battle-axe, and, amidst the breathless silence of the multitude, brings it down with full force upon the idol's jaw, a portion of which falls clattering to the ground. There is a moment of awful suspense in which men glance swiftly from the solid earth to the unshaken heavens, and then a mighty shout, of surprise from the Pagans, of triumph from the Christians, rends the air, and the idol is quickly demolished, and its broken limbs tied to ropes dragged through the streets, a better cure for error than a library of argument. The eyes of the Pagans are opened. They are obliged to confess the helplessness of the fancied god, and a large number date their conversion to the Christian faith from the event of that memorable day.

And such is the work constantly going on through the length and breadth of once pagan Rome. At just this epoch there is need of the arm of imperial power to aid in destroying a superstition that had craftily entwined itself around the pillars of state. No private hand could have smitten those citadels of falsehood. But their forcible demolition by the civil power, with such evident impunity, was a visible refutation of their pretended sanctity, and the axe that dashed in pieces the images of false deities broke also the fetters of a baneful superstition. Honest souls, set free from the toils of the father of lies, turned in multitudes to the light, and the number of true believers was rapidly increased. There were doubtless many whose conversion was spurious, but the Lord knew his own, and they were sealed by the Omniscient Spirit in numbers probably never equalled before.

It was a golden age, an epoch of rapid increase and of real prosperity for the true church. The Roman state in the Christian form had a work to do before it should be swept away by the

gathering storm, and for a half century the tempest was suspended. And thus we understand the words of the revelator: "AND I SAW ANOTHER ANGEL ASCEND FROM THE SUN RISING, HAVING THE SEAL OF THE LIVING GOD: AND HE CRIED WITH A GREAT VOICE TO THE FOUR ANGELS, TO WHOM IT WAS GIVEN TO HURT THE EARTH AND THE SEA, SAYING, HURT NOT THE EARTH, NEITHER THE SEA, NOR THE TREES, TILL WE SHALL HAVE SEALED THE SERVANTS OF OUR GOD ON THEIR FOREHEADS."

And so likewise we understand the vision of the innumerable multitude of all tribes and tongues, together with those who come up out of the great tribulation clothed in white robes, before the throne giving praise unto God. If there is "joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth," it was fitting that heaven should be shown to John as filled with praise at an epoch when the gospel was prevailing so rapidly among all peoples. The converts of this first great epoch of prosperity, both outward and spiritual, could freely mingle their songs with those who had come up through "the great tribulation" of the former era and all together give thanks unto Him who works all things after the counsels of His own will, and secures the final salvation of all His called and chosen people.

In the year 376 A. D., while Valens administered the affairs of the East, an unparalleled sight was witnessed on the Danube. The Goths of Dacia and the Euxine had suffered defeat. From the vast wastes of upper Asia a numberless host of barbarians had poured down upon them in overwhelming force. And so fierce was their aspect, so ugly their forms, and so much more savage their manners than their own, that the Goths were struck with the same sentiment of fear and disgust as they themselves

had inspired in the breasts of the more cultivated Romans, and readily believed the report that the hideous strangers were the offspring of devils.

Beaten in a bloody fight the Goths had fled in quaking terror from their impish foes, who were but the advance guard of the Huns, and the astonished Romans beheld the northern shore of the great river crowded with a good round million of fugitives of all ages and both sexes half mad with superstitious fear, and humbly imploring the privilege of a refuge under the banners of the Empire.

Unwarily Valens consented, and the whole tribe crossed over, only to be from that hour a fatal element of weakness and peril.

And this was but one of many similar movements among the northern hordes at this singular period of history; one tribe crowding on another and forcing it upon the next, causing wave after wave to break against the barriers of the empire till at length they were swept away forever. In less than two years from the time of his fatal mistake Valens himself perished in the bloody defeat of Hadrianople, and the Goths whom he had admitted, re-inforced by others, ravaged the country from the Danube to the foot of the Julian Alps.

Such mighty and irresistible movements of the people were ominous of coming woes. They were as the lightnings and thunders of the distant horizon that surely tell of the approaching storm. John might readily catch the meaning of his vision when he writes: "AND WHEN HE OPENED THE SEVENTH SEAL, THERE FOLLOWED A SILENCE IN HEAVEN ABOUT THE SPACE OF HALF AN HOUR. AND I SAW THE SEVEN ANGELS WHICH STAND BEFore God; and THERE WERE GIVEN UNTO THEM SEVEN TRUMPETS. AND ANOTHER ANGEL CAME AND

STOOD OVER THE ALTAR, HAVING A GOLDEN CENSER; AND THERE WAS GIVEN UNTO HIM MUCH INCENSE, THAT HE SHOULD ADD IT UNTO THE PRAYERS OF ALL THE SAINTS UPON THE GOLDEN ALTAR WHICH WAS BEFORE THE THRONE. AND THE SMOKE OF THE INCENSE, WITH THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS, WENT UP BEFORE GOD OUT OF THE ANGEL'S HAND. AND THE ANGEL TAKETH THE CENSER; AND HE FILLED IT WITH THE FIRE OF THE ALTAR, AND CAST IT UPON THE EARTH: AND THERE FOLLOWED THUNDERS, AND VOICES, AND LIGHTNINGS, AND AN EARTHQUAKE. AND THE SEVEN ANGELS WHICH HAD THE SEVEN TRUMPETS PREPARED THEMSELVES TO SOUND."

Plainly a crisis is approaching. Great events are nigh at hand, the trumpet has a martial sound. Its call is a summons to arms, and a prelude to war and a revolution.

And now the scene shifts to the walls of the capital. It is the year 410 A. D.-a memorable and fatal date in the annals of Rome. The great city is in an uproar of confusion and terror, for the dreaded Alaric with his invincible Goths is thundering at her gates. And his career, filled with marvels that eclipse those of fiction, shall soon be crowned with a deed that shall make the ears of the whole world tingle.

Fifteen years ago, but a few months after the death of Theodosius, he had raised his standard and begun his terrific march of war and pillage. He trampled Thrace in the dust. He ravaged Macedonia. He pillaged Greece from Athens to Sparta, so that a writer of the day declared that the unfortunate province resembled empty skin of a slaughtered sheep. He eluded the army sent against him from the West. He marched up into Illyria where, during a truce of four years, he reigned king of the Visigoths in barbaric splendor. He climbed the Julian Alps and pillaged the whole of northern Italy. Checked at last at Pollentia by the arms

the

and strategy of the renowned Stilicho, he withdrew behind the Rhætian hills to recruit his forces, and watched with grim satisfaction the raid of another host of barbarians under Rhadagaisus, which climbed the Alps farther to the west, rushed down over the Po and the Apennine hills and assaulted the walls of Florence; but being driven off by Stilicho, poured like a destroying flood along the Rhine and spread itself out on the countries to the west, sundering forever the Gallic and the British and, virtually, the Spanish provinces from the dismembered Empire.

Then at the head of a recruited army he came down again with irresistible might from the northern hills on trembling Italy. He sacked the lesser cities, and compelled the capital to purchase release from the miseries of a lengthened siege by the payment of an enormous ransom. He set up an emperor in opposition to Honorius and afterwards deposed him, assuming the proud prerogative of a king of kings. And now at last he is again encamped under the walls of the Eternal City, this time intent on pillage.

For a time the ramparts are defended; but at length, at blank midnight, the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet startles the doomed sleepers, the Salarian gate is burst open, and Rome, adorned with the trophies of three hundred triumphs, and for six hundred years untrod by the foot of a foreign foe, is given up to pillage. It were vain to attempt a description of the scene that followed. It was an awful, indescribable scene of robbery, lust and murder. The streets ran blood. The dead bodies of the slain lay in heaps upon the pavements. An innumerable rabble of shouting savages vied with each other in deeds of shame. Every thing of value that could be carried off was seized, and thousands of the unfortunate people were themselves sold as captives to