. . . "Nathaniel West was born in Sunderland, England, in 1826. . . and passed away in Washington, D. C. July 7, 1906, at the age of eighty. The time of his coming to America is not indicated in any of the sources that have been at my disposal, but twenty years later, in 1846, Mr. West graduated from the University of Michigan, with the degree of B. A. In 1850 the University of Michigan conferred on him the degree of M. A. From 1847 to 1850, Mr. West was a student in the Allegheny Seminary. What happened to postpone his ordination in the Presbytery of Pittsburg until 1855 is not recorded. In fact, he became the Pastor of the Fifth Church of Pittsburgh before ordination had taken place, for the years 1853 and 1854, and immediately following ordination he became pastor of the Central Church of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained for nearly five years, 1855-1859. It may well be that between the time of his graduation from Allegheny Seminary, until his pastorate in Pittsburg, he was engaged upon the exhausting work of a volume which Scribner’s published for him in 1853, A Complete Analysis of the Holy Bible, a work of over 1,000 pages, which went through many, many reprintings, and became a standard reference work for multitudes of ministers and professors throughout our country.

. . . "Dr. West became active in early Prophetic Conferences, and took a very important part in the one held in New York City October 30, and 31, and November 1, 1878. The messages delivered at this time were reprinted, first in an extra edition of the New York Tribune, fifty thousand copies of which were sold before the edition was exhausted! Much of this material was then reprinted in a large volume, which Revell published in 1879, with the title, Premillennial Essays of the Prophetic Conference held in the Church of the Holy Trinity in New York City. This work was not only edited by Dr. West but in this volume, one will find the most important history of Premillennialism that exists on the literature of that generation, entitled, "History of the Premillennial Doctrine," pages 313-404 written by Dr. West. At the end of this volume is an Appendix of some forty pages, with extracts from many works published on the continent supporting the premillennial position, and the literal first resurrection, many of them being outstanding scholars of a world-wide reputation at that time, much of this material never appearing in any other volume in English. Here one finds what is discovered in all the later writings of our author, and that is, a knowledge of the whole vast literature of prophetic study and interpretation, not only of the early church and the Middle Ages, but especially all the major works of German and French theologians and exegetes of the nineteenth century, with translations of and quotations from scores and scores of these volumes, many of which could not even be found in the libraries of our larger theological seminaries today.

. . . "The last work which our learned author [Mr. West] published was a volume now very rarely come upon, Daniel’s Great Prophecy, the Eastern Question of the Kingdom. This was published in New York in 1898 by the Hope of Israel movement, of which no less a person than Dr. A. G. Gaebelein was superintendent. In other words, by this time Mr. West, then past sixty, was working in co-operation with another great student of prophecy, soon to produce even more works with wider circulation than Mr. West was able to accomplish, Mr. West, being seventy-two and Dr. Gaebelein being thirty-seven years of age. There is an extended Appendix, not listed in the Table of Contents, extending some sixty pages in which we have chapters on Prophetic Numbers, Daniel the Father of Universal History, * the Relation of Daniel’s Prophecy to the Olivet Discourse, and the Apocalypse, Gog and Antichrist, and * a searching criticism of Cannon Farrar’s very liberal work on Daniel in the Expositor’s Bible.

One does not have to agree with all of the author’s interpretations in recognizing this work as a major contribution to the understanding of some of the deeper aspects of Biblical prophecy."

- Wilbur M. Smith

* West’s criticism of Farrar’s liberal work on Daniel is provided, with his former Appendix highlighted in bold type from this book.