Third And Fourth Sections Of The Seventh Seal.

The Seventh Trumpet, or Third Woe, comprehending the Seven Vials, or Last Plagues, in which is filled up the wrath of the Deity.

ACT III. SEVENTH TRUMPET OR THIRD WOE

Apoc. 11:14; 8:13; 16; 18; 19; 20:1,3.

The judgments of this last woe extend to the end of the Seventh Seal, or victory of the Saints over the Beast, his Image, his Mark, and Number of his Name (Apoc. 15:2). In the days of the voice of this woe when its calamities shall be complete, the Mystery of the Deity will be finished, as He hath declared the glad tidings to His servants the prophets (Apoc. 10:7). The Eloah of the heavens will then have set up the kingdom (Dan. 2:44) promised to them that obey him (Jam. 2:5); so that the kingdoms of this world will all have become Yahweh's and His Anointed's (Apoc. 11:15), who reigns for the Aions of the Aions.

But before this glorious and blessed consummation, Yahweh Ail Shaddai, the Ancient of Days, comes in (Zech. 14:5) upon the world as a thief in the night (Apoc. 16:15). This is indispensable, because it is his personal mission to accomplish it (Isa. 40:10). At his coming the nations will be in a state of anger among themselves, with distress and perplexity; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the habitable (Luke 21:25).

In the midst of this the saints are raised from among the dead to their own judicial scrutiny; after which all of them who are approved and chosen are recognized by the Lamb as constituents of the 144,000, and follow him whithersoever he goes (Apoc. 14:1-4). Being approved, judgment is given to them for execution upon many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings (Apoc .10:11; Psa. 149:6 9; Apoc .14:10) in rendering of which there issue from them lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail, every stone being about the weight of a talent (Apoc. 11:19; 16:21).

ARENA The whole habitable of Daniel's four beasts

TRANSLATION OF CHAPTER 16

1. And I heard a great voice from the Nave, saying to the Seven Angels, Go forth and pour out the vials of the wrath of the Deity into the earth.

2. And the first went forth, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there ensued a grievous and malignant ulcer upon the men who have the sign of the Beast, and who do homage to his Image.

3. And the second angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as of a corpse, and every living soul died in the sea.

4. And the third angel poured out his vial into the rivers, and into the fountains of the waters; and there was blood.

5. And I heard from the Angel of the waters saying, Righteous, 0 Lord, art thou, who art, and who wast and who art coming, because thou hast decreed these things;

6. For they have 'poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and to them thou hast given blood to drink; for they are worthy.

7. And I heard from another out of the Altar, saying, Yea, 0 Lord, the almighty Deity, true and righteous are thy judgments.

8. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and it was given to him to scorch the men with fire.

9. And the men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of the Deity who hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give glory to him.

10. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the throne of the Beast; and it was his kingdom which had been darkened; and they did gnaw their tongues from the anguish, and blasphemed the Deity of the heaven because of their pains, and because of their ulcers; and they repented not of their works.

12. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river the Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up that the way of the kings who are from a sun's risings, might be prepared.

13. And I saw out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and out of the Mouth of the Beast and out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, three Unclean Spirits like to Frogs; (for they are Spirits of Drmons working wonders) go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty.

15. BEHOLD, I COME AS A THEIF Blessed is he who is watching, and keeping his garments, that he may not walk naked, and they may see his shame.

16. And he gathered them together into the place which is called Hebraistically, Armageddon.

17. And the seventh angel poured out his vial upon the Air; and there came forth a great voice from the Nave of the Heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

18. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, such an earthquake so great.

19. And the Great City came into three parts; and the cities of the nations fell; and Babylon the Great was called to mind before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.

20. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

21 And a great hall as of a talent's weight descended out of the heaven upon the men; and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail: for the plague thereof is exceedingly great

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

The events of this sixteenth chapter are participants with those of the thirteenth verse of chapter eleven. The woeful calamity last noted there is the Reign of Terror in which "the remnant were aifrighted, and gave glory to the Deity of the heaven", The terror was preceded by the abolition of all titles of distinction; and by the conversion of the tenth kingdom of Babylon into the FRENCH DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIAL REPUBLIC. This was the "great earthquake," or political revolution, which made the earth to tremble 1260 years after the giving of the Saints into the hand of the ecclesiastical element of the Little Horn (Dan. 7:25), and the shocks and vibrations of which continued to be felt from A.D. 1790 to 1820, an "hour" of thirty years, reaching to the end of Daniel's 1290 years; and to the beginning of the Sixth Vial, which contains "that determined" to be poured out upon the desolator of the Holy Land (Dan. 9:27).

"The second woe hath passed away, behold the third woe comes quickly". It is not necessary to wait for the entire exhaustion of a period, or Series of events, before we may hope to find the commencement of a new period and another series. Thus, the second vial begins about the same time as the first, but in different sections of the habitable; and continues pouring out parallel or concurrently, with the third, fourth, and fifth vials. So also it may be with the termination of the second woe, and the beginning of the third, if ch. 11:14 is to be read as the sequence of verse 13. But, I rather understand, that this thirteenth verse of the eleventh chapter is the opening of the third woe; and not the conclusion of the second. This is my most recent conviction. Hence, I should read ch. 11:12 and 14 in succession; as, "And they ascended into the heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them. The second woe hath passed away; behold, the third woe comes quickly. And in that hour there was a great earthquake," and so forth. This order of exposition based upon this arrangement of verses affords space for the synchronous beginning of the third woe and first vial; and the previous development of the "Great Voice," by which they were introduced.

"And I heard a great voice from the Nave, saying to the Seven Angels, Go forth, and pour out the vials of the wrath of the Deity into the earth" - verse 1.

The Seven Angels previous to the appearing of the Ancient of Days, as already shown, are the Seven Spirits of the Deity operating instrumentally through "the Powers that be". Now, what John sees and hears in vision, is a dramatic representation of what is to be transacted in the moves of the pieces upon the board by the HAND that manipulates them. The Powers are so many chessmen upon the great Babylonian chessboard, whose policy and movements do not originate from themselves, but "from the Nave;" whence issue the impulses which cause them to utter great voices, and to make moves, which are often disastrous, and even fatal to themselves; but which in no wise disturbs or impedes, but judiciously secures the final success of the incomparable Player in the Nave, who manipulates the game. Hence, when John "heard a great voice from the Nave" seventeen centuries before the beginning of the third woe, he heard an utterance symbolically prophetic of a declaration, proclamation, or manifesto, which should lead to the development of the events of the seven vials. The great voice he heard was evidently symbolical of this, because the words of the great voice were a command to the Seven Angels, and therefore to the Powers, to go forth and begin the work of pouring Out the wrath of the Deity into the earth.

That which was represented to John as issuing from the Nave, the Most Holy Lord Jesus Christ caused to issue from the Powers, and therefore from himself, in that great voice they unitedly proclaimed, and sent forth from PILLNITZ, July 27th, 1790. This was coeval with the earliest shocks of the "great earthquake". The famous treaty of this date prepared for the invasion of France. The Powers regarded the cause of the French king, then threatened by the revolution, as their own. In the declaration of Pilnitz, they required that he should be free to go wherever he pleased, that is, to join their standard; that he should be replaced on his throne, that the Assembly should be dissolved, and that the princes of the Holy Roman empire having possessions in Alsace, should be reestablished in their feudal rights. In case of refusal they menaced France with war, in which all the Powers would concur who had guaranteed the French monarchy.

This great voice only irritated the Assembly and people of France. They demanded by what right the princes of Europe combined to interfere in their government; by what right they gave orders to a great people, and imposed conditions upon it; and since the sovereigns appealed from them to force, they prepared themselves for resistance. The frontiers were put in a state of defence, 100,000 of the national guards were levied, and they waited with assurance the attacks of the kings, well convinced that the French people, animated by the Spirit of the Revolution, "the Spirit of life from the Deity," and within their own frontiers, would be invincible.

Under the patronage of the Pillnitz Coalition, "the Emigration" was making alarming progress. The two brothers of Louis XVI, the prince of Conde and the Duke of Bourbon, had protested against the king's acceptance of the Constitution, as he had no power to alienate' the rights of the ancient monarchy. This protest soon circulated through France, and produced a great effect upon their partisans. The officers left the army, the nobles abandoned their chateaux, and whole companies deserted, to enroll themselves in the anti-revolutionary regiments on the frontiers. Those who refused to emigrate were threatened with being degraded to the class of the people, when the nobility should return victorious. The Emigration was styled "External France," and was formed in the Austrian Low Countries, and in the neighboring electorates. The Counter-Revolution was openly prepared at Brussels, at Worms, and at Coblentz, not only under the protection of Foreign Courts, but even with their assistance. This fact identifies "the emigration" with the operation of the "Great Voice;" through the emissaries of which in the interior of France, it was enabled to combat the Revolution in its camp, and to foment civil war.

In preparing the situation for the outpouring of the First Vial, there were the European Coalition of the diademed horns, the Kings of the Earth, and the Image of the Beast; together with the Emigrant Nobility and non-juring Priests beyond the frontiers: also the Revolution, with its priestly and royalist enemies within the country. The refractory ecclesiastics lost no opportunity of exciting a diversion which might prove useful to the emigrants. "The priests, and more especially the bishops," says the Marquis de Ferrieres, "employed all the resources of fanaticism, to rouse the lower classes, both in town and country, against the civil constitution of the clergy," which was fatal to the dominion of the Pope in France. The bishops commanded the priests no longer to celebrate what they call "divine service" in the same churches with the constitutional clergy, lest the people should confound the two modes of worship, and the two orders of priesthood. "Independently," he adds, "of the circular letters addressed to the curates, instructions designed for the people were distributed through the country. In these it was stated that it was not allowable for any one to receive the sacraments from the hands of the constitutional priests, who were designated as intruders; that all who participated in them became guilty, by their mere presence, of mortal sin; that those who were married by the intruder should not be regarded as married; that they would draw down a curse upon themselves and their children; that no one was to hold communication with them, nor with those who had separated themselves from the church; that the municipal officers who installed them became apostates like themselves; that even at the moment of installation, the ringers of the bells and the sacristans were to abandon their duty. These fanatical addresses produced the effect expected by the bishops, and religious dissension broke out in all quarters".

The revolt of the disaffected popish faction occurred chiefly in thedepartments of Calvados, or Gevaudan, and of La Vendee. These provinces were not much disposed to welcome the Revolution, because the middle and more intelligent class was far from numerous there; and the populace, or ignorant multitude, were blindly devoted to the clergy and nobility, upon whom they depended. Such a population as this had to be prepared, therefore, for a severe visitation of the wrath of the first vial. This preparation was effected by the opposing forces brought to bear upon them. The Emigration without, and the refractory ecclesiastics within, operating upon a brutal and superstitious multitude, was perceived by the Legislative Assembly to be a danger for the Revolution, which required to be crushed out by the most vigorous appliances. It decreed, that all Frenchmen assembled beyond the frontiers found to be embodied on Jan. 1, 1792, should be treated as conspirators, and become liable to the punishment of death, and confiscation of property for the benefit of the nation: while the refractory priests were commanded to take the oath of citizenship, under pain of being deprived of their pensions, and of being declared suspected of revolt against the law.

But Louis XVI was unwilling to sanction any measures taken against the Emigrant Noblesse, protected by the Powers; and the seditious priests, their allies, throughout the land. He therefore, vetoed the decrees against them. By this use of his prerogative in their favor, he came to be regarded by the people as the accomplice of the enemies of the Revolution. The rejected decrees were not replaced by others. The Assembly, however, dispatched a message to the king by Vaublanc, saying, "Sire, scarcely had the Assembly cast its eyes on the situation of the realm, when it perceived that the troubles which still agitate it have their source in the criminal attempts of the French Emigrants. Their audacity is supported by the German Princes. These hostile preparations, these threats of invasion, require armaments which absorb immense sums, which the nation would have poured with joy into the hands of its creditors.

"It is for you, Sire, to put an end to them, it is for you to hold, in addressing foreign powers, the language which becomes the sovereign of the French people! Tell them, that every country that continues preparations against France, must be numbered among her enemies; that we will religiously regard our oath of attempting no conquests; that we offer to live with them in brotherly neighborhood, and to grant them the inviolable friendship of a free and powerful people; that we will respect their laws, their customs, and their constitutions; but that we require in return that ours should be respected! Tell them, lastly, that if the princes of Germany continue to countenance preparations directed against the French, the French will carry into their country, not fire and sword, but liberty! It is for them to calculate what may be the consequence of this awakening of the nations!"In consequence of this message, the king yielded to the general wish. He notified the German princes to cause all hostile meetings and dispositions of the French emigrants to cease in their States, or he would regard them as enemies; and wrote to the emperor of Germany to interpose his authority, as head of the empire, to avert the evils which any longer obstinacy on the part of some of the Germanic Body might occasion.

The steps taken by Louis XVI relative to the princes of the empire, were supported by military preparations. Three armies were formed under the command of Rochambeau, of Luckner, and of La Fayette. On the other hand, Austria gave orders to marshal Bender to defend the Elector of Treves if he were attacked, and ratified the conclusions of the Diet of Ratisbon. These demanded the restoration of the possessionary princes; the Diet refused to allow that they should be indemnified in money for the loss of their rights; and left to France the choice only of the re-establishment of feudality in Alsace, or war. These two resolutions of the cabinet of Vienna were of a very hostile nature. Her troops marched upon the French frontiers, and proved clearly that France was not to trust to her inaction. Fifty thousand men were stationed in the Low Countries; six thousand were posted in the Brisgaw, and thirty thousand were dispatched from Bohemia. This formidable army of observation could at a moment's notice, be rendered an army of attack.

The Assembly felt that there was an urgent necessity of compelling the Emperor to decide. They regarded the emigrants as his instruments. They were desirous of anticipating this dangerous league of sovereigns, and of preventing it from having time to prepare itself. They therefore required the emperor to explain before Feb.10, 1792, in a clear and precise manner, his real intentions with regard to France, whose situation was daily becoming more and more dangerous. The answers of prince Kaunitz to the explanations demanded were by no means satisfactory. He even refused to treat directly, and the baron of Cobentzel was charged with replying that Austria refused to depart from the conditions she had imposed. The re-establishment of the monarchy on the basis of the royal sitting of June 23, the restoration of the property of the clergy, of the lands of Alsace with all their rights to the German princes, and of Avignon and the Venaissin territory to the Pope, such was the ultimatum, or among the last echoes of the "Great Voice," which brought about the outpouring of the first of the Seven Vials. All possibility of agreement was at an end, and the maintenance of peace was no longer to be expected. All that now remained to be decided on was whether to wait for commence the war.

This question was determined April 20, 1792. Louis XVI, attended by all his ministers, presented himself before the Assembly on that day, and caused General Dumourier, then minister of war, to make report on the political situation of France. He concluded his recital of grievances by advising war against Austria. The king then proposed a declaration of war, which was received by the National Assembly with a deep and silent emotion. After the king had retired, they determined to meet in the evening, when the war was resolved on almost unanimously. Thus was begun with the chief of the confederate powers, that war which lasted a quarter of a century, which confirmed the Revolution triumphantly, and which changed the whole face of Europe.

By this historical sketch, the reader enlightened in the knowledge of the Deity with spiritual understanding, will be enabled to perceive the working of the Seven Spirits on all the agents of the situation, on the Powers, the emigrants, the refractory priests, the French king, political parties in the Assembly, the clubs, and the populace, to bring on a crisis in which there would be found scope for the outpouring of wrath upon the worshippers of the Beast's Image, and upon the men who had the Beast's Sign. The sketch illustrates, not only the "great voice", or note of preparation for war, but what the Seven Angel-Spirits did in obedience to the command, "Go forth!" They issued "from the Nave," July 27, 1790; and reached the crisis predetermined, April20, 1792, a period of twenty-one months. This was a short period, but pregnant with events, which after seventy-five years, are still in process of development(*).

"And the first angel went forth, and poured out his vial upon the earth: and there ensued a grievous and malignant ulcer upon the men who have the sign of the beast, and who do homage to his image" Verse 2.

This first angel is the only one of the seven of whom it is individually testified that "he went fortli". They all went forth together, and formed the situation. They did not successively go forth from the Nave, when the time came for each to pour out. If they had, a distinct situation would have required to be created for each; whereas all seven being represented as going forth together, it was only necessary to say of the first "he went forth" as the co-operative work of the twenty-one months laid a foundation, broad and deep. for the combined operation of the first five; and the successive out pouring of the sixth and seventh.

The first angel poured out the wrath committed to him "upon the earth". This arena of Divine indignation is expounded in the text by the words, "upon the men who have the sign of the beast, and who do homage to his image"; that is, upon the papal populations of Europe; and upon those of the same section of the Continent, who, although not constitutionally papal, are signed with the papal institutions of infant rhantism, which in violation of Scriptures, reason, and philology, they blasphemously style, "christian baptism!" As the first angel sounded his trumpet against the earth before it was planted with the modern kingdoms of Europe, or Ten Horns, to bring them into position as elements of the new papal constitution of the West (ch. 8:7); so the angel of the first vial pours out his portion of wrath upon the same arena considerably extended. He begins with France, the Tenth of the Great City, as the most murderous of the horns in their co-operation with the Papacy in its wars against the witnesses and saints of Jesus. His visitations descended grievously upon all the departments of that country; but with the greatest intensity upon those sections of it, where their blood had been most abundantly shed. France became an altar of sacrifice to which beasts were brought for slaughter that had devoured and oppressed the saints. The "great voice" brought them thither from all parts of "the Holy Roman Empire," and from Naples, Piedmont, Spain, Russia, and Prussia; in short, there remained no other states neutral than Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey. All these peoples, on hearing of the ignominious decapitation of Louis XVI., by the republicans, proceeded to the invasion of France with forces amounting to 355,000 horse and foot; by which they flattered themselves they would sweep the Revolution from "the earth;" and re-establish the old regime.

In the words of an orator of the Convention, "the Republic was nothing more than a great city besieged; France was nothing more than one vast camp". It soon had forty armies, and twelve hundred thousand soldiers; with which to combat the invading hosts, and to suppress the almost general rising of the departments, sixty of which were in open insurrection. But, having completely organized their immense armies, and planned their new system of tactics, their forces were rendered tremendously formidable. They subdued the insurrection, and in the memorable campaign of 1793-'4, carried the war into the territories of their invaders. At the end of this, they had been victorious in twentynine battles, and in more than one hundred less decisive engagements. They had taken a hundred and fifty-two cities and towns, and 3,800 pieces of cannon; ninety standards, and 70,000 muskets; they had killed 80,000 of their enemies, and taken 90,000 prisoners: and at length annexed Belgium and Holland to France.

"And there ensued a grievous and malignant ulcer upon the men who have the sign of the beast, and who do homage to his image". In the natural body, an ulcer is an open, running sore, resulting from local inflammation, or constitutional irritation,~more or less intense. In its formation, it is attended with (~eat, redness, pain, and swelling, which result in a solution of the continuity of the part, or an open sore; which often, if malignant, eats away the flesh, and lays bare the bones. Such is the figure used in the text illustative of the effect of the hot, fiery, painful, and swelling indignation of the Deity poured out from the vial of the first angel upon the men of the Body Politic, to which the Sign and Image of the Beast belong. In the first epoch of the French Revolution, it became the subject of a high degree Of irritation, which progressed rapidly into an intense and burning inflammation, which ulcerously destroyed the organic constitution of the State. No great popular revolution has ever been accomplished, nor ever will be, without the infliction of misery, and the commission of excess which makes humanity shudder. This misery and excess in all their ramifications and operations in relation primarily to the French people, and secondarily, to those other people whom they invaded, and among whom they introduced their disorganizing, and sanguinary revolutionary policy, is represented by the "grievous and malignant ulcer" of our text. The history of the period from May 5, 1789, to the August 4, of the same year, a short period of three months, is full of the most important transactions; and showing that had the Revolution not been opposed by the French Court, nobility, and clergy, all interested in maintaining abuses in church and state, it would have been less prompt and less complete. Each refusal by these to yield to the demands of the Revolution, became for it the occasion of new successes, it overthrew intrigue, resisted authority, triumphed over force, and by August 4, the whole edifice of absolute monarchy in "the Tenth of the Great City" had been shaken by the mismanagement of its supporters. The 17th of June, by a memorable decree of the Commons, annihilated the three orders, and changed the States General into the National Assembly . The royal sitting of the 23rd of June, at which Louis XVI. quashed all its resolutions and imperiously, but ineffectually, commanded the Orders to resume their original position, the moral influence of the crown was lost. The 14th of July, the date of the destruction of the Bastille, terminated its material power; the Assembly inherited the one, and the people the other; finally, the 4th of August, when all privileges were abolished by "a Saint Bartholomew of abuses," the first epoch of the Revolution was completed; an epoch conspicuously detached from the others, in which the seat of power was displaced, and all the preliminary changes were effected. The epoch which followed is that in which the new order of things is discussed and established, and in which the Assembly, after having been destructive, became constituent. This assembly terminated its own existence, September 29, 1791. It accomplished in two years "the greatest revolution which a single generation of mankind ever witnessed". In the midst of its labors it put down despotism and anarchy, by defeating the intrigues of the court, the high clergy, and nobility, and maintaining the subordination of the people. But its successors, the National Legislative Assembly, did not apply itself in the consolidation of the work already done; and the Revolution, which was Divinely commissioned to subvert the monarchy under its auspices entered upon its republican phase, in which the "grievous and-malignant ulcer" broke forth in all the hideousness of carnage and corruption.

Under the National Constituent Assembly, the shocks of the "great earthquake" had abolished all privileged orders; declared the possessions of the Catholic Church national property, and sold it for the use of the State: abolished tithes; ordained the civil constitution of the clergy, by which they were made independent of the Pope, and dependent upon the State; and abolished all titles, armorial bearings, liveries, and orders of chivalry; so that vanity lost its privileges as power had already done. These radical organic changes caused the high clergy to declare war against the Revolution; the nobility to emigrate; and foreign powers to abandon the struggle of kings against each other, and to begin, in alliance with the emigrant priests and nobility without, and the refractory ecclesiastics within, the struggle of kings with the awakening peoples of the world. Thus it was, that during this epoch, the parties separated more and more, and that the two classes, the noblesse and clergy, the enemies of the Revolution, prepared the elements of civil and foreign war, which when in operation were Ha grievous and malignant ulcer" upon all who suffered from them. Louis XVI had attempted to escape to the frontiers, but was recaptured and brought back to Paris; and provisionally suspended by the Assembly.

The terrible republican party now began to appear upon the stage. Their agency was necessary to the fall of "the Tenth ofthe City," Babylon the Great. The Court, the aristocrats, and the constitutionalists, were all in favor of monarchy, absolute or limited; therefore, to effect the fall decreed, it was necessary that a party should be developed, whose irrepressible passion should be a levelling hatred to everything savoring of the craft of kings. This party was the republican, which until the flight of the king, had no substantive existence, or no pretext for manifesting itself. It now began to struggle for itself under its own banner. Its strength was in the clubs of the Jacobins and Cordeliers, and in the mob. The republicans considered Louis XVI. as a private citizen, since he fled, and demanded a substitute for him. They were, however, the minority in the Constituent Assembly, and therefore failed; but when this was superseded by the Legislative Assembly, they found themselves in the majority. Among them were Danton, Marat, Camille Desmoulins, Favre d'Eglantine, St. Just, and the Robespierres, names suggestive of the malignancy of the ulcer about through them to break out upon the men who worship the Image of the Beast and have his Sign. As previously stated, France declared war against Austria, April 20, 1792. It was determined to invade Belgium. Scarcely had the French met the enemy than a panic terror seized the troops. The cry through all the ranks was, Sauve qui peut! The Jacobins accused the counter-revolutionists, who did not attempt to conceal their joy, of having occasioned the rout by raising the cry. It was thought that the Court was acting in concert with the Austrians and their emigrant allies; and that there was a secret committee which maintained a treasonable correspondence with the enemy. Public distrust was therefore now at its height. The state of the Constitution was acquiring daily more and more a revolutionary aspect. The king counted no longer upon anything but on the state of Europe, he therefore dispatched an emissary on a secret mission to the Coalition.

The influence of the Jacobins now became enormous. The populace was in the greatest agitation. Eight thousand armed petitioners waited upon the Assembly. They complained of the inactivity of their armies, and insisted upon the cause being discovered; and that if it proceeded from the executive power, they required that it should be annihilated. From the Assembly, their numbers having increased to thirty thousand, they marched to the king's palace. As they were demolishing the doors with axes, Louis XVI. ordered them to be opened. The stormy wave rushed in, and demanded his sanction to certain decrees he had vetoed, and the appointment of new ministers. But he refused their petitions; and for this time, they were persuaded to retire. Soon after this, the Assembly proclaimed that the country was in danger. The indispensable measures of defence it decreed carried to its height the excitation of the revolutionary frenzy. On July 25, 1792, the Duke of Brunswick put the army of Europe in motion for the invasion of France, the suppression of the Revolution, and the punishment of the republicans. He published "a great voice," or manifesto in the name of the emperor of Germany and king of Prussia. Russia and England, though they secretly approved the attacks of the European Coalition, had not yet co-operated in them. The duke reproached those who had usurped the reins of administration in France with having troubled its good order, and overthrown its legitimate government. He declared that the Allied Sovereigns had taken up arms in order to put an end to anarchy in France, to arrest the attacks upon the altar and the throne, to render to the king the security and the liberty ofwhich he had been deprived, and to put him in a situation for exercising his legitimate authority. In consequence, he declared the national guards and authorities responsible for all these disorders, until the arrival of the troops of the coalition. He summoned them to return to their ancient fidelity. He said that the inhabitants of the towns which ventured to defend themselves should be punished immediately as rebels, according to the rigor ofwar, and their houses demolished or burnt: that if the city of Paris did not restore the king to his full liberty, or refused to render him the respect due to him, the Allied Princes rendered personally responsible for such failure on their heads, to be judged by military law, without hope of pardon, all the members of the National Legislative Assembly, of the department, of the district, of the municipality, and of the national guard; that if the palace were forced, or insulted, the Allied Potentates would take an exemplary and memorable vengeance, by giving up Paris to plunder, and to total destruction. He promised, on the contrary, that he would engage to employ the good offices of the confederate princes with Louis XVI., in favor of the inhabitants of Paris, and obtain for them the pardon of their errors and offences, if they promptly obeyed the orders of the coalition. This "great voice" roused the spirit of the whole nation; and more than anything else hastened the fall of the throne, and opposed the success of the coalition. There was but one wish, one cry of resistance from one end of France to the other. The popular party, which was thus forced, as it were, to triumph, saw no other means than that of annulling the monarchy, and in order to annul it, to depose the king. His dethronement was discussed in the clubs. Forty-seven sections of Paris declared that if the resolution of dethronement were not pronounced by the Assembly that very day, the tocsin should be sounded at midnight, the drums should beat the generale, and the palace should be attacked on the 10th of August.

The Court had put itself into a state of defence, and the king hoped to re-establish himself entirely. The palace was defended in the best manner. But the king was very melancholy; and upon a review of the troops, found by the cries, Vive la nation! Down with the Veto! Down with the Traitor! that disaffection was widely diffused among them. While the review was in progress, the insurgents were advancing in several columns upon the Tuileries. They demanded the dethronement of the king. He was informed that they were everywhere successful; that the national guards were not to be trusted, and that the royal family -would expose itself to infallible ruin, if its members did not place themselves in the midst of the Legislative Assembly. This they reluctantly consented to do; and after much difficulty arrived there unharmed amid the abuse, threats, and vociferations of the multitude. After the king's departure the palace was forced, and the Swiss guards massacred. Shouts of victory reached the Assembly; and the fate of the monarchy was decided. The multitude and its chiefs had the entire power, and were detennined to exert it. The Assembly found itself constrained to yield. It was ordered to convoke a National Convention, to dismiss the ministers, and to suspend the authority of the king, who was transferred to the Temple as a prisoner, by the all-powerful commune, under the pretext that it was impossible otherwise to be sure of his person. The party now ordered the demolition of all the statues of its kings, and of all the emblems of royalty. The 10th of August divided France into two parties, of which the one was attached to monarchy, while the other desired a republic. Danton was at the head of the republicans; and his advice in the present danger of the country, was to "frighten the royalists". He wished to repress his enemies by means of terror. A great number of persons were imprisoned on the ground of their rank, their opinions, or their conduct. These were mainly selected from the clergy and the nobility. The capture of Verdun by the enemy caused Paris to fancy him at its gates. The Commune seized this moment of alarm to execute its terrible design. The cannon was fired, the tocsin sounded, the barriers were closed, and the massacres of the 2nd of September began.

The prisoners shut up at the Carmelites, at the Abbey, at La F~rce, the Conciergerie, etc., were butchered during three days, by a band,of about three hundred murderers, under the orders and in the pay of t,he Commune. These men, inspired by a silent fanaticism, seemed less the ministers of vengeance, than the performers of a labour to be done; they massacred without fury, but without remorse - with all the confidence of fanatics, and the obedience of hangmen. The Assembly wished to put a stop to this operation of the "grievous and malignant ulcer" upon the worshippers of the Beast's Image, but could not. The ministry was as impotent as the Assembly. The terrible Commune alone was all-powerful, and directed everything. The soldiers who guarded the prisoners durst not resist the Avengers, and suffered them to do their work of death; the populace looked on as indifferent spectators or accomplices; and the rest of the citizens dared not even venture to discover their horror. The National Convention met Sept. 24, 1792. In its first sitting it abolished royalty, and proclaimed the Republic, by acclamation; and on the following day it was ordered that all public acts should be dated from "the first year of the French Republic" . Such were the salutary effects of the transient successes of the Austrian and Prussian armies, and of the ill-ju.dged manifestoes, or "Great Voice," by which they were preceded. They only exasperated a people they were intended to intimidate. They hastened the fall of that throne which they came to support, and consolidated that power which they intended to crush. Their object was to reestablish a monarchy - their efforts gave birth to a republic.

From the moment of the fall of this Tenth Monarchy of the Great City, two powerful parties enterd the arena, namely, the Girondists and the MOllntainists; and these parties divided the Convention, and by their violent and sanguinary struggles for the ascendancy, aggravated the "grievous and malignant ulcer" which was consuming the quivering flesh of the Image-Body in France. They attacked each other with the utmost inveteracy. None, however, of the measures of the Girondists succeeded. The Mountainists:f: profited ably by their want of the most ordinary prudence; and extended their views to the destruction of the Gironde, as well as to that of Louis XVI., whose condemnation to the guillotine was demanded as a security for liberty. The latter was decreed by the Convention, and executed January 21, 1793; two months nearly before the termination of the 1260 years, from Justinian's institution of the Bishop of Rome, ecclesiastical lord paramount of the Great City.

The consequences of this tragical event intensified the malignancy of the ulcer in regard to France, and scarcely less so to all Europe, being man-ifested in a fierce and devouring tyranny, and an almost universal war.

The despotism of the multitude under Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, under the name of the Republic of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" - was now the Sovereign authority. An inevitable result of their access to power was the civil war in La Vendee. This country, backed by the sea and the Loire, traversed by few roads, and covered with villages, hamlets, and castlewards, had maintained its ancient state of feudal existence. In La Vendee there was neither education nor civilization. The peasantry had acquired no other ideas than those communicated to it by the priests, or "men having the sign of the beast," and understood nothing of a revolution which was the result of opinions and wants altogether unknown to their situation. The nobles and priests, finding themselves a strong party in La Vendee, did not emigrate. This region and the new France that had arisen, had nothing in common but their language. It was certain, therefore, that the "grievous and malignant ulcer" would break out with terrible effect upon its priest-ridden population; which revolted, and brought upon their country the terrible visitation of the merciless revolutionary tribunal.

After the 2nd of June, the Girondists, who had not yet been guillotined, extended the flame of civil war; so that sixty out of the eighty-three departments of France, were in insurrection against the Convention. The situation of the Republic could not now be worse. It had to put an end to civil wars, to repair the disasters of the army, and to repel the whole of Europe; yet the bold men at the head of it were not intimidated at their situation. At the suggestion of Danton, they took their great and last oath, that they would die or annihilate the tyrants. After this the tide of events began to turn in favor of the Convention, which soon became everywhere victorious. The Committee of Public Safety, thinking, not without cause, that its enemies, although subdued, were not disposed to submission, adopted a terrible system of extermination, to prevent their recovering themselves. They sent twelve columns, known by the name of the Infernal Columns, to scour the country with fire and sword, to explore the woods, to carry off those who were collected together, and to spread terror throughout the Vendean country of the Image-worshippers of the Beast. The Committee, now the great power in the republic, abandoned itself to the most terrible executions. Armies destroy only on the field of battle: it is a different thing with parties who, in violent situations, fearing that the struggle may be renewed even after victory, fortify themselves against new attempts by the most inexorable rigor. By this they increased the grievousness and malignancy of the ulcer, from which the hemorrhage was copious and incessant. They established an entirely NEW ERA as compared with that founded on the legislation of Justinian. In place of the Catholic calendar they substituted that of the republican, for the week of seven days, the decade of ten making every tenth day the day of rest, instead of Sunday. The New Era' was dated from Sept.22, 1792, the epoch of the foundation of the Republic. The Catholic worship of the Beast's Image was abolished in 1793. Gobet, constitutional bishop of Paris, proceeded in full procession to the Convention, and declared that the religion he had taught so long was, in every respect, a piece of priest-craft, which had no foundation either in history or sacred truth. The gold and silver plate of the Romish bazaars was seized; and the bazaars themselves, in most districts of France, were closed against priests and worshippers; the bells were broken and cast into cannon, and the whole ecclesiastical establishment worthily destroyed. Thus was righteously avenged upon "the men who had the sign of the beast, and the worshippers of his image," the terrible cruelties and massacres of St. Bartholomew's and of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, inflicted by the kings of the House of Bourbon, and the priests of Rome. The "grievous and malignant ulcer" was the Deity's way of doing justice to the slain. It was the first installment of wrath to be poured out upon the blasphemers of "his name, and tabernacle, - them who dwell in the heaven". It was a signal inception of the Third Woe, which awaits its consummation, when the Seventh Angel shall have ceased to sound.

"And the Second Angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as it were of a corpse; and every living soul died in the sea" Verse 3.

The Seven Spirits of the Deity had all gone forth from the Nave on a mission of Divine wrath upon the inhabitants of the Apocalyptic earth (ch. 8:13). While the first angel was operating in France, the other six were not idle spectators of the flesh-devouring phenomena of the "grievous and malignant ulcer". Had the six been inoperative elsewhere, the other powers of the Great City would have left France to perish of the ulcer, while they maintained a strict neutrality, and confined themselves exclusively to their own internal affairs. But this, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in harmony with the Apocalyptic program, is preparing things for their appointed and predetermined end, would not allow. They had to adopt a policy that would implicate them in the dire and woeful calamities of the time. All the powers of antichristendom were guilty before Heaven - they had all, in the 1260 years of the Papacy that had passed since its institution by Justinian, "committed fornication with her;" and their populations had all "been made drunk with the wine of her fornication" (ch.17:2; 18:3): why, then, should they not be made to "drink the wine of the wrath of the Deity poured un-mixed in the cup of his indignation", as well as the same class of worshippers of the Beast's Image in the Gallic Tenth of the Great City? No reason to the contrary can be adduced: and therefore, the Seven Spirits of the Deity were all engaged with the several powers of the earth and habitable in preparing a situation, which in due time and order, would bring them all under the operation of the wrath decreed against them.

While the wrath of the first angel-period of the third woe, or seventh trumpet, was generating and developing the grievous and malignant ulcer in the body politic of the Great City, the Seven Spirits were operating upon the British Power, and preparing it for the work of wrath upon the Apocalyptic sea; which, in this place, is representative of all the countries of "Babylon the Great" accessible to ships of war.

The pouring out of the vial into the sea, indicates that a maritime war would commence with the outpouring; and that, as the sea was to "become blood as it were of a corpse," the war would be of unparalleled severity. To become blood as it were of a corpse, was also indicative that no hostile navies could ride the waves, except the ships of the power used as the agent of the Seven Spirits: That all naval life and activity would become stagnant, as the blood of a corpse, which is incapable of circulating, as during life, through the arterial and venous channels of the body. All the war ships of the Great City found at sea would be destroyed by the potential minister of wrath; or compelled to take refuge beyond his reach, or to shut themselves up and not to venture out to sea. The ocean being thus cleared of the war ships belonging to the Powers of Babylon the Great, every sea-faring living soul was, to all intents and purposes of war, dead. When "Britannia ruled the waves" there was no living soul afloat to fire a gun to her dismay. The French upon the land, and the British upon the sea, were the contemporary agents of the Seven Spirits for the tormentation of the worshippers of the Beast's Image in the second, third, fourth, and fifth vials of the sanguinary and scorching wrath of the avenger.

The portion of wrath committed to the Angel of the Sea began to be poured out in Holland on the landing of the British there, Feb. 26, 1793. It continued to pour concurrently with the third, fourth and fifth vials, for twenty years, with no intermission save the brief and deceptive peace of Amiens in 1802.

The author of Modern Europe in writing of this period says, "In the grand drama that was at this time acting on the theatre of the world, all the powers of Europe were unhappily called to sustain a part: but France was unquestionably the prime actor, and her history must therefore be allowed to take the precedence of that of every other country. We may now be allowed to say, that it had been happy for England, and for the Continental States also, had she stood aloof at this awful crisis, as a mere spectator of the horrid tragedy, occupying an attitude of self-defence. Secure in her insulated situation and garrisoned by her wooden walls, she might have bid defiance to the volcano, and remained secure amid the tempest. It was her policy also to remain at peace; but unhappily at this time, the sympathies of the different parties in England were so powerfully excited by the state of things upon the Continent, that the dictates of sound reason could no longer be heard; and the wickedness of the ruling party in France was certainly calculated to awaken the horror of men in an extraordinary degree: the consequence was that the original friends of the Revolution became mute; the once sacred name of liberty itself became offensive; the alarmists rose suddenly in number and force; clamors and indignation sprang up in every quarter: and amid the wild uproar of false terrors and of virtuous sympathy, the nation was plunged headlong into a state of war".

Thus the Seven Spirits of the Deity, ordinarily styled "Providence, operated upon parties in France and England for the development of the predetermined wrath of the Second Vial. No doubt England and the Continental States would have escaped the awful castigation of the vials, if she had stood aloof; for without her subsidies of many millions sterling, they could not have equipped and brought their armies into the field, to have fought the battles of the third, fourth, and fifth vials, through which they were to drink blood, be terribly scorched with fire, and to gnaw their tongues for pain. If she had stood aloof, the war and mercantile navies of Denmark, Holland, France, and Spain would not have been annihilated; she would not have lost her hundreds of thousands in the continental wars against the French and their allies; and she would not now be groaning under taxation, and a national debt that will never be paid. But she could not stand aloof. Her inevitable de-stiny was to play the part in the terrible tragedy of the vials which the wisdom of Deity had assigned her, and for which she had been prepared. Nations cannot do what they please, any more than individuals. The great manager of the world's theatre is the Lord Jesus Christ, whose dramatic program is the Apocalypse or Revelation given to him by the Father; the nations and powers are mere performers played off by him against one another for the denouement of the plot Divinely conceived. He creates war and makes peace; and without his permission "the powers that be" can do neither. He would not allow his judgments upon the men of the Beast's Sign, and the worshippers of his Image to be stopped, or interrupted even, for the comfort and commercial prosperity of England, and her Harlot Church, and nation of sectarian abominations. He paid no regard to their stereotyped petition of "Give peace in our time, O Lord!" He paid no respect to the twenty-six episcopal hypocrites in the upper house of Parliament, who prayed for peace, and voted for war. Such a nation had to be punished, as well as their brother-hypocrites and blasphemers upon the Continent. England, therefore could not stand aloof; but was compelled by inexorable necessity to send her children to the shambles, and to share in their miseries she was instrumental in inflicting upon the world.

The words, "the sea became blood as it were of a corpse; and every living soul in the sea died," are amplified and somewhat expounded in the language of the Second Trumpet prophecy. In this, the sea became blood; the creatures that were in the sea, and had life, died; and the ships were destroyed. All this resulted from the great Genseric Mountain burning with fire, being cast into the same sea as the contents of the Second Vial. The consequences were similar, but upon a grander scale. The Vandal power destroyed the power and commerce of Rome from the sea; and afflicted its maritime provinces with sanguinary incursions. A like result ensued through the agency of Britain, which annihilated the maritime power, commerce, and colonies of the countries of "Babylon the Great". The following summary will be suggestive to the reader of the extent and severity of the wrath of this vial. In 1793, the greater part of the French fleet at Toulon was destroyed by Lord Hood; in June, 1794, followed Lord Howe's great victory over the French off Ushant; then the taking of Corsica, and nearly all the smaller Spanish and French West Indian Islands; after this, in 1795, Lord Bridport's naval victory, and the capture of the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch; likewise, Soon after, the capture of a French and Dutch fleet sent to retake it; then, in 1797, the victory over the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, and that off Camperdown over the Dutch; then, in succession, Lord Nelson's three great victories of the Nile in 1798, of Copenhagen in 1801, and of Trafalgar in 1805. In this long naval war, extending from1793 to 1815, it appears from James' Naval History that there were destroyed altogether near 200 ships of the line, between 300 and 400 frigates, and an almost incalculable number of smaller vessels of war and ships of commerce. As Dr. Keith remarks, the whole history of the world does not present such a period of naval war, destruction, and bloodshed. In the figurative language of the prophecy "the sea became blood as it were of a corpse".

It will be unnecessary for me to follow the British in their descents upon Holland, the maritime provinces of France and Italy; and their campaigns in Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and so forth. These all belong to the wrath of the second vial, consummated by the famous battle of Waterloo. The reader can consult the copious histories extant of these things, as illustrations of our subject, and of the meaning of the words, "our God is a consuming fire".

