Note.—The prophecies of Daniel were not to be shut up till the end, for then there would be no time either to develop knowledge or to use the knowledge thus acquired, but until “the time of the end,” which refers to a short period just preceding the end. During this time there was to be a wonderful increase of knowledge. Especially were the prophecies of the book of Daniel to be unsealed, studied, and understood at this time.
2. Until what time were the saints to be persecuted under the Roman power?
“And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.” Dan. 11:35.
Note.—The time of the end, as shown by this text, was even then, in the days of Daniel, an appointed time, in the mind of God. This is not strange, when we learn that in the Scriptures both the judgment and the end itself are said to be appointed times. Acts 17:31; Dan. 8:19. The close of the period allotted for this persecution (1798) was to mark the beginning of “the time of the end.” See page [223].
3. According to the prophecy, how long was the power represented by the little horn, or papal Rome, to persecute the saints?
“And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, ... and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” Dan. 7:25.
Notes.—As shown in the reading on “The Kingdom and Work of Antichrist,” page 218, this expression, “a time and times and the dividing of time,” represents 1260 years, which extend from the period 533-538 a.d., the time of the decree of Emperor Justinian recognizing the Pope as head of all the churches and the successful campaign against Arianism, to the period 1793-98, when, as a result of the French Revolution, the papal power received its deadly wound and the Pope was carried into captivity. This, then, locates the beginning of “the time of the end” in 1798. Up to that point the book of Daniel, as a whole, was to be closed up; in other words, not understood by the people. But when the power that had placed this embargo on the Word of God, and had tried to shut it away from the people, was broken, then light of all kinds, Biblical, scientific, inventive, and industrial, began to shine and penetrate in every direction.
It is a singular and striking fact that immediately following the overthrow of the papal power in 1798, Bible societies, tract societies, and Sunday-schools sprang up in large numbers. The London Religious Tract Society was organized in 1799, the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804, the American Bible Society in 1816, and the American Tract Society in 1825. The Bible has now been translated into about four hundred and fifty languages and dialects, and sent to every part of the globe. Before that time access to the Bible was confined to comparatively few. Now the humblest person may possess it, and is as free to read and study it as is the most exalted in the land. A little more than one hundred years ago there was not a Sunday-school in the world, the first one being organized by Robert Raikes, at Gloucester, England, in 1784. Now there are more than 285,000 such schools, with over 28,000,000 officers, teachers, and pupils.
4. What may be said of the developments in the line of scientific inventions since 1798?
These have been remarkable, phenomenal, and without parallel in the history of the world. The people of a century and a quarter ago knew nothing of steamships, steam and electric railways, telegraphs, telephones, photographs, phonographs, sewing-machines, anesthetics, submarine cables, linotypes, monotypes, motion pictures, X-rays, aeroplanes, or wireless telegraphy. Were they to be raised from the dead, they would be as much astonished at all these things as would the people of four thousand years ago.