men. Another bloody battle was fought. Albert was vanquished, and his army dispersed.

Two expeditions Charles made into Africa: The first to drive Barbarossa from Tunis, and to restore Muley Hascen; and the second against Algiers. In the latter we see much of the tremendous judgments of this period. In this view I will give a sketch of it. Charles embarked late in the fall of 1541, with a great army and fleet, containing the flower of the Italian youth. He landed at Algiers, and prepared to attack the city. But a most furious storm came on; and the scenes, which followed were dreadful. The powder of the assailing army was wet; their matches were extinguished. The ground became soft, and almost covered with water. They had no shelter from the tempest. The soldiers were wet, numb, and almost dead with the cold rain. In this situation a sally was made upon them from the city. Many of them were killed, and the rest driven back. A dreadful consternation was excited. "But all feeling or remembrance of this loss and danger (says the historian) were quickly obliterated, by a more dreadful as well as affecting spectacle. It was now broad day-light, after a most dismal night. The hurricane had abated nothing of its violence; and the sea appeared agitated with all the rage, of which that destructive element is capable. All the ships, on which alone the army knew their safety and subsistence depended, were seen driven from their anchors; some dashing against each other; some beat to pieces on the rocks; many forced ashore; and not a few sinking in the waves. In less than an hour 15 ships of war, and 140 transports, with 8,000 men, were destroyed. And such of the unhappy crews, as escaped the fury of the sea, were murdered without mercy by the Arabs, as soon as they reached the land. The emperor stood in silent astonishment, beholding this fatal event; which at once blasted all his hopes of success; and buried in the deep the vast stores, which he had provided for the annoyance of the enemy, and for subsisting his own troops."* The admiral with much ado got word to

Hist. Ch. V, vol. iii, p. 227.

Charles, that he must repair with his remaining forces to cape Metafuz; as it was impossible to find a harbor for his few remaining vessels short of that place. In this miserable state therefore, his shattered troops had to perform a three days march. They had not a moment's time to lose. It seemed impossible for them to reach the destined place. But they had no choice between this, and certain death. They therefore, in the most miserable plight, set forth. They were harassed, day and night, by the Arabs. They were dispirited; subsisting chiefly on roots and berries, with a little horseflesh; wading over brooks to their chin; and their way almost unpassable. Many were killed. Many perished by famine. And many through fatigue sunk down and died by the way. The few, who reached the place, were taken on board, and returned to Italy. Doria their admiral declared, that during 50 years of his knowledge of the seas, he had never seen a storm of equal fierceness and horror. This was a small item, in those days of vengeance upon the Papal see.

The French nation, a main instrument of the judg ments of those days, suffered immensely. Repeatedly was it invaded by powerful armies; and the most distressing ravages were made in their country. Several times France was invaded by the emperor, and the king of England, in alliance against her. than once she trembled for her capital.

And more

Charles, in his last war with France, suffered rough treatment. Merely in the siege of Mentz, he lost 30,000 men; and was obliged to raise the siege, and retire in great mortification. And being perplexed with his adverse affairs, he formed a determination to abdicate the Imperial throne; to resign his Spanish crown to his son Philip; and to retire. To prepare the way for which, he proposed a peace with the king of France, "that he might have the merit (says the historian) when quitting the world, of re-establishing that tranquillity in Europe, which he had banished out of it, almost from the time that he had assumed the administration of affairs." Accordingly Charles * Hist. Ch. V, vol. iii, p. 215.

made peace with Henry, king of France, (who succeeded Francis now dead) in 1556; abdicated the Imperial throne; constituted Philip his successor in Spain; and retired to the monastery of St. Justus in Spain; where he spent his time in a rigid attention to the rites of the Catholic religion, till he died.

