no doubt, is intended to signify that malignant rage with which he contemplates and seeks to destroy the life of Christ, when put forth through the members of His body. And the same figure is adopted to describe the same unmitigated hostility which "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan," will manifest against that man child who is destined to rule the nations of the earth with a rod of iron, and against those who are the first fruits of that spiritual life in power and glory, unto God and the Lamb.

There is something surpassingly grand and beautiful in the idea that Christ's first appearance in the air is to protect the man child, on the instant of its birth into the spiritual world, from the fury of that old serpent, the dragonan eventual reality which is plainly discernible in our national legend, and which, moreover, is so closely connected with the ordinary sympathies of the human heart, as to constitute the most prominent point of attraction of every popular epic in the lighter literature of all Christendom; and though we would refrain from indulging in fanciful theories upon such a solemn subject, we cannot restrain the expression of our conviction, that as the crusaders, who passed forth from the bosom of the visible Church in Christendom, for the recovery of the holy sanctuary

from the power of the infidel, were no doubt a foreshowing of the final investiture of the holy city by those resurrection warriors, who are all represented as arrayed in white apparel-so the chivalry of by-gone ages obscurely pointed to the rescue of Christ's bride from the rage of the devil, when He Himself shall be revealed to deliver His darling from the power of the dogHis only one (margin) from the jaws of the lions (Psalm xxii. 20, and xxxv. 17).

But the appearance of Christ in the air, the resurrection of the dead saints, and the change of the living, and the subsequent conflict which terminates in the delivery of Christ's bride from the fury of the dragon-transcendently glorious as it will be is still but the pledge and foreshadow of that fuller display of Christ's glory and power, which will take place upon this earth at the close of the seventh Vial: for Christ will not THEN come as a thief in the night, without any attendencies of royal state and kingly power, but He will come upon that occasion as lightning from the east, visibly surrounded-as a king should be surrounded-with a host of warriors who have all proved their armour in the same warfare in which He Himself was engaged-the true antitype to David's mighty men of war-all men of might and power and true of heart

even those "called, and chosen, and faithful" ones, who shall be revealed with Him in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon all those who know not God, and who obey not the Gospel of His dear Son.

For that conflict will not be confined to the spiritual region of the air, nor is it a combat waged only against wicked spirits in the heavenly places; nor is its sole object, as in the former display of His power, the protection of the man child from the rage of the dragon, or the expulsion of Satan and his angels from the region of this earth; but the battle is arrayed in opposition to the confederacy of hell and earth combined together against the Lord and His anointed one -the associated wickedness of the spiritual, invisible, and material world, displayed through the flesh of man: it is the final trial of strength between the powers of hell arrayed against the powers of heaven. The contest between God and Satan, ever since the creation of man, has been waged in man's flesh and upon this earth; and, in man's flesh, and upon this earth, it will yet fairly be fought out.

But, let us follow this symbolic woman into the wilderness-and wherefore into the wilderness ?

APPENDIX.

WE are quite aware that it may be alleged, in reference to those judgments which are so severely felt, and now so generally acknowledged in the midst of us, that they cannot be the commencement of the seventh and last Vial of wrath, because a universality of infliction is supposed to be indicated by the symbol of the air, into which that Vial is said to be poured; whereas the present judgment, in its unequivocal form as an exterminator of human life, is only experienced in one, and that a remote portion of the Roman earth.

We will not lay undue stress upon the notorious fact that the dearth of our staple article of food is felt more or less in every nation in Christendom; nor will we, in order to establish the converse of the proposition, insist on the alarm and gloom which has become now so prevalent in mens' minds, in reference to the increasing complication of European politics; but at once concede the point, that the violence of the shock has only been partially experienced, and that its first effects are felt in unhappy Ireland. But we rest our conviction that these judgments are the effects of the first drop of that Vial of wrath upon this very fact-viz., that our own nation is first made to feel, in most awful severity, the earnest of the coming desolations. "For the time is come that

judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" (1 Peter, iv. 17, 18).

Indeed, regarding those judgments which passed over Papal Europe at the close of the last and the commencement of the present century, as initiatory of the great day of wrath of the seventh and last Vial, we can only contemplate them as the rehearsal previous to the final and complete drama; and when we reflect that this Protestant kingdom was alone exempted from their immediate visitation, we should naturally be led to the inference, when the time arrived for the final display of God's wrath, that this country would be first selected to feel its effect. The opinion that the British nation would most probably first experience the bitter draught contained in that Vial does not, of necessity, involve as a consequence the conclusion, that such primary infliction either indicates priority in national guilt or pre-eminence in suffering in the forthcoming judgments; but, on the contrary, that being the nation wherein the worship of God, and the acknowledgment of His hand has been preserved in most purity and integrity, it might naturally be expected she should receive the first intimation by way of judgment that the great day of God Almighty had at last arrived. And this observation acquires additional force from the consideration, it has been almost alone from the bosom of her Church that a voice of warning has proceeded that the day of God's judgment was at hand, and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ drew near: so that, as she was entitled to receive the first note of warning, it has been afforded her in mercy as well as judgment. Nor can there exist a doubt