Gog and the King of the North being the same, and this same having been proved robe the Russian power, it follows that the power hostile to the King of the North and Gog must be Moabitish and the adversary of the Russian. This admitted, the next question would be, What evidence is there that the British power is that Moabitish antagonist ? This, then, is the point I now propose to illustrate.
By consulting Daniel-and Ezekiel it will be found that the Gogian King of the North is excited to "great fury", because of the reported movement of an enemy for the purpose of thwarting his designs. Having intimated that the King of the North will invade the Holy Land, Daniel continues: "But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him; therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and make away many". From this statement, then, it appears that the power which excites the fury of the King of the North has its station in the east and north relatively to the Holy Land. Without further information than Daniel affords, it would be impossible to do more than guess at the name of the power; to relieve us therefore of this uncertainty, the Spirit has informed us by Ezekiel in what countries of the east and north the troubling powers may be found.
After telling us that in the latter days, Gog shall come against the mountains of Israel like a storm-cloud to cover the land, Ezekiel informs us, that this invasion will be the result of his conceiving a mischievous purpose, or "thinking an evil thought". He then reveals to us the tenor of this evil thought which fills the heart of the Autocrat, which is notably foreshadowed by his traditional policy. "I will go up to the land of unwalled villages", he will say, "to take a spoil, and to take a prey; and to turn my hand upon the reinhabited desolations, and upon the people gathered out of the nations which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land" He resolves to turn spoiler, extortioner, and oppressor of those Jews who will then have resettled "the tenth" (Isa. 6:13) which is about to be repeopled and browsed. The Gogian King will never abandon his policy about "the Holy Places". It has led to the initiation of a policy which will not be abandoned till he obtains possession of them, and is extinguished in the catastrophe awaiting is presumption. His determination to invade the Holy land and to take forcible possession of the Holy Places then in possession of the power that will by purchase or otherwise have obtained them of the Constantinopolitan, still stir up its indignation greatly. Ezekiel tells us the name of the power and the position it assumes. His words are "Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou tome to take a spoil ? Hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey ? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil ?" Let it be noted that the power does not say, "Art thou gone to take a spoil ?" but Art thou come to do so ? ' If it were to say, "Art thou gone ? "' it would show that the power was beyond the limits of the Holy Land; but in saying, Art thou come ? the conclusion is, that the Lionpower of Tarshish is in actual possession of, or at least the Protector of, the country.
These interrogatories put in a minatory form are the tidings out of the east and north that trouble him. They do not deter him, however, for Ezekiel relates that the invasion nevertheless ensues; and Daniel adds, with great fury for destruction. He rushes to meet his overthrow at the hand of Deity, who will thus demonstrate to all nations that no power injures Israel with impunity.
Sheba is south-south-east from Judea by the Straits of Babelmandeb. It was one of the countries trading with Tyre in ancient times in "the chief of all spices, precious stones, and gold"; and is now pre-eminently connected with Tyre's daughter, who has planted her standard on its soil at Aden, the Gibraltar of the Red Sea, and key of Egypt: besides which, she has established herself in Perim, and extended the wing of her protection over Abyssinia, upon the opposite coast. Victoria may therefore be said to be the Queen of Sheba, and may possibly live (for she is young enough) to abdicate her throne, and to lay her crown and treasures at the feet of the "greater than Solomon", who will dispose of her and her affairs according to his will.
Dedan is another district of Arabia to the north-east of Sheba towards the Persian Gulf, and at present occupied by the Imam of Muscat. The men of Dedan are in the list given by Ezekiel of the traders in the Tyrian fairs. The Dedanim carried thither the ivory and ebony which they procured from "the many isles", or rather coasts, to the eastward, and "precious dothes for chariots". Thus Sheba and Dedan are those parts of Arabia which lay convenient to the ivory, gold, precious stones, and spice countries of Africa and India. Dedan has yet to come into confederacy with the Lion-Power of the east and north.
As to Tarshish, there were two regions so called in the geography of the ancients. Jehoshaphat built ships at Eziongeber, a port of the Red Sea, that they might sail thence to Tarsirish. Now, it will be seen by the map that they could only sail southward towards the Strait of Babelmandeb, from which they might then steer east, or north for India. As they did not sail by compass in those days, but coastwise, they would creep round the coast of Arabia and so make for Hindostan. The voyage occupied them three years. In the days of Solomon, the trade was shared between Israel and the Tyrians; for "he had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram; once in three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks". These products point to India as the eastern Tarshish-a country which has always conferred maritime ascendancy on the power which has possessed its trade and been its carrier to the nations.
