xercise of their religion on
the conditions of tribute and servitude, but were compelled to endure the
scorn of the victors, to submit to the abuse of their priests and bishops,
and to witness the apostasy of their brethren, the compulsory circumcision
of many thousands of their children, and the subjection of many thousands
to a debasing and hopeless slavery.

"The second army was that of the Moguls, who, in the thirteenth century,
after the conquest of Persia, passed the Euphrates, plundered and
devastated Syria, subdued Armenia, Iconium, and Anatolia, and extinguished
the Seljukian dynasty. Another army advancing to the west, devastated the
country on both sides of the Danube, Thrace, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia,
Hungary, Austria, and spread them with the ruins of their cities and
churches, and the bones of their inhabitants. This horde had been prepared
for this invasion by vast conquests in the East.

"The third were the Ottomans, who in the beginning of the fourteenth
century conquered Bithynia, Lydia, Ionia, Thrace, Bulgaria, Servia, and in
the following century Constantinople itself, and have maintained their
empire to the present time. They were released from restraint on the one
hand by the decay of the Mogul Khans, to whom they had been subject, and
on the other by the dissensions and weakness of the Greeks.

"The last was that of the Moguls under Tamerlane, who in the beginning of
the fifteenth century overran Georgia, Syria, and Anatolia, and spread
them with slaughter and desolation. He also had been prepared for this
incursion by his previous victories and conquests."--_Ex. Apoc._, pp. 225,
226.

These armies, the number of which is literally "myriads of myriads," were
not all subsequent to the time when they had power to subject the Eastern
Roman empire; but may be the four, from the fact that the Mohammedan power
was extended by these armies, which till this time had been restrained
from accomplishing the subjugation of Constantinople.

The restraints being removed, they were now to have power to kill, by
compelling the third part of men to embrace the doctrines of
Mohammed,--evident reference being had to the men of the eastern empire;
the conquest of which was now to be effected, the dial of heaven having
indicated the arrival of the predicted epoch.

In 1449 Constantine Deacoses, being entitled to the throne of
Constantinople by the death of John Paleologus, did not venture to take
possession till