THE THIRD ANGEL'S MESSAGE.
Its Basis in the Seven Trumpets.
IN the events of the first four of the Seven Trumpets, the Western Empire of Rome was completely blotted out. Out of the tribes of barbarians, which, like mighty tides, in succession overflowed the territory of Western Rome, ten established themselves in ten independent kingdoms, and there stood as independent kingdoms in A. D. 476, when the last vestige of the Roman Empire had vanished. The Western Empire of Rome was gone, and just ten nations stood in her territory, in her stead. The ten stood thus:— 1. The Alemanni in North Switzerland; Swabia, Alsace, and Lorraine. 2. The Franks in all Gaul north and west of the Moselle. 3. The Burgundians in west Switzerland and the valleys of the Rhone and Saone in southeast Gaul. 4. The Suevi in that part of Spain which is now Portugal. 5. The Vandals in North Africa, with capital at Carthage. 6. The Visigoths in Spain and southwest Gaul. 7. The Angles and Saxons in Britain. 8. The Ostrogoths in Pannonia—what is now Austria. 9. The Lombards in Noricum, between the Ostrogoths and the Alemanni. The details of this any one can trace out, any day, on any map that he will but hold before him and mark as he reads the history of the fall of the Roman Empire. These ten kingdoms were first mentioned in the prophecy of Daniel, especially in the “ten horns” of the “fourth beast.” Dan. 7:7, 24. They are referred to later in the book of Revelation, in the description of the dragon, and also of the Beast, having “seven heads and ten horns.” Also, in the prophecy of Daniel it is related that there would come up among these ten another one, and by it three of the ten would be “plucked up by the roots.” The three which were plucked up, were the Heruli, who occupied Italy; the Vandals, who occupied North Africa; and the Ostrogoths, who had been instrumental in rooting up the Heruli, and who occupied Italy in their place. That “other one,” before whom these three were rooted up, is described as having “eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things;” and was, and is, the papacy. Take three from ten, and seven are left. And these seven of the original ten kingdoms that divided Western Rome are in that territory to-day, and are the Powers of Western Europe to-day. The Saxons, the Franks, the Alemanni, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Suevi, and the Lombards are the powers respectively of Britain, France, Germany (in the French language, and with the French people of to-day, the Germans are only Allemands, and Germany is only Allemagne), Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy of to-day. For after the plucking up of the third of the three kingdoms, the Lombards removed from their place on the Danube, and established their kingdom in Italy, and to a considerable portion of that country “communicated the perpetual appellation of Lombardy.” In the middle ages, Lombardy “was, indeed, for a time, the name for Italy itself.” Thus the Powers of Western Europe to-day are as definitely pointed out by the prophecy as they could be without specifically naming them. Of these seven, some are very powerful, such as Britain, France, and Germany; while others are weak, such as Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal; while Italy stands, as it were, between strong and weak. So these seven of the original ten, stand just where Daniel, from the dream that was given to Nebuchadnezzar, said they would stand. They stand there in precisely the condition in which that prophecy said they would stand—“partly strong, and partly broken,” or weak. Britain, France, and Germany have spread their power over the whole world, and have so intertwined themselves in the affairs of the whole world that what touches the world touches them, and what touches them touches the world. And these kingdoms, with the papacy, are the elements that compose the Beast and his power, against whose work, with that of the Image of the Beast, the Third Angel's Message utters its solemn warning. Thus, in one way, through the Seven Trumpets we find the place of the great nations of Western Europe, as they are to-day. And, in another way, we thus find, through the Seven Trumpets, the basis of the Third Angel's Message. And, in yet other ways, we shall find these same things through the remaining three of the Seven Trumpets.