But there was also a Tarshish to the north-west of Judea. This appears in the case of Jonah, who embarked at Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Mediterranean, "to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh". He could only sail towards the west. Like the eastern Tarshish it was a country, not a city, whose "merchants" frequented the Tyrian fairs. Addressing Tyre, the prophet says, "Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs". These metals are pre-eminently the products of Britain, celebrated by the Phenicians as Baratanac, or "the land of tin", as some interpret it. The merchandise of the northern Tarshish and of the eastern, identifies Britain in the north, and India. in the east, with the two countries of that name.
But corroborative of this, I remark further that the Sheba and Tarshish power is represented as a Merchant-power in the words, "the Merchants of Tarshish shall say unto thee, O Gog". Having ascertained the geography of Tarshish, it is easy to answer the question, Who are signified by its merchants ? This inquiry will admit of but one answer, namely, The British East India Merchants, or commercial power, which is both the merchant and ruler of the elephant-tooth country of the east. But the association of "the young lions of Tarshish" with the "merchants of Tarshish", makes this still more obvious; for it represents the original constitution of the Anglo-Indian government. It is well known that this government was a sovereignty of a mixed character, being neither purely merchant nor purely imperial. The Anglo-Canadian is purely imperial, no company of merchants having any share in its direction. But the Anglo-Indian government was constituted differently, the power having been rounded by a chartered company of traders, and the British government afterwards admitted to a controlling influence in its Indian management. Now the imperial constituent of the power is represented by "young lions"; that is, the Lion is the symbol of the British power, which is therefore the old lion; while those who administer the power are the young lions. The lion-power was formerly represented in the Anglo-Indian government by "the Board of Control", and the imperial forces which served with the Company's troops in the Indian army. The original constitution of British India has of late years been modified by the Parliament of England. The Company retains the control of its vested interests in the country; while the political and military direction is ordered by the government of the Queen, whose title is the Empress of India. The merchants of Tarshish governed India under control of the Lion-power--a constitution of things well represented on the Company's shield of arms, whose quarterings are filled with young lions rampant, with a motto inscribed "Auspicio Senatus Angliae". From the data, then, it may be fairly concluded, that the combined British and Indo-merchant power is the power of the latter days, raised up of the Deity to antagonize the Russian power, so as by its policy and resistance to shape its course into the Valley of Decision, when, having confederated all Europe as its "guard", its insatiable ambition shall prompt it to seize upon Jerusalem and to grasp at the sceptre of the east.
But the Lion-power of Britain has not yet attained the full extent marked out for it by the finger of God. The annexation of Persia and Khush, or Khushistan, to the Gogian empire, will doubtless cause England to strengthen herself in Afghanistan and Dedan, by treaty or otherwise, that she may command the entrance to the Persian Gulf so as to prevent the King of the North from carrying war into the heart of India by land or sea. Possessing Persia and Mesopotamia, the apprehension of the dominion extending still runner southward, perhaps to the very shores of the Red Sea, and So outflanking her by the Straits of Babelmandeb, will also be a powerful motive for the merchants of Tarshish and its young lions to take maritime possession of the Gulf of Persia, the Straits, and the Red Sea to Suez.
From the evidence, then, now before the reader, it is clear that the Tarshish antagonist to Gog is the British power, from which proceed the tidings that trouble the King of the North. At that time the Old World will be divided into two great adverse confederacies, of which Russia and Britain will be the powers in chief; the former having the lordship of the earth defined,* and the latter of the sea and its coast to a great extent. The British empire, not to mention its provinces which have no bearing upon the Gogian dominion, will then, as the "land shadowing wide with wings", comprise the Indian Tarshish, the Muscat-Dedan, the Aden-Sheba, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, and Palestine; and perhaps all the islands of the Mediterranean, which will then vindicate its claim to its ancient name in the geography of Israel," The Sea of Tarshish."
The premises now before us also establish the position, that as Nebuchadnezzar's Image is representative of the Gogian empire in full manifestation, it is impossible in the nature of things that Britain can be one of the Ten Toes; and as the Toes of the Image represent the same powers as the Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast, and of the Dragon and Ten-horned apocalyptic Beasts, neither can she be included among the powers prefigured by those symbols.
