The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up, etc. We take these verses, extending from the seventh verse of the eighth chapter to the end of the tenth chapter, together, because they all refer to the "trumpets," and are records of a portion of John's most wonderful dream. A dream can be recalled, narrated, but seldom, if ever, rightly interpreted. It is generally, perhaps, uninterpretable. Pietistic simpletons and speculative pedants have propounded their interpretations and are still doing so; and what literary rubbish is the result! But though a dream may be incapable of interpretation, it can generally and usefully be used as an illustration of great truths. Thus we endeavour to use all these mysterious and multifarious visions that John had in Patmos. This vision serves to illustrate -

I. SOME OF THE WONDERFUL REVOLUTIONS THROUGH WHICH OUR WORLD IS CONSTANTLY PASSING. After the sounding of each of the seven trumpets, what a series of marvels was evolved! There are two classes of marvel here.

1. Those in the material sphere. As the first four seals were introduced by the cry of "Come," it has been observed that the first four trumpets are followed by judgments on natural objects - the earth, the sea, the rivers, the lights of heaven. What followed the blast of the first trumpet? "There followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up." "Trumpets," says Moses Stuart, "the usual emblems of war and bloodshed, are chosen as emblems of the series of judgments now to be inflicted." Does the language here literally refer to some physical events that will befall this earth? From the character of the whole book, which is metaphorical, this is not likely. But events of an astounding character are suggested as occurring on this earth. After this the second trumpet 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." The words suggest the idea of some volcanic mountain discolouring the ocean so that it appears as blood, destroying a great portion of the creatures that lived in its depth and that floated on its waves. Then, with the sounding of the third trumpet, another terrible event occurs: "And there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters," etc. The greater part of the rivers that roll over the earth, and the wells that spring from beneath, were embittered and poisoned, and many of the human race expire. When the fourth trumpet sounded the heavens are terribly affected. "The third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was [should be] darkened," etc. But all the terrible events that followed the blasts of these four trumpets seem only preparatory for some more terrible judgments that were to follow. "And I beheld [saw], and heard an angel [eagle] flying through the midst of [in mid] heaven, saying with a loud [great] voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of [for them that dwell on] the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which [who] are yet to sound!" Whatever particular revolutions the blasts of the four trumpets here refer to - if any - one thing is certain, that great changes are taking place constantly in those regions of matter mentioned here - the earth, the waters, the heavens. Geology shows this. What our earth is today, its mountains, its valleys, its rivers, and its oceans, as well as its animal and vegetable productions, is the outcome of changes that have been going on through countless ages. Nature is constantly building up and pulling down. "The mountains failing come to nought," etc. Astronomy shows this. The telescope discovers shattered planets, stars that, perhaps, shone brightly once in our heavens, also new orbs and comets. All things are in a state of flux and reflux. According to Peter, all the changes that have been only tend to a greater change. "The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt," etc. What is the practical lesson to be drawn from all these tremendous revolutions? "Trust in him who liveth forever,"

"There's nought on earth that does not change;
All things are shifting on the stream;
Whatever comes within our range
Seems just as fleeting as a dream.

There is no rest but in thy Word,
No settled hope but in thy Name;
Root then our souls in thee, O Lord,
For thou art evermore the same."

2. Those in the spiritual sphere. There are three more trumpets sounded which have been designated woe trumpets, and their blasts seem to introduce wonderful things in the spiritual domain. That there is a spirit world is too universally admitted to require proof. It comes to our credence, not merely as a matter of philosophic reasoning, but as a matter of consciousness. This spirit world, of which each human being is a member, as well as the higher order of intelligences in the universe, though invisible and impalpable, is ever active and all influential, the spring and sovereign even of all material forces and phenomena. What is matter but the creature and servant, the effect and evidence, of spirit? Great and mysterious changes in the spirit world seem to follow the sounding of the fifth trumpet. Moral evil appears:

(1) In forms alarming. "I saw a star fall from heaven [from heaven fallen] unto the earth: and to him was given [there was given to him] the key of the bottomless pit [the pit of the abyss]," etc. A messenger from heaven, like a bright star, descended and exposed the region of moral evil - he opened the "bottomless pit." Moral evil is indeed a pit.

