rate seal, of which dispensations the first six concur in conducing to the great consummation recorded in the narrative of the seventh.

But as these several dispensations did not all commence at the same time, they are arranged in an order, to a certain extent, chronological.

I know of no image whereby I can so clearly describe the notion I would convey to my reader as that of six rivers of unequal lengths, each rising from a separate source, and all simultaneously merging in the same sea.

THE FIRST SEAL.

On the opening of the first seal the first named, the Lion, of the four animals about the throne, in a voice resembling thunder, calls the attention of St. John to the symbols about to be exhibited to him.

1. "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard, as it were, the voice of thunder, one of the four animals saying, Come and see.

2. "And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer."

The reader will remember that the commencement of the Apocalypse found St. John in tribulation for the apparently perishing church. The contents of the first seal were well calculated to cheer his drooping spirit, and to convert his despondence unto joy. They announced to him the great event which, through the whole extent of the Roman empire, not only put a final termination to the persecution of christianity,

but ultimately exalted it into triumphant establishment on the ruins of its rancorous enemy, the ferocious spirit of paganism.

For above two hundred years after the delivery of the Apocalypse, the depression and affliction of the church continued uninterrupted, excepting by brief intervals of suspension, which, like pauses in a tempest, invariably awoke into explosions of a fiercer violence. The tardy edict of toleration issued by the execrable Galerius, in the beginning of the fourth century, for putting an end, in his portion of the divided empire, to the dreadful persecution which for the latter years of the reign of Diocletian swept over the whole of its extent, was rendered unavailing by the opposition of one of his imperial colleagues,— the brutal Maximin. At length, on the death of the Emperor Constantius in the city of York, his son, the illustrious Constantine, at the head of the British army and German auxiliaries, subsequently recruited by the accession of the Gallic legions, commenced the long series of splendid achievements which he continued until, in the year 324, all the vast Roman dominions bowed beneath his single sceptre. In the plenitude of his undisputed and unlimited sovereignty, the imperial mandate went forth which commanded that every manifestation of hostility to christianity, his adopted religion, should cease for ever. The astounded empire, through all its provinces, heard, trembled, and obeyed.

The reader will have no difficulty in perceiving the admirable appropriateness of the symbols of the

first seal to the nature and consequences of this great and memorable event.

The Lion, the proverbial king of beasts, is an ancient and universal, because obvious, symbol of sovereignty. Hence Jacob calls Juda "a lion's whelp," in prophetic vision that in his tribe the Hebrew sceptre should abide until the coming of Shiloh: and hence Christ is, with reference to his predicted dominion over the world, "the lion of the tribe of Juda." The symbolical lion here signifies the imperial sovereignty from which christianity received its first temporal establishment in the world.

The lion's roar, at which all the brute creation stands appalled, ("the lion hath roared," saith Amos, speaking of a divine command, chap. iii. 6, "who will not fear?") represents the going forth of the imperial edict through the Roman dominions. The appearance of the horse and his rider, which immediately followed the lion's roar, represents the immediate consequence of the edict-the elevation of christianity from the oppression, under which it had hitherto laboured, into a station of dignity and power; the colour of the horse is white, the well known scriptural emblem of the light and purity of revealed religion: to the rider is given a crown, the symbol of the authowith. rity which, in the person and under the protection of its imperial convert and of his successors, christianity now reigns in the empire so recently and so long the theatre of its cruel sufferings: the rider holds in his hand a bow, one of the most ancient and universal of belligerent weapons, to signify that christianity,

notwithstanding its elevation by Constantine into honor and authority, was nevertheless destined to be, as it ever since has been, "the church militant here on earth;" but, with the assured certainty of ultimate triumph over all its enemies, it "goes forth conquering and to conquer."

THE SECOND SEAL.

THE Roman dominions, from the Irish channel to the Euphrates, were for the last time united under Theodosius, the Great. At his death, in 395, they were finally partitioned between his sons, Honorius and Arcadius, into two empires, denominated, with reference to their relative geographical position, western and eastern.* By the moral boundary of language, more easily discerned and less movable than any arbitrary line of territorial demarcation, they were divided into the Latin and Greek empires. With an interval of about a thousand years, and with consequences civil and ecclesiastical, widely different, both were subjugated by barbarian invaders. Out of the Latin provinces arose the several aristocratic or feudal mo

The separation was diversified, rather than materially affected, by the brief and feeble establishment of the Græco-roman power over Italy, and by the annexation of the African province to the eastern empire, which were effected by the victories of Narses and of Belisarius, commanding the armies of the emperor Justinian, over the Goths and Vandals.

+ In the mystic image seen in a dream by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. ii. 31.), the Babylonian empire is signified by the golden head; the two silver arms cohering to the breast represent the Median

narchies among which Europe has been, for so many centuries, distributed, while the Greek empire has been bound down under an iron despotism, of which the fetters are rivetted by a single hand. The conquerors of the east overturned with one blow the throne of the Cæsars and the church of Christ, and erecting on their ruins the civil and religious law of the Koraun, have remained barbarians. But, through all the barbarian inundations, that successively deluged the Latin empire, the ark of God may be descried floating in security on the face of the waters. The conquerors of the west embraced and have continued the profession of christianity, and their descendants, on both sides of the Atlantic, compose nations the most enlightened and civilized that have ever occupied any portions of the earth.

The destruction of the two empires, together with the different consequences resulting therefrom, include the history of the church, from its establishment by Constantine, to the present day, and are, in chronological order, the subjects of the second, third, and fourth seals; the full elucidation of which re

and Persian kingdoms united under the government of Cyrus and his successors. A similar union of Macedon and the MedoPersian empire under Alexander is typified by the brazen thighs connected by the belly. The total separation of the Latin and Greek empires (perfectly similar to each other in their several forms of polity, civil and religious), under two distinct governments appears to me to be symbolised by the separation of the legs, which have no place of concurrence. The chief portion of Daniel's prophecy, as well as of that of the Apocalypse, concerning the Roman empire pertains to its last, or divided, state.