Dear Bro. Snow:--In this perilous moment, all the light that can be drawn from the Word, and from facts which exist showing the truth of the Word, ought to be before the waiting people of God; they need it to confirm their faith, and to enable them successfully to vanquish the enemy when he comes in like a flood to carry them away. He temptations are numerous, and his reasonings specious. The disappointments with which we have met, by the passing by of different points of time at which we particularly expected to see our King, and the fact that so many, to whom we have looked as leaders in Israel, and in whom we have reposed so much confidence, have gone back, are eagerly seized by the adversary against us. Then again the extremes into which some among us have run, and the fanciful notions that have been embraced by others, and the fanaticism that has sprung up, are brought forward to prove we are wrong. But if we will stick to the Word, and watch the occurrences of the day which show its fulfilment, all these, and a thousand things like them, will not move us. For one, though I have been disappointed in not actually seeing the Lord by the 16th of the first month, yet I have reached a point in my experience where I am scarcely tempted to doubt the correctness, in the main, of the positions we have taken. By positions I mean that the preaching of '43, the 7th month, and the shut door, were correct, and entered into God's plan. {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 89.11}
I have a new argument, at least I have not seen or heard it by any body else, which, to me, shows demonstratively where we are. What is it? The third woe [original illegible]. This I cannot prove in the judgment of the world,--this I cannot prove in the judgment of the nominal churches; they are left too far in the rear to see the force of the argument. And I design it not for them. Nor do I expect that many professed Adventists will admit the force of the argument, though I believe it irrefutable. {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 89.12}
Every Adventist will admit that the first and second woes of Rev. ix., are past. The first covered a period of time 150 years long, reaching from the rise of the Ottoman Empire to its conquest of the Greek empire. Soma, perhaps, may suppose the period closed in 1449, others in 1453, when that empire lost the dependant existence it maintained up to that point. However it is no difference to me [original illegible] which of those points of time the 150 years, the five prophet rear months of Rev. ix. 10, ended. The 1st woe trumpet ceased to sound--the first woe ended. {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 89.13}
That the second woe is also past is equally clear. At the point of time where the fifth angel ceased to sound, the sixth commenced. At the point of time where the first woe ended, the second commenced. At the point of time where the five months, or 150 years, ended, the hour, and day, and month, and year, or 391 years 15 days, commenced. There was where the bare power of the locusts to hurt men, not to kill them, Rev. ix. 5, ended---the four angels bound in the great river Euphrates were loosed. It was these that were prepared for an hour, a day, a month, and a year, 391 years, 15 days. When these were loosed the 6th angel began to sound. Here commenced the second woe: that point of time was without dispute either in 1449 or 1453. Then the period did end either in 1840 or 1844, it makes no difference to me which. Were not all the Asiatic, African, European, and American wars, which occurred within that period, a part of that woe? Did not the earthquakes, famines, pestilences, fearful diseases, and various disastrous occurrences in the world during that period, belong to that woe? Or does any one suppose the geographical boundaries which limited the ravages and depredations of the Ottoman empire set limits to that woe? To me it appears clear such was not the fact. But that period, with the power with which it is associated in the prophecy, and which is so minutely described, is only given to mark the beginning, duration, and end of that woe, and not to limit the territory over which that woe should extend. Well, then, the second woe embraced, as a part of itself, all the dreadful events that occurred in the world during a period of nearly four hundred years last past,--and that woe is past. {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 89.14}
Then where are we? Under the third woe. But how do you prove this? Every Adventist who believes the second woe to be past must take one of two positions. Either that the startling occurrences of these times are the beginning of the third woe, or that they are no part of any woe. But, will any take the ground that they belong to no woe at all? Hardly. But, have there been any occurrences since the 7th month to mark the period as pregnant with woe to men? Let us see. If the preaching of the 7th month told the truth, then truly the 10th of that month brought to this world the greatest woe it ever had. The end of the gospel age. But this is disputed ground. Let us look at facts: a writer in the Day Star says, 'immediately following the great voices of the 7th month, Rev. xi. 15, and when a silence ensured, our sea-coast, from New England on the north, to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, was smitten with an afflicting and unheard of plague--the waters upon almost the entire coast were discolored, and unnumbered millions of fish of all kinds were thrown dead upon the shore.' Look at the inundations in Europe. In one of the papers of this city, a few days ago, I saw, as an item of foreign intelligence, the following: 'Floods in Germany.--The entire Germanic Confederation, a part of Austria and Poland, have been literally under water since the 30th of March. The Rhine, the Maine, the Neckar, the Danube, the Elbe, and the Vistula, have, in succession, overflowed their banks, not in a day, but in an hour, Frankfort, Mentz, Cologne, Dresden, Prague, and a number of other towns and several thousand villages, were covered with water. The magnificent bridge of Dresden has been carried away, and many other edifices have been destroyed.' It has been stated that some 50 or 60,000 lives were lost in these floods though I cannot now command the document. But what wonder [original illegible] poverty and wretchedness must follow these floods? But they will be forgotten in the following, cut from the Ledger and Transcript of this city: {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 89.15}