(a) It is fathomless. No one can explain its origin and its countless intricate ramifications; it is the "mystery of iniquity."

(b) It is consuming. It is like a "great furnace." In whatever spirit moral evil exists, it burns, it gives pain, and works destruction.

(c) It is obscuring. "The sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit." The passions and thoughts which sin generates in the spirit mantle the moral heavens in gloom. How often is this bottomless pit covered up in the soul, hid alike from self and society! Thank God, Heaven sends a messenger, like a star, from heaven to open it and to enlighten it. Do not let us took for this bottomless pit beneath us, or anywhere external; it is within us, if sin be in us.

(2) In forces terrific. "And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power," etc. Orientals dread an advent of locusts as one of the most terrible visitations; grass, trees, plants of all description, fall before them. The locusts here sketched are of an order the most terrible. A modern writer describes the locusts here as "malicious as scorpions, ruling as kings, intelligent as men, wily as women, bold and fierce as lions, resistless as these clad in iron armour." These awful forces that go forth amongst men to inflict torture and ruin were

(a) All in connection with the "bottomless pit." They were, so to speak, bred in the depths of that moral pit, and became the servants of that pit. Whatever inflicts pain on humanity is forged in the depth of that bottomless pit. "Whence come wars?" etc.

(b) They tended to make life intolerable to man. "In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die." Death is universally regarded as the greatest evil, but such is the state of misery here that it is sought as a relief. How often is the life of a man rendered intolerable because of his sins, and he has recourse to the razor, the rope, the river, or the poison! From the "bottomless pit" of our own sins rise those tormenting fiends that render life intolerable.

(c) They were under the direction of a controlling agent. "And they had a king over them [they have over them a king], which is the angel of the bottomless pit [the angel of the abyss]," etc. The meaning of the words "Abaddon" and "Apollyon," both in Hebrew and Greek, is "destruction." All these locusts - in other words, all the forces that torment humanity - are inspired and directed by one great spirit, the spirit of destruction, which goes to and fro through the earth like a lion, seeking whom it may devour. Greater and more terrible changes in the spirit world seem to follow the sounding of the sixth trumpet. In this second "woe" the spirit of destruction takes a wider sweep. It goes forth from the four parts of the earth, it increases the number and the terror of its messengers. "Two hundred thousand thousand," a countless number, and they appeared as horses with heads of lions, panoplied with fire, and breathing smoke and flame. By this greater destruction is wrought amongst men - it strikes down a third part of the race. Thus ever the agencies of torture and ruin that visit man, working in connection with the "bottomless pit" of sin, multiplying in numbers and magnifying their malignant proportions. The trial that gives pain to the sinner today, may be only as an insect compared with the trial that, like a lion, may torture him tomorrow. So long as the "bottomless pit" remains within, torturing fiends will increase in number, and augment in malignant passion and strength. More strange changes in the spirit world we find following the sounding of the seventh trumpet. Before the blast of this seventh trumpet, however, there is the advent of another wonderful messenger from heaven. This messenger is robed in a mystic cloud, a rainbow encircling his brow, his face bright as the sun, his feet like pillars of fire, having in his hand a "little book." He seems to take possession of the whole world, plants one foot on the sea and the other on the earth, breaks forth with the voice of a lion, and his utterances were followed by seven thunders, from which a voice out of heaven sounded, saying, "Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not." Again this wonderful angel or messenger from heaven, surrounded with all this mystic grandeur, whilst standing on the earth, lifts up his hand to the heavens, and swears "that there should be time no longer." After this the seventh trumpet sounds, proclaiming that the mystery of God was finished. In the tenth chapter three things are powerfully struck upon our attention.

(1) A proclamation of the end of time. "Time shall be no longer." Time is but limited duration. What is time to man on earth becomes eternity to him when he quits it. It is but a mode of being. In truth, whenever a human spirit rises from the material to the spiritual, from the particular to the universal, time with him is no longer; he is flee from all its limitations. He moves no longer on a little river or creek; he is afloat on the immeasurable ocean.

