8.  And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood: 

9.  And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

Vs. 8, 9.—­“The second angel sounded.”  The object of this judgment, is the sea.  As a great collection of waters, this symbol is explained, (ch. xvii. 15.) “Peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues,” indicate the population in an agitated and disorganized or revolutionary condition.  The judgment is a “burning mountain,” a tremendous object,—­consuming and being itself consumed.  The mountain is a symbol of earthly power civil or military, and sometimes ecclesiastical.—­“Who art thou, O great mountain?” (Zech. iv. 7.) The Almighty says to the king of Babylon,—­“Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain ...  I will roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.” (Jer. li. 25; Ps. xlviii. 2.)

The consequence of this judgment is, the third part of the sea became blood, the fish perished, and the shipping was destroyed.  Similar language, illustrating these figurative expressions, had been used by the prophets to represent divine judgments denounced against Egyptian power. (Ezek. xxix. 3, etc.) In the eighth verse is contained the explanation of the symbolic language,—­“Behold I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast from thee.”

History verifies this part of the Apocalyptic prediction.  Only two years after the death of that northern “scourge of God,” Attila, who boasted that “the grass never grew where his horse had trod;” Genseric set sail from the burning shores of Africa; and, like a burning mountain launched into the sea, accompanied by a vast army of barbarous Vandals, suddenly landed his fleet at the mouth of the river Tiber.  Disregarding the distinctions of rank, age or sex, these licentious and brutal plunderers subjected their helpless victims to every species of indignity and cruelty.  Hence the hostility to arts and science, the tokens of refined civilization,—­indiscriminate devastation of life and property perpetrated by the savage warriors, has given rise to the word “Vandalism.”

10.  And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a Lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

11.  And the name of the star is called Wormwood:  and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.