n here to his disciples of the approaching
calamity, as his manner is to his own. (Luke xxi. 20-22.)

7. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the
fourth beast say, Come and see.

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.

Vs. 7, 8.--"It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to
the house of feasting," according to the judgment of the wisest of mere
men; (Eccl. vii. 2,) and so we are invited here by a spiritually-minded
ministry,--"like a flying eagle." A scene of lamentation, mourning and
woe, is disclosed at the opening of the "fourth seal."--All the symbols
betoken augmented severity in the judgments. There is "pestilence" added
to the sword and famine. "The pale horse," or _livid green_, is the
emblem of pestilence. The Mediator conducts the destroying angel to
fulfil the will of God. "Before Him went the pestilence;" and by a
combination of awful symbols, the king of terrors,--"death," is
represented as slaying his victims, and "hell followed with him,"
satiated with his prey. "Sword, hunger, death and beasts of the earth,"
were commissioned to lay waste the fourth part of the then known world.

If we are to interpret the "beasts of the earth" literally, then we may
easily perceive how the depopulation produced by the other calamities
would make way for their increase and destructive ravages. But if we
understand these "beasts" as symbolizing the persecuting powers; then
adding these to all the other destructive agencies,--especially to the
"pale horse," the chief symbol in the group; we may readily perceive the
force of the combined emblems, a concentrating, as it were, of all
destroying agencies. Historians inform us, that "a pestilence arising
from Ethiopia, went through all the provinces of Rome, and wasted them
for fifteen years." This, added to the sword of war and persecution,
which lasted sixty years, according to some interpreters, or from 211 to
270, would seem to exhaust the events symbolized by the series of the
seals, except the seventh, so far at least as the sufferings of the
church are concerned. For under the fifth and sixth seals, as will
appear, nothing of a calamitous nature befalls the righteous.

9. And when he had opened the fifth se