"And the Third Angel poured out his vial into the rivers, and into the fountains of the waters: and there was blood." "And I heard from the Angel of the Waters, saying, Righteous, O Lord, art thou, who art, and who wast, and who art coming, because thou hast decreed these things! For they have poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given to them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard from another out of the Altar, saying, Yea, 0 Lord, the Almighty Deity, true and righteous are thy judgments" - Verses 4-7.

Next in order of commencement was this third vial. The arena of conflict was a country of mountains and rivers, inhabited by the posterity of thieves and murderers, whose crimes nothing could expiate but draughts of human gore. The judgments of this vial upon the Great City are parallel with those of the third trumpet upon the Catholic world, before the constitutional institution of the Papacy by Justinian. The first four trumpets punished the Catholic west for its apostasy and crimes; the first five vials, the same region, for the sanguinary cruelty of its populations and rulers in their wars upon the saints and prophets of the Deity. Hence the parallel in the order and similitude of the judgments.

The 10th of April, 1796, is the date of the commencement of the outpouring of the wrath upon the fountains of waters. It is celebrated by the battle of Monte Notte, the first of the victories of Napoleon Buonaparte. When he joined the army of Italy before the battle, he addressed it, saying, "Soldiers, you are hungry and naked. The republic owes you much, but she has not the means to acquit herself of her debts. The patience with which you support your hardships among these barren rocks is admirable, but it cannot procure you glory. I am come to lead you into the most fertile plains that the sun beholds. Rich provinces, opulent towns, all shall be at your disposal. Soldiers! with such a prospect before you, can you fail in courage and constancy?"

In consequence of this success, the French were placed on that side of the Alps which slopes towards Lombardy, and where the rivers from these mountains flow down to join the Po. Napoleon, who soon convinced the world that he was a Man of Destiny, by the victory of Monte Notte and its immediate consequences, opened a highway from France, through the kingdom of Sardinia, into the Austrian possessions in Italy. The Austrian power was at that time the pillar and support of the temporal and spiritual power of the Pope in Italy the strong defence of the Papal States against the overwhelming inundation of the revolution, which in France had plucked up the Latin superstition by the roots. The decree of the French Directory was on record for the total ruin of the Pope and of his power, both spiritual and temporal; but this feat could not be executed while the British ruled the sea; and her allies, the Aust-nans, occupied Lombardy; and their confederates the Italian Duchies, Venice and Naples. These image-worshipping powers had therefore to be laid low in the dust, ere the Sans Culottes could reach the Pope to give him a foretaste of what awaits him in the current epoch. Hence the reason why the third vial judgments occupy their position in the prophecy. The fifth vial could not be reached until the work to be done in the third and fourth was thoroughly performed. Napoleon Buonaparte, a youth of twenty-six, and a small and ill-appointed army of hungry Sans Culottes, constituted the contemptible force with which the Seven Spirits of Deity commenced the enterprise of cutting up the formidable, well-disciplined, numerous, and ably-commanded armies of the Beast; of scattering them like chaff before the tempest; and of rolling off his Image-protecting power beyond the passes of the Tyrol.

In the course of a brief campaign of scarcely a month, what history terms "fortune" placed "her favorite" in full possession of the desired road to Italy. He had gained three battles over vastly superior forces, who lost 25,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners; he had taken eighty pieces of cannon, and twenty-one stand of colors; reduced the Austrian army to inaction; and almost annihilated that of Sardinia; whose Savoyard King, one of the most distinguished in Europe, found himself at the feet of one, who for a time had power, in the emphatic phrase of Scripture, "to bind kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron".

Though the passage of great rivers is one of the most critical in modern warfare, Napoleon "subtlety outwitted the Austrian commander; and with great secrecy and celerity, enabled him safely to transport the French army across the Po, fifty miles below Valeggio, where he had induced Beaulieu to believe he would attempt the passage. He pushed on from thence, and encountered the Austrians at Lodi, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, through which flows the Adda. Having effected "the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi," the Austrians gave way before the victorious republicans; and without any further attempt to protect Milan, the ancient capital of Lombardy, retreated to the strong fortress of Mantua, till he could effect a junction with 80,000 reinforcements under Wurmser, who had been ordered from the Rhine to his assistance.

While the rivers and lakes became blood by sanguinary conflicts in the field, the measures resorted to by the archducal government to turn the tide of battle in favor of the Two-Horned Beast, were of a character befitting the worshippers of his Image. Processions were made, relics of the dead were exposed for popular veneration, and ceremonies resorted to, which the Latin superstition prescribed as an appeal to heaven in great national calamities. But the saints and saintesses of the Image-Aerial were both deaf and impotent shadows, from whom, of course, no succor could come for the deliverance of the fools that worshipped them. The Beast's Italian archducal government found that its guardian saints were no defence in time of trouble; it determined, therefore, to retreat, and leave Milan to its fate. Neither joy nor sorrow signalized its departure all thoughts being pre-occupied upon what was to happen next.

The French occupied Milan, which received them with great show of republican joy. This did not disarm the purpose of Buonaparte, who imposed a requisition of twenty millions of lives. All the public funds were turned into the French military chest; and the church plate experienced the same fate. While Lombardy suffered much, the neighboring countries were not spared. Writing of this crisis, the historian remarks of these, "the Italian states stood like a brotherhood of old trees, decayed at heart and root, but still making some show of branches and leaves, until the French invasion rushed down, like the whirlwind which lays them prostrate". Before Buonaparte released his hold upon them he despoiled them all.

His headquarters, May 24, were at Lodi. He was soon informed that Pavia, with all the surrounding districts, in his rear, were in full insurrection. The Italians were disgusted at the spoliations of money and works of art, they had been subjected to; and with the open indignities thrown upon the places and objects of their superstition, as well as on the persons and character of their priests. About thirty thousand insurgents were in arms. Buonaparte lost no time in giving them blood to drink. The village of Benasco was taken by storm, the inhabitants put to the sword, and the place plundered and burned. He blew open the gates of Pavia with his cannon, dispersed the insurgents, and put their leaders to death. He menaced with fire and sword, all who in future should become insurgent; a threat which he made good soon after upon the inhabitants of Lago, which was taken by storm, pillaged, burned, and the men put to the sword.

Having suppressed the insurrection by these severity’s, he proceeded still further to weaken the Austrians, before he executed the threatened vengeance of the Republic on the Pope. The only places held by them in Italy were the citadel of Milan, and the fortress of Mantua; Beaulieu having been compelled to retire within the frontiers of Tyrol. The defection of the king of Naples, who drew off sixty thousand troops, still further dispirited the Austrians. Fresh bodies of Germans, however, were arriving, and blackening the mountains of the Tyrol with their threatening masses. But before they were ready to discharge their thunderbolts, the storm was thickening around the devoted head of the Pontiff. Being located among the rivers and fountains of waters, it was not possible for him to escape the Outpouring wrath of the third vial. His waters had to become blood. Farrara and Bologna, which belonged to him, were occupied by the French. Four hundred papalians and a cardinal were made prisoners. Alarmed at the approaching danger, the government of the False Prophet authorized the Spanish ambassador to treat for an armistice. Rome, it was true, was an enemy whom the rulers of France both hated and despised, but with Wurmser collecting his hosts in the Tyrol, the moment was then inopportune for the prosecution of their well-merited resentment. Nevertheless, the "Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Heads" was compelled to purchase the armistice at a severe rate. Twenty one million of francs in specie, with large contributions in forage and military stores, the cession of Ancona, Bologna, and Farrara, not forgetting one hundred of the finest pictures, statues, and similar objects of art, were the price of a respite which was not of long duration.

The plan of the French Directory for the campaign of 1796, was of a gigantic character, and menaced Austria with nothing short of total destruction. Moreau and Jourdan, with seventy-five thousand men each, were to press forward from the Rhine, and from the Sambre and Meuse, until they should be in a position to communicate with Buonaparte through the Tyrol. The part entrusted to Napoleon was completely executed. Moreau almost touched with his right flank the passes of the Tyrol; but the defeat of Jourdan compelled Moreau to retire. The fate of Austria was postponed, till the outpouring of the fourth vial; and the conflict was now renewed for the recovery of Lombardy.

Wurmser with eighty thousand men, at length began his march from Trent to the relief of Mantua, invested by the French, whose forces, dispersed in towns and villages on the Adige and Chiese, did not amount to half that number. He ordered his right wing under Quasdonowich to direct its march for Brescia; and his left under Melas to descend on both banks of the Adige at once, and manoeuvre on Verona; while he marched southward by the left bank of Lago di Guarda with the centre to relieve Mantua. The acuteness of Buonaparte soon perceived Wurmser's error on this disposition and dislocation of his forces. The march assigned to Quasdonowich's division made it impossible for the centre and left wing to afford it any support, or even to have intelligence of its motions or fate. Napoleon determined to overpower it. To do this he raised the siege of Mantua at a great sacrifice of material, and rushed with a superior force against Quasdonowich. In all his combinations he succeeded to admiration. Wurmser was defeated at all points, and nearly made prisoner. With great difficulty he reached Trent, from which he had so lately sallied forth with such confidence of victory. He had lost one-half of his fine army among "the rivers and fountains of waters," with the only consolation that he had thrown supplies into the city of Virgil. Thus "Destiny" gave them blood to drink; and, in their courses, fought against them on every side.

Wurmser was reinforced by twenty thousand men, by which he was enabled to resume the offensive, but with no better success. He stationed twenty thousand with Davidowich at Roveredo; while he pushed on towards Mantua with thirty thousand. Buonaparte waited until the distance between Wurmser and Davidowich was sufficiently increased to prevent mutual support. On September 4 he poured down his thunder upon Davidowich in the battle of Roveredo. The impetuosity of the French shattered him to shivers as a potter's vessel; and drove the wrecks of his host through one of the chief defiles of the Tyrol, whither they were not pursued.

Having disposed of Davidowich and his army, he began operations upon Wurmser himself, still further weakened by a detachment sent against Kilmaine. Buonaparte left Trent, and by rapid marches, over twenty leagues in two days, precipitated his host upon the astonished Austrian, who imagined him to be in the far-off recesses of the Tyrol. Wurmser, and the military chest, nearly fell into the hands of the French. An almost general dispersion of his troops ensued. Wurmser fled to Vicenza, where he collected about sixteen thousand men, Out of the sixty thousand, with whom, scarce a week before, he had commenced the campaign. With this remnant constantly decreasing through severe combats, he got into Mantua, within the walls of which he was finally blockaded on September 15, with a garrison increased by twenty-six thousand men; among whom the woes of the third vial appeared in a more hideous form than when inflicted by the sword alone. Early in October, nine thousand of these were in hospital. In the six months' siege, the garrison lost twenty-seven thousand men by disease and the numerous and bloody sallies which took place.

But before the surrender, which put an end to the Austrian war in Italy, Buonaparte had yet to combat, for the fourth time, on the same ground, with new forces sent by the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth for the recovery of his Italian territories. By order of its Aulic Council two armies were assembled under Quasdonowich and Alvinzi. They commenced Operations the beginning of October 1796. "Destiny" allowed the Austrians some encouraging opportunities at first; but, not being sufficiently acquainted with the value of time in military movements, and of connexion and co-operation between their separate divisions, they failed to secure a favorable issue to the campaign. Hence, their opening prospects only deceived them, and lured them on to the ensanguined plains, where more copious draughts of blood were prepared for them to drink.

Secrecy and celerity are the soul of enterprise. Buonaparte combined them in his slaughterous struggles with Alvinzi, who lost eight thousand men in the three sanguinary battles of Arcola. Onho esomenos found, which reading hasp juli and the Tyrol; but retaining Bassano and Trent, the French were removed from "the fountains of waters," the mountains, through which access is gained to the hereditary dominions of Austria. The failure of Alvinzi to relieve Mantua, compelled Wurmser to surrender to the French, with his garrison of twenty thousand men. This decisive event put an end to the Beast's Operations in Italy, and afforded leisure to Buonaparte to turn his arms against his Image.

As we have seen, an armistice was purchased by the Pope, through the Spanish minister. He afterwards sent two plenipotentiaries to Paris to treat of a definitive peace. The conditions were destructive, degrading, and, in his opinion, impious; and he declared them totally inadmissible; and in prospect of Alvinzi's invasion, resolved to make common cause with the House of Austria, and have recourse to military force, which the Roman See had disused for so many years. The arming of the Pope's government, whose military force had long been the subject of ridicule, was the opposition of age and decrepitude to the youthful vigor of the unrivaled conqueror of five Austrian armies. Yet the measures of the Image-Power indicated no little energy. Pope Sextus brought back to Rome an installment of sixteen millions of stipulated tribute on its way to Buonaparte's military chest; he took every measure to increase his army, and by the voluntary exertions of the Roman nobles, actually raised it to forty thousand men. The utmost pains were taken by the clergy to give the expected war the character of a crusade, and to excite the fierce spirit of the peasantry of the Appennine "fountains of waters "who were doubly disposed to hate the French, as foreigners and as heretics. He also endeavored to form a close alliance with the King of Naples, who promised in secret to cover Rome. with an army of thirty thousand men. Little reliance was, indeed, to be placed in the good faith of the Court of Naples; but the Pope was compared, by the French envoy, to a man who, in the act of falling, would grasp for support at a hook of red-hot iron.

Having ruined the hosts of Alvinzi, Napoleon was now at leisure to execute the Directory's purpose of crushing the power, such as it was, of the Beast's Image, commonly termed, "the Holy See". To this end he sent his forces into the territories of the Church Multitudes of fanatical peasants obeyed the sound of the clerical tocsin. The Pope's army being taken in the rear, fled in every direction after a short resistance. A few hundreds were killed, among whom were several monks, who, holding the crucifix, or "sign of the beast," in their hand, had placed themselves in the ranks to encourage the soldiers. Faenza was taken by storm; and next day, three thousand of the Papalians in front of Ancona, commanded by the Pope's general-in-chief, Colli, were made prisoners without firing a shot.

Resistance was unavailing. The False Prophet in vain solicited his subjects to rise against the second Alaric, who was approaching "the holy city". They remained as deaf to his exhortations as "the blessed virgin, and apostles Peter and Paul," who had of old been the fabled protectors of the Mother City of the Latin World in a like emergency. All Was dismay and confusion in Peter's patrimony, so called; and nothing less was expected by the French priests hiding in the city from Jacobin vengeance, than to be slain by the republican troops between the horns of the altar at which they had taken refuge. But, though this fate would only have been rewarding them according to their works, policy caused Buonaparte not only to restrain his soldiers, but to direct the Italian convents to afford them board and lodging at twelve shillings and sixpence sterling a month per priest: for which they were to receive masses ad valorem! thus assigning the convents' payment for their hospitality in the same coin with which they themselves compensated the deluded people for their hard-earned contributions to the spiritual treasury.

The Neapolitan Court made no movement in defence of the Image of the Beast. The Pope therefore abandoned the proposed flight to Naples, which he judged equally unavailing with resistance; and decided on the humiliating alternative of unqualified submission to the will of the conqueror.

From considerations of policy, Buonaparte admitted the Pope to a treaty, by which he purchased such a political existence as was left him, at the highest rate which he had the least chance of discharging. He was compelled to cede Avignon and its territories; to resign the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna; the occupation of Ancona; and to pay thirty millions of lives in specie or valuable effects, such as paintings, manuscripts, and objects of art. Thus Rome was, for the present, completely subjugated, and made to drink the wrath of the third vial, because she was richly deserving of the visitation.

But "the Angel of the Waters" had not yet exhausted the wrath of the third vial upon the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth, in giving its populations of "the rivers and fountains of waters" blood to drink. The Aulic Council sent a sixth Austrian army under the Archduke Charles to renew the contest on the Italo-German frontier. Buonaparte took the field in March, 1797. The stars in their courses still fought against the Austrians. Pushed in every direction, they sustained every day additional and more severe losses. In a space of scarce twenty days, he had defeated the Austrians in ten combats, in which Prince Charles had lost a fourth of his army; and now found himself incapable of covering Vienna from the attack of the invincible Napoleon. He retreated with hasty marches towards the capital of the Beast, to fight for the existence, it might be, of his brother's throne, under its walls. But the terror, grief, and confusion of the Court and people, opposed this daring resolution. The wrath against the throne of Vienna was reserved for the fourth vial. The alternative of treaty was adopted by the Beast; and granted by Buonaparte, to the great disgust of the Directory, who argued, that it would have cost him but another victory to have blotted the most constant and powerful enemy of the French Republic from the map of Europe; or at least to confine her to her hereditary states in Germany Napoleon's policy prevailed, and the treaty of Leoben definitively altered in that of Campo Formio, established peace between France and Austria for a time.

The day of judgment had now arrived for the Republic of Venice. While Napoleon was driving back the archduke towards the throne of the Beast, an insurrection was secretly organized by the Venetians, which broke out against the French in blood and massacre. By the appearance of an Austrian force from the Tyrol, they supposed that the fortunes of Buonaparte had at length found a check. But the awakening from this pleasing dream was equally sudden and terrible. arrived of peaceful preliminaries between France and Austria. The Venetian Senate was lost in stupor and consternation. It dispatched agents to deprecate the wrath of Buonaparte, who declared he would "prove an Attila to Venice". When he heard of the massacres, his indignation rose to the highest pitch; and on May 3, 1797, he declared war against Venice, which sealed forever the fate of the winged lion of Saint Mark.

But, notwithstanding these judicial "plagues," the terrible wrath of the third vial was still unexhausted. The second vial was concurrently developing the blood as of a corpse; and the time had now come for the Man of Destiny to contribute his agency in aggravating its intensity upon the sea. Under pretense of invading England, immense preparations were made, the real purpose of which was a descent upon Egypt, the first object of which was the destruction of the power of the Mamelukes; and then, by establishing the French power there, and in Palestine, to subvert the dominion of the Turks in Constantinople, and of the British in India. The power of the Mamelukes, who styled their destroyer "the king of fire," was completely broken; upper and lower Egypt were conquered; fire and sword were carried into the Holy Land; an army of eighteen thousand Turks, landed by the British in Egypt, was annihilated; but Buonaparte, after all this success, instead of being in India or Constantinople, had lost his fleet by the battle of Aboukir, and was shut up with the wreck of his army in Egypt, unable to receive reinforcements because of the ships of Britain; and, for the same cause, unable to withdraw the remnant from its critical and desperate situation.

While the countries of the sea were thus becoming "blood as it were of a corpse," the third angel was still pouring out wrath upon "the rivers and fountains of waters," whereby blood was given them to drink. During the time Buonaparte was shut up in Egypt by the British fleet, war had broken out again between the French Republic and its enemies. The English had taken possession of the Dutch fleet, and landed an army of Russians and British in Holland; Austria had renewed the conflict on the sources of the Rhine, the Danube, and the Po; and had undertaken, with the aid of sixty thousand Russians under Suwarrow, to reconquer Italy, and to deliver the Pope. All this caused terrible carnage of the worshippers of the Beast's Image in Switzerland and in all the North of Italy. The kingdom of Naples had been turned into the Parthenopean Republic; and the kings of Naples and Piedmont reduced to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia for their respective territories. But the renewal of the war infused hope into the hearts of all the adherents of the old order of things; and no little apprehension into them who had committed themselves in the support of the new. Blood flowed in torrents upon the rivers of Italy, and the fountains of Switzerland, of the Alps and Apennines. This field of battle was immense; and an erroneous idea then prevalent, that the key to the plain was in the mountain; and that, because heights are important on a field of battle of a few leagues, it was concluded that the power which was master of the Alps must be master of the Continent - this mistaken opinion determined the blind instruments of Divine wrath upon one another, to select for their shambles the locality indicated in the phrase "rivers and fountains of waters". The six campaigns of Napoleon had shed blood immensely; but sufficient had not been poured out proportionate to the crimes of the hosts and populations subject to the judgments. The terrible campaign of "the invincible Suwarrow," as far as the issue of the war was concerned, was a useless destruction of multitudes; a destruction, however, that answered its judicial end. Austria recovered Italy for a few months; and Suwarrow's host was miserably wasted among inaccessible rocks. The work of Buonaparte in Italy was undone; and the old de spotism of the Two-Horned Beast seemed to have re-established itself beyond the power of the French to shake it.

But the worshippers of the Beast's Image had not even yet drank sufficiently of the cup of Divine indignation. A file of papers transmitted to Buonaparte by Sir Sydney Smith, informed him of all the disasters that had befallen the French in Italy. He resolved, therefore, to risk capture by the British cruisers, and to leave Egypt for Paris. He left his army with Kieber and Dessaix, which was afterwards obliged to surrender to the British, and by them relanded in France, where Napoleon had safely arrived some time before. Soon after his return to Paris, a Cromwellian turn of the revolutionary wheel made him First Consul, by which he became "the head and the sword" of the Republic, Nov. 19th 1799.

Disappointed in the hope of peace with England, he proceeded to renewed efforts against Austria in Italy. This second was one of the most important campaigns of his life. With the strictest secrecy he made preparation of the renewal of the fortune of France, now united to his own. Though he assembled his forces with great publicity at Dijon as an army of reserve, which he reviewed on the 7th of May, 1800, its real destination was successfully concealed from the Austrians, whom it was in-tended to surprise; and attack in the rear. He set forward from Geneva on the 8th, to cross the Alps by St. Bernard, with sixty thousand men; while twenty thousand more were detached from General Moreau's force, by way of St. Gothard, as his left wing. The route was pronounced to be "barely possible". But the boundless and desolate scope of snow and sky had no terrors for the first consul and his army. Each soldier carried his sixty or seventy pounds weight; the artillery was dragged by a hundred men to each gun; and the carriages, in pieces, lashed upon the backs of mules. All difficulties were overcome; and on the 16th, the vanguard took possession of Aosta, a village of Piedmont.

Having passed fort Bard by Strategem, and rested his army at Ivrea; and having deceived the Austrians as to his route, he pushed on to Milan unmolested, and entered that city June 2. He now issued a proclamation to his troops in which he declared, that the result he expected from their efforts was "cloudless glory and solid peace".

The Sanguinary battle of Montebello being fought, and the Austrians defeated, that of MARENGO soon followed, between thirty thousand French and forty thousand Austrians. The immediate stake was the possession of Italy; and destruction to the party which should sustain defeat. After several hours fighting, the day seemed entirely against the French; but when the victory appeared within the grasp of the Austrian commander, Melas, then eighty years of age, his strength failed entirely, and he was obliged to leave the field. General Zach was left to complete it. At this critical moment, Dessaix, who had just re-turned from Egypt, rushed forward, and charged the enemy, wearied with fighting the whole day; Dessaix was killed; Zach was made prisoner, and his troops forced back at all points with immense loss. Their disaster was complete. Melas capitulated to Buonaparte, who permitted him to retire behind Mantua; being satisfied with the glory of having regained in the affairs of Montebello and of Marengo, almost all the loss sustained by the French in the disastrous campaign of 1799. After an absence of two months he returned to Paris, where he was regarded as "the Sun of France;" where all was gloom when he was hid from her - when he appeared, light and serenity were restored.

Vanquished at Marengo, and then defeated in Germany by Moreau, the Austrians sued for peace. On Jan. 8, 1801, the French Republic, and the Aulic Council of the Beast at Vienna, concluded the treaty of Luneville. This marks the termination of the third vial. Those readers who have not access to history, will, in this sketch, find such an outline as will enable them to discern the verification of the prophecy in the awful calamities of the recent past. But, intensely calamitous as they were, there was not a judgment of them all that was not richly merited by all upon which it fell. Pope, Kaiser, kings, and peoples are the representatives of a system of power, dyed red with the blood of men, of whom the world is not worthy. The third vial "gave them blood to drink," which they could in no wise evade. "Thou art righteous, 0 Lord," said the Angel of the Waters in the hearing of John, "because thou hast decreed these things" plagues, or judgments. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil". They forget the day of recompense. But the Lord God Almighty does not forget. The sentence of the third vial was on record seventeen hundred years before its execution; and in the hands of all who had a copy of the Scriptures. Those who shed the blood of Christ's Brethren, and oppress them in any way, must sooner or later be brought to judgment for the crime. "Whoso," said he, "shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depths of the sea". Illustrative of this is the cause assigned for the judgments of the third vial. "The rivers and fountains of waters" had offended the little ones who believed, in shedding "the blood of saints and prophets;" not the prophets of the Old Testament; these were slain by the Jews, who atoned for the crime in the destruction of their State (Matt. 23:34-39); but "the two prophets," "who had power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they willed;" and who were hurt by their enemies in all the 1260 years of their days of the prophecy; and at length conquered and killed by the Beast of the Sea, at the instigation of its Name of Blasphemy enthroned as the Beast's Image upon the Seven Hills. For slaying these, who flourished contemporarily with the fiercest days of the Lion-Mouth of the Apocalyptic Babylon, the carnage of the third vial befell the countries where they mostly dwelt. The approval ex-pressed by the Angel of the Waters, is responded to by another voice heard by John, proceeding from "the Altar". The words of the seventh verse are represented as issuing thence, for the same reason that the Angel of ch. 14:18, is seen coming out from the altar, having power over fire. It is, because all slain for the witness of Jesus, being in him, the Altar, are regarded Apocalyptically as partakers with the altar, and under the altar; and as all the judgments upon the worshippers of the Beast's Image are on their account, the words, "Even so, Lord God al-mighty, true and righteous are thy judgments", are represented as proceeding thence.

In conclusion, it may be noted in passing from the exposition of the prophecy of the third vial, that the fifth verse of this chapter reproduces the formula of the Divine manifestation, previously announced in ch. 1:4,8; and 11:17 ho hon kai ho hen kai ho erchomenos. But the "recent editors" of the original text tell us that, in the text before us, hoer-chomenos, He who is coming, is superseded in some manuscripts, by ho osios, the Holy One, which some of them prefer. Beza reads ho esomenos, He who shall be; which is followed in the English Version. Upon this reading, Wordsworth says, "In no codex that I know is ho esomenos found, which reading has passed into the English Version from Beza's recensiori". It may be true, that there is no such reading extant; and that there never was such a reading as Beza's: the correctness, however, of hoer-chomenos, inch. 1:4,8; and 11:17, is not disputed. "He who is coming" and "He who shall be," are equivalent phrases; which "the Holy One" is not. No good reason can be adduced why "the Holy One" should be substituted for the prophetic announcement, that YAHWEH the almighty Elohim, who is and who was, is coming, or shall be, here again. In my translation, I have restored the ho erchomenos to what, I conceive to be, its proper place. "He who is coming" is exceed-ingly appropriate in this fifth verse; inasmuch as the third vial, in the outpouring of its wrath, was a sign to those who witnessed its terrible judgments, that the coming, announced in the fifteenth verse, was steadily and surely approaching. The reader can therefore adopt my rendering, or that of the Common Version, which is essentially the same.

It may be further remarked here, that in regard to ch. 11:17, all the recent editors cancel the words, kai ho erchomenos, on the authority of A.B.C. ,(*)certain manuscripts of the fifth and seventh centuries; their omission is therefore recommended by the annotator of the new Baptist Version. I have no other objection to this, than that the Apocalypse when given, was a prophecy of things afterwards to transpire, preparatory to, and introductory of, the thief like and glorious manifestation of Him "who is coming". The Divine formula, therefore, where introduced, as much required the words "and who is coming," as the words "who is and who was," in order to keep constantly before the minds of "the servants of the Deity" in all intermediate ages and generations, the great truth, until it shall be verified in the visible apocalypse of hoer-chomenos, THE COMING ONE. In the times of the A.B.C. manuscripts, the appearing of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, was deemed a pestilent heresy by the party in place and power; who had no scruples about altering and omitting words and phrases, if it suited their purpose. This being the fact, the testimony of their manuscripts is questionable. It is true, that inch. 11:17, the omission would seem warranted by the reason given for thanksgiving - "because thou hast taken thy great power and reigned;" which implies, that the almighty Elohim had come, and that therefore, after this event, to affirm that he is coming, would be anachronistic and inappropriate. This is true, still, for the reason given, I conclude, that the words were a part of the prophecy originally delivered to John, and ought not therefore to be omitted.

"And the Fourth Angel poured out his vial upon the SUN; and it was given to him to scorch the men with fire. And the men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of the Deity who hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give glory to him" - verses 8, 9.

The judgments or plagues of the Fourth Trumpet smote so as to darken a third part of the sun, moon and stars; so that for a third part of the day, and of the night, there was no light. This has been expounded in my second volume, and needs only to be referred to by way of reminding the reader, that the sun, moon and stars were there interpreted of the Imperial Catholic Constitution of the Western Third of the Roman Empire; which was superseded in Rome, by the Seventh Head, or Gothic kingly form of government; after the fall of which, Rome's political day and night continued darkened two hundred and forty years, when it again shone forth imperially, as the capital of "THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE," founded by Charlemagne. The crowning of this conqueror by the Pope in Rome "emperor of the West," terminated the Sun's ternary eclipse; dark spots have since crossed its disc, but with the exception of these, the Imperial Sun of the Two-Horned Beast's Image empire, has been subjected to no darkening, worthy of Apocalyptic notice, till the epoch of the fourth and fifth vials, which have special reference thereto.

The Sun, then, of the fourth vial is the Imperial and Regal Sovereignty of European Antichristendom. The Pope, the Emperor, and the Kings, are the official terms indicative of the Sun in its shining forth upon the nations. To pour out wrath upon this sun, so that the out-pourer should scorch with fire the men who have the sign of the Beast, and who worship his Image, is to develop terrible disasters specially affecting in their consequences the power of these potentates.

"It was given to him to scorch the men with fire". I doubt not, that this form of words was intended to indicate, that there would be a remarkable and distinguished personage concerned in the terrible operation of scorching "the men," who are characterized as blasphemers of the Deity's Name, "with fire," whose heat was predicted to be "great". We shall find that this scorcher of men, was the same whom the Egyptian Mamelukes termed "the King of Fire". His theory was, that Providence was on the side of the heaviest artillery: this, however, depends upon its being "given to him" who scorches with it, to handle it judiciously. It was so given to Napoleon Buonaparte, who, until his mission was performed, surpassed all his contemporaries in the use of it. He was truly a scorcher of blasphemers with great heat.

Though the pacification of the European Continent in 1802, drove England into a momentary peace, the wrath of the Second vial still continued pouring out upon the sea. During the war with England, the navy of France was almost entirely ruined. Three hundred and forty vessels had been taken or destroyed, and almost all her colonies had fallen into the hands of the English. Nevertheless, during the short peace with England, Napoleon fitted out an expedition of forty thousand men, which he embarked for St. Domingo to reduce the island to submission. The enterprise was disastrous in the extreme. Unable to conquer in fair and open fight, the French had recourse to barbarities worse then ever before stained the annals of any people pretending to be civilized. After a doubtful and desperate struggle the French were expelled; and the expedition "became blood as of a corpse," terminating, as it deserved, in defeat and disgrace.

War was renewed between France and England May 18, 1803, by which the wrath upon the sea was continued and increased.

On the 18th of May, 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor; and, as he had restored popery to liberty in France, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius VII., took a journey to Paris for the purpose of placing the crown of Charlemagne upon the head of one, whom the old blasphemer styled, "our dearest son in Christ, Napoleon, the emperor of the French". This was practically an insult of the most galling character to the House of Austria; which, as Imperial Secular Chief of the Sun of Europe, claimed to be the legitimate successor of Charlemagne.

On the 26th May, 1805, he received the iron crown of Italy, of which therefore he was now king, greatly also to the disgust of Austria.

While these things were transacting, Napoleon had resumed with much zeal the preparation of a maritime expedition against England. At the opening of the year 1805, a flotilla of two thousand small vessels, manned by sixteen thousand sailors, capable of carrying an army of a hundred and sixty thousand men, nine thousand horse, and a numerous artillery, was assembled in the ports of Boulogne, Etables, Vimereux, Ambleteuse and Calais. It was at this portentous moment, when the vulture was ready to pounce upon his prey, that Napoleon was roused from his recovery by the startling announcement that all the forces of the Austrian monarchy to the number of two hundred and twenty thousand men, were in motion; and that a treaty had been signed on the 11th of April between Russia and England, in which they bound themselves to use their utmost exertions for forming a general league of the States of Europe, for the purpose of putting a stop to the encroachments of the French government, and the securing of the independence of the different states. Two Russian armies were also preparing to join the Austrians, consequent upon this third coalition organized by England against France.

The wrath of the fourth vial now began to descend upon the Sun. Napoleon, to whom it was given to scorch with fire, abandoned the invasion of England, and marched for the Rhine, which he crossed on the 1st of October with an army of a hundred and sixty thousand men. By a series of bold maneuvers and successful actions, ninety thousand men under General Mack were cut off from the Austrian territories so completely, that by the middle of October he was entirely surrounded in Ulm with thirty thousand men. Being summoned to capitulate, he thought it best to comply; and his whole force, with all his artillery, magazines, etc., surrendered themselves prisoners of war.

Vienna, the place of the Mouth of the Two Horned Beast (ch. 16:13), was now the object before Napoleon. The Austrians had been joined by the Russians; but they were not Strong enough to retard his advance. The alarm at Vienna was extreme. The emperor Francis retired with all his court into Moravia, while the greater part of the nobility sought an asylum in Hungary. The inhabitants in general patiently awaited the conqueror, who entered the city on the 13th of November.

The French, with trifling loss to themselves, captured sixty thousand prisoners on their victorious march to Vienna. Without halt-mg, the advance-guard crossed the Danube, and pushed on to encounter the Russians in Moravia, where the main body consisted of about fifty thousand, under the emperor Alexander, and twenty-five thousand Austrians, under the emperor Francis. The French under the emperor Napoleon, who was his own general-in-chief, amounted to between seventy and eighty thousand. This battle of the three emperors was fought Dec. 2, 1805, on the plain of AUSTERLITZ, on the direct road from Vienna to Olmutz. The engagement began at sunrise and continued with the most scorching effect, "full of variety and sanguinary in the extreme," until evening. On the following day the French advanced; when the Austrian emperor proposed an armistice, the terms of which being so humiliating, the emperor of Russia refused to become a party to it; and commenced a retreat in his own way. In addressing his soldiers on the day after the battle, Napoleon said, "An army of a hundred thousand, commanded by the emperors of Russia and Austria, has been in less than four hours cut to pieces and dispersed: they who have escaped your swords have perished in the lakes. Forty stand of colors, the standards of the imperial Russian guards, a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, twenty generals, and more than thirty thousand prisoners, are the result of this for ever glorious day. Their infantry so vaunted, and so superior in numbers, has been unable to resist your Onset; and henceforth you have no rivals to dread. Thus, in two months, this third coalition has been vanquished and dispersed." This was truly "scorching the men with great heat".

The peace of Presburg followed the victories of Ulm and Auster-litz, and was signed Dec.26. The House of Austria, which had lost its foreign possessions, Belgium and the Milanese, was now further curtailed of some of its German territories. Among its alienation’s, it ceded part of the territory of Passau, and all its possessions in Swabia, Bres-gau, and Ortenau, to the electorates of Bavaria and Wurtemburg, which were transformed into kingdoms. The treaty of Presburg completed the humiliation of the Austrian dynasty of the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth an abasement began by the treaty of Campo Formio, and continued by that of Luneville, under the third vial; all of which was preparatory to the consummation under the fifth. On his return to Paris, Napoleon, "the King of Fire" and "Man of Destiny," became the object of such universal admiration, that he was himself stunned by the general enthusiasm and intoxicated by his fortunes. He was now Napoleon "THE GREAT," and the Senate decreed him a triumphal monument.

Such was the notable commencement of the outpouring of the wrath of Deity from the fourth vial "upon the sun" of the so-called "HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE". The efforts of Napoleon were henceforth di-rected to extend his dominions over the Continent of Europe. He invaded the kingdom of Naples, and on March 30, 1806, established his brother Joseph there as King of the Two Sicilies. Shortly after he transformed the United Provinces of Holland into a kingdom, and filled its throne with his brother Louis. All republics were abolished, save that of Switzerland, of which he declared himself the Mediator, and he finished the organization of his new military empire, by placing the Germanic Body dependent on himself. On July 12, 1806, fourteen provinces on the south and west of Germany were united in "the Confederation of the Rhine," and Napoleon was recognized as their Protector. On Aug. 1st, they notified to the Diet of Ratisbon their separation from the Germanic Body; the Germano-Roman empire itself ceased to exist; and Francis II., abdicating the title, now adopted that of "EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA".

The march of Napoleonic rapacity, and encroachment upon the rights and liberties of the worshippers of the Beast's Image, gave rise to a fourth coalition, by which the wrath of the fourth vial continued to be poured out upon the sun

While Austria and Russia were engaged in confronting the power of France, Prussia maintained a cautious neutrality. But alarmed now by the increase of the French empire, and encouraged by the fine condition of her troops, Prussia joined in a league with Russia to expel the French from Germany. Apocalyptically speaking, "every living soul in the sea" was now dead. The British arms had little employment. The number of ships and vessels of war in commission was truly enormous, being no less than seven hundred and twenty. The marine of France was almost annihilated, and the shattered remains of its fleets were shut up in its harbors, not daring to venture beyond the jurisdiction of the batteries. The British navy was employed in blockading the hostile ports, and nothing of importance took place on the ocean.

The state of public affairs throughout the Continent of Europe at this eventful crisis was "without a parallel in history". The submission and creation of kingdoms were become simple operations with which the world was beginning to become familiarized. An edict from Paris was all that was necessary to create a king, and furnish him with a kingdom. The promise of the annexation of Swedish Pomerania, Weigmar, and Hanover to his dominions, had tempted Frederick William III of Prussia to desert "the Cause of Sovereigns," and to lend himself to the imperial king-making projects of this terrible "king of Fire". But when his Prussian Majesty learned authentically the projected infraction of the existing engagements of France with Prussia, Frederick William's resentment became extreme. The tide of opinion at Berlin ran strongly in favor of war. On the 1st of October, the Prussian ambassador demanded that the French army without delay repass the Rhine; that the northern Germanic Confederation be established; and that certain places be separated from the Confederation of the Rhine. But to these requisitions Napoleon did not deign to reply, but advanced at the head of his troops with rapid steps, and approached the frontier of Upper Saxony before Prussia could possibly receive any aid from her ally the emperor of Russia.

At this moment of rashness and passion Prussia seemed almost to exult in the idea of entering alone into a contest with France; of whose mission to "scorch the men" of the Two-Horned Beast "with fire," she was not yet able to perceive. Early in October, 1806, the whole collected force of the Prussians exceeded a hundred and twenty thousand men. The French were nearly of equal strength, but under very superior command. The two armies seemed to assume an attitude of mutual defiance. Napoleon by his manoeuvres succeeded in turning the left of the Prussians, and in cutting off all communication with their magazines, by which he was enabled to occupy in force the heights of JENA, which had been deemed impracticable for artillery.

On the 13th of October, the action commenced, two hours after day break, and quickly became general, exhibiting for some time equal skill and bravery; but a fierce cavalry assault under Murat, at once decided the fortune of this memorable day. Universal consternation ensued; and in the rout multitudes were slaughtered, and a still greater number made prisoners. The entire loss did not fall short of sixty thousand men, of whom twenty thousand were killed and wounded; while that of the French was below five thousand. The rapid successes of the French, and the accumulated and scorching misfortunes of the Prussians, are without precedent in military history. Napoleon immediately took possession of Potsdam and Berlin, where he levied vast contributions, and sent the sword of Frederick the Great as a trophy to Paris. One after another, the different corps of the Prussian army were obliged to surrender; so that in little more than a month, the French had taken no less than one hundred and forty thousand prisoners, two hundred and fifty standards, and about forty-eight hundred pieces of cannon, of which eight hundred were taken in the field, and about four thousand were found in Berlin, and the fortresses which had capitulated.

After this dreadful scorching defeat at Jena, the king retired to Konigsburg, where he employed himself actively in collecting the scattered and feeble remains of his once formidable force. The French having made themselves masters of Silesia, the immense barrier which seemed to have wholly separated France from Russia, was now broken down; and the emperor Alexander resolved to make a grand effort to protect his own dominions, as well as to support the throne of Prussia and the independence of Europe. This resolution guaranteed the continuance of the outpouring of the scorching wrath of the fourth vial upon the sun, until the "King of Fire" should have run his course. In pursuance of this determination, an immense force was being collected in different parts of the Russian empire, and began to move towards the frontier.

The respective strength of France and Russia was now to be put to a scorching and decisive trial. The battle of Eylau on February 7, 1807, and that of Friedland, on June 14, removed the mysterious veil with which the operation on the Vistula had been covered by the contradictory assertions of the hostile parties. The battle of Eylau, though very sanguinary, was indecisive; while that of FRIEDLAND equaled those of Austerlitz and Jena; nor were its consequences less hostile to the independence of the potentates of Europe. The Russians were "scorched with great heat". The fire of thirty pieces of cannon inflicted upon them dreadful loss; thousands were driven by bayonet-charges into the river Alle, where they found their death; and the streets of Friedland were covered with the dead. The defeat was total, and the carnage terrible, from fifteen to eighteen thousand being left dead upon the battle-field. This was wrath upon the Sovereign Sun, which scorched all under it with fire. The Russians recrossed the Niemen with a loss of forty thousand men, having in the space of eleven days, lost no less than twenty-seven generals and eighteen hundred and forty-eight officers killed or wounded. In their disastrous retreat they lost a great part of their artillery, and almost all their magazines and ammunition on a line of one hundred and twenty miles in extent.

These fiery results caused the Czar and the king of Prussia to seek an interview with Napoleon to treat of peace, which was consequently concluded at Tilsit, July 7,1807. By this fatal war, the Prussian monarchy lost nearly the half of its territory and of its subjects, with more than half of its revenues; and Russia saw herself deprived of her extensive barrier against the dangerous and domineering power of France.

Freed by the peace of Tilsit from all apprehensions in the north, Napoleon was now at leisure to prepare, by his operations upon the Sun of the European Peninsula, for the scorching with fire of the worship-pers of the Beast's Image, subject to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese Court voluntarily migrated to Rio Janeiro, in Brazil, in consequence of Napoleon's declaration, endorsed by a French army marching on Lisbon, that "the House of Braganza should cease to reign."

