from which no reasonable appeal can be made: and nothing is left to any modern interpreter, save a more severe and a more accurate discussion of subordinate particulars than was always entered upon by his predecessors.

But, while the two successive periods of Saracenic and Turkish domination plainly stand out from the ordinary mass of Roman misery as the two first apocalyptic woes: they are, no less plainly, so far as their grand characteristics are concerned, strictly homogeneous periods.

The Saracens and the Turks differed from the common herd of those, who subjugated any part of the Roman platform, in the peculiarity of their religious principles: and, as they differed from others, so they agreed between themselves. When the northern warriors invaded the Western Empire, they were pagans: but so little were they attached to the worship of their fathers, and so small was the animosity which they entertained toward the christian faith; that, in a very short space of time, they unanimously renounced their heathen idolatry, and embraced the religion of those whom they had conquered. On the contrary, the Saracens and the Turks had embraced a creed professedly and inveterately hostile to the Gospel: and, so far from renouncing this creed as they established themselves upon the Roman platform, they detested and persecuted and trampled upon all those who refused to become proselytes. The two periods, during which they dominantly flourished, were not periods of or

dinary and vulgar conquest: they were marked as much by principles decidedly inimical to Christianity, as by victories achieved over those who bore the Christian name. Hence the two periods are homogeneous in two several ways. Each great woe is marked alike, by rapid conquest, and by violent hostility to the Gospel. The two evidently belong to one and the same species: and, unless the principle of homogeneity be entirely relinquished, we must undoubtedly say, arguing from what has already happened, that the generic characteristics of an apocalyptic woe are RAPID MILITARY CONQUEST and FURIOUS HATRED OF CHRISTIANITY.

III. With the clue which we now have, both geographical and chronological and characteristical, it will not be difficult to ascertain the commencement of that third period, which is described, in the apocalyptic series, as being the period of a third remarkable woe.

After the Turks ceased, in the year 1697, to be a woe to the Roman Empire, various wars took place, as usual, between the Latin princes. Sometimes, this Power was successful; and, at other times, that Power: but nothing very particular, nothing at all analogous to the theologico-military exploits of the Saracens and the Turks, occurred. The world heard much of what was denominated the balance of power and the grand European system: and this happy political contrivance, which had been usefully employed to clip the wings of the fourteenth Louis, was deemed so potent and effica

cious, that no fundamental disturbance of the public tranquillity was in the least degree anticipated. Wars, of course, were occasionally to be expected: but, after the contending parties had sufficiently worried each other, a peace, made through the mediation of powerful and jealous neighbours, usually placed them, at the end of each struggle, pretty much in the same relative state as they were at its beginning. There might be a considerable loss of blood and treasure: but, in the outlines of the great European Republic, with the exception of the political disappearance of Poland, no material alteration took place, save what was slowly and gradually effected by the hand of time alone.

This state of things continued, until the year 1789; when a new period commenced of a wholly different character from that, which had preceded it. The long-cherished balance of power was destroyed in an instant: and the rise of a baleful and eccentric comet above the political horizon formed an epoch, which will never cease to be memorable in history. As a modern writer has well observed, the fall of the French Monarchy was marked with all the characters of suddenness and mysterious power, which peculiarly appertain to the times of God's extraordinary visitations: and, as we have since had but too much reason to know by bitter experience, the year 1789 has constituted so complete a line of historical demarcation, that what preceded that year seems almost to belong to

a different planet from that on which were transacted the giant deeds which followed it.

But, though we are at once almost irresistibly led to suspect, that the epoch of the French Revolution must have been the epoch of the third great woe; so important, perhaps so startling, a position must not be admitted, without the most jealous and severe scrutiny. Let us, then, proceed to examine, whether there be any solid ground for believing, that the seventh apocalyptic trumpet began to sound in the year 1789, that the period of a new woe then commenced, and consequently that that year is one of the grand prophetic epochs.

1. The second woe terminated in the year 1697: and the chronological badge of the third woe is, that it should come quickly. More than five whole centuries had elapsed, between the termination of the first woe, and the coming of the second: but, when the second terminates, the third quickly follows.

To this chronological character, the period, commencing with the French Revolution, exactly and fully answers.

Just 92 years after the termination of the second woe, a space of time very short when compared with a term of 539 years, the period in question commenced. Consequently, if the seventh apocalyptic trumpet began to sound at the epoch of the French Revolution; the third great woe, which that trumpet introduces, came quickly after the passing away of the second woe.

Nor is this all. Since the chronological characteristic of the third woe is Quickness of succession to the passing away of the second woe, it is evident, that, if the period of the third woe did not commence with the French Revolution in the year 1789, every fleeting year will abstract somewhat from the propriety and accuracy of that chronological characteristic. Thus, for instance, the year 1827, which is now evolving, will not correspond so accurately with such a badge as the year 1789; because the one is distant from the passing away of the second woe not less than 130 years, while the other is distant from the same era only 92 years: and, if we look beyond the year 1827 to some yet remotely future year for the commencement of the third woe, the propriety of the chronological characteristic will be altogether done away; for, in that case, the third woe, instead of quickly following the termination of the second woe, will in truth follow it slowly. Hence, if I mistake not, the adoption of the year 1789, as the era of the commencement of the third woe, is absolutely and imperiously demanded by the very chronological notation of the prophecy itself.

2. Such is the declared chronological badge of the third woe: its geographical characteristic is the same as that of its two predecessors.

I beheld, says St. John, and heard, an angel flying in the meridian, saying with a loud voice: Woe, Woe, Woe, to THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH,