8.  And I looked, and behold a pale horse:  and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.  And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The usual interpretation given this horse and its rider is to apply it to the desolating wars and famines that occurred in the Roman Empire.  This view is embodied in the celebrated painting “Death on the Pale Horse,” in which death is represented as going forth with war, pestilence, famine, and wild beasts, to ravage the Roman empire.  We are informed by historians that dreadful pestilences and famines did prevail and in some places nearly depopulated the country, and that the remaining inhabitants could not make head against the beasts that multiplied in the land.  But the fact that such events occurred is not sufficient proof that this symbol has reference to such.  Famines and pestilences may have occurred many times without forming a part of the Apocalyptic vision.

The greatest objection to giving this part of the vision such a literal interpretation is, that it fails to bring out its symbolic character.  To what, then, does it refer?  We have, as before, a horseman, indicating that the agent is one of the same general character, differing mainly in his features and mission.  This horse was of a livid, cadaverous hue, denoting an agent of ghastly, terrible nature.  The living rider bore the awful name of “Death,” or as in the original, “The Death,” by way of emphasis.  Death literally was not the agent—­it is not so stated—­but the rider was termed The Death, or The Destroyer, because of his terrible mission; and Hell followed with him.

Applying the laws of symbolic language as heretofore, it is evident that this symbol represents a great persecuting ecclesiastical power.  And with this thought before us, we can scarcely fail to recognize it as a true description of the Papacy.  The great apostasy, described under the preceding seal, prepared the way for the final and complete establishment of the “man of sin”; but during the period there brought to view the ministers of religion, power-seeking and apostate as they were, were unable to enforce their claims by the power of persecution.  Under the present seal, however, is represented a later stage of their corruption, when a great hierarchal system, sustained and upheld by the arm of civil power, was able to bear tyrannical rule over a great portion of the earth.  During this period clerical ambition and usurpation reached its greatest height.

After speaking of the power possessed by the metropolitans, Mosheim says:  “The universal church had now the appearance of one vast republic, formed by a combination of a great number of little states.  This occasioned the creation of a new order of ecclesiastics, who were appointed in different parts of the world, as heads of the church, and whose office it was to preserve the consistence and union of that immense body, whose members were so widely dispersed throughout the nations.  Such was the nature and office of the Patriarchs.”  Church History, Cent.  II, part 2.