Now, two extraordinary interpositions, and two only, are to be met with in the history of this eventful period: on the side of the East, the invasions of the Turkish empire by the Tartars; and on the side of the North, the Crusades. For the Moguls penetrated into Asia Minor from the side of Persia and India; and the Crusaders poured their successive myriads into Syria and Palestine, through the northern frontier of the Turkish kingdom of Roum.*

It remains that we identify these interposing powers, by historical evidences, with the prophetic tidings out of the East and out of the North, which should trouble the king of the North.

Now, with respect to the holy wars, the historian of the Roman empire informs us, that "the first crusade was principally directed against the Turks." The epistles of the Greek emperor, addressed to the Catholic princes, were written expressly to supplicate deliverance from the victorious arms of Soliman, the Turkish sul

* For full proof of the agreement of the crusades, with Daniel's "tidings out of the North," see Appendix, No. IV.

+ The crusades, in their providential aspect, require no further vindication than may be drawn from their effects in repressing the Turkish power. It was by the arms of the crusaders, that the Turks of the four Sultanies (described by Saint John, Rev. ix., as the four angels bound in the great river) were driven back on the Euphrates. See Mede's Works, pp. 585, 586. History contains few more striking fulfilments of prophecy. Compare sections iii. xi.

tan of Roum; and the zeal of Christian Europe was in these letters doubly awakened, by the announcement of the capture of Jerusalem, and of the impending fall of Constantinople. The succeeding crusades were all directed alike exclusively against the Turkish powers; and all operated immediately to divert the king of the North from the accomplishment of his first and last aim, the conquest of Constantinople. The unparalleled waste of human life in the holy wars, and the implacable fury, on both sides, with which they were carried on, are also strongly marked in the prophecy. There would seem, therefore, no reasonable ground for doubt, the prediction at large being admitted to belong to the Turks, that the crusades are designed by the tidings out of the North, which were to trouble the Turkish powers.

On precisely similar grounds, the tidings out of the East become identified with the desolating invasions of the Turkish empire by the Moguls, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

At the former period, the downfall of the Greek empire was providentially postponed, by the successful inroad of the Tartar hordes, who, under the famous Holaghou Khan, the grandson of Genghiz, altogether broke, for a time, the power of the Turks in Asia Minor; "spread,

from the East, beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, pillaged Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join the Franks in the deliverance of Jerusalem!" *

At the latter period, the ferocious Bajazet was summoned from before the walls of Constantinople, by a second irruption of the Moguls, under the celebrated Tamerlane. "The savage, says Mr. Gibbon, "would have devoured his prey, if, in the critical moment, he had not been overthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the victory of Tamerlane," proceeds the historian, "the fall of Constantinople was delayed about fifty years."

Timour was encamped on the banks of the Ganges, when the intelligence reached him which provoked his march against the Turkish Sultan. Bajazet broke up from the siege of the Greek capital, and hastened to encounter him with the fury of insulted pride.† It is needless to

Gibbon.

†The temper in which the imperious Ottoman received the insulting epistle of Tamerlane, has been forcibly depicted by Mr. Gibbon. "In his replies, Bajazet poured forth the indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such unusual contempt-retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and rebel of the desert. — The ungovernable rage of the Sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic kind; - and the political quarrel of the two monarchs was embittered by private and personal resentment. Decline and Fall, chap. lxv. vol. xii. pp. 16—19. Compare the historical fact, in this instance, with the declaration of the

enlarge on the sanguinary issue of the conflict. But the word of prophecy, and the hand of Providence, seem visible throughout, in this their latest interposition; all the circumstances of which combine to identify this unforeseen and timely inroad of the Tartars, with the " tidings out of the East" which should "trouble" the king of the North.

With the expedition of Tamerlane, all providential hindrances were withdrawn. The king of the North had now none left to trouble him. The transition is forthwith marked unequivocally in the next verse of the prophecy: which (however the accuracy of the description has escaped the notice of the commentators) closes the eleventh chapter with a vivid representation of the triumph of Mahomet II.; the fall of Constantinople; and the final erection of the Turkish crescent,, and the Mahometan creed, upon the ruins of the Greek empire, and of eastern Christianity.

"And he shall plant the tabernacles of his

prophecy concerning the king of the North, and who can fail to own and admire the exactness of the fulfilment? "But tidings out of the East shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many." A contemporary could not have more graphically painted, the approach of Timour, the march of Bajazet, and the bloody field of Angora.

palaces between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain." #4

Brief as this description is, the most skilful geographer could not more nicely define the site, nor the most exact historian more faithfully depict the past and present fortunes, of the second Rome.

Situated on the straits which connect the Euxine with the Mediterranean, Constantinople is properly characterized as seated "between the seas." As described by the geographical accuracy of Mr. Gibbon, "the imperial city commanded, from her seven hills, the opposite shores of Europe and Asia:" she is therefore correctly represented under the figure of a "mountain." As the seat of civil empire, she was "the glorious," as that of ecclesiastical, "the holy, mountain." Upon this mountain, the king of the North was to "plant his tabernacles." "The palaces and gardens of the seraglio,” observes Mr. Gibbon, "the seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism, occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills.” In the language of Scripture, the planting of tabernacles denotes

* Dan. xi. 45. Compare Ezek. xvii. 22, 23. The antithetical relation between the triumphs of the kingdoms of Christ, and of Antichrist, is marked in these contexts by the similarity of the descriptions.