CAREY IN INDIA TRANSLATING THE BIBLE
"So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." Acts 19:20.
THE TIME OF THE END
"Thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. 12:4.
Thus the words of the angel, spoken nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, announced the opening of a new era of enlightenment when the latter days should come.
The Time
At the end of the long period of predicted tribulation of the church—the twelve hundred and sixty years of Daniel's prophecy—the world entered upon this era of "the time of the end."
"They shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.... 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. 11:33-35.
In practically every outline of prophecy touching this time, the events of the last days are represented as following the end of the prophetic period of tribulation. Christ's prophecy of Matthew 24 so declares. Our Saviour showed that this period of tribulation, would be shortened, "for the elect's sake," and that "immediately after the tribulation of those days" the signs of the end would begin to appear.
Thus, while the full period of the twelve hundred and sixty years ended amid the scenes of the French Revolution, which gave the papal power a deadly wound in the last decade of the eighteenth century, the shortening of the days of tribulation had begun even earlier to spread increasing knowledge and enlightenment over the earth.