A treaty had been concluded between the "egregious" king-maker, Napoleon, and Charles IV. of Spain, the object of which was a partition of the kingdom of Portugal. By a secret convention, French troops were to be admitted into Spain, and others assembled at Bayonne, to assist in the conquest of Portugal. Thus it was given under this fourth vial for Spain to be placed at the disposal of him, who was to "scorch with fire the men" who worshipped the Beast's Image, both in Portugal and Spain.

Under the pretext, therefore, of invading Portugal, attacking Gibraltar, and sharing the spoil with "His Most Catholic Majesty," the Corsican king-breaker, as well as king-maker, ingeniously contrived to introduce into the strong places, and most commanding positions of Spain, a hundred thousand men; and into Portugal, twenty thousand. In this manner, the revolutionary volcano had secretly and silently col-lected its convulsing and destructive forces; which began to pour forth its scorching streams of fire in March 1808. A report of the intended emigration of the royal family to Mexico, was the immediate occasion of the insurrection of the people. In the midst of this effervescence, Charles IV. abdicated the throne in favor of his son, the prince of Asturias, who succeeded him as Ferdinand VII. His friends and allies for the spoliation of Portugal, entered Madrid in support of his authority; by which friendly intervention, they found themselves to the number of sixty thousand, in full possession of the capital.

But the most extraordinary instance of political infatuation on record, had yet to be developed. The two kings of Spain, with the whole of the royal family, and some of the principal grandees, were allured by pretexts full of illusions to migrate to Bayonne; the station which the PROTECTOR of Germany and the MEDIATOR of Switzerland had fixed upon for the more convenient accomplishment of his designs upon the Sun of the Peninsula. This rash and indiscreet step was followed by terrible commotions throughout the country, and particularly in Madrid, where the most terrible disorders, excited by the priests and monks, prevailed. Everything indicated a dreadful explosion, which ensued on the 2nd of May. Volleys of grapeshot and charges of cavalry "scorched" the populace "with great heat;" who, though cleared from the streets, continued their attack upon the French from the windows of the houses; the doors were then broken open, and all who were found in arms were put to the sword.

The crisis had now arrived when "the king of fire" deemed it no longer necessary to dissemble his designs "upon the Sun". At first he pretended a wish to restore Charles IV. to the throne; but perceiving Madrid to be in a ferment, and having the two kings in his power, he obliged them both to sign a formal abdication, and the infants Don Carlos and Don Antonio renounced all claim to the succession. This self-sacrifice effected, Napoleon proceeded to fill the vacant throne with a king that should do all his will. On the 25th of May, therefore, he issued a decree, declaring the throne of Spain vacant by the voluntary abdication of the reigning family, and ordering an assembly of prelates, grandees, etc., to be held at Bayonne, for the purpose of fixing the basis of a new government. A commission was also established for secularizing the lands of the church; which, as it vitally affected the covetousness of the priests of the Virgin Goddess, stirred up the exasperation of the public they controlled, indescribably. The result of the convention at Bayonne was, that, on the 6th of June, 1808, Napoleon conferred the crown of Spain upon his brother Joseph, who abdicated his kingdom of Naples in favor of Joachim Murat, who had married the sister of the wonderful man!

Such was the state of affairs in Spain, preparatory to his Operations "to whom it was given to scorch the" Spaniards and Portuguese "with fire". The renunciation of the crown in favor of Napoleon was the signal for a general insurrection. The patriotic flame burst forth in Asturia, whence it spread into Gallicia, and into several districts of Leon. A declaration of war was formally published by the assembly at Oviedo, which also sent deputies to request the assistance of heretical England against the infidel French! The request was immediately acceded to, and every possible assistance in arms, munitions, and men, were lavished in support of the adherents of the Inquisition, and worship of the Image of the Beast!

The scorching operation now began in all the intensity of "great heat". The success of the insurgent Spaniards during June and July were important and "brilliant;" while the losses of the French were greater than they had ever been in so short a period since the accession of Napoleon to the imperial throne. They now considered themselves to be fully adequate to their expulsion; which a little time, however, convinced them was a fatal delusion. They seemed to decline the aid of the British forces in the north; and recommended in preference an expedition to Portugal, a suggestion to which England acceded.

The French, in the two months under generals Murat, Dupont, Moncey, and La Febvre, had lost about fifty thousand men; and by the victory of Vimeira, and the convention of Cintra, they were expelled by the British from Portugal; who also captured the Russian fleet in the Tagus.

The new king Joseph, after a brief residence of seven days in Madrid, found it necessary to retire precipitately towards France, not forgetting to carry off with him the crown jewels, and other valuables of the palace This state of affairs determined Napoleon to enter Spain, and to conduct the war in person. On the 2nd of December, after defeating three native armies, he reached Madrid; which was now a horrible scene of confusion, being in the power of an ungovernable rabble. The city was surrendered on the 4th; and having reduced its affairs to order, he hastened to try to cut off the retreat of the English army under Sir John Moore, who was falling back upon Corunna. On arriving at Astorga, he found that the expected prey had eluded his grasp; he therefore turned over to his generals the further operations against it, and soon after returned to France.

Though I shall now proceed to the exposition of the fifth vial, the reader must bear in mind, that the wrath of the fourth vial is not exhausted. Like that of the second, the fourth continues its concurrent operation, until that "powerful and extraordinary mortal, Napoleon," is securely caged upon the rock of St. Helena.

"And the Fifth Angel poured out his vial upon the THRONE OF THE BEAST; and it was his kingdom which had been darkened; and they did gnaw their tongues with the anguish, and blasphemed the Deity of the heaven because of their pains, and because of their ulcers; and they repented not of their works" - Verse 10.

The subject of the outpouring of the fifth angel's vial of wrath, was "the Throne of the Beast." After giving the reader this information, it is added, that "it was his kingdom which had been darkened" - egeneto he basileia autou eskotomene: which was in effect saying, that the work of the preceding vials consummated in the fifth, had darkened the kingdom of the Beast.

The kingdom of the Beast was coextensive with the "Holy Roman Empire," and the countries of the Apocalyptic Babylon, as symbolized by the Beast of the Earth, and the Beast of the Sea; whose populations all worshipped the Image of the Beast, enthroned upon the Seven Mountains. The spiritual authority is superior to the temporal in dignity, if not in material power; but, where the spiritual and temporal are united, and its decrees obeyed by all peoples and rulers, ecclesiastical and secular, the throne it occupies is emphatically "the throne" of such a dominion. The kingdom of the Beast had many thrones occupied by secular potentates, none of whom had any legitimate spiritual jurisdiction. Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Naples, and so forth, had no authority in Rome and the Papal States; while in all these countries, the Old Man of the Seven Hills made kings and peoples tremble at his frown.

At the crisis of the fifth vial, only one thing remained, for the complete darkening of the political organization of which this throne was the chief, and that was, the obliteration of it from among the kingdoms of the world. When this should be accomplished, there would then be no throne to shed forth the sunlight of its glory upon the kingdom of the Beast. The Bourbon kings of France, and Spain; the kings of Portugal, of Naples, of Sardinia, of Italy, were all wiped out; and the Holy Romano-German empire dissolved. All these old things had passed away; and all things had become new; in relation to which, the Pontifical Throne was a deformity and a curse. While therefore, the new things flourished in glory and power, this relic of an effete barbarism was decreed of Heaven to be wrathfully precipitated into darkness; and there to remain, until the reaction of unrepentant wickedness should cause its emergence from the shadow of death, in preparation for a second and final catastrophe at the hand of Christ and the Saints.

The peace of Tilsit had completely extended the new Frank domination over the Continent of Europe. By the judgments of the fourth vial thus far developed, Prussia was reduced by one-half; the two kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemburg were erected as a barrier against Austria; and the two feudatory kingdoms of Saxony and Westphalia, as a counterpoise to Prussia. Russia remained the only power untouched, though scathed. The Man of Destiny followed more and more the steps of Charlemagne. He had caused on the day of his coronation, the crown, the sword, and the sceptre of Charlemagne to be carried before him. But, unlike Charlemagne, who went to Rome to be crowned by the Pope, he caused the Pope to come to him in Paris, not to crown, but to consecrate his dynasty in the estimation of the worshippers of the Beast's Image; and modeled his new states upon the vast empire of that conqueror. The object of the resurrected and ascended witnesses of the Revolution of 1789, had been to destroy the Beast and his Image, in the re-establishment of the liberty of peoples; it had made citizens, and changed Europe into republics -.a state of things in no way typical of the future permanent results of the postresurrectional labors of the Saints, when under the command of "the Prince of princes," they shall have finished and rested from their labors. The work of the Revolution was simply transitional. The subversion of the ancient political order bya republican policy, prepared the way for what followed. Napoleon established a new military hierarchy, turned citizens into vassals, and transferred republics into fiefs. Potent and energetic as he was, and appearing upon the stage after a shock that had shaken the world to its centre and perfectly paralyzed it, he was enabled for a season to arrange it as he pleased. Thus the "great empire" grew up, with a civil discipline at home, which rendered France as obsequious as an army; and abroad, with its secondary kingdoms, its confederate states, its grand fiefs,and its supreme chief, "emperor," "mediator," "protector," and "king;" a perfect type of that greater and more glorious empire to be established by the Lord Jesus and his Brethren, as the result of "the war of the great day of the almighty Deity," which pervades the period of the seventh vial. Napoleon no longer experienced any resistance, and his commands were obeyed from one extremity of the European Continent to the other. The imperial power was at this moment at its maximum; and England, which had then eleven hundred vessels of war, was the only power that resisted his will.

At this crisis, as if to manifest his contempt, and to mark his defiance of all the potentates of Europe, Napoleon gave an extraordinary proof of confidence in the plenitude of his power, in the publication of the following decree, which signalized the approaching outpouring of the Fifth Vial, dated May 1808. "Whereas the temporal sovereign of Rome has refused to make war against England, and the interest of the two kingdoms of Italy and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile power; and whereas the donation of Charlemagne, our illustrious predecessor, of the countries which form the Holy See, was for the good of Christianity, and not for that of the enemies of our holy religion: We therefore decree, that the duchies of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata and Camerino, be forever united to the kingdom of Italy: to which kingdom all cardinal prelates and natives of these districts are commanded to return by the 5th of June, on pain of confiscation of goods". This singular and salutary exercise of despotic power called forth a declaration from the Pope in which he maintained the rights of his See, and earnestly protested against the intended spoliation. This, however, did not prevent the entry of a French army, which took possession of all the strong places in the ecclesiastical territories. And this was followed by the annexation of Parma, Placentia, and Tuscany to the French empire; so that the kingdom of Italy was now guarded on every side by the empire.

After the lapse of some months, the Pope's protest was enforced by a sentence of excommunication against the authors and instruments of the act of spoliation. This was productive of new violence on the part of Napoleon, his "most dear son in Christ!" In 1809, the wrath of the fifth vial at length descended upon "the throne" itself. Its pontifical occupant, the Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Heads of the Beast-Dominion, was arrested by his order, and brought as a captive to Avignon, in fulfillment of the saying, "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity" (ch. 13:10). But this was not all. A provisional government was established in the ecclesiastical states; the Inquisition was abolished; many temporal and spiritual abuses were abrogated; and various civil and judicial reforms were introduced. Rome itself, wonder-fully improved and embellished in the hands of the Great Emperor, was degraded by decree from a sovereign to a subject rank. It was declared to be the second city of the New Empire; and empowered to send seven members to the Legislative Body; and a deputation, arriving from thence at Paris, presented an address of homage, to which Napoleon replied in style and language of an emperor of the West.

We have seen already that in the outpouring of the wrath of the third vial its plagues reached even to Rome; and that the papal states were transformed into the Roman Republic, in February 1798, when the Pope's temporal reign was declared to be at an end. On that occasion, the French ambassador wrote to general Buonaparte, "the payment of thirty millions (of francs) stipulated by the Treaty of Tolentino, has totally exhausted this old carcass; we are making it consume by a slow fire". It was on the 15th of February, while seated on his throne, and receiving the congratulatory worship of his cardinals. that the Pope was arrested by the French military, the ring of his marriage with the Romish Church torn from his finger; his palace rifled, and himself carried prisoner into France, where he died in August, 1799. All the territorial possessions of the church and monasteries were confiscated; all the sacerdotal vestments of the Pope and Cardinals were burnt; and the Pope's library, museum, furniture, and jewels, pillaged. This was a making of the Mother City "desolate and naked, eating her flesh, and burning her with fire;" not by the ten horns, however, but by the Revolution, as an earnest of what is yet to follow, at the hands of the Saints. But Rome was still the sovereign city of a Roman State, though it had lost its imperialism. But even this was soon after restored to her. Buonaparte's absence in Egypt, and the temporary success of the allies under the "invincible Suwarrow," enabled the worshippers of the Beast's Image to elect a new pope, Pius VII.' March 13, 1800; and to repair for a time, the ruin of the papal throne. Buonaparte's usurpation, and his restoration of Romanism in France, excited the hopes of the Pope, with whom he made a concordat in 1801. But they proved quickly delusive. "The designs of Napoleon," says Ranke, "were now (in 1805) revealed. The Constituent Assembly had endeavored to emancipate it-self entirely from the pope. The Directory wished to annihilate his authority. Buonaparte's notion was to retain him, but in a state of absolute subjection; to make him a tool of his own boundless ambition". After a while he was permitted to return to Rome. But, on his resistance to Napoleon's views, there followed in 1809, the outpouring of the wrath of the fifth vial upon the throne, originally given to him by the Dragon (ch. 13:3), in consequence of which the Roman State was abolished, and there was neither republic nor kingdom upon the Seven Hills.

The occasion of this disaster to the Pope was his sympathy with heretical England, then campaigning against the French in Spain, a diversion to their arms, which afforded Austria another opportunity of trying to restore the shattered fortunes of the Beast's kingdom. This obstinate and determined champion of the Image, seized the opportunity of Napoleon's absence and that of his army in Spain, and determined to make one more powerful effort for the reestablishment of the old order of the European world. A hundred and fifty thousand worshippers of the Beast's Image were marched into the field of blood and fire, and began the campaign in the spring of 1809. The Tyrolese rose in rebellion; king Jerome Buonaparte was expelled by the Westphalians; Italy was wavering, and Prussia was only waiting a reverse in the fortunes of the Great Emperor once more to take up arms. The campaign of the fifth vial commenced on the 18th of April. On the 22nd, the French and Austrians met in long and obstinate conflict at Eckmuhl. The slaughter was great, and the darkness of night alone rescued the Austro-Beast's forces from ruin. After this, Napoleon advanced rapidly upon Vienna, the city of the Beast's Dragonic Mouth (ch. 13:11; 16:13), the Imperial Aulic Council - into which, on the 10th May, he once more entered as a conqueror. As Napoleon used to say, "the hand of God leads my armies . This was true; they were so led, until the mission marked out for him Apocalyptically was accomplished. On the 5th of July, the Austrians stationed at WAGRAM, were surprised and disconcerted by the appearance of the whole French army in order of battle. Next day at sunrise, the contest began, and continued till night. The result of the re-newal of the battle was the dispersion and almost ruin of the Austrian armies, and the reduction of the Pope's Protector to a forlorn and hopeless condition. Austria sued for peace, which was granted, and signed at the palace of Schoenbrunn, the headquarters of Napoleon.

This notable opening of the campaign of the fifth vial by the conquest of the fifth coalition, was the military occasion of the issuing of his decrees from Schoenbrunn and Vienna for the humbling and spoliation of the Romish Mother and her Pope; which he had been threatening to do from the time of his triumphant entry into Berlin, in November, 1806. At this crisis he had an interview with the Papal Nuncio at Dresden in the Cabinet of Frederick the Great; and alluding to the refusal of Pius VII to exclude the English from the Papal States, and to declare war against them, in spite of flattery, coaxing, intimidation, and the most fearful threats, he said, as related in M.D'Hausonville's work, L'Eglise Romaine et le Premier Empire:

"The Pope is a holy man, who is made to believe all that they (Napoleon's enemies) think fit to tell him. They have presented to him my demands under a false light, just as Cardinal Gonsalvi did; and thus the good Pope gets angry, and says he will let himself be killed rather than yield. Who wants to kill him? good Heavens! But if he does not do as I would have him, most assuredly I shall take from him the temporal domain of Rome, but I shall always respect him as Head of the Church. There is no necessity for the Pope to be the Sovereign of Rome. The holiest Popes were not so. I shall make him an excellent allowance -3,OOO,OOOf. a year - that he may suitably represent his office. I shall place at Rome a King or a senator, and I shall cut up his states into so many duchies. What I want is that the Pope shall accede to the Confederation, and that he shall be the friend of my friend and the enemy of my enemies. I am the protector of the Church, and the Pope must be with me if he wishes to remain a sovereign; and certainly he may continue to be so if he acts as I wish him, because I have never intended, as he has been told, to take away from him the sovereignty of Rome. To come to the point, I have sent for you to tell you to quit Dresden in three days, and to signify peremptorily to the Pope that he must enter into the Confederation".

The Bishop replied:

"Your Majesty will permit me to repeat what I have already said, that the Pope being the common Father of the Faithful, cannot separate from some to attach himself to others; and that his ministry being a ministry of peace, he cannot make war on anybody, nor declare himself the enemy of anyone whatever without failing in his duties and compromising his sacred character".

The Emperor said:

"But I do not want him to make war on any one. I want him to shut his ports against the English, and to exclude them from his States, and that, as he is not able to defend his ports and his fortresses, he shall give them to me to defend. People have lost their heads at Rome. There are no longer any great men there, as in the time of Leo X. Ganganelli would not have acted so. How can the Pope imagine that I will consent to have between my Kingdom of Italy and that of Naples ports and fort- resses which, in time of war, may be occupied by the English, and may endanger the security of my States and my people? I want to be secure in my own house, for the whole of Italy belongs to me by right of conquest. The Pope has not crowned me as King, but as Emperor of France, and I succeed, not to the rights of Kings, but to those of Charlemagne. If I allow Sovereigns to be in Italy, it is not that they should favour my enemies and give me cause of disquiet. I want you to tell all that to the Pope, and explain to him his real interests. I had better intentions with regard to the Pope. I should have carried them out, and may yet do so; but he prefers being miserable and obstinate. If you are fortunate enough to persuade him, you do him a great service. I warn you, however, that all must be settled by the 1st of January, (it was then the 12th of November). Either the Pope will consent, and in that case will lose nothing, or he will refuse, and in this case I shall take his States from him. Excommunications are no longer in fashion, and my soldiers will not refuse to march whithersoever I bid them. Remember Charles V., who kept the Pope prisoner, and had prayers said for him at Madrid. I will do the same if I am driven to it. The Pope should not forget that I have raised up the altars in France; that I have restored religion; that I protect it in Germany, and that I shall continue to do so. Almost the whole of Catholicity is under my sceptre. The hand of God leads my armies, and this apparently is what displeases the Pope. He wants to cross me in every way. In Italy, in France, I have done much for the bishops and the priests. Everybody is content; but Rome is angry. It is not the Pope's fault; it is Antonelli's, and that other Cardinal he brought with him to Paris-how do you call him? Oh, aye! -Di Pietro. Di Pietrois an obstinate theologian who has no political views. The Pope complains of his poverty, and that he has not wherewith to go on. It is his own fault. I have paid (and more than I ought) the expenses of the first passage of my troops. I would have paid the second, the third - all the rest; but he wants to quarrel. Well, then, let them do so. I shall pay nothing more. Let the Pope only do as I would have him, and he shall be paid for the past and for the future".

Yes, Rome was angry, and the Pope persisted in his refusal. It is true, that excommunication’s were out of fashion; but angry and imbecile Rome, upon whom all experience is lost, still had faith in folly. Pius VII. hurled his mimic thunder against the emperor on June 10, 1809: but the Papal Jupiter had lost all his thunderbolts, so that the only party injured was his lying and blaspheming self. It was received with ridicule, and an order for his arrest. He was carried off prisoner to Savona, where he was detained nearly two years. While there he conceded the main point required by Napoleon, as stated in a Brief, bearing date Aug. 5, 1811, the preliminary condition of which was his separation for ever from Rome. On the approach of a British fleet, he was removed from Savona, Jan. 1812, to Fontainbleau. The Archiepiscopal palace of Paris had been repaired for his reception; for it was Napoleon's policy and intention to fix him and the Papal See in that abode: so that he could have "the False Prophet" (ch. 16:13; 19:20) then no longer the Image of the Beast, under his own eye and restraint in the New Capital of Catholicity. But, the sudden and wonderful overthrow of Napoleon's power prevented the establishment of his purpose. In 1814, "Catholicity having deserted him," says De Pradt, "four heretical kings (Russia, Prussia, England, and Sweden) bore the Pope back to Rome".

Thus as the result of the terrible plagues of these vials the kingdom of the Beast was darkened, but not destroyed. The power of Napoleon, the Scorcher of the Beast, began to wane after he had executed the divine purpose of blotting out his Roman throne. He had divorced Josephine, and allied himself to the sanguinary and heaven-cursed pope-protecting house of Austria, by marriage with Maria Louisa, in March, 1810; and now, in 1812, with the Anglo-Spanish war upon his hands, he proceeded to precipitate the armies of Europe upon the Magogian empire of Rosh, Meshech and Tobl. In alliance with Prussia and Austria, which engaged to assist him with very considerable forces, he began the fatal invasion of Gog's dominion with a mighty host of six hundred thousand men. On the 17th of August, after a furious contest at Smolensko, the Russians retired from the city, which they left to the French burning and in ruins On the 7th of September the two armies, the Russian of two hundred and twenty thousand, and the French of a hundred thousand, met at Borodino. Seventy thousand Russians, and forty thousand French, killed and wounded, lay upon the field. Moscow, the capital of Meschecb, was evacuated by order of its governor, Rostopchin; and two hundred thousand human beings, of both sexes, and of every age, became wanderers, preparatory to its conflagration. Napoleon arrived at the Kremlin, and was now at the zenith of his fortune. Fire burst forth in every direction. In speaking of it, he said, "this terrible conflagration ruined every thing. I was prepared for all but this: it was unforeseen; for who would have thought that a nation would have set its capital on fire? It was a spectacle of a sea and billows of fire, a sky and clouds of flame; mountains of red rolling flames, like immense waves of the sea, alternately bursting forth, and elevating themselves to skies of fire, and then sinking into the ocean of flame below. Oh, it was the most grand, the most sublime, and most terrific sight the world ever beheld!"

His retreat from Moscow was most disastrous. The wrath of the fourth and fifth vials descended upon the hosts drawn from the nations worshipping the Beast's Image with terrible effect. They perished by thousands from cold, famine, pestilence, and war; so that, according to Segur, only a sixth part recrossed the Russian frontier. He had lost an army, the most formidable, perhaps, that any nation had ever brought into the field. The wars of modern Europe had furnished no instance of so extensive and complete a destruction; nor ever will again until Gog himself shall fall upon the mountains of Israel under the outpouring of the wrath of the sixth vial: nor does history record any event like it since Xerxes' invasion of Greece, B.C. 481.

This terrible destruction of the hosts led by Napoleon, was followed by the invasion of France by the British, who had expelled his armies from Portugal and Spain: and by the Russians, Prussians, and Swedes forming a sixth coalition for the restoration of the ancient order of things. The die was now cast; and the tide of events was turned The priests, the men having "the Sign of the Beast in their right hand" (ch 13:16) secretly conspired against him since his rupture with the Blasphemer of the Seven Hills: and the humiliated dynasties aspired to restore themselves. Negotiation had been tried, but failed; so that nothing but the outpouring of more wrath could determine the result. Deprived of the support of the people, who, in 1814, were mere spectators of the last act of the drama, Napoleon stood alone against the world with a handful of veteran soldier, aided by his genius, which had lost nothing of its audacity and vigor. He had to contend with the grand allied army of three hundred and eighty thousand men, marching from the north and east under Schwartzenberg by way of Switzerland Blucher by way of Frankfort; and Bernadotte, by way of Belgium all aiming to concentrate upon Paris. Napoleon dexterously placed himself between Blucher and Schwartzenberg; he flew from one army to another and beat them both in Succession. His combinations were so powerful, his activity so great, and his manoeuvres so certain, that he appeared on the point of entirely disorganizing these formidable armies, and by the annihilation of them to put an end to the coalition.

But if he conquered wherever he was present himself, the enemy gained ground wherever he was absent. He was badly and treacherously supported by his generals. At length Paris, the only capital of the Continent which had not be en invaded during the awful outpouring of these terrible vials, now beheld the hosts of all Europe entering upon its plains, and on the point of undergoing the common humiliation It capitulated in the absence of Napoleon, March 31st, 1814, just 1260 years after the settlement of Italy by Justinian's Pragmatic Sanction A.D. 554. Eleven days after, perceiving that further resistance was' fruitless, he surrendered, and he renounced for himself and his children the thrones of France and Italy; and on the 20th of April, withdrew from the Continent to his little principality of Elba.

But, the worshippers of the Beast's Image, assembled in congress at Vienna, soon found, that between this minister of heaven's wrath upon blasphemers, and them, there could be neither truce nor peace. The astounding fact was communicated to them by Talleyrand, that the Exile of Elba had returned to France; that the Bourbon they had set up for king had fled; and that Napoleon was reinstated on the throne! They roared every one with the laughter of demons at the ; their merriment, however, did not last long - the event was too pregnant of mischief to be sported with. They threatened him with public vengeance as the enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world. All Europe now rang with preparations for war. Napoleon offered them peace, and to abide by the treaty of Paris; but his offers were disregarded; the Seven Spirits of the Deity had not energized him for peace; but to scorch the men of the Beast with fire: they had not yet had enough of this; therefore their hearts were hardened, and Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, in a seventh and last coalition, decided again to try the arbitrament of fire and sword.

The result of this appeal was the victory of Waterloo, June18, 1815. The loss on both sides was immense; and all concerned "were scorched with great heat". It was the last battle of him to whom "it was given to scorch the men" obnoxious to Divine wrath for their blasphemies and evil deeds, "with fire". Perceiving that he was no longer the object of public confidence, he declared his conviction that his political life was terminated, and again abdicated the imperial crown on the 22nd of June. Having issued a farewell addressed to the army, he left Paris on the 29th for Rochefort, intending to embark for the United States; but being unable to elude the vigilance of the English cruisers, and apprehensive of falling into the hands of the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, whom he had so dreadfully "scorched", he surrendered to the British on the 15th of July, and claimed their protection. The island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic was assigned to him as his future residence by the Allied Powers. This was the sinking of "the sun of France" into the darkness of the shadow of death. His energetic protest against it was unheeded. He arrived there in safety in the fall of 1815; and, after a rest, from his thundering and scathing labors, of over five years, he expired on the 5th of May, 1821.

And the same hour there was a great earthquake" (ch. 11:13). This "same hour" is characterized as that in which the Two Tormenting Prophets, having risen from three lunar days and a half of years of political death, ascended to the possession of terrific power in the government, or heaven, in the sight of their enemies. The three days and a half, and the 1260 days of their sackcloth prophesying, styled inch. 11:6, hen hemerais auton tes propheteias in their days of the prophecy, both ended together. The common terminus of these two periods was A.D. 1789-'90; and signalized the commencement of the "same hour," or twelfth part of "a time," equal to thirty years. These ended with the beginning of the outpouring of the sixth vial, and the death of the "Man of Destiny," who had figured so gigantically in the ministration of the wrath of the third, fourth and fifth vials. As the Hour began with the ending of one prophetic period, so it ended with the termination of another-the 1290 days of Dan. 12:11. It was an hour of judgment upon the Beast, to "slay it, and to give its body" politic to "the burning flame;" but not the hour. Between "a" or "an," and "the", there is all the difference existing between type and antitype, shadow and substance. Napoleon, "the most gigantic being of modern times," was a man of destiny, but not the Man of Destiny; who is indeed yet to appear, and before whose almightiness the gigantic proportions of Napoleon's glory and renown will shrink into the dwarfish insignificance of a babe. Still, as compared with other mortals, "this extraordinary man, whose name for twice seven years had filled the world with wonder and amazement," was a giant of immense proportions, contending for universal monarchy, which, for a moment, in the Beast's territory, he may be said to have realized. He was the man of the hour, whose tormenting pains and ulcers caused their victims to "gnaw their tongues," as the earnest, or installment, of that more terrible torment that awaits them in "the Hour of Judgment," in the presence of the Lamb (ch. 14:10,11).

The Hour of Judgment, in which "the Man of War" celebrated by Moses in his song, develops himself as the Man of Destiny, is characterized in its incipiency, by the preparation of a people to whom judgment may be given. This preparation, which is antitypical of that in 1789-'90, and at the termination also of a symbolic period of 1260 days, consists in a resurrection and ascension process. This resurrection and ascension are greater than the resurrection and ascension of the two tormenting prophets; for the antitype and substance are always grander and more intrinsically important than type and shadow. The earth is to be made to cast out, or bring forth, literally, the feeble; but poetically, the dead - aretz rephaim tapil (Isa. 26:19). These feeble ones all appear before the bema, or tribunal of justice; not before the thronos, throne or seat of dominion: and there, having been previously made capable of so doing, by the impressment of their identity, they every one give account of themselves to Christ, "the Judge of the living and dead". The approved among them being accepted as "holy, and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight," are arrayed in the symbolical "fine linen pure and bright" - that is, what Paul terms in Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:54 and 2 Cor. 5:4, to thneton, "the mortal" is quickened in the twinkling of an eye; and in this momentary operation, raised from corruption to incorruption; from dishonor to glory; from weakness or feebleness to power; from earthiness to spirituality: so that, being clothed upon with the house from heaven, "THE MORTAL" is "swallowed up of the life" - hina katapothe to thneton hupo tes zoes. The life-power which descends upon it, permeates it in all its substance; so that "the corruptible" becomes incorruptible, and "the mortal" becomes immortal; and the raising of the "building from the Deity, the house not made with hands," is complete.

The people thus prepared, the Firstfruits redeemed from among men for the Deity and the Lamb, in whose mouth was found no guile, stand faultless before the throne of dominion, and become sharers in it. They ascend to power, and in the prophetic vision are seen standing upon Mount Zion with the Father's Name impressed upon their foreheads (ch. 14:1-5). As for the rest of the feeble earthborns, they are deemed unworthy to be raised to "glory, honor, incorruptibility, and life". Their record is unclean. They are convicted liars, hypocrites, deceivers, and seducers, who have "held the truth in unrighteousness;" and walked faithlessly in the prejudices and conceits of their corrupt nature. Having thus, and in many other ways, proved themselves enemies of the cross of Christ, and sowers to their flesh, they are sentenced to reap according to their sowing. They are repudiated by the Man of Destiny, who indignantly expels them from his presence as unworthy to share with him in the throne of his glory.

Having thus separated the wheat from the chaff, and gathered the former into his barn, he confers upon his accepted brethren the honor of co-operating with him in the execution of "the judgment written;" and of accompanying him whithersoever he goes in the work, not merely of casting a dark shadow over the kingdom and throne of the Beast, as under the fifth vial; but of effectually and finally slaying the Beast, and destroying his body, and giving it to the burning flame (Dan. 7:11). Napoleon's work in his hour, assisted by his talented generals, was the type, or shadow cast before, of the work yet to be performed by Christ, the Man of War, and his brethren in arms, upon the same Beast, under the Seventh Vial, and in the terrible hour of his judgments. Napoleon and his marshals at the head of the French, was the shadowy representation in real life of the scene exhibited in ch. 19 of this prophecy, where Christ, the Faithful and True Warrior, is seen with his Brethren at the head of the Jewish white horse (Zech. 10:3), making righteous judicial war upon the same enemies, the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, that Napoleon scorched so effectively. And further, when his work was consummated, where among the Powers was the Papacy? It was nowhere. For about six years, the Papacy had no place in the Napoleonic Empire; neither in the antitypical dominion of Jesus and his Brethren will such a curse and blasphemy be tolerated. Napoleon effected a temporary abolition of it, and deprived Rome of its sovereignty for a while; but Christ Jesus, the king-breaker and king-maker of the fu-ture judicial hour, will abolish it forever, and sink Rome in the un-fathomable abyss of fire, to be "found no more at all".

Seven thunders, styled "Coalitions," were organized against the French by the Powers of the world. These, however, were not the Seven Thunders whose utterances John was commanded not to write. The former were only the shadows of the future coalitions that will be formed against the King of the Jews, for the like purpose for which they were formed against the Emperor of the French, as being "the enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, and hostile to its civil and social relations". Napoleon and Jesus Christ are both chargeable with this hostility. The tranquillity of the Beast and his Image, and the perpetuity of their dynastic, civil, and social, institutions and relations, are doubtless highly desirable to all who profit by them. But, it is contrary to the Divine purpose that the wicked be at peace. The Deity hath decreed that there is no peace for them. It is only to the righteous that abundance of peace is promised. He therefore raised up Napoleon, and strengthened him by His power; and hath raised and exalted Jesus, and made him strong; and will send him again into the world under the sixth vial, to take peace far away from the worshippers of the Beast's Image; and to destroy them and their institutions, by "the energy whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself". Coalition after coalition will, doubtless, be formed against him; but, they will only serve, as under the third, fourth and fifth, vials, to bring their hosts up to the field of slaughter; that they may be "tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb".

I cannot suppose, that these resemblances between Napoleon's Hour, and Christ's Hour, of judgment, can be accidental. I am persuaded rather, that they are designed, and that the one series is pre-figurative of the other. Cyrus, in his conquest of Babylon, restoration of Judah, and laying the foundation of the temple, was a type of Christ in future and similar undertakings: Constantine "the Great" in the conquest of the "great red dragon," whom he ejected from the heaven; and in his deliverance of the church from his sanguinary power, was also a type of Christ in his yet future work of slaying the Scarlet-colored Beast, delivering his downtrodden people, binding the Dragon, and shutting him in the abyss: and I am satisfied, that Napoleon "the Great" should be associated with them in their typical relation to him. The parallel between Napoleon and Christ is still further remarkable in this, that they both were plebeian and poor in their beginning; and commanded by their wonderful works the attention and admiration of man-kind. They were both friends of Israel, and enemies of their oppressors; Christ was born to be a king, and therefore a military commander, which Napoleon became by extraordinary ability and success. They both entered upon their career in youth, to the confusion of the wise and prudent. Christ is the Mediator of the Commonwealth of Israel; Napoleon was the legally constituted Mediator of the Helvetic Common-wealth. Napoleon was king of Italy, emperor of Europe, and "Protector of the Church;" Christ is King of Israel, the destined Emperor of the world, and Protector of the Faithful in all future time. Napoleon abolished the ancient dynasties, gave their thrones to his brothers and relations, and darkened the kingdom and throne of the Beast; Christ will abolish all dynasties, will give their thrones to his Brethren, and de-stroy finally the same kingdom and throne: Napoleon suppressed the Papacy; Christ will destroy it, and leave not a wreck behind. In fine, I know not how the reader may view these things, but for myself, I see in the transformation of Europe under the first, third, fourth, and fifth vials; and in the military development, constitution, and triumph of the Napoleonic empire, a shadowy representation in real life of the approaching transformation of the world; and of the military development, dynastic constitution, and victorious establishment of the kingdom and empire of Christ and his Brethren, by the concluding judgments of the sixth, and all the plagues of the seventh, vials. There is an universal monarchy in these vials, whose judgments are not only destructive, but formative; and whose sovereignty will command and compel the obedience of all peoples, nations, languages, and rulers, to earth's utmost bounds (Dan. 7:14,27; Psa. 2:8,9). "Hitherto is the end of the matter:" and a glorious consummation it will be.

"And they gnawed their tongues for the pain; and blasphemed the Name of the Deity, who hath power over these plagues, and they repented not to give glory to him, And they blasphemed the Deity of the heaven because of their pains, and because of their ulcers; and they repented not of their works" - Verses 8,11.

The intense sufferings of the Beast's Image-worshippers under the outpouring of the wrath of the fourth and fifth vials, is forcibly expressed by the saying, "they gnawed their tongues for the pain". Illustrative of their great misery, Sir Walter Scott's account is appropriate. "The French army," says he, "was poured into some foreign country by forced marches; without any previous arrangement of stores or magazines for their maintenance; and with the purpose of maintaining them solely at the expense of the inhabitants. This species of war was carried on at the least possible expense to his (Napoleon's) treasury; but at the greatest possible expenditure of human life, and the incalculable increase of human misery". "The officers gave the soldiers authority to secure supplies by what way; called la maraude, or plunder. When marching through a thinly peopled country, or when the natives and peasants offered resistance, then the soldiers became irritated at the danger they sometimes incurred in collecting provisions. Relentless and reckless, besides indulging in every species of violence, they increased their own distresses by destroying what they could not use. Famine and sickness were not long in visiting an army which traversed by forced marches a country exhausted of provisions. These stern attendants followed the French columns as they straggled on. Without hospitals and without magazines, every straggler who could not regain his ranks fell a victim to hunger, to weather, to weariness, or the vengeance of an incensed peasantry. In this manner the French army suffered woes, which till these tremendous wars had never been the lot of troops in hostilities carried on between civilized nations".

As a specimen of the sufferings of non-combatant inhabitants of the Beast's territory on the actual scene of hostilities, the following extracts, borrowed by certain writers from official Reports, published by a committee in London, descriptive of the calamities consequent upon the campaign of Leipsic in 1813, may suffice. In a letter from the city of Leipsic, dated Nov. 1813, and addressed to the British Nation, the writers say:

"We have before our eyes many thousands of the adjacent villages and hamlets landed proprietors, farmers, ecclesiastics, schoolmasters, and artisans of every description - who were some weeks since in circumstances more or less easy, but now without a home, stripped of their all, and with their families perishing of hunger. All around is one wide waste. The numerous villages and hamlets are almost all entirely or partially reduced to ashes".

Again; - "The destruction and distress which marked the countries through which the French army fled from the bloody fields of Leipsic were altogether indescribable. Dead bodies covered the roads. Half consumed French soldiers were found in the ruins of the villages destroyed by the flames. Whole districts were depopulated by disease. For a month after the retreat no human being, no domestic animal, no poultry, nay, not even a sparrow was to be met with: only ravens in abundance were to be seen, feeding on corpses".

And again: - "On the borders of Silesia seventy villages have been almost entirely destroyed". "In Upper Lusatia the whole tract between Bautzen and Galitz, which has been repeatedly traversed by the marches and counter-marches of the armies, is reduced to a desert".

"At Hamburg 50,000 inhabitants, or perhaps, even 70,000, have left, and in part been driven from their homes; destitute of all means, and literally starving for want of the common necessaries of life. From the hospitals and infirmaries old and weak persons were driven in herds out of the Altona gate. Some having been long unaccustomed to the air, and exposed half naked to a cold of 190F, turned mad".

Such were the "pains" and "ulcers" which tormented the inhabitants of all the countries of Papal and Protestant Europe, as they became in turn the scene of warfare. They were certainly terrific, and calculated to make the subjects of them "gnaw their tongues for the pain;" and, contemplated from a humanitarian standpoint, greatly to be deplored. But when it is remembered, that they were worshippers of an imaginary ghost of a dead woman, they called "the Virgin Mary, and Holy Mother of God;" were Protestant Blasphemers of the Deity's Name; and the representatives of those who hunted from their homes their "heretical" friends and neighbors whom they burned to death, or drove from the haunts of men, to perish in the woods by hundreds, yea, by thousands, of hunger, nakedness, and cold - when we remember this, we can but say, that they were rightly served; and respond with the voice from the Altar, "Even so, 0 Lord the almighty Deity, true and righteous are thy judgments!"

'It was the kingdom of the Beast which was darkened" - egeneto he basileia autou eskotomene. Darkened, but not destroyed; for it still exists, and awaits the manifestation of the Ancient of Days to destroy it with "the brightness of his presence" (2Thess. 2:8). The darkness which had overshadowed the Beast's kingdom was dispelled by the events of 1814. The treaty of Paris, which deprived Napoleon of the throne; and that of Vienna of 1815, which reconstituted Europe - afforded "the Holy Alliance" and its sympathizers, an opportunity of showing whether they had learned wisdom and true holiness, by the scorching experience they had passed through. But they soon showed that they had learned nothing in that direction. Wise powers would have argued from the past, that "the Deity of the heaven, who had power over these plagues", must be highly incensed, incensed in the ratio of the severity of the plagues, against Greeks, Latins, and Protestants, represented in the Holy Alliance, by Russia, Austria, and Prussia; and that it behooved them to reform from that system of error so signally condemned by the plagues they had been subjected to' But their legislation evinced that they were as great fools as ever, and as much devoted to the lies and unprofitable vanities of their ancestors, as they were before the calamities and disasters of the past twenty-five years were inaugurated by the resurrection and ascension of the two tormenting prophets, whose scorching representative they had recently dethroned.

"They blasphemed the Name of the Deity of the heaven". They gave expression to their blasphemy in their deeds. They committed the most blasphemous act against his Name in their power, in re-establishing upon the Seven Heads, or Mountains, "the Name of Blasphemy." They delivered the Pope from captivity; and restored to him his pontifical throne and kingdom, which had cost so much human blood and misery to darken. He had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing of his blasphemy. In his proclamation from Cezena, May 5, 1814, a little before reentering Rome, he characterized himself and his office by the papal title of "the Vicar of the Deity upon earth". The acts following this re-assertion of the old impiety were in blasphemous harmony with it. A few days after the proclamation, he crowned at Ancona, with all the sanctimoniousness of superstition, a "miraculous image of the Virgin," the duplicate of that at Rome, as the guardian and saviour of Ancona; and de-creed its festival, and connected a plenary indulgence with its worship. The Name of the Deity for salvation was superseded as of old, by the merits of the saints of the Romish calendar, and of the phantasm, styled by the worshippers of the image, "the Blessed Mary always a Virgin". Bible Societies were special objects of papal wrath. They were declared to be tares in the midst of wheat, and wolves in the guise of lambs; while the scriptures themselves circulated by them, unaccompanied by Romish explanations, were denounced by Leo XII in 1824, as poisonous pastures, and the gospel rather of the devil than of the Deity. And in 1825, he published a Bull of Jubilee, promising to exhibit Christ's cradle, as an attraction to the pilgrimage; and with authoritative instructions to the pilgrims to call upon the Virgin Mary, as the great advocate for sinners, on that day of grace and mercy.

