Memoirs of William Miller - Sylvester Bliss

armies to fight him, no organized force to oppose
him. In one hour, as it were, he fell by his own arts,
perhaps through fear -- of what, we can hardly
account for.
“What ailed thee, O thou potentate of kings?
Didst thou discover on the walls of the Vatican the
hand-writing of Belshazzar, ‘Mene, mene, tekel’?
or did a few plebeians of Rome, collected as a mob
around thy palace-gate, make the infallible head of
the church, the vicar of God, truly afraid? Where
was thy faith in the great promise, that the ‘gates of
hell shall not prevail against it’? or was it the
power of Him who had declared by his prophet that
you should be broken without hand, or consumed
by the spirit of his mouth? Where were those
millions who considered thy word more sacred
than the Word of God, and idolized thee as a god
on earth? Where were all those that, a few months
before, were shouting paeans to thy glory? Could
not the adoration of the world calm thy fears? Had
thy popular name no talisman, and thy pride no
helper? No, no. It was the God of heaven that
smote thee. It was the spirit of the Most High that
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