the aggressions of France and Napoleon. If they did not send him many troops, it was because they could not. But now, France, Austria and Spain, and other minor powers, all professed friends of the Pope, were at liberty, and nothing but the will was wanting, to send more than enough troops to crush both the armies of Garibaldi, and of Victor Emmanuel, too, if he should oppose them in helping the Pope. The fact that they did not do this, shows how little influence the Papal power had. France afforded her tardy aid, just enough to keep the army of Garibaldi from entering the Eternal City; that was all; while she consented to see the Pope robbed of nearly all his kingdom, for the benefit of Victor Emmanuel. 6. This prepares the way for our sixth remark, viz.: That while revolution and war must be expected to result from this outpouring, the calamities must consist, widely and deeply, in something else, and that this must proceed, not only from the fifth vial, but also from all the previous vials, especially from the first, as allusion is made to it in our text. We can allude to but one among many of these effects, and that is, to the progress of liberal ideas not so immediately dependent upon great civil convulsions, which is surely robbing the Papacy of its power and prestige in the world. Men are learning that this polity belongs to a former period of the world's history. They might submit to it during the dark ages, but now they are rising above those superstitious fears with which the Papal power has held such unlimited sway over the world for fifteen hundred years. Men begin to see that countries under Papal and Jesuitical influence do not keep abreast of the age. In this view, then, every new railroad built, every steamboat that plows waters where such crafts have been comparative strangers, every printing press put in operation, every free school house built-the dread and abhorrence of Jesuits,-every advance of Protestant churches, every step towards liberalizing the constitutions of kingdoms, every limit set to kingly prerogative, is a loud tocsin in the ears of ecclesiastical prerogative. And here, I may as well say, that whatever is symbolized by the contents of the vials, it need not be intrinsically evil. If its effects prove disastrous to the powers on which it is poured, the conditions of the symbolism will be satisfied. If we suppose, then, that the contents of the fifth vial symbolize the spirit of inquiry and independence of thought which distinguishes the present age, and, although subject to many abuses, as all good things are, in this world, is the impelling power of the age, we should not do violence to the symbol. It is surely a vial of wrath, a sore, a mortal enemy to all forms of despotism, poured right on its very throne of power, and will surely work its destruction. As men learn to think and act for themselves, they will cast off the trammels which despots of every class and grade would throw around them. The open Bible, which this spirit is giving to the world, which teaches the law of equality and love, is the greatest enemy, yea, I may say, the principles drawn from its inspired pages are the only enemies, of despotism. For, while it teaches submission to the powers that be, as ordained or permitted of God, it lays its most crushing interdicts upon political or spiritual lording it over God's people. The Jesuits are plotting, and they will continue to plot as long as they have an existence, and they will, no doubt, instigate reactions in favor of despotic prerogative, as they seem likely to succeed in doing in Austria, with the imbecile Francis Joseph, but the spirit of free inquiry, amid the increasing light of the age, will, in the end, prove more than a match for them, and they will go down before the armies of heaven, which come on the white steeds of liberty and virtue. VII. AMERICA IN PROPHECY. REV. XVI., IO, II. My seventh remark, regarding the fulfillment of this passage, was that the calamities following this outpouring, must be very severe, as the men having the mark of the beast "gnawed their tongues for pain.' This indicates extreme suffering.* The Greek word, rendered gnawed here, is found nowhere else in the New Testament, and but once in the Greek version of the Old Testament by the Seventy. There can scarcely be any stronger symbolism of pain, than is found in this. Several special remarks regarding it may, perhaps, quicken our apprehensions of its force in the application. I. We may regard this suffering, in an important sense, as the culminating result of all the previous vials. We have already alluded to this feature. This symbol is, probably, an allusion to extreme thirst—so extreme as to force men to gnaw their tongues for pain. Take all the symbols, thus far presented, in their bearing upon this anguish, and see if the prophet has not made out a strong case. Men