prophecies of CHRIST and of St. John, by the sidereal bodies" the powers that are in heaven."

5. Among them the great preponderating power, represented by the sun, is France.

6. The prophecy of CHRIST that "the sun shall be darkened," and the prophetic vision of St. John in which "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair," were fulfilled in 1793, when the atheistic legislature of France, having destroyed all the ancient national establishments, civil and ecclesiastical, completed its work of demolition by extinguishing every ray of religious light, natural and revealed, with the decrees, framed for the avowed purpose of annihilating every principle of religion, that human reason should thenceforth be the only object of worship-and that there is no hope or possibility of man's future existence, for "death is an eternal sleep."

7. The "great earthquake" of the SIXTH SEAL is that tremendous revolution of 1789, which, in fulfilment of CHRIST'S prediction that immediately preceding his next advent "the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken," has already shaken every throne and ecclesiastical establishment within the limits of the roman empire, and from which, as Dr. Croly truly observes, "the world still trembles."

8. That" great earthquake" consists of three shocks, accompanied in a subsequent vision by three woetrumpets; of which the first announced the meeting of the french states-general in May 1789, and poured forth its terrible sound over the earth until the treaty of Amiens in March 1803; the second woe-trumpet summoned the nations to the dreadful war that commenced between Great Britain and France in May 1803; and it continued

"Arma ciere viros, martemque; accendere cantu,"

until it was silenced by the peace of Paris in November 1815'; the third

"Pealed its first notes to sound the march of time"

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in the ever memorable “ three days" of July 1830, "and, with fear of change

Perplexing monarchs"

and church establishments, will be heard until the judaic FEAST OF TABERNACLES in 1843, when it will cease with the personal advent of " the Son of man coming in the clouds, with great power and glory"-the resurrection of his prophets and martyrs-and the deliverance of "his people Israel." For, "behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, even they who pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so. Amen!" i. 7.

The three visions contained in that portion of the seven sealed book which is included by the SIXTH SEAL that is to say,

1. The castigation of the carnal nations that dwell on the earth, and the overthrow of their civil and ecclesiastical establishments

2. The sealing of "the servants of our GOD," that they may not be in the number of the sufferers

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3. The resurrection of the prophets and the martyrs, (who sleep in the dust of the earth" for the little season of their rest) and their appearance before "the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne”complete the history of the period embraced by the martyrdom of the church, down to the triumph of the

'There was a cessation of actual war in Europe from the triumphal entrance of the British army into Toulouse in April 1814, until the return of Bonaparte from Elba to France in March 1815; that interval was occupied by hostilities between Great Britain and the anglo-american states.

martyrs at the second advent of our Lord; for " some of them of understanding shall fall (by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil) to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end." Dan. xi. 35.

"The times of the Gentiles" are now fulfilled; for the time is come that "the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the MOST HIGH, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey HIM. Dan. vii. 27.

Therefore, of the system of Divine Providence with respect to the church, all that remains to be told is the state of blessedness which, after the next advent of CHRIST, shall rapidly extend itself over the whole earth, and continue uninterrupted for "a thousand years,' (xx. 2),

The Seventh Seal.

THE opening of each of the first six seals was immediately followed by symbols audible and visible. The opening of the SEVENTH SEAL is followed by a blank silence, wherein nothing is addressed to the eye or the

ear:

CHAPTER VIII.

1 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

That silence intimates that there is here a halt in the march of the prophetic narrative.-But the narrative is not concluded; nor is its continuation, like the opening of the sealed prophecies of Daniel, (Dan. xii. 9.) indefinitely postponed-for the pause is restricted to "about the space of half an hour." And, accordingly, the exhibition of the contents of the SEVENTH SEAL commences with the beginning of the nineteenth chapter, and continues therefrom to the end of the Apocalypse. A series of intervening visions occupies the remainder of the eighth, and the next ten chapters. Those visions are so placed for the purpose of indicating that all their several terminations synchronize with the opening of the SEVENTH SEAL-that is to say, with the commencement of that great consummation detailed in the sublime symbols pertaining to that seal.

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THE VISIONS OF THE TRUMPET-ANGELS,

AND

OF THE VIAL-ANGELS.

THE four concluding chapters of the Apocalypse exhibit the symbols pertaining to the SEVENTH SEAL, and represent the triumphant establishment of the purified church over all nations, and its blessings to all succeeding ages; but they give no portion of its history prior to that event, and subsequent to the rise of popery and of Mahometism. The most signal incidents of that portion of ecclesiastical history are given in visions that intervene between the first verses of the eighth and of ́ the nineteenth chapters; that is to say, between the opening of the SEVENTH SEAL and the exhibition of its contents. Those intervening visions give the history of the downfal of Antichrist, which necessarily precedes the triumph of the church.

The history of the christian church is two-fold—external, and internal. To the former alone the apocalyptic symbols pertain. Now it is sufficiently plain that the external history of the church must be involved in that of the political events which, immediately or remotely, affect its temporal interests. That history, therefore, consists of incidents, of which some are principally secular, others essentially ecclesiastical. These two distinct classes of events, even when contemporaneous, and closely connected by the intimate relation of cause and effect, are nevertheless, in the Apocalypse separately narrated in the two separate, but paralel, series of events comprised under the symbols of trumpets and of vials. Besides the obvious difference between the uses to which a trumpet, (the instrument of war and state)