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expiration; that these signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, of the political heaven are preparatory to the return and conversion of God's ancient people and to the final overthrow of his congregated enemies.

II. It has been objected to my date of the 1260 years (which after all I wish to be considered in no other light than that of a conjecture), that, considering the wonderful rapidity with which events have lately succeeded each other, it is difficult to believe that this famous period will not expire until the year 1866. So much has already been done, my respectable opponent Mr. Bicheno argues, and so little apparently remains to be done before the effusion of the last vial, that, "when "he reflects on what has been passing for these

eighteen years, he cannot possibly bring himself "to think that the termination of the prophetic "numbers of Daniel and St. John is so distant as " I suppose *

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This mode of arguing is rather an appeal to the imagination than to the judgment: and it may be sufficient to reply, that, however rapid has been the succession of events since the French revolu

Supplement to Signs of the Times, p. 29.

tion, we know not what may occur to retard mat- · ters; for analogical reasoning from what is past can scarcely be deemed adequate to teach us what is as yet future. The sixth vial is certainly not yet poured out, because the Ottoman empire is not yet overthrown: and, when my work on the 1260 years was first published in the year 1806, I think it equally clear that the fifth vial had not been then poured out. It may however be demonstrated in the abstract, that the 1260 years do not expire until the effusion of the seventh vial. This being the case, who shall say before the event what length of time the fifth and sixth vials may be destined to occupy? If the fifth vial still remain to be poured out, its baneful contents must be emptied upon the government of France; because, by the trans-> fer of the Corlovingian dignity from Germany to France, the seat of the Roman beast under his last head is now certainly fixed in the latter country. Should its effusion then be yet future, or should it have recently commenced in the present opposition to the overgrown power of France, who can say what retardation it may produce? That the power of the beast will not be broken by it (supposing it should be poured upon France as the last head of the beast), however that power may for a

season

season be checked, is manifest from the contents of the sixth vial. There, notwithstanding the fifth vial had been poured upon his throne (apparently intimating that some great attack should be madeupon his imperial authority), so far is his throne. from being subverted, that we find him with undiminished influence gathering together to Armageddon the vassal sovereigns of the Latin earth, and afterwards destroyed with them at that place under the seventh vial.

As it is not improbable that the fifth vial, if it either yet remain to be poured out or if it be now pouring out, may produce a considerable retardation of matters; so it seems not unreasonable to conjecture at least that a yet further retardation may be caused by the effusion of the sixth, though its contents may doubtless in part synchronize with those of the fifth. I have been favoured by a gentleman, whose authority I can rely upon though I am not at liberty to mention his name, with the following interesting remarks on the present state of Turkey: whence it appears, that there is at least a probability that the downfall of the Ottoman power is not quite so near as it has been supposed to be.

"You wished to have information in respect to "Turkish politics :-I thought it necessary to

"consider

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"consider and to pause, before I could venture to "hazard speculations on such a subject. You "would, no doubt, be anxious to learn from me, "whether the present state of the Ottoman empire "ought to lead one to expect its approaching "downfall, or whether from my observations I "should be inclined to imagine that even with its "evident inertness it still has sufficient strength "to hold for a time together. When Einform you, that our nearly two last Embassadors in Spain, Lords Auckland, and St. Helen's, had seen nothing in the Spanish character which "can lead them to account for the burst of patriot"ism which we have witnessed, it will not asto"nish you that I cannot undertake to predict "what is likely to happen in the country which I "have recently quitted. I will tell you however "what I heard of Turkey and of the inhabitants "whilst I remained amongst them.

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66

"The Turkish government is so perfectly dis"jointed, that the governors, or Pachas, of the "different provinces, so far from holding friendly "intercourse with each other, are, upon their own

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authority and for their own objects, not unfre"quently in a state of open war; and indeed they "never agree in any thing, except in one uniform "resistance

"resistance to the orders of the Porte. This state "of things prevails so generally and to such an "extent, that I do not hesitate in declaring that "beyond the walls of Constantinople the grand "Signior has not more power than you or I have. "It will obviously occur to you, that an empire

so constituted could offer but little opposition "to any invading army; and you will be no less "inclined to suppose, that among Pachas so jeal"ous of each other it would be the easiest of all

things to obtain by treachery all that was not to "be attempted by force of arms.

"And such would necessarily be the result, if "it could be made evident to the different inde

pendent princes (for such are the Pachas) that "they would be gainers by the change: but hi"therto, in all wars, they have always felt, that

no foreign power could bribe them into so splen"did a situation as that which they now possess. "This has been the cause of the invariably steady "resistance to the Austrian armies: while, the re"sistance to the Russians not having been pro"duced by the same motives, there has through"out Europe been a general though erroneous "idea that the court of Petersburgh had been act"ing with a vigour which could not be ascribed to

"that

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