are smitten with a noisome, grievous sore or plague. Such a disease must, of course, be cutaneous. All cutaneous diseases are more or less inflammatory, and will produce fever and thirst. With burning bodies, we may suppose they go to the seaside for the cool breezes which fan its coasts, to cool the smarting sore. But the angel's wings have been over the sea; its waters are red with blood, and its basin a vast, hideous sepulchre of the dead. They fly, in horror, from the great, surging hades, to escape further contagion. Their thirst impels them. They hasten to the cool, mountain *Note 43, Canto I, stanza 43. valleys, to assuage their thirst in those sweet rivers and fountains which flow perennial from their unfailing sources. But alas! the footsteps of the angel of death have been there, and changed their waters into blood, while the land reeks with the stench of the slain. Horrors ! Blood to slake their burning, maddening thirst! While they are looking here and there for relief, and, it may be, are meditating flight to the mountain tops to find it amid their eternal snows, the angel smites the sun, and his flaming rays scorch their already smarting bodies, and intensify their horrible thirst. O where is there covert in this hour of trial? What glen, or what cavern, can shelter afford? Say, how can they 'scape the fierce wrath of the Lord? Will they fly to the ocean, and hide in its billows? Ah, no! for its waters are reeking with blood. Will they seek the cool streams, 'neath the sheltering willows? Yet men, in their madness, repent not, but blaspheme the name of God, which hath power over these plagues. While cursing and casting about for relief in vain, the fifth vial is poured out, the sun, as if his rays had been consumed by the previous burning, is veiled in sackcloth, and a horrible. darkness covers them with its pall. Is there wonder that by this time we find men gnawing their tongues in the mad agony of their pains? 2. Remark a little further on the actual severity of the calamities indicated by this symbolism. If we note that the rapacity and iconoclasm* of the revolutionists, assisted by the French soldiers, far outstripped the Goths, Vandals and Huns, which of old had subverted the Western Empire, and even the Saracens and Turks, who subverted the Eastern, we may increase the vividness of our impressions. They out-vandaled the Vandals. The clergy, and the nobles who were also generally supporters of the Papacy, were stripped of everything; and those who were not put to death, were driven into exile. Many of the venerable monuments of *Note 44, Canto I, stanza 94. antiquity, which the northern barbarians had spared, were ruthlessly torn down. The iconoclasts re-enacted the scenes of Antwerp in the seventeenth century; and even that wondrous structure, the Church of St. Peter, narrowly escaped destruction. Alison says: "The spoliation exceeded all that the Goths and Vandals had effected. Not only the palaces of the Vatican and the Monte Cavillo, and of the chief nobility of Rome, but those of Castel Gondolfo, on the margin of the Alban Lake, of Terracina, the Villa Albani, and others in the environs of Rome, were plundered of every article of value. The whole sacerdotal habits of the Pope and Cardinals were burned, to collect from the flames the gold with which they were adorned. The Vatican was stripped to its naked walls; the immortal frescoes of Raphael and Michael Angelo remained, in solitary beauty, 2mid the general desolation. A contribution of four millions [pounds] of money, two millions of provisions, and of three thousand horses, was imposed on a city already exhausted by the enormous exactions it had previously undergone. Under the direction of the infamous commissary, Haller, the domestic library, museum, furniture, jewels, and even the private clothes of the Pope, were sold." Amid this accumulation of disasters, the symbolism of gnawing their tongues for pain, does not appear too strong. Of course, we shall understand that this anguish was mental, and not, of necessity, wholly, or largely, physical. 3. Still more, if we cannot see enough in these calamities, to justify this strong symbolism, we may remember, that we have, probably, not seen all that is foreshadowed. All was not realized in the revolution of '98. Other revolutions have since succeeded. Thrice has the Pope been compelled to leave his capital; and all know his condition to-day. What may yet be in store for him, of course, we do not know; but of this we may be well assured, from what has already passed, that the full cup of this anguish must be drained by those men who have written the names of blasphemy so thickly upon the seven hills. I will call attention now to my eighth remark on this symbolism, viz. That, inasmuch as these two forms of despotism have been closely united during their joint existence, if this : |