e following spring by the news that
Napoleon had escaped from Elba and was enroute to Paris. The terror and
consternation in Europe then experienced is shown by the following
quotation from Sir James Mackintosh, a man of high reputation as a
jurist, as a historian, and as a far-sighted and candid statesman:

"Was it in the power of language to describe the evil! Wars which had
raged for more than twenty years throughout Europe, which had spread
blood and desolation from Cadiz to Moscow, and from Naples to
Copenhagen; which had wasted the means of human enjoyment, and destroyed
the instruments of social improvement; which threatened to diffuse among
the European nations the dissolute and ferocious habits of a predatory
soldiery ... had been brought to a close.... Europe seemed to breathe
after her sufferings. In the midst of this fair prospect and of these
consolatory hopes, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba; three small
vessels reached the coast of Provence; their hopes are instantly
dispelled; the work of our toil and fortitude is undone: the blood of
Europe is spilled in vain."

The bitterest ingredients in the cup of these nations was the
humiliating overthrow of their own government and their subjection to
the hated _republican_ despotism of France. It was a scorching sun that
they could not endure. Still, they repented not to give God glory; they
continued as before. After Napoleon had accomplished the purpose for
which he was intended, God permitted this stupendous genius to be
subdued; but it required the combined powers of Europe to secure his
downfall.

Creasy, in his Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, says concerning
the battle of Waterloo, "The great battle which ended the twenty-three
years' war of the first French revolution, and which quelled the man
whose genius and ambition had so long _disturbed and desolated the
world_, deserves to be regarded by us ... with peculiar gratitude for
the repose which it secured for us and for the greater part of the human
race."

10. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the
beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed
their tongues for pain,

11. And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and
their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

Under this vial the symbols differ somewhat. The "beast" is evidently
the one of whom the image was made, referred to in verse 2--the Papacy.
The seat th