thus (if but for awhile) produced, might well cause such a cessation of persecution for the time being. Whether this be so or not, the two periods are surely here distinguished. A much later passage (chap. 20:4) similarly distinguishes them, while it enables us to recognize the latter of these periods as that of the beast under his last head: “And I saw thrones, and they sat on them”—those already enthroned in chap. 4 and 5, —“and the souls of those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and