tract from the Encyclopedia Americana, article TIBERIUS:

"During the remainder of the life of Augustus, he [Tiberius] behaved with great prudence and ability, concluding a war with the Germans in such a manner as to merit a triumph. After the defeat of Varus and his legions he was sent to check the progress of the victorious Germans, and acted in that war with equal spirit and prudence. On the death of Augustus, he succeeded, without opposition, to the sovereignty of the empire; which, however, with his characteristic dissimu lation, he affected to decline, until repeatedly solicited by the servile senate."

Such is the prophecy, and such the history; he came in peaceably, and obtained the kingdom by dissimulation on his part, and flattery on the part of the servile senate.

"A vile person." The following sketch, also from the Encyclopedia Americana, will show the vileness of his character:

"Tacitus records the events of this reign, including the suspicious death of Germanicus, the detestable administration of Sejanus, the poisoning of Drusus, with all the extraordinary mixture of tyranny with occasional wisdom and good sense, which distinguished the conduct of Tiberius, until his infamous and dissolute retirement (A. D. 26) to the isle of Capreæ, in the bay of Naples, never to return to Rome. On the death of Livia, in the year 29, the only restraint upon his actions, and those of the detestable Sejanus, was removed, and the destruction of the widow and family of Germanicus followed. At length the infamous favorite extending his views to the

empire itself, Tiberius, informed of his machinations, prepared to encounter him with his favorite weapon, dissimulation. Although fully resolved upon his destruction, he accumulated honors upon him, declared him his partner in the consulate, and, after long playing with his credulity, and that of the senate, who thought him in greater favor than ever, he artfully prepared for his arrest. Sejanus fell deservedly and unpitied; but many innocent persons shared in his destruction, in consequence of the suspicion and cruelty of Tiberius, which now exceeded all limits. The remainder of the reign of this tyrant is little more than a disgusting narrative of servility on the one hand, and of despotic ferocity on the other. That he himself endured as much misery as he inflicted, is evident from the following commencement of one of his letters to the senate: What I shall write to you, conscript fathers, or what I shall not write, or why I should write at all, may the gods and goddesses plague me more than I feel daily that they are doing, if I can tell.' What mental torture, observes Tacitus, in reference to this passage, which could extort such a confession!"

Josephus says of him, (Ant., book 18, chap. 6, sec. 10,) that "this Tiberius had brought a vast number of miseries on the best families of the Romans, since he was easily inflamed with passion in all cases, and was of such a temper as rendered his anger irrevocable, until he had executed it, although he had taken hatred against men without reason."

"Seneca remarks concerning Tiberius, that he never was intoxicated but once in his life; for he continued in a state of perpetual intoxication from

the time he gave himself to drinking, to the last moment of his life." The prominent traits in his character, as they are presented in the above extracts, were tyranny, hypocrisy, infamous debauchery, and beastly intemperance.

Verse 22: "And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant."

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Or rather more agreeably to the original," says Bp. Newton, "And the arms of the OVERFLOWER shall be OVERFLOWN from before HIM, and shall be BROKEN.' This reading, it appears to me, is much more clear and striking than the present authorized text. Then Tiberius is the overflower who is to be overflown and BROKEN. Both these expressions signify a violent death. Another extract from the Encyclopedia Americana, will set this point in a clear light :

"Acting the hypocrite to the last, he disguised his increasing debility as much as he was able, even affecting to join in the sports and exercises of the soldiers of his guard. At length, leaving his favorite island, the scene of the most disgusting debaucheries, he stopped at a country house near the promontory of Misenum, where, on the sixteenth of March, 37, he sunk into a lethargy, in which he appeared dead; and Caligula was preparing, with a numerous escort, to take possession of the empire, when his sudden revival threw them into consternation. At this critical instant, Macro, the pretorian prefect, caused him TO BE SUFFOCATED WITH PILLOWS. Thus expired the emperor Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and twenty-third of his reign, universally execrated."

Thus the tyrant was BROKEN or OVERFLOWN for the safety of his subjects, and the exaltation of another tyrant, Caligula. His reign was twenty-two years, six months, and twenty-six days.

CHRIST WAS

CRUCIFIED SOON AFTER THE DEATH OF TIBERIUS-HIS MINISTRY WAS SEVEN YEARS.

"Yea, also, and the PRINCE OF THE COVENANT." The prince of the covenant was broken, as well as the vile person just described, and soon after him. The prediction implies nothing less than this. But was it fulfilled thus? I answer, it was; and affords another irrefutable argument that Christ's personal ministry was at least seven years. The argument is as follows:

1. John was six months older than Christ. Luke i. 36. John was by birth a priest, of the house of Aaron. Luke i. 5. As such, the law required that he should not enter his ministry until thirty years of age. Numb. iv. 3; 1 Chron.

xxiii. 3.

2. Jesus Christ, who was six months younger than John, began his ministry at the age of thirty. Luke iii. 23: "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age." Or, as Wesley renders the passage, "And Jesus was about thirty years of age when he began [his ministry;"] "his ministry" being inserted. John closed his ministry very soon after the baptism of Christ. that, "when John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, THE TIME IS FULFILLED."

So,

Mark i. 14, 15. John's ministry could not, there fore, have been much over six months.

3. John began his preaching in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar. Luke iii. 1, 2. If it was the last of the fifteenth year of Tiberius's reign, it would carry him into the sixteenth year of the same, to his imprisonment, when Christ began his ministry.

4. Tiberius reigned twenty-two years, six months, and twenty-six days. Fifteen and a half years taken from it, as the time of John's imprisonment would leave seven years for Tiberius after the beginning of Christ's ministry.

5. HEROD the tetrarch of Galilee, (Luke iii. 1,) was at Jerusalem at the time of Christ's death. Luke xxiii. 5-11: "And they were the more fierce, saying, he stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad, for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him. And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate." This, let it be observed, was at the time of a Jewish passover.

5. The following extract from Josephus's Anti