10 JULY 1869, Page 22

CURRENT LITERATURE.

"It may be," the writer says in a note to an essay on the "2,300 days of Daniel," "that the millennium commenced with the confinement and restraint of the dragon's power and influence in 1866 ; at all events, a time of blessedness has arrived." That is good news. But if any one is not satis- fied, an alternative is provided for him. The calculations that result in bringing out 1868 as the "great epoch "need only a slight manipulation to be made to bring out 1873, or some such date, allowing, at all events, time enough for an interpreter of prophecy to look about him. We incline to think that Mr. Albert Barnes is wiser when he puts the time at A.D. 2,016, a theory undoubtedly correct, our author remarks, "if a horn cannot symbolize an ecclesiastical power." Our author, however, thinks that it can, and believes that "the saints were given into the hands of the little horn" by an edict of Justinian, in 532. The "little horn" was the Lord Bishop of Rome ; the saints, as far as we can make out, were represented by Theodatus, King of the Ostrogoths,—quite a new character, we imagine, for that prince. The millennium itself is to consist of the reign of Christians, baptized by immersion in mature years (ptedobaptiam is rebellion, apostacy, insanity). Well, that is not our ideal of government, but we might have worse rulers ; we only hope that our author, who shows a alight tendency to be violent, will be sobered by the responsibilities of a power of which, doubtless, he will have a large share.