to sound,” for all things are ready.  The interceding Angel at the “golden altar” has prevailed to obtain a period of tranquillity whilst preparatory steps are in progress towards the next series of events; but that time shall be no longer, or respite from impending judgments, is significantly intimated by the symbolical Angel casting his “golden censer” from his hand, and hurling it into the earth.  Then without farther delay,

7.  The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth:  and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

V. 7.—­“The first angel sounded.”  The object of this judgment is the earth, the population of the empire in general.  The judgment itself is, “hail and fire mingled with blood,”—­desolating wars, like successive storms of hail mingled with lightning, “hailstones and coals of fire.” (Ps. xviii. 12.) The effect is, a consumption of a third part of the “trees and grass,” people in high and low degrees.  Green trees and grass are the ornaments and products, of a land:  and when the earth is an emblem of nations and dominions, trees and grass may represent persons of higher and lower rank.

The careful student of the Apocalypse will discover a striking analogy between the effects of the trumpets and vials as the latter are presented in the sixteenth chapter.  This first trumpet therefore produces an effect upon the social order of Christendom, which will continue till the pouring out of the first vial.  As the Roman empire in its twofold division is the general object of all the trumpets; so the first four are directed towards the western, and the next two against the eastern member.

The infidel historian Gibbon has unwittingly recorded the fulfilment of these predictions, as Josephus has done those of our Lord respecting the destruction of Jerusalem.  Unconscious that he was bearing testimony to the truth of prophecy, Gibbon used with his classic pen the very allegorical language of the inspired apostle.  Respecting the incursion of the barbarous Goths, as led by Alaric their chief into the fertile plains of southern Europe, he describes their alarming descent as a "dark cloud, which having collected along the coasts of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the upper Danube.”  He who directed Balaam and Caiaphas to utter predictions, doubtless could direct Josephus and Gibbon to attest the truth of prophecy; and this may be one of the many ways in which “he makes the wrath of man to praise him.”—­The Goths, the Scythians and Huns, first under Alaric and afterwards under Attila, those savage warriors from the northern regions, invaded the provinces of the Roman empire in both sections, carrying all before them like an irresistible tornado,—­with fire and sword utterly destroying cities, temples, princes, priests, old and young, male and female,—­thus “burning up trees, and green grass.”