CHAPTER XVI. THE SECOND TRUMPET. The Second Angel sounds-the Burning Mountain cast into the Sea-the Third part of the Sea becomes Blood-the Third part of the Creatures in the Sea-of the Ships. "AND the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed." In the symbolical language of scripture, a mountain is a kingdom;' and a burning mountain, a great tyrannical kingdom, which will be soon dissolved and brought to ruin. Thus, Babylon is called a "destroying mountain," and when her power is subverted, a "burnt mountain."2 "I will render unto Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldee, all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the Lord. Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.” THE THIRD PART OF THE CREATURES WHICH WERE IN THE SEA, AND HAD LIFE, DIED. When nations are represented by waters or the séa, the living things are the inhabitants of the countries, which are regarded as waters. Thus, in the twenty-ninth chapter of Ezekiel, the land and cities of Egypt are a river, or rivers, Pharoah is a dragon,3 and the Egyptians, fish. 'Speak and say, thus saith the Lord 2 Jer. li., 24, 25. Isaiah, ii., 14; xli., 15. Ps. lxxii., 3. God, behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that liest in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, my river is mine own and I have made it for myself. But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales; and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers, &c." This is explained in the tenth verse, &c., to be the desolation of the land and cities of Egypt. “I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate. And the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years.' Ships represent wealth and the instruments of wealth and luxury. "The day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud. And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures."2 "The words here," says the elder Lowth, "joined with what follows, denote the destruction of all fine and elegant furniture, and those rarities which are brought by sea from foreign parts, in which men are apt to pride themselves."-(compare Rev. xviii., 17, 19.) As a burning mountain is cast into the sea, a third of which becomes blood, the meaning is that a great kingdom, which is itself soon to be destroyed, will fall on many other nations or peoples with irresistible violence, causing vast destruction and loss of life. This formidable power was Attila and his Huns. "The western world," says Gibbon, "was oppressed by the Goths and Vandals, who fled before the Huns; but the achievements of the Huns themselves were not adequate to their power and prosperity. Their victorious hordes had spread from the Volga to the Danube; but the public force was exhausted by the discord of independent chieftains; their valour was idly consumed in obscure and predatory excursions. the reign of Attila, the Huns became again the terror of the world. And urged the rapid downfall of the Roman empire. 66 In Attila, the son of Mundzuck, deduced his noble, perhaps his regal, descent, from the ancient Huns, who had formerly contended with the monarchs of China. His features, according to the observation of a 1 Ezek. xxix. 3, 4, 5, 10, &c.; compare xlvii. 9, 10. 2 Is. ii. 12, 16. X Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin; and the portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modern Calmuck; a large head, a swarthy complexion, small deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short body, of nervous strength, though of a disproportioned form. The haughty step and demeanour of the king of the Huns expressed the consciousness of his superiority above the rest of mankind; and he had a custom of fiercely rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he inspired. Flesh was his only food: he never tasted the luxury of bread. He boasted that the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trodden." This formidable barbarian could bring into the field seven hundred thousand warriors. The sea, as we have seen, is the outlying barbaric nations which surrounded the empire. The burning mountain is cast into the sea, and the third part of it becomes blood. Attila was "the terror of the world," crushing all the barbarians who dared to oppose him. But as only the third of the sea is the subject of the prophecy, our attention must be directed and confined to it. It has been seen in the exposition of the first trumpet, that the European third of the empire was traversed and occupied by the barbaric nations, chiefly of Germany; the sea, then, having broken in upon and covered a third of the earth, this third is regarded as so much of the sea. Now it was this quarter that Attila invaded, and the countries occupied by the barbarians were exposed to his most furious assaults. The million of Goths whom Valens had transported over the Danube, were joined, immediately after their revolt, by innumerable swarms of kindred and other barbarians; but having been induced by Theodosius the Great, to submit, they obtained (and no doubt many of their allies) settlements in Thrace, Mæsia, and the adjacent countries. When they revolted a second time, and invaded Greece and Italy, the bulk of the nation must have remained behind in the lands where they had been placed on their submission; for, their marches and operations render it impossible, that they could have been accompanied by a vast and promiscuous multitude. Stilicho, the Roman general, had surrounded and cooped the Goths in a corner of the Peloponnesus, yet Alaric contrived to elude his vigilance, escape from the toils that encircled him, perform a difficult march of thirty miles, and transport his troops with their spoils and captives over an arm of the sea, before his movements were known to his adversary.' These complicated operations require us to suppose that a chosen part only of the Gothic nation followed Alaric in this expedition. And when he invaded Italy he must have been accompanied chiefly by fighting men. For his march lay through the hostile and warlike province of Pannonia, and he passed the Julian Alps, which were strongly guarded by troops and entrenchments. The majority of the Gothic people, increased by their friends and allies, would, therefore, appear to have remained in Mæsia, Thrace, &c., mingled with the Roman population and other barbaric occupants. Again; on the second revolt of the Goths, the barriers of the Danube were broken down, and torrents of barbarians were perpetually pouring into the Illyrian provinces. "The unhappy natives to the south of the Danube," as Gibbon says, " submitted to the calamities which, in the course of twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination, and the various troops of barbarians who gloried in the Gothic name, were irregularly spread from the woody shores of Dalmatia to the walls of Constantinople." Now it was on the provinces thus inundated by these promiscuous hordes, who were at this time often the allies of Rome, that Attila first fell. And the Roman armies that encountered him were composed chiefly of barbarians; for, the military spirit of the Romans having long since disappeared, the legions were necessarily recruited from, and generally commanded by, barbarians. Gibbon thus describes the first irruption of the Huns in the year 441: 1 "To extricate himself from the prison of the Peloponnesus it was necessary," says Gibbon, "that he should pierce the entrenchments which surrounded his camp, that he should perform a difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the gulph of Corinth, and that he should transport his troops, his captives, and his spoil over an arm of the sea, which, in the narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite shore, is at least half a mile in breadth."-Decline and Fall, c. xxx. "The Illyrian frontier was covered by a line of castles and fortresses. These slight obstacles were instantly swept away by the inundation of the Huns. They destroyed with fire and sword the populous cities of Sirmium and Singidunum, of Ratiaria and Marcianopolis, of Naissus and Sardica. The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends above five hundred miles from the Euxine to the Hadriatic, was at once invaded, and occupied, and desolated by the myriads of barbarians, whom Attila led into the field. A military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and their numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and their soldiers the duty of obedience. The armies of the Eastern Empire were vanquished in three successive engagements; and the progress of Attila may be traced by the fields of battle. The two former on the banks of the Utus, and under the walls of Marcianopolis were fought in the extensive plains between the Danube and Mount Hæmus. As the Romans were pressed by a victorious enemy, they gradually and unskilfully retired towards the Chersonesus of Thrace; and that narrow peninsula, the last extremity of the land, was marked by their third and irreparable defeat. By the destruction of this army, Attila acquired the indisputable possession of the field. From the Hellespont to Thermopyla, and the suburbs of Constantinople, he ravaged without resistance and without mercy, the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia; Heraclea and Hadrianople, might, perhaps, escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns, but the words the most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the Eastern Empire." In the year 450, Attila invaded the western empire. His march was directed through the provinces which had been overrun and occupied by the barbarians; and the innumerable host that defeated him in the battle of Chalons was composed chiefly of the barbaric tribes. "The hostile myriads were poured," says Gibbon, "with resistless violence into the Belgic provinces. The consternation of Gaul was universal. . As the greatest part of the Gallic cities were alike destitute of saints and soldiers, they were beseiged and stormed by the Huns; who practised in the example of Metz their customary maxims of war. They involved in a promiscuous massacre, the priests who served at the 1 Decline and Fall, c. xxxiv. |