All these things tell us that the time has now come for the proclamation of the third message of Rev.
14, to be given, and for men to understand the terms which it uses, and the warning it gives.
We therefore now call attention to the very important inquiry, What constitutes the mark of the beast?
The figure of a mark is borrowed from an ancient custom.

Says Bp.

Newton (Dissert on Proph., vol.iii, p.
241):-- "It was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the mark of their master, and soldiers of their general, and those who were devoted to any particular deity, of the particular deity to whom they were devoted.

These marks were usually impressed on their right hand, or on their foreheads, and consisted of some hieroglyphic character, or of the name expressed in vulgar letters, or of the name disguised in numerical letters according to the fancy of the imposer." Prideaux says that Ptolemy Philopater ordered all the Jews who applied to be enrolled as citizens of Alexandria to have the form of an ivy leaf (the badge of his god, Bacchus) impressed upon them with a hot iron, under pain of death.

(Connection B.C.