'Flood and dreadful Inundation.--A letter from Macao, published in the foreign papers, gives an account of the overflowing of rivers in the north of China, before which the European inundations that have been recorded during the last few years, shrink into relative insignificance. On the shores of the Yellow Sea the phenomenon took the character of a second deluge. Whole provinces, with populations respectively larger than some of the second class kingdoms of Europe, were almost entirely submerged. The retreat of the [original illegible] left corpses in thousands. Touching episodes are given as pictures of this awful calamity. On the river Yang Tse were found large floating casks, which, when examined, were discovered to contain the bodies of young children, whose mothers, when all hope for themselves was gone, had committed them to these floating arks, as a last slender chance of salvation. Upwards of seventeen millions of human beings, escaped from the inundation, have poured themselves over the adjacent provinces, beggared of all things, and crying for bread. Think of that, besides the dead, 17 millions crying for bread, a number but little short of the entire population of the United States! Does this belong to no woe? Earthquakes shaking the metropolis of a sister republic, laying low to the ground a number of her edifices, and leaving its mark upon every door and house, the second, extending its effects to the distance of several hundred miles. Storms and tornadoes have lent their aid in the work of this woe. We have an account of one in the west that either blew down or injured every building within an extent of country five miles wide and 30 long, besides property of other kinds, and life, it destroyed. We read in the paper the accounts of fearful ravages of fatal diseases. Then what mean all these fires? They have done and are doing their work. They have been too numerous and destructive to need a particular notice here. Then see the murders, riots, faction fights, and carnage that the papers record. In Switzerland 3 or 4000 massacred in a moment; 50,000 unoffending Persians have fallen by the sword in a brief space. Besides the general disposition to war and bloodshed. {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 90.1}
Now, then, I ask you, has not the third woe commenced? Then the seventh trumpet has sounded, and the mystery of God is finished. So we need not be in the dark about our own whereabouts. It is all plain. {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 90.2}
What then is our duty? Watch and keep your garments. Let no man's faith fail. There is no cause why it should. He must be blind indeed who cannot now see. Yours, in hope of soon seeing Jesus, J. W. Rutledge. Kensington, Phil., May 20, 1845. {May 29, 1845 SSSe, JUBST 90.3}
"And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the river Euphrates." By waters we are to understand people; see Rev. xvii. 15. By the river Euphrates, I therefore understand the same Turkish power, which power rose up in the countries bordering upon this river. The four angels, are the four different nations of which the Ottomans were composed. Their armies were let loose, or sent out as a scourge upon the earth, or anti-christian church, and with great propriety called angels let loose, because they had been bound not to kill, (not to destroy) but to torment them five months; but were now about to destroy the eastern empire. "And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men." That the time here given, must mean some definite time is very evident, or why has the prophet given so many different periods, and all combined, when one number would have answered for an indefinite period? For an hour, 15 days, and a day, one year, and a month, 30 years, and a year, 360 years,; making in all 361 years 15 days; which added to A. D. 1248 20 the year that the Turks sent out a large army to subdue Constantinople, will bring us down to 1839, when the sixth trumpet will cease to sound, and the second woe be completed. "And the number of the army of horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand; and I heard the number of them." This army is equivalent to the four angels, when they were let loose, and two hundred thousand thousand, is 200,000 twice told or repeated; making 400,000. This agrees with the history of the taking of Constantinople. "After a long siege Mahomet II took Constantinople in 1453," having an army of 400,000 and almost all of them horsemen. "And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone." We are in this passage informed that their army would consist of horses principally, and their weapons of warfare would be fire-arms, guns and gunpowder being exactly described. And it is a well authenticated fact, that gunpowder was invented but a short time before the taking of Constantinople, cannon having been first used in the siege and capture of that place. See Dr. Gill, on this passage, who says, "that one cannon was used at the siege of Constantinople that employed 70 yoke of oxen to draw it. {August 16, 1841 JVHe, HST 73.3}
The 18th and 19th verses are a further description of the mode of warfare. The 20th and 21st verses show on whom these plagues were sent, viz. those who "worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood; which neither could see, nor hear, nor walk. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts." This description applies exactly to the anti-christian church or papal Rome; for they worship the things mentioned in the above texts, they being also the men which were one third to be slain, under this trumpet and woe, for it is supposed that the Ottoman power conquered one third of the Roman government, when the eastern empire fell into their hands. {August 16, 1841 JVHe, HST 73.4}
Then if this explanation be correct, the sixth trumpet will cease sounding in the year A. D. 1839, and the seventh trumpet will begin to sound. "But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath delivered to his servants the prophets." "And the second woe is past: and behold the third woe cometh quickly." Rev. xi. 14, 15. "And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever." The 16th and 17th verses represent the four and twenty elders worshipping God, and giving thanks, because he had taken to himself his great power, and had reigned. The 18th verse of the 11th chapter, describes what shall be done when the seventh trumpet shall begin to sound. "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and them who fear thy name, small and great, and shouldest destroy them that destroy the earth." The reader will now see that he is again brought down, when the seventh trumpet begins to sound, to the finishing of the mystery of God; to the fulfilment of all the prophecies; to the time when our Lord and his Christ should take the kingdom, and reign forever and ever; to the great day of his wrath; to the resurrection of the dead, their judgement, the rewards of the prophets, saints and all those who fear the name of the Lord, both small and great; and the final destruction of the wicked from the earth.
To be Continued. {August 16, 1841 JVHe, HST 73.5}