"And they repented not of their works" - hou metanoesan, they changed not their old mode of thinking, feeling, and acting in regard to the worship and institutions of the Beast's Image. The judgments of the Deity are intended to alienate men from their iniquities, and to incline them to better things; and when they come to be executed by the saints, the world will learn righteousness (Isa. 26:9): in the absence, however, of such righteous executors of wrath, there is no hope of the world's re-pentance, but it will go on to transgress more and more, till the cup of its iniquity overflows.

We have seen in the ninth chapter of this work, that the first and second woes, executed by the Saracens and Euphrateans upon the Greek division of the Apostasy, though they were of intense severity, worked no repentance in the Latins. They beheld anism enthroned in the City of the Great Constantine; and the Trinitarian Superstition he had vindicated by the sword in conflict with the Dragon, tram-pled in the dust by the Moslem; yet in all this, they did not perceive the Deity's repudiation of Catholicism; or, if they did, they would not be instructed and corrected by it. Thus, "the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues," the Latin Catholics of the West, "repented not of the works of their hands" (ch. 9:20,21).

From the killing of the Eastern Third by the capture of Constantinople, to the resettlement of Europe by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, three hundred and sixty-two years had elapsed; and notwithstanding the terrible plagues of the past twenty-five years, the Latins, both Romish and Protestant, showed themselves to be as unrepentant of their "works" as ever. These works and deeds are recited in ch. 9:20,21; such as idols or images of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which their hands had made, as representatives of the demons, ta daimonia, the "disembodied spirits," they worshipped as guardians, intercessors, ministers of grace, and mediators between Christ and men. The deeds of "the men who had the sign of the beast in their right hand, and in their foreheads," and who served as priests of these idols, vulgarly styled "the clergy", and of which they repented not, were murders, sorceries, fornication, thefts. And the people were like their priests. They continued to uphold and sanction all these abominations with the blindest veneration and devotion, till the exhausted patience of the Deity gave place, in 1796, to the terrible outpouring of the third vial, at the hand of his servant Napoleon, who, as "his servant Nebuchadnezzar" on a former occasion, gave the worshippers of images "blood to drink", and "scorched them with great heat". But, the events of the third, fourth and fifth vials have not brought the idolators to repentance; so as to cast their idols which they have made to worship, to the moles and to the bats (Isa. 2:20); and to abandon their murders, and their sorceries, and their fornication, and their thefts. We have seen how that the restored Pontiff evinced his incurable stupidity and idolatry in "solemnly crowning" a Madonna at Ancona, for incorrigible fools to worship. Demons and their images again became the fashionable objects of adoration. They repented not from these; but, in the words of Ranke, "the restored governments of Southern Europe repented of their former insubordination to Rome. They thought they had thus unchained the tempest by which themselves had been overthrown; and beheld in the Pope their natural ally." Thus, they failed to see the truth; that, instead of this, it was their fellowship with Rome in its villanies, superstitions, and blasphemies, that brought upon them all the evil by which they had been so dreadfully scorched. In France, the infatuated and demented Bourbons, after their restoration, dedicated their kingdom most especially to the disembodied nonentity, or demon, they call the Virgin Mary, as its patroness; they introduced those thieves and murderers, the Jesuits, whose society Pope Clement XIV declared to be a public nuisance; and in his Bull dissolving it, says, that "he who endeavored to let it loose upon society would be chargeable with high treason against the common interests and happiness of his species". Of this treason the Bourbons were guilty; and by their oppression of antipapalists, showed that the murderous spirit of their ancestor Charles IX, of St. Bartholomew renown, was not yet extinct in them. But, the seed of evil doers is doomed to confusion and contempt. The indignation of the Deity descended upon their incorrigible dynasty, in 1830, and in 1848. The revolution of the former year abolished the elder branch; and the more remarkable one of the latter date, the younger branch of the Capets; to make room for the developments of the Second Napoleonic Empire, whose mission is, not like Napoleon "the Great's", to darken the kingdom of the Beast and his Image, but to create by its policy such a situation as is prefigured in ch. 16:13,14, preparatory to the thief--like coming of the great Napoleon's antitype, YAHWEH TZ'VAOTH, who will resume his work, and refuse peace to the world until the Beast is slain, and his body destroyed; and, with his False Prophet whom he upholds, is given to the burning flame, never more to insult the habitable with their accursed presence.

In Spain, also, "they repented not of their works". Ferdinand, when restored to the throne, re-established both the Jesuits, and the popish "Hell", styled the Inquisition; and "heretics" were again murdered at the burning stake. The subsequent civil wars, and continually recurring insurrections there, sufficiently indicate the indignation of heaven; and, as an earnest of what is to come, is measurably retributive of the blood of the innocent shed by the "reverend" assassins and thieves of Rome. In Sardinia the King, to whose tender mercies the Waldenses were made over by the treaty of Vienna, for no other reason than because they were Antipapists, revoked their privileges, and multiplied vexations and oppressions upon them. In after years, the king of Sardinia was defeated at Novara, and died an exile in a foreign land; and his son, Victor Emmanuel, now reigns king of Italy, a confederate of the Revolution, and a terror to the Pope.

In Austria, so terribly "scorched with fire, " they repented not. By concordat with Rome, they assumed their former relationship to the 'Name of Blasphemy" on the Seven Hills. The Austrian kingdom of Lombardo-Venetia, being adjacent to the Pope's temporal kingdom, the Austrian Government became the pillar and support of the papal throne - an alliance always fatal, and full of misfortune, to the power so connected. In Austria, the Jesuits became as active as ever in propagating popery, with all its lies and blasphemies. Thus, when the Jesuit Sor-cerers in Hungary made any proselytes from Protestantism, they made them say that "the Pope cannot err; and that he has full power to forgive or retain sins, and to cast men into hell; that all he that he has established, whether out of the Bible or not, is true; that he ought to be honored with similar reverence to that paid to Christ himself; that those who oppose his authority ought to be burned at the stake, and to perish body and soul in hell; that the reading of the scriptures is the origin of all factions and blasphemy; that each priest is greater than the Virgin Mary because she was the parent of Christ but once, but the priest creates him anew again and again". Such was the "sorcery" sanctioned by Austria in 1828. Her misfortunes had failed to make her rational and the fruit of her folly and idiocy has been reaped in the wrath that has revisited her, and the False Prophet, her ally, upon the Seven Hills, under the judgments concomitant with the outpouring of the Sixth Vial, by which she has been dried up, and her protectorate of the Pope virtually dissolved.

Lastly, in Naples and Tuscany, in short everywhere throughout Roman Antichristendom, the "lying miracles" which had ceased during French ascendancy, were renewed. Such is the testimony of the author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century". He remarks that "not one miracle happened during the whole reign of the French. It was not until the streets were purified with lustrations of holy water, on the return of the Pontiff, that they began to operate again". When he reappeared in the city, miracles revived. "Within this little month" (April, 1817), says he, "three great miracles have happened in Rome. The last took place yesterday (April 20); when all Rome crowded to the Capitol to see an image of the Virgin open her eyes". And where is Naples now whose guardian daemon is a nonentity they style "St. Januarius?" And where is Tuscany and its kindred duchies? All swallowed up in the revolutionary kingdom of Italy; and their former demented rulers refugient exiles in foreign lands. Yet have they not eyes to see, that the Hand that smites them is Divine. .

12. "And the Sixth Angel poured out his Vial upon the Great River Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up that the way of the Kings who are out of a Sun's risings might be prepared.

13. "And I saw out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and out of the Mouth of the Beast, and out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, three Unclean Spirits like to Frogs (for they are Spirits of Demons working wonders) go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty.

15. "BEHOLD I COME AS A THIEF. Blessed he who is watching, and keeping his garments that he may not walk naked, and they see his shame.

16. "And he gathered them together into a place called Hebraistically ARMAGEDDON".

Such is the prophecy of the Sixth Vial. The reader will perceive that it divides itself into four sections. First, into the prophecy concerning "the Great River Euphrates;" second, into that concerning the Frogs; third, concerning the Advent and those specially related to it; and fourth, respecting the place into which the Powers that be are gathered for the conflict. This being the order in which its parts are presented in the text, I shall proceed in the exposition, to expound it, in what may be termed, its natural order, and distinguishing its divisions by separate "Parts".

PART I

1. The Outpouring of Wrath Upon Euphrates

"And the Sixth Angel poured out his Vial upon the Great River Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up that the way of the Kings, who are out of a Sun's risings, might be prepared".

In these words, "the Great River Euphrates" is indicated as the subject of the wrath. Wrath is not poured out upon rivers as such; but upon people in some way related to them. In the figurative prophecy before us, "the Euphrates" is a sign representative of some thing analogous to "the flood", or "the river", of the name, well known in the geography of the East. In the days of Isaiah, the Euphrates was the principal river of Assyria; and is therefore used by the prophet, in ch. 8:7, as a sign, or symbol, of the many and strong peoples of the Assyrian empire. Because the Ten Tribes of Israel rejoiced in Retzin and Remaliah's son, instead of rejoicing in Yahweh. He therefore threatened both Damascus and Samaria with an Euphratean invasion and inundation, predicted in these words - "Behold Yahweh bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks; and he shall pass through Judah: he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings (the wings of his armies) shall fill the breadth of thy land, 0 Immanuel"

We see, then, that in Scripture there are two Euphratean rivers analogically related to each other - the one, the natural; the other, the political Euphrates. The waters of the natural, are representative of the peoples of the empire to which the natural river belongs. This, in the rainy season, overflows its banks; which, by analogy, represents the armies of Assyria crossing the river for the invasion of adjacent countries.

When the Ninevite Dynasty was abolished, Assyria was annexed to Babylon. The Euphrates then became a river of Babylon. It flowed into and through this great city and province. For this reason, as Babylon is introduced into the Apocalypse as symbolical of the Fourth Beast, whose dominion migrated from Babylon to Rome and Constantinople, so the Euphrates is also introduced there; for a figurative Babylon without a figurative Euphrates, would be in violation of the analogy and fitness of things. Babylon of old was a city and empire, with the Euphrates flowing through the latter into the former; so, Apocalyptically, the Great City of Babylon is OLD ROME and its Ten Kingdoms, with its political Euphrates flowing up to the Danube, and confining upon Hungary, the Austrian empire, the Adriatic and Greece; with "NEW ROME", or Constantinople, also built on Seven Hills, for the centre of its population, the great majority of which, though Antipapal, is "Catholic". Thus, the political Euphrates flows right into the city; and, at the opening of this sixth vial, in addition to the populations inhabiting the countries through which the natural Euphrates meanders its way to the Persian Gulf, there were reckoned among its waters, the peoples of Egypt, Algiers, Asia Minor, Greece, Roumelia, Albania, Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and certain islands of the sea.

The Ottoman Power being "the Great River Euphrates" of the symbolical Babylon, we have a subject before us capable of receiving, and as its sanguinary and earth-destroying history proves, well deserving, the indignation and wrath of Deity. As the fourth of the Euphratean Angels (ch. 9:15) loosed against the Greek Catholic division of the Babylonian Apostasy, it has judicially and terrifically executed its mission. In performing the part allotted to it, it has repaid justice the debt incurred by the demon-worshipping and idolatrous Greek Catholics, who, when they reigned in Constantinople, were more wicked, and less tolerant of truly good men, than the Turks. The Osmanlis are not idolators. Their zeal was great against all such; hence their Contempt of Catholics, both Greek and Latin, and their greater tolerance of Protestants. Still, the Euphratean is only a Sin-Power, well and heavily laden with its own peculiar offenses. One of its greatest offenses consists in the treatment Yahweh's land, and people Israel, have experienced at its hand. As the modern representative of the Little-Horn-of-the-Goat power, it has "parted his land" "for gain" (Joel3 :2; Dan. 11:39); and ruling over Israel, has made them to howl; so that His name continually every day is blasphemed (Isa. 52:5). No man likes his property to be laid Waste, and his slaves to be abused. Of both these counts the Constantinopolitan Little Horn has been so intensely guilty in regard to Yahweh's inheritance, that it has acquired the Scriptural epithet of Shomaim, THE DESOLATOR (Dan. 9:27). It is true that appearances Would seem to justify the conclusion of some, that the Deity has ceased to take any interest in the land of Palestine, and in the natural Israel. But let such remember the Words of Christ, who says, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge true judgment". The appearance of things is not their real nature. It is the testimony of the prophets, that "Yahweh will be jealous for His land, and pity his people; . . . and will no more make them a reproach among the nations" (Joel 2:18,19). But they still are a reproach among the nations: it is therefore evident that the Divine jealousy for the land, and pity for the people in reproach are things pertaining to a future situation of the world's affairs. Hence, the political Euphrates standing in this antagonism to Deity, it is for this, and not because of its severity upon the Greeks, that the wasting wrath of the sixth vial is poured out upon it.

"And the waters thereof were dried up" - The effect of the Outpouring of the vial is to dry up "the water" of the political Euphrates. The Euphrates being a political channel, the water flowing therein must be political also. Waters Apocalyptically signify "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (ch. 17:15); but, in the text before us, it is not waters but "water", in the singular. The prophecy, then, doth not signify a drying up of population. The Euphrates represents a power of the Apocalyptic Babylon; and as the name is indicative of water flowing in a certain channel, "water must signify the power of the Euphratean empire, expressed, as governments ordinarily express it, by force and arms.

There is one other place, and one only, in the Apocalypse, where water is used in the singular; as, inch. 12:15, in the words, "the Serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the Woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood". In this place "water" signifies power incorporated in armies, Sent forth from government to sweep away, as by a flood, the objects of its displeasure. Hence, the water of the Great River Euphrates, in like manner, represents the military power of the Ottoman empire; which is dissipated by a process of evaporation, a drying up; a gradual exhaustion, so as at last to leave the channel of the river in the heart of the Great City, empty; and devoid of all power to impede, or interfere with operations developing in the south-eastern recesses of the empire.

"That the way of the Kings who are out of a Sun's rising, might be prepared". This is the exact rendering of hena hetoimasthe he hothos ton basileon ton apo anatolon heliou - which is the received text; and, though objected to by some commentators, who can see nothing in it but the natural sun-rising, is no doubt perfectly correct. The military and political power of the Ottoman empire was to be dried up by the wrath of the Sixth Vial, that the way for a certain class of kings might be cleared of all hindrances and impediments to their enterprize in its be-ginning.

The reader will note, that in this sixteenth chapter there are two suns introduced into the prophecy; and that both of them are symbolic, but of different things. The first is the Sun of Europe, upon which was poured out the wrath of the fourth vial: the other Sun, on the contrary, is not the subject of wrath; but one which rises above the world's horizon, some time during the period of the sixth vial. During the five preceding vials and much even of the sixth, He is below that horizon concealed from view, and we know, that before the sun rises it is dark- "darkness covers the earth" (Isa. 60:2) - and that it is while he is rising that the darkness is receding; and the objects upon the earth gradually become visible.

Further, it may be remarked, that the Sun of this twelfth verse, is the illustrious personage of the fifteenth, who says, "Behold, I come as a thief". No one, I believe, doubts, that the subject of this thief-like manifestation is THE ANCIENT OF DAYS - He whom the ETERNAL FATHER by his power, "made both Lord and Christ", when he transformed the risen, earthborn, body of Gethsemane, into a life-engendering Spirit. This being beyond dispute, we have next to consider certain testimonies concerning him.

In the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, we are informed, that at a time when darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, Yahweh shall arise upon Zion; that His glory shall be seen upon her; and that kings shall come to the brightness of her rising. Here, Yahweh is the Light arising who sheds forth brightness, which, among other objects previously enveloped in gross darkness, brings Zion into view. She is seen "rising" before it can be said she is risen. Her coming into view is progressive, as objects come into view in the dawn. Hence she is a rising ot this Rising Light, which shines her out of darkness, the gross darkness of Mohammedan, or other Gentile, down-treading, into his marvellous brightness, as by his rising it becomes developed.

"His glory shall be seen upon Zion". Whose glory? The glory of the Redeemer, who comes to Zion, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Isa. 59:20; Rom. 11:26). The glory which shall be seen there, is figuratively exhibited in Apoc. 14:1, as "the Lamb on Mount Zion with 144,000" Sons of his Father, whom He had "redeemed from the earth" - from among all peoples; and from the very dust thereof.

In the period of Zion's rising out of present darkness into future light and glory, she is manifested as the metropolis, or Mother City, of a rising world, styled in the English Version, "the world to come;" but in the original, he oikoumene he mellousa, the future inhabited (earth) or, habitable. This New Constitution of Things, which was the great burden of Paul's discourse, (Heb. 2:5) will comprise the "NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH" to be created by the Eternal Spirit, through Christ Jesus arid his Brethren, in the development of which, He will "create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy" (Isa. 65:17) - a New Government, and a New civil, ecclesiastical, and social Organization of the nations of the earth. Concerning this new government, or "Economy of the fullness of the times (Eph. 1:10), it is written in Psa. 19:1-6, "The heavens declare the glory of AlL (the Invisible Power), and the work of his hands the firmament shews. Day unto day will utter speech; and night unto night will shew knowledge. There is no language, nor any words, where their voice is not heard. Their line hath gone out in all the earth; and their words to the ends of the world. In them he hath set a tabernacle for the Sun; who as a Bridegroom coming out of his covering or place where he was hid from view), will rejoice as a mighty man to run a course. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuit unto the ends thereof; and there is nothing hidden from his heat".

This Sun is the great illuminator, who "enlightens the earth with his glory" (Apoc. 10:1; 18:1; 21:23); and who, in the days of his flesh, said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the Light (or Sun) of the world" - a Light which shone into the darkness, but was not comprehended by it (John 9:5; 1:5). It is this "Great Light;" once seen by them "who sat in the region and shadow of death", which is styled in Mal. 4:2, "THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS," who arises with genial influences upon all who fear the Name of Yahweh Elohim; but with intensely scorching effect also upon the wicked who serve him not.

But who are "the Kings out of a Sun's risings?" Some say, they are the Jews returning from the East; others, eastern potentates in general; others change kings to "king," and explain it of Christ, as "King from the East;" others expound it as kings coming from the East to take part, as actors and sufferers, in the slaughters of the great day of slaughter; and lastly, it is said, that the Kings from the East signify "Christian Preachers," or the Clergy commissioned from Christ the Sun of Righteousness, for whose missionary operations an opening is made by drying up' the power of Babylon for opposing the truth; and who are called kings, from their zeal in ruling both themselves and the church!

But none of these "orthodox" replies to the question throw any light upon the subject. Time and space are too precious to be occupied in stating objections to them, or in arguing against them. The shorter and more satisfactory course will be to ignore them altogether; and to present an answer that cannot be Scripturally gainsaid.

If we understand what "the risings of a sun" are, we shall perceive who are "the Kings" that proceed therefrom. The word anatole rendered "rising", is derived from the verb anatello, "to rise,to cause to rise, to spring up". All that springs up out of the earth is caused to rise by the power of the sun acting upon the seeds therein. Every thing therefore brought up from beneath, or from darkness, into view is "a rising of the sun". Hence, "as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so Adonai Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations" (Isa. 61:11). The earth brings forth, and the garden causes to spring forth, as the result of the sun's power so that the earthborn products of the garden, are the sun's risings. After this analogy, the Sun of Righteousness, who rises only once to set no more, causes righteousness to spring forth from the earth, in causing righteous men to spring forth from the grave; who, when "clothed upon with their house from heaven," will praise him before all the nations. The righteousness first pours down from heaven, then the earth opens, salvation is brought forth, and salvation and righteousness spring up together (Isa. 45:8): thus "truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven" (Psa. 85:11).

The Wings of the sun are his rays or beams. It is with these potent radiations that he causes things to spring forth from the earth. But, all he causes to spring forth are not good risings. Some are very noxious, poisonous weeds, which are not healed of their evil qualities by the brightness of his shining. Hence, his natural risings are some good and some bad, according to the seeds in embryo. Nor do the best and choicest of his risings spring forth in their perfection. They spring forth with bodies altogether unlike the bodies they will be, when clothed in the brilliance of their flowering glories. When they spring forth, these risings of the sun are only distinguishable from weeds by a well practised observer. As Paul indicates, they spring forth "not that body that shall be. . . but the Deity giveth a body that pleaseth him, and to every seed his own body".

So, after this analogy, are the risings of the Sun of Righteousness out of, or from which proceed "the Kings," whose way is prepared by the drying up of the political and military power of the Ottoman empire. The rays of his power shine forth with creating and formative energy. Men and women are created in the earth, and projected from it. At this stage of the wondrous operation, they have "not the bodies that shall be;" but "come forth" (John 6:29), With bodies corruptible, without honor, weak, soulish, and earthy; for, that which is, "out of the earth, is earthy," ek ges choikos. Each one is the Sun's rising, because the Sun of Righteousness is "the resurrection" (John 11:25); and so long as he is below the horizon, there can be no springing forth. But those people who have sprung forth into existence, "must all," both good and bad, "be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things through the body, according to what he hath done, whether good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10). That which makes manifest is light (Eph. 5:13). The light thrown upon the case of each individual is his account of himself to the Deity; "for we shall" not only "all stand before the judgment seat of Christ;" but "every one of us shall give account of himself to the Deity" (Rom. 14:10,12). This self-rendered account manifests the character of the reporter, and determines his case for better or worse. If he be approved by "the Judge of the living and the dead," he is recognized as "the blessed of his Father," and being quickened, is authorized to "inherit the kingdom prepared for" such as he; to sit with him in his throne; and to exercise power over the nations (Matt. 25:34; Apoc. 2:26; 3:21). Now, he that inherits a kingdom, sits upon a throne, and rules nations, is "a king;" and such a king, who was once dead, and sprung forth from the earth by the power of the Sun of Righteousness; and was selected from a crowd of people newly born of the earth, is "a king from, or out of, a Sun's risings".

But, though there is "healing in the wings of the Sun of Righteousness," all are not healed who spring forth from earth, by the potency of his formative and life-imparting beams. "Many," saith Daniel, "dust of the ground, shall awake from sleeping; some for living ones of the Olahm (the Millennium) and some for the objects of reproach and contempt of the Olahm" (ch. 12:2): an arrangement in the resurrection-state endorsed by Christ, who, in John 5:28, saith, "the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs (mnemeios 'retained in memory' there) shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth; they who have done the good things, for a resurrection of life; but they who have practised the evil, for a resurrection of condemnation." All these whose destinies are so diverse, are "risings of the Sun;" but, we see, that they do not all attain to the kingdom; for none can possess this, who, having come forth", are condemned. The condemnation leaves them corruptible, without honor, weak, soulish, and earthy; and such, Paul testifies, in 1 Cor. 15:50, "cannot inherit the kingdom of the Deity". They are repudiated by the Judge; and consigned to a common fate with the Beast and the False Prophet; who are subjected to the sword and burning flame by "the Kings" "chosen" "out of the risings of the Sun;" to prepare whose way, the wrath of the sixth vial is drying up the power of the Euphratean Ottoman Dynasty of the Goat's Little Horn.

"The Kings," then, are the sanctified ones, "the called and chosen and faithful," of whom Christ Jesus is the Imperial Chief, and therefore styled, "KING of kings" (Apoc. 17:14; 19:16; 1 Tim. 6:15). They are the same, who, at the outset of their arduous, glorious, and ultimately victorious, career, sing the new song in which, addressing the Great Captain of their redemption who leads them to glory (Heb. 2:10), they say, "thou hast made us for our Deity kings and priests; and we shall reign as kings (basileusomen) upon the earth" (Ch. 5:10). They begin their career under this sixth vial, and "turn not" from "the way," he hothos, (Ezek. 1:9,12,17) opened to them by the drying up of the Buphratean Power, until they have taken the Great City Babylon; and possessed themselves of all its thrones (Apoc. 20:4; 11:15; Dan. 7:9,18,27). The consummation of their "way" will be, that "the kingdoms of the world become our Lord's and his Christ's; and he shall reign king (basileusei) for the Aions of the Aions".

Whither the Spirit is to go they go, and they turn not when they go. These kings go their way, every one straight forward; for "their feet are straight feet," and consequently there is no deviousness in their way. "They accompany the Lamb whithersoever he goeth;" and his purpose is not crooked. His way is into the midst of the Great City, where, after the example of Cyrus, his prototype in the capture of Babylon, and the deliverance of the Jews, he hurls the Papal Belshatzar from his throne, and seizes upon his dominion for himself.

Cyrus, and the "sanctified ones," his Medes and Persians, were typical of Christ and his Kings in "the way prepared," through the drying up of "the Great River Euphrates" by the sixth vial. Cyrus was named by Deity, and mentioned by name, about one hundred and sixty years before the capture of Babylon. His name and office are both representative as well as his mission. The name given was Coresh, which some interpret by the word sun; on the ground that the Greek writers affirm that the name in Persian signified the sun. Gesenius says, they were correct. But, should we go to pagan Greeks and Persians to learn the meaning of a Hebrew name conferred upon a man whom the God of Israel intended to raise up to accomplish a work upon Babylon, which was to find its an-titype over 2400 years after? My answer is, no. Coresh in Hebrew does not signify the sun, which is there represented by shemesh. Coresh is a proper name compounded of caph, like, and yoraish, the participle of yarash, which signifies, to seize, to take possession of, to occupy, mostly by force. Hence, Yoraish comes to signify one who takes possession of his inheritance by conquest. This definition of Cyrus' Hebrew name accords with the facts of his history. The Deity had predetermined, that he should inherit the Babylonish Empire, which included the Holy Land; and that he should take possession of it by conquest. He therefore made Yoraish a part of his name; and, as he intended his career to be typical of His own Son's, Whom he hath constituted "the Heir of all things" terrestrial; and who is also to acquire possession of his inheritance by conquest; he added the letter caph, and condensing the three syllables into two, named him Coresh, or Koraish, signifying Like the Heir.

Now, let the reader note What occurred before Cyrus and Darius, with their "sanctified ones" (Isa. 13:3), the kings of the north, could take possession of Babylon. It was necessary, that "the Great River Euphrates," which flowed into and through the city, "should be dried up; that the way of Yahweh's Anointed Shepherd and his flock, might be prepared" (Isa. 44:25; 45:1). "A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up;" "I will dry up her great river eth-yammah; and make her springs dry" (Jer. 50:38; 51:36). This was literally accomplished by Cyrus, who turned the Euphrates from its course; left the channel of the river dry; marched his troops along the dried way in the night into the very heart of Babylon; and, coming upon the king and nobles "as a thief," put them without discrimination, or mercy, to the sword.

Such was the practical representation of the entrance into the Apocalyptic Babylon by Yahweh's Anointed Shepherd, the all-conquering Heir of the World, and the Kings, whom he will have raised to consubstantiality with himself (1 John 3:2), and constituted his co-operators, and companions in arms. He has been, so to speak, besieging Babylon, and inflicting upon her all the miseries of a besieged city, by the forces engaged in the execution of the plagues of the first five vials; but, as in the typical operations of Cyrus, "the sanctified ones" of the Eternal Spirit have not come into the possession of the Apocalyptic Babylon by direct assaults. The Divine purpose required that the European Babylon should be entered by a coup de main, or unexpected attack. Cyrus entered thus. Since the commencement of the sixth vial, Christ Jesus has been, by his agents, drying up the Great River of Babylon, the Ottoman power; which, undried, would have been an inconvenience, and an embarrassment, in the development of those judicial household-arrangements, which must precede the manifestation of "the kings of the Sun's risings", to the world. Before the outpour of this vial, the Ottoman was a power, overshadowing Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Syria, in great force. It could have concentrated its armies upon any of these provinces in great numbers; and with powerful and embarrassing effect, upon any un-warlike crowd that might be convened for the purposes of judgment, organization, and legislation, the necessary preparation for all great enterprises in a world like this. It is true, that the Deity could destroy them all, however numerous and powerful, as He did the army of Sennacherib, in the reign of Hezekiah: there is here no question about what He could do; He can do what He pleases: but it is not according to His revealed plan of operations in the work of manifesting His sons, to have that judicial and preparatory work interrupted by battle, and the burial of a host of corpses. To prevent this embarrassing inconvenience, He deemed it necessary to dry up from those countries the overflowing power of "the Desolator" - to diminish it, and hold it in check by other jealous powers whose mutual distrust should reduce "the Sick Man" to a nullity.

But, shall it be said, that the wrath of the sixth vial was designed to dry up the great Turkish power, in order to put in its place a stronger and greater power, the Muscovite, before the coming of Christ and the manifestation of his Kings? The sixth vial is in part to remove Gentile Power to a convenient distance - to diminish, not to increase it, in the region of Sinai, and Teman, and Mount Paran (Hab. 3:3; Deut. 33:2): but, to substitute the Russian in Constantinople for the Turk; and to give the Czar dominion over the Ottoman empire before Christ comes; would render nugatory the drying up process of the past forty-eight years. My present conviction therefore, is, that the gathering together of the national armies against Jerusalem (Zech. 14:2) is after the appearance of Christ in the South; that is, in Teman; where he begins his career as "THE KING OF THE SOUTH(*) Dan. 11:40); and before he appears upon Mount Zion. Hence, we have not to wait the advance of the Russian Gog against Constantinople, and his overflowing and passing over, and stretching forth his power over Egypt, and the Holy Land. This will certainly come to pass; but it will all be consequent upon, not antecedent to, the appearing of Christ in Teman. The Great Euphratean Ottoman Power is not dried up to prepare the way of the greater power of Gog; but, "that the way of the Kings out of the Sun's rising might be prepared"

12. "And the Sixth Angel poured out his Vial upon the Great River Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up that the way of the Kings who are out of a Sun's risings might be prepared.

13. "And I saw out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and out of the Mouth of the Beast, and out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, three Unclean Spirits like to Frogs (for they are Spirits of Demons working wonders) go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty.

15. "BEHOLD I COME AS A THIEF. Blessed he who is watching, and keeping his garments that he may not walk naked, and they see his shame.

16. "And he gathered them together into a place called Hebraistically ARMAGEDDON".

Such is the prophecy of the Sixth Vial. The reader will perceive that it divides itself into four sections. First, into the prophecy concerning "the Great River Euphrates;" second, into that concerning the Frogs; third, concerning the Advent and those specially related to it; and fourth, respecting the place into which the Powers that be are gathered for the conflict. This being the order in which its parts are presented in the text, I shall proceed in the exposition, to expound it, in what may be termed, its natural order, and distinguishing its divisions by separate "Parts".

PART I

1. The Outpouring of Wrath Upon Euphrates

"And the Sixth Angel poured out his Vial upon the Great River Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up that the way of the Kings, who are out of a Sun's risings, might be prepared".

In these words, "the Great River Euphrates" is indicated as the subject of the wrath. Wrath is not poured out upon rivers as such; but upon people in some way related to them. In the figurative prophecy before us, "the Euphrates" is a sign representative of some thing analogous to "the flood", or "the river", of the name, well known in the geography of the East. In the days of Isaiah, the Euphrates was the principal river of Assyria; and is therefore used by the prophet, in ch. 8:7, as a sign, or symbol, of the many and strong peoples of the Assyrian empire. Because the Ten Tribes of Israel rejoiced in Retzin and Remaliah's son, instead of rejoicing in Yahweh. He therefore threatened both Damascus and Samaria with an Euphratean invasion and inundation, predicted in these words - "Behold Yahweh bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks; and he shall pass through Judah: he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings (the wings of his armies) shall fill the breadth of thy land, 0 Immanuel"

We see, then, that in Scripture there are two Euphratean rivers analogically related to each other - the one, the natural; the other, the political Euphrates. The waters of the natural, are representative of the peoples of the empire to which the natural river belongs. This, in the rainy season, overflows its banks; which, by analogy, represents the armies of Assyria crossing the river for the invasion of adjacent countries.

When the Ninevite Dynasty was abolished, Assyria was annexed to Babylon. The Euphrates then became a river of Babylon. It flowed into and through this great city and province. For this reason, as Babylon is introduced into the Apocalypse as symbolical of the Fourth Beast, whose dominion migrated from Babylon to Rome and Constantinople, so the Euphrates is also introduced there; for a figurative Babylon without a figurative Euphrates, would be in violation of the analogy and fitness of things. Babylon of old was a city and empire, with the Euphrates flowing through the latter into the former; so, Apocalyptically, the Great City of Babylon is OLD ROME and its Ten Kingdoms, with its political Euphrates flowing up to the Danube, and confining upon Hungary, the Austrian empire, the Adriatic and Greece; with "NEW ROME", or Constantinople, also built on Seven Hills, for the centre of its population, the great majority of which, though Antipapal, is "Catholic". Thus, the political Euphrates flows right into the city; and, at the opening of this sixth vial, in addition to the populations inhabiting the countries through which the natural Euphrates meanders its way to the Persian Gulf, there were reckoned among its waters, the peoples of Egypt, Algiers, Asia Minor, Greece, Roumelia, Albania, Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and certain islands of the sea.

The Ottoman Power being "the Great River Euphrates" of the symbolical Babylon, we have a subject before us capable of receiving, and as its sanguinary and earth-destroying history proves, well deserving, the indignation and wrath of Deity. As the fourth of the Euphratean Angels (ch. 9:15) loosed against the Greek Catholic division of the Babylonian Apostasy, it has judicially and terrifically executed its mission. In performing the part allotted to it, it has repaid justice the debt incurred by the demon-worshipping and idolatrous Greek Catholics, who, when they reigned in Constantinople, were more wicked, and less tolerant of truly good men, than the Turks. The Osmanlis are not idolators. Their zeal was great against all such; hence their Contempt of Catholics, both Greek and Latin, and their greater tolerance of Protestants. Still, the Euphratean is only a Sin-Power, well and heavily laden with its own peculiar offenses. One of its greatest offenses consists in the treatment Yahweh's land, and people Israel, have experienced at its hand. As the modern representative of the Little-Horn-of-the-Goat power, it has "parted his land" "for gain" (Joel3 :2; Dan. 11:39); and ruling over Israel, has made them to howl; so that His name continually every day is blasphemed (Isa. 52:5). No man likes his property to be laid Waste, and his slaves to be abused. Of both these counts the Constantinopolitan Little Horn has been so intensely guilty in regard to Yahweh's inheritance, that it has acquired the Scriptural epithet of Shomaim, THE DESOLATOR (Dan. 9:27). It is true that appearances Would seem to justify the conclusion of some, that the Deity has ceased to take any interest in the land of Palestine, and in the natural Israel. But let such remember the Words of Christ, who says, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge true judgment". The appearance of things is not their real nature. It is the testimony of the prophets, that "Yahweh will be jealous for His land, and pity his people; . . . and will no more make them a reproach among the nations" (Joel 2:18,19). But they still are a reproach among the nations: it is therefore evident that the Divine jealousy for the land, and pity for the people in reproach are things pertaining to a future situation of the world's affairs. Hence, the political Euphrates standing in this antagonism to Deity, it is for this, and not because of its severity upon the Greeks, that the wasting wrath of the sixth vial is poured out upon it.

"And the waters thereof were dried up" - The effect of the Outpouring of the vial is to dry up "the water" of the political Euphrates. The Euphrates being a political channel, the water flowing therein must be political also. Waters Apocalyptically signify "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (ch. 17:15); but, in the text before us, it is not waters but "water", in the singular. The prophecy, then, doth not signify a drying up of population. The Euphrates represents a power of the Apocalyptic Babylon; and as the name is indicative of water flowing in a certain channel, "water must signify the power of the Euphratean empire, expressed, as governments ordinarily express it, by force and arms.

There is one other place, and one only, in the Apocalypse, where water is used in the singular; as, inch. 12:15, in the words, "the Serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the Woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood". In this place "water" signifies power incorporated in armies, Sent forth from government to sweep away, as by a flood, the objects of its displeasure. Hence, the water of the Great River Euphrates, in like manner, represents the military power of the Ottoman empire; which is dissipated by a process of evaporation, a drying up; a gradual exhaustion, so as at last to leave the channel of the river in the heart of the Great City, empty; and devoid of all power to impede, or interfere with operations developing in the south-eastern recesses of the empire.

"That the way of the Kings who are out of a Sun's rising, might be prepared". This is the exact rendering of hena hetoimasthe he hothos ton basileon ton apo anatolon heliou - which is the received text; and, though objected to by some commentators, who can see nothing in it but the natural sun-rising, is no doubt perfectly correct. The military and political power of the Ottoman empire was to be dried up by the wrath of the Sixth Vial, that the way for a certain class of kings might be cleared of all hindrances and impediments to their enterprize in its be-ginning.

The reader will note, that in this sixteenth chapter there are two suns introduced into the prophecy; and that both of them are symbolic, but of different things. The first is the Sun of Europe, upon which was poured out the wrath of the fourth vial: the other Sun, on the contrary, is not the subject of wrath; but one which rises above the world's horizon, some time during the period of the sixth vial. During the five preceding vials and much even of the sixth, He is below that horizon concealed from view, and we know, that before the sun rises it is dark- "darkness covers the earth" (Isa. 60:2) - and that it is while he is rising that the darkness is receding; and the objects upon the earth gradually become visible.

Further, it may be remarked, that the Sun of this twelfth verse, is the illustrious personage of the fifteenth, who says, "Behold, I come as a thief". No one, I believe, doubts, that the subject of this thief-like manifestation is THE ANCIENT OF DAYS - He whom the ETERNAL FATHER by his power, "made both Lord and Christ", when he transformed the risen, earthborn, body of Gethsemane, into a life-engendering Spirit. This being beyond dispute, we have next to consider certain testimonies concerning him.

In the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, we are informed, that at a time when darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, Yahweh shall arise upon Zion; that His glory shall be seen upon her; and that kings shall come to the brightness of her rising. Here, Yahweh is the Light arising who sheds forth brightness, which, among other objects previously enveloped in gross darkness, brings Zion into view. She is seen "rising" before it can be said she is risen. Her coming into view is progressive, as objects come into view in the dawn. Hence she is a rising ot this Rising Light, which shines her out of darkness, the gross darkness of Mohammedan, or other Gentile, down-treading, into his marvellous brightness, as by his rising it becomes developed.

"His glory shall be seen upon Zion". Whose glory? The glory of the Redeemer, who comes to Zion, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Isa. 59:20; Rom. 11:26). The glory which shall be seen there, is figuratively exhibited in Apoc. 14:1, as "the Lamb on Mount Zion with 144,000" Sons of his Father, whom He had "redeemed from the earth" - from among all peoples; and from the very dust thereof.

In the period of Zion's rising out of present darkness into future light and glory, she is manifested as the metropolis, or Mother City, of a rising world, styled in the English Version, "the world to come;" but in the original, he oikoumene he mellousa, the future inhabited (earth) or, habitable. This New Constitution of Things, which was the great burden of Paul's discourse, (Heb. 2:5) will comprise the "NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH" to be created by the Eternal Spirit, through Christ Jesus arid his Brethren, in the development of which, He will "create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy" (Isa. 65:17) - a New Government, and a New civil, ecclesiastical, and social Organization of the nations of the earth. Concerning this new government, or "Economy of the fullness of the times (Eph. 1:10), it is written in Psa. 19:1-6, "The heavens declare the glory of AlL (the Invisible Power), and the work of his hands the firmament shews. Day unto day will utter speech; and night unto night will shew knowledge. There is no language, nor any words, where their voice is not heard. Their line hath gone out in all the earth; and their words to the ends of the world. In them he hath set a tabernacle for the Sun; who as a Bridegroom coming out of his covering or place where he was hid from view), will rejoice as a mighty man to run a course. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuit unto the ends thereof; and there is nothing hidden from his heat".

This Sun is the great illuminator, who "enlightens the earth with his glory" (Apoc. 10:1; 18:1; 21:23); and who, in the days of his flesh, said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the Light (or Sun) of the world" - a Light which shone into the darkness, but was not comprehended by it (John 9:5; 1:5). It is this "Great Light;" once seen by them "who sat in the region and shadow of death", which is styled in Mal. 4:2, "THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS," who arises with genial influences upon all who fear the Name of Yahweh Elohim; but with intensely scorching effect also upon the wicked who serve him not.

But who are "the Kings out of a Sun's risings?" Some say, they are the Jews returning from the East; others, eastern potentates in general; others change kings to "king," and explain it of Christ, as "King from the East;" others expound it as kings coming from the East to take part, as actors and sufferers, in the slaughters of the great day of slaughter; and lastly, it is said, that the Kings from the East signify "Christian Preachers," or the Clergy commissioned from Christ the Sun of Righteousness, for whose missionary operations an opening is made by drying up' the power of Babylon for opposing the truth; and who are called kings, from their zeal in ruling both themselves and the church!

But none of these "orthodox" replies to the question throw any light upon the subject. Time and space are too precious to be occupied in stating objections to them, or in arguing against them. The shorter and more satisfactory course will be to ignore them altogether; and to present an answer that cannot be Scripturally gainsaid.

If we understand what "the risings of a sun" are, we shall perceive who are "the Kings" that proceed therefrom. The word anatole rendered "rising", is derived from the verb anatello, "to rise,to cause to rise, to spring up". All that springs up out of the earth is caused to rise by the power of the sun acting upon the seeds therein. Every thing therefore brought up from beneath, or from darkness, into view is "a rising of the sun". Hence, "as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so Adonai Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations" (Isa. 61:11). The earth brings forth, and the garden causes to spring forth, as the result of the sun's power so that the earthborn products of the garden, are the sun's risings. After this analogy, the Sun of Righteousness, who rises only once to set no more, causes righteousness to spring forth from the earth, in causing righteous men to spring forth from the grave; who, when "clothed upon with their house from heaven," will praise him before all the nations. The righteousness first pours down from heaven, then the earth opens, salvation is brought forth, and salvation and righteousness spring up together (Isa. 45:8): thus "truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven" (Psa. 85:11).

