vision would last for 2300 days (years); and St. John, in speaking of the successive desolations of the Eastern empire and Church by the Saracens and the Turks, specifies two small and separate periods, (included in the large and general period of Daniel,) during which the operations of these enemies would continue actively in force. With respect to the 2300 years, nothing is said definitively by the Angel as to their commencement or termination, and certainly nothing which tends to connect them either directly or indirectly with the period of 1260 years. The only fact concerning them, which appears to be stated with any precision is, that their expiration will be intimately connected with the period of "the Time of the End:" but whether this expiration is to synchronize with the beginning or with the close of that period; whether it is to be coincident with the era of the 1290 years, or to take place at some other time previous to the termination of the 1335 years, no positive information is given in the vision. Events, probably at no great distance, will elucidate the mystery which at present envelopes this point.

It is impossible to look upon the existing state of the Turkish empire, without perceiving that "a drought is upon its waters:" while the Ottoman ruler, by his late firman against the Holy Scriptures, prohibiting their introduction into his territories, and commanding that the copies which are already there thould be sur

rendered and burnt, has openly leagued himself with the other avowed enemies of the Word of God in the Western empire; and is thus

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standing up against the Prince of princes;" a preparatory step, according to the prophecy, to his being "broken without hand."

Secondly. In fixing the date of the second Woe, the writer has departed, in some degree, from that commonly received; and has assigned the sounding of this trumpet to a somewhat later period. Considering the Ottoman power to have been the great instrument appointed for the infliction of this woe, he has thought it most obvious to date the commencement of the woe from the rise of that empire. This event, Gibbon expressly says*, is to be properly dated from the capture of Prusa, in Bithynia, by the armies of Othman under his son Orchan, A.D. 1327. If, therefore, we assume this year for the beginning of the woe, and add to it 391 years, the time usually computed for the continuance of its active operation, we shall arrive at the year 1718, in which the peace of Passarowitz, preceded in the previous year by the great battle of Belgrade, was concluded. +

By

"But it was not till Othman was oppressed by age and infirmities, that he received the welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orchan.". "From the conquest of Prusa we may date the true era of the Ottoman empire." Gibbon, vi. p.312, ed. 4to. 1788.

+ The date above mentioned, namely, the year 1327,

this peace a termination was put to the sanguinary warfare which had so long subsisted between the Ottoman and Christian powers; and the Porte, while it ceded its conquests within the boundaries of the Western empire, was confirmed in the possession of the Morea, and of the other European provinces; which had belonged to the Eastern empire, and which it has ever since retained till the time of the Greek insurrection, and for the most part in undisputed subjection. An advantage, resulting from the adoption of this latter date for the commencement of this woe, is the circumstance of its shortening the interval before the arrival of the third woe; which may hence with more obvious propriety be said to come "quickly."

Thirdly. While the Writer perfectly agrees with, Mr. Cuninghame, on the authority of Bishop Horsley, that the symbolical reaping of the earth in Revelation xiv. 15, 16., when interpreted in agreement with the universal application of that image in the figurative language of Scripture,

is the one, which the authors of the modern part of Universal History, (vol. xii. p. 41. ed. 1759,) fix for the capture of Prusa, and for the commencement of Orchan's reign, Othman dying very soon after he had received the intelligence of that event. Gibbon assigns the accession of Orchan to the throne, and consequently the capture of Prusa, to the preceding year 1326. If this date be preferred, the period of 391 years will have ended in A. D. 1717; and the battle of Belgrade, which led to the peace of Passarowitz, may then be considered as the termination of the woe.

denotes, not the infliction of divine judgments, but the gathering in of the people of God, he has ventured, in the view which he has given of this passage in the Chart, to apply it to the gathering in of the Jewish people. The chronological introduction of this symbolical harvest, seems to justify such an application of the passage. For it is represented as taking place in the interval which occurs between the fall of Babylon and the final destruction of the combined Antichristian powers depicted by the vintage, the universal symbol of judgment, — the very interval, in which, agreeably to the general tenor of prophecy, the conversion and restoration of the Jews may be expected to happen; and which synchronizes with the Son of Man's coming in the clouds and sending forth his angels, and gathering his elect from the four winds, as stated in the prophecy, which Christ himself delivered in relation to this very period, and with a peculiar reference to the Jewish nation. On these grounds, the Writer conceives that the view which he has given of this passage in the Chart, exhibits the most probable interpretation of it; though he wishes distinctly to state, that in offering this conjecture on a part of prophecy not yet fulfilled, he proposes it with all reasonable diffidence and humility.

Fourthly. It may perhaps be objected to the arrangement proposed in the Chart, that by pointing out the year 1867 as the period in which the purposes of God will be fulfilled, and

the overthrow of all his enemies accomplished, the writer is assuming the office rather of a prophet, than of an interpreter of prophecy. But to this objection he deems it sufficient to reply, that such, from the very structure of the prophecy, must be the unavoidable consequence of every attempt to interpret it. For unless it can be supposed, that the termination of that interesting period, "the Time of the End" should have arrived, without the intervention of any events, which during its course should have so marked its progress, as clearly to designate the date of its commencement (a supposition which the prophecy itself strongly discountenances, and which the nature of the events to be accomplished renders almost incredible), it will follow of course, that every attempt to investigate and ascertain these points, must of necessity lie open to the objection in question. For no attempt can be made to fix retrospectively the date from which this period may have begun, which will not equally demonstrate prospectively the year in which it will terminate. And, therefore, if this objection should be admitted as valid against the interpretation here proposed, it must be no less so against every other interpretation which may at any time be suggested. The Writer may very possibly mistake in his views of this prophecy, and in the dates which he has assigned to it. The time may not as yet be arrived for the disclosure of these things; but admitting this to be the case, he would still