symbolised by the sea rather than by a large lake or river, the idea of tumult or war or revolution will be superadded to that of preeminence in magnitude. Such being the case, the sea in the present vision must shadow out the largest kingdom of the now divided Roman Empire as existing in a state of violent effervescence or revolution.

With this character, France alone can be made to correspond at the chronological epoch of the vision. For, at the commencement of the third woe-trumpet which comprehends all the seven vials, the French Revolution, in the year 1789, occurred. Therefore the sea must denote the largest kingdom of the now divided Empire in a revolutionary state subsequent to the year 1789. But, to this character, no Roman kingdom, save France, will be found to answer. Therefore we are doubly compelled, both by chronology and by geography, to pronounce the sea of the present vision to be the symbol of Revolutionary France.

Upon the kingdom of France, then, while in a state of revolution and tumult and anarchy, the second vial is poured out: and, forthwith, its allegorical waters become like the clotted gore of a murdered man; for, by a bold hyperbolè, every living soul is said to perish within it.

The phrensied Revolution of France was stained, from the very first, with bloodshed and murder: but the imagery of the second vial plainly represents a period of extraordinary and preeminent slaughter; and that vial of course begins to be

poured out at the commencement of such a period. To ascertain, therefore, the point of time, when the second vial begins to be poured upon Revolutionary France, we must ascertain the commencement of the period thus terribly distinguished. Now the first vial, unless my arrangement of it be altogether erroneous, began to flow on the 26th of August in the year 1792. Consequently, the blood-stained period of the second vial must commence after that memorable day.

With this chronological notation, the period, usually denominated the reign of terror, will be found exactly to agree. The dreadful work of systematic death and proscription commenced on the 2d of September in the year 1792: and, during the entire period of which I am treating, the revo lutionary tribunal added daily new victims to the thousands who had perished at its abundantly marked commencement. Here the mockery of justice was complete: for, in the condemnation of the accused, the mere internal conviction of a packed jury, without the slightest examination of witnesses or inquiry into facts, was declared sufficient to esta blish guilt. As for the glorious privilege of extending mercy to the condemned, it was contemptuously disclaimed: and all applications for pardon were rejected with the brutal declaration, that the government of Republican France possessed no such power. It was esteemed a sufficient crime to be suspected of being a suspicious person and this

crime was visited by the only punishment recog nised by the Republic, the punishment of death; for the humane and enlightened philosophers, who in the plenitude of their wisdom had rejected Christianity and denied the existence of a God, wrote, like Draco, all their laws in human blood. France was converted into one vast Aceldama: or, to use the strong language of prophecy, the troubled sea of the Roman earth became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died within its ample compass.

The massacre of St. Bartholomew, an event that filled all Europe with consternation, the in famy and horrors of which have been dwelt upon by so many eloquent writers of all religions and which has held up Charles IX to the execration of ages, dwindles into child's play, when compared to the present murderous Revolution, which a late writer in France emphatically calls a St. Bartholomew of five years. According to M. Bossuet, there were about 30,000 persons murdered in ALL France on that day: there have been more than that number murdered in the SINGLE CITY of Lyons and its neighbourhood, while, at Nants, there have been 27,000; at Paris, 150,000; in la Vendee, 300,000. It appears, in short, that there have been two millions of persons murdered in France, since it has styled itself a Republic: among whom are reckoned 250,000 women; 230,000 children, beside

those murdered in the womb; and 24,000 Chris

tian priests1.

.. Thus, I think, we have sufficient ground for placing the commencement of the second vial on the 2d of September in the year 1792.

III. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters: and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters say: Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art and wast and shall be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets: and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard another from the altar say: Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments 2.

It must not be forgotten, that the general platform, upon which all the vials are poured out, is the earth or the Roman Empire: the rivers, therefore, and fountains, affected by the third vial, are the figurative rivers and fountains of that Empire ; as the sea, affected by the second vial, was its figurative sea. Now, in the abstract, rivers and fountains mean kingdoms and communities: whence, in the concrete, the rivers and fountains of the Roman earth will denote the kingdoms and communities of the now divided Roman Empire. The sea, however, or the largest body of allegorical

Gifford's Banditti unmasked.

2 Rev. xvi. 4—7.

* See above book i. chap. 1. § II. 1. (1.)

VOL. III.

B b

waters belonging to that Empire, has already been applied to France, as involving the two preeminent ideas of magnitude and revolutionary tumult. Consequently, the rivers with their fountains will import all the remaining smaller States of the Roman Empire; the chief river of each country being the symbol of the country through which it flows: as the Danube, of Austria; the Tiber, of Italy; the Tagus, of Spain or Portugal; the Po, of Lombardy; the Nile, of Egypt; and the Euphrates, of Turkey,

The prophecy, therefore, declares, that, by the violence and carnage of some unusually murderous and protracted and peculiar warfare, these allegorical rivers or literal States of the Roman Empire should be changed into streams of blood.

With this description, the tremendous and bloody wars, consequent upon the French Revolution, minutely correspond. On the 20th of April in the year 1792, France declared war against Austria; and, not long afterward, against Prussia also: but, whatever jealousies might prevail throughout the European kingdoms, no act then took place of a sufficiently definite and peculiar nature to mark so extraordinary an epoch as the commencement of the third apocalyptic vial. The war in question might probably have begun and ended like the numerous vulgar wars, which preceded it and which are deemed unworthy of prophetic notice, if the violence of the republican faction had not made it assume a special and distinctive character. On the 19th of November in the year 1792, a decree of fraternity and military assistance to all, who were