The Wings of the sun are his rays or beams. It is with these potent radiations that he causes things to spring forth from the earth. But, all he causes to spring forth are not good risings. Some are very noxious, poisonous weeds, which are not healed of their evil qualities by the brightness of his shining. Hence, his natural risings are some good and some bad, according to the seeds in embryo. Nor do the best and choicest of his risings spring forth in their perfection. They spring forth with bodies altogether unlike the bodies they will be, when clothed in the brilliance of their flowering glories. When they spring forth, these risings of the sun are only distinguishable from weeds by a well practised observer. As Paul indicates, they spring forth "not that body that shall be. . . but the Deity giveth a body that pleaseth him, and to every seed his own body".

So, after this analogy, are the risings of the Sun of Righteousness out of, or from which proceed "the Kings," whose way is prepared by the drying up of the political and military power of the Ottoman empire. The rays of his power shine forth with creating and formative energy. Men and women are created in the earth, and projected from it. At this stage of the wondrous operation, they have "not the bodies that shall be;" but "come forth" (John 6:29), With bodies corruptible, without honor, weak, soulish, and earthy; for, that which is, "out of the earth, is earthy," ek ges choikos. Each one is the Sun's rising, because the Sun of Righteousness is "the resurrection" (John 11:25); and so long as he is below the horizon, there can be no springing forth. But those people who have sprung forth into existence, "must all," both good and bad, "be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things through the body, according to what he hath done, whether good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10). That which makes manifest is light (Eph. 5:13). The light thrown upon the case of each individual is his account of himself to the Deity; "for we shall" not only "all stand before the judgment seat of Christ;" but "every one of us shall give account of himself to the Deity" (Rom. 14:10,12). This self-rendered account manifests the character of the reporter, and determines his case for better or worse. If he be approved by "the Judge of the living and the dead," he is recognized as "the blessed of his Father," and being quickened, is authorized to "inherit the kingdom prepared for" such as he; to sit with him in his throne; and to exercise power over the nations (Matt. 25:34; Apoc. 2:26; 3:21). Now, he that inherits a kingdom, sits upon a throne, and rules nations, is "a king;" and such a king, who was once dead, and sprung forth from the earth by the power of the Sun of Righteousness; and was selected from a crowd of people newly born of the earth, is "a king from, or out of, a Sun's risings".

But, though there is "healing in the wings of the Sun of Righteousness," all are not healed who spring forth from earth, by the potency of his formative and life-imparting beams. "Many," saith Daniel, "dust of the ground, shall awake from sleeping; some for living ones of the Olahm (the Millennium) and some for the objects of reproach and contempt of the Olahm" (ch. 12:2): an arrangement in the resurrection-state endorsed by Christ, who, in John 5:28, saith, "the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs (mnemeios 'retained in memory' there) shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth; they who have done the good things, for a resurrection of life; but they who have practised the evil, for a resurrection of condemnation." All these whose destinies are so diverse, are "risings of the Sun;" but, we see, that they do not all attain to the kingdom; for none can possess this, who, having come forth", are condemned. The condemnation leaves them corruptible, without honor, weak, soulish, and earthy; and such, Paul testifies, in 1 Cor. 15:50, "cannot inherit the kingdom of the Deity". They are repudiated by the Judge; and consigned to a common fate with the Beast and the False Prophet; who are subjected to the sword and burning flame by "the Kings" "chosen" "out of the risings of the Sun;" to prepare whose way, the wrath of the sixth vial is drying up the power of the Euphratean Ottoman Dynasty of the Goat's Little Horn.

"The Kings," then, are the sanctified ones, "the called and chosen and faithful," of whom Christ Jesus is the Imperial Chief, and therefore styled, "KING of kings" (Apoc. 17:14; 19:16; 1 Tim. 6:15). They are the same, who, at the outset of their arduous, glorious, and ultimately victorious, career, sing the new song in which, addressing the Great Captain of their redemption who leads them to glory (Heb. 2:10), they say, "thou hast made us for our Deity kings and priests; and we shall reign as kings (basileusomen) upon the earth" (Ch. 5:10). They begin their career under this sixth vial, and "turn not" from "the way," he hothos, (Ezek. 1:9,12,17) opened to them by the drying up of the Buphratean Power, until they have taken the Great City Babylon; and possessed themselves of all its thrones (Apoc. 20:4; 11:15; Dan. 7:9,18,27). The consummation of their "way" will be, that "the kingdoms of the world become our Lord's and his Christ's; and he shall reign king (basileusei) for the Aions of the Aions".

Whither the Spirit is to go they go, and they turn not when they go. These kings go their way, every one straight forward; for "their feet are straight feet," and consequently there is no deviousness in their way. "They accompany the Lamb whithersoever he goeth;" and his purpose is not crooked. His way is into the midst of the Great City, where, after the example of Cyrus, his prototype in the capture of Babylon, and the deliverance of the Jews, he hurls the Papal Belshatzar from his throne, and seizes upon his dominion for himself.

Cyrus, and the "sanctified ones," his Medes and Persians, were typical of Christ and his Kings in "the way prepared," through the drying up of "the Great River Euphrates" by the sixth vial. Cyrus was named by Deity, and mentioned by name, about one hundred and sixty years before the capture of Babylon. His name and office are both representative as well as his mission. The name given was Coresh, which some interpret by the word sun; on the ground that the Greek writers affirm that the name in Persian signified the sun. Gesenius says, they were correct. But, should we go to pagan Greeks and Persians to learn the meaning of a Hebrew name conferred upon a man whom the God of Israel intended to raise up to accomplish a work upon Babylon, which was to find its an-titype over 2400 years after? My answer is, no. Coresh in Hebrew does not signify the sun, which is there represented by shemesh. Coresh is a proper name compounded of caph, like, and yoraish, the participle of yarash, which signifies, to seize, to take possession of, to occupy, mostly by force. Hence, Yoraish comes to signify one who takes possession of his inheritance by conquest. This definition of Cyrus' Hebrew name accords with the facts of his history. The Deity had predetermined, that he should inherit the Babylonish Empire, which included the Holy Land; and that he should take possession of it by conquest. He therefore made Yoraish a part of his name; and, as he intended his career to be typical of His own Son's, Whom he hath constituted "the Heir of all things" terrestrial; and who is also to acquire possession of his inheritance by conquest; he added the letter caph, and condensing the three syllables into two, named him Coresh, or Koraish, signifying Like the Heir.

Now, let the reader note What occurred before Cyrus and Darius, with their "sanctified ones" (Isa. 13:3), the kings of the north, could take possession of Babylon. It was necessary, that "the Great River Euphrates," which flowed into and through the city, "should be dried up; that the way of Yahweh's Anointed Shepherd and his flock, might be prepared" (Isa. 44:25; 45:1). "A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up;" "I will dry up her great river eth-yammah; and make her springs dry" (Jer. 50:38; 51:36). This was literally accomplished by Cyrus, who turned the Euphrates from its course; left the channel of the river dry; marched his troops along the dried way in the night into the very heart of Babylon; and, coming upon the king and nobles "as a thief," put them without discrimination, or mercy, to the sword.

Such was the practical representation of the entrance into the Apocalyptic Babylon by Yahweh's Anointed Shepherd, the all-conquering Heir of the World, and the Kings, whom he will have raised to consubstantiality with himself (1 John 3:2), and constituted his co-operators, and companions in arms. He has been, so to speak, besieging Babylon, and inflicting upon her all the miseries of a besieged city, by the forces engaged in the execution of the plagues of the first five vials; but, as in the typical operations of Cyrus, "the sanctified ones" of the Eternal Spirit have not come into the possession of the Apocalyptic Babylon by direct assaults. The Divine purpose required that the European Babylon should be entered by a coup de main, or unexpected attack. Cyrus entered thus. Since the commencement of the sixth vial, Christ Jesus has been, by his agents, drying up the Great River of Babylon, the Ottoman power; which, undried, would have been an inconvenience, and an embarrassment, in the development of those judicial household-arrangements, which must precede the manifestation of "the kings of the Sun's risings", to the world. Before the outpour of this vial, the Ottoman was a power, overshadowing Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Syria, in great force. It could have concentrated its armies upon any of these provinces in great numbers; and with powerful and embarrassing effect, upon any un-warlike crowd that might be convened for the purposes of judgment, organization, and legislation, the necessary preparation for all great enterprises in a world like this. It is true, that the Deity could destroy them all, however numerous and powerful, as He did the army of Sennacherib, in the reign of Hezekiah: there is here no question about what He could do; He can do what He pleases: but it is not according to His revealed plan of operations in the work of manifesting His sons, to have that judicial and preparatory work interrupted by battle, and the burial of a host of corpses. To prevent this embarrassing inconvenience, He deemed it necessary to dry up from those countries the overflowing power of "the Desolator" - to diminish it, and hold it in check by other jealous powers whose mutual distrust should reduce "the Sick Man" to a nullity.

But, shall it be said, that the wrath of the sixth vial was designed to dry up the great Turkish power, in order to put in its place a stronger and greater power, the Muscovite, before the coming of Christ and the manifestation of his Kings? The sixth vial is in part to remove Gentile Power to a convenient distance - to diminish, not to increase it, in the region of Sinai, and Teman, and Mount Paran (Hab. 3:3; Deut. 33:2): but, to substitute the Russian in Constantinople for the Turk; and to give the Czar dominion over the Ottoman empire before Christ comes; would render nugatory the drying up process of the past forty-eight years. My present conviction therefore, is, that the gathering together of the national armies against Jerusalem (Zech. 14:2) is after the appearance of Christ in the South; that is, in Teman; where he begins his career as "THE KING OF THE SOUTH(*) Dan. 11:40); and before he appears upon Mount Zion. Hence, we have not to wait the advance of the Russian Gog against Constantinople, and his overflowing and passing over, and stretching forth his power over Egypt, and the Holy Land. This will certainly come to pass; but it will all be consequent upon, not antecedent to, the appearing of Christ in Teman. The Great Euphratean Ottoman Power is not dried up to prepare the way of the greater power of Gog; but, "that the way of the Kings out of the Sun's rising might be prepared"

It is written in Dan. 9:27, "and because of an overspreading of abominations (there shall be) a desolating, even to destruction; and that determined shall be poured out upon the DESOLATOR". The subject of this desolation by successive abominations, begun by the old Roman power, is the Holy Land. It is to continue under the tramp of the Desolator to the consummation; and "until that determined" against the desolating power, by whatever name it may be known at the consummation, shall be "poured out upon" him.

The Desolator is unquestionably the Little Horn of the Goat, which, in the days of Constantine, transferred its residence and Court to Constantinople, while its Senate continued to hold its sittings in Rome. In the days of Jesus and the apostles, Rome was the residence of Caesar and his Court, as well as of the Senate. It was then the exclusive capital of the Little Horn of the Goat; but, in the subsequent division of the Roman empire into the Greek and Latin empires, Rome became in the days of Charlemagne, the capital of the Little Horn, having "Eyes like the eyes of a man, and a Mouth speaking very great things" (Dan. 7:8,20); while Constantinople continued the sole capital of the Little Horn of the Goat (Dan. 8:9).

Of this Little Horn of the Goat While its empire was as yet undivided, and the seat of its government not yet transferred from Rome, it was predicted, that he would "magnify himself against the Prince of the Host" of Israel; this he did in condemning and crucifying the Lord of Glory; and furthermore, "by him the Daily should be taken away, and the place of his sanctuary cast down;" and that he should "destroy wonderfully, and prosper, and practise, and should destroy mighty ones, and the people of the Holy ones". It is this power that Daniel refers to when he says, in ch. 9:26, "and the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city (Jerusalem), and the holy" or temple. The people was "the host given against the Daily" (ch. 8:12) by the Nahgid, or prince, who sent them to destroy the city of the murderers of the Son of God (Matt. 22:7). When this people encompassed Jerusalem, and "cast a trench about her, and kept her in on every side," it was given to that generation as a sign, that her destruction was imminent; and in warning his disciples of what was predetermined against Judah's commonwealth, Jesus referred to this prophecy of Daniel, saying, as it stands in Matt. 24:15, "when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place ("where it ought not" - Mark 13:14) whoso readeth, let him understand - then let them that be in Judea flee into the mountains", and so forth, "for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the State to this time, no, nor ever shall be;" that is, upon Judah. This prediction was fulfilled about A.D. 70.

This was the first of the series of abominations of desolation that overspread the Holy Land. Its existence there was signalized by the abolition of the Jewish State; the taking away or suppression of the Daily Sacrifice; the ruin of the city; the burning of the temple to the ground; and the scattering of the power of the people of the Holy Ones. The Daily, or continual, evening and morning sacrifice, was taken away to make room for this series of abominations, of which the principal have been the pagan Roman, the Greek Catholic, and the Mohammedan; all of them constituents of the Little Horn of the Goat; so long as these abominations overspread the land of Israel in power, the power of the people of the Holy Ones will be in a scattered state: that is, they will prevail until the consummation, "and that determined shall be poured out upon the DESOLATOR."

But, what marks the consummation? That which is expressed in the words, "when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the people of the Holy Ones" (Dan. 12:7). At the time of this writing, February, 1868, this "consummation devoutly to be wished," has not arrived. How many weeks, or months, or years beyond the current year of the time appointed, yet remain to be consumed in waiting I know not; but, it would seem impossible that it can be long. Of this, however, we may be certain, that the consummation, as signalized by the coming of Christ, will transpire under the outpouring of the wrath of this sixth vial. This is plainly and clearly revealed in this sixteenth chapter. The consummation is also indicated by the phrase, "that determined shall be poured out upon the Desolator". This would seem to declare, that the consummation will be when all determined against the Desolator shall have been poured out. But, how long is this outpouring to last? Who can tell? When did the outpouring begin? This is the question to be determined now.

It is written in Dan. 12:11, "and when the Daily hath been removed, even for to set up an abomination of desolation (there shall be) a thousand two hundred and ninety days". Here is a long period without any other beginning indicated than that of its setting up. Its continuance is stated at 1290 years. This is the whole length of time during which the abomination was to prevail upon the land of Israel without beginning to dry up; in other Words, when the 1290 ended, the drying up process would commence; but, as to the exact number of years that would be consumed in the progressive outpouring of "that determined" before the consummation would be reached, we are not informed; of this, how-ever, we may be assured, that the outpouring of "that determined" upon the Desolator of the Holy Land, will not have reached its consummation, until Gog falls upon the mountains of Israel in the war of ARAMGEDDON; which is the great climacteric of the sixth vial.

The period of the sixth vial, the wrathful contents of which are "that determined upon the Desolator", is not included in the 1290 years of the last desolating abomination of the series. The end of these terrible years connects with the beginning of the sixth vial; because there was to be a desolating by the ascendant abomination, until that .determined should come to be "poured out upon the Desolator". Now, what is the fact in regard to the abomination in the ascendant? It is, that the power en-throned in Constantinople, the Little Horn of the Goat, in the spasmodic grasp of Greek, Saracen, Latin, and Turk, summarily expressed in the terms Catholic and Mohammedan, has been the Desolating Abomination of the Holy Land for 1290 years, ending in 1820-'3. The condition of the country between the reign of Adrian, A.D. 137, and the beginning of the reign of Justinian, A.D. 527, was as prosperous as any other province of the Roman empire; but, a change of fortune ensued in the epoch of his reign, A.D. 529-'33, which was signalized by a desolating war between the empires of Persia and Constantinople, in which the Euphratean countries, including Palestine, were the seat of conflict. A peace was made in 533, which proved only a suspension of arms. The war was renewed in 540, and thenceforth continued its destructive course for twenty years. For 1290 years, wasting and desolation progressed with ruinous effect; especially since the adherents of Mohammed made Syria and Palestine (both included in the land promised to Abraham and his Seed) their battle-ground with the Greeks and Latins. The Ottoman Turks possessed themselves of Constantinople under the sixth trumpet, in 1453; and they will be expelled from it under the sixth vial, when "that determined" shall have had its full effect upon them. They were, as Mohammedans, identified with the 1290 years of desolating abomination for a long series of ages and generations; hence, being found in occupation of the Holy Land, and filling the throne of the Little Horn of the Goat, or Dragon, at the end of the 1290 years, they have become obnoxious to the wrath, which has reduced their power to the nullity we behold in 1868. If, then, we have correctly located the beginning of the 1290 years, in the epoch 529-'33, the termination of the period will be 1820-'23, which is signalized by the commencement of the sixth vial, or of "that determined upon the Desolator".

In concluding this section, I may add, that Dan. 12:11, has given the commentators much trouble. The Daily Sacrifice was taken away A.D. 70. As the passage stands in the English Version, it would seem that the 1290 should begin there. This would bring the end of the period in 1360, the very midnight of abominations making desolate. Not being able to work out the arithmetic in that line they have turned "the Daily" into a figure of the Romish Apostasy, or sanctuary to be cleansed, and so forth. We need not, however, trace out their theories, and consume time and space in arguments against them. It may suffice to remark, that the obscurity of the text is referable to the loose rendering of the word maiaith, and the tense of the verb husar. The former is translated "from the time;" but Gesenius, without particular reference to this text, gives more than in the time when", as a good rendering. In our text, more than from the time would be the exact signification, in the sense of when or after. The other word husar is in the perfect, not the future sense, as in the C.V. - maiaith husar hathtamid, after the Daily has been removed. It was removed to make way for the over-spreading of abominations of desolation; but how long after its removal to the beginning of the particular abomination that was to continue 1290, it gives no information. The beginning of the period would be known by those who should be able to perceive the Opening of the sixth vial at its termination, and from thence reckoning back 1290 years. It had a contemporary beginning with the 1260, ending in the fall of "the tenth of the great city," and resurrection of the Witnesses, 1790-'93; and with the 1335 of Dan. 12:12, ending 1868. If the Justinian epoch 529-'33, be not the correct beginning of these periods, I know not what other historical epochs can have any reasonable claims to be true.

Tillinghast, a commentator who wrote over 200 years ago, and quoted in Elliott's notes, in exposition of this vial says, "By the river Euphrates we are to understand the Ottoman or Turkish empire. It is called the great river because of the multitude of people and nations therein. The people who at the present time are of all others accounted the greatest are the Turks; who therefore, and no other, are here to be understood; especially as the Euphrates in Apoc. 9, under the sounding of the sixth trumpet, by general consent of expositors, has reference to the Turkish power".

The revolutionary wars of Europe, which had darkened the kingdom of the Beast, and scorched the worshippers of his Image with great heat, had passed away without seriously injuring the power of the Turks. It is true, that under the operation of the second vial, the French had conquered Egypt in 1798; but they were expelled by the British in 1801, who gave up the country to the Sultan; so that the political state of the Little Horn of the Goat's dominion became as before. This was so manifest that a Protestant writer in the year after, in speculating upon this vial, expressed his wonder how the prophecy was to be fulfilled; and a dominion, still so mighty in arms and population, could be wasted and dried up. "By what means," says he, "the Turkish empire shall be reduced to this helpless state (an empire formerly distinguished for its enthusiastic loyalty, ferocity and valor; and which is even at this day -1802 - as populous as any other upon earth, the Chinese excepted), is not intimated in this verse; and will perhaps remain concealed until the events themselves shall remove the veil However, this is certain, from the evident purport of the text, that a very extraordinary indifference or disaffection in the people to the government must take place to fulfil this part of the prophecy".

Affairs continued generally prosperous with the Turks till the commencement of 1820. "That year", it has been remarked, "the Ottoman empire, by unwonted good fortune, found itself freed at once from foreign war and domestic rebellion". But before the year was closed, the scene was wonderfully changed; and causes of exhaustion and distress were then introduced, which have continued their incessant operation, until at length the mighty empire of the Osmanlis, which used to make the heart of Babylon to faint, and her knees to tremble, has passed into a proverb as "the Sick Man," (*)soon to give up the ghost, and to leave the fragments of his estate to others.

The first cause that operated thus, was, as had been surmised, internal revolt and insurrection. The terminal epoch of the 1290 was now on hand. In the summer of 1820, Ah Pasha of Yanina asserted his independence; and by his revolt, the Greek insurrection, which had been for some time silently progressing, was precipitated. The inhabitants of the Greek islands called in their merchant ships; and in November, the Suliote Greeks returned to their country from the Ionian islands, and raised the standard of revolt against the Sultan, in alliance with Ah Pasha, their former oppressor. In February, 1821, Chourshid Pasha of Tripolizza, having marched from thence against Yanina, leaving the Morea almost destitute of Turkish troops, the Moreote Greeks broke out into insurrection, which quickly extended to the Aegean Isles and districts of Northern Greece, Epirus, and Thessaly; while, at the same time, the standard of revolt was raised also in the trans-Danubian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia.

The progress and successful issue of the Greek insurrection is well known. This result was favored by an eruption of the Persians into the Asiatic provinces of Turkey in 1821 and 1822, when the Turks were subjected to heavy loss. The Greeks held the country in the Morea, while the Turks were shut up in the fortresses; and a Turkoman army of 30,000, that entered to reconquer it, having been destroyed in detail in1823, the freedom of the Peninsula was nearly completed by the insurgents. The insular Greeks were attended by almost uniform success in their maritime encounters with superior Turkish and Egyptian fleets, especially in their victorious engagements of September, 1824, in which the Turks lost twelve frigates, twenty brigs, and more than eighty transports. At length the sympathies of the European Babylon were awakened in their behalf, by the dreadful massacres perpetrated by the Turks, who spared neither men, women, nor children, in their terrible and remorseless warfare. In the Morea, Ibrahim Pasha being successful in reaching Patras, indulged in the indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, and in the commission of irreparable and wanton devastation, by destroying the olive-trees and vineyards, and other productions of the soil. At this crisis, the tide of success seemed to be turned in favor of the Turks by Ibrahim's Egyptian government, which had almost completed the reconquest of the Morea. But, the decree of Heaven was against the Euphratean power; and the prophecy which the Greeks could not accomplish singlehanded, England, France, and Russia, in contravention of all their principles of policy, interposed to fulfil. Their friendly mediation between the belligerents being obstinately and persistently rejected by the Sultan, they determined to put a stop to his butcheries by force. They sent a fleet of twenty-six sail to Navarino, where they found the Turco-Egyptian armament of seventy sail drawn up in order of battle to receive them. The allies sought to avoid a conflict by friendly conference with the Turkish admiral; but the messenger was wantonly put to death, and a shot of defiance sent booming at the Asia, an English ship of the line. The salutation was promptly returned, and in a little time the action became general. The bloody and destructive bat-tle raged for four hours, and the scene of wreck and devastation was such as has been rarely witnessed. Sixty-two of the seventy Turkish vessels were burnt, sunk, or driven on shore complete wrecks. On board of the two line of battle ships, each with a crew of 850 men, there were killed, in one ship, 650, and in the other 400. The loss of the English and French was 118 killed and 341 wounded. Thus, in 1827, Greece was saved, and erected into a kingdom under the protection of the Allies; and by the destruction of the Turkish fleet, the way was prepared for other disasters, which quickly followed upon the devoted empire.

But, the Greek insurrection and foreign intervention simply would have still left the Ottoman empire a great and strong current of water. Its evaporation was to be expedited by the fatuous and suicidal policy of its Sultan, Mahmoud. This imperial reformer of the state perceiving that his haughty, tumultuous Janizaries, once the terror of the nations, were incapable any longer of contending with the order, discipline, and weapons of modern tactics, determined to subject them to a new military system. But to such an innovation they resolved not to submit. Finding, therefore, the hope of reforming, and thereby rescuscitating the Turkish military power, vain, the Sultan determined to destroy those troops whose ancestors had been to the Porte its chief arm of victory. While the Greek insurrection was in progress, he assembled 30,000 of them in Constantinople; and, on July 15, 1826, caused them to be surrounded in the square of the Etmeidan, and massacred by discharges of grapeshot; and on their retreating to their barracks, the barracks were set on fire, and the cannonading was continued against them the whole night following, until there remained no more victims or fuel for the one and the other. "The morning," says Mr. Walsh, "presented a frightful scene of burning ruins slaked in blood; - a huge mass of mangled flesh and smoking ashes".

To this destruction of its own power was added a most disastrous foreign war excited by its own infatuation; so true is it, Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat - "whom the Deity wills to perish he first infatuates". The Sultan appealed to the fanaticism of the Mohammedan population against Russia; and, in April, 1828, Russian "orthodoxy" being thus insulted, appealed to arms in vindication of its honor. Prince Paskewitch pressed on from the Caucasian frontier to Erzeroum; while Count Diebitch, with varied success, in the campaign of 1829 took the entrenched camp of Schumla on the Danube; crossed the Balkan; entered Adrianople; and, in spite of the unfurling of the Prophet's Banner against him, threatened the immediate investment of Constantinople. But, the time, if ever, had not come for the transfer of the Little Horn of the Goat's capital, to the Autocrat of all the Russias. The diplomatic "Daemons" therefore of the other powers interposed their "good", but really jealous, offices, and peace was made. It was a peace, however, by the articles of which "the drying up of the Great River Euphrates" was greatly advanced. The treaty secured emancipation from the Ottoman yoke to the Catholic principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia under the guardianship mishmar, of the Russian Gog (Ezek. 38:7). The independence of Servia was also assured, and no Turk permitted to reside north of the Danube. But, this was not all the drying up of Turkish power at this period. In this same year, 1829, the French government landed an army of 40,000 on the African coast, and having defeated an equal force of Turks and Arabs, captured Algiers; and converted the Turkish province into a colony of France; thus, another of the sources of "the water of the Great River Euphrates" was "dried up".

Again, very soon after the termination of the war against Russia, Mehemet Ah, the Pasha of the Egyptian province of the Little Horn of the Goat, asserted his independence of the Sultan. He attacked and conquered the Turks in Syria and the Holy Land, in the three great battles of Hems, of Nezib, and of Iconium, in 1832 and 1833. He now aspired to the throne of the Sultan, and in 1838 advanced as far as Smyrna on his march to Constantinople. "Man proposes, but God disposes". The wrath of the sixth vial was to dry up, not to invigorate and renovate, "the water" or power, of "the Great River Euphrates". Had Mehemet Ah been allowed to depose the Sultan, and to set himself upon his throne, the Ottoman empire would have been vastly strengthened: Providence, therefore, caused the diplomatic "Daemons" of the Great City Babylon to interfere, that they might unconsciously "establish the vision". Russia, Austria, Prussia and England, weary of the war between the Pasha and the Sultan, interfered, and ordered Mehemet Ah to return to Egypt. They then proceeded to regulate the affairs of the East in accordance with their own policy. They ordered the Pasha to surrender Syria and the Holy Land to the Sultan, and to restore to him the Turkish fleet which had revolted during the war. Mehemet Ah refused to do either, contending that these countries were his by right of conquest for ever, and the fleet as the spoils of war. The four powers, however, (France was not consulted in this affair), were not to be trifled with. They were willing that the Egyptian Pashalic should be hereditary in his family; but resolved that he should only be Pasha of Syria for life. But even this was contrary to the Divine arrangement; his heart was therefore hardened against such an accommodation, and he refused to yield. The result was that the Allied Fleet bombarded the cities of the Syrian sea-board, and took possession of St. Jean d'Acre. They again offered him "all that part of Syria, extending from the Gulf of Suez to the Lake of Tiberias, to-gether with the province of Acre for life," if he would restore the Turkish fleet. But this offer did not suit the Deity; he was therefore still hardened to refuse, and to maintain what he considered his rights. Seeing that negotiation availed nothing, they proceeded in the autumn of 1840, to compel the Egyptians to evacuate the Promised Land, and determined that he should not have it at all; and threatened furthermore, that if he did not restore the fleet in ten days, they would make Alexandria too hot for his continuance there. Such a conclusion being in harmony with the Divine purpose, he was led to comply. He evacuated the country, and surrendered the ships within the time; thus he was forced back within the limits of his Turco-Egyptian Pashalic, which he was allowed to retain as the hereditary inheritance of his family under the suzerainty of the Porte; while Syria and the Holy Land to the shores of the Red Sea, were restored to the Constantinopolitan jurisdiction, which is more nominal than real in all the land.

To the operation of political and military causes in the drying up of the Great River, may be noted in addition, the depopulating judgments of the Deity himself. In the great Syrian earthquake of 1822, the walls of Aleppo, the capital, were thrown down, and 14,000 buried in the ruins; and at Antioch, and other towns and villages in the province, the sufferings and loss of life were in proportion. In 1821 the cholera broke out at Bussora, and carried off some 16,000 persons - near a fourth of its population: then ascending the Tigris to Bagdad, swept away a third of its inhabitants: and then, in 1822, advanced into Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, with a like fearful mortality everywhere attending it. At the same time, the plague was in its usual way Wasting the Turkish population; and besides it, other extraordinary and mysterious epidemics. The cities of Mecca and Bagdad, more especially, were fearfully desolated. In the Bombay Gazette, of August, 1831, the report is given that Mecca and Medina had been completely depopulated by a dreadful disease, the nature of which was unknown. It broke out among the Mohammedan pilgrims, 50,000 of whom it carried off, including the governor of the Holy City of the Mussulmans. In Bagdad also, the ancient capital of the Caliphs, 50,000 of the inhabitants perished by the plague. To the horrors of disease were here added the desolation of the flood and of the sword. The missionaries stationed there thus narrate the terrible story:

"The plague prevailing to a fearful extent among the inhabitants, part of them attempted to escape into the country: but they were arrested by a sudden inundation of the Tigris, by which numbers perished; and the rest were driven back into the city. When at length it pleased God to stay the hand of the destroying angel, it was found that out of 80,000 human beings not more than 25,000 survived". The judgment of the sword then followed. "The plague had scarce ceased, and the waters subsided, when troops arrived in the name of the Sultan to depose the Pasha; and fierce and bloody contests succeeded". In another letter bearing date, Bagdad, April 23, 1831, they say, "Surely every principle of desolation is operating in the midst of the Ottoman empire; plagues, earthquakes, and civil wars. The Pasha's palace is left open, without a soul to take care of anything. His stud of beautiful Arab horses are running about the streets. Inquire what you will, the answer is, The City is desolate". With regard even to Constantinople, the chaplain of the British Embassy resident there from 1821 to 1831, thus writes, "Within the last twenty years Constantinople has lost more than half its population. Two conflagrations happened while I was there, and destroyed 15,000 houses. The Russian and Greek wars were a constant drain upon the Janizaries of the capital. The silent operation of the plague is continually active, though not always alarming. It will be no exaggeration to say that, within the period mentioned, from 300,000 to 400,000 have been prematurely swept away in this one city in Europe, by causes which were not operating in any other - conflagration, pestilence, and civil commotion".

Admitting, then, that "the Great River Euphrates" is the symbol of the Ottoman Power to whose empire it belongs, who can doubt that its water has been drying up during all the past forty-eight years; and that therefore we are assuredly contemporary with the outpouring of the sixth vial, in the course of which Christ reappears upon the earth? It is evident, that nothing supports the feeble remains of the once mighty power of Turkey, figuratively and proverbially styled "the Sick Man," but the Policy of the Antichristian Powers, founded upon their mutual jealousies and ambitions. The declared intention of France and England to maintain the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire is evidence of its inability to defend itself against the strong. Its recent conflict in the little island of Candia illustrates its feebleness, and the shriveled condition of its power. The judgments of the sixth vial have made it the weakest of all the powers, except, perhaps, the other Sick Man of Rome. These two sick men, the representatives of the Two Little Horns, have both fallen upon evil times together; and both bid fair to "give up the ghost" in the same epoch. They have both in times past made the world to tremble; and now, in the righteous retributions of the Deity, they are made to tremble before the world. They have both been made sick, and made to lie at the gates of death, in the interest of the Saints, who are to supersede them in all the earth. The power of the Sick Man of Constantinople is to the power of the Sick Man of Rome, and his family of kings, as the Great River Euphrates to the Great City of Babylon. Christ and his Brethren, the Cyrus and Sanctified Ones of the 19th century, are the Divinely predetermined captors of this city. They are to enter it "as a thief", and to seize upon its thrones; but to enable them to do this with all the facility the situation may require, the Great River Euphrates has been dried up, and the way of the kings of the Resurrection-Sun duly prepared in all the region of "THE SOUTH".

"And I saw out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and out of the Mouth of the Beast, and out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, three unclean spirits like to Frogs (for they are spirits of Demons working wonders) go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty".

A mouth is Apocalyptically a symbol of government, through which the political organization of which it is the executive, gives expression to its policy. In this remarkable text, three such mouths are indicated, as first, the Mouth of the Dragon Polity; second, the Mouth of the Beast Polity; and third, the Mouth of the False Prophet Polity. THE Mouth OF THE DRAGON is termed in ch. 12:15, the mouth of the Serpent; and in v. 16, the mouth of the Dragon: one and the same mouth, because the Serpent and Dragon indicate the same polity - sin imperially manifested in the flesh: the symbolical Devil and Satan; and enthroned in CONSTANTINOPLE.

THE Mouth OF THE BEAST is identical with the mouth of the Beast of the Earth, which speaks as a dragon (ch. 13:11); and which appears in ch. 17, as the imperial scarlet-colored supporter of the Mother of Harlots, having an Eighth Head. This mouth has been for a long time enthroned in VIENNA; but in the days of Charlemagne, who founded the dominion, the seat of its secular dominion was Aix-le-Chapelle at present included in Prussian territory.

THE Mouth OF THE FALSE PROPHET is identical with the Lion Mouth of Ch. 13:2,5,6. This is the Mouth which speaks "great things and blasphemies". It is the Mouth also of the Image (ch. 13:15) the Two-Horned Ecclesiastical element of the European Polity, headed up in the Papal Dynasty, and enthroned in ROME.

Out of these three several political centers, three unclean spirits go forth whose resemblance is like to Frogs. There were not three unclean spirits out of each mouth; but only one out of each, making three in all. The unclean spirits are "spirits of Daemons". Of the number of the daemons, no hint is given whether they are many or few. Half a dozen or more daemons operating upon the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, only excite the outflow of an unclean spirit from each, which is characterized by a symbol, representative of the power whose wonder-working daemon causes the mouth to speak. The Spirit of the Dragon, the Spirit of the Beast, and the Spirit of the False Prophet are "unclean", or unholy; and in their operation after the advent, directed against that which is holy and true, even against "the Deity who is Almighty". They are the spirits which cause the Beast and the kings of the Earth and their armies to gather together to make war against him that then sits on the white horse, and against his army (ch. 19:11,19; 17:14). The spirits themselves are sanguinary and warlike policies, through which the governments indicated breathe out threatenings and slaughters against their adversaries. These policies are generated in the minds of cabinets by the diplomatic influences therein developed. The influence that gains the ascendant affirms the policy that rules, and becomes the spirit of the executive or mouth. When it speaks it proclaims war, and puts in operation all the machinery necessary to carry it into effect.

In the English Version these spirits are termed "the spirits of devils". This is inaccurate, and arises from the translators erroneously Supposing that daemons and "devils" were the same things. The phrase is pneumata daimonon, spirits of daemons. These Apocalyptic entities are political daemons; that have to do with politics, civil and ecclesiastical. It is true, they may be diabobi, devils, as Judas was (John 6:70) but all devils are not daemons. The daemons of this prophecy are official person-ages engaged in doing or working out, signs, wonders, or remarkable events, poiounta semeia; all tending, in their combined operation, to the development of the situation termed "the war of that great day of the Deity who is Almighty".

The Greeks, in their system of superstition, made a distinction between theoi, gods and daimones, da"mons. Over all there was Zeus, their king and father. The daemons were gods of an inferior order, yet an aerial race, occupying the third rank in their heavens. They were regarded as possessing wonderful intelligence; and in consequence of their middle position in the air, acting as interpreters and mediators between the superior gods and men. "The whole daemonial race", says Socrates, "is between God and mortals, acting as interpreters or messengers to both. Through this race passes all divination, and the art of the priests; for God mingles not directly with the human race, but through these daemons is ever carried on the intercourse between the gods and men, both when awake and when asleep". Plato says, that in the reign of Saturn the daemons were the political governors of mankind, ruling men as man rules the inferior animals. "Saturn knowing," said he "how that human nature, in the absolute self-control of human affairs, can never avoid being filled with violence and unrighteousness, appointed as rulers and magistrates to our cities, not men, but beings of a divine and nobler race, namely, the Daemons. We do not constitute oxen as rulers over oxen, nor goats over goats, but we ourselves retain the dominion; the same thing did the Deity, because he was a lover of men. He appointed over us a better race than ourselves, namely, the Daemons"

This exhibition of daemons excludes all idea of their being devils. But this teaching of Socrates and Plato, styled by Paul "the wisdom of the world", is made foolish by the Gospel; nevertheless, its fiction was convenient for symbolical representation of political analogies. Illus, the governments of the world and their high agents and officials, are a system of power, ordered, or arranged, by the Deity. They occupy a position in "the Air" (ch. 16:17), or political firmament, intermediate between Him and mankind in general. They are therefore Daemons, a superior order of agents to the common herd; though often intellectually and morally inferior to many among the humblest of mankind. In unfigurative language, kings, cabinets, councils, conferences, ambassadors, ministers of state, and such like, are the Daemons of the prophecy in hand. They are not to be confounded with ta daimonia, the da.monia of ch. 9:20. The fictitious ghosts of the Virgin-goddess, and of all the other saint-gods and saint-goddesses of the Romish superstition, are the daemonials, answering to the daemons of the pagan Greeks; but the daemons of ch. 16:14, are real official men, such as the Sultari, the Austrian and French emperors, the pope, and their political representatives.

This is the only place in the Apocalypse where "frogs" are introduced. They are produced here by way of illustrating the character of the spirits that, in the period of the sixth vial, would issue forth from the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, governments to all the rulers of the earth and habitable; and in a parallel series with the series of events by which the power of the Euphratean Ottoman empire is drying up. There can be no doubt that the wrath of the sixth vial is and has been for the past forty-eight years drying up this power. This is not to be gainsaid. It is an event, a sign-event, too notorious and palpable to be disputed. On the supposition that the reader is not one of "the hypocrites, who cannot discern the signs of the times" (Matt. 16:3); but is an intelligent observer and reader of current history - I would ask him, what power has been the most officious, suggestive, active, intriguing, and meddlesome, in all the political questions that have agitated the world, during the past twenty years; and amid the greatest professions of peace and progress, has, in that period, caused the most wars, and the greatest apprehensions of more? To this inquiry, but one answer can be given; and that is, the imperialized French democratic, termed "the Second Empire". This is a remarkable and leading feature of the times. French imperial policy is the moving and formative spirit of the situation; and when brought to bear upon Constantinople, Vienna, and Rome, political results are developed, or "unclean spirits go forth," in which the hand of French diplomacy is plainly to be seen - the spirits exhibit froggy characteristics.

Such is the great and undeniable political fact, which is as much the subject of the prophecy of the sixth vial, as the drying up of the Ottoman power, and the coming of Christ. It was shown to John, that in the sixth vial period there would be a power of no little influence, whose symbol was the Frog. If then it can be established that the Frogs are armorially representative of the French power, we shall have a harmony between historical and present facts and the prophecy as one of the great signs of the times, which no sane and candid observer will venture to neglect or dispute. The testimony to establish this is as follows:

1. Montfaucon, in his Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise, p. 4, plate 6, gives a Frog as one of the monuments of the French king, Child-eric; thus writing respecting it, "3. Another medal representing a frog, which was also an Egyptian symbol". This was found A.D. 1623, at St. Brice, near Tournay, with other things belonging to Childeric. Re reigned A.D. 456. That is, before the Franks acknowledged the Roman Bishop. 2. In the "Monde Primitif compare avec le Monde Moderne," par M. Court de Gebelin, Paris, 1781, the author thus writes, p.181, "Nous venons de voir que les Armoiries de la Guyenne sont un leopard, celles de Celts (surtout les Belgiques) etoient un lion, et celles des Francs un crapaud. le crapaud designe les marais dont sortirent les Francs". And again, on p.195, "La Cosmographie de Munster (50.2) nous a transmit un fait tres remarquable dans ce genre. Marcomir, Roi des Francs, ayant penetre de la Westphalie dans le Tongre, vit en songe une figure a trois tetes, 1' une de lion, l'autre d'aigle, Ia troisieme de crapaud. Ii con-sulta la dessus, ajoute on, un celebre druide de la contree, appele Al Runus; et celuici l'assura que cette figure designoit les trois puissances qui aurojent regne successivement sur les Gauls; les Celts dont le sym-bole etoit le lion, les Romains designes par l'aigle, et les Francs par le crapaud, a cause de leur marais".( t) 3. In the sixth century, 46 of the prophecies of Nostra Damus (p.251) translated by Garencieres of London, 1672, occur the following lines: ~njuste sera un exile envoye Par pestilence aux confins de non seigle; Response au rouge le fera desvoye, Roi retirant a la Rane et a l'aigle. On which, Garencieres observes: "by the eagle he meaneth the emperor; and by the frog, the king of France; for, before he took the fleur de luce, the French bore three frogs". 4. In Pynson's edition of Fabyan's Chronicle, at the beginning of the account of Pharamond - the first king of the Franks who reigned at Treves about A.D. 420- there is a shield of arms bearing three frogs, (p.37, Ellis' edit.); with the words beneath, The banner underneath, having upon it the three frogs, is from ancient tapestry in the cathedral of Rheims, representing battle scenes of Clovis, who is said to have been baptized there after his conversion to Romanism.

The next engraving is from the Franciscan church at Innsbruck; where is a row of tall bronze figures, twenty-three in number, representing principally the most distinguished personages of the House of Austria; the armor and costumes being those chiefly of the 16th century, and the workmanship excellent. Among them is Clovis, king of France, and on his shield three fleur de lis and three frogs, with the words under-neath, "CIodouus der i Christenlich kunig von Frankreich;" that is, Clovis the first Christian king of France.

