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thee in the seat of my power. It is by thy intervention that I bestow mercy. As thou hast given to me the essence of man, so I give to thee the essence of GOD, my omnipotence, by which thou canst save from punishment all who recommend themselves to thee!"

The authenticity of such a valuable miracle has not been permitted to take its chance, of descending to posterity on the testimony alone of the Abbé Albertini. It has been placed beyond the reach of cavil or of doubt by the solemn ratification of infallibility. His holiness Pope VII., after the celebration of High Mass, on May 13, 1814, crowned the miraculous picture-bestowed on it the power of granting plenary indulgences for the remission of sins-and appointed the second sunday of May for its annual holiday!

These antiquated abominations seem to be continued in the nineteenth century for the purpose of demonstrating that popery cannot profess to humble herself before GOD without committing flagrant sin in doing so that she bends her knee in prayer only to invoke vengeance on her head-that in every vicissitude of condition-in the terrible insolence of her rampant prosperity, and in the hour of her perplexity and humiliation, when smarting under the stripes inflicted by the castigating hand of Providence, the immutable church is truly incorrigible: the hardihood of her perseverance in blasphemous absurdity is absolutely wonderful!—they blasphemed the GOD of heaven, on account of their pains and sores, and repented not of their deeds.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

THE vast importance of the event, that constitutes the subject of the fifth trumpet and of the fifth vial, will excuse the interposition here of some observations thereupon, which, although they have no immediate connexion with the symbols wherein the prophet has described one stage of that stupendous occurrence, are not without relation to that system of the divine government of the world which it is the main purport of the apocalypse to record and manifest.

The french revolution, commenced in 1789 and consummated in 1830,* is clearly destined to be the source of immense, and, it may now with confidence be said, of eternal blessings to all the best interests of the human race. It is, therefore, one of those divine dispensations for which man can never be sufficiently grateful to his bounteous Creator.

In its first stage it was an act of retributive justice on the guilty confederates, the papal church and monarchy of France. While executing the duties of that great office, it, necessarily, wore an aspect of terror and affliction and the features of that aspect alone it was the purpose of the prophet to describe in the symbols of the fifth trumpet and vial. For

* I am well aware that the second and concluding act of the revolution, of which the first scene was exhibited in 1830, is not (January, 1831) yet completed-I am here, therefore, somewhat anticipating.

although the ultimate consequences of the french revolution are to be looked for among the contents of the seventh seal, in the establishment of the purified church, and in the concurrent and consequent happiness of mankind, its first explosion did indeed blow a tremendous trumpet, full of woe to the inhabitants of the earth'to all the enemies of the churchto those men who have not the seal of God in their foreheads.'

The commencement of the revolution may be dated in 1789, when the king convened the states-general at Versailles, for the express purpose of devising some means of relieving the nation from the calamities that then overwhelmed it. Never did men surpass the deputies of the tiers état, the representatives of the people, in magnanimous devotion to the public good. Wisdom, courage, patience, and the noblest disinterestedness, signalised every step of their proceedings. But all their efforts to effect a pacific mitigation of the mass of evils which centuries of misrule had accumulated on their unhappy country, were systematically defeated by the perfidious machinations of the privileged orders, who considered the perpetuation of all the sources of the general misery as essential, if not to their existence, at least to their peculiar interests. At length the populace of Paris, keenly participating in the incessant disappointment of all the public hopes- -alarmed at the movement of various bodies of troops on Versailles for the well known purpose of intimidating, if not of destroying, all the deputies on whom alone those hopes were

placed- and maddened by famine-abandoned all submission to the existing authorities, and tore, not only from the infatuated court and its wicked advisers, but from the national representatives, every semblance of power.

The revolution now rose in its prophetic form of violence and destruction, and went forth on its predicted course of blood and terror.

In this stage of its progress it was stained by many crimes they were the instruments wherewith the guilty oppressors of the christian church and of the french people were deservedly chastised -but those crimes have passed away with their perpetrators and their victims, and have left the great and glorious people of regenerated France, not only to enjoy the blessings of civil and religious liberty, but, to diffuse them by example, by influence, and by arms, over all the habitable globe until time shall be

no more.

Yes-the french revolution-that tremendous convulsion which shook to the earth the colossal fabrick of civil and religious tyranny, the blood-fed monster of a thousand years—was stained with many crimes -they were at once its demonstrated justification, and the merited punishment of the criminals by whom it was necessitated, and on whom it was the executioner of a righteous judgment.

In the history of nations time present is always the legitimate heir of the past, and the parent of the future; and the events of any age are only the ripened fruits of seeds sown in its predecessors. All the crimes, therefore, of the french revolution are charge

able on the iniquitous confederation which it overthrew :-hear, on this subject, the Abbé Montgalliard, a zealous votary of the papal church.

"Si la France ne fut, sous la convention, qu'une vaste arène où des bêtes féroces dévoraient des hommes désarmés; si, durant cette anarchie, qui ne finit qu'avec le directoire, l'historien ne peut citer qu'un petit nombre de traits d'un mâle courage, et trouve rarement de ces sentimens généreux et de ces actions fortes qui brillent en d'autres contrées, et au sein de leurs grandes commotions- -ah! n'en doutez point, la cause principale, la véritable cause doit être attribuée à l'influence délétère de notre ancien gouvernement; à ces passions enfantées par la superstition et la féodalité."

"la révolution n'a été, enfin, que la conséquence forcée, le corollaire politique de l'ancien régime."

And, in viewing the french revolution in its true character, of a divine dispensation of retributive justice, never let it be forgotten that the government of Lewis XVI. and the papal clergy of France laboured, down to the very explosion of the revolution, to foment and perpetuate the wicked spirit wherewith they and their predecessors had so long and so cruelly persecuted the christian church. For though the year 1762 was the date of the last public execution in France of a protestant clergyman for performing divine service, nevertheless, it was not until 1788 that any mitigation of Lewis XIV.'s brutal edicts was extorted from the french goverment and papal clergy--hear again the Abbé Montgalliard.

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