magicians, and required these wise men not only to interpret the dream, but to tell him what it was. None were found equal to this task but Daniel, to whom God revealed the secret in a night vision. (ver. 19.) God revealed the secret to faithful Daniel, the captive prophet, to instruct us that "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him." (Psalm xxv. 14.) Daniel, whose name means the judgment of God, told the dream and gave its interpretation, saying that the stone cut out without hands which smote the image and brake it in pieces and became a great mountain and filled the whole earth, shadowed forth that kingdom which God should set up in the latter days, and which should stand for ever. (Dan. ii. 44.) We learn from Scripture that in reference to the church of God in the world, there have been four distinct eras, or dispensations of Divine truth, vouchsafed to mankind; that each was suited to the wants of those to whom in mercy it was given, and was meant by the four metals—gold, silver, brass, and iron, of which the image was made up. These four ERAS may be called four churches, as distinct from each other in the qualities of life, as the gold, silver, brass, and iron were different to each other in point of value. The image being that of a man, with the head of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs brass, and the legs iron, with feet partly of iron and clay, represented the universal church of God, with respect to its love, faith, and life, from its beginning in the head of gold to its end in the feet of iron and clay.
The first state of the church was truly celestial, for then LOVE to God, as the supreme principle of the