1. Uptonus de Militari Officio, p.155, states that three frogs were the old arms of France, without specifying what race of kings. 2. Professor Schott supposes the three frogs to have been distinctly the original arms of the Bourbons; bourbe signifying mud. This may have been the case. When their family became the dynasty of France, they probably assumed the frogs as their arms, being kings of the Franks, whose symbol it had been so long. The Bourbons arose out of the mud which is natural to frogs, and by the revolution of 1848 are deep in the mud again! 3. Typoticus, p.75, gives as the device on a coin of Louis VI, the last French king before Hugh Capet, the first of the Bourbons, a frog with the inscription Mihi terra lacusque, land and water are mine, i.e. I am amphibious. 4. In the Encyclop~dia Metropolitana, on Heraldry, it is stated that "Paulus Emilius blazons the arms of France, argent three diadems gules;" others say, they bear 'three toads,' sable in a field vert-ap. Gwil-lim, c. 1. which, if ever they did, it must have been before the existence of the present rules".

Such is the testimony I have to offer in the case before us. The con-viction produced on my mind is, that the Frogs in the prophecy are the symbol of the French democratic power. It will be seen from the armorial shield of Clovis, that the frogs and the lilies were both used as Symbols. They are both indigenous to wet, or marshy, lands, and therefore very fit emblems of the French, who came originally from the marshes of Westphalia. But on the shield of Pharamond, so far back as A.D. 420, the frogs without the lilies appear in the armorial bearings of the Franks; and in the medal of Childeric I. there is no lily, but the frog only. It would therefore seem from this, that the lilies were not the original arms, but superadded many years after; and at length adopted by the Bourbons as the symbol of their race in its dominion over the frogs. These, then, represent the nation, and the lilies, or fleur de lis, the ruling dynasty. Now, if the apostle had said, "I saw three unclean spirits 'like lilies' come out of the Mouths," he would have intimated by such a similitude that the French Bourbons were the cause of the "unclean spirits" issuing forth from the Sultan, the Emperor, and the Roman Prophet. But he does not say this; he says they were like frogs. The truth, then, is obvious. In A.D. 96, when John was an exile in Patmos, the Franks were savages in an untamed country, living by hunting and fishing like American Indians. But the Holy Spirit revealed to him that this people would play a conspicuous part in the affairs of nations; and, foreseeing by what symbol they would represent themselves, He symbolized their nation by it, and styled them "Frogs". He informed him, that under the sixth vial their influence would be remarkably apparent. That the Frog-nation would have much to do with the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet; in fact, that so intimate and direct would their dealings be with them, that its effect would be perceived in the warlike tendency and influence of the measures proceeding from the Sultan, the Emperor, and the Pope; who, being so completely entangled in the complications created by the policy of the Frog-power, would in their endeavors to extricate themselves, involve the whole habitable in war, which would end in the destruction of the Two-horned Beast, and the False Prophet and in the subjugation of the surviving horns to the new Imperial dominion of the kings of the Sun's risings, whose way is prepared by the drying up of the Great River Euphrates.

The restoration of the Bourbons by foreign bayonets, in 1815, was a heavy blow and great discouragement, but not destructive, of the revolutionary spirit of 1789. A power had organized itself under the title of "the Holy Alliance," consisting of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who bound themselves by a treaty at Paris, the real object of which was to maintain despotic and arbitrary power, in church and state, and to support each other against any revolutionary movement among their own subjects. They regarded themselves as delegated by Providence to govern three branches of one and the same Christian nation, of which the Divine Being, under His three characters, was the sole real Sovereign. This was a sort of anticipatory division of the great city into three parts

Greek Catholic under Russia; Latin Catholic under Austria and the Pope; and Protestant under Prussia. Having made this arrangement, they declared their readiness to receive into their holy alliance all the powers (the Ten Horns of the Beast) who should solemnly avow what they styled, "the sacred principles" that had dictated it.

All this was very discouraging to The Revolution, which was not dead, though dethroned, but slumbering; and gathering new explosive force for another effort against the enemy. It made itself heard and felt again in Spain and Portugal, to the great disgust of the French Bour-bons. In Naples also, through the intrigues of the Carbonari (*), it was giving effect to constitutional principles. This alarmed the Austrian, who dreaded the propagation of revolutionary ideas which threatened to undermine the stability of his power in Italy. In 1821, the "Holy Alliance" held a consultation upon Naples at Troppau, whence in the arrogance of power, they summoned its king to meet them at Laybach, as if he had been one of their vassals or subjects. He obeyed. They dictated the invasion of his kingdom by Austrian troops. He consented. The revolutionary parliament was dissolved, the old despotism restored, and Ferdinand became a mere satrap to execute the orders issued from the Viennese Mouth of the Beast.

The revolutionary condition of things in Spain and Portugal was beheld by the Russian Autocrat with disgust and indignation, and caused him to convene a congress at Verona, in which it was determined to use the French Bourbons for the restoration of the old regime in Spain. In 1832, duc d'Angouleme invaded the country with 70,000 men, who took possession of Madrid, garrisoned all its principal fortresses, and virtu-ally reduced Ferdinand to vassalage under the "Holy Alliance".

But the artful policy of these powerful confederates against constitutional freedom, and the happiness of mankind was doomed to a rude and potent shock in 1830. In the words of Journal des Debats, "it seemed that the volcano which closed in 1815 was beginning to emit flames againt". The first Napoleon spoke truly when he said that the princes of the House of Bourbon were all imbecilles. Their subserviency to the "Holy Alliance," and the decline of French influence in Europe, disgusted all parties with their rule. The revolution rose against the government, and routed it at the barricades. Charles X, the representative of the Elder Branch of the Bourbons, fled to England, and Louis Phillippe was accepted as the "Citizen King of the French", in his stead. But, though there was more of the principles of '89 in this dynasty, it was still Bourbon. The fleur de lis was still the master of the situation; and, as time has proved, not the power to execute the mission of the Frogs. The younger branch of the Bourbons reigned eighteen years, in which various revolutionary attempts were made to destroy its citizen representative. In all this period the French had as much constitutional liberty, perhaps more, than they knew how to enjoy. Property was protected, life was safe, and ample scope afforded for money making, and profitable investment of capital; all of which, in all countries, affords much satisfaction to the middle classes, the bourgoisie, who imagine that the world was made for their especial profit and convenience. This, however, is a great mistake. The Bourbon kings had helped to dry up the Great River Euphrates; and the time had come in 1848 to direct French influence and power towards other objects. To elaborate these, it was necessary to remove the Bourbon Lilies and to bring a more revolutionary agency upon the stage The Bourbons forgot nothing and learned nothing. Their sympathies were all with the stagnant past by the malaria of which they had become "imbecile". The spirit of the age is "the Spirit of life from the Deity that entered into the two unburied dead prophets" (ch. 11:9-11 - in 1789). This is a restless, revolutionary, progressive, spirit, essentially hostile to the papacy, priestcraft, and all the governments that sustain them. This spirit was widely diffused among the people of Europe in 1848 (§) but intensely active in France, Italy, and Germany. In France especially, the volcanic fires broke out for the third time with a fury, which all the strength and policy of half a dozen forms of government during a period of sixty years, had failed to quench. In this "wonderful year," the throne of the "Citizen King," which had been set up by a ruse played off by Lafayette upon the revolutionists of 1830, was leveled to the ground; and the fleur de lis indignantly trampled in the dust. There was a general rising of the people throughout Europe against the governments which oppressed them; and every throne tottered to its foundation. In France, the kingly form of government was utterly repudiated; and the DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIAL REPUBLIC upon the basis of "Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality," established in its stead. Here was a revival of the Republic of 1793, founded upon the fall of the Bourbons, and subverted, or perverted, by Napoleon I. The battle was fought by the workmen in the streets of Paris; the victory was theirs: it was the victory of THE FROGS over the FLEUR DELIS. The dynasty represented by this flower was abolished; and the marsh people resumed their original Westphalian right of choosing the most notable frog among them for their ruler. But for four months their government and National Assembly were only provisional. During this time, it was practically the parliament and executive of the democracy throughout Europe. Under the influence of their favor Germany, Italy, and Hungary, become insurgent. The earth shook on every side. Urged on by its democracy, Sardinia attacked the Austro-Italian element of the Little Horn; and provoked by the treachery of its Papal Eyes and Mouth, the democracy of Rome became insurrectionary, and so alarmed him, that he fled for safety to the kingdom of Naples. But Sardinia was not successful. By the defeat at Novara, the Austrian became paramount in Italy. This alarmed the Parisian Frogs, who did not wish the False Prophet to be reinstated in Rome under Austrian protection. They determined, therefore, although Rome was in possession of a sister Democratic and Social Republic, to seize upon the Seven Hills and to get the pope into their own keeping. Hence, they drove out Mazzini and Garibaldi with their adherents; abolished the Roman Republic; and re-established the Pope. By this move, they got possession of Rome, and the Frog-power became an element in the policy of the Beast of the Earth and his Prophet; so that any spirit going forth from their Mouths would have resemblance to the Frogs, whose policy might originate, or give it shape.

Thus began the French occupation of Rome in 1849. They occupied it, not out of love to the Pope but as a check upon Austna and Italy

Suppression of the revolutionaries in Vienna, October 1848. Cobbles have been used to make the barricades. Useful because they enabled revolutionaries to create instant defences. Similar risings were suppressed in Paris, Berlin, Milan, Mantua and other prominent centres throughout Catholic Europe.

Austria and the Papacy, by concordat, ~ are one horn with two capitals. The spiritual authority of the Pope is above the authority of the emperor in all the Austrian empire, until the Concordat is repealed; and the natural ally and protector of the Pope is his Austrian "Apostolic Majesty".( t) The Frog-power in Rome is a nuisance, tolerated there because it can-not be expelled. If the Frog-power had not intervened in 1849, Rome and Italy would have been subject to the Little Horn with Eyes; and the current of events turned into a different channel. The Austro-Papal dominion would have been strong in 1867; and not as it is now, almost ready to give up the ghost. It has been the working of the Frog-power for nearly twenty years past, that has developed what we know to exist in Italy and the Roman States. The "unclean spirit going forth" from the Viennese Mouth, and the "unclean spirit going forth" from the Roman Mouth, in all that period, have been spirits in political shape "like to Frogs".

By a vote of six millions, the plebiscite of the Frogs, the nephew of their great emperor was elected PRESIDENT of the Democratic and Social Republic. Having nearly served out his time, President Louis Napoleon determined to "save society" by slaying some two thousand people in the streets of Paris, sending numbers into exile, and making himself EMPEROR OF THE FROGS. Having accomplished this feat, he appealed to universal suffrage to sanctify this usurpation, and copious bloodshedding for the good of the social constitution. By aid of the machinery employed, and the prestige of his uncle's name, the Frogs accepted him as their emperor; and he now sits among the powers, in spite of the "Holy Alliance", and in defiance of the treaty of Vienna, as the "Mysterious Man of Destiny," the arbiter of Europe; the smiles of whose countenance is peace, and his frowns the thundercloud of war.

In regard to the Sultan*, the revolution that placed the Frogs in power was more to his advantage than otherwise. Under Charles X and Louis Phillippe, the French had assisted in drying him up; but since the fall of the Bourbons, the Frogs, in concert with England, had assured him of their support in case of attack from Russia; and had declared their policy in the Eastern Question to be, the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire. In 1850, I remarked, that "this assurance was certain, sooner or later, to bring on a war between the Porte and the Autocrat. If the Sultan had been left to himself, being weak? he would have yielded, and so have avoided the chance of war; but being energized by France and England, two strong military and naval powers, the Sultan feels himself a match for Russia, and prepared to assume a bold and warlike attitude". And so it came to pass in 1854; when, inspired by the policy of the Frog-power, the "unclean spirit issued from" the Sultan-Mouth of the Constantinopolitan Dragon, in a declaration of war against Russia, and an attack upon Sevastopol by the French and English forces.

Thus, by the revolution began in February, 1848, the Frogs were developed, and assumed the position marked out for them in the prophecy of the Sixth Vial. They were not to stand alone. If they had been destined to operate by themselves the prophecy would probably have read, "I saw three unclean spirits like to Frogs go forth unto the kings of the earth," and so forth. Had it read thus, our observation would have confined to Paris, where the Frogs are imperially enthroned; and we should have Watched for the going forth of the three unclean spirits from that city. Or, had the words, "like to Frogs", been omitted altogether, we should then have had no evidence to show, that the French were any more related to the "unclean spirits" than the Swedes or Hindoos. But, there the words are most ingeniously inserted; so that it may be perceived, that in the thirteenth verse, four leading political organizations, the French, the Constantinopolitan, the Viennese, and the Roman, are made the principal co-operating agencies in the work of developing the situation of the fourteenth verse. The working of these four powers, the French, Ottoman, Austrian, and Papal, in their political transactions with "the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, contemporaneously with the "dried up" condition of the Turkish power, is the GREAT SIGN MANIFESTED IN THE HEAVEN, that the Son of man is about stealthily to come in; and to resume the mission interrupted by his assumption to the right hand of Power (Matt. 24:30; Isa. 49:4-6). It is a sign of the times so manifest, that all who take interest in current events, not only can, but do see it. They see that the Ottoman Power is a Sick Man, with only two Strong friends, France and England, who stand guard at the door of his house to prevent assassins from breaking in, and plundering him of all that remains of his estate. They see also, that, for the past twenty years, there has been no great political question mooted among the powers, whether in regard to Italy, the "Holy Places," Austria, the Poles, Mexico, Rome, Denmark, or Luxenbourg, but that the French emperor has been the great agitator of the situation. All this they see, and wonder at. They term him a mysterious man, the arbiter of Europe, a man of destiny; and some regard him, ridiculously enough, as the Antichrist. Nevertheless, they fail to see the great signification of the great sign they observe; or indeed, to comprehend that it is a sign at all.

Observation and reflection during the twenty years of the development of this remarkable Frog-Sign, have confirmed me in the conviction, that the exposition I originated in my lectures in Britain in 1848-50, and afterwards in Elpis Israel, was substantially correct. It could not then be proved that the sign was to spread itself over twenty years; though it might have been conjectured, that it would continue in manifestation until the thieflike coming of the Ancient of Days. We are now at this writing, in the spring of 1868, near the last months of 1260 years, during which the saints were sentenced to involuntary subjection to the Little Horn with Eyes and Mouth; and the Frog Sign is still in manifestation. My present conviction is, that the Frogs will continue to work even after the Ancient of Days comes, and until the gathering into Armageddon; and that their working is a Providential element of the means to be employed, in bringing the armies of the Dragon, the Beast, the Ten Horns and their False Prophets, into collision with the King of the Jews, and the kings of His rising. But this being in the near future, we shall not have long to wait to know the truth of the matter.

The Frog-Sign, interpreted by events, divides itself into sectional developments; first, the operation of the Frogs upon the Constantinopolitan Dragon; then, their operation upon the Austrian Beast; and third, their operation upon the Roman Prophet. These operations began at successive periods in the order they occupy in the prophecy; but though commencing at different times, the first operation is not finished when the second begins; but the first and second in their effects continue in contemporaneous operation with the third; so that when the Ancient of Days comes, the whole three will be brought to bear against him with all their accumulated force.

The most notable illustration of the working of the Frogs in their developing of the unclean spirit from the Mouth of the Dragon, is seen in the serneia, signs, wonders, or events, they originated and worked out, in regard to the "Holy Places of Jerusalem," as against the rival pretensions of Russia. Their policy in respect of these, brought the Autocrat into a threatening attitude against the Sultan to whom they belong; or rather, who has present possession of them; for they belong exclusively to the King of the Jews, who is coming to set aside all claimants by appropriating them himself But in advance of this decision the Frog Emperor, ignoring the secular supremacy of the Austnan Apostolic Majesty of Vienna in things pertaining to Latinism in the East as the Eldest Son of the Church claimed supremacy over the Holy Places, and to have the right, therefore of putting them in repair Against this unwarrantable pretension the Russian Tzar as the Orthodox Head of the Greek Catholic Church protested and threatened the Sultan with war, if he yielded to the claims of France As the Frogs or the Russians prevailed at Constantinople a firman was granted revoked, and granted again. endowing the Frog-Power with preferential rights in ecclesiastical affairs connected with the Holy Shrines. Having carried its point in Constantinople, the Frog-Power endeavored to maintain the advantage gained there by negotiating at St. Petersburg; but its instructions to the French minister were not of a nature to facilitate a settlement. The effect of Frog-diplomacy there is seen in the fact, that when

the Prince-Bishop Daniel returned from St. Petersburg to Montenegro, he descended, without previous notice, from his mountains upon the Turkish garrison at Zabijak, and in the night slaughtered all he found there. Thus the war that followed was a Russo~Montenegnn experiment against Turkey, remotely and unintentionally excited by the Frogs. The fire thus kindled excited the wrathfulness of Austria against the Sultan. Count Leiningen was sent from Vienna in great haste as the bearer of a threatening message, demanding the termination of hostilities against Montenegro. The Sultan obeyed orders and things were replaced as before, to the chagrin of Russia who had excited it. The Autocrat had hoped that a general war would ensue between the Turkish government and the provinces of the empire. His Bessarabian troops were ready to enter the Moldo-Wallachian provinces, and the Sevastopol fleet was equipped for Constantinople. The pacific termination, therefore, of the struggle greatly annoyed Russia, which then demanded the independence of Montenegro, which, if granted, would have been equivalent to a transfer of its mountain fastness from Turkey to Russia, as there can be no real independence for a horde.

Scarcely had the Sultan yielded obedience to Austria in the affair of Montenegro, than quite an avalanche of insolence descended from Russia upon the unfortunate Sick Man of Constantinople. Prince-Admiral Mentschikoff, Minister of Marine, Governor of Finland, and a relative of the Autocrat, arrived at Constantinople, unexpectedly to the Sultan and his Divan, but not to the Greek population of the city. He appeared there as the alter ego, or other self, of the Autocrat. He was surrounded by a brilliant escort of rear-admirals, generals, aides-de-camp, and many other distinguished persons. He was met at Topana by all the officers of the embassy on horseback, by all Russian subjects and protégées. Men in full uniform, loaded with orders, gold and diamonds, the ambassador in an open carriage, and surrounded by his staff, advanced toward the palace of the embassy, which he reached with difficulty, owing to the dense crowd of Greeks. This show of popularity was obtained by promises and money. The promises had reference to their obtaining the mosque of St. Sophia, built by Justinian, for the Greek Catholic worship, while whispers were adroitly circulated in their ears about the restoration of the Byzantine empire.

The sudden apparition of quasi Russian Majesty in the City of Constantinople excited the surprise of "the Great Powers". The object of Mentschikoff's mission was to check Turkey, and to humiliate and bind her to Russia. To effect this, demands were made directly antagonistic and subversive of the firm an granted to the Frog-Power in favor of the jurisdiction of the Papal Church, and of French influence in the Holy Land. ultimatum after ultimatum followed in quick succession; at length the Russians crossed the truth with the intention of locating in Constantinople, if nothing untoward prevented. This brought things to the crisis in the prophecy; and the "unclean spirit," in unmistakable verisimilitude to the anti-Russian policy of the Frogs, "went forth from the Mouth of the Dragon, "in a declaration of war against Russia; and an endeavor, sustained by France and England, to gather other powers into the conflict for the preservation of the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire, and the limitation of Russian ambition. Thus commenced the Crimean war(*) in 1854. Sardinia joined England, France, and Turkey, through the influence of the Frogs; but Austria and Prussia refused to depart from their position of "armed neutrality". Sevastopol and the Russian fleet were destroyed. The Tzar Nicholas suddenly died; soon after which the Frog-Power proposed a treaty of peace, which was discussed, and agreed to at Paris in 1856. Thus ended the Crimean war, which had threatened to become wide as the great city itself. The Frogs excited it by their policy in regard to Latinism and the “Holy Shrines;" and they quenched it when they found its continuance inconvenient. Turkey lost no territory, and "independence" she had none to lose.

From the foregoing illustration of the Frog-Sign in relation to the Mouth of the Dragon, it will hardly be regarded as presumption to say that the exposition I have given is the only true one that can be given. Nc other writer on the Apocalypse ever caught a glimpse of its signification. Mr. Elliott, who revised his State Church Exposition of the Apocalypse. in the time of the origination of the Frog-Sign, and therein devoted forty-one octavo pages to "the Three Frogs;" although he admits that the Frogs were the original symbol of the French power; and republishes from French, German, and English sources, the heraldic illustrations I have transferred to these pages; yet he sees nothing particular in it. He says he hopes that it may "not be England's sad fate to act the part of the chief secular power employed by the three Spirits to head their gathering of the world's powers to the last great anti-gospel war of Armageddon. Rather perhaps France, 'the eldest son of the church,' may be the country called to that bad preeminence. Signs have not been wanting ever since the peace of Paris (in 1814) of the strong unvarying tendencies of France towards such a position in its foreign policy and proceedings

Much more may such be the anticipation of reflective men, after the extraordinary expedition of the French army in 1849, under the republican regime of Louis Napoleon, and reestablishment of the Pope at Rome. There is a curious heraldic fact accordant with this view, which (considering how frequently such national emblems have been had in view in the Apocalyptic figurations) I cannot permit myself to pass over in silence, though I wish by no means to insist much on it; namely, that, as the three spirits do each and all most assuredly energize in the French nation and priesthood, so their Apocalyptic symbol, the three frogs, are the old arms of France". He regards the spirits as "three unclean, or unholy principles, characteristic of the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, directed and speeded by spirits of hell; and resembling frogs, the well-known type of vain loquacious talkers and agitators, deluding and seducing the minds of men". The spirit from the Dragon's Mouth, he says, is "the principle of pagan-like infidelity and scepticism, with its proper accompaniment of blasphemy; and perhaps, too, of rebelliousness of spirit against rightful authority, alike human and divine, 'by which sin fell the angels'." The spirit from the Beast's Mouth he terms, "the pure direct principle of Popery, based on its fundamental anti-christian dogma of the Roman Pope being Christ's Vicegerent upon earth". The spirit from the False Prophet's Mouth, he styles "the spirit of an apostate priesthood". These three spirits he regards as the unclean spirits of daemons like frogs; and considers that the precise period marked out in the prophecy is to be regarded as the twenty years ending in 1850. Having laid these premises, he occupies about thirty-seven pages with the retrospective sketch of irrelevant matters, as foreign to the prophecy as if a frog had never passed before the mind of John.

Mr. Lord very properly rejects Mr. Elliott's speculation; but, instead of throwing light upon the subject, only substitutes another, if not equally absurd, only less so, because he has very little to say about it at all. "Unclean demon spirits", says he, "are demons or devils, which enter into human beings and excite them to lawless appetites and passions. But these spirits are clothed in forms, as appears from their being compared to FROGS, hideous, groveling, noisy, and amphibious". This is all he sees in the Frogs mere symbols of qualities. Mr. Lord wrote in 1847. Mr. Cunninghame regarded the frog-like spirits, as atheism, despotism, and popery. These are specimens of the ideas of what are regarded as the best writers of the day upon Apocalyptic themes. If these are the best, what must the worst be! Being "wells without water," then, it is useless to linger longer on the brink. We shall therefore take up our bucket and proceed.

The evolution of the Frog-Sign is continuous with the existence of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet; and covers the whole period from 1848, till the gathering of the Powers in war with the Ancient of Days. When this result is consummated, "the Sign" will no longer be seen "in the heaven". When writing upon the subject in 1854, I remarked, that "manifestations from Austria and the Pope are yet wanting to complete the sign. Austria must come into collision with France at last". Five years after this the Frog-Sign entered upon the second phase in the going forth of the frog-excited unclean spirit from the Austrian Mouth of the Beast. Ever since the occupation of Rome by the French in 1849, Austria had also occupied Bologna and Ancona, important cities in the Papal States. However agreeable this might be to the Pope, it was exceedingly annoying to the Emperor of the Frogs, who desired the evacuation of the Roman States by the Austrian forces. It being a part of the mission of the Frogs, as time has shown, to deprive the False Prophet of the support of the Beast of the Earth, the Frog-emperor became restless and excited, and intolerant of the Austrians in Italy. On January 1,1859, he said to the Austrian ambassador, "I regret that our relations with your Government are not so good as they were; but I request you to tell the Emperor that my personal feelings for him are not changed". A high functionary of the French government remarked, that this conduct of the Emperor was incomprehensible. The abrupt proceedings was so extraordinary and uncalled for, that people seek for its cause in regions remote from politics. They cannot conceive that mere diplomatic disagreements would induce such an outburst of illtemper, and so complete an absence of courtesy.

The emperor of the Frogs not only required the withdrawal of the Austrians from the Roman States, but that His Apostolic Majesty should join with him in causing certain reforms in the administration of the government. The Austrian mouth expressed its readiness to recommend administrative reforms to the Papal Government, but it would never, even if a war should result from its refusal, co-operate in an attempt to enforce the execution of such reforms. In regard to the occupation of the Roman States, the Imperial Mouth declared that it would withdraw its troops from Bologna and Ancona at the same moment that the French should quit Rome and Civita Vecchia; but that the right of garrison in Commachio, Ferrara, and Piacenza, which was sacred to Austria by treaty, should be maintained.

These conditions were by no means acceptable to the Emperor of the Frogs, between whom and the Emperor of the Beast there was now considerable jealousy and ill feeling. Francis Joseph was resolved not to bear any part of the yoke which it was thought Louis Napoleon was trying to impose on his brother sovereigns. A perfectly well-informed person remarked, that "for the sake of peace, the Emperor of Austria is ready and willing to make any concessions which are consistent with his honor and dignity, but he will not recognize the claim of the Emperor of the French to be considered the sole arbiter of all European questions of importance. His Majesty is of the opinion that one power has no right to put a constraint upon the will of another, and he therefore declines to make those reforms which are considered necessary

This brings me to remark in further illustration of the Frog-Sign in entering upon its second phase, that at the Conference of Paris in 1856, the wrongs of Italy, as represented by the Sardinian plenipotentiary, had a hearing. The western allies sympathized, and remonstrated with Austria. But Austria would reform nothing, would promise nothing; and during the three years that afterwards elapsed, instead of ameliorating, she only aggravated, her despotic sway over Lombardy and Venetia. Italy was all the while growing more restless, and Sardinia, which assumed to be its champion, in like manner grew the more impatient to take up arms against the oppressor. The Frog-emperor, constitutionally jealous of the overshadowing Austrian influence in Italy, encouraged Sardinia in its hostile attitude; and through his cousin, Prince Jerome, formed a matrimonial conjunction with the House of Savoy. Thus the Frogs allied themselves with Italian liberty, and prepared the situation for the going forth of the unclean daemon spirit from the Mouth of the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth; who, so long as he ruled in Italy, maintained the Image of the Beast in life, "that it should both speak, and cause that so many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed" (Apoc. 13:15). The 1260 years allotted to this constitution of things was hastening to a conclusion; and to the Frogs was committed the working of the political machinery whereby the speaking and power of the Image would cease to be fatal to those who refused to worship it. We have lived to see this accomplished in all the kingdom of the Beast. Even in Rome the Image ceases to cause men to be put to death who refuse to worship it. The Frogs are there, and will not permit it. They have worked Austria out of Italy and, as it were, placed the Pope under arrest upon the Seven Hills.

In the Herald of 1859, I remarked, "we are now waiting to see the Second Unclean Spirit of the Frog-Sign proceed out of the Mouth of the Beast in a declaration of war by Austria against Sardinia, and therefore against France. France has created the present crisis as she did the first under the inspiration of various collateral influences; but we do not expect the declaration of war from Paris. And it is extremely probable that, before this June number is received, war will be renewed". And so it came to pass. War was proclaimed by the Imperial Austrian Mouth of the Beast against Sardinia. On this occasion, the following words found utterance from this Mouth: "The second French empire," it said, "is about to realise its long-cherished ideas; for the Throned Power in Paris has informed the astonished world, that political wisdom will replace those treaties which have so longed formed the basis of European inter-national law. The traditions of the first Napoleon have been resuscitated, and Europe is not ignorant of the importance of the struggle which is about to begin".

Again, the Two-Horned Beast-emperor, said, "the overthrow of the things that be is not only aimed at by factions, but by thrones;" that is, by France, Sardinia and Russia. But he continued, "the sword which I have been forced to draw is sanctified;" and suiting the action to the word while discussing the proposition of the Frogs, laid his hand upon his sword, and exclaimed, "Let the Emperor Louis Napoleon be told that I am too young to abdicate; he wants to pluck the Austrian Eagle:better to try and cut its throat. One thing let him remember in the coming struggle, that the game is far from equal between us. I risk a province; he stakes his empire on the issue of the war. Our struggle, is a just one, and we begin it with courage and confidence. We hope, however, that we shall not stand alone in it. The soil on which we have to do battle was made fruitful by the blood lost by our German brethren when they won those bulwarks which they have maintained up to the present day. There the crafty enemies of Germany have generally begun their game when they have wished to break her internal power. The feeling that such a danger is now imminent prevails in all parts of Germany, from the cottage to the throne from one frontier to the other. I speak as a sovereign member of the Germanic Confederation, when I call attention to the common danger, and recall to memory the glorious times in which Europe had to thank the general and fervent enthusiasm of Germany for its liberation. God and Fatherland! FRANCIS JOSEPH."

Thus spake the Mouth of the Beast, whose heavy tramp upon the populations of Central Italy, extorted "a cry of anguish", which, reach-ing the ears of the king of Sardinia, caused him to unsheath the sword; and in concert with his "generous ally," the Frog-emperor, to flesh it in the vitals of the oppressors; whom he proposed to expel, and so free the country from the Alps to the Adriatic

The Frog-emperor informed the world, that "the object of the war was to restore Italy to herself". He said, that "the national and traditional policy of France is to maintain civilization;" and that although she had passed through a severe and bloody career of seventy years, "France had not, for all that, abdicated her task of civilization. Her natural allies had always been those who desired the improvement of the human race; and when she drew the sword it was not to dominate, but to liberate". Such a declaration as this was calculated to excite the liveliest expressions of good in the hearts of the downtrodden millions of Italy; and at the same time, the most dismal apprehensions of the False Prophet and his carrion birds of Rome. Therefore to keep their worshippers in France quiet, he declared that "he did not enter Italy to disturb the power of the Holy Father, whom France replaced upon the throne in 1849; but to remove from him the Austrian pressure, which weighed upon the whole peninsula, and to help to establish there order based upon legitimate satisfied interests".

All parties having thus declared themselves, the battle cry was raised of "An united Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, and Rome for the capital". Soon after the opening of the campaign, the battles of Magenta and Solferino were fought, and won by the Franco-Sardinian forces. The Austrians were compelled to evacuate Lombardy; but they were still in possession of Venetia and the Quadrilateral(*), and the fortune of war might still favor the recovery of lost ground. But whatever might be the cause "the dark and mysterious man" to the astonishment of all the world, without consulting his allies, made overtures to Francis Joseph, proclaimed an armistice, and signed the preliminaries of peace at Villa-franca. The campaign had lasted only two months, had cost the combatants about a hundred thousand lives, not less than a hundred millions sterling, and disappointed all expectations. The king of Sardinia hoped to be king of Italy, but had only obtained the annexation of Lombardy to Piedmont; the Frog-emperor promised to dry up the power of the Beast from the mountains to the Adriatic Sea, but had expelled its forces from Lombardy alone; the Garibaldini promised themselves the expulsion of the Austrians from the whole country, the downfall of the Pope, and a free and united Italy; but realized none of their hopes. The Roman False Prophet and hl:s priestly adherents, trembling for their worthless carcasses, were astonished to find their apprehensions unfulfilled, and the "Holy Father" the "honorary president" of a paper confederation! For the past ten years the pope had been a kind of captive in his own little kingdom, guarded by French troops, and nominal sovereign of rather more than three millions of unwilling subjects, by the favor of the Frog-emperor. During this disgraceful period, both France and Austria had made vast efforts to sustain the moral power of the Papacy for the sake of its influence in their respective dominions in behalf of the atrocious tyranny in the one, and the suspension of liberty in the other. The Concordat between Austria and the Pope surrendered powers to the latter which Hildebrand might have sought in vain, and every despotic ruler felt the necessity of paying an apparent homage to the most conspicuous symbol of moral slavery and intellectual darkness extant upon the earth. Pius IX had commenced his reign as a reforming pope; but the effort failed from the inherent impossibility of the thing; which, it has been truly said, "was like attempting to have a useful cholera, or a pleasurable small-pox".

The recent war left Pio Nono, in 1860, still in the hands of his troublesome nurses, Louis Napoleon and Francis Joseph, who made him both miserable and contemptible. The dominion of Austria, by its Venetian province, was still contiguous to the States of the Church; and could therefore at any convenient time, cross the Po in succor of the Papal Image of the Beast, should any unforeseen event turn up in Paris to give a quietus to the wonder-working of the meddlesome Frogs. These contented themselves with doing garrison duty in Rome, and in parleying with Austria at Zurich; leaving the Pope to do the best he could for himself with the aid of Naples, the Grand Dukes, and the disbanded soldiers sent to Austria as volunteers, and the ragamuffins he could recruit in Ireland, against the Garibaldini and Sardinians. At this crisis, Louis Napoleon confined himself to giving advice, being really not displeased at the renewed activity of the Revolution. On his visit to Bordeaux, he said to the Bishop of that city, "that the Government that was the means of restoring the Holy Father to the Pontifical Throne, would only give utterance to such respectful counsels as were dictated by sincere devotedness to the interests of his Holiness

As Garibaldi told his little army in the papal town of Bologna, "the hour of a new struggle approaches. The enemy is threatening, and perhaps will attack us before many days are over". Austria seemed to be delaying the Zurich settlement in hope of something turning up. The Pope was very desirous to recover the Romagna; and the kings of the Two Sicilies, and the Duke of Modena, and other foolish princes, "seemed resolved on a pleasant excursion to meet ruin half way". But, about the middle of the year, a change came over the dream of Austria, weakened by poverty and held in check by the discontent of Hungary and the Tyrol. She determined therefore to postpone the renewal of the struggle in Italy. Advises were sent to the Pope from Vienna, which entirely cooled his ardor for the fray. The Austrian cabinet discouraged his contemplated attack upon the Romagnas, as, owing to their internal dissensions, they could not profit thereby. Nor could the young king of Naples aid him in a war; for his forces had more than they could do to uphold his authority in his own kingdom. This was being shaken to its foundation. Garibaldi had landed in Sicily, and co-operating with the insurgents, had driven the Neapolitan troops out of the island. Thence, he crossed the Strait into the Peninsula. He defeated the king's troops, took possession of Naples, and caused the king to shut himself up for safety in the fortress of Gaeta; which, after sustaining a siege by the Piedmontese for a while, he surrendered to the king of Italy.

Such was the course of events, the miracles worked by the unclean Froglike daemon-spirit that issued forth from the mouth of the Beast, 2400 years after the first year of the sole reign of Cyrus, the anointed Shepherd of Yahweh (Isa. 44:28; 45:1; Dan. 8:14); and, in things connected with Babylon, and his people therein, as his Divinely given-name imports, so "Like the Heir". The first unclean daemon-spirit from the mouth of the Dragon, had prepared the way in the Conference of Paris of 1856, for the going forth of the second one from the Mouth of the Beast in 1859, which in its wonder-working evolved the situation of 1860. And what do we see at this crisis? We see the Image of the Beast, the Modern Belshatzar and his cardinals, hemmed in by the Revolution; and his nominal dominion reduced to about 750,000 unwilling and disaffected subjects. Tuscany and the Romagna on the north, lying between the Roman territory and his constitutional protector, the Austrian Beast; and Naples and Sicily on the south, all in the hands of the excommunicated Victor Emmanuel: and the Great political Euphrates on the east, lying between the Papal Capital in the hands of the Frogs, and Mount Sinai in Arabia, to which the Destroyer of the Roman Antichrist comes, "dried up:" is not this a situation of affairs remarkably significative of the nearness of the manifestation of the Son of Man, the antitypical Cyrus; and of the fall of Babylon the Great, the abolition of the Papal Dynasty, and the establishment of the Kingdom of the Heavens?

But, the Frog-Sign in 1860 was not as yet perfected in its second phase. The Beast was still a menace for Italy, and an element of hope to the Roman Prophet: in other words, the military power of Austria had not been sufficiently rolled back for the safety of Italy, and for the reduction of the Sick Man of Rome to the hopelessness of despair. So long as he had hope of cure from Austria, he would not take the physic prescribed by the Frogs. All he wanted of these was that they would drive out the forces of Italy and the Revolution from the Patrimony of St. Peter; restore their estates to his friends, the king of Naples, and the Italian Dukes; and, having taken themselves off to Paris, never to return, leave himself and the aforesaid princes, a happy Italian family, to the constitutional protection of His Apostolic Majesty of Austria. This was all the favor he asked of these dirty Frogs, who, with their revolutionary idees Napolioniennes, and fantastic "civilization based upon legitimate satisfied interests," came into his house, and into the house of his servants, and upon all the people of his estate his earnest entreaty to the Virgin, whom he decreed to be immaculate, was, "0 Queen of heaven, take away the Frogs from me, and from my people" (Exod. 8:2-15).

But, it is impossible for this petition to be granted. The plague of the Frogs will cleave to "the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt," until their policy has brought ruin upon it, from which there will be no redemption nor escape.

The quadrennial epoch signalizing the inauguration of "THE TIME OF THE END," having been completed, the crisis was at length formed for expelling the Beast from Venetia and the Quadrilateral; and thereby relieving Italy of the Austrian menace, and reducing the Pope to still deeper misery and distress. Austria and Prussia had broken into their neighbour Denmark's house, and stolen a portion of his goods, and like many other robbers, they quarreled over the division of the spoils. Prussia and Italy being both desirous of aggrandizement at the expense of Austria, entered into an alliance to attack her in Germany and Venetia, in June, 1866. This necessarily divided the forces of Austria, and weakened her on both points. She was signally and grievously defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa; and compelled to draw off her troops from Venetia to reinforce her discomfited hosts in Germany. Not being able to retain her hold upon this province, she ceded it with the Quadrilateral to the Frogs, who had taken no part in the war. These made a virtue of necessity, and promoting the civilization of legitimate satisfied interests, turned them all over to their ally the king of Italy; with whom the Frog-emperor had nearly two years before entered into convention, for the evacuation of Rome by the French troops in September, 1866. This arrangement was duly executed, and this remarkable year saw Italy delivered from both French and Austrians; the Pope left to his own resources in the midst of a disaffected people, and face to face with the Revolution and Italian government; and the "legitimate interests" of the Italians unsatisfied "Rome the capital of Italy" is now the popular

The third and last phase of the great "sign of the Son of Man in the heaven" is that in which the unclean Frog-like daemon-spirit goes forth out of the Mouth of the False Prophet. It is worthy of note, that this is the first place in the Apocalypse where the phrase "False Prophet" occurs. It is found in two other texts after this, namely, in ch. 19:20; and 20:10. In the first of these, his perdition and the manner of it' are predic-ed; and in the last, it is a mere reference to his fate.

A prophet, in the New Testament use of the word, is not confined to the idea of one foretelling future events. In the larger sense of the word, a prophet is a spiritual allocutionist; or one who speaks to others with authority upon spiritual subjects. It is therefore equivalent to a teacher who speaks to men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort (1 Cor. 14:3). But of teachers or prophets, there are two kinds; the one true; and the other, false. True and false teachers are styled spirits in 1 John 4:1, who saith, "Beloved, believe not every spirit; but try the spirits whether they be of the Deity; because many false prophets are gone out into the world;" and Peter refers to these in 2 Peter 2:1, saying, 'there were false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will privily bring in damnable heresies".

"Beware," said Jesus, "of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matt. 7:15): "and many false prophets shall arise and deceive many" (ch. 24:11). The rule laid down by John whereby the kind of teacher may be known by his fruits, is thus expressed in 1 John 4:6, we are of God;" that is, the apostles are the teachers he authorized:

"He that knoweth the Deity," he continues, "heareth us; he that is not of the Deity doth not hear us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error".

Tried then by this rule, we know that the whole clerical hierarchy of "Christendom" so called, are false prophets in the clothing of sheep, animated by the spirit of error, and deceivers of the people. They speak to the edification, exhortation, and comfort of all men, who, through ignorance of the Word, are unable to discern between good and evil, the false and the true. But, to those of knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual understanding in the Truth, they are an "abomination of the earth;" more especially that section of clerical false prophets, having "the sign of the Beast's Name in their right hand, or in their foreheads" (Apoc. 13:16; 14:11), and who minister before the worshippers in the Latin service of the Daemonials. The Chief of this Pseudoprophet Body is the Spiritual Allocutionist, commonly styled the Pope. He is the Mouth-piece of the Beast's false prophets; the "Holy Father" of their Latinity.

The False Prophet Body is located in all the kingdoms of the Great City, where they make merchandise of the peoples with their sorceries, in pretense of curing their souls. The Mouth of this Body has been, for many dark and gloomy centuries, established in Rome. It is the executive and legislative authority there, which despotically and absolutely administers or controls the spiritual affairs of two hundred millions(*) of worshippers of the two-Lamb-horned Beast of the earth, and of the Ten Horns. When the first vial began to be poured out, it wielded a temporal power of formidable proportions. The Roman Mouth counted three millionst of subjects in its own Church-States; this was its primary dominion the elective monarchy of the Pope-king. But, besides this first dominion, he had great political authority in all the popish kingdoms of Europe; so that he ruled in Rome like one of the emperors of old. In these high times of tyrannical superstition, the Papal Constitution of things was "the Image" of the Beast's Sixth Head, that had the wound of the sword, and lived. It was a terrible image of imperial power, sustained by the despotisms of the world, the ignorance of the people, and the internal Inquisition. But, how is it with this Image in the spring of 1868? What is it now after passing through the scorching, ulcerating, darkening, and tormenting plagues of the vials thus far poured out? It has lost its temporal dominion, which has passed to the Frogs; and the Papacy is a mere "False Prophet", or spiritual power, with its Mouth in Rome.

