The Almighty says to the
king of Babylon,--"Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain ...
I will roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt
mountain." (Jer. li. 25; Ps. xlviii. 2.)

The consequence of this judgment is, the third part of the sea became
blood, the fish perished, and the shipping was destroyed. Similar
language, illustrating these figurative expressions, had been used by
the prophets to represent divine judgments denounced against Egyptian
power. (Ezek. xxix. 3, etc.) In the eighth verse is contained the
explanation of the symbolic language,--"Behold I will bring a sword upon
thee, and cut off man and beast from thee."

History verifies this part of the Apocalyptic prediction. Only two years
after the death of that northern "scourge of God," Attila, who boasted
that "the grass never grew where his horse had trod;" Genseric set sail
from the burning shores of Africa; and, like a burning mountain launched
into the sea, accompanied by a vast army of barbarous Vandals, suddenly
landed his fleet at the mouth of the river Tiber. Disregarding the
distinctions of rank, age or sex, these licentious and brutal plunderers
subjected their helpless victims to every species of indignity and
cruelty. Hence the hostility to arts and science, the tokens of refined
civilization,--indiscriminate devastation of life and property
perpetrated by the savage warriors, has given rise to the word
"Vandalism."

10. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from
heaven, burning as it were a Lamp, and it fell upon the third part of
the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

11. And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of
the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because
they were made bitter.

Vs. 10, 11.--The object of the third trumpet is the waters as
before,--the population of the empire, but not in collective form as a
_sea_; rather in a state of separation or disconnected, as "rivers and
fountains." Some apply this symbol of a "falling star" to Genseric, but
this is incongruous. On the contrary, he was a victorious prince,--a
_rising_ star. It is more consonant to the truth of history and the
chronological series of prophecy, to apply this symbol to the downfall
of Momyllus the last of the Roman emperors, who was deposed by Odoacer
king of the Heruli, called in derision Augustulus,--the diminutive
Augustus. Doubtless the allusion here is t