(2) The communication of a new revelation. What was contained in this "little book" that had not appeared before? Something vital to man's interest. Such Divine books or rolls are constantly coming to us. They come to man in every day's experience, in true thoughts, and in spiritual intuitions.

(3) The personal appropriation of truth. The angel said, "Take it, and eat it up." Divine truth is not something for intellectual speculation; it is not something for memory, but diet for the life. It must be transmuted into the moral blood and sent through the heart into every fibre of our being. These "seven trumpets," then, suggest and illustrate those revolutions which are everywhere going on, not only through the material, but through the spiritual states of being. In sooth, those that occur in the material are but the results and symbols of those which are transpiring in the great world of mind. In the inner world of soul what revolutions are constantly going on in every man's experience! Big schemes like mountains burning with fire cast into the sea, bright stars of hope and promise falling from the firmament of the soul, fire and smoke issuing from the "bottomless pit" of evil within, smoke that obscures all that is bright, terrible and tormenting forces, like armies of locusts, devouring every budding leaf, and, with a scorpion's sting whose virus rankles in all the nerves of the heart, so that men sometimes seek death and cannot find it. "Voices and thunders." Strange shapes with "thunderous voices" in the heavens. Ah me! these changes are no dreams, they are visions neither of the day nor the night; they are the great realities of the spirit world.

II. THE SPIRITUAL PERSONALITIES BY WHICH, UNDER GOD, THESE REVOLUTIONS ARE EFFECTED. Here are "seven angels" with their "seven trumpets." That there are, in the great universe of God, countless spiritual existences, varying endlessly in faculty, position, force, and occupation, admits of no question by those who believe in the Divinity of the Scriptures. It is here suggested that to these may be ascribed all the changes that take place in the history of our world. Is it not more rational to trace all these changes to the agency of such spiritual personalities than to what scientists call the laws and forces of nature? The "force of motion" is in the spirit, not in matter. Matter is inert; it has no self moving energy. Or, further, is there anything more unreasonable that a high order of spiritual existences should work all the changes we see in earth and sea and sky than the fact that all the products of civilization are the results of the agency of man? Is it not the human spirit, acting through its physical organization, that has covered the earth with architectural buildings, not only piled up the huge cathedrals, castles, palaces, and countless public edifices, but also innumerable residences of every size and shape? Was it not the spirit in man that constructed the bridges, that spanned broad rivers; tunnelled through huge mountains a way for mighty oceans to meet and mingle; covered every sea with the fleets of nations; transformed wildernesses and deserts into fertile meadows, vineyards, and gardens; constructed engines to hear men over sea and land almost with lightning velocity? If the human spirit has worked and is working such wonders as these, is there anything unreasonable in supposing that a higher class of spirits can direct the winds, kindle the lightnings, launch the thunders, roll the planets, and heave the ocean? Manifestly not. The universe teems with spiritual personalities, and matter everywhere is the creature, the symbol, and servant of spirit. The dream suggests two things concerning the work of these spirits.

1. Their work is departmental. Each had his own trumpet, and each produced his own results. The same trumpet was not used by all. This seems to be the Divine plan. Each living creature endowed with activity, from the tiniest to the greatest, has its own sphere and scope for action. One cannot do the work of another. It is so with men. In all temporal enterprises men themselves act upon this principle; the master mind in manufacture and commerce gives to each man his part; and this is the plan of God with us all. To each man he has given a mission, and that mission none can rightly discharge but himself. The higher spiritual existences, it would seem, act in this way. In the material department, it may be, one has to do with the management of the winds and stars and all the inorganic spheres. To another class is given the management of life, vegetable and animal. Thus, too, it may be in the moral realm. "He giveth his angels charge over us" - some to instruct the ignorant, some to console the sorrowful, some to strengthen the wavering, some to encourage the feeble and oppressed.

