the extraneous power of the sword. This power practised, and prospered, and destroyed those who are called "the holy people," because they were by profession the people of the true God, called by the name of Christ. This power is represented as no less crafty than warlike, and as equally skilled in employing the policy of a delusive peace and the arts of most destructive wars. In both the one and the other, Mohammed and his followers were unrivalled.

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The daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down." That which corresponded with the daily sacrifice of the Jewish sanctuary was the public worship of the Christian church; and this was interrupted by Mohammedan violence. And a host was given against the daily sacrifice, by reason of transgression;" that is, probably, "a rival priesthood was permitted to subvert the priesthood of a degenerate church. The Imams of Mohammed were substituted in the place of the apostate teachers of Christianity, and the mosques were erected on the ruins of the Christian sanctuaries."

It is added, at the end of the recital of the vision, "He shall stand up against the Prince of princes, but he shall be broken without hand." Does not this denote, that the destruction of this formidable power shall be effected,

not by the hand of man, but by the immediate and overpowering interposition of Him against whom it has presumed to lift up the standard of rebellious rivalry? Does not this correspond in import with the intimation of the manner in which destruction is decreed also against the papal antichrist, "whom the Lord will consume by the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the brightness of his coming?" It is said by the interpreting angel, that the vision shall reach unto the time of the end. This expression seems to refer to the great prophetic period of the three times and a half, that is, of the 1260 years. This period appears to be the predicted duration of the power both of the little horn of the west, and of the little horn of the east; that is, both of the papal and of the Mohammedan delusion. If, then, the Mohammedan imposture commenced its triumphant career when the papal apostasy was fully developed, the period appointed for the destruction of the one must be also the period for the demolition of the other.

Let me now call your attention to a very remarkable prediction in the book of the Apocalypse; which, notwithstanding differences of interpretation on the general structure of the book, and on many of its leading prophecies, Mr. Faber, Mr. Cunninghame of Scotland, and

Mr. Forster, coincide in applying to the history of Mohammedism. The prophecy to which I refer is contained in the 9th chapter of the book of the Revelation.

"Our best commentators are agreed," observes Mr. Faber, "in the leading proposition, that the woe of the locusts relates to the rise of Mohammedism, and to the flourishing period of the Saracenic Caliphate."

The issuing forth of the locusts is preceded by the falling of a star, that is, (says Mr. Faber) by the apostasy of a Christian bishop- the bishop of Rome-the man of sin. This agrees with the intimation in the prophecy of Daniel, that the little horn of the he-goat should spring up when the apostates shall have come to the full. In other words, the Mohammedan imposture should commence immediately after the maturity of the papal power. "The completion of the great demonolatrous apostasy opened a wide door for the successful propagation of an imposture, which speciously founded itself on the eternal truth that God alone is the proper object of religious worship; and boasted of exposing and rejecting the idolatry of the Roman Church."

The appearance of the locusts is preceded by a thick smoke, which arises out of the abyss. This is supposed to denote "the dense and

noxious fumes of the corrupt theology taught by Mohammed," which obscured to so great an extent the beams of divine truth.

"The symbolical locusts were like horses prepared for the battle." Thus the strength of the Saracens consisted very much in their numerous cavalry.

"The locusts had on their heads, as it were, crowns like gold." Thus the Arabs have constantly worn turbans; and their boast was, that they wore, as their common attire, those ornaments, which among other people are the peculiar badges of royalty.

"The locusts had faces as the faces of men, and hair as the hair of women." Thus the Arabs wore their beards as men; while their hair, like that of women, was flowing or braided.

"The teeth of the locusts were as the teeth of a lion;" denoting the strength and the rapacity of the Saracens.

"The sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle;" representing the rapid career of the victorious Arabs.

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They had stings in their tails;" emblematically denoting the infliction, in a spiritual sense, of deadly wounds.

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They had a King over them, the angel of

C

the abyss from which the smoke issued, whose name is Abaddon, or Apollyon, or the Destroyer."-" Since the locusts are at once secular conquerors and the propagators of a false religion, their king must stand to them in the double relation of a temporal and spiritual chief. Such accordingly was Mohammed and the Caliphs his successors. The two-fold idea was aptly expressed by his official denomination -The Commander of the Faithful."

A command was given to the locusts that "they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree." It is not a little remarkable that when Yezid was marching to invade Syria, the caliph, Abu-Beker, laid upon him this injunction, "Destroy no palm trees, nor burn any fields of corn; and cut down no fruit trees."

The commission of the locusts extended only to hurt those men who had not the seal of God in their foreheads;" and it is an interesting fact, that while the Saracens conquered the greater part of the Greek empire, the south of Italy, and nearly the whole of Spain, they were not permitted to overrun the countries of Savoy and Piedmont, which had been the seat of the purest of the Christian churches.

The woe of the locusts continued during five prophetic months, or 150 years, If 150 years