absolutely slain. Napoleon, driven as he was from France and Italy, was yet neither stripped of all his dominions, nor was he compelled to resign his imperial dignity. As the first Roman head, in its earlier western branch, was not less the first head in the estimation of prophecy, when confined during the short reign of Augustulus to the limits of Rome; and as the same first head, in its middle eastern branch, was not less the first head in the estimation of prophecy, when confined during the reign of the last Constantine to the walls of Byzantium so neither did the seventh head cease to be the seventh head, when its actual dominions were contracted within the narrow space of a small island. The allies not only suffered the tyger to escape from the toils but, even in the hour of adversity, they recognised his imperial title, though they confined his sovereignty to the isle of Elba. Hence, Napoleon, in his insular principality, did not less represent the seventh head of the Roman beast, than the same Napoleon when lording it over the whole Western Empire. The time was not yet arrived for the political slaughter of that head by the sword: though the stream of the fifth vial was rapidly descending upon its throne.

This destined time, however, was not far distant. Early in the year 1815, the Emperor Napoleon, with a handful of followers, landed on the southern coast of France; and, rapidly advancing to Paris, instantaneously expelled the newly restored Bourbons. But the deadly contents of the fifth vial were

not yet exhausted: and the momentary elevation of Napoleon served only to make his final overthrow the more conspicuous. Europe was forthwith in arms and the principle of her warfare ceased not to be the identical principle, which in the year 1808 was first openly avowed by Spain, and which had been so exactly described by the voice of inspiration. The characteristic badge of the fifth vial is an attack upon the THRONE of the wild-beast: and the wild-beast was then existing under his seventh head or the Francic Emperorship. Now the undisguised principle, on which the allies embarked in their final war against Napoleon, was no other than the characteristic badge of the fifth vial. They did not fight, to restrain the French Emperor within reasonable bounds: but they avowedly fought, to dethrone him. Without the least reserve they declared, that their principle in the year 1815 was the very same, as their principle in the year 1814 in other words, they unequivocally declared, that they fought exclusively against the THRONE of Napoleon. Success attended their effort; because prophecy had foretold, respecting the seventh form of Roman government, that, when it cometh, it must continue a SHORT space: but it was the high will of heaven, that the avenging sword of political death should be wielded by the hand of protestant England. On the 18th of June in the year 1815, the seventh head received its predicted deadly wound by the sword and its short space of continuance ran out, when it

immediately afterward expired, in consequence of the formal abolition of its official title and the annihilation even of its shadow of effective sovereignty.

Thus, agreeably to the oracle of the fifth vial, was the THRONE of the Roman beast overturned; an expression of deep import, because, from the days of Romulus down to the fight of Waterloo, the Roman beast, under one or other of his seven heads, had never been without a throne. But, when the seventh and last head was mortally wounded without the pullulation of a successor; then the longestablished THRONE of the Roman Empire was of necessity subverted, and the now headstricken and throneless Empire itself sank into a state of political death or non-existence. This circumstance, accordingly, is described in the symbol, by the imagery of the death of the Roman beast; and, in the angel's interpretation of the symbol, by the phrase of his no longer being or of his ceasing to exist. The beast WAS, and IS NOT '.

4. Yet, though the throne of the beast was overturned, and though he himself was politically slain as an Empire by the mortal wound inflicted upon his last head; still his huge trunk remained geographically, where it had ever been: the bare territorial kingdom continued, though its seven paramount forms of government had now successively fallen.

1 Rev. xiii. 3, 12, 14. xvii. 8, 10, 11.

Accordingly, we read, in the present oracle, that the Platform or Kingdom of the Roman beast still remained, even after the fifth vial had done its work of destruction upon his throne; but that, although it remained territorially or geographically, it was full of darkness.

This imagery describes the political condition of the Roman Empire, subsequent to the subversion of its imperial throne.

In the hieroglyphic, the wild-beast, agreeably to the requisition of zoological decorum, sinks, by the slaughter of his seventh and last head, into a state of death: and, in the angel's verbal exposition, the Empire, represented by the wild-beast, sinks into a state of political non-existence, when, by the fall of its short-lived seventh form of government, it ceased to have any one acknowledged supreme governor. Such being the case, the DARKNESS of the bestial kingdom after the subversion of its throne plainly corresponds, with the DEATH of the beast after the excision of his seventh head, and with the POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE of the Empire after the downfall of its seventh form of government. I need scarcely remark, that this metaphorical phraseology is familiar to perhaps every nation in the world: but, what is of more immediate importance to our present purpose, death, in the ordinary language of Scripture, is always described as a condition of palpable darkness. The continuance, therefore, of the deathlike darkness, foretold in the oracle of the fifth vial, is the same chronological period, as

the term of the death of the beast and the term of the political non-existence of the Empire. Geographically, the throneless kingdom and the dead trunk of the beast still remain during this period: but, politically, the Empire, as an Empire, loses its existence; for the Roman Empire, as an Empire, is no more.

5. In the midst of this very remarkable period of the non-entity of the Roman Empire we are now living and, since the effusion of the fifth vial is to produce the deathlike darkness of the still geographically remaining kingdom or trunk of the beast, we may be sure that its contents will not be completely exhausted, until that darkness of death shall have passed away, or (in other words) until the wild-beast be restored to life by the predicted rise of the eighth form of Roman government which is to be one of the preceding seven raised anew to the functions of vitality.

This being the case, it is manifest, that the term of the yet unexhausted fifth vial, which most probably, with partial contemporaneousness, runs into the term of the sixth vial, comprehends within its limits the whole period of the Roman beast's dead state or (in the language of the interpreting angel) the whole period during which the Empire is not.

This was written in the year 1827.