s and ashes; but
there his ravages ceased. He concluded a peace with the Romans in the year
of his invasion of Italy (451), and the next year he died. Thus he
appeared like a fiery meteor, exerted his appointed influence upon the
tongues and people, who were tributary to the Romans,--as rivers and
fountains of waters are to the sea; and like a burning star, he as
suddenly expired. As a specimen of the bitterness which followed his
course, it is recorded of the Thuringians who served in his army, and who
traversed, both in their march and in their return, the territories of the
Franks, "that they massacred their hostages as well as their captives. Two
hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage;
their bodies were torn asunder by wild horses, or were crushed under the
weight of rolling wagons; and their unburied limbs were abandoned on
public roads, as a prey to dogs and vultures."

The Fourth Trumpet.

"And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was
smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the
stars; so that the third part of them was darkened, and the day
shone not for a third part of it, and the night in like
manner."--Rev. 8:12.

The sun, moon, and stars cannot here, any more than under the sixth seal
(6:12,13), symbolize agents of their own order, but must represent the
rulers of the Roman empire. Says Dr. Keith:--

"At the voice of the first angel, and the blast of his trumpet, the whole
Roman world was in agitation, and 'the storms of war' passed over it all.
'The union of the empire was dissolved;' a third part of it fell; and the
'transalpine provinces were separated from the empire.' Under the second
trumpet, the provinces of Africa, another, or the maritime, part, was in
like manner reft from Rome, and the Roman ships were destroyed in the sea,
and even in their harbors. The empire of Rome, hemmed in on every side,
was then limited to the kingdom of Italy. Within its bounds, and along the
fountains and rivers of waters, the third trumpet reechoed from the Alps
to the Apennines. The last barrier of the empire of Rome was broken. The
plains of Lombardy were ravaged by a foreign foe: and from thence new
enemies arose to bring to an end the strife of the world with the imperial
city.

" 'In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian' (two years
subsequent to the death of Attila), 'nine emperors had succ