But, such a Frog-civilization" is not based upon "satisfied" Italian "interests," which they deemed perfectly "legitimate," the Convention of September 1864 to the contrary notwithstanding. Since the evacua-tion of Rome by the Frog-troops, affairs had continued provokingly quiet; and there seemed to be no prospect of the throne of the Italian kingdom being transferred from Florence to the Seven Hills. "Rome the Capital of Italy" was still nothing more than a national cry, which the Convention forbade to be made effectual. The city was garrisoned by several thousands of mercenaries, called the Antibes Legion, made up principally of volunteers from the French army, who had been permitted to serve the Pope, but, at the same time, ordered to remember that they were French soldiers. This was what the Frogs called "evacuation" a mere substitution of a volunteer for the national force to be paid by the Papal instead of by the French, government. This arrangement made a show of temporal independence and power; and evinced that the Image still breathed the breath of political life, and could still speak, and cause that as many as would not worship it in its little territory, should be killed (Apoc. 13:15). Patriots within the walls did not rise; and false prophets by thousands came from far and near, to celebrate the martyrdom of the popish St. Peter, to witness the creation of new saints, and to pour into the papal treasury the contributions of its strong deluded worshippers. This was in 1866.

But, glorify themselves as they may, peace will not abide with the wicked. In 1867, the Revolution became impatient. Events did not progress fast enough for the Garibaldini and the Italian Government. Signor Ratazzi chief minister of State, colleagued with Garibaldi's friends for an attack upon Rome. These invaded the Roman territory, defeated the Pope's mercenaries, who retired within the walls, and put the "Holy Father" in great fear. The Frog-Emperor (**) seeing that his power was gone; and that he could no longer defend himself; and that the Italian Government did not protect him, with the greatest dispatch sent a strong force to rescue him from impending ruin. It reached Rome in time to prevent it falling into the hands of the Garibaldini, who were in force at Mentana. Having encamped, they assumed the political and military direction of the city. They then proceeded to empty the prisons choked with the victims of papal tyranny, and to renew the war in the provinces. Six thousand papal mercenaries and French regulars, armed with the newly invented Chassepot rifle, encountered the Garibaldini at Mentana, whom they outnumbered two to one. The unequal conflict was decided against the revolutionists. The French conquered, and the Temporal Power passed into their hands.

The following extracts from Parisian journals show this. "Our Chassepot rifles have done wonders," says L'Opinion National, quoting the words of General Failly in his report of the fight. "It is, therefore, to the Chassepot rifle that the honor of the day at Mentana is due". Now we know the victor, but who was the vanquished? The vanquished was THE TEMPORAL POWER. The intervention of the French troops at the moment when the victory wavered between the Garibaldians the Papahans, has proved once more that the Pope-king was incapable of defending himself by his own strength. As the Journal des Debats says, by "sending our troops to the help of that power in distress, we have only furnished its adversaries with fresh arguments to show how impossible it is to restore life to it. Is it not Strange, that in order to safeguard him whose anathemas formerly made Europe tremble, it was necessary for modern invention to discover, just in time, the most murderous instrument? This is what the Papacy is now reduced to; it subsists because a rifle has been made which makes wounds larger, and more incurable than the old projectiles.

“What do we see in Rome?" says the Journal des Debats. "It is no longer the Holy Father or his Ministers, it would appear, who exercise authority there, but a French general".

"For the sake of truth," says Ii Diritto, "we must confirm the fact, that scarcely had the French arrived than the spirit of terrorism ceased, which the Papal Government had created in the country. The prisons in which three thousand suspected persons groaned are being emptied by order of the French, who have taken the political and military direction of Rome. We took up arms to put the Sovereign Pontiff in a state of command in his States, and yet it seems IT IS WE ALONE who exercise authority there".

It is then no longer a question of the Pope's temporal power. He is the SPIRITUAL HEAD of the worshippers of the Beast; and will so continue to be until he sinks into the volcanic abyss to come forth no more. His temporal power seems to have gone forever, and, true to its murderous antecedents, in its sanguinary departure, has signalized the last year of the 'forty-two months," or 1260 years, Divinely allotted to it to practise and prevail against its enemies. The revolutionary Frogs are in the very "Mouth," or government, "of the False Prophet," so that any spirit henceforth proceeding thence, must be, not only an unclean daemon-spirit, but also "like to a Frog". Doubt, then, is at length removed. We may now know that A.D. 607, is the true date of the confirmation of the papal institution by Phocas. The issue is now no longer between Italy and the Temporal Power; but between Italy and the Frogs. Shall Rome and its territory be, as now, a mere fief, or dependency of the French empire; or shall they become part of an united Italy? This is a question pregnant with great trouble to all concerned. M. Rouher, minister of state, has declared that the French government will not allow Rome to become the capital of Italy. This determination they are preparing to support by arms. They are at present engaged in making Civita Veechia an impregnable fortress for permanent occupation; and in storing up there abundant warlike materiel for whatever troops may choose to diverge thence upon Italian territory

A letter from Rome in the Correspondence Italienne, says: "Cardinal Antonelli, in his private conversations, expresses firm belief in approaching war. He says, that the great works which the French are executing are by no means intended to shelter Rome from a coup de main of Garibaldi, but to guarantee it against an attack of the regular Italian army. In the war which is preparing, he recently said, the French army will fight alone against Italy, and we shall keep our troops to hold in respect the Roman population. The Cardinal Secretary of State is also said to have remarked, that 'the Emperor Napoleon has lost all sympathy for Italian Unity ever since the discovery of the secret between Signor Ratazzi and Herr Bismark'."

My maturest conviction is that "Rome the Capital of Italy,"(****) is a vain cry. Eight recognized forms of government have reigned there since the foundation of the city. The Papacy is the ecclesiastical element of the Eighth Head, which is the last, and goes into perdition with the city. We read of no Ninth Head upon the Seven Mountains. If Italy gained Rome, and removed the throne from Florence thither, it would be the capital of a new form of government, and therefore the Ninth. There may be a struggle between France and Italy to decide the point. The unclean daemon-spirit about ere long to issue from the Mouth of the False Prophet will enlighten us still further in relation to it. Were the Italians to get the city, they could not retain it long; for apart from the reason, that no ninth form can be constitutionally recognized, is the fact that there is one standing at the door, whose mission it is to destroy the city that it may "be found no more at all" (Apoc. 18:21). This will effectually settle all controversy about Rome, and put a quietus upon the Roman Question forevermore.

Such is the manifestation of the third phase of the Frog-Sign as far as it has been displayed to this February, 1868. In a short time the last of the 1260 and 1335 years will have expired; at all events, these numbers of years will have elapsed since the issue of Justinian, the Dragon-emperor's, Decretal Epistle to the Bishop of Rome, A.D. 533, constituting him the Chief Seer, or Prophet, or Spiritual Head of the Ecclesiastical Body of the Roman world: and since the confirmation of this appointment by Phocas, A.D. 607, respectively. As we have seen, the three phases of the Frog-Sign have had three successive beginnings, each signalized by a war; the first began in 1853, resulting in the Crimean war; the second, in 1859, in the Italian war; and the third, in 1867, in the invasion of the Roman States. But the Frog-Sign is not yet complete. The prophecy seems to require "a simultaneous going forth" of all the three daemon-spirits to the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable: to convene them contemporaneously to encounter some great and urgent danger, that threatens, if not overcome, to subvert and destroy all their "legitimate interests". Among the influences brought into exceedingly prominent activity will doubtless be the Franco-Papal, or the unclean froglike daemon-spirit that issues from the Mouth of the False Prophet. When the crisis is formed, the Prophet of the Great City will be in high feather, exerting himself in the presence of the Beast, with all the spiritual influence he possesses over the millions of Antichristendom, to induce them to join in the crusade preached, as the grand rally of "the earth and the whole habitable" against the great and pressing terror of the situation (*****).

The "kings of the earth" are the rulers of middle, eastern, and northern Europe; and those of "the whole habitable", western and southern Europe, with other outlying regions, whose powers are Apocalyptically symbolized. But, what is the Great Terror that throws the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, into such tumultuous alarm, that their several governments should seek to excite the whole world simultaneously to war? The answer to this important question will form thesubject of the third part of the prophecy of this Sixth Vial.

(*) 500 Million today.

(**) The term "Frog-Emperor" refers to Napoleon III of France, who as Louis Napoleon, becamePresident of France in 1848 after the abdication of Louis Phillippe. On the formation of the Second Empire in 1852, he appointed himself Emperor and took the title of Napoleon III. He was a nephew of Napoleon I, and hoped to gain popularity and power by the use of his family name and the nostalgic appeal to the "Napoleonic Legend". His rule came to an end with the disastrous defeat of France at the hands of the Prussians in 1870. This, like 1848, became another "remarkable year" in which prophecy was dramatically fulfilled. The success of the Prussians brought them to the forefront of the German nations, and the Second Reich (Germany) came into existence. The defeat of the French by the Prussians permitted the unification of Italy, followed by the termination of the temporal power of the Papacy. This was a terminal date for the 1260 year period (Dan. 7:25) according to the Papal times. The Emperor Phocas in AD 607-610 gave power to the Papacy, and 1870 saw the termination of its temporal power. Hitler established what he called the Third Reich which linked modern Germany with the past. The first Reich was the Holy Roman Empire; the 2nd was the Germany establish by the efforts of Bismarch in 1870, and the Third was that established by Hitler. So Germany took over from Austria the role of the Beast of the Book of Revelation. This was after the original publication of Eureka; but was anticipated by its Author — Publishers.

(***) The French were compelled through their defeat at the hands of the Prussians in 1870 to withdraw from Italy thus paving the way for Italian independence — Publishers.

(****) Rome did actually become capital of Italy in 1870, when the French were forced to withdraw their troops from the city because of their disastrous defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. Italian revolutionaries then entered Rome and took the city, placing Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia on the throne. This, we believe, was prophetically necessary in order to provide a revolutionary political voice of intrigue to issue from the "mouth of the false prophet" as required by The Apocalypse (Rev. 16:13). The horns associated with the revived Beast uf^the Sea, the Western European powers, are required to first "hate the whore and make her desolate and naked," and afterwards to "agree and give their kingdom unto the beast" (Rev. 17:16-17). In consequence, at the epoch of its judgment at the hands o f Christ, Babylon the Great is seen triumphantly riding the beast (Rev. 17:3). The revival of a united Italy provided the means for this. Following World War I, Mussolini came to power in Italy, and in 1929 through the Lateran Treaty, revived the temporal power of the Papacy by granting Papal autonomy over the Vatican. After World War II, the Common Market was brought into existence by the Treaty of Rome in 1957, providing the means whereby the horns of the West began to "give their kingdom unto the beast". Today, Europe is divided into two parts answering to the two feet of the Image seen by Nebuchadnezzar, the Common Market is laying the foundation for the full manifestation of the "beast" of The Apocalypse, whilst the international influence and prestige of the Papacy are more widespread than at any time in its history. The Author of Eureka died on 5th March, 1871 so he did not see the remarkable political developments that have vindicated his interpretation of The Apocalypse — Publishers.

(*****)This has provided the means for the extension of political prestige and power on the part of the Pope, which is today a significant sign of the times. — Publishers.

"Behold, I come as a thief' Verse 15.

The position of this announcement of the thief-like advent in the prophecy, is remarkable. It stands between the going forth of the Frog-like Spirits, and the gathering of the kings into Armageddon. This indicates, that the Advent takes place before the gathering into that place or country.

But, who is it that comes as a thief? This must be answered Apocalyptically. This prophecy is introduced by directing the reader's attention to Ch. 1:4,8, to him, "who is, and who was, and who is coming". In this latter text, this august personage styles himself, ho pantokrator, the Almighty One: and in verse 13, "one like to a Son of Man," "he that liveth, and was dead, and is living for the aions of the aions" (verse 18). The Son-of-Man similitude, whose "voice is as the sound of many waters," or "the voice of a multitude," the ONE BODY of which the anointed Jesus is the Head, is the Omega and the End, "who is to come".

The Coming One, who makes his entrance stealthily, is not merely a single individual; but a body of individuals, consisting of the kings of the earth and their Prince (ch. 1:5) to prepare whose way, the Great River Euphrates has been dried up. It is the body of Earth's future kings, who will all be conformed to the Christ Image (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2). They constitute the Mighty Angel, heaven-descended, who had been clothed with cloud (ch. 10:1); and from whose glory the earth is illuminated (ch. 18:1). This angel-body of kings is constituently exhibited ch. 19:11-16. In this place, it is shown to be constituted of the hosts in the heaven accompanying their Commander in war. He and they together illustrate the name, "King of kings and Lord of lords" - the Seven Spirits of the Deity manifested in the Saints.

Such is "the Man who is the Angel" (ch. 21:17) who comes as a thief-the Man whose measure is 144 cubits. But, to whom is he to come as a thief? Certainly not to the constituents of his own body, which would be coming to himself. No; he comes upon the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, as a thief. He breaks in unexpectedly into the Great City by way of the dried up channel of the great Ottoman Euphrates. He plants himself in the limits of the Turkish territory, where he makes all necessary preparations for "the war of the great day of the Deity who is almighty". The exhausted condition of the Ottoman Power is favorable to this preparation of the way. It was dried up for this very purpose, namely, that after the drying up was sufficiently advanced, the way might be prepared to carry into effect what is to follow. This glorious and terrible man can make no progress until he is prepared. When he is created and perfected, he is the way prepared. "I am" said Jesus, "the way;" and this man with a mission, and therefore, man and angel, must be conformed to him as the model. But, if he be a man not yet created, who was that, who eighteen hundred years ago said in the text, "Behold, I come as a thief"? Who is indicated by the personal pronoun "I"? The answer to this is the ETERNAL SPIRIT. figuratively represented in Ch. 5:6, by "a Lamb as it had been slain, having Seven Horns and Seven Eyes" the Eternal Spirit, manifested in the glorified Jesus, who is to the One Body as the acorn to the oak. The Alpha, the First, the Beginning, is the Deity manifested in flesh justified by spirit, and called Jesus Christ; the Omega, the End, and the Last, is also the Deity manifested in flesh, justified by spirit, and styled, in Eph. 4:13, "the PERFECT MAN. the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ".

This Perfect man comes into Babylon the Great as a thief. A thief gets into the house as quietly and noiselessly as possible; and chooses a time when he supposes all the inmates are fast asleep, and consequently off their guard. Having opened a door, or effected an entrance of some sort, he prepares to carry off the spoil. All his preparations for this are done with great caution and carefulness, so as not to awake the sleepers; from whom, the little light he employs is averted, lest its stimulus should disturb their slumbers. This is as a thief comes, and exactly illustrates the coming of the "One like to a Son of Man". He does not come into Babylon like a descending balloon from the clouds, with all eyes fixed upon him, and wondering where he is going to alight! A thief does not come after this fashion.

Thus, "the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night: for when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren," continues Paul in 1 Thess. 5:3,4, "are not in darkness, that that day should over-take you as a thief". We see from this, the class upon whom the coming is as a thief it is upon them who are in darkness. While the Perfect Man is being developed, the Dragon, the Beast, and the Roman Prophet, will be saying, "Peace and safety;" and the last especially, as the organ of Catholicity, in heart saying, "I sit queen and no widow, and shall see no sorrow". These are all in the dark, doting upon speculations none of which Will be realized, but only the reverse.

But, when, where, and how, is the Perfect Man apocalypsed, or revealed? As to the when, the answer is, in the interval between the arrival of the Lord Jesus, and the coming in upon the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet as a thief, after the type of Cyrus and his companion kings. In this interval, the real Sons of the Deity are manifested, and separated from mere pretenders to Sonship. It is the interval termed inCh. 11:18, "the time of the dead that they should be judged"; and, in ch. 20:12,13, also referred to in the words, "I saw the dead, small and great, who had stood, hestotas, before the Deity; and the books had been opened; and another book had been opened, which is that of the life: and the dead had been judged by the things which had been written in the books, according to their works" hekastos, "every one:" parallel with which likewise is ch .22.12, In which it is written, "Behold, I come quickly: and my reward is with me to give back (apothounai) to every one as his work shall be" as his work shall on inspection be found to be. It is in this time, styled by Peter, in 1 Peter 2:12, "THE DAY OF INSPECTION,” hemera episkopes, that the Rainbowed Angel, or Perfect Man, is to be made manifest, and developed into being. "The apocalypse of the Sons of Deity" (Rom. 8:19), which is "the adoption" or "redemption of our body" (v.23), cannot occur in the absence of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he is "the resurrection and the life"; and till he revisits the earth, there can be neither.

He is no longer simply the earthborn body that was crucified and buried. After he came forth from the tomb, which of itself under the law was defiling to the party buried, and to any living person who should touch him, Jesus was also upon the third day "justified by spirit," or "made perfect," in ascending by the power of the Spirit from the earth-born nature, to consubstantiality of substance with the Father, "who is spirit" (John 4:24). Thus freed from all earthiness, he became spirit, upon the principle he had laid down in his discourse to Nicodemus, that "that which has been born out of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). Hence, the perfected Jesus is the Spirit-Nucleus of the Perfect Man to be revealed, or apocalypsed. The Lord Jesus comes not as a thief to them that are watching. He is "the Lord the Spirit" for whom they are waiting and earnestly looking; knowing that he comes when the 1335 years are expired, "in the Time of the End", and before the gathering of the hosts of the nations in the field of Armageddon.

Such is in brief the answer to the inquiry when is the mighty angel-man to be apocalypsed, or developed into visible existence? The next question is where is his development to ensue? And here I may refer the reader to what I have already written in Vol. 3pp. 178-187. It would not be right to reproduce these eight pages in this place. It will be enough to refer to them, and to remark that the development of the Rainbowed Angel is the same thing as the development of the Perfect Man, whose constituents are "the kings from a Sun's risings". I would, however, remind the reader, that Habakkuk informs us, that "Eloah shall come in from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran; and that while he is in Teman, he will also be in Sinai, in the holy" (Psa. 68:17). "Yahweh, says Moses, "came in from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he caused to shine forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thou-sands of the holy". These localities are in the north-western corner of Arabia, and south of the Palestinian pachalik of the Little Horn of the Goat's Euphratean empire. Further to the northwest is Egypt, also a province of the Great River Euphrates. In this wilderness region of the South, bounded by the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea from the Gulf of Suez to the Gulf of Akaba, the Arabian Desert, and Palestine; situate and being in the land promised to Abraham and his Seed - it appears to me, from the testimony already in the hands of the reader, the KING OF THE JEWS will first manifest his presence, not to the world at large; which will not know of his being there, or, if told the fact, would not believe it; but to those, whom "the blood of the covenant" brings before his tribunal. This southern region of which as King of the Jews he is king, therefore, "King of the South," is the locality of that tribunal, or judgment seat (bema, not thronos), before which we must all stand that we may be made manifest. The locality of the Throne (thro-nos) is Jerusalem, about 280 miles in a straight line from Sinai. Mount Zion is the place of "THE GREAT WHITE THRONE" (ch. 20:11; 4:2). This is not ascended until the victorious King of the Jews and his Perfect Man of 144 cubits, or thousands, have wrested the city out of the hands of the Little Horn of the Goat (Dan. 8:9,11,23,25;. We have not now to do with this; but with the bema, or Supreme Court, the judicial bench, styled in Rom. 14:10, and 2 Cor. 5:10, "the Judgment Seat of Christ". All who have made a covenant with Yahweh by sacrifice, and in any way related to "the Covenants of Promise," will be gathered (Psa. 50:5) and stand before this; but it will only be the chosen few, "the called, and chosen, and faithful," who will be admitted to share in the honor, dignities, and glory of the name of Yahweh in Jerusalem enthroned (Jer. 3:17). Let the reader note well this distinction between the Throne and the Judgment Seat, their different localities, and the different times of their establishment. The transactions connected with each are different series of events; which, if mixed up together create inextricable confusion.

The third question is, how is the Perfect Man, who is to descend upon Babylon's powers and populations "as a thief," to be apocalypsed, )r brought into existence? By the power of the Eternal Spirit, or Father, operating through the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the principles laid down in Paul's epistles. With a very few exceptions now existing among the living, the future constituents of the Perfect Man are nothing but incorporeal dust and ashes - dust without form or body. When living in the present state they were men and women, who understood, believed, obeyed, and walked, in the Truth, and thereby obtained registry in the Lamb's Book of Life (Mal. 3.16,17, Dan. 12.1, Exod. 32.32,33, Apoc. 20:15). In the resurrection epoch, dust is formed into bodies. They are then "the dead who are in the graves". The next thing is, they are caused "to hear the voice of the Son, who has the life in himself". On hearing this they then "come forth" from the graves by the momentum communicated to them by the earth which "casts them out". After this, their consciousness of a previously developed character being impressed upon them, the angels employed in the service, gather them together from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other, unto the Lord Jesus Christ; so that, if I have correctly expounded the testimony of Moses, David, and Habakkuk, the angels will gather them "unto him" in the South in the wilderness of Sinai. At this point the reader will please refer to the following texts (John 5:26-29; Isa. 26:19; Matt. 24:31; 2 Thess. 2:1).

This coming forth of the future constituents of the Perfect Man from the graves, restores them to an equality with the few among the living, who may attain perfection with them. In this co-equality they are intellectually, morally, and materially alike. That which is out of the earth, ek ges, is, and can only be, earthy, choikos. These coequals, who have all come from the earth directly or indirectly, are therefore "earthy;" and therefore also, until subjected to a further operation of Spirit, unfit to enter the kingdom of the Deity.

Furthermore, the grave is regarded in the Divine law as an unclean place, and defiling. Under Moses' law, if a man touched a grave, or a bone, or a corpse, he contracted a defilement, from which he could not be cleansed under a week. This was styled "filth of the flesh" (1 Pet. 3:21) and typified the real nature of all bodies coming forth from the grave. The "flesh" of these is that peculiar constitution of their substance which forms its earthiness. The subject of such a nature, however excellent a character he may be, or may have been, is materially defiled, or unclean. Therefore, nothing born of a woman is clean, even though it have been begotten in her substance by the power of the Spirit (Job 14:4; 25:4). Now, this is a principle of the knowledge revealed to us, and is of universal application. It obtains in relation to Jesus himself. In Gal. 4:4, Paul says, the Son of the Deity sent forth, "was made of a woman, made under the law". The body so made and born was therefore unclean materially and Mosaically; and could no more "enter heaven itself to appear in the presence of Deity for us" (Heb. 9:24) in that nature, than that flesh and blood should inherit his kingdom (1 Cor. 15:50). Would any one intelligent in the Word affirm that an unclean body, made yet more unclean by becoming a corpse, and therefore defiling to every one who touched it, becomes clean by being put into an unclean place, and lying there for three days, less or more? Would the simple fact of that corpse coming to life in a tomb which its presence had Mosaically defiled, and walking out of it, make it a clean body, or nature? If it be replied that it would, why then was not Lazarus, whom Jesus raised, clean of nature? If it be replied, "he was"; then Jesus was not the "first out of a resurrection of dead ones" (Acts 26:23).

But, passing through the grave cleanses no one. They who emerge thence, "come forth" with the same nature they carried into it; and therefore their coming forth is Resurrection. If the same kind of body did not come forth that was buried, it would not be Resurrection, but only surrection, as in the case of the first man. Jesus "rose AGAIN" (1 Cor. 15:4); his coming forth was therefore resurrection. He rose again the same Jesus that was buried, only that instead of being dead, he was alive again. He was buried under the curse of the law, which "made him a curse for" our benefit (Gal. 3:13): he came forth while that same law was in force and Operation. His coming forth upon the arena of his execution did not relieve him from the curse of that law, which sentenced him to continuous and everlasting death; so that, if they could have recaptured him, the Mosaic authorities would doubtless have returned him into death. That law regarded him as dead, and its authorities refused credence to the report, that he had come to life. After he had come forth he saw Mary, a Jewess, who mistook him for the gardener, so like other men did he appear. Having convinced her of her error, he checked the impulse of her affection by saying to her, "Touch me not!" It was defiling for Jews to touch a thing declared to be unclean by the law. Any thing from the grave was enacted to be unclean, in reference to him who should come out of the tomb, until that he should be 'revived" (Rom. 14:9) or "made a quickening Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45). Christ was "the end of the law," the substance or body of the shadow (Rom. 10:4; Col. 2:17); its lines concentred in the things pertaining to his body. The interdict forbidding it to be touched was indicative of its not then having been changed into spirit; and that it was still earthy and inferior to the substance of the Father. He gave the reason why he forbade his body to be touched; "for," he said, "I have not yet ascended to my Father". No one might touch him until that ascent had taken place. It did not occur till after Mary left him; but it had doubtless taken place before his walk with Cleopas and another to Emmaus; for they appear to have traveled very sociably together. The swallowing up of every particle of the earthiness of an earthy body, is an instantaneous operation; the work of "a moment, or the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:51,52). It was one of the events that transpired in relation to Jesus on the third day. He "rose and revived" on the third day (Rom. 14:9). He not only rose on the third day, but he revived on the same day. Rising is one thing, reviving is an-other; and two different words are used by the apostle to express the different ideas. The Father who is Spirit, had "forsaken" Jesus upon the cross, and left him to die there. Having become a corpse and been laid in a tomb, that corpse was like all other corpses, utterly without intelligence and power; for "the dead know not anything" (Ecc. 9:5,10); and "the Lord (YAHWEH) is not the Deity (AlL, or Power) of dead, but of living ones, for they all live by him" (Luke 20:38). When this corpse, named Jesus, opened its eyes, stood upon its feet and came forth from the tomb, it "rose". At this point of time it was neither Lord nor Christ. The Father, who had forsaken him and left him to die, had not yet returned to him; for if he had returned to the corpse while in the tomb in causing it to stand and walk, that risen body after coming forth would not have said, "I have not yet ascended to my Father". This was equivalent to saying, I am an earthy, or natural, body just come forth from the unclean place; and have not yet been "made perfect," "justified by the spirit," or "made a quickening spirit". The Father hath not yet clothed me with my house which is from heaven; so that that which constitutes me earthy and mortal is not yet "swallowed up of life;" therefore, “Touch me not" until I have been "constituted Son of Deity in power, through Spirit of holiness, out of a resurrection of dead ones" (Rom. 1:4). I am now simply Jesus born of the tomb, "of the earth earthy;" but when my earthiness of body is instantaneously "swallowed up of life," I shall be Spirit; I shall be of equal and identical substance with the Father; and by this anointing, I shall become Christ, or the Anointed One, and "the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor. 15:47).

This anointing with Spirit and Power was the revival in a greater degree of the former relations subsisting between the Father and the Son. He had been "anointed with holy spirit and power" after he had been born of water. This did not change his body into Spirit; it only invested the body born of unclean flesh, or "made of a woman," with the wisdom and power of the Father in heaven, who discoursed and worked through it (John 5:19,30; 6:38,63; 8:42,58; 10:30; 14:10,28). But when the body was anointed again with holy spirit and power, or "spirit of holiness," after it was born of the second unclean place, the tomb, it was not only endued and embued with wisdom and power as before, but it was itself transformed into an embodiment of eternal power, in which there is no weakness, or corruption, or principle of death at all. It was then "revived," anezese, as well as risen again, aneste. It became "the body of his glory," soma tes doxes autou (Phil. 3:21), "raised in glory" from the earthy body which is "without honor," en atimia (1 Cor. 15:43); and forty days after, "taken up in glory" (1 Tim. 3:16).

Such was the model, or "Heavenly Man," whose image, intellectual, moral, and material, all must bear who may become the future constituents of the Perfect Man, who comes upon the world as a thief. I have been rather particular in the exposition of the things connected with the body of Jesus, which being made subjectively to know orach chayim, "the way of lives," became "the Way" (John 14:6) illustrative of the manner in which all his brethren will experimentally pass from the humiliation of death to the exaltation of eternal life and glory. They, as he, come forth from the unclean house of death earthy, and, therefore, unclean bodies. As such, they are gathered together by angelic agency into the presence of the Judge, who awaits them in the wilderness of the South. There they pass their examination as candidates for companion-ship with him in the kingdom and glory about to be established and developed by the Eternal Spirit through the Perfect Man. The examination is the scrutiny of character made flesh. If the characters of the candidates for Divine honors be approved, then their "mortal flesh" as Paul terms it in 2 Cor. 4:11, becomes the subject of a spiritual operation, which, "in the twinkling of an eye," justifies, or perfects it, and thereby causes it to ascend from flesh to Spirit, which is equivalent to ascending from the low origin and level of an earthborn, to the Heavenly Father who is Spirit.

These transactions being finished whereby "they who have done good" are "made manifest," and separated from the refuse and the vile, like their model was, are "made higher than the heavens" (Heb. 7:26). They are the Perfect Man, whose constituents are all kings and priests the Yahweh Elohim omnipotent; the Wife of the Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes, married, or inseparably united, to the Spirit. Being Spirit, whatsoever they do the Spirit doth; so that all their great and glorious deeds in the subjugation and regeneration of the world, will be wrought in Deity.

Such, then, is the Spirit who saith, "Behold, I come as a thief". He comes from the far country, "the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens," in the time of the end, veaith kaitz; that is, after the ending of the 2400 years, or, as the English Version has it, though I believe erroneously, 2300(t). Whichever number may be adopted, it is a satisfaction to be assured on good evidence, that the longer and the shorter periods are both in the past. The Time of the End consists of the years occupied in justifying or vindicating all that constitutes "the holy" - rectifying, or making it all right and straight, after so long a period of injury and violence wenitzdak kodesh, "then the holy shall be justified" vindicated or avenged (Dan. 8:14).

The Eternal Spirit incorporate in the Saints, to whom judgment is given, is the justifier, rectifier, vindicator, and redeemer of the holy land and nation. Habakkuk, in his vision of this time, saith in Ch. 3:13, "thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, for salvation with thine Anointed". This Anointed One is the Christ in fullness - the One Body consisting of the Lord Jesus and his brethren "glorified together". Developed in the South as a a body of kings, laying special claim to the land of Israel, and to the world in general, and commencing their enterprise for the conquest of their rights from Teman, they constitute a power, styled in Dan. 11:40 melech hannegev, "king of the south". Zechariah says in ch. 9:14, "Adonai Yahweh shall blow with trumpet, and shall go forth with whirlwinds of Teman". He goes forth thence for the salvation of his people "in the time of the end". In going forth thus, he "pushes at him," the Little Horn of the Goat, or power of Constantinople, "which distributes the land for a price" (Dan. 11:39). It is immaterial whether that power be then Turko-Greek, or Russo-Greek: the raised up Sons of Zion, as the sword of a mighty man, will operate against the Sons of Greece (Zech. 9:13). This sudden and unexpected attack of a hitherto unheard of power, will come upon the Dragon, the Beast, the False Prophet, the Kings of the Earth, and of the whole habitable "as a thief". The situation will be an astounding novelty in the "balance of power". The Christ in fullness in the Great City Babylon, and none suspecting even that the Lord Jesus had individually descended from heaven! Could any surprise be more complete! Here then is the Eastern Question in a phase not dreamt of in the philosophy of the worshippers of the Beast.

"Blessed he who watcheth and keepeth his garments, that he walk not naked, and they see his shame".

The Apocalyptic benedictions are not mere ornamental figures of speech, thrown in, as it were, for the ventilation of pious feeling. They are substantial and joyous realities, promising present and future benefits. Thus, "Blessed he that readeth and they that understand the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is near" (Ch. 1:3). He that reads, understands, and keeps "the sayings of the prophecy of this book," thereby places himself in the blessed companionship of the apostle John, and of his brethren the prophets, one of whom (whether Enoch, Moses, or Elijah, we know not)(*) was the bearer of the Apocalypse to him (Ch. 1:1; 22:7-10). The knowledge herein revealed, understood and kept, is an infallible preservative against all the wiles of the adversary, and all the delusions by which the worshippers of the Beast's Image are deceived, and made meet only for capture and destruction.

Again, blessedness is pronounced upon them who die in the Lord, in Ch. 14:13. These are the same as they who keep the sayings of the prophecy. This text informs us when they are blessed — at the time, namely, when, as constituents of the Perfect Man, they rest from their arduous judicial labors.

But they are greeted with benediction as candidates for the high honor and glory of which he is the subject. This candidature is predicated upon "watching and keeping the garments"; not upon watching, or looking, only, but upon keeping the garments, as well. In this sense it is that the Christ personal shall appear with out sin to them who are looking for him for salvation (Heb. 9:28). They must first put on the garments, and then keep them from being soiled by the corruptions of the flesh and world. None can watch Scripturally, who do not "keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book;" for, without an understanding of them, it is impossible to know the signs of the advent, and whether it isnear or afar off. All the world sees the facts in regard to the Ottoman, Papal, Austrian, and French, powers; but it knows not what is indicated thereby, or whether anything is signified at all. This is the case also with many who profess that they are not of the world, but whose practice belies their profession. They talk glibly about the advent, but they are neither in the faith, nor do they know what it is. Such are "naked," and have no garments to keep; and all their professed looking for Jesus is not the "watching" of the text before us.

But they who are truly "watching and keeping their garments" are blessed in that they see "the Sign of the Son of Man in the heaven," by which they are warned to trim their lamps with "the knowledge of the Deity's will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding," that, when his arrival is announced, they may go forth to meet him with all confidence and joy. They are "blessed" in being able thus to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, in the wilderness of Teman; but more blessed still will they be when the account they are able truthfully to render of themselves is accepted and approved; and they are pronounced by the Judge to be the blessed of his Father (Matt. 25:34); and are exalted to be sharers with him in his joy (Matt. 25:21). In this exaltation they will have attained to that perfected blessedness to which they were called in the gospel of invitation to "the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Ch. 19:9). Being adopted, by the transforming power of the Spirit, as constituents of the Perfect Man, they are "blessed and holy:" not blessed only, but holy likewise. "Be ye holy in all manner of conduct: because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy". This was their character in the days of their flesh; but, being now participants of the Perfect Man, they are the holy, in the sense of the incorruptible and immortal "Firstfruits" of the resurrection. On them, the Second Death will have no power; but they shall be priests of the Deity and the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years (Ch. 20:6).

Such is the blessedness which results from doing the commandments of "the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last". By obedience to his institutions, they obtain "the right," which, not being forfeited by misconduct, is realized in "the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body of us," "who are kept by the power of the Deity through faith for salvation, ready to be apocalypsed in the last time". As the blessed constituents of the Perfect Man, they are the Tree of Life, and the Great City, the holy Jerusalem, into which they have entered, and whose name is written upon each (Ch. 3:12). The door is yet open to all who aspire to so great and exalted a destiny; as it is written in ch. 22:14, "Blessed they who do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city".

The penalty incurred by neglecting to watch and keep the garments, is expressed in the words, "that he walk not naked, and they see his shame". When a body comes out of the dust of the ground, and there is impressed or written upon its organization a character previously developed in a former state, if that character be bad, such a person is said to "walk naked", even though he might be abundantly supplied with clothes. He is morally naked, and certain to be put to shame. Being morally naked, he will continue to walk naked, in the sense of not being "clothed upon with the house which is from heaven;" that is, his earthy body will not be transformed into an identity with the spirit-body of the Lord Jesus. He will be dealt with judicially after the example of the first man, who, after receiving sentence of death, was "driven" with shame from the Divine Presence, to live awhile in sorrow and pain, and then to die and rot in the dust from whence he came (Gen. 3:24). Such is the unhappy future of those "who profess to know God, but in works deny him;" and who, being "in Christ Jesus, walk after the flesh". After this order, "they come forth into a resurrection of condemnation," in which they reap of the flesh the corruption due to what they have thereunto sown.

But, the first man of the earth was put to shame before a plurality of Divine Personages. This is evident from the narrative, which records the saying of the Judge, who remarked, "Behold the man is as one of us, knowing good and evil". The "us" is indicative of the associates of the speaker, styled by MOSES YAHWEH ELOHIM. These it was who, in the language of our text, "Saw his shame". This Court of Assize in Eden, which condemned the man of the earth to remain earthy unto death because of one offence, is the type, or example, of the future Court of Assize in Teman, where his earthy representatives, who come forth from the dust as he, will be tried, or scrutinized, and justified or condemned, "according to their works". As in the case of the first human pair, this justification and condemnation will be pronounced and carried into effect before a plurality of dignitaries. In relation to the condemned, this is indicated in the word bleposi "THEY see" his shame. If it be inquired, who are the "they," it must be admitted, that the words of ch. 16:15, do not inform us. The exposition, however, I have given, will supply this lack. The man of the earth condemned to walk naked in his
shame, will stand in the presence of the Lord Jesus, of the angels of his power, and of the justified constituents of the Perfect Man, all of whom will be embodiments of the power or spirit of the Eternal Father. This "I" who comes "as a thief upon the sons of night, is the "they" who see the shame of the earthborns, who are sentenced to condemnation with the world. And this interpretation is in harmony with the words of Jesus, who saith in Luke 12:8, "whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of the Deity, and before my Father who is in heaven;" and "whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words y of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when
he shall come in his own glory, and the Father's, and of the Holy Angels" (Luke 9:26): "I will deny him before my Father" (Matt. 10:33). So that what we confess, or deny, and do in the present state, will define our moral standing at the bar of the Divine Court of Teman; where "they who have been accounted worthy to obtain of that aion (the Resurrection-Aion) and of the resurrection from among the dead (which gives entrance into it) are equal to the angels:" all else are repudiated, or denied, and put to shame before all "his servants, both small and great," whether angels, or constituents of the Perfect Man.

(*) The Author believed that these three faithful men are still living, and that one of them described as John's "fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book" (Rev. 22:9), was "the servant" used by the Lord to convey The Apocalypse to the early Ecclesias (Rev. 1:1). He did so on the grounds that of Enoch it is clearly stated that he "was translated that he should not see death" (Heb. 11:5); of Elijah, that he was taken from Elisha who permitted a search to be made for him, in addition to which he is styled "the servant of Yahweh", and that "a writing" came from him in the days of Jehoram many years after the prophet had been taken from his companion (2 Chron. 21:12); and of Moses, because he was raised from the dead at the Transfiguration. Some may differ from the Author in this, but they then need to explain how the terms used in Rev. 22:9 can relate to an angel. — Publishers.

"And he gathered them together into the place called Hebraistically, ARMAGEDDON" - Verse 16

Let it be noted by the reader, that a gathering of the Powers is the subject of the prophecy in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses. In the former, the daemon Froglike spirits are represented as the agencies so operating upon the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable, as to cause a gathering of them for the war of that great day of the Almighty Deity: but, from the sixteenth verse it would appear, that the daemon-spirits did not of themselves alone consummate the gathering; for it is here written "He gathered them". The case then appears to be this, that the Froglike Spirits begin a work in 1848, which they carry on for twenty or more years(*), during which, by their policy, they bring the powers of the world into such a situation regarding "the Dragon," or Eastern Question, and "the Beast and False Prophet," or Roman Question,(t) as to prepare them for a general move against any power, come from whence it may, that may intervene in the settlement of those questions contrary to their interests, and such a distribution and balance of power as they may approve. Every one may see that this is the present situation of affairs. The Powers are all "armed to the teeth," with their hands upon their swords, and in a highly irritable or inflammable frame of mind, upon the Roman and Eastern Questions, and ready to do battle against any who might venture athwart the path of their policy or ambition They are conscripting the cultivators of the soil to a vast extent, and preparing them for war; as though war, and not agriculture, were the normal condition of mankind. Thus, they are beating their plough-shares into swords, and their scythes into spears; and the weak say they are strong; as an indispensable preliminary to the great conflict which is to follow (Joel 3:10).

But, the unclean daaemon-spinits like Frogs having prepared the situation; and the great river Euphrates being sufficiently dried up; who is He that gathers them into Armageddon? The Apocalyptic answer is, the "One Angel standing in the Sun" - ch. 19:17 - the One Angel-Body, invested with omnipotence and glory; the Perfect Man, constituted of "the kings of a Sun's rising;" (t)O prepare whose way "the water," or power, of the great Ottoman river has been dried up. This "One Angel," hena aggelon, whose "countenance is as the sun shining in his strength" (ch. 1:16; 10:1), has then command of the situation. He cries with a loud voice, "a voice as the sound of many waters;" or, "as when a lion roareth", making proclamation, and saying to all the fowls flying in midheaven, to whom judgment is given, "Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great Deity". The gathering of the birds of prey which lodge in the branches of the kingdom (Luke 13:19), implies the previous gathering of the hosts to be devoured; and also the presence of a power potent enough to give their carcasses to the birds. This is the power that "comes as a thief;" which, having clothed himself with a cloud of brethren, next proceeds to gather by the policy he develops, the armies of the Beast and Kings of the Earth for a conflict with the New Power of Teman (ch. 19:19).

Such is the Apocalyptic answer to the question, who is He that gathers them? And the testimony of the prophets is in harmony with it. In Isaiah 66:18, the Spirit saith, "It shall come that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory;" and in Mic. 4:12, "Yahweh shall gather many nations as the sheaves into the floor" for threshing: "therefore wait ye upon me, saith Yahweh, until the day that I RISE UP to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy" (Zeph. 3:8). The Spirit of Christ also informs us of the place to which he will gather them. In Zech. 14:2, he says, "I wll gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken" and in Joel 3:2,14, "I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat the Valley of Threshing". These are sufficient to show that it is the Spirit in Apocalyptic manifestation who is the gatherer.

But these passages in context also show, that the Spirit in Son of Man, or One Angel, apocalypse, will not be in Jerusalem during the siege and capture of the city: for when it is in the hands of the enemy, he then "goes forth and fights against the assembled nations, as when he fought in the day of battle" he goes forth from Teman, and having been victorious at Botzra, "he stands upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east," and also before and above the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

Here then is a manifest interval of time and space; of space, between Teman and the Mount of Olives; and of time, between the completion of the development of the One Yahweh-Elohim Angel-Man ready for action and his arrival at the Mount of Olives. How does he occupy his time in this interval; and what means does he employ to cause "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable" to "come out as a whirlwind to scatter him" (Hab. 3:14)? In other words, how doth he put hooks into Gog's jaws, by which he brings him forth, and all his army, horses, and horsemen, against the mountains of Israel (Ezek. 38:4,8)?

