The prophecy represents not only a world-wide work, but a quick work in proclaiming the gospel message in the last days. The movement is symbolized in the Revelation by an angel flying in the midst of heaven, from land to land. And as to the closing work, when the end is near at hand, the Scripture says:
"He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth." Rom. 9:28.
"Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." This is the hope for a quickly finished work in all the earth in our time. Yet the Lord lays hold of material things for service; and wonderfully the hand of Providence has wrought in bringing into existence material agencies for a quick work in carrying the gospel to the world—such agencies as no generation before ours ever had.
Consider the marvelous facilities for world-travel. They are the product of this time of the end. "Many shall run to and fro," said the prophecy. Some interpreters have restricted the Hebrew phrase to a "searching" to and fro for knowledge. Even this would include a literal running to and fro; for the light of increasing knowledge was to be diffused over all the earth. But the best authority on the Hebrew declares for the plain meaning of our English translation: "Many shall run to and fro." In two recent works, Dr. C.H.H. Wright, the English scholar, says of this text:
"The natural meaning must be upheld, i.e., wandering to and fro."—"Critical Commentary on Daniel," p. 209.
"Why should not that expression be used in the sense in which it is employed in Jeremiah 5:1, namely, of rapid movement hither and thither?"—"Daniel and His Prophecies," p. 321.
At the time when the first foreign missionary movement was being launched in America, Robert Fulton's steamship, the "Clermont," was making its first trip on the Hudson.
HIEROGLYPHICS
The "Ox Song" of the Egyptian threshing-floor.