go beyond their limit they were checked and repressed. Twice they were foiled in their attempts at Constantinople. They invaded France; and if they had succeeded in subjugating that illustrious land, Europe at this moment had probably been Mahometan. "Charles Martel the Hammer," the historian says, "beat them back; and Europe owes the existence of its liberties and its religion to his heroic efforts." But as soon as they had finished their commission, we find they immediately paused. Hallam says,-"Their conquests are less perplexing than the cessation of them." Gibbon says,- "The calm historian must study to explain by what means Church and state were saved from impending desolation." The true reason was the prophetic record. The period of their action that is, of their inflicting torment on apostate Christendom-was limited to one hundred and

fifty years. Mark how true this is. In 612 Mahomet first proclaimed his mission. "Who,' he said, "will be my Grand Vizier?" The answer given by his chief follower was,-" O, prophet! I am the man. Whoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his locks and his eyes, and rip him up." In 755 the dynasty of the Ommiades was supplanted in the caliphate by the Abassides; and thus they were rent into antagonistic powers. In 762 another capital, Medina al Salem, further east, was selected, and there the locust settled. Now hear what the historian says. "The colossus," says Sismondi, "that had be

stridden the whole south was now broken; and this revolt did more for the deliverance of Europe. from the Moslem than the battle of Poictiers." And Gibbon says,-" War was now no longer the passion of the Saracens. The luxury of the caliphs relaxed their nerves, and terminated the progress of the Arabian empire." Now, see how chronologically exact this was. In 612 was the commencement of the mission of Mahomet; 762 was the cessation of their progress and their conquest. Deduct 612 from 762, and you have 150 years, called in the Apocalypse 150 prophetic days — the precise period during which their action, progress, and success were to continue.

We have thus seen, what is called in the Apocalypse, the first, or the Saracenic woe. Let us turn to the Turkish, or the second woe, as it is therein called. Heretofore Western Christendom had been the chief sufferer from the Saracen; Eastern Christendom was no less guilty than the West; and hence on the very spot-and this will explain why we identify Turkey and Mahometanism with the Euphrates on which the Saracens had settled down, namely, Bagdad on the Euphrates, the angels of retribution were again let loose, and the Turks marched forth under Toghrul Beg, their constituted head, to promote the secular power and religious domination of Islam, and to devastate Eastern Christendom, as the Saracens before them had devastated Asia and the West. Alp Arslan, the valiant lion, crossed the Euphrates,

the com

mencement of Turkish propagandism, in 1063, at the head of immense Turkish cavalry; and began a career of resistless conquests over the whole of Eastern Christendom, till he fell by the knife of the assassin. Malek Shah succeeded, and spread his victories, in the words of Gibbon, "from the spicy groves of Arabia Felix to Constantinople." The Crusaders averted for a season the downfall of the imperial city, but in so doing they consolidated the forces of the Ottoman; and at the end of the fourteenth century, the Turks crossed the Danube; and Gibbon says, "For the first time during a thousand years, Constantinople was surrounded both on the Asiatic and the European sides." The Apocalypse calls them, "the number of the armies of horsemen." Let us recollect, the Western warriors were chiefly infantry—the Eastern warriors were chiefly cavalry. Gibbon says, "The myriads of Turkish horse overspread the Greek empire;" and Peter the Hermit, and patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote to their brethren in the West in these words: "We call for help; the forces of the Turks are fierce, and more numerous than the Saracens; they have in anticipation devoured the whole world."

Thus, the closer we read, the clearer we see the accuracy of the Apocalyptic symbols as we proceed. It is said that "out of their mouths came smoke and brimstone and fire." At this very time, and primarily at the siege of Constantinople, gunpowder and cannon were used, at least on a vast

scale, and a park of artillery planted with its devastating thunders against Constantinople; and it is in the very chapter in which Gibbon describes the fall of the mistress of the East, that he alludes to the mighty effects of the recent and mysterious mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal. "Canst thou cast a cannon," said the Sultan Mahomet to the founder, "large enough to batter down the walls of Constantinople?" The cannon were founded at Adrianople; and soon the battlements and fortifications that had stood the shock of a thousand years, fell before the Ottoman cannon. Gibbon says, "Double walls were reduced by the cannon; the Turks rushed in at the breaches; Constantinople was subdued; her empire was subverted, her religion trampled in the dust, by the Moslem conqueror;" - or, in the words of the inspired penman, by these three, the fire, the smoke, (or the carbon), and the sulphur, which issued out of their mouths, was the third part of Christendom made desolate.

Then it is added, as if still further to identify them: "Their power," their gouría, that is, their jurisdiction, "is in their tails." What a strange expression is this! A crown is a mark of a king, a diadem of an emperor, a sword of a military prefect; but a horse's tail, what can that be a mark of? Notice again the accuracy of Apocalyptic symbols. In one of the great battles of the Turks, the commander lost the standard of his army; he immediately dismounted, cut off his

horse's tail, hoisted it on a pole, and made that the rallying standard of the Turks. And what is the fact to this day? A pasha of two, or a pasha of three horse tails, is now the description of Turkish dignitaries and rulers; and under the shelter of these, in past days, they have, not "hurt," as we render it, but "done injustice." So accurately do we identify the words of prophecy with the chapters of history! Now, mark again: "Just as we had specified exactly the time,-150 years,—during which the Saracens were to punish apostate Christendom, we have now the period fixed during which the Turks are to punish the same, though more Eastern, apostate Christendom. The time is appointed a day, a month, a year, and an hour. Now, prophetically viewed,- for prophecy is just like the map of a country, upon the scale of an eighth of an inch for a mile,—you have here a day for a year, as you may easily see by referring to various parts of Scripture. A month, 30 years; a year, 365 years; an hour, 15 days. Add all these together, and they amount to 396 years, 106 days. Now, let us see how exactly this prophecy was fulfilled in fact. The Turks started on their mission from Bagdad on the Euphrates, on Jan. 18th, 1057. On May 29th, 1453, their last exploit was consummated, when Constantinople fell. Deduct Jan. 18th, 1057, from May 29th, 1453, and you have the prophecy chronologically proved by fact, or as is proclaimed in the prophecy of the Apocalypse, the duration, 396 years, 106 days.