what was then to hold back those fierce passions and that deep selfishness from the most unbounded excesses?  God was no more feared—­government was no more sacred—­religion was a delusion—­immorality was a lie—­virtue was a name—­the marriage-tie was a farce—­modesty was refined voluptuousness:  and when men were persuaded of these things, society began to roll and heave under the long swells of that portentous storm of wrath which was soon to break, in all its desolating fury, over the earth.”

In the facts here presented it may be seen how far we are justified in applying to them this first vial of wrath.  The vial was poured out “upon the earth”—­on the inhabitants of the ten kingdoms when in a state of tranquility.  This was their condition, unsuspicious of danger, when the dread infection was spread through society.  According to the testimony of Pres.  Dwight, within ten years from the first establishment of the Illuminati, in 1776, “they were established in great numbers through Germany, Sweden, Prussia, Poland, Austria, Holland, France, Switzerland, Italy, England, Scotland, and America.  They spread with a rapidity which nothing but fact could have induced any sober mind to believe.”

This system of infidelity is well symbolized by a noisome, grevious ulcer, which is loathsome to the sight, offensive to the smell, corrupting to the body, and productive of awful pain.  That it appeared so to others besides the author of the Revelation is shown by the following epithets which Burke, the celebrated English orator, applied to the spirit of the French Revolution, which was only the discharged virus of these ulcers.  He styled it “the fever of Jacobinism;” “the epidemic of atheistical fanaticism;” “an evil lying deep in the corruptions of human nature;” “such a plague, that the precaution of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it.”  The result, he says, was “the corruption of all morals,” “the decomposition of all society.”  What greater plague could fall upon Romanism and Protestantism than this fearful scourge of infidelity?

I have dwelt for a considerable length of time upon this subject, because of its deep interest, and also because I desired to verify the application of the symbol as much as possible, on account of its close connection with the pouring out of the vials which follow.

    3.  And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it
    became as the blood of a dead man:  and every living soul died in
    the sea.

This vial was poured out upon the “sea.”  The sea is a large body of water within the earth, subject to violent storms and agitations.  As a symbol it would denote some central power or kingdom within the symbolic earth in a state of revolution.  The effects produced by this vial were two-fold—­the waters were changed into blood as of a dead man, and all the living creatures in the sea died.  The waters of the sea represent the inhabitants of this