It may be remarked here, that there will have been a considerable gathering of Israelites upon the mountains of Israel before the invasion of the country by Gog, and his capture of Jerusalem. This appears from the Spirit's address to Gog in the eighth verse of this chapter. In this place he says, "In the latter years thou shalt come into the land brought back from the sword, and gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been continually waste; but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them". Gog also is represented in the eleventh verse as admitting that it is a land of unwalled villages, whose inhabitants are at rest and in safety; for an evil thought comes into his mind, and he says, "I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell confidently, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places now inhabited, and upon the people gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land".

It is evident from these last words, that "the land brought back from the sword" is not the land according to the original Abrahamic grant; but only that "tenth part" of it which Isaiah was informed in ch. 6:13, "shall return and be grazed". This tenth in the midst of the land is the locality of Armageddon; and not at all connected with Teman, which lies considerably to the south of it. The return of security and prosperity to this tenth of the land, must either precede the development of the "One Yahweh" man; or be concurrent with the operation in the recesses of Teman: or it may be in progress both then and before. It seems to me that the movement of the Anglo-Indian Merchants of Tarshish upon Abyssinia~, and the formation of the Suez Canal, are preliminary to the return of the tenth. How long a time may elapse from the arrival of the Lord Jesus at Sinai, to the perfected development of the Echad Yahweh(*) "ONE YAHWEH" Name (Zech. 14:9; Deut. 6:4) does not appear from the record: the interval however, will I conceive, afford time enough for the development of the Divine purpose with respect to the tenth of the land. From the present occupation of Abyssinia to the finished preparation of the Lamb> Bride, whose perfected readiness for action is the subject of the "Hallelu-YAH" of her great constituent multitude (ch. 19:6-9) will afford all the time so facile an international arrangement, in these days of political and scientific miracles, may require. Sardinia became the kingdom of Italy in two months: the kingdom of Naples was annexed in less time; Austria was expelled from Venetia and the Quadrilateral in d few days: how soon, then, could a convention between England, Turkey, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia, for the sake of advancing a step in the peaceful solution of the Eastern Question, give population, security and prosperity to the tenth of the land.

Bearing upon some arrangement of this kind, is a remarkable passage in Isa. 43:3,4. The reader can take it as it stands in the English Version, or according to my rendering as follows: "I have given Egypt, Cush, and Seba, thy covering in return for thee; since that thou hast been precious in my eyes; thou shalt become renowned: and I have loved thee; I will therefore give men in return for thee, even to peoples in return for thy life". Here is the Giver, who, being the proprietor of the earth, and distributor of the nations upon it according to certain bounds (Acts 17:26), establishes a new relation of things in the East, in consideration of Israel's return undercover, or protection, of some particular power. Israel is, as it were, transferred to the Divine Purchaser, that is, to the midst of His land, by a power, whose sway is Providentially extended over Egypt, Cush, and Seba, or Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt; so that it obtains command of the Red Sea, from the Straits of Babelmandel to Suez; and from thence to the Mediterranean. Having thus command of both sides of the Straits, being already settled at Aden in Sheba, and possessed of Perim, the highway to India is controlled, and assured to the covering or protecting power.

But what country doth the Scripture indicate will extend the shadow of its political protection over the tenth, in the midst of the land of Israel'? Whatever land is therein indicated will, I conceive, obtain supremacy in the Abyssinian Ethiopian or Cush; Seba, or Nubia; and Mitzraim or Egypt; whereby it will find it to be promotive of its commercial and political interests to obtain the resettlement of the central tenth of the Holy Land under the guarantee, perhaps, by the great powers, of neutrality. This would be in the sense of the text, receiving Egypt, Cush, and Seba, in return for the resettlement of the tenth.

The answer to the question proposed is revealed in Isa. 18:1,2,7, which I translate thus: "Ho! land of widely o'ershadowing wings extend mg from beyond to rivers of Cush; which sendeth by sea whirling things even upon vessels of fleetness on the surface of waters! Go swiftly, ye fleet messengers, to a nation carried away and oppressed; to a people terrible from this and onward; a nation prostrate and trodden down, whose land rivers have spoiled. . . to the dwelling-place of the Name of Yahweh T'zvaoth, Mount Zion "- Herald, Vol.11!., p. J03.

A land of widely o'ershadowing wings is representative of a government of widely extended colonial dominion. It is hailed in the prophecy, which was delivered in Jerusalem, as a power located east of the rivers of Cush, or "extending from beyond;" and in its amplest Asiatic development, extending "to the rivers of Cash". The reader must bear in mind, that there are two separate and distinct regions known in Scripture by the name of Cush; the one, in Asia and now called Cushistan: the Other, in Africa, styled Abyssinia and Ethiopia. The latter is at the southwest extremity of the Red Sea; while the Cush of our text is at the north end of the Persian Gulf, where it is watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, and now lying partly in Persia, and partly in Turkey.

The overshadowing power is "from beyond" these rivers. By sea, the communication is direct from Hindostan to Cush, where there is well known to be a power, of widely extended dominion, whose navy is largely composed of fleet, or swift vessels propelled by "whirling things". Ezekiel styles this power "Sheba, Dedan, the Merchants of Tarshish, and all the young lions thereof" (ch. 38:13). This is the power to which Egypt, Cush, and Seba, the country of the Sabaeans, "men of stature" (Isa. 45:14) are given as the price for the resettlement of the tenth in the midst of the land. It is the British Indian Lion of Tarshish, which even now commands the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and is pre-pared for any advance northwestward towards Syria or Egypt, deemed necessary by the home government for the satisfying of its interests.

How then doth "Yahweh, the Man of War," so styled by Moses in Exod. 15:3, occupy his time after his development as the "One Angel" is complete? Let the following testimonies enlighten us. "Behold," saith the Spirit of Christ in Isa. 43:19, "I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The living things of the plain shall glorify me, swift things and the daughters of voracious ones (the wild Arabs, figuratively "dragons" and "ostriches"): because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people I have created for myself: they shall show forth my praise". This implies the subjugation of the freebooters of the Arabian desert, and its fertilization, which will make its people glorify the conqueror, and sing for joy.

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon (the cedar) shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall be the glory of YAHWEH, and the excellency of our Elohim" (Isa. 35:1,2). And again inch. 41:18-20, "Twill open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of waters, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together; that they may see, and know, and consider, that the hand of Yahweh hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it". And "Let the wilderness and the cities thereof exult, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit; let the inhabitants of the rocky country (Arabia Petraea) sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto Yahweh, and declare his praise in the habitable lands" (ch. 42:11).

Now it must be evident to every one, that before the wild, untamed marauders, who inhabit Arabia Deserta, Arabia Petraea, and Paran, Horeb, Sinai, and the tents and villages of the Kedarite Arabs, can glorify Yahweh, and rejoice with joy and singing, and become the intelligent, happy, and contented population of this newly created Paradise, they must have been subjected to the severe discipline of the sword; to subsequent instruction, as to the true character of the New Power so recently developed in Teman; and made witnesses of the wonderful transformation of their section of Asia from an arid, sandy and rocky wilderness, into a well-watered park of choice, odoriferous, trees and shrubs! And such is the testimony of the prophets. Isaiah, in speaking of the crisis of Messiah's accession to David's throne, declares it to be "a day of Midian". His words are "thou hast broken the yoke of his (the Assyrian's) burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of the oppressor upon him, as a day of Midian: for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood: but she shall be for a burning fuel of fire" -- the Bride shall be (ch. 9:4,5).

The original and appropriate district of the Midianites was on the east side of the Elanitic Bay of the Red Sea. They spread themselves northward along the desert east of Mount Seir, to the vicinity of the Moabites; and on the other side also, they covered a territory extending to the neighborhood of Mount Sinai. Midianites and Ishmaelites are different names of the same people. They are separated from "the tents of Cushan" by the northern extremity of the Arabian Desert.

Midian had a terrible day when, by a panic from Yahweh, they destroyed themselves in the presence of Gideon and his three hundred torch-bearing trumpeters. Another similar day is in reserve for Midian and Cushan, when "Eloahh shall come in from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran". ~'From before him shall go the pestilence, and flaming fire shall go forth from his feet. He stood, and shall shake the earth: he beheld, and shall cause the nations to tremble; and the mountains of antiquity shall be dispersed; the ancient hills were humbled; the ways of Olahm are for him". In consequence of this terrible manifestation of supernatural power, Habakkuk informs the reader, saying, "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble". The lands of Cushan and Midian being within the limits of the land granted to Abraham are among the first to feel the sword of the King who begins his conquering career in Teman. Like his father David, he executes judgment upon the inhabitants of the South, before he obtains the sovereignty over the house of Judah in the midst of the land.

But, it cannot be supposed that, in our time of this, or the rising generation, when that ubiquitous personage "our own correspondent is peering and prying into all corners and by-ways of the inhabited earth, so extraordinary an Elohistic Power can have been developed; rejected candidates for constituency therein, cast forth and driven away into exile with shame and contempt into the countries ruled by the Devil and his Angels, to be there tormented with the world, until they have paid justice all it may demand (Matt. 18:34,35; 22:13; 25:41,46; 1 Cor. 11:32); 50 wonderful a transformation of the wilderness and desert section of the land promised to Abraham into a well-watered umbrageous paradise, can have been created; and the hitherto untamed and ferocious tribes of Midian, Kedar, Cushan and the Rocky Arabia, have become its enlightened, docile, and joyous, inhabitants: it cannot, I say, be supposed, that all this can have been developed in sight almost of that A grand and important work, the Suez Canal, and not have become the great and absorbing theme of speculative wonder in all the papers and Cabinets of the world. Among the latter, the Anglo-Indian Lion of Tarshish, as lord paramount of Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Cushistan, Sheba, Dedan, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and protector of the Tenth in the midst of the land, must be the first of the great powers to be directly affected by the epiphany of the Davidian Power in Arabia. The presence of this power would be, if in hostile activity, a very disturbing element of the situation; and eminently destructive of British interests in India and the East. It is impossible to speak with certainty of details not revealed. When we touch upon them, we speak only of what may probably be the course of things leading to a specified result. With this understanding, I may say, that the alternative before the British Government, consequent upon its maritime disasters visited upon it in the Red Sea (Psa. 48:7) will be that of peace, or war, with the New Arabian Power. If the British Sheba Cabinet have acquired accurate knowledge of its Divine Elohistic character, there is sufficient Millenarianism in high places, to counsel and to cause it to seek as a suppliant, the favor of the "greater than Solomon;" so that, as protector of the Tenth in the midst of the land, including the ancient territory of Tyre, it might be accepted, after the examples of Hiram of Tyre and the Queen of Sheba, as the humble servant and ally of "the Great King". This arrangement, of course only temporary, would fulfill Psa. 45:12, the daughter of Tyre with an offering, even the rich of the people, shall entreat thy favor" the offering, minchah, being the tenth in the midst of the land (Isa. 6:12,13); as the earnest, or installment, of that greater ingathering after the Armageddon overthrow. And again, in Psa. 72:10, 'the kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of She ha and Seba shall offer gifts" - offer the countries over which they rule. 'Yea, all kings shall bow down to him; all the nations shall serve him". Thus, "the merchandise of Tyre will be for them who dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing" (Isa. 23:18).

Now, alliances between powers are often entered into and kept profoundly secret. The alliance between the Son of Solomon and the Anglo-Tyrian, may be unknown to the Mouth of the Dragon, the Mouth of the Beast, and to the Mouth of the False Prophet; that is, to "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable". Not knowing the true character of the power in Teman; nor the real nature of the relations subsisting between it and Britain; they will act blindly in their policy respecting it. They will doubtless hear of its making great demonstrations in the East; and of its setting up a New Religion, in its principles and institutions, intolerant and subversive of all other faiths. That it had cut off all com- munication with Mecca, to which it would allow no more pilgrimages; that the Anglo-Tyrian protector of Palestine seemed to favor its views; and had abolished the exercise of all Greek, Latin, and Mohammedan, religious rites in Jerusalem upon pain of death. It may be supposed, that the British government would not venture upon such a course as this, if it was not assured that there was an Almighty power prepared to sustain it. To abolish the Greek and Latin superstitions in Jerusalem, would set the Frogs into violent activity, inflame the two hundred millions of European papists with burning fanaticism, and throw the Autocrat of all the Russias into fierce and furious paroxysms of wrath. The reader will not forget, that the question, "what power shall repair the Holy Shrines in Jerusalem," involved Britain, France, Turkey, Sardinia, and Russia, in war for three years; if such a mighty calamity resulted from so light a cause, what might not be expected from the expulsion by protestant England of every thing from Jerusalem not agreeable to the terrible power of Teman? Would not the False Prophet of Rome make proclamation, that Antichrist had come at last; and that he was aiming like another Mohammed, to destroy the Catholic church, and to propagate a new religion by the sword! There is a tradition among papists, that within two years or so, Antichrist will appear, and try to destroy their church. When the true Christ comes, his mission is in part to destroy the Papacy and the Roman Prophet at the head of it. All, therefore, who acknowledge that the Pope is the real Vicar of the true Christ, will be sure to regard the Arabian of Teman as the Anti christ;(*) being assured that the true Christ would not seek to destroy his own Vicar. The Frog power, which has taken the Papacy into its special keeping, and has set itself up as the champion of Latinism in the East, would doubtless in its working upon the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, urge upon them all, the necessity of providing, by a concerted action, for their common interest; and against a danger that threatens all the states and institu-tions of Europe. Persuaded of this, an unclean daemon spirit would go forth from the Mouth, or government of each to all the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for a general crusade against the Arabian Antichrist; and for the deliverance ofjeru-salem and the Holy Shrines out of the hands of the infidels. By this time, probably, Russia will have made a movement against Constantinople; and being in the forefront of the line of march from Europe, and extending its dominion far into the north and east, it would be prepared to take the lead in the great movement of the west. As the Gog of the land of Magog, the Autocrat of nations will be prepared to marshal under his banner the forces of Persia, Cushistan, Phut, Gomer, and Togarmah of the north quarters, in addition to those of his hereditary domain of "all the Russias".

Such will be the formidable coalition developed through the agency of the unclean spirits like Frogs. "Tidings out of the East," from Jerusalem, Arabia, and Hindostan; "and out of the north," or, Britain; "shall trouble him" (Dan. 11:44)(t): "things that come into his mind and cause him to conceive a mischievous purpose: saying, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; to take a spoil and to take a prey; to turn my hand upon the desolate places now inhabited, and upon the people gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land" (Ezek. 38:10-12). This will not be an idle threat. "They came out," saith the Spirit, "like a whirlwind to scatter ME, their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly" (Hab. 3:14).

But Gog does not go forth with the consent of the power under the shadow of whose wings the Tenth in the midst of the land has flourished in security and comfort. It sends forth its forces to meet the invader, who "goes forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many:" for "Sheba and Dedan, and the Merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say to him, Art thou come to take a spoil? Hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? To carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?" These inquiries are equivalent to a declaration from the protecting power, that such a spoliation would not be permitted. It occupies Edom, Moab, and part of Ammon, and Egypt; and we may suppose Jerusalem in strong force. But, the forces of the East are compelled to fall back, and evacuate Egypt; for "he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt". He now pours in upon the land of Israel like a flood; or, as Ezekiel expresses it, "he ascends and comes like a storm, like a cloud to cover the land;" with the exception of Edom, Moab and the chief of Ammon, which escape the storm. The headquarters of this storm cloud invasion from the north are between the Sea of Sodom and the Jordan on the east side, and the Mediterranean on the west; and surrounding Jerusalem; as indicated in Dan. 11:45, to wit, "he shall pitch the tents of his entrenched camp between the seas in the mountain of the glory of the Holy". In other words, he shall besiege Jerusalem; and to do this, he must occupy the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a narrow glen which runs from north to south, between the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and Mount Moriah, and through which flows the Kidron. Of this valley, it is said in Joel 3:2,12, "Yahweh will gather all the nations (that is, the forces of the nations) into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there". Yehoshaphat, in Hebrew, signifies the judgment of Yah. Joel also styles the glen, the Valley of Threshing: "Multitudes, multitudes," says he, "in the Valley of Threshing: for the Day of Yahweh is near in the Valley of Threshing". Apocalyptically, the same locality is styled ARMAGEDDON "And he gathered them together in a place called Hebraistically, Armageddon". Yahweh gathered them together without their perceiving the Hand that led them on to the slaughter -"I will," saith he, "gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle". Various derivations have been given of this mystical name; for such it is, inasmuch as there is no such name of a place in the land of Israel. Micah says, "Yahweh shall gather many nations as sheaves into the floor, that the Daughter of Zion may arise and thresh them" (ch. 4:11-13). The floor of threshing of which they are to be made the chaff (Dan. 2:35) is this Valley of Jehoshaphat. Under this aspect of things, they are a heap of sheaves, upon the threshingfloor; and this idea is represented by the word, Armah, the first two syllables of the name: the third indicates where this heap is to be, namely, in the gai valley; and the last syllable, for what purpose the heap is there, namely, for duwn judgment - Armagaidon, which in a Greek dress, is, Armageddon. The reason why the text states, that the place, or valley, is "Hebraistically" called, is to give us to understand in what country the place is situated - in the country to wit, the native language of which is the Hebrew tongue.

In conclusion of this exposition of the Sixth Vial, it may be remarked, that the crowning events of the series are the capture of the Holy City; the establishment therein of the Little Horn of the Goat, who thus "stands up against the Prince of princes" (Dan. 8:25; 11:45), as there-presentative of Nebuchadnezzar's Imperial Image (Dan. 2:31-35); and its being broken by the Stone not in hands; and no help for him (Dan 2:45; 11:45). Of the capture of the city there is no doubt. "The city shall be taken," saith Zechariah, "and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city". Such is the situation; the City of the Great King in the hands of the Greek and Latin Catholic crusaders, who cover the land like a cloud; and no safety for any but in Edom, Moab, and Ammon, on the east and south of the Dead Sea.

The career of the Rainbowed Angel already set forth in Vol.2 ch. 10, illustrates the crisis at which we have now arrived. "Yahweh shall go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle." "He shall go forth with whirlwinds of Teman". "He will march through the land in indignation;" and "tread down the people in his anger at Botzrah, and make them drunk in his fury, and bring down their strength to the earth". “All the men that are upon the face of the land shall shake at his presence". And his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, which shall cleave in twain" - "And he will plead against Gog with pestilence and with blood; and rain upon him and upon his bands, and upon the many people with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone" - Thus shall Jerusalem and the Holy Land be delivered from "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable" confederate with Gog. They will fall upon the mountains of Israel, and upon the open field, and a sixth part of them only will escape. Thus " the Catholic and Protestant, and Mohammedan heathen will see the judgments executed upon them; and "the house of Israel will know that Yahweh is their Elohim from that day forward". Therefore "sing, 0 daughter of Zion; shout, 0 Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, 0 daughter of Jerusalem. Yahweh hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel Yahweh, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more" (Zeph. 3:14): "then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more" (Joel 3:17).(*)

17. "And the Seventh Angel poured out his vial into the AIR: and there came forth a great voice from the Nave of the heaven, from the throne, saying, IT IS DONE! 18. "And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings: and there was a great earthquake such as was not since that men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. 19. "And the Great City came into three parts; and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the Great came into remembrance before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. 20. "And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. 21."And great hail as of a talent weight descended out of the heaven upon the men: and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague of it is exceedingly great".

The Seventh Vial is the concluding period of the Seventh Seal, and of the Seventh Trumpet; in other words, the vial, the trumpet, and the seal, all terminate at the same time. The seal began With "the silence in the heaven about the space of half an hour" (ch. 8:1), A.D. 323; the trumpet, which is called in 1 Cor. 15:52, "the last trump, " began to sound With the issue of the Great Voice, A.D. 1790; but when, or at what date, the seventh and last vial shall begin to pour out its wrath, I am unable to say. This, however, may be assuredly affirmed, that it will not begin until after the resurrection period, or "time of the dead;" and the capture of Jerusalem by Gog's forces; and its recovery by YAHWEH ELOHIM, "the Great King". The casting out of the enemy from Jerusalem is followed by the establishment of the Nave, or Most Holy, and the Throne of David, therein. This must precede the outpouring of the wrath into the Air; because "a great voice" goes forth from the Nave-Throne, saying, "It is done;" which could not be if the throne had not already been set up.

The crowning events of the Sixth Vial put the Lamb with the 144,000 in possession of the Holy City. Their throne is "the great white throne" of the Yahweh Name, "from whose face, the earth and the heaven," by the judgments of the Seventh Vial, will be caused to "flee away;" for when the white throne receives its full dominion, no place, or room, "will be found for them" (ch. 20:11; Jer. 3:17) the Gentile"heaven and earth" will be made to give place to the "New Heavens and New Earth" in which Jerusalem will be a rejoicing, and her people a joy (Isa.65:17).

The Seventh Angel is the ETERNAL SPIRIT clothed with the white linen and golden-girdle company of splendid ones, Jesus and his Brethren; who, though incorruptible and deathless, do not let themselves out in their brightness, until they have accomplished the work of this seventh vial upon "the Air", I am led to affirm this upon the authority of the Spirit of Christ in Zech. 14:5,6,7, as follows in the original; "And Yahweh my Elohim shall come in; all the saints with thee. And it shall be in that day there shall be no brightness, the splendid ones drawing in; and it shall be one day that shall be known to Yahweh, neither day nor night; but it shall be at the time of evening there shall be brightness".(*) At the time of evening the day of glory begins. When the judgments of the seventh vial are all exhausted the time of evening will have come. All "the smoke from the glory of the Deity, and from his power" will have cleared away; and then the Saints who have been executing "the judgments written", will rest from the labors of the war of the great and terrible day; and no longer drawing themselves in, will "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13:43); or, as Daniel expres-ses it, "as the brightness of the firmament; and as the stars for the olahm and beyond" (ch. 12:3).

The judgments of the Seventh Vial are all in the future. They are the voices uttered by the Seven Thunders, which succeed the lion-roar of the Rainbowed Angel (ch. 10:3,4), and which issue from the throne (ch. 4:5). John was commanded not to write their utterances, but to seal them up. Apocalyptically, thunders are significant of wars. Hence, seven thunders are seven wars, which collectively make up "the war of that great day of the omnipotent Deity". The details of the seven thunders are not given; but the general results are specified in the prophecy of the seventh vial. The ecclesiastical and secular constitution of Anti-christendom is the obnoxious subject of Divine vengeance. The Powers that be having answered the purpose of their permitted existence, the time has arrived under this vial for their abolition. This can only be accomplished by Divine power; hence the war of the Deity, by which Babylon the Great, or the ecclesiastical constitution of the world; and "the Cities of the Nations," "the islands", and "the mountains," or king-doms, empires, and states of all sorts, are transferred to the Saints; so that the wicked who now sit in the heavenlies, are hurled from their thrones, and sent empty away (Luke 1:51-53).

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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE Sixth Edition, 1915 By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

Chapter 16

Section IV Subsection 1

The Air

"He poured out his vial into the Air".

The Air is the political firmament, or heaven, of the world. That air and heaven are regarded as synonymous, appears from Matt. 13:32, which speaks of "the birds of the air," as equivalent for what both Matthew and Luke style the birds, or fowls, of "the heaven". But better authority than James' Version informs us, that "the firmament" between the clouds and the earth's waters, which is the air, or ---- atmosphere, Elohim called "Heaven" (Gen. 1:6-8). When We look into this expanse we see the sun, moon, stars, and constellations, Which, though far beyond it, appear to be in the air or heaven. Now, the political world has its air as well as the natural. Like this, the political air, or firmament, "divides the waters," or peoples who rule, "from the waters," or peoples who are ruled; and whatever constitutes this division is the air or heaven. The governments of the world are in this air, and constitute the sun, moon, stars, and constellations of the air or heaven. If there were no air in the natural world, there would be no clouds, or "waters above the firmament;" but simply "darkness upon the face of the deep" - all waters would be commingled without order or distinction. Such would also be the case in the political world, if there were no political air or aerial. This air divides the ruling class from the common people or "waters," called also "the sea", and sometimes "the earth". The air, or heaven, is therefore that which divides; or in modern phrase, the constitution, or constituted order of things among the nations. When the Saracens made their irruption into the Dragon, or Graeco-Roman Constantinopolitan empire in the seventh century "the Sun and the Air were darkened" (ch. 9:2) in all the countries they subdued. In other words, the political authority and constitution which placed them in subjection to the Byzantine Dynasty in Constantinople were eclipsed; as the kingdom of the Beast was "darkened" by the judgments of the Fifth Vial, but which afterwards became light again when the darkening power passed away. Paul refers to the Air or Heaven of the Gentile world, or constitution of things, in Eph. 2:2, where he says, 'ye who were dead in trespasses and in sins, in time past walked according to the aion of this kosmos", or course of this order of things, "according to the chief of the authority of the Air, (which is) the Spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience". The spirit that works in the disobedient is the spirit offlesh, or King Sin. He is the chief, the ruler, or prince, of "the authority of the Air". The constituted authority of an empire, kingdom or republic, is "the authority of the Air" in those several dominions or states. The Powers that be are the Sin-Powers of the Air, styled by the apostle in Eph. 6:12, "principalities and authorities, the world-rulers of the darkness of the course of things (aion) the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies". These all belong to "the authority of the Air". The spirituals of the wickedness in his day were the civil, or secular, and the ecclesiastical, world-rulers, who Were either Jewish or Pagan; but in our day, they are emperors, kings, magistrates, popes, priests, and parsons, called "the clergy", of all orders and degrees, of imposture and blasphemy, pretending to be Christian. These spirituals of wickedness all, as the daemons, foul spirits, and unclean and hateful birds (ch. 18:2), are the ephemera which roost in the branches of the widespreading upas(*) which poisons the air of the Great City in which it grows. This Air of the Seventh Vial is the air or heaven of Daniel's Four Beasts, or dominions. In his seventh chapter it is styled, kol shemayah, "all the heavens" (ver. 27) under which the kingdom, dominion, and greatness, exist, which are to be given to the chosen people of the saints. The Air of this vial comprehends all these heavens or aerials. It is the same air or heaven, in which a door is opened, and a new throne estab-lished (ch. 4:1,2). This door will be opened, and the throne set therein, when the Armageddon victory shall have cast out the enemy from Jerusalem, and have planted the Lamb and 144,000 on Mount Zion. The denouement of the Sixth Vial opens the door and sets up the throne. There is then a throne in the Air which the air or heaven does not contain at the present time. All other thrones will continue to exist in the air contemporaneously with this new throne, which is the Throne of David restored, until they shall all be taken possession of by the saints of the Most High; when "the kingdoms of the world become our Lord's and his Christ's" (ch. 11:15). The Air of this Seventh Vial is "the Heaven" of ch. 20:11, which, in consequence of the wrath poured out into it, "flies away" with "the earth" that stands related to it. Both earth and heaven, as now constituted in church, state, and general society, will all be broken up and abolished; and a New Air, or firmament, constituted, in which will shine only "the Splendid Ones," the Sun of Righteousness and the kings of his rising, who obtain "the victory over the Beast, and over his Image, and over his Mark, and over the Number of his Name" (ch. 15:2). These will all meet together with the Lord in the Air, as the "New Heaven," styled also "the Heaven," in ch. 18:20, which rejoices over Babylon in the disaster of her fall. This New Air, I remark again, is the air in which, and for which, the chosen saints are convened. Paul tells us in 1 Thess. 4, that when "the time of the dead that they should be judged" arrives, the living saints will not anticipate the dead. That is, they will not be gathered together into the presence of Christ before them. When Christ comes, the living will have to wait, until the reproduction of the dead saints is complete. Be the time of this reproduction long or short, the how long is not revealed; this, however, is certain, that "the dead in Christ shall be restored (anastesontai) FIRST". He then tells us What is to happen next. "After that, We the living Who remain, together with them shall be hurried away in clouds for a convention of the Lord in an air (eis haera), and so (in that Air) We shall be always With the Lord". Thus the dead are the subjects of anastasis, or "restoration" to what they once were; and then, in company with their fellow earthborns in Christ of the generation contemporary with this great anastasis, they go to report themselves for better or worse at the Judgment Seat in Teman. All of them who are approved, or "accounted worthy to obtain that aion" (aion, course of things, or Air), are "clothed with the house from heaven;" and henceforth, appointed to be with the Lord always in the Air.

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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE Sixth Edition, 1915 By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

Chapter 16

Section IV Subsection 2

"It Is Done"

"And there came forth a Great Voice from the Nave of the heaven, from the throne, saying It is done!"

The Nave of the Heaven is "the Bride, the Lamb's Wife". The Most Holy Community, the One Body, of which the Anointed Jesus is the Head, in the sense that the Head of Christ is the Deity". The Nave is the Spirit's Bride purified from every thing that defiles (ch. 21:9,27). She is represented inch. 4:4-11, by four-and-twenty elders and four living ones full of eyes within, before, and behind. These are before the throne, and round about the throne, occupied by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is likened to a jasper and a sardine stone. Hence, what proceeds from the Nave of the Air or Heaven, proceeds also from the throne established on Mount Zion, "the place of the Name of Yahweh Tz'vaoth," who reigns there and in Jerusalem, before his Ancients gloriously (Isa. 18:7; 24:23). A voice proceeding from this throne in the midst of the Nave of the Heaven must needs be a great voice. And what voice can give utterance to a more important announcement than that all that had been predicted by the prophets is done, is all fulfilled. It reminds us of the words in Ezek. 39:8, "Behold, it is come, and IT IS DONE, saith Adonai Yahweh; this is the Day whereof I have spoken". That is, the day of the outpouring of the Seventh Vial is "the Great and Terrible Day of Yahweh". It is the day in which, after the fall of Gog upon the mountains of Israel, Adonai Yahweh will "send a fire on Magog, and among them who dwell confidently in the isles;" and which shall cause them to know that He is Yahweh. "So," saith he, "willI make my Holy Name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my Holy Name any more; and the nations shall know that I, Yahweh, am the HOLY ONE in Israel". During "the great and terrible day," the Nave smokes with indignation against Gog's land, or Magog, and against Babylon the Great, and other more distant lands. In the Nave is embodied the glory and power of the Deity; so that His fiery indignation smokes from the Nave; and while, therefore, this is in a state of activity while "the day of trouble" continues, in which "they have no rest day nor night who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receives the sign of his name" no one engaged in the work of the Seventh Vial can rest from his labors; nor can the nations walk in the light of it (ch. 21:24). The smoke of torment must cease to ascend before the nations can be blessed in Abraham and his Seed, the Nave; and go up from year to year to worship the King, Yahweh Tz'vaoth, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem (Zech. 14:17). This is the worship of the Nave-State, into which "no man can enter till the seven plagues of the seven angels are fulfilled" -till the Seventh Vial, therefore, is all poured out; and the wrath of the Deity IS DONE. But, after "it is done," the Nave-Body will shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of the Father, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End; and mankind will be permitted to enjoy the light of it in peace; and to attain to a salvation with eternal glory, upon the conditions that then may be prescribed. "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars," who have been brought forth from Death's charnel house, the grave, and have been driven with shame and contempt from the Judgment Seat of Christ; together with all like characters among the living, "shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone:" in other words, shall be subjected to the plague of the Seventh Vial, which will bring him with torment to a termination of his existence: "which is the Second Death" (ch. 21:8). Thus, those who have held the truth in unrighteousness, and so walked after the flesh, "go away into aionian punishment," in suffering which, they are punished with the goat-nations that "make war with the Lamb" (ch. 17:14; Matt. 25). They suffer this in the fiery indignation poured out of the Seventh Vial. They are scrutinized and condemned under the Sixth Vial, and executed under the Seventh. And when the tares among the saints are separated, and commanded to "depart into the aion-fire" - to set out upon the hard road appointed for them to travel, towards the country of their penal servitude and death; the saints who are accounted worthy of the aion, are sentenced to enter into "the house from heaven" from which they shall 'go Out no more (ch. 3:12; 21:7). The sentence is executed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in "the mortal" being "swallowed up of life;" or what is equivalent, "the life of Jesus being made manifest in their mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4:11; 5:4).

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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE Sixth Edition, 1915 By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

Chapter 16

Section IV Subsection 3

The Great Earthquake

"And there was a Great Earthquake, such as was not since that men were upon the earth so mighty an earthquake and so great"

When this earthquake shall occur, Yahweh Elohim will be enthroned in Jerusalem. This appears from Joel 3:16, where it is written, "Yahweh shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem" - the Great Voice of this vial: "and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Yahweh shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel". This may be called the epoch of earthquakes; for the conclusion of the Sixth Vial is signalized by an earthquake that divides the Mount of Olives, and projects one half of the mount towards the north, and the other towards the south, and leaves a very great valley between. This shakes the earth while Gog is in the land, and accompanies the presence of Yahweh there, Who says, "all the men upon the face of the land shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the towers shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains", and so forth (Ezek. 38:19,20,21; Isa. 30:25). This will be an earthquake in the most literal sense; but it may also be accepted as the earnest of that more terrible and extensive political earthquake of the Seventh Vial, of which the Spirit speaks in Haggai 2:6,21, saying, "Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the khemdath of all nations uvahu, they shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith Yahweh Tz'vaoth". In the English Version, kheimdath is rendered the Desire of; and some Lexicons tell us that the word has no plural. But if this be true, by what rule is it made the nominative of the plural verb vahu, "they shall come"? The Messiah is supposed to be the person desired by all the nations at his coming. But in what sense can he be said to be the Desire of the nations, when they are all to compass him about, and in the Name of Yahweh he will destroy them? Psa. 118:10; Apoc. 17:14. It seems to me that a letter has been dropped in transcription, and that the word should read khemdoth in the plural; as, "and the excellencies of all the nations shall come;" but if khemdath in the singular be correct, then the construction is to be accounted for upon the same principle that Elohim, plural, is so often construed vvith a verb in the singular - "the Excellency of all the nations they shall come," or as Zechariah expresses the same thing, "Yahweh Elohim he shall come in, all the Saints with thee" - he and all the saints being the Excellency of all the nations. "I will shake all nations". This is a nationquake whose shocks are world-wide and affecting the earth, the sea, and the dry land, of the whole political community of the globe. But the heavens are to be shaken likewise. Even the heavens and the earth of the Commonwealth of Israel were not 'to escape. Paul who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews while the temple was yet standing in Jerusalem, adduced this prophecy in Haggai, in evidence that the Mosaic Heavens, which had waxed old, were to be so shaken as to vanish away (Heb. 8:13; 12:26-29). Look then into the land of Israel, and "behold trouble and darkness, dimness and anguish; and all driven to darkness" (Isa. 8:22). This state of things has obtained for a long series of ages. There is no Mosaic Heavens and Earth there. All the institutions of Moses have vanished away; and Israel's Sun and Moon are darkened, and their stars have withdrawn their shining, as the result of the fire and pillars of smoke, the wonders shown in the heavens and the earth when they were shaken; and all this came to pass "before the great and terrible day of Yahweh," which is not yet quite "come" (Joel 2:30,31; 3:15). What has thus befallen the kingdom of Israelis a striking illustration of what awaits the kingdoms of all the nations of the earth when they come to be shaken by the great earthquake of the Seventh Vial in "the great and terrible day of Yahweh". "I will shake the heavens and the earth"; and now behold the consequences of it in the following words: "and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his fellow". This is a decree against Gog, the Two-Horned Beast, the False Prophet, and the Ten Horns, with all their armies. Into their heaven the vial is to be poured, and its effect will be to shake them and their nations so terribly that there will be no more left of their dynasties, governments, and institutions in church and state, than there now is of Israel's in the land. As a consequence of this shaking of all the nations, the Great City is resolved into thirds, and haipoleis, the cities, or states of the nations fall They fall, because in the shaking, the Lamb and his staff with their army cast them down. The idea is expressed by Daniel in the words, "the thrones were cast down" (ch. 8:9). In other words, the Lamb and they that were with him conquered the Ten Horns, and took possession of their kingdoms. The kingdoms of the world became Yahweh's, and His Christ's. As to the "three parts" into which the Great City Babylon is divided by the shocks of this great earthquake of nations, we are left Without positive information. From the subsequent parts of the prophecy, however, it would seem that the Dragon might be reckoned as one third; the Beast, the Ten Horns, and the False Prophet, the second third; and Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the East, the third. This eastern third would be the first to fall under the dominion of the throne in Zion: "unto the daughter of Zion shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem". And the Ruler come forth from Bethlehem shall be the peace, when the Assyrian (Gog) shall come into the land. Then the anointed ones shall waste Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof; thus shall He deliver Israel when the Assyrian invades their land (Micah. 4:7,8; 5:2-6). Then, after the conquest of Assyria and Egypt by the Saints, "there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve With the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land: whom Yahweh Tz'vaoth shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance" (Isa. 19:23-25). After this settlement of affairs in the Eastern Third, "Babylon the Great comes into remembrance before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath". This is the series of events which succeeds the proclamation of the Aion-Gospel in mid-heaven -in the Air - announcing that the Hour of Judgment upon Babylon had arrived, and which precedes the Second Angel's announcement that "Babylon is fallen" (ch. 14:8). As the result of this remembrance, the ecclesiastical system of Europe, in its Greek, Latin, and Protestant divisions of spiritual wickedness is abolished; and its ecclesiastical capital, ROME, destroyed from the earth, as fearfully and graphically exhibited in ch. 18. The next result of the "very great earthquake" is the obliteration of all "islands" and "mountains" of the political world. A natural island is land entirely surrounded by water; a political island is analogous thereto inasmuch as it is a kingdom, or state, insulated from all other "waters," or peoples, by which it is surrounded. Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and so forth are political islands, insulated from each other, and from all other peoples by the political constitution peculiar to each. In Jer. 51:25, the Chaldean emperor of Babylon is styled a "destroying mountain which destroyeth all the earth;" whose destiny was to be rolled down from the rocks, and to be made "a burnt mountain". The little Stone, or kingdom of Christ, "the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel" (Gen. 49:24) is to become "a Great Mountain," or empire, after it has smitten "the destroying mountain," in its latter day manifestation, and to "fill the whole earth", (Dan. 2:34,35). A mountain filling the whole earth will leave no room for any other mountains. To declare, consequently, that "the mountains were not found," is equivalent to saying that the empires of Turkey, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Britain and the United States, were all superseded and abolished, by the New Empire of Israel's King, then become "the King and Elohim of the whole earth" (Zech. 14:9; Isa. 54:5). The world to come, or future habitable, of which Paul spoke (Heb. 2:5), will admit of only one mountain, "the mountain of Yahweh's House, to be established on the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills; that all" the regenerated nations may flow into it" (Isa. 2:2). No rival empires will be permitted to exist; for in that "economy of the fullness of the times," all things in the heavens or the air, and upon the earth, or the nations, will be gathered together under One Head (Eph. 1:10). The judgments of the Seventh Vial, executed by the Saints as the omnipotent ministers of the Spirit, will bring to pass this Divine Determination. They will chase away the fugitive islands, and hurl into the abyss the lofty mountains, that now so proudly and defiantly tower above the political earth and sea. They will accomplish this by tormenting with fire and brimstone "thc Devil and his Angels;" in other words, by encountering in war the Beast, and kings of the Earth, and their armies (ch. 14:9-11; 19:19; 17:14). No island or mountain powers will be able successfully to withstand them. Their armies will be in the midst of many peoples as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of goats: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver (Mic. 5:8). Thus, "the nations shall see, and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay the hand upon the mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of Yahweh EIohim. and fear because of thee" (Ibid. 7.16,17).

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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE Sixth Edition, 1915 By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

Chapter 16

Section IV Subsection 4

The "Great Hail"

"And Great Hail as of a talent-weight descended out of the heaven and upon the men; and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague of it is exceedingly great"

It is the Deity in the heaven from whom the hail-plague proceeds. In the heaven into which He introduced Himself, when He opened a door therein, and set up His throne. From the political heaven, into which the Seventh Vial is poured, and in which the throne of David is One among many, upon all of which it makes war, the great hail descends upon the men, who worship the Beast and his Image. Hail from a Political heaven would not be literally frozen waters; but rather something injurious set in motion against the enemies of the hailing power. When a government sends forth its armies to lay waste its adversaries and their countries with fire and sword, its troops are a storm, or plague, of hail; and every individual trooper is a hailstone of a certain weight. Speaking of the Power that should destroy the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, Isaiah says, "Behold, Yahweh hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand" (ch. 28:2). And again, speaking of the time when "Yahweh Tz'vaoth shall come down and fight for Mount Zion," he says, "And Yahweh shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones". The hailstones are an element of the lighting down of the arm of Deity. In Ezek. 13:11, we read, "there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, 0 great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend the wall, daubed with untempered mortar". Sirach(*), commenting upon this, says, "Ezekiel made mention of the enemies under the figure of the rain". A hail-shower is the enemy of the men upon whom it descends. When the Saints, in the execution of their Third Angel mission (ch. 14:9-11), descend like a tempest upon the men who worship the Beast and his Image, they become an exceedingly great hail, whose average weight is respectively, according to tables in Calmet,(t) "a talent" of one hundred and twenty-five pounds troy. It is evident from Matt. 25:24, that a talent and an individual are relative things; and that the one is as fitly represented by the other, as a passenger by rail is by the ticket he bears. After the hail of talent-weights ceases the wrath of the Seventh Vial burns no more. The Beast and the False Prophet are destroyed, the Dragon is bound and shut down in the abyss, the Ten Horns are conquered, and nothing remains but the NEW JERUSALEM GOVERNMENT ruling in righteousness a world of regenerated nations, blessed in Abraham and his Seed for a thousand years.

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