gave their subjects a short glimpse of light and knowledge. But the ignorance of the age was too powerful for their efforts and institutions. The darkness returned, and settled over Europe more thick and heavy than before."

This sad darkness was followed by a corresponding wickedness. Hence the same author observes-and it will suffice in drawing this dismal picture—that " a greater number of those atrocious actions which fill the mind of man with astonishment and horror, occur in the history of the centuries under review, than in that of any period of the same extent in the annals of Europe. If we open the history of Gregory of Tours, or of any contemporary author, we meet with a series of deeds of cruelty, perfidy, and revenge, so wild and enormous as almost to exceed belief."

We now come to the next particular in the great change from bad to worse which is exhibited in this seal-and that its LIMITATION—“ power was given him over the fourth part of the earth,” and this we shall find exactly applies to the era formed by Charlemagne. The preceding ones-viz, those formed by the reigns of Constantine, Theodosius, and Justinian, each extended over the length and breadth of the whole Roman empire, in all the three quarters of the world, Europe, Asia, and Africawhereas the sway of Charlemagne, great as it was, extended to only about "a fourth part." The western portion of the empire is, as we shall here

after find in explaining the "trumpets," considered as a "third part"-but, according to Gibbon, "only two thirds" of the western empire of Rome were subject to Charlemagne ; and the petty sovereigns of the remaining part of it, including England and Spain, implored the honour of his alliance, and styled him their common parent, the emperor of the West."

With the greatest historic accuracy, therefore, the fourth part is here mentioned as the more immediate sphere of the operation of this seal—and it is a limitation that was especially necessary to be noticed, because no new era was formed in the East at this period; besides which the West was the more immediate and proper territorial limits of the fourth great empire of the world. It was likewise at this time, on the occasion of the Western imperial Headship being revived in the person of Charlemagne, that the Greek and Latin, or the Eastern and Western churches, were finally and irrevocably separated.

The power that was thus given to the fourth part of the empire was "to slay by sword, and by famine, and by pestilence, and by the beasts of the earth;" which would seem to imply that all sorts of devastation and destruction-that "death," in all its most horrid forms, was to ride triumphant during this devoted period. The visible church being now plunged into all the idolatry and superstition and unparalleled wickedness of popery, which had struck at the very vitals of godliness, and being thus disunited

from Christ her living head, was plunged thereby into the lowest and deepest abyss of misery. Perhaps its meridian may be considered to have been from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, and to have been most clearly manifested in its direful effects by the Crusades. Mr. Hallam remarks, that to engage in the Crusades, and to perish in them, were synonymous;" and that "they drained to the lees the cup of misery." Of the first, he says, "So many crimes and so much misery have seldom been accumulated in so short a space as in the three first years of this enterprize;" and of the last, "that such calamities now fell upon this devoted army, as have scarce ever been surpassed-hunger and want of every kind, aggravated by an unsparing pestilence." And these were not casual evils-they were caused by the spirit of the times, the withering influence of the prevailing apostacy, the death-cold shade of the almost universal dominion of Satan over the hearts and consciences of men, and the almost total absence of the Word of God. Thus was the visible church, in what are immediately called the Latin nations for these are the fourth part of the earth here spoken of-given up to a total state of corruption. Thus, did Death both morally, spiritually, and physically reign; and thus did, most emphatically, "hell" follow!

CHAPTER V.

CONTINUATION OF THE SEALS;

OB

THE PARTIAL RECOVERY OF THE CHURCH AT THE

REFORMATION;

AND

THE APPEARANCE AND ACTINGS OF INFIDELITY,

AS EXHIBITED IN THE CONSEQUENCES

OF

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

General observations on the preceding Seals, and the Apostacy they pourtray-Where spoken of in the Old Testament―They form epochas of History-Theodosius-Unity of the four first Seals-Danger of Prosperity to the Church exemplified—THE REFORMATION-The age of Martyrs-Its influence—Its instruments-Abilities of the reigning Monarchs Persecutions -St. Bartholomew's Massacre and others-Cry for Vengeance -Future Persecutions yet to take place-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION-Symbols of the Sixth Seal explained to refer to it - Exemplified the principles of Infidelity.