Turkish cavalry. "As the subject nations marched under the standard of the Turks, their cavalry, both men and horses, were proudly computed by millions." "On this occasion, the myriads of the Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles, from Taurus to Erzeroum."

Ver. 17. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those that sat on them, having breastplates of fire and of jacinth, and brimstone. These prophetic characteristics of the Euphratèan warriors accord in the most perfect manner with the description which history gives of the Turks. They brought immense armies into the field, chiefly composed of horse, and from their first appearance on the great political stage of nations their costume has been peculiarly distinguished by the colours of scarlet, blue, and yellow, which are here denoted by the terms "fire," "jacinth," and "brimstone." Rycaut's" Present State of the Ottoman Empire," published towards the close of the seventeenth century, will satisfy the reader on this point.

And the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. We have here a symbol which is not elsewhere to be met with in the Scriptures. 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." Mede, Newton, Faber, and most other eminent expositors of the Revelation, agree in supposing that the flashes of fire attended by smoke and brimstone, which seemed to proceed from the mouths of the horses, were in reality the flashes of artillery. The Turks were among the first who turned to account the European invention of gunpowder in carrying on their wars. Cannon, the most deadly engine of modern warfare, were employed by Mohammed II. in his wars against the Greek empire; and it is said that he was indebted to his heavy ordnance for the S

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reduction of Constantinople. The prophet, therefore, is to be considered as depicting the visionary scene of a field of battle, in which the cavalry and artillery are so mingled together, that while flashes of fire and dense clouds of smoke issued from the cannon, the horses' heads alone would be dimly discerned through the sulphureous mist, and would seem to the eye of the spectator to belch forth the smoky flames from their own mouths. As the design of this striking imagery is to describe the appearances rather than the reality of things, the prophet employs an expres sion,*" in the vision," or rather " in vision," i. e. apparently, as it seemed, which evidently conveys the idea that the phantasm of a battle scene was presented to the imagination. We may now see how far history confirms this interpretation. Among the implements of destruction," says Mr. Gibbon, "he (Mohammed II.) studied with peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins; and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world." "The Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides, and the camp and city, the Greeks and Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire." "The great cannon of Mohammed has been separately an important and visible object in the history of the times. But that enormous engine, which required, it is said, seventy yoke of oxen and two thousand men to draw it, was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude: the long order of Turkish artillery was pointed against the wall; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, that it was mounted with a hundred and thirty guns, or that i discharged a hundred and thirty bullets."

Ver. 19. For their power is in their mouth, and is

* Εν δράσει.

their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.-The emblematic import of the tail of a beast we have already considered. The imagery in the present symbol is slightly different from that of the Saracen locusts, which had the tails of scorpions; but the import is the same. Here the tails of the horses terminated in a serpent's head; and it is not a little remarkable, that the Turks have been in the habit, from the earliest periods of their history, of tying a knot in the extremity of the long flowing tails of their horses, when preparing for war; so that their resemblance to serpents with swelling heads must have been singularly striking. Striking too is the fact, that so slight a circumstance should have been adverted to by the historian so often quoted, who thought as little of being an organ to illustrate the predictions of Scripture, as the Turks themselves did of being the agents to fulfil them. Speaking of Alp Arslan, the first Turkish invader of the Roman empire, he says, "With his own hands hè tied up his horse's tail, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot should be the place of his burial." The scope of the hieroglyphic here employed is to predict the propagation of a deadly imposture by the instrumentality of the same warlike power which should achieve such prodigious conquests. The event has corresponded with the prophecy. the Saracens of the first wo, the Turks were not merely secular conquerors. They were animated with all the wild fanaticism of a false religion; they professed and propagated the same theological system as their Arabian predecessors; they injured by their doctrines no less than by their conquests; and wherever they established their dominion, the Koran triumphed over the Gospel. Thus writes Mr. Gibbon: "The whole body of the nation embraced the religion of Mohammed.” "Twenty-five years after the death of Basil, his successors were suddenly

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assaulted by an unknown race of barbarians, who united the Scythian valour with the fanaticism of

new converts."

Sufficient proof has now been afforded, if we mistake not, that the appearance of the Arabian prophet in the world, and the rise, progress, and results of his imposture, are clearly foretold in the Sacred volume. Indeed, it would not be easy to specify any admitted subject of prophecy, upon which history and Providence have thrown a stronger or clearer light, than that which we have considered in the preceding pages. Interpreters have been justly struck at the surprising exactness of the delineations, and their perfect accordance with the details of history. "The prophetic truths," says Dr. Zouch, comprised in the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse are, of themselves, sufficient to stamp the mark of divinity upon that book. When I compare them with the page of history, I am filled with amazement. The Saracens, a people which did not exist in the time of John, and the Turks, a nation then utterly unknown, are there described in language the most appropriate and distinct." If then the considerations commonly adduced to account for the rise, progress, and reign of Mohammedanism appear to be inadequate,-if the human causes usually quoted to explain the astonishing success of Mohammedan imposture still seem to us to leave many of the phenomena inexplicable, and the greatest revolution in the world connected with the history of the Church stands forth an unsolved problem, why should we hesitate to ascribe it directly to the determinate will and counsel of the Most High, and thus find a clew to all the mysteries connected with it? Why should we be anxious to escape the recognition of a Divine interference in the rise of this arch-heresy? If we have been correct in our interpretation of the preceding predictions of Daniel and John, the Mohammedan delusion is as real and as prominent a subject of prophecy as

any in the whole compass of the Bible. Now, to insist upon the operation of merely human causes in the production of an event which is truly a subject of prophecy, is in fact to take the government of the world out of the hands of God. And this principle pushed to the extreme will inevitably lower and impugn the sure word of prophecy; for it makes God the predicter of events over which, at the same time, he has no special superintendence or control. Such a principle cannot stand the least examination. When Daniel foretels the fortunes of the four great empires; or when Isaiah speaks of Cyrus by name, as one who should accomplish certain great purposes of the Infinite Mind, is it to be supposed, that the events predicted were to happen exclusive of Providential agency? As easily and as justly then may we acknowledge a special pre-ordainment in the case of Mohammed, whose still more formidable dominion and more lasting and more fatal agency in the affairs of men, are equally the theme of unquestionable predictions. No admission of this nature militates with the free agency of man, or at all affects the moral character of his actions. The mere fact that an event is foreknown or foretold by the Deity, neither takes away nor weakens the accountability of the agents concerned. Of this, the whole Scripture is full of proofs. But the reflecting reader will desire no farther confirmation of so plain a position.

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