, traversed a desert by the nearest route in hopes of seizing him alive, that, when about to be overtaken at last, Darius, slain by the hands of his soldiers in their despair of saving him, had scarcely breathed his last, or, according to one historian, had not expired, when the conqueror of Asia was at his side.

There was no power in Persia to stand before him ; he cast down their empire to the ground, and stamped upon it. He brake the kingdom of Media and Persia. Ver. 7, 20. He passed the Granicus, with less than half the number, in confronting defiance of a hundred thousand troops. He slew a greater number at the battle of Issus, as Greek and Roman historians relate; and in the battle of Arbela, the death-blow of the Persian empire, an army of a million had not power to stand before him, and with such fury did he assail them, that nearly a third part of the mighty host lay dead upon the field.

The Bactrians, Scythians, Armenians, Syrians, and Parthians, and many savage mountaineers besides, were confederated with the Medes and Persians against the close band of intrepid Greeks, headed by Alexander, but none could deliver them out of his hand.

And when he was strong the great horn was broken. Ver. 8. No host on earth could encounter him. But the description of the momentary fall of the

frangible authority of a mortal, was as easy a task in the hands of an inspired penman, as that of the rapid career of the desolator of kingdoms. Though no power could stand before him, or deliver out of his hands, while his commissioned work remained to be done, yet, according to the same word of the Ruler among the nations, who raiseth up and who casteth down, so soon as ever the measure of his greatness was full, and the name of Great was won by the sacrifice of many thousands, the conqueror of the world became a corpse. It was the resolution of him whose purposes had never been thwarted, and who was taking to himself the name of a god, to fix the seat of his universal empire at Babylon, and from thence to rule the world he had conquered. But it was not so written in the word of the living God. Alexander the Great would have healed Babylon; but it was not healed. And he who had triumphed over the face of the earth, to whose prowess no city could refuse to yield, who built Alexandria and divers other cities, could not stay the decline of one, against which the word of the Lord of Hosts had gone forth, nor rebuild a temple which was devoted to everlasting desolation; but after having achieved all the predicted wonders of his brief but most eventful history, on the immediate completion of his conquests and establishment of his unrivalled authority, and in the thirty-fourth year of his age, in the very bloom of his manhood, and the very fulness of his just ripened glory, he died, at Babylon, on his first attempt to do that which it was written in Scripture was not to be done. And it was WHEN he was strong that the great horn was broken.

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For it came up four notable ones, toward the four winds of heaven. Ver. 8. Now, that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. Ver. 22. The words of prophecy glide as smoothly over

the lapse of ages as over the track of a single destroyer, the founder of kingdoms. The Grecian sovereignty over the west of Europe, great part of Asia, and the most renowned and fertile region in Africa, did not end with the first great king who set it up. Out of the same nation, and under his chief captains, four notable kingdoms, though inferior in power, arose towards the four winds of heaven, viz. Macedon and Greece, under Cassander, in the west; Thrace, and the other northern regions, subject to Lysimachus; while the dynasty of the Ptolemies began in Egypt, and that of the Seleucidæ in Assyria. After their respective eras had ceased, the Assyrian, or eastern kingdom, partially escaped, more than the rest, from the Roman yoke. The vision was for many days. But the locality was fixed for the rise and prevalence of another power, more marvellous than that of Alexander, which was long to reign triumphant, in the latter times, in the countries over which he ruled, of which the form and progress is traced in the sequel of the vision.

The vision was not only to be for many days, but the long period of its duration is noted, even two thousand three hundred days or years; for the words manifestly do not admit of any other interpretation, or any lesser measure of the time, than that which is common to them with other prophetic periods in Scripture.

When Daniel had seen the vision, and sought the meaning, there stood before him as the appearance of a man. And he heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. And the first words which the angel uttered were, Understand, O son of man, for AT THE TIME OF THE END shall be the vision. And he said, behold I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation; for at the time appointed the end (ver.

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