rise, and wide-wasting progress, of the Turkish whirlwind. The plague of the locusts ceases with the sound of the fifth trumpet: the sound of the sixth introduces the more deadly pestilence of the Euphratèan horsemen. The close connection, thus strongly indicated, between these trumpets themselves, and between the twofold desolation which they prefigure, is correctly in accordance with historical fact. The bounds of the Saracenic empire became stationary, from the date of the building of Bagdad: and it was by the capture of that imperial city, that the Turks first commenced the career of victory, which soon enabled' them, not only to replace, but to surpass the Saracens, as a conquering power.

Bagdad was taken, and a final period put to the temporal supremacy of the Caliphs, by Togrul Bey *, A. D. 1055. Ten years after, the Turks, under his successor Alp Arslan,

* The change in the national religion of the Turks, which coincided with the conquests of Togrul, determines his era as the period intended by the prophecy, Rev. ix. 13, &c. "Togrul Bey," observes Mr. Turner, "produced or admitted a revolution still more momentous to the mind and fortunes of mankind. Under his reign, the great Turkish nation adopted the religion of Mohamed; and professing it with all the energy of their native character, and all the zeal of recent converts, they became its fierce champions at that precise era when it was losing its hold on the human intellect, and but for the support of their simple, rude, uncriticizing, credulous, and vehement spirit, might have quietly expired.” — History of England, vol. i. p. 307.

crossed the Euphrates; and, by the permanent conquest of the Roman provinces of Armenia and Georgia, finally established themselves within the Greek empire. Both these conquests were completed about the year 1068. And, from this last date, to that of the taking of Constantinople, the interval of time tallies, to a day, with the period allotted by the prophecy, for the course of the Euphratèan horsemen. I shall submit the computation in the words of a late eminent civilian, who has well approved himself in the higher field and character of a Scripture critic.

"An hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, make 391 prophetical years and 15 days; or 385 Gregorian years and 156 dynasties. Alp Arslan, under whom were three other dynasties of Turks, crossed the Euphrates, and made a permanent conquest of Armenia and Georgia, Roman provinces, between the years 1065 and 1068, according to the chronology of Mr. Gibbon. From thence count 385 years and 156 days, and you will arrive at the war under Mahomet II., ending with the taking of Constantinople, on the 29th of May, 1453." *

* Critical Remarks by Dr. Ffrench Laurence, p. 139. See Archbishop Laurence's Tracts, vol. ii.

The period here chosen for the application of the prophetic numbers, coincides with the first grand loosing of the Turkish powers from the banks of "the great river Euphrates ;" and seems to be determinately fixed as the true period intended, by the commission given in the prophecy to " the four angels *," to slay the "third part of men." For this commission has been rightly interpreted to portend the extinction of the Greek empire; and its final

* By the four angels, according to our great standard interpreters, the prophecy represents the four Turkish Sultanies, founded in the eleventh century, by four princes of the house of Seljuk. The author will not affect to conceal his displacency at the presumptuous tone, in which modern writers undertake to question, in this instance, the judgment of our Medes and Newtons. It is with no ordinary satisfaction, therefore, that he is able to adduce, from the work of a contemporary writer, the Abbot Ekkehard, whose Chronicle was composed A. D. 1117, a decisive confirmation of the generally-received opinion. The following is the impartial testimony of Ekkehard: "Inito per annos aliquos consilio, emerserunt ab aquilonari plaga de terra Gorizana · præscriptorum paganorum [scil. Turcorum] copiæ multæ, quæ, sub quatuor Sultanis divisæ (sic enim Satrapas suos nominare solent), uni tantum Persico imperatori pene divini cultus more subjecti, per Armeniam, indeque Cappadociam, totamque Romaniam, atque Syriam, diffusi sunt. Ekkehardi Abbatis Libellus, ap. Martene et Durand, Vet. Monum. Collect. tom. v. f. 514. Our modern refiners of prophecy, to make way for their own fancies, have ventured to dispute the existence of the four Turkish Sultanies: let them be silenced, if not instructed, by this contemporary evidence. In the above extract, the distinction, between the imperial line of Togrul, and the rising house of Seljuk, we may observe, is accurately drawn; and the four Seljukian princes are marked out emphatically, as the actual scourge of Eastern Christendom; a point of fact, which clearly identifies them with the four angels, who were to be loosed from the Euphrates; as does the notice of their having emerged originally ab aquilonari plaga, with Daniel's "king of the North."

extinction was effected, through the agency of the Turks, by the capture of Constantinople.

By its army of two hundred thousand thousand horsemen *, the prophecy historically describes the primitive composition of the Turkish armies, which, as well as those of the Saracens, originally consisted exclusively of horse. Thus, Alp Arslan passed the Gihon, at the head of two hundred thousand horse. And the contingent which a single Turkish emir offered to place at the disposal of Mahmoud, Sultan of Gazna, amounted to the same number of two hundred thousand horse. † So that the "two hundred thousand thousand" horsemen of the Apocalypse most aptly denote the innumerable cavalry which composed the first Turkish armies.

The prophetic horses are represented as vomiting out of their mouths "fire, and smoke, and brimstone," by which, it is added, "the third part of men was killed." Bishop Newton and others understand this prediction of the Turkish cannon; the Turks being among the first belligerents who employed, on a great scale, that deadly engine of war. And it is certain, that to his heavy ordnance Mahomet II. was greatly indebted, for the reduction of Constantinople, the

*Rev. ix. 16.

+ Gibbon.

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catastrophe generally allowed to be intended, in this place of the prophecy: "By these three was the third part of men killed; by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths." In his eloquent narrative of the last fatal siege, Mr. Gibbon bears impartial testimony to the propriety of this application, when he thus details the preparations of the Turkish sultan : " Among the implements of destruction, he studied with peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins; and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world."

The agreement of the prophecy concerning the Euphratèan horsemen with the rise of the Turkish power, is rendered complete, by the marks which this prediction, in common with the preceding one of the locusts, contains of a spiritual tyranny: for, as the locusts" had tails like unto scorpions, and stings in their tails," so the tails of the horses "were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt."

The general connection observable between the visions in the Apocalypse, and those in the book of Daniel, has been already adverted to. But before we take leave of the ninth chapter of Revelation, it may be well to point out

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