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years, nine emperors had successively disappeared: the present one was a youth only recommended by his beauty; and would be "the least entitled to the notice of posterity, if his reign, which was marked by that extinction of the Roman empire in the West, did not leave a MEMORABLE ERA IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND."* His real name was Romulus Augustus; respecting which the same historian remarks, "the appellations of two great founders of the city, and of the monarchy, were thus strangely united in the last of their successors." Anticipating another similar fact which will shortly come under our notice, in speaking of the extinction of the Eastern empire, it may in like manner be remarked, that the last of the successors of Constantine," the founder of the Eastern capital, likewise bore his name.

Thus was the third part of the sun, the ruling power, smitten; likewise the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; and that to such a degree, as that neither the one nor the other could afford any light. In consequence of this eclipse, or obscuration, the Western empire was darkened for above three centuries, so that "the day," whose light is direct from the sun, "shone not for a third part of it; nor the night," which receives its light from the other luminaries, the moon and the stars "shone likewise." One of the heads was, as it is elsewhere expressed, thus "wounded to death,” and

* Gibbon.

did not revive until the commencement of the ninth century. In the mean time the evils and miseries of the Roman world arrived at that extreme pitch which is so eloquently described in the above quotation from Dr. Robertson; and the West settled into a gloom of ignorance and barbarism.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE

JUDGMENTS OF GOD UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE, BY THE SARACENS;

OR

THE RISE OF MAHOMET.

THE SOUNDING OF THE FIFTH TRUMPET.

The meaning of the term, a woe trumpet-The fifth trumpetGibbon, value of his history-Rise of Mahomet—Compared to the falling of the star-His diabolical principles—Their effects-His followers compared to locusts-The correctness of the comparison-Their tormenting-Their discipline Their victories Their licentiousness-Their cruelty and ferocity— Their false and apostate religion-Their caliphs—Confined to no third part―Their great conquests not permanent—Their limitation-Great defeat by Charles Martel.—Gibbon's observations thereon Importance of that defeat-The duration of their incursive ravages-Application to the type of locusts-Foundation of Bagdad-Decline of the Saracenic empire.

HH

146

CHAPTER VIII.

THE

SOUNDING OF THE FIFTH, OR FIRST

"WOE" TRUMPET.

THE SARACENS.

This, and the next trumpets, are introduced with the following audible, solemn, and awful denunciation.

"And I beheld, and I heard one angel flying through the space between heaven and earth, saying with a loud voice, Woe! woe! woe to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are yet to sound." (viii. 13.)

This proclamation, thus sounded by an angel throughout the vast expanse of heaven, that he might be seen and heard by all, plainly intimates that the calamities of the remaining trumpets shall be greater and more terrible, and refer to events of yet higher importance, than the four former ones; and hence our attention is, in a more especial manner, called to their contents, which are consequently set forth with more particularity. It is not a mere general declamation; but, looking at the nature of these woes, from what two of them have been, it is

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