The Seven Trumpets (Continued)—The Fall of the Eastern Empire of Rome

Notes

> | | | | > |---|---|---| > | Date of Othman's invasion (accurately preserved), July 27, 1299. "Five months," 150 years, July 27, 1449. | | 1st Period. Verse 10. | > | "An hour," 15 days; "A day," 1 year; "A month," 30 years; "A year," 360 years. Total, 391 years, 15 days, added to July 27, 1449 = August 11, 1840. | | 2d Period. Verse 15. Supremacy lost. |

Notes

Notes.

1. The very next century after the events growing out of the fourth trumpet, the rise of Mohammedanism began to prepare the forces that brought ruin upon Eastern Rome. Mohammed was recognized as a prophet and entered Medina as prince in the year 622. In the next ten years he gathered nearly all Arabia to his standard, and following his death (in 632), the fanatical warriors were ready to burst forth from the Arabian deserts.

2. The word translated "bottomless pit" means a waste or desert region. How graphically the figures of speech describe the swarming forth of the Mohammedan forces, like clouds of locusts from the desert of Arabia, darkening the sky.

3. When Abubeker, who succeeded Mohammed, sent forth his followers against Syria, he issued the command: "Let not your victory be stained with the blood of women and children. Destroy no palm trees nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees." He said they would find certain ones living retired lives in the service of God who were to be let alone and not harmed. But of those with "shaven crowns," of "the synagogue of Satan," he said, "be sure you cleave their skulls and give them no quarter till they either turn Mohammedan or pay tribute."—Gibbon's Decline and Fall of Rome, chap. 51, par. 10.

4. Othman founded the empire which was used as the agency for the overthrow of the Eastern Empire of Rome. His name gave to this empire its title, Ottoman or Turkish Empire. From his time the fanatical Moslem forces were thrown directly against the Eastern Empire to destroy it. "It was on the 27th day of July, 1299 of the Christian era, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster."—Gibbon, chap. 64, par. 14.

5. One hundred and fifty years from July 27, 1299, the date the preservation of which the historian regarded as significant (though he little knew the prophetic significance of it), brings us to July 27, 1449. Through all the 150 years the Moslem forces had harassed and destroyed, until, in 1449, the emperor succeeding to the throne of Constantinople took the office only by permission of the Turkish sultan, who thus, says Gibbon, "announced his supremacy, and the approaching downfall of the Eastern Empire."

6. The Mohammedan government was composed at that time of the four great provinces, or sultanies, of Bagdad, Damascus, Iconium, and Aleppo. All the Moslem forces were now to be let loose upon the Eastern Empire for its final destruction.

7. Gibbon tells of the "myriads of Turkish horse" engaged. The discovery of gunpowder and its adaptation to war in firearms, which the Turks made use of in the siege of Constantinople for the first time in history (the Greek inventor having deserted to their side), answers exactly to the view the prophet had of battle attended by puffs of smoke and blazing brimstone.

8. By accepting intervention from the powers, prescribing a settlement with its own vassal, Egypt—which had revolted and seemed about to establish its independence—the Turkish Government acknowledged its dependence upon the great powers. A report from Constantinople, published in the London morning Chronicle, Sept. 18, 1840, states that an ultimatum was officially placed in the hands of Mohemet Ali, of Egypt, so completing the arrangement of the powers, on the 11th day of August, 1840, and the Turkish sultan's independence was gone, inasmuch as it was the powers and not the sultan that were responsible to maintain the terms of settlement. Since then he has been helped to stand by the intervention and the jealousies of the powers, and the Eastern Question has constituted a perpetual menace to the peace of the world. The Advent Movement was well under way at this time, and in 1838, Josiah Litch, an associate of William Miller, had published the announcement that some event marking the close of Turkish supremacy was to be looked for on August 11, 1840. Hearts were stirred to new energy in preaching the advent warning by this fulfilment of prophecy before their very eyes.