By the base instigation of the Pope, one more furious and bloody war was undertaken by the king of France, in league with the Pope on the one hand; and Philip, and his queen Mary of England, on the other; which was the finishing scene of this vial. The object of the war was to take Naples from Philip, and annex it to the crown of France. The duke of Guise was sent from France with an army, to join the army of the Pope. Great ravages were committed in Naples and Italy. But Philip and Mary determined to prosecute the war nigher home. Their army therefore invaded France, and invested the city of St. Quintin; which they soon reduced, with the dreadful slaughter of the French army, under the prime minister Montmorency; who came to relieve the city, and who was taken prisoner. Upon this, France was filled with consternation; and preparations were made to defend Paris, in an expected siege. The duke of Guise was recalled out of Italy. This filled the Pope with consternation; as the war was furiously going on there, and his chief dependence was on the army of the duke. But the distresses of France could admit of no attention to the remonstrances and entreaties of the Pope. And the French army fled home with all speed, to defend their own capital. Their arrival in France soon changed the face of things. Calais was besieged and taken from the English; and the latter now lost all their possessions in the kingdom of France. And a peace was concluded among all the contending powers.

Various things indicated, that the terrors and devastations of these scenes of war, unprecedented in Europe since the northern invasions, were dreadful. The French on their part, in the general treaty of peace, gave up 189 fortified places, which they had taken during those contests. And the arguments, which

had been used by the Pope, to induce the king of France to break the peace between him and Philip, as before noted, strikingly indicated the devastations of those wars. His arguments were,-"That the flower of the veteran Spanish bands had perished in the wars of Hungary, Germany, and the Low Countries; that the emperor (Charles) had left his son an exhausted treasury, and kingdoms drained of men; and that Henry might drive the Spaniards out of Naples, and add to the crown of France a kingdom, the conquest of which had been the great object of his predecessors for half a century." These arguments imply the terrors of that period of judgments. And, that so great a monarch as Charles V should abdicate the Imperial throne, indicates the terrors of those scenes, in which he had been engaged. And the histories of those times show these terrors to have been extreme.

At the general peace above mentioned, it is apparent, that an important era closed. In the articles between Philip and the Pope, the balance of power among the Italian states was poised with an equality not known before, since the commencement of that period of judgments. Upon which the historian observes, "From this period Italy ceased to be the great theatre, on which the monarchs of Spain, France, and Germany, contended for power and for fame. Their dissentions and hostilities, though as frequent and violent as ever, were excited by new objects; and stained other regions of Europe with blood; and rendered them miserable in their turn, by the devastations of war."* Had this judicious historian been designing to describe the close of the term of the second vial, and the transition from the second to the third; what more could have been said? He adds, "Exhausted by extraordinary ef forts, which far exceeded those to which the nations. of Europe had been accustomed, before the rivalship between Charles V, and Francis I, both nations longed for repose." We accordingly find, that in the peace established in 1559, great pains were taken, by inter

*Hist. Ch. V, vol. iv, p. 261.

marriages and mutual concessions, to give it a decided permanency. All past transactions were to be buried in oblivion. "The Pope, the emperor of Germany, the kings of Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, the king of the Scots, and almost every state in Christendom, were comprehened in this pacification, as the allies either of Henry or Philip. Thus by this famous treaty, peace was re-established in Europe. All the causes of discord, which had so long embroiled the powerful monarchs of France and Spain, seemed to be wholly removed or finally terminated." Soon after this, Henry II, king of France, died. Pope Paul, a violent, perfidious Pontiff, died. And his two nephews, most intriguing, mischievous characters in the court of Rome, were put to death for their crimes. "Thus most of the personages, who had long sustained the principal characters on the great theatre of Europe, disappeared about the same time. A more known period of history opens at this era; other actors enter upon the stage, with different views, as well as different passions. New contests arose, and new schemes of ambition occupied and disquieted mankind." This brings us to the consideration of the next vial.

THE THIRD VIAL.

And the third Angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of water; and they became blood. And I heard the Angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, who art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus: For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so Lord God Almighty, true and rightcous are thy ways. (Rev. xiv, 4-7.)

As by the sea in the second vial, we are to understand Italy, as the seat of the judgment, including the great Papal nations bordering upon it, as the instruments of