plied by a multitude of rites and ceremonies." In short, the austerities and abstinence of monks, the number of which was prodigiously increased; the senseless round of ridiculous and most unauthorized mortifications, penances, and rigorous fastings, imposing a most oppressive and intolerable yoke, superseded altogether the simplicity of Gospel truth; whilst the most corrupt doctrines, such as the worshipping of images, relics, and saints; prayers for the dead, tales of purgatory, the efficacy of good works, and the traditions of men, took place of the word of God.

Such was the direful state of the visible church universally throughout both the eastern and western portions of the empire at this era of its history. It is well that a voice from the highest authority and most dread command-for it is stated to be from the midst of the four living creatures who were stationed close around the throne, and therefore it was the voice of God-it is well that such a word offered one restraint to its most pernicious consequences. The meaning of this voice, divested of metaphor, is, that although there should be a dreadful scarcity of the word of life,-for the famine here spoken of, means "Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord,"* of that bread by which the souls of men are fed and sustained,-yet that there should be some supply of this living food left, though it should be exceedingly scarce, and

Amos viii. 11.

purchased at a high price; and that it should be, though in such small quantity, pure and uninjured.

The word thus spoken by God, has, it is our happiness to experience, been, during the long progress of these dark times, wonderfully fulfilled. There has always been a moderate supply of spiritual food. The grand saving doctrine of Christianity, of salvation by faith through the blood and righteousness of Christ, has always been taught. "And that invaluable store-house and repository of Divine knowledge, of spiritual wine and oil, the holy Bible, the word of God, has been accessible to some persons in all times since this injunction was delivered. Through all the ignorant, fanatical, factious, and corrupt hands, by which this sacred treasure has been delivered down to us, it has passed, in the main, uninjured. The corruptions of it, even for the base purposes of party zeal and worldly domination, have been miraculously few. Thus hath the prophetical injunction from the throne been wonderfully fulfilled, through a dark period of long continuance, and of great difficulty and danger. "The oil and the wine have not been injured."*

THE OPENING OF THE FOURTH SEAL;

Or the utter and entire Corruption of the Visible
Church, and its attendant Miseries.

"And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come and see. And I looked,

† Dean Woodhouse.

*

and lo! a pale livid-green horse! and his name that sat upon him was Death, and hell followed with him. And power was given unto him over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." (vi. 7, 8.)

It might have been imagined that no state could have been worse than the one which has just been described; yet here we have another of still deeper horror and guilt presented to our view; and history fully verifies the prophecy that another gradation of ecclesiastical barbarism, still more terrific than the former, did, at the time we are about to consider, set in the deepest gloom over the fourth part of the empire, and one that in all respects answered to the symbols of this seal.

The horse here is represented the livid colour of corruption" of a grassy green which, though beautiful in the clothing of the trees and fields, is very unseemly, disgusting, and even horrible, when it appears upon flesh.”

"There is a sublime climax," observes Dean Woodhouse, "or scale of terrific images exhibited in the colours of the horses in the four first seals, denoting the progressive character of the Christian times. It begins with pure white, then changes to fiery, or vengeful; then to black, or mournful; and when we imagine nothing more dreadful in colour can appear, then comes another gradation in colour much more terrific, even this deadly pale."" But this is not all-" he that sat upon him" his name was Death, he is not described; the picture of this

*Dean Woodhouse's translation.

grisly king of terrors, so mounted, is left to be supplied by the imagination of the reader. "And hell followed with him "—that is, the receptable of the dead, the place of departed souls-implying that there was a more dreadful enemy in regions beyond the grave signifying, both images taken together, the destruction in the heart of all true religion, and the extinction of all spiritual life-and every horrible and dreadful result that can flow from such a state of things.

At the head of this fourth change in the aspect of the church, stands the name of CHARLEMAGNE, who reigned from the year 768 to 814. "We are penetrating," says Mr. Milner, in commencing his history of the ninth century, "a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought, and of the shadow of death; and are carried, by every step, into scenes still more gloomy than the former." Baronius, a popish writer, calls it "an iron age, barren of all goodness; a leaden age, abounding in all wickedness; and a dark age, remarkable above all others for a scarcity of writers and men of letters." The often repeated language of Mosheim, speaking of these centuries, is in the same strain. He speaks of "the astonishing ignorance that gave a loose rein both to superstition and immorality"-of the thick darkness, the clouds of ignorance, which universally prevailed of the Latins presenting a spectacle almost without exception sunk in the most brutish and barbarous ignorance—a dismal night of ignorance, covered with a thick and gloomy veil of superstition and cruelty,

and other epithets shewing that it was an era that is well designated as the dark ages.

Charlemagne himself, whose private character, amidst all his splendid and valuable qualities, was any thing but influenced by Christian principles, endeavoured to stem the torrent of this most deplorable and degenerate state of ignorance and vice; but the methods he took only riveted the chains of superstition and priestly tyranny stronger and firmer, and opened the sources of corruption wider. "The epoch," observes Mr. Hallam, "made by Charlemagne in the history of the world, has cast a lustre over his head, and testifies to the greatness that has embodied itself in his name. He possessed in every thing that grandeur of conception that distinguishes extraordinary minds. Like Alexander he seemed born for innovation-perhaps his greatest eulogy is written in the disgraces of succeeding times, and in the miseries of Europe. In the dark ages of European history, the reign of Charlemagne affords a solitary resting place between two long periods of turbulence and ignorance."

Dr. Robertson, likewise speaking of this great prince, says, "All the calamities which flow from anarchy and discord, returning with additional force, afflicted the different kingdoms into which his empire was split. From that time to the seventeenth century, a succession of uninteresting events fill and deform the annals of all the nations of Europe. Charlemagne in France, and Alfred the Great in England, endeavoured to dispel this darkness, and