darkness ? What, think you, is the cause that Popish countries, though differing from each other in many respects, in language, manners, climate, &c. yet agree in this, that they are "full of darkness," intellectual and moral. How is it that the Papal States, Spain and Portugal, which are the most Popish, are immersed in the thickest darkness? If we speak of the darkness of the middle ages, you reply, that it is not fair to charge that darkness on Popery. We therefore ask you, What cause can be assigned why the South of Europe is so degraded in the nineteenth century, though the dominion of the Pope is most absolute in that identical portion of the globe? We are now speaking of the nineteenth century and of the fifth vial which was poured out at the commencement of that century; and we assert that never did prophecy receive a fuller accomplishment than in the instance before us.

The kingdom of the Beast is full of darkness;" and this darkness is of no ordinary kind. The darkness of Popery is a midnight darkness; it is a damp and chilly, a cold and clammy darkness: it is a black Cimmerian darkness; it is an Egyptian darkness, which may be felt; it is "the blackness of darkness," which issues from the bottomless pit." Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, is excluded; the fogs and mists of Superstition hide and becloud the light of Revelation; and man is left to grope his way to Heaven by the phantom-light of human tradition. put on mourning apparel and the woe; and prophesy their appointed time,

The Scriptures habiliments of

"clothed in

Sackcloth." The issue is that "the blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch." Such is the darkness of Popery. And, since the only light which is in it is darkness, how great is that darkness!

"And the sixth Angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon, and out of the mouth of the Beast, and out of the mouth of the False Prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold! I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon."

Under this vial we are now living. The Mahommedan power, both in Turkey and Persia, is wasting away; so that the river Euphrates may be said figuratively to be drying up. The manners and religion of a country are sometimes poetically symbolized by the rivers flowing through that country. Thus Juvenal speaks of the Orontes flowing into the Tiber. In Tiberim defluxit Orontes.'

In the year 1820 the sixth angel poured out his vial. In that year Ali Pacha declared his independence in Turkey, and raised the standard of rebellion. This was followed by the Greek insurrection, by the irruption of the Persian princes, Mahomed Ali Mirza

and Abbas Mirza, into the Turkish dominions,-by the earthquake at Aleppo,-by the massacre of the Janissaries, by the "untoward" battle of Navarino,-by the invasion of the Russians, and the complete prostration of the Turkish power. Nor is this all. As if to mark the out-pouring of the sixth vial with greater clearness, in 1821, simultaneously with the Greek insurrection, the cholera broke out at Bassora, which is situated at the head of the Persian Gulph, on the river Euphrates. In fourteen days it carried off from 15,000 to 18,000 persons, or nearly one fourth of the inhabitants. From Bassora it was carried by the boats navigating the Tigris as far as Bagdad, and there it destroyed one-third of the population. From Bagdad the cholera ascended the Euphrates as far as the town of Annah on the borders of the desert which separates Syria from Arabia. In the spring of 1822 it broke out suddenly in the neighbourhood of the Tigris and Euphrates.' (Quarterly Review, No. 91.) The cholera has been succeeded by the plague, by which in the short space of eight weeks nearly 50,000 of the inhabitants of Bagdad perished! After the ravages of the plague had ceased, Bagdad was entered sword in hand, and carried by storm by the Sultan's troops.

For further information we must refer our readers to Dr. Keith's Signs of the Times,' in which the judgments of this vial are clearly and minutely delineated. We have said sufficient to show that the fifth angel has poured his vial upon the river Euphrates. And, as the Pope and Mahomet are the two

great Antichrists, so it is remarkable that the fifth vial was poured out upon Rome the seat of the former, and the sixth vial upon Mecca, Medina, and Jidda, the chief seats of the religion of the latter. In 1831 these three cities were completely depopulated by a dreadful disease which seems to have been the cholera. The Bombay Gazette (10th August) has the following paragraph: We have heard with the utmost dismay and sorrow that Mecca, Medina and Jidda have been completely depopulated by a dreadful disease, the nature of which is not yet known: 50,000 persons have been carried off by it; among whom we may mention the governor of Mecca. It broke out at the beginning of May, when all the pilgrims had collected at Mecca; in consequence (it is supposed) of the want of water. The government here have most prudently, while such an uncertainty exists as to the nature of the disease, ordered all vessels from those parts to perform quarantine.'

Major Skinner in his journey Overland to India,’ gives the following account of the misery of BAGDAD:

'This unfortunate city has for two successive seasons been ravaged by the plague. An affecting account of the progress of this dreadful visitation has been published in a journal kept by Mr. Grove, who was saved throughout a period of the most complicated misery that could befal mankind. At the same moment an enemy was at the gates of the town, inundation within its walls, and pestilence as well as famine in every house. When the plague was at its height, the besieging army sat down before the city. The

drowned.

unhappy inhabitants, who were yet able, secured their property in the lower parts of their houses: then broke in the river, and swept it away, destroying whole quarters of the city at once. Those who were not strong enough to swim were It is computed that on one night 15,000 people were carried away by the flood. That part of the town overthrown lies still in ruins-beggars, dogs, and lepers creeping about it. There is scarcely a street that has not marks of the destruction that assailed it. Nothing was sold in the shops; and when the scanty provision of each house was exhausted, the animals that happened to be in them were loosened, and sent into the streets to seek food for themselves, where dying they spread about the corruption. The water-carriers could no longer ply their trade, and those who were parched with fever fell exhausted in their attempts to reach the river; mothers, when they found death coming upon them, gathered the little strength they had left, to carry their infants into the streets, in the hope that, should they escape contagion, they might by some good passer-by be saved from starving; children of a few weeks old were found carelessly wrapped up, and many still survive ignorant alike of their parents and their religion. There was no escape from the city many who attempted to reach the shore of the EUPHRATES were met by its waters, and, driven back upon the swelling Tigris, were drowned. Daud Pacha was at length attacked by the disease, and, having lost all his troops, a regiment of Georgians, his own nation being annihilated, he abandoned