order resumed its sway from the influence of terror; obedience became universal, from the extinction of hope.  Silent and unresisted, they led their victims to the scaffold, dreaded alike by the soldiers who crouched, the people who trembled, and the victims who suffered.  The history of the world has no parallel to that long night of suffering, because it has none to the guilt which preceded it; tyranny never assumed so hideous a form, because licentiousness never required so severe a punishment.”

Prom this awful description, which might be carried to almost any extent, the reader will understand the force of the prophecy which declared that the “sea became as the blood of a dead man, and every living soul died in the sea.”

    4.  And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and
    fountains of waters; and they became blood.

    5.  And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous,
    O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast
    judged thus.

    6.  For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou
    hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

    7.  And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God
    Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.

Fountains and rivers are tributaries to the sea, and thus, they symbolize the inferior communities and nations belonging to the Apocalyptic earth.  France was the great central power and the sea of revolution upon which the second vial descended.  The surrounding nations were the rivers and fountains upon which the third was poured.  It is not said of them that they became as the blood of a dead man, nor that every living thing in them died, but only that “they became blood.”  This symbol denotes the insurrections and desolating wars in which the nations of Europe were involved for a number of years, growing out of the French Revolution.  I shall not here take time nor space to enter into the historical details relating to this statement; the facts are well known.  “The blood-thirsty Jacobinism of France waged war not only upon its own monarchy, but sought to overturn all the thrones and fabrics of despotism in Europe.  The same system of infidelity and atheism had been spread through the kingdoms there, though not to so great an extent as in France, and prepared the elements for revolution in them likewise.”  The French republic encouraged these agitations and by a unanimous decree of the Assembly, in 1792, set itself in open hostility with all the established governments of Europe.  It was in these words:  “The National Convention declares in the name of the French nation, that it will grant fraternity and assistance to all people who wish to recover their liberty; and it charges the executive power to send the necessary orders to the generals, to give succor to such people, and to defend those citizens who have suffered, or may suffer in the cause of liberty.”