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altar, and the infants who, in the hour of danger, had been providently baptized by the bishop; the flourishing city was delivered to the flames, and a solitary chapel of St. Stephen marked the place where it formerly stood. From the Rhine and the Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul, crossed the Seine at Auxerre, and after a laborious march, fixed his camp under the walls of Orleans."

He was compelled to raise the siege of Orleans by the advance of Etius, the Roman general, and Theodoric, the king of the Visigoths. He retired to the plains of Chalons, where he was defeated in a great battle, described as—

"Fierce, various, obstinate, and bloody; and such as could not be paralleled either in the present or past ages. The numbers of the slain amounted to one hundred and sixty-two thousand; or, according to another account, three hundred thousand persons; and these incredible exaggerations suppose a real and effective loss.”

Gibbon informs us that

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"The army which arrested his progress and compelled him to retreat was composed of various tribes and nations. The Visigoths, who at that time were in the mature vigour of their fame and power, obeyed with alacrity the signal of war; prepared their arms and horses, and assembled under the standard of their aged king, who was resolved with his two eldest sons, Torismond and Theodoric, to command in person his numerous and valiant people. The indefatigable diligence of the patrician (Etius) gradually collected the troops of Gaul and Germany, who had formerly acknowledged themselves the subjects or soldiers of the republic, but now claimed the rewards of voluntary service, and the rank of independent allies. The Læti, the Armoricans, the Breones, the Saxons, the Burgundians, and the Franks, who followed Meroveus as their lawful prince. Such was the various army, which, under the conduct of Etius and Theodoric, advanced by rapid marches to relieve Orleans, and to give battle to the innumerable host of Attila."

After the defeat of Attila, "The imperial general," says Gibbon, "when he contemplated the bloody scene, observed with secret satisfaction, that the loss had principally fallen on

'Decline and Fall, c. xxxv. vol. iv. p. 295.

the barbarians. The body of Theodoric, pierced with honourable wounds, was discovered under a heap of slain."

In the year 452 Attila crossed the Alps and invaded Italy. The Alemanni occupied Helvetia, a part of Rhætia, and some of the territories beyond the Rhine. The Bavarians, the allies of Rome, and other barbarians, occupied Bavaria and a part of modern Austria. As Attila marched from Thuringia, he must, both in his advance and retreat, have fallen heavily on the barbarians who were in his line of march, and not his allies.

He besieged Aquileia, which was defended by the citizens, assisted by Gothic auxiliaries. It was taken after a siege of three months, and the succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia. After this dreadful chastisement, (Gibbon tells us) Attila pursued his march; and, as he passed, the cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua, were reduced into heaps of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns; Milan and Pavia submitted without resistance to the loss of their wealth. Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy, which are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and the Apennine.

He then granted peace to the Romans, evacuated Italy, and withdrew to his wooden palace beyond the Danube, where he died A. D. 453.

His death was immediately followed by the dissolution of his mighty empire.

His

His eldest surviving son, Dengisich, invaded the eastern empire, was defeated, and, falling in battle, his head was ignominiously exposed in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. youngest son, "Irnac, with his subject hordes, retired into the heart of Lesser Scythia, they were soon overwhelmed by a torrent of new barbariaus, who followed the same road which their own ancestors had formerly discovered."

THE THIRD OF THE SEA BECAME BLOOD, ETC.

It is scarcely necessary to illustrate the part of the prophecy by special historical proofs, sufficient evidence having been already given in detail, to prove the furious and bloody cha

racter of Attila's invasions. One passage, however, as it is short, may be cited, in order to show the spirit of his allies or subjects.

"The Thuringians served in the army of Attila. They traversed, both in their march and in their return, the territories of the Franks; and it was, perhaps, in this war that they exercised the cruelties which, about four score years afterward, were revenged by the sons of Clovis. They massacred their hostages as well as their captives. Two hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their bodies were torn asunder by wild horses, or their bodies were crushed under the weight of rolling waggons; and their unburied limbs were abandoned on the public roads, as a prey to the dogs and vultures. Such were the savage ancestors whose imaginary virtues have sometimes excited the praise and envy of civilized ages.'

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To recapitulate: a burning mountain is cast into the sea, and the third of it becomes blood. A burning mountain is a kingdom, which contains within itself the principle of its own destruction; the sea is a various multitude of nations. The third of it becoming blood, denotes a vast loss of life. We have seen, corresponding with these representations, the seathe outlying nations-driven in upon the European third of the Roman empire, overflowing and converting this third into a sea-that Attila fell with destroying force on this third-that, having marked his course by blood and heaps of smoking ruins, he died, and his mighty empire was no more.

1 Decline and Fall, c. xxxv.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE THIRD TRUMPET.

The Third Angel sounds-a Great Star falls from Heaven-the Third Part of the Rivers-Fountains, &c.

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

The fall of a star from heaven, in the language of prophecy, represents the fall of a great kingdom. Thus Isaiah1 describes the destruction of Babylon, by the fall of Lucifer, or the Day"Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, how hath the oppressor ceased, and the golden city ceased. How art thou fallen from heaven,

star.

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For thou hast said in

O Lucifer, son of the morning. thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God."

The star falls upon the third part of the rivers and fountains of waters.2 "Rivers," says Sir Isaac Newton, "in the prophetic dialect, represent people, and fountains cities; for fountains are the permanent heads of rivers politic."

The drying up of rivers, represent in scripture the demolition of cities, and the desolation of the country to which they belong. Sennacherib is introduced in Isaiah, saying: "I have digged and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the besieged places." This arrogant boast is thus answered: "Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it, and of

1 Isaiah, xiv., 4, 12, &c.

2 It need scarcely be observed here, that waters, in this prophecy, represent people, or nations. Rev. xvii.

ancient times that I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps." Here, drying up the rivers of the besieged places is the same as "laying waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps."

The same imagery is found in Ezekiel. "The land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste. I am against thee and against her rivers. I will make the land of Egypt desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste." Wormwood is the symbol of extreme affliction and misery. "He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood. Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall."3

The symbolic language, therefore, of the trumpet, represents the fall of a kingdom in some of the three divisions of the earth or Roman world, causing the ruin of cities, the desolation of the land, and a vast amount of human misery.

The star which falls is the kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy. The Ostrogoths, one of the many nations subject to Attila, recovered their independence at his death, and settled in Pannonia. In the year 489, their king, Theodoric, with the consent, and probably, at the suggestion of the emperor, Zeno, marched with his tribe into Italy, to deliver it from the domination of Odoacer and the Heruli. His expedition was successful; and he established the kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy, where he reigned, with great glory, till his death in 526.

His daughter, Malesuntha, as the guardian of her son, was entrusted with the regency, and she supported with dignity the renown of the Gothic nation. "She solicited," says Gibbon, "and deserved the friendship of the emperor; and the kingdoms of Europe respected, both in peace and war, the majesty of the Gothic throne." But, her son dying prematurely, she attempted against the laws of the nation and the will of two hundred thousand warriors, to usurp the throne; she was resisted, taken, imprisoned, and put to death.

The Emperor Justinian, who claimed the sovereignty of Italy, now prepared to enforce his claims by the sword. The Gothic

1 Is. xxxvii. 25.

2 Ezek. xxix. 10, 12.

3 Lam. iii. 15, 20.

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