or to renounce and denounce that symbolic system as inadequate and false, which it really is, even from foundation to summit. With all the great names by which it is adorned, I charge it, before God and men, with having obscured and sealed up from the view of the Church, some of the plainest and most important revelations from heaven, and hold it responsible for nearly all the uncertainty, doubt, and darkness which hang over this sublime and awful Apocalypse. And as surely as this Book is what God says it is, and as certainly as sun, moon, and stars mean sun, moon, and stars, just so surely this fourth trumpet no more refers to Odoacer, or any other men, events, or disasters of the past, than it does to the writers who have so applied it. It is a judgment scene of the great day that is foreshown, and it is a fearful and disastrous obscuration of the sources of light and heat to our world, so that sun, moon, and stars will shine with only the third of their force, disturbing the seasons, hindering the ripening of fruits and harvests, and filling the world with chilliness and sickening gloom. The same was prophesied by Isaiah (13: 9), where it is said: "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the earth desolate; and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light, the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the

arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible." (Compare Jer. 4:23, 28; Ezek. 32: 7, 8; Joel 2: 10, 30, 31; 3: 15; Amos 5:20; Zeph. 1:14-16; Matt. 24: 29.) Nor can we consider this unlikely or improbable, when we call to mind the plague of "thick darkness," for three days, which attended God's judgments upon Egypt.

Thus, then, we have the significance of the first four trumpets. The first angel sounds, and a feårful tempest of hail and fire, mingled with blood, follows. The third of the land is burned, and the third of the trees, and all green grass;-a judgment upon the world for its wickednesses.

The second angel sounds, and a great meteoric mass, like unto a mountain burning with fire, is plunged into the sea, turning the third of its waters to blood, killing the third of all living things in the sea, and utterly destroying the third of the shipping on the sea;-another sore judgment upon the guilty and God-defying children of men.

The third angel sounds, and a great starlike meteor falls out of the sky, blazing like a torch, and is absorbed by the earth and waters, enbittering the third of the rivers, and the wells, and fountains, so that large portions of mankind die because of the poison it imparts to the waters;another sore judgment upon the wicked dwellers upon the earth.

The fourth angel sounds, and calamity befalls

the luminaries of the sky. The sun, moon, and stars are one-third obscured, making the days gloominess and the darkness of the nights still darker, with all the attendant distresses of such a beclouded and chilly state of things;-a further judgment upon the generations of the unsanctified.

And yet these are only the preliminaries and preludes of still intenser woes to follow. Ah, yes; sin has a voice that is heard in heaven. Though sentence against an evil work be not executed speedily, it will be executed at last. Jezebel may flourish in her iniquities for many years, but, finally, the horsestrample her body in the streets, and the dogs of Jezreel gnaw and crunch her royal bones. Long was the old world left to drive its crimes, jeer at Noah's odd notions, and fling defiance into the face of God; but presently the earth broke down beneath their feet, and their lifeless bodies dashed upon each other amid the waves of an ocean world! The trampled law will assert its rightful honor, and Christ will not endure the smiting, taunts, and wrongs of Pilate's hall forever. And when these trumpets once give out their clangor, the vibrations will run through the universe, and everything created for human blessedness shall turn into a source of disaster and trouble to them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of Christ.

Day of anger, day of wonder!

When the world is driven asunder,

Smote with fire, and blood, and thunder!

And will any one who hears these solemn things go away from the contemplation of them, not caring whether he is involved in these plagues or not? There is now a free salvation from all of them offered through faith in Christ Jesus. Hid and housed in Him and His redeeming grace, not one of these calamities shall ever touch us. Who, then, can reconcile himself to retire from the exhibitions of this hour, without having his heart and mind made up, God being his Helper, never more to neglect or give over his devout endeavors to find the only shelter from the miseries of that terrible day?

King of Majesty tremendous,

Who dost free salvation send us!
Well of Mercy! O befriend us!

LECTURE NINETEENTH.

THE WOE-TRUMPETS-THE EAGLE IN MID-HEAVEN-CLASS TO WHICH HE BELONGS MERCY IN JUDGMENT-THE FIFTH TRUMPET THE FALLEN STAR- THE LOCUSTS FROM THE ABYSS-THEIR FORMS, INTELLIGENCE, AND TORMENTS-NOT JEWISH ZEALOTS - NOT GOTHS AND VANDALS NOT ADHERENTS AND PROPAGATORS OF FALSE DOCTRINE-NOT THE LUTHERANS-NOT THE SARACENS-BELONG TO THE DAY OF THE LORD-HELL TORMENTS A REALITY.

REV. 8:13, 9:1-12. (Revised Text.)-And I beheld, and heard one eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a great voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the dwellers on the earth, by reason of the remaining voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are yet to sound.

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star out of the heaven fallen into the earth; and to him was given the key of the well-pit of the abyss; and he opened the well-pit of the abyss; and there came out of the well-pit smoke, as smoke of a great furnace; and the sun was darkened, and the air, from the smoke of the well-pit. And out of the smoke came forth locusts into the earth; and to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they shall not injure the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads. And it was given to them that they should not kill them, but that they shall be tormented five months; and their torment [is] as the torment of a scorpion when he hath struck a man. And in those days the men shall seek death, and they shall not find it; and they shall fervently desire to die, and death fleeth from them.

And the forms of the locusts [are] like unto horses prepared for war; and on their heads as it were crowns like unto gold, and their faces as it were faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as of lions. And they had breast-plates, as breast-plates of iron; and the sound of their wings, as the sound of chariots of many