which they
severally wrote; and therefore their valuable works have been
principally contemplated in these animadversions. On material points
they have shed much light where those who preceded them left the reader
in darkness, or involved him in perplexing labyrinths. Faber preceded
M'Leod, and the latter availed himself of all the aid furnished by the
former; yet till the "mystery of God shall be finished," his people will
be receiving accessions of light from the "sure word of prophecy."

SOUNDING OP THE SEVENTH TRUMPET.

At the time when those learned divines wrote, the political agitations
in Europe and America, as already noticed, gave a peculiar tincture to
their opinions and expositions of the Apocalyptic symbols. This state of
feeling on the part of these distinguished men, and on opposite sides of
the Atlantic, is very strikingly illustrated in their conflicting
interpretations of the "third woe,"--the seventh trumpet. Amidst the
conflict of arms and the booming of cannon, in both hemispheres, those
writers thought the first blast of the seventh trumpet and third woe
could be distinctly heard. They differed widely, however, in their
interpretations of its import and effects. To Mr. Faber, Napoleon, who
was the most conspicuous figure in the passing drama, appeared as a
terrific Vandal at the head of his legions, threatening to uproot and
lay waste the fair fabric of European civilization. To the Doctor, on
the other hand, Napoleon seemed the possible minister of Providence,
destined to prepare the way of the Lord, and to introduce a better, a
scriptural civilization. As time has sufficiently demonstrated the
fallacy of their respective expositions of the seventh trumpet, it is
needless to quote or review their speculations.

The principal defect pervading the "Lectures," and one which most
readers will be disposed to view in an opposite light, appears to be, a
charity _too broad_, a catholicity _too expansive_, to be easily
reconciled with a consistent position among the mystic witnesses. Their
author, however, deriving much information from the learned labours of
English prelates on prophecy, could not "find in his heart" to exclude
them from a place in the _honourable roll of the witnesses_. I am unable
to recognize any of those who are in organic fellowship with the "eldest
daughter of Popery," as entitled to rank among those who are symbolized
as "clothed in sackcloth." The two positions and fellowship