inople.
That imperial city is a site that, in strong hands, means power and
wealth. What shall become of it? Russia early formed designs of
conquest.... The empress Catherine ... had a grand scheme for a
restoration of the Greek empire under a Russian prince. Alexander I., at
Tilsit, planned a partition of the Ottoman empire with Napoleon, but the
latter declined to see Constantinople in Russian hands.
'Constantinople,' said he, 'is the empire of the world.' In 1844
Nicholas visited England and made guarded suggestions to the
prime-minister about the Turkish lands. The Ottoman empire, said he, was
a sick man, nearly at the last extremity.... England declined to plan
for a share of the inheritance, and nothing was done. In 1853 Nicholas
resumed the subject with the British ambassador at St. Petersburg. The
sick man, he now held, was at the point of death.... But again England
declined and, indeed, the next year went to war with Russia to save the
sick man from a premature end at the hands of the would-be administrator
of the estate. Another power doubly interested in the future of the
Turkish dominions is Austria. That empire has been the traditional enemy
of the Turk, and at the end of the seventeenth century was the actual
bulwark of Europe against Mohammedan conquest. When the tide of war
rolled the other way, Austria was ready to share in the spoils. Twice
near the end of the eighteenth century, was an alliance made between
Russia and Austria for the partition of Turkey," etc. Pp. 270, 271.
Thus, we find that these designs of nations for the overthrow of Turkey
have so far been overruled; for God will not allow that power to come to
"a _premature end_."

CHAPTER X.

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed
with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was
as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:

2. And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his
right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,

3. And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when
he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

4. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was
about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write
them not.

5. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the
earth lifted up h