2. Their work is gradual. All the trumpets do not sound at the same time, and from the first to the last numberless ages might intervene. The great Maker and Manager of the universe works out his great plans by what appears to us slow degrees. He is in no haste; he has plenty of time at command. How gradually this earth progressed from chaos to its present condition! How gradually the human race advances in knowledge, in civilization, and in morality! How unlike our method! If we have a work on hand, the more important we deem it, the more impatient we are to realize its accomplishment. The sense of the brevity and uncertainty of life impels us to this haste. But "one day with him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Does not this teach us to be concerned more with the moral character of our work than with its results? Our question should be, "Is it right?" not, "What will be the issue?" The results will not appear in our time, not for ages on, it may be. A good act is like an acorn dropped into good soil; it will require countless ages fully to develop itself. In the motive is at once the virtue and the reward of all labor. Does it not also teach us to be patient in well doing, to be hoping ever? Our work, if right, is Divine, and if Divine, it cannot fail. "Be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."

III. THE GRAND PURPOSE TO WHICH ALL THE REVOLUTIONS ARE DIRECTED. All the revolutions here referred to have a bearing on the minds of men, breaking the monotony of their sinful condition, rousing their fears, so terrifying them as to make their existence so intolerable that they sought death as a relief. And then it is stated that a new revelation from heaven is given them - a "little book" that was to be appropriated. Moreover, it is stated that the grand purpose was the finishing of the "mystery of God." And what is that mystery but the moral restoration of mankind? It is a glorious thought that all the changes that take place in the universe are for the benefit of souls - that all is moral discipline. Nature is a grand school in which the great Father makes his children "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." "Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living." Evil is not an end. Good is the end, and evil is ever rushing to it like streams and rivers to the ocean world. The evils of this world, like the furious storm that spreads devastation over sea and land, will one day die away in a clear sky and a pure atmosphere, and leave the world all beautiful and blight. (See also the three following homilies.) - D.T.

1. By the fall of this star from heaven, we see that apostasy from the truth in pastors is a Luciferian sin, and they thereby are like unto him.

2. Where saving grace is not, all other gifts and endowments soever will never avail to preserve from apostasy, and make one to persevere.

3. As there are no personal gifts, so there is no place or succession that is personal only thereto, that can privilege from apostasy; for here we see a star for light, and in heaven for place, yet to fall from heaven.

4. We see it is not small stars, but a great star that falleth from heaven; whereby we see whom Satan most assaulteth, viz., those that are in primest places and of most excellent gifts.

5. From shining as a heavenly star, by apostasy, we see this star turns to be only as a burning earthly lamp: whereby we are taught what a change sin and apostasy maizes from the better to the worse, as in this star from heaven to earth, from standing to falling, and from shining to burning only; by fiery ambition and bitter contention like wormwood, hating most of any the professors of that truth which formerly they held.

(Wm. Guild, D. D.)

Commentators say that the star Wormwood of my text was a type of Attila, king of the Huns. He was so called because he was brilliant as a star, and, like wormwood, he embittered everything he touched. A more extraordinary character history does not furnish than this man, Attila, the king of the Huns. The story goes that one day a wounded heifer came limping along through the fields, and a herdsman followed its bloody track on the grass to see where the heifer was wounded, and went on back, further and further, until he came to a sword fast in the earth, the point downward as though it had dropped from the heavens, and against the edges of this sword the heifer had been cut. The herdsman pulled up that sword and presented it to Attila. Attila said that sword must have dropped from the heavens from the grasp of the god Mars, and its being given to him meant that Attila should conquer and govern the whole earth. Other mighty men have been delighted at being called liberators, or the Merciful, or the Good, but Attila called himself, and demanded that others call him, "The Scourge of God." The Roman Empire conquered the world, but Attila conquered the Roman Empire. He was right in calling himself a scourge, but instead of being "the Scourge of God," he was the scourge of hell. Because of his brilliancy and bitterness, the commentators might well have supposed him to be the star Wormwood of the text. Have you ever thought how many embittered lives there are all about us, misanthropic, morbid, acrid, saturnine? The European plant from which wormwood is extracted, Artemisia absinthium, is a perennial plant, and all the year round it is ready to exude its oil. And in many human lives there is a perennial distillation of acrid experiences. Yea, there are some whose whole work is to shed a baleful influence on others. There are Attilas of the home, Attilas of the social circle, Attilas of the Church, Attilas o! the State, and one-third of the waters of all the world, if not two-thirds of the waters, are poisoned by the falling of the star Wormwood. It is not complimentary to human nature that most men, as soon as they get great power, become overbearing. The more power men have the better, if their power be used for good. The less power men have the better, if they use it evil. Some of you are morning stars, and you are making the dawning life of your children bright with gracious influences, and you are beaming upon all the opening enterprises of philanthropic and Christian endeavour, and you are heralds of day. Keep on shining with encouragement and Christian hope! Some of you are evening stars, and you are cheering the last days of old people. But are any of you the star Wormwood? Do you scold and growl from the thrones paternal or maternal? Are your children everlastingly pecked at? What is your influence upon the neighbourhood, the town, or the city of your residence? I will suppose that you are a star of wit. What kind of rays do you shoot forth? Do you use that splendid faculty to irradiate the world or to rankle it? Are your powers of mimicry used to put religion in contempt? Is it a bunch of nettlesome invective? Is it fun at others' misfortune? Then you are the star Wormwood. Yours is the fun of a rattlesnake trying how well it can sting. But I will change this, and suppose you are a star of worldly prosperity. Then you have large opportunity. You can encourage that artist by buying his picture. You can improve the fields, the stables, the highway by introducing higher style of fowl and horse and cow and sheep. You can endow a college. You can build a church. You can put a missionary of Christ on that foreign shore. But suppose you grind the face of the poor. Suppose when a man's wages are due you make him wait for them because he cannot help himself. Suppose by your manner you act as though he were nothing and you were everything. Suppose you are selfish and overbearing and arrogant. You are the star Wormwood, and you have embittered one-third, if not three-thirds, of the waters that roll past your employes and operatives and dependents and associates. Are we embittering the domestic or social or political fountains, or are we like Moses, who, when the Israelites in the wilderness complained that the waters of Lake Marah were bitter and they could not drink them, their leader cut off the branch of a certain tree and threw that branch into the water, and it became sweet and slaked the thirst of the suffering host? Are we with a branch of the Tree of Life sweetening all the brackish fountains that we can touch? What is true of individuals is true of nations. God sets them up to revolve as stars, but they may fall wormwood. Witness Thebes, Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, and Imperial Rome.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

"And I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth!" The true reading of the text is given in the Revised Version. It was not "an angel flying," but a solitary eagle or vulture, that St. John saw. Hovering high overhead, a mere speck in the sky, and its harsh cry sounding as if it uttered over and over again the ominous words, "Woe, woe, woe!"

I. THIS EAGLE HAS OFTEN BEEN SEEN. It has long hovered over and at last descended upon:

1. Corrupt communities.

2. Corrupt men. Many imagine that the great laws of God will be, no doubt, fulfilled amid nations and Churches and other bodies of men, but they will not take note of individuals.

II. IT IS GOOD THAT IT SHOULD BE SEEN. In the physical world, if there were no scavengers, no agents whereby what is corrupt and corrupting could be rendered harmless, life could not go on.

III. MEN SOMETIMES THINK THEY SEE IT WHEN THEY DO NOT. Poor Job — his friends, his comforters, would have it that his dreadful sufferings were judgments of God upon him.

IV. MEN OFTEN FAIL TO SEE IT WHEN THEY MIGHT AND SHOULD.

1. The bird may be invisible. It may be so far up in the sky, so far away, that our limited eyesight cannot travel so far, it is out of our range.

2. It may be restrained. God is "long-suffering, not willing that any should perish."

3. It may have already descended, and be doing its work, and you not know it.

4. If it come not now, it will fasten on him the moment he reaches the next world's shore. Ah, yes l if a man have made, is soul carrion-like, the eagle of judgment will find him sooner or later in trouble; from without or within, here or yonder — there is no escape. Remember, then:

(1)They are fools who make a mock at sin.

(2)Turn from it, and pray for the heart to love and dread the Lord, and to diligently live after His commandments.

